Three prominent Republicans It doesn't bother people that Donald Trump promised his supporters that in four years they “won't have to vote anymore” because “we're going to fix it so well you won't have to vote.”
On Sunday, Gov. Chris Sununu called the comments “classic Trumpism,” while Sen. Tom Cotton said Trump was “clearly joking,” and Sen. Lindsey Graham laughed and claimed Trump meant, “Give me four more years, and I’m going to right the ship called America and hand it over to the next generation.” (That’s pretty clear.) no (What Trump said.)
Trump's comments came during a speech at the Turning Point Action Believers conference in Florida on Friday. He told the crowd: “Go out and vote just this once. You won't have to do it anymore. It'll be fixed in four more years. It'll be all right. You won't have to vote anymore, beautiful Christians.”
“You have to go out and vote. In four years, you won't have to vote again. We're going to fix it so well that you won't have to vote,” the former president added.
While Republicans are happy to dismiss Trump’s comments, Democrats, on the other hand, see them as a threat. “The only way you don’t have to vote anymore is if Donald Trump becomes a dictator,” Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“This year, democracy is on the ballot, and if we want to save it, we have to vote against tyranny,” Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat running for the California Senate, said on Channel X. “Trump is a helpful reminder that the alternative is never getting the chance to vote again.”
Sununu claimed that when Trump said things would be “fixed,” he simply meant that he would fix the country. “Obviously we want everybody to vote in every election, but I think he was just trying to make an exaggerated point that things could be fixed as long as he got back in office and all that,” Sununu said during an appearance on ABC. this week.
“I think he’s clearly joking about how bad things are under Joe Biden and how good they’ll be if we send President Trump back to the White House so we can turn the country around again,” Cotton said in an interview with CNN. State of the Union.
“He's trying to tell the Christian community and anyone else who will listen,” Graham said during an interview on CBS. Face the nation “The nightmare we are living will soon be over. Give me four more years, and I will fix this ship called America and hand her over to the next generation.”
“We are going to have democracy, God willing, for a very long time in this country,” Graham added. “But what President Trump is trying to say to people is, ‘I did it once, and I can do it again.’”
Most often, Sunday TV hosts were happy to let Republicans make their case without any resistance.
But Trump’s comments on Friday aren’t the only time the former president has hinted at — or explicitly endorsed — undermining democracy. He infamously tried to pressure Georgia officials to “find” more votes for him in the state after the 2020 election. He told his supporters on Jan. 6 — the day Congress voted to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election — to “fight like hell” or “you won’t have a country anymore.” His supporters then marched on the Capitol in an attempt to derail the certification. Earlier this year, Trump made comments that he planned to abuse his power “on day one” and followed those remarks by saying he wanted to “be a dictator for a day.”
“You know why I wanted to be a dictator? Because I want to build a wall, and I want to dig, dig, dig,” Trump said.
Given this record, it is disturbing that Republicans are trying to convince the American people not to take his words seriously.
