Just last week, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus insisted that Democrats questioning whether Donald Trump legitimately won the 2016 election are being unfair. He said he was appalled at the treatment of the new president because, after all, Republicans never treated President Barack Obama that way.
“You didn’t have Republicans questioning whether or not Obama legitimately beat John McCain in 2008,” Priebus said in a Jan. 15 interview, in response to Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) raising concerns about Trump’s win in light of reports that Russia interfered in the election.
On Wednesday, however, Trump did just that.
Trump is now calling for an investigation into whether 3 million to 5 million undocumented immigrants voted illegally for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 president election. He believes this baseless theory is the reason she won the popular vote.
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Trump also suggested that part of the reason Obama won in 2008 was because of voter fraud as well ― exactly what Priebus said no Republican has ever said. From the interview:
I ran for the electoral college. I didn’t run for the popular vote. What I’m saying is if there are these problems that many people agree with me that there might be. Look, Barack Obama ― if you look back ― eight years ago when he first ran ― he was running for office in Chicago. ...
And he was laughing at the system because he knew all of those votes were going to him. You look at Philadelphia, you look at what’s going on in Philadelphia. But take a look at the tape of Barack Obama who wrote me, by the way, a very beautiful letter in the drawer of the desk. Very beautiful. And I appreciate it. But look at what he said, it’s on tape. Look at what he said about voting in Chicago eight years ago. It’s not changed. It hasn’t changed, believe me. Chicago, look what’s going on in Chicago. It’s only gotten worse.
But he was smiling and laughing about the vote in Chicago. Now, once he became president he didn’t do that. All of a sudden it became this is the foundation of our country. So, here’s the point, you have a lot of stuff going on possibly. I say probably. But possibly. We’re gonna get to the bottom of it.
Trump also spent years trying to delegitimize Obama in another way ― by pushing the birther conspiracy that Obama wasn’t even constitutionally allowed to be president because he wasn’t born in the United States.
Watch the video above for the new administration’s complaints and Trump’s own efforts to undermine Obama.
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