A recorded phone call reveals Donald Trump flattered, begged and threatened Georgia’s top election official in a desperate attempt to overturn the results of the US presidential election on Saturday.
Obtained and published by the Washington Post, the audio details a conversation between the president and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
As Trump yet again pushed unfounded claims of voter fraud, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions and told the president that he was relying on debunked conspiracy theories.
“There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said. “There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
Biden beat Trump in Georgia, 2,473,633 votes to 2,461,854 and the vote has been certified.
Trump then pressured Raffensperger to “find” extra votes, 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.”
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
Raffensperger responded: “Well, Mr President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”
The White House declined to comment. Raffensperger’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Reuters reports. Biden’s transition office had no immediate comment.
Georgia is one of several crucial swing states where Trump lost the November 3 election to Biden, and where Trump has since made unfounded allegations of election fraud and sought to overturn the results.