Donald Trump has mistakenly confused two highly populous countries while going on a late-night rant about voter fraud.
In a since-deleted Truth Social post sent at 11:32 p.m. ET Sunday, the 80-year-old president wrongly claimed that “125 Million People voted today in the first round of India’s Presidential Election.”
But it was Brazil that went to the polls on Sunday, with right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of jailed former president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, taking a narrow lead over left-wing incumbent Lula da Silva.
Trump—or perhaps his ever-present aide Natalie Harp—quickly realized his blunder and reposted his Truth Social post with the correct country and the rest of his tirade.
“The results came out shortly after the vote closed, on the SAME DAY! In Detroit, Philadelphia, California, and numerous other U.S. Cities and States, the results, with much smaller numbers, will often take weeks to Rig, I mean, calculate,” Trump wrote. “Voting in America is CORRUPT!!!”
While Trump deleted the original post, multiple Indian news sites caught the error and reported on how the 80-year-old president mixed up the South Asian country, with a population of about 1.5 billion, with the South American country, which has a population of about 215 million.
Unlike the U.S., India does not elect its president by giving voters a direct choice between candidates. Instead, elected members of both Houses of Parliament, as well as elected members of state legislative assemblies and certain union territories, elect the president.
Trump is seemingly laying the groundwork to once again complain about nonexistent widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections as the GOP is widely expected to suffer an electoral wipeout in the Nov. 3 midterms.
Voter backlash to Trump’s second term is so intense that Democrats could even flip enough Senate seats in typically red states such as Texas to retake control of the upper chamber.
In August, Trump claimed on Truth Social that India’s chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, had asked his administration, “How can you have Elections in the U.S. without a valid Photo ID?”
The president made the post as he desperately tried to get his SAVE America Act passed through Congress ahead of the midterm elections. The bill, which would require proof of citizenship for voter registration and largely scrap mail-in ballots, stalled in the Senate as it became clear it would not reach the 60-vote threshold.
The Brazilian presidential election is heading for a runoff between Bolsonaro (47 percent) and Lula (45 percent) after the two candidates came out on top in the first round but failed to reach the required 50 percent to be declared the outright winner.
The runoff election between Bolsonaro and Lula will take place on Oct. 25.
Bolsonaro’s father, a top ally of Trump, is currently serving 27 years in jail for orchestrating an attempted coup after he lost Brazil’s 2022 election to Lula.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
