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WASHINGTON: Former US President George W. Bush has offered his “warm congratulations” to President-elect Joe Biden, calling the Democrat “a good man, who has earned the opportunity to lead and unify our country.”
The two-term Republican, in a statement issued by his presidential center in Dallas, also congratulated loser Donald Trump for his “extraordinary political achievement” in winning 70 million votes.
Bush’s statement made him one of the most prominent Republicans in the country to recognize Biden’s victory, he declared Saturday, and congratulated him.
His brother Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who had run for president until Trump got the party’s nomination in 2016, sent Biden his own congratulations.
“I will be praying for you and your success. Now is the time to heal deep wounds. Many are counting on you to lead the way.”
Republican Senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have also extended their congratulations to Biden, while many other Republican officials say that is premature, saying that not all votes have been counted and not all challenges have been resolved.
Former President Bush agreed that Trump had “the right to request recount and pursue legal challenges.”
But he added: “The American people can be confident that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be preserved, and its outcome is clear.”
With a message of unity that echoed Biden’s own words, Bush added: “We must unite for the good of our families and neighbors, and for our nation and its future.”
“There is no problem that it does not yield to the gathered will of a free people.”
