Trump Can’t Stop Torpedoing Hannity’s Effort to Encourage Republican Early Voting: ‘Bad Things Happen to Those Ballots!’
Ex-President Donald Trump repeatedly torpedoed Fox News host Sean Hannity’s persistent efforts to get him to encourage GOP turnout through things like early voting, saying “a lot of bad things happen to those ballots!”
On Tuesday night’s edition of Fox News’s Hannity, the host devoted his program to a “Town Hall” event with Trump and a raucous pro-Trump crowd just hours after Trump announced that he’s about to be indicted in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into conduct surrounding the 2020 election.
At one point, Hannity got Trump to agree Republicans should take advantage of the voting “system we have” even if he wants to change it — but Trump couldn’t stop undermining that point to cheers from the crowd:
HANNITY: Do you now encourage and embrace early and — voting, voting by mail, and legal ballot harvesting?
TRUMP: I do but I also have to say something else. Because the one thing a lot of people…
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: But this is important if you do.
TRUMP: … including you don’t talk about, they also create phony ballots. And that’s a real problem. That’s my opinion. But they created a lot of phony ballots.
HANNITY: Has your mind shifted? In other words, I think if Republicans start out Election Day down 200, 300, 500,000 votes, that’s — that becomes nearly impossible to catch up with.
TRUMP: For some reason Republicans always wanted to go out on Tuesday and they wanted to vote. And I respect that. I think it’s great. And it would be great if we can get back to one day and we — all the things you just said. With one thing else…
HANNITY: I agree with you.
TRUMP: With Voter ID. With voter ID. Because the Democrats don’t want voter…
HANNITY: And signature verification.
TRUMP: How about this, they don’t want voter ID because they want to cheat. You know, they want to cheat. They don’t want voter ID. Even the Democrats, regular Democrat people want voter ID. But the leaders don’t because they can’t cheat. The one thing we have to be very careful of is phony ballots, Sean. Everything you say is great. But they create ballots, that’s my opinion. And that’s the opinion of a lot of people…
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Will you encourage your voters, based on the system we have, to go along with the system of early voting and voting by mail? Because I think…
TRUMP: I — I will…
HANNITY: … if you don’t, it’s a big mistake.
TRUMP: No, no, no. I will, but those ballots get lost also, Sean. You know, they send a man and all of a sudden they’re gone. Those ballots get lost also. The answer is, I will because you would like it it. But you know what? Can I be honest?
HANNITY: He’s doing it for me. OK.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: But a lot of…
HANNITY: I’ve got to take a break.
TRUMP: But, Sean, a lot of bad things happen to those ballots also! They are sent in early and all of a sudden where are they? Bad — look, we have very corrupt elections. We have no borders. If you don’t have borders and if you don’t have good elections, you don’t have a country. And that’s where we are. But I’m OK with it.
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: By the end of — by the end of this year, we’ll probably have, under Joe Biden, nearly 8 million illegal immigrants since he’s been president. Quick break. More of our exclusive town hall with President Donald J. Trump straight ahead. We’re going to take questions from the audience as we continue from beautiful — we’re in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Stay with us.
(APPLAUSE)
Watch above via Fox News’s Hannity.
