President Donald Trump on Monday issued a warning to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) hours after the Arkansas senator said he wouldn’t join an effort to object to electoral votes on Jan. 6.
“How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG,” Trump asked on Twitter, suggesting that he will make assertions about ”the real numbers tonight during my speech” in Georgia to support Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) in their election fight.
The president then cautioned Cotton about his political future.
Trump was reacting to Cotton’s stance on not joining a growing group of Republican lawmakers who would oppose the electoral results during the Joint Session of Congress on Wednesday. About a dozen senators led by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and over 40 House Republicans, are slated to lodge objections to key states’ electoral votes.
Senators opposing electoral votes would establish a poor precedent to follow in future elections, Cotton argued.
Trump and other Republicans have warned that due to alleged voter fraud, all future elections will be potentially compromised.
House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told The Hill on Sunday night that he supports their bid. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other members of the GOP leadership have said that supporting the electoral college challenge could be politically troublesome. Meanwhile, McConnell on Dec. 14 said Democrat Joe Biden was the winner of the presidential election after the Electoral College voted.
The challenge needs one senator and a representative to carry out, triggering a two-hour debate per state. Then the House and Senate will hold a majority vote on whether to certify a state’s electoral votes; the House has a slim Democratic majority, and the Senate has a slim Republican majority.
Top Democrats over the weekend have signaled that they will mount a defense against the electoral challenge.