In a speech given before the Senate at Wednesday’s Joint Session of Congress, Mitch McConnell rejected Trump’s claims of widespread fraud and a stolen election.
“President Trump claims the election was stolen. The assertions range from specific local allegations, to constitutional arguments, to sweeping conspiracy theories. I supported the president’s right to use the legal system. […] But over and over, the courts rejected these claims, including all-star judges whom the president himself has nominated,” McConnell said.
“Every election, we know, features some illegality and irregularity. And of course that’s unacceptable. I support strong state-led voting reforms. Last year’s bizarre pandemic procedures must not become the new norm. But nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale that would’ve tipped the entire election. Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence.”
McConnell further stated that the Constitution only gives Congress a “limited role” in the election proceedings and that it is not a “national board of elections on steroids.”
“This election was not unusually close,” said McConnell. He also claimed that our political system would begin to collapse, would enter a “death spiral,” if Congress were to hand the election to Trump over “mere allegations.”
McConnell rounded out the speech by comparing the Democrats’ four-year attack on American institutions after Trump’s victory to what Trump is doing now.
“We must not imitate and escalate what we repudiate,” he said.
McConnell’s last line was as follows: “I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.”