Trump keeps tweeting about a universe in which he won President Trump was publicly silent all week — except on his Twitter feed. As President-elect Joe Biden announced a coronavirus task force and took congratulatory calls from foreign leaders, Trump kept busy tweeting or retweeting false claims that he won the Nov. 3 presidential election. Many of the claims were flagged by Twitter as misleading. Trump's tweets give his supporters the illusion that he still has a chance to win reelection as his team pursues lawsuits falsely claiming election fraud in a variety of states. But the reality is that Biden won with decisive margins in key states and appears to be on track to win 306 electoral college votes. In other words, it's not close (as it was in Florida in 2000), and the lawsuits can't change the fact Trump lost. Trump: "Investigators Dispatched After Fulton County Discovers 'Issue' with Ballot Reporting." Biden appears to have won Georgia, though a hand recount has been announced. Trump linked to a report in Breitbart, which said "Georgia's top election official is dispatching a team of investigators after a ballot 'issue' was discovered in one of the counties most responsible for giving former Vice President Joe Biden the lead over President Trump." The problem — that few hundred provisional ballots appeared to be missing — was quickly resolved. Some were scanned as absentee ballots; others had been damaged by the knife in the automatic opening machine. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Viewer discretion advised A video appearing to show an election official destroying a ballot for Trump racked up tens of thousands of views on Twitter and YouTube. It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Instagram and posted by several prominent conservatives nearly a week after polls closed. But, after the video gained traction across social media, the user who made it wrote on Facebook that it was a joke. The question is how many are in on the joke, and how many are being manipulated to doubt the election results? Trump surrogates and supporters have been sharing misleading, fake and debunked videos that cast doubt on the election results. We looked into four viral videos and gave them Four Pinocchios. One video was described by Eric Trump on Twitter as: "Suitcases and Coolers Rolled Into Detroit Voting Center at 4 AM, Brought Into Secure Counting Area." Implied in the tweet and video: bad actors are using wagons and coolers to corrupt the election! Except, a couple hours later, WXYZ investigative reporter Ross Jones responded to the article in a tweet: "The 'ballot thief' was my photographer. He was bringing down equipment for our 12-hour shift." We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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