Harris lambasts Trump call with Georgia officials as ‘bold abuse of power’
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris slammed President Donald Trump and his call pushing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes to overturn the election results, a “bald-faced, bold abuse of power,” in Savannah, Georgia, on Sunday.
Harris took the stage at a drive-thru rally campaigning for democratic Senate runoff candidates and addressed the crowd on the stunning call. Trump assailed Raffensperger for refusing to falsely declare Trump the winner of the election in the Peach State.
“Have y’all heard about that recorded conversation?” Harris asked with cars honking in the audience. “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.”
Harris’ remarks were the first on-camera reaction from the incoming administration to the bombshell call obtained by CNN and first reported by the Washington Post on Sunday afternoon.
Earlier, Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, in a statement said it, “captures the whole, disgraceful story about Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.”
The soon-to-be-sworn-in Vice President tracked through Trump and other Republicans’ failed attempts to overturn the election on false allegations of widespread voter fraud — a charge that has been found to have no credible evidence.
“And then look at the most recent history, which is that after you elected, you turned Georgia blue, you elected Joe Biden President of the United States, you elected the first black woman in the history of our country to be the Vice President of the United States, and they have the gall to suggest you didn’t know what you were doing, you must have gone about it in a way that was illegitimate,” she said.
Harris also slammed Trump for calling the upcoming January 5 Senate runoff elections “illegal and invalid,” and that he was “suggesting that the people of Georgia are trying to commit a crime.”
These strong remarks came after Harris spoke about the importance of the Senate while on Instagram Live with artist and musician Janelle Monáe, defiantly stating that she would be sworn in, in just under three weeks, as Vice President no matter the attempts to obstruct or delay.
“And when I am sworn in on January 20, which I will be whether Donald Trump likes that or not, the sad bittersweet moment about that is that there will be no more Black woman in the United States Senate,” Harris said.
This is also Harris’ first time speaking about the lack of Black women in the Senate once she resigns since California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla was announced as her successor by the state’s Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom chose the first Latino in state history for the role.
Speaking before Harris, Senate candidate Jon Ossoff said Trump was actively attempting to “disenfranchise Black voters” in the state.
“That is a direct attack on our democracy. And if David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler had one piece of steel in their spines, one shred of integrity, they would be out here defending Georgia voters from that kind of assault,” Ossoff said.
Both Harris and Biden, who will be returning to Atlanta on Monday, are making their final push into the Peach State in hopes that the Democratic Party will gain control of the Senate and start their administration with a unified government.
