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US President Donald J. Trump speaks to the media in the White House press conference room in Washington, DC, US, November 20, 2020 (Photo: EPA-EFE / JIM LO SCALZO / POOL)
US President Donald Trump pressed Georgia’s top election official to “find” enough votes to reverse his defeat in the state, according to audio of a Saturday phone call obtained by the Washington Post, in the latest effort. Trump to push for unsubstantiated claims of election fraud
The Washington Post, which on Sunday published excerpts from the hour-long call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, said Trump alternately complimented, pleaded with and threatened Raffensperger with vague criminal consequences in an attempt. to undo his loss in Georgia to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.
(Update: listen to the full discussion and read the transcript here.)
The newspaper said that during the call, Raffensperger and his office’s attorney general rejected Trump’s claims and told the president that he relied on debunked conspiracy theories about what a fair and accurate election was. Audio excerpts published by the Post confirmed this.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry,” Trump said, according to an excerpt from the recording posted online by the Post. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
“So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state, “Trump said on the recording, insisting that there was” no way “he would lose the state.
The White House declined to comment. Raffensperger’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Biden’s transition office had no immediate comment.
Georgia is one of several pivotal states in which Trump lost the Nov.3 election to Biden, and where Trump has since made unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and sought to nullify the results. (Reporting by Michael Martina in Detroit; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)
