Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) said Sunday that many of his GOP colleagues in the House and Senate admit behind closed doors that President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the 2020 election, but fear making such claims publicly for fear of backlash from the president and his supporters.

In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” the congressman was asked by host Margaret Brennan how the Biden administration could “do business” with Republican lawmakers who refuse to acknowledge the results of the 2020 election.

“They recognize Joe Biden’s victory. All of America recognizes Joe Biden’s victory. This is just a small portion of the Republican conference that are appeasing, patronizing the president,” Richmond, who will serve as senior adviser to Biden in the incoming administration, said.

.@RepRichmond says a “small portion” of the Republican conference are “appeasing” Trump in supporting his claims of election fraud in 2020.

“They are scared of his @Twitter power”

Says GOP lawmakers “say one thing privately and another thing publicly” over Trump’s 2020 loss pic.twitter.com/1sAxxUt09v

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) December 13, 2020

The congressman also suggested that his fellow lawmakers were “scared” of the president’s “Twitter power,” referring to the president’s ability to turn millions of his supporters against GOP figures through tweets from his account, which is followed by more than 88 million people.

A Washington Post survey of GOP members of the House and Senate revealed that only roughly one in four Republican lawmakers would acknowledge Biden’s victory. Two members of Congress said they believed Trump to be the victor of the 2020 election.

The president’s attorneys have launched numerous legal bids to overturn or invalidate the election results of several key battleground states, but have yet to see any success. The Supreme Court has dismissed efforts to overturn results in Pennsylvania in recent days, as well as a bid by Texas’s attorney general to declare election results in multiple states to be invalid.