Trump again falsely claims he won Michigan and that Detroit had more voters than people

Todd Spangler
Detroit Free Press

President Donald Trump on Wednesday again insisted that he won Michigan despite losing the state to President-elect Joe Biden by more than 150,000 votes and again repeated the lie that more people voted in Detroit than the city has residents.

The remarks came two days after Michigan's Board of State Canvassers certified the results in the election showing Biden had won.

"This election was rigged," Trump told a group of Republican legislators from Pennsylvania by phone on Wednesday afternoon. "This election has to be turned around. We won all these swing states by a lot."

"You look at the things that happened in Detroit," he went on. "You have more votes than you have voters... think of it, more votes than you had voters."

As of last year's Census estimate, Detroit, Michigan's largest city, had a voting-age population of 503,934. According to the city clerk's website, 250,138 Detroit residents voted in the election.

More:Michigan board votes to certify election results despite GOP calls to delay

More:State Senate committee to hold election hearing as Trump campaign touts 'review'

Trump's remarks came in a phone call he made into an event being held in Gettysburg, Pa., by a Republican-only group comprised of Pennsylvania state senators who said they were asking questions about possible irregularities in the election. Trump and his legal team have continued to deny their losses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other swing states, claiming fraudulent votes were cast despite a lack of evidence.

Trump said his team's legal challenges would have gotten farther if they hadn't been heard by judges "who had a political opinion." In Michigan, at least two claims brought involving returns processed at TCF Center in Detroit were found to not be credible. And while Trump claimed there were "many more ballots" in question than those needed for him to win, in Wayne County, where Detroit is located, about 440 were in question as of last week when the county's board of canvassers met.

Trump lost Detroit by more than 200,000 votes and Wayne County by more than 300,000 votes. 

Earlier this week, it appeared that Trump might be moving toward a more settled transition to Biden taking the reins of government with his inauguration on Jan. 20 but Wednesday's remarks seemed to undermine that.

"This election was lost by the Democrats," Trump said. "They cheated. it was a fraudulent election... This is a very important moment in the history of our election."

A Michigan state Senate committee announced Wednesday it would hold a hearing next week looking into reports of problems in the vote count at TCF Center but there was no indication that the Trump campaign would play a part in it. 
