Kamala Harris lambasts Trump's Georgia phone call as 'abuse of power'

Vice President-elect KamalaHarris lambasted US President Donald Trump's for his "bold abuse of power" on a recorded phone call in which he pressured the Georgia secretary of state to "find" enough votes to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the Southern US state.

Harris took the stage during a drive-through rally in Georgia where sherallied supporters on Sundayfor Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock ahead of Tuesday's consequential run-off election.

The soon-to-be-sworn-in Vice President Harris calledTrump'swords "the voice of desperation" and "a bald-faced, bold abuse of power."

Add WION as a Preferred Source

The release on Sunday by US media of a stunning audiotape in which President Donald Trump pressured Georgia's secretary of state to "find" enough votes to overturn his election defeat there to Democrat Joe Biden sent shockwaves across Washington.

The tape, a rebel push by scores of Republican lawmakers to challenge Biden's electoral win later this week, a pair of runoffs in Georgia to decide control of the US Senate and expected pro-Trump protests in Washington are combining to set the stage for a fiery week in American politics.

Lawmakers got back to work Sunday on Capitol Hill, where Democrat Nancy Pelosi was narrowly re-elected as speaker of the House of Representatives, but the real political fireworks were to come later in the week.

Following the release of the recording, Democrats and a few Republicans heaped scorn on the outgoing president, who fired off a tweetstorm of unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the November 3 election.

The taped conversation between Trump and fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, first obtained by the Washington Post, includes vague threats by Trump that Raffensperger and another official could face "a big risk" if they failed to take moves toward overturning Biden's victory.

"There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated" the vote tally, Trump is heard saying on the tape. "You're off by hundreds of thousands of votes."

Raffensperger is heard responding: "Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong."

Biden won the long Republican-leaning state by fewer than 12,000 votes -- a narrow margin but one that has remained unchanged through a series of recounts and audits.

"The current margin is only 11,779. Brad, I think you agree with that, right?" Trump says. "So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes."

Making Trump's call more surprising is the fact that even a hypothetical reversal in Georgia, which has 16 Electoral College votes, would not overturn victory by Biden, who won by a margin of 306 to 232.

Ahead of the release of the audio, Trump tweeted about the call, saying that Raffensperger "was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the 'ballots under table' scam, ballot destruction, out of state 'voters', dead voters, and more."

Raffensperger tweeted back, also ahead of the release of the audio, saying: "Respectfully, President Trump: What you're saying is not true. The truth will come out."

Trump's relentless attacks since the November3 election included an accusation that Raffensperger hid tens of thousands of illegal votes, ensuring Biden's victory. Georgia's Republican incumbent senators - David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler -- have called on Raffensperger to resign.

Perdue and Loeffler themselves are locked in tight campaigns with Ossoff and Warnock ahead of Tuesday run-off elections that will determine which party controls the USSenate