Donald Trump, still scheming to reverse his election defeat and lashing out at Republicans opposing his efforts, converged with President-elect Joe Biden in Georgia on Monday for dueling rallies on the eve of two runoffs that will decide control of the US Senate.
Mr Trump, a day after the release of a bombshell recording in which he pressures Georgia officials to overturn his election loss in the southern state, is hosting a rally in the rural city of Dalton for Republican incumbent senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
The president's presence is provocative in that he has described Georgia's election process as "illegal and invalid," criticism that some observers warn may have the unintended effect of suppressing Republican votes Tuesday.
Mr Biden, who takes over the White House on 20 January, flew to Georgia's capital Atlanta to campaign for Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
"Folks, this is it!" the 78-year-old Mr Biden told cheering voters at a drive-in rally. "It's a new year, and tomorrow can be a new day for Atlanta, for Georgia and for America."
He attacked Mr Trump for his relentless "whining and complaining" about unproven election fraud instead of improving the nation's coronavirus pandemic response.
"I don't know why he still wants the job, he doesn't want to do the work," Mr Biden said.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, spent part of the Republican rally suggesting he would try to hold onto power.
“They’re not taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell,” Mr Trump said to cheers from the crowd.
He also put pressure on Vice President Mike Pence, who will receive the results of the Electoral College in Congress on Wednesday, to take action in his favour.
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us,” Mr Trump said, referring to the vice president as a great guy. “If he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.”
Georgia has been reliably Republican but Mr Biden beat Mr Trump by nearly 12,000 votes in the Peach State in November's election, and polls have the Senate races neck-and-neck.
Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Dalton Regional Airport, Monday, Jan. 4, 2021 Source: AP
Both parties have poured unprecedented resources into the runoffs, and early voting numbers have set records.
Republicans hold 50 seats in the 100-member Senate. A victory in just one of the runoffs would give them a majority - and the ability to thwart Mr Biden's agenda.
A Democratic sweep would result in a 50-50 split, with Democrats holding the tie-breaking vote in incoming Vice President Kamala Harris.
'Find 11,780 votes'
The Georgia rallies come a day after the publication by The Washington Post of a shocking recording of Mr Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that rocked Washington.
On the tape, Mr Trump tells Mr Raffensperger he wants to "find 11,780 votes" - one more than Mr Biden's margin of victory in Georgia - and makes vague threats that Mr Raffensperger and his general counsel could face "a big risk" if they failed to do so.
Mr Trump repeatedly and falsely claims during the hour-long conversation that he won Georgia, an assertion that has been refuted in recounts and in the courts.
"There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated," the president tells Mr Raffensperger. "You're off by hundreds of thousands of votes."
Mr Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, rebuffs Trump's claims telling him: "Mr President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong."
Ms Harris, the vice president-elect, slammed Mr Trump's call during a campaign stop in Georgia on Sunday as a "bald-faced, bold abuse of power by the president of the United States."
Ms Harris also stressed the importance of Tuesday's Senate votes. "Everything is at stake," she said. "The future of our country will be very much in the mix."
The Georgia elections come one day ahead of the certification by the House of Representatives and Senate of the Electoral College votes from the November presidential election.
Mr Biden won 306 of the Electoral College votes that represent the returns of the popular vote in each of the US states, while Mr Trump won 232.
Certification by Congress is generally just a formality but more than 100 Republican members of the House and about a dozen Senate Republicans have said they plan to raise objections.
At least one member of the House and one member of the Senate needs to lodge an objection to certification to send it to the floor for debate and a vote.
A vote would be doomed to failure, however, in the Democratic-controlled House and would also be unlikely to pass in the Republican-majority Senate, where a number of Republican senators have already acknowledged Mr Biden's victory.
Mr Trump lashed out on Twitter on Monday at Republican politicians who have refused to line up behind his baseless claims of voter fraud.
"How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG," he said.
"The 'Surrender Caucus' within the Republican Party will go down in infamy as weak and ineffective 'guardians' of our Nation, who were willing to accept the certification of fraudulent presidential numbers!" he added.
Additional reporting by Reuters.
