CNN Admits It Got Trump Story Very Wrong

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer issued an on-air correction Monday after remarks on *The Situation Room* left the impression that President Trump’s March executive order on mail-in voting would cover ballots used by U.S. service members overseas.

“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 said near the end of the broadcast.

🚨 NEW: CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer just issued a “quick note of clarification” after falsely suggesting U.S. troops would be impacted by Trump's executive order cracking down on mail-in ballots following an exchange he had with Dem Virginia Gov Abigail Spanberger last week.

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“Those groups are covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Absentee Voting Act, just to be specific on that point,” he added.

The original exchange happened Friday. Blitzer interviewed Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger about a multistate lawsuit seeking to block the order. A federal judge had already issued a 14-day temporary restraining order.

Spanberger said the administration’s moves were meant to frighten people away from a “valid, safe, secure” way to vote. Blitzer replied, “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.” Spanberger agreed and listed military, diplomatic, and intelligence personnel serving abroad.

The order in question, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” was signed March 31, 2026. It directs Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to compile state lists of confirmed citizens of voting age. It also tells the Postal Service to write rules for mail-in and absentee ballots in federal elections, including tracked official envelopes and limits tied to state participation lists.

Those USPS rules do not apply to ballots covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, known as UOCAVA. Congressional research on the Postal Service rule states that military and overseas ballots under UOCAVA sit outside the new system.

Service members and other overseas voters keep using the existing UOCAVA process, including the Federal Post Card Application. The correction arrived after the Friday segment had already framed troops as collateral in the fight over the March order.