President Trump said in an interview Monday morning with “Fox & Friends” that the US will “never have an honest” presidential election if universal post-vote is broadly allowed.
Trump responded to media pundits discussing the possibility that he could refuse to leave office if he did not accept the result of the presidential election. Trump warned that the election could be tainted by fraud that comes from voting via mail-in.
“I have to tell you, if you go with this universal mail-in … tens of millions of votes are sent to everyone and their dogs, then dogs get theirs okay, people who’ve been dead for 25 years get them, you have to “See what happens. Then you will never have a fair election,” Trump said. Later said that if universal post-in-vote was allowed to move forward it would be “the greatest scam of all time.”
Trump, however, said he supports absentee ballots asking a voter to ask for a vote and extra personal voting options.
“Absent votes like in Florida, those are great things. You send for them. You ask for them. They send it to you, you send it back with your vote. Those are great,” Trump said.
“We voted during many crises,” Trump said of past U.S. elections, while also addressing some of the recent post-in-vote fiascos.
Just under 10 states do universal mail-in voting, in which votes are sent to each registered voter. Other states are taking other measures, including sending absent voting applications to each voter.
In another exchange, the president said Democrats will fight to unite at their convention this week, as many of the party’s more progressive members beam at a ticket including former vice president Joe Biden and sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
“These are the same people I beat last time and they will not unite because they cannot unite, they do not know how to unite,” Trump said. “Bernie is also very unhappy, but in fact Biden went further left than Bernie wanted him and Bernie’s still not satisfied.”
Trump added: “You will never make this man happy … I call him crazy Bernie for a reason.”
Sanders has, despite Trump’s comments, fully supported Biden’s campaign. But some of his deputies and vocal supporters have criticized Biden and Harris as his vice-presidential selection. A request was circulated last month by Sanders delegates to vote against the DNC platform because it does not include “Medicare-for-all”. The DNC Rules Committee will announce its vote on Monday.
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Trumps interview comes ahead of the first day of the DNC and the 2020 presidential campaign comes a crazy streak to the finish.
Trump and his campaign are introducing their own counter-programming to the DNC with Trump campaigning Monday in the swinging states of Minnesota and Wisconsin before speaking in Arizona on Tuesday. His campaign will meanwhile hold a post-convention show at 11 a.m. every night from the DNC, starting Monday.
“We won it last time. I think we’ll win it this time,” said Trump of Wisconsin.
“I have no choice because we have a false media in this country. That I have to work, I do not have the time not to do this,” Trump said of his swinging state visits this week, while also criticizing Biden for running his campaign for the most part from “his basement.”
Trump responded to criticism of his response to the crisis in coronavirus and more.
“They could get this equipment themselves, but if they can’t, we have equipment like no one has seen before,” Trump said. “They say it’s the biggest mobilization since World War II.”
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He also treated the death of his brother Robert, whom he called “one of the faithful men” and “a fantastic boy;” Democrats’ striving to pass the coronavirus incentive bill, he said, was really about their desire for “$ 1 trillion to compensate their bad run states, like New York State, which runs terrible;” and trade with China, which he said had been a “one-way street” in recent decades, but no just “ordered the largest order of corn in history.”
The hosts of the morning show also asked Trump how he was preparing for the upcoming presidential rallies. Trump replied that he did not spend much time addressing her concerns about her.
“By working very hard … not on debates, but on running the country,” Trump said. “Honestly what I do is do my job. My job is .., that’s the best debate prep … I think I’ll do some preparation, but I have not been doing much lately, because I understand what’s happening. I mean, law and order, we need law and order. You do not have to do that. “
On what brings Biden to a debate, Trump said “he was okay” in some debates against Sanders, but was “so bad” in other debates.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
