Mitch McConnell Brutally Rejects Trump’s Conspiracies: Democracy Would Enter ‘Death Spiral’ If This Election Were Overturned
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — fresh off the news that he is likely getting demoted to Minority Leader after the Democrats seem all-but-certain to prevail in Georgia’s Senate runoff elections — poured a discouraging bucket of ice water over the efforts of some Republicans to object to the counting the Electoral College votes, denouncing their arguments as “sweeping conspiracy theories” and saying that overturning the voters’ will would delegitimize the American democratic system.
For most of Trump’s term, McConnell has mostly refrained from direct criticism of President Donald Trump, but had denounced the baseless claims of election fraud promoted by Trump and his allies, and had publicly discouraged his caucus from attempting to object to the Electoral College votes.
In a short floor speech Wednesday, McConnell bluntly laid out the reasons for his discouragement of these attempted protests, framing them as not just pointless (with Democrats holding slim majorities in both the House and Senate, the objecting Republicans cannot stop the votes from being certified), but as endangering the stability of our political system.
“We’re debating a step that’s never been taken in American history,” began McConnell. “Whether Congress should overrule the voters and overturn a presidential election.”
Noting he had been in the Senate for 36 years, McConnell called the Electoral College certification “the most important vote I’ve ever cast.”
Trump’s claims that the election was “stolen” were unpersuasive, explained McConnell, noting the “dozens of lawsuits” that had been rejected by courts “over and over,” including by “all-star judges whom the president himself has nominated.”
“But my colleagues, nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election,” said McConnell forcefully. “Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence.”
“The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. They’ve all spoken,” McConnell emphasized. “If we overrule them it would damage our republic forever.”
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side our democracy would enter a death spiral,” he added. “We’d never see the whole nation accept an election again. Every four years would be a scramble for power, at any cost.”
McConnell noted past criticisms of Democratic efforts to question the results of previous elections, and slammed his colleagues for attempting a double standard: “We must not imitate and escalate what we repudiate.”
The Senate must have “a higher calling than an endless spiral of partisan vengeance,” he continued.
“It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and the states on this extraordinarily thin basis,” McConnell concluded. “And I will not pretend such a vote would be a harmless protest gesture while relying on others to do the right thing.”
“I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.”
UPDATE: McConnell’s Senate office has released a full transcript of his prepared remarks.
Watch the video above, via CNN.
