My biggest risk’: Trump says mail-in voting could
cost him reelection
With his poll numbers slumping, the president warns
Republicans in a POLITICO interview not to abandon him.
By ALEX
ISENSTADT
06/19/2020
04:30 AM EDT
President
Donald Trump called mail-in voting the biggest threat to his reelection and
said his campaign's multimillion-dollar legal effort to block expanded ballot
access could determine whether he wins a second term.
In an Oval
Office interview Thursday focusing on the 2020 election, the president also
warned his party in blunt terms not to abandon him and cast Hillary Clinton as
a more formidable opponent than Joe Biden, despite Biden's commanding lead in
polls.
The
president’s assertion that mail-in voting will endanger his reelection comes as
states across the country are rushing to accommodate remote voting in response
to the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of voters could be disenfranchised if
they decide to stay home on Election Day rather than risk contracting the virus
at crowded polling stations.
But Trump
and his campaign argue, despite a lack of evidence, that widespread mail-in
voting will benefit Democrats and invite fraud. The Republican Party is
spending tens of millions of dollars on a multifront legal battle.
“My biggest
risk is that we don’t win lawsuits,” Trump said. “We have many lawsuits going
all over. And if we don’t win those lawsuits, I think — I think it puts the
election at risk.”
Trump was
asked a two-part question during the interview: Would a substantial amount of
mail-in voting — which is widely expected because of coronavirus — cause him to
question the legitimacy of the election? And would he accept the results no
matter what?
“Well, you
can never answer the second question, right? Because Hillary kept talking about
she’s going to accept, and they never accepted it. You know. She lost too. She
lost good.” Clinton conceded the day after the 2016 election.
Trump
struck a firmer note last week in an interview with Fox News, when he said he
would leave office peacefully if he lost.
The
president’s rare admission of concern about his political future comes at the
most precarious moment of his presidency. Polls have shown the president
trailing in an array of key states — some of which haven’t been lost by a
Republican in decades — amid criticism of his handling of the coronavirus
pandemic and his response to the protests against police brutality.
Now, with
Republicans fighting to keep their Senate majority, lawmakers running in
competitive races are having to decide whether to align themselves with the
president or risk his wrath by creating daylight. Trump made clear those who choose
the latter will pay a heavy price.
Joined by
top aides, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump put Senate Republicans
on notice: Running away from him would only trigger a revolt by his loyalists.
“If they
don’t embrace, they’re going to lose, because, you know, I have a very hard
base. I have the strongest base people have ever seen,” said Trump, who met
with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week to discuss the party’s
prospects in key Senate races.
Trump is
keenly aware of how he stacks up against other Republicans on the ballot this
fall. At one point during the interview, White House Political Director Brian
Jack handed the president a document showing how he had fared better in several
primaries this spring than a handful of Republican senators he shared the
ballot with in their home states. Included on the chart was North Carolina Sen.
Thom Tillis, one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents up for reelection
this November. While Tillis received 78 percent in the state's March primary,
Trump got 94 percent, it noted.
"Wow,
that’s great in North Carolina, huh?" Trump remarked as he looked over the
sheet.
Senate
Republicans have largely remained in lockstep with the president, but there
have been a few exceptions. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, one of the party’s most
vulnerable lawmakers, has yet to say whether she backs Trump’s reelection and
didn’t appear with him when he visited her home state last week. Michigan GOP
Senate candidate John James recently told black community leaders that he
disagreed with Trump on “plenty, plenty of issues.”
During the
interview, Trump rattled off a list of senators who lost their seats after
separating themselves from him. He recalled ending the political careers of
Tennessee Republican Bob Corker (“So, anyway, I went after him,” he said. “No
longer a senator.”) and Arizona Republican Jeff Flake (“He went from 54 percent
to 3.”). Nevada Republican Dean Heller “went down” in the general election
(“How did it work out for the great senator of Nevada? Not too good.”).
“We will,
on occasion, have some senators that want to be cute,” he said. “And they don’t
want to embrace their president.”
Much of the
president’s focus, though, was on his own race. He portrayed Biden as a weaker
candidate than Clinton. Clinton, Trump said, was “obviously smarter" than
Biden. And after savaging Clinton for having "no stamina" in 2016,
the president indicated he thought she had more energy than the 77-year-old
Biden.
"I can
tell you a lot about Hillary," Trump said. "She had a lot of energy
and she was smart."
Even as
coronavirus cases are rising in many places, the president insisted the virus
is on the decline. He said it is “heading south" — "meaning leaving.”
Days before his first major rally during the pandemic, Trump accused Biden’s
campaign of using coronavirus as an excuse to shield him from public scrutiny,
including questions from the media.
"We
haven’t really seen the real Joe because they have him — they’re hiding
him," Trump said. Biden and his campaign say he's acting responsibly and
heeding the advice of public health experts.
Trump was
clearly fixated on the forthcoming tell-all book by former national security
adviser John Bolton. He described Bolton as a “whack job” and a “sick customer”
and said that “everybody thought he was totally nuts.” He recalled having a
conversation with Bolton in which the former adviser defended his outspoken
support for the Iraq War.
“I said,
‘John, honestly, if you believe that now — I could understand maybe at the time
— but if you believe that now, there’s something seriously wrong with you,’”
Trump said.
As he was
wrapping up the interview, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin entered the Oval
Office to summon Trump for a meeting with the governors of Nebraska and
Oklahoma. Before they headed out, Trump looked over a critical review of the
Bolton book and the two reveled in the drubbing. The president appeared
very pleased.
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