President Trump accused television pundits and other critics of playing the racist card when they characterize him or his policies as anti-Muslim or anti-black.
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x News Channel personality Bill O’Reilly asked Trump in an interview that aired Tuesday night whether his feelings are hurt when critics are making you into a hater.
No, because they always do it, Trump replied. The first thing they do with the Republicans or conservatives is the racist card. They pull out the racist card. They always do that. It’s not just me. I mean, they do it with everybody. And I see that and once you know that you feel a lot better about it.
Trump’s comments came in an interview that was taped at the White House last Friday as part of Fox’s Super Bowl coverage. Fox News has been airing new segments of the interview on O’Reilly’s prime-time show.
In the portion that aired Tuesday, Trump also defended himself against criticism that he makes comments without factual evidence to support them, such as his unsubstantiated claim that millions of undocumented immigrants voted illegally in the November presidential election.
Well, many people have come out and said I am right, Trump said. You know that.
I know, O’Reilly responded. But you’ve got to have data to back that up.
Donald Trump speaks to business leaders during a strategy and policy forum at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Friday, Feb. 03, 2017.
Trump went on to claim that many, many dead people appear on the voter registration rolls and have voted, as well as people who are registered to vote in two states and cast ballots in each.
There’s a lot of bad things happening, Trump said. Look, Bill, we can be babies, but you take a look at the registration you have illegals, you have dead people, you have this, it’s really a bad situation. It’s really bad.
Trump’s statement is false. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud from dead people voting, people voting in two states or undocumented immigrants voting.
Trump said he has directed Vice President Pence to lead a commission to investigate allegations of voter fraud.
We’re going to look at it very, very carefully, Trump told O’Reilly.