Congressional Record/Volume 167/Issue 4/Senate/Counting of Electoral Ballots/Pennsylvania Objection Debate/Carper Speech
Mr. Carper. Mr. President, “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges on fairness are serious.” I think we will all agree. “But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then [they require] proof. We have neither here.”
Those are not my words. Those are the words of a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejecting President Trump’s legal challenges to the Pennsylvania election. I might add, a judge who was a longtime member of the conservative Federalist Society and was nominated to the bench by none other than Donald Trump.
The 2020 Presidential election was hard-fought—we will all agree. But the American people spoke clearly, and they spoke decisively: 81.2 million voters voted for Joe Biden—81.2; 74.2 million voted for Donald Trump; 51.3 percent of the vote went for Joe Biden; 46.8 percent of the vote was for Donald Trump; 306 electoral college votes for Joe Biden; 232 electoral college votes for Donald Trump. Four years earlier, Donald Trump referred to that kind of outcome as a “landslide” for him, and he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes.
But accepting the outcome of the election can be difficult when our political party doesn’t win. We have all felt that before. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. More than 60 Federal and State courts involving more than 90 judges—many of whom were nominated by Republican Presidents, including Donald Trump—are all in agreement. That is pretty amazing, isn’t it? All in agreement. No evidence of widespread fraud, wrongdoing, or other irregularities have been uncovered during the 2020 election. That is a victory for democracy, for our democracy.
Unfortunately, some of our colleagues today ask us to do the same thing that Donald Trump asked of the secretary of state for the State of Georgia—to overturn the results of the 2020 election without specific allegations and, more importantly, without any proof. Our colleagues are asking us not to abide by the will of the people but to bend to the will of one man—one man—Donald Trump.
In 1787, delegates from the Thirteen Colonies convened in Philadelphia to debate the future of what would become the United States of America. Our Founders disagreed on a lot of things, but, you know, they all agreed on one thing for sure: They did not want a King; they did not want a Monarch. Many of them had been there, done that. They didn’t want to see it and feel it again, and they set up this intricate system of checks and balances to ensure that we would never have that all-powerful King in this country.
That system of checks and balances is being pushed to a dangerous limit here today, but that system will prevail—along with it, our democracy.
Here are just some of the claims Donald Trump and his legal team have made and that our colleagues lend credence to here today: that Venezuela, Cuba, and China rigged our country’s voting machines in favor of Joe Biden; that dead people voted in this election, and they only voted for Joe Biden; that poll watchers and election observers who risked their lives during this pandemic to uphold the integrity of our elections stuffed ballot boxes with Biden votes, and then they shredded Trump votes.
Not one—let me repeat—not one of these things is true. There is no evidence—no evidence—to back up these ridiculous claims. Many of these absurd claims from Donald Trump and his legal team are nothing more than conspiracy theories circuiting online.
This misinformation and dangerous rhetoric from the President and his allies—including calls for violence—have polluted our discourse and imperiled our peaceful transfer of power.
When our colleagues show indifference to outright support for these unsubstantiated claims and conspiracy theories, they lead our Nation and our Constitution down a dangerous, dangerous path.
All of us who serve here swore an oath to support and defend our Constitution. I swore that same oath as a naval flight officer many times and as midshipman before that. But all of us here have sworn to support and defend our Constitution, not our political party and certainly not any individual candidate.
Colleagues, for the safety of our citizens and our Republic, we must lead by example. We must turn the temperature down. It was a hard-fought campaign, but the campaign is over. The votes have been counted. The count has been certified in all 50 States.
In 2 weeks, on January 20, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States, as they should be. We have serious and urgent challenges that will require working together with our new President and new Vice President, with one another in this Chamber—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—and with our colleagues over in the House of Representatives.
What is on our “to do” list?
We can start with making sure that hundreds of millions of Americans get vaccinated—that we get off the dime and start vaccinating. We vaccinated 4 million people last month. We were supposed to have vaccinated 20 million. How are we ever going to get to 250 million at this rate?
What else is on our “to do” list?
We are getting our kids back to school. We have kids who are unable to get on the internet, who are unable to participate in their classes, and who may not have any adult supervision at home. They are struggling, and they are falling even further behind. We need to do something to help them.
What else is on our “to do” list?—getting their parents back to work, just to name a few things. Think of all of the millions of people who have lost jobs and don’t have skills anymore to fill the jobs that are needed. They need our help. They need to be retooled and retrained. It is time to stop overturning the will of the people. Let’s get back to working on their behalf.
Abraham Lincoln has been quoted a couple of times here tonight, but he observed at the end of the Gettysburg Address that ours is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Even in the midst of a civil war, President Lincoln put his unwavering faith in the people to chart our Nation’s course. We would be wise to remember Lincoln’s words at this moment, at this special moment, in our Nation’s history.
We are not a government of Trump, by Trump, and for Trump. We are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and the people have spoken. The people have spoken. Our job here today is to listen to them. I intend to do that. I trust that my colleagues will join me in doing that as well.
I yield the floor.