First, the electors. Now, GOP: Biden, Harris acknowledged
Senate majority leader: “I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden’
WASHINGTON >> More than a month after the election, top Republicans finally acknowledged Joe Biden as the next U.S. president on Tuesday, a collapse in GOP resistance to the millions of voters who decisively chose the Democrat.
Speaking from the floor of
the U.S. Senate where Biden spent 36 years of his career, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell congratulated his former colleague as presidentelect.
The Republican leader’s statement ends weeks of silence over President Donald Trump’s defeat. It came a day after electors met and officially affirmed Biden’s election win.
“I want to congratulate President- elect Joe Biden,” McConnell said.
“Many of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result,” he said. “But our system of government has the processes to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20. The Electoral College has spoken.”
McConnell called Biden someone “who has devoted himself to public service for many years.” He also congratulated Vice Presidentelect Kamala Harris, saying “all Americans can take pride that our nation has a female vice president- elect for the very first time.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, was to meet with his likely successor in the new administration, Antony Blinken. And GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s closest allies, said he’d spoken with some of Biden’s Cabinet picks.
A similar shift unfolded in capitals across the world, where leaders including Russia’s V ladimir Putin and Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador acknowledged Biden’s win.
The moves come a day after electors nationwide formally cast votes affirming Biden’s victory in last month’s presidential election. And while that clears a more stable path for Biden to assume the presidency, it does little to stop Trump from continuing to try to undermine confidence in the results with baseless allegations that have been rejected by judges across the political spectrum. As Republicans began discussing a Biden presidency more openly on Tuesday, Trump still pledged to press forward with almost nonexistent legal options.
“Tremendous evidence pouring in on voter fraud. There has never been anything like this in our Country!” Trump tweeted just as members of his party were publicly recognizing Biden’s victory.
The growing acknowledgment of reality in Washington was triggered by the Electoral College formally voting on Monday to seal Biden’s win with 306 votes to Trump’s 232, the same margin that Trump pulled together four years ago. The normally humdrum political ceremony didn’t change the facts of the election, but was nonetheless used as political cover by leading Republicans.
The bureaucratic transition from Trump’s government to Biden’s actually began weeks ago, despite the president’s legal challenges. Still, the suddenly conciliatory stance from many Republicans could thaw the political deep freeze that has gripped Washington lately.
Biden has been trying to build momentum as he prepares to assume the presidency while facing the historic challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions of Americans against the coronavirus. In some of his most forceful remarks since the election, Biden is calling for unity but also calling Trump’s attacks on the voting process “unconscionable” and insisting it is time to “turn the page.”
“We need to work together, give each other a chance, and lower the temperature,” Biden said in a speech Monday.
Still, the shift coming so late in the tone from Republicans has left the presidentelect with barely a month to finish building out key parts his new government. Some say the GOP aboutface won’t mean much at this point.
“Even them doing this now, the damage has been done because they’ve blocked, they’ve interrupted,” said Anthony Robinson, a former Obama administration appointee who served several national security policy roles including during the transition to the Trump administration in 2016.
“I don’t want to say, ‘ Who cares?’ but it definitely doesn’t symbolize a smooth transition,” said Robinson, who is now political director of the National Democratic Training Committee, which trains candidates and campaign staffers all over the country.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said now that McConnell has spoken, “enough is enough.”
Trump should “end his term with a modicum of grace and dignity,” Schumer said.
With states having affirmed the election results, the Republicans faced a pivotal choice — to declare Biden the presidentelect, as the tally showed, or keep standing silently by as Trump waged a potentially damaging campaign to overturn the election.
As the Electoral College voted on Monday, giving Biden a clear majority, GOP senators began speaking up.
“At some point you have to face the music,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 GOP leader. “Once the Electoral College settles the issue today, it’s time for everybody to move on.”
Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the chairman of the inaugural committee, said the panel will now “deal with Vice President Biden as the president-elect.” Just last week, the Republicans on the inauguration committee had declined to publicly do so.
Also looming large is the divided U.S. Senate, where majority control will depend on the outcome of two special elections in Georgia on Jan. 5. Unless Democrats win both those races, Senate Republicans will have the power to block many of Biden’s Cabinet nominations, not to mention thwart his policy initiatives.