Spicer defends Trump for claiming without evidence that millions voted illegally Numerous fact checks have debunked the president's repeated claim of voter fraud that Trump says cost him the popular vote.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump for continuing to claim that millions of people voted illegally in the November election, despite numerous fact checks and other studies that have debunked the theory.

“The president does believe that, he has stated that before,” Spicer told reporters gathered for Tuesday’s daily briefing in the White House. “I think he's stated his concerns of voter fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign and he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence people have presented to him.”


According to independent fact-checkers and Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan, there is not evidence of widespread voter fraud in the November presidential race, when Trump won an Electoral College majority but lost the popular vote by almost 3 million.

Trump first raised in November on Twitter the unsubstantiated claim that he lost the popular vote because millions of undocumented immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton. He repeated that theory in a closed-door meeting with Congressional leaders on Monday.

After referencing unnamed evidence on Tuesday, reporters pressed Spicer to specify on what studies Trump has based his belief of voter fraud. Spicer cited a Pew Research study, but its author, David Becker, has previously denied that the report backs up Trump’s claim.

“We found millions of out of date registration records due to people moving or dying, but found no evidence that voter fraud resulted,” Becker tweeted on Nov. 28.

On Tuesday, six different reporters pressed Spicer on the issue over the course of the briefing.

Asked if the White House is going to investigate the alleged voter fraud, Spicer initially suggested that it would not (“No, I think he won very handily with 306 electoral votes, 33 states. He's very comfortable with his win,” he said), but pressed on it again later, he said “maybe we will” but did not make any promises.

“We'll see where we go from here,” Spicer said.

Since Trump revived his claim of voter fraud on Monday, some Republicans have come out to push back on it.

Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate’s most vocal critics of Trump, told CNN that the claim is the “most inappropriate thing for the president to say without proof” and warned that Trump’s actions are “going to erode his ability to govern this country if he does not stop it.”

“If the president of the United States is claiming that 3 to 3.5 million people voted illegally, that shakes confidence in our democracy,” Graham said. “He needs to disclose why he believes that. I don't believe that. It is the most inappropriate thing for the president to say without proof.”

“We're talking about a man who won the election and seems to be obsessed with the idea that he could not have possibly lost the popular vote without cheating or fraud,” he continued. “I would urge the president to knock this off.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, told reporters on Tuesday that voter fraud “does happen,” adding, "The notion that election fraud is a fiction is not true."

He would not directly weigh in on Trump’s claim, but said, ““There are always arguments on both sides about how much, how frequent and all the rest.”