biden’s-transition-moves-ahead

Biden’s transition moves ahead

Politics

Live Updates

By Meg Wagner, Melissa Macaya and Mike Hayes, CNN

Updated 1:32 PM EST, Wed November 25, 2020

Outside President Trump’s bedroom window on the north side of the White House is the sound of building: hammers, drills, the beep-beep of trucks backing up and metal planks clanking into place.

Construction of the parade platform for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration festivities is well underway. The viewing stand and bleachers are almost complete and each day they get closer to being done — all within Trump’s view —as it becomes clearer his days in the White House are coming to a close.

Despite the uncertainty of the coronavirus and Trump’s waning attempts to overturn the election, the structure is a growing reminder of the transition now in motion.

Whatever else must change to accommodate the pandemic, people are getting ready for Biden’s inauguration come January, which will likely reflect the President-elect’s cautious, science-driven approach to the pandemic.

What’s more, the outgoing president may not even go to the incoming president’s swearing-in. Three White House officials familiar with Trump’s moods and patterns speculate he won’t be there for the hand-off.

No doubt, the pomp and circumstance will be noticeably different this time around, according to interviews with multiple aides and administration officials, from the White House to Capitol Hill to the DC mayor’s office. The future of the traditional luncheon in Statuary Hall is up in the air, and it’s unlikely a choir behind the new President will be feasible.

The expectation is the inauguration will be smaller, too, and attendees will have to wear masks and maintain social distance within the ticketed parameters.

The congressional committee tasked with choreographing the festivities at the Capitol has tried to map out plans for a range of scenarios with consultation from medical experts, aides say.

The committee has been in an awkward limbo since Election Day, as Trump’s refusal to accept his loss mounted. While unable to dive-in exclusively with Biden’s team, the committee has spent the last several months making plans for whoever won the election. Aides maintained neutrality in recent weeks as Trump’s denial dragged on, communicating with both his and Biden’s teams as to what the options could be for Jan. 20.

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Members of Joe Biden’s transition team convened via teleconference today with officials from the Department of Health and Human Services and Operation Warp Speed, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

It was an introductory meeting that included Operation Warp Speed project leads: Matt Hepburn, who is leading the vaccine effort; Janet Woodcock, who is leading therapeutics and Paul Ostrowski, who is leading supply and distribution. The call also included Jay Butler, deputy director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the person familiar. 

Brian Harrison, chief of staff at HHS, kicked off the meeting by reiterating to the Biden team that HHS supports a smooth and cooperative transition process. This is expected to be the first of many meetings regarding Operation Warp Speed, the person familiar said. 

An HHS spokesperson added that: “HHS is committed to smooth, professional transition planning, and held an initial briefing facilitated by RADM Schwartz, HHS’s career transition director, with members of the Biden agency review team, project leads from Operation Warp Speed, and HHS Chief of Staff Brian Harrison.”

PHOTO: Mark Makela/Getty Images

In his Thanksgiving address this afternoon, President-elect Joe Biden is expected to thank Americans for their “resilience and strength” and issue a call for unity as he talks about the “shared sacrifices” many Americans are making during the holiday season while the Covid-19 crisis grips the country, a transition official said.

With Americans changing their traditional Thanksgiving plans due to the pandemic, the President-elect recently said he was foregoing his typically large Biden Thanksgiving and limiting his own family’s gathering to only three people. 

Biden’s transition team earlier today said Biden plans to spend the Thanksgiving holiday and day after with his family with no in-person events on his schedule.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended last week that Americans do not travel for Thanksgiving, and the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, asked Americans to keep their indoor holiday gatherings as “small as you possibly can.”

President-elect Joe Biden is building out his Cabinet as he prepares for his time in the White House.

Biden on Monday unveiled a slate of top foreign policy and national security picks, including the first woman to lead the US intelligence community and first Latino to helm the Department of Homeland Security.

The Cabinet includes the vice president and the heads of 15 executive departments:

  • Agriculture
  • Commerce
  • Defense
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Health and Human Services
  • Homeland Security
  • Housing and Urban Development
  • Interior
  • Justice
  • Labor
  • State
  • Transportation
  • Treasury
  • Veterans Affairs

Several other key positions also have Cabinet-level rank, including White House chief of staff, Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Office of Management & Budget director, United States Trade Representative ambassador, Council of Economic Advisers chairman, Small Business Administration administrator, US Ambassador to the United Nations and Director of National Intelligence.

All of the Cabinet positions will require Senate confirmation, in addition to some of the other Cabinet-level positions.

Here’s who Biden has selected so far:

Workers scan ballots as the Fulton County presidential recount gets under way on November 25 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

Workers scan ballots as the Fulton County presidential recount gets under way on November 25 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

PHOTO: Ben Gray/AP

The recount is now underway in Fulton County, Georgia’s largest county which encompasses Atlanta.  

At a news conference this morning, Richard Barron, Fulton’s Director of Registration and Elections, said that “our goal is to get done with the absentee by mail today. We’ll see where we are at five and determine if we need to keep going.”  

Fulton will take Thanksgiving and Friday off, and plans to continue their recount Saturday morning at 7 a.m. ET.

Barron says they are using 13 ballot scanners, and have roughly 45 to 50 people working on Fulton’s recount at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta.  

Barron said they are working hard to finish recounting Fulton’s 528,000 ballots by Sunday, so that they can shift their focus to the runoff election on Tuesday, Dec. 1 to fill the unexpired term of the late Congressman John Lewis. 

Some background: The Trump campaign requested the recount last Saturday, which is their right by Georgia law because the margin of Biden’s victory is less than 0.5%.

The recount is taxpayer-funded, and is being conducted in each county statewide using high speed ballot scanners. Georgia’s secretary of state has set a deadline of Wednesday, Dec. 2 at midnight for all counties to finish the recount.      

President-elect Joe Biden was declared the winner last Friday as the state certified the results after a statewide audit that triggered a full hand recount of every vote.  Biden has a 12,670 vote or .2% lead over President Trump in Georgia.

Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts said at this morning’s news conference that they have been under a tremendous amount of scrutiny worldwide, and says that they have “passed any test with flying colors.” 

“I can assure the voters of Fulton County, the state of Georgia, the United States of America and even around the world that in Fulton County, Georgia, that we run open, fair, and transparent elections. That’s what this one was, that’s what it is, and that’s what this recount is going to conclude as well,” Pitts said.   

PHOTO: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Lawyers for the Trump campaign are asking the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to allow Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, to argue before the federal court, should the judges require oral argument. 

The request comes as Giuliani refuses to back down from his wild and unsupported allegations of a conspiracy that rigged the 2020 election. 

Giuliani is not admitted to practice law in the Third Circuit, which encompasses Philadelphia, and he was admitted pro hac vice when he argued in federal court in Pennsylvania last week. This means he can join on a case-by-case basis by a judge, which allows them to temporarily practice in a jurisdiction where they are not authorized to practice law.

In its latest filing to the Third Circuit, Trump’s lawyers argue that Dec. 8 should be considered the real deadline for determining the electors for Pennsylvania. The state, however, already certified its 20 electoral votes for Joe Biden on Tuesday. Biden received 80,555 more votes than Trump.

The continued legal fight makes clear that Trump’s team wants to continue contesting the vote in key states. Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania are holding a hearing on allegations of fraud in the 2020 election at 12:30 p.m. ET today, and Giuliani is expected to attend. 

President Trump cancelled plans to join Giuliani. The hearing is the first of three similar events the Trump campaign has scheduled in coordination with Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan.

Giuliani’s arguments last week were met with skepticism from Judge Matthew Brann, who ultimately denied claims from the Trump team last Saturday, comparing their lawsuit to “Frankenstein’s monster…haphazardly stitched together,” and slammed the request to disenfranchise nearly seven million voters in a complaint littered with “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”

Trump’s team is now appealing the decision to the Third Circuit. Briefs were due yesterday and the court is now considering whether to hear oral arguments.

PHOTO: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will receive their first Presidential Daily Briefing on Monday, the transition told reporters during a press briefing Wednesday. 

The PDB, as it’s known, is prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for the President, vice president and senior advisers. It contains information about pressing national security issues that the new president will soon face. 

Biden told reporters Tuesday that the briefing had been offered, but he said that he has not yet had it and will start getting it “on a regular basis.”

ODNI has said the Biden review team will be on site on Monday.

President Trump’s planned trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, today has been canceled, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The cancelation came after Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani was exposed to a second person who tested positive for coronavirus in just the last week.

Two sources told CNN Tuesday night that Trump was expected to join Giuliani at an event with Pennsylvania Republicans in another attempt to spotlight alleged voter fraud in Pennsylvania.

PHOTO: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Three weeks after the election, the White House has given formal approval for President-elect Joe Biden to receive the President’s Daily Brief, a White House official told CNN Tuesday.

Coordination on when Biden will receive his first briefing is currently underway, but the move is another step toward a transition of power that President Donald Trump held up for weeks after it was clear he lost the 2020 election.

It follows a formal notice by the General Services Administration Monday night that the formal transition of government can proceed.

Here are key things to know about the briefing:

  • The PDB, as it’s known, is prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the President, vice president and senior advisers.
  • Receiving a classified intelligence briefing is typically one of the first rights of a presidential candidate after winning the election.
  • It contains information about pressing national security issues that the new president will soon face. 

Biden had yet to receive an intelligence briefing because of Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election, which caused confusion inside the federal government over whether a transition could begin.

An ODNI official attributed the change directly to the White House’s move to formally grant Biden access to the PDB.CNN previously reported the decision was Trump’s and the access to the PDB could have been granted before the GSA administrator made the transition official Monday.

Joe Biden has become the first presidential candidate to win more than 80 million votes, with his record-breaking number of popular votes still likely to increase in the coming days as ballots continue to be counted across the nation.

As of Wednesday morning, Biden had won more than 80,026,000 votes, while President Trump had more than 73,890,000. The President’s votes make him the candidate to win the second-highest number of popular votes in American history. Biden’s margin of victory over Trump surpassed 6 million votes on Friday.

Biden has won 306 electoral votes, while Trump has 232. At least 270 electoral votes are needed to become president.

Americans voted by mail in record numbers this year to protect themselves from exposure to coronavirus in the middle of a global pandemic, and experts had warned for months that there would be a lengthy vote count that could extend for days following Election Day.

The new record set by Biden reinforces his decisive win over Trump, who has yet to concede the election even as his administration has started the formal presidential transition process after the General Services Administration acknowledged the win on Monday.

A senior administration official told CNN that the National Security Council “is prepared for a thorough transition” and that face-to-face meetings among White House staff will begin “soon” with Joe Biden’s team.

On Monday, the General Services Administration informed Biden that the Trump administration was ready to begin the formal transition process.

The letter from Administrator Emily Murphy  was the first step the administration took to acknowledge President Trump’s defeat.

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a G20 speech via video on November 22 in Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a G20 speech via video on November 22 in Beijing.

PHOTO: Li Xueren/Xinhua/Getty Images

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday sent a congratulatory message to US President-elect Joe Biden, more than two weeks after US media called the race for the Democratic candidate.

“I hope to see both sides uphold the spirit of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, and focus on cooperation while managing and controlling disputes,” Xi added, according to Xinhua.

On Nov. 13, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, without naming Xi, offered Beijing’s congratulations to Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris almost a week after they delivered victory speeches.

But the spokesperson noted at the time that the outcome of the US election would be “ascertained in accordance with US laws and procedures.”

Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan on Wednesday sent a congratulatory message to Harris, according to Xinhua.

The Kremlin meanwhile said on Monday it will accept the results of the US election as official only after all lawsuits are completed and President Trump concedes. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday he was ready to work with any US leader and would congratulate whoever is declared the winner after all legal issues surrounding the election have been settled, according to Russian state news agency, TASS. 

President Donald Trump speaks to the press at the White House on November 24.

President Donald Trump speaks to the press at the White House on November 24.

PHOTO: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Trump has no public events on his White House schedule today, but is expected to join his attorney Rudy Giuliani in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where Republican state lawmakers are holding a “hearing” on allegations of fraud in this month’s election, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

Trump expressed strong interest in joining Giuliani for the trip and directed aides to make plans for him to travel to Pennsylvania, multiple sources said.

The trip, which would be his first outside of the Washington area since Election Day, was not listed on the public schedule released by the White House on Tuesday night, but is being handled internally as an unannounced movement.

The event is the latest attempt by Trump and his allies to undermine confidence in the 2020 election and attack the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as president.

The Trump campaign and Pennsylvania Senate Republicans announced plans for the Gettysburg event, a meeting of the Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee, on Tuesday — casting it as an effort to expose “irregularities” in the 2020 election.

The meeting is being organized by the Pennsylvania state Senate GOP, which is holding it at a hotel — not at the state Capitol.

State and local election officials have said there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and both a federal court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court have dismissed lawsuits seeking to prevent the state from certifying the results of the election.

Remember: Pennsylvania officially certified its results on Tuesday, sealing Biden’s win in the key battleground state and officially awarding the state’s 20 electoral votes to the President-elect. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci attends a news conference at the White House on November 19.

Dr. Anthony Fauci attends a news conference at the White House on November 19.

PHOTO: Susan Walsh/AP

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he has not been in touch with President-elect Joe Biden personally, but he has been talking to a member of his staff, Fauci told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday said that his department has also been in communication with Biden’s transition team, following the General Services Administration’s acknowledgement of Biden’s win.

President-elect Joe Biden holds a news conference in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 24.

President-elect Joe Biden holds a news conference in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 24.

PHOTO: Mark Makela/Getty Images

President-elect Joe Biden will deliver a “Thanksgiving address” Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware.

He will “discuss the shared sacrifices Americans are making this holiday season and say that we can and will get through the current crisis together,” according to a release from his transition team.

Biden’s remarks comes as the country continues to battle surging Covid-19 cases and the Thanksgiving holiday has sparked fears that the virus will spread further across the country.

More than 2,100 Covid-19 deaths were reported in the US on Tuesday — making it the highest single day death toll the country has seen since early May.

And for the 15th consecutive day, the US beat its own hospitalization record, with now more than 88,000 Covid-19 patients nationwide, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended last week that Americans do not travel for Thanksgiving, and the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, asked Americans to keep their indoor holiday gatherings as “small as you possibly can.”

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris introduce their nominees and appointees to key national security and foreign policy posts in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 24.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris introduce their nominees and appointees to key national security and foreign policy posts in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 24.

PHOTO: Carolyn Kaster/AP

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris publicly announced their nominees and appointees yesterday to key national security and foreign policy posts yesterday.

Here are some key takeaways from Biden’s first round of nominations and appointments:

  • Expertise over big names: As the first round of nominations come in, it’s clear that Biden is choosing people who are, indisputably, experts in their fields over bigger names in Democratic politics. Some of that is a practical matter. Democrats didn’t do well down-ballot on Election Day and there is little appetite within the party to risk its hold on power, even in blue states or districts, on any powerful office. Biden’s nominees to lead the State Department, Antony Blinken, and the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, are not household names, but they both have extensive experience at the agencies they will be tasked with running.
  • Diversity is a priority: The first woman to oversee the Treasury Department. The first Latino and immigrant to run the Department of Homeland Security. The first woman to lead the intelligence community. Announcements and reports of these historic impending nominations came in the space of a few hours on Monday, as Biden announced that Cuban-born Mayorkas would head DHS and Avril Haines was Biden’s pick to be the next director of national intelligence. Janet Yellen is poised to break the mold for a second time. The first woman to chair the Federal Reserve, she will, if confirmed, bear the same distinction as Treasury secretary.
  • The picks are a fundamental rejection of Trumpism: Bringing in former Secretary of State John Kerry as his special presidential envoy on climate — and giving that position a seat on the National Security Council — is a marked departure from climate change-denying Trump, who has called global warming a hoax and pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord. The simple act of hiring people qualified for their jobs is in itself a rejection of the Trump model, which installed donors, right-wing ideologues and inexperienced allies into positions of power, in some instances for the express purpose of undermining the institutions they were meant to lead.

Watch:

When the General Services Administration informed President-elect Joe Biden on Monday that the Trump administration is ready to begin the formal transition process, it released a slew of resources for his team to access in the coming weeks.

The now-available resources are enumerated in a “memorandum of understanding” between Biden and the GSA, which also outlined the government resources he was able to use before Administrator Emily Murphy acknowledged his win.

Here’s a look at some of those resources:

  • Nearly $6.3 million: Biden’s transition team will be able to use approximately $6.3 million during the next few months as it prepares to take over the presidency. The funds will primarily go to renting office space, paying staffers working for the transition team and compensating experts or consultants, according to the memo. The money can also be used to pay for travel expenses, rental cars, IT services and other administrative costs, the document says. In addition to that $6.3 million, another $1 million will be set aside for orientation activities “for individuals the President-elect intends to nominate as department heads or appoint to key positions in the Executive Office of the President,” according to the memo.
  • Federal employees: Federal transition laws also give Biden’s team access to employees of any federal agency and employees of any congressional committee or office. This including people working in the offices of House members or senators so long as the congressperson or agency head consents to it, the memo says. Both career and political officials have expressed interest in starting the formal transition process.
  • Office space: Biden’s transition team can now use “approximately 128,000 rentable square feet of space designed to house approximately 500 individuals,” according to the memo, which says the space can be used until the inauguration. The memo notes that the office space has not been configured to comply with coronavirus pandemic guidelines and that Biden’s staff “shall determine any Covid-19 protocols for the space, including entrance and screening requirements,” and the GSA will “make all reasonable efforts to accommodate” the protocols. Biden officials have previously said that a lot of the transition work will be done virtually due to the pandemic.
  • IT and mail support: The GSA memo says the agency will also provide “an architected infrastructure to meet telecommunications and IT services and equipment for use” by Biden’s team. The GSA will also begin providing mail support for Biden’s team, which includes “training on official government mail procedures” for staffers. The US Secret Service will also oversee off-site mail screening of all incoming letters and parcels.