After the Electoral College — as expected — confirmed Monday that Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States, a reporter asked Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso whether or not Biden was now officially the “President-elect.” Barrasso called it a “gotcha” question.
Yes, you read that right.
How was asking whether Biden is President-elect a “gotcha” question, you ask? “It’s what every senator is being asked,” Barrasso, the third ranking member of Republican Senate leadership, explained. “Three weeks ago the transition occurred in terms of … access to the briefings and access to the money.”
Which makes plain only one thing: Barrasso has no idea what a “gotcha” question actually is.
A “gotcha” question is a loaded question where the ask-er knows more than the answer-er. It’s used to embarrass the person being asked. Or expose them in some unfair way.
A “gotcha” question for example would be if I, as a reporter, knowing that a senator had received a donation from someone who had just been charged with a crime, asked that senator whether he had taken any contributions from that person and, when he said he wasn’t sure, responded: “Well, you did.”
Asking a sitting US senator whether, after the final vote of the Electoral College electors, he is willing to say that Biden won — after weeks of Republicans hemming and hawing when asked that very thing — isn’t a gotcha question at all. It’s a simple question with a simple answer: “Yes.”
Of course, Barrasso isn’t the only elected Republican having trouble answering that question. Check out how North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer (R) answered the question Monday about whether Biden is now President-elect:
“Well, it seems to me that being elected by the Electoral College is a threshold where a title like that is probably most appropriate and it’s, I suppose you can say official, if there is such a thing as official President-elect, or anything else-elect. And there’s an inauguration that will swear somebody in and that person will be the president of the United States, but whether you call it that or not, you know, there are legal challenges that are ongoing — not very many — probably not a remedy that would change the outcome but, so, I don’t — again I don’t know how politician refers to another politician but it does look to me like the big race is really between the inaugural committee and the Justice Department at this point so we’ll see how the emails turn out.”
That’s 138 words when one would suffice: “Yes.”
That Barrasso — and lots of his fellow Republican elected officials — are still trying to find ways to avoid saying that Biden beat Donald Trump speaks to the fear they have of the outgoing President — not to mention the party’s base, which remains loyal to him and believes (facts be damned!) that he somehow won. Let’s not forget that 126 Republican House members signed a legal brief in support of a case aimed at throwing out votes in four states where Trump lost — a case that was rapidly dismissed by the conservative-leaning Supreme Court. Or that several House GOPers are planning to contest the Electoral College results when Congress returns for its new session in January
Barrasso’s retreat into an attack on the media — and one that doesn’t even land! — is simply lazy. If reporters asked Barrasso whether the sky was blue or water was wet, would he also accuse them of “gotcha” questions? Probably not. But the truth is that the answer as to whether Joe Biden is the President-elect is as obvious as the sky being blue and water being wet. It is an established fact, and one that every responsible elected Republican official needs to acknowledge — and fast.
