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VALDOSTA, USA – President Donald Trump made clear Saturday that he had no intention of renouncing his unsubstantiated claims that last month’s election was stolen and told a rowdy crowd at his first post-election rally That somehow I would still win
In a speech notable for its distortion of reality more than a month after the November 3 election, the outgoing president launched another litany of accusations that the polls handily won by Democrat Joe Biden were rigged.
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The crowd in Valdosta, Georgia for what was nominally a rally in support of two Republican Senate candidates facing a hugely momentous second-round election roared in support, at one point chanting “fight for Trump.”
Even with the increase in Covid-19 cases across the country, there were few masks in the crowd and many were ignorant of the social distancing rules.
In a nearly two-hour speech, the 74-year-old Trump declared that he would not budge, sticking to his script at times, but frequently backing off his most inflammatory claims.
“We are winning this election,” Trump said at the rally, which was similar to his many pre-election meetings, even the country song “God Bless the USA” played as he took the stage with first lady Melania Trump.
READ: Trump struck with a new blow in an attempt to annul the results of the vote
“It’s rigged. It’s a fixed deal.”
It was yet another example of how Trump broke democratic norms, engaged in the conspiracy, and presented falsehoods in ways unprecedented in American history.
His stance has raised the question of how he will react when Biden’s inauguration date arrives on January 20.
“The swing says we’re all fighting now, I beat them all by a lot,” Trump falsely said.
“And I have to say, if I lost, I would be a very kind loser. If I lost, I would say, I lost, and I would go to Florida and take it easy and leave and I would say I did a good job. But you can never accept when they steal and manipulate and steal. “
– Big bets –
Trump has barely left the White House since Biden was projected to be the winner of the election on November 7, although he has made several trips to his nearby golf course.
Some Republicans had raised concerns about whether Trump’s continued fraud allegations would reduce voter turnout among Republicans in the upcoming election, making his appearance in Georgia a gamble.
The second round of the election will decide which party controls the United States Senate, and Trump in his speech continued his boasting about rival Democrats.
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“Georgia voters will determine which party runs each committee, writes each legislation, controls every taxpayer dollar,” he said.
“In a very simple way, you will decide if your children will grow up in a socialist country or if they will grow up in a free country.”
If Democratic rivals Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff defeat Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the Senate will be split evenly 50-50, meaning that Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris would cast any decisive vote, as dictated by the Constitution. .
The race has attracted enormous attention. One measure of the intense interest: With donations coming in from across the country, candidates have already spent more than $ 315 million, the AdImpact website reported, a staggering figure for senatorial races.
And such prominent figures as former President Barack Obama, Vice President Mike Pence, and now Trump himself have been quick to push voter turnout.
But while Trump offered words of praise to the two Republicans and invited them to take the stage for brief remarks Saturday, he spent much of his time arguing that he had won the election.
– affirms Hugo Chávez –
Despite an overwhelming series of setbacks in the courts, the president and his lawyers have proposed wild conspiracy theories (one involving the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez) to explain Biden’s victory.
Biden won Georgia by just under 12,000 votes.
That result, while narrow, has been confirmed by later accounts, making a phone call Saturday from Trump to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp all the more surprising, urging him to pressure state lawmakers to overturn the result.
The Washington Post said Kemp, once a devoted Trump ally, rejected the plea.
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Loeffler and Perdue have moved cautiously, urging Georgians to vote without directly challenging Trump’s complaints.
But Trump hasn’t made it easy for Republicans in Georgia, angrily lashing out at his own party officials for his loss there, starting with Kemp.
He has denounced Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as an “enemy of the people.”
But on Saturday night, there were flashes in which it seemed that Trump might be beginning to embrace what’s coming.
At one point, he half-jokingly said, “A friend of mine said, ‘Don’t worry sir, you’re way up in the polls, you’ll win in 2024.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to wait until 2024. I want to go back three weeks.’
