The hosts of Fox & Friends expressed frustration Monday morning after updated election results showed Republican candidate Spencer Pratt slipping into third place in the race for Los Angeles mayor as additional mail-in ballots continued to be counted.
The discussion unfolded on the program’s signature couch, where hosts Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt, and Lawrence Jones reacted to the latest developments in the closely watched contest. The trio focused much of their attention on California’s voting procedures and the changing results that pushed Pratt behind City Council member Nithya Raman.
Kilmeade opened the conversation by criticizing the forms of identification accepted in connection with mail-in voting, questioning whether the standards were rigorous enough.
“Do you know that if you don’t have a driver’s license, you can use an employer I.D. card, really? A credit card? A prescription drug label, or a gym membership. Come on, a gym membership?” Kilmeade said.
He then added a joke while expressing disbelief over the identification requirements.
“Hi, Planet Hollywood says I’m Brian Kilmeade,” he quipped.
Earhardt argued that the results reflected the political preferences of California voters, pointing to the strong performance of progressive candidates in the race.
“That’s why two Progressives are in the lead,” she said. “California likes it like this.”
She went on to criticize the state’s leadership and policy direction, saying she was frustrated by the officials voters continue to elect.
“Like you said, I’m done. I’m done with California if they are going to continue to have — elect these leaders that don’t build back, that, you know, don’t fill the reservoirs,” Earhardt said.
Jones also took issue with the pace and appearance of California’s vote-counting process. While acknowledging there could be explanations for the changing totals, he argued that long counting periods can create skepticism among voters.
“Because they are so dishonest in the way that they do things, and the fact is that they aren’t synchronized, speedy, you leave the mind of the American people to say, ‘There is something wrong right here,’” Jones said.
He suggested that Raman’s campaign may have simply performed better among mail-in voters, noting that ballot collection efforts are legal in California. Still, he questioned how a candidate could gain significant ground after trailing earlier in the count.
“Maybe her operation for the mail-in ballots, because that’s pretty much what is being counted right now, was just better than the rest of the candidates,” Jones said. “But you can’t have, weeks later, someone that just shoots up — that’s crazy.”
Kilmeade also pointed to the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral race, recalling that businessman Rick Caruso held an early lead before ultimately losing to Karen Bass after additional ballots were counted. He argued that California’s election system continues to generate confusion and distrust among many voters.
Throughout the segment, the hosts repeatedly questioned whether the state’s procedures inspire public confidence, with Kilmeade arguing that voters deserve a system that produces quicker and clearer results.
Despite the criticism, the discussion ended on a lighter note. Kilmeade recalled an eighth-grade class election on Long Island in which a student was removed as class president after allegedly handing out gum to classmates who voted for him.
The story prompted laughter from the hosts as Kilmeade jokingly compared the school election controversy to modern political disputes.
“More rules in my eighth-grade class than there are right now in California,” he said, recalling that the student’s campaign had been derailed by what he described as a gum-buying scandal involving Bazooka gum.
The anecdote provided a humorous conclusion to a conversation otherwise dominated by concerns about election procedures, vote counting, and the increasingly heated debate surrounding California’s electoral system.
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