President Trump on Wednesday phoned into a public hearing on election issues in Pennsylvania and declared that his loss to Joe Biden was the result of cheating by Democrats.
“This was an election that we won easily. We won it by a lot,” Trump said.
“This was, very sad to say it, this election was rigged and we can’t let that happen. We can’t let it happen for our country, and this election has to be turned around.”
Pennsylvania has already certified its results and awarded its 20 electors to Biden, who on Monday was formally notified that the Trump administration was ready to start the transition process.
Those moves came after a federal judge threw out the Trump campaign’s most important suit challenging Biden’s victory in the Keystone State — a ruling that the campaign filed paperwork to appeal.
Shortly before Trump spoke, a Pennsylvania appeals court judge ordered state officials to stop any further certification efforts pending a hearing on Friday, but it was unclear if the development could affect the scheduled Dec. 14 meeting of the Electoral College.
Trump, who said Wednesday that he was calling from the Oval Office, claimed “there’s no doubt” the election results should be overturned in Pennsylvania and other swing states won by Biden.
“We have all the evidence we have all the affidavits, we have everything,” he said.
“All we need is to have some judge listen to it properly, without having a political opinion or having another kind of a problem.”
Trump added, “And by the way, the evidence is pouring in as we speak.”
Earlier, people in the audience clapped and cheered when Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis held her cellphone up to a microphone so the president’s voice could be heard during a meeting of Republican state senators at the Wyndham Hotel in Gettysburg.
Trump reportedly planned to attend in person but canceled after a member of his legal team, Boris Epshteyn, announced Wednesday that he’d tested positive for the coronavirus.
Trump said that he’d heard “horror stories” about the election and that his legal time had “affidavits piled up to the ceiling” from poll watchers who “were treated horribly in virtually all of the swing states.”
“If you were a Republican poll watcher, you were treated like a dog,” he said.
“It was rough tactics, what happened here. This is not the United States of America, what happened. I think everybody knows that.”
Trump also alleged that an unidentified “elderly woman” showed up to a polling place to vote on Election Day but was told, “You already voted. Your ballot is in.”
“She said, ‘No, I want to vote,’” he said.
“Then, they gave her a provisional ballot to sign, which goes nowhere.”
At one point, the president alluded to an unsubstantiated theory that votes cast for him on Dominion Voting Systems machines were secretly changed to votes for Biden.
“All you had to do was take a look at the numbers at 10 o’clock in the evening, when everybody thought the election was virtually over, and then very weird things happened,” he said.
“But they’re not weird to professionals and they’re not weird to Dominion and other people that operate machines, and they’re not weird to the people that handle the ballots where they were.”
Trump also alleged that Democrats “flooded the market,” with some people “getting two and three and four ballots at their home.”
“Dead people were requesting ballots and they were dead for years and they were requesting ballots,” he said.
Trump called the dispute over the election results “a very important moment in our country” and said that “a lot of good things are happening in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan.”
He also urged his supporters to not be intimidated by Democrats.
“These are bad people, they’re horrible people and they’re people who don’t love our country,” he said.
Earlier, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is leading the Trump campaign’s legal efforts, called the election that took place in Pennsylvania a “sham” and a “disgrace,” prompting applause.
“I know crooks really well,” said Giuliani, a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York.
“You give ’em an inch and they take a mile. And you give ’em a mile and they take your whole country.”
Giuliani also claimed that “under normal circumstances, like if this were a fair media, [Pennsylvania] would have been called for Trump.”
“Virginia was called with 10 percent of the vote. It turned out to be separated by 1 percent. I think we may have actually won Virginia. But that’s another battle,” he said.
Biden actually won Virginia 54.4 percent to 44.2 percent, a margin of nearly 10 points.