The Daily - The Georgia Runoffs, Part 2: ‘I Have Zero Confidence in My Vote’

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Since the presidential election was called for Joe Biden, President Trump has relentlessly attacked the integrity of the count in Georgia. He has floated conspiracy theories to explain away his loss and attacked Republican officials.Today, we speak to Republican activists and voters on the ground and consider to what extent, if at all, Mr. Trump’s rhetoric could discourage Republicans from voting in the runoff elections. For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.Background reading: Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have sought to motivate a conservative base that remains loyal to Mr. Trump while also luring back some of the defectors who helped deliver Georgia to a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1992.Democrats may have claimed a bigger share of the early vote than they did in November’s vote, election data shows. Here’s what else we know about the voting in Georgia so far. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Today, part two of our look at the Democratic and Republican Party strategies for the Senate runoffs in Georgia. The Republicans. It's Tuesday, January 5th. Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! From The New York Times, this is The Field. I'm Elise Spiegel in Georgia. Hat, scarf, hoodies. Hat, scarf, hoodies. Hey, my friend, how you doing? How much for the hat? Ten dollars. Hat, scarf, hoodies. Hat, scarf, hoodies. Hey, my friend, how you doing?

How much for the hat? $10. Hat, scarf, hoodies. Okay, $10 your change. One month ago, before President Trump's leaked attempt to pressure Georgia's election officials became national news, he headlined an event billed as a victory rally in Valdosta, Georgia. It's not especially common for losing presidential candidates to hold victory rallies, but this specific post-loss victory rally was particularly

awkward given the local political situation. So a bunch of press was there, including Astead Herndon, one of the political reporters at The Times. Three hours before the rally, I found him shaking his head at his iPhone near a bank of blue port-a-potties. A story he'd just posted was getting blowback. The Ossoff people are mad because in this story we call him a former filmmaker and they say he is a former investigative journalist. Can you talk a little bit about the four candidates and what they're like? One second. Sure. ASTED was in Georgia reporting on today's two Senate runoff elections.

Democrats John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are challenging Republican candidates Kelly Leffler and David Perdue. And it's a huge deal because if Democrats win these two seats, they'll gain control of the Senate. And if Republicans hold on, that will give them a big check against what Joe Biden's able to do. And this is what this rally is supposed to be about, is about ginning up Republican support for those candidates. But it's kind of taken a different turn because of how much the president has contested the election. Since losing the election on November 3rd, President Trump had relentlessly attacked the integrity of the election in Georgia.

He'd floated conspiracy theories about suitcases stuffed with ballots, claimed repeatedly that voting machines flipped thousands of Trump votes to Biden. And when Republican leaders in Georgia contradicted these claims or didn't sing loudly enough in the course of stolen election, Trump went after them too. He'd insulted his former ally, Republican Governor Brian Kemp. We have a governor, a Republican governor that's worse than a Democrat. He's terrible. And so eviscerated the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffsenberger. This guy got played like I've never seen anybody played.

That the Republican Senate candidates, Loeffler and Perdue, called on Rauschenberger to resign. Finally, three days before the victory rally, things had really escalated. A couple of Trump surrogates started telling Trump supporters that Perdue and Loeffler weren't fighting for Trump hard enough. If Kelly Loeffler wants your vote, if David Perdue wants your vote, they've got to earn it. Typically, in an election like this, you'd have the full strength of the Republican Party marching in perfect lockstep behind the candidates, and the president would stage a rally to get people even more energized. But everything was upside down.

Republican allies of the president were actively disparaging Loeffler and Perdue. And Trump was doing little to stop them. In fact, he kind of seemed to enjoy it. Which was an issue because everyone, Democrats and Republicans, agree that this race is going to be really close. It's the kind of race where even a small dip in turnout could have serious consequences. So calling the GOP candidates and the entire election system into question right before the polls opened was a risk. The fear, particularly of some Republicans in the state, is that the willingness for the kind of Trumpist section to go down the road of conspiracy and misinformation will turn off some voters. Both ones who say, hey, if the election's rigged, why should I even

support it? And also some of the more moderates who say, why are these Republicans even going down this path? And why can't they acknowledge the fact that this was a free and fair election? So it just strikes at the unity that Republicans usually have in the state that has been the reason why they've won almost every runoff that's ever happened here. Runoff elections are notorious. It's always a climb to get people to vote when it's just a local race. So do you feel like what he says today will have an impact on the election? Yes.

Yes, like that was a very certain, yes, I wasn't quite prepared for the level of certainty involved in that, yes. So let's unpack, like why are you so certain? The only messenger that matters to a big portion of the Republican base is Donald Trump. And if he says that systems are rigged and maybe they shouldn't vote, that will be one that folks believe. This is a party that is singularly devoted to one person's identity and belief. And depending on how he wields that today, will 100% matter for the runoff.

Hi, can I talk to you? I'm with The Daily. It's a podcast. And it's true that over the next three hours, as I talked to person after person, it did sound like the voters at the rally had been getting the message the messenger was sending. What brought you out here today? The election. It's not right. Tons of fraud. And especially, I know, here in Georgia. Almost every person I spoke to was convinced there'd been fraud on a massive scale.

And as you can imagine, felt extremely distressed by that idea. I mean, they've proven it, but, you know, they keep playing it down like it's not that big a deal. It's a big deal. The essence of our republic is pretty much at stake here. You know, and if they get away with this, then we're going to go down the road of Venezuela. One fraudulent vote is too many, and we got millions of them. Anybody with one eye and half sense knows it's fraud, it's fraud, it's fraud. I talked to business owners, lawyers, school teachers, farmers, truck drivers.

They were all certain. And a good portion were, in fact, directing some of their anger at other Georgia Republicans. Absolutely. Our Republican leaders have not stood up for us voters, and we are not happy about it. I met Lori Huff, a former prosecutor who now works in real estate law, by a gourmet ice cream truck. Do you feel like Loeffler and Perdue have? I haven't heard them say much at all. I'm very disappointed.

Both of them need to stand up. Does that make you feel like you don't want to vote for them in January? It makes me feel like it, yes. I will vote for them, but reluctantly. Laurie told me there were plenty of people in her circle who were bitter about Loeffler and Perdue. I know a lot of people who are saying they're not going to vote for them, but when it comes down to it, I don't think they're going to sit at home and allow our country to be taken over by the Democrats.

But they are saying it. Yes, a lot of people are saying that, absolutely. Still, at the rally, which granted is a highly motivated, self-selected group, At the rally, which granted is a highly motivated, self-selected group, I wasn't able to find anyone, not a single Republican, ready to sit out the Senate race on January 5th. Some knew people threatening not to vote, or knew people who knew people, or were related to people.

Some of my relatives, they're not going to go ahead and vote. They've seen video evidence of it getting rigged, and why would they vote in a runoff when they know that's going to get rigged as well? But at least at the rally, the idea was kind of a nonstarter because people were so desperately worried that Democratic control of the Senate, House and presidency would so fundamentally alter the country that they loved. If the Democrats win, then our country is going to be a totally different country. When you say that, what do you mean? Well, what they've been saying. They basically want socialism and communism. Marxists and socialists are the other options. So Warnock and Ossoff are full-blown, you know, Marxists. We don't want socialism for sure. Is that what you're worried about? Oh, hell yes.

Absolutely. Oh, my God. I mean, would you? I don't want to have to stand in line to get a loaf of bread. I don't want to have to be in a five-mile line to get a few gallons of gas. I don't want to have to live off of $6 a week. And that's where we're headed.

Bottom line is, Republicans aren't socialists. Democrats are. As the sky turned dark, more people poured through the police checkpoints, and there was a new energy in the crowd. Finally, a thin point of light appeared in the sky. We believe that's Trump flying in now. He's getting ready to land. So everybody's holding up their phone. Everybody's videoing, taking pictures right now.

He's the man. He is the man. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 45th president of the United States of America, President Donald J. Trump. Hello, Georgia. So what did the 45th president of the United States say? You know, we won, Georgia, just so you understand. Much of the speech did veer dangerously

in the direction that Republicans feared. There's no way this could have happened other than the obvious cheating or a rigged feared. There's no way this could have happened other than the obvious cheating or a rigged election. There's no way it could have happened. Trump said repeatedly that the election had been stolen and that Georgia's voting system could not be trusted. People are walking in with suitcases and putting them under a table with a black robe around it.

But he also did do, for a smaller part of the speech, what local Republican leaders wanted. He reminded everybody to go out and vote. You must go vote and vote early, starting December 14th. You have to do it. He said nice things about Perdue and Loeffler. Because these are two great, great people that I know so well and respected by everybody in Washington and beyond.

But for me, the most telling part of the night happened when Trump wasn't even at the mic. He'd passed it, briefly, to David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. First, Loeffler got up to tell people in the crowd that they really needed to vote. Let's make sure that you vote.

We are going to vote. But she was drowned out by a chant of stop the steal. Because if we don't vote, we will lose the country. If we vote, we will win. Then Perdue got up. But again, Hey guys, I want to take liberty just one second. the crowd wouldn't back off the chant, no matter how much Perdue pleaded.

Hey guys, I want to say something for President Trump personally. Guys, I want to say something personal for President Trump. As Perdue struggled to break through, it felt clear. Though the president wasn't technically on the ballot, he was still way more important to the voters at this rally than any of the people who were. So Loeffler and Perdue needed to be careful. Neither could afford to contradict Trump, even if his claims made their lives more difficult. We love you, Mr. President. We love the First Lady.

And we're going to fight and win those two seats and make sure you get a fair, square deal in the state of Georgia. God bless you, Mr. President. In fact, as Perdue walked away, a different chant started taking shape. A chant about exactly what the crowd wanted the Senate candidate leaving the stage to do. Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! At the end of the night, if you were a Republican trying to gauge your chance of keeping the Senate, what happened didn't exactly silence your fear.

Republican unity still felt scrambled, and the race was really close. But there was still plenty of reason for hope. Historically, Republicans in the state of Georgia have just crushed when it comes to getting out the vote. And the ground game for this runoff was looking even more powerful than usual. So would that tip the balance? Or would Trump's messiness discourage average Republican voters, the kind of people who don't feel compelled to show up at Trump rallies, from coming out on January 5th.

Are those your door hangers? Can you show me what they look like? Sure. There you go. Shows both candidates, and it has some top issues listed underneath their picture. Abortion on demand. Of course, John Ossoff says yes to that. David Perdue says no. One Saturday morning in early December, I met up with a group of political canvassers

who'd driven down from North Carolina to help get out the vote. There were 45 people from a church group that were staying at a country inn in Suites about an hour north of Atlanta. Their accommodations were being paid for by the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a conservative Christian group, and its executive director, Adam Pipkin, agreed to talk to me about their strategy. So after we saw the group off, we climbed into his enormous truck

to talk. Oh, what are you playing? A little country music. Let me hear it. We can't forget, these are the days. These are the days. Yeah. So ever since the election, Adam had been working like crazy, 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. most days. He said he had to because his group had expanded so much since the general election. During the election, the Faith and Freedom Coalition had roughly 75 people working in Georgia to get out the vote. But now? Now we have over 900. We're adding probably 15 to 30 a day.

And we have, like for instance today, we'll probably have 125 folks out knocking doors. Our goal is to average 15,000 doors a day between now and January 5th. 15,000 doors a day. Adam's canvassers only speak to about 20% of the people behind those doors. But still, for Adam, it's worth the effort because door knocking is one of the most effective things you can do to get people to vote. The studies that I have seen when you're in a general election, a regular election, someone is 15% more likely to vote if you go door knocking. They are 70% more likely to vote if it is somebody you know from the community that shows up. Adam had done the math and figured out that his group could hit 500,000 homes by election day.

20% of 500,000 is 100,000, which is substantially more than the margin that separated Perdue and Ossoff, for example, on November 3rd. But here's the thing. Adams' group was just one of many independent groups getting out the vote in the state. Then, of course, you had the Republican Party itself. Earlier in the week, I'd spoken to the press person for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and he told me that the NRSC was hiring 1,000 people to go door-to-door for the runoff. He said their plan was to make sure that every Republican who'd voted in the state of Georgia, including people in hard-to-reach rural areas, had at least one person knock on their door before January 5th. I mean, the impression that I

get, and you tell me if I'm wrong, but like there is an unprecedented machine being marshaled to turn out the vote for this. Is that your impression? Yeah, definitely. And I would think so, right? I mean, I don't know how you could say otherwise. And yet, despite all this, Adam wasn't 100 percent confident that Republicans would keep the two Senate seats. Again, Republicans have historically won runoff elections, and he thought they still had an edge. But he said the stuff with Trump was making things more complicated. The reality is anyone saying they know how people are going to turn out because of that, I think it's a yes. I don't, hopefully it will not have much effect, but I don't know the answer to that. Are you worried? I would say it's concerning for sure. But it wasn't just the Trump stuff. There was also the problem

of demographics. The population of Georgia is growing by leaps and bounds every year, a boon to the Democrats and potentially a threat to Republicans. Adam complains that people come because Georgia's business friendly policies have led to an economic boom. But as soon as they get here, they seem to forget the benefits of that conservative approach. They move here and then they still vote the same way from the place that they left, which is honestly kind of, you know, a little annoying. He also acknowledges the work that Stacey Abrams has done in registering those new voters in the lead up to the November election.

She has done a great job just getting the Democrats organized. They really weren't, honestly. So do you think that given these demographic changes and Stacey Abrams, do you think it's possible that the Republicans might be kind of losing their lock on the state? Well, obviously it's trending more purple. So, you know, I don't know how it will go. I mean, I think they are in a much better position than they were four years ago, for sure. And I think, you know, Republicans just have to work hard and get out the vote. I figured you probably did.

It's cold. I don't know. It's cold? Yeah. Is it usually this cold? Nope. I wanted to see the ground game in action. So Pipkin hooked me up with one of his full-time canvassers, an older man named Jonathan Crooks.

All right, so now we're going to go down Magnolia Way. We were canvassing in a very upscale neighborhood, huge houses with smooth green lawns. And as we walked, I quizzed Jonathan about the conversations he'd been having with voters. How many of the people that you've talked to believe that there was fraud in Georgia's election and that the president won. There is a great, what I can say with great conviction is that there's a great concern about it. Surveys have found that between 70 and 80 percent of Republicans don't believe Biden actually won. And even in early December, 50 percent expected Trump to be inaugurated on January 20th. And in the well-to-do suburb north of Atlanta where we were walking,

people seemed to feel the same way. How do you feel about the last election? Do you think that there was fraud? Absolutely. Fraud that changed the outcome? Yes. Yes. I am very concerned about it. It was just like the Trump rally. Do you feel like there was a lot of fraud in this past election? Yeah, I do. Actually, I do.

And are you worried that the fraud changed the result? I think so. I do believe that. But also, just like the Trump rally, literally no one I spoke to said that they would sit out the upcoming election. What was at stake was just too important. And as I walked from door to door, a new thought occurred to me. Whether or not Republicans take these two seats, what's clear is that over the course of the 2020 election, a profound shift has occurred among Republican voters and not just the most hardcore of the president's supporters. A shift that very likely

will continue to exist long after January 5th has come and gone. 10 years ago, if someone had said to you, look, Democrats have really perpetrated a massive election fraud with ballot stuffing and a whole bunch of things. I would have left them out of the room. I would have said, you're crazy. How could they even do that? That's insane. Would you really have thought the person was insane?

Probably. I wanted to talk to a Republican in Georgia who represented the 70 percent, someone who believed the election was stolen, and would sit down with me and talk through their thinking. So I was really happy when Amy Nobile said yes. The day after our first phone conversation, I jumped in my car and drove to her house in the Atlanta suburbs. But when she opened the door, she was dressed as an elf, like a full elf costume. Can you just describe each piece? Okay, let's see. I have striped tights. I don't have my elf shoes on now because they're not conducive for driving. Amy had on a green and red Peter Pan dress with small gold bells on the collar. She even had elf ears, though she removed them for the interview. She had just come from her son's school where she'd been volunteering all week, going around to classrooms and helping the

little kids pick out presents from a catalog for their parents. And it had all been going really well until the principal outed her. The principal said on the loudspeaker that there's an elf running around the school. So now I've got a cult following, and if I go past the playground and they're out on the playground, Elfie! And they come running. Which was a problem because COVID. And they come running. And I can't hug them.

I knew they were all running at me at one point. So there were like 15 kids running at me and I had to go in the door and slam it. And they're like banging on the door. I'm like, I can't, help me, save me from the children. You know, COVID has changed a lot. I have to say, this is the first time that I've ever interviewed an elf.

You know, I break a lot of molds. I'm that girl. Amy had been in Georgia for more than 20 years. She works as an independent sales rep, but she grew up in New York State, the daughter of two public school teachers, and she says their politics were pretty clear. I asked my dad when I was younger,

what are you, and he said, I'm a Democrat. I said, why? Because they're for the working people. Well, that makes sense. I'll go with that. And that's where Amy says she stayed all through her 20s. To me, everybody that was a Republican in my 20s was someone that lived in the South, probably banged their Bibles a lot. I didn't dislike them. I just didn't understand them. And I thought those poor people need to be enlightened. But after a couple decades in Georgia, surrounded by Republican neighbors and coworkers and friends, her feelings began to migrate until eventually she registered as a Republican.

Still, that's a far cry from believing that Democrats would perpetrate a massive national fraud. You know how there are some people who are naturally more suspicious, and then there are some people who are naturally not as suspicious? Which one are you? So on a personal note, I tend to trust individuals. Am I distrusting of the government? No, but I'm more skeptical. I'm a New Yorker by birth. If someone says, this is going to cure this, or this is going to do, I'm like, yeah, sure. But I would not call myself on any way a conspiracy theorist. I don't like conspiracy theories. I've had crazy friends throughout the years who have had all kinds of conspiracies.

I'm like, okay, have a nice day. I don't argue with them. I just keep going. That's why at this moment in time, I'm in a conflict within myself. Because it feels strange to me to say that there's been massive fraud in this country and where it goes. How far does it go? How crazy do you go? But?

But, like so many others in her party, that is what she now believes. It's hard to pinpoint exactly how she ended up here. It's been a slow process. But certainly one important milestone came after Trump declared his run for presidency in 2015. As a New Yorker, Amy was intrigued, but she still liked other conservative candidates. And then Trump came to Georgia to talk. And I wanted to hear for myself what he had to say. So I went and he said, I think NATO's obsolete.

I said, who the heck's he going with this? NATO's obsolete. He says, well, they don't address terrorism. And I went, what? He said, listen, it's not addressed. And he said, here's what the press is going to say on Monday. And I listened. And he said, they're going to say Trump against NATO. Did I just say that to you?

He said, I told you they're not addressing terrorism, therefore they are obsolete. They are going to report that I said Trump is against NATO. I'm not against NATO. I think it's great, but it needs to be brought to this century. People need to pay their fair share and they need to address terrorism. And I thought, God, I agree with him. And sure enough, Monday morning, Trump against NATO. I was like, well, he said that's exactly how that would go. So that began my distrust in the media and Trump's relationship right there, because I said, they're not reporting what he said. He was very clear. He spelled it out, what he meant.

And he said, this is how they're going to report it. I said, my ears don't lie to me. I heard it. And I was fascinated. I went back and reviewed the speech, and it went a little differently than that. It was that night at the speech that the president said he'd been misinterpreted by the media in the past for his comments on NATO. channels, from Fox to CNN and back, and says that she began to feel like traditionally mainstream outlets like the New York Times or CNN or the Washington Post were only telling part of the story, like they left out anything good. He donates his entire salary to charity.

And I have said that to people and told them, go, that's not true. Or they go, they don't even know it. She had a bunch of examples. Like, for instance, there's very little talk recently. And I know that my friends on the left know nothing about the fact that Trump just had three major peace treaties in the Middle East. That's a big deal. To her, it just seemed obvious that most mainstream media outlets were not interested in any narrative about Trump that could be construed as positive. It made her feel manipulated.

Let's not look over there. Come on. No, we're focusing over here. No, no, no. No, no. There's nothing to see over there. Come back. Come back.

And that bothers me because knowledge is power and information should be out there. Knowledge is power and information should be out there. Despite being a Republican, she says for a long time, she'd been dismissive of people on the right who complained about bias in the media. I'm like, wow, wow, wow, quit your crying. You know, like, I'm a Republican, but quit whining. Who cares? And the more I started listening, I'm like, yeah, that's not being reported correctly. And I don't know the day it started.

I don't know the moment. But it slowly went from wow, wah, wah to yeah, it's a little bad to it's kind of pretty bad to well, this is terrible. It's all about orange man bad. That's our joke on the right. And I'm sure I found myself craving the information that made more sense to me. To Amy, it felt like for the whole of Trump's presidency, the mainstream media was looking for ways to delegitimize his win. Let's see. First it was he lost the popular vote.

He's not a legitimate president. Then it was, you know, Russia. He's not a legitimate president. And he colluded. And then three years I watched all this insanity and I thought, oh my God, the man's never going to be a legitimate president no matter what he does. As the 2020 election approached, Amy says she was a little concerned about the possibility of something going funny with the mail-in ballots, but she felt good about her own state. Definitely felt better. I thought, okay, we're safe here in Georgia. But she felt good about her own state. Definitely felt better. I thought, okay,

we're safe here in Georgia. And I thought strongly Georgia would go red, as it usually does. On election day, she volunteered as a poll watcher. She says less out of concern and more just to be a good citizen. And she says she felt really positive about how things went. I had my little slice of information and I went home on election day and watched all the results and around 11 o'clock at night things were looking good and then everything stopped. Everything stopped? You mean they stopped counting? Yeah, everything stopped. Amy says by the next morning it felt like she was living in a different world. Put yourself in our shoes for a moment. We woke up the next day. We thought we were winning. We slowly saw everything go crazy. Nobody knew who won. We'd had a fear of ballots being mailed in for a long time. And being told this will be a hot mess and we're not going to know who won for weeks. And sure enough, tick, tick, check, check, all those things are happening. Oh, we don't know who won.

Tick, tick, check, check. All those things are happening. Oh, we don't know who won. So Amy volunteered for one of those voter fraud hotlines. She says all day long she fielded calls from voters. People were just beside themselves upset. This has been stolen. How could we let this happen? What are the Republicans doing? We are furious. We need to act. We need to get moving. And in between those emotionally wrenching calls, she said she did talk to a couple of people who were reporting things that to her ear sounded suspicious, like a male poll worker from a county in a different part of the state. They stuck him on a chair outside the room and said, watch from here. And he's like, I can't.

I mean, I'm not even in the room. And suddenly the situation flipped. I'm saying everything that was said to me four years ago that I didn't like. It's not fair. It's, you know, it's not a legitimate election. It was so confusing to Amy. Are we drinking the Russia Kool-Aid like they did? You know, like, is this okay? Russia, Russia, Russia. Fraud, fraud, fraud, you know? And I say this to myself every day. This is what people on the left were going through the day after Trump won. For days, every time she turned on her television or picked up her phone,

she saw some new report that enraged her. She listened to hearings where lawyers got up and made what sounded to her like very credible and specific accusations. 66,000 underage people voted, over 10,000 dead people voted, 2,600 felons voted. But she told me the thing that finally sealed the deal for her was that press conference that Rudy Giuliani had, where he brought out a huge stack of signed affidavits from Trump supporters alleging that they'd seen fraud. The affidavits that he wouldn't show, those ones? I see what you're saying. But yes, he would not show them.

However, to me, I wouldn't show them either. Amy thinks it can be dangerous to be a Trump supporter. People have been doxxed. People have been harassed. People have been hurt. In fact, earlier, she'd asked me not to use her husband's name. He's a data guru who works in tech. I'd like to keep him out of it. There's a big fear on our side that we could lose our jobs for being, you didn't know? Yeah, no. Especially certain companies.

He used to work for a company out of Silicon Valley, and he was terrified. If I was active, he would lose his job. That fear was understandable to me, but it was also true that whenever I presented information that contradicted her own narrative, Amy would explain it away. So what do you think about the fact that

pretty much all of the courts have looked at the evidence and have dismissed the cases? It doesn't necessarily deter me. Does it feel great? Does it feel like we're scoring wins? Absolutely not. She had a rationale for the rejected court cases all over the country. Nobody wants to touch it. Nobody wants to touch it. Nobody wants to be the person to rule on it. They want to push it down the up the chain and let it go to the Supreme Court. And also an explanation as to why Georgia's top three Republicans had announced there had not been substantial fraud. Does it ever make you feel like, look, these are Republicans. They have the same goals

that I have. They are looking at the evidence, but they are not. No, there's corrupt Republicans. Amy had voted for Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, and until this election had really liked him. How do you make sense of that? I don't, except now, and this is the next conspiracy that's being said. And again, I don't know if I believe this yet, but if it were true, it would explain a lot. Kemp and Duncan supposedly have been paid either by China or Dominion or both. After all, she pointed out, just the week before, 17 states had joined a Texas lawsuit filed to the Supreme Court. Their claim was that there had been so many problems with election procedures in the four swing states, their electoral votes should be

disqualified. And for Amy, it seemed obvious that state officials would not join a lawsuit like that if there were no actual grounds. Those are governments. Those are pretty, these are educated people that have thought about it. This was a few days before the Supreme Court rejected the case. So neither of us knew how it was going to turn out. If it goes to the Supreme Court and they say, no, this is, there is not enough evidence of fraud here, will you believe it then? I don't know if I'll believe it, but I'll accept it for sure. Believe it? That's a tough one.

Not, not, you know, it's a good question. I probably should. I don't know if I've fought so hard. I have so many other patriots saying, hey, no, no, no, no, this fraud. I know I would accept it. I think I would probably always have a doubt in the back of my mind. And there's a part of me that would be just fine saying Biden's an illegitimate president for four years if he makes it four years, because not to be vengeful because I'm not that person, but it just would feel good to be able to say it for four years and see how that feels.

It's been done to Trump and it makes me so frustrated. And it's frustrated us for say it for four years and see how that feels. It's been done to Trump, and it makes me so frustrated. And it's frustrated us for three years, four years. And that's sad to me, that I'm petty that way, because it is petty. But people have just been hateful. From Amy's perspective, for four years, the way the press and many of her democratic friends talked about the person she voted for and believed in it had been incredibly challenging i have people that i know i love and i trust and i know they're smart and i know they're special and i know that they are no less intelligent than i am but they believe that what I'm thinking is just bat poop crazy. And I'm looking at them going, what you believe is bat poop crazy. And I don't believe we're both crazy. I don't think

either of us is crazy. But every day, they're going to turn on a channel that's going to tell them I'm crazy. And Trump is horrible. And every day, I'm going to turn on a channel that says Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and they're nuts, and they're lying. And every day I'm going to turn on a channel that says Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread and they're nuts and they're lying. And where does that leave everybody? Angry, divided. Amy says she feels her heart beginning to harden. I'm starting to get angry at the people on the left instead of curious. Like it's going from, I want to know what makes you tick to, you just wear me out. You know, there's nothing to talk to you about anymore. You're just, you're one of them. And I want to keep walking. And I have to fight with my own self to go, no, they're just a person like you. And they've just been told what they believe. But every day,

it's harder to respect that you can believe that. I fight with myself every day because if we don't listen to other people, how will this ever stop? Do you think that you and the Republicans you know are more likely to believe in things that before you would have dismissed as conspiracies? Because I'm trying to figure out, is it like, has conspiratorial kind of thinking grown over the last four years? Yeah. And that's because of two things, in my opinion. Number one, the media, as I've harped on. And number two, the fact that so many of these conspiracies have come out over the years. It's almost impossible not to believe them. It gets almost easier every time. As for Georgia's runoff elections on January 5th.

I have zero confidence in my vote counting on January 5th. Zero confidence. Do you think that you'll ever have faith when you walk into a voting booth again? Not if Donald Trump doesn't win. And I don't mean that because I feel like if he doesn't win, everything's unfair. I mean that because if somehow Democrats have found a way to cheat, why would they stop? Hello there. How are you? Hi. Thank you so much for meeting with me. I really appreciate it. When I went to visit Gabe Sterling, it had been about a week since he'd been at the center of the news cycle in Georgia.

Gabe has a very unglamorous title, Voting System Implementation Manager. But a small press conference he'd held had gone viral after he'd made a very emotional plea for Trump and other Republican officials to stop peddling disinformation. So when I met up with him, he was still dealing with the fallout from all of that. As I placed my equipment on the table, he was reading off his iPhone. You can see my fresh death threats. Oh, you're going into your fresh death threats? Yeah, that always gets your...

Do you want to read some for me? I can show you. He showed me this website that apparently had been put up earlier in the day. It basically has a picture of me with a sniper target on my face, with my home address, with a picture of my house. And it also has the governor and the secretary of state. with a sniper target on my face, with my home address, with a picture of my house. And it also has the governor and the secretary of state. For weeks, Gabriel's office had been consumed with providing definitive proof that the election in Georgia had been legit.

They debunked claim after claim, did a full paper recount, and had publicly reported all of their findings so that voters could have faith that their vote would be counted on January 5th. But he knew it wasn't convincing people. You keep on, you know, basically screaming at the ocean, I guess, to a degree. Which in my mind raised this question. If Republican voters in the state of Georgia, where the entire process was run essentially by Republicans, won't believe their own Republican leaders, like what that suggests is in any other state, there's not going to be a way to convince people. Do you think there will be a way to convince people? It will take a huge unmasking of the president for him to say, he will never, I'll put money on it, he will never admit that this wasn't stolen from him, that he just lost the race.

As long as that's the case, there are going to be millions of Americans who are going to feel in their heart and their gut and go to their graves knowing this election was stolen from them. And there's no piece of evidence. There's no like silver bullet. There's nothing that's going to change their minds. In fact, like Amy, Gabriel thinks the public's willingness to believe conspiracy theories is only growing. Yeah, I mean, I've heard of highly educated people, you know, lawyers, doctors, teachers who believe in their heart of hearts that this thing was stolen. And I think the conspiratorial stuff fits because why would they lie about it? The president and the congressman and all the other people who are spreading some of this stuff, these are people of respect.

I mean, why would they lie? It doesn't make any sense. In the weeks since I first talked to Gabriel, the president and his supporters have continued to tell voters that the election was stolen from them. And then, of course, came Saturday afternoon. In an hour-long phone call to Secretary Raffsenberger, the president didn't just ask Georgia's secretary of state to find 11,000 votes. He spoke at length of the massive fraud he believed had been perpetrated. If you listen to the whole thing, he himself sounds so convinced,

far from a man who would back off the claim that the presidency had unjustly been taken from him. And so, as Gabe said, voters will probably believe that too, regardless of what happens today. Do you think that if Republicans win both seats in the Senate, that that will help convince people that there wasn't massive fraud on November 3rd? Likely. There's still going to be, people who are the hardcore Trump supporters will still believe it. Now, will it go from 7 to 10 down to 6 to 10? I don't know, it's got a 5 to 10. I mean, any percentage that high is unhealthy. So yes, I'm sure it will help, but it will help in the margins. On Monday night, Senator Kelly Loeffler announced plans to vote against the certification of Joe Biden's victory when Congress convenes on Wednesday.

In doing so, she will endorse President Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud. Polls in Georgia will close tonight at 7 p.m., but because of the large volume of mail-in ballots, the results of the runoffs may not be known for several days. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. With most of the country already under extreme measures, it's clear that we need to do more together

to bring this new variant under control while our vaccines are rolled out. Britain, which has already shut down non-essential businesses, widened its lockdown on Monday, ordering that schools and colleges be closed and asking residents to remain home for all but essential travel. In England, we must therefore go into a national lockdown which is tough enough to contain this variant.

The stricter lockdown is intended to reduce transmission of the new coronavirus variant that has swept the United Kingdom over the past few weeks and begun to overwhelm its hospitals. The new version of the virus is now spreading across the world and the United States. On Monday, New York became the fourth American state to detect the variant. Today's episode was produced by Elise Spiegel, with help from Robert Jimison, Austin Mitchell, and Nina Potok. It was edited by Lisa Tobin and engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.