Biden’s transition moves ahead

In mid-November, as President Donald Trump railed against the election results, his wife, first lady Melania Trump publicly agreed with his sentiments. But privately, a handful of days after the final state tally, the first lady tasked an emissary with discreetly finding out what was available to her in terms of budget and staff allocation for post-White House life.

While the President is busy figuring out a way to stay in the White House, the first lady is determining what to put in storage, what goes to Trump’s New York City digs, and what should be tagged for shipment to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

The first lady quietly brought on Marcia Lee Kelly to her scant East Wing staff in April as a special government employee who could add gravitas and experience. She is unpaid and serves in a volunteer capacity but her job as Trump’s special adviser proved helpful as the waning months of her first-term tenure.

Kelly had previously run the White House Office of Administration and after it became clear Trump would need to prep for her life after Washington the first lady told Kelly to discreetly ask West Wing acquaintances and a member of the Office of Management and Budget whether there were taxpayer funds allocated to former first ladies, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

The short answer is no. While there are post-presidential perks for such things for the outgoing commander in chief, budgets to set up an official office and staff and cover some travel costs, there is nothing from the government for any first lady, save a paltry $20,000-a-year pension, which is paid out only if her husband dies.

The first lady is hyper-focused of late on her legacy. One thing Trump is considering is a book, though it will likely not be a memoir — the post-White House writing of which is a tradition most first ladies have adhered to. Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” and Laura Bush’s memoir, “Spoken from the Heart,” were massive bestsellers.

Instead, Trump is said to be toying with writing a photo-centric coffee table book about White House hospitality history, or one perhaps centered on the design projects she has completed while first lady, according to a source in the publishing industry familiar with preliminary discussions. Trump has also reportedly done one of the final things most first ladies do before leaving office: select the administration’s official china service.

“Mrs. Trump is focused on her role as first lady. Monday she unveiled her most current effort in preserving the White House by announcing the completion of the tennis pavilion. She also recently unveiled a new piece of art in the newly renovated Rose Garden. Her office just revealed this year’s Christmas décor. Her schedule remains full with her duties as a mother, wife and first lady of the United States,” the first lady’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham told CNN.

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Cobb County, Georgia’s third largest county which borders Atlanta, will significantly reduce their number of early voting sites for the US Senate runoffs, a key election that will decide which party control the chamber.

The suburban Atlanta county had 11 early voting locations during November’s general election, but says it will only have five early voting locations available for the Senate runoffs. 

There are more than 537,000 registered voters in Cobb County, according to November’s general election results posted to Georgia’s Secretary of State’s website. Advanced voting for the Jan. 5 Senate runoff election begins statewide on Dec. 14.

Georgia’s Democratic Senate nominees and voting rights advocates in the state are troubled by Cobb County’s decision to reduce the number of early voting sites that will be available.    

In a joint statement by US Senate nominees Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, the candidates wrote that the election officials’ decision to cut the number of early voting locations in Cobb County in half is “unacceptable.”

Voting rights and advocacy groups in Georgia also say they are by troubled by the county’s decision to reduce the number of early voting sites available. The voting advocacy group Fair Fight is asking Cobb County to reverse the reductions to avoid long wait times to vote.   

“As with so many barriers to voting, Black voters in particular faced these long waits. In the current plan, the only early vote location in Smyrna, where the share of Black voters is six points higher than the county overall, will be closed,” Fair Fight said in a written statement.    

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, The Georgia NAACP, along with a coalition of voting rights groups, wrote a letter to Cobb County officials expressing that their decision to close many voting locations that they say are in “Black and Latinx communities,” will “make it difficult to travel longer distances to voting locations outside of their communities.”  

In a letter written to the NAACP, Janine Eveler, Director of Cobb County Elections & Registration, said that they lost several of their advance voting managers and assistant mangers due to “the holidays, the work load, and the pandemic.” 

“It was not our desire to reduce the number of early voting locations for the Runoff, but unfortunately it became a necessity,” Eveler wrote. “We are at the end of the election cycle and many are tired or just unwilling to work so hard, especially during this time of year.”  

In the letter, Eveler insists that the four early voting satellite locations in addition to their main office are “geographically spaced to serve all communities in the county.”

Michael Pernick, one of the lawyers for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, tells CNN that they have offered to help train Cobb County poll workers and managers but have not yet received a response. “The issue isn’t availability, they don’t want to take the time,” he said.

He added, “We are hoping to be able persuade Cobb to do the right thing. We are actively considering all options. If we are not successful in the next 24 hours to get them to add back in the advance voting locations, we will consider litigation.”

There are more than 537,000 registered voters in Cobb County, according to November’s general election results posted to Georgia’s Secretary of State’s website.   

A spokesperson for Georgia’s Secretary of State told CNN that “Counties run elections. They set their budget and manage turnout of voters accordingly.”   

YouTube said Wednesday that it will now begin to remove new content posted to its platform that “misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.”

The company said the decision comes after enough states certified election results to determine Joe Biden as the US President-elect. 

If the company is able to keep to its commitments, YouTube’s announcement could have an impact on high-profile right-wing channels and personalities, including President Trump and One America News Network, which have spread conspiracy theories suggesting that Biden’s victory is illegitimate. 

“For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come,” YouTube said in a blog post. 

Despite the Supreme Court delivering a crushing blow to Trump’s long shot bid to invalidate President- elect Joe Biden’s victory, Trump is continuing to tweet on court cases and claiming the rejected SCOTUS case was “not my case.”

This is Trump’s first reaction to the Supreme Court’s denial of a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to block certification of the commonwealth’s election results. 

“This was not my case as has been so incorrectly reported. The case that everyone has been waiting for is the State’s case with Texas and numerous others joining. It is very strong, ALL CRITERIA MET. How can you have a presidency when a vast majority think the election was RIGGED?” Trump tweeted.

Trump is likely referring to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who filed a brash and sweeping complaint Tuesday that asked the court to overturn Biden’s wins in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. 

“We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!” Trump also wrote Wednesday.

The head of the NAACP planned to push President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to create the role of civil rights czar, following a model Biden has already established in naming John Kerry to a Cabinet-level position as a climate envoy, during a virtual meeting Tuesday.

The proposal was to come during a virtual meeting Biden and Harris held with the leaders of civil rights organizations Tuesday in Delaware. It’s part of an effort by Black leaders, who delivered Biden to victory in the Democratic primary, to hold him to his promise to nominate the most diverse Cabinet in history.

In a statement, the NAACP called the position it is proposing the “National Advisor on Racial Justice, Equity and Advancement.”

Johnson said the call for a civil rights czar is modeled after corporations that have tapped top-level diversity and inclusion officers, and that those posts have been most effective when those officers report directly to the company’s leader.

He wouldn’t name specific individuals he’d like to see named to such a post, saying he first wanted to “see if there’s buy-in by this administration so that we can really see the position come to life.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that he has already met with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team and is willing to meet with Biden’s pick for HHS secretary, Xavier Becerra, as well.

Although Azar didn’t have a set date for when he would meet with Becerra, he added that he wants to ensure a “full cooperative professional transition.” He said his priority is protecting Americans through the coronavirus pandemic.  

“I want to ensure that any transition is as smooth, as professional as possible, because we’re about ensuring the health and well-being of the American people, and that’s what matters to me,” he added. 

Biden yesterday introduced key members of his health team, including Dr. Anthony Fauci who will serve as chief medical adviser to the President on Covid-19 and will also continue in his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

Biden also laid out three objectives for battling the pandemic: vaccinating at least 100 million Americans in his first 100 days in office, signing a mask mandate and aiming to safely reopen schools.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post stated that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said he would be willing to meet with President-elect Joe Biden. Azar said he would be willing to meet with Biden’s nominee Xavier Becerra.

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President-elect Joe Biden named retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as his nominee for secretary of defense, the Biden transition team announced Tuesday. He is set to formally introduce his nominee at an event this afternoon in Wilmington, Delaware.

The former commander of the US Central Command would make history as the first Black person to lead the Pentagon if confirmed by the US Senate.

“In his more than 40 years in the United States Army, Austin met every challenge with extraordinary skill and profound personal decency. He is a true and tested soldier and leader. I’ve spent countless hours with him, in the field and in the White House Situation Room.”

Austin has worked closely with Biden in the past. While Biden was vice president, Austin served as the vice chief of staff of the Army and commanding general of US forces in Iraq, and later the commander of CENTCOM. Biden and Austin had discussions on a range of issues, including those in the Middle East and Central and South Asia.

Austin would need a congressional waiver to be confirmed for the civilian post because federal law requires seven years of retirement from active duty before taking on the role. Austin retired from active-duty service only four years ago.

Though the use of the waiver is rare, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis received a waiver from Congress in 2017 to serve as President Trump’s defense secretary.

Some Democrats in Congress at the time expressed concerns about setting aside the precedent of maintaining civilian leadership in the military, but the waiver was ultimately approved by both chambers, allowing Mattis to serve in the position until his departure in December 2018.

President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday that in consultation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, his newly announced chief medical adviser, he has outlined three objectives for his incoming health team.

First, for his initial 100 days in office he will ask every American to wear a mask. The President-elect said he would sign an executive order on his first day in office to require masks, “where I can under the law, like federal buildings, interstate travel on planes, trains and buses.”

Second, he said his team will help get “at least 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of the American people in the first 100 days.”

Biden said his third priority is to get kids back into schools. He said that if Congress provides the necessary funding and states and cities put strong health measures in place, “My team will work to see that a majority of our schools can be open by the end of my first 100 days.

Biden has named Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, as his nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services and Dr. Vivek Murthy, who was US surgeon general in the Obama administration, as his nominee for surgeon general. Becerra would be the first Latino to lead HHS if confirmed by the United States Senate. Murthy will also require Senate confirmation.

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Americans who went to the polls on Election Day didn’t actually select the President directly.

They were technically voting for 538 electors who, according to the system laid out by the Constitution, meet in their respective states and vote for president and vice president once the popular vote totals are completely counted and certified. The electors are set to meet Monday to cast their votes for US president.

These electors are collectively referred to as the Electoral College, and their votes are then forwarded to the president of the Senate, who counts them in a joint session of Congress after the new year. 

Here’s a look at some key dates from now until Inauguration Day:

Dec. 14

Dec. 23

Jan. 3

Jan. 6

Jan. 20