Donald Trump has held his first political rally since losing the presidential election, delivering an incoherent speech laced with baseless conspiracies theories about election fraud and attacks on Republican state officials in Georgia who have refused to help him subvert the results.
In front of a crowd of thousands of mostly maskless, non-socially distanced supporters in south Georgia, Trump repeatedly claimed, falsely, that he had won the presidential election, and called for those in government with “courage and wisdom” to help him reverse the result.
The president’s rally, on a cold evening at a regional airport in the small city of Valdosta, came ahead of a critical US Senate runoff election in January, which will decide control of the upper house and ultimately play a decisive role in president-elect Joe Biden’s ability to legislate.
Trump had ostensibly travelled to Georgia as a show of support for the two Republican Senate candidates for the January poll, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, but spent the majority of speech railing against the results of the presidential election.
He began his speech, which lasted more than 90 minutes, by falsely claiming he had won the state of Georgia, which he lost to Joe Biden by over 12,000 votes in a result that was certified by the Republican secretary of state more than two weeks ago.
“They cheated and they rigged our presidential election, but we will still win it,” Trump falsely claimed. “And they’re going to try and rig this [Senate] election too.”
The president read from a prepared list of nonsensical evidence that he said highlighted his victory. This included arguing that by winning the states of Ohio and Florida he had in fact won the entire election, and also that winning an uncontested Republican party primary earlier this year was proof he had won against Biden in November.
Trump lost the electoral college vote by 306 votes to 232 and the popular vote by over 7m. His campaign has launched numerous legal challenges in various states. An Associated Press tally showed that of roughly 50 cases brought by Trump’s campaign and his allies, more than 30 have been rejected or dropped, and about a dozen are awaiting action.
Trump vented fury at the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, a one-time political ally of the president, who has resisted calls to join Trump’s attempts to overturn the result in the state.
“Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing,” Trump told the crowd.
He added: “For whatever reason your secretary of state and your governor are afraid of Stacey Abrams” – a reference to the former Democratic gubernatorial candidate, who is a staunch voting rights advocate and helped drive turnout in the election and secure the state for Biden.
The rally came hours after the Washington Post reported that Trump pressured Kemp to overthrow the results of the election in the state during a Saturday morning phone call. Trump pushed Kemp to convene a special session of the state legislature in a bid to send Trump backing presidential electors when the electoral college convenes on 14 December. Kemp denied the request, the Post reported.
Trump then made a similar demand on Twitter in the afternoon.
The president also demanded an audit of absentee ballot signatures in the state, which Kemp does not have the power to authorise.
At the rally, which was reminiscent of many of his campaign rallies, Trump railed against coronavirus and resulting restrictions, and stoked fears of tax changes under a Democratic administration.
He also claimed if he thought he had lost the presidential election, he would be “a very gracious loser”. “I’d go to Florida … I’d take it easy” he said.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
