Fact-checker: Trump attacks opponents, spreads lies in CPAC speech - Entrepreneur Generations

President Trump attacked opponents and spread well-refuted lies in his Sunday afternoon speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, his first major address since leaving office, according to fact-checkers.

"Trump's unrepentant repetition of his election fraud claims was noteworthy in light of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which Trump didn't mention," William Cummings reports for USA Today. "And his old attacks on wind energy added overblown claims that it was responsible for Texas' recent outages."

On Sunday, Trump "doubled down" on claims that the election was fraudulent, Cummings reports. "Had we had a fair election, the results would have been much different," Trump said. However, Cummings reports, "All 50 states certified the election results, and both state and federal judges (including Trump appointees) rejected scores of court challenges from the Trump campaign. Though isolated cases of fraud and irregularities were uncovered (as they are in every election) none came anywhere near the widespread level that would have been required to alter the result." Cummings also reports that many of the legal challenges mounted against the election results were dismissed based on their merits, meaning they didn't present enough evidence of fraud.

Trump claimed that Democrats used the pandemic as an excuse to illegally change election rules without the approval of their state legislatures. But the rule changes enacted were not illegal, Cummings notes. "Many states, including some controlled by Republicans, expanded mail-in voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Those changes were sparked by the very real concerns about the threat posed by the virus, which has killed more than 500,000 Americans," Cummings reports. "The U.S. Constitution leaves the manner of how elections are conducted to state legislatures. While in most cases the changes to mail-in voting were not directly approved by state legislatures, those legislatures had empowered their respective secretaries of state to make such emergency changes through legislation they approved."

Trump also blamed the recent power outages in Texas on wind power. "Traditional sources of energy such as natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems, were responsible for nearly twice as many outages in Texas as frozen wind turbines and solar panels, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid," Cummings reports. "ERCOT reported that of the 45,000 total megawatts of power that were offline statewide during the winter storm, about 30,000 consisted of thermal sources — gas, coal and nuclear plants – and 16,000 came from renewable sources. Wind only supplies about a quarter of the electricity in Texas."

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