Trump voted by mail in Florida special election despite his rhetoric opposing it
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on March 23, 2026 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Public records show that President Donald Trump voted by mail in the special election occurring Tuesday for the statehouse district that includes his Mar-a-Lago estate in spite of his longstanding rhetoric against voting by mail and his efforts to push through the SAVE America Act, which includes restrictions on mail-in voting.
According to public records available on the Palm Beach County elections website, Trump voted by mail ballot in the special election for Florida’s 87th House district.
Trump has spoken critically about voting by mail for years. As recently as Monday, during remarks in Memphis, Tennessee, the president said that “mail-in voting means mail-in cheating — I call it mail-in cheating — and we got to do something about it all.”
A White House spokesperson, in response to a request for comment, said that Trump has supported “commonsense exceptions” to allow Americans to use mail-in ballots, including for “illness, disability, military, or travel,” but that he opposes universal voting by mail due to it being “highly susceptible to fraud.”
An analysis from the Brookings Institution from November 2025 found that voter fraud is rare in voting by mail.
“As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C.,” spokesperson Olivia Wales wrote in a statement.
Trump frequently visits his Mar-a-Lago estate and was there as recently as Monday morning.
The SAVE America Act, promoted by Trump, would place some new requirements and restrictions on voting by mail.
Florida’s 87th House district special election was scheduled after Mike Caruso, who previously represented the district, was appointed to a county role. Democrats have been eyeing the district as one they could potentially flip, with an eye toward the irony of flipping the president’s home district. Trump and Republicans, meanwhile, have been promoting Republican candidate Jon Maples in an effort to keep the seat in GOP hands.
This is not the first time Trump has voted by mail while president. He voted by mail in the 2020 Florida presidential primary — after he switched his formal place of residence from New York to Florida in September 2019.
Other presidents have voted in elections in their home states while in office. Then-President Joe Biden, for instance, flew to Delaware to vote in the 2022 primaries.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks to media gathered on the first day of school at Deerwood Elementary on September 2, 2025 in Eagan, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, announced Monday that he would drop his bid for reelection as governor, saying that he would not be able to give a campaign all of his attention as he works to defend Minnesota against allegations of fraud and right-wing attacks — including from President Donald Trump.
“In September, I announced that I would run for a historic third term as Minnesota’s Governor. And I have every confidence that, if I gave it my all, I would succeed in that effort,” Walz wrote in a statement Monday.
“But as I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all. Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.”
Walz, who served as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, had come under fire in recent weeks amid allegations of fraud in child-care centers in Minnesota. Walz had said the state was investigating alleged fraud and slammed how rhetoric targeting the state’s Somali community about the allegations could put people at risk.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar met with Walz over the weekend about a possible bid for governor, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
This comes as a source close to Klobuchar tells ABC News that she’s been getting a lot of outreach encouraging her to run. She is considering the bid, according to two sources, but hasn’t made a final decision.
Representatives for Klobuchar, who won reelection to the Senate in 2024, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
Walz was the subject of Trump’s frequent criticism — with the president claiming he was “a Crooked Governor” in a recent social media post.
The president commented on Walz’s decision in a social media post on Monday, saying Walz “destroyed the State of Minnesota.”
Walz would have made history if he won the governorship in 2026, as previously no Minnesota governor has won a third consecutive four-year term.
The Democratic Governors Association, the arm of the Democratic Party focused on electing Democratic governors, released a statement on Monday praising Walz for his work without endorsing any other potential candidates.
“No matter who decides to run or how much national Republicans want to spend, the DGA remains very confident Minnesotans will elect another strong Democratic governor this November,” DGA chair and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear wrote in a statement.
On the Republican side, longtime Trump loyalist and CEO of MyPillow Mike Lindell announced in December that he is running for governor of Minnesota. Lindell has already been endorsed by Trump.
Walz also has been viewed as a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, and visited a few key presidential battleground states in 2025, although he has previously downplayed the prospect of running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Walz, in his statement announcing he would not seek reelection, had harsh words for Trump and Republicans who have excoriated the state for alleged child-care fraud and said that it occurred on Walz’s watch.
“I won’t mince words here,” Walz wrote. “Donald Trump and his allies — in Washington, in St. Paul, and online — want to make our state a colder, meaner place.”
Saying that the state government had taken steps to investigate fraud, and continues to work on combating it, Walz said Minnesota “will win the fight against the fraudsters. But the political gamesmanship we’re seeing from Republicans is only making that fight harder to win.”
Republicans celebrated Walz’s announcement on Monday. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a Republican representing Minnesota, wrote in a short statement reacting to Walz’s announcement, “Good riddance.”
“It’s been failure after failure for Tim Walz, so it’s no surprise he chickened out of running for re-election,” Republican National Committee Regional Communications Director Delanie Bomar wrote in a separate statement on Monday.
Minnesota has been under scrutiny in recent weeks over yearslong investigations and controversies about alleged fraud in child-care centers.
According to federal charges filed over the past couple of years, at least 70 people were part of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy that exploited two federally funded nutrition programs to fraudulently obtain more than $250 million in one of the largest COVID-era fraud schemes anywhere in the nation.
The defendants allegedly used a Minnesota-based nonprofit organization called Feeding Our Future to avoid tough scrutiny from the Minnesota Department of Education, which was supposed to be conducting oversight of the programs.
More scrutiny came recently after an unverified online video from conservative influencer Nick Shirley alleging fraud in child care in Somali communities in Minneapolis. Minnesota officials have disputed the allegations. During more recent site checks, officials said locations highlighted by the video were operating as expected.
Last week, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services said that the Trump administration is pausing child-care funding to all states after the Minnesota allegations emerged. The official said the funds will be released “only when states prove they are being spent legitimately.”
“Republicans are playing politics with the future of our state,” Walz said in his statement on Monday. “And it’s shameful.”
ABC News’ Laura Romero and Mike Levine contributed to this report.
Protesters gather in front of the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after President Donald Trump’s name was added to the facade on Dec.20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Saturday mostly in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, in her effort to obtain more details about the planned closure and renovation of the Kennedy Center, which is set for a board vote at the White House on Monday.
Judge Christopher Cooper also ruled that as a trustee, Beatty must be afforded a “meaningful opportunity to provide input” and not be “categorically barred” from speaking at the meeting, which President Donald Trump is set to chair.
But Cooper stopped short of requiring at this stage that Beatty be permitted to cast a vote as a trustee, saying that is a “trickier question” with no clearcut answers.
“As the foregoing facts suggest, a project of this salience and magnitude—which threatens to involve at least some demolition and reconstruction of a major national memorial and active performing arts theater—does not happen overnight,” Cooper said in his ruling.
The judge directed the government to provide Beatty with materials on the project ahead of the Monday meeting.
“The government’s assertion, both in its briefing and at the hearing, that such information is ‘preliminary’ and not yet sufficiently ‘finalized’ to share with the full slate of decisionmakers—just four days before the Board is set to vote on a complete, two-year closure of the Center they are statutorily charged with overseeing—borders on preposterous,” Cooper said.
Beatty’s pending lawsuit challenges the renaming of the Kennedy Center to the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as the pending closure and renovations. Cooper said the court will address those issues at a later date.
“No president has the authority to shut Congress out of the governance of the Kennedy Center, much less unilaterally rename or demolish it,” Beatty said in a statement Saturday. “We will not stand by while an important part of our national heritage is jeopardized, and I intend to make that clear at next week’s board meeting.”
The White House didn’t immediately have a comment about the ruling.
Asked for comment on the lawsuit previously, White House spokesperson Liz Huston told ABC News in a statement that the Kennedy Center’s board voted to rename it after Trump “stepped up and saved the old Kennedy Center.”
As for whether a sitting member of the House who serves on the Kennedy Center board as a function of her office can vote, Judge Cooper said that the legal argument in Beatty’s favor is strong, but how the board has operated in practice in that respect is not clear.
Some veterans of the Kennedy Center recalled ex-officio members of the board voting, while others say they never observed that.
The board approved a bylaws change last May to delineate presidentially-appointed general trustees from “nonvoting” ex-officio members.
“Though the Court thinks that Beatty has the better statutory argument as to both participation and the right to vote, her battle for emergency relief on these fronts is not yet won,” Cooper ruled.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on “The Abduction of Ukrainian Children by the Russian Federation” on Capitol Hill on December 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images))
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized for evaluation after experiencing flu-like symptoms, his spokesperson said.
“In an abundance of caution, after experiencing flu-like symptoms over the weekend, Senator McConnell checked himself into a local hospital for evaluation last night,” McConnell spokesman David Popp said in a statement. “His prognosis is positive and he is grateful for the excellent care he is receiving. He is in regular contact with his staff and looks forward to returning to Senate business.”
McConnell, 84, who announced last February he would end his long tenure in the Senate at the end of the current term, was hospitalized in March 2023 for five days after suffering a concussion and a broken rib after a fall at a Washington, D.C., hotel.
He suffered a “minor cut” to the face and a “sprained wrist” after another fall during a Senate Republican lunch in December 2024.
McConnell served as the Senate Republican leader for a record-shattering 18 years — the longest- serving party leader of either party. He stepped down from the role in 2024 and was succeeded in by current Majority Leader John Thune.
