Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss COVID updates within the Commonwealth but also to answer questions in which he expressed his disappointment in the way President Trump is handling the election results. Baker said that Trump's challenge of the election results and with that the delay in the process of transition of power is "not in the best interest of this country". He went on to say that the President and his administration need to "cooperate with the President Elect's transition team immediately." At the moment, there are several legal challenges being presented to the Supreme Court over potential voter fraud or mishandling of the election results, in several battleground or key states and thus why the Trump campaign is not immediately conceding or beginning the transition of power process.
Hear Governor Baker's thoughts on the President challenging the election results, here:
While there have been claims of voter fraud occurring in a couple states, there is currently no evidence of wide spread voter fraud. Governor Baker says President Trump's legal challenges are based on "baseless claims" and that this "latest move to involvement the Department of Justice in all of this is so wildly inappropriate, and that stalling the normal transition process during a pandemic is equally unacceptable." Baker goes on to hone in on the importance of focusing on the pandemic more than getting carried away about election results that in his mind contain "no legitimate claims of wrongdoing anywhere near the scale it would take to effect the outcome". Baker says he “can’t think of a worse time to stall a transition than amid a deadly pandemic that the federal government continues to own primary responsibility for responding to.”
What do you make of Governor Baker's comments? Do you agree with him or think he's being unreasonable? In my opinion, I think he's being a bit too vocal and not understanding of the legal process at hand. President Trump has every legal right to challenge these results whether you agree with it or not so for Baker to come out and say he needs to basically move on and "cooperate with the President Elect's transition team immediately", is premature and very biased. It's no secret how Governor Baker feels about President Trump but he should at least accept the legal process of what Trump is entitled to. Look at Al Gore when he ran against George W. Bush and there was a lot of dispute over the Florida ballots. Gore took it to the Supreme Court and did not concede immediately as Governor Baker would suggest Trump do. In fact, Al Gore did not concede until after the Supreme Court ruling came out December 12, 2000, which according to my math is over a month later from election day. With that being said, I understand we are in a pandemic but that does not excuse President Trump's legal rights to challenge election results so Governor Baker can vent all he wants, it won't change anything. What do you think?
-Producer Lightning