Trump Says He Has Seen No Evidence of Cheating in the Election, but Nonetheless Sows Doubts

Trump Says He Has Seen No Evidence of Cheating in the Election, but Nonetheless Sows Doubts

The former president, asked at a news conference in storm-damaged North Carolina if he had seen anything to suggest the election would be unfair, said, “I have not seen that.”

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By Michael Gold

Reporting from Swannanoa, N.C., and Greenville, N.C.

With early voting underway in many states, former President Donald J. Trump acknowledged Monday that he had seen no signs of cheating, even as he continued to sow doubts about the integrity of the election during a campaign swing through North Carolina.

Mr. Trump has long relentlessly contended that Democrats are conspiring to rig the election on Nov. 5, suggesting that his support is so strong that fraud is the only way he might lose. His accusation, for which he has not provided any details or proof, builds on his lie that he won the 2020 election. That claim is now at the heart of two criminal cases that accuse him of engaging in illegal activity in his effort to overturn the election four years ago.

At a news conference in a storm-damaged part of western North Carolina, Mr. Trump was asked by a reporter whether he had seen any evidence to suggest this year’s election would not be fair.

“Well, I haven’t,” Mr. Trump said. He added, referring to Democrats, “Unfortunately, I know the other side, and they are not good. But I have not seen that.”

Mr. Trump then looked behind him to Michael Whatley, his handpicked chairman of the Republican National Committee. Mr. Whatley said that although it was early in the voting process, the party was happy with what it was seeing across all 50 states. Mr. Trump’s allies have filed a flurry of lawsuits that suggest a broader effort to lay the groundwork to challenge the election results in November.

Mr. Trump’s comments came at the end of a news conference in Swannanoa, N.C., meant to highlight the region’s recovery from Hurricane Helene. Piles of debris and collapsing buildings lined the streets leading to Mr. Trump’s campaign stop, outside an auto repair shop. And yards away from where he was speaking, a car had been all but swept into a tree.

Mr. Trump at points insisted his visit was about more than politics. He began his remarks with a reflection on the devastation in the region, then he pivoted to making a jab at the Biden administration’s relief efforts.

“To see that is incredible,” he said of the destruction. “It’s the power of nature. Nothing you can do about it. But you’ve got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House.” Then he expressed his sympathies to those who lost loved ones, were still displaced or were continuing to recover from the damage of the storm.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked the Biden administration over its response to the storm. Amid those criticisms, he and other conservative allies have amplified misinformation about the federal response, including a false claim he repeated on Monday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency helped pay for shelters for undocumented immigrants, depleting its money for disaster relief. The agency’s shelter program and the disaster relief fund have two separate streams of funding, and no disaster funding has been spent on those shelters.

The Trump campaign is hoping discontent over the federal response might help give it an edge in North Carolina and Georgia, another hard-hit state. Both campaigns are eyeing how the continuing recovery might affect turnout: Most counties in western North Carolina lean Republican, but Asheville, the area’s largest city, favors Democrats.

Mr. Trump ceded the microphone to local officials and leaders, who thanked him for bringing attention to their plight. Adam Smith, a former Green Beret who has led relief efforts from the parking lot of a Harley-Davidson dealership, said that the area’s “biggest fear” was being forgotten.

When he took back the lectern, Mr. Trump returned to politicking. He vowed to help North Carolina rebuild if elected, then reminded people displaced by the storm to vote, even as he later acknowledged it was likely not their top concern.

“Look, voting is the least of it right now,” Mr. Trump said. “They got to vote, they want to vote because it’s very important. But they have to survive.”

Then, he praised the early voting turnout in western North Carolina, acknowledging it likely benefited him. “These tend to be Trump areas,” he said. “I mean, not to get too political, but they tend to be very Trump areas.”

Mr. Trump’s news conference was his first of three stops on Monday in North Carolina, a battleground state that he won in both 2016 and 2020. Later, at a rally in Greenville, N.C, Mr. Trump called to Mr. Whatley from the stage and repeated his claims of cheating.

“Are they cheating, Michael?” Mr. Trump asked, as he stood inside a basketball arena on the Eastern Carolina University campus. “They’re trying, but are they? They’re not going to get away with it, right?”

Mr. Trump won North Carolina four years ago by fewer than 75,000 votes. Democrats are hoping that with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, they can flip the state.

They are also seizing on the controversies involving the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. Mr. Robinson’s campaign was thrown into crisis after a CNN report tied him to offensive and obscene comments made on a pornography website.

Asked about Mr. Robinson, Mr. Trump said, “I’m not familiar with the race right now.”