According to a report from The Detroit News, former President Donald Trump was recorded allegedly urging two Republican canvassers in Michigan not to certify the 2020 presidential election results.
On the Nov. 17, 2020 phone call, Trump tells Wayne County Republican canvassers Monica Palmer and William Hartmann that “we’ve got to fight for our country,” adding that it would look “terrible” if they signed documents to certify the election results.
“We can't let these people take our country away from us,” Trump reportedly says on the call, which The Detroit News reviewed.
Spectrum News has not reviewed the recording of the call. Per the report, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, a Michigan native, was also on the call.
“If you can go home tonight, do not sign it,” McDaniel reportedly told the two canvassers. “We will get you attorneys.”
“We'll take care of that,” Trump added.
In a statement to Spectrum News, a Trump campaign spokesman did not dispute the content or validity of the recordings, saying that the then-president’s “actions were taken in furtherance of his duty as President of the United States to faithfully take care of the laws and ensure election integrity,” before making baseless accusations about the 2020 presidential election being “rigged and stolen.”
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Michigan or in any other state in the 2020 presidential election, a statement expressed by officials in both parties, including Trump’s own attorney general William Barr. Numerous court cases across the country challenging the 2020 election were thrown out in federal and state courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. No evidence emerged from a litany of federal, state and outside investigations of voter fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election.
The report comes as former President Trump is seeking the White House again while simultaneously facing 91 felony counts in four jurisdictions, including one in federal court and one in a state court in Georgia related to his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s lawful win in 2020. Despite the litany of charges, Trump still continues to espouse baseless falsehoods that the election was “stolen.”
Spectrum News has also reached out to the RNC for comment. McDaniel told The Detroit News in a statement that “what I said publicly and repeatedly at the time, as referenced in my letter on Nov. 21, 2020, is that there was ample evidence that warranted an audit.”
In a lengthy post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson called the night of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting “the absolute lowest moment in the post election battle we endured to protect Michigan’s accurate and legitimate election results in 2020.”
“I distinctly remember coming home that evening feeling completely defeated. We knew about the pressure not to certify (though until tonight I did not know about the recording),” Benson wrote Thursday night. “We were prepared to go to court to successfully ensure certification at the local and state level - and we were confident we’d win in court. But blocking certification in Wayne County and pushing this to the courts would still delay and create enough doubt and uncertainty to enable the Trump campaign to push Pennsylvania, which was certifying the next week, to delay as well. And we knew other dominos would fall after that.”
But then, she added, “something I’ll never forget happened,” adding: “hundreds … of citizens showed up to the meeting of the Wayne County Canvassing Board to remind them of their duty under the law to ensure their votes counted. Their voices mattered. Their votes mattered.”
“In my view that turned the tide,” Benson continued. “Citizens and election officials in Wayne County and statewide didn’t flinch, stood firm, and demanded their votes be certified as required under the law. And in the end, the Wayne County Canvassing board fulfilled their legal duty, followed the law and certified the election. What started as the lowest moment of the post election melee became the most inspiring. The voters won. Facts and the rule of law carried the day. Democracy prevailed.”
The reported Michigan call would have occurred about six weeks before another call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. That conversation is among the key points in Trump’s indictment in Fulton County that accuses the former president of a racketeering scheme to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump told Raffensperger in that call. “Because we won the state.”
Georgia counted its votes three times before certifying Biden’s win by a 11,779-vote margin.
A recording of Trump is also at issue in a Florida-based federal case accusing the former president of mishandling classified information after leaving the White House. In that case, prosecutors allege that in a July 2021 interview, Trump showed people, who were working on a book about his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, classified information about a Pentagon plan of attack on an unspecified foreign country.
“These are the papers,” Trump says in a moment that seems to indicate he’s holding a secret Pentagon document. “This was done by the military, given to me.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.