WASHINGTON: US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCo- nnell and other top Republicans yesterday repudiated President Donald Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, assuring American voters the legislators would accept the outcome of November’s election.
Trump earlier declined to embrace a peaceful transfer in response to a reporter’s question and said he expected his election battle with Democrat Joe Biden to be settled by the Supreme Court.
The Republican president’s exchange with reporters set off a fury that prompted several Republicans in Congress to distance themselves from Trump.
Despite nearly four years of incendiary statements by Trump, members of his own party have regularly been loath to criticise him, as many feared political retribution.
“The winner of the November 3 election will be inaugurated on January 20th. There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792,” McConnell wrote in a morning tweet.
Like other Republicans, McConnell did not directly criticise Trump.
With no sign of the controversy abating, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told a news briefing: “The president will accept the results of a free and fair election.”
But for months, Trump has cast the November election as being rigged and repeatedly attacked Democrats for promoting the widespread use of mail-in ballots for voters who do not want to risk contracting the deadly Covid-19 virus by casting their ballots at potentially crowded polling centres.
In an interview on Fox News Radio, Trump called mail-in ballots “a horror show,” despite studies showing no significant problems with that method of voting over the years.