President Donald Trump called out Senator Mitch McConnell in a frenzied tweet on Wednesday, one day after the Senate majority leader finally acknowledged the victory of President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election.
In his tweet, Trump shared a report from The Daily Mail detailing how some of his supporters — like former aide Sebastian Gorka and right-wing broadcaster Nick Fuentes — criticised McConnell for congratulating Biden. The president stressed that he had received 75 million votes, said it was “too soon to give up” and added that the “Republican Party must finally learn to fight.”
Trump actually received about 74.2 million votes, with Biden surpassing him to hit 81.2 million. Trump has alleged without evidence that many of these votes were “fraudulently or illegally obtained.”
McConnell initially refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory, but publicly congratulated the president-elect and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Tuesday — a full 42 days after the election — after the Electoral College made their wins official one day prior.
“Our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January the 20. The Electoral College has spoken,” McConnell said at the time, acknowledging Biden’s and Harris’ previous experience with the Senate as well as Harris’ status as the first female vice-president.
Previously, McConnell said that Trump was “100% within his rights” to challenge “major irregularities” in the election results. His slow acknowledgement of Biden and Harris’ victory drew particularly pointed criticism from CNN host Anderson Cooper on Tuesday, who said that McConnell’s congratulations was nothing more than the “bare minimum.”