Trump’s Attempt to ‘Manufacture Votes’ in Georgia Raises Legal Questions

President Trump's hour-long phone call with Georgia's secretary of state over the weekend and his requests to change the vote count have raised a number of legal questions. Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of the book "Election Meltdown," joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.

Judy Woodruff:

We return now to President Trump's controversial hour-long phone call with Georgia's secretary of state this weekend.

It raised a number of legal questions.

For some answers, we turn again to Rick Hasen. He's an election law professor at the University of California, Irvine. He's also author of the book "Election Meltdown."

Professor Hasen, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

As somebody who studies election law, what was your reaction when you listened to this?

Rick Hasen:

Well, my first reaction was, I can't believe it's January and we are still talking about the 2020 election, not the run-off, but the actual election that we held in November.

I think that the statements of the president were outrageous. He was clearly trying to pressure the Georgia secretary of state to manufacture votes to flip the results of the election, based on no evidence. It was really the kind of election fraud that he has been railing about for years. An here we have the whole thing on tape.

It's just — it is a very sad moment for American democracy right now.