‘I Just Want 11,780 Votes’ – Trump Begs
Demands Georgia overturns Joe Biden victory
Woos Secretary of State to recalculate vote in phone call
Republicans in last gasp push to keep Trump in power
As desperation sets in for Donald Trump with January 20 inauguration date in sight, the outgoing President has again made another last gasp move to hold tight the coveted White House seat.
In an hour-long phone call reported at the weekend, Trump mounted further pressure on Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there in the election that he has bluntly refuse to concede.
The Washington Post reported that it had obtained a tape of the “extraordinary hour-long call”, which President Trump acknowledged on Twitter.
Stubbornly wooing Raffensperger to recalculate vote in the recorded phone call, Trump reportedly said; “The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” adding; “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
However, Raffensperger, a Republican who has become a bête noire (a person that one particularly dislikes) among Trump supporters for repeatedly saying Biden’s win in his state was fair, said: “Well, Mr President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”
Replying, Trump is quoted as saying: “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.”
He also insisted: “There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
On Twitter on Sunday, Trump said Raffensperger “was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”
Twitter duly marked the President’s message with its standard disclaimer: “This claim about election fraud is disputed.”
Raffensperger also responded: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true.”
Trump did not win Georgia, which went Democratic for the first time since 1992. Its result has been certified and will stand.
So far, attempts to pressure Republican officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania, other battleground states, have failed, as have the vast majority of Trump’s challenges to results in court.
Notwithstanding assured oppositions from at least 12 Republican senators and a majority of the GOP in the House, there are strong signals that Biden’s Electoral College victory will be ratified by Congress on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 and he will be inaugurated as the 46th president on 20 January.
Political commentators attribute the current state of mind of President Trump, who tweeted angrily all weekend, to the rash consciousness his tenancy at the desirable White House will expire in less than 15 days
The Post said White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Cleta Mitchell, a Republican lawyer, were also on the Raffensperger call, during which the president threatened legal action.
Referring to Senate runoffs on Tuesday that will decide control of that chamber, Trump also said Georgia had “a big election coming up and because of what you’ve done to the president, you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam.
“Because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president. OK? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.”
Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, seeking to beat Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, have ranged themselves behind Trump, though state Republican officials fear his attacks could suppress his own party’s turnout.
On the call with Raffensperger, Trump recycled debunked claims about alleged voter fraud, but also said he knew the call wasn’t “going anywhere”. The paper said Raffensperger ended the call. – The Guardian
