LISTEN: Donald Trump urges special session to investigate Georgia election in newly released call

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Transcripts and audio of yet another phone call between Donald Trump and a powerful Georgia elected official in the 2020 election’s chaotic aftermath were made public this week.

On Dec. 7, 2020, Trump - then the nation’s 45th president - called then-Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, in which he urged Ralston to call a special legislative to invalidate that election’s results.

Trump - now the 47th U.S. president and who this week gave federal employees two additional days off for the Christmas holidays - said Ralston could justify a special legislative session by saying it was “for transparency, and to uncover fraud.”

Ralston - who passed away on Nov. 16, 2022 - said he was a supporter of Trump but added calling such a session was “very much an uphill battle.”

Transcript

• Trump: David, how are you? You have such a great reputation. It’s incredible. Thank you for your support.
• Ralston: Well, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for your service. I’m just honored to be a supporter, and, I fear for this country’s future.
• Trump: Oh David, it’s, what’s going on, and with that crazy Governor you have, I meant this guy…do you know he was 21 points down and actually David Perdue called me, in the primary, you know, with one day to go, you know he was getting killed by I guess the Lt. Gov – he was in third or fourth place. And David Perdue called me – would you endorse him – I said well who’s he? I don’t know. And they convinced me he’s fine so I said alright. I endorsed him and he went up like 60 points immediately. He won the thing the following day. And then I helped him get, as you know, you were probably there, I helped him get elected, you know, beat Stacey, the great Stacey, and so he beat Stacey, and you know I had 2 rallies. I had 30-40 thousand people each. One had 55 thousand people. And that was it. You know I helped the guy greatly. And when I call him to help with this I thought it would be routine. Are you there David? Can you hear me ok?
• Ralston: I can hear you great – yes sir.
• Trump: Ok good. When I called him to ask about this thing – you know can you call a general assembly, can we go over the signatures? You know, we checked the signatures, you’d find that 25% of them were forgeries, ok, or were false – [undecipherable] forgeries they were just, you know, somebody wrote a name down. And that would be the end of the election. [undecipherable] because I’ll be you have 200,000 at least and that would be the end of this whole thing and we would win the state. And he didn’t want to do it. I said oh, oh wait wait, now let me explain that again. ‘Well I can’t do that for you.’ I said, you can’t do it for me? You’re not doing it for me, you’re doing it for everybody. You’re doing it for the country. And I never, he’s like a stone head. I can’t believe it. He doesn’t want to call a special election. Now I understand constitutionally you have the right to do that yourself. According to who they say is the best lawyer there is – John Eastman. But, uh, this guy, this Governor, and then you have Rafflesberger [sic] who’s a disaster. Raffensperger. He’s a disaster. And I’m saying can you believe it? And you know I do something I never do I said wait a minute, I never knew you and I helped you. And one thing has nothing to do with the other. But you mean you wouldn’t call, for the sake of transparency, a special session? Or you won’t let us go and verify signatures because they’re corrupt? ‘No I can’t let you do that.’ I feel like this has never happened to me, I have to tell you that it’s never happened to me David. Um. I’ve had some beauties, but I’ve never had anything like that. And, I will be fighting this guy like you never saw. I know where I’ll be in 2 years, I know one place I’m gonna be, it’s gonna be in Georgia. And you know we won this thing by 400,000-500,000 votes. Just like we did Alabama and every other state in the South. And, um, we won, we won, we won your state massively. They took votes away. Plus, plus you saw the tape. That’s just one tape of many we have. What we have is just unbelievable. But you know then they say oh well they were they were there early in the morning and that was coming out of suitcases, luggage, and it was a lot of votes, it was probably more than 100,000. You know they ran them through 3 or 4 times, you know, the same votes. And then they say how honest it was. It’s just incredible. And the guy doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to get to the bottom of it. He doesn’t want to do it. And we win the state automatically – all we need is either of the two frankly. But the, the better is the special session, because, if you agree with us, you can vote the state is a victory for us. And your guys want to do it. You know your, I’ll tell you, I don’t know how you get along with them, but your other guys in the senate side, they want to, they agree. They agree. Um, its, its really like an incredible situation. So, what is your suggestion David? What do you think?
• Ralston: Well, uh, I had a very good conversation with Mayor Giuliani earlier this afternoon.
• Trump: Right, he’s fantastic, and it sounds like he’s getting better fast too which is…
• Ralston: Yeah, he did sound strong, and, and, and his mind was extremely, uh, dynamic. Uh, he mentioned, uh, professor, um, Cameron, what’s his name?
• Trump: Right, John, right, John Eastman.
• Ralston: Eastman. Eastman. And, um, I’ve got some of my people looking at that because frankly that was a theory of us getting, of coming into session, that we had not, uh, considered. We have been thinking that we had to travel down the road of having 3/5 of the house members, which we couldn’t get.
• Trump: By the way, and you do it to uncover fraud. You could say: ‘For transparency and to uncover fraud. Possible fraud.’ So, who’s gonna stop you for that? You know.
• Ralston: A federal judge (chuckling) Possibly.
• Trump: You think?
• Ralston: Yeah. You know Mr. President. You know, there’s some, there’s some liberals out there. You, you’ve dealt with them. And, uh, ultra liberals, uh and, and then the other method of course is for the Governor to call us in and he’s, he’s pretty adamant that he’s not gonna do that.
• Trump: Nobody knows why. Do you know why?
• Ralston: I don’t know why. I don’t know why. I mean…
• REDACTED [5:41-6:28]
• Ralston: We’re looking it at it. I mean Mr. President, I’ve, I have not signed up with the Governor or the Lt. Governor on their public statements, uh, which have blown off the idea of, of there being any kind of recourse, whether it’s special session or no. Uh, I march to my own drummer, and my own drummer says I want Donald Trump to remain the President. If there’s any way we can possibly help in that regard, I’m on board.
• Trump: Thank you , David. Thank you. We won’t forget.
• Ralston: Ok.
• Trump: You know I had a rally there, you know, a few days ago, and it was 25,000 people.
• Ralston: I watched it.
• Trump: Well they went crazy. And by the way, his name was mentioned, he’s finished politically. You couldn’t even bring him back I don’t think. But, but he’s finished politically. And he has no political – this guy has like no clue – the love in that in that area was, it was an airport, the love in that thing was unbelievable. And his name was mentioned and the crowd was booing, you couldn’t, you couldn’t even believe it. Number one you’re doing the right thing for the country and number two it’s the right thing to do. It’s just the right thing to do. And its popular. You know, that’s not so bad either, right?
• Ralston: No, its not bad.
• Trump: But, uh, its very popular, and I won the state by half a million votes. And they just took it away. I mean it’s the most incredible thing. That would be almost like losing Alabama. You know, I was way up. In fact, they announced, uh, at like 9:00 in the evening, uh, I was 350,000 votes up in Georgia. And everybody said – I was 950,000 up in Pennsylvania – 950. At least they took 3 days to get rid of that one. You know. So then I went from this massive win to either just barely they nipped it over the line. And you heard the stuff where he was more popular than Obama only in 5 states but they won all the swing states. Otherwise Obama blew him out of the water with all the different votes. So, you know, it’s a, it’s a scam. But, and you can use that information actually. That information is good stuff. You know, because it’s almost 100% full-proof. You know there are various, various ways that it was impossible for Trump to lose the election based on the results. I got 75 million votes. Nobody had ever had that many votes.
• Ralston: It’s true.
• Trump: No one’s ever had that many votes. And I’m telling you, they said if we can get 67 – you know I got 63 the last time – in uh 2016 – if we can get 66 or 67 – so we were headed for 67 or 68 – I end up getting 75 million votes and we lost. We’re gonna win at 68 and that’s according to John McGlocklin (sp?). You know, the real deal, the pollster.
• Ralston: Right. Yup.
• Trump: He’s a real pollster. And uh, it was uh, just amazing. I will not forget it. And you’ll be more popular. You’re popular now, but you’ll be more popular. I mean this Governor, I don’t know what he’s doing. He’s, he’s, the Republicans, and people of this state they can’t believe it. Go ahead…
• Ralston: I think you’re…
• REDACTED [9:33 -10:03]
• Trump: You know, and I think they’re gonna, unless they give Trump the state, these 2 senators are both gonna lose. And, you know, that’s why that Lin Wood was, what he was saying, David, was if you don’t give Trump the state we’re not gonna vote because they’re angry. Those people were angry. And yet they love me – you know we love Trump we love Trump. We love you. That’s never happened in a political rally. It’s happened, it happens in every rally I go to all over the place. That’s why we got 75 million votes. So, whatever you can do, I promise you one thing, you’ll be much more popular than you are now, and you’re doing just fine. And also, it’s the right thing to do.
• Ralston: Thank you very much.
• Trump: And this guy, he’s like a, he’s like a knucklehead, David. He’s, he’s like a stone head. He just says no oh oh [garbled]. I can’t believe I endorsed him. I can’t even believe it.
• Ralston: Well, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, we’re going to continue looking for ways to be helpful, um, because I think it’s important to the country’s future.
• Trump: And Burt Jones is very much on our side. You know, I don’t know if you’re friendly with Burt or not.
• Ralston: Burt and I, uh, Burt and I are good.
• Trump: And he’s got like 4 or 5 guys, and they’re all like going crazy about this thing, they’re so angry. They’re totally on our side. So, uh, they were at that rally actually, that’s where I got to meet them. And they were cheering like everybody else. The level of support we have is incredible. And we have a couple of knuckleheads, including Duncan, the Lt. Gv., what a jerk he is. He’s a puppet. He’s a puppet, the other guy. And then you have Rafflesberger (sic). Boy, you have uh some group. But it’s very beatable, if we had a special session, we will present, and you will say, ‘here, it’s been massive fraud, we’re gonna turn over the state’. And you know what, your 2 senators will win in a landslide. But these people are not gonna vote, they’re not gonna go out and vote. Their signs, don’t vote, they’re not with you sir, they’re not with you sir. You know that’s what it says on their signs they’re holding. Like 25,000 people there they’re holding up signs. And don’t forget I never did that before because I did a rally for somebody else. That wasn’t a rally for me. I didn’t know if anyone was gonna show up and the place was packed. But it wasn’t packed for them, it was packed for us. So, um, I appreciate it David.
• Ralston: Thank you very much Mr. President.
• Trump: Thank you my friend, you let us know.
• Ralston: God bless you. Thank you.
• Trump: You too. Thanks. Bye.

This call was made before the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, call where Trump and White House staff made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump asked Raffensperger - now a Georgia gubernatorial candidate - to find enough votes for him to carry the Peach State.

That call become a crucial part of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ now-failed investigation into whether Trump or any of his associates interfered with the election’s outcome, an election that saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat to win Georgia - or any other deep Southern state - since Bill Clinton in 1992.

The Trump-Ralston phone call was reported the same week Willis finally appeared before a special state Senate committee investigating her prosecution and now failed indictment of Trump and 18 GOP allies on charges they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

Willis frequently berated and accused the committee’s GOP leadership of trying to score political points at her expense, particularly since four of the committee’s leaders are seeking statewide office in Georgia’s nationally watched 2026 midterms.

However, a since-acknowledged romantic relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade threw the case into an entirely new political and judicial sphere.

Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court declined to hear Willis’s appeal of her removal from the election interference case against Trump. The court had previously pointed to an “appearance of impropriety” between Willis and Wade.

Willis was eventually dismissed from prosecuting the case, which landed the case in the hands of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia. On the day before Thanksgiving, Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who was overseeing the case, granted a request from the council to drop the charges, dismissing the case in its entirety.

Current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones - an unindicted co-conspirator named in Willis’s indictment but who, along with more than 70 others, was pardoned by Trump last month - is also running for governor next year.

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