Donald Trump continues to lay the groundwork for denying a possible loss in the 2024 election, this time by saying he would win states with a distinctly Democratic bias if an honest man like Jesus Christ counted the votes.
Trump made the comments Tuesday night in an interview with television psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw, who had previously been sympathetic to the former president because of his criminal charges.
“If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” Trump said. “In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter — I’m doing great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level that no Republican has ever done. But if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.”
There is no credible evidence that California, a state that hasn’t chosen a Republican presidential candidate since the 1980s, is counting votes unfairly. And while it’s true that Latinos have taken a rightward turn in politics in recent years, Trump remains deeply unpopular among the demographic. In California, Harris holds a 10-point lead over Trump among Latino voters.
Harris’ campaign dismissed the interview with Trump as nonsense.
“As Donald Trump’s friend Dr. Phil says, ‘You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge,’” campaign spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.
“Donald Trump doesn’t acknowledge that his overturning of Roe v. Wade put women’s lives at risk. He doesn’t acknowledge that he left office with the worst job numbers since Herbert Hoover,” she said. “And he still doesn’t acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election four years ago ― despite the violent insurrection that began in his name.”
Dr. Phil also gave Trump the opportunity to clarify his comments at a gathering of Christians last month, when he promised them they would “not have to vote anymore” after the 2024 election.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not going to have elections. You’re going to have elections,” he said. “But you have to vote this time, because we have to win.”
“Christians, for whatever reason, don’t vote as much, you know, proportionally,” Trump claimed, without any evidence to support that claim. “NRA people and people who are very strong on the Second Amendment are not voters. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a rebellious streak.”
