Donald Trump Claims He Won 'With Mail in Ballots' Despite Not Being a 'Fan' of That Method 

President Donald Trump couldn’t say enough about his success in winning elections thanks to mail-in ballots, a method he has railed against, even though he used it this past week in his hometown's election in Florida.

At a fundraising dinner for Republican congressional members on Wednesday, March 25, the 79-year-old president talked about his party’s push for tougher voter ID laws — something critics have said is a desperate way to attempt to avoid the impending doom facing the GOP in the upcoming midterms — and told the adoring crowd that even though he hates vote by mail, he won bigly thanks to it.

“Now I happen to be a fan of no mail-in ballots, even though I won Florida, which is mail-in ballots by a massive number– the highest number in history,” he said.

He has faced criticism from both Democratic politicians and members of his own party for utilizing a system he simultaneously claims is destroying democracy.

“And I won other places. But in California and other states, they cheat so badly with that. They send thirty-eight million ballots out, and of the thirty-eight million, they go to Democrats a h-ll of a lot. Democrats sometimes get six or seven ballots in one household. And Republicans are calling for their ballot. 'They’re saying, please send me my ballot.' Very unfair, but I hate that,” he added.

Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims about mail-in voter fraud, falsely claiming during his State of the Union address that “cheating is rampant in our elections,” calling for “no more crooked mail-in ballots.”

Still, according to public voter records on the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections website, he voted by mail in Palm Beach County, home to his Mar-a-Lago country club, on more than one occasion.

He has been registered to vote there since 2019, and he mailed in his ballot for this latest election and in 2020.

The website noted that Trump’s voter status was “by mail ballot” and despite his endorsement of GOP candidate Jon Maples, Democrat Emily Gregory defeated him in a shocking flip, about which the president has remained uncharacteristically silent.

“I would love to have a conversation,” Gregory, 40, told Associated Press on Wednesday. “He’s welcome to call me, as I am his new state representative.”

“I won with mail-in ballots, but I hate mail-in ballots because basically, it’s a way of cheating. Jimmy Carter, the single best thing he did, including his presidency — No, it wasn’t giving away at the Panama Canal for one dollar. That was not the best. But he did that. He did a lot of other things. But he did do one thing,” Trump said Wednesday.

“He had a commission with Scoop Jackson and some other very respected people, and the conclusion was never allow mail-in ballots because if you do, there will be massive cheating. And that’s what happens. We can’t do it. So, we have to do something about that,” he concluded.

The president has been frequently called out for contradictions between his public rhetoric and his personal actions, as well as shifts in his positions on policy and political norms. Critics often point to these instances as evidence of a "do as I say, not as I do" approach.

"According to Donald Trump, vote-by-mail is cheating when other people do it, but perfectly fine when he does it himself. What a hypocrite this man is," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Michelle Hall, a Florida Republican voter, told the media she was appalled by the president's hypocrisy, saying, "If he's against something, why are you doing it? ... Are you kidding me? I had no idea."

"Trump is standing on principle, the man thinks voting by mail is an existential threat to democracy, full stop, period. . . Semi-colon, asterisk . . . That's me cursing 'cuz Trump lies all the time," quipped The Daily Show's Josh Johnson.