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Morning Joe Highlights Democrats Claiming 2000 and 2004 Elections Were Unfair, Stolen

October 20, 2016

MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski on Thursday described the hypocrisy of Democrats criticizing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for saying that the 2016 election will be "rigged."

Trump has repeatedly said on the campaign trail the election is "rigged" in favor of  his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and that the whole electoral system is unfair. Trump has received criticism from Democrats and members of the media for this talking point. However, Morning Joe noted that Democrats have a history of claiming that elections were unfair or stolen.

Brzezinski highlighted several examples in response to criticism of Trump leaving the door open to contesting the election results during Wednesday night's debate. Trump was asked whether he would accept the outcome of the election if he loses in November.

"I will tell you at the time ... I'll keep you in suspense, okay?" Trump said.

Brzezinski listed several examples of Democrats claiming that the 2000 and 2004 elections were rigged or stolen.

"In 2000, Jesse Jackson demanded an inquiry of the results in Florida, saying shortly after the election, 'Twenty-two thousand people are begging for their vote to count and for its intent to be realized. This last vote caused a crisis in the credibility of this election. This is a crisis of integrity. We the American people deserve better. We should settle for nothing less,'" Brzezinski said.

Brzezinski also read an excerpt of an interview that Rolling Stone published in 2004 with former Democratic National Committee chairman and Clinton surrogate Howard Dean.

"[Rolling Stone] also published the interview with Howard Dean, which said this, Howard said this: 'I'm not confident that the election in Ohio was fairly decided. We know that there was substantial voter suppression and the machines were not reliable. It should not be a surprise that the Republicans are willing to do things that are unethical to manipulate elections. That's what we suspect has happened, and we'd like to safeguard our elections so that democracy can still be counted on to work,'" Brzezinski said.

"Later in that year in October, Josh Marshall, wrote about Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell stealing the election and a portion of Michael Moore's documentary 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11 tried to delegitimize the 2000 results in Florida," Brzezinski added.