Florida Sen. Marco Rubio became the latest Republican senator to address Joe Biden as “president-elect,” more than a week after every major media outlet projected him to win the election.
Rubio, who lost in the 2016 presidential primary to then-candidate Donald Trump, joined a small group of Republican senators to refer to Biden as “president-elect” while the president has refused to concede the race. Since the election, the Trump campaign has filed a handful of lawsuits in battleground states across the nation that have been projected to Biden.
Rubio made the reference on Monday when asked by Capitol Hill pool reporters what he thought of the reports that Biden is considering independent Maine Sen. Angus King to be the next director of national intelligence in his administration.
“Well, that’ll be the president-elect’s decision obviously,” Rubio answered, according to NPR. The senator was asked about his use of the term “president-elect,” and he responded, “Ultimately that’s what the results, the preliminary results, seem to indicate. You certainly have to anticipate if that’s the highest likelihood at this point. But obviously the president has legal claims in court, and he’ll continue to pursue those, and if that changes, obviously, it’ll be something we’ll have to deal with.”
To date, only a handful of Republican senators have publicly congratulated Biden on his victory. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Mitt Romney of Utah, all of whom have faced the president’s wrath at some point during his one term in office, have congratulated the former vice president.
On Monday, Texas Republican senator John Cornyn said the country will “inaugurate a new president” in January and that “it will probably be Joe Biden,” but he stopped short of calling Biden “president-elect.”
Last week, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a close confidant of Biden, said Republicans have privately told him to send Biden “well wishes to the president-elect, but I can’t say that publicly yet.”
In addition to filing lawsuits in battleground states, the president’s campaign have decried repeated claims of widespread voter fraud and irregularities, although they have yet to provide proof that their claims are accurate. Additionally, the president has refused to concede thus far. Over the weekend, he tweeted that Biden “won,” before claiming that it was the result of election fraud. He then said that the comment was in no way a concession.
