(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Gabriel Sterling, the statewide voting system implementation manager in Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office, put President Donald Trump on blast Tuesday during a routine news conference, saying his rhetoric about election fraud is inspiring violence.
Sterling also chastised Georgia Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler for not forcefully condemning threats of violence against election officials.
His fiery speech included several direct pleas to President Trump to calm his supporters after election officials claimed that they and their family have received death threats.
One official, a contractor with Dominion Voting Systems who participated in the recount effort in Gwinnett County claims they and their family are receiving threats after a person wrongfully claimed in a video of the official transferring a report to a county computer that they were manipulating election data.
“There’s a noose out there with his name on it. That’s not right,” said Sterling, who went on to tell President Trump that the time has come to start looking ahead.
“Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia,” said Sterling. “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone’s gonna get hurt. Someone’s gonna get shot. Someone’s gonna get killed.”
Sterling added that the president has a right to question the state election results, but the way he has been going about it is inspiring a dangerous trend.
Sterling also condemned the president for calling Raffensperger an “enemy of the people,” saying the remarks “helped opened the floodgates” for the hate and vitriol from the president’s supporters.
“It takes people who are already spun up, and you know, there are people who can have some righteous indignation and be angry, but there’s also people out there… there are some nut balls out there, who are going to take this and say, the president told me to do this,” Sterling said.
Saying the president has to be “responsible,” Sterling also told President Trump, “It’s time to look forward. If you want to run for reelection in four years, fine, do it. But everything we’re seeing right now, there’s not a path.”
When responding to questions regarding Sterling’s speech, President Trump maintained that he won the election and that President-elect Joe Biden’s win is “rigged.”
“Show signatures and envelopes. Expose the massive voter fraud in Georgia. What is Secretary of State and Brian Kemp afraid of. They know what we’ll find,” said the president.