Biden censures Trump for defying people’s will, US Constitution

US President-elect Joe Biden has slammed Donald Trump, saying the Republican president and his allies defied the constitution and the "will of the people" in not accepting the results of the November presidential election.

"It's a position so extreme we've never seen it before. A position that refused to respect the will of the people, refused to respect the rule of law, and refused to honor our constitution," Biden said in a prime-time speech from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware after the Electoral College formally confirmed his victory over Trump.

“In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed. Now it’s time to turn the page, as we’ve done throughout our history – to unite, to heal.”

Biden was referring to a Trump-led Republican lawsuit that sought to overturn his wins in several key states. The lawsuit was rejected by the Supreme Court last Friday.

The President-elect said Trump and allies filed "dozens and dozens" of legal challenges to the vote without success, including a Texas lawsuit that asked the US Supreme Court to invalidate the results. The court, including three Trump appointees, rejected the bid last week.

Trump had pressured Republican lawmakers in battleground states that Biden won, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, to set aside the vote totals and appoint their own competing slates of electors. But lawmakers largely dismissed the notion.

The Electoral College results confirmed an easy victory for Biden, with 306 of the 538 electoral votes, to 232 for Trump, with 270 required for election.

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Biden praised American voters for turning out in record numbers despite fears of COVID-19 and "enormous political pressure, verbal abuse and even threats of physical violence" against those running the November election.

"The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power can extinguish that. It is my sincere hope we never again see anyone subjected to the kind of threats and abuse we saw in this election," Biden said.

Biden also tore into at the Republican Party for standing behind Trump's claims of mass vote fraud. But he said the Supreme Court last week sent "a clear signal."

Allies to Trump: Time is up

The staunchly Trump-supporting editorial board of The Wall Street Journal told Trump that his time is up.

"President Trump's legal challenges have run their course, and he and the rest of the Republican Party can help the country and themselves by acknowledging the result and moving on," it said.

Polls show as few as one in four Republican voters accept the election results.

"Although I supported President Trump, the Electoral College vote today makes clear that Joe Biden is now President-Elect," tweeted a Republican senator, Rob Portman, signaling the changing tide.

Trump maintained his stream of claims on Twitter Monday, citing "massive VOTER FRAUD" and declaring that certifying election results would be "a severely punishable crime."

Observers say many Americans have all but given up faith in their own institutions after disinformation, spearheaded by Trump and spread by popular commentators on Fox News and new conspiracy theory-mongering outlets like Newsmax, all proven wrong.

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Threats of violence by Trump supporters

US election officials expressed concern about the potential for violence after some Trump supporters had called for protests on social media amid the Trump’s heated rhetoric. 

In Arizona, at the beginning of the electors’ meeting there, typically a formality, the state’s Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, said Trump’s claims of fraud had “led to threats of violence against me, my office and those in this room today,” echoing similar reports of threats and intimidation in other states.

Thousands of Trump supporters and members of far-right groups protested in Washington at the weekend, brawling with counter-protesters.

In Georgia footage showed armed activists in camouflage parading at the state Capitol to support Trump's claims about voting fraud.

Trump said late last month he would leave the White House if the Electoral College voted for Biden, but on Monday, he repeated a series of claims about voting fraud.

“Swing States that have found massive VOTER FRAUD, which is all of them, CANNOT LEGALLY CERTIFY these votes as complete & correct without committing a severely punishable crime,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Senior Republicans in the Senate on Monday dismissed the idea of overturning the result of the vote.

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