President Donald Trump is receiving fierce criticism after an excerpt of a phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was published by The Washington Post.
In the call, Trump is heard pressing Raffensperger on a series of allegations of widespread fraud in the election and asking election officials to âfindâ votes for him to overturn the stateâs election results.
Trump tweeted about the call on Sunday and claimed, â was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the âballots under tableâ scam, ballot destruction, out of state âvotersâ, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!â
Politico reported that Raffenspergerâs office decided to record the call because, âThis is a man who has a history of reinventing history as it occurs.â
During an interview with reporter Brendan Keefe on Monday, Raffensperger said there was no agreement that the details of the call would be kept confidential.
He added that he âassumedâ the call was about the presidential election.
Keefe asked if the public would have heard about the call if Trump had not tweeted about it.
âNo,â Raffensperger said as he explained he believed the phone call would remain private. However, the next morning Trump made false claims about the call on Twitter.
He added, âIf President Trump wouldnât have tweeted out anything and wouldâve stayed silent, we wouldâve stayed silent as well.â
He continued, âAnd that wouldâve just been a conversation between him and I. Man to man. And that wouldâve been just fine with us. But heâs the one who had to put it out on Twitter. And so, if youâre going to put out stuff that we donât believe is true, then we will respond in kind.â
Watch the video below:
In the audio of the call, Trump can be heard pressing Raffensperger a range of baseless allegations, including whether ballots were shredded or voting machines were tampered with.
Raffensperger quickly shot down the presidentâs allegations as he defended the integrity of the stateâs election systems.
On Sunday, Raffensperger shared Trumpâs tweet and said, âRespectfully, President Trump: What youâre saying is not true.â
âThe truth will come out,â he added.
