Trump is 'fixated' and talks 'constantly' about Arizona election recount, allies say
- A GOP-led audit of Arizona's 2020 election results is underway.
- Trump obsessively asks aides for updates about it, The Washington Post reported.
- One person told The Post that they listened to Trump discuss the audit for around 45 minutes.
Former President Donald Trump has become "fixated" on a GOP-led audit of Arizona's 2020 election results, according to The Washington Post.
He asks aides multiple times a day about the vote recount currently underway in Maricopa County, advisers told The Post.
One person, who spoke to the paper on the condition of anonymity, said that they listened to Trump discuss the election ballot audit for about 45 minutes. "He talks about it constantly," they added.
The former president has also spoken to advisers about using UV lights to examine ballots, according to The Post. Experts say this method could damage votes, the paper said.
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The vote count in Maricopa County, where President Joe Biden won last year by over 45,000 votes, was initiated by Republicans and is embraced by Trump.
Some of the 2.1 million ballots cast during the 2020 election are being recounted after an order by the Republican-led Arizona Senate, the Associated Press reported.
Having begun on Thursday, it is the latest effort by the former president and his allies to suggest unevidenced foul play in the county.
"So many people would like to thank the brave and patriotic Republican State Senators from Arizona for the incredible job they are doing in exposing the large-scale Voter Fraud which took place in the 2020 Presidential Election," Trump said in a statement on April 23.
The audit is being conducted by a Florida-based consultancy firm, Cyber Ninjas, that has no prior experience handling ballots. It does, Insider's Charles Davis reported, have credibility with Trump supporters. The firm's founder Doug Logan has shared tweets alleging that the 2020 election was stolen and promoted the #StopThe Steal effort, the Arizona Mirror reported.
Arizona Democrats unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit to halt the audit Thursday, dismissing it as a partisan drive to perpetuate disproven myths about election fraud. It is a "sham audit" that is "fomenting the big lie that the election was stolen," Raquel Terán, a state lawmaker and chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, told Insider on Tuesday.