Longtime CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer was forced to go on-air and issue a correction after making comments on The Situation Room that suggested President Donald Trump’s executive order signed in March concerning mail-in voting would have a negative impact on ballots used by military personnel serving the country abroad.
Towards the end of the show, Blitzer swallowed a massive slice of humble pie and began his apology, saying, “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 continued. “Those groups are covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Absentee Voting Act, just to be specific on that point.” The original comments came during an interview with Virginia Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger.
According to a report from Trending Politics News, the interview between Blitzer and Spanberger was focused on a lawsuit filed by the state of Virginia and several other states that were seeking to block the president’s order. A federal judge issued a 14-day temporary restraining order against the implementation of the order a week before the lawsuit was filed.
“The continued attacks that we’re seeing from the Trump administration is really just an effort to get people fearful, to get people to stay home, and, in many cases, to eliminate what is a valid, safe, secure way for people to be able to have their voices heard and to vote,” Spanberger told Blitzer. He then 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.”
“That’s true. It’s members of the military service, of our diplomatic service, intelligence services, people serving overseas in service to our country who get their ballots mailed to them at the various postings throughout the world,” Spanberger responded. Blitzer’s correction pertained to the president’s executive order titled, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” signed on March 31, 2026.
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The order directs the Department of Homeland Security, along with the Social Security Administration, to create state-by-state lists of confirmed U.S. citizens who will reach the age of 18 or older by the next federal election. It then tells the U.S. Postal Service to produce a set of rules for mail-in and absentee ballots cast during federal elections.
Included in the rules is a call for the creation of official election-mail envelopes that have a tracking barcode. They also place strict limits on USPS transmission of these ballots to folks who are on state-submitted mail-in participation lists. States that want the USPS to carry those ballots would then contact the agency and provide the lists.
Another part of the order that likely makes leftists nervous is that it directs the attorney general to prioritize election-related investigations and prosecutions for those that tamper with mail-in ballots in some fashion. That rule, along with the order’s mail-handling provisions, will not be applied to ballots that are covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, also known as UOCAVA.
The UOCAVA is a federal statute that requires states to provide members of the armed services, their eligible family members, and U.S. citizens who are currently living outside the United States with absentee voting procedures. Congressional research summarized the rule stating that military and overseas ballots that fall under the UOCAVA are outside of the rule’s scope and will not be affected.
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