Trump rehashes Georgia grievances, conspiracies in CNN town hall
Election conspiracies take center stage at CNN town hall
Donald Trump took part in a CNN town hall on Wednesday — his first major appearance on CNN after years of boycotting the network.
The former President, who is mounting his third run for the White House, used the 90-minute strip to rehash several of his biggest grievances, from his multiple legal proceedings, to his controversial response to the January 6th Capitol attack and even Georgia’s 2020 election results.
He and his campaign are being investigated for attempting to overturn Georgia’s election results, and prosecutors have signaled that indictments could be just months away.
Nevertheless, Trump stood by his phone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked the Republican election chief to “find” enough votes to erase President Joe Biden’s lead.
When asked by moderator Kaitlan Collins if it is a phone call that he would make again, Trump maintained his belief that it was a “perfect” phone call.
“This was a call that was made to question the results of the election,” he exclaimed. “And when we can’t make a call to question election results, then this country ought to just forget about it.”
He even went a step further, saying that Secretary Raffensperger “owed” him votes because the election was rigged. Legal experts say Trump may have unintentionally put himself in more legal jeopardy. “It sure sounds like an admission of corrupt intent,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a left-leaning law professor at Georgia State University. “You can bet that [Fulton County District Attorney] Fani Willis put that clip in her back pocket.”
Many of Trump’s comments were met with applause from the live audience, which largely consisted of Trump supporters and Republican primary voters. But here in Georgia, Republican officials have warned that it’s time to move on from the 2020 election conspiracy theories and focus on the future.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, a Trump ally-turned-nemesis, told donors in Tennessee that the election conspiracy theories are becoming a distraction. “Not a single swing voter will vote for our nominee if they choose to talk about the 2020 election being stolen,” he warned.
Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who was ostracized from his party for not siding with Trump’s election conspiracies, said on social media that his party will “deserve what we get” if Trump wins the nomination.
And Gabriel Sterling, the mild-mannered Georgia elections official and a lifelong Republican, suggested last November that he will not be supporting Trump in GOP primary. “I generally am not in the habit of supporting people who get death threats to people I care about,” he said, referring to the threats that he and Raffensperger received from Trump supporters in late 2020.
Despite these warnings, Trump remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination. At 52%, he holds a commanding 30-point lead in FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average. His nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is at just 22%. He is expected to officially enter the race in the coming weeks.
And many Georgia Republican Party chapters are being taken over by hard-right leaders. And they are flexing their new power by moving to block candidates from running for office if they are believed to be insufficiently conservative.
“I don’t recognize the GOP anymore,” said former Cobb County Republican Party chairman Jason Shepherd. “And I’ve decided it’s time to devote my energies to better purposes, like actually helping elect Republican candidates.”