Democrats like former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former first lady Michelle Obama aren’t the only ones holding President Donald Trump to task for threatening Georgia’s top election official in a recorded call. Republicans are joining in on the fun too, including the very official Trump targeted. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told ABC News Monday he’s “debunked” every election-related theory out there that Trump still chooses to believe but that the president still wanted to engage the secretary of state in a phone call while the two offices had ongoing litigation. Raffensperger said under that set of circumstances he prefers to “let the lawyers handle it.”
“But we took the call and we had a conversation,” the Georgia election official said. “He did most of the talking. We did most of the listening, but I did want to make my points that the data that he has is just plain wrong.” In one example, Trump claimed votes were cast for hundreds of people who were dead. “We found two,” Raffensperger said.
In the call The Washington Post obtained, Trump tried condemning, complimenting, begging, and even threatening Raffensperger to look into unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. “The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry,” Trump reportedly said in the call. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.” Raffensperger responded by telling the president his data “is wrong.”
“So look. All I want to do is this,” Trump said at one point in the conversation. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.” Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden by 11,779 votes, according to a recount from Raffensperger’s office.
Obama called the president’s refusal to accept defeat, especially during the coronavirus pandemic “just unconscionable” in a Twitter thread Monday. “It’s unconscionable to focus on overturning an election rather than helping struggling families or distributing a vaccine,” she said.
The Chicago attorney went on to encourage Georgians to vote in Tuesday’s Senate runoff. “Your vote is your voice. It’s your power,” she tweeted. “And right now, from the President of the United States on down, we’re seeing and hearing just how desperate some are to take that power away. They want us to believe that their pride is more important than our democracy.”
Clinton similarly described in a tweet Monday just how much Trump is willing to sacrifice for his ego. “What we’re seeing right now is a president with nothing left to lose and only one goal—to distract people from the fact that he lost,” she said in the tweet. “He doesn’t care that the costs are America’s health, security, and our very democracy.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders called the president’s words “unprecedented,” adding that “this is what mafia does.” "It is the most consequential attack on American democracy in the history of our country," he told MSNBC. Sanders also referenced the portion of the call in which Trump threatened that if Raffensperger and his general counsel Ryan Germany didn’t find thousands of fraudulently cast votes in Fulton County they would be committing “a criminal offense.” “And you can’t let that happen,” the president said. “That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.” Sanders called it “not only impeachable” but “certainly a criminal offense.” “That is not what democracy is about,” Sanders said. On that, he and several notable Republicans seem to agree.
George Conway, who's married to former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, called Trump “dumb as a rock" and said in a tweet Sunday "the president committing criminal acts on unsecure telephone lines is the actual national security threat here."
“It’s shocking, but not surprising,” George Conway told MSNBC's Morning Joe. “The real question that pops up here, and pops up again and again, is how delusional is he? Is he that delusional or is this—or is he just desperate, and I think it’s a little bit of both.” Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey said in a statement CBS News obtained Monday that Trump's call "represents a new low in this whole futile and sorry episode."
Sorry as the president may be, he doesn’t seem to stand alone. There’s an ongoing effort by some GOP legislators to challenge Biden's Electoral College victory, and 10 senators, Republicans and Democrats, are working to fight that effort. They said in a statement The Associated Press obtained that "the 2020 election is over" and continued attempts to invalidate election results are “contrary to the clearly expressed will of the American people and only serve to undermine Americans’ confidence in the already determined election results.” Republicans Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah supported the statement. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan tweeted: "The American people—not the politicians—elect the president. The scheme by members of Congress to reject the certification of the presidential election makes a mockery of our system and who we are as Americans." Former House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement the AP obtained that “Biden’s victory is entirely legitimate” and that efforts to sow seeds of doubt about election results “strike at the foundation of our republic.”
Find responses from activists and Georgia officials below:
RELATED: Watch Kamala Harris shred Trump real quick for recorded call threatening Raffensperger
RELATED: Trump caught on tape threatening Raffensperger, demanded state 'find' votes to overturn Biden win
The Georgia runoff is Jan. 5. Let’s give GOP Leader Mitch McConnell the boot! Give $4 right now so McConnell can suffer the next six years in the minority.
Source: Daily Kos
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