...Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, noted that Democrats have highlighted that quote as evidence that Mr. Trump would end elections, and urged Mr. Trump to rebut what she called a “ridiculous” criticism.

But Mr. Trump declined to do so...

 The exchange began when Ms. Ingraham told the former president: “They’re saying that you said to a crowd of Christians that they won’t have to vote in the future.”

...

He then reiterated his statement from Friday.

“I said, vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true,” he said. “Because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group. They don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote.”

Ms. Ingraham offered him an off-ramp: “You mean you don’t have to vote for you, because you’ll have four years in office.”

Mr. Trump began talking about gun owners not voting, but Ms. Ingraham interrupted him. 

“It’s being interpreted, as you are not surprised to hear, by the left as, well, they’re never going to have another election,” she said. “So can you even just respond —”

Mr. Trump cut her off, claiming again that Christians “vote in very small percentages,” and digressing into how he would change voting practices.

He then repeated his statement from Friday once more, saying his message had been: “Don’t worry about the future. You have to vote on Nov. 5. After that, you don’t have to worry about voting anymore. I don’t care, because we’re going to fix it. The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore, because frankly we will have such love, if you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s OK.”

“I said, vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again,” Trump said in a Fox News interview.

No attempt to quiet the uproar: Mr. Trump repeated his recent assertion that Christians will never have to vote again if they cast their ballots for him in November, brushing aside several requests to walk back or clarify the statement in a Fox News interview televised on Monday night. Mr. Trump’s initial comments, to a group of Christian conservatives on Friday, were interpreted by many Democrats as evidence he would end elections.