President Donald Trump has lately been trying to delegitimize the 2020 election before it even happens, or at least parts of it. Throughout recent days, he has insisted that mail-in voting plans in states including Nevada, Michigan, and California are supposedly laying the groundwork for some kind of massive voter fraud, although there was and remains no evidence for his claims. On Tuesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) spoke out and pointed out that Trump is essentially trying to jeopardize the integrity of the entire 2020 election process in an apparent attempt to protect his own political career.
Schiff tweeted:
‘Restricting mail in voting during a pandemic is dangerous enough. But Trump’s statements highlight another threat: He’s laying the groundwork to delegitimize millions of votes this fall. And cast doubt on the result. This is what tin pot dictators do. Not U.S. Presidents.’
Restricting mail in voting during a pandemic is dangerous enough.
But Trump's statements highlight another threat:
He's laying the groundwork to delegitimize millions of votes this fall.
And cast doubt on the result.
This is what tin pot dictators do. Not U.S. Presidents.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 26, 2020
Trump has attempted to delegitimize millions of votes at a time in the past. He has claimed that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election, and of course, in Trump’s description, these votes went by-and-large for Hillary Clinton. However, there is no evidence that those claims have anything to do with reality, and there’s not any evidence for Trump’s latest claims about supposed mail-in voting fraud either.
On Tuesday, he proclaimed that there’s supposedly “NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” adding that “Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed” and after absentee ballots are sent out, “that will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote.” There is no evidence for any of these claims. The president sounds completely disconnected from reality — and, as Schiff points out, he’s putting the integrity of U.S. elections on the line.
….living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response below:
