Sens. David Perdue (R-GA) and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) on Sunday didn’t distance themselves from their fellow Republicans’ long shot efforts to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory during the Jan. 6 congressional session certifying his Electoral College win. The joint session of Congress is scheduled a day after the Georgia runoff elections that will determine the balance of the Senate.
On Saturday, Cruz and a group of 10 GOP lawmakers announced a fresh effort to object to the votes by the Electoral College ratifying Biden’s victory. Cruz and other Republican lawmakers demanded the appointment of a commission to conduct a 10-day emergency audit, and to give individual states the chance to hold a special legislative session to certify or change its electoral votes. Cruz’s effort followed Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) vow last week to object the certification of the Electoral College vote.
The GOP effort to contest the Electoral College vote during a joint session of Congress this week is unlikely to change the result, given how Democrats hold a majority in the House and a number of Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have outright acknowledged Biden’s victory after the Electoral College cemented it last month.
On Sunday, several prominent Republicans such as House Republican conference chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) and seven other House Republicans decried GOP plans to oppose certifying election results. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — a close ally of President Trump who egged on his bogus claims of widespread voter fraud — casted doubts on his fellow Republican colleagues’ plans to object to electors by saying that they “have a high bar to clear.”
Perdue and Loeffler, however, appeared unfazed by their fellow Republican colleagues’ long shot bid at overturning Biden’s legitimate victory during their Sunday appearances on Fox News.
Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo asked Perdue if he would challenge the votes like a dozen of his GOP colleagues announced they would on Saturday.
Speaking to Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo, Perdue doubled down on his previous assertion that he would support challenging election results by saying that he is “encouraging my colleagues to object” when asked whether he would challenge the Electoral College votes, just like dozen of his GOP colleagues plan to.
“The technical problem is that I won’t be certified until this election is certified some week to 10 days after the election, when we win on Tuesday,” Perdue said. “But I’m encouraging my colleagues to object. This is something that the American people demand right now.”
Perdue went on to boost President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of “huge irregularities in Georgia” that “need to be investigated” and “corrected.”
Loeffler, on the other hand, didn’t give a clear answer when asked by Fox News anchor Brett Baier whether she plans to join some of her Republican colleagues in challenging the Electoral College vote this week if she wins her runoff election in Georgia the day before.
But Loeffler didn’t deny the possibility either as she replied that “everything’s on the table here.”
“We have to make sure that Georgia and all of Americans trust our voting process, but my No. 1 objective right now has to be winning on Jan. 5 so that we can get to the bottom of what happened in these elections,” Loeffler said.
Loeffler added that she is “continuing to fight for this president” because “he’s fought for us and so we’re going to stay on top of that.”
After initially sidestepping the question asked by Baier, Loeffler was pressed again later in the interview on whether she will certify the Electoral College votes, including Biden’s victory in Georgia.
Loeffler reiterated that “everything’s on the table” as she insisted that she is “looking very very closely at it” and that she is “fighting for this president because he’s fought for us.”
“He’s our president and we’re going to keep making sure that this is a fair election and looking very closely at it,” Loeffler said. “But again, none of it matters if I can’t win on Jan. 5.”
