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A senior adviser to President Biden claimed that certain legislation proposed by Republicans in states across the country would allow for “people to subvert” results from the 2022 elections.
In a discussion with Politico, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement Cedric Richmond was asked about the Biden administration’s stance on upcoming elections and recent comments from the president, who refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the 2022 midterm elections.
Richmond speaks at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport Nov. 17, 2020, in New Orleans, La., where he announced he’s leaving Congress to work as an adviser to President-elect Joe Biden. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
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“I think what the president was doing was raising the issue and highlighting that a lot of these bills that are being passed around the country by Republican legislatures on party-line votes could pose a problem in the 2022 election, especially if you look at some of the laws that would allow people to subvert the election or ignore the will of voters,” Richmond said on the podcast.
“I think that in his way, he was highlighting the fact that there are threats out there, and I think that those threats are real,” added Richmond, who previously served as a Democratic representative from Louisiana in Congress. “He ran for president three times. He lost twice. He didn’t challenge the results of elections. We understand that if you lose an election, you lost a contest of ideas and go get some better ones, go work harder.”
Fox News reached out to the White House for clarity on which laws Richmond made reference to and was provided with a document from the Brennan Center for Justice that details the latest on election laws and proposed voting legislation in different states.
President Biden sits alongside Cedric Richmond as he meets with union and business leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 22, 2021. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“State legislators brazenly introduced at least 10 bills in seven states during the 2021 legislative session that would have directly empowered partisan officials to change or overturn election results,” the Brennan Center noted. “While none of these bills have become law, they expose the anti-democratic motivation behind the larger election sabotage movement and provide a worrying marker of how far voting rights opponents want to go.”
Earlier this week, during a rare press conference with the president at the White House, a reporter questioned Biden on whether he believes the upcoming election “will be legitimate” if Democrats fail to pass their election overhaul legislation.
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President Biden answers questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House Jan. 19, 2022, in Washington, D.C. ( Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Well, all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election,” Biden said, apparently referring to Republican efforts in various states to shore up what they characterize as election integrity in the wake of permissive 2020 voting rules. “And it’s one thing, look, maybe I’m just being too much of an optimist.
“It easily could be illegitimate,” Biden told another reporter when questioned about the topic later during the conference. “Imagine if, in fact, Trump had succeeded in convincing Pence to not count the votes.”
Fox News’ Tyler O’Neil contributed to this article.