President Trump is receiving criticism from Republican officials in Georgia for demanding the state’s secretary of state ‘find’ votes that would overturn his loss there. Democrats are calling for a criminal investigation. NBC’s Kristin Welker joins Shep Smith to discuss. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/2NGeIvi
President Donald Trump made a series of “provably false” claims during his controversial phone call to pressure Georgia’s secretary of state to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s win there, a top elections official said Monday.
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager, gave a point-by-point refutation of Trump’s allegations at a press conference, which came two days after Trump leaned on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during an unprecedented hour-long phone call to “find” the president enough votes to beat Biden.
During that call, which officials in Raffensperger’s office had recorded, Trump made a series of claims about purported voting irregularities in Georgia’s presidential election that he said had led to Biden unfairly winning.
The president and his allies elsewhere have made similar allegations, related to felons, underage teenagers and dead people supposedly casting ballots.
“The reason I’m having to stand here today is, there are people in positions of authority and respect who have said their votes didn’t count, and it’s not true,” Sterling said.
“And I’m going to do it again, and I’m going to go through all this, ‘anti-disinformation Monday.’”
Standing next to a chart labeled “Claim vs. Fact,” with two rows of each underneath those words, Sterling said, “This is all easily, provably false.”
“Yet, the president persists and by doing so undermines Georgians’ faith in the elections system, especially Republican Georgians in this case,” he said.
Sterling also said Trump campaign lawyers “intentionally misled” the public with claims that a videotape showed fraudulent votes being awarded to Biden during a count of ballots.
Sterling suggested that Trump’s allegations could harm the chances of Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in their runoff elections Tuesday for Georgia’s seats in the U.S. Senate, where they face stiff challenges from Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively.
There are concerns among GOP leaders that Trump’s claims of widespread ballot fraud in Georgia, and Perdue’s and Loeffler’s backing of the president’s rhetoric, could dampen turnout among Republican voters.
Sterling urged voters to show up to the polls for Tuesday’s races, even if they had concerns about election integrity.
“I’m not acknowledging that there was massive voter fraud, because there wasn’t. But if you believe in your heart of hearts that there was, the best thing for you to do is to turn out and vote and make it harder for them to steal,” he said.
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