SACRAMENTO, CA — President Donald Trump stormed out of an interview on Sunday's "Meet The Press" when he was questioned over his accusations of election fraud in the Golden State. His accusations are the basis of federal election fraud investigations opened last week.
On Friday, the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles announced “multiple election fraud investigations” related to California's primary elections and sent a prosecutor to the county's vote-counting center.
The developments came a day after President Donald Trump made baseless claims of mass fraud in California's drawn-out vote count from Tuesday's primary. Late-tallied Democratic-leaning mail ballots were continuing to eat into the vote totals for the president's preferred candidates for governor and Los Angeles mayor.
It's a voting trend so common in recent decades, it's been dubbed the 'red mirage.' The trend has been even more pronounced in the Trump era because he encourages his supporters to distrust mail-in voting and to vote in person. In-person ballots are quickly tallied on election night, while mail-in ballots postmarked in the final week of an election take longer to verify and tally. As a result, Republican candidates tend to perform better on election night than they do by the time all votes are counted in blue-leaning states and counties. Despite his prominent role in the 'red mirage,' the president frequently declares election fraud when mail-in votes don't go his way.
The investigation announced by U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Trump's appointee as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, marked an escalation in the president's campaign against the Democratic-dominated state, whose notoriously prolonged vote count has been a magnet for election conspiracy theories.
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In the interview that aired Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, Trump repeated his baseless claims of mass fraud in California’s drawn-out vote count from Tuesday’s primary. He ended the interview abruptly when he became frustrated with pushback from NBC’s Kristen Welker. Welker insisted that the president had not shown any proof to validate his claims of irregularities in California's primary election votes.
"You're a one-sided crooked network,” Trump said. "Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time."
“I sat in the rain with you for an hour," he continued.
"On and off in the rain, and I’ve given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press. A country can never be great with a dishonest press," he said before walking away.
The tense exchange over voting fraud was the culmination of an interview in which Welker pressed the president on several topics.
They discussed the war with Iran, and Trump dismissed the idea that launching the war with Iran this year betrayed his campaign slogan of “No new wars.”
“First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” Trump said.
Trump also defended plans for a now-scrapped $1.8 billion fund that would have compensated allies of the Republican president.
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Following Trump's allegations of election fraud in California, Secretary of State Shirley Weber said that while Election Day has passed, California law allows county elections officials up to 30 days to complete the official canvass and process eligible ballots that remain outstanding.
"Accuracy comes before speed," Weber said in a statement. "California is the nation's largest voting state, with millions of ballots to process and count. Taking the time to do this work correctly protects voters' rights and ensures the integrity of our elections."
Under Assembly Bill 5, which took effect this year, counties are required to count and report most ballots by June 15. Certain ballot types are exempt from that deadline, including provisional ballots, conditional voter registration ballots, signature cure ballots, ballots requiring duplication, ballots forwarded from other counties and some late-arriving vote-by-mail ballots, according to Weber.
Election officials said results are expected to change throughout the canvass period as additional vote-by-mail, provisional and other ballots are processed and added to the totals.
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The frequency of updated election results will vary by county depending on the number of ballots remaining and the procedures used by local elections offices to tally and report votes, officials said.
County elections officials must submit their final results to the Secretary of State by July 3. The Secretary of State is scheduled to certify the election results by July 10.
State officials encouraged voters seeking additional information about the vote-counting process to visit the Secretary of State's website.
Trump alleged on social media that Democrats were attempting to influence the outcome of California primary races through the counting of vote-by-mail ballots. Trump claimed without providing evidence that there was "BIG cheating" in California and suggested the matter was under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: "The Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS."
Gov. Gavin Newsom responded on X, writing, "Trump is lying about California again — time to take the phone away from grandpa and put him to sleep."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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