{"id":207127,"date":"2026-03-26T17:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/207127\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T17:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T17:00:12","slug":"trump-explains-why-he-cast-a-mail-ballot-in-floridas-election-because-im-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/207127\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump explains why he cast a mail ballot in Florida’s election: ‘Because I’m president’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just days after calling mail-in voting, “mail-in cheating,” President Donald Trump on Thursday explained why he decided to cast a mail ballot<\/a> in a recent Florida special election.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what, because I\u2019m president of the United States, and because of the fact that I\u2019m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida,\u201d he told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. <\/p>\n

\u201cI decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn\u2019t be there, because I had a lot of different things,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In-person early voting was available in Florida\u2019s House District 87 special election from March 14 through March 22 at two locations<\/a> in Palm Beach County, including on weekends, a staffer at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office confirmed to NBC News over the phone on Thursday. <\/p>\n

Trump spent the second weekend of early voting, March 20 through March 22, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. He was at his golf course that weekend.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the actual day of the election, Trump hosted a swearing-in ceremony<\/a> for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin at the White House. He also participated in several policy meetings, per his public schedule.<\/p>\n

As recently as Monday, Trump again criticized the practice of casting mail ballots. <\/p>\n

“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating,” he said during a roundtable on reducing crime rates in Memphis, Tennessee. <\/p>\n

The president has long-attacked mail-in ballots, often saying, without evidence, that they cause widespread election fraud<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In 2020, Trump also acknowledged casting a mail ballot, saying at the time that he did so, “Because I\u2019m allowed to<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big difference between somebody who is out of state and does a ballot and everything is sealed and certified and everything else,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cI think mail-in voting is a terrible thing. I think if you vote, you should go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday’s comments come amid Trump’s push to pass a massive elections overhaul bill in Congress called the SAVE America Act. It would not end mail-in voting, although Trump has suggested in public comments that it would. <\/p>\n

In a post on Truth Social<\/a> Sunday, the president urged Republicans not to make a deal with Democrats to end the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown, “UNLESS it includes their approval of Voter I.D., (with picture!), Citizenship to Vote, No Mail-In Voting (with exceptions), All Paper Ballots, No Men In Women\u2019s Sports, and No Transgender MUTILIZATION of our precious children.” <\/p>\n

In his comments at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, the president explained that his mail-in ballot in this week’s election qualified as part of an “exception.”<\/p>\n

“You know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots? You do know that, right?” Trump said.<\/p>\n

“So, if you’re away, we have an exception. If you’re in the military, we have an exception. If you’re on a business trip, we have an exception. If you’re disabled, we have an exception. And if you’re ill, if you’re not feeling good. So I was away mostly in Washington, D.C., so I used a mail in ballot,” he added.<\/p>\n

On Monday, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said it was a \u201cnon-story\u201d that Trump had cast a mail ballot. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel \u2014 but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it\u2019s highly susceptible to fraud,\u201d she said in a statement to NBC News. \u201cAs everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Tuesday’s special election, Democrat Emily Gregory flipped the statehouse district<\/a> from Republicans to Democrats, beating Republican Jon Maples, who’d been endorsed by Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just days after calling mail-in voting, “mail-in cheating,” President Donald Trump on Thursday explained why he decided to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-207127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}