President Trump urged Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse his electoral defeat in the state, according to the audio of a call between the two on Saturday released by The Washington Post on Sunday. “There is nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you recalculated,” said the president to the state’s top electoral officer.
Raffensperger, who along with Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp, remained steadfast in refusing to overturn the election results, told the president on the call that there was no evidence of electoral fraud or electoral interference. At one point, when the president falsely claimed that the votes were scanned three times, Raffensperger replied: “Mr. President, they didn’t. We audited this and proved conclusively that they have not been digitized three times. “
At one point during the call, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tried to spread the word by proposing to Raffensperger that they find a solution “in the spirit of cooperation and commitment”.
“We don’t agree that you have one,” replied Raffensperger, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Trump lost Georgia and his 16 electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden by 11,779 votes. Although Republican members of Congress said they will oppose the certification of the Electoral College on January 6 – although allegations of electoral fraud in the 2020 election have been repeatedly rejected in court – it is hoped that they will not succeed in overturning the results , given that both chambers must vote to reject the results, and Democrats control the House.
Georgia’s Democratic Senate candidate, Jon Ossoff, criticized Trump’s call on Sunday, saying, “This is a direct attack on our democracy, and if David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler had a piece of steel in their spines … they they would be here defending Georgia voters. “
After O Washington Post published the audio of the call, Republicans were silent on the matter. At a rally in Georgia before the second round of the election on Tuesday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) refused to answer questions about the president’s call to Raffensperger. “I will answer what I think is important to Georgia voters,” he told reporters.
Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock also avoided commenting directly on the call; instead, his campaign released a statement striking his opponent. “Kelly Loeffler has already made it clear that she does not respect Georgia voters. It is a fact that Georgians elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be our next president and vice president – a fact that Kelly Loeffler still refuses to admit, “said the statement. “Senator Loeffler has a responsibility to speak out against unfounded allegations of fraud, to defend Georgia’s elections and to put Georgia ahead of itself. It does not and never will. “