Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue appeared to accept that President-elect Joe Biden won the election in a conference call with a GOP group even though he has yet to do so publicly.
Perdue, who, along with Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the other senator from Georgia, is facing a runoff election next month with the Senate majority on the line, and President Trump is heading down to the Peach State this weekend to campaign for them. Neither incumbent has publicly addressed Biden as the president-elect, as Trump has refused to concede, but the Washington Post obtained and published a Zoom video of the two of them in which Perdue implicitly acknowledged a Biden presidency.
“We know what this change of command at the top will mean with our foreign relations,” Perdue said in the video, adding: “If we can keep the majority in the Senate, we can at least be a buffer on some of the things that the Biden camp has been talking about in terms of their foreign policy.”
The video was recorded Wednesday. It was a conversation between the two Georgia senators and former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman who runs the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Perdue also discussed Biden’s record of working across the aisle and mentioned that his willingness to do so again during his administration could result in compromises between Congress and the White House that haven’t been done in “two or three administrations.”
He also noted that the political divide during “the last administration,” which he said was Trump’s, was too great for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House to overcome.
“We have an opportunity to do something that maybe we lost in the last administration between [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and Trump,” Perdue said. “That was just a bridge too far to think that we were going to get them to negotiate. But here we have Biden and McConnell, who are ex-colleagues in the Senate, who are known negotiators, who, if Biden can get away from this extreme part of his party, he might make some deals.”
The comments come at a tumultuous time for Republicans as some try to placate the president amid his claims of a stolen election while also trying to encourage voters to turn out for the runoff election, which will take place on Jan. 5. Trump’s legal team has filed a handful of lawsuits in battleground states Biden won that have largely been unsuccessful. The campaign’s strategy also involves convincing state legislatures with Republican majorities, including Pennsylvania, to appoint electors who will cast their votes for Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump has attacked Georgia Republicans, such as Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and has accused them of not doing enough to promote his claims, which has caused a rift in the state party.
A spokesman for Perdue focused more on “the consequences” of the runoff election and less about the senator’s nod to a Biden presidency in a statement.
“Sen. Perdue totally supports President Trump and his fight for transparency and accuracy in this election,” John Burke said. “Perdue for weeks has been repeatedly sounding the alarm about what the consequences of total Democratic control of Congress would be if [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer wins these two seats in Georgia.”
