Just days after calling mail-in voting, “mail-in cheating,” President Donald Trump on Thursday explained why he decided to cast a mail ballot in a recent Florida special election.
“You know what, because I’m president of the United States, and because of the fact that I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida,” he told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn’t be there, because I had a lot of different things,” he added.
In-person early voting was available in Florida’s House District 87 special election from March 14 through March 22 at two locations in Palm Beach County, including on weekends, a staffer at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office confirmed to NBC News over the phone on Thursday.
Trump spent the second weekend of early voting, March 20 through March 22, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. He was at his golf course that weekend.
On Tuesday, the actual day of the election, Trump hosted a swearing-in ceremony for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin at the White House. He also participated in several policy meetings, per his public schedule.
As recently as Monday, Trump again criticized the practice of casting mail ballots.
“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating,” he said during a roundtable on reducing crime rates in Memphis, Tennessee.
The president has long-attacked mail-in ballots, often saying, without evidence, that they cause widespread election fraud.
In 2020, Trump also acknowledged casting a mail ballot, saying at the time that he did so, “Because I’m allowed to.”
“There’s a big difference between somebody who is out of state and does a ballot and everything is sealed and certified and everything else,” he said at the time. “I think mail-in voting is a terrible thing. I think if you vote, you should go.”
Thursday’s comments come amid Trump’s push to pass a massive elections overhaul bill in Congress called the SAVE America Act. It would not end mail-in voting, although Trump has suggested in public comments that it would.
In a post on Truth Social Sunday, the president urged Republicans not to make a deal with Democrats to end the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown, “UNLESS it includes their approval of Voter I.D., (with picture!), Citizenship to Vote, No Mail-In Voting (with exceptions), All Paper Ballots, No Men In Women’s Sports, and No Transgender MUTILIZATION of our precious children.”
In his comments at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, the president explained that his mail-in ballot in this week’s election qualified as part of an “exception.”
“You know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots? You do know that, right?” Trump said.
“So, if you’re away, we have an exception. If you’re in the military, we have an exception. If you’re on a business trip, we have an exception. If you’re disabled, we have an exception. And if you’re ill, if you’re not feeling good. So I was away mostly in Washington, D.C., so I used a mail in ballot,” he added.
On Monday, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said it was a “non-story” that Trump had cast a mail ballot.
“As President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel — but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud,” she said in a statement to NBC News. “As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C.”
In Tuesday’s special election, Democrat Emily Gregory flipped the statehouse district from Republicans to Democrats, beating Republican Jon Maples, who’d been endorsed by Trump.
