Arizona's Republican governor dunked on Trump after the president criticized him for certifying that the state voted for Biden

• Arizona's Republican governor, Doug Ducey, has defended his state's election procedures after President Donald Trump singled him out for attack.
• Ducey certified Arizona's election result in President-elect Joe Biden's favor on Monday, enraging the president.
• Trump phoned in to Arizona's election hearings on Monday, alleging "horrible fraud" on Ducey's part, and then took his anger to Twitter.
• Ducey then tweeted a thread outlining his pride in the state's election procedures and his commitment to the law.
• Trump has hit out several times at GOP figures he's deemed insufficiently loyal as he continues to challenge the election.

Arizona's Republican governor hit back at President Donald Trump after the president slammed him for confirming that President-elect Joe Biden had won the state.

Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday formally certified that Biden had won Arizona by 10,457 votes, awarding the Democrat 11 electoral votes, after a set of hearings challenging the results.

Trump criticized Ducey early by calling in to the hearing and, provoking boos from supporters, saying without evidence that Ducey had shown "such corruption, such horrible fraud."

Then, soon after Ducey certified the state for Biden, Trump began a Twitter rampage against him, including retweeting a meme accusing Ducey of corruption.

The president also shared a post that said Ducey had "betrayed" Arizona, adding: "TRUE!"

He also shared several other tweets about Ducey and the state's election system.

On Tuesday morning, Ducey responded in a nine-tweet thread defending his state's election procedures.

The governor did not mention Trump but said he had talked about his state's election system "in the Oval Office."

"I've been pretty outspoken about Arizona's election system, and bragged about it quite a bit, including in the Oval Office. And for good reason," he began.

In the thread, Ducey said Arizona had "some of the strongest election laws in the country" and noted that every vote's signature was required to be verified by hand.

He described how the state had used bipartisan poll observers and prohibited measures that Democrats had pushed for in some states, such as third-party ballot collection and allowing mail-in ballots to be received after Election Day.

He went on to throw down a gauntlet for legal challenge, which now must be filed within five days of the certification.

Trump has not hesitated to criticize fellow Republicans if he does not deem them loyal enough, with RINO — an acronym for "Republican in name only" — a favored insult.

• On November 20, Trump took a swipe at Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and called him a RINO after the senator said he did not vote for Trump and criticized his election-fraud claims.
• On November 22, Trump also singled out Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland for criticism and deemed him a RINO on Twitter after he broke ranks to urge the president to concede in the election.
• On November 26, the president also called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — who said he and his family had voted for Trump in 2020 — an "enemy of the people" after the state voted for Biden.
• And on November 29, Trump told Fox Business that he regretted supporting Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, citing the state's use of Dominion Voting Systems machines — which have been the subject of conspiracy theories — during the election.