Biden nod from electors may seal his win with some in GOP

Bloomberg

Members of the Electoral College were expected to meet on Monday to officially elect Joe Biden, a moment some Republican lawmakers have targeted as the end of President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results as far as they’re concerned.
The constitutionally mandated procedure across the 50 states and the District of Columbia usually passes with little notice. But this year, it may help conclude a chaotic election season punctuated by Trump’s refusal to concede and his frequent insistence, without evidence, that the vote was “rigged” against him.
Many prominent Republicans joined the president in declining to recognise Biden’s victory a month ago, saying Trump had a right to pursue legal challenges. That process will have played out once the electors reach a majority of 270 ballots for Biden.
Congress will then officially count the Electoral College votes and declare the winner on January 6. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, told reporters last week that the election will be “over” once the Electoral College votes.
“The Electoral College obviously brings some finality to this,” Thune said.
Retiring Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the election should be over after Monday’s vote, and that he hopes Trump then “puts the country first” and congratulates Biden. But asked on “Fox News Sunday” whether he’ll stop contesting the election after Monday, Representative Steve Scalise, the House Republican whip, wouldn’t say, and insisted “let the legal process play out.”
Electors, who are generally selected by their political parties, are committed to vote for the winner of the popular vote in each state.
Biden won 306 electoral votes from 25 states and the District of Columbia. Trump captured 232 electoral votes from the 25 states he won.
Most electors are meeting in their state capitals with restricted access and social distancing because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Even though the outcome has been decided and more than 50 post-election lawsuits challenging the results by Trump’s campaign and its allies were rejected, the president and some of his supporters continue to say he won based on groundless claims of widespread fraud.
Trump said he’ll continue with legal challenges even after the US Supreme Court rejected the bid by Texas to nullify the election results in four pivotal states — a case the president had called “the big one.” But
he acknowledged that time is running out.

Trump to veto defense spending bill by Congress
Bloomberg

President Donald Trump repeated his threat to veto the US defense spending bill that last week won enough bipartisan support in Congress to easily overturn his opposition.
“THE BIGGEST WINNER OF OUR NEW DEFENSE BILL IS CHINA!. I WILL VETO!” Trump wrote in a tweet Sunday.
It was unclear what Trump meant by China being the beneficiary of the legislation. The president didn’t elaborate on the Twitter post, which landed minutes before he arrived at his Virginia golf club.
Trump had recently vowed to veto the must-pass spending package on various grounds, including his opposition to renaming bases that honor Confederate generals, and his
insistence that it should strip away liability protections for social media
companies.
“First he threatened the bill because of the Confederate base language,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.