Mainstream media personalities have celebrated the peaceful transition of power as President Biden was sworn into office on Wednesday, often condemning President Trump's claims of voter fraud in the process – but only four years ago MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow questioned the legitimacy of Trump’s victory days into his administration.
While any conservative pundit to seek answers to alleged voter irregularities would be swiftly vilified, Maddow, MSNBC’s biggest ratings star, began pushing the conspiracy theory that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia almost immediately.
"Over the closing months of our presidential election and right up through the blame duck period before the new president was sworn in, we -- the American people, we had dropped on us a series of news bombs about Russia influencing our election, right? There was the unconfirmed dossier of dirt on Donald Trump that the Russian government had allegedly collected and was allegedly using against him to get him to do their bidding," Maddow said during the opening segment of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Jan. 26, 2017, less than a week after Trump’s inauguration.
Maddow went on to dedicate much of the next two years hyperventilating that Trump colluded with Russia. However, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded in 2019 that a Trump campaign-Russia conspiracy didn’t exist, contradicting MSNBC’s daily narrative. She posited other conspiracy theories during that time as well, such as that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was a plant by Vladimir Putin.
While any conservative pundit to seek answers to alleged voter irregularities would be swiftly vilified, Maddow, MSNBC’s biggest ratings star, began pushing the conspiracy theory that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia almost immediately.
"Over the closing months of our presidential election and right up through the blame duck period before the new president was sworn in, we -- the American people, we had dropped on us a series of news bombs about Russia influencing our election, right? There was the unconfirmed dossier of dirt on Donald Trump that the Russian government had allegedly collected and was allegedly using against him to get him to do their bidding," Maddow said during the opening segment of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Jan. 26, 2017, less than a week after Trump’s inauguration.
Maddow went on to dedicate much of the next two years hyperventilating that Trump colluded with Russia. However, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded in 2019 that a Trump campaign-Russia conspiracy didn’t exist, contradicting MSNBC’s daily narrative. She posited other conspiracy theories during that time as well, such as that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was a plant by Vladimir Putin.
