Biden calls Trump’s refusal to concede ‘an embarrassment’

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President-elect Joe Biden delivers statement on ObamaCare

President-elect speaks and takes questions from reporters after Supreme Court hears arguments on Affordable Care Act

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called President’s Trump’s refusal to concede the election “an embarrassment,” which will hurt “the president’s legacy.”

Biden - taking questions after he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris spoke out in support of the Affordable Care Act as the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in a case that could strike down the national health care law -  also emphasized that the Trump administration’s refusal so far to allow for transition funding won’t slow his efforts to assemble an administration.

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“There’s nothing that slows up our effort to put things together,” the former vice president said.

President-elect Joe Biden speaks Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020, at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Biden said that at this time he doesn’t “see a need for legal action” to force the administration to start funding the transition. And he said that the continued backing of Trump by most of the congressional Republicans is because GOP lawmakers are mildly intimidated by Trump.

Fox News, other news networks and The Associated Press projected on Saturday that the Democratic presidential nominee would win the state of Nevada and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, giving Biden the electoral votes needed to defeat Trump and become president-elect. But Trump has yet to concede, as he hopes that a spate of lawsuits he’s filed and a couple of recounts in key states will reverse Biden’s victory.

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"WE WILL WIN!" Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, as his presidential campaign and allies allege electoral wrongdoing in some of the key battleground states that decided the election.

Asked what the president’s refusal to concede means to the country, Biden answered ‘I just think it’s an embarrassment quite frankly … I think it will not help the president’s legacy.”

And pointing to the flurry of incoming calls he’s taken from international leaders the past couple of days, the president-elect said “I know from my discussions with foreign leaders so far that they are hopeful that the United States democratic institutions are viewed once again as strong and enduring.”

Emily Murphy, who was appointed by Trump to steer the General Services Administration, has yet to recognize Biden as the winner of the election, so she has so far refused to sign a key document that begins the transition and allows for federal funding of the incoming administration’s transition efforts.

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But Biden downplayed the significance.

“We’re already beginning the transition," Biden said. "We’re well underway. The ability for the administration in anyway by failure to recognize our win does not change the dynamic of what we’re able to do.”

“We’re going to be moving along in a consistent manner putting together our administration, the White House, reviewing who we’re going to pick for the cabinet positions, and nothing’s going to stop that,” he added. “I’m confident that the fact that they’re not willing to acknowledge that we won at this point is not of much of consequence to our plan and what we’re able to do between now and January 20.”

Asked if he would take legal action against the current administration to kickstart the transition, Biden answered: “I don’t see a need for legal action, quite frankly.”

The vast majority of congressional Republicans are backing the president’s refusal to concede and his legal efforts to try and reverse the election results.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said this week on the floor of the chamber that “President Trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.”

Biden said that he hasn’t had a chance to speak with McConnell.

"My expectation is that I will do that in the not too distant future," Biden said.

And he argued “that the whole Republican Party has been put in a position – with a few notable exceptions – of being mildly intimidated by the sitting president.”

Biden said his message to Trump would be: “Mr. President, I look forward to speaking to you.”

Biden and Harris spoke Tuesday after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the health care law, best known as Obamacare.

“This case represents the latest attempt by the far right ideologues to do what they’ve repeatedly failed to do for a long time in the courts, in the Congress, in the court of public opinion, over the last decade to eliminate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act,” Biden said.

Harris emphasized that “each and every vote for Joe Biden was a vote to protect and expand the Affordable Care Act, not to tear it away in the midst of a global pandemic. And Joe Biden won the election decisively, with more votes than has every been cast in American history. It amounts to 75 million voices and counting, calling on the Supreme Court to see this case for what it is – a blatant attempt to overturn the will of the people.”

And Harris pledged that “the president-elect and I cannot let that happen.”

The most recent Fox News national poll - conducted in the week ahead of presidential election, indicated Americans were divided over the health care law.

Fifty-one percent of registered voters questioned in the survey said that the 10-year old landmark law should be kept as it is, or expanded. Forty-nine percent said that part of the measure - or the entire law - should be repealed.