Pennsylvania has already certified Joe Biden’s victory in the state, declaring the president-elect the winner of the commonwealth’s 20 electoral votes. But some Republicans thought it’d be a good idea to respond to these developments in an unusually foolish way.
GOP state senators in Pennsylvania announced plans for a “hearing” on the completed presidential election, though it wouldn’t be an actual legislative session or sanctioned legislative event. Rather, a bunch of Republican state legislators decided to rent a ballroom at a hotel in Gettysburg, where they’d listen to a presentation from Rudy Giuliani and what’s left of Donald Trump’s legal team.
And so, on schedule, the GOP officials — in the state where the election results have already been certified — huddled in a ballroom, mostly without masks, and heard the president’s increasingly strange attorneys make increasingly strange arguments. My personal favorite: Giuliani insisted that Donald Trump may have “actually” won in Virginia, a state Joe Biden carried easily.
But then things got weird.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday phoned into a Pennsylvania state Senate hearing where his legal team was appearing as part of their shriveling legal battle against the election results. After calling his lawyers in the middle of the hearing — held at the Wyndham Hotel in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania — Trump launched a breathless, 10-minute long rant about election fraud during which he surfaced many his familiar false claims about dead people voting, illegal ballots, Democrats’ corruption and more.
Trump, who was reportedly planning to appear at this faux hearing before changing his plans, addressed those in attendance by way of Jenna Ellis, who literally held her cellphone up to a microphone, enabling the president to peddle nonsense like this:
“Why wouldn’t they overturn an election? Certainly, overturn it in your state…. We have to turn the election over, because there’s no doubt. We have all the evidence, we have all the affidavits, we have everything. All we have to do is have some judge listen to it properly.”
Trump went on to insist he “easily” won the election that he lost, adding “We won by a lot.” The Republican officials on hand cheered in appreciation for the presidential comments — as if these antics had merit, and were worthy of praise. So to recap, at a fake hearing, Trump offered strange lies in a state that’s already certified his defeat. All of this transpired in Gettysburg — a Pennsylvania city perhaps best known for its Civil War battle, where opponents of the United States suffered a brutal defeat in advance of their inevitable surrender.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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