WASHINGTON — Despite Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden’s vic­to­ry, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell said Mon­day Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is “100% with­in his rights” to ques­tion elec­tion results, as GOP law­mak­ers fall in line behind the White House.

The Repub­li­can leader’s remarks, his first pub­lic com­ments since Biden was declared the win­ner of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, show how reluc­tant Trump’s allies on Capi­tol Hill have been to defy the pres­i­dent, even in his defeat.

Most Repub­li­cans are refus­ing to con­grat­u­late Biden or declin­ing to push Trump to accept the out­come, even though there is no evi­dence of wide­spread vot­er fraud.

“Our insti­tu­tions are actu­al­ly built for this,” McConnell said as he opened the Sen­ate. “We have the sys­tem in place to con­sid­er con­cerns and Pres­i­dent Trump is 100% with­in his rights to look into alle­ga­tions of irreg­u­lar­i­ties and weigh his legal options.”

McConnell said the process will play out and “reach its conclusion.”

Repub­li­cans’ are clos­ing the Trump era much the way they start­ed it, by join­ing the pres­i­dent in shat­ter­ing civic norms and sow­ing uncer­tain­ty in insti­tu­tions, now in a way that threat­ens the nation’s nor­mal tran­si­tion of power.

Pri­vate­ly, Repub­li­cans on Capi­tol Hill say they are in a tough spot, wary of cross­ing Trump and his most ardent sup­port­ers. But their actions are cast­ing doubt on the dura­bil­i­ty of nation’s elec­tions sys­tem and imped­ing Biden’s new admin­is­tra­tion. The head of the Gen­er­al Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion under Trump has held off on for­mal­ly begin­ning the Biden tran­si­tion to the White House.

Trump has declined to con­cede the pres­i­den­tial race and is mount­ing legal fights in sev­er­al states, but there has been no indi­ca­tion or evi­dence of vot­er irreg­u­lar­i­ties or wide­spread fraud in the election.

The president’s refusal to accept the results means the elec­tion dis­putes could drag for weeks as states cer­ti­fy their tal­lies or push to mid-Decem­ber, when the Elec­toral Col­lege is set to vote.

With the Sen­ate major­i­ty on the line, Repub­li­cans don’t dare risk alien­at­ing Trump or his sup­port­ers ahead of Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

In Geor­gia, where Trump is tee­ter­ing and both Repub­li­can sen­a­tors are being forced into a Jan. 5 runoff that will deter­mine par­ty con­trol, Sens. David Per­due and Kel­ly Loef­fler joint­ly called the their state’s elec­tion sys­tem an “embar­rass­ment.”

Many Repub­li­cans have sig­naled a Decem­ber dead­line, point­ing to the time it took to resolve the dis­put­ed 2000 race before Demo­c­rat Al Gore con­ced­ed to Repub­li­can George W. Bush.

“In the end, we want all legal bal­lots to be count­ed,” the No. 2 House Repub­li­can, Steve Scalise, told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press in an inter­view Mon­day. “You go back to Bush v. Gore, it was sec­ond week of Decem­ber that it got resolved … so there’s still ques­tions out there that need to get resolved and that process is play­ing itself out.”

Unlike the 2000 elec­tion, when a few hun­dred votes in Flori­da sep­a­rat­ed Bush and Gore, Trump is cast­ing a wide net of legal chal­lenges in states where Biden is thou­sands of votes ahead of him.

Some Repub­li­cans pri­vate­ly scoff at Trump’s legal team, helmed by per­son­al attor­ney Rudy Giu­liani, and doubt the pres­i­dent has a cred­i­ble route to chal­lenge the elec­tion results.

Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic leader Chuck Schumer said Mon­day the Repub­li­cans’ refusal to stand by the elec­tion results is “extreme­ly dan­ger­ous, extreme­ly poi­so­nous to our democracy.”

Schumer said elec­tion law­suits can be valid but they must be based in evi­dence and facts. He dis­missed Trump’s chal­lenges as “friv­o­lous.”

“Joe Biden won the elec­tion fair and square,” Schumer said.

McConnell and Repub­li­cans said Mon­day they don’t want the “media” to declare the out­come of the election.

But actu­al­ly, the results in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion are being deter­mined much they way they are in all elec­tions — includ­ing those for the House and Sen­ate that are not being ques­tioned — based on an analy­sis of vote tal­lies from the states.

McConnell tout­ed the results Mon­day of the con­gres­sion­al races — GOP sen­a­tors brushed back Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lengers and House Repub­li­cans expand­ed their ranks — even as he raised ques­tions about the pres­i­den­tial contest.

“Let’s not have any lec­tures, no lec­tures, about how the pres­i­dent should imme­di­ate­ly, cheer­ful­ly accept pre­lim­i­nary elec­tion results,” McConnell said.

Pressed if there was any evi­dence of vot­er fraud, GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who just won reelec­tion in Texas, demurred.

“That’s real­ly not my, my role,” Cornyn told reporters on Capi­tol Hill. “There is a process that is avail­able, and I don’t begrudge the pres­i­dent for avail­ing him­self of that process — but in the end, they’re going to have to come up with some facts and evidence.”

Pri­vate­ly, Repub­li­cans on Capi­tol Hill have said they are try­ing to give Trump the time and space he needs to come to grips with the elec­tion results.

“Well, I think he’s got a right, a con­sti­tu­tion­al right, if there are legal chal­lenges they want to make,” said Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Repub­li­can. “Let those play out.”

Repub­li­can law­mak­ers are hes­i­tant to push Trump to con­cede to Biden, know­ing it would anger their base of Trump’s most devot­ed sup­port­ers. But the Repub­li­can law­mak­ers are not overt­ly encour­ag­ing the president’s unfound­ed claims of fraud, even as they fan the flames of doubt in the elec­tion process by allow­ing ques­tions to linger.

“Stay out of the fray,” as one Repub­li­can aide put it. The aide and oth­er Repub­li­cans were grant­ed anonymi­ty to frankly dis­cuss the situation.

If it takes a lit­tle longer to bring the elec­tion to a con­clu­sion, said anoth­er Repub­li­can aide, “so be it.”

What­ev­er posi­tion the Repub­li­cans take, “you’re going to anger half the coun­try,” said anoth­er Repub­li­can on Capi­tol Hill.

At the same time, Repub­li­cans are feel­ing increas­ing­ly unmoored from the White House. Trump him­self has not been return­ing some sen­a­tors’ phone calls, one of the aides said.

Scalise said he spoke to Trump a few days ago and the pres­i­dent “left it all on the field” in the final weeks of the cam­paign with a “strong finish.”