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In a meeting Thursday with a group of 10 senators, President Donald Trump again brought up an unfounded claim of mass voter fraud in the 2016 election. As Politico reports:
As soon as the door closed and the reporters allowed to observe for a few minutes had been ushered out, Trump began to talk about the election, participants said, triggered by the presence of former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who lost her reelection bid in November and is now working for Trump as a Capitol Hill liaison, or “Sherpa,” on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch.
The president claimed that he and Ayotte both would have been victorious in the Granite State if not for the “thousands” people who were “brought in on buses” from neighboring Massachusetts to “illegally” vote in New Hampshire.
Despite Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud, there is zero evidence of any sort of illegal voting to the level Trump decried, as Vox’s German Lopez explains. Trump’s persistent pursuit of this voter fraud myth is dangerous for a number of reasons, as Ezra Klein details here.
In the same meeting, according to Politico, Trump also referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” as he did multiple times throughout his campaign:
According to participants in Thursday’s meeting, Trump referred to Warren several times as “Pocahontas,” the moniker he gave her during his campaign, and told the Democrats present he is glad Warren is becoming the face of “your party.”
Warren has garnered much attention recently following Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s invocation of a rule barring her from speaking about then–attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions. After the Senate voted along party lines to prevent her from speaking on the Senate floor, social media exploded, with many rallying behind Warren.
Sessions was confirmed Wednesday night and sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence Thursday morning.
