Donald Trump has claimed that Jesus would help him win the election count in California if he "came down and was the vote counter".

In an interview with Phil McGraw, better known as 'Dr Phil', the former President censured California's extensive postal vote system as duplicitous, and insisted he'd win in the state if it wasn't for alleged voter fraud - a claim for which he produced no evidence.

He said: "I guarantee you, if Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California... in other words, if we had an honest vote counter, I would win. I do great with the Hispanics".

No Republican presidential candidate has won California since George HW Bush in 1988. Trump lost the state by a significant margin in both 2016 and 2020.

The Kamala Harris campaign released a statement accusing Trump of having reached "a level of delusion difficult even for Dr. Phil to diagnose". 

Elsewhere in the interview, the Republican candidate was pressed on his claim that Christians "won't have to vote again" in the future, so long as they vote in the 2024 election. 

Trump insisted he wasn't implying he'd disrupt the electoral process. "It doesn't mean we're not going to have elections. But you have to vote this time," he said. 

McGraw followed up, asking: "So you didn't mean, 'vote me in once because I'm never leaving'?" 

Trump replied: "Of course that's what I meant".

In a speech at Turning Point Action's Believers Summit in July, he had told Christians in attendance: "you won't have to vote again, my beautiful Christians. I love you... in four years, you won't have to vote again; we'll have it fixed so good you won't have to vote". 

McGraw also brought up Trump's previous claim from December that he would "only" be a "dictator" on "day one" of a second presidency. Trump responded by saying the statement had been taken out of context. 

"It was said with a chuckle," he said. "The audience laughed, we all laughed. But they take it and they cut it. These are very dishonest people we are dealing with".