REMARKS

Remarks by President Trump in a Meeting with Governor Ducey of Arizona
HEALTHCARE

Issued on: August 5, 2020

Oval Office

3:16 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. It’s an honor to be with the governor of a fabulous state, Arizona. It’s Doug Ducey, and we know him well. And we’ve had a tremendous relationship. He had a tremendous, big, very big election victory. And he has done an incredible job on COVID, or COVID-19, or about 19 other names we can call it. It’s got probably more names than anything else you can think of. And he was hit very hard, and he’s — and he hit back even harder.

{snip}

Does anybody have any question for the governor? And we’re going to have a news conference at 5:30, so you can ask a little bit there.

Please.

Q Mr. President, in your estimation, is mail-in voting safe in Arizona as it is, as you say, in Florida?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven’t discussed it with the Governor. I can tell you: In Florida, they’ve done a very good job with it. In Nevada, it would be a disaster. In New York, it’s been a disaster. In many other places, it’s been a total catastrophe.

You know what’s going on in New York with the Carolyn Maloney. I think they have to have a new election. They’ve — you have no idea. That fraud, all sorts of many ballots. Paterson, New Jersey, I guess it’s 25 percent or 20 percent of the vote is tainted.

You can’t have that. You can’t have that. So it’s okay — absentee voting: Great. But this mail-in voting where they mail, indiscriminately, millions and millions of ballots to people, you’re never going to know who won the election. You can’t have that.

And Nevada is a big state. It’s an important state. It’s a very political state, and the governor happens to be a Democrat. And I don’t believe the Post Office can be set up. They were given no notice. I mean, you’re talking about millions of votes. No, it’ll be a — it’s a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Again, all you have to do is look at the vote that took place on a simple congressional district, in an area that should be able to do it very easily, in Manhattan. It’s a total — it’s a total — what’s happened, it’s a nightmare. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.

Look at Paterson, New Jersey, and look at other locations. We can’t have that. You’ll never know who the winner is, but the winner is going to be me.

So we’ll see you at 5:30, and we can talk about it a little bit more.

I just want to finish by saying: We’re very proud of the Governor and we are very proud of Arizona, because, in addition, the people had to help you, and they did. They’re really great people.

GOVERNOR DUCEY: They did.

Q I have a question for Governor Ducey. Governor Ducey, you vote mostly by mail in your state. Are you proud of your mail-in system in the state?

GOVERNOR DUCEY: In Arizona, we’re going to do it right. It will be free and fair. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to cheat. And it will be easy to vote. Seventy-eight percent of the citizens already vote by mail in Arizona. But we’ve been doing this since 1992. So over the course of decades, we’ve established a system that works and can be trusted. We’re 90 days before the election.

In Arizona, early ballots are going to be mailed in 60 days. This is no time to experiment. This is a time to go with the tried and true, and in Arizona, our system works very well.

Q Are you sharing with the President what are some of the best practices in your state so that he can apply to — he can look at it in terms of other states?

GOVERNOR DUCEY: Well, our state has been a model for this type of voting, for providing options and choice to our citizens. We’re not going to disenfranchise anyone. We’ve actually allocated an additional $9 million to make certain that Election Day voters can go safely in proper sanitized places that are well staffed on Election Day. We want to make sure that everyone that wants to vote can vote, and they will in Arizona.

THE PRESIDENT: And don’t forget, if you look at what they’re doing in Nevada: no signature. You take a look at the signature, and there’s no verification of signature allowed. I don’t know if you do that —

GOVERNOR DUCEY: We do.

THE PRESIDENT: — but there’s no verification of signatures. So they don’t even know who’s going to sign this. They have literally a clause that you don’t have to verify the signatures — that they don’t have to do it.

So right there, it’s no good; it’s defective. Two — two votes in an envelope — in a single envelope. It — this is a thing that will be a disaster like never before. So we’ll see what the court has to say about it.

Arizona has been doing this for a long time, and it’s been refined. Even if — if Nevada wanted to do it well, they wouldn’t have enough time. I’m sure the Post Office doesn’t have enough time. Millions of ballots, all of a sudden, coming out of nowhere. You know, voting starts in a very short period of time.

So, in Florida, they’ve done a good job. In Arizona, they’ve done a good job, but they’ve been doing this thing and refining it for years. This is something that’s put in — but think of this: no verification of the signature. Well, who’s going to sign it? They don’t even verify who’s going to sign it.

So it’s — I’m sure the courts will treat it very fairly. Let’s see what happens. Thank you all very much. I’ll see you in a little while.

Q Mr. President, if governors delay school —

THE PRESIDENT: I’ll see you later. I’ll be talking 5:30. Thank you. Thank you very much.

END

3:28 P.M. EDT