The Washington Post's selective editing of President Trump's hourlong phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has fueled a narrative that is completely unsupported by the actual substance of the call. The President was not in any way asking for Raffensperger to "find" votes, as has been alleged. Rather, he was pressuring Raffensperger to more fully investigate and explain the irregularities with Georgia's vote.
For example, the very first soundbite the Post offers in its story on the call is as follows:
Trump: We have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. I mean, having the correct … the people of Georgia are angry. And these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night, along with others that we’re going to have by that time, which are much more substantial even. And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that you’ve recalculated.
Raffensperger: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.
This makes it seem as though President Trump is asking Raffensperger to "recalculate" the vote total in Georgia so that he will win. The actual transcript, however, reveals a far different request.
Trump: We have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. I mean, having the correct … the people of Georgia are angry. And these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night, along with others that we’re going to have by that time, which are much more substantial even. And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying 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, et cetera. 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.
Raffensperger: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.
The unedited transcript makes clear that Trump was talking about potentially fraudulent ballots. In fact, he makes this point abundantly clear in the first five minutes of the call, which neither the Post nor any other mainstream outlet has explained:
You don’t need much of a number because the number that in theory I lost by, the margin would be 11,779. But you also have a substantial numbers of people, thousands and thousands who went to the voting place on November 3, were told they couldn’t vote, were told they couldn’t vote because a ballot had been put on their name. And you know that’s very, very, very, very sad. We had, I believe it’s about 4,502 voters who voted but who weren’t on the voter registration list. So it’s 4,502 who voted but they weren’t on the voter registration roll which they had to be. You had 18,325 vacant address voters. The address was vacant and they’re not allowed to be counted. That’s 18,325. A smaller number, you had 904 who only voted where they had just a P.O., A post office box number. And they had a post office box number and that’s not allowed.
We had at least 18,000, that’s on tape, we had them counted very painstakingly. 18,000 voters having to do with Ruby Freeman. She’s a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler Ruby Freeman. That was the tape that’s been shown all over the world that makes everybody look bad, you, me and everybody else, where they got number one, they said very clearly. And it’s been reported that they said there was a major water main break. Everybody fled the area. And then they came back Ruby Freeman and her daughter and a few people. There was no Republican poll Watchers. Actually, there were no Democrat poll Watchers, I guess they were them. But there were no Democrats either and there was no law enforcement.
Early in the morning they went to the table with the black robe, the black shield and they pulled out the votes. Those votes were put there a number of hours before the table was put there. I think it was, Brad you would know, it was probably eight hours or seven hours before and then it was stuffed with votes. They weren’t in an official voter box, they were in what looked to be suitcases. But they weren’t in voter boxes. The minimum number it could be because we watched it and they watched it certified in slow motion instant replay if you can believe it, but slow motion and it was magnified many times over and the minimum it was 18,000 ballots, all for Biden.
You had out-of-state voters, they voted in Georgia, but they were from out of state of 4,925. You had absentee ballot sent to a vacant, they were absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses. They had nothing on them about addresses. That’s 2,326.
This important context is of course missing from nearly all reporting on the phone call, which is sadly not surprising.
"The Dan O'Donnell Show" filled in the blanks that the rest of the media intentionally ignored. Click on the player below to listen and click here to subscribe to the podcast on iHeartRadio so you don't miss a single minute!