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WASHINGTON — Former President George W. Bush on Sunday congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on winning the White House, sending a strong message to his fellow Republicans about the legitimacy of an election that President Donald Trump has refused to concede.
Bush, a Dallas resident, said in a news release that he spoke on the phone to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
“Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country,” Bush said. “The President-elect reiterated that while he ran as a Democrat, he will govern for all Americans.”
He added: “No matter how you voted, your vote counted.”
“President Trump has the right to request recounts and pursue legal challenges, and any unresolved issues will be properly adjudicated,” he said. “The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld, and its outcome is clear.”
The Texan’s statement made him the nation’s most prominent Republican to confirm the election’s outcome, putting him at odds with Trump and many of the current president’s GOP allies, who’ve continued to make baseless claims that election fraud allowed Biden to steal a win.
Bush nodded at the fraught moment, saying the “challenges that face our country will demand the best of President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris – and the best of us all.”
“We must come together for the sake of our families and neighbors, and for our nation and its future,” he said, adding that he and his wife, Laura, “pray for our leaders and their families.” “There is no problem that will not yield to the gathered will of a free people.”
Asked to comment on Bush’s statement, the Trump campaign referred back to the president’s statement from Saturday that “this election is far from over.”
“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed,” Trump said, then vowing to “not rest until the American people have the honest vote count they deserve and that Democracy demands.”
The president, who golfed Sunday at a course he owns in northern Virginia, took to Twitter on Sunday afternoon to again criticize the race being called for Biden.
“Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be?” he said. “We have all learned a lot in the last two weeks!”
It remains to be seen how Bush’s move will reverberate through the GOP, given that the former president’s standing in the modern-day Republican Party is unclear.
There’s always been tension between Bush and Trump, particularly after Trump criticized the former president as he blasted Bush’s brother Jeb during the 2016 White House campaign and then Bush revealed on Election Day that year that he voted “none of the above” for president.
(Bush and his wife, Laura, kept their presidential selections to themselves this year, with Bush spokesman Freddy Ford stressing that the Texan is “retired from presidential politics.”)
Bush has avoided publicly criticizing Trump over the last four years, keeping with his post-White House practice of not weighing in on his successors. But the two have also kept their distance over Trump’s tenure, appearing together in public only twice during that time.
One of those instances was for Trump’s inauguration – where Democrat Hillary Clinton claims Bush privately expressed bewilderment at Trump’s bleak “American carnage” speech.
Bush on Sunday made a point to “congratulate President Trump and his supporters on a hard-fought campaign.” The former president noted that the current one “earned the votes of more than 70 million Americans – an extraordinary political achievement.