Donald Trump has questioned whether the midterm elections were “honest,” less than a week after saying he would accept the results. Meanwhile, some of his critics have started talking about a constitutional provision that has never been used.
Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate on Tuesday, November 3, in a major blow to the Republican Party. On election night, Donald Trump told The New York Times he was “absolutely willing to accept those results,” and that he looked forward to working with Democrats. “We’ll probably work something out,” he said.
By Monday, however, his tone had changed.
A post about early votes and machines
“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong???” the 80-year-old wrote on Truth Social.
“Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote.”
He also raised doubts about voting machines, writing: “It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!”
Asked by reporters later that day whether he believed the midterms were rigged, he said: “I think the numbers were terrible in terms of early votes, you look at all those early votes.” Trump did not provide any evidence of fraud. Nevada’s Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar told NBC News the claims were “completely false.”
Self-reflection on 60 Minutes
Over the weekend, Trump also reposted several charts on Truth Social questioning the results. One, from an account called The Lone Raccoon, showed Democratic vote totals jumping on election night. That kind of spike is common when officials release large batches of counted ballots at once.
Another claimed that “Republican votes stayed the same. Democrats materialized 20 million new votes.” According to The Washington Post, turnout was the second-highest for a midterm in more than 100 years, behind only 2018. Some of the states with the highest turnout, including Maine, Minnesota and Michigan, were also where Democrats won surprise victories.
The president did reflect over how his own actions might have influenced the outcome, however. In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that aired Sunday, he admitted his immigration crackdown had at times been “too tough,” adding: “I think ultimately… that hurt me.”
On election night, he also pointed to the war in Iran, telling Fox News that people “probably weren’t willing to deal with the short term consequence of paying more for gasoline.”
The constitutional provision critics are talking about
Some of Trump’s critics have started discussing Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, which allows a president to be removed from power if they are deemed unable to do the job.
It can only be triggered by the vice president together with a majority of the Cabinet. Congress would only get involved if the president disputed it, and it would take a two-thirds vote in both chambers to keep him out of office.
Section 4 has never been used since it was ratified in 1967.
Read more:
