Biden Talks With More Foreign Leaders: Election Update
Graham Denies He Urged Mail-In Ballots Tossed: Election Update
(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Joe Biden spoke to several more foreign leaders. He also spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is friendly with President Donald Trump. And Georgia’s top elections official sees no sign of “foul play” in elections results.
Other Developments:
Biden Talks With More Foreign Leaders
The Trump administration may not have recognized Biden as the president-elect, but several more foreign leaders did Tuesday.
In separate calls, Biden spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, President Sebastián Piñera of Chile and President Reuven Rivlin of Israel.
Biden, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before serving as vice president, talked with the leaders about local issues.
With Modi, he highlighted Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s Indian heritage. He congratulated Piñera on a recent decision to update Chile’s constitution. And he thanked Ramaphosa for his leadership of the African Union. -- Jordan Fabian
Netanyahu Speaks With President-elect Biden (2:23 p.m.)
Netanyahu had a “warm conversation” with Biden on Tuesday, Netanyahu’s office said, an acknowledgment the president-elect defeated Netanyahu’s close ally, President Donald Trump.
Biden and Netanyahu “agreed to meet soon to discuss the many issues that are pending and reaffirmed the need to continue to strengthen the strong alliance between the United States and Israel,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
The phone conversation comes 10 days after Biden was projected as the winner of the 2020 election. Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his victory on Nov. 8, one day after news networks declared the Democrat had defeated Trump.
But Tuesday’s conversation is the Israeli leader’s clearest acknowledgment of Biden’s victory. In his previous comments, Netanyahu had refrained from calling Biden the president-elect but the Tuesday statement did use that label. -- Jordan Fabian
Georgia’s Top Elections Official Sees No Sign of ‘Foul Play’ (1:48 p.m.)
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he’s seen no sign of “foul play” in Georgia’s handling of the November election.
In a statement Tuesday, the state’s top elections official said that an audit of a random sample of voting machines by Pro V&V, a U.S. Election Assistance Commission-certified testing lab, found no evidence of any tampering.
“We are glad but not surprised that the audit of the state’s voting machines was an unqualified success,” he said.
Raffensperger has faced criticism from fellow Republicans as he has defended the state’s election handling from attacks by Trump, who has repeatedly made baseless claims of mass fraud.
Democratic Super-PAC Puts $5 Million in Georgia (1:11 p.m.)
A Democratic super-PAC with ties to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced it is spending $5 million on ads in the Georgia Senate runoff elections.
The Senate Majority PAC, or SMP, will spend $4.5 million for television advertising and $500,000 on digital platforms to support Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, whose victories would give Democrats control of the chamber.
SMP released two spots, set to start running in Georgia on Wednesday. The ads accuse the two incumbent Republican senators on the ballot, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, of profiting on stock trades as they downplayed the threat of coronavirus. SMP’s name doesn’t appear on either ad. Instead, the super-PAC is funding two new groups to attack the Republican senators. Georgia Honor is paying for the Loeffler ad while The Georgia Way sponsors the Perdue ad.
The $5 million is most likely a first installment. SMP spent more than $32 million on the two Georgia Senate races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, with the bulk of that amount spent backing Ossoff, Perdue’s opponent. -- Bill Allison
Wisconsin Ends Ballot Canvass, Opening Door to Recount (12:36 p.m.)
Wisconsin has completed its vote canvass of all 72 counties, opening the door for the Trump campaign to file a recount request.
Biden beat Trump in the state by 20,612 votes, according to the Associated Press. Trump now must file a petition for a statewide recount before Wednesday at 5 p.m., and put up the $7.9 million needed to conduct it.
In an announcement Monday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said the fee must be paid up front for the recount to proceed.
Trump and his campaign have repeatedly said they intended to file a recount of Wisconsin. On Tuesday, however, Trump spokeswoman Erin Perrine, appearing on Fox News, did not say whether the campaign planned to pay the estimated cost. -- Emma Kinery
Graham Denies He Urged Mail-In Ballots Be Tossed (9:49 a.m.)
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham denied Monday that he urged a Republican elections official to toss mail-in ballots en masse.
Speaking late Monday, Graham disputed a Washington Post report that he had asked Georgia’s Secretary of State to throw out mail-in ballots from counties with lower-than-average rejection rates.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “What I’m trying to find is how do you verify signatures on mail-in ballots in these states that are the center of attention.”
Raffensperger told the Post that Graham asked him whether he had the power to throw out all mail-in ballots from certain counties, arguing that elections clerks may have accepted ones with non-matching signatures for political reasons.
“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” he said.
Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims of massive fraud among mail-in ballots, arguing that courts should throw them out and declare him the winner. Judges have dismissed a number of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign for lack of evidence. -- Laura Litvan
Coming Up:
Biden is scheduled to receive a national security briefing form experts outside the federal government on Tuesday.
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