President Trump on Monday went on yet another disinformation campaign about the presidential election during a stump speech for Republican Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The final push before the state's Tuesday runoff election exemplified the pattern of conspiracies that are closing out his presidency.
Speaking in Dalton, Ga., in the northwest part of the state, Trump vowed to continue his fight to overturn the presidential election, which he lost overwhelmingly in both the popular and electoral vote to President-elect Joe Biden.
"They're not going to take the White House. We're going to fight like hell," Trump said. "When you win in a landslide and they steal it and it's rigged, it's not acceptable."
Trump's remarks, which mirrored campaign speeches he delivered on his own behalf during the general election, denigrated Democrats and the electoral process, which he erroneously decried as having been compromised during the White House race.
"I really believe we're going to take what they did to us on Nov. 3 — we're going to take it back."
On Wednesday, Congress will tally the Electoral College's votes. Several Republican senators, including Loeffler, have said they will launch an all but impossible bid to contest the results.
Trump described the Democratic Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff as the "most extreme liberal candidates in the history of your state." He called the two Senate seats, which will determine control of the chamber, "truly the last line of defense" against Democrats.
Nov. 3 was officially Election Day in the United States. But a runoff race was triggered when none of the candidates — Ossoff in the race against Perdue and Warnock against Loeffler — received more than 50% of the vote in their respective races.
If Loeffler and Perdue, the incumbent Republicans, are able to stave off their Democratic challengers, the party will maintain a narrow majority in the Senate. If they are both unseated, Democrats will secure a slim advantage in the chamber — 50 elected Democratic senators to 50 elected Republicans, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris delivering the final vote in the event of a tie.
Trump's remarks come after he called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to solicit the election official's help in overturning the president's election loss.
In the call, which was recorded and leaked to the media, Trump can be heard saying "I just want to find 11,780 votes" in order to reverse his loss in the state.
The Tuesday evening campaign stop followed an event held by President-elect Joe Biden, who was in the state earlier in the day in support of Ossoff and Warnock.
During Biden's speech, the Democrat described the election as critical for the recovery of the country, and said that for the first time in his career, one single state could "chart the course not just for the next four years but for the next generation."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
