The Daily Beast’s Asawin Suebsaeng writes of the staff answering the Trump campaign’s voter fraud tip line: “For every three or four hours of threats and pranking endured, staff estimated that they’d get roughly one caller with an earnest, maybe-promising tip. This was done against the backdrop of a re-election campaign that virtually all of them knew was over and defeated. The search for ‘FRAUD,’ they knew, would not actually stop Biden’s presidency from commencing. After hours stuck on tip-line duty, staff would often leave looking visibly upset, worn out, and feeling undervalued. One staffer told The Daily Beast they had to go to the bathroom at least twice over the last few days just to cry because of the sheer volume of abusive phone calls.”
“‘It’s misery. It’s one of the worst ways to end a campaign that you could think of,’ this person said. Some staff had started getting aggressive with the prank callers, giving fake names and arguing or yelling back into the landline. Though these Trump campaign hands exhaled a heavy sigh of relief on Friday as news trickled out that the telephone tip-line would cease operations, the emotional damage had already been done and the insult already layered thickly on top of injury.”