Donald Trump wants to turn his sour grapes at having lost the popular vote into an attack on voting rights, but really he wants to talk about how he could have won the popular vote if he’d tried. ABC’s David Muir pressed Trump repeatedly on his voter fraud claims Wednesday in an exchange that lasted for more than 2,000 words as Trump lied, evaded, and, of course, kept insisting he could have won the popular vote. “Word salad” doesn’t begin to describe it. “Thought salad,” also, because what comes through loud and clear is that Trump doesn’t understand the difference between being registered to vote and voting. He just understands that there has to be something wrong about the fact that more people voted for his opponent than voted for him.
You have people that are registered who are dead, who are illegals, who are in two states. 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 ...
Millions of votes in his opinion. No evidence, just Donald Trump’s opinion that because he lost the popular vote there must be wrongdoing. And that confusion between being registered and actually voting. Mind you, Trump’s chief adviser, treasury secretary, and daughter are all registered in two states, so he could do a little research in his immediate circles. Not that it’s illegal to be registered in two states—it’s totally legal as long as you don’t vote in both of them.
When Muir pointed out that “What you have presented so far has been debunked,” Trump insisted that it hasn’t, and told him to “Take a look at the Pew reports.” Muir was ready for that line, saying “I called the author of the Pew report last night. And he told me that they found no evidence of voter fraud.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Really? Then why did he write the report?
DAVID MUIR: He said no evidence of voter fraud.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Excuse me, then why did he write the report?
You can read the Pew report. It says that the United States has a tremendously inefficient, expensive system of voter registration that makes it hard to handle the number of people who move in any given year and leaves many people unregistered because they don’t realize they need to register again every time they move. It’s an argument for modernizing the voter registration system to make it easier for people to register and stay registered, and cheaper for the government to maintain. That’s “why he wrote the report.”
One thing it doesn’t talk much about is fraud—the only use of the word is about “the perception” that voter rolls could “lack integrity or could be susceptible to fraud.” And here’s the occupant of the White House using this report to create the perception of fraud.
Oh, but there’s more.
DAVID MUIR: Do you think that that talking about millions of illegal votes is dangerous to this country without presenting the evidence?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, not at all.
(OVERTALK)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Not at all because many people feel the same way that I do. And ...
DAVID MUIR: You don't think it undermines your credibility if there’s no evidence?
(OVERTALK)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, not at all because they didn't come to me. Believe me. Those were Hillary votes. And if you look at it they all voted for Hillary. They all voted for Hillary. They didn't vote for me. I don't believe I got one. Okay, these are people that voted for Hillary Clinton. And if they didn't vote, it would've been different in the popular.
“Many people feel the same way that I do.” This is where you throw your hands up in despair, because the number of fraudulent votes is not a matter of feelings. It’s a fact that can be determined, and in fact has been determined, and the number of fraudulent votes in any given election is vanishingly small and, in 2016, a majority of the tiny handful of illegal votes that have been found went to Trump. But the feeling that Donald Trump and his legions of white supporters have been cheated by immigrants and other suspicious persons is now what matters on a policy level.