'But you were in Palm Beach': Reporter fact-checks Trump to his face on mail-in ballot
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Donald Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey on July 28, 2022 (Image: Shutterstock)
President Donald Trump made news after he voted by mail despite spending years railing against the practice as "cheating" in elections. His family followed suit with their own ballots for the Florida special election.
“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we've got to do something about it all,” Trump said on Monday while participating in his crime task force roundtable.
His comments came after Trump and his family submitted their mail-in ballots, according to records.
After Trump spoke in his Thursday Cabinet meeting, before he began taking questions from the press, one reporter questioned him on the mail-in ballot.
Trump began by claiming that he voted by mail because he felt he was needed more at the White House.
"But you were in Palm Beach," the reporter quipped.
"That's right. And I — yeah," he stuttered. "And I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn't be there because I had a lot of different things. But, you know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots. You do know that, right? So if you're away, you have an exception. If you're in the military, we have an exception. If you're on a business trip, we have an exception. If you're disabled, we have an exception. And if you're ill, if you're not feeling good. So I was away mostly in Washington, D.C. So, I used a mail-in ballot."
He added sarcastically, "But I appreciate the question because I know, I know, it was so well-meaning. Yeah."
“You know, brought to my attention today that we’re the only country that doesn’t — that does mail-in voting,” Trump claimed falsely in his speech on Monday. “You know, there’s not a country in the world that does mail-in ballots anymore."
A CNN fact check on Tuesday pointed out a Trump comment during the speech on Monday that President Jimmy Carter formed after his presidency, “came out and said very strongly: ‘No mail-in ballots.’”
At a press conference on March 9, Trump said: “Frankly, I think it’s probably the best thing Jimmy Carter did. He said, ‘You can’t have mail-in voting because it’s inherently dishonest.'"