Trump Upholds Voter Fraud Claims After Arizona SOS Urges Him to ‘Accept’ Loss

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Former President Donald Trump escalated his baseless voter fraud claims in Phoenix on Saturday, saying Democrats can’t win any election without fraud – after Arizona Secretary of State urged Katie Hobbs is the Republican to beat her loss in the 2020 election.

Hobbs, a Democrat, urged Trump to “take your defeat, accept it and move on” Friday night, a day before the former president speaks at the “Rally of Save Our Elections” event organized by Turning Point Action , a conservative group.

“There’s nothing going on here that’s going to change the outcome, and, really, it’s nothing more than being a beat loser,” he told CNN.

As the state Senate continued a month-long audit of ballots in Maricopa County, Trump opened his speech at the rally by claiming that “there is no way Democrats can win the election without cheating.”

Former President Donald Trump escalated his baseless voter fraud claims in Phoenix on Saturday, saying Democrats cannot win any election without cheating. In this photo, Trump leaves the Trump Tower in Manhattan on July 19, 2021 in New York City. James Devaney / Getty Images

Pushing against Hobbs, Trump told the crowd he would accept to beat an election.

“If I lose the election, I’m okay here. Seriously,” he said. “I’m about to start building buildings. I keep myself busy, but they stole it from us.”

The former president continued to push his voter fraud conspiracy theory throughout the statement, thanking Republicans who expressed support for his efforts to overthrow the election and condemn those who protested against it, including the former Vice President who Mike Pence.

Trump also reiterated several specific allegations that courts have denied in dozens of failed lawsuits seeking to overthrow President Joe Biden’s victory. Among them, “74,000 mail -in ballots were counted without a clear record of sending them” – a statement that Maricopa County election officials deleted as false information.

On Jan. 6, a group of pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol following a rally in which Trump pushed baseless allegations of voter fraud. Some Republicans, including Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell, broke away from Trump following the uprising, but others are seeking to join the former president in an effort to gain his loyal base.

Arizona GOP Representative Andy Briggs drew loud applause from the crowd the day before he proposed that Trump be reinstated before 2024 — a false claim that supporters continue to promote online.

“In 2024, if not sooner, Donald J. Trump will return to the presidency,” he said.

Officials in Maricopa County, the most popular in the state, concluded a formal audit of the results without discovering any discrepancies in November. But GOP state senators have moved forward with their own analysis. Audits and recounts in major battlefield states only confirmed Biden’s victory, even in areas where the election was guarded by pro-Trump Republicans.

Newsweek reached out to Hobbs ’office for comment.

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