Raffensperger demands Perdue apologize after wife got death threats following November call for resignation

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger demanded former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) apologize to his wife on Monday after she received death threats following the senator’s call for the secretary’s resignation in November. 

Raffensperger called for an apology after Fox News host Martha MacCallum asked him to respond to Perdue calling it “disgusting” to have a conversation with President Trump recorded, which The Washington Post released Sunday. 

“Sen. Perdue still owes my wife an apology for all the death threats she got after he asked for my resignation,” he told Fox News’s “Your World.” “And I have not heard one peep from that man since.”

“If he wants to call me face to face, man to man, I will talk to him off the record,” Raffensperger continued. “But he hasn’t done that.”

MacCallum responded by saying that “it feels like this is very much about a grudge” between the Georgia secretary of state and the senator. 

“It’s not a grudge at all,” Raffensperger countered, adding “It’s really about getting the facts out.” 

Perdue, who is running for reelection in one of two Georgia Senate runoff elections Tuesday, responded to Raffensperger’s apology request later Monday on Fox News’s “Special Report,” telling host Bret Baier that the death threats from others were not related to his call for the secretary of state to step down. 

“It’s outrageous that anybody made a death threat, but that had nothing to do with my call for his resignation,” Perdue said. “That had to do with total incompetence around what happened in November.”

Perdue, along with Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), called for Raffensperger’s resignation two days after President-elect Joe Biden was widely declared the winner of the presidential contest, accusing the secretary of state of failing “to deliver honest and transparent elections.” 

Raffensperger’s request for an apology comes after the Post released audio on Sunday of a phone call between him and the president over the weekend, in which Trump repeatedly requests the secretary of state to “find” 11,780 ballots for him to declared the winner, one vote more than Biden received in the state.

Earlier Monday morning, Perdue in another appearance on Fox News stood by the president when asked about the call, referring to a leak of the audio as “disgusting.”

During his “Special Report” interview, Perdue said it was “very unprofessional that a statewide elected official would secretly tape that and leak” Trump’s call. 

“That notwithstanding, what the president did on the phone call is what he’s been doing the last eight weeks and what I’ve been asking for as well, ” Perdue said. “That’s a fair and transparent accounting of what happened in November.”

Perdue will face Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff in Tuesday’s runoff race, while Loeffler will go up against the Rev. Raphael Warnock. The races were sent to runoffs in November after neither candidate in either race received a majority of the vote.

The races will determine which party has control of the Senate. If either Republican wins reelection, the GOP will retain control, but if both Democrats win, the Senate will be split 50-50, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris becoming the tie-breaking vote.