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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) blasted President Trump’s primetime speech on Thursday in which he cast doubt on the security of U.S. election systems, warning that the president would use it as a precursor to meddle in the upcoming midterms.
Newsom likened the speech to the “ramblings of a mad king” in a 53-second video posted on social media, suggesting it presented a “legitimate” case for Trump’s removal under the 25th Amendment.
“Well, the only thing missing tonight in Donald Trump’s speech was tin foil,” the governor said in an apparent reference to Trump’s widely unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
“Foreign interference in our elections, that’s a real thing,” Newsom continued. “Nothing about what you watched tonight, though, was real. It’s make-believe.”
The California governor, a possible 2028 presidential contender who has emerged as one of Trump’s most outspoken critics, cautioned that the president wants to “rig” the November election because “he knows he’s going to lose.”
“He needs to rig the election before one vote was cast,” Newsom argued. “That’s what that whole thing was about tonight.”
Trump’s waning popularity has become cause for concern among Republicans ahead of the midterms, which are already historically much harder for the incumbent president’s party.
Some GOP members of Congress told reporters this week that they were not eager for the president to rehash old, unproven claims, fearing it could detract from their policy wins.
Trump announced during his speech that he would declassify documents that revealed “shocking” vulnerabilities in voting machines and alleged Chinese meddling in his 2020 loss to former President Biden.
But an Associated Press analysis found little new information in the tranche of documents released by the White House, some of which were so heavily redacted that the findings were unclear.
Newsom on Thursday urged voters not to “fall prey to cynicism, fear and anxiety” in the months ahead.
“We can step up and step in, mobilize, organize, not agonize and turn out in record numbers this November and end Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it,” he said.
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