Trump Calls PA House Speaker To Question Election Results: Report

HARRISBURG, PA — President Donald Trump called the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives directly two times in the past week to question the results of the Nov. 3 election, The Washington Post reported.

During the calls, which were confirmed by House Speaker Bryan Cutler’s office, the president reportedly said he heard there were "issues" in Philadelphia and asked how he "could fix it," the Post reported.

The Post said Cutler's spokesperson told the president that the legislature has no power to overturn Pennsylvania's chosen electors.

Pennsylvania has already certified its results in favor of Joe Biden, but that has not stopped the Trump campaign from insisting the election was rife with fraud and pursuing various improbable attempts to flip what the vote tally reflects. Biden carried Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes. Dozens of legal challenges in several battleground states, including Pennsylvania, have turned up no evidence of fraud.

Cutler, who represents part of Lancaster County, has publicly questioned the results of the election in recent weeks.

On Friday, he was one of several Republican lawmakers in the PA House and Senate who signed a letter to the state's Congressional delegation, asking them to dispute Pennsylvania's electors.

And in late November, Cutler was among the state lawmakers supporting a resolution that would declare the results of the 2020 General Election "to be in dispute." It called the certification of results "premature" and urged the governor to withdraw the certification of presidential electors.

Due to timing, it became impossible for Republicans to advance the resolution because the House of Representatives would not return to voting session before the end of the session on Nov. 30.

"We are physically unable to consider any new legislation before the end of session. A simple resolution takes three legislative days for consideration and a concurrent resolution takes five legislative days to move through both chambers, which means we do not have the time needed to address any new resolutions in our current session," a joint statement from Cutler and House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff said.

However, Cutler and Benninghoff, pledged that Republican efforts to "investigate the impacts of interventions by the activist Pennsylvania Supreme Court" and "confusing and conflicting guidance by the Secretary of State" will continue into the next legislative session.

"It is obvious Pennsylvania's election processes are in dire need of repair. Our work to ensure the chaos and confusion of the 2020 election are not repeated will continue in the next legislative session," the joint statement said.

Pennsylvania's Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, an ardent critic of Trump's attempts to invalidate the local election results, took to Twitter to weigh in on the president's latest tactics.

"When you lose an election, you can make as many desperate phone calls as you’d like," Shapiro said. "Phone calls don’t change the laws in any state."

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