Florida’s Senate and gubernatorial elections appear to be heading toward recounts. Arizona’s Senate race remains too close to call, but Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) is now seen as a favorite over Rep. Martha McSally (R) as votes continue to be counted after Tuesday’s midterms.
None of this is unusual. There are typically several races that extend beyond Election Day every two years. It can take a while to count all of the ballots and declare a winner in a close election, especially in highly-populated areas where votes must be counted by hand or require additional verification after being sent by mail, which is the case in both of these states.
But perfectly logical explanations were not enough for President Alex Jones Donald Trump, who told reporters that “all of a sudden” Florida election officials were “finding votes out of nowhere,” and a Democratic lawyer behind the effort to count votes was connected the infamous Steele Dossier, before departing for Paris on Friday.
Though the Washington Post noted “there is no evidence that the votes being counted in Broward County are anything other than legitimate votes cast by Florida voters,” the president of the United States didn’t stop there.
Aboard Air Force One and apparently with some time to kill before reaching France, Trump sent a string of tweets that rank among the most paranoid and irresponsible of his presidency, baselessly claiming that Democrats are tampering with vote counts and suggesting there might be a need for another Senate election.
It started with the president mocking special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which has already resulted in more than 100 criminal charges against dozens of people, including guilty pleas from Trump’s former national security adviser, former campaign manager, and multiple former campaign advisers.
You mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgia – but the Election was on Tuesday? Let’s blame the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
Trump then assured his supporters that he was “sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!” of people in diverse areas voting for Democrats.
As soon as Democrats sent their best Election stealing lawyer, Marc Elias, to Broward County they miraculously started finding Democrat votes. Don’t worry, Florida – I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
The president put a pin in his galaxy-brain thinking to take a shot at outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake (R).
Jeff Flake(y) doesn’t want to protect the Non-Senate confirmed Special Counsel, he wants to protect his future after being unelectable in Arizona for the “crime” of doing a terrible job! A weak and ineffective guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
But Trump soon returned to ranting about conspiracy theories regarding the counting of votes in Florida, suggesting without evidence that Broward County officials took a while to count votes during the 2016 presidential election because they wanted to hurt him and “falsify a victory!”
Rick Scott was up by 50,000+ votes on Election Day, now they “found” many votes and he is only up 15,000 votes. “The Broward Effect.” How come they never find Republican votes?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
Mayor Gillum conceded on Election Day and now Broward County has put him “back into play.” Bill Nelson conceded Election – now he’s back in play!? This is an embarrassment to our Country and to Democracy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
In the 2016 Election I was winning by so much in Florida that Broward County, which was very late with vote tabulation and probably getting ready to do a “number,” couldn’t do it because not enough people live in Broward for them to falsify a victory!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
Thank you @marcorubio for helping to expose the potential corruption going on with respect to Election Theft in Broward and Palm Beach Counties. The WORLD is now watching closely!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
Then, in perhaps the most unhinged tweet of the president’s busy Friday on Twitter, Trump shifted his focus to Arizona and asked whether it was time to “Call for a new Election?”
Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON’T MATCH. Electoral corruption – Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
NPR’s Domenico Montanaro spotted the obvious flaw in Trump’s theory regarding voter verification in Arizona.
This isn’t how this works. If signatures don’t match, they aren’t counted. Check with the Republican Secretary of State in this state. https://t.co/N9CvI8ybWo
— Domenico Montanaro (@DomenicoNPR) November 9, 2018
Crooked Media’s Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, noted it seemed like Trump was taking a practice run for possibly losing the 2020 presidential election.
It’s important to understand that Trump is trying set the stage for calling into question the integrity of the 2020 election if he loses https://t.co/ZFXHfLtVkC
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) November 9, 2018
Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz, in his ongoing public service of watching Fox News so the rest of us don’t have to, determined that state media at Fox was indeed the likely inspiration for Trump’s latest conspiracy theory about the left.
Marc Elias, the Democratic lawyer who Trump mentioned on Twitter on Friday, was discussed during Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Thursday night.
6. Brian Kilmeade was the first at Fox to mention the Elias-Fusion connection, bringing in up while guest-hosting Tucker Carlson’s 8 pm show in an interview with Marco Rubio.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 9, 2018
Then Sean Hannity screamed about Elias in the following hour of Fox programming.
7. Sean Hannity yelled about it the next hour during his monologue, saying Elias had been at the “center of the biggest corruption scandal, abuse of power scandal in our history.”
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 9, 2018
8. Hannity brought it up again later in the show while interviewing Rick Scott.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 9, 2018
And then Elias was mentioned multiple times during Friday’s edition of Fox & Friends, Trump’s favorite morning “news” source.
9. The story came up twice this morning on Fox & Friends, the president’s favorite show. Here’s Brian Kilmeade at the top of the 6 am hour:
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 9, 2018
10. And here he is again at the top of the 7 am hour.
Between these references and his work last night, Brian Kilmeade is probably the person most responsible for Trump talking about this.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 9, 2018
Gertz noticed that Trump’s tweet about the close Arizona Senate contest appeared to be the president live-tweeting Fox programming from Air Force One.
Hard to overstate how dangerously irresponsible this one is. Also a Fox live-tweet.
Left, Fox, 3:07 pm
“The [Arizona] Republican Party sued over ballots where the signature either wasn’t there or didn’t match.”
Right, Trump, 3:33 pm
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 9, 2018
Trump’s mention of GPS Fusion is a reference to the Steele Dossier that the president falsely claims has been discredited. In fact, the opposite is true and much of what Christopher Steele, a former member of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, reported about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia has been found to be credible by intelligence officials.
If you are confused about how we got from Florida to Russia at this point, which is completely understandable, the Washington Post’s Philip Bump provided a helpful step-by-step explainer to Trump’s “logic.”
1. Broward County is counting ballots.
2. Those votes, coming from a heavily Democratic area, are benefiting Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson’s campaign.
3. Nelson’s campaign attorney once worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
4. During that period, he hired Fusion GPS.
5. Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele.
6. Steele compiled a series of reports alleging links between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government.
7. Therefore, according to Trump, the vote count in Broward is perhaps being influenced by “dishonest” Fusion GPS.
Again, large areas taking a while to count votes is nothing new. California, the largest state with an estimated 20 million voters, always takes weeks to certify its election results. The Los Angeles Times pointed out that “Two counties alone — Los Angeles and Orange — have more voters than 30 states.” Broward and Palm Beach Counties, the ones that Trump is mad about, are the 17th and 28th-largest counties in the country in terms of population.
Arizona’s Maricopa County, which contains Phoenix, is the fourth-most populous county in the U.S. with around four million citizens.
The part-time president of the United States and full-time Fox News viewer is not the only Republican promoting conspiracy theories about vote counts. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) alleged that Democrats are trying to “steal a seat in the U.S. Senate” in a series of frantic tweets on Thursday afternoon.
Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL), who is attempting to defeat incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), accused “unethical liberals” of trying to take a Senate seat away from him by asking to have all of the votes counted on Thursday evening.