Donald Trump will keep lying about voter fraud until the day he dies

Donald Trump has many loves in his life. Among them: His family, his business, and lying about voter fraud.

Yes, voter fraud—that old, thoroughly discredited chestnut, which the President resurrected once again while meeting with a group of senators this week.

The remarks came during a meeting Trump held with 10 senators on Thursday to discuss his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. As Politico reported, however, Trump deviated from the agenda (shocker!) to discuss (what else?) how much bigger his electoral victory would have been if not for those meddling kids (and by “meddling kids” I mean “phantom illegal voters who seem to exist only in Trump’s overactive imagination”).

Seemingly inspired by the presence of former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who was voted out in 2016, and now serves as part of the team advising Gorsuch, Trump reportedly insisted that “thousands” of illegal voters had been “brought in on buses” from neighboring Massachusetts, costing both he and Ayotte victories in the Granite State.

Speaking with Politico, one attendee at the meeting described “an uncomfortable silence” that fell across the room after Trump made his remarks.

Why?

Because as has been shown time and time again, there is no evidence of any widespread voter fraud in this, or any recent election. None. Zip. Bupkis.

Nevertheless, raising the specter of shadowy illegal voters has been a longtime tactic of the President, who seems incapable of accepting his electoral college win without going to fantastical lengths to explain how he could have possibly lost the popular vote. This isn’t even the first time he’s singled out New Hampshire for his fantasy scenario.

Neither New Hampshire’s attorney general nor its U.S. Attorney received any reports of widespread vote-tampering in November. And there’s certainly been nothing reported about “thousands” of people being bused in from over state lines—the sort of mass, coordinated effort that would hardly go unnoticed if it had actually happened (which, duh, it didn’t happen, Trump is lying).

While the White House did not immediately respond to Politico’s report, this is far from the first time officials have been forced to confront Trump’s penchant for unfounded voter fraud claims. Last month, Press Secretary Sean Spicer doubled down on the president’s (again: extremely false!) comments that anywhere from three to five million people voted illegally in 2016.

Something tells me we haven’t heard the last of Trump’s bogus claims this time, either.