Donald Trump insisted in a meandering interview with television host Dr. Phil McGraw on Tuesday that he had actually won California, adding that all he needed was an “honest vote counter”—Jesus Christ, to be exact.
“If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” Trump said. “In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter—I do great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level no Republican has ever done—but if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.”
Dr. Phil, sounding surprised, replied: “You think so?”
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“Oh I think so,” Trump said. “I see it. I go around California, they have Trumps signs all over the place...It’s a very dishonest [state], everything is mail-in. They send out 38 million ballots, I think it is,” Trump continued, forging ahead into a monologue about how California is a dishonest system.
“Any time you have a mail-in ballot, you’re going to have massive fraud,” he added.
During their talk, Dr. Phil also pressed the former president about his comments at a gathering of Christians last month, during which he said that they wouldn’t “have to vote again” after 2024.
Trump insisted he wasn’t implying that he would put a stop to elections.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not going to have elections. You’re going to have elections. But you have to vote this time, because we have to win,” Trump said when pressed on the subject by McGraw, claiming that he’ll “straighten everything out in less than four years, by a lot.”
“Christians, for whatever reason, don’t vote very much—you know, proportionately,” Trump claimed, without providing evidence. “NRA people, and people that feel very strongly about the Second Amendment—they’re not voters. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a rebellious streak.”
McGraw, who fawned over Trump earlier this summer, followed up: “So, you didn’t mean, ‘Vote me in once ’cause I ain’t never leaving?’ You’re meaning, ‘This is an important one. Vote this time?’”
Trump replied affirmatively. “Of course that’s what I meant,” he said, claiming that “everybody” knew what he meant at the time.
Yet after Trump’s initial comment, many Democrats took issue with it.
“This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism. Here Trump helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again,” California Rep. Adam Schiff wrote on X.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded by arguing that Trump was “ talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”
Later in his interview with McGraw, Trump also defended telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would be a “dictator”—“only on Day One,” and complained about being taken out of context.
“It was said with a chuckle. The audience laughed, I laughed, we all laughed. But they take it and they cut it,” he said. “These are very dishonest people we are dealing with.”
In that exchange with Hannity last December, Trump was given the opportunity to rule out breaking the law if re-elected, but he refused to do so.
