WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday repeated the lie that he won Wisconsin in 2020 just seven months before he’ll again appear on the ballot, warning the state’s top election administrator “will try to steal another election” if she’s not removed.
Trump in a radio interview continued his attacks on Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe and said she “should be gone.” He accused Republican Speaker Robin Vos and Reince Priebus, Trump’s former chief of staff, of not doing enough to force her out.
Wolfe did not steal the election from Trump.
“I’ve heard so much about Meagan Wolfe, and it’s like unanimous, she shouldn’t be there,” Trump said on the Regular Joe Show. “And Robin Vos, who’s a Republican, is allowing her to be there. I don’t understand it. I can’t imagine it.”
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Trump said Vos is “very friendly” with Priebus, who’s heading the Republican National Convention’s Milwaukee host committee, appearing to suggest Priebus should encourage Vos to “terminate” Wolfe.
Neither Wolfe nor Vos responded to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel request for comment Tuesday morning. An inquiry with WEC Chair Don Millis also went unanswered.
The comments on Tuesday were the latest from the former president in his nearly four years of falsely claiming he won Wisconsin in 2020. Recounts and court rulings affirmed Joe Biden’s more than 20,000-vote victory in the state.
It’s also the latest attack on Wolfe, who has become the target of Republicans in the state over those false claims of a stolen election. Republican lawmakers have zeroed in on Wolfe in part because of actions the bipartisan WEC panel of six commissioners voted to take during the coronavirus pandemic at a time when health officials were advising people to avoid crowds, and for some voting practices that have since been deemed illegal through lawsuits.
In September, the state Senate in a party-line vote rejected the reappointment of Wolfe as leader of the elections commission. Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit asking a judge to block Republican legislative leaders from appointing a new administrator and to declare Wolfe administrator, arguing the Senate did not have the power to oust her. Meanwhile, Wolfe said she would not leave her job until a court told her to do so.
(Republican lawmakers initially agreed with Kaul that Wolfe had the power to stay in her job but have since reversed course and are appealing a judge’s ruling also siding with Kaul.)
Separately, a week after the Senate vote to fire Wolfe five Republicans in the state Assembly proposed articles to remove Wolfe from office through impeachment — an effort that so far Vos has blocked.
Even though lawmakers voted Wolfe out, she stayed in her job because the vote to fire her isn’t being recognized by Wolfe or many Democrats as legitimate because the Republican-controlled state Senate forced a vote on Wolfe’s future even though the bipartisan elections commission did not put forward a nomination of Wolfe to consider.
On Tuesday, Trump put the blame for his loss on the shoulders of Wolfe and Vos.
“I couldn’t understand how we lost that election because, you know, I love the state, I have so many friends in the state… It never made sense to me,” Trump said. “Now we find out why. She should be gone.”
He called the 2020 election “bad” and falsely claimed it meant “for years you have to stay with somebody that wasn’t elected.” He again mentioned Priebus, noting he “was very instrumental” in bringing the RNC to Milwaukee — which he referred to as “the election” — this summer.
He said Priebus and Vos should fire Wolfe and “put somebody in whose going to be fair, not for the Republicans, just fair. And if they do that, we’re going to win the election by a lot in Wisconsin.”
Vos and Trump have long sparred over Trump’s efforts to pressure Vos to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
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Vos withstood a primary challenge Trump helped fund, which led him to pledge to try “as hard as I can” to ensure Trump did not secure the GOP nomination. And he’s previously referred to Trump’s candidacy as a “suicide mission.”
Still, when Trump secured the nomination earlier this year, Vos endorsed Trump and said he “definitely” thinks Trump can win in 2024.
Trump in the interview also railed against Biden over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border.
As he spoke about the number of illegal border crossings over the last three years, he said: “If we don’t win this election, you probably won’t have another election in our country. That’s how bad it is, it’s gotten.”