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President Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker over the weekend after she asked for evidence backing his unsubstantiated claim that there was election fraud in California’s recent primary races.
The interview was filmed on Friday while Trump was traveling to a campaign event in western Wisconsin. It aired on the network’s “Meet the Press” program on Sunday morning.
During the segment, Trump brought up the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden and has falsely described as fraudulent ever since. Trump then claimed that “rigged” elections were “happening again right now in California,” referring to the state’s primary elections last Tuesday.
“Where’s the evidence to that?” Welker asked.
A visibly upset Trump responded that there is “tremendous evidence” to back his statement. However, his argument relied only on the fact that it has taken several days for California to finalize the results of its races — a regular occurrence in the state.
The delay, Trump said, meant it was “a rigged election.”
“That’s how they count the votes in California,” Welker pointed out.
Trump rejected that idea outright. “Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election,” Trump said.
Welker once again asked the president for “evidence to support” his claims.
“All I have to do is look,” Trump said.
“But that’s not evidence,” Welker interjected.
Trump continued to berate California elections officials — and then turned his ire to Welker for daring to question his claims.
“They’re crooked just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked,” Trump said.
“I’m not crooked. But let’s continue,” Welker said, attempting to shift topics.
Trump wouldn’t let up. “You play right into their hands with this stuff,” he said. “You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged.”
Shortly after, Trump declared that he was done with the interview. “Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” he said. “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
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Trump described Welker and NBC News as “dishonest press” one last time before he left the scene.
Historically, election counts in California have been slower than they are in other states. Much of the delay has to do with how most voters in the state cast their ballots.
“Californians rely unusually heavily on vote by mail. So we just get a greater proportion of our votes coming in by mail than in person than other states do,” said Donna Crane, a political science professor at San Jose State University, speaking to a Bay Area Fox affiliate. “It’s not really fair to compare us to other states in that respect.”
Crane also explained that uneven investment of election tools and hardware among the state’s several counties also contributed to the slow count.
“Some counties might just not buy the machines that they need because they decide not to invest that taxpayer money, but it means their results are going to come in a little late and the whole state results lag as a result of that,” Crane said.
Trump’s complaints about California echo his complaints from 2020. After spending much of the lead-up to Election Day that year sowing doubts about mail-in voting — which most voters ended up utilizing due to the COVID-19 pandemic — Trump falsely asserted that late-night ballot counting of mail-in votes was fraudulent.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,” Trump said in November 2020, after the race was called for Biden.
Despite his assertions, Trump and his allies lost dozens of court challenges attempting to delay the certification of the election, oftentimes failing even to convince judges Trump himself had appointed. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about election fraud — including his call for his MAGA base to come to Washington, D.C. for a “wild time” during the certification of the 2020 election — prompted a mob of his loyalists to storm the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
Meanwhile, Trump has already indicated that he may peddle similar conspiracy theories about the 2026 elections if he doesn’t deem them “honest.”
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