{"id":38213,"date":"2026-06-08T15:56:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T15:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/38213\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T15:56:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T15:56:38","slug":"trump-storms-off-meet-the-press-over-baseless-california-election-fraud-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/38213\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump storms off ‘Meet the Press’ over baseless California election fraud claim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump shut down an interview with NBC News after host Kristen Welker pushed back on his unproven assertions that elections in California on Tuesday were rigged.<\/p>\n

During a lengthy interview in Wisconsin that aired on \u201cMeet the Press\u201d on Sunday, Trump echoed claims he made in recent days<\/a> \u2014 without providing evidence \u2014 that officials in California were \u201ccheating,\u201d because after four days, they \u201caren\u2019t even close\u201d to finishing the ballot counting.<\/p>\n

With more than 70% of the vote in on Sunday, veteran Democratic politician Xavier Becerra was about a percentage point ahead of Republican Steve Hilton in the governor\u2019s race. In the Los Angeles mayoral race, City Councilmember Nithya Raman moved ahead of former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt by less than a percentage point as of Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have evidence to support that?\u201d Welker asked Trump about his cheating claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I have to do is look,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut sir, that\u2019s not evidence. That\u2019s how they count the votes in California,\u201d Welker said. She added that state and local officials acknowledge they are slow.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, they\u2019re crooked \u2026 just like you\u2019re crooked. Your press is crooked and \u2018Meet the Press\u2019 is crooked,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re either crooked or you\u2019re stupid,\u201d he went on. \u201cYou know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they\u2019re rigged.\u201d<\/p>\n

The back-and-forth continued until Trump decided to \u201ccall it quits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had enough,\u201d he said, removing the microphone from his lapel and tossing it to the floor. \u201cThank you, darling, have a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Welker tried to convince him to finish the interview, he added: \u201cA country can never be great with a dishonest press.\u201d <\/p>\n

And eventually he walked off.<\/p>\n

A misreading of voting data<\/a> in the Los Angeles mayoral race late on election night has fueled the false narrative that Trump and other Republicans have pushed in recent days that California Democrats were cheating. The claim was that in one vote count update, one candidate received zero votes. First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said on X that the claim was false, and \u201ceach candidate received votes in every update.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essayli has confirmed on X that his office \u201chas multiple election fraud investigations underway,\u201d in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

In another post, he asked witnesses to come forward: \u201cWe want to hear from you,\u201d Essayli posted. \u201cPlease do not send rumors, theories, or second-hand information.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump shut down an interview with NBC News after host Kristen Welker pushed back on his unproven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[11832,55,22186,408,10208,609,8,1000,22185,306,9,22182,22183,4464,7,1071,22184,742],"class_list":["post-38213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-bill-essayli","tag-california","tag-california-election-claim","tag-candidate","tag-claim","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-interview","tag-los-angeles-mayoral-race","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-news","tag-press","tag-recent-day","tag-sunday","tag-top-stories","tag-trump","tag-trump-storm","tag-vote"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116715309328442030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}