Salem Media Group, which co-produced Dinesh D’Souza’s 2022 movie “2,000 Mules,” has issued a proper apology to a person falsely depicted in the film as committing voter fraud. The corporate has now pulled the film from all platforms.
This follows the withdrawal of conservative writer Regnery’s guide model of the movie, which was abruptly pulled from shelves shortly earlier than its official launch in September 2022 due to a reported “publishing error.” It by no means reappeared.
Two years after “2,000 Mules” was first launched and virtually instantly debunked, D’Souza’s fake documentary composed of conspiracy theories, unhealthy knowledge, and pure fabrication is lastly useless.
Or is it?
Donald Trump’s supporters throughout the nation have latched onto the lies on this movie and proceed to deal with them as gospel.
The premise of the film is that Democrats, or some shadowy Democrat-aligned group, paid 1000’s of “mules” to illegally acquire ballots within the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The supposed proof got here from geotracking of cellular phone knowledge within the areas surrounding poll drop containers. The group behind the movie, True the Vote, tried to again up its geotracking outcomes with photos from surveillance cameras, however the movie solely supplies a few clips from Georgia.
The movie debuted in over 270 theaters and generated $10 million, however as The Associated Press reported the movie’s conclusions had been based mostly on “defective assumptions, nameless accounts, and improper evaluation of cellular phone location knowledge.”
The Washington Put up called it “the least convincing election fraud concept but” and summarized the movie by saying that “D’Souza is elevating shaky, misrepresented, incomplete claims to bolster his rhetoric.”
Politifact reviewed the movie’s claims and located that completely no proof for the alleged conspiracy existed outdoors of the movie; that it could have been unimaginable to conduct such a nationwide marketing campaign with out leaving a paper path; and questioned why if, True the Vote claimed to have discovered proof of crimes, none of that proof had been turned over to prosecutors.
The movie even claimed that the cellular phone knowledge had been used to unravel a homicide, however when NPR fact checked that, it was instantly apparent that this was a blatant lie. The 2 folks arrested for the crime had been taken into custody months earlier than True the Vote acquired their cellular phone knowledge.
It wasn’t simply media organizations who totally debunked the claims within the movie inside days of its launch. Legislation enforcement officers in Arizona joined in, saying that True the Vote had not offered any video proof, that its cellular phone knowledge was inaccurate, and that it lied to the general public about offering proof to authorities.
Because the Workplace of the Arizona Legal professional Basic acknowledged in October 2022, True the Vote not solely advised the media that it had given its data to the state, but it surely additionally repeated that declare to the Arizona State Senate and to brokers on the Phoenix Workplace of the FBI.
“Not solely is that this patently false,” wrote the lawyer common’s workplace, “[True the Vote] acknowledged through correspondence and through a gathering with them that they’d not given us the knowledge …”
Debunking of the movie’s claims has continued over the past two years. The Washington Put up published a “remaining repudiation” of the movie in February 2024, detailing how the movie was a “masterpiece of assembly market demand.”
Trump needed proof to bolster his lies in regards to the 2020 election, and D’Souza gave it to him. The truth that the proof was “all nonsense” barely mattered.
And it nonetheless doesn’t.
Nothing in “2,000 Mules” stands as much as a second of scrutiny, and its fundamental premise—that cellular phone knowledge exhibiting that folks repeatedly walked close to a poll field exhibits that they had been illegally gathering votes—is just ludicrous. However for Republicans, the movie was instantly adopted as proof of Trump’s declare that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
A bunch of 17 Republican legislators in Michigan called for an investigation based mostly on the already-debunked movie and tried to leverage its claims by making expenses towards Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Texas Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton held a “special screening” of the movie to justify assaults on the voting system. And Congress Republicans continued to cite the film as proof of voter fraud effectively after each declare had been disproven.
However most notably of all, the movie continued to be promoted by Trump, who as soon as referred to as it “the best and most impactful documentary of our time.” Trump, who pardoned D’Souza for violating marketing campaign finance legal guidelines in 2018, was greater than adequately paid again by the affect of the rapidly assembled movie.
The harm “2,000 Mules” has done to religion in democracy and the equity of our voting system will stay on, even when it’s by no means screened once more.
Contemplating that Trump has continued to promote the movie throughout his 2024 rallies, it wouldn’t be stunning if the movie’s withdrawal and unavailability solely add to its MAGA mystique. In any case, there’s nothing a conspiracy theorist loves greater than an additional twist of their conspiracy.
Day-after-day brings a brand new prognostication that’s making President Joe Biden’s marketing campaign operatives fear or freak out. Is Donald Trump operating away with the election? No. Not even shut.