Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) is voicing his opposition to President Donald Trump’s decision to declare victory prematurely, and his suggestion the election is being stolen from him.
“Well, I thought it was outrageous and uncalled for and a terrible mistake. I’ve often said while we may have disagreements here and there I said sometimes the president can be his own worst enemy,” Hogan told the Washington Post on Wednesday. “I think that was another example of it early this morning with the lashing out.”
He added:
“Regardless of where you stand on this race and what party you are and who you voted for, most Americans really want a free and fair election process, and they want us to count the votes. I think they are doing that in every state, that they’re being very cautious to make sure we count all the absentee ballots and the provisional ballots. There’s Republicans and Democrats overseeing the process.”
Hogan called Trump’s attempts to “stir up all of this anger and frustration” a “really bad mistake” for him to make.
Watch his comments below:
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan called President Trump's speech calling for vote counting to stop and his allegations that the election is being stolen from him "outrageous," "uncalled for" and "a terrible mistake." https://t.co/dNar93L9nW #postlive pic.twitter.com/WHC926niU6
— Washington Post Live (@PostLive) November 4, 2020
“Quite frankly, I think that’s what voters rejected in this race, was the divisiveness and the kind of anger on both sides,” Hogan said.
Host Robert Costa pressed Hogan on why other Republicans are not speaking out about Trump’s comments.
“Well, for the same reason they’ve been afraid to criticize the president for nearly four years now and I think he can lash out and cause some real retribution against the fellow Republicans,” Hogan said.
He continued, “I outperformed the president in my state by nearly 45 points. He lost the state by right around 30 points last night, so I’m maybe not as afraid of speaking up as some others might be.”
Trump falsely claimed victory early on Wednesday and insisted the election is fraudulent, as IJR previously reported.
