Overview

• On August 4, President Trump called into CNBC’s Squawk Box and repeated false assertions that the 2020 election was “a hundred percent rigged.”
• Anchor Joe Kernen laughed and interrupted to fact-check Trump live, citing Justice Department and state official findings that no widespread fraud altered the 2020 outcome.
• Trump claimed Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs data had been manipulated to boost President Biden, but Kernen noted the annual BLS revisions occur each August, not after elections.
• The president asserted a 71 percent approval rating, denounced NBC’s polls as the “worst,” and praised CNN’s Harry Enten for more favorable figures.
• The segment highlights a broader shift in mainstream business news toward real-time correction of presidential misstatements.