It's simply not true' - Jake Tapper takes on Trump on vote fraud claim

CNN anchor Jake Tapper took on the claim from President Donald Trump that he lost the popular election because of millions of fraudulent votes in California, and he didn't take too kindly to it. Tapper made the comments Tuesday on CNN.

WATCH: The only thing you need to watch about POTUS' voter fraud claims is this intro by @jaketapper -- please share far and wide. pic.twitter.com/LXL9q5g4uR

— Yashar (@yashar) January 24, 2017

Tapper explained the controversy over Trump's recurrent insistence that fraudulent voting stole the popular vote from him in the 2016 election.

President Trump is claiming and the White House is reaffirming the fiction that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election. It is empirically a stunning allegation for which the White House is providing no evidence. And there is a reason they are providing no evidence, there is no evidence. It is not true. Moments ago White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer acknowledged that the believes three to give million votes were illegally cast in November.

Then he made the case for why the claim is very likely not true.

It is interesting what Mr. Spicer did not say. He did not say that he shared the belief, even after he was asked. Now why would that be? Perhaps because there's zero evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election.

Now has there ever been any voter fraud, any instances? Yes. Massive voter fraud? Three to five million votes cast illegally in 2016? No, it's simply not true. In fact if there were even a fraction of the voter fraud that President Trump was alleging, he would derelict not to order a major investigation. It would likely require a vast conspiracy involving public officials all over the country. And would likely have had far-reaching impacts in other contests. Tainting races, down the ballot, not just the presidential race. If President Trump's beliefs are true, Republican leaders in Congress should be holding hearings and trumpeting this injustice every single day. His Justice Department, his Department of Homeland Security, all of them would need to crack down immediately.

Unless of course, it's not even remotely true. Which is of course, the case.

The newly inaugurated president appears to be in a feud with CNN, as he's been attacking their credibility and reputation from his bully pulpit, and the cable news network has been very critical of the more controversial statements and actions from Trump.

A poll in December showed a majority of Americans believed Trump won the popular vote, even though he missed it by a wide margin.