Trump Just Contradicted His Own Mail-In Voting Message With a Bizarre Tweet Urging Floridians to Vote By Mail

In the face of the pandemic that's killed nearly 160 thousand Americans, Democratic lawmakers have been calling for expanded voting by mail measures that would allow voters to safely vote through the postal system rather than potentially contracting the virus by waiting in line to vote in person.

The President is a vocal opponent of voting by mail, claiming that voters should only be able to vote by mail if it's impossible for them to physically be at their polling place.

Trump and his administration falsely claim that voter fraud is rampant within voting by mail elections. Trump recently called "mail-in voting" a "new phenomenon" in a recent Axios interview with Jonathan Swan. Swan reminded the President that voting by mail has been around since the Civil War.

Now, in a recent tweet, the President did a dizzying about-face.

The President now believes that voting by mail is completely safe—if you're a voter in the crucial swing state of Florida.

Without Florida's 29 electoral votes, Trump's already shrinking pathways to reelection victory practically vanish, and Republicans actually benefit from expanded mail voting in the Sunshine State.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, an average of 55 thousand more Republicans voted by mail in 2016 and 2018 than Democrats.

The Tampa Bay Times piece went on to quote Joe Gruters, the chair of Florida's Republican party, who said:

"In Florida, the Republicans have pretty much dominated (vote by mail) in the last two decades."

This has left Florida Republicans navigating the unenviable position of encouraging their supporters to vote by mail while also defending Trump's claims that voting by mail is unreliable.

A recent mailer from the Florida Republican party included a tweet from Trump which endorsed absentee voting, but the party blurred out the next sentences decrying voting by mail.

Trump's latest tweet on the matter suggests he's become aware that expanded vote by mail measures in Florida benefit him.

But the sudden endorsement of voting by mail in one state wasn't the only change in position Trump took. He also appeared to admit that "Vote by Mail" and "Absentee Voting" are virtually one and the same.

In the past, Trump has frequently made questionable distinctions between mail-in voting and absentee voting.

Recent polls show Biden leading Trump in the Sunshine State, including a Quinnipiac poll that found Biden besting Trump by 13 points.