Donald Trump continues to lay the groundwork for denying a potential 2024 election loss, this time by saying he’d win deep blue states if only an honest man like Jesus Christ counted the votes.
Trump made the comments in a Tuesday evening interview with television psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw, who previously sympathized with the former president over his criminal indictments.
“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 do great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level 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 gone for a Republican presidential nominee since the 1980s, is dishonestly counting votes. And while it’s true that Latinos have taken a rightward turn in politics in recent years, Trump remains widely unpopular among the demographic. In California, Harris has a 10-point lead over Trump with Latino voters.
The Harris campaign dismissed Trump’s interview as nonsense.
“As Donald Trump’s friend Dr. Phil says, ‘You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge,’” campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.
“Donald Trump doesn’t acknowledge that his overturning Roe v. Wade put women’s lives in danger. He doesn’t acknowledge that he left office with the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover,” she said. “And he still doesn’t acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election four years ago ― despite the violent insurrection launched in his name.”
Dr. Phil also gave Trump the opportunity to explain his remarks at a gathering of Christians last month, when he promised them they wouldn’t “have to vote again” 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 very much—you know, proportionately,” Trump asserted without any evidence of that claim. “NRA people, and people that feel very strongly about the Second Amendment—they’re not voters. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a rebellious streak.”