In a recent interview with Dr. Phil, former President Donald Trump delivered what can only be described as a mixture of his usual bombastic rhetoric and unintentional comedy. The highlight of the conversation? A claim that he would win California if “Jesus came down and was the vote counter.” It’s a statement that may sound like parody, but Trump, known for his outlandish remarks, was as serious as ever.
Trump’s assertion that California is rigged against him is not new. During the interview, he lamented, “I look at California. I had a crowd so big… there’s no way I could lose California, but, automatically, they mark it down if you’re a Republican as a loss, that you lose by 5,000,000 votes.” The former president doubled down, insisting that the state’s mail-in voting system was fundamentally dishonest, before adding, “If we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter, I’d do great with the Hispanics. Great. I mean, at a level that no Republicans ever done.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has claimed widespread election fraud. After his 2016 election victory, he alleged that “millions of people” had voted illegally, particularly in states like California, which cost him the popular vote, despite having won the Electoral College. At the time, he famously tweeted, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally”.
Trump: “If Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California.” pic.twitter.com/1vftXhgwbH
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) August 28, 2024
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Yet, as with many of his claims, fact-checkers have consistently debunked Trump’s assertions of voter fraud. No credible evidence has ever been presented to support the idea that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election. In fact, a comprehensive study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that voter fraud is exceptionally rare, occurring at a rate between 0.0003% and 0.0025% of votes cast. ProPublica, which monitored the 2016 election closely, also found no evidence of large-scale voter fraud, including undocumented immigrants voting illegally.
As Trump and Dr. Phil continued their conversation, the former president’s disbelief in his electoral losses remained a central theme. He pointed out the widespread presence of Trump signs across California, interpreting this as an indication of his popularity, despite the state’s overwhelming support for Democrats in recent elections. “They have Trump signs all over the place. It’s a very dishonest… everything is mail in. They send out 38,000,000 ballots… That’s the end,” Trump remarked, continuing to cast doubt on the legitimacy of California’s electoral process.
But again, Trump’s narrative conflicts with reality. California has one of the most robust and secure voting systems in the country. Its use of mail-in voting has been praised for increasing voter participation while maintaining the integrity of elections. Claims of widespread fraud via mail-in ballots have been debunked numerous times. The Heritage Foundation, which tracks instances of voter fraud, found no cases of mail-in fraud in California that would suggest any sort of coordinated or large-scale manipulation.
Trump’s hyperbolic rhetoric about winning over minority groups, particularly Hispanics, has also been a recurring theme in his public statements. While his administration did see a modest uptick in support from Latino voters in 2020 compared to 2016, it was nowhere near the “historic” level he often touts. According to exit polls, President Biden won about two-thirds of the Latino vote nationwide. In California, a state where Latinos make up nearly 40% of the population, Trump’s support was even lower. Biden overwhelmingly won the Hispanic vote in California, a reality that starkly contrasts with Trump’s narrative of sweeping popularity among this key demographic.
The humorous element of Trump’s interview wasn’t just in the outlandish claim about Jesus counting votes. It lies in how sincerely he seems to believe that his failure to win California—a state where Democrats have held firm control for decades—is solely due to electoral fraud and not his unpopularity in the region. Trump has consistently pushed the idea that any electoral loss must be due to some form of cheating, which extends beyond his loss in 2020 to his general outlook on Democratic strongholds.
Fact-checkers, political scientists, and even members of Trump’s own party have repeatedly refuted his baseless claims of voter fraud. After the 2020 election, Chris Krebs, then the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), declared it “the most secure election in American history”. Krebs was subsequently fired by Trump for defending the integrity of the election. Despite this, investigations across multiple states, including Georgia and Arizona, found no significant issues that could have affected the results.
It’s also worth noting the absurdity of invoking a religious figure like Jesus as a hypothetical vote counter. While Trump has long courted the evangelical vote, his comment that Jesus himself would ensure a victory in California goes beyond the usual political hyperbole and enters the realm of the fantastical. Yet, this kind of rhetoric is not out of character for a president who once suggested that he had done more for Christianity than any other president, and who, during the 2016 campaign, declared, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose voters”.
In summary, Trump’s interview with Dr. Phil may have provided a good laugh, but it also serves as a reminder of the former president’s continued reliance on falsehoods and hyperbole when discussing his political legacy. His claim that an “honest vote counter” — or, in his mind, Jesus Christ — would flip California in his favor is as unfounded as his previous statements on voter fraud. While Trump’s base may continue to accept his alternative reality, the facts remain clear: California didn’t reject him because of fraud. It rejected him because the majority of voters simply preferred someone else.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
