--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Fall is here. Might be time to find some nice new pieces you can wear again and again.
--:-- Noel King: With Saks Fifth Avenue, it can be a breeze to shop for your personal style, like maybe a relaxed Prada blazer or Gucci loafers that are great for both work and the weekend.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is very Sean. This is very Sean-coated. Gucci loafers.
--:-- Noel King: Saks says Saks makes shopping feel totally customized to you, whether that's from an in-store stylist or a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you just what you want to see.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They say they'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when something you've been eyeing is back in stock.
--:-- Noel King: You can find inspiration for your personal style every day at Saks Fifth Avenue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for this show comes from Strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown? Or never wanted in the first place?
--:-- Noel King: Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying. But are they actually just excuses for not leaving?
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--:-- Noel King: Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Happy New Year. We made it to 2021.
--:-- Noel King: And if you were hoping this was the year you could start thinking more about a new president and less about the old president, well, the old president has other plans.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's no way I lost Georgia. There's no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.
--:-- Noel King: The Washington Post rang in the new year with some explosive audio on Sunday.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The outgoing president desperately, dumbfoundingly, agonizingly begging for Georgia to reverse its election results in his favor.
--:-- Noel King: And no, not the election that hasn't happened yet, not Tuesday's runoffs. He's still hung up on the one that feels like a short lifetime ago.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The tape yesterday showed that Trump is still very wrapped up in an election that happened now two months ago.
--:-- Noel King: And it is not as focused on, I would say, the Senate races happening on Tuesday.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Ella Nilsson, you covered the White House for Vox.
--:-- Noel King: The call is painful to listen to.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He starts by saying he should have won because more people showed up to his rallies in Georgia during a pandemic.
--:-- Noel King: And it just descends into his pathology from there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What is pertinent, if anything?
--:-- Noel King: I think that the line that jumped out to everyone is when he tells Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have, because we won the state.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, he's literally directing the Georgia secretary of state to find votes that are not there.
--:-- Noel King: I mean, it was kind of wild to listen to.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, I guess we have sort of known for a while that Trump lives in a different reality than reality.
--:-- Noel King: But it was it was like listening to two people operating from two completely different worlds, basically.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You should want to have an accurate election. And you're a Republican. We believe, but we do have an accurate election.
--:-- Noel King: How does Georgia's secretary of state respond?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He was very calm and very measured on the call.
--:-- Noel King: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He had his lawyer there as well to back him up on certain things.
--:-- Noel King: What we're saying is not at all what you're describing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These are investigators from our office. These are investigators from GBI.
--:-- Noel King: And they're looking and they're good. And that's not what they're seeing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Basically, you know, he just very calmly and politely told Trump, look, Mr. President, the data that you have is not real.
--:-- Noel King: Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, people can say anything.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No, this isn't social media. This is Trump media.
--:-- Noel King: It's not social media. It's really not. It's not social media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't care about social media. I couldn't care less.
--:-- Noel King: Social media is big tech. Big tech is on your side.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't even know why you have a side, because you should want to have an accurate election.
--:-- Noel King: What's the response been since? How did Congress respond to this call?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, I mean, Congress was having a pretty busy day of its own yesterday.
--:-- Noel King: The House and Senate were both swearing in new members.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was reelected on a narrow vote as the Speaker of the House.
--:-- Noel King: It is my great honor to preside over this sacred ritual of renewal as we gather under the dome of this temple of democracy to begin the 117th Congress.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Over in the Senate, you know, that that outcome has not been determined yet because the Georgia races will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the Senate.
--:-- Noel King: And so, yeah, I mean, I think that some members of Congress expressed outrage and worry.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There were some moderate Republicans like Senator Mitt Romney who, you know, have been talking about how it's outrageous that a faction of Republican senators and Republican House members are going to try to object to certifying the election on January 6th, the presidential election, that is.
--:-- Noel King: But I would say that, you know, the response to the president's phone call kind of fell along partisan lines again, where it was, you know, Democrats and some moderate Republicans speaking out against it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But then Trump supporters either didn't really acknowledge it or, you know, it seems like they're not going to do anything other than double down on their support for the president.
--:-- Noel King: At best, there are a lot of problematic insinuations on this call.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At worst, you have the outgoing president of the United States bullying and threatening criminal charges if election results aren't changed illegitimately.
--:-- Noel King: Is that even legal, brah?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It doesn't appear to be, although it could violate Georgia's state law, intimidating elections officials and, you know, all of that not good stuff.
--:-- Noel King: And actually, two House Democrats are now asking the FBI director, Christopher Wray, to open a criminal probe on whether Trump violated the law, specifically around this phone call.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So we don't know yet whether Wray is going to do that but House Democrats are very angry and want to see action taken.
--:-- Noel King: Do we have any idea where this tape came from?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think that it was sort of assumed that it was leaked by the Secretary of State office.
--:-- Noel King: And you have to remember that this is a Secretary of State's office that has just been under strain basically since the presidential election in November.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: To their credit, Raffensperger and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp are both fairly conservative Republicans.
--:-- Noel King: Raffensperger said that he personally voted for Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm a passionate conservative. And as I've said before, I'm a proud Trump supporter.
--:-- Noel King: But, you know, he has received death threats.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Other people that work at the Secretary of State's office and other lower level election officials in Georgia have received death threats or other threats of violence.
--:-- Noel King: He's somebody that has just been targeted by Trump and Trump supporters relentlessly since November 3rd, simply because Trump did not win the election in Georgia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Even after this office request that President Trump try and quell the violent rhetoric being born out of his continuing claims of winning the states where he obviously lost, he tweeted out, expose the massive voter fraud in Georgia.
--:-- Noel King: This is exactly the kind of language that is at the base of growing threat environment for election workers who are simply doing their jobs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How does this compare to everything else he's been up to since losing the presidential election?
--:-- Noel King: It is a continuation of the rhetoric that we have heard and seen on Twitter and, you know, other forums.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But it's different because, you know, this is a private phone call that he had with an elected state official.
--:-- Noel King: And it's very clear, you know, you can't necessarily talk your way out of this one because it's very clear what he's asking to do.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's also just very clear that he cares more about this election that he lost than the future of his party, the Republican Party, and whether they can keep control of the Senate.
--:-- Noel King: It's also, I think, the most worrying thing is what it does to people's confidence in the outcome of elections in the future.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And, you know, the outcome of this, the Senate election, if it goes away that Trump doesn't like, or the outcome of future elections, because there has been so much doubt cast on this election, even though, you know, election experts inside the U.S. and also people who were, you know, watching this election from outside the U.S. across the board said that this was a very drama-free election that went pretty smoothly.
--:-- Noel King: How much of his party is with him at this point?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It seems like even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would very much like to move on.
--:-- Noel King: I would say that Trump has more friends in the House on this than he does in the Senate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So right now, you know, on Wednesday this week, it's time for the House and Senate to basically certify the election results, the presidential election results.
--:-- Noel King: And this is normally, you know, just kind of a boring ceremonial thing that they, you know, read results from the states and certify electors.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's the final thing that, you know, guarantees that now incoming president-elect Joe Biden and incoming vice president Kamala Harris will be sworn in.
--:-- Noel King: So this is normally a pretty boring process.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But this year, there are going to be a certain number of Republicans in the House and Senate that object to this.
--:-- Noel King: And on the same day as the certification, the outgoing president is planning a rally in D.C., right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah. So on Wednesday, Trump is saying that he wants his supporters to come to D.C. to basically join him and he's going to make some sort of announcement.
--:-- Noel King: I'm in D.C. right now and things in the city are pretty tense.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, the D.C. mayor issued a statement saying that she doesn't want D.C. residents basically going downtown on Tuesday or Wednesday because there have been violent scuffles that have broken out with members of the Proud Boys, that far-right group that supports Trump, and other pro-Trump protesters.
--:-- Noel King: And so she just wants to make sure that there is as little violence as possible with these pro-Trump elements coming into town.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it's going to be a tough week, but this might finally be over soon?
--:-- Noel King: After this process in the House and Senate this week, there's nothing else that Trump can really do.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, besides, I guess, continuing to spout off that Georgia was stolen or that the election was stolen from him, I think that he has exhausted all of his options, you know, from challenging things in court to this thing with certifying electors in the House and Senate.
--:-- Noel King: His avenues are now all closed, basically.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And exhausted is the operative word.
--:-- Noel King: Yes, everybody is exhausted.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you, Ellen.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you, Sean.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After the break, the real election story in Georgia, the runoffs.
--:-- Noel King: Before the break, the Gregory brothers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780. One more than we have.
--:-- Noel King: Have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No. 11,780.
--:-- Noel King: Support for Today Explained comes from Built Rewards.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These days, it seems like everybody has a rewards program.
--:-- Noel King: You swipe your card and you get one cent on the hundred dollars.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But with your rent, frequently, you just pay month after month.
--:-- Noel King: You never get anything from it other than that roof over your head.
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--:-- Noel King: Built Rewards says it lets you earn points on your rent.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: By paying rent through Built, they say you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, perhaps a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and so much more.
--:-- Noel King: Your home isn't just where you sleep, it's your community, and Built wants you to go out and do things in the community.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can eat at your favorite local restaurants, then earn more points.
--:-- Noel King: You can get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can enjoy exclusive experiences just for Built members every month.
--:-- Noel King: When you're ready to travel, they say Built points can be converted to miles or hotel points all around the world.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can earn points on rent and around your neighborhood wherever you call home by joining built.com slash explained.
--:-- Noel King: That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We all have moments where we could have done better, like cutting your own hair.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Or forgetting sunscreen, so now you look like a tomato.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Could have done better.
--:-- Noel King: Same goes for where you invest.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Level up and invest smarter with Schwab.
--:-- Noel King: Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Learn more at schwab.com
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you Ladies and germs welcome to the Georgia Senate runoffs the heaviest of heavyweight runoff elections in the history of the republic, with the potential to once again tip red to blue, with the upper chamber of the Congress, the United States Senate hanging in the balance.
--:-- Noel King: This is the moment you've all been waiting for.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And without further ado, your contestants, in the corner to my left, Republican David Perdue.
--:-- Noel King: David Perdue, he is best known for sort of his business ties.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, he ran Reebok Athletics, Dollar General, and he had no political experience before he ran in 2014.
--:-- Noel King: and David Perdue is an ardent Trump supporter.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In 2016, there were only two United States senators who supported Donald Trump and you're looking at one of them.
--:-- Noel King: He is very well-liked in the South.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's been a big attachment to sort of the more rural parts of Georgia, thinking about the farms, some of the devastation that happened from hurricanes and trying to get relief for those folks.
--:-- Noel King: And he's pretty anti-immigrant.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's been part of introducing legislation that is aimed to limit the number of immigrants coming into this country or extended green card.
--:-- Noel King: So, yeah, I would say David Perdue pretty much aligns with a lot of the Trump agenda.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In the corner to my right, Democrat John Ossoff.
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, so John Ossoff is kind of on the total opposite end of the spectrum of David Perdue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Ossoff is from metro Atlanta.
--:-- Noel King: He's not really been in politics otherwise before 2017.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, you know, before then, he's running a media company.
--:-- Noel King: He's, you know, investigating corporations, all kinds of documentary work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he's really been calling out Perdue on, frankly, not being present.
--:-- Noel King: I think folks here certainly talk about the debate that the two of them were supposed to have.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Senator Perdue just didn't show like Ossoff had a debate with a chair as a chair.
--:-- Noel King: I won't stand for this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And, you know, it was it was a great television moment because it's really, I think, a great symbol of the point that he was trying to paint.
--:-- Noel King: Y'all, Senator Perdue hadn't held a public town hall meeting in six years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He feels entitled to this seat.
--:-- Noel King: But this is not David Perdue's Senate seat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is the people's Senate seat.
--:-- Noel King: And the people are going to come out and vote on January 5th to claim it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's been interesting that Perdue, by and large, has not been attacking Ossoff by name.
--:-- Noel King: He's really calling out the Democratic Party.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But he's really not engaging with Ossoff in the way that I think a lot of people thought he might.
--:-- Noel King: And in the second ring, we have Republican Senator Kelly Lafla.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She's actually not from Georgia.
--:-- Noel King: She's from rural Illinois.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And she is married to the chair of the New York Stock Exchange.
--:-- Noel King: And in 2010, she actually purchased the WNBA team here, the Atlanta Dream.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there's actually been a lot of really interesting controversy coming up there this year because a lot of the WNBA fan base, a lot of the players tend to be more Democratic leaning, you know, and there's actually the WNBA is noted for being some of the first players who wore Black Lives Matter shirts.
--:-- Noel King: They were actually fined by the league.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Loeffler has been very outspoken against Black Lives Matter.
--:-- Noel King: She's really taken a lot of opposition to both the movement and engagement with it to the point where Atlanta Dream players this summer were wearing Vote Warnock shirts that talked about Loeffler's opponent and have tried to ask her to sell the team.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're still not disagreeing with President Trump's statements about personally sexually assaulting women?
--:-- Noel King: I'm not familiar with that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Access Hollywood tape.
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, no, look, this president is fighting for America.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kelly Loeffler was appointed in December of 2019 when Senator Johnny Isakson said that he was going to be stepping down early from his term for health reasons.
--:-- Noel King: President Trump actually really lobbied hard for Governor Kemp, Governor Brian Kemp, to appoint Doug Collins.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There was just a lot of angst and a lot of tension in the Republican Party when Kemp decided to appoint Kelly Loeffler instead.
--:-- Noel King: She was not a Trump pick at all.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this race in particular really highlights a lot of the tension and some of the splitting that might be happening and is happening in the Republican Party.
--:-- Noel King: Versus Democrat Reverend Raphael Warnock.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Raphael Warnock from Savannah, Georgia, grew up in the public housing there.
--:-- Noel King: He went to Morehouse College, which is a historically black college university.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he went on to become a minister.
--:-- Noel King: And he's actually the senior pastor now at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which if that sounds familiar, that's where Dr. Martin Luther King was pastor here in Georgia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so he's really emblematic of a lot of the current Black civil rights movement here in Georgia.
--:-- Noel King: He's been very involved in anti-death penalty work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's been very vocal about expunging records for folks who've been incarcerated.
--:-- Noel King: He's actually best known for staging a protest in the Georgia state capitol in 2014.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church was arrested today in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Noel King: Reverend Raphael Warnock was among several religious leaders protesting the proposed budget and the handling of the Republican health care bill.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, Dr. King said that of all the injustices, inequality in health care is the most shocking and the most inhumane.
--:-- Noel King: And so when we passed the Affordable Care Act in this country and Georgia refused to expand Medicaid, I thought it was important to stand up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He has never dipped his toe into politics, but very well known, certainly among folks in metro Atlanta and within the larger social justice movements across the state.
--:-- Noel King: Sasha Friedman you make the Small Power podcast in Atlanta Georgia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Historically speaking the two Republicans Loeffler and Perdue would be favored to win here right But that not the case with this election tomorrow I think for the first time in really 20 years is when we had a Democrat last elected to our state.
--:-- Noel King: It really feels like a toss-up, you know, and I think there's a couple of reasons for that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One big one that you saw from November is just the massive turnout in a lot of areas that had previously been Republican.
--:-- Noel King: And you're starting to see more Democrats registered and voting in those places, namely Cobb County, Gwinnett County.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That is due in large part to huge efforts from organizations like New Georgia Project, which is focused on registering Black voters.
--:-- Noel King: You had organizations that were turning out the vote among Asian Americans.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Gwinnett has a huge Asian American Pacific Islander population that turned out in large numbers.
--:-- Noel King: Similarly, with the Latino vote in Gwinnett and surrounding areas.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it's really, I think, a matter of people who saw the lead that certainly Stacey Abrams and organizers who've been working at this for years and years.
--:-- Noel King: This vision that Stacey had almost a decade ago is now really coming to fruition of a totally new coalition in Georgia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But basically, since the presidential election on November 3rd, there have been attempts to discredit elections all across the country.
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, I think, you know, it's had an effect on on both Republican and Democratic voters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, obviously, Democratic voters here were excited about the outcome of the presidential election.
--:-- Noel King: And there would be good reason to think that there may not be as big of a turnout for a runoff because kind of like we did our part, we're done.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, we did the thing, we flipped Georgia blue.
--:-- Noel King: And I think you see those voters staying engaged more than they might otherwise, both because obviously there's a lot of talk of what hangs in the balance for the Senate, but also seeing this continued effort to discredit the election and votes that are happening.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And on the Republican side, I think you see this really fine line that a lot of both voters are trying to walk and the candidates themselves, because I think they see what's at stake if they lose control of the Senate.
--:-- Noel King: Obviously, then you've got Democrats controlling, you know, the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And at the same time, in endorsing the actual process of the election and encouraging people to even vote is saying that the results are valid from November.
--:-- Noel King: And it's hard to tell, you know, which is coming first, if it's turnout is low and they're trying to cover it, or that because of what's happening, turnout could be lower, or frankly, just leave a lot of confusion as to what they should be doing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What are voters saying? I mean, what do people think of this moment?
--:-- Noel King: I think, you know, I've seen, I've talked to many folks who are, have said they've never been more excited for the rest of the country to stop talking about Georgia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Seems fair.
--:-- Noel King: I think there's enormous pride in the importance that Georgia has in this election, and it is a tremendous amount of pressure.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think there are some Democrats who feel like if Georgians are not going to be able to elect Democratic senators for both seats and flip the Senate, that sort of the rest of what Biden is or isn't able to do will kind of be put on Georgia as not being able to turn that out.
--:-- Noel King: And I think among Republicans, there's, I think, a lot of frustration that this is continued to be sort of a focal point, you know, that there's potential to, frankly, be embarrassed and have not only Georgia turn blue, but lose two Senate seats that have been Republican for over 20 years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I think there's obviously a tremendous amount of tension and just wanting to know what the results will be to feel like we can move forward because Georgians have been in this perpetual state of being in electoral politics through the holidays that electoral politics is still very much a point of discussion here.
--:-- Noel King: Everyone's holding their breath, so go back.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, we shall see.
--:-- Noel King: Sasha Friedman hosts a podcast called Small Power.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's all about local politics in Georgia.
--:-- Noel King: So if you've developed a voracious appetite for that kind of thing since November, Small Power is the show for you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Find it where you find your shows.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Ramos for them.
--:-- Noel King: This one's Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sam and Miles, they're going to play us out.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Take a bow, Alice.
