White House meeting
US President Donald Trump puts his arm around Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (2nd R) as he plays host to a reception and meeting with US congressional leaders, also including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (from L), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, US on 23 January 2017 REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

US President Donald Trump invited congressional leaders to the White House on Monday evening for a reception and used the meeting to complain about his loss of popular vote in the November election.

He claimed he lost the vote because three to five million "illegals" voted for Hillary Clinton, aides familiar with the meeting said. He had also made this claim previously on Twitter during the transition but according to media reports, there is no evidence to prove the claim.

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Voting officials across the United States previously said there was no proof that illegal immigrants voted, according to New York Times.

"I don't think he was joking. He spent 10 minutes on his win and said he won the popular vote, except 3 to 5 million illegals voted for [Clinton]" another individual familiar with the closed-door meeting was quoted as saying by the Huffington Post.

This was Trump's first meeting with lawmakers at the Capitol Hill since assuming office on Friday, (20 January). Nancy Pelosi, House Minority leader (D-Calif.) when asked by White House reporters if Trump made any surprising statements said, "Well, I won't even go into that."

She added it was an "interesting" meeting and that they discussed healthcare, infrastructure as well as currency manipulation and China.

"We talked about the Affordable Care Act and said what the Affordable Care Act has been successful in doing is improving quality, expanding access and lowering costs. And any proposal that they might have that does that — we'd be interested in hearing about."

Representative Steny H Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, who was present at the meeting told CNN that Trump also mentioned the size of his inauguration crowd.

Hoyer quoting Trump said, "It was a huge crowd, a magnificent crowd. I haven't seen such a crowd as big as this." He added saying that Trump didn't "spend a lot of time on that, but it was clear that it was still on his mind".

In November, Trump won the Electoral College with 304 votes but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by 2.8 million votes.

The meeting was described as a "get-to-know-you" session with both Democrats and Republican leaders of the House and the Senate at the beginning of the new administration.