President Donald Trump stormed out of an interview with “Meet the Press” that aired on Sunday morning, after refusing to provide substantive evidence that primary elections California are being “rigged” and chastising the storied interview program and host Kristen Welker as “crooked.”
The president insisted, without evidence, Republican candidates were “dropping fast” in California due to a “rigged” election.
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The spat began after Trump claimed, without evidence, the 2020 election was “rigged” and that “it’s happening again right now in California,” where high-profile races still have not been called after Tuesday’s elections as some ballots are still being counted.
Welker responded by noting “Republicans are doing well in California”—Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is currently in second place in the state’s jungle primary, which would advance him to the general election in November, while Spencer Pratt, a Republican former reality television star is currently in second place in the Los Angeles mayoral primary.
“No they’re not,” Trump retorted, insisting “they’re dropping fast because it’s a rigged election”—likely referring to the recent surge in votes for Democratic mayoral candidate Nithya Raman that came in over the weekend (mail-in votes are still being counted in California).
When asked if he has any evidence about election fraud in California, Trump said “all I have to do is look.”
Trump called election officials in California “crooked,” before also insisting Welker, “Meet the Press” and the press at large were also “crooked”—specifically naming ABC, CBS and CNN as well.
Trump also noted the weather, which interfered with the production, saying “I sat in the rain with you for an hour”—the interview was filmed in a barn in Wisconsin, where Trump held a rally with farmers in the swing state on Friday.
California’s primary elections were held last Tuesday. The state uses a “jungle primary” or open primary system, where the top two candidates from any party advance to the general election in November. Without providing specific evidence, Trump declared there was “BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California” in a Thursday post on Truth Social, calling for a federal investigation and criticizing the state for how long it expected to take to count the votes. One day later, Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, announced his office has “multiple election fraud investigations” ongoing, but declined to provide any further details about the probes. Essayli also said he was conducting a “comprehensive audit” of the state’s voter rolls, but claimed California has “stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote.”
California is the most populous state in the U.S., with over 39 million residents, according to the Census Bureau. It also has a strong universal mail-in voting law. Californians were allowed to drop off a mail-in ballot any time between May 5 and when the polls closed on June 2. Ballots are counted up to seven days after the polls close, so long as they are postmarked by the election date.
Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general, member of Congress, and most recently the secretary of Health and Human Services under former President Joe Biden, officially advanced to the general election, the Associated Press reported Friday. Becerra, a Democrat, came out in the lead in the gubernatorial primary, with over 1.8 million votes (about 27% of ballots cast). Hilton, a Republican former Fox News host, remained in second place with about 26.1% of the vote, while Democrat billionaire Tom Steyer trailed with about 21.3% as of Sunday afternoon.
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