Kellyanne Conway on Friday acknowledged Joe Biden won the presidential election and said she would work with his administration if they needed her.
She is one of the most prominent Donald Trump supporters to acquiesce his rival’s victory and her tactic admission comes as the president continues his legal fight to overturn the results.
‘The president wants to exhaust all of his legal avenues, as he has made clear many times. His team is doing that, and that is his right,’ Conway told The 19th.
‘If you look at the vote totals in the Electoral College tally, it looks like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will prevail. I assume the electors will certify that and it will be official. We, as a nation, will move forward, because we always do,’ she added.
Kellyanne Conway acknowledged Joe Biden won the presidential election, one of the most prominent Donald Trump supporters to do so
Kellyanne Conway managed President Trump’s 2016 campaign and joined his White House as a counselor to the president; she left the administration in August
Conway also argued for a ‘peaceful transfer of power’ and said it was right to get the transition process going.
‘You always need a peaceful transfer of democracy, no matter whose administration goes into whose administration,’ she said
‘We want the engines of government to keep going,’ she noted.
Conway’s comments are notable as many Republican lawmakers and the president’s allies haven’t publicly acknowledged Biden as the winner of the president election while Trump challenges the results.
The longtime Republican pollster also pledged to work with the Biden team, saying: ‘If there’s anything I can ever do to help … they can count on me.’
Biden was declared the winner of the election on November 7. He has 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232. Biden also has 81 million popular votes to the president’s 74 million.
Kellyanne Conway said she would serve in the next administration if asked to
Kellyanne Conway appeared at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania this fall with Melania Trump
But Trump refuses to concede the contest. He has claimed massive voter fraud – which his campaign has yet to prove – and claimed voting machines changed votes from him to Biden, which has not been proven.
The president also has lost multiple legal challenges trying to overturn the results. His own administration has said the election was conducted safely and securely.
Conway made history in 2016 as the first woman to successfully manage a winning presidential campaign when she helped engineer Trump’s win. From there, joined the Trump administration as a counselor to the president.
She was a prominent defender of Trump’s on TV, where she famously coined the term ‘alternative facts’ during a January 2017 interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’ In that appearance, she defended then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false statement about the attendance numbers of Trump’s inauguration compared to Barack Obama’s.
Conway was one of the president’s longest-serving advisers and left the White House in August. She said in a statement that she was stepping down to focus on her family.
She did help out on the campaign trail this year, appearing with first lady Melania Trump at a stop in Pennsylvania.
Her comments came after Attorney General Bill Barr said in an interview earlier this week that the Justice Department had not found any evidence of widespread voter fraud, contrary to Trump’s repeated claims that the election was ‘rigged.’
In an interview with the AP on Tuesday, Barr said the Justice Department and FBI haven’t uncovered any evidence that would change the outcome of the election.
‘To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,’ Barr said.
Following the meeting between Barr and Trump, a DOJ spokesperson sent out a statement claiming the media inaccurately characterized the attorney general’s comments from the interview.
President Donald Trump said Thursday to ask him ‘in a number of weeks’ whether he still has confidence in Attorney General Bill Barr
Barr was summoned for a meeting with Trump following his revelation Tuesday that the Justice Department found no evidence of widespread voter fraud
President Trump excoriated Barr during an Oval Office event Thursday, claiming he ‘hasn’t done anything’ to find voter fraud – and the president refused to say if he has confidence is his own attorney general.
‘Ask me that in a number of weeks from now,’ Trump told reporters following the Medal of Freedom Ceremony when asked if he has faith in Barr.
He also insisted when asked if it was time to concede that the DOJ had not looked into the alleged ‘fraud’ enough to make a determination whether there was any or not.
‘He hasn’t done anything yet,’ Trump said of Barr. ‘When he looks he’ll see the kind of evidence that right now you are seeing in the Georgia Senate.’
‘They are going through hearings right now in the Senate and they are finding tremendous volumes. So they haven’t looked very hard. Which is a disappointment to be honest,’ he continued.