Jen Psaki walks back Biden claim that midterm election might be illegitimate



White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki walked back a claim President Joe Biden made Wednesday expressing skepticism of the legitimacy of the upcoming midterm elections.

Biden faced an onslaught of criticism after he said that the legitimacy of the election depended on the passage of a controversial voter rights law opposed by Republicans.

"Oh, yeah, I think it easily could be — be illegitimate," said Biden in response to a question from a reporter.

"I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit," said Biden about the 2022 midterm elections.

"The increase and the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these — these reforms passed," Biden added.

Democrats have been weighing the political consequences of ending the filibuster in order to push the voter rights law without any bipartisan support from Republicans.

On Thursday, Psaki contradicted Biden while trying to clean up his comments during a media briefing.

"The point he was making is that as recently as 2020, as we know, the former president was trying to work with local officials to overturn the vote count and not have ballots counted," Psaki explained.

“And we have to be very eyes-wide-open about that and clear-eyed that that is the intention, potentially of him and certainly members of his party,” she added.

NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander pressed her on the issue for a clear response.

“If there are no changes in terms of voting rights legislation going forward, the president does still feel confident that the elections this fall will be protected?” Alexander asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

Critics of the president assailed him for undermining the legitimacy of the midterm election when many Democrats had berated former President Donald Trump for doing the same after the 2020 presidential election.

Here's the video of Psaki's comments on Thursday:

Psaki Asked Point Blank If Biden Thinks 2022 Midterm Elections Will Be Legitimatewww.youtube.com

​Electoral College officially confirms Joe Biden's victory despite GOP picking 'alternate' electors to challenge the results



The Electoral College convened to officially confirm the victory of former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, but the Republican Party sent its own electors in several states to challenge the results.

With 270 votes needed to win the presidential contest, Biden received 306 electoral votes while Trump received 232 electoral votes.

The official count of the electoral ballots will be conducted on Jan. 6 in a joint session in Congress.

While the official count of the Electoral College will likely end any legal challenge by the Trump campaign, Republicans are attempting to keep their chances alive by picking "alternate" electors from contested state and sending their ballots to Congress.

Joe Biden speaks

In a speech Monday evening, Biden made his case against those who questioned the outcome of the election or claimed that it was illegitimate because of voter fraud.

"This legal maneuver was an effort by elected officials in one group of states to get the Supreme Court to wipe out the vote of more than 20 million Americans in other states, and to hand the presidency to a candidate that lost the Electoral College, lost the popular vote, and lost each and every one of the states whose votes they were trying to reverse," said Biden of the lawsuit from Texas.

"It's a position so extreme, we've never seen it before," he continued. "A position that refused to respect the will of the people, refused to respect the rule of law, and refuse to honor our Constitution."

Biden and Kamala Harris will be inaugurated as president and vice president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2021.

Here's more about the GOP challenge to the election:

Electoral College Votes To Make Biden Win Official | NBC Nightly Newswww.youtube.com

BREAKING: Supreme Court denies pro-Trump bid to nullify election results in Pennsylvania



The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a bid by Republican allies of President Donald Trump to undo the election results in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

Republican state lawmakers had requested their petition to be seen by the U.S. Supreme Court but that was denied without proving any reasoning or offering any dissent to the order.

The allies of the president had charged that the Republican-controlled legislature had improperly passed an act to allow universal mail-in balloting, which they said was in violation of the state's constitution.

That was denied by the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court, which said that the challenge was filed too late.

The plaintiffs' demand before the U.S. Supreme Court was that either more than 2.5 million mail-in ballots be nullified in the election, or that the results of the entire election be nullified.

Lawyers for the state were outraged against the demands from the plaintiffs.

"Petitioners ask this court to undertake one of the most dramatic, disruptive invocations of judicial power in the history of the Republic," said the state of Pennsylvania. "No court has ever issued an order nullifying a governor's certification of presidential election results."

The Supreme Court rejected that demand without a hearing, allowing the election results in Pennsylvania to stand.

Here's more about the Supreme Court finding:

Supreme Court rejects GOP challenge to Biden's Pennsylvania election winwww.youtube.com