‘Yeah, That’s Not a Thing’: Dana Bash Refutes Trump’s Claim That All Ballots Should Be Counted By Tuesday Night

On CNN’s State of the Union Monday, Dana Bash scoffed at Donald Trump’s claim that all 2024 presidential ballots should be counted by Tuesday night, lest the Democrats try to “steal” the election.

“Before ballots have even been counted, before election day, Trump is laying the groundwork to baselessly claim the election was stolen,” Bash said before playing a clip of Trump’s Sunday rally in Pennsylvania

“They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing,” Trump said. “Look at what’s going on. Look at what’s going on in your state. Every day, they’re talking about extending hours.”

CNN then cut to Trump continuing, “These elections have to be, they have to be decided by 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 on Tuesday night. Bunch of crooked people. These are crooked people.”

“Yeah, that’s not a thing that happens,” Bash said, before explaining why Trump’s assertion that the race must be determined Tuesday wasn’t possible:

And again, it is very possible that Donald Trump could just win this outright, legit. But it’s not going to happen that they’re going to be done counting, for lots of reasons. Primarily, the laws of these key states…North Carolina and Arizona, new laws may delay reporting of early votes. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, mail-in ballots are not processed until election day. Nevada, ballots postmarked on election day are accepted even if they arrive by November 9th.

MJ Lee, senior White House correspondent, added, “And all of that is why we have been doing so much work to try to just prepare our readers and our viewers on what kind of scenarios we might expect, and to just let it sink into people’s heads, the slowness, the potential slowness, that we might see in the counting and certain states being called — that all of that is within the realm of possibility.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.