[erimir]

Trump doesn't have to mean only one thing.

For Trump, if there are no more elections (or they're rigged in his favor) and he's president for life, then good, and you don't have to vote anymore. But if he doesn't get to run again, he also doesn't care if you vote anymore. But either way, you won't need to vote anymore.

But confidently stating that he doesn't mean ending or rigging elections is being overly charitable. There's no reason to think he wouldn't say that other than the risk of blowback - it's certainly not the case that he would be opposed to the idea! So then you're left with "Trump would never be so stupid as to say that out loud."

The guy who openly called on national TV for Russia to hack Hillary's emails? The guy who said "stop the count!" before they were done counting the votes? The guy who said he should get a do-over election? The guy who said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any voters? He would never openly state his evil intentions?

The most charitable you can get is to say that his meaning isn't that the elections will be "rigged" but that they'll eliminate so much voter fraud, the Democrats won't be able to win. But that only works if you're being charitable to the claims of voter fraud, which are lies. And Trump and his lawyers know they're lies, because when they were in court and had to limit themselves to arguments with evidence, they didn't advance such claims because they didn't have any evidence for them. The media is not obligated to treat those as good faith concerns - so when they suggest they'll be eliminating all the voter fraud that doesn't exist and thereby prevent Democrats from winning, what they mean is that they'll be preventing legitimate voters from voting, or otherwise corrupting the fairness of elections (i.e. "rigging").