ATLANTA (AP) – President Donald Trump’s continued efforts to thwart the 2020 election results – set out in stark detail in an hour – long weekend call with an election official in Georgia – show his unwavering determination to maintain power, despite the consequences of the nation’s democratic traditions.
Trump, in a Saturday call, Foreign Secretary Brad Raffensperger has pushed to “find” enough votes to block Joe Biden’s victory in the state’s presidential election. According to the recording of the conversation, the president repeatedly quoted rebuttal allegations of fraud and raised the prospect of a ‘criminal offense’ if officials did not change their voices.
Trump has braved the unknown and dangerous territory since his defeat on November 3, becoming the first president to lose an election by trying to hang on to his office by rejecting the will of voters and the results of the Electoral College in the Constitution contained, to throw away.
Trump’s refusal to concede, which undermines the democratic tradition of a peaceful transfer of power and hinders the transition to a Biden government, is particularly risky for the nation as it struggles with a rising pandemic of more than 350,000 Killed Americans. The president has paid little attention to the virus over the past few weeks, and the president has largely renounced the day-to-day government to focus instead on his efforts to hold on to power.
During the phone call, Trump once again dished out conspiracy theories, disinformation and outright lies, insisting that he had won Georgia, despite multiple statements to the contrary. He has repeatedly argued that Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, could change the certified results.
‘All I want to do is. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is more than we have,” Trump said. “Because we won the state.”
Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes.
The call has showcased Trump’s evolution since Nov. 3. Initially, he privately accepted that he had been beaten, even while protesting in public, hoping to show his loyal supporters that he was still fighting while watching his own future, politically and financially.
But as the weeks passed, Trump accepted the narrative that his victory had been stolen. Its shrinking inner circle is now largely populated by those conspiracy theories. The president lives in a media echo chamber made up of conservative voices on television and social media reinforcing his allegations of fraud.
Asked if he felt the president was putting him under pressure to do something illegal, Raffensperger told The Associated Press on Monday: ‘I think he was looking for any kind of benefit he could get, and I just do not see how he’s not going to get It. “
Raffensperger added that Georgia’s presidential vote was counted three times – first directly after the election, then in an audit that added up the results and finally in a machine narrative at Trump’s request.
“If they support a voter challenge for Georgia, they are wrong, dead wrong,” Raffensperger said. Members of Congress will have to make a decision on the results in the other states, he added, “but in Georgia we got it right. I am not as a Republican happy with the result, but it is the right result based on the numbers we saw. ”
Trump’s renewed intervention and his persistent and unfounded allegations of fraud come nearly two weeks before he leaves office and in the run-up to a twin run-off election in Georgia that will determine political control of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
It also added intrigue ahead of Trump’s rally in Georgia on Monday night – probably the last of his term – in which he pushed for the two Republican candidates. In a rage following the Raffensperger call, Trump pushed the idea of pulling out of the protest, which could be devastating to the GOP chances in what are expected to be some razor races.
But Trump was persuaded to continue the protest as a stage to repeat his allegations of electoral fraud and to present the “right numbers” of the race, as he tweeted Monday. Republicans were worried that Trump would focus on himself and suppress the turnout by undermining faith in the by-elections and not promoting the two GOP candidates.
Finally, Trump divided his time to repeat many of the same disturbing grievances he had made days earlier in the Raffensperger call, while also urging his supporters to conquer the ballot box on behalf of Senator Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in races that, according to him the “The fate of our country.”
Trump also indicated that he did not intend to give up his election challenges, even after the election votes were counted on Wednesday. He urged the crowd to look at new revelations over the next ‘few weeks’, saying:’ They are not taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell, I’ll tell you right away. ”
Raffensperger reiterates his frustration over disinformation that has increased since the election, and much of it stems from the Oval Office. He expressed his fear that Trump’s unfounded claims would not only undermine the democratic process, but that it would harm Republicans’ chances. People are wondering about the best way to vote after false information led them to distrust the absentee ballots and the state’s voting machines.
“It’s not a good message for you to ever get to your base,” he said.
A dozen Republican senators, announced by Trump, have announced that they will support up to 100 House colleagues to challenge the certification process of the Electoral College Wednesday. Many other Republicans were wary of keeping Trump’s Twitter account and the party’s base, and allowed the president to sow doubt for weeks and undermine Biden’s legitimacy with much of the population.
Among those who spoke Monday, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a member of the GOP House leadership team, called the president’s call as a deeply disturbing one. GOP Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said the call is a new low in this whole futile and unfortunate episode. He praised election officials “who have fulfilled their duties with integrity over the past two months while enduring relentless pressure, disinformation and attacks from the president and his campaign.”
Audio snippets of the conversation were first posted online by The Washington Post. The AP got the full audio of Trump’s conversation with officials in Georgia from a person on the call. The AP has a policy not to reinforce disinformation and unsubstantiated allegations. It annotated a transcript of the call with fact-checking material.
Several election officials across the country and Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, said there was no widespread fraud in the election. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, who are the battlefields crucial to Biden’s victory, also stood for the integrity of their state elections.
Nearly all of the legal challenges facing Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two thrown out by the Supreme Court, which nominated three judges from Trump.
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EDITOR’S NOTE – Jonathan Lemire has covered White House and politics in The Associated Press since 2013. Kate Brumback has been reporting for the AP at Atlanta since 2008.
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Lemire reports from New York. Associated Press authors Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Kevin Freking in Dalton, Georgia and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.