'Official dogma of his party': Fact checker busts GOP for 'trying to paint Trump as a victim of the attempted coup'

Donald Trump was the first president in United States history who lost his bid for reelection only to falsely claim that the election was stolen from him because of widespread voter fraud, and many Republicans in Congress have been willing to go along with the Big Lie. CNN's John Berman called out two of them, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, during an October 11 broadcast of the morning show "New Day."

Berman, who hosts "New Day" with his CNN colleague Brianna Keilar, told viewers, "(Trump's) rewritten history is now practically the official dogma of his party — and his lies, the accepted reality of his party."

To illustrate his point, Berman showed interviews with Scalise and Grassley — who appeared with Trump at a MAGA rally in Iowa on Saturday, October 9. The following day, Scalise was interviewed by Fox News' Chris Wallace.

Wallace, one of the few people at Fox News who asks MAGA Republicans tough questions, bluntly asked Scalise, "So, you think the election was stolen?" — and Scalise jumped through hoops to dodge the question. Berman slammed that interview as "Minority Whip Scalise perpetuating a lie about 2020." And he went on to show a clip of the 88-year-old Grassley being interviewed by Newsmax TV and defending Trump's refusal to accept the 2020 election results.

Berman told viewers, "On the Senate side, 88-year-old Chuck Grassley is the Republican establishment. On his decades-long career, no one would have called him a radical — until now…. Grassley is trying to paint Trump as a victim of the attempted coup when in fact, it was Trump himself driving it."

Berman noted, "Trump asked the Justice Department nine times to undermine the election results. He successfully got his White House staff to help pressure — he tried to pressure secretaries of state to not certify the election. He then attacked them, including Republicans…. Trump also tried to pressure state legislatures in key battleground states. Then he tried to get the courts to overturn the election results based on bogus conspiracies."

The "New Day" host continued, "A Trump lawyer wrote a blueprint. He wrote it down, outlining how Mike Pence could overturn the election. And speaking of Pence, Trump publicly and loudly tried to get his vice president to decertify the election on January 6. And then, the mob showed up. It is worth noting Trump is still spouting these conspiracies, including at the rally that Grassley attended and participated in."

Watch the video below:

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