Newt Gingrich: Why I will not accept Joe Biden as president

Newt Gingrich said he will refuse to accept President-elect Joe Biden as president, arguing that the 2020 presidential election was mishandled by authorities.

In a Washington Times op-ed, the former speaker of the House claimed that Republicans and Democrats no longer rely on a commonly held set of facts.

“My unwillingness to relax and accept that the election grew out of a level of outrage and alienation unlike anything I had experienced in more than 60 years involvement in public affairs,” the Georgia Republican wrote. “The challenge is that I — and other conservatives — are not disagreeing with the left within a commonly understood world. We live in alternative worlds.”

Gingrich expanded on this “alternate realities” theory with an assertion that the media bungled their coverage of the presidential contest, claiming that the press buried stories that could have damaged Biden’s prospects in the election.

“When Twitter and Facebook censored the oldest and fourth largest newspaper (founded by Alexander Hamilton) because it accurately reported news that could hurt Mr. Biden’s chances — where were The New York Times and The Washington Post?” he wrote. “Typically, newspapers and media outlets band together when press freedom is threatened by censorship. Where was the sanctimonious ‘democracy dies in darkness?’ Tragically, The Washington Post is now part of the darkness.”

Gingrich’s op-ed comes as officials from opposing sides of the aisle have adopted different views of the election. While Democrats are eager to certify the vote of the Electoral College, which declared Biden the winner on Dec. 14, many Republicans have expressed reluctance to recognize the former vice president’s victory. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell first recognized Biden as president-elect on Dec.15, the day after the Electoral College recorded its vote.

Some Republicans have taken resistance a step further, organizing legal challenges and protests set to delay the certification of the results. Several House Republicans, joined by at least one counterpart in the upper chamber with Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville, have signaled they plan to resist certification until their requests for election fraud hearings are granted. They intend to object to the recorded votes of electors on Jan. 6, when Congress is scheduled to certify the Electoral College’s decision. The effort is unlikely to succeed, as Democrats control the House and McConnell has publicly discouraged fellow GOP senators from participating.

The Trump campaign is also continuing its long-shot bid to overturn the results with a string of lawsuits, railing against certification of the vote in the courts. Most recently, the campaign has had its sights set on Pennsylvania. President Trump’s team filed an original jurisdiction case with the Supreme Court claiming three previous rulings from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court were wrongly decided.

While these legal endeavors are not likely to succeed, long odds have not dissuaded the Trump team. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed in a tweet on Monday that the president is continuing to strategize with members of Congress.

“Several members of Congress just finished a meeting in the Oval Office with President @realDonaldTrump, preparing to fight back against mounting evidence of voter fraud,” Meadows tweeted. “Stay tuned.”