2000 Mules is a 2022 American right-wing conspiracy propaganda film which makes debunked claims that paid "mules" illegally collected and deposited ballots into drop boxes in swing states during the 2020 presidential election. The film was written, directed, produced, and narrated by right-wing political commentator and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, who has a history of creating and spreading false conspiracy theories.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that the film relies on "faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data" provided by conservative non-profit True the Vote. FactCheck.org found the film's "supposed evidence is speculative". National Public Radio (NPR) reported True the Vote "made multiple misleading or false claims about its [own] work". AP reported that the assertion that True the Vote identified 1,155 paid mules in Philadelphia alone was false. The film presented a single unverified anonymous witness who said she saw people picking up what she "assumed" were payments for ballot collection in Arizona; no evidence of such payments was presented in any of the other four states. The film characterizes the alleged operation as "ballot trafficking" with "stash houses", but presents no evidence that ballots were illegally collected to be deposited in drop boxes.
A companion book was set to be released in early September 2022 but was abruptly recalled amidst legal threats and edited for release late in October. In 2024, Salem Media Group partially settled a lawsuit by a Georgia man who had been falsely accused of depositing fraudulent ballots in a ballot box. As part of the settlement, Salem disavowed the film and the book, pulled them from distribution and apologized.
Contents
Content and methodology
2000 Mules opens with a misleadingly edited clip from October 2020 of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden responding to a podcaster's question about boosting his election turnout. After replying, "Republicans are doing everything they can to make it harder for people to vote, especially people of color to vote", Biden added, "we have put together I think the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics." His second statement was taken out of context in clips and memes that went viral on conservative media at the time, purporting to be an admission that Democrats were preparing to commit election fraud. This was debunked at the time, as Biden was actually referring to safeguarding the vote, later adding, "What [Trump] is trying to do is discourage people from voting by implying that their vote won't be counted, it can't be counted, we're going to challenge it and all these things."
The film relies on data provided by True the Vote. According to NPR, "A conservative 'election integrity' group called True The Vote has made multiple misleading or false claims about its [own] work, NPR has found, including the suggestion that they helped solve the murder of an eight-year-old girl in Atlanta. The claims appear in a new pro-Trump film called 2,000 Mules." NPR said that True the Vote's claim that it "solved a murder of a young little girl in Atlanta" was false.
Analysis conducted by the AP found the film was "based on faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data". AP explained that in various swing counties across the five states, True the Vote used phone pings to cellphone towers to identify people who had passed near ballot drop boxes and various unnamed nonprofit organizations multiple times per day, concluding that such people were paid mules for ballot collection and deposits. Experts said such mobile phone tracking was not accurate enough to distinguish alleged mules from many other people who might walk or drive by a ballot box or nonprofit during the course of a day, such as delivery drivers, postal workers and cab drivers. True the Vote asserted it had conducted "pattern of life" filtering of such people before election season; the AP noted limitations of that approach.
The film also asserts that some of the geolocated alleged mules were present at what it called "antifa riots" in Atlanta during the George Floyd protests in spring 2020. AP explained that the geolocation data could not reliably determine why people were present at that event; they could have been peaceful protesters, police or firefighters responding to the protests, or business owners in the area. The geolocation data True the Vote had purchased began on October 1, 2020. D'Souza and Gregg Phillips, a True the Vote board member, asserted they had matched their geolocation data with data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). In the film, Phillips claims that "dozens and dozens and dozens of our mules show up on the ACLED databases" as what are characterized as "antifa rioters". ACLED said the claims were categorically false, noting it does not track cellphone data. True the Vote's leader Catherine Engelbrecht asserted Phillips was actually referring to a different organization, then mentioned ACLED, but she declined to name the different organization, saying Phillips relied on "multiple databases".
Reception
In the first day of its release, the film earned $300,000, making it the second-highest grossing documentary to date in 2022. According to executive producer Salem Media, it grossed $10 million in revenue in the first two weeks of independent and streaming release, with over one million viewers. Salem said its net revenue makes it the most profitable political documentary in a decade. It earned $163,331 in its second weekend, and $50,696 in its third.
Former president Donald Trump, who has routinely and falsely claimed that he was the true winner of the 2020 election, praised the film as the "greatest [and] most impactful documentary of our time" and as supposedly exposing "great election fraud", and arranged for a screening to be held at his Mar-a-Lago resort on May 4; the screening was attended by various people affiliated with the American right, some of whom (Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, among others) have also promoted the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. In his twelve-page rebuttal to testimony and evidence that was presented in public hearings by the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, Trump cited the movie in one of its sections that focused on "ballot trafficking" claims.
Media outlets such as PolitiFact, the Associated Press and The Washington Post criticized the film for its factual errors and omissions, making implausible claims, and promoting conspiracy theories about the supposed theft of the 2020 presidential election. The Post characterized the film as presenting "the least convincing election-fraud theory yet".
Writing in The Bulwark, Republican author and political advisor Amanda Carpenter characterized 2000 Mules as "a hilarious mockumentary" that "doesn't survive the most basic fact-checks to support its most important claims". Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire said, "I think the conclusion of the film is not justified by the premises of the film itself. There are a bunch of dots that need to be connected. Maybe they will be connected, but they haven't been connected in the film." The Dispatch, a conservative publication, wrote that "The film's ballot harvesting theory is full of holes" and that, "D'Souza has a history of promoting false and misleading claims." Philip Bump summarized a discussion with D'Souza as, "D'Souza admits his movie does not show evidence to prove his claims about ballots being collected and submitted."
Further response
On May 9, 2022, D'Souza criticized Fox News and Newsmax for not promoting the film, claiming that Fox News' Tucker Carlson instructed Engelbrecht not to mention it during his interview with her and that Newsmax had originally booked an interview with D'Souza but then canceled. Trump later made similar criticisms, claiming that "Fox News is no longer Fox News" due to not showing or discussing the film, and that the outlet's silence was pleasing to what he called "Radical Left Democrats".
On May 19, The Daily Beast reported that D'Souza continued to be frustrated that his film was not receiving much attention outside of an "election-denier movement" that already believed in Trump's false claims of a stolen election, with the movement's adherents demanding that conservative media outlets talk more about the film. Conservative talk radio host Jesse Kelly, responding to ever-increasing requests that he discuss the film on his radio show, dismissed those making such requests as "talk about 2000 Mules guys" and "the bottom of the barrel". 2000 Mules was initially available online for $29.99 until D'Souza lowered the price to $19.99 within days of its release. He alleged the film was being widely pirated and that someone who attended the Mar-a-Lago screening had recorded it. Kari Lake, a Trump-endorsed Arizona gubernatorial candidate who embraced the film, said she was "flabbergasted" that she had not been asked about it during an interview with a conservative network; Lake did not specify the network.
Eight Arizona Republican officials held a meeting with about 200 others to hear a presentation from Phillips and Engelbrecht weeks after the film's release. Phillips called the press "journalistic terrorists" for demonstrating the film's lack of proof. Asked if he had turned over evidence to law enforcement, Phillips said he had given data to the Arizona attorney general's office a year earlier; the office said they never received it. He declined to discuss specifics of the film's methodology, saying it was proprietary. Engelbrecht declined to name any of the nonprofits allegedly involved, asserting that doing so would interfere with law enforcement.
The editorial board of the New York Post, a conservative tabloid that endorsed Trump in 2020, published an editorial on June 10, 2022, stating Trump, "clings to more fantastical theories, such as Dinesh D'Souza's debunked '2,000 Mules', even as recounts in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin confirm Trump lost."
Accused mule's suit and responses
In October 2022, Atlanta citizen Mark Andrews sued Dinesh D'Souza, True the Vote, Gregg Phillips, Catherine Engelbrecht and Salem Media Group for defamation, conspiracy, and intrusion on seclusion. The film accused him of being a "mule" who illegally harvested ballots as part of a fraud ring. Although the film had blurred his face, the film's trailer and promotional stills used his image. A state investigation found that Andrews was legally dropping off ballots for himself, his wife, and their three adult children, who all lived at the same address. The state exonerated Andrews a few days before the movie's premiere. D'Souza settled with Andrews in 2026 immediately before the scheduled trial.
On May 31, 2024, Salem Media Group, which helped produce and distribute the D'Souza film and book, released a public apology to Andrews, saying it had relied on representations from D'Souza and True the Vote. Salem also disavowed the book and the film and withdrew them from distribution. In a lawsuit Salem filed against its insurer for not covering costs related to Andrews's lawsuit, Salem revealed it had settled Andrews's suit for a "significant" amount. The apology and disavowal came as part of the settlement. Andrews dismissed his claims against Salem after the apology but the suit, which names multiple defendants, remained ongoing.
On December 1, 2024, D'Souza posted a statement which included "We recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data [...] Again, I apologize to Mr. Andrews."
Cast
Not including people only appearing in archive footage.
Dinesh D'Souza, director, host and narrator
Debbie D'Souza
True the Vote: Catherine Engelbrecht, Gregg Phillips
Salem Radio Network hosts: Dennis Prager, Sebastian Gorka, Larry Elder, Eric Metaxas, Charlie Kirk
The Heritage Foundation: Hans von Spakovsky
Capital Research Center: Scott Walter
Book
A book based on the film was set for release in September 2022. It had been promoted by D'Souza as including new evidence supporting the film's claims, including the names of specific nonprofits supposedly involved in the conspiracies. Shortly before the scheduled release, the book's publisher, Regnery Publishing, abruptly recalled physical copies already sent to stores, and delayed the e-book release, citing an unspecified "publishing error". NPR obtained a copy, reporting that it repeated the same false claims as made in the film, and features new allegations, including naming specific nonprofits D'Souza claims were involved. Several of these groups have threatened legal action in response.
The book was released in October 2022, with references to named nonprofits removed. Language regarding some was softened, and sections linking antifa and Black Lives Matter to election fraud were omitted.