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Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions throughout, and told the president that he was relying on debunked conspiracy theories spread on social media about what was a fair and accurate election, according to the audio excerpts and the newspaper’s account.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” Trump said, according to audio of the call published online by the Post. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
“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,” Trump said in the recording, insisting that there was “no way” he lost in Georgia.
The White House declined to comment. Raffensperger’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to Biden, said the recording captures “the whole, disgraceful story about Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.”
“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.
Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia was the first by a Democratic presidential candidate in a generation and has raised hopes among Democrats that they could win a pair of U.S. Senate runoffs in the state on Tuesday, giving their party control of Congress.
