New White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci refused on Friday to distance himself from the Trump administration’s baseless claim that 3 million illegal votes cast for Hillary Clinton lost Donald Trump the popular vote, quickly extinguishing hopes the investment-banker-turned-Trump-insider would usher in an era of truth-telling at the White House.
The claim of massive voter fraud has not been supported by any evidence, and it was one of the most explosive fact-free statements in a young administration full of them.
Yet, Scaramucci said he was not “up to speed” on the question, and that it was unfair to have been asked to comment on it.
“Do you stand by some of the factual claims that have been contested, that have been made by this administration?” a reported asked. “Three million illegal votes cast for the President’s opponent? Do you now — do you endorse all of those statements?”
“So, it’s a little bit of an unfair question because I’m not up to speed on all of that,” Scaramucci said. “I’m just candidly telling you that.”
“The President said 3 million people voted illegally, and there’s no evidence. Do you stand by that or not?” the reporter asked.
“OK,” Scaramucci said. “So if the President says it, let me do more research on it. My guess is that there’s probably some level of truth to that.”
“I think what we have found sometimes — the President says stuff, some of you guys in the media think it’s not true, and it turns out it’s closer to the truth than people think, so let me do more homework on that and I’ll get back to you,” he concluded.
