President Donald Trump snapped at a reporter Friday over a question about his opposition to widespread mail-in balloting plans.
Trump went on to draw a sharp distinction between absentee balloting — which he has vocally supported — and a broader plan to provide vote-by-mail options for all Americans, which he has warned would be a disaster. (RELATED: Trump On Mail-In Voting: ‘It Puts The Election At Risk’)
WATCH:
NBC White House correspondent Peter Alexander noted Trump’s earlier complaints suggesting that counting mail-in ballots would take too long, and asked why he wasn’t diverting more energy to ensuring that states hd the capability to handle that.
My question, which Trump never answered, was: If he’s so concerned about the election, why isn’t he directing his energy to secure more funding and staffing to make sure it’s conducted safely and fairly. https://t.co/wPohsv0imh
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) July 31, 2020
“Peter, you know nothing about my energy,” Trump replied. “You know nothing about what I’m doing. Listen, you know nothing about what I do.”
Trump went on to argue that widespread mail-in ballots were a “disaster,” citing the recent election in New York that still hasn’t been decided.
“Take a look at New York City … they are still counting your ballots. Do you know that? They had a race, a small race by comparison. By comparison, tiny,” Trump explained. “It is so messed up, they have no idea. There are ballots missing. Thousands and thousands of ballots are missing. They think they’re going to send hundreds of millions of ballots all over the United States, and it’s going to come out? You won’t know the election result for weeks, months, maybe years after. Maybe you’ll never know the election result, and that’s what I’m concerned with.”
Trump then drew a hard line between absentee ballots, noting that there was a process in place to make sure that absentee ballots were secure and only sent to the people who had requested them.
“I’m going to be voting absentee. An absentee ballot is one thing. A universal mail-in ballot is a disaster. These governors are going to send out millions of ballots, they don’t even know where they’re sending them,” Trump concluded. “This is going to be the greatest election disaster in history.”
