Trump's tape seeking votes from election official ‘ultimate smoking gun’: Carl Bernstein

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein believes a recently released record of US President Donald Trump telling Georgia's top election official to "find" enough votes to overturn the election result is "the ultimate smoking gun tape", as it proves the president's intention of doing anything to undermine the electoral system of the country.

On Sunday, journalist Bernstein discussed President Donald Trump’s taped request for more votes, while appearing on CNN Newsroom with Fredericka Whitfield. Trump can be heard asking Georgia’s secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes,” during a phone conversation on Saturday.

Bernstein knows a thing or two about presidential recordings, as his discovery tapes led to President Richard Nixon resigning from office. However, he insists that the recordings of Trump are much more damning.

“It’s not deja vu,” Bernstein said. “This is something far worse than Watergate. We have both a criminal president of the United States in Donald Trump, and a subversive president of the United States.”

“This is the ultimate smoking gun tape,” he continued. “It is the tape with the evidence of what this president is willing to do to undermine the electoral system and illegally, improperly and immorally try to instigate a coup.”

Bernstein believes the taped conversation is more than sufficient evidence to call for Trump’s immediate resignation. He urged all of the leaders in Washington D.C. to come together and condemn this threat to democracy.

“In any other presidency,” said Bernstein, “this tape would be evidence enough to result in the impeachment of the president of the United States, his conviction in the senate of the United States, and really an immediate call by the members of congress, including of his own party, that he resign immediately.”