Evangelical leader Franklin Graham has been making the rounds on national television recently to try to convince his supporters to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but on Tuesday CNN’s Brianna Keilar decided to mesh the problem of vaccine disinformation – which is prevalent among conservative evangelicals – with the problem of election disinformation – which is also prevalent among conservative evangelicals, and hold his feet to the fire for his part in the lie that Donald Trump won the election.
Graham was a source of election disinformation. As recently as January 4, two days before the deadly insurrection, he said it “seems reasonable to me” for Republican Senators to “not vote … to certify the results of the presidential election until there is an audit of states in question.”
December 28 he also spread election disinformation:
On December 19 Graham was spreading election falsehoods and other pro-Trump falsehoods:
Those are just a few of the times Graham helped advance the lie the election was stolen.
Keilar did not mention them specifically, but she did say that the “disinformation that we’re seeing driving vaccine hesitancy among evangelicals, it’s really part of a bigger disinformation problem that includes, you know lies about the outcome of the [2020] election that Trump, not Biden won, which many evangelicals believe, which is something that you have given life to. Do you have any regrets about publicly doubting the outcome?”
Graham insisted that “73 million Americans out there, that have some concerns about the election. Listen, I think it’s time we move on, the election is over with, and we got to go down the road as a country move forward. President Biden is the President.”
She was not letting him off the hook so easily.
“It’s not over sir, sir respectfully,” Keilar insisted. “Reverend, respectfully, it’s not over for a lot of people. It is not, I mean we’re looking at this audit going on in Arizona. So then how do you square what, so you don’t you don’t believe what you said before in December about believing Trump when he said it was rigged?”
Graham repeated his previous reply.
“73 million plus people out there that feel there was funny business in that election,” he claimed, falsely. While 60% of Republicans believe the election was stolen, that’s not 73 million people.
“I’ve moved on Brianna. We’re trying to save people’s lives. We’ve got a real crisis in front of us and I want to work with the Biden administration, if we can to try to get information out that will save lives. And to me the election is behind us, President Biden won, he’s sworn in, and let’s just move on,” Graham insisted.
“With all due respect sir, I understand that you’re saying that but there are people who doubt the outcome of the election, we’re not moving on, and many folks including yourself, told them not to essentially, or to question the outcome of this election, you did it more than a month after the outcome of the election. Are you, do you stand corrected? Is what you said incorrect?”
“No, I don’t think it’s incorrect Brianna I just think it is what it is. We’ve got 73 million –”
“So you’re saying that Joe Biden didn’t win the election but that you’re moving on? I just want to be very clear about what you’re saying.”
“No, no, let’s be very clear. I’ve said I’m moving on. He’s the president, and when he needs our support he needs our prayers,” Graham said, refusing to admit he was wrong.
“Alright, sir I will just say, many people have not moved on, they believe as you put it have concerns about the election, many of them believe that it was inaccurate, and there were people in positions of power, including yourself, who gave them reason to believe that,” Keilar said, again pinning blame on Graham, “but look, sir. We certainly appreciate having you.”
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