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      A Fight Over Agriculture Secretary Could Decide the Direction of Hunger Policy

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      An unlikely fight is breaking out over President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s choice for agriculture secretary, pitting a powerful Black lawmaker who wants to refocus the Agriculture Department on hunger against traditionalists who believe the department should be a voice for rural America.Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and perhaps Mr. Biden’s most important supporter in the Democratic primary, is making an all-out case for Representative Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio, an African-American Democrat from Ohio.Mr. Clyburn, whose endorsement of Mr. Biden before the South Carolina primary helped turn the tide for the former vice president’s nomination, has spoken to him on the phone about Ms. Fudge as recently as this week. The lawmaker has also lobbied for her with two of the president-elect’s closest advisers and discussed the matter with Speaker Nancy Pelosi.“I feel very strongly,” Mr. Clyburn said in an interview on Wednesday about Ms. Fudge, who leads the nutrition and oversight subcommittee on the House Agriculture Committee.“It’s time for Democrats to treat the Department of Agriculture as the kind of department it purports to be,” he added, noting that much of the budget “deals with consumer issues and nutrition and things that affect people’s day-to-day lives.”But there are complications. Two of Mr. Biden’s farm-state allies are also being discussed for the job: Heidi Heitkamp, a former senator from North Dakota, and Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who served as agriculture secretary for President Barack Obama.The delicate proxy clash over the post, which is usually not as coveted as more high-profile cabinet positions, has pitted Democrats eager to emphasize issues like hunger and nutrition against more traditional members of the party who believe the department should represent rural America. The sprawling agency oversees farm policy, the Forest Service, food safety and animal health, but also the food stamp program, nutrition services, rural housing and rural development.More broadly, the debate illustrates the challenge Mr. Biden faces as he builds his administration. Every appointment he makes interlocks with others, and if he does not select a diverse candidate for one position it becomes more likely he will for other posts.The Agriculture job specifically is pinching Mr. Biden between two of his central campaign themes, which he repeated in plain terms this month in his victory speech: that he owes a special debt to African-American voters, and that he wants to be a president for all Americans, including those who didn’t vote for him.And nowhere did Mr. Biden fare worse than in rural America, particularly the most heavily white parts of the farm belt.“This is a choice that only Joe Biden can make, and he will make it understanding the unique challenges of rural America and what needs to happen in rural America moving forward,” said Ms. Heitkamp, a moderate who was defeated in 2018 after serving as attorney general and then senator in one of the most sparsely populated states in the country.Recalling her campaign efforts on behalf of Mr. Biden’s “great rural plan,” Ms. Heitkamp predicted the president-elect would “pick the person who can implement that rural plan.”Mr. Clyburn, though, said the Agriculture Department had for too long seemed “to favor big farming interests” over less wealthy people, whether they be “little farmers in Clarendon County, S.C., or food stamp recipients in Cleveland, Ohio,” Ms. Fudge’s hometown.Mr. Clyburn did not mention Ms. Heitkamp, but he bridled at the prospect of Mr. Vilsack reclaiming the department he had led for all eight years of the Obama administration.“I don’t know why we’ve got to be recycling,” Mr. Clyburn said, echoing complaints that Mr. Biden only represents Mr. Obama’s third term. “There’s a strong feeling that Black farmers didn’t get a fair shake” under Mr. Vilsack, Mr. Clyburn said.Mr. Vilsack did not respond in kind. He said he had “all the respect in the world for Representative Clyburn” and that he had learned from him.The former Iowa governor, who with his wife was an early supporter of Mr. Biden in his first campaign for president and again this year, said he was not angling for the agriculture job but was careful not to disclaim interest in the position.“If there’s something I can do to help the country, fine,” Mr. Vilsack said. “But the president-elect makes that decision.”When he does, he will be fully aware of where one of his most prominent supporters stands.In addition to his conversations with Mr. Biden, Mr. Clyburn has reached out to Steve Ricchetti, who will serve as a counselor in the White House, and Ted Kaufman, Mr. Biden’s longest-serving adviser and former chief of staff.House Democratic leaders are sensitive to creating vacancies in the chamber, even in safe districts like Ms. Fudge’s, given their slender majority. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, might not schedule a quick special election to replace her. But Mr. Clyburn said he was hopeful from his conversation with Ms. Pelosi that she “would greenlight” Ms. Fudge.Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, declined to comment on the discussion. But he signaled that the speaker, who appointed Ms. Fudge as the chairwoman of a subcommittee two years ago to defuse a potential rivalry for the speakership, would not object to her departure.“The speaker wants the full contribution of House Democrats to the Biden-Harris mandate and to the future represented in the administration,” Mr. Hammill said.Like other positions, the Agriculture Department decision could be settled by finding an alternate post elsewhere in the administration for whoever is passed over.A spokesman for Mr. Biden’s transition declined to comment on the appointment but said the president-elect was “prioritizing diversity of ideology and background as he builds a team of experts that looks like America to serve in his administration.”Ms. Fudge, though, has other important advocates, including Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, who said he had made the case for her “with four or five top Biden transition people.” Her colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee have also been supportive.“It is time for a hunger advocate to lead the Department of Agriculture, and nobody could lead the agency better than Marcia Fudge,” said Representative Filemon Vela, Democrat of Texas.Most significant, though, are three Black House Democrats who are close to one another and Ms. Fudge. The group includes Mr. Clyburn, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, who is leaving Congress to become a senior adviser in the White House.As for Mr. Biden, Mr. Clyburn said, “he likes Fudge a whole lot.”Recounting his conversation with the president-elect, the congressman said he wanted to let him make the decision. “I just told him I thought she’d be a very good candidate and help refocus what the department is all about.” More

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      Biden Urges Unity: ‘We’re at War With the Virus, Not With One Another’

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      WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday delivered a raw but optimistic address to Americans in his first nonpolitical speech since winning the election, pleading with the nation to “hang on” and have hope even with the number of coronavirus cases spiking across the country and a hard winter on the horizon.“Looking back over our history, you see that it’s been in the most difficult circumstances that the soul of our nation has been forged,” Mr. Biden said, speaking directly to the camera from a stage at the Queen, a historic theater in Wilmington, Del., where he stepped into a void left for him by President Trump, who has been rarely seen since the election.In an implicit repudiation of Mr. Trump, who has dismissed the coronavirus as the flu and mocked people who wear masks, Mr. Biden urged Americans to see it as their patriotic duty to fight the pandemic together by taking the proper precautions. “I know the country has grown weary of the fight,” he said. “We need to remember we’re at war with the virus, not with one another, not with each other.”As he urged Americans to wear face masks, practice social distancing and limit the size of group gatherings, especially around the holidays, he noted: “None of these steps we’re asking people to take are political statements. Every one of them is based on science, real science.”He said he hoped the good news about effective vaccines would “serve as an incentive to every American to take these simple steps to get control of the virus. There’s real hope, tangible hope. So hang on.”In the two and a half weeks since Mr. Biden won the election, he has been spreading a message of unity in an effort to reach the nearly 74 million Americans who voted for Mr. Trump. On the eve of Thanksgiving, he also addressed the pandemic head on with a mix of realism and hope.“Many local health systems are at risk of being overwhelmed,” he said. “That’s the plain and simple truth. Nothing made up, it’s real. I believe you always deserve to hear the truth, hear the truth from your president.” He added, “Each of us has a responsibility in our own lives to do what we can do to slow the virus.”Mr. Biden, aides said, decided about 10 days ago to give a Thanksgiving address as he watched coronavirus cases spiking across the country and thought about how his own typically large family gathering was going to be scaled down this year. (In his speech, he said he would be celebrating at home with his wife, Jill, their daughter, Ashley, and her husband.)Mr. Biden spoke minutes after Mr. Trump called into a hotel gathering of Republican state lawmakers in Gettysburg, Pa., to discuss with them and his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, baseless allegations of voting irregularities in the state. Mr. Trump again claimed he won the election he had lost and demanded that the election results be “turned” in his favor.“This was an election that we won easily,” he said. “We won it by a lot.”The president had intended to appear there in person, but he abruptly canceled those plans after a campaign adviser who had been near Mr. Giuliani tested positive for the coronavirus. Later in the day, Mr. Trump invited some of the Pennsylvania lawmakers to the White House to discuss what a person familiar with the situation said were voting irregularities. Mr. Trump did the same thing with a group of Michigan lawmakers — he pressured them to not certify Michigan’s 2020 election vote, which went for Mr. Biden — but it failed to work.In contrast to Mr. Trump’s feckless efforts to overturn the election results, Mr. Biden praised the sanctity of the vote in his speech and commended Americans for casting their ballots in record numbers despite the pandemic. “Our democracy was tested this year,” he said. “What we learned is this: The people of this nation are up to the task. In America, we have full and fair and free elections. And then we honor the results.”He called voting “the noblest instrument of nonviolent protests ever conceived.”Mr. Trump, in the early days of the pandemic, had tried to brand himself a “wartime president,” before claiming, inaccurately, that the country had “rounded the curve.” Mr. Biden on Wednesday appeared to pick up the wartime mantle, describing the coronavirus pandemic as “a nearly yearlong battle” that has “devastated this nation.”“America is not going to lose this war,” he said, reminding people, “Don’t let yourself surrender to the fatigue.”Mr. Biden also tried to paint an optimistic vision of the future, despite the current crisis, and asked Americans to “dream again.”“We’re going to lead the world by the power of our example, not just the example of our power,” he said. “We’re going to lead the world on climate and save this planet. We’re going to find cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s and diabetes, I promise you.”Mr. Biden’s speech was infused with his own experience of devastating loss, which he often cites when he speaks to a nation that has so far lost more than 260,000 lives to the virus.“I remember that first Thanksgiving, the empty chair, the silence,” he said, referring to the death of his son Beau Biden in 2015. “It takes your breath away. It’s really hard to care. It’s hard to give thanks. It’s hard to even think of looking forward. It’s so hard to hope. I understand.”Mr. Trump had no plans to deliver any holiday message of his own. On Tuesday, he took part in the annual turkey pardon, a White House tradition that counted as one of his only public appearances since the election.On Wednesday, after Mr. Biden’s address, the president announced on Twitter that he had pardoned the first of his four national security advisers, Michael T. Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with a Russian diplomat and whose prosecution Attorney General William P. Barr tried to shut down.Mr. Biden and his aides were trying to treat the last gasps of Mr. Trump’s presidency as a side show. In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday morning, transition officials said the president-elect did not need Mr. Trump to concede in order to carry on with the necessary business before them that began this week after the head of the General Services Administration formally acknowledged the election results.“We do not feel that it is necessary for President-elect Biden to speak with President Trump,” Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, said on a conference call with reporters. “We believe we’re getting the information our teams need.” More

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      Biden’s Team, Setting a New Direction

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      To the Editor:Re “Biden Picks Team Set on Fortifying World Alliances” (front page, Nov. 25):Watching President-elect Joe Biden’s news conference on Tuesday brought tears of appreciation, and I wondered why. The voters’ rejection of the dangerous incompetence of Donald Trump is an obvious answer. But it goes deeper.The usual transitions of power and key positions always represent a changing of the guard, a shift of policy, but nothing to warrant an emotional response like the one I experienced. But Mr. Trump so blew up the norms of how government should work to help solve Americans’ problems that now, with real grown-ups coming back in to pick up the reins and the pieces, I felt such a burst of gratitude and pride.This is truly Mr. Biden’s moment. He has long waited in the wings and is now center stage with an excellent supporting cast.Diane GarthwaiteScarborough, MaineTo the Editor:Tuesday’s news conference introducing members of Joe Biden’s team reveals the true toll of the Trump presidency. In order to defeat an autocrat, we have had to settle for a Republican-light team calling for a revival of American “leadership” in the world. “America is back,” Mr. Biden said, “ready to lead the world.”Many of us who had no choice but to vote for Mr. Biden remember all too well what Democratic world leadership meant for Vietnam. We recall Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton voting for the invasion of Iraq.The world’s nations have not elected our country as their leader. We should form fair alliances, energetically participate in the United Nations and at long last stop boycotting the International Criminal Court. We should be good citizens of the world, not its unelected, self-imposed leader. The very idea of “leader of the world” reeks of arrogance, privilege, ignorance and intolerance.Neil MullinMontclair, N.J.To the Editor:Re “A Great Election, Against All Odds” (editorial, Nov. 25):Republicans fear the will of the American electorate. Not so deep down, they know that on policy after policy the majority of voters do not want what the Republican Party stands for. That is why disinformation is a core strategy. That is why they work so strenuously to selectively prevent people they anticipate making choices counter to what Republicans want through voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering, and when things do not go their way, cancel actual votes.Put another way, for Republicans in 2020 democracy is not a soaring principle or constitutional requirement. It is an inconvenience to be discarded when it challenges holding on to power.Arthur H. CaminsBeacon, N.Y.To the Editor:The Times still refuses to acknowledge a crucial reality that many of the 73 million Americans who voted for President Trump understand. There is a significant difference between Mr. Trump’s strong but highly defective persona and his policies. His insistence on opening schools is one significant example, when one weighs the benefits of the in-school experience, especially for younger and poorer kids, against the coronavirus risks.I am dismayed by the considerable damage to our country from four years of wholesale dismissal of “anything Trump” without rigorous evaluation of each policy.Samuel BahnNew York More

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      No, President Trump Did Not Pardon Himself

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      WASHINGTON — This might have been the most anticipated White House turkey-pardoning ceremony ever.For starters, President Trump has been scarcely seen without golf clubs since Election Day. So the annual ritual of sparing two turkeys offered a rare chance to glimpse the lame-duck leader in public.“Thanksgiving is a very special day for turkeys,” the president said in the Rose Garden on Tuesday afternoon. “Not a very good one, if you think about it.” Except for two fortunate feathered recipients of the president’s largess.It felt almost normal, refreshingly pro forma. With a zest for showmanship, Mr. Trump had always seemed in his element on these cornball occasions, no matter what other turmoil happened to be upending his presidency at the moment.But Mr. Trump’s recent reclusiveness had also given the festivities a measure of Groundhog Day drama: Would the Punxsutawney President strike a light and conciliatory tone, signaling a mild period of transition into the Biden administration? Or would he continue with the defiant and rancorous posture he has exhibited in the more than 550 tweets he has unleashed since Nov. 3, ensuring several more disruptive weeks of a presidency in dark winter?The cliffhanger infused the hokey White House tradition with genuine theatrics — just as the master of ceremonies relishes. Speculation had swirled in recent days that the president might make incendiary news by pardoning humans like Paul Manafort (his former campaign chairman, convicted of tax and bank fraud) along with his innocent feathered friends Corn and Cob (imported from Iowa, 42 and 41 pounds, with 35- and 34-inch wingspans).If nothing else, the spectacle offered a respite from the daily onslaught of Mr. Trump’s legal challenges, as well as the carefully produced announcements of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s new cabinet officials — several of whom were being introduced in Wilmington, Del., as the president and the first lady, Melania Trump, were making their way out to the Rose Garden at about 2:30 p.m.The president began by announcing again that the Dow Jones industrial average had broken 30,000 for the first time. (He had first announced it an hour and a half earlier in an appearance in the White House briefing room that lasted barely a minute.) Although the market appeared to be reacting to the Government Services Administration’s decision on Monday night that the transition to the Biden administration could formally begin, Mr. Trump wrapped himself in the news.“I just want to congratulate everybody,” Mr. Trump said, a throwback to the pre-election days, when he would boast constantly about the performance of the stock market, as if it offered some running testimonial to his performance in office.Voters have since rendered a harsher verdict. Recent weeks have, by all accounts, been difficult for a president whose self-definition as a “winner” has been dented by a battering of courtroom defeats, rising vote deficits and scattered abandonment from former Republican allies.At the very least, the White House turkey tradition offered the comfort of ritual. It was started by President Truman in 1947, though President Kennedy was the first to spare the honored bird. President Bush was the first to officially use the word “pardon” in 1989.Mr. Trump wore a navy blue overcoat and bright red tie in the chill of the late November afternoon. He made no mention of the election or the president-elect. He seemed slightly subdued but for the most part in decent spirits.He described this as “a time that is very unusual,” which seemed apt enough.“We’re here to continue a beloved annual tradition,” the president said, ushering in the featured, feathered portion of the ceremony.He mentioned that Corn and Cob had been selected from a presidential flock that included some “real beauties” and noted that they came from Iowa.“I love the state of Iowa,” Mr. Trump said, by way of buttering up the home of the butterballs. (He is said to be considering a comeback campaign in 2024.)“We love our farmers,” he added, for good measure.After a few minutes, the president and the first lady stepped out from behind the Rose Garden podium and approached the guest of honor.“Look at that beautiful, beautiful bird,” Mr. Trump marveled as he gestured toward Corn, who was perched a few feet away. (Cob was not immediately visible to onlookers.)“Oh, that is a lucky bird,” he continued. “Wow.”“Thank you, Corn,” Mr. Trump said as he briefly laid his forgiving hand upon the rich white plume of his beneficiary.The president and the first lady waved to the friendly crowd as they took leave of Corn, who at that moment did manage a brief serenade of gobbles.Mr. Trump flashed a thumbs-up for the cameras and did not respond to two shouted questions from reporters: one about whether he might invite Mr. Biden for a White House visit and the other about whether he might soon be pardoning himself.At this same event last year, the president had said that “I expect this pardon will be a very popular one with the media. After all, turkeys are closely related to vultures.”In other words, Mr. Trump had likened reporters to vultures. More