Trump demands Ga. loss overturned in call
Official tells president ‘data you have is wrong’ ahead of Senate runoff.
President Donald Trump badgered and berated Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a call Saturday, repeating falsehoods about his election defeat in Georgia — the latest example of the extraordinary pressure he’s exerted on state Republican officials ahead of critical runoffs for control of the U.S. Senate.
Raffensperger refused demands from Trump to overturn the election results, telling him that the “data you have is wrong” as he pushed back on Trump’s theories of “stuffed ballot boxes” that the president said would reverse Joe Biden’s roughly 12,000-vote victory in Georgia.
“Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. We have that in spades already,” Trump said, suggesting more legal action. “Or we can keep it going. But that’s not fair to the voters of Georgia.”
A recording of the roughly hourlong call was obtained on Sunday by The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution and was confirmed by two people involved in the conversation. It was disclosed a day before Trump is set to stage a rally in northwest Georgia for U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Throughout the call, Trump invoked debunked conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud and continued to urge Raffensperger to reverse the election outcome, repeating falsehoods about ballot boxes “stuffed with votes” and other unproven narratives.
“We won this election in Georgia based on all of this. There’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. The people of Georgia are angry and these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night,” Trump said, adding: “There’s nothing wrong with saying that you’ve recalculated.”
State and federal elections officials have said there’s no evidence of widespread irregularities in Georgia and other battleground states, and courts at every level have dismissed challenges from Trump’s campaign and its allies seeking to overturn Georgia’s close election.
At one point in the conversation, the president said that “I just want to find 11,780 votes” — one more than the vote gap between him and Biden, who became the first Democrat to flip the state since 1992.
“It’s pretty clear that we won. We won pretty substantially. And you even see it by rally size,” Trump said, later accusing one of Raffensperger’s attorneys of being a “Never Trumper.”
“There’s just no way. Look, there’s no way. There’s no way.”
Raffensperger, sounding exasperated, responded forcefully at one point in the back-and-forth: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge you have is the data you have is wrong.”
Later, close to the end of the conversation, Raffensperger interjected that Trump was falling victim to false conspiracy theories he’s seen on Twitter.
“Mr. President, the problem you have with social media is that people can say anything.”
“No, this isn’t social media. This is Trump media,” the president responded. “You should want to have an accurate election and you’re a Republican.”
“We believe we do have an accurate election,” Raffensperger replied.
“No you don’t. No. No you don’t. You don’t have it — not even close.”
Among the people on the call were Raffensperger, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and several aides and attorneys, including Washington lawyer Cleta Mitchell. Seeking to defuse the tension, Meadows urged Georgia officials “in the spirit of cooperation and compromise” to find a path forward that doesn’t involve the court system.
“We don’t agree that you have one, Raffensperger responded.
At another juncture in the conversation, Trump chastised Raffensperger for a recent TV appearance where he said there was no systemic fraud in Georgia.
“I know you would like to get to the bottom of it,” Trump said, adding: “People should be happy to have an accurate count, instead of an election where there’s turmoil. There’s turmoil in Georgia and other places — you’re not the only one. We have other states I believe will be flipping to us very shortly.”
The president has feuded with Raffensperger and other Republicans for weeks, blaming them for his narrow election defeat in Georgia. The call came shortly before he was set to headline a rally today for Loeffler and Perdue ahead of Tuesday’s runoffs for control of the U.S. Senate.
Republicans worry that Trump’s ceaseless attacks on Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp and other state GOP figures has undermined the party’s unity and is sending conflicting messages to the president’s loyalists before pivotal elections against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Trump suggested the Republicans could lose if Raffensperger didn’t intervene on his behalf.
“It’s going to have a big impact on Tuesday if you guys don’t get this thing straightened out fast,” said Trump. At another point in the conversation, he warned that a “lot of people aren’t going out to vote” in the runoffs to send a message to Raffensperger.
“A lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the president.”
Trump lashed out in particular at Stacey Abrams, the Democratic former gubernatorial candidate who he said “outsmarted you at every step” with a consent decree in March that addresses accusations about a lack of statewide standards for judging signatures on absentee ballot envelopes.
And he vented at Kemp for not doing more to intervene in the election results.
“Like a schmuck I endorsed him,” he said, adding: “The people are so angry in Georgia, I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again.”
But much of the call was squarely aimed at Raffensperger, a first-term Republican who also will likely face a primary challenge in 2022.
“They’re laughing at you. You’ve taken a state that’s a Republican state and you’ve made it almost impossible for a Republican to win because of cheating — because they cheated like nobody’s ever cheated before,” Trump said, venting later that the call is “going nowhere.”
At each turn, Raffensperger and his attorney, Ryan Germany, pushed back at the false claims.
“That’s not accurate, Mr. President,” Germany said. “The numbers we are showing are accurate.”