Garance Burke of the Associated Press reported last week that Phillips himself is registered to vote in three states.
Phillips said that was evidence of a broken system, not fraud, and he claims that volunteers have turned up “thousands” of examples nationwide of duplicated registrations and of dead people still on voter rolls.
That’s hardly evidence of millions of illegal votes, and in an interview with The Atlantic last week, Phillips appeared to soften his claim:
“Over a hundred million people voted. Impacting a presidential election is probably less likely than impacting anything down-ballot,” Phillips said. “I’m not gonna be goaded into going faster than I want to. I’m not a government official, I don’t have protections, and if I accuse somebody of voter fraud, we have to be sure that what we’re saying is right. While I believe I’m right, it’s in my best interest and everybody else’s best interest to make sure this is right.”
Maybe Trump had Phillips’ retreat in mind when he told O’Reilly that the real problem is voter registration.
“When you look at the registration and you see dead people that have voted, when you see people that are registered in two states and voted in two states, when you see other things, people that are illegals, that are not citizens, and they’re on the registration rolls,” the president said. “Look, Bill, we can be babies, you look at the registration, we have illegals, we have dead people, you have this, it’s really a bad situation, it’s really bad.”
O’Reilly again brought up the need for data to back up Trump’s previous claims about the extent of illegal voting. Trump responded, “Forget that. Forget all of that. Just take a look at the registration, and we’re going to do it.”
He then announced Pence will lead a commission to study voter registration.
“It’ll be my honor to lead that commission on behalf of the president and to look into that and give the American people the facts,” Pence told Fox News on Monday.
Here’s the transcript of Trump’s exchange with O’Reilly on the subject of the president’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election:
O’Reilly: Is there any validity to the criticism of you that you say things that you can’t back up factually, and as the president — if you say for example that there are 3 million illegal aliens who voted and then you don’t have the data to back it up, some people are going to say that it’s irresponsible for a president to say that. Is there any validity to that?
Trump: Well, many people have come out and said I’m right, you know that …
O’Reilly: Yeah, but you have to have data to back that up.
Trump: … Let me just tell you. And it doesn’t have to do with the vote, though that’s the end result, it has to do with the registration. When you look at the registration and you see dead people that have voted, when you see people that are registered in two states and voted in two states, when you see other things, people that are illegals, that are not citizens, and they’re on the registration rolls. Look, Bill, we can be babies, you look at the registration, we have illegals , we have dead people, you have this, it’s really a bad situation, it’s really bad. And …
O’Reilly: So you think you’re going to be proven correct on that statement.
Trump: Well, I think I already have. People have come out and said that I am correct.
O’Reilly: Yeah, but the data have to show that 3 million illegals voted.
Trump: Forget that. Forget all of that. Just take a look at the registration, and we’re going to do it. I’m going to set up a commission to be headed by Vice President Mike Pence, and we’re going to look at it very, very carefully.
O’Reilly: Well, that’s good. Let’s get to the bottom of this.
