House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she felt “sorry” for President Trump and prayed for both him and the country in the wake of Mr. Trump’s recent comments about alleged voter fraud in the 2016 election.
“For a person who is newly elected president of the United States should be so insecure as to declare that he’s now the president…and he’s saying, ’I won the popular vote, 3 to 5 million Americans voted illegally in our country,’” Mrs. Pelosi told reporters. “To … undermine the integrity of our voting system is really strange.
“I, frankly, feel very sad about the president making this claim. I felt sorry for him,” said Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat. “I even prayed for him. But then I prayed for the United States of America.”
Mrs. Pelosi was one of several House and Senate leaders who met with Mr. Trump at the White House Monday, when he apparently repeated his belief that he lost the popular vote in the election because millions of ballots were illegally cast.
Mr. Trump said on Twitter Wednesday that he plans to ask for a “major investigation” into voter fraud and that depending on the results, there could be a strengthening of voting procedures.
“It was really quite startling when the president declared that he won the popular vote because 3 to 5 million people voted illegally in our country, which was not fact-based and evidence-based,” Mrs. Pelosi said.
Mrs. Pelosi said Mr. Trump’s own lawyers had argued there wasn’t evidence of massive fraud when they were arguing against Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s bid for a recount in several states.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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