While losing the Electoral College, Hillary Clinton earned roughly 3 million more votes than President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. And he cannot stand it.

Trump drew widespread, warranted criticism Tuesday for his repeated, false claim that the November election was compromised by fraud on the order of millions of votes, a claim made all the more surreal by the fact that Trump actually won the election he’s complaining about, alongside Republican majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate.

The irresponsible falsehood caused Jake Tapper to declare on CNN Tuesday night that if the president really believes America’s entire election system was so thoroughly compromised, he would be duty bound to investigate the matter and fix the problems, rather than erratically complaining about them in arbitrarily timed rants. Of course, Tapper repeatedly noted, there is absolutely no evidence for Trump’s claims.

On Wednesday morning, as if in response to CNN, Trump said this on Twitter:

I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017

even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017

Unfortunately, there is precedent for Trump fixating on a falsehood for years on end, doubling and tripling and quadrupling down, despite an utter lack of evidence, and then, upon finally beginning to acknowledge that his inane allegations were unfounded, asserting that we should really be thanking him for his efforts.