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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media before departing on Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on November 9, 2018 in Washington, DC.
- President Donald Trump appeared to incorrectly suggest that buying cereal requires shoppers to present identification - and therefore should do so when voting.
- Buying cereal does not require ID.
- Trump made the comments as part of his latest vendetta against voter fraud and "illegal voting," though he provided no evidence that either occurred during the 2018 midterm elections.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday appeared to wrongly suggest that buying cereal requires shoppers to present identification cards, in his latest push for more stringent voter ID laws.
Trump suggested to The Daily Caller in an interview that if something as simple as a cereal purchase requires ID (it doesn't), so should voting.
"If you buy a box of cereal - you have a voter ID," Trump said. "They try to shame everybody by calling them racist, or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing."
The cereal reference was not the first botched grocery analogy Trump has used to push for voter ID laws. He incorrectly said at a Tampa, Florida, rally in August that grocery shopping requires picture ID.
In fact, grocery purchases - and most retail transactions - don't require any identification, unless the products are tobacco, alcohol, fireworks, or firearms and the customer appears younger than certain age thresholds.
It's possible Trump was referring to the mostly outdated practice of cashiers requesting ID for customers who pay with checks or credit cards, but such requests have become relatively rare in recent years and are done at retailers' discretion, not by law.
Read more: Trump appears not to understand grocery shopping in latest push for voter ID laws
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Early voters cast their ballots in Atlanta, Georgia in the 2018 midterm elections in October.
Trump made the comments as part of his latest vendetta against voter fraud and "illegal voting," though he provided no evidence that either occurred during the 2018 midterm elections, and made wild, baseless claims about voters casting multiple ballots after changing their clothes.
"The Republicans don't win and that's because of potentially illegal votes," Trump told The Daily Caller. "When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It's really a disgrace what's going on."
It's unclear why Trump made those remarks, as there is not only no evidence of illegal voters changing outfits to vote multiple times, but no credible allegations have been lodged of such behavior occurring in the midterm elections.
Voter impersonation has not occurred at any meaningful level on a national scale, studies have shown - one 2014 study found that of one billion ballots cast since 2000, just 31 incidents involved voter impersonation.
Alex Lockie contributed reporting.