Baker Slams Party's Efforts To Contest Biden's Win Over Trump

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A fiery Gov. Charlie Baker declared Joe Biden won the presidential election "fair and square" and excoriated efforts to contest that fact at a time when he said all of Washington’s focus should be on coronavirus vaccine distribution.

Baker's frustration boiled over when he was asked about GOP senators and representatives who say they will object to the Electoral College results when they are presented to Congress to officially declare Biden the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday if a commission is not set up to investigate unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud.

"The noise, and the accusations, and the commentary about challenging this or that is an affront to democracy," Baker said, "and to the voice of the people who turned out in record numbers in this election to support a whole bunch of candidates up and down the ticket.

"For the life of me, I can't figure out how people in my (Republican) party can say: 'All the other elections in which their folks won were fine. And the only one they seem to have any concerns about is the one at the top of the ticket.'

The Washington Post on Sunday released a recording of a one-hour phone conversion between President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump told Raffensperger to "find" him the 11,780 votes needed to reverse the result in that state.

Up to 12 Republican senators and dozens of congressmen said they will contest the official Electoral College vote of 306 to 232 in favor of Biden.

('Straight Out Of His Corruption Playbook': MA Dems Roast Trump)

"President-elect Joe Biden won the election fair and square," Baker said. "He did. There have been numerous trips to the courts since Election Day at the state level and at the federal level. And they've been in front of appointed Republican judges, appointed Democrat judges, elected Republican judges and elected Democrat judges. And the electors that were chosen across the country were chosen by Republicans and Democrats — and were Republicans and Democrats.

"It is my hope that these initiatives fail and the electors do the right thing. And the orderly transition that we desperately need as a nation (proceeds)."

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Baker's aggravation mounted well into the news conference to discuss the vaccine rollout in the state.

"Which I think everybody at this point in time would say: 'Can't! Happen! Fast! Enough!" he declared with a raised voice. "That, in my view, is where our colleagues at the federal level should be focusing their time and attention.

"(They should be) doing everything they all, together, possible can to make sure every vulnerable American, every health care worker, every long-term care resident, every long-term care staff member, and everybody else, gets access to those two doses as soon as practically possible.

"That should be the focus right now."

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