[ad_1]
Biden is at the top after members of the Electoral College gathered in all 50 states and in the capital, Washington, to put the official seal on the will of the people.
US President-elect Joe Biden raises his fist after speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 7, 2020, after being declared the winner of the presidential election. Image: AFP
WILMINGTON – A day after the Electoral College affirmed Joe Biden as president-elect of the United States, the top Republican in Congress broke weeks of electoral silence on Tuesday and sent a sober message to a defiant President Donald Trump: No more.
For more than a month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had refused to acknowledge Biden, his former colleague in the Senate, as the winner of the November 3 contest, arguing that the process would take time to unfold. .
But as Trump’s unprecedented attempt to overturn the results collapsed and burned, and with voters Monday confirming Biden’s 306-232 victory, McConnell became the most powerful member of the Republican Party to publicly acknowledge the victory. of Biden.
“The Electoral College has spoken. So today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden,” McConnell said in the Senate.
“Many of us expected that the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January 20,” he added.
“I also want to congratulate the vice president-elect, our colleague from California, Senator (Kamala) Harris,” he said, noting that “all Americans can be proud” of having a female vice president for the first time.
While some Republican lawmakers signaled they would not give up the fight, others, like retired Senator Lamar Alexander, directly urged Trump to “put the country first” and assist Biden in his transition to the White House.
Joining the chorus, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Biden on his victory Tuesday and said he was “ready to collaborate” on issues such as global security.
The 78-year-old Biden is expected to take a tougher stance against Russia than Trump, whom the Democrat criticized during the campaign for having “embraced so many autocrats around the world, starting with Vladimir Putin.”
Biden is at the top after members of the Electoral College gathered in all 50 states and in the capital, Washington, to put the official seal on the will of the people.
The vote offered no surprises, and in more traditional times, the rather arcane Electoral College process would be just a formality in the normal transfer of power.
But Trump, in an unprecedented way, has yet to acknowledge his own defeat in the chaotic elections that will see him leave the White House after a single four-year term.
Welcoming the vote, Biden delivered a speech in which he said that American democracy proved to be “resilient” against Trump’s “abuse of power.”
“It’s time to turn the page,” Biden told the bitterly divided country.
He also issued his first extended attack on Trump since the election, saying the president and his allies “refused to respect the will of the people, refused to respect the rule of law, and refused to honor our constitution.”
Biden praised voters for casting votes in record numbers on November 3 despite COVID-19 fears and “enormous political pressure, verbal abuse and even threats of physical violence” against those running for office.
MINDS IN GEORGIA
Even as the door essentially closed on unprecedented efforts to overturn the results, Trump remained defiant, insisting in a series of tweets that he scored a “landslide victory” and that there were still “tremendous problems” with the vote.
In a threatening move against Republican leaders in Georgia, where he has made unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud, he retweeted a pro-Trump attorney who posted a photo of the Georgia governor and secretary of state, saying they “will soon go to jail . “
Biden is campaigning Tuesday afternoon in Georgia, where Democratic Senate candidates are locked in a runoff whose results will determine the balance of power in the Senate and thus shape Biden’s presidency.
Democrats must change both seats to take control of the Senate, while Republicans must have only one to maintain their majority.
Republicans have framed Georgia as a must-win race, with the state forming the last line of defense against what they describe as a radical leftist agenda.
“Georgia is the firewall of socialism,” said one of the Republican rulers, Senator Kelly Loeffler, on Monday. “We have to hold the line here.”
Meanwhile, Trump announced Monday that Attorney General Bill Barr, who contradicted his claims of fraud, would be leaving office next week.
Download the EWN app on your iOS or Android device.
[ad_2]
