Trump loyalists get into furious row with each other over whether the election is over or not

The US election is over. 

It’s been over for a long time but after the electoral college voted on Monday to confirm that Joe Biden is the president-elect there is almost nothing left to shout about for president Trump.

That hasn't stopped Trump from spreading baseless conspiracy theories and claiming that the election was rigged against, a claim that many of his supporters have adopted and are quite happy to spread on social media and network news.

This brings us to an interesting and fiery confrontation between two Trump loyalists on Fox News on Monday. Host Martha MacCallum interviewed both Charlie Kirk, a Republican activist who set up the conservative student movement Turning Point USA, and Geraldo Rivera, a journalist and long time personal friend of Trump. Needless to say, the pair have very different opinions on the election results.

Speaking shortly after Biden's speech tore into the president for 'damaging the fabric of our democracy' with his attempts to overthrow the results.

"The longer we drag this out. The more we damage the fabric of our democracy. It also damages the legacy of President Trump, who should be taking a victory lap right now celebrating the vaccine that he almost single-handedly forced the scientific community to get ready to save millions of lives."

Kirk didn't quite see it this way and tried to claim that there are still some "very good questions" to be asked about the election, citing that there are still cases in Georgia and Arizona being looked into. He added:

"Some of these by the way are still being played out there—there are still plenty of pending legal challenges." Rivera responded by branding Kirk's words as "dishonest" adding in a furious tone, "For six weeks! We have litigated this for six weeks! Twice the Supreme Court of the United States rejected it including all three Trump-associated Justices! You have to stop this!"

MacCallum then interrupted the pair to show them a montage of the millions of Trump supporters that have been galvanized into thinking that Trump won the election and that their votes didn't count. The host asked them "how do you meet them? How does Joe Biden meet them? How does President Donald Trump address them right now in a way that can at least allow them to feel that their voices are heard, that their concerns are understood?”

Rivera responded by referencing Al Gore and applauding what the Democrat did in 2000 when it appeared that he had won the election only for a recount to swing it in the favour of George W. Bush. He said: Al Gore in 2000 lost the election by 500 votes in a single state. He had the grace and the good sense when it was clear that the Supreme Court was not going to go his way. He walked away in a way to put the country ahead of his own political ambitions."

An increasingly animated Rivera added:

“Donald Trump has so much to celebrate he had the most successful single term in the modern history of our country but to persist in insisting against the Supreme Court, against the scores of lawsuits that have gone against him, every single one of them, that he won, that's why these people believe him, they love him.”

"They are following his lead. It is the president who is instilling in these the false sense that they've been gypped. Charlie makes the point that there are so many affidavits. You litigate each one of them and put people in jail. The attorney general of the United States, Bill Barr said there is no fraud that he has seen of a scope large enough to affect the outcome of this election."

MacCallum gave Kirk the chance to respond who said, "Geraldo, respectfully, the Supreme Court, did not say that there is no election fraud, they just decided not to hear the case. It's really dangerous to conflate the two. You can understand why judges, non-political creatures wanted to stay away from this. Remember back in 2000 the Supreme Court even said 'we don't like being in this position.' I believe for the future of our country and for the goodness of our republic these questions must be answered or else you are gonna have tens of thousands of millions of people that will never trust another election again."

More: What Trump acting like a 6-year-old and refusing to concede will mean for Biden's transition