Biden claims victory as Trump refuses to concede
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election to President-elect Joe Biden continued into Monday, with Democrats urging respect for the vote’s integrity and the president’s staunchest allies defending his unfounded claims of fraud and blitz of lawsuits.
But more cracks appeared in what has largely been a wall of silence from senior GOP figures on the president’s still-incendiary rhetoric contesting the vote. Former President George W. Bush offered Biden his congratulations, and a few moderate Republicans pressed the case for “cooler heads” to prevail.
And adding to a long list of heads of state and government offering congratulations to Biden, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, did so Sunday, as did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s relations with the powerful crown prince and with Ne
tanyahu are among his friendliest personal ties in the ranks of global leaders.
Biden was declared the winner Saturday by most major news organizations, some leading Democrats, and a few Republicans, news that sparked joy and pent-up celebration in a country reeling from economic hardship, the ravages of a deadly pandemic and deep-seated racial and political animosities.
The result came after four cliffhanging days of counting when Pennsylvania, the state where he was born, tipped Biden’s way. That made President Donald Trump the first incumbent to lose a bid for reelection since George H.W. Bush in 1992.
It also ushered the nation to a historic milestone as California Sen. Kamala Harris became the first woman, first Black person and first Asian American to be elected vice president.
In an break with custom, Trump declined to concede or congratulate Biden, vowing instead to continue his fight to overturn the election by pressing false claims of fraud and Democratic lawbreaking.
But Biden, sounding a gracious tone before a jubilant crowd in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, ignored the president and the snub, and addressed a portion of his remarks to Trump’s supporters. Having failed in two previous attempts at the White House, he said, he understood disappointment.
“Now let’s give each other a chance,” Biden suggested.
“It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric,” he said, hollering into the crisp night air. “Lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again.”
“Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now,” he went on, vowing to get to work on Monday by appointing a panel of medical and scientific experts to write the details of a plan to address the COVID-19 pandemic as soon as he takes office in January.
He called for compromise and a willingness by Democrats and Republicans to work together in Washington, echoing the words that launched Barack Obama’s national political career at the Democratic convention 16 years ago.
“I pledge to be a president that seeks not to divide, but unify. Who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States,” Biden said.
Biden and Harris’ victory turned Saturday into an instant national holiday — at least for those of a certain political outlook — combining Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Fourth of July.
People danced in the streets of Washington, D.C., where a cheering swarm partied outside the White House, in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Democratic harbors throughout the nation. Revelers banged pots and pans from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh and Puerto Rico.
Honking and shouts echoed down New York City’s skyscraper canyons, where crowds cheered Postal Service trucks — a symbol of the mail ballots that helped torpedo Trump’s chance of a second term. Film director Spike Lee, wearing a protective mask and a Yankees baseball cap, jumped up and down and popped a bottle of sparkling wine in the middle of the street.
On Sunday, as was the case throughout a bitter campaign, the president and the president-elect presented a study in contrasts: Trump unleashed a series of grievance-laden tweets before heading for his Virginia golf property, while Biden attended church, then turned with his team to transition business.
The COVID-19 pandemic, meanwhile, presented an ever-grimmer backdrop to the political tumult, with the two narratives continuing to intertwine. One of the nation’s leading public health experts, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb, warned that the little over two months between now and Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, might be among the outbreak’s bleakest weeks.
“The reality is that by the time the president-elect takes office, we’ll probably be at sort of the apex, if you will, of what we’re going through right now,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Gottlieb added that the usual hoopla surrounding a U.S. president’s swearing-in would almost certainly need to be curtailed.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to bring large crowds together for an inauguration,” he said. “We’re going to be right in the thick of probably the worst point of this epidemic.”
Biden has repeatedly vowed to heed scientists’ advice on how best to stem the spread of the virus. Nearly 240,000 Americans have died from it and almost 10 million have been infected.
As Trump continued to resist accepting the outcome of the vote, some saw genuine peril in his ongoing campaign to undermine public confidence in the electoral system. The House majority whip, Rep. James Clyburn, declared on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “this democracy is teetering.”
Clyburn, D-S.C., said he wasn’t as much concerned with the question of whether and when Trump concedes, because the victor will take office either way, but “whether or not the Republican Party will step up and help us preserve the integrity of this democracy.”
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who has voiced disagreement with Trump over issues including his handling of the pandemic, said it may take “a few more days for cooler heads to prevail” on a concession of defeat by the president.
“Whether you like it or not, it’s time to get behind the winner” of the 2020 race, Hogan said on “State of the Union,” adding that he had not seen evidence of any malfeasance or error in vote counting that would change the results.
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican who has often crossed the president, said Trump was staying true to type. “I would prefer to see a more graceful departure, but that’s just not in the nature of the man,” he said, also on CNN.
In a separate interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Romney called Trump “the 900-pound gorilla when it comes to the Republican Party,” suggesting that he did not expect his own views to be widely echoed within the GOP until Trump comes around to the idea of having lost.
Trump’s most hard-line allies gave no ground in the face of widespread commentary from experts that his legal challenges were highly unlikely to yield any game-changing rulings.