Trump floods rally with audacious falsehoods

Supporters cheer as Donald Trump gestures after speaking during a rally at Valdosta Regional Airport in Valdosta on Saturday. Pic/AFP

President Donald Trump is pressing his grievances over losing the presidential election, using a weekend rally to spread baseless allegations of misconduct in last month's voting in Georgia and beyond even as he pushed supporters to turn out for a pair of Republican Senate candidates in a runoff election in January. "Let them steal Georgia again, you'll never be able to look yourself in the mirror," Trump told rallygoers.

Trump's 100-minute rally before thousands of largely maskless supporters came not long after he was rebuffed by Georgia's Republican governor in his astounding call for a special legislative session to give him the state's electoral votes, even though Joe Biden won the majority of the vote.

The Jan. 5 Senate runoffs in Georgia will determine the balance of power in Washington after Biden takes office. Republicans in the state are worried that Trump is stoking so much suspicion about Georgia elections that voters will think the system is rigged and decide to sit out the two races. Republicans need one victory to maintain their Senate majority.

Trump flooded his first post-election political rally with debunked conspiracy theories and audacious falsehoods on Saturday as he claimed victory in an election he decisively lost. "If I lost, I'd be a very gracious loser," he said. The fact is he lost, refuses to concede, hasn't congratulated the winner and persists in allegations of election malfeasance that courts and officials across the breadth of battleground states and in Washington have found meritless. In fact, on Friday, Biden reached 279 electoral votes, nine more than 270 that is needed to become president. He is on track to finish with 306 to Trump's 232 once more states certify their results.

Suggesting ballots were found in nefarious places, he said, "When the numbers come out of ceilings and come out of leather bags you start to say what's going on?" This remark was the latest iteration of a false claim he has spread around about ballot-stuffed suitcases found under a cloth-covered table and tallied without supervision.

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