Donald Trump personally called two Michigan election workers in the days after the November 2020 election and told them they would look “terrible” certifying the vote for Joe Biden, new audio shows.
The then-president's call is seen by critics as further evidence of his determination to overturn the results at all costs.
On November 17, 2020, Trump called the two Republican candidates — charged with certifying local election results — in Wayne County, Michigan's most populous county, which includes all of Detroit.
Trump told them to refuse to certify the votes.
Michigan Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was also in attendance.
The then-president told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann to “fight for our country,” Trump said on the recordings. The Detroit News.
Monica Palmer (left) and William Hartmann (right, died 2021) were the two Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, which certifies the elections
Donald Trump is seen at a campaign rally on November 2, 2020. On November 17, he reportedly called two election officials in Michigan to try to get them to block the certification of the votes.
Ronna McDaniel, who is from Michigan, was on the phone with Trump and the two Michigan officials
The recordings were made by someone who was present at the 9:55 p.m. telephone conversation with Palmer and Hartmann. Hartmann died of COVID in 2021 at the age of 63.
Trump told the pair: “We cannot allow these people to take our country from us.”
Trump said Republicans “were cheated in this election” and “everyone knows Detroit is terribly crooked.”
The call was made as Palmer and Hartmann sat in a car outside the office of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, where the two Democrats and two Republicans that make up the board were meeting.
They had signed their names to confirm the vote count, and McDaniel urged the couple to go home that same evening, without signing the official statement.
“If you can go home tonight, don't sign it,” McDaniel said. “We'll get you lawyers.”
Trump added: “We'll take care of that.”
Palmer and Hartmann left the candidates' meeting without signing the official declaration of votes for Wayne County, The Detroit News reported.
The next day they tried unsuccessfully to withdraw their votes for certification, filing legal declarations claiming they were under pressure.
She said “intense bullying and coercion” combined with poor legal advice forced them to agree to certify the election after they voted “no.”
Hartmann (left) and Palmer (center) are seen at the November 17 meeting. Then Trump called them as they sat in a car in the parking lot outside the office
Palmer speaks with Jonathan Kinloch, one of the two Democrats on the board
Monica Palmer, pictured on November 20, 2020, said she could not remember the phone call
William Hartmann died of COVID in December 2021. The vocal anti-vaxxer was 63
That same morning, November 18, at 10:38 a.m., Trump tweeted an encouraging message to Palmer and Hartmann.
He wrote: ''The numbers have not improved, it is still 71% out of balance,'' according to Wayne County, Michigan, Canvassers. “There are widespread irregularities in the poll numbers.” There are 'more voices than people'. The Two Troubled Patriots Canvassers Refuse to Sign the Papers!'
Trump's claim that the votes were “out of balance” was untrue — and he actually won more votes in the county in 2020 than in 2016.
He won 5,200 more votes in 2020 than four years earlier.
Ultimately, Palmer and Hartmann refused to sign, but they were overruled by the Michigan Bureau of Elections.
The Bureau informed the district officials of the vote that had taken place, and the signatures of the chairman or vice chairman of the four-member canvassing board and the district secretary were all that were required to transmit the certification to the State Board of Canvassers.
Michigan's vote was officially certified on November 23, 2020.
Jonathan Kinloch, one of two Democrats on the four-member board at the time, said what happened on the phone call with Trump was “crazy.”
He told the newspaper: “It's just shocking that the president of the United States tried to stop the election process at the smallest level.”
Kinloch told CNN's Laura Coates on Thursday night that Palmer told him she was “under a lot of pressure” because of the election — but he never thought she meant the president calling her in the parking lot.
Palmer said she didn't remember the phone call, but McDaniel defended it.
“What I said publicly and repeatedly at the time, as stated in my letter dated November 21, 2020, is that there was sufficient evidence to warrant an audit,” she said.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said Trump's actions “were taken in furtherance of his duty as President of the United States to faithfully obey the laws and ensure election integrity, including investigating the rigged and stolen presidential election of 2020.'
He added: “President Trump and the American people have the constitutional right to free and fair elections.”