'Find the votes': Trump caught on tape telling Georgia official to help overturn election

More than two months after losing the election, President Donald Trump refuses to concede that he lost to Joe Biden in the general election. Now, he has been caught on tape telling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes" that will give him the victory he needs. In an audiotape released by The Washington Post, Trump can be heard urging Brad Raffensperger to help him win the election. “The people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry, and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated,” said Trump on the call. "All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have... Fellas, I need 11,000 votes, give me a break."

The president's hour-long call with Brad Raffensperger saw Trump spew conspiracy theories and urge Raffensperger to "find" the votes. Not to mention that Trump was declared the loser on three separate counts of the votes. Trump and the Republicans have lost more than 50 lawsuits with regards to the election in several battleground states. Even former Attorney General William Barr found the conspiracy theories a little too much. The recording comes with the Georgia Senate race around the corner. Democrats will gain control of the Senate should they win both the races. Republicans are concerned Trump's words might affect the turnout of the party followers. "You have a big election coming up... 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 gonna vote negative because they hate what you did to the president," Trump told Raffensperger. "You would be respected if.. really respected if this thing could be straightened out before the election."

Raffensperger, who's a Republican and had supported the president's re-election, refused to side with Trump and reiterated to the president that the Georgia election was legitimate and accurate. He also told Trump that his claims that tens of thousands of illegal votes were made "is wrong." Raffensperger told Trump, "We believe that we do have an accurate election." Trump refused to give in and continued, "No, no, you don't. You don't have.. you don't have.. not even close. You've got.. you're off by hundreds of thousands of votes." Trump also hinted he might have the voters in Georgia turn against the party if he didn't have his way. "I think we should come to a resolution of this before the election, otherwise you're gonna have you didn't have people just not voting. They don't want to vote. They hate the state. They hate the governor, and they hate the Secretary of State, I will tell you that right now."

Not only is Trump undermining democracy in America, but he is also actively trying to steal an election that is legal. Many senior Republicans, including Ted Cruz, are backing Trump's claims that the election was stolen. If this was happening in another country, American leaders and media wouldn't hesitate to call it a coup. The courts in seven states have already ruled against voter fraud, reported The New York Times. Republicans are severely undermining democracy in America and it could hurt the country standing in the world for decades to come. 

Democrats slammed the president and the Republicans for backing the president in his bid to overturn the elections. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris referred to the call as an abuse of power. "Well, it was, yes, certainly the voice of desperation. Most certainly that. And it was a bald, bald-faced, bold abuse of power by the president of the United States," said Harris. Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it an "impeachable offense." Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said Trump's "disgraceful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the legally confirmed vote totals in his state strikes at the heart of our democracy and merits nothing less than a criminal investigation."

It's criminal that the president has spent all his waking hours focused on right-wing conspiracy theories and attempting to steal an election as Americans are dying on a daily basis. More than 350,000 people have died from coronavirus in the United States in 2020, with 77,572 dying in December alone. 

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