By BRUCE LOWITT
More than 700 days before Americans go to the polls, Donald Trump claimed Tuesday his 2024 election for a second term as president has been stolen by a rigged election due to fraudulent ballots, illegal voters, defective voting machines and interference by China.
“This election is about great voter fraud that has never been seen before, except for the exact same claims I made before the 2020 election,” Trump said, brandishing a calendar with Tuesday, Nov. 5, circled by a Sharpie and his photo pasted over the date. “See, this is how it’s supposed to be.”
Kari Lake, his newly-named vice presidential running mate (“Why should Sleepy Joe have the only VP with a pussy?” Trump said), insisted the 2022 midterms destroyed the Republican Party and that Trump would have won the election two years from now “if QAnon, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers hadn’t been barred from setting up their own heavily armed checkpoints around polling places.”
The twice-impeached and soon-to-be-indicted former president said his Trump Save America and Pay All My Alimony and Legal Bills to Keep Me Out Of Prison Joint Fundraising Committee had raised $23-million in its first 12 hours.
“This campaign is not about issues, vision or success,” Trump said. “We tried that the last time and nobody cared. This campaign is about me, just me, nobody else – and also how much money I can shovel into storerooms in Mar-a-Lago now that I’ve moved all my documents – and they’re all personal – somewhere else.
“It isn’t about law and order or immigration or inflation or any of that s***. And I got ninety-one million votes to what’s-his-name’s seventy-eight million, but Antifa and the rest of the socialist left made sure that thirty million of mine weren’t counted.”
Meanwhile, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, two notable election deniers, refused to accept the outcome of the 2022 midterms and say they will go to court to overturn the results despite their victories.
“You can’t convince me I didn’t steal this election, just like Joseph Rabinowitz Biden stole the presidency two years ago,” Greene, R-Jerusalem, told a gathering of her befuddled supporters in Georgia. “And before we go any further, let me clear up two things.
“First of all, because my husband, who’s a real smeck … smook … smock – am I using that word right? – is divorcing me, Greene’s no longer my last name, so don’t call me MTG. My last name’s Taylor, so consider me MT and say it that way. MT. Got it? MT. That’s me. I’m MT and I want everyone to know it.
“And second, I live in Jerusalem, Georgia, now because I recently bought a nearby restaurant and live above it.” Asked for its name, she mumbled. Asked again, she shouted, “Okay, it’s the Manhattan New York Deli and Bagel on Old Milton Parkway. But I’m not Jewish! None of my best friends are Jewish! Nobody I know is Jewish!”
Gosar, like Taylor (Greene), insisted his successful re-election was clearly the result of fraud. He said he would be challenging the vote in the Nevada Court of Appeals, even though he was running unopposed in Arizona’s Ninth Congressional District, “because I don’t trust Democratic judges in Arizona.”
According to the final tally by the Maricopa County Elections Office, Gosar received two votes, from himself and his wife, Maude. That was enough for The Associated Press to declare him the winner 13 seconds after the polls closed.
More than 32,000 votes in Gosar’s race – none of them officially counted because they weren’t legitimate or real candidates – went to voters’ dead relatives, Arizona’s college and professional star athletes and cartoon characters. And a remarkable 47,832 voters wrote on their ballot, “No, because he’s a dentist.”
lowittlowdown 