Brown calls on Trump to rescind illegal voting claim

The president-elect alleges that millions voted illegally on Nov. 8.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is calling on President-elect Donald Trump to retract his statements that millions of Americans voted illegally in the 2016 election.

“Your choice to spread false conspiracy theories and to claim millions of fraudulent votes is not only unbecoming of a gracious winner, it is downright dangerous to our democracy,” Brown wrote in a letter to Trump. “There is no evidence – zero – of any large-scale voter fraud in the United States. Not in this election and not in any presidential election in recent memory. Peddling this nonsense and stoking these fears undermine our system of government – and your own election, damaging the public’s faith in our democracy.”

With less than two months before Trump assumes office, Brown is emerging as a consistent critic of the Republican and president-elect.

Brown on Tuesday blasted Trump’s selection of Rep. Tom Price of Georgia as Secretary of Health and Human Services, saying the pick would endanger Medicare. Price has been generally supportive of efforts to privatize Medicare, supporting instead block grants for such programs.

“To hand the reins to someone with Congressman Price’s long record of trying to privatize Medicare is a direct betrayal of Donald Trump’s campaign promise to protect and strengthen the program for America’s seniors, and you can bet we will do everything in our power to block any attempt to hand the Medicare program that seniors have worked their whole lives for over to Wall Street,” Brown said.

In his letter to Trump, Brown urged Trump to “reach out to the majority of Americans who voted for someone else and unite Americans based on our nation’s shared values.”

“Instead, we’re already hearing talk of plans to privatize Social Security, to raise the Medicare retirement age, to give huge handouts to Wall Street at the expense of the middle class, and to roll back laws that safeguard our air and water and protect American consumers. That is far from the compromise and cooperation we need at this difficult time.”

On Sunday, Trump wrote on Twitter that he would’ve won the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Democrat Hillary Clinton leads in the popular vote by about two million ballots, though Trump easily won the Electoral College that determines presidential elections.

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