| | | | What Donald Trump doesn't know about voter fraud is a lot |  | | On Wednesday, the Daily Caller, a conservative website, sat down with President Donald Trump for a "wide ranging" interview. (Is there any other kind?)
One of the questions the Caller's reporters asked Trump focused on his unverified claims about voter fraud in Florida. Here's how he responded: "When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It's really a disgrace what's going on. If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID. They try to shame everybody by calling them racist, or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing."
Uh, what?
This isn't the first time -- in the last week! -- that the President of the United States has made fact-free claims about voter fraud in races around the country.
"The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged," Trump tweeted about the Florida Senate and governor's election, without evidence.
"Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON'T MATCH," Trump tweeted, without evidence. "Electoral corruption - Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!"
This line from the Daily Caller interview may be the weirdest: "If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID"?
What's even more amazing is that this isn't the first time the President has made the connection between buying food and having a voter ID.
"You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID," Trump said in a speech in Florida in August. "You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture."
That's not true, as CNN's Veronica Stracqualursi noted at the time. She wrote:
"Photo ID is required when purchasing alcohol or cigarettes, and occasionally when verifying purchases made with a credit card. In a small number of states, identification photos are included on food stamp cards for low-income families, and several chains, such as Costco, may require identification when applying for membership."
The broader point here is that Trump's claims of voter fraud are hugely spurious. Study after study has shown that there is simply zero evidence of widespread voter fraud. One, in which Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt tracked US elections from 2000 to 2014 in search of voter fraud, or, as he put it, "specific, credible allegation that someone may have pretended to be someone else at the polls," found a total of 31 out of more than 1 billion instances. 31!
The Point: Donald Trump can keep making false claims about alleged voter fraud. But simply repeating a documented falsehood doesn't make it true.
-- Chris | | "If Stacey Abrams doesn't win in Georgia, they stole it."
-- Ohio's Sherrod Brown, potential Democratic 2020 contender, weighing in on the ongoing vote-counting battle in the still-uncalled Georgia governor race. | | | The President is NOT happy.
CNN got a closer look at how Donald Trump is "pissed -- at damn near everyone."
By 10(!) of our colleagues, Kevin Liptak, Jeff Zeleny, Dana Bash, Gloria Borger, Kate Bennett, Jeremy Diamond, Kaitlan Collins, Pamela Brown, Sarah Westwood and Noah Gray, the curtain-raiser paints a picture of a President isolated and growing more furious by the day -- in part because of his party's midterm shellacking in the House. | | | Rhett Miller writes incredibly catchy pop songs -- whether he's fronting the Old 97's or on his own. His latest solo effort -- "The Messenger" -- is filled with tunes you will find yourself humming hours after you listen. | | 2012's Republican running mates ran into each other in their new digs this morning and shared an adorable hug followed by a warm handshake.
Paul Ryan tweeted: "An old friend dropped by to ask for directions to his new office."
Bonus style points for the roaring fire in Ryan's fireplace, nicely captured in the video. So cozy! | |
DETANGLING THE FLORIDA LEGALESE 🐊 | | Can't keep up with what's happening in the chaotic Florida recount? Join the club.
Our colleagues Matthew Hilk, Aaron Cooper and Dan Merica have a handy roundup of the legal storm bearing down on the Sunshine State's still-unresolved races for Senate and governor (plus a few other down-ballot races). Here are just some of the lawsuits pending related to the recounts between Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and GOP challenger Rick Scott, plus Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis.
For starters: - Democrats are suing over signature matching
- Democrats sue to lift all Florida recount deadlines
- Groups sue to force Rick Scott to recuse himself
- Democrats sue over "voter intent" with undervotes and overvotes
- State house candidate sues to extend recount in Palm Beach County
- Democrats sue to allow the count of ballots that arrived late by mail
- Rick Scott is suing the Broward Supervisor of elections
and the list goes on.... | | It's eight days post-Election Day and the CNN's Decision Desk still has nine unresolved House races.
The current balance of power:
Democrats – 226
Republicans – 200
Democrats have made a net gain of 31 seats
More on those nine unresolved races, from CNN's polling pro Jennifer Agiesta: CA-39, CA-45, CA-48, CA-49 – Waiting for vote counts here. California leaves a substantial share of its votes uncounted on election night, and the margins in these seats remain too close for a projection until we know how many votes remain to be counted. Vote counts are updated in each of these seats just about every day. The decision desk is aware that The Associated Press has projected the races in CA-48 and CA-49, CNN has not yet made projections in these contests. GA-7, NJ-3, NM-2, UT-4 – In each of these districts, we are awaiting clarification on the number of ballots still to be counted; there were not substantial updates to the vote count in any of them over the weekend. ME-2 – No candidate has received 50% of the vote, and the secretary of state has confirmed that Maine will conduct an automatic runoff using its new ranked choice voting tabulation process. We expect the final results of that count this week. | |  | | From Brenna: "Your friends, the first time they open The Point!" | | | | | | |
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