Trump Won The Popular Vote, He Tells Nancy Pelosi

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday to discuss President Donald Trump’s capability as a “dealmaker.” Describing her first meeting with Trump as president, Pelosi said he erroneously — or perhaps wistfully — told her that he’d taken the 2016 presidential election in the popular vote. In reality, it was Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton who won the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots.

Asked whether in his first four months in office the president has “been a good dealmaker” or “reached out to get things done,” Pelosi cited Trump’s first exchange with congressional leadership. “First thing he says to open the meeting: ‘You know I won the popular vote,’” she said.

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Pelosi revealed her response to Trump's claim.

“‘When he said that, I said, ‘Mr. President that’s not true. There’s no evidence to support what you just said. And if we’re going to work together, we have to stipulate to a certain set of facts.’” She said Trump told her, “‘3 to 5 million people voted illegally. You know this, it came out later.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s just not true.’ And he said, ‘And I’m not even counting California.’”

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Pelosi described the interaction as “pretty sad because he didn’t even understand his place in history.” She said she hoped Trump would “rise to the occasion” of respecting the office of the president but added that he “hasn’t so far.”

Pelosi went on to describe the unorthodox nature of Trump's leadership style and juxtaposed it with her relationship with former President George W. Bush — even going as far as saying that she now wishes he were holding office instead of Trump. She added, “I wish Mitt Romney were president. I wish John McCain were president.”

Her account of the exchange with Trump raises questions about whether the president does indeed believe — against all evidence — that he did or could have won the popular vote in November. Trump in May signed an executive order to launch the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity to investigate alleged voter fraud and suppression.

The president in late November took to his preferred method of publishing and tweeted, “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”