A growing list of Republicans are beginning to rally behind the move to publicly acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden's win over incumbent president Donald J. Trump.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton told ABC News’ This Week that it's time to discredit claims of election fraud propagated by Trump and his failed campaign, according to The New York Times. Bolton warned of national security threats if Trump continues to make “life as difficult as he can” for the incoming administration. He also referred to the Trump campaign's current litigation as “the legal equivalent of pitching pennies.”
“I think it’s very important for leaders of the Republican Party to explain to our voters — who are not as stupid as the Democrats think — that, in fact, Trump has lost the election and that his claims of election fraud are baseless,” Bolton said.
Another former Trump national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, spoke with CNN on Sunday to set the record straight about Trump's misguided claims that he won the election.
“What the president says in this tweet, it’s just wrong, it’s regrettable, it’s counterproductive,” McMaster said. "I think our democracy could be stronger than ever.”
In addition to Bolton and McMaster, Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that he believed in the smooth transition of power to help aid coronavirus measures and responses as the pandemic continues to spiral out of control. He acknowledged, however, that there was “a process” to accepting the outcome of the election, including the recount in Georgia.
Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) is a known Trump supporter, but he said on Sunday that it was “important for a normal transition” to the next presidential administration to begin. Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, DeWine said, “We have to have faith in our judicial system, faith in our electoral system.”
DeWine did, however, voice support for Trump's various legal challenges to the election, saying, “No one should begrudge him that or say that there’s anything irregular about that. On the other hand, it’s clear that, certainly based on what we know now, that Joe Biden is the president-elect. For the country’s sake, it’s important for a normal transition to start through. We need to begin that process.”
Miles Taylor, a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security who wrote the 2018 anonymous New York Times Op-Ed criticizing the president, joined a list of over 150 former national security, senior military and elected officials who called on the leader of the General Services Administration, Emily W. Murphy, to recognize the president-elect and vice president-elect. The letter was reported earlier by Politico.