‘It’s Extraordinary!’ CNN’s Jim Acosta And Adam Kinzinger Flatten Trump ‘Lies’ At New Rally

CNN anchor Jim Acosta and commentator Adam Kinzinger marveled at and destroyed false claims former President Donald Trump made at his newest rally.

Trump held a rally in Racine, Wisconsin on Tuesday where he gave a speech that was chock full of false claims — more than 30 of them — many of which had to do with the stolen election lies that fueled violence in 2020 and underpin Trump’s 2024 campaign.

During that rally, Trump also pushed the falsehood that Kinzinger’s committee “destroyed evidence.”

On Wednesday’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, Acosta went right to the source to debunk some of those “extraordinary” lies:

JIM ACOSTA: After reportedly calling Milwaukee a horrible city. Former President Donald Trump is doing some cleanup in Wisconsin ahead of the Republican National Convention there next month.

CNN calculated that his Racine rally contained at least 30 obvious falsehoods, including one that he won in Wisconsin in 2020, when in fact he lost by more than 20,000 votes.

DONALD TRUMP: Do you remember in 2016 we won, and then we did much better here in 2020. But they, you know, lots of things happen. And then in the end we won. We never want what happened in 2020 to happen again.

You have to vote and watch your vote. Watch you vote because they tend to disappear.

We have all the votes we need. We have to guard the vote. We have to stop the steal. If we stop the steal, we win. I don’t have to campaign anymore. Just stop the steal.

JIM ACOSTA: And the last election, those lies and that rhetoric led to the violence we saw on January 6th. Now Trump is spreading disinformation about the select committee’s investigation into what took place on January 6th.

DONALD TRUMP: The Unselect Committee of political thugs. The evidence was so bad and so compelling against the Democrats and against the people that is supposed to be doing that job that they destroyed and deleted. All of the, everything is deleted.

We should have put Vivek on the committee.

JIM ACOSTA: Joining me now is CNN senior political commentator and former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, of course, was on the January 6th committee.

Adam, thanks so much for being with us once again. I mean, I mean, these are obvious lies. I do want to give you a response to what the presumptive GOP nominee is saying, because he is saying the January 6th committee destroyed evidence.

ADAM KINZINGER: It is a, I don’t know how many times we have to go through this where he says that! And unfortunately, his people just don’t want to hear the truth.

It’s on the internet! All of the evidence is on the internet!

Donald Trump, by the way, now that he’s in a defensive posture, legally has access to everything that he’s had it before, even the American public had it. And they could call in and they could call any of these witnesses and to testify.

But literally, if you Google January 6th evidence, you see every bit of it out there in the government repository. It can be seen.

But he continues to repeat the statement and it’s just lies. But you know what? All he does, Jim, is lie!

JIM ACOSTA: Yeah. It’s extraordinary! Our Daniel Dale was talking through him last night. I think he counted some 30 lies just at the rally last night. And. And Trump is not backing down on these lies about the last election. He’s already sowing doubt about the results of this election. So, I mean, we saw that in 2016. We saw it again in 2020. He’s doing it again in 2024. Could history repeat itself?

ADAM KINZINGER: Yeah, it really could. And so here’s what happens in a self-governance. In a democracy, the only thing we all have to agree on is that we can vote. The vote counts. Right? And the results are counted. That’s all. When you convince half of the country that the system is broken, which is what he’s doing. Violence is the outcome!

And we had a whole revolution based on the fact that we felt like we weren’t represented by the British. And so my concern is less about another January 6th at the US Capitol.

My concern is what happens at different state capitals when they’re there certifying the election. Imagine Arizona, you know, with a Republican legislature and a Biden win.

Could you imagine that legislature being pressured to maybe switch and just announce that Trump won the state?

And you think of the violence and the intimidation that can happen at the state level.

That’s where my concern is this year. And I think local and state law enforcement officials, particularly in swing states, need to be ready for this potential of violence, of happening to happen.

Watch above via CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.