Ohio GOP governor says Trump should begin transition process amid legal battles

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said Sunday that while President Trump is within his legal right to challenge the 2020 election results, his administration should begin the formal transition process with President-elect Joe Biden’s team “for the country’s sake.”

When asked by CNN’s “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper whether he agrees with concerns by Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, that delaying the transition is an “increasing national security and health crisis,” DeWine said the process should play out while court battles are being fought by Trump’s campaign in battleground states the president lost.

“We have to have faith in our judicial system, faith in our electoral system,” DeWine said. “I’d say this to both sides of this, and I was certainly a supporter of and remain a supporter of the president, but the president has every right to go into court, every right to bring any kind of evidence that he has and no one should begrudge him that or say that there’s anything irregular about that.”

Trump’s campaign legal team has filed several lawsuits across the country contesting the results by arguing that Biden’s win is largely due to widespread election fraud, an increasingly uphill legal battle in which no credible evidence has been presented. 

While DeWine said on Sunday tht he agreed that the lawsuits should continue to make their way through the judicial system, he is also among a small number of Republican lawmakers who has recognized that Biden won the presidential contest.

“It’s clear, that certainly based on what we know now, that Joe Biden is the president-elect and that transition for the country’s sake, it’s important for a normal transition to start through,” DeWine said. “And the president could go on his other track, his legal track, we should respect that, but we also need to begin that process.”