CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer issued a mea culpa Monday after he falsely suggested U.S. troops abroad would be impacted by the Trump administration’s crackdown on mail-in voting.
On Friday’s installment of “The Situation Room,” Blitzer sat down with Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger to discuss the lawsuit the commonwealth filed alongside other blue states to block President Donald Trump‘s executive order from March to curb mail-in voting, which was slapped with a 14-day temporary restraining order last week by a federal judge.
“The continued attacks that we’re seeing from the Trump administration is really just an effort to get people fearful, to get people to stay home, and, in many cases, to eliminate what is a valid, safe, secure way for people to be able to have their voices heard and to vote,” Spanberger said.
“And in Virginia, you have a lot of military personnel who totally rely on mail-in ballots if they want to be able to express their opinions,” Blitzer told the governor.
“That’s true,” Spanberger replied. “It’s members of the military service, of our diplomatic service, intelligence services, people serving overseas in service to our country who get their ballots mailed to them at the various postings throughout the world.”
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However, Blitzer made a “quick note of clarification” at the end of Monday’s program in reference to his exchange with Spanberger.
“We discussed legal challenges to the Trump administration’s directives for the Postal Service on mail-in voting. A comment I made suggested that U.S. military and overseas voters’ ballots would be impacted by these directives. I want to be clear right now: those ballots are exempt from the Postal Service’s new rules implementing the president’s March executive order,” Blitzer told viewers.
“Those groups are covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Absentee Voting Act, just to be specific on that point,” he added.
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A spokesperson for CNN pointed to Blitzer’s comments and declined to comment further.
