On Monday, Arizona became one of the latest states to certify its presidential election results, officially confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the state. (The last Democratic presidential nominee to win the state was Bill Clinton.) President Donald Trump and his allies have targeted Arizona in their ludicrous recent claims of rampant widespread election fraud — and the White House seems to have called Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) while he was going through the procedural steps of certifying Biden’s win. Ducey stated earlier this summer that he made “Hail to the Chief” his ringtone for calls from the White House, and Ducey silenced a phone call with the “Hail to the Chief” ringtone during the certification process.
Local reporter Brahm Resnik, who’s with the Phoenix-area NBC affiliate KPNX, shared footage of the moment. What Trump may have wanted to tell Ducey if he was, in fact, on the other end of the line, isn’t immediately clear. Check out the moment below:
HE'LL GET BACK TO YOU Back in July, Gov. Ducey said he changed his White House ringtone to "Hail to The Chief" so he wouldn't miss a call from Trump/Pence. Guess who called while Ducey was certifying Arizona's election? (7 secs in) pic.twitter.com/bzBGpfSIDf
— Brahm Resnik (@brahmresnik) November 30, 2020
Later on, Trump called into an Arizona “hearing” that was underway covering supposed evidence of supposed election fraud in the state. During Trump’s phoned-in remarks to the hearing participants, Trump complained about Ducey, who he said “just rushed to sign certificates so that [Democratic Senator-elect Mark] Kelly gets into the Senate as soon as possible.” There’s no meaningful evidence of some kind of conspiracy to unduly speed the swearing-in of Senator-elect Kelly. Trump angrily added:
‘What’s that all about? [Ducey] didn’t have to sign it. I say, why would he sign when you have these incredible hearings going on that are showing such corruption and such horrible fraud?.. So you’ll have to figure out: what’s that all about, with Ducey? He couldn’t go fast enough, and Arizona will not forget what Ducey just did. We’re not going to forget… We didn’t lose the state. We won it by a lot.’
The petty self-delusion in the president’s remarks just seems staggering. He can’t just speak an Arizona win into existence, and he can’t just wish Biden’s wins in the state and elsewhere out of existence. Listen to Trump’s comments below:
LET’S GIVE THEM SOME SPACE Is the Ducey-Trump bromance over? This is a really bad public breakup. pic.twitter.com/nn3C3cxK3p
— Brahm Resnik (@brahmresnik) December 1, 2020
Trump and his allies have openly pressured state officials on a slew of occasions in the time since Election Day. The Trump team’s insinuations that these officials have been willingly complicit in some kind of fraudulent election-rigging scheme against the president are fictional. The Trump team has meshed ignorant hunches, disregard for truth, and self-centered self-importance into the conspiratorial mush of claims that they’ve been presenting to the American people.
At the sham Monday “hearing” in Arizona, top Trump ally Rudy Giuliani ludicrously suggested that officials who signed onto result certifications could be committing a crime via certifying false statements. He also demanded the nullification of 100,000 ballots in the state, but the Trump team’s perspectives have no meaningful merit. Claims and demands along these lines need solid supporting evidence that the Trump team simply does not have.
Weeks have passed since Election Day, and the Trump team has not successfully come even remotely close to overturning enough of the results to hand Trump a win.
