Easily & quickly
That must have been an awkward phone conversation, maybe the most awkward since that “We need you to do us a favor though” one.
President Trump called Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Saturday morning to urge him to persuade the state legislature to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state and asked the governor to order an audit of absentee ballot signatures, the latest brazen effort by the president to interfere in the 2020 election.
“Hi Brian, do me a solid and get the lej to throw out the votes for Biden, ok?”
Hours before he is scheduled to hold a rally in Georgia on behalf of the state’s two GOP senators, Trump pressed Kemp to call a special session of the state legislature to get lawmakers to override the results and appoint electors that would back him, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
Anything else? Invade Iran? Drop a few nukes on North Korea? Pave over the Amazon?
Kemp confirms.
Kemp, a one-time ally of Trump, has become a punching bag for the president who called him “hapless” for not doing more to help him wrest away Biden’s win.
That’s Trump for you. He has no friends, he has only people who do him favors. Once they refuse a demand, they’re the enemy aka one of his punching bags.
“Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overrriden by executive order,” Kemp’s spokesman said several days ago in response to Trump’s public demands.
Yes yes yes, blah blah, but he can just ignore that and do what he wants, because Trump told him to.
That’s what Trump always does, and everyone lets him get away with it, so why not? Only now, the GOP is starting to realize that Trump is a clown who is making them look bad (and they prefer to do that all by themselves with nasty, hateful policies).
Every GOP Presidential Candidate in 2015-early 2016: “If I stand up to Trump in any way, he’ll tweet mean things about me, and his supporters will hate me. I’ll just sit back and wait for him to self-destruct, and then I’ll swoop in and inherit his supporters.”
Every GOP Presidential Candidate in mid-2016: “Hmm. Yes. Well. That plan didn’t work out very well.”
Every GOP Presidential Hopeful for 2024: “If I stand up to Trump in any way, he’ll tweet mean things about me, and his supporters will hate me. I’ll just sit back and wait for him to self-destruct, and then I’ll swoop in and inherit his supporters.”