Hours after tossing a constitutional hand grenade onto Twitter by suggesting a delay in November’s election, President Trump said at a news conference that he did not want to postpone the 2020 vote but remained alarmed that millions of mail-in ballots could cause turmoil.
“Do I want to see a date change? No,” he told reporters in the White House briefing room on Thursday evening. “But I don’t want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history.”
He said his only concern was about the legitimacy of the result.
“I want to have the election,” he said. “But I also don’t want to have to wait three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing, and the election doesn’t mean anything.”
The explanation followed a day of confusion and concern sparked by a tweet sent at 8.46 a.m.
He warned that mail-in ballots risked an “inaccurate and fraudulent” election. He added: “Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
Critics and allies alike dismissed the idea, pointing out the president lacks authority to change the date. Instead, they suggested it was an effort to distract from bad economic news that showed the economy contracted at a 32.9% annualized rate during the last quarter and set the stage for him to dispute the election outcome.
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said: “Trump’s latest attempt to disrupt our elections is desperate and wrong. It is an effort to distract from the alarming economic numbers and COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. Under our laws and our Constitution, no president has the power to move our elections.”
House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said: “I understand the president’s concern about mail-in voting, which is different than absentee voting, but never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election, and we should go forward with our election.”
By midafternoon, Trump returned to Twitter in an apparent effort to walk back his suggestion.
“Glad I was able to get the very dishonest LameStream Media to finally start talking about the RISKS to our Democracy from dangerous Universal Mail-In-Voting (not Absentee Voting, which I totally support!),” he said.
It was inevitably the first question he was asked after finishing a statement on COVID-19 during one of his regular press briefings.
He held up a sheaf of news reports outlining concerns about mail-in voting during primary races this year.
“Can you believe, in the Washington Post of all papers?” he said. “Fake news but, in this case, it’s not fake. It’s true.”
He said he had no issue with absentee ballots, which voters must request, but sending out mail-in ballots to all voters was a recipe for abuse.
“You’re sending out hundreds of millions of universal mail-in ballots. Where are they going, who are they being accepted by?” he said. “It’s common sense … you don’t have to know anything about politics.”
