WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recognized Joe Biden as the winner of the U.S. election the day after the Electoral College confirmed his victory — a pivotal moment that further cements President Donald Trump’s defeat.
“The Electoral College has spoken,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “So today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.”
McConnell also discouraged Republican senators during a conference call from joining any move to object to the Electoral College outcome when Congress convenes Jan. 6 to formally count the results.
Until Tuesday, McConnell had declined to acknowledge Biden’s win, saying the president was entitled to pursue his claims in court, even as Trump-backed cases were dismissed by numerous judges. The Supreme Court last week turned away an effort to toss out election results in states won by Biden.
Biden told reporters he called McConnell on Tuesday to “thank him for the congratulations” and told him there are issues where they can work together.
“We’ve always been straight with one another and we agreed to get together sooner than later and I’m looking forward to working with him,” Biden said.
Yet even as McConnell and other Republicans are acknowledging the election results, Trump still refuses to concede. He continued to tweet unfounded claims of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election after McConnell spoke.
McConnell later told reporters he had no advice to offer Trump but said the Electoral College vote was “determinative.” A person familiar with a GOP conference call Tuesday also confirmed a Politico report that McConnell urged colleagues not to sign on to a Jan. 6 challenge of the electors, which would force Republicans to take a tough vote.
Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said GOP senators on the call were encouraged “to accept the results” even if it wasn’t the outcome they wanted and “to try to do what’s best for the American people, which is to look forward.”
She told reporters at the Capitol that “there wasn’t any pushback to it. There wasn’t anybody saying ‘Oh, wait a minute.’”
A Trump ally in the U.S. House, Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, said he still plans to contest the electoral vote count next month. There is no chance the Democratic-led House would indulge any further attempts to overturn the election results. Even if a senator raises an objection, it’s clear from the comments from McConnell and others it would be doomed to fail.
Senior Republican senators began acknowledging Biden’s victory after the Electoral College voted on Monday, with retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee urging Trump to put the country first and ensure a smooth transition to the incoming Biden administration.
Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of the GOP leadership, told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the message to senators was less “actively whipping” against contesting the election and more “explaining the futility of the situation.”
McConnell led into his public congratulations to Biden with a lengthy and laudatory recitation of Trump’s record, including “the bold leadership” that resulted in the distribution of a vaccine for the coronavirus faster than most experts had predicted.
He also cited the “once-in-a-generation” overhaul of the tax code, elimination of the individual mandate under “Obamacare,” increased U.S. energy production and his action on trade.
