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President Donald Trump begged Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn the election leads to a exceptional, hourlong cellphone name obtained by NBC News on Sunday.
Excerpts of the decision, which happened Saturday, have been first printed by The Washington Post earlier Sunday.
The cellphone name featured Trump, days earlier than he’s set to go away workplace, pleading with Raffensperger to change the vote complete and launching right into a barrage of discredited conspiracy theories concerning the election. Trump even recommended that Raffensperger might face felony penalties ought to he refuse to intervene in accordance with Trump’s needs.
Raffensperger and his workplace’s common counsel, Ryan Germany, pushed again on the president’s claims and mentioned President-elect Joe Biden’s victory of greater than 12,700 votes was correct.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” Trump mentioned within the name. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
“Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong,” Raffensperger responded.
In a separate change, Trump mentioned he needed Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
The president, since his loss in November’s election, has sought to overturn the results by pushing state legislatures to appoint a pro-Trump slate of electors and promoting legal efforts that have fallen short. He has also sought to press top Republican officials in states like Georgia and Arizona to disregard the outcomes of elections in their states, baselessly alleging widespread fraud.
A significant number of congressional Republicans will challenge the results on Wednesday, they have said, though this is not expected to overturn Biden’s win.
“There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said. “There’s no manner. We received by lots of of 1000’s of votes.”
Other Trump allies were present on the phone call, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorney Cleta Mitchell.
Georgia has conducted multiple recounts and audits of the vote since November. Recently, a signature match audit in Cobb County found “no fraudulent absentee ballots,” Raffensperger’s office announced.
At one point in the call, Trump alleged that votes were scanned three times.
“You know, they put ‘em in three times,” Trump said, to which Raffensperger said the president’s claim was untrue.
“We did an audit of that and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times,” he said.
The president also sent a barrage of debunked conspiracies Germany’s way.
“Do you think it’s attainable that they shredded ballots in Fulton County?” Trump said. “Because is what the rumor is. And additionally that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is absolutely transferring quick to do away with their, uh, equipment. Do you understand something about that? Because that’s unlawful.”
At the onset of the call, the president cited his widely-attended rallies as one reason why he does not believe he lost. But he failed to connect his large crowds to his repeated defiance of state and local guidelines surrounding Covid-19. Biden largely avoided packed events for the same reason, hosting drive-in rallies and virtual gatherings instead.
“I believe it is fairly clear that we received. We received very considerably Georgia. You even see it by rally measurement … We’ve been getting 25,000, 30,000 individuals to a rally and the competitors would get lower than 100 individuals and it by no means made sense.”
Raffensperger took issue with the numbers Trump was presenting on the phone call. After Trump claimed “1000’s” of dead people voted, Raffensperger said that in actuality, that number was two.
“Two those that have been useless that voted,” he said. “And so, that is fallacious.”
Mitchell said they deduced thousands of dead voters based on a search of names and birth years in the state — a method that would not account for multiple people who have the same name and birth year — and asked for Raffensperger to provide them with additional records to help them determine dead voters.
Trump then interjected, saying dead people voted across the country and that he was “certain” that was the case in Georgia too.
Another point of contention was over “a big quantity” of voters Trump claimed did not live in Georgia. Germany explained that some of those Trump cited were residents who moved back to Georgia years ago after having left.
The answer did not suffice for Trump.
“Really? How many individuals do this,” Trump said. “You imply they moved out after which they mentioned ‘the hell with it, I’ll transfer again. That doesn’t sound … very regular. You imply they moved out, and, what, they missed it a lot that they moved again in?”
The president has targeted Raffensperger and other top Georgia Republicans, including Gov. Brian Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, whom he called ” a disgrace” on Sunday.
Tweeting at Raffensperger Sunday morning, Trump noted his conversation with the secretary of state.
“He was unwilling, or unable, to reply questions such because the “ballots under table” rip-off, poll destruction, out of state “voters”, useless voters, and extra,” Trump said. “He has no clue!”
“Respectfully, President Trump: What you are saying is just not true,” Raffensperger responded. “The reality will come out.”
Later Sunday, Trump called elections in swing states “UNCONSTITUTIONAL!”
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