President Donald Trump gave ground Monday to allow Joe Biden’s transition to the presidency after ranks of prominent Republicans called for Trump to end efforts to reverse his electoral defeat.
Twenty days after Election Day, most members of Trump’s party on Monday were still refusing to refer to Biden as president-elect, or questioning Trump’s insistence, without proof, that he only lost on November 3 because of to a fraud.
However, the terrain changed significantly on Monday night. Trump gave the green light for federal funds to begin flowing to Biden so that he can carry out his transition duties prior to his inauguration on January 20 as the 46th president of the United States.
Trump, however, did not formally grant the election to Biden. And top Republicans in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, did not offer an immediate reaction, as the way seemed clear for Biden. was fully recognized as president-elect.
Increasing pressure from some Republicans may have influenced Trump’s decision to allow funding for Biden’s transition. But possibly just as important, if not more so, was Michigan’s certification of Biden’s victory in that state.
Trump’s legal team has also suffered a series of court defeats in their attempt to prevent states from certifying Biden as the winner of the presidential election, and legal experts say the remaining cases do not give Trump a viable path to annul the results of the elections.
Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, representing West Virginia, who overwhelmingly backed Trump, released a statement Monday saying there was no indication that the election irregularities were widespread enough to question Biden’s victory.
Republican Sen. Rob Portman, a co-chair of Trump’s Ohio campaign who rarely breaks with party leaders, said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud and called for the transition to begin.
“Now is the time to quickly resolve any outstanding questions and move on,” Portman wrote in an opinion column for the Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday.
However, Portman did not refer to Biden as “president-elect” and referred to his becoming the next president as a “likely event.” Capito also did not refer to Biden as president-elect.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, who will retire from his Tennessee Senate seat at the end of the year, called on Trump to “put the country first and have a quick and orderly transition to help the new administration succeed.”
In a statement issued after Michigan certified that its election results were a blow to Trump’s efforts to reverse the election, Alexander said: “When you are in public life, people remember the last thing you did.”
Calls for Trump to accept defeat have been loudest outside of Washington, including from some of his staunch supporters, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who called Trump’s behavior “a national disgrace” in an interview. on ABC.
And more than 100 former Republican national security officials released a letter Monday asking party leaders to denounce Trump’s refusal to concede, calling it a dangerous attack on democracy and national security.
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