NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard comments on an interaction he had with John Solomon outside the White House last month:

VAUGHN HILLYARD: John Solomon is a longtime conservative reporter, journalist. Somebody, though, who increasingly in the past years has pushed often-debunked fraud claims, irregularity claims. And I was told earlier this year was talking directly with President Trump, effectively was putting a lot of these thoughts into his ear that he had, in fact, been messed over in the 2020 election, and he had proof of it. And that’s when, just one month ago, he went from being a conservative journalist who appears on Steve Bannon’s podcast to becoming a special government employee one month ago so that he could help with this declassification process. And yesterday you asked him about what they found and whether it changed any votes. Here’s his answer: VAUGHN HILLYARD: You acknowledge that there were no votes changed in 2020? JOHN SOLOMON: All I can acknowledge is what the intelligence shows, right? I only know the intelligence community has zero evidence that someone has flipped a – that a foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, ’22 or ’24. VAUGHN HILLYARD: You’re able to acknowledge that Venezuela has not tampered with voting machines in the United States? JOHN SOLOMON: No. The intelligence is very clear. They did it on their own machines. Why is it important that they did it on their machines? Their machine protocols are the same as America. VAUGHN HILLYARD: Why? JOHN SOLOMON: Because for a long time they did. VAUGHN HILLYARD: And so the 2020 election was, in fact, the result as we, the American public- JOHN SOLOMON: I’m still researching. So let me- VAUGHN HILLYARD: But there’s no intelligence- JOHN SOLOMON: There is no intelligence that the election would have said Donald Trump was president. … VAUGHN HILLYARD: There was so much to take away from last night. But that moment, for me – I’ve gotten used to White House officials, campaign officials for Donald Trump over five and a half years refusing to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. And that is why I was frankly so stunned in that moment to hear John Solomon, the guy that was brought in to try to help prove the 2020 election was bunk, say specifically that there was no intelligence that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. And I think why is that so stunning and head-turning in 2026 is beyond us. But the fact is, that’s reality. And I think it’s important to the entire conversation that you have been having here this hour. And that is because there are so few people in this Republican Party today who are willing to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. And that is why the conversations that you and I had back in 2022, when we were covering the secretary of state races and gubernatorial races in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada, were so crucial, because those officials would be the ones to ultimately have to certify their state election results in 2024 and, when? In 2026. And when you look across the Republican Party at the state government levels or up on Capitol Hill in Congress, Republicans today have such a difficult time saying exactly what John Solomon just said right there: that, as far as the intelligence that he has available to him, Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. And when you look at Capitol Hill, one of those guys that signed on to that brief back in 2020 to try to overturn the election results in four states was Mike Johnson, the current speaker of the House. And so I think the words of John Solomon right there on the White House lawn last night could potentially ring far and wide. Because a White House official allied with Donald Trump said the words that there is no intelligence to suggest that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. A big statement in July of 2026.

RealClearPolitics Videos