Donald Trump is only the fifth president in U.S. history to win the office with electoral votes while losing the popular vote. Yet only two weeks ago, he stunned supporters and opponents alike by saying he’d rather see the popular vote decide presidential elections because “it’s much easier to win.”
Trump’s top spokesman stopped short of saying he was joining with such leading Democrats as 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton in calling for abolishing the Electoral College. She also did not rule out the president backing a proposed compact of the states in which they agree to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote nationwide.
“Remember, we won the election,” Trump said on “Fox and Friends,” noting that many people “like to always talk about the Electoral College. Well, it’s an election based on the Electoral College. I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign.”
The president went on to explain that he would rather have the popular vote because “it's much easier to win the popular vote."
Asked Tuesday by Newsmax precisely what is Trump’s position on the Election College, press secretary Sarah Sanders replied: “I don't have any policy announcements on that front or something that we're looking to do. But certainly, we want to always look for the best way to preserve the integrity of our elections.”
Several pundits have concluded Trump was giving a back-handed blessing to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), the plan in which states agree to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote nationwide. As of March, it has been adopted by 10 states and the District of Columbia with a combined 165 electoral votes. If states with 105 more electoral votes join in the plan, that will mean supporters have 270 electoral votes — enough to elect a president — and it will take effect.
Does Trump support this plan, I asked Sanders, and is he aware that the Republican National Committee resoundingly condemned it in a resolution at its May 2011 meeting in Dallas, Texas?
“I'm not sure if he was aware,” she replied, “but I am pretty sure that the president is more than happy, at times, to say what he thinks is right, whether or not that there was a statement made many years ago contrary to that.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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