When a Republican candidate falls short, Trump assumes his conspiracy theories are true. When a Republican candidate prevails, he says the same thing.
It’s been 10 days since California held its closely watched statewide primaries, and nearly every day since, Donald Trump has shared baseless conspiracy theories about the contests, with varying degrees of hysteria about Democratic mischief that hasn’t happened in reality.
The list of problems surrounding the president’s claims is not short. Even putting aside the obvious and inconvenient details — there’s literally no evidence of the system being “rigged,” Trump doesn’t seem to understand how election administration works, etc. — the fatal flaw in the Republican’s groundless claims is that the election outcomes haven’t quite turned out as Democrats would have preferred.
In Los Angeles’ mayoral race, for example, the Democratic incumbent would have welcomed the opportunity to run in the fall against a conservative television personality with an embarrassingly thin professional resume, but instead she’ll face a Harvard- and MIT-educated City Council member who’s already demonstrated an ability to win local elections.
In the state’s gubernatorial race, Democrats would have been delighted if Republicans had been locked out of the general election altogether, but instead, Republican Steve Hilton, a Trump-backed former Fox News personality, finished second in the multiparty “jungle” primary.
Yet despite the obvious flaws that have already made these theories flimsy, the president added a new twist on Thursday.
During a phone interview that aired live on “Fox and Friends,” Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade asked about the war in Iran. Trump responded by immediately focusing on his 2020 election conspiracy theories, which naturally led to his California election conspiracy theories.
“It was happening to Steve Hilton, and I went on a tear,” the president said. “And they said it was going to be two weeks and they’d know about Hilton, whether or not he’s going to make it. I went on such a tear, then they approved it immediately. They approved Steve. It’s such a rigged deal, it’s so crazy. They approved him so fast because everybody was watching.”
Hours later, at a White House event ostensibly about commercial fishing, Trump echoed his absurdities.
“They said it’s going to take two more weeks,” the president said. “It was a week and it was heading south, and I started saying, ‘It’s a rigged election.’ And then they said it was going to take two weeks, one week, two weeks, and all of a sudden, [Hilton] was approved. You know why? Because the heat was on. They couldn’t get away with it. If I didn’t do it, I guarantee he wouldn’t be the nominee. It’s a rigged election.”
To the extent that reality impinges in any way on these presidential conspiracy theories, none of Trump’s claims was true, but of particular interest was his vision of how election administration works in the nation’s most populous state.
Hilton was already well positioned to advance to the general election when Trump started peddling baseless assertions. Earlier in the week, it became clear based on the remaining outstanding ballots that it simply wasn’t possible for any other candidate to surpass him.
But to hear the president tell it, election administration officials in California effectively told one another, “Sure, we planned to secretly arrange for Hilton’s defeat, but Trump is onto our nefarious scheme! It looks like we now have no choice but to let Hilton advance to the general election.”
In other words, from Trump’s perspective, when a Republican falls short, it’s proof that his conspiracy theories are true, and when a Republican doesn’t fall short, it’s still proof that his conspiracy theories are true.
This is madness, but a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in the Golden State nevertheless appeared on Glenn Beck’s program this week to ask Californians to help him uncover evidence (which he apparently lacks) that could lead to the kind of prosecutions the president wants to see.