President-elect Joe Biden accused President Trump of an “unprecedented assault on democracy” in a speech Monday night hours after the The Electoral College formalized its victory. Trump has refused to grant the election and has repeatedly tried to use the courts to challenge the results without success.
Biden, speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, went through some of Mr. Trump’s legal challenges and said he “found them to be without merit” every time.
“All avenues were made available to President Trump to answer the results,” Biden said. “He made the most of each and every one of these avenues. President Trump was denied any action he wanted to take.”
He also highlighted Mr. Trump’s insistence that he won by “defeat” in 2016 with 306 electoral votes, the same number that Mr. Biden won in 2020.
“At the time, President Trump qualified the accounting of the polling station’s electoral account,” Biden said. “By their own standards, those numbers represented a clear victory. And I respectfully suggest they do so now.” Trump won 232 electoral votes.
At times, Mr. Biden tried to take a more unifying tone, repeating his campaign promise to be president of “all Americans” and saying he would work just as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as you do. that they did. ”
“We are a great nation, we are good people, we may come from different places and have different beliefs, but we share a common love for this country and a belief in the unlimited in the United States of America,” Biden said. dit.
Biden also praised local election workers, saying “we owe a thank you to these public officials” for working on the coronavirus pandemic and threats of violence.
The 538 members of the Electoral College met Monday in the capitals of the coast-to-coast states, where they cast ballots individually for president and vice president. While voting is normally done without much hooliganism, this year’s meeting focused on the spotlight when Trump tried to pressure state Republican lawmakers to subvert the will of voters and nominate their own voters. This gambit also failed.
A long-running Texas lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court against four key states tried to extend Monday’s deadline for the Electoral College to meet and prevent voters in those states from voting. But the high court rejected the offer, backed by Mr. Trump, on Friday.
As of Monday afternoon, voters in six battlefield states where the president challenged election results and alleged fraud (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada) voted for Mr. Biden.
Federal law dictates that presidential voters “will meet and cast their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December,” which this year is December 14th. ending Hawaii at 7 pm ET.
Congress will count the votes of voters on Jan. 6.