CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin challenged U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton Monday for questioning election integrity while discussing Los Angeles’ mayoral race, despite acknowledging he had no evidence of fraud.

The heated exchange came after President Donald Trump and MAGA influencers began openly challenging the updated results to the mayoral race, which saw Republican Spencer Pratt, who has received Trump’s backing, falling behind City Council member Nithya Raman, a progressive Democrat who had been trailing him, in the contest to advance to November’s runoff election.

Squawk Box host Joe Kernen noted that late-counted ballots in California, arriving after Election Day, had disproportionately benefited Democratic candidates.

Kernan asked Clayton whether stories about “thousands of votes all for the same person” and results going “100 percent for the socialist candidate” were true – claims already debunked days earlier by another Trump-appointed prosecutor in California.

Clayton nevertheless entertained Kernen’s premise, arguing that extended ballot-counting periods create an “opportunity for fraud.”

“We had a problem, a deep problem with voting in America,” Clayton said, before arguing that while voter access has improved, “On the integrity side, we’re doing an absolutely terrible job, and the American people are right to question it.”

As Kernen continued to suggest that mail-in ballots consistently break in Democrats’ favor, Clayton, again, did not challenge the characterization. Instead, he questioned why California allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted after polls close and repeatedly argued that such systems create opportunities for misconduct.

Co-host Becky Quick jumped in to push back, noting that California law permits ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted later and stressing that the practice “doesn’t sound like a fraudulent situation.”

“But why is that law there?” Clayton asked.

Quick added: “I mean, that doesn’t sound like fraud. You can argue whether the law makes sense, but that doesn’t sound like a fraudulent situation.”

“So there’s a great phrase, opportunity for fraud, right?” Clayton said. “One of the things you do in designing laws is reduce the opportunity for fraud, in this case, reduce the opportunity for fraud while not adversely impacting access.”

“And every time it happens Jay, it’s like, OK, all these [ballots] are coming in for the next 30 days – oh, Democrats vote that way. So it just makes sense that it’s 100 percent Democrat?” he said. “That’s where the opportunity comes from. So yeah, why does it always go that way with the mail-in votes? Why is it always 100% Democrats are voting in the mail-in?”

The debate escalated when Sorkin entered the discussion, questioning whether a senior federal prosecutor should be publicly raising suspicions absent evidence.

“Do you think that it helps, given where you sit in the world, to speculate about a fraud. Or potential fraud without any direct evidence of said fraud,” Sorkin asked, noting that prosecutors typically avoid publicly speculating about cases they cannot prove.

Clayton rejected the characterization.

“I am not speculating about fraud. I’m not saying there is fraud,” he replied, before adding that “the opportunity for fraud makes no sense to me.”

Sorkin then referenced Trump’s own comments alleging fraud in the race, telling Clayton that “the president over the weekend, very openly, didn’t just speculate that there was fraud, he said directly that there was fraud.”

Clayton did not endorse that claim, but argued that election systems lacking voter identification requirements leave room for doubt and insisted that voting procedures could be strengthened.

Watch above via CNBC.

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