Ron Klain, chief of staff to President-elect Joe Biden, addressed a Sunday morning tweet by President Trump, which the president has since walked back, that said that the former vice president “won” the election.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday,” Klain said he accepted the original tweet “as a further confirmation of the reality that Joe Biden won the election.”
“Not through any of the rest of that tweet,” Klain added, noting that the tweet also makes baseless claims of voter fraud. “He won because he got more votes, in the popular vote by a lot and he won the same number of electoral votes that President Trump called a landslide four years ago.”
“But look, if the president’s prepared to begin to recognize that reality, that’s positive,” Klain added. “Donald Trump’s Twitter feed doesn’t make Joe Biden president or not president. The American people did that.”
“What we really want to see this week is the General Services Administration (GSA) issue that ascertainment,” Klain said, which would enable Biden’s team to meet with public health officials and receive intelligence briefings. “That’s really the measure of how this is moving forward this week, I think.”
The GSA has refused to sign off on transition funds and resources for the Biden team, even as several GOP senators have called for Biden to begin receiving intelligence briefings.
Trump backtracked this morning after he said in his initial tweet that Biden “won.”
“He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go,” Trump said in a follow-up post.