Trump's Intelligence director John Ratcliffe says 'we'll see' whether there is a 'Biden administration' as Republican senator says Trump already conceded 'in effect' by allowing transition to proceed
Director of Intelligence John Ratcliffe suggested in a Sunday morning there might not be a Joe Biden administration – as a Republican senator made the case that President Trump has effectively conceded the race.
Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist who the president installed following his passionate defenses during impeachment and the Mueller probe, described a Biden administration as something that may or may not come to pass.
'These election issues, we'll see who is in what seats and whether there is a Biden administration,' Ratcliffe told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on 'Sunday Morning Futures.'
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in an interview Sunday 'we'll see' whether 'there is a Biden administration'
He spoke hours after Trump told a Georgia campaign rally Democrats 'stole' the election, which he called 'rigged.'
'They cheated and rigged our presidential election but we'll still win it. And they are going to try to rig this election too,' told thousands of supporters at a rally seeking to drive turnout in two runoff elections.
He said he won Georgia, although Biden won it by more than 12,000 votes.
On Saturday Democrat Joe Biden reached a total of 279 pledged electors after California certified its 55 electoral votes. Trump wants Georgia's Republican governor Brian Kemp to call a special session of the legislature to have it certify electors for Trump instead of Biden. The state's Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told CNN Sunday that won't happen.
Ratcliffe appeared before Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani issued more claims of voter fraud
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said Trump conceded 'in effect.' He previously has said Biden 'won,' and is one of only a few dozen elected Republicans to say so
Trump repeated his claims the election was 'rigged'
Another Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, said Sunday Trump has essentially conceded the race.
'The president in effect has conceded when he ordered the General Services Administration to begin the transition,' he said, referencing the agency that waited weeks after networks called the race for Biden before finally issuing a letter allowing the transition to go forward.
Cassidy also said he was hopeful the nation would be able to 'move on,' and pointed to the role of judges in issuing findings on allegations of fraud – which Trump's legal team has been lobbying for weeks, even as dozens of courts ruled against it.
'If there's fraud it should be uncovered but it should be uncovered in a way that a judge agrees,' he said.
He said 'if the president's able to show that, that's important' the Hill reported.
Cassidy also said it is 'incumbent upon the president and his legal team to establish that.'
The Washington Post surveyed all 249 elected House and Senate Republicans, and only 27 said Biden won the election (up slightly from the initial 25).
Trump responded on Twitter, writing: '25, wow! I am surprised there are so many. We have just begun to fight. Please send me a list of the 25 RINOS,' meaning Republicans in name only.
Cassidy's staff told the Post: 'Sen. Cassidy believes the president has a right to pursue any legal challenges the president’s team believes has merit. But as things stand now, Sen. Cassidy believes Biden won..'
Cassidy also tweeted Nov. 23: 'President Trump’s legal team has not presented evidence of the massive fraud which would have had to be present to overturn the election. I voted for President Trump but Joe Biden won.'
Giuliani, also appearing on Fox, repeated claims of a massive effort to put votes in Biden's column in the dead of night, despite the state's Republican secretary of state's office saying there was nothing to the claim.
'Georgia, of course, had the bombshell evidence of the tape recording of the election center, with everyone chased out about 2:00 in the morning, locked down, five people left. Luckily, the cameras were on. They didn't know it,' he told Bartiromo. 'And then they took ballots out hidden under a table all day. And then they spent the rest of the night counting the secret ballots, and, clearly, secret, phony ballots, in which they excluded all Republicans, all Democrats, all law enforcement. And I think that ended up being about 148,000 to 7,000, 148,000 for Biden, 7,000 for Trump. But you get a pretty good idea of how they cheated,' he said, after suffering a string of legal defeats with earlier claims.
Ratcliffe, whose role is to oversee and analyze intelligence from a variety of U.S. intelligence agencies including the CIA, raised many of the same claims being put forward by Trump's legal team, to little effect so far.
'Now, I think one of the things that we did well this election was addressing problems from foreign interference, influence campaigns from other countries that we saw in 2016,' he said.
'But people need to understand that's different than election fraud issues, the things that you're talking about ... things like postal drivers saying they took 200,000-plus ballots from New York to Pennsylvania, tens of thousands of ballots supposedly mailed in, but no folds or creases in them, more votes than ballots issued in places These -- people pulling out suitcases and video evidence of that, with questionable explanations for that. Those are issues of election fraud that need to be investigated,' he said.
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