Donald Trump Doubles Down on Authoritarian Claim That Christians Will Never Have to Vote Again If They Elect Him

Donald Trump used an interview with Laura Ingraham on Monday to double down on his assertion that if Christians elect him this November, they won’t “have to vote again” in four years because he’ll have “fixed it so good.”

At first, Ingraham offered him the opportunity to backpedal and assure people he has no intent to interfere with future elections. “They’re saying that you said to a crowd of Christians that they won’t have to vote in the future,” she said during her Fox News segment. But the ex-president declined the lifeline. “Let me say what I mean by that,” Trump responded. “I had a tremendous crowd, speaking to Christians all in all—I mean, this was a crowd that liked me a lot.” He added that Christians are “treated very badly by this administration,” and that Catholics, in particular, are, “like, persecuted,” and then veered into antisemitism by claiming that Jewish people who voted for Democrats “should have [their] head examined.”

Then, he simply repeated his remarks from Friday, saying, “I said, ‘Vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again.’ It’s true. Because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group. They don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to ‘em. ‘You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country. You won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote.’”

Once again attempting to throw him a life jacket, Ingraham interjected, “You meant you don’t have to vote for you, because you’ll have four years in office.” In response, Trump started talking about a lack of voting by gun owners, to which Ingraham basically started begging. “It’s being interpreted—as you are not surprised to hear—by the left as, well, ‘They’re never going to have another election,’” she said. “So can you even just respond—”

But he couldn’t! Cutting her off, Trump returned to the idea that Christians “vote in very small percentages,” and then repeated his Friday message, saying, “Don’t worry about the future. You have to vote on November 5. After that, you don’t have to worry about voting anymore. I don’t care, because we’re going to fix it. The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore, because, frankly, we will have such love, if you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s okay.”

Sorry, Uncle Donny