Aaron Rupar at Vox wrote up Biden’s speech last night:
Over the past six weeks since Election Day, President-elect Joe Biden carried about his business while largely ignoring the circus surrounding President Donald Trump’s incessant lies about election fraud and refusal to concede. That changed a bit on Monday.
Speaking hours after the Electoral College officially voted to confirm his victory over Trump, Biden declared victory. He also criticized the president, whom he portrayed as on the wrong side of the struggle for democracy, for refusing to acknowledge the reality of his defeat.
And he took on Trump’s post-election attempts to overturn a legal election head on. It was strong:
Biden addressed the flood of failed lawsuits the Trump campaign has filed since the election and the Supreme Court’s refusal last week to take up a flimsy case that could’ve overturned his victory. He also praised state and local officials on both sides of the aisle for overseeing a fair election while refusing to be “bullied” by Trump.
“In America, when questions are raised about the legitimacy of elections, those questions are resolved through the legal processes. And that’s precisely what happened here,” he said. “All the counts were confirmed … none of this has stopped baseless claims.”
Later, Biden noted that “respecting the will of the people is at the heart of our democracy,” adding that when Trump won four years ago, “it was my responsibility to announce the tally of the Electoral College votes to the joint session of Congress … I did my job.”
I don’t think I could have been this generous, but that’s just me:
Although a majority of House Republicans indicated in writing last week that they supported the aforementioned case that could have overturned the election results, Biden extended an olive branch, saying, “I’m convinced we can work together for the good of the nation on many subjects. That is the duty owed to the people, to our Constitution, to our history.” He also thanked the Senate Republicans who have already acknowledged his victory.
Biden has a cold apparently which is why he sounded hoarse. But for all his paeans to “unity” which I think he actually believes (although I’m hopeful that he’s not completely deluded about the chances for it) Biden was forcefully critical of the GOP’s assault on democracy in this speech and it was good. More of this please.
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