Trump advocate stuns Jake Tapper by claiming Obama won North Carolina in 2008 due to voter fraud

Keeping with the Trump campaign's assertion that voting in the U.S. is "rigged," a spokesperson for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump told a stunned Jake Tapper that President Barack Obama may have stolen North Carolina's electoral votes in 2008 via fraud.

Appearing on CNN's The Lead, Trump senior adviser Boris Epshteyn presented a two-pronged attack on what he called a "rigged system."

"What Mr. Trump and our campaign are talking about is the rigged system in two ways," Epshteyn began. "One, in terms of the media. 96 percent of donations, contributions in this cycle by the media are going to the Clinton campaign."

"Boris," Tapper said as he cut him off, "That's like from like restaurant -- that's like from TV critics and restaurant reviewers. That's not from me! That's not from Chris Cuomo or campaign staff or anybody covering the election."

'Listen, Jake, to be fair, those are the numbers that we have," Epshteyn dodged. "There are other numbers out there that refute that? We'd love to see them."

Turning to actual so-called vote rigging, Epshteyn started throwing out disputed or exaggerated numbers as he made his case for voter fraud.

"Numbers by Pew show that 40 percent of people who are not citizens are registered to vote," the Trump spokesperson explained. "People who are dead voting in Colorado. Those are the kind of instances, the kind of voter fraud, we want to make sure that does not happen."

Epshteyn then went a bridge too far for Tapper and guest Angela Rye.

"Barack Obama may have won -- that Barack Obama may have won in 2008 in North Carolina due to illegal voting," he claimed as Rye blurted, "Oh my God."

"Boris, where are you getting that from?" an incredulous Tapper shot back. "Barack Obama won in North Carolina because of voter fraud?"

A laughing Rye added, "It's outrageous."

After a pause, Epshteyn said, "Look at the Washington Post story saying 5 percent of voting in North Carolina may have been by non-citizens who shouldn't have been voting and swung North Carolina to Mr. Obama -- to President Obama -- because of how tight the race in North Carolina was in 2008."

A resigned Tapper moved on, asking Epshteyn is Trump would accept the results of the election refusing to even bother to dignify the comment.

Watch the video below via CNN: