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Trump agrees to begin transition as key agency calls Biden apparent election winner
The General Services Administration has declared president-elect Joe Biden the apparent winner of the US election, clearing the way for the formal transition from Donald Trump’s administration to begin after weeks of delay.
The GSA said on Monday that it had determined that Biden was the winner of the 3 November race after weeks of Trump refusing to concede and violating the traditions of the transition of power at the White House.
Trump said on Twitter he had directed his team to cooperate on the transition, but vowed to continue fighting the election results, despite the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud. Hours later, he said: “Will never concede to fake ballots & ‘Dominion’.”
Emily Murphy, who heads the GSA, said she made the determination based on “the law” and “facts.”
“Please know that I came to my decision independently, based on the law and available facts. I was never directly or indirectly pressured by any executive branch official including those who work at the White House or GSA with regard to the substance or timing of my decision,” Murphy wrote in a letter to Biden.
Murphy had faced growing pressure from Democrats and some Republicans to allow the transition to begin, as Trump’s efforts to challenge the results in numerous battleground states failed.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday tossed a Trump campaign lawsuit that sought to prevent certification in that state. And on Monday, Michigan certified Biden’s victory, despite an unprecedented push by the president last week to undermine that move to allow for an audit of ballots in Wayne county, where Biden won by more than 330,000 votes.
GSA certification is a process that in typical election years occurs without fanfare or discussion shortly after the race is called by major news outlets.
Murphy’s refusal to declare Biden the winner weeks after the election prevented the transition team of Biden and Vice president-elect Kamala Harris from accessing federal funding and meeting with government officials to prepare for inauguration on 20 January.
The delay was particularly concerning given the urgent and unprecedented tasks facing the federal government amid a significantly worsening pandemic and economic crisis. The US must also begin work to prepare a national rollout of Covid-19 vaccines. There were also major concerns about the potential national security implications of a delayed transition, which blocked Biden from accessing classified briefings.
After Murphy’s letter was made public, Trump tweeted, “We will keep up the good fight and I believe we will prevail! Nevertheless, in the best interest of our country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.”
The Trump legal team dismissed the certification as “simply a procedural step” and insisted it would fight on.
Yohannes Abraham, executive director of the Biden transition, said in a statement Monday that the move by the GSA “is a needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track”.
He added: “In the days ahead, transition officials will begin meeting with federal officials to discuss the pandemic response, have a full accounting of our national security interests, and gain complete understanding of the Trump administration’s efforts to hollow out government agencies.”
With GSA permitting the formal transition to start, more Republicans started to acknowledge the reality that Biden is president-elect.
“President Trump’s legal team has not presented evidence of the massive fraud which would have had to be present to overturn the election,” said Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator from Louisiana. “I voted for President Trump but Joe Biden won.”
A majority of GOP senators have refused to recognize Biden’s win, arguing that Trump should be allowed to pursue his cases in court, despite the lack of evidence of any widespread fraud that would change the outcome of the race. Since the Associated Press and other news organizations across the country declared Biden the winner on 7 November, five days after polls closed, Trump and his allies have continued to spread misinformation and baseless conspiracy theories, seeking to undermine the legitimacy of mail-in voting and falsely asserting that the election was “stolen”.
Audits, recounts and the Trump campaign’s court cases, however, have resulted in no meaningful changes to the election results, and in some cases, Biden’s lead has only increased. Judges repeatedly thr ew out the Trump campaign team’s cases.
But the false accusations of fraud did lead some election officials to seek to delay certification of the vote. The city commissioner’s office in Philadelphia, where counting took days, reported facing death threats, and Trump supporters have staged protests outside election offices across the US.
Murphy’s letter came on the same day that Biden announced his selection for several key cabinet roles. The president-elect said he would be nominating Tony Blinken as secretary of state, Jake Sullivan as national security adviser and John Kerry as “climate tsar”, suggesting a return to the priorities of the Obama era.
Biden also selected Alejandro Mayorkas for homeland security secretary. If he is confirmed, he would be the first Latino and migrant to have the position. He has further chosen Avril Haines to be the first female director of national intelligence and Janet Yellen to be the country’s first female treasury secretary. More - in US Politics
Q&A: what does the General Services Administration's decision mean?
The US government’s General Services Administration on Monday ascertained Joe Biden is the apparent winner of the 2020 presidential election, allowing for the presidential transition to officially begin.
Donald Trump on Monday tweeted he had directed his team to cooperate on the transition, but he vowed to continue fighting the election results.
What does the GSA’s decision mean? And why is the step a crucial one in the transfer of power?
What is the GSA?
The GSA is a huge agency that keeps the federal government functioning day to day. In order for a presidential transition to officially begin, the GSA had to recognize a presidential winner – or rather, ascertain the “apparent successful candidate” in the general election. The Presidential Transition Act and other federal policies do not specify how that process should work, but the process is meant to be apolitical.
In typical election years, it occurs without fanfare or discussion shortly after the race is called by major news outlets. In 2016, the agency began making office space available for the winning candidate’s team as early as August, and the transition was able to begin after Hillary Clinton conceded to Trump the day after the election.
Why was the move delayed this year?
The agency and its director, Emily Murphy, a Trump appointee, said it was important to wait to see how litigation by Donald Trump’s campaign and recounts in the days following the election could affect the election results.
In a letter informing Biden of the agency’s move on Monday, Murphy said she “looked to precedent from prior elections involving legal challenges and incomplete counts” in imposing a delay.
Republicans defending Murphy have pointed out that transition was delayed in 2000 as the court battle between Al Gore and George W Bush over the results in Florida played out. But Biden’s team has pointed out that in that case, only 500 votes separated the two candidates in that state. Even in states where Trump is contesting the result, Biden is leading Trump with thousands of votes.
Before Murphy ascertained Biden the winner, House Democrats had sent her a letter asking her to clearly explain the reasons for her delay by Monday.
What does the news mean?
The GSA move allows Biden and his team to access classified briefings and meet with government officials. It also gives Biden officials access to office space and funds to pay the transition team. Prior to the GSA’s move on Monday, the Biden-Harris team had been raising money to fund the transition process, absent access to government-allocated funds.
With the GSA’s approval, Biden’s team can also move over to government email and receive help from the Department of Homeland Security to protect the privacy of incoming officials as they plan out, for example, national security strategies. Until now, the team had also lacked cybersecurity support to shield email and other communication amid concerns that Russia, China, or other foreign adversaries could intercept classified information.
Why is it so crucial?
The Biden administration will face a host of urgent and unprecedented challenges when taking office on 20 January, as coronavirus cases across the US rise and Congress has not agreed on a relief package to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic.
Biden had warned last week that “because of the lack of ascertainment by the GSA, my transition team hasn’t been able to get access to the information we need to be able to deal with everything from testing and guidance to the all-important issue of vaccine distribution and vaccination plan”.
Last week, as the Biden-Harris team attempted to begin the transition process despite the GSA holdup, they reached out to Trump administration officials who had recently left their posts, in an attempt to glean key information while being locked out of official briefings. More - in US Politics
Joe Biden picks first women and first Latino for key cabinet roles
Joe Biden, the US president-elect, has shown his determination to speed past Donald Trump’s flailing attempts to block the transition by naming leaders of his foreign policy and national security team.The president-elect put faith in experience on Monday by announcing Tony Blinken as secretary of state, Jake Sullivan as national security adviser and John Kerry as “climate tsar”, each signalling a return to the multilateralism of the Obama era.Biden also picked Alejandro Mayorkas, who, if confirmed, would become the first Latino and migrant to be homeland security secretary; Avril Haines for director of national intelligence, who would be the first woman in that role; and Linda Thomas-Greenfield for ambassador to the United Nations.“These individuals are equally as experienced and crisis-tested as they are innovative and imaginative,” Biden said. “Their accomplishments in diplomacy are unmatched, but they also reflect the idea that we cannot meet the profound challenges of this new moment with old thinking and unchanged habits – or without diversity of background and perspective.”Biden was also set to make Janet Yellen – the first woman to chair the US Federal Reserve – the country’s first female treasury secretary. The 74-year-old economist is expected to be named as Biden’s choice on Tuesday.In making his choices Biden looked to send an unequivocal message to a global audience that election wrangling is over and he will take office on 20 January. Trump has refused to concede defeat, spreading false claims of election fraud and suffering legal humiliations in what critics describe as a haplessly executed coup attempt.The move also reflected Biden’s commitment to greater diversity and to choosing professionals from the foreign policy establishment in preference to business executives and politicians, a hallmark of the Trump administration.Blinken was Biden’s national security adviser when Biden was vice-president, then deputy secretary of state for two years under Barack Obama. Sullivan was an adviser to Hillary Clinton, took part in talks with Iran before the 2015 nuclear deal, and succeeded Blinken as Biden’s national security adviser.Kerry, named special presidential envoy for climate, is a former senator and Democratic presidential nominee who was Obama’s second secretary of state and a key architect of the Paris climate accord, which the US quit under Trump.He tweeted: “America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is. I’m proud to partner with the president-elect, our allies, and the young leaders of the climate movement to take on this crisis as the president’s climate envoy.”Thomas-Greenfield comes from the diplomatic corps, her career stretching back to the Reagan administration. She was assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Obama but the most senior Black US diplomat was fired by Trump.Speaking at Washington Post event to promote his new memoir, Obama praised the choice of Blinken.“He’s outstanding – smart, gracious, a skilled diplomat, well regarded around the world and I know he’s going to do a great job,” Obama said. “You’re seeing a team develop that I have great confidence in.”But the former president acknowledged that Trump’s wrecking ball approach to foreign policy will take time to repair.“I think it’s going to be important to recognise that the confidence that our allies had, and the world had, in American leadership is not going to be restored overnight.“They are going to be greatly relieved and pleased to see people like Tony at various conferences around the world and returning to the traditional leadership role that the US has played. But there is going to be a lingering sense that America’s still divided, some of the shenanigans that are going on right now around the election, that is making the world question how reliable and steady the US may be.” More
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Former Fed chair Janet Yellen set to become first female treasury secretary
Janet Yellen, the first woman to chair the US Federal Reserve, is set to achieve another first, becoming the country’s first female treasury secretary.
The 74-year-old economist is expected to be named as President-elect Joe Biden’s choice on Tuesday.
Yellen will take the job during one of the most trying economic times in modern history.
US unemployment hit a postwar record in April, in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, and while the jobs situation has improved, the recovery has slowed in recent months as rates of infection have increased.
Millions remain out of work, and women and people of color have been hit disproportionately hard by the downturn.
Congress has struggled to reach agreement on a new round of economic spending, the US national debt is at record levels, and relations with the US’s major trading partners are frayed after the Trump administration’s trade wars.
Donald Trump declined to reappoint Yellen to the Fed chair after his election in 2016, making her the first central bank chief not to serve two terms since the Carter administration. During his campaign Trump said Yellen should be “ashamed” of her policy actions and accused her of keeping interest rates low in order to bolster President Barack Obama’s legacy.
Cautious and carefully spoken Yellen has made few comments about Trump although when asked last year if she thought Trump “had a grasp” of macroeconomic policy she said: “No I do not.”
Yellen has recently advocated for more federal spending from Congress to tackle the economic devastation caused by the virus.
“There is a huge amount of suffering out there. The economy needs the spending,” Yellen said in a September interview.
Yellen, professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, a former assistant professor at Harvard and a lecturer at the London School of Economics, is an expert in labor markets who has highlighted the economic impact of uneven growth in the jobs market.
She is married to the Nobel-winning economist and frequent co-author George Akerlof.
Progressives had been hoping Senator Elizabeth Warren, a staunch critic of Wall Street, might get the job. But with control of the Senate still in the balance, Yellen is a safer pick. After the news broke Warren called Yellen “an outstanding choice.”Elizabeth Warren
(@SenWarren)
Janet Yellen would be an outstanding choice for Treasury Secretary. She is smart, tough, and principled. As one of the most successful Fed Chairs ever, she has stood up to Wall Street banks, including holding Wells Fargo accountable for cheating working families.November 23, 2020
Biden said last week that his Treasury nominee would be accepted by both the progressive and moderate wings of the Democrat party. Yellen has also in the past attracted bipartisan support, receiving 11 Republican votes for her 2014 confirmation as Fed chair, including the backing of three sitting Republican senators.
She is also one of the best-connected economists in the world, leading the Fed from 2014 to 2018 after a long career in economic policymaking.
If appointed, Yellen will not only be the first female Fed chair and treasury secretary, but the first person to have headed both organizations and the White House council of economic advisers. More - in US Politics
Obama: 'There's been some damage done' by Trump on foreign policy – video
Barack Obama said the Trump administration’s foreign relations had inflicted ‘damage’ upon America, and that it would take time for the country’s reputation to be restored. Obama expressed confidence in a new Biden administration, but cautioned change would not happen immediately More
Can Joe Biden Rewrite the Rules of the Road?
During his presidency, Donald Trump found a new way to keep the American public and its media alert. It was a kind of educational game called “Spot the Lie.” If the media had understood how the game worked, the nation and the world would have benefited. Instead, it tended to degenerate into a shouting match in which each side would shriek with increasing volume to express its indignation.
What was special about his prevarication? It was systematic and provocative, attention-getting. Traditionally, US presidents lied quietly, covering their reprehensible acts in expressions of virtuous intentions. Even the most obvious lie of the 21st century — George W. Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein was hiding a massive store of weapons of mass destruction — was presented as a concern for ensuring peace by preventing an imminent act of war by a mad Iraqi dictator. It turned out that both the madness and the capacity for war were on the American side. But nobody noticed because, well, the American military is by definition “a force for good.”
The Post-Election Art of Drawing Hasty Conclusions
READ MORE
With the incoming Biden administration, there will be fewer obvious lies. Given President-elect Joe Biden’s limited rhetorical skills, there may even be moments when Americans have access to the true intentions of a government that ordinarily seeks to hide them.
After the signature by 15 Asian nations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) last week, Biden explained what would be behind US strategy after he becomes president on January 20, 2021. “We make up 25% of the world’s trading capacity, of the economy of the world,” he said. “We need to be aligned with the other democracies, another 25% or more, so that we can set the rules of the road instead of having China and others dictate outcomes because they are the only game in town.”
Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:
Rules of the road:
The prescription of behavior for a group of supposed equals that clearly favors the interests of one member of the group whose dominant status allows it to impose its values and preferred behaviors on other members of a group without having to consult an external authority or waste too much time negotiating among equals
Contextual Note
Leaders of hegemons rarely explicitly lay out their hegemonic agenda. No one could doubt the bold claim Biden has made about the “rules of the road.” The United States always seeks to set the rules rather than play by them. But his statement deviates from the truth when he compares the US attitude with China’s. When it’s about the US defining the rules, Biden uses the verb “set.” But when it’s China, he uses the verb “dictate.” After all, China is a communist dictatorship, so logically anything it does can be called dictating.
That’s how clever diplomatic language works, at least in the hands of Democrats. They prefer to select the effective verb to instill the idea of good versus evil. Republicans prefer to use the language of moral judgment or downright insult. President Trump likes to call them purveyors of evil, “illegitimate” or even “shitholes.”
Embed from Getty Images
But the major difference between the rhetoric of the two parties is that the Republicans shy away from admitting the hard reality that results from the muscular use of power relationships. They prefer to present it as the logic of history, divine will or predestination that have put the US in the role of unique decision-maker for the rest of the world. The shining city on the hill spreads its light across the globe by virtue of being the shining city, not through its complex interplay with other nations. It has an existential quality that can no one can ever doubt.
That is what Trump means by “America First.” He presented the slogan as if it turned around the idea that the US should decide to tend only to its own needs and not worry about what happens elsewhere in the world. But it also contained the idea that because America was “first” by virtue of its might, it produced the light that illuminated the rest of the world. It didn’t actually have to be good and fair to stand as a model for everything that was good and fair.
The primary difference between these two interpretations of American exceptionalism lies in the respective rhetorical strategies rather than policy. That is why Biden’s foreign policy may not be very different from Trump’s in its overall effect on the rest of the world. It will be a variation on hegemonic rhetoric, but the military and financial base will be nearly identical.
Democrats believe that American exceptionalism, the success story of the nation, endows it with the authority to write the rules of the road for the rest of humanity. The Republicans see it as the result of writing the rules for themselves which they expect the rest of the world will naturally follow.
Historical Note
When, alluding to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the RCEP, Joe Biden compared the attitude of the US quite naturally seeking to “set the rules of the road” and the Chinese who “dictate outcomes.” The case can be made that he inverted the truth concerning the history of these two trade arrangements.
When the TPP was still awaiting signature at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, the BBC noted that the deal designed to put the US in the position to set the rules of the road was contested inside the US. The BBC reports: “US opponents have characterised the TPP as a secretive deal that favoured big business and other countries at the expense of American jobs and national sovereignty.” That highlights the problem Biden will be facing in many of his future decisions: how to define the US and its interests. In other words, who defines the rules? Is it big business or the American people?
Commenting on the historical background of the “secretive deal,” Vox reported: “Negotiations over the TPP’s terms were conducted in secret, with well-connected interest groups having access to more information — and more opportunities to influence the process — than members of the general public.” Even Congress was refused full access to the terms of the draft.
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.custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}In other words, when Biden refers to setting the rules of the road, it is anything but an openly negotiated procedure. In contrast, the RCEP was drafted conjointly and largely democratically by all the interested parties, which include some of the strongest allies of the US: Australia, Japan and South Korea. It is a lie of Trumpian proportions to suggest that the RCEP was dictated by the Chinese.
Statements of that kind by the president-elect do not bode well for the future foreign policy we can expect from the Biden administration. Biden’s future secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, sounds refreshing when he more realistically characterizes the state of the world at a forum at the Hudson Institute in July: “Simply put, the big problems that we face as a country and as a planet, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s a pandemic, whether it’s the spread of bad weapons — to state the obvious, none of these have unilateral solutions. Even a country as powerful as the United States can’t handle them alone.”
Blinken’s approach to foreign policy is likely to be similar to Obama’s, which does indeed appear refreshing in comparison to Donald Trump’s. But it is likely to be a return to a certain form of wishing to write the rules alone, if not handling the problems alone. In an interview in July, Blinken regretted that, under Trump, the US had lost the ability to dictate the rules. “If we’re not doing a lot of that organizing in terms of shaping the rules and the norms and the institutions through which countries relate to one another,” he said, “then one of two things, either someone else is doing it and probably not in a way that advances our own interests and values or maybe just as bad, no one is and then you tend to have chaos and a vacuum that may be filled by bad things.”
The problem Biden will face is that the world has changed. Unlike a few decades ago, few now believe the US has a divine right to “shape the rules” or the ability to stave off chaos.
*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
