McConnell blasts Dems for accepting Biden win after questioning validity of 2016 election
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters Tuesday that there is “no reason for alarm” as to why Republican leadership has not called to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden as they wait for the Electoral College to officially vote.
“Until the Electoral College votes, anyone who is running for office can exhaust concerns in counting in any court of appropriate jurisdiction,” McConnell said in response to a question surrounding why Republican leadership has not followed in the footsteps of a number of world leaders in contacting Biden.
“It’s not unusual and should not be alarming,” he added. “At some point here we’ll find out, finally, who was certified in each of these states and the Electoral College will determine the winner.”
The Senate majority leader’s comments come just one day after he spoke for the first time following the announcement by national media outlets that Biden was the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
President Trump has refused to concede and has instead launched a series of lawsuits in Pennsylvannia, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada – essentially every state that the president needed or even expected to win, in order to maintain his presidency for another term.
Democrats have condemned the lawsuits as illegitimate and have called on Trump to concede and start the peaceful transition of power.
“Let’s not have any lectures, no lectures, about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election and who insinuated that this one would be illegitimate too if they lost again – only if they lost,” McConnell claimed during a speech on the Senate floor Monday.
McConnell was referring to the expressed concerns by congressional Democrats who feared the November election could face interference after inefficiencies in the U.S. Postal Service were found in the months leading up to the general election.
Voters heavily relied on mail-in voting during the 2020 election, largely due to the pandemic.
“The people who push this hysteria could not have any more egg on their faces than they do right now,” McConnell added, alluding to the record number of mail-in ballots submitted on or before Election Day.
The mail-in ballots that took days to process and count are also the leading factor in the numerous lawsuits filed by the Trump administration, which has claimed the ballots counted after Election Day were “illegal.”
States have continuously pushed back on these allegations and have explained that the mail-in ballots counted were received on or before Election Day in the case of Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled that ballots received up to three days after Election Day would also be counted, though they have been segregated into separate piles in case they are found to no longer be valid, depending on the ongoing Supreme Court case.
“The president has every right to look into allegations and to request recounts under the law and, notably, the Constitution gives no role in this process to wealthy media corporations,” McConnell said.
“The projections and commentary of the press do not get veto power over the legal rights of any citizen, including the president of the United States,” he added.
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