No one seems to be able to catch Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama on the first try.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, left a long, disconnected and very revealing voice message to Tuberville, but instead was sent to a different, unidentified politician. The voice message, which urged Tuberville to slow down the Electoral College’s vote certification, was sent to The Dispatch and transcribed in full.
It appears that President Donald Trump also tried to reach Tuberville the same day.
This time, the call allegedly went to Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who happened to be crouched near Tuberville in the United States Capitol Senate chamber, which was under siege by a pro-Trump crowd.
Lee told Deseret News about his strange connection to the president.
“How are you, Tommy?” he remembered the president asking.
Lee told Trump that he was not Tommy.
“Well, who is this?” Trump asked.
“It’s Mike Lee,” said the senator.
“Oh, hi, Mike. I called Tommy.”
Lee told Deseret News that he then handed his phone over to Tuberville, who he said spoke to the president for about 10 minutes. In the middle of the call, Lee said, the police began evacuating lawmakers from the area.
Lee said he then asked Tuberville for his phone back.
“I don’t want to interrupt your call with the president, but we are being evacuated and I need my phone,” he recalls saying.
Lee told Deseret News that, based on a conversation with Tuberville a little later, he thought the president did not know that the siege was taking place during the call.
Tuberville was one of several Republican senators – including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas – who voted to overturn the results of the elections in Arizona and Pennsylvania. These efforts failed, and after Congress met again after the siege, he certified Joe Biden as president-elect.
In December, Tuberville received praise from Trump after he said he would not rule out objections to the election results during the Electoral College certification process.
After the siege of the Capitol, Tuberville tweeted condemnation of the crowd of Trump supporters.
“Yesterday was a sad day for our great country,” he wrote. “I strongly condemn the violence and actions that we saw from those who invaded the Capitol. It undermines the freedoms we enjoy as Americans and has no place in our democracy.”