Trump’s Persuasion Tactics
Quantifying Trump’s call with Georgia election officials
Powerful people in the world are often lauded for their persuasiveness. A key part of leading a successful company, campaign or tech revolution is convincing others to follow your vision. Apple founder Steve Jobs’ ability to convince his engineers that the impossible was possible was said to be like a “reality distortion field” and was seen as a key part of creating Apple’s hit products and software. Now people like Elon Musk get described as having such a skill.
While we may see public statements by these people, unfortunately we don’t normally get to see how they apply their reality distorting skills in real life settings. What are they like in a work meeting where others can challenge them or push back?
That changed recently though when a phone call of one of the modern day’s best persuaders leaked out. In it US President Donald Trump tries to convince election officials for the state of Georgia to overturn the election result in his favour.
Love him or hate him it’s hard to deny Trump had a talent for persuasion. He’s a New York City billionaire with terrible morals yet he managed to convince Christians and rural, working class Americans to be his strongest supporters. This post will not pass any judgement on whether the arguments President Trump is using are true or false, it is purely about how he tried to convince the others on the call.
The phone call took place on January 2nd 2021. It’s an hour long and is mainly between Trump and the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. Lawyers for both sides are present too. It takes place two months after the election which makes Trump’s task especially difficult as Georgia has already conducted numerous investigations and found no significant issues. Flipping the Georgia vote is essential for Trump to have any hope of winning the presidency though, so we can assume he’s giving this maximum effort.
So how does Trump go about this seemingly impossible attempt to persuade?
How to persuade like a President
1. Talk a lot
You’ll quickly notice how much of the talking Trump does as in his first turn speaking he does so for over 12 minutes solid as he introduces his arguments. He goes on to talk for 46 minutes in total, three quarters of the whole call.
2. Some killer, lots of filler
Pad out your good arguments with lots of lesser ones to add weight to your claims.
Trump raises 15 different fraud allegations during the call [1]. However he only focuses on a few of these (mainly a video from the State Farm Arena counting centre allegedly showing ballot stuffing and voting machine issues in Fulton County). If challenged on others he quickly moves on. For instance when the Georgia officials push back on his claim 5,000 dead people voted. He initially asked Cleta Mitchell (a lawyer on his side) to defend it, but cut her off after less than a minute when she wasn’t sounding convincing and moved on.
In contrast Trump does not budge easily from points about a video from the Start Farm Arena counting centre. It allegedly shows new ballots being taken out from under a table and scanned three times each. When the Georgia officials say they conclusively proved that votes weren’t scanned three times, Trump ignores them and continues to claim it for the rest of the call.
3. Use lots of numbers
Being a numbers man or detail orientated isn’t in Trump’s public image, but in this private meeting he uses numbers extensively to support his arguments.
He uses 35 different numbers and of these 16 are non-round numbers like 18,325 vacant address voters or 4,925 out of state voters. Outside the fraud allegations he also mentions the 11,779 vote margin between him and Biden frequently.
Even though he likely had these numbers in front of him, with that many numbers I was surprised how rarely he mixed them up. He only misstated two numbers without correcting himself and both of those were in the last 15 minutes [2].
4. Reiterate, reiterate, reiterate
- Of the 15 different fraud allegations he uses, including repeats and moving back and forth between allegations he says them 36 total times.
- Of the 35 different numbers he says them 72 total times
- He repeats that he won the election 30 times
5. Have total confidence, correct anyone who doesn’t
Even though Trump will move on from some of his points, he talks with confidence and seriousness about each. It’s only 26 minutes in when Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer on his side, says the 18,000 ballots in the State Farm Arena video is an estimate that it becomes apparent not everyone on Trump’s side is as confident as him. Trump talks over her to explain, in no uncertain terms, that he’s sure of the 18,000 number “because we had ours [his copy of the tape] magnified out”.
6. Say official sounding stuff
Trump’s numbers aren’t just any numbers, they’re certified numbers from certified accountants and lawyers. Despite saying “certified” 13 times in the call he never explains what it means.
7. Insult the opposition
I wouldn’t have thought this the most sensible persuasion tactic but who am I to judge. Trump starts with the insults at just 27 minutes when, without any irony, he calls the Georgia Secretary of State a child.
I mean, look, you’d have to be a child to think anything other than that. Just a child.
He goes on to give another 7 insults [3] to the Georgia officials.
8. If insults don’t work try compliments
44 minutes in, after insulting the Georgia lawyer Ryan Germany (“Why don’t you want to find this, Ryan? What’s wrong with you?”). Trump tries to patch things up by complimenting him. Trump could probably do with more practice complimenting people though as this sounds like it came from a machine learning algorithm gone awry.
I’m sure you’re [Ryan Germany] a good lawyer. You have a nice last name.
He follows this up shortly after with a complement that at least sounds like it was thought up by a human..
I’m hearing Ryan that he’s probably, I’m sure a great lawyer and everything.
9. Drop the occasional threat
He describes things as criminal multiple times, but normally in indirect language. This is a bit subjective but on one occasion, 35 minutes in, I feel what he says qualified as an outright threat. While alleging ballots are being shredded in Fulton County to cover up fraud, he tells the Georgia Secretary of State and his lawyer if things aren’t fixed they’re complicit in a crime.
…it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.
So there you have it, 9 easy steps to persuade like the President of the United States. Trump actually didn’t get his way in this call. Maybe we’ll get treated to another leak in the future where he is successful and can compare if he did anything different.
Footnotes
[1] Trump’s fraud allegations
- He was having bigger rallies than Biden so must have got more votes too
- 250–300,000 ballots dropped into the rolls
- “Couple hundred thousand” forged signatures in Fulton County
- “In the 50s of thousands” voters who turned up but weren’t allowed to vote due to having already voted
- 4,502 voters not on voter registration roll
- 18,325 vacant address voters
- 904 voters with only a P.O. box number
- State Farm Arena video shows 18,000 ballots taken out from under a table and scanned 3 in times each
- 4,925 out of state voters
- 2,326 ballots sent to vacant addresses
- Drop boxes picked up but not dropped off until 3 days later. Photos and affidavits as proof.
- Judgement of other experienced politicians based on success in statehouse, congress and senate elections. “A lot of the political people said there’s no way they beat me”.
- Close to 5,000 dead people voted
- Fulton County equipment and ballot tampering. Burning/shredding 3000lbs of ballots and removing/changing equipment in voting machines
- Batch of military ballots that came in and were entirely for Biden which isn’t possible due to Trump’s strong military support
[2] Mis-stated numbers
Trump twice says the wrong number in the call
- Stated the vote margin as 17,779 instead of 11,779
- Stated that he needs less than 2,000 votes to win. Likely meant less than 20,000.
[3] Trump’s insults
Directed at Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State:
- I mean, look, you’d have to be a child to think anything other than that. Just a child.
- They’re [Stacy Abrams and Fulton County] going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad
- You’ve taken a state that’s a Republican state, and you’ve made it almost impossible for a Republican to win because of cheating.
- But you’re allowed to have a phony election? You’re allowed to have a phony election right?
- Stacey Abrams is laughing about you. She’s going around saying these guys are dumber than a rock.
- You’re going to have people just not voting. They don’t want to vote. They hate the state, they hate the governor and they hate the secretary of state.
- The only people that like you are people that will never vote for you. You know that Brad, right?
Directed at Ryan Germany, a lawyer on Georgia’s side:
- Why don’t you want to find this, Ryan? What’s wrong with you?
[4] Data sources
- Full audio and transcript available from the Washington Post
- Analysis data of the call used to create the charts and stats in this post available on Github here.
