'Beaten and Disinterested' Trump Makes 'Flaccid' Claim That Midterms Were Rigged

As Republicans reel from last week's "blue tsunami" midterm wipeout, President Donald Trump—who previously congratulated Democrats on their historic takeback of both houses of Congress—on Monday reverted to the kind of election denial that sparked the 2021 Capitol insurrection, making a baseless claim of voting machine fraud.

“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote. It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!”

The polls, which widely forecast Democrats reclaiming one or both chambers of Congress, were largely accurate. And despite a handful of localized issues with voting machines, there is no evidence of any widespread problems.

On Election Night, Trump said during a phone call to Fox News: "Congratulations to the Democrats. I think the Democrats did a good job. I really do. I think they did a good job. They fought hard. They were, you know, they've been fighting for a long time. They've been fighting me for a long time. This fight's been going on for ages."

However, as unfounded claims of fraud proliferated on social media—and amid posts promoting a January 3 "Million Crusader Cross March" on the Capitol headlined by racist provocateur Jake Lang—the president changed his tune.

"Trump now claims the midterms were rigged," noted the political action group Blue Georgia. "It was just a matter of time."

Conspiracy theory journalist Mike Rothschild said on Bluesky: "After a week of meekly accepting the midterm results, Trump has veered into 'the machines are rigged' denial." But this is a pale shadow of 2020 denialism. He sounds beaten and disinterested."

Former Chicago Tribune metro editor Mark Jacobs also took to Bluesky, touting his prediction that the president would cry fraud and writing, "I knew Trump could never resist the impulse to declare that the election was rigged if he lost."

"The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said on X, "Lather, rinse, repeat."

Former Obama and Biden administration appointee Andrew Weinstein said: "Losing isn't proof of fraud. It's proof you lost."

Tangle News founder Isaac Saul also took to X, opining that Trump's denial "feels pretty flaccid."

"Nobody *actually* thinks these results are nefarious, and it seems like there's a lot of impatience on the right with anyone suggesting these losses were due to fraud and not policy," he added. "Even Trump seems to be offering this as an afterthought."

That right-wing impatience was evident in just two words from commentator Megyn Kelly, who posted, "Just stop."