Donald Trump is heading to the epicenter of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results as he holds a rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday evening.
The former president will take the stage at the ‘Protect Our Elections’ event hosted by Turning Point USA’s Political Action Committee aimed at de-seating Democratic politicians across the country.
Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix, has been at the center of Trump’s ire over his loss to President Joe Biden.
As Trump gets ready to repeat his claims of voter fraud and a rigged election to his supporters on Saturday, the recount audit has been thrown into chaos.
Ken Bennett, a former Arizona secretary of state and liaison to the state Senate for the recount, lost privileges to the building where the effort is taking place, according to recent reports.
Donald Trump will take stage at a Turning Point Action ‘Protect our Elections’ rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday
Trump will repeat his claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and that Arizona is one of the states where widespread voter fraud is to blame for his loss. Here the former president leaves Trump tower in Manhattan on July 19, 2021
The rally Saturday comes after a dramatic turn of events Friday when Ken Bennett, who was acting as the liaison to the Arizona Senate on the election audit, was banned from the building where the recount is taking place
The once-president of the state Senate was the only person involved with the recount in Maricopa with experience in elections.
Previously, he was referred to as the ‘director’ of the recount, but the Arizona Republic reported on Friday Bennett was not allowed in the state fairgrounds building where the audit is happening.
It comes after he shared data with outside critics from an ongoing ballot recount.
Arizona is a swing state that Trump lost to Biden in 2020 by just 0.3 per cent. He claims he only lost the state because of widespread fraud in Maricopa County, where he earned 995,665 votes to Biden’s 1,040,774, according to the official ballot count from the state.
But the former president’s most staunch supporters, several thousand of whom are in attendance at Saturday’s rally, claim a lack of voter integrity is to blame for Biden beating Trump.
Bennett (right) helps move 2020 presidential ballots as the Maricopa County recount ensued on May 1, 2021
Cyber Ninjas was hired by the Arizona State Senate for the election audit. Here contractors examine and recount 2020 ballots at Veterans Memorial Coliseum on May 1 in Phoenix
Trump has insisted since he lost the election in November that Biden only won because Democrats used pandemic-era expanded mail-in voting laws to illegally sway the election in swing states.
Specifically he has aimed his attention at Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, the three states that were the subject of GOP lawmakers’ objections to the election results during the January 6, 2021 certification of the Electoral College results.
Trump will take the stage at Arizona Federal Theatre around 3 p.m. MST to speak with a few thousand of his supporters who also feel the election was stolen.
A retired Army soldier and now Uber driver told DailyMail.com on Friday that there are a lot of Republicans in the area who are willing to fight to overturn the election results for Trump – even just in an effort to make sure the state stays red.
Attendees are decked out in pro-America and pro-Trump swag.
One group held up a giant flag that said ‘Trump Won’ inside the theatre, and another group had Trump’s face on the American flag with the words ‘I’ll be back’.
The Arizona State Senate, which is majority Republican, has paid $150,000 of the $9 million the election audit is reportedly costing. The state has a GOP trifecta, meaning the governor is a Republican and the House and Senate have a Republican majority.
Now that Bennett, the Senate’s liaison for the recount, has been banned, it has become unclear who is in charge of the review, which was ordered by the Arizona State Senate.
Those senators in the state are also supposed to be overseeing the recount.
Trump often sends statements from his Save America Political Action Committee email railing against the Arizona results and those he feels are trying to prevent the recount.
Most recently, he wrote on Thursday Arizona State Senator Paul Boyer is trying to prevent the evidence from coming out from the audit.
Trump supporters hold up a sign insisting ‘Trump Won’ before the former president arrives for his remarks on Saturday, July 24, 2021
‘Republican Arizona State Senator Paul Boyer, a RINO if there ever was one, is doing everything in his power to hold up the damning Forensic Audit of Maricopa County,’ Trump wrote. ‘The people of Arizona are demanding it.’
‘All we demand is Voter Integrity!’ he insisted, before stopping short of endorsing Former Arizona House of Representatives member Anthony Kern, who is running against Boyer.
Arizona’s Senate brought in Cyber Ninjas in May to conduct a third recount audit, after two other election audits found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.