South Dakota’s John Thune Becomes the Highest Ranking GOP Senator to Confirm Biden’s Win
When Joe Biden was called the winner of the election by the major news networks, a few Republicans were willing to publicly congratulate him. Most of these senators have had their issues with Trump like Nebraska’s Ben Sasse and Utah’s Mitt Romney.
When asked about Biden’s win by reporters, most other GOP senators demurred. Trump has the ability to challenge the results, they said, and that process has yet to be exhausted.
On Monday, though, the Electoral College voted to confirm Biden as the winner. And this is seen by many as a nail in the coffin for any future Trump hopes of challenging the election.
Some were predicting that the confirmation would allow for more Republican lawmakers to come out and accept Biden’s win. South Dakota’s John Thune took that opportunity while speaking with Manu Raju.
As the Senate Whip, Thune is the 2nd ranking member of the Senate. Thune told the CNN reporter that Biden became the president elect once he passed the 270 electoral vote threshold.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune said that Joe Biden is president-elect once he crosses 270 electoral votes and says efforts to challenge the results in Congress is “not going anywhere.” He said “it’s time for everybody to move on” after today.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 14, 2020
The South Dakota senator continued by saying that after today, “it’s time for everybody to move on.”
Whether that happens or not remains to be seen. There was a major departure at the White House today as Bill Barr announced he would soon be stepping down.
Trump is expected to be going to his Mar-a-Lago residence over the Christmas holiday. There are some expectations that he will not be returning to Washington prior to Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.
