Trump demands Pence ‘come through for us’ on Wednesday when Congress certifies election

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President Donald Trump demanded that Mike Pence ‘come through for us’ as the vice president is set to announce President-elect Joe Biden the election winner at a Congressional session on January 6. 

‘I hope Mike Pence comes through for us. He’s a great guy,’ Trump told an audience Monday night in Dalton, Georgia. ‘Of course if he doesn’t come through I won’t like him quite as much.’   

Biden won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. The president’s allies on Capitol Hill plan to challenge some of the states’ Electoral College counts, which could elongate the Congressional session for hours, even days. Pence will be there just to announce the results. 

Still, Trump tried to float that Pence had the power to change his fate. 

The New York Times reported Monday that Trump had pressed the vice president to find an alternative to certifying the election for Biden, possibly tossing it to the House of Representatives.  

Trump boasted at a rally meant to get out the vote in Georgia for GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue that he was the 2020 victor.   

‘Hello Georgia. By the way there’s no way we lost Georgia. That was a rigged election. But we’re still fighting it. And you’ll see what’s going to happen. We’ll talk about it,’ he said. 

At another point in the rally Trump blasted Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp for refusing to do more to overturn the presidential election results, saying: ‘I’m going to be here in a year and a half and I’m going to be campaigning against your governor and your crazy secretary of state, I guarantee you.’

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Trump continued to suggest that there’s no way he could have lost the presidential election to Biden because his crowd size – amid the coronavirus pandemic – was consistently larger.   

‘They had 14 people in three cars,’ Trump said of Biden’s trip to Atlanta on behalf of Democratic Senate hopefuls Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock earlier Monday.  

Biden, unlike Trump, has kept his events small due to the coronavirus pandemic.  

Loeffler greeted Trump in Georgia and arrived at the rally site with him. 

Earlier Monday she announced she would join 12 other GOP senators and issue challenges to the Electoral College count. 

‘On January 6, I will object to the Electoral College vote,’ she told the crowd, who roared. ‘We’re going to get this done.’ 

‘Are you ready to show America that Georgia is a red state?’ Loeffler said. 

Trump also invited Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene onstage to speak. Greene has become a household name for promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and was sworn-in to Congress Sunday. 

The president said Sen. Mike Lee was also in the audience. 

The Utah Republican is against the Electoral College vote challenges, which Trump alluded to, saying he was a ‘little mad’ at the lawmaker. 

Perdue is in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19. 

Trump still called out to Perdue as if the senator was in the crowd in the opening moments of the rally. 

He then huffed that there was ‘no way’ Biden won the election.   

‘You know I’ve had two elections, I’ve won both of them, it’s amazing,’ Trump said. ‘And I actually did much better in the second one.’ 

Later, he noted how he had won 12 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. 

Trump lost the popular vote in 2020 to Biden by more than 7 million votes.    

The president would talk about the run-off race and then veer back into chatter about his own race. 

‘America as you know it will be over,’ Trump warned of Democrats getting control of the Senate.

‘And it will never, ever – I believe – be able to come back again. It will be too far gone. Your vote tomorrow could … be your last chance to save the America that we love.’ 

‘That’s why I’m here, I don’t want to do rallies for other people. I told you,’ Trump continued, but added that he was there for David and Kelly. 

Then he’d turn back to the presidential election.  

Trump continued to call being overtaken by Biden thanks to mail-in ballots ‘magic.’ 

‘It was over,’ Trump said of his early leads in states like Pennsylvania, where mail-in ballots had Biden catching up and then surpassing the president days after the election. ‘I should have run up to the podium and said, “Thank you very much for this wonderful victory,”‘ Trump said. 

The president rattled off numbers of ballots that he said he won, weaving together a conspiracy theory as the night wore on.

‘I say this because you can’t have this happen tomorrow,’ he said.  

Trump’s allegations of widespread voter fraud haven’t been backed up by evidence and case after case from his legal team have been thrown out of court.  

Still, he devoted most of the rally to talk of a ‘rigged’ election. 

He threw water on the idea that he could simply run again in four years.

‘And they said, “Sir, you’re way up in four years,”‘ he said recounting a conversation onstage. ‘I’m not interested in four years, I’m interested in like eight weeks ago.’  

Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle warmed up the crowd before Trump touched down with Ivanka and Loeffler. 

They, too, pushed the idea to supporters that Trump could stay in office after January 20.  

Trump’s trip to the Peach State comes hours after Biden held a rival campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, Monday afternoon to try to give a final campaign boost to Ossoff and Warnock. 

At the drive-in style rally, Biden mocked Trump for ‘whining and complaining.’ 

‘I don’t know why he still wants the job, he doesn’t want to do the work,’ Biden said. 

Trump has done few public events since the election was called for Biden, as COVID-19 cases have soared. Biden has also been critical of the administration’s vaccine roll-out, which has gone far slower than expected. 

Doubts had been raised earlier Monday over whether Trump would still attend Monday’s rally, as calls mount for a probe into his weekend phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Raffensperger leaked Saturday’s phone call and the conversation was first released by the Washington Post Sunday, appearing to show the president desperately trying to pressure the official to ‘find’ votes to turn the state red. 

‘All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,’ Trump says on the call. ‘There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.’   

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Monday he was ready to launch an investigation into ‘felony wrongdoing’ in relation to Trump’s demands and two House Democrats have written to FBI Director Chris Wray calling for the agency to launch an investigation. 

Meanwhile Republicans have voiced concerns that his actions may have scuppered his own party’s chances of taking the Senate. 

It comes as fears were already growing within the Republican party that Trump was turning off voters after he claimed the runoffs were ‘illegal’ Saturday.    

At the White House Monday, Trump greeted supporters on the lawn who waved American flags as he headed toward Marine One. 

While Ivanka flashed a smile, the president wore a solemn expression as he ascended the steps and turned to wave goodbye to his fans. 

Trump had vowed Saturday to travel to Georgia Monday to support the GOP candidates ahead of Tuesday’s crucial senate runoff election.  

GOP candidates Perdue and Loeffler are up against Democrats Warnock and Ossoff in the January 5 vote.  

If the Democrats win both Senate seats, it will create a 50/50 split in the Senate, and give incoming Vice President Kamala Harris the deciding vote – leaving Democrats in control of the White House, House and Senate, and Trump’s MAGA legacy in tatters. 

Democrats reportedly hold an edge in early, in-person voting in the run-off races with Fox News reporting that 2.8 million Georgians have already cast ballots and participation has so far been higher in Democratic Congressional districts. 

In a rage over the leaked phone call, Trump was reportedly floating the idea of pulling out of Monday’s rally but was persuaded to go ahead. 

At the rally, he called out the state’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, for being supportive of Raffensperger and other Republican election officials. 

‘I’ll be here in about a year and a half campaigning against your governor, I guarantee it,’ Trump said. 

As he ended the rally, using lines from his normal campaign speech, he again promised that the ‘best is yet to come.’  

Ivanka Trump pays homage to her father ‘my warrior’ and says ‘patriotism is alive and well’ at Senate runoff rally 

Ivanka Trump paid homage to her father ‘my warrior’ and told the crowd ‘patriotism is alive and well in Georgia’, after she gave a bizarre shoutout to Meat Loaf on Twitter on the way to the Senate runoff rally.

Donald Trump‘s daughter and senior adviser took to the stage at the GOP rally in Dalton, Georgia, Monday night where she threw her support behind both her dad and the two Republican Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. 

Ivanka, 39, was met with cheers and clapping as she called Trump ‘the people’s president’ and vowed he ‘will not stop fighting’, before calling Loeffler and Perdue ‘two amazing senators’.

This came after she posted a beaming selfie of herself on board Air Force One with Trump in the background and urged people to ‘get out and vote’ – but confused social media users by tagging Meat Loaf in the post. 

‘It is so incredible to be back here with so many amazing hardworking Georgia families who are fighting for our children’s future – each one of you,’ Ivanka said as she took the stage.

‘And it’s so great to be back in Georgia with this warrior, my father, the people’s president,’ she said as the crowd cheered and Trump grinned in the background. 

‘He is a tireless and tireless champion for all of you and he will mot stop fighting and by his side are two amazing senators that we have to send back to the Senate and send a resounding message that patriotism is alive and well in Georgia.

‘And Georgia is going to keep freedom alive in America.’

She closed off urging people to turn out and vote, amid concerns that her father has turned off voters by undermining the election.

‘Please vote,’ she said. ‘Thank you, god bless you and god bless Georgia and god bless America and god bless our president.’ 

Ivanka accompanied her father, 74, to the rally which marked a last-ditch effort to get Republican supporters to turn out and vote in Tuesday’s runoff race.

While on route to Dalton aboard Air Force One, Ivanka tweeted a close-up selfie of herself with Trump on his cellphone in the background. 

‘Off to Georgia with Dad! Get out and VOTE Georgia!!!’ she wrote alongside the image. 

But social media users were quick to spot that Ivanka had bizarrely tagged singer Meat Loaf in the post. 

Ivanka also tagged Loeffler, Perdue, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino and the GOP.

Perhaps surprisingly, Ivanka did not tag Trump causing several Twitter users to mock her and question if she had somehow muddled up the singer, real name Michael Lee Aday, with her father.

‘Wait do you think your dad is Meat Loaf?’ asked one bemused social media user. 

Another person wrote: ‘I would just like to point out that she didn’t tag her dad in this picture. However, she did tag Meat Loaf. I feel like there is some symbolism in that.’ 

‘Meat Loaf is Ivanka’s name for daddy,’ mocked another. 

Meat Loaf appeared on the 2011 series of Celebrity Apprentice with Trump and struck up a friendship with the then-future president.  

But the singer told The Express in 2020 that their relationship soured when he spoke to a journalist about the possibility that Trump would run for president.

‘I answered honestly – ‘Well he’s not running for President. But if I was President I would see if I couldn’t get him to join the staff in a finance position and give me advice on finances and the economy as the man is really smart at that,” Meat Loaf recalled. 

‘And he got really mad at me! Very mad at me. We went to an Emmy Nominations ceremony and he knocked on my door at my dressing room.’

It is not clear if Ivanka intended to include the singer or made a slip-up in her tweet ahead of the rally where her father repeated claims that he ‘won’ Georgia despite three vote counts audits revealing Joe Biden won the state by more than 12,000 votes.    

Kelly Loeffler says she will be 13th Republican senator to object to Biden’s victory being certified as she takes to the stage to campaign with Trump

Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler announced that she will join 12 Republican colleagues in objecting to President-elect Joe Biden‘s victory during the rally headlined by Donald Trump on Monday night.  

Congress is set to count and certify the Electoral College vote on Wednesday, another benchmark on the path towards Biden’s inauguration.

Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, however, are leading the charge in objecting to certification, with at least a dozen senators now involved. 

Loeffler, who is facing a tight run-off on Tuesday, announced that she is joining the rogue group during a campaign event on Monday night, where she appeared on stage alongside President Donald Trump. 

‘On January 6 I will object to the Electoral College vote,’ the senator said, eliciting a chorus of cheers from the crowd.  

‘This president fought for us, we’re fighting for him. He put America first, he put the American worker first. He stood with our men and women in law enforcement. He restored our military.’

Loeffler, who wore a mask during parts of the event but not others, then turned her attention to her ‘radical liberal’ challenger in tomorrow’s election, Democrat Raphael Warnock.

‘He attacked our police, our military. He spoke out against Israel, evangelicals, small businesses,’ she said of Warnock. 

‘Georgia, we have to hold the line. You have to get out and vote tomorrow. We are the firewall to socialism. We have to get it done. I love you guys, thank you!’   

Trump dad dances to the Village People’s YMCA at Georgia runoff rally for the first time since the last night of his presidential campaign rally

Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign anthem made something of a comeback Monday night as he dad danced on stage to the YMCA at the Senate runoff rally in Dalton, Georgia.

The president launched into some awkward shuffling and fist-pumping to the Village People song at the close of the last-ditch rally held to try to drum up support for the two GOP candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. 

The anthem and dance became synonymous with Trump’s rallies in the run-up to the presidential election as he made a tradition of closing out each event with a boogie.

But Monday marked the first time Trump has broken into dance on stage since the last night of his presidential campaign rally on November 2 – hours before Americans went to the polls and voted Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

Several people took to social media to comment on the return with many quipping that Trump and his supporters must still not know ‘what the song is about’ as it is most well-known as an anthem among the LGBTQ+ community. 

‘Am I the only one enjoying that Trump and his entire audience don’t get the YMCA reference?’ one person mocked. 

‘Apparently no one has yet told Trump supporters what YMCA is about,’ added another.

Another wrote: ‘ever wonder why Trump plays The village people after his speeches. I don’t believe for a second that Donald Trump even knows what the YMCA is. Might be a interesting deep dive.’ 

Others pointed out that the dad dancing at the end of the rally would be the last time Trump would be on stage as president at a rally.  

‘Finally, for history, here’s soon-to-be former President Trump leaving what is likely to be his last campaign rally as President to the sound of “YMCA”,’ one person wrote.  

‘Maybe the YMCA is where Trump will be staying once he leave the White House,’ another person mocked.  

‘Take back the YMCA song from Trump!’ one social media user said. 

In October, during the presidential campaign, the Village People’s lead singer Victor Willis told BBC he had asked Trump to stop playing their music and lawyers for Scorpio Music – which co-owns the copyright – threatened to take legal action against the Trump campaign.

But in November Willis said he would let Trump keep playing the song and a lawsuit wouldn’t be filed.