26 Jan 2017 12:07 pm
Sean Spicer cited a 2008 Pew study which he said showed that 14 percent of the votes cast in 2008 were cast by noncitizens.Trump gets into fiery debate over voter fraud claim in ABC News interview
President Donald Trump doubled down on his call for an investigation into voter fraud during the 2016 election on Wednesday in an interview with ABC News.
"We're gonna launch an investigation to find out," Trump said, echoing his Wednesday-morning tweet.
"And I will say this: Of those votes cast, none of 'em come to me. None of 'em come to me."
"They would all be for the other side," said Trump. "None of 'em come to me."
During one heated exchange, ABC News anchor David Muir challenged the president over his statements that millions of illegal ballots were cast in the 2016 election, a claim that has been called a falsehood.
However Trump continued to push the notion that there is widespread voter fraud saying, "You have people that are registered, who are dead, who are illegals, who are in two states," Trump said.
"You have people registered in two states.
They're registered in a New York and a New Jersey.
They vote twice.
There are millions of votes, in my opinion.
Now, I'm gonna do an investigation."
Muir pushed back, claiming the basis of Trump's assertions had already been "debunked."
"It's been called false," said Muir. Trump quickly replied saying "Take a look at the Pew reports."
However, Muir again fired back saying he called the author of the Pew report and that he told him "they found no evidence of voter fraud."
Trump then said, "Really? Then why did he write the report?"
That would have added up to more than 18 million fraudulent votes — an implausible assertion, considering the total noncitizen population was about 22.5 million in 2010.
The study that "came out of Pew in 2008" actually came out in 2012, and it’s about outdated voter rolls, not fraudulent votes.
The 2012 Pew study — titled, "Inaccurate, Costly, and Inefficient: Evidence That America’s Voter Registration System Needs an Upgrade" — makes no mention of noncitizens voting or registering to vote.
Rather, it found that about 24 million, or one in every eight, voter registrations in the United States are inaccurate or no longer valid, but it did not find evidence of actual voter fraud.