President Obama ridiculed Donald Trump’s suggestion Thursday that the presidential election could be rigged, calling his claim “ridiculous.”
“Of course the elections will not be rigged,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference. “What does that mean?”
The president said the federal government doesn’t control elections.
“If Mr. Trump is suggesting there is a conspiracy theory that’s being propagated across the country including places like Texas, where typically it’s not Democrats who are in charge of voting booths, that’s ridiculous,” the president said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Earlier this week, Mr. Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News, “I’m telling you, November 8th, we’d better be careful, because that election is going to be rigged. I hope the Republicans are watching closely or it’s going to be taken away from us.”
Dismissing the Republican nominee’s comments this week, the president said, “I’ve never heard about somebody complain about being cheated before the game was over. My suggestion would be, go out there and try to win the election.”
“If Mr. Trump is up 10 or 15 points on Election Day and ends up losing, then maybe he can raise some questions,” Mr. Obama said. “That doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment. This will be an election like every other election.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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