US President Donald Trump is pressing his grievances over losing the US presidential election, using a weekend rally to spread baseless allegations of misconduct in last month’s voting in Georgia and beyond even as he pushed supporters to turn out for a pair of Republican US Senate candidates in a runoff election next month.
“Let them steal Georgia again, you’ll never be able to look yourself in the mirror,” Trump told rallygoers.
Trump’s 100-minute rally before thousands of largely maskless supporters came not long after he was rebuffed by Georgia’s Republican governor in his astounding call for a special legislative session to give him the state’s electoral votes, even though US president-elect Joe Biden won the majority of the vote.
Photo: AP
The Jan. 5 Senate runoffs in Georgia are to determine the balance of power in Washington after Biden takes office. Republicans in the state are worried that Trump is stoking so much suspicion about Georgia elections that voters will think the system is rigged and decide to sit out the two races.
The latest futile attempt to subvert the presidential election results continued Trump’s unprecedented campaign to undermine confidence in the democratic process, but overshadowed his stated purpose in traveling to Georgia — boosting US senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Republicans need one victory to maintain their Senate majority. Democrats need a Georgia sweep to force a 50-50 Senate and position US vice president-elect Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking vote.
Republican Party officials had hoped that the president would dedicate his energy to imploring supporters to vote in the runoff, when Perdue and Loeffler try to hold off Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock respectively.
Trump did echo Republican rhetoric that the races amounted to “the most important congressional runoff, probably in American history.”
That is only true because he lost.
However, after Air Force One landed, it quickly became apparent that Trump was intent on airing his own complaints and stoking baseless doubts about the conduct of last month’s vote, rather than boosting his party.
“I want to stay on presidential,” Trump said minutes into his speech. “But I got to get to these two.”
He praised the Republican lawmakers, Perdue for his support for military spending and Loeffler for pushing for early COVID-19 relief spending.
However, he quickly pivoted back to his own defeat.
Trump pulled out a piece of paper and read a list of his electoral achievements, including falsely asserting he won Georgia and the White House. Biden carried the state by 12,670 votes and won a record 81 million votes nationally.
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