Trump slams author of voter fraud study: 'He's groveling'

President Donald Trump said Wednesday millions of people all voted illegally against him in the presidential election “in my opinion” and that there is “a lot to look into.”

“There are millions of [illegal] votes, in my opinion,” Trump told ABC News’ David Muir in an excerpt from an interview set to air later Wednesday.


Trump revived his debunked claim of widespread voter fraud Monday during a private meeting with congressional leaders, claiming without evidence that up to 5 million people cast illegitimate votes.

He followed up Wednesday morning with a pair of tweets vowing to request “a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time).”

Trump’s case to Muir of widespread voter fraud was that people are on voter rolls who are either dead, in the country illegally or simultaneously registered to vote in more than one state, alleging that the latter “vote twice.”

“I want the voting process to be legitimate,” Trump said.

He pointed to a Pew study that highlights outdated voter rolls, not illegitimate votes, and doesn’t include any references to non-citizens registering or voting. David Becker, the study’s author tweeted Tuesday, with a link to a New York Times report: “As I've noted before, voting integrity better in this election than ever before. Zero evidence of fraud.”

Trump, however, questioned why Becker would publish the report then and suggested he’s “groveling” by refuting the president’s claim.

“Then he’s — then he’s groveling again. You know, I always talk about the reporters that grovel when they wanna write something that you wanna hear but not necessarily millions of people wanna hear or have to hear,” Trump said. “We’re gonna launch an investigation to find out, and then the next time — and I will say this: Of those votes cast, none of them come to me. None of them come to me. They would all be for the other side. None of them come to me.”

Repeating his claim of dead people, illegal immigrants and concurrent registrations in separate states, he said, “We have a lot to look into.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at the daily briefing Wednesday that the investigation will look beyond the 2016 election. Trump’s own attorneys wrote after his election victory that the entirety of “available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.”

“This isn’t just about the 2016 election. This is about the integrity of our voting system,” Spicer said, hailing the investigation “to ensure that we know that every person’s vote counts equally” as “probably one of the greatest things we can do.”

According to reports, Trump’s daughter Tiffany Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, are registered to vote in two states.