Tipsheet

After Backlash, Trump Explains His ‘You Won’t Have to Vote Anymore’ Comment

Former President Donald Trump has come under fire for comments made to Christians last week, telling them during a summit that they won’t have to vote anymore if he’s elected. 

Christian-related concerns will be “fixed” so much after a second Trump term that they will no longer need to be politically engaged. 

"You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians," he said at Turning Point Action’s “Believers Summit” on Friday. 

Some on the left, including Vice President Kamala Harris, have argued he was suggesting there will no longer be elections if he wins. But in an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Trump explained he was referring to the fact that Christians do not vote in large numbers.

“That statement is very simple. 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,” Trump said.

“This time vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote. You can go back to not voting,” he added.

When Ingraham presented him with some of the ways the comment is being construed, Trump again came back to the point that Christians “vote in very small percentages.”

“Why? I don’t know. Maybe they’re disappointed in things that are happening,” Trump said. “I say, ‘You don’t vote. I’m saying go out, you must vote.’ But I said to the Christians in the room, thousands of them. I said typically, Christians do not vote.

“Don’t worry about the future,” he continued. “You have to vote on Nov. 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 … We won’t even need your vote anymore because, frankly, we will have such love.”