Donald Trump just couldn’t back up his outlandish claims about voter fraud during an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman that aired Tuesday.
During the 45-minute interview, Fridman asked Trump directly if he felt that Kamala Harris should be challenged more by the press. In response, the Republican nominee started rattling off false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
“I don’t know. I can’t believe the whole thing is happening. We had a man in there that should’ve never been in there. They kept him in a basement, they used Covid, they cheated, but they used Covid to cheat. They cheated without Covid, too,” Trump said . Moments later, the former president claimed he had “lost by a whisker” in 2020.
Later, Fridman tried to delicately ask Trump about what he would say to convince independent voters who were “troubled by what happened in the 2020 election” to vote for him. Fridman specifically referred to Trump’s unsupported claims about widespread voter fraud, and his administration’s alleged fake electors scheme. Despite Fridman’s softball approach, Trump doubled down on his disturbing rhetoric, before quickly swerving off topic.
“I think the fraud was on the other side. I think the election was a fraud, and many people felt it was that. And they wanted answers. And when you can’t challenge an election—you have to be able to challenge it, otherwise it’s gonna get worse, not better,” Trump said. He explained that there were lots of ways to “solve this problem” to prevent noncitizens from voting, including paper ballots, same-day voting, and stricter voter identification.
In reality, there is very little evidence to suggest that noncitizen voting is a major problem in the U.S. In 2016, noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. As it happens, the only people concocting a scheme to fake votes in the last election were in Trump’s camp .
“So, uhhhh look, we have the worst border in the history of the world. We have, coming into our country right now, millions and millions of people, at levels that nobody’s ever seen. I don’t believe any country has ever seen it. We have, coming into our country right now, millions of people. And they would use sticks and stones not to make it happen, not to let it happen,” Trump said, seeming increasingly confused as he descended into one of his typical anti-immigrant stump speeches.
Trump went on to complain about Harris as the “border czar,” which was never her official position, and continued to tout baseless claims that countries from around the world were offloading their people from prisons, mental institutions, and insane asylums to the U.S. After about three minutes of Trump’s blatant fearmongering, Fridman tried to ask his original question a different way, so that it might actually elicit a real answer.
“So, a lot of people believe that there was some shady stuff that went on with the election. Whether it’s media bias or big tech. Still, the claim of widespread fraud was the thing that bothers people,” Fridman said, but Trump easily bypassed his gentle phrasing.
“Well, I don’t focus on the past, I focus on the future,” Trump said, before diving into a lengthy rehashing of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was, of course, also the past.
Fridman tried one last time to get an actual response from Trump. “Let me just linger on the election a little—a little bit more. For this election, it might be a close one. What can we do to avoid the insanity and division of the previous election? Whether you win or lose,” Fridman asked.
“Well I hope it’s not a close one. I don’t know how people can vote for someone who destroyed our country,” Trump said, before turning back to immigration.
The former president’s softball interview with Fridman was littered with several particularly off moments for a low-energy Trump.
“I get very big audiences, and you know, for many people it’s virtually impossible to get up and speak for an hour and half and have nobody leave,” Trump bragged at one point. “You know, it’s not an easy thing to do, and it’s an ability.”
Of course, there is some well-documented evidence that plenty of onlookers choose to cut out on Trump’s incoherent speeches early—and even Fox News doesn’t play them all the way through anymore.
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