CNN
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After his defeat in the 2020 election, President Donald Trump spoke with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to discuss the results, a source with knowledge of the call told CNN.
In public, Ducey said at the time that the two Republican leaders had spoken, though he did not describe what they had discussed. Behind closed doors, Ducey said the former president was pressuring him to find fraud in Arizona’s presidential election that would help him reverse his loss in the state, a source with knowledge said. Trump narrowly lost Arizona to Joe Biden by less than 11,000 votes.
There was no recording of the call between Trump and Ducey, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Trump also repeatedly pressed his Vice President, Mike Pence, to help him find evidence of fraud and void the results of the 2020 election. Pence told the governor that if there was strong evidence of voter fraud to report appropriately, one of the sources said.
Pence reprimands Trump: “He had no right to annul the election”
Pence spoke with Ducey several times about the election, though he did not press the governor as requested, sources with knowledge of the calls said.
A spokesman for Pence declined to comment.
The Washington Post reported for the first time about Trump pressuring Ducey to overturn the election results.
Trump publicly attacked Ducey, a former ally, over the state’s certification of the results. While Ducey was certifying the election results in November 2020, Trump seemed to call the governor – with a “Hail to the Chief” ringtone heard on Ducey’s phone. Ducey did not answer that call, but later said he spoke with Trump, though he did not describe the details of the conversation.
A spokesman for Ducey told CNN earlier this week that special counsel Jack Smith’s office had not contacted the former governor, who is investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 elections.
Those efforts include outreach to several state officials, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Smith has interviewed. In January 2021, Trump told Raffensperger to “find” the votes he needed to win the state, a call that is at the center of the Fulton County district attorney’s investigation into attempts to overturn the election in Georgia
The special counsel’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Ducey said Saturday that the former governor “stands by his action to certify the election and feels that the issue is in the rearview mirror; it’s time to move on.”
“This is nothing more than a ‘copy and paste’ of a compilation of articles from the last two years, disguised as something new and based on shaky and questionable sourcing,” spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said in a communicated “Frankly, nothing here is new or news to anyone who has been following this issue for the last two years. Governor Ducey defended the 2020 Arizona election results, certified the election and made it clear that the certification provided a trigger to file credible complaints supported by evidence. None were ever filed.”
Trump is currently seen as the favorite for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination as he seeks a return to the White House.
A Trump spokesman said in a statement: “These witch hunts are designed to interfere and interfere with the 2024 election in an attempt to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House to make this country great again . They will fail and President Trump will be re-elected.”
Before his defeat to Trump, Ducey had been seen as a formidable Senate candidate in 2022, but ultimately dropped a bid to challenge Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who won re-election last year over an endorsed GOP candidate for Trump
Ducey, who was term-limited as governor last year, endorsed Karrin Taylor Robson, a former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, in the race to succeed him. However, Taylor Robson lost the primary to Trump’s pick, Kari Lake, a former TV anchor who said she would not have certified Biden’s victory in 2020 if she had been governor. Lake ended up losing the general election to Democrat Katie Hobbs and has continued to promote election falsehoods, including about her own race.
Ducey, a former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, served one term as Arizona treasurer before winning two gubernatorial runs.
Last month he announced that he would lead Citizens for Free Enterprise, which describes itself as a “new national effort to promote and protect free enterprise.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
