The NPR Politics Podcast - Republicans Are Divided Over Trump's Effort To Overturn Election Loss

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

In a bid to stay in power despite losing the presidential election, President Donald Trump called Georgia's Secretary of State Saturday and pushed him to change the state's vote tally.The state's two runoff races will determine the balance of power in the Senate. Twelve of the chamber's Republicans say they will refuse to certify the Electoral College vote.This episode: political reporter Danielle Kutzleben, congressional correspondent Susan Davis, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and WABE reporter Emma Hurt.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, this is Baker in the Atlanta suburbs of DeKalb County, Georgia, about to start another 13-hour day as an election poll worker during the U.S. Senate runoff. This podcast was recorded at 2.08 p.m. on January 4th. Many things may have changed once you hear it. Support your local NPR stations and enjoy the show. He's got a great radio voice. Yes. Also, he's keeping democracy safe. That too. He's a twofer. Hey there, it is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Mara

Liason, national political correspondent. And we have a special guest today, also from Georgia, like our time stamper. We have Emma Hurt from Georgia member station WABE. Hello, Emma. Hi. Also speaking to you from DeKalb County. Very represented here today. Wonderful. Well, let's get right to it because we have a whole lot to cover today. First thing on the list, of course, is Georgia's runoff elections, which are happening tomorrow. Republicans just need to win one to keep control of the Senate. So naturally, Democrats are really shooting to try to win both. Emma, let's start with you. It's nearly done. What is it like in these final hours?

It must feel like November never really ended, right? Yeah, it's definitely still 2020 here in Georgia. But we're getting close to the end. The canvassing, everything, really, it's crunch time. So over the weekend, there are hundreds, thousands of people door knocking, calling, texting voters. The ad barrage has not slowed down. And then, you know, by the time this airs, President-elect Joe Biden will be in Atlanta, likely speaking. And I'll be in Dalton, Georgia, ready to cover President Trump at his rally there tonight.

So it is happening super fast, but it's all happening, you know, on this backdrop of President Trump's call with Georgia's secretary of state that I know we're going to talk about here, too. At the risk of asking you something very, very simple, Sue, let's just lay out for our, these runoffs in Georgia, just how important they are. What are the stakes here? Well, I think it's really about the stakes for Democrats. I mean, they are seen as sort of the underdogs in this race. But if they were somehow able to win both of these races, and that certainly is a possibility, these are expected to be very tight one way or the other. It changes everything about the balance of power in Washington, at least for the first two years of Joe Biden's administration. The Senate majority decides who runs committees, what comes to the floor, how easy it is to get nominees through the Senate. It would basically completely change the dynamic of what Joe Biden could get done in

his first two years in office and would probably reinvigorate that old debate about whether Democrats should scrap the filibuster in order to be able to get through a more robust agenda. Right. Well, like Emma was saying, all eyes are on Georgia right now. Biden is campaigning there today, as is President Trump. But but, Mara, we also know Trump spent part of Saturday on a call with Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, trying to overturn the presidential election results. Look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because,

you know, it's a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it, if it was a mistake. I don't know. A lot of people think it wasn't a mistake. It was much more criminal than that. So what you just heard is the president of the United States asking the secretary of state to, quote, in his words, recalculate the election results in Georgia, find him the votes that he would need to overcome the 12,000 vote lead that Joe Biden has and has been certified through many audits, hand counts, recounts, etc. And this kind of reminded me of the so-called perfect call that Donald Trump made to President Zelensky of Ukraine, except for this one was worse than on tape. But in the earlier one, he said, I would like you to do us a favor, though. In this one,

he said, I just want to find 11,780 votes. Well, Emma, we should be abundantly clear here, as we have been in the past, but that the votes have been counted three times. We know the result. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, he was firm in the call. He said things are not changing. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated because the 2,236 in absentee ballots, I mean, they're all exact numbers that were done by accounting firms, law firms, etc. And even if you cut them in half, cut them in half and cut them in half again, it's more votes than we need. Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. This whole call is really remarkable just because we're hearing this exchange so directly.

And I mean, the president has been putting pressure on Governor Kemp and Secretary of State Ravensburger and our lieutenant governor, all people that he previously endorsed and endorsed him and asking them to basically violate their oaths of office, violate the state constitution and find him, you know, the votes that he needs and overturn the election. And it's it's been remarkable to watch these Republican officials take their stands against him. And you heard Raffensperger there doing it on that call very directly. Emma, do you think this has any effect on the runoff? We know this runoff is very tribal. It's not about the individual candidates. It's whether you're on the Democrat side or on Trump's side. But does this plus his continuous trashing of Raffensperg and the governor there have an effect on Republican voters in Georgia? Does it make them more fired up to come out and vote or does it make them think this election is corrupt like the other one? I'm going to stay home. Yeah, I mean, I think on the Democratic side, it's just adding to the aggravation they've felt as the president has refused to step down, step aside.

It's really just more of the same here, just a really next level example of the pressure that President Trump has been putting on Georgia's Republican officials. But you're right, this is the big question. Will this actually affect Republican turnout tomorrow? Let's set aside all the big questions about what this means going forward. Will anybody stay home or will anybody switch to a Democratic ticket because of it? And that is really what's striking fear among Georgia Republican operatives and strategists right now. Like, maybe, maybe. We don't know. Yeah, there hasn't been a lot of public polling on the Georgia race. Everybody I've talked to says the Democrats are the underdogs here. They haven't won a runoff in Georgia

in a really long time. But, you know, this could be a game changer. Yeah. I mean, this situation is definitely not what Republicans needed. They were, this was, these were their races to lose starting out. And this is not the positioning that any of them wish to be in. All right. Well, we will all have our eyes very firmly fixed on Georgia tomorrow. So, Emma, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Happy to do it anytime, guys. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we will talk about the divide among Republicans over respecting the results of the election. 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. And we are back. And now we are talking about a divide among Republicans. A group of Senate Republicans says they will object to certifying President-elect Joe Biden's election win. Sue, you are the Capitol Hill reporter here. You've spent a lot of time there. Let's start with you. We should be very plain about what's happening. This is a group of senators working to ignore the results of a Democratic election dressed up in false claims that have been debunked over and over and thrown out of court at every turn. So I think it's really about a political lens that you have to look at this through. It's doomed to fail. They don't have the votes. They don't have the support. Joe Biden will be certified as the winner of the presidential election, but it's going to be quite a show on

the floor as you have a group of now House and Senate Republicans who are going to raise objections to the certification of certain states' electoral results. And it could drag this process into the early morning hours and obviously is going to be very closely watched by the president as a test of loyalty to him. Okay, so Sue, who is part of this group? And what does it tell us about sort of where the fault line lies here? Well, I think you have to start with the House Republicans, because there was already a bunch of Republicans there saying that they were going to object. That's not that unusual. There's been past objections by House lawmakers before,

largely members of the House Freedom Caucus, led by Mo Brooks of Alabama, who has been obviously one of the biggest Trump loyalists in the House. The big question was, were they going to get any senators to join them? You need a senator to join a House member in writing in order to actually force a debate and a vote on these objections. The first one that came out of the gate was Josh Hawley. He's a Republican from Missouri, and he was quickly joined by 11 other senators, seven incumbents and four incoming senators. Among them is Ted Cruz of Texas. And I mentioned Hawley and Cruz specifically because these are two senators who are potentially seen as 2024 contenders. And I think that that also speaks to the political calculations that are being made here that

there is going to be a lane in the Republican Party going forward of the who was the most loyal to Trump lane. And these are two senators who I think are going to be elbowing each other out of the way for the next four years trying to claim that mantle. And the really interesting thing is who isn't with them, which is Tom Cotton, another 2024 potential candidate. And he came down on the side that no, Congress should not overturn the will of the voters. I mean, this is a profound and fundamental debate about democracy that is happening inside the Republican Party. Should Congress throw out the results of an election that judge after judge after judge has looked at and has found no evidence of widespread fraud, fraud that would make a difference to the outcome? And this is a new divide in the

party. You know, we've talked for years on this podcast about a divide between sort of the Trump forces and the anti-Trump forces. The divide here is among people who all support Donald Trump. There isn't really any anti-Trump voices here. It's just people saying that the objection to the Electoral College is the problem. And I think it's exposed some pretty fascinating divides in the party right now. You know, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican leadership team tried very hard to make the case to Senate Republicans to not join this effort because it's going to force every Republican in Congress to take a really bad political vote in being seen

as for or against Donald Trump, who is still the most popular Republican in the party. And 12 senators said, never mind, Mitch, we're going to do it anyway. And that is sort of an open act of defiance towards Senate leadership that we haven't really seen in a long time. I mean, it happens a lot in the House because there's more defiance over there, but I think that speaks to the divide. You even have in the House, Liz Cheney, who's one of the top Republicans there, put out a memo saying, don't do this. Clearly, she's being ignored as well. And it has really, in some ways, bitterly divided Republicans. There's a lot of finger pointing and personal attacks going on right now, particularly among senators. And it's pretty ugly.

Well, you know, this is also raises the question is, are the Republicans now the party that don't accept the will of the voters unless they're the winners? Does this mean they're going to accept the results in Georgia? We don't know. Also, what if an election was really close, like the 537 votes that determined the 2000 election? This election wasn't close and there was no evidence of fraud, according to every official arbiter of this. And it tells you that the Republican Party, a big chunk of the Republican Party, does not believe that the will of the voters should be the determinant of the election. And that has consequences that we can't even imagine. It's almost as if the party split in two. There's a new group of constitutional conservatives that want to follow the rules as written. And then

there's another group that, you know, it's almost like a cult of personality that if Donald Trump doesn't like it, they're with him. And the interesting thing to me is we don't know which side of that is the smarter political bet. Is this a play that's going to age well? Obviously, Tom Cotton is making a very different bet than Ted Cruz is making. And we don't know which one voters will reward in a couple of years. Well, do we see this fault line lasting? I mean, do we see this being a long term fracture even once Trump is out of office and well in the rearview? Well, it depends on what Donald Trump does.

That's fair. Is he going to ask Republicans over and over again to show their loyalty to him? He's already attacking Tom Cotton. He's already encouraging a primary challenge to John Thune. If he wants to stay involved and become the kingmaker in the 2022 Senate races, then this is a lasting thing, and it's not ephemeral. Well, all right. A significant chunk of one party's lawmakers trying to challenge a free and fair election. Really scary precedent. On that note, we're

going to leave it there today. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.