Arizona governor appears to ignore call from Trump while certifying Biden win
Governor Doug Ducey's phone rang out a custom ring tone as he confirmed the West-coast state voted Democrat for the first time since 1996.
Governor Doug Ducey received a phone call while certifying President-elect Joe Biden‘s win in Arizona and some suspect it came from outgoing President Donald Trump.
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Journalist Brahm Resnik shared footage on Twitter of the governor signing the documents confirming Biden’s win. As he flipped through the paperwork, Gov. Ducey’s phone rang with a custom ringtone, assigned to the current Commander In Chief. The governor silences the call and shakes his head as he put the device down on the desk.
“HE’LL GET BACK TO YOU Back in July, Gov. Ducey said he changed his White House ringtone to “Hail to The Chief” so he wouldn’t miss a call from Trump/Pence. Guess who called while Ducey was certifying Arizona’s election?” wrote Resnik when he shared the clip on Twitter.
According to Newsweek, during a July press conference, the Arizona political leader announced the ringtone to the public.
“I’ve got a relationship with the president and when there’s a need in Arizona, I talk to him directly,” Ducey said, according to the news report. “We’ve had so much outreach personally from both the president and the vice president that I had to change the ringtone on my phone. And it rings ‘Hail to the Chief,’ because I didn’t want to miss another phone call directly from the White House to help the state of Arizona.
Ducey has not confirmed whether he actually declined a call from Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, however, the president shared a reaction to the video on his own Twitter timeline.
“Why is he rushing to put a Democrat in office, especially when so many horrible things concerning voter fraud are being revealed at the hearing going on right now,” he wrote.
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Despite his claims of widespread voter fraud, theGrio reported there is no evidence to support the allegations. Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not discovered any evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the AP according to the report.
theGrio reported on November 6 that Fox News called the state of Arizona for Biden. According to the report, Jason Miller, an adviser to the Trump campaign, called into the network and demanded they retract the news. NPR reported that Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. The state has not voted a Democratic candidate into the Oval Office since former President Bill Clinton in 1996.
“This was a historic election for several reasons,” said Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs according to NPR.
“Preparing for any election is an immense undertaking even in normal circumstances. The complexity this year has been compounded by the pandemic,” Hobbs said. “In spite of this, we had an extremely well-run election and saw historically high voter participation.”
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