Trump’s top five false and fanciful claims from his Fox News interview

It was the president’s first interview since the vote, and he spouted fact-free allegations without interruption

Donald Trump's first televised interview since the election was riddled with conspiracy theories, baseless claims, wild accusations and lies.  

Speaking to Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, the president vented unchecked about how the election was, in his eyes, stolen from him.

He claimed that "hundreds of thousands" of votes had been wrongly given to his Democrat rival, Joe Biden, and accused the FBI of being "missing in action" in their failure to "nab" people for voter fraud.

Here are some of his wildest claims.

"We had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden's account. They are not glitches, they are fraud. We caught four or five glitches, or about a thousand votes each. For the most part they got away with it."

FACT CHECK - The president appeared to be referring to voting machines made by Dominion, a company founded in Canada which has its headquarters in Denver, and whose voting machines were used in 24 states.  

Michael Steel, a spokesman for Dominion, was asked about vote switching on Fox News.

"Well, it's physically impossible," he said. "Look, when a voter votes on a Dominion machine, they fill out a ballot on a touch screen. They are given a printed copy which they then give to a local election official for safekeeping.  

"If any electronic interference had taken place, the tally reported electronically would not match the printed ballots.  

"And in every case where we've looked at — in Georgia, all across the country — the printed ballot, the gold standard in election security, has matched the electronic tally."

While one Georgia county experienced delays reporting its results due to apparent problems with the company's systems, other isolated issues that were allegedly connected to Dominion were actually caused by human error.

Two federal groups — the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees — said that the machines had not had any issues.

"The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history," they said.  

"There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

Chris Krebs, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, was fired by Mr Trump for his agency's assurances.

He stood by his statement, and also retweeted a message from election law expert David Becker that condemned "wild and baseless claims about voting machines."

Mr Trump appeared to have got the idea in his head from a segment on OANN, his favourite fringe right-wing television network.

On 12 November, their anchor, Lilia Fifield, claimed that Edison Research found evidence of 2.7 million votes being switched.

Larry Rosin, president of Edison Research, said: "Edison Research created no such report and we are not aware of any voter fraud."

"Dead people were making applications to get a ballot. A lot of dead people were voting."

FACT CHECK - Election experts say that while this occasionally happens, most often with votes cast by a spouse, it is exceedingly rare, and would not likely affect the outcome even in a relatively close race.

There have been no comprehensive lists published by Mr Trump's team showing these "lots of people" who voted after death.

In Philadelphia, Al Schmidt, the only Republican among three city commissioners, asked his team to pause the count and check a list circulating online that purported to show dead people voting. None of those supposed to have voted had done so, he told 60 Minutes.

A report that four dead people in Georgia had voted was seized on by conservatives — only for one of the "dead people" to be found alive and well, with a different date of birth and spelling her name as Lynda, rather than Linda; the second was a 94-year-old widow voting as Mrs James Blalock, using her married name.

One woman is indeed confirmed to have voted after her death.

Denise Ondick of West Homestead in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, died on 22 October, but her vote was still received on 2 November. Her daughter and husband couldn't remember how the mixup had happened, and said that she had intended to vote for Mr Trump.

In October a registered Republican in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was charged with a felony after he tried to apply for a mail-in ballot in his dead mother’s name.

"They weren't allowed to have poll watchers. The thugs threw them out. During that period of time a lot of bad things happened."

FACT CHECK - Mr Trump’s lawyers were mocked online after they told a judge in Pennsylvania that there were “a nonzero” number of Republicans watching the votes being counted.

The judge, exasperated, asked: “Well, what’s the problem then?”

Different states have different rules regarding how close the polls watchers can be and how many are allowed in, but what is universal is that both parties can appoint representatives, who are accredited to be allowed in the building to watch the process.

The pandemic certainly complicated the issue. In Philadelphia, a judge ruled that the poll watchers should be allowed six feet from the counters, rather than the ten feet they were initially kept at.

A group of Trump supporters in Detroit gathered outside the counting site, the TCF Center, to protest during the count. Officials, concerned that they were photographing and videoing personal information contained on ballot information, put cardboard over the windows — infuriating people on Twitter. But there were 134 Republican poll watchers inside the room at the time.

A widely-shared video showed a man turning up at a Philadelphia polling station and being turned away.

Kevin Feeley, a spokesman for the Philadelphia City Commissioners Office, confirmed to Reuters that the man in the video was indeed a certified poll watcher but confusion over laws about watchers and locations by the Judge of Elections led to “an honest mistake.”

Mr Feeley said “a correction was made” and the man was admitted as a poll watcher at another location.

There are no reports of poll watchers being evicted from the counts. It's unclear where Mr Trump got this from.

"We have thousands of votes - in some cases hundreds of thousands of votes - more than we need - in every swing state."

FACT CHECK - This seems highly unlikely, given the above.

Mr Biden beat Mr Trump by in Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes, significantly larger than the 44,292-vote margin that helped carry Mr Trump to the White House in 2016.

In Michigan, he won by more than 150,000 votes — 14 times the margin of Mr Trump in 2016.

In Wisconsin the margin for Mr Biden was 20,000 votes; in Arizona it was 11,000 votes; in Nevada it was 33,600. In Georgia the margin was 12,670.

If indeed he does have evidence that "hundred of thousands of votes" were incorrectly case, he needs to hurry up and show it.

Twenty-five days have now elapsed since the election: the Florida recount of 2000 was concluded in 36 days.

Electors will cast their states' votes on 14 December, and the clock is ticking.

The 20 January inauguration date is written into the constitution and cannot be altered.

"Why isn't the FBI all over the place? They are not. They are not, and it's a terrible thing."

FACT CHECK - The FBI are likely not investigating, because they have not been given anything to investigate.

There remains no evidence of widespread fraud.