No Big, Just Trump Begging Georgia Secretary Of State To ‘Find’ Him 11,780 Votes
There’s still time for another quickie impeachment.
Donald Trump, who will leave office in 16 days, likely kicking and screaming, sucks at making deals. He couldn't convince his own party to support $2,000 stimulus checks and he can't convince elected officials to commit crimes on his behalf. He's both a terrible businessman and a subpar mob boss.
As Trump descends further into madness, he grows more desperate. After insulting Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for weeks on Twitter, Trump called him up Saturday and demanded he “find" the votes necessary to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the state. We must remind you that Georgia has counted its ballots three times and Biden has kept winning. It was like he was on a streak.
The Washington Post, which released the full hourlong recording of the call, adorably stated that Trump's call “raised legal questions." Well, duh.
The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking "a big risk."
The Watergate tapes were less incriminating.
Not for nothing, but if the phone call the WP got hold of between the presidenf* and Raffensperger isn’t an impeach… https: //t.co/RglKoam4V4
— Charles P. Pierce (@Charles P. Pierce) 1609700006.0
Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, his office's general counsel, tried to explain to this overgrown, emotionally damaged child that he is hopelessly lost in a delusional swamp of conspiracy theories. Biden's victory in Georgia is objectively fair and accurate. Willy Wonka put it best: “You lose! Good day, sir."
Trump won't accept that the election's over, and he wouldn't stop whining.
TRUMP: The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry.
That's almost a true statement, but Trump ignores that more people are happy as a motherfucker that he got his ass beat.
TRUMP: And there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated.
Actually, yes, there's a lot wrong with “recalculating" votes to produce results that aren't true. Raffensperger said Trump's “challenge" is his complete disconnect from reality. Trump's tinfoil hat data is just flat-out wrong.
TRUMP: 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.
He did not win the state. However, Jay Gatsby more readily accepted that he'd lost Daisy Buchanan than Trump will accept that he lost Georgia, the first Republican presidential candidate to do so since 1992.
"There's no way I lost Georgia," Trump said, a phrase he repeated again and again on the call. "There's no way.We won by hundreds of thousands of votes."
Trump doesn't just believe he won Georgia. No, he won BIG, just like in 2016, when he carried the state by 211,141 votes.
Maybe Trump is asking too much of Georgia. You can't repeat the past.
Reportedly, several of Trump'saccompliceswere on the line during this totally legal conversation, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell. It's not clear if she's an official member of Trump's elite squad of lawsuit losers.
In a statement, Mitchell said that Raffensperger's office "has made many statements over the past two months that are simply not correct and everyone involved with the efforts on behalf of the President's election challenge has said the same thing: show us your records on which you rely to make these statements that our numbers are wrong."
Lady, they've counted the damn votes three times!
You can tell what a rip-roaring success this “perfect" call was because Trump tweeted more nastygrams at Raffensperger on Sunday, the Lord's day for delusional conspiracy making.
@GaSecofState It already did. Listen for yourself. https: //t.co/6NQfBjVviI
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈 (@Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈) 1609700294.0
Raffensperger responded that Trump was full of lies and that the “truth will come out," which it did just a few hours later. The Post 's recording of this call is a damning collection of impeachable offenses.
Trump asked if it was true that they “shredded ballots in Fulton County 'cause that's what the rumor is." Yes, President Sore Loser is pinning his second term aspirations on bullshit rumors. He also suggested that Dominion “took out" machines and is “really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery." (Dominion is preparing to sue into oblivion idiots who spread this libel about its company.)
GERMANY: Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.
TRUMP: But have they moved the inner parts of machines and replaced them with other parts?
GERMANY: No.
Then Trump straight up threatened Raffensperger and Germany, claiming they know what some mysterious, unnamed “they" did but aren't reporting it.
TRUMP: That's a criminal offense. And you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.
Trump insisted that Dominion is “shredding ballots," based on what lunatics have told him, and are “removing machinery," both of which are apparently “criminal finds."
TRUMP: So, tell me, Brad, what are we gonna do? We won the election and it's not fair to take it away from us like this.
He didn't win the election.
TRUMP: I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already.
He's not a well man, and a functioning democracy would remove him from office immediately.
Trump threatened Raffensperger some more, wrongly claiming he presided over a “faulty election." He even blamed him for Republicans potentially losing the Georgia Senate runoffs on Tuesday.
TRUMP: You have a big election coming up and because of what you've done to the president -- you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam. Because of what you've done to the president,a lot of people aren't going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president.Okay? They hate it. And they're going to vote.And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.
This is yet another extortion-shaped statement.
Trump keeps referring to himself as the president, because he feels that title and its power slipping from grasp. You'd almost feel sorry for him if he wasn't a malicious sack of shit who deserves to experience his loss to Joe Biden every day of the rest of his miserable life.
[ Washington Post / Post Call Transcript]
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I worked for a major national firm long ago and anyone participating in a call like that would have found their name off the stationery (I saw this accomplished in hours once) and their belongings on the sidewalk amazingly quickly.
I had the same experience except that I guessed what was going on with Martin and quit after 3 or 4. He made a world but couldn't figure out what happened in the story.