Tag: President-Elect Biden

John Kelly criticizes Trump over delay of Biden transition

“It’s about the nation,” Trump’s former chief of staff says in an interview with POLITICO. The wait “hurts our national security.”

President-elect Joe Biden should start receiving intelligence briefings, and the delay in allowing the transition to officially get started is damaging U.S. national security, President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly told POLITICO in an exclusive interview.

“You lose a lot if the transition is delayed because the new people are not allowed to get their head in the game,” Kelly said Friday. “The president, with all due respect, does not have to concede. But it’s about the nation. It hurts our national security because the people who should be getting [up to speed], it’s not a process where you go from zero to 1,000 miles per hour.”

“Mr. Trump doesn’t have to concede if he doesn’t want to, I guess, until the full election process is complete. But there’s nothing wrong with starting the transition, starting to get people like the national security people, obviously the president and the vice president-elect, if they are in fact elected, to start getting them [up to speed] on the intelligence,” he said. Continue reading.

Karl Rove gives Trump the bitter truth: You ‘certainly’ lost

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President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede to President-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, and many of his sycophants have been joining him in making baseless claims that the election was stolen from him because of rampant voter fraud — never mind the fact that the New York Times contacted election officials in all 50 states and found no evidence of the type of widespread fraud that Trump is alleging. But veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove gives Trump and his supporters a dose of reality in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on November 11, stressing that Biden will become president whether Trump’s allies like it or not.

Rove notes that although the 2020 election was not the across-the-board blue tsunami that some pundits were predicting, one major Democratic victory was undeniable: Biden won.

He tried to couch the point in a an argument about Democrats underperforming, but the message was clear. Continue reading.

Is President Trump directing the GSA to decline to call Joe Biden the president-elect? They won’t say

Agency misses deadline for giving a response to Congress

The General Services Administration has missed a deadline to say whether the decision to not recognize President-elect Joe Biden is at the personal direction of outgoing President Donald Trump.

Three House Democrats wrote to GSA Administrator Emily Murphy on Monday questioning why the agency has not issued an ascertainment that Biden is in fact the president-elect.

Among the questions from Democratic Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey, Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia and Dina Titus of Nevada were about specific interactions between GSA and White House personnel, up to and including the president himself. Continue reading.

Biden chooses a White House chief who ‘matches this moment’

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In the midst of an economic crisis brought on by a global pandemic, President-elect Joe Biden has chosen as his chief of staff a longtime ally who has experience managing both a massive stimulus package to revive a moribund economy and the government response to a public health catastrophe.

Ron Klain, 59, has been a close member of Biden’s inner circle for more than 30 years, and a top adviser to every Democratic president and presidential nominee since the 1990s. Now, as he ascends to the top rungs of government, he will face a set of crises almost uniquely suited to his expertise.

“He has spent his whole life getting ready for this moment,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), for whom Klain worked in the U.S. House. “Ron Klain is a man who matches this moment in terms of the background, the experience and the wisdom we’re going to need.” Continue reading.

Senate GOP calls grow to give Biden access to intelligence briefings

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Several Senate Republicans are joining calls for President-elect Joe Biden to get access to intelligence briefings, in a break with the Trump administration.

Most GOP senators aren’t yet ready to say Trump lost reelection but, in a potential hat tip to the inevitable outcome, they are publicly calling for Biden to get access to the sort of intelligence briefings that will help him hit the ground running in January. 

“I would think, especially on classified briefings, the answer is yes,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Continue reading.

Electoral College Republicans In Wisconsin And Nevada Affirm Biden Victory

President-elect Joe Biden, when all of the vote-counting is completed, might end up with more than 300 electoral votes. But President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede despite Biden’s decisive victory, making baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. BuzzFeed News spoke to 11 members of the Electoral College in battleground states — and most of the interviewees, including some Republicans, expressed confidence that Biden won the 2020 presidential election fair and square.

BuzzFeed reporters Albert Samaha, Amber Jamieson and Rosalind Adams explain, “Biden doesn’t officially secure his spot in the Oval Office until the Electoral College votes on December 14. Normally, this step is mostly ceremonial, as electors vote for the same candidate as their constituents did. But Trump and a growing list of Republican supporters are attempting to undermine and delegitimize Biden’s win after months of attempting to suppress the vote. Trump and his campaign are amplifying baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.”

The journalists continue, “Amid this, some states allow electors to choose any candidate, regardless of vote counts, leaving open the possibility of so-called faithless electors swinging the election at the last minute. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer, however, that states could punish electors who do not vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state.” Continue reading.

Biden names Ron Klain as chief of staff

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President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday named Ron Klain as his chief of staff, according to two sources close to the transition.

Klain, Biden’s longtime confidant and chief of staff during his years as vice president, had been considered a favorite for the role.

He served as one of Biden’s main advisers as the former vice president prepared to debate President Trump ahead of the election. 

“Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years that we have worked together, including as we rescued the American economy from one of the worst downturns in our history in 2009 and later overcame a daunting public health emergency in 2014,” Biden said in a statement.  Continue reading.

How To Help Win the 2 Georgia Senate Runoff Elections

Joe Biden has won the presidency, and the Democrats held the House. But if the Republicans keep the majority in the Senate, we all know what Mitch McConnell will do — he’ll obstruct everything.

We know he won’t allow any progressive legislation to pass. We know there is an excellent chance he will block every judge we want to put on the bench and every reason to believe he’ll make confirming Joe Biden’s cabinet a complete nightmare. The only way to prevent this nightmare is to make sure that Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win the runoff elections and become Georgia’s new Senators.

Neither David Perdue nor Kelly Loeffler were able to get more than 50% of the vote on November 3rd, so that’s a good start. But runoff elections are marked by low turnout — its anyone’s opportunity to win these seats. Whichever side is more motivated to get out and vote will win these seats. Continue reading.

The Abnormal Presidency

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Trump dramatically changed the presidency. Here’s a list of the 20
most important norms he broke — and how Biden can restore them.

At a frenetic and freewheeling rally in Macon, Ga., in mid-October, with less than three weeks to go before the election, President Trump turned introspective. He reflected on what sets him apart from every other president in American history: his refusal to be presidential.

“I always said, it’s much easier to be ‘presidential’ than to do what I do. … I’m more presidential if I wanted to be, but I got to get things done,” he said. “I don’t have enough time. … I can be more presidential than any president in our history — with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln when he wore the hat. That was tough to beat.”

What does it mean to be presidential? Article II of the Constitution describes the office in just a handful of paragraphs. To a remarkable extent, the presidency is shaped by unwritten traditions and expectations that historians and political scientists call “norms” — what political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt call the “soft guardrails” of American democracy. Continue reading.

Biden plays it cool as Trump refuses to concede

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President-elect Joe Biden is countering President Trump’s efforts to question the legitimacy of the election by quietly and deliberately going about the business of transitioning into power.

Since media outlets declared him the winner over the weekend, Biden has installed transition teams for dozens of government agencies and outlined how he intends to tackle key policy priorities, beginning with COVID-19. The president-elect is taking calls from world leaders and expects to make announcements about his Cabinet in the next two weeks.

Trump is making the transition as difficult as possible. Continue reading.