11/20/20: All day, Friday, votes trickled
in from the Nov. 3 election. Joe Biden’s lead in continued to grow, passing six million:
Biden: 79,816,557
Trump: 73,781,603
By Friday evening you could argue it was official: The President
of the United States was full of beans.
Having insisted that Dominion Voting Machines used in Georgia
and other states had been manipulated to cheat him out of hundreds of thousands,
even millions, of votes, we now had our first statewide “proof” of that
shocking claim.
______________________
“Election systems across the country are found to have deleted millions
of votes cast for President Trump.”
One America News Network’s Lilia Fifield
______________________
The hand recount in Georgia, completed by the office of the
Georgia Secretary of State, showed no significant change from the original
electronic tallies.
Mr. Trump spent
his time, leading up to the recount, alternately complaining that the recount would
be a “scam” and then expressing confidence that Georgia would “flip Republican”
when all the votes were recounted. At one point, Trump called upon the governor
of Georgia to help a brother out. “Get it done! @BrianKempGA,” the president
tweeted.
Alas, there
was nothing “@BrianKempGA” could do to “get it done” and alter plain math.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that the recount again showed
Biden had won. Results were officially certified on Friday, as required by
state law. The Trump campaign responded in a statement that, “This so-called
hand recount went exactly as we expected because Georgia simply recounted all
of the illegal ballots that had been included in the total.”
Nor were
any of the right-wing “experts” willing to swallow the bitter pill represented
by this “so-called hand recount,” which was, in fact, a full, statewide, hand
recount. One America News Network’s Lilia
Fifield reverted to retelling the big lie pushed beforehand. “Election systems
across the country are found to have deleted millions of votes cast for
President Trump,” she wailed. “According to an unaudited analysis of data
obtained from Edison Research, states using Dominion Voting Systems may have
switched as many as 435,000 votes from President Trump to Joe Biden.”
The full Georgia recount showed the president had been “cheated” out of less
than 1,300 net votes, more than half of that number in a red county where
election officials blundered and failed to download a memory card.
How many votes are in a
truckload?
No matter. Fifield continued to insist that the “the author [of the
Edison Research] also finds another 2.7 million Trump votes appear to have been
deleted by Dominion including almost one million truckloads in Pennsylvania
alone.”
That votes “appear to have been deleted,” wasn’t evidence,
and the claim of “one million truckloads in Pennsylvania alone” was bizarre.
How many votes were there per “truckload,” one would want to know.
Let’s just make up a number, multiply it out, and run with it, like
Trump and his legal team. I’ll say “1,000.” Clearly, a truckload of votes could
be 1,000. So, I am ready to “report” that 1,000,000,000 votes were stolen “in
Pennsylvania alone.” I realize this is an impossible number, but the President
of the United States has been making equally outlandish assertions because the
President of the United States is a dunce. Thursday, with the recount going badly,
he had tweeted:
Report:
Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide. Data analysis finds
221,000 Pennsylvania votes switched from President Trump to Biden. 941,000
Trump votes deleted. States using Dominion Voting Systems switched 435,000
votes from Trump to Biden.
Now we had absolute “data analysis” in Georgia. We had proof.
When all was said and done in Georgia, and five million votes were checked
again…
…Trump lost again.
*
“We will follow the law.”
NOR WAS THE NEWS from Georgia the only blow Team Trump
suffered on Friday. The president also summoned leaders of the Michigan
legislature to the White House. He suggested they ignore the will of the
people, declare him the winner despite Biden’s 150,000 vote lead, and send a
slate of pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College to gift him Michigan’s
electoral votes. The Michigan Senate and House leaders listened to Mr. Trump,
but came away unmoved.
“We have not yet been made aware of any information that
would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative
leaders,” they told the free press, “we will follow the law and follow the
normal process regarding Michigan’s electors, just as we have said throughout
this election.”
Axios was soon reporting that the president was “on an island.” Even most
of his closest advisors had “completely
distanced themselves from his legal effort” and most had psychologically
“checked out.”
They were waiting
for reality to take hold, for Trump to realize he was finished, so they could start
looking for new work.
Sources told Axios
that even Jared and Ivanka believed this strategy of denying vote counts was a
dead horse. The same sources admitted it had been impossible to have any
conversation with the president about the election without it turning into a
rant about the Dominion Voting Machine conspiracy.
*
“Which I am sure saved my life.”
AS FOR MR. TRUMP’S other great prediction, that we had turned
the corner on the coronavirus, and if Biden won, we’d never hear about it again
after Nov. 4, that, too, has proven epically in error.
Sen. Rick Scott is the latest big-name
Republican to contract COVID-19. “I am feeling good and experiencing very
mild symptoms,” Scott said in a statement. Still, he added correctly: “I
want to remind everyone to be careful and do the right things to protect
themselves and others. Wear a mask. Social distance. Quarantine if you come in
contact with someone positive like I did.”
HHS Secretary Dr. Ben Carson has also recovered from his bout with the virus. But in yet another
reality check for those who insist the threat is overrated, Dr. Carson admits
he had a close call. His initial symptoms were mild. Then he fell “desperately
ill.” He had “several co-morbidities” that played a role. “President Trump was
following my condition,” Carson said, “and cleared me for the monoclonal
antibody therapy that he had previously received, which I am convinced saved my
life.” Now he was “out of the woods.”
Not all Americans have been so fortunate as to be able to
command the very best medical care.
CDC reports that we had another 165,087 cases on Nov. 18. And
1,836 more Americans died.
On November 19, we had 185,095 cases of COVID-19 and 2,045 additional
citizens will no longer be celebrating this holiday season – or any other for
the rest of eternity – with their bereaved families.
On November 20, while Trump was focused on getting Michigan
lawmakers to hand him sixteen electoral votes he hadn’t earned, the U.S. hit a
new high for cases: 192,673 in one day, and another 1,885 Americans died,
without enjoying Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing in gravy.
Even celebration at the White House will be muted this year.
Don Jr. has tested positive and
is said to be self-isolating at a cabin somewhere in the woods.
12/5/20: While the President of the United States punts on his duties
as leader of the Free World, COVID-19 rages across the land.
____________________
“I expected the worst, and it was worse than I
expected.”
Patricia
O’Toole, presidential historian, quoting Henry Adams
____________________
And he rages about the stolen election, himself. In the last week, Mr. Trump has tweeted 145 times
about the election he lost – which he insists he won – only four times about
the pandemic – and then only to say he was right all along about what was going
to happen, and the experts were wrong.
Classic Trump tweets include:
“NO WAY WE LOST THIS
ELECTION,”
“We won Michigan by a
lot!” (Actually, he lost the state by 154,000 votes.)
If he [Biden] is inaugurated
under these circumstances, he cannot be considered ‘president’ but
instead referred to as the #presidentialoccupant.”
When a pair of Republican
governors refused to overturn election results in their states, Trump blasted
them both in another tweet, howling that Brian Kemp (in Georgia) and Doug Ducey
(in Arizona) “fight harder
against us than do the Radical Left Dems.”
Later,
he vented for 46 minutes, in a rambling videotaped speech: “Many
people in the media — and even judges — so far have refused to accept it. They
know it’s true. They know it’s there. They know who won the election, but they
refuse to say you’re right. Our country needs somebody to say, ‘You’re right.’”
(No
judge, presented a case by Team Trump, has ever said the election was stolen.)
Peter Baker, in The New York Times,
reports that some have compared Trump’s
behavior to Shakespearean characters, King Lear and the like.
“Students
of the American presidency, on the other hand, could think of no recent
parallel. ‘As we move toward Inauguration Day, I have thought almost daily of a
remark attributed to Henry Adams: “I expected the worst, and it was worse than
I expected,”’ said Patricia O’Toole,” author of several biographies of American
political figures, including Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
*
MEANWHILE, CDC has reported three
days in succession with more than 200,000 cases of coronavirus. We have piled up more
than 1,000,000 new infections in the first five days of this month.
Health experts had predicted we were
in for a brutal winter. President Trump, of course, said we weren’t.
The coronavirus death toll, each day:
12/1:2,461
12/2:2,762
12/3:2,861
12/4:2,439
12/5:2,310
_________________
12,833
That toll would be roughly equivalent
to losses in killed, wounded, and missing for the Union Army at the Battle of Antietam.
With Trump’s grip loosening, as his
time in office trickles away, the real scientists are speaking up. The CDC, for
example, has recommended “universal mask wearing” for all
Americans in all activity outside the home. Or you could attend President
Trump’s rally in Valdosta, Georgia on Saturday and shout and scream and spread
some germs:
Rallying and sneezing at Valdosta.
*
The president and other members of a deranged cult.
PRESIDENT TRUMP is pulling out every
stop to overturn the clear vote of the American people. His Saturday evening
rally in Georgia, ostensibly in support of the two U.S. senators from Georgia,
who face runoff elections on January 5, had a message that could be boiled down
to three words.
I WAS ROBBED.
The president babbled for an hour, but
that was his real message. Or, if you’d like more detail, a paraphrase:
I was robbed. Democrats are robbers. I was robbed by the
robbers. Joe Biden is the worst robber of all. His middle initial, “R” stands
for “robbery.” No way did that guy get 81 million votes. At least 60 million of
those votes were robbed from me. This was the biggest robbery in the history of
U.S. elections. It was like Bonnie and Clyde were in charge of the voting
machines.
We are going to prove that I was robbed, as soon as all the
judges, several of whom I appointed, stop throwing out my lawsuits. Also,
Attorney General Barr, whom I appointed – he’s robbing me too. The Republican
governor of Arizona has robbed me of his state’s electoral votes. That stinking
robber! The Republican governor of Georgia is the Jesse James of governors. The
Georgia Secretary of State is a “RINO” and a thief. We should execute all
robbers and I should get a second term, and then a third, because I was robbed.
And remember, I am the only person you can trust to drain the swamp and uphold
the U.S. Constitution!
Thank you, my loyal MAGA fans for listening this evening,
chanting, “Lock (fill in the blank) up,” standing or sitting close, not
wearing masks, and acting like members of a deranged cult.
THE END.
As if we didn’t already have enough
problems, on Saturday evening, likely provoked by the president’s baseless conspiracy
theories about how the election was stolen, armed Trump supporters gathered outside Michigan Secretary
of State Jocelyn Benson’s home. There they shouted…baseless conspiracy theories
about how the election was stolen. Benson’s 4-year-old son was home at the time
and neighbors were drawn into the fray in her family’s defense.
In a statement soon after, Benson thanked the Michigan
Attorney General for quick action to protect her and her family (you’d think
Trump might care about her son’s safety, but then again: We’re talking Trump). “Through
threats of violence, intimidation and bullying, the armed people outside
my home and their political allies seek to undermine and silence the will and
voices of every voter in this state,” Benson said, “no matter who they voted
for.”
She said she wouldn’t be intimidated.
*
MEANWHILE, a star witness in the
fight to overturn Biden’s victory in Michigan turned out to be a questionable
character for sure. Mellissa Carone, who swore she had been witness to massive voter
fraud, turned out to have been on probation in an earlier case, involving a sex
tape (in which Carone played a starring role), her boyfriend (co-starring), a
computer, and her boyfriend’s ex-wife.
As HuffPost explained, Carone
had been “charged under the name Mellissa Wright with first degree obscenity
and using a computer to commit a crime. Under a plea agreement, she reduced
her charge to disorderly conduct and received 12 months of probation,” that ended
September 13.
That is, Carone sent the video to
the ex-wife and then tried to frame her and make it seem as if she had stolen
the tape.
As for Carone, and her actual
testimony before a hearing of Michigan lawmakers, with crack Trump campaign
lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis at her side, this blogger could never do
justice to the lunacy as well as Saturday Night Live.
And yes, Rudy did punctuate the
testimony at times with a barrage of farts.
FUN FACT: A poll of Republican members of Congress reveals that only 27 of
249 senators and representatives are willing to acknowledge Biden’s victory.
Trump, outraged, called those 27, collectively, “RINOS,” which must make them a
herd.
12/15/20: President Trump suffers a stunning blow today when his most
loyal pal admits he lost the election – six weeks ago – and congratulates President-Elect Joe
Biden.
We mean, of course, Russian strongman
Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has sent Mr. Biden a “congratulatory telegram” wishing him
“every success” as he takes office. Putin also expresses hope that the two great
powers can work together to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues.
*
AS FOR PRESIDENT TWITTER THUMBS, we
know he’s not one baby step closer to accepting his loss.
Some days back, we highlighted the
stages of grief the president must pass through. (See: 11/25/20.)
Now we need to add a few, because the
current occupant of the White House is bogged down in the initial stages. Steps
added in italics:
The Eleven Stages of Grief
Denial
Tweeting
Anger
Golfing
Hiding in the White House
Desperation
Bargaining
Lying
Depression
More Lying
Acceptance
Today, Lame Duck Donald’s itinerary reads: “The President has no public events scheduled.”
Otherwise, we have “desperation” tweeting. For example, a retweet:
“Trump is in the process of proving he won, and Biden is pretending he did.”
Lame Duck Don also tapped out his own claim, about voting
machines being totally off: “Able to take a landslide victory and reduce it to
a tight loss.”
No Twitter Thumbs tweet-rampage is
complete without a suggestion that someone needs to be locked up, even if we
never bother with a trial. In this case, it comes in a retweet of a post by Georgia lawyer Lin Wood,
who suggests jail time for two Republicans, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp
(left in the picture) and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (right).
Their crime? Counting the votes in
their state three times (two recounts demanded by Team Trump) and reporting
that Mr. Biden won.
Three times.
Governor Kemp gives "thumbs up," in happier times.
*
THE GOOD NEWS TODAY: the vaccine
rollout offers promise that the worst of the pandemic may soon be behind us.
The bad news? We have passed the
300,000-dead mark since we recorded the first case in America on January
20.
1/3/21: The Washington Post and other media outlets reveal a
call made by President Trump, the day before. That call, lasting a little more
than an hour, goes to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
You’d have to be blind, deaf and
dumb, with a red MAGA hat, two sizes too small screwed to your head, and
cutting off blood to your brain, to miss the meaning of this call.
____________________
“And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the
country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that
you’ve recalculated….I mean, they’re all exact numbers [the litany of claims Trump
has just piled up] that were done by accounting firms, law firms, etc. And even
if you cut ’em in half, cut ’em in half and cut ’em in half again, it’s more
votes than we need.”
President Trump
____________________
We now learn that the president called
Georgia election officials and pleaded with them to “find” just enough votes to
eliminate Biden’s Peach State margin of victory.
We already know that you can’t indict
a sitting president; but the plan the president is floating would guarantee a
felony charge for anyone else.
*
If you can bear to listen to the
entire 62-minute recording, you’ll hear Trump saying, in essence, he’s not
asking for much. Just 11,780 votes, one more than needed to take the state’s 16
electoral votes away from his opponent and put them in his win column. Really,
just one little felony was all he needed!
In the recorded call, he repeatedly
claims to have won the state by “hundreds of thousands” of votes. At one point,
he says he won by “400,000 votes.” At another: “500,000.” All he’s asking for
is a little help. You know, maybe Georgia officials could “recalculate” their
totals.
If they could just “find” 12,000
votes, a nice, round number, well, then, who could possibly complain?
In an effort to spare you as much
time and effort as I can, here are the key moments from the call. The first
nineteen minutes consist of Trump rattling off huge numbers of votes, in
multiple categories, that he claims were fraudulently cast or cast for him and
then stolen for Mr. Biden. Dead people by the thousands voted. People who had
moved out of Georgia still voted in Georgia. People who had moved out of
Georgia and died came back (from heaven) to cast ballots. Some Democratic lady
pulled 18,000 votes out of a “suitcase,” hidden under a table. Those votes were
counted once … twice … three times. All those 54,000 votes went to … Joe Biden.
The Georgia officials on the
receiving end of the call – three Republicans – Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger, his deputy, Jordan Fuchs, and a state lawyer, Ryan Germany,
listened patiently. Only in the second half of the call did they have much
chance to try to talk sense.
*
Amoral on a good day, immoral on a bad.
THIS CALL captures the soul of Donald
J. Trump. He’s amoral on a good day, immoral on a bad. He’s crude. He’s
unethical. He’s ill-informed. He’s logic-impaired. Twice he insists there’s no
way he could have lost the election in Georgia because his rallies drew bigger
crowds than Biden’s.
(A total irrelevancy, of course.)
In Fulton County, the president says,
the “rumor” is that thousands of ballots were “shredded.” In his mind a “rumor”
equals proof.
At one point, White House Chief of Staff Mark
Meadows, also participating in the call, interjects. “What I’m hopeful for is there some way that we can, we can
find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully?”
Trump does most of
the talking. He justifies his request by piling up massive numbers to show he
was cheated out of a landslide win. He just needs a little nudge to get him
over the line. During the call he cites “5,000” as the
figure for the number of dead people who voted, and that’s at “minimum.” He
pulls another number out of thin air, insisting there were “300,000 fake
ballots.”
Next, we have a
classic bit of Trumpian proof:
Then the other thing they said is in Fulton County and other
areas. And this may or may not be true ... this just came up this morning, that they are burning their ballots,
that they are shredding, shredding ballots and removing equipment. They’re changing
the equipment on the Dominion machines and, you know, that’s not legal.
Trump injects
another dose of Trump Math (also known as “making shit up”), saying that “they supposedly
shredded I think they said 300 pounds of, 3,000 pounds of ballots. And that
just came to us as a report today. And it is a very sad situation.”
Yes, “very sad.”
Even though it might be 300 pounds. Or a ton-and-a-half. Just make some big number
up.
Georgia officials
tell him bluntly that the rumor is not true.
Naturally, Trump hammers away at one of his
bugaboos. Dominion Voting Machines were rigged! He and most of his fans believe
that software used in those machines was set to steal votes from one deserving
orange hero and give them to one underserving socialist, “Sleepy Joe” Biden.
Raffensperger says he can’t vouch for other states which used the machines, but
notes,
I don’t believe that you’re really questioning the Dominion
machines. Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the
ballots, and compared them to what the machines said and came up with
virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the
same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table.
Trump tries again. He has heard that county
officials are getting rid of the machines, or replacing the software parts, to
hide their crimes.
All he needs is a
little help. “What’s the difference between winning the election by two votes
and winning it by half a million votes,” he wonders. “I think I probably did
win it by half a million.”
“The data you have is wrong.”
Trump and Meadows,
and several lawyers on the White House end of the call may be careful not to come
out and say, “Steal the goddam votes we need, Brad.” They’re close. Trump
insists he won by hundreds of thousands; and now all he needs is a little boost.
And the people of Georgia are angry,
the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying
that, you know, that you’ve recalculated….I mean, they’re all exact numbers [the
litany of claims Trump has just piled up] that were done by accounting firms,
law firms, etc. And even if you cut ’em in half, cut ’em in half and cut ’em in
half again, it’s more votes than we need.
“Well, Mr. President,” Raffensperger replies, “the challenge
that you have is the data you have is wrong.”
He mentions a signature check done in Cobb County, involving
15,000 names. It turned out, only two were fraudulent.
The president insists he was robbed and that’s it. “I mean, look, you’d have to be a child to think anything other
than that. Just a child.”
He and his lawyers insist that they
have video showing “suitcases” full of bogus votes for Biden being rolled out
and counted in Fulton County. The Georgia officials tell them they’re wrong.
This exchange follows:
Trump:For some reason, they put it in three times, each ballot, and I don’t
know why. I don’t know why three times. Why not five times, right? Go ahead.
Raffensperger: You’re talking about the
State Farm [Center] video. And I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy
Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out
of context. The next day, we brought in WSB-TV, and we let them show, see the
full run of tape, and what you’ll see, the events that transpired are nowhere
near what was projected by, you know –
Trump: But that was – and Brad, why did
they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.
Raffensperger: Mr. President, they did
not put that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they
were not scanned three times.
Ryan Germany, the attorney for the Secretary of State’s
office, identifies himself on the call. The story of the thrice-scanned votes
is false.“We had our
law enforcement officers talk to everyone who was, who was there after that
event came to light. GBI was with them as well as FBI agents.”
Facts are stumbling blocks for most people. Not Trump. “Well,
there’s no way they could – then
they’re incompetent. They’re either dishonest or incompetent, okay?”
Investigators couldn’t be right. “There’s only two
answers, dishonesty or incompetence. There’s just no way. Look. There’s no way.”
“People can say anything.”
Balked at one turn after another, the president
shifts again. What about all the people who voted who didn’t live in Georgia?
There were at least 4,500, possibly “in the 20s.” Or: 20,000 plus.
Germany: We’ve been going through each of those [claims] as well…Every
one we’ve been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different
state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately. And in many cases –
Trump: How many people do that? They
moved out, and then they said, “Ah, to hell with it, I’ll move back.” You know,
it doesn’t sound like a very normal…you mean, they moved out, and what, they
missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? It’s crazy.
Germany: They moved back in years ago.
This was not like something just before the election. So there’s something
about that data [Trump’s] that, it’s just not accurate.
Trump’s lawyers complain at length about being
denied information they need to prove their case: That billions of fraudulent
votes were cast in Georgia. That the gates of Hell were sprung; and the dead
poured out to vote.
The Georgians point out that information Trump
and his lawyers are demanding is shielded by state privacy laws.
Once again, Trump makes it clear he won in a
landslide and all he needs is a teeny-tiny bit of help.
I won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. There’s
no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of
votes. I’m just going by small numbers, when you add them up, they’re many
times the 11,000. But I won that state by hundreds of thousands of votes.
Trump circles back to an earlier claim he made: That in Fulton
County, tons of bogus votes had been shredded.
Trump:Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County?
Because that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out
machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh,
machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal, right?
Germany: No, Dominion has not moved any
machinery out of Fulton County.
Trump: But have they moved the inner
parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?
Germany: No.
Trump: Are you sure, Ryan?
Germany: I’m sure. I’m sure, Mr.
President.
Trump: What about, what about the
ballots. The shredding of the ballots. Have they been shredding ballots?
Germany: The only investigation that we
have into that – they have not been shredding any ballots. There was an issue
in Cobb County where they were doing normal office shredding, getting rid of
old stuff, and we investigated that. But this stuff from, you know, from you
know past elections.
Trump: It doesn’t pass the smell test
because we hear they’re shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now
what they’re saying, “Oh, we’re just cleaning up the office.” You know.
Raffensperger: Mr. President, the problem you
have with social media, they –people can
say anything [emphasis added throughout, unless otherwise noted].
Trump: Oh this isn’t social media.
This is Trump media. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side,
you know. I don’t even know why you have a side because you should want to have
an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.
Raffensperger: We believe that we do have an
accurate election.
Trump: No, no you don’t. No, no you
don’t. You don’t have. Not even close.
Flummoxed in regard to the imaginary shredding,
the president and his team try a new tack. Since the signature check proved the
votes were tallied accurately in Cobb, Trump wants to know, how come they
didn’t investigate Fulton County?
“We chose Cobb
County,” Mr. Germany explains, “because that was the only county where there’s
been any evidence submitted that the signature verification was not
properly done.”
Trump switches to
an attack on Democratic leaders in Georgia who organized a turn-out-the-vote
campaign. “Look. Stacey, in my opinion,” he grumbles, “Stacey is as dishonest
as they come.” Stacey Abrams has “outplayed” and “outsmarted you at every
step,” he tells the three Republicans.
He continues to
adhere to the basic line: “I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won quite
substantially.”
“Flipping the state.”
His frustration
begins to show:
Trump: We can go through signature
verification, and we’ll find hundreds of thousands of signatures, if you
let us do it…in Fulton, where they dumped ballots, you will find that you have
many that aren’t even signed and you have many that are forgeries.
Okay, you know that. You know that. You
have no doubt about that. And you will findyou will be at 11,779 within
minutes because Fulton County is totally corrupt, and so is she [Abrams] totally
corrupt.
And they’re going around playing you
and laughing at you behind your back, Brad, whether you know it or not, they’re
laughing at you. And 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. And I don’t care how long it
takes me, you know, we’re going to have other states coming forward – pretty
good.
I think you’re going to find that they are shredding ballots
because they have to get rid of the ballots because the ballots are
unsigned.
The state
officials have already explained that the machine count of votes, and the
hand-count of votes and then a second machine count all substantially match.
The ballots are still there. They weren’t “shredded.”
They weren’t
basted or broiled.
They’re still there.
Finally, the president
makes what most listeners on such a call would consider a threat. Bad enough,
he says, that Abrams and the Democrats stuffed ballot boxes. Worse:
And you are going to find that they are – which is totally
illegal – it is more illegal
for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not
reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let
that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And
that’s a big risk.
Then you get the
ask, in bluntest terms. Trump wants election officials to “flip the state.”
And
you can’t let it happen, and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I’m
notifying you that you’re letting it happen. 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.
And
flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, you know, this
is – it’s a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to
call it.
(As noted earlier, if most of us tried this, a jury would
call it a felony.)
I don’t know, look, Brad. I got to get ... I have to find 12,000 votes, and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the
state.
So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000
votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in
spades already.
The answer he
wants is clear: What the Georgia folks are expected to do is “find” enough
votes for Trump to carry the state. Say whatever else you want about the
president’s claims. He’s asking officials to cheat.
“We can play this game with the courts.”
Trump rehashes
several of his claims, including the 18,000 fake ballots x’s 3. His frustration
is mounting. His target is new – and his thinking increasingly dangerous:
Trump:And every single ballot went to Biden, and
you didn’t know that, but now you know it. 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
I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can
reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers,
not people that don’t want to find answers.
Raffensperger: Mr. President, you have people
that submit information, and we have our people that submit information. And
then it comes before the court, and the court then has to make a determination.
We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.
Trump: Why do you say that, though? I
don’t know. I mean, sure, we can play this game with the courts, but why do you
say that? First of all, they don’t even assign us a judge.
Trump has made this clear before. He hates a
three-branch form of government. If he had his way, there would be one. The
president hints that he’ll make sure Raffensperger’s career in politics is over
if he doesn’t cave.
Same for the governor of the state:
You just say, you stick by, I mean I’ve been watching you,
you know, you don’t care about anything. “Your numbers are right.” But your
numbers aren’t right. They’re really wrong, and they’re really wrong, Brad. And
I know this phone call is going nowhere other than, other than ultimately, you
know – Look, ultimately,
I win, okay? Because you guys are so wrong. And you treated this. You treated
the population of Georgia so badly. You, between you and your governor, who is
down at 21, he was down 21 points. And like a schmuck, I endorsed him, and he
got elected, but I will tell you, he is a disaster.
The people are so angry in Georgia, I can’t imagine he’s ever
getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now. But why wouldn’t you
want to find the right answer, Brad, instead of keep saying that the numbers are
right? ‘Cause those numbers are so wrong?
Discussion follows
about setting up a meeting to address some of the president’s concerns. He wants
more. “I’m just saying, you know, and, you know, under new counts, and under
new views, of the election results, we won the election. You know? It’s
very simple. We won the election.
“This is wrong, this is wrong, this is
wrong…”
Kurt Hilbert, a
Georgia attorney working for Trump, suggests that lawyers from both sides sit
down and look at just four categories, totaling 24,149 votes. Why not “compromise?”
Hilbert explains:
That [number] in and of itself is sufficient to change the
results or place the outcome in doubt….And if you can convince us that 24,149
is inaccurate, then fine. But we tend to believe that is, you know, obviously
more than 11,779. That’s sufficient to change the results entirely in and of
itself. So what would you say to that, Mr. Germany?
Meadows jumps in
and says it sounds like they have an agreement to meet and discuss the numbers.
“Is that correct?”
Germany: No, that’s not what I said. I’m
happy to have our lawyers sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and
explain to him, hey, here’s, based on what we’ve looked at so far, here’s how
we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is
wrong.
Germany makes clear again, that some of the
information Trump’s lawyers are demanding is shielded by law. He doesn’t intend
to violate state law.
“But you’re allowed to have a phony election? You’re allowed to
have a phony election, right?” Trump complains.
“No, sir,” Germany responds.
Trump has the last word. He wants help. He
deserves help. He expects help. And he has a warning, too. His supporters,
…They hate the state, they hate the governor, and they hate the
secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. The only people that like
you are people that will never vote for you. You know that, Brad, right? They
like you, you know, they like you. They can’t believe what they found. They
want more people like you. So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And, Brad,
we just want the truth. It’s simple.
And everyone’s going to look very good if the truth comes out.
It’s okay. It takes a little while, but let the truth come out. And the real
truth is, I won by 400,000 votes. At least. That’s the real truth. But we don’t
need 400,000 votes.
He only needs one more than Joe Biden
received. That’s the truth as Lame Duck Donald sees it, with time running out.
