Delaware senator claims GOP colleagues privately asking him to congratulate Biden on election victory

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A Democratic senator from Delaware said Tuesday that his Republican colleagues are privately asking him to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden on his election win because they can't do so publicly.  

"They call me to say, you know, 'Congratulations, please convey my well wishes to the president-elect, but I can't say that publicly yet,'" Sen. Chris Coons said during an interview on CNN. He did not name any specific GOP senators.

Since Fox News and other media organizations projected that Biden would defeat incumbent Donald Trump in the presidential election, Trump has refused to concede. Instead, his campaign is pressing forward with a series of legal challenges against the voting results. 

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So far, the president's GOP allies have stood by him.

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in Congress, said that Trump is "100% within his rights" to challenge the outcome, and criticized Democrats for expecting the president to concede.

“President Trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options,” McConnell said. “Let’s not have any lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election.”

Just a handful of Republicans, including Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, have acknowledged Biden as the winner of the election. 

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"My job here, I think, is to continue to urge them privately to do the right thing, and to help the president accept reality and to help their caucus stand up publicly," Coons said. "Because, frankly, the transition is going to be chaotic at best if it doesn't get moving very soon. It should be underway already."

Because Emily Murphy, the General Services Administration administrator, has not signed a key document needed to begin the transition, the Biden team is hanging in limbo without access to federal money for salaries, consultants and travel. Biden's team has indicated they're considering legal action against the agency.

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Coons said he couldn't speak for the Biden team about whether legal action was warranted. 

"That is obviously the right thing, both for the GSA administrator to do and I think the right next step for the Biden transition team,” he said.