White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Sunday appeared to suggest that Joe Biden won the presidential election.
The moment: In an interview on Fox News, McEnany said that if Republicans lose the two Georgia Senate seats in a January runoff, Kamala Harris will be “casting the deciding vote in this country.”
- Harris, a California senator and Biden’s running mate, would be the tie-breaking Senate vote as vice president.
Former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway similarly said in an interview last week that it “looks like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will prevail.”
- Conway added: “I assume the electors will certify that and it will be official. We, as a nation, will move forward, because we always do.”
Still, all but 27 Republicans in Congress have declined to recognize Biden as president-elect.
The dilemma: The Georgia runoffs have put the GOP in a pickle between loyalty to party and president.
- Republicans want to juice turnout in the runoffs, of which they need to win at least one to keep their Senate majority.
- But they also want to support Trump’s fight to overturn the 2020 election results and stay in the White House.
Trump on Saturday campaigned in Georgia for the state’s incumbent Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
- The president repeated his unproven claims that he won a majority of the legitimate votes in Georgia and nationwide but the election was “rigged” against him.
- Yet he also urged Georgians to vote again on Jan. 5, calling the elections “the most important congressional runoff probably in American history.”
