Obama slams Trump's 'conspiracy theory': Saying the election is rigged is 'ridiculous'

President Barack Obama rebuked Donald Trump on Thursday for complaining that the election could be "rigged" against him.

"Of course the elections will not be rigged. What does that mean?" Obama said during a press conference. "The federal government doesn't run the election process. States and cities and communities all across the country, they're the ones who set up the voting systems and the voting booths. If Mr. Trump is suggesting that there is a conspiracy theory that is being propagated across the country -- including in places like Texas, where typically it's not Democrats who are in charge of voting booths -- that's ridiculous. That doesn't make any sense, and I don't think anybody would take that seriously."

Earlier this week, Trump -- the GOP presidential nominee -- said during an appearance in Ohio that he was "afraid the election's going to be rigged." He doubled down on his argument during subsequent talk show appearances.

On Thursday, Obama scoffed at the real estate mogul's allegations.

"Sometimes folks if they lose, they start complaining that they got cheated," the president said. "But I've never heard of somebody complaining about being cheated before the game was over, or before the score's even tallied."

The remarks came a day after Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson called for voting systems to be designated as "critical infrastructure" in order to guard against possible cyber attacks during the November election.

Watch footage from the press conference, as posted online, below.