President Donald Trump's hypocrisy is off the charts after he urged MAGA voters in a video on Saturday to vote by mail to help Republicans win the midterm elections despite years of claiming mail-in ballots are used by Democrats to rig elections.
Republicans have railed against early voting and vote-by-mail procedures in recent years, spurred by Trump's lies that they helped Democrats "steal" the 2020 election.
Research shows early voting greatly increases voter turnout, and a study from Stanford University’s Democracy and Polarization Lab published in April 2020 found that contrary to the widely-held belief among the GOP that vote-by-mail gives Democrats an advantage over Republicans, vote-by-mail options do not benefit one party more than another.
But an angry Trump fueled conspiracies around voting procedures that have led to the disparity that currently exists, with the early and absentee vote being dominated by Democrats and the same-day vote by Republicans.
He has pushed to eliminate no-excuse absentee voting as a central goal of the "SAVE America Act", a sweeping federal elections bill that faces long odds of passing in the Senate. Last month, the Supreme Court rejected Trump's attempt to restrict voting by mail, a decision that prompted him to complain that "these are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court."
Despite all of this, he published a video post accompanied by the following caption:
"Republicans must WIN the 2026 Midterm Elections, and we must use every appropriate tool – whether you vote early, absentee, by mail, or in-person, we must swamp the Radical Left Dumocrats with massive turnout! SO IMPORTANT – PLEASE GET OUT AND VOTE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
In the video, he says he is "asking every patriot to get out there and vote," adding:
"This is one of the most important elections of our lives... If your state has early voting, do not wait. Vote early, vote by mail, vote in person on Election Day, November 3 so we can defeat the radical left Dumbocrats in a midterm victory that is too big to rig."
"I call them 'Dumbocrats' because their policies are so bad. In this election, I'm asking you to pretend I'm on the ballot."
You can see his post and hear what he said in the video below.
When a reporter questioned Trump on Monday about why he's telling his supporters to vote by mail after years of declaring mail-in voting illegitimate, he said:
"They'll vote by mail or vote in person. I'd rather have them vote in person, but they can vote by mail if they want because we don't seem to have no choice, because a lot of people want to vote by mail, but a lot of very good people also want to vote in person."
"You can do either. What we're concerned about is there seems to be — no, not seems to be — there is a lot of cheating in vote by mail, a lot of cheating."
When the reporter pointed out that there is "no evidence" to support his claims, he insisted reporters should investigate the state of California, alleging mail ballot fraud. He called the reporter "fake news."
You can watch what happened in the video below.
Trump was swiftly criticized.
Adding to Trump's hypocrisy, he was called out for voting by mail in Florida's election in March—and even said it's okay that he did it because he's the "president."
Palm Beach County records show that Trump cast a mail-in ballot toward the end of March in the special election for Florida’s House District 87, the district that includes his Mar-a-Lago residence. He also voted by mail in the January primary for the same race.
Just one day earlier, he told the audience at a roundtable event in Memphis that "mail-in voting means mail-in cheating," pledging that "we got to do something about it all."
When questioned, he said "I decided I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn't be there because I had a lot of different things." With no sense of irony whatsoever, he said he voted by mail "because I'm President of the United States and because of the fact that I'm President of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida."
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