But then, in an interview with Fox News after Scott was declared the winner, Trump still claimed that the race had been affected by fraudulent votes.
“Rick Scott won and he won by a lot,” Trump told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. “I don’t know what happened to all those votes that disappeared at the very end. And if I didn’t put a spotlight on that election before it got down to the 12,500 votes he would of lost that election, okay? In my opinion he would have lost. They would have taken that election away from him. Rick Scott won Florida.”
The “votes that disappeared at the very end” appears to be a reference to several counties failing to recount all of the ballots because of various mistakes or technical problems. In several cases — including in Palm Beach County, which Scott had highlighted as problematic — those votes weren’t counted by the recount deadline and so weren’t included.