Former Vice President Dan Quayle: It is time for Trump to ‘move on’

Former Republican Vice President Dan Quayle said on Monday that it is time for President Trump to “move on” and accept defeat days after President-elect Joe Biden was projected the winner of 2020 presidential election.

Quayle, who served as vice president under George H. W. Bush, is the only surviving member of the last presidential ticket in which the incumbent was defeated in their reelection campaign. He and the senior Bush lost to former President Clinton in 1992. 

“You know, it’s tough in defeat,” he said, according to The New York Times. 

“Unfortunately, we were the last incumbent president to lose, and it’s not easy,” he said. “But we’ve had enough time to look at what’s going on, there have been a lot of allegations they continue to investigate, but from my viewpoint, I don’t think there’s any systemic fraud.”

“It’s time to move on, and therefore I hope that there’s some sort of announcement from the White House sooner rather than later,” he continued. 

Quayle is among the few current and former Republican leaders who have acknowledged Biden’s electoral win. 

Four GOP senators – Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Susan Collins (Maine) – have issued statements congratulating Biden on the win. Four Republican governors – Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine have also done so.

Trump has declined to concede after Biden was projected to win the election on Saturday. As the former vice president gained a lead in several battleground states last week, the Trump campaign filed several lawsuits contesting the ballot count without substantiating evidence. 

For months ahead of the election, the president spread unfounded claims that mail-in ballots, used due to the pandemic, would open up the election to fraud.

Some Republican lawmakers have criticized Trump’s post-election rhetoric, but others have stood by the president and urged him to fight back on the results.