Two days after Joe Biden was named the winner of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump left little doubt that he would not accept the result. A senior Republican official assured The Washington Post, however, that the defeated incumbent president’s elaborate tantrum wouldn’t amount to much.
“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time?” the official reportedly told the Post, adding, “It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20.”
Trump was, however, plotting to prevent Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. In fact, a week after the Post published the infamous “humoring” quote, the scope of Trump’s efforts started to come into view.
In Michigan, two Republicans on Wayne County’s elections board initially refused to certify local election results. As The New York Times noted at the time, this was, “in essence, an effort to disenfranchise large numbers of Americans.” Soon after, NBC News reported that the local GOP officials received a personal call from the then-president, and it was at that point that they announced they wanted to “rescind” their votes certifying the election results.
The vote tallies from Wayne County were certified anyway, though the fact that Trump made the effort was one of the earliest pieces of powerful evidence: The then-president was taking deliberate steps to try to overturn his defeat and claim illegitimate power.
But what was it, exactly, that Trump told the Republican officials on the elections board in Michigan? Three years later, the answer appears to be coming into focus. The Detroit News reported Thursday night on a newly revealed recording reportedly reviewed by the newspaper:
On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they’d look “terrible” if they signed the documents after they…
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