US President Donald Trump expanded his extraordinary efforts to overturn the election Saturday, attempting to pressure Georgia's governor to force a special session of the legislature to change the result, while using an evening rally for two GOP Senate candidates to rant about his own grievances and thrash Republican leaders who have not done his bidding, reports CNN.
It was more evidence that the President will spend the remaining days of his presidency ignoring the deadly course of the pandemic, spreading falsehoods that amount to an attack on democracy and nursing his own grudges even if that works against the interests of his own party.
The purpose of Trump's visit to Valdosta was to get voters mobilized and primed to support Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in January's Senate runoffs that will determine control of the US Senate. Trump's relentless claims of voter fraud in Georgia have alarmed many GOP leaders who fear they may lead many Republican voters to stay home.
But in his seemingly endless narcissism, Trump found it difficult to keep the focus on Loeffler and Perdue, repeatedly turning back to his own complaints and made only passing references to the alarming rise in Covid-19 cases nationally at a rally where almost no one wore masks and there was no social distancing.
He made up fantastical stories about votes in suitcases, re-litigated his election tallies in battleground states and suggested that he will be successful in reversing the November results where President-elect Joe Biden beat him with 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. "We will still win it," he said, even though there is no means for him to do so.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud and many states have already certified their results as the vast majority of Trump's baseless legal challenges go down in defeat, meaning that he is merely trying to delay the inevitable as he fights Biden's ascent to the White House.
During the Georgia speech, which included a video showcasing his fake claims about election fraud, he alternated between freewheeling lines and his teleprompter script -- occasionally trying to thread the needle between asking Georgians to get out and vote, but then doing further harm to his party by inaccurately claiming that Georgia's election system is fraudulent. The voter registration deadline is Monday and early voting begins December 14.
"This election was rigged and we can't let it happen to two of the greatest, most respected people in Washington," he said, pointing to Loeffler and Perdue. "We can't let it happen again. Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing."
The competing messages were on full display when Trump invited Loeffler and Perdue to the stage to make brief remarks. Loeffler warned the crowd that if they don't vote, Republicans will lose control of the Senate. But the crowd seemed much more interested in the President's claims, drowning out the two candidates by chanting "Stop the steal" and "Fight for Trump!"
Trump called their Democratic rivals, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff "extreme," and at one point said he understands the inclination among many of his supporters to sit out the election. But he urged them not to do so. "If you don't vote, the socialists and the communists -- they win," he said.
"The answer to the Democrats' fraud is not to stay at home; that's what (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi and (Senate Minority Leader Chuck) Schumer, that's what they want you to do — stay at home," Trump said. "If you want to do something to them — I don't want to use the word revenge, but it is a sense of revenge — to the Democrats, you show up and vote in record numbers."
There is no evidence of systematic fraud by Democrats.
