Republican leaders in the US congress have rejected a resolution acknowledging Joe Biden as the president-elect, the latest effort by Capitol Hill Republicans controlled by Trump to refuse to accept the election results even though it's been clear for weeks that President Donald Trump lost.
In a private meeting on Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
offered a motion to affirm that it is preparing for the inauguration of
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Then in a dramatic turn of events, Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell and Rules Committee Chairman Roy Blunt of Missouri voted with
House Republican Leader, Kevin McCarthy to block the motion, a move that
prevented the inaugural committee from publicly accepting that the
January 20 inauguration will be for Joe Biden.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on the Rules
Committee, voted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Hoyer voting in
favor of recognizing Joe Biden as the president elect.
"The extent to which Republicans are refusing to accept the outcome of the election and recognize Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next President and Vice President is astounding," Democrat Hoyer said in a statement.
"Their continued deference to President Trump's post-election temper
tantrums threatens our democracy and undermines faith in our system of
elections ... Republicans are refusing even to allow (Joint
Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies) to say that
President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris will be
inaugurated on January 20, even when there is no serious dispute over
that fact."
Republicans on Capitol Hill have repeatedly refused to recognize that
the next President of the United States will be Biden and Hoyer told
reporters he could not speculate why Republicans voted against the
motion.
"You'll have to ask them, you'll have to ask them," Hoyer said when
pressed on if Republicans voted against the motion because it recognized
Biden as President-elect.
Repiblican Roy Blunt responded to criticism that Republicans would not
approve Hoyer's motion to recognize Biden as the President-elect.
"It is not the job of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural
Ceremonies to get ahead of the electoral process and decide who we are
inaugurating. The JCCIC is facing the challenge of planning safe
Inaugural Ceremonies during a global pandemic. I would hope that, going
forward, the members of the JCCIC would adhere to the committee's
long-standing tradition of bipartisan cooperation and focus on the task
at hand," Blunt said in a statement.
For weeks, Republicans have denied Biden has won the presidency,
multiple lawmakers telling reporters they will wait until the Electoral
College formally votes on December 14.
