Harris: ‘It is my hope and prayer … to work across party lines’

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said Monday night she hopes to work across the aisle in handling the coronavirus pandemic upon taking office.

“It is my hope and prayer, and Joe Biden has said it unambiguously, that we intend to work across party lines,” Harris told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Monday. “The biggest challenges, the crises that are front and center in our nation don’t see party lines. And if we are truly leaders, each of us in these positions, we have got to find a way to work together.”

Reid went on to ask Harris about numerous GOP leaders’ refusal to concede Biden’s victory even after the Electoral College formally voted, asking if Harris and Biden “feel you’re going to have any partners in a party that can’t even call you and Joe Biden the president and vice president-elect?”

Although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has called Biden the president-elect since the electoral vote, President Trump has refused to concede and continued to mount legal challenges seeking to overturn the results.

“I have to believe that, at some point, reality will set in and that everyone will understand that we need to govern, that the people of our country rely on our government to work and function in a way that Congress works with the executive branch and the White House to solve their problems,” Harris replied. “And that’s how we’re going to be focused. That’s where we’re going to focus.”

“I have to believe that at some point that reality will set in and that everyone will understand that we need to govern.”@KamalaHarris on Trump and members of the GOP’s refusal to concede in the 2020 election. #theriedout pic.twitter.com/zoBS87bbl1

— The ReidOut (@thereidout) December 22, 2020

The vice president-elect went on to say that several of her GOP colleagues in the Senate have congratulated her in person on the Senate floor.

“And so I think there may be some posturing that’s taking place in public,” she said. “But, in private, I think that there are far more who understand that it is important we have a peaceful transfer of power and that we get on with the business of running this country.”