‘The truth’s on tape.’ Reactions to leaked Trump call seeking to overturn Georgia vote

A leaked phone call Saturday in which President Donald Trump pressured Georgia election officials to find more votes for his re-election has sparked a wave of backlash.

In the hour-long call, first released by The Washington Post on Sunday, Trump cajoles, begs and threatens Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” needed to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Raffensperger politely stands his ground and eventually ends the call.

After the call, Trump wrote in a Twitter post that 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!” The leaked audio shows Georgia officials pushing back on Trump’s unfounded accusations.

“Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true,” Raffensperger replied on Twitter. “The truth will come out.”

“The truth’s on tape,” wrote Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Twitter. “For those who’ve joined the effort to subvert the election, you still have a choice: you can either side w/someone who is asking officials in your own party to break the law or you can side with our republic. There is no middle ground.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., called the call “absolutely appalling.” “To every member of Congress considering objecting to the election results, you cannot — in light of this — do so with a clean conscience. #RestoreOurGOP,” he tweeted.

Bob Bauer, a senior Biden aide, said the call “captures the whole, disgraceful story about Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy, CNBC reported. “We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place,” Bauer said, according to the network.

“It’s not just that Trump’s Overturn the Election backers in Congress are empowering this particular behavior,” wrote Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on Twitter. “Their endorsement of this destruction of democracy guarantees it will happen again. They are normalizing all this (at least within the GOP).”

”Republicans, there is no defense for this. None,” Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona, tweeted.

“I will not be silent as the outgoing president attempts to subvert the will of more than 5 million voters in my state,” wrote Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, D-Ga., on Twitter. “This country is a democracy, not a dictatorship — and I will use every power in my authority to reject Trump’s attacks on our election.”

“Add another atrocity to the list: Trump demanding that Georgia’s election official rig the election he lost,” wrote Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., on Twitter. “A crime caught on tape.”

“Either he is unwell, and really believes he won in Georgia despite all evidence to the contrary, or he knows better and thinks he can use his office to pressure state officials to change the outcome of the election,” wrote Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., in a statement posted to Twitter. “Either way, he remains profoundly unfit for office,” wrote Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., cited claims by Trump allies of voter fraud in his response on Twitter to the leaked call.

“You want to investigate election fraud? Start with this,” Schumer wrote.

Listen to audio of the entire call, first posted by the Washington Post, here.

During the call, Trump told Raffensperger “the people of Georgia are angry.”

“The people of the country are angry, and there’s nothing wrong with saying that you’ve recalculated,” he said.

“Well, Mr. President,” Raffensperger responded, “the challenge that you have is the data that you have is wrong.”

President-elect Joe Biden carried Georgia with 49.5% of the vote to Trump’s 49.3%.

Trump also appeared to threaten Raffensperger with legal consequences.

“You know what they did and you’re not reporting it,” he said in the recording. “That’s a criminal offense and you can’t let that happen, that’s a big risk to you.”

He then again pushed the secretary of state to “reexamine” the election results.

“So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this, and it’s going to be very costly in many ways,” he said. “And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it.”

There’s been no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Georgia or any other state, elections officials have said. But Trump and his allies have refused to accept the outcome of the election and continued to push baseless voter fraud claims in an attempt to challenge the results in multiple battleground states, including Georgia.

His campaign and allies have filed dozens of lawsuits related to the election, the vast majority of which have been unsuccessful in court.

Georgia has completed multiple ballot recounts and audits since November, each time upholding Biden’s victory.

Trump, however, has lodged numerous attacks against Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, both Republicans, over their handling of the election.

In the recording published Sunday, Trump said “you have a big election coming up” and “a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because of what you did to the president,” talking about Georgia’s pair of runoffs for U.S. Senate on Jan. 5 that will determine which party controls the chamber in 2021.

But some Republicans have expressed concern that Trump’s continued, baseless fraud claims could hurt GOP turnout in the races.

This story was originally published January 3, 2021 at 3:30 PM with the headline "‘The truth’s on tape.’ Reactions to leaked Trump call seeking to overturn Georgia vote."