{"id":352973,"date":"2026-06-09T11:27:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352973\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T11:27:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:27:46","slug":"trumps-doj-pretends-california-election-conspiracy-theories-are-worth-taking-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352973\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s DOJ pretends California election conspiracy theories are worth taking seriously"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump spent much of last week railing against California\u2019s recent statewide primaries<\/a>, baselessly insisting the slow process of tallying ballots must reflect a \u201crigged\u201d system. This week, the president picked up where he left off.<\/p>\n

In the early hours of Monday morning, he used his social media platform to argue<\/a> there\u2019s \u201cno way\u201d a candidate he liked has fallen behind in response to an updated vote count. Hours later, he emphasized the same point, insisting it\u2019s \u201cnot possible\u201d<\/a> for his preferred candidate in Los Angeles\u2019 mayoral race to lose ground as more ballots are counted.<\/p>\n

None of that made logical sense, but it is part of an exasperating effort to undermine public confidence. During his latest \u201cMeet the Press\u201d appearance, the president was even more aggressive on the issue, making all kinds of unfounded allegations. When NBC News\u2019 Kristen Welker asked him to substantiate his claims with evidence, Trump replied<\/a>, \u201cAll I have to do is look.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the host explained that that wasn\u2019t evidence, the Republican added, \u201cAnd I listen to people.\u201d (He didn\u2019t say who, what they were saying or why he found these unnamed people to be more credible than official election results.)<\/p>\n

The problem, however, is not just hysterical conspiracy-mongering, all of which is demonstrably incorrect<\/a>, from a president who has long railed against election results he doesn\u2019t like. Just as important as what Trump is saying is what Team Trump is doing. NBC News reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\tRecommended<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSteve Benen<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSteve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of\u00a0MaddowBlog\u00a0and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tLatest Post\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tTrump \u2018thunderously booed\u2019 while attending NBA Finals Game 3 in New York City<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump spent much of last week railing against California\u2019s recent statewide primaries, baselessly insisting the slow process…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-352973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}