♪ this is "nightline." tonight, caught on tape, the president pleading to overturn the election results in georgia. >> i just want to the find 11,780 societi votes. >> pushing unfounded and debunked conspiracies how a leaked phone call may impact a political run off and the famous faces getting out the vote. >> the work is not done, everybody. >> it matters who wins in georgia. >> as control of the senate hangs in the balance. >> the next generation making it count. "nightline" will be right back.

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thanks for joining us, the president is pedaling baseless claims of election fraud, this time over a leaked phone call to a republican election official. fueling a new political firestorm, as georgia preparesps for a political storm.

>> it's the last push in the final hours before the u.s. senate run-off election in georgia and the candidates and the party's biggest names are working over time to convince enough voters to punch their ticket to washington. >> our country is depending on you. >> the power is literally in your hands. >> morethan 3 million people in georgia have cast ballots in early voting that took place in december. a million more than the total turn out for the last run-off in 2008, the choice is between republican incumbant kelly loeffler and david purdue. >> the war for the majority of the senate comes down to georgia this year. and we need you all of us, to stand? that bridge. >> it looks like y'all ready for an election. [ cheers and applause ] >> looks like you are all ready to make history. >> five calls or texts today about voting will keep the liberals away. >> it is time to vote like we have never voted before, georgia. >> each of them has been trying

desperately to get their voters to show up at the polls for a second time. >> never before has a run-off election in this state, meant so. >> it will determine who is in charge of the u.s. senate. who sets the agenda. who sets the policy. >> with control of the senate on the line, people far away from georgia are all wound up in the state's business. from the white houses -- >> we are going to fight like hell, i will tell you right now. >> to hollywood. >> the work is not done, everybody. >> it matters who wins. >> get out and vote. >> but it's the outrage over a stunning phone call between the president and georgia's secretary of state that is all the talk the night before the election. >> i just want to find votes. >> you hear the president repeatedly asking brad raffensberger to give him more societies than biden's lead in georgia in the hour long call. >> look, brad, i got get, i have

to find 12,000 votes and i have them times a lot. what are we going on to do? i only need 11,000 votes. fellas, i need 11,000 votes, give me a break. and i'm not looking to blame anybody. i'm just saying, you know, under new counts and under new views of the election results we won the election. >> but raffensburger who has seen threats to his life overall this, said month way. >> there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you have recalculated. >> well, mr. president, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. >> you should want to have an accurate election. and you are a republican. >> we believe that we do have an accurate election. >> they continued to reject the president's wild claims of election fraud on good morning america. >> did you consider it a lawful request when the president asked

you to find the votes? >> i'm not a lawyer, truth matters and we are going to follow the processes and we have been fighting for the last two months. >> there's many that believe there's no accident that president trump has focused on fulton county, the largest in the state. it's not just a blue county, it's also a largely black county. and the president is being accused of trying to overturn the minority vote. >> fulton county is totally corrupt because they cheated like nobody's ever cheated before. >> later in the call, president trump even suggests that by refusing to hand the president the november election, raffensburger was hurting the chances of republicans running in the run-off. >> because of what you have done to the president, a lot of people are not going out to vote. you would be respected if, really respected if this thing could be straightened on out before the election. you have a big election coming up on tuesday. >> what's happening in georgia is a perfect storm is. it's got to be confusing for republican georgia voters to the hear that the elections in

georgia are not trustworthy and are fraudulent and have been manipulated, and then wonder, ask themselves why should i go out and vote? >> tonight,president trump the still holding on to his false claims of fraud and talking poorly about state officials who are literally speaking truth to power. >> there's no way we lost georgia, there's no way. i'm going to be here in a year and a half, and i'm going to be campaigning against your governor and your crazy secretary of state. that i can tell you. >> we are a party of law and a order. >> the lieutenant governor said that he wishes somebody at the white house could have kept the president from making the phone call right before the election. >> what do you think about the possibility of folks looking in to whether or not the president broking a law with that phone call? >> i'm not a lawyer, so i'm going to let the lawyers go figure that out, but i'm qualified to tell you that that was an inappropriate phone call t the longer we try to use the

excuse of voter fraud and misinformation to be the reason why we lost this election, the longer it will take us to build the next platform. >> duncan is part of a group of republicans that run the state and will tell you to your face, that joe biden won the election here and that saying so is what's right. >> this is all about trust. i have to look at the mirror, but more importantly i have to look at my three boys in the face, i spend all day, he will thing them do the right thing. i cannot imagine walking in that house one night and telling them, yeah, you know, i could not do the right thing today, because the president was leaning on me. >> the 45-year-old said he is confident his two candidates can win despite the drama from pennsylvania avenue. >> i can not think of a single scenario where that phone call, to 62 plus minutes made any sort of difference in getting purdue and loeffler elected, hopeful ofly enough republicans hang and show up and vote them in.

>> democrats rarely vote in run-offs in georgia. but stacey abrams said this is the year of the donkey. >> with the national attention and national investment and as well as having a georgia infrastructure, we were able to build a coalition in november that is going to help had us come close to victory if not take it all the way. >> abrams believes that that her team has found the key to winning. >> we were one of the most diverse battleground states. but that diversity is only opportunity if we don't do the work to harness it. we were able to bring together a latino population who's voting presence increased by 72% over 2016. for asian american, pacific islanders, it was a 91% increase. for african-americans it was a 20% increase. >> did you vote in the election? >> oh, yeah. >> it's a population shift that does not lost on andrew yang, he moved his family to georgia at the end of last year to help get out the vote in minority kwhu

communities. >> the asian american community is the fastest growing nonwhite community in georgia and the country. asian americans are the swing votes in swing states like georgia. >> are you going to vote on january 3rd? >> of course. >> yang spent a month knocking on doors and holding rallies for ossoff and warnock, with other popular democrats like martin luther king, iii. >> i grew up the son of immigrants and my parents did not discuss politics in the home, and i imagine many are growing up the way i did. >> myparents were from nigeria, and american politics was a constant discussion. it under lines the point you are making, it's something that people don't realize and under lines the need for the extra effort, right? >> it's easy to ignore politics if it seems it's ignoring you. if campaigns invest in reaching out to you in your community, that can change the dynamic very, very quickly. >> on the other side, last

month, newly elected republican congress woman steel and kim, both korean americanwere in georgia reaching out to voters for senators loeffler and purdue. >> activating asian americans to participate in the political process and vote is something that's long overdue. >> for many georgia voters, there's a feeling that outsiders like yang are too much in the state's business. >> has anybody seen senator purdue? >> with more than $500 million spent by both sides on attack ads, the clips are to this very moment in escapable here. on television, on radio, on every phone in the state and he is looking out for all georgians. >> even the people from georgia appearing in them are tired. >> i'm in a david purdue ad myself, i will be looking forward to not seeing myself on

television on january 6. >> she only joined the republican party in 2015 after trump announced his run. >> donald j trump talked about making america great again and i have the same belief overall. >> she said that she still stands with the president and supports the republican candidates. >> i actually a have never lost confidence in president trump. in the contrary, i'm impressed that he is fighting to save our country by restoring integrity in our elections. >> she is one of the many americans that believe the election was stolen from the president but she thinks it's important to vote. to make sure that republicans can stop democrats in washington. >> by staying home, you essentially giving democrats a win. and you are going to end up voting for john ossoff and warnock if you stay home. >> there's a hot lot of healingt people are hoping will come after the societies are counted and the winner declared and many here will be happy to watch the

spotlight looeeave. >> i'm proud to be a georgian, i'm proud of our effort at this point, it put the 11 million georgians first and not any sort of personalities and personal agendas. we are proud to be georgians and we are proud to be georgians through the finish line tomorrow. >> our thanks to sooteve and breaking down the recorded presidential phone call and how it may impact the georgia senate races. many plug-ins are stuck in the past. they release a lot of scent at first but after a while, you barely know they're working. new febreze fade defy plug works differently. it's the first plug-in with built-in technology to digitally control how much scent is released to smell 1st day fresh for 50 days. it even tells you when it's ready to be refilled. upgrade to febreze fade defy plug.

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day, before then the lame duck president casting a shadow that may shift the balance in congress. i spoke to sarah fagan, and matt dowd, abc's chief political analyst. thank you all for joining whaufs your gut reaction when you heard the call, what if anything does it tell you about the president's mind-set? >> you know, this kind of behavior from donald trump is down right criminal and i think the fact that he would try to pressure his own party to steal an election is so shocking. it shocks the conscious. and it shows how desperate donald trump is to hold on to power. you think about the state of georgia and what it meant over the last couple of seekly he will -- cycles, what it means to people who stood out in line during a pandemic showed up and this president thinks he can

make somebody have 11,000 votes appear. just shows he has no respect at all for democracy. >> and sarah, vice president elect kamala harris called it a bald face, bold abuse of power. do you think the scandal under mines the faith in the run-off, the crucial georgia senate races tomorrow, do you think it will depress turnout? >> yes, in a very important senate run-off, where two seats are at stake and republicans are frankly behind, they cannot afford to have any depression of votes any number of people who think that the election in november was stolen, there are therefore their vote won't count, so therefore they don't go vote tomorrow. it's really backward thinking. there's no political strategy behind it. i can assure you of that, it's concerning and it's a risk. >> and matt, critics are saying

that interfering like this, in election results is an impeachable offense but he has been already impeached, what n consequences will he faces? and how are the laws holding up in this moment in history? >> there's a question about the checks and balances, the problem to me is not fundamentally donald trump, because everyone is knowing who he is, and how he as acted since the ukraine call where he tried to do basically do the same thing in a different way with ukraine to get them to investigate joe biden. the problem is, a political party, the gop, which enables the president, who are supposed to hold the line and call out the outlandish behavior and do things to enforce the constitution and the rule of law. and that's i think, where we have seen the flaw in the system. we designed a system where if one person went awry there was corrections in it and we are now seeing a system that if one

person goes awry and his political party doesn't correct it, you end up with things like this. but again, the voters and the 80 plus million that voted against him, has held him accountable for four years and he will not be president at 12:01 on january 20th. that's the ultimate consequence. >> and sarah, matt is bringing up the idea of the republican party. what is this pro longed fight doing to your republican party? >> i disagree with matt in one respect. you saw a is secretary of state in georgia stand up to the president aggressively. the governor of georgia has stood up to him, i think some republicans have taken it too far and a number of senators contesting the electoral college vote on wednesday is conditionering. i don't think that that's representative of the entire republican party, well wit, as evidenced by georgia local officials. >> at what point does president trump's refusal to concede do

harm to the country at large? >> when you think of the foundation of the country, and you think of democracy being a big, big part of it. it's what our country is founded on, it's really challenging. i'm also concerned about the rhetoric that we are hearing from lawmakers asking supporters of donald trump to rise up. we have heard calls for violence and i think our democracy is at stake, there hopefully will be in the congress, real effort for structural reform this president has shown us how in his own way, he can destroy what is a checks balances, what are our foundational system of government and if he does not step down, if he continues to challenge the transition, i think we are going to have to have a real conversation in the country about how we protect our democracy from a future tyrent. >> what insights do you have in to the president's end game here? >> i would have thought that the president would have celebrated our democracy and celebrated a record turnout, and celebrated a

noninterference from foreign powers in the election. but the biggest purvoyor of misinformation in the election has been the president himself. so, i don't think he has a strategy. it's day-to-day. he gets up, he tweets, he does his thing, there's no strategy to it. >> thank you all for your insights, thank you for joining us, we will see what happens tomorrow. >> thank you. >> and end up next, seeing life in all its beauty. (kids laughing) ♪ upbeat tempo ♪ sanctuary music it's the final days of the wish list sales event sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary

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♪ finally tonight, a life changing gift. things are going to get a lot clearer for grandpa. the 80-year-old from springville, utah is color blind and during the holidays, his grandchildren gifting him with color corrective glasses. >> it's a great looking shirt. >> really is, i didn't know it had different shades in it. >> for the first time, lee seeing the full spectrum of the rainbow. >> yeah, wow, i didn't know it

was like that. >> lee. that is so neat. >> did you like my gift? >> yeah. >> what a spectacle, that is "nightline" you can watch the full episodes on hulu, we will see you back here tomorrow. thanks for staying up with us. good night, america.