My call with Ron Johnson: He knows Biden won but won't admit it

Next we covered the election results. I said I was both frustrated and gravely concerned about how the GOP is continuing to advance disproved conspiracy theories regarding the integrity of the election. Senator Johnson said that he knew and accepted the fact that Joe Biden had won. I asked why he wouldn’t say so at a moment when Trump was taking a sledgehammer to the very foundation of our democracy. Senator Johnson replied that the institutions of our democracy are strong enough to withstand what is going on. This response shocked me, since it suggested that the truth was ultimately unimportant and that Sen. Johnson viewed what the president was doing as someone else’s problem.

Here’s the thing. Ron Johnson knows that this is BS. Because five years ago he said so. In 2015 he introduced legislation streamlining the transition process, saying “the peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. It is also an enormous undertaking requiring months of planning in order to be successful.”

Here he was five years later on the phone with me saying that he knows Biden won. But simultaneously refusing to publicly congratulate Bidenand standing in the way of his transition.