In some very on brand news… President Trump has begun spreading the 2026 edition of the Big Lie, following pretty much the same script as the 2020 version.
Trump stormed out of a “Meet the Press” interview that aired Sunday after NBC’s Kristen Welker pushed back on Trump's comments about California’s “rigged” elections.
Trump repeated some familiar (and completely baseless) claims about the 2020 election during the interview, and then specifically claimed that California’s primary election is being rigged because the state is still counting ballots in a few key races — something that is both expected and normal in a large state like California.
“The election was rigged, it was a dirty election,” Trump said. “And it’s happening again right now in California.”
Trump claimed, without any evidence, that Republican candidates “are dropping fast because it’s a rigged election.”
The vote counting process in California can be especially time consuming due to the size of the state and the sheer volume of mail-in ballots it receives.
California has the biggest electorate in the country with over 23 million registered voters and it’s one of eight states that has universal mail-in voting. This means that all voters automatically receive mail-in ballots, which is why over 80 percent of California ballots are usually cast by mail. Election officials also must verify the signatures on mail-in ballots before they are processed.
“Some ballots will take counties up to 30 days to count every valid ballot and conduct a post-election audit,” California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a statement last week, confirming that the state’s process would indeed take some time. “California elections officials prioritize the right to vote and election security over rushing the vote count. We have a process that by law ensures both voting rights and the integrity of elections, so I would call on all Californians to be patient.”
Of course, though, the explanation of this process did not (and never does!) stop Trump and his allies from spreading lies about last week’s primary election in California.
“Four days and they aren’t even close to coming up with… You know why they are doing that? Because they are cheating on the election,” he added.
After Welker asked Trump for evidence for his claims, he simply said: “They’re crooked just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked.”
“You play right into their hands with this stuff. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged,” he added, before ending the interview.
Trump has similarly been vocal on Truth Social, alleging rampant fraud in California simply because the results of the election have shifted as … more ballots are counted.
“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Why the vote counting DELAY??? President DJT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.
Following these baseless claims of fraud, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli, who is a Trump appointee, announced on Friday, that his office has opened “multiple election fraud investigations” and that the state’s elections have “serious structural vulnerabilities."
Essayli is also now calling out California officials for not handing over its voter rolls to the DOJ, a federal overreach that most other states have resisted and fought in court.
“For over a year, the Department of Justice has been trying to audit California’s voter rolls,” he wrote on X this week. “Federal law gives the Attorney General the authority to review state voter files and confirm that only eligible U.S. citizens are voting in federal elections."
