After almost a week of appearing to somberly accept defeat in the midterm elections, President Donald Trump caved Monday to his tendency to amplify voting conspiracies and aired his grievances online about election integrity.
“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong???” he wrote on Truth Social. “Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote.”
Like in the past when Trump has pushed election conspiracies, there has been no evidence of widespread fraud in the election. While people voted early in record numbers across the board, Democrats tend to vote early in larger numbers.
Less than a week earlier, Trump told The New York Times that he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results of the election, which handily went to Democrats across the country. The move was a stark difference from Trump’s election denialism after the 2020 election, when his followers violently stormed the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden as president.
“We’ll, you know, look forward to working with them,” the president said of Democrats to the Times, which described him as subdued. “We’ll probably work something out.”
But on Saturday, the president posted a screenshot of a graphic on Truth Social that questioned the vote count in Texas’ Senate race that went to Democratic candidate James Talarico. The graphic, which doesn’t cite a source, shows Talarico consistently leading over Trump-endorsed opponent Ken Paxton.
“Honest question. Does anyone believe this at all?” the X account that posted the graphic wrote on Election Day.
Trump then flip-flopped again during his “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday. CBS News said its reporters “found him in a surprisingly reflective mood, and seemingly accepting of defeat” when they met the president to tape the interview.
During the interview, Trump again acknowledged the GOP’s losses, placing the blame on issues like the Iran war and his aggressive immigration enforcement. He also expressed openness again to working with Democrats.
“I think it was too tough. I think it might be too tough, yeah,” he told journalist Ross Douthat on “60 Minutes” of his immigration enforcement. “I think ultimately that hurt me.”