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- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a fiery speech on the Senate floor Wednesday excoriating President Donald Trump and his congressional allies' to throw out the results of the 2020 election.
- "Nothing before us proves illegality of the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election. Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt was incited without any evidence," McConnell said.
- "This election was not unusually close," he added. "The Electoral College margin was almost identical to what it was 2016. If this election were overturned by the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral."
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican in the upper chamber, gave a searing floor speech on Wednesday blowing a hole through President Donald Trump and his allies' efforts to unilaterally throw out some states' electoral votes and overturn the results of the 2020 general election.
"Nothing before us proves illegality of the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election," McConnell said, referring to Trump's false assertion that there was widespread, nationwide voter fraud that delegitimized the results of the election. "Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt was incited without any evidence."
"The Constitution gives us here in Congress a limited role," McConnell added, in a rebuke of some Trump loyalists' claims that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence can "decertify" states' electoral votes if they want to.
"This election was not unusually close. 1976, 2000, and 2004 were all closer than this. The Electoral College margin was almost identical to what it was 2016. If this election were overturned by the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral," the Kentucky Republican said.
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2021
McConnell made his remarks when Congress convened to officially certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the election. A few minutes after the joint session opened, a number of Republican House and Senate lawmakers objected to certifying Arizona's electoral votes, which went to Biden after the Electoral College met last month.
According to congressional procedure, when a challenge is lodged against a state's electoral votes, both houses must separately debate the motion for up to two hours.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate must vote to reject a state's electoral votes in order to nullify them. There is virtually no chance of that happening this year, given that Democrats control the House and Republicans control the Senate, and many Senate Republicans have said they will not back the president's efforts to take back the White House.
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