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      Biden’s Inaugural Will Be Mostly Virtual, but Money From Donors Will Be Real

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesElectoral College ResultsBiden’s CabinetInaugural DonationsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBiden’s Inaugural Will Be Mostly Virtual, but Money From Donors Will Be RealThe president-elect’s allies have begun an ambitious fund-raising campaign for the celebration of his swearing-in. Big donors will get “virtual signed photos” — and a chance to generate good will.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration will be mostly virtual, with in-person events scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesKenneth P. Vogel and Dec. 16, 2020WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s allies have begun an ambitious campaign to raise millions of dollars from corporations and individuals by offering special “V.I.P. participation” in reimagined inaugural festivities that will be largely virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic.Far fewer tickets than normal are being distributed for people to attend the actual swearing-in ceremony outside the Capitol on Jan. 20, which is organized and funded by the government.To create an air of celebration, Mr. Biden’s inaugural committee said it was raising private funds to pay for virtual events that will echo the Democratic convention this year, which featured a 50-state roll call from spots around the nation. There are also plans for a “virtual concert” with major performers whose names have not yet been released — and possibly for an in-person event later in the year.The contrast between the constraints of putting on inaugural festivities in the midst of a public health crisis and fund-raising as usual underscores how donations to an inaugural are not just about getting good seats for the swearing-in or tickets to the glitziest black-tie balls. They are also a way for corporations and well-heeled individuals to curry favor with a new administration, a reality that prompted liberal groups on Wednesday to ask Mr. Biden’s inaugural committee to forgo corporate donations.President Trump’s inauguration nearly four years ago took the practice to a new level. It became an access-peddling bazaar of sorts, and aspects of its record fund-raising and spending emerged as the subjects of investigations.Mr. Biden’s inaugural committee is promising corporations that give up to $1 million and individuals who contribute $500,000 — the largest amounts the committee said it would accept — some form of “V.I.P. participation” in the virtual concert.This special access is among the perks detailed on a one-page sponsorship menu from the committee that circulated among donors on Wednesday. Perks include “event sponsorship opportunities,” as well as access to virtual briefings with leaders of the inaugural committee and campaign, and invitations to virtual events with Mr. Biden and Jill Biden, the future first lady, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff.Top donors will also get a fitting memento for the coronavirus era — “virtual signed photos” with the president-elect and the first lady, as well as Ms. Harris and her husband, replacing the traditional in-person rope-line photo opportunities for which donors usually pay handsomely at fund-raisers and other political events.Incoming presidents have long raised private funds to organize and pay for inaugural festivities beyond the swearing-in ceremony, which is hosted by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and funded with taxpayer money.Top donors typically get intimate in-person access at parties and dinners to celebrate with members of an incoming president’s campaign and administration.Among the corporate giants who have indicated they are ready to donate despite the lack of in-person events is Boeing, the aerospace manufacturer and military contractor. The company is contributing $1 million to Mr. Biden’s inauguration, an amount it said is consistent with its past contributions to inaugural committees. Representatives from Bank of America and Ford Motor Company also said their companies intended to donate.“We have supported inauguration events over many administrations on a nonpartisan basis because we view it as part of our civic commitment for an important national event,” Bill Halldin, a spokesman for Bank of America, said in a statement. “The private sector has traditionally done so and we expect to provide support for ceremonies in January as appropriate, given the health crisis and other factors that may impact it.”A number of corporations that have been major donors to past presidential inaugurations — like Coca-Cola, Google and United Parcel Service — said this week that they still had not decided how much, or whether, to donate, though Google noted it had provided “online security protections for free” to the inaugural committee.“As you know this is a very different year and as such we have not yet made a decision,” Ann Moore, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola, said in a statement.A spokeswoman for the investment bank JPMorgan Chase, which has donated to past inaugurations, said that instead of giving to Mr. Biden’s committee, it would be donating to food banks in Washington and the hometowns of Mr. Biden (Wilmington, Del.) and Ms. Harris (Oakland, Calif.) “to help those impacted by the pandemic.”The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Dec. 17, 2020, 10:00 a.m. ETHere’s a look at the economy Biden will inherit next month.Dominion demands that Sidney Powell retract ‘baseless and false allegations’ about voting machines.Pence will be vaccinated publicly on Friday, the White House says.An inauguration spokesman would not say how much had already been raised, or what the fund-raising goal was.Funds raised for inaugurations cannot be transferred to federal campaigns or party committees. Past inaugural committees have donated unspent funds to charities including those engaged in disaster relief, as well as groups involved in decorating and maintaining the White House and the vice president’s residence.The effort by Mr. Biden’s inaugural committee to raise funds from corporate donors prompted puzzlement and objections from liberal activists, who have expressed concern about what they see as the Biden team’s coziness with corporate interests.A coalition of about 50 liberal groups released a letter to the inaugural committee on Wednesday urging it to forgo donations from corporations to prevent them “from wielding undue influence,” and questioning the need for such donations, given the likelihood that Mr. Biden’s inauguration would cost less than previous inaugurations.“The drive to raise so much money without a clear use for it is perplexing, and the appearance of doing so is disconcerting,” said the letter, which was organized by Demand Progress, a group that has also urged Mr. Biden not to hire corporate executives and consultants or lobbyists.Federal law does not require the disclosure of donations to inaugural committees until 90 days after the event, and limited disclosures about expenditures are not required until months after that. But the Biden inaugural committee said it intends to disclose the names of at least its larger donors before Jan. 20.There are no legal limits on the sizes of donations that inaugural committees can accept, and there are few restrictions on who can give.Mr. Biden’s inaugural committee announced last month that it would voluntarily forgo donations from fossil fuel companies, registered lobbyists and foreign agents, in addition to limiting corporate donations to $1 million and individual donations to $500,000.Those restrictions are less stringent than the ones adopted by former President Barack Obama for his 2009 inauguration. His inaugural committee refused corporate donations and said it limited individual donations to $50,000, though he loosened the rules for his second inauguration in 2013.While Mr. Trump’s team said it would not accept contributions from lobbyists for his 2017 inauguration, its fund-raising was otherwise mostly unrestricted, resulting in a record $107 million haul.The Biden team has so far released few specifics regarding plans for the inauguration, other than a statement on Tuesday urging people not to travel to Washington to attend the event given the pandemic and noting that the “ceremony’s footprint will be extremely limited.”In an expression of just how unusual the event will be, the Biden inaugural committee named Dr. David Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, as an adviser to help with decisions on what kinds of events it can hold.“We are asking Americans to participate in inaugural events from home to protect themselves, their families, friends and communities,” Dr. Kessler said in a statement.In a typical inauguration year, a congressional committee that organizes the swearing-in ceremony typically distributes 200,000 tickets to lawmakers for seats on the platform, risers and seating close to the West Front of the Capitol, which are then distributed to constituents and friends who want to attend.But this year, the committee announced it would give just two tickets to the outdoor festivities to each of the 535 members of Congress, for them and a guest to attend.Beyond this event, it is largely up to the Biden inauguration committee, where officials have said in recent days they are still working to “reimagine” and “reinvent” the inauguration.There will still be some kind of an inauguration parade, but it will be considerably pared down and will most likely feature video or live shots of groups performing from spots across the country.The inaugural committee this week disclosed that it had retained Ricky Kirshner, a New York-based entertainment industry television and events producer. His past experience includes the Super Bowl halftime show this year that featured Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, as well as past Tony Awards and Kennedy Center Honors events, and the largely virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention, among many other events.Major donors will also get “V.I.P. tickets” to some kind of future event to celebrate the start of the new administration in person, according to the one-page menu of donor perks.But given the continued uncertainty associated with the pandemic, that event is listed as “date to be determined.”Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Kamala Harris Deserves a More Important Job

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      Credit…Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOpinionKamala Harris Deserves a More Important JobShe could be at the forefront of helping a part of America that’s been left behind.Credit…Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSupported byContinue reading the main storyOpinion ColumnistDec. 15, 2020, 7:00 p.m. ETI was speaking recently to Matt Dunne, founder of the Center on Rural Innovation, which promotes digital economic development in small-town America, and he was telling me about a Vermont community near his home with a great public library: “You could drive by on any Sunday and the parking lot would be full,” he said. “There was just one problem: The library was closed on Sundays.”The parking lot was full of cars with kids doing their homework and adults doing their office work — using the wireless connectivity spilling out of the empty building because their rural homes lacked high-speed broadband. Alas, stories abound of rural Americans going to Subway sandwich shops and Dairy Queens in search of free Wi-Fi.And that is why I want to talk today about Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.Harris is too smart and energetic to be just the vice president, a position with few official responsibilities. I’d love to see President-elect Joe Biden give her a more important job: his de facto secretary of rural development, in charge of closing the opportunity gap, the connectivity gap, the learning gap, the start-up gap — and the anger and alienation gap — between rural America and the rest of the country.President Trump feasted off those gaps in our last two presidential elections to dominate Democrats in rural America. Putting Harris in charge of fixing them would be a real statement by the Biden team.It would provide a vision for American renewal and signal that Democrats were no longer going to cede rural America to Republicans but were instead going to seize it from them. And it would make Harris a super-relevant vice president from Day 1.A school in Summertown, Tenn., recognizes some students don’t have internet access at home.Credit…Brett Carlsen for The New York TimesIn Tucson, Ariz., school buses are equipped with Wi-Fi and parked in poor neighborhoods so access is available.Credit…Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesDemocrats must not kid themselves. Biden won this election by narrowly winning the suburbs and urban centers in key battleground states, where just enough people decided that they wanted to “de-Trump” the White House but not “defund” the police.That is, a lot of suburban voters rejected Trump personally but also rejected far-left Democratic ideas that had percolated up in the last few years. Democrats won the presidency but took a beating from those same suburban voters in many statehouse, U.S. House and U.S. Senate races.If Democrats go into 2022 — let alone 2024 — appealing only on the cities and suburbs, they’re crazy. They will be highly vulnerable if the G.O.P. is led by a smarter, less offensive populist than Donald Trump.Most important, lifting rural America is the right thing to do for all of America and fulfills Biden’s vision of a nation that “grows together” in every way.That concept remains in the DNA of the Democratic Party, which in my home state, Minnesota, is still known as the “D.F.L.” — the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. The party needs to reconstitute that coalition.“One way to do that is by reconnecting with its populist roots — when it really was a party focused on the empowerment of workers and farmers and ordinary citizens,” argued Harvard’s Michael Sandel, author of “The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?” “Trump gave populism a bad name. Democrats should provide an alternative to Trump’s xenophobic, plutocratic populism by showing how populism can be a source of civic activism, engagement and renewal across urban and rural America.”That should be Harris’s mission, and it’s one worthy of a vice president. And it starts in rural America.“I fear the word ‘rural’ connotes a geography that is not my problem,” Beth Ford, president of Land O’Lakes, the influential farmer-owned cooperative headquartered in Minnesota, said to me. But, in fact, spreading connectivity and technology to rural America “is an American issue, an American competitiveness issue and an American national security issue,” she argued.Persistent “underinvestment in rural America will leave us less secure and less prosperous as a nation” — and less competitive with China, which is rapidly connecting its rural heartland, Ford said. “Some 35 percent of farmers lack enough bandwidth to run the equipment on their farms, ensure their kids get a good education and that Grandma has access to telemedicine.”What should a Biden-Harris rural strategy look like? It would start with showing up regularly. “Showing up” and “just listening to people” with respect goes a long way in rural America, Duluth’s mayor, Emily Larson, remarked to me. Actually, nothing earns more respect than listening to people respectfully.“Rural areas have their own social networks,” Larson said, but they’re different from the metropolitan ones. “Here, people will show up for you in the middle of the night, but they don’t post about it on Facebook.”On policy specifics, the Biden-Harris team should commit that in four years every rural community in America will have access to broadband — the basic infrastructure needed for an inclusive modern economy.Dunne suggests a new federal loan program that would offer 50-year, no-interest loans to communities and co-ops (and ease regulations) so rural public-private coalitions can build broadband networks with a minimum 100 megabits per second of speed for downloading and uploading all kinds of remote learning tools, work tools and telehealth tools. Representative James Clyburn has already won passage of a bill in the House with a similar approach.Every rural community in America needs access to broadband to succeed.Credit…Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesTraveling with Dunne last year to Red Wing, Minn., to see how gigabit networks can support high-tech start-ups and traditional farmers, I wrote about a couple of inventors we met who had created a robotic rooster that patrols the poultry house for dead birds and tills the bedding, but with an unexpected byproduct: The birds exercise more and gain weight faster, because they are constantly running away from or pecking at the robot.While these “Poultry Patrol” robots work autonomously 80 percent of the time, said Dunne, “there are significant periods when they need to be remotely operated and receive coding updates from afar, which is only possible with very fast broadband.”But while better connectivity is necessary, it’s not sufficient. “We also need to ensure investment in digital skills training in rural communities and incentives for tech companies to hire remote workers in small towns,” added Dunne. “Today rural America represents 15 percent of the nation’s work force, but only 5 percent of digital economy jobs of the future. But the pandemic has opened people’s eyes to the idea that digital economy jobs can be created anywhere.”Kamala Harris is a natural for that task. Who better to bridge Silicon Valley and the rural valleys of America?She is also a natural bridge builder to a more inclusive American heartland, because rural America is not white America. According to a report by the Urban Institute, “one in five Americans lives in rural communities, and more than one in five (22 percent) rural residents are people of color.” I wrote last year about Willmar, Minn., a town that was all white back in the 1950s and today is nearly half Hispanic, Somali, Asian and Native American.In Minnesota, small towns like Willmar that can manage inclusion and diversity are the ones now thriving, because they can attract new labor and home buyers when so many of the young white adults have left for the big cities.Harris will soon be the first woman, the first Black and the first Indian-American vice president, which certainly resonates with a lot of urban voters. However, if she could make herself the person in the Biden cabinet who always shows up FIRST to listen in rural America and the FIRST to appreciate its concerns and the FIRST to make sure its concerns are addressed, she and the Democrats could make themselves competitive in a lot more rural counties.Even if it is just 10 or 15 percent more competitive, it might be enough to deprive today’s deeply warped Trump-led G.O.P. from taking back the White House or the House in the next four years — and maybe force it back to sanity. The Republican Party needs shock therapy, and nothing would shock this G.O.P. more than losing its automatic hold on rural America.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Team of Rivals? Biden’s Cabinet Looks More Like a Team of Buddies

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesFormal Transition BeginsBiden’s CabinetDefense SecretaryElection ResultsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTeam of Rivals? Biden’s Cabinet Looks More Like a Team of BuddiesIn making his picks for the new administration, the president-elect has put a premium on personal relationships.Some Democratic allies say they worry that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s reliance on the same people threatens to undermine his ability to find new solutions to the country’s problems.Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York TimesMichael D. Shear and Dec. 9, 2020, 7:36 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has worked with the former aide he wants to be secretary of state since their time at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1990s. His nominee for agriculture secretary endorsed his first presidential bid more than 30 years ago. And he knows his choice for Pentagon chief from the retired general’s time in Iraq, where Mr. Biden’s son Beau, a military lawyer, also served on the general’s staff.For all the talk that Mr. Biden is abiding by a complicated formula of ethnicity, gender and experience as he builds his administration — and he is — perhaps the most important criteria for landing a cabinet post or a top White House job appears to be having a longstanding relationship with the president-elect himself.His chief of staff, Ron Klain, goes back with him to the days of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas when Mr. Biden was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Mr. Klain was on his staff. John Kerry, his climate envoy, is an old Senate buddy. Even Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who is not a longtime confidante and ran an aggressive campaign against Mr. Biden, had a close relationship with Beau Biden before he died — a personal credential that is like gold with the man about to move into the Oval Office.In accepting Mr. Biden’s nomination to be the first Black man to run the Defense Department, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday called Beau a “great American” and recalled the time he spent with him in Iraq, and their conversations after he returned home, before his death from a brain tumor in 2015.“As you, too, can attest, madam vice president-elect, Beau was a very special person and a true patriot, and a good friend to all who knew him,” General Austin said.It is a sharp contrast to President Trump, who assembled a dysfunctional collection of cabinet members he barely knew and after an initial honeymoon spent their time constantly at risk of being fired. With nearly half of Mr. Biden’s cabinet and many key White House jobs announced, his administration looks more like a close-knit family.But there are risks in Mr. Biden’s approach, which departs sharply from Abraham Lincoln’s famous desire for a “team of rivals” in his cabinet who could challenge one another — and the president. And while every president brings in a coterie of longtime advisers, few have had the longevity of Mr. Biden’s nearly five decades in Washington, and prized so much the relationships he developed along the way.Relying on advisers and cabinet officials steeped in old Washington — and Mr. Biden’s own worldview — lends an air of insularity to his still-forming presidency at a time when many Americans are expecting fresh ideas to confront a world that is very different from the one that the president-elect and his friends got to know when they were younger.Even some allies in the Democratic Party say they worry that Mr. Biden’s reliance on the same people threatens to undermine his ability to find solutions to the country’s problems that go beyond the usual ones embraced by the establishment in Washington.Representative-elect Mondaire Jones of New York, 33, who will serve as the freshman representative to the House Democratic leadership, praised Mr. Biden’s choices so far as “highly competent” but added that “competency alone is insufficient for purposes of building back better.”“One risk of Joe Biden nominating or otherwise appointing only people with whom he has close relationships is he may miss the moment,” he said.Faiz Shakir, who served as Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign manager and negotiated with the Biden team over the summer as part of a unity task force, said the biggest bias he has seen from the Biden transition team has been in favor of “credentialing” — both in terms of Washington experience, often with the president-elect, and education.He said he worried the team was leaning “so much on technocratic competence based on credentialing that it misses the opportunity to introduce fresh blood and new thinking more closely associated with the struggles of the working class.”And Representative Adriano Espaillat, Democrat of New York, urged Mr. Biden to embrace “a little bit more competitiveness inside” a team that so far appears mostly like-minded. Tackling the big problems in American in the wake of the pandemic “is going to require a lively debate,” Mr. Espaillat said. “It doesn’t have to be a room full of people you like.” But Mr. Biden has not been shy about describing what is important to him as he builds his team.“I’ve seen him in action,” Mr. Biden said of Antony J. Blinken, his incoming secretary of state and a longtime adviser.“I’ve worked with her for over a decade,” Mr. Biden said of his new director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines.“One of my closest friends,” Mr. Biden hailed Mr. Kerry when he announced the former secretary of state’s new climate role.And in an article published in The Atlantic on Tuesday, the president-elect explained one of the key reasons he chose General Austin.Retired Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday accepting Mr. Biden’s nomination to run the Defense Department.Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York Times“I’ve spent countless hours with him, in the field and in the White House Situation Room,” Mr. Biden wrote. “I’ve sought his advice, seen his command, and admired his calm and his character.”Those who know Mr. Biden say he is confident of his own ability as a judge of character and has leaned on some of the same team of counselors for decades. His longtime Senate chief of staff and brief successor in the Senate, Ted Kaufman, is helping to lead the transition. Among his top incoming White House advisers, his counselor, Steve Ricchetti, and senior adviser, Mike Donilon, are longtime loyalists.Other aides are reprising roles they held in Mr. Biden’s vice-presidential office — only now at the White House itself. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, held that post for Mr. Biden, and Jared Bernstein, who was an economic adviser, is now a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.“He’s got this wonderful team — not of rivals but of talented people that he’s either worked with or observed over the years,” said Joseph Riley, the former mayor of Charleston, S.C., and a man Mr. Biden once called “America’s mayor.”“He has amassed a collection of talented people who he has watched, listened to, leaned on over the years, and he is a quick study,” Mr. Riley said.Not every appointee is a Biden intimate. This week, Mr. Biden rolled out his health care team and badly bungled the name of his incoming secretary of health and human services — Xavier Becerra — before correcting himself.Turning to people close to him to run with long experience in government may be an advantage during confirmation battles in the deeply divided Senate. Many of his picks — like Tom Vilsack, who served for eight years as secretary of agriculture under President Barack Obama and has been nominated for the same job again — are well known to Republicans. “I think he did an outstanding job for eight years and he’ll do an outstanding job for no more than four years,” Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters when asked about Mr. Biden’s decision to nominate Mr. Vilsack.But a bigger test for Mr. Biden will be his decision on who should be attorney general and run the Justice Department at a time when racial tensions have roiled the country.On Tuesday, a group of activists met with Mr. Biden to press him on nominating a Black person who will focus on civil rights and social justice issues. But with an African-American now ready to lead the Defense Department — ensuring that the State, Treasury, Justice and Defense Departments will not all be led by white people — a number of prominent Democrats believe the president-elect may turn to Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, who is white.Mr. Jones would most likely prove easy to confirm in a closely divided Senate given his warm relationships with senators in both parties, including Alabama’s senior senator, Richard C. Shelby, a Republican.But Mr. Jones has something else working in his favor: a long history with Mr. Biden.As a young law student in Birmingham, Ala., Mr. Jones was wowed by a visit from a freshman senator from Delaware and introduced himself to Mr. Biden. They grew closer when Mr. Jones moved to Washington to work on the Senate Judiciary Committee. And in 1987, Mr. Jones served as Alabama co-chair on Mr. Biden’s first campaign for president.Jonathan Martin More

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      Harris Adds to a Diverse Staff Where a Majority, Like Their Boss, Are Women of Color

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      State Certified Vote Totals

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      Four Women Who Will Handle the Media in the Biden White House

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesFormal Transition BeginsBiden’s CabinetSecretary of StateElection ResultsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFour Women Who Will Handle the Media in the Biden White HousePresident-elect Joe Biden is entering office with the stated intent of restoring credibility to government — and to the White House briefing room.The relationship between a White House press office seeking to portray the president and his decisions in the best light possible and the news media seeking to separate fact from spin is designed to be adversarial.Credit…Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesDec. 1, 2020Updated 8:05 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — In one of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s closing campaign advertisements, he promised a “new world coming” if Americans voted for “honor,” “decency,” “respect of office” and “truth.”The restoration of “truth” was illustrated in the ad by a photograph of the podium in the White House briefing room, which under President Trump has been used to disseminate falsehoods and to undermine the credibility of a news media that his aides have referred to as the “opposition party.” The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, for instance, recently refused to take a question from a CNN correspondent, saying, “I don’t call on activists.”It was in the briefing room that Mr. Trump suggested that an “injection inside” the human body with a disinfectant like bleach or isopropyl alcohol could help combat the coronavirus; and where his first press secretary, Sean Spicer, set the tone for the administration when he falsely claimed that the president’s inauguration crowd was the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.”The relationship between a White House press office seeking to portray the president and his decisions in the best light possible and the news media seeking to separate fact from spin is designed to be adversarial.But Mr. Biden is entering office with the stated intent of restoring credibility to government — and to the briefing room. His advisers have said that the communications team will endeavor for a return to pre-Trump “normalcy.” And that seemed to be reflected in the communications team he announced this week. — Annie KarniCredit…Charles Dharapak/Associated PressJennifer PsakiPress secretaryMr. Biden’s choice of Jennifer Psaki, 42, a veteran of the Obama administration who is generally viewed by reporters as fair and accessible, as his chief spokeswoman embodies that return to normalcy approach.Ms. Psaki, a former White House communications director and State Department spokeswoman, did not work on the Biden campaign. But she was brought in by two top Biden advisers, Jeffrey D. Zients and Anita Dunn, to help with the transition. Mr. Biden’s decision to appoint Ms. Psaki as press secretary, a role in which she will become one of the most recognizable faces of the new administration, came together in a rush of meetings over the past 10 days.Mr. Biden, officials said, was particularly drawn to Ms. Psaki by her background at the State Department. There, she worked under Secretary of State John Kerry and grew comfortable delivering 90-minute briefings on foreign policy issues, like a dispute over the South China Sea.At the White House, Ms. Psaki intends to bring back the daily press briefing, which has been all but phased out over the past four years. It is not clear, however, when those sessions might resume, given the constraints of the pandemic.But as the incoming administration prepares to roll out a coronavirus vaccine and convince more than 300 million Americans that it is safe, Ms. Psaki, colleagues said, views a central part of her job as restoring faith in the words spoken from behind the podium.“The clown games are over,” said Susan Rice, who was President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. “Jen will represent the professionalism and decency and commitment to transparency that has been a hallmark of Joe Biden’s career.”As Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Ms. McEnany has focused on remaining in the president’s inner circle and has made little effort to be accessible to reporters or to disseminate accurate information. Ms. Psaki plans to take a different approach, Biden transition officials said.At the State Department, they noted, Ms. Psaki moved the spokesperson’s office, which had been on the sixth floor, where it was inaccessible to reporters, to be next to the press room.Ms. Psaki, pronounced SOCK-ee, was a candidate for the press secretary’s job under Mr. Obama, but she is arguably coming into it now at a more difficult and more critical moment.“I think she brings as much experience in that building, as much as anyone has ever brought to the job,” said Robert Gibbs, who served as Mr. Obama’s first White House press secretary. “The world this administration inherits has more challenges than any in nearly a century. Having a steady, experienced voice behind that podium will serve them well.”Since leaving government, Ms. Psaki has worked as a senior vice president and managing director for the Washington office of Global Strategy Group, a public relations firm that works with corporate, nonprofit and political clients, and has served a principal at WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm founded by Antony J. Blinken, Mr. Biden’s choice for secretary of state.Ms. Psaki, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, was most recently a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank, and a paid contributor on CNN, a position she left in September.She is expected to have access to Mr. Biden, whom she has known for 12 years.“The name of the game is access,” Mr. Gibbs said. “Are you in the meetings? Some of the best prep for the briefing itself was being in the meeting — understanding where the president’s head was and where the debate was going.” — Annie KarniCredit…Biden-Harris TransitionKate BedingfieldCommunications directorKate Bedingfield has spent the past two years as one of the most visible public faces of the Biden campaign. As communications director, she will help shape the message for the president and the White House.Mr. Biden is known for turning to loyal advisers, and Ms. Bedingfield has been a trusted aide since 2015, when she joined the vice president’s staff as communications director as he was weighing whether to run for president in 2016.She was an original member of his 2020 campaign, serving as a deputy campaign manager and communications director. In that role, she often appeared on television as a surrogate for Mr. Biden, sometimes from her bedroom because of the pandemic.With Ms. Bedingfield running the communications operation, the campaign’s message of unifying the country remained consistent from Day 1 through Election Day, even amid criticism and second-guessing from some Democrats.During the campaign, she was forced to navigate a number of public relations challenges, including the attacks from Mr. Trump and his allies on Mr. Biden’s son Hunter Biden and his business dealings in Ukraine. Ms. Bedingfield and her team did not hesitate to press reporters on the word choices they made in describing the baseless accusations against Mr. Biden and his son.Ms. Bedingfield was also charged with trying to make a positive case for Mr. Biden after he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary, low points on the Biden campaign that at the time raised serious doubts about his path to the Democratic presidential nomination.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Dec. 1, 2020, 9:04 p.m. ETIn Fox interview, Parscale blames Trump’s lack of empathy about coronavirus for election loss.Biden announces top members of his economic team as he contends with a recovery strategy.Biden introduces a new companion for the next few weeks: a walking boot.“The job she did in the campaign is underappreciated,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director for Mr. Obama. “When a candidate comes in with the expectations and experience of Joe Biden and then falls so dramatically as he did, where he came in fourth and fifth, to hold a campaign together and keep the candidate focused and upbeat and optimistic is a very difficult task.”Ms. Bedingfield, 39, who grew up in the Atlanta area and is a graduate of the University of Virginia, worked on John Edwards’s 2008 presidential campaign and in the Obama White House during Mr. Obama’s first term.She later worked as vice president of corporate communications for the Motion Picture Association of America and as vice president of communications for Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the N.B.A.’s Washington Wizards, the N.H.L.’s Washington Capitals and the W.N.B.A.’s Washington Mystics. — Thomas KaplanCredit…Kimberly White/Getty Images For MoveonKarine Jean-PierrePrincipal deputy press secretary The president-elect is an institutionalist, a deal-making centrist and a consummate political insider who has hired a number of top advisers with backgrounds rooted in the traditional corridors of Washington power.One of his newly selected press aides brings a notably different perspective to the team.Karine Jean-Pierre, who was named Mr. Biden’s principal deputy press secretary, has held a number of governmental and campaign roles. But she is steeped in grass-roots progressive activism, too, as a former chief public affairs officer at the liberal group MoveOn. She is also a former political analyst for NBC and MSNBC.Ms. Jean-Pierre has also spoken about her belief that her identity as a woman of color and daughter of Haitian immigrants cut a sharp contrast with the divisive and at times racist rhetoric promoted by Mr. Trump.“I am everything that Donald Trump hates,” she said in a video she filmed for MoveOn. “I’m a Black woman, I’m gay, I am a mom. Both my parents were born in Haiti.”Ms. Jean-Pierre, 46, served in the Obama White House and worked on Mr. Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. She was also a deputy campaign manager for the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland, in 2016. But she was not an original member of the Biden campaign, arriving as a senior adviser last spring after Jennifer O’Malley Dillon was brought on as campaign manager.Ms. Jean-Pierre later served as the chief of staff for Mr. Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris. That job gave Ms. Jean-Pierre access to the candidate but did not require her to engage in the daily sparring with journalists that she may need to do in her new role, in which she is expected to work closely with Ms. Psaki.Ms. Jean-Pierre, a graduate of the New York Institute of Technology and Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, came up in New York politics, describing former Mayor David N. Dinkins, who recently died, as a mentor. “She will bring a steadiness, an evenness,” said Leah Daughtry, a veteran Democratic strategist who knows Ms. Jean-Pierre from New York. “She also brings her own experience as the daughter of immigrants, as someone from the queer community, as someone who’s a New Yorker.” — Katie Glueck and Thomas KaplanCredit…Brad Barket/Getty Images for MTV NewsSymone D. SandersSenior adviser and chief spokeswoman for Vice President-elect Kamala HarrisAs Mr. Biden reveled in his Super Tuesday victories in March in a speech in California, two protesters threatened to ruin the moment, climbing onstage with the septuagenarian candidate.Symone D. Sanders did not waste any time. She charged forward and, with the help of Mr. Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, and several aides, hauled one of the protesters away.Ms. Sanders is no stranger to brawling on behalf of her boss. She served as an outspoken senior adviser to Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign, emerging as a prolific surrogate at news conferences and on social media.Now, she will be a senior adviser and chief spokeswoman for Ms. Harris, whom she advised during the general election, traveling with her and assisting with debate preparations. Ms. Sanders is expected to play key roles both in guiding the press operation and in advising as Ms. Harris pursues her own initiatives as vice president.“She’s going to be able to work both worlds very, very well,” said Representative Cedric L. Richmond, Democrat of Louisiana and an incoming senior adviser to Mr. Biden in the White House.Ms. Sanders, 30, a Nebraska native, is fluent in both the language of the left and internet discourse — in contrast to some of Mr. Biden’s longer-serving advisers — and she was an important point of contact for several key political constituencies during the race.But she does not have the decades of traditional campaign and Washington experience that many in Mr. Biden’s orbit value. Indeed, she signed on with the Biden campaign after working as press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign at age 25.Yet a combination of loyalty to Mr. Biden and a different perspective from many in his inner circle helped Ms. Sanders become an important and respected voice in the campaign, and she was mentioned as a possible White House press secretary.In the vice president’s office, Ms. Sanders will work closely with Ashley Etienne, the communications director for Ms. Harris who is a veteran of the Obama administration and also served as a top aide to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.This year, Ms. Sanders, a graduate of Creighton University, published a book titled, “No, You Shut Up: Speaking Truth to Power and Reclaiming America.” She has also done strategic communications consulting work, but does not intend to continue that while in government.In an interview, Ms. Sanders, who is Black, noted that the transition had rolled out at one time the White House communications team’s leadership, made up entirely of women — both white women and women of color.“The most qualified people for the job also happen to all be women,” she said. “That is historic. Not too long ago, the powers that be would not have picked us.” — Katie GlueckAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      No, it isn’t unusual that Kamala Harris is still in the Senate.

      by

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      ‘Dear Joe’: Advice for Biden

      by

      To the Editor:Dear Joe (may I call you Joe?):Do the possible.There is a mess of massive proportions to clean up. Some problems can be fixed quickly, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Some can be fixed over time, like our declining status in the world. And some can never be fixed, try as you might.If you believe you can “bring us together,” and bridge the cataclysmic divide we face, you are a bigger dreamer than the DACA children. Do the possible. Clean up and depoliticize the Justice Department, and keep your finger off the scale. Get us on the right side of the climate change fight. Reintroduce us to our allies. Get some infrastructure upgrades started; even some Republicans will agree with that.Make your government look and speak like America. Insist on accountability, even for the rich and powerful. You can do all of this and much more. And whatever else you do, don’t forget who elected you.Don’t expect much help from the Hill. Congress is badly broken, probably for the foreseeable future. Use what you have in the presidential toolbox. Do the possible.Richard WilsonOrlando, Fla.To the Editor:The biggest challenge facing Joe Biden’s presidency is Mitch McConnell. Use every ounce of charm and political skill you’ve got in you, Joe. If we can get Mr. McConnell to get behind creating millions of new jobs and reviving the economy by rebuilding our infrastructure, developing renewable energy and bringing manufacturing back to our soil, voters from both sides of this divided country are going to benefit.It’s the only way to start bringing the two sides together. Turn Mitch McConnell into part of the solution, Joe.Judith CressyNew YorkTo the Editor:The greatest challenge facing President Biden will be the simple fact of governing. That is because his opposition — the Trump Republican Party — will do everything in its still formidable power to undermine him. At every turn. Through means legal and otherwise. The members of that opposition have long since given up any claim to governing in the public interest; it is their own interest, and only that interest, that motivates them.Unfortunately, Mr. Biden will attempt to govern the way he’s operated throughout his political life, that is, by constantly “reaching across the aisle” in an appeal to reason and unity. But the Republican Party, even before President Trump took ownership, is not open to such appeals, as was evident every time President Barack Obama reached across the aisle, only to find that he extended his hand into a nest of vipers.One should not try to make nice. I pray that Mr. Biden and Kamala Harris will acknowledge their opposition for what it has become, not what they think it should be.Nathan WeberNew YorkTo the Editor:The biggest challenge President Biden will face is the ability to focus on the real problems at hand. Covid-19 is raging, our economy is sputtering, many families are on the brink of destitution, to mention a few of the challenges. And complicating these daunting challenges are the calls for accountability for the crimes President Trump has allegedly committed.We can spend the next four years trying to prosecute Mr. Trump. It might be successful and satisfying — but at what price? If we do, surely he will continue to be in the spotlight, and the source of disinformation.My humble alternative: Come Jan. 20, forget Mr. Trump, take him out of the spotlight, and let the New York prosecutors feast on him! Let’s rally behind President Biden’s calls for a bold rational response to Covid, a climate-based investment in our economy and relief for those in need. And let’s (re)create a Democratic Party that pays attention not only to the coastal folks (like me), but also to our brethren in the industrial belt and farms of America.Lastly, President Biden should propose key government reforms — presidential accountability, criminal liability, access to tax returns — that would ensure we never have another Trump.Mark ZillHighlands, N.J.To the Editor:President-elect Joe Biden: Do not issue a blanket pardon to President Trump. He would only use it as “proof” to his followers that he has done nothing wrong and that any claims of wrongdoing were all a charade.Mr. Trump has worked to divide our country and to use his office to promote his own interests. He has immeasurably weakened our country and our standing in the world. He has shown utter contempt for the institutions of our government, for our democracy and for the very lives of our people.Our justice system is strong. Our society is strong. As a society, we need to face the damage that Mr. Trump has done to our nation, his alleged violations of federal tax laws and his self-dealing. Only after that would it be conscionable to consider any form of clemency or pardon.The failure to hold Mr. Trump accountable would demonstrate the United States’ weakness as a nation of laws.James JonesManasquan, N.J.To the Editor:Climate, climate, climate, it’s the climate, stupid.There are many challenges facing Joe Biden’s presidency — Covid, a struggling economy, systemic racism, income inequality, police reform, immigration reform, infrastructure, just to name a few.None of these come close to the challenge of climate change, either in scope or long-term ramifications. I believe that most Americans don’t think it is a hoax and agree it needs addressing, but moneyed interests and the tribal condition of our politics make it much harder to do so.Joe Biden and his team understand the problem and have a good plan to begin to address it. My advice to him would be to keep the focus on this issue as a top priority and to remember that a green economy is good business. For the most part, I support the Green New Deal, as well as the Blue New Deal for our oceans, which doesn’t get much attention. I believe there are plenty of pieces of both deals that a Biden administration can pursue, without getting mired in the pitfalls of partisan politics.Thomas HoopesIpswich, Mass.To the Editor:While curbing polarization and a pandemic are undoubtedly the most pressing issues facing the president-elect, I suspect that the greatest challenges of Joe Biden’s tenure in office will be abroad.The chaos of domestic politics in the last four years has distracted the American public from a worsening international landscape. In the Middle East, Mr. Biden will face an aggrieved Iran; in Asia, a beleaguered Hong Kong; in Africa, a brewing Ethiopian civil war. President Trump may have bombed ISIS to smithereens, but he worsened U.S. relations with key allies while building bridges with autocrats.Members of Mr. Biden’s State Department have their work cut out for them, from rebuilding the World Trade Organization to restraining the excesses of regimes like Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s in Turkey, which have been given free rein under the Trump administration.My advice to Mr. Biden is to repair American foreign policy, while avoiding the moral compromises of the Obama administration, such as the shameful drone program and the failure to end the extrajudicial imprisonment at Guantánamo Bay.Ravi SimonFramingham, Mass.To the Editor:My advice for President-elect Joe Biden on avoiding pitfalls: Please, please don’t tweet. And require your staff not to.Stephen di GirolamoAlexandria, Va. More