Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected Donald Trump’s challenge to the outcome of the presidential election, telling Congress on Wednesday that American “democracy would enter a death spiral” if the election were overturned.
“The voters, the court, and the states have all spoken. They’ve all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We’d never see the whole nation accept an election again.”
McConnell also dismissed Trump’s false and baseless claims that there was widespread voter fraud during the election.
“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 said. “The Constitution gives us here in Congress a limited role. We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence also defied Trump by refusing to block the Electoral College vote certification or overturn Electoral College votes, as Trump has pressured him to do.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence wrote in a letter to Congress. “The Presidency belongs to the American people, and to them alone.”