Consider This from NPR - All Eyes On Georgia: Senate Hangs In The Balance As Trump Tries To Steal Votes

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Georgia was already going to be the center of the political universe this week. Now, leaked audio of a phone call between President Trump and Georgia election officials raises new questions about how far he's willing to go to overturn an election he lost. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports on how it's all playing out in Georgia, where control of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance. She speaks to Fulton County elections director Rick Barron and Emma Hurt of member station WABE. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Today, we're in Georgia, where it is almost Election Day again. For weeks, massive get-out-the-vote operations have been in full swing here. Ahead of two runoff elections on Tuesday, those elections will determine which party controls the United States Senate. Okay, all right. So, Mr. President, everybody is on the line. So the stakes were already high. Tensions were already running high when, Saturday afternoon, came the phone call. So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Tell us.

I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. In leaked audio first obtained by the Washington Post, the president pressed officials here in Georgia to find a way to find votes to overturn the state's presidential election results, which have been counted, recounted, re-recounted and legally certified. Joe Biden won by 11,779 votes. I just want to find 11,780 votes. Trump talked for more than an hour on the call about shredded ballots and rigged voting machines,

ideas based on fringe conspiracy theories from the internet with no basis in reality. Legal experts tell NPR that what the president did on that call may amount to election fraud. As we've heard from the Republicans now for months, voter fraud, election fraud is a crime. That's Kim Whaley, professor of law at the University of Baltimore. And it's also a crime to request, solicit, or ask someone else to, say, falsify returns or falsify reports of votes. And arguably, that's what we heard on the call. Those actions, Whaley said, could be impeachable. But whether this is prosecutable is a different question from whether it's antithetical to the rule of law

and the Constitution and democracy itself. And I would say clearly it is. It's very disturbing. Consider this. Georgia was already going to be the center of the political universe this week. Now the president's phone call raises new questions about how far he's willing to go to overturn an election he lost. Coming up, how it's all playing out here in Georgia with control of the U.S. Senate hanging in the balance. It's Monday, January 4th. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. and more. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment when you need professional help. Get help at your own time and your own pace. Schedule secure video or phone

sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist. Visit betterhelp.com slash consider to learn more and get 10% off your first month. LifeKit is rethinking New Year's resolutions. All this January, we're thinking about both really big and really small changes. If you're wanting to change up your life and start fresh, we've got you covered. If you're looking to just make your home a little nicer, we got you there too. Listen now to the Life Kit podcast from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. We are in Atlanta recording this on Monday afternoon. Monday night, the president will speak at a rally about an hour and a half north of here in the city of Dalton. Now, we don't know what President Trump will say at that rally, but we know what he has

threatened to say because of the leaked tape that we can call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The people of Georgia are angry. And these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night, along with others that we're going to have by that time. The president threatening to use an election rally in Georgia to attack the integrity of the election process in Georgia. Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, challenged the president's arguments. Trump was not persuaded.

You have a big election coming up. And because of what you've done to the president, you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam. And because of what you've done to the president, a lot of people aren't going out to vote. And a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the president. OK, they hate it. And they're going to vote. And if you would be respected, if really respected, if this thing could be straightened out before the election. You have a big election coming up on Tuesday. The president seemed to be suggesting that some Republican voters wouldn't trust the process in Georgia. As Richard Barron listened to some of the audio of that call over the weekend, he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

It's surreal. You know, my staff and I come to work every every day and we've been doing it this whole year. We have had 34 COVID infections throughout that time. The only thing we're interested in is trying to conduct elections as well as possible. Barron is the elections director in Fulton County, Georgia, which includes a big chunk of the city of Atlanta. The president mentioned Fulton County more than a dozen times in his phone call. We stopped by Barron's office in Atlanta on Monday to talk about why. He's gotten death threats this past week.

Hate calls were lighting up the phone on his desk as we sat down. But he told us he is sure this week's election in Georgia will be legitimate and will be secure. So how much confidence should people in Fulton County, should people in the country have that Fulton County is going to pull off a free and fair election for these Senate runoffs? I'm completely confident that we're going to. We've already processed 270,000 early voters without issue. And we have been processing under live streaming and with observers present, we've already scanned over 80,000 ballots of the 99,000 we've received. I'm not sure how else to characterize it as anything other than being a well-run election thus far. Do you have any

idea why the president is so focused of every county in Georgia, why he mentioned Fulton County so many times in the transcript of that call? I think part of it has to do, I don't, this county is seen as a democratic county and it's the largest county in the state. I mean, we are, by far and away, we're the most visible county. So I think that has something to do with it. And because it's perceived as being a Democratic county, that's probably another reason for it. Bottom line, given how many questions there have been in this election cycle about the integrity of our elections in this country and how many specific questions there

have been about Georgia raised by the president and his allies and others, what do you want to say to people about the integrity of the election that you are overseeing? I think that our elections are without reproach. I mean, we come to work every day just to do this job because it means something to us. And what it's turned into this year is something that I don't think I ever anticipated seeing in my lifetime. It's concerning to me that we've got to this point and that a lot of people with a lot of things are put out in social media and the Twitter sphere that just have no basis in fact and I think there has to be some sort of education for voters in the future or for the public

that just breaks down and simplifies what goes on behind the scenes in elections because it is really just a set of processes that you go through and you do it time and time again. And they're the same things we've been doing for years and years. Although COVID's upended a lot of the way we've done things. COVID has affected many things, especially, I don't know how many other election departments have been affected by as much as we have.

I mean, we had 28 infections before the November election. We've had six others. We've had one staff die. We've had several go to the ICU. We've had some that are the long haulers. They've got, they have effects months after they've had COVID. So it's been a challenging year in addition to the political part of it. Well, Mr. Barron, thank you. Good luck tomorrow.

Thank you. The two Republican candidates on the ballot in Georgia are David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Their Democratic opponents, John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, appear to have an edge in early voting. That's based on what's known about the electorate so far. And so the question for Republicans is how many people they can get out to vote on Tuesday. To talk through that, we walked the few blocks from the Fulton County offices to the Georgia Capitol with its famous Gold Dome. Secretary Raffensperger's office is right here, right across the hall from the governor's. People were coming and going, swinging through big wooden doors. We arranged to meet up with reporter Emma Hurt of NPR member station WABE. She has been

reporting on the GOP here in Georgia. Emma Hurt, hey there. Hi, welcome to Georgia. Welcome back to Georgia. Welcome back to the Capitol. Yes, welcome home for me. Let's talk about Republicans who have been busy attacking their own, we should say, for weeks now in Georgia, talking about Georgia. What is the impact of this latest twist of the President Trump phone call? You know, morale for Republicans right now is low. This is more of the same in a way from President Trump questioning the election and putting really direct pressure on Republicans that previously endorsed him and that he endorsed. The question, though, of course, is does this affect any Republican voters? Does this make anyone second guess their vote? Does this make anyone second guess voting at all?

And that is what is striking fear in the hearts of many Republicans, has been for a while, but it has not eased up. In fact, this call has just made it worse. I want to talk about the two Republican candidates in play here from Georgia for the U.S. Senate, David Perdue, Kelly Loeffler. Voters here who plan to vote for them or who have already voted for them early, is it because they like David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler? Or is this about

the bigger picture of if you're a Republican, you might not want everything in Washington, Congress, and the White House to be in Democratic hands? You know, it's a mix, right? Senator Perdue has been in office for six years, and so he has more of an established identity and reputation than Senator Loeffler, who was only appointed a year ago. And you can see that in the vote totals from November. He performed the best out of all Republicans, actually, including the president in Georgia. But this divided government argument that you mentioned is really strong. I mean, while Joe Biden won the state narrowly, the Republicans in the Senate race is outperformed.

And so we can see that there are split ticket voters in Georgia. There are voters who for whom that they want Republican policy still. And we see that in the General Assembly, too. We're here in the state capitol where Republicans still control both chambers and where Republican state senators. I think the total is about 53 percent of the vote went to Republican state senators. And so that divided government argument is very real. Yeah. I wonder, Emma, as you report here in Georgia, are you starting to see any takeaways about the future of the GOP that might apply nationally? I mean, we're watching the divisions within the party play out spectacularly here in Georgia today.

And the whole country is wondering what happens to the Republican Party when President Trump is no longer president? Yeah, I think that this is really, you can make the argument that this is a microcosm of what the Republican Party is going to have to deal with and is already starting to have to deal with, where the president is asking and in a way forcing Republicans to choose between him and everything else, whether that's the laws, the election system, the electoral college. And he's punishing people who are not choosing him. And we've seen that spectacularly here because of the pressure of the runoffs.

He's been fixated on Georgia. But also I think the bigger lesson is for competitive states like Georgia. What damage could the president be doing to his party going forward? Because by sowing confusion, by undermining incumbent candidates like Brian Kemp, who was a very popular governor to this point, you know, what is he setting them up for for 2022? He's encouraged people to run against Governor Kemp in 2022, which is just wild. And as one Republican strategist told me, basically, if President Trump really does back a challenger to Governor Kemp in 2022, who's very pro-Trump, that could spell a Democratic governor in 2022 in Georgia.

He said, I can't guarantee much, but I can guarantee that. That is reporter Emma Hurt of WABE sharing some of her latest reporting on Republicans here in Georgia. And here we are under the dome of the Georgia Statehouse. Thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.