“Fox & Friends” anchor Steve Doocy challenged former Speaker Newt Gingrich on Monday after the Georgia Republican said his party had to make sure former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams didn’t “steal” votes in the state’s Senate runoff elections next month.
In those two races that will determine the majority in the U.S. Senate, “Republicans simply have to turn out more votes than Stacey Abrams can steal,” Gingrich said.
“It’s a very straightforward thing,” Gingrich said, according to video obtained by Mediaite.
Doocy challenged Gingrich minutes later, circling back after Gingrich first answered another question.
“How is Stacey Abrams going to steal votes?” Doocy asked.
Doocy also asked whether President Trump’s repeated unsubstantiated claims that the presidential election in Georgia was stolen from him would hurt Republican turnout.
“’So why should I vote vote because it is not going to count?’” he said Georgia voters were thinking.
“Well, they need to vote because the key to a Republican victory is to have more votes than the left can steal,” Gingrich responded, prompting Doocy to again ask, “How are they going to steal them?”
Gingrich said more absentee ballots were accepted this year than in 2018, something that was expected given the coronavirus pandemic, which led people to vote by mail to lower their risk of contracting COVID-19.
He also cited a security camera video that has been debunked by a news outlet and the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
The Jan. 5 runoffs will see Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) go up against Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, after none of the candidates in either race received more than 50 percent of the vote in the November elections.
Gingrich also argued that Trump had won the state of Georgia, a statement not backed up by facts. President-elect Joe Biden won the state by about 12,000 votes, something that hasn’t changed substantially after a recount.
“The objective fact is I believe Trump probably did actually carry Georgia,” Gingrich said, “I believe that the election process is a mess. I really wish the governor would call a special session to clean it up.”
When reached for comment, Abrams’s spokesman Seth Bringman instructed Georgians to “turn off Newt Gingrich,” noting today is the last day they can register to vote in the runoff races.