Donald Trump lashed out at a reporter for asking him why he was able to vote by mail despite blasting the voting option for Americans as “cheating.”
The run-in happened on Thursday during the Q&A section of a Cabinet meeting, during which PBS White House correspondent Liz Landers noted that Trump himself “recently” voted by mail.
“Tell me about mail-in ballots, go ahead,” he told Landers, cutting her off while she was speaking. He acknowledged that he has in fact exercised the right to mail a ballot in.
“You mean, I used a mail-in ballot, you probably said? Yeah, I did,” Trump continued. “You know why? Because I’m President of the United States. And because of the fact that I’m President of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida — because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine.”
“But you were in Palm Beach, sir, the last few weekends,” Landers replied.
“That’s right,” Trump replied. “I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn’t be there because I had a lot of different things.”
He went on to say that there are “exceptions” to his push against mail-in voting while defending himself and his decision.
“We have exceptions for mail-in ballots. You do know that, right? So if you’re away, we have an exception,” Trump said. “If you’re in the military, we have an exception. If you are on a business trip, we would have an exceptions. If you disabled, we’d have an exception. And if you are ill, if you aren’t feeling good. So I was away. Mostly in Washington, D.C., so I used a mail-in ballot.”
He closed out his remarks by sarcastically claiming that he appreciated Landers’ question.
“Because I know it was so well-meaning,” Trump quipped.
You can watch the full exchange in the clip above.
