Donald Trump Now Praises Electoral College as "Actually Genius"

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Donald Trump

The president-elect says if the election were determined by the popular vote he would have "won even bigger and more easily."

Donald Trump, who once called the Electoral College a disaster, praised the system as "genius" Tuesday morning.

The president-elect took to Twitter to say, "If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily."

Trump then posted: "The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!"

Trump won the election after winning the majority of the electoral vote. But with Hillary Clinton currently leading in the popular vote, her potential victory has sparked petitions and reform proposals calling for the modification or abolishment of the state-by-state voting process that many call archaic. A petition, being spread by celebrities like Lady Gaga, calls for electors to reject their states' votes and instead vote for Clinton. It now has 4.4 million signatures.

Four years ago, Trump tweeted that the Electoral College was a "disaster for democracy." In the days leading up to the election, he hammered his opinion about a "rigged" political system and would not confirm that he would accept the results when they arrived Nov. 8.

After he won by the electoral vote, he gave his first interview as president-elect with 60 Minutes on Sunday, telling Lesley Stahl he still believed the system was rigged and that he would rather see the president elected by simple votes.

"I'm not going to change my mind just because I won," he said. "But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. you know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win."

Still, he said he respected the system.

"There's a reason for doing this because it brings all the states into play," Trump said of the electoral vote. "Electoral College and there's something very good about that. But this is a different system. But I respect it. I do respect the system."