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      Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell acknowledges Biden/Harris victory – video

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      Republican Mitch McConnell on Tuesday congratulated the Democratic president-elect, Joe Biden, and vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, on their election victories, ending his long silence on the outcome of the presidential race. In remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning, the Senate majority leader acknowledged the Democrats’ winning the White House following Monday’s formal result issued by the electoral collegeMitch McConnell congratulates Biden after weeks of declining to acknowledge election win – live Continue reading… More

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      Wall Street donates millions to back Republicans in Georgia Senate race

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      Billionaire Republicans on Wall Street have been opening their wallets to try and protect David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler’s Senate seats in January 5’s high-stakes runoff in Georgia against two Democrat challengers.Two super Pacs are planning to spend about $80m on ads and other efforts backing the Republicans.Among donors are top finance CEOs Stephen Schwarzman, of Blackstone Group, and Kenneth Griffin, of Citadel LLC, who have donated millions to the Senate Leadership Fund super Pac which is supporting Perdue, according to campaign finance records.Last month, Schwarzman, who briefly was the chair of Donald Trump’s strategic and policy forum, contributed $15m and Griffin donated $10m to the Pac; while earlier in the year, the Pac received $20m from Schwarzman and $25m from Griffin.Separately, a fundraising committee backing both Republican senators that launched last month has surpassed its goal of raising $35m to oppose Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. This committee is also being helped by fundraising on Wall Street including Schwarzman, Griffin and others, say two GOP sources.The Georgia runoff will determine which party controls the Senate – and consequently how much political power Joe Biden’s administration will have to push its agenda.If Ossoff and Warnock win, the Senate would be split 50-50, giving Democrats control since Vice-President elect Kamala Harris would have a tie breaking vote.With the stakes so high, reports show that over $400m on ads has been spent or booked so far in Georgia by the candidates’ campaigns, their parties and outside backers.As fundraising and spending on ads in Georgia has increased, it looks as though the two senators and their supporters are on track to have a distinct edge over their Democratic challengers.Analysis from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (CPR) shows that securities firms, insurance and real estate companies have historically been the top donors to Perdue and Loeffler.Elected in 2014, Perdue has raked in about $4.4m from securities, investment and real estate companies from 2015-2020, making the sector his leading campaign funder, CRP data shows.Loeffler, who was appointed in late 2019 to fill the seat of a retiring senator with health problems, has this cycle pulled in over $1.1m from these firms, or more than other sectors donated, says CRP.“Perdue and Loeffler’s money from Wall Street and real estate towers over every other sector that supports them in the 2020 cycle,” said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of CRP. “On top of money to the candidates, conservative outside groups are also raking in cash from major financial interests for the Georgia Senate runoffs in an attempt to keep these seats – and the Senate – for the GOP.”Perdue’s top 10 donors, meanwhile, have included executives from insurer AFLAC and Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs which, respectively, gave him $92,000 and $88,000, according to CRP.Loeffler’s 10 leading donors have included $114,650 from Intercontinental Exchange, a company her husband Jeffrey Sprecher runs; $29,450 from AFLAC; and $22,500 from Blackstone Group.The Senate Leadership Fund, which boasts close ties to Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has drawn its largest financial industry checks from Schwarzman and Griffin.Other finance sector mega donors to the super Pac include the CEOs of Charles Schwab Corp which gave $6.3m, plus Elliott Management and Stephens Inc, both of which chipped in $4m.Overall, CRP data revealed that donations from finance, insurance and real estate sectors totaled close to $126m to the super PAC which raised close to $400m in the election cycle.DemocratsDemocrats on Wall Street, meanwhile, have been supporting a big Pac backing Ossoff and Warnock, though have so far been outmatched in donations.The pro-Democrat Senate Majority Pac, which is expected to spend millions of dollars in the runoffs, before 3 November raked in big money from two financial giants, receiving $10.2m Renaissance Technologies, and $5m from Paloma Partners, according to CRP.Overall, however, as of 23 November, the Senate Majority Pac had just $2.1m left to spend, while the Senate Leadership Fund had $60.8m, according to CRP.Perdue and Loeffler’s strong support from financial industry leaders seems partly attributable to their industry ties. An ex-CEO of Dollar General whose net worth was estimated last year at $16m, Perdue used to be on the board of Cardlytics, a financial tech company.Loeffler’s husband Sprecher, chairs the New York Stock Exchange and leads global exchange operator ICE. The couple’s net worth has been pegged by Forbes at $800m.Both senators, though, have been dogged by ethical issues involving significant stock trading during the pandemic’s early stages which sparked federal inquiries into potential illegal insider trading.Perdue, who is the most prolific stock trader in the Senate, drew scrutiny from the justice department due to his well timed and profitable stock trading in Cardlytics: Perdue sold about $1m worth of his Cardlytics stock in January. Investigators looked at a personal email he received before the stock sale and whether he had learned early of a major management shift, the New York Times reported.DoJ reportedly opted not to charge Perdue with any illegal trading, but the issue has roiled his runoff campaign and may have influenced his decision not to appear at a debate with Ossoff earlier this month.Loeffler too was embroiled in an inquiry into possible insider trading during the pandemic: she dumped millions of dollars in stocks soon after she received a private briefing from health officials on the new threat in January.DoJ investigated her trades and those of some other members, but told Loeffler in March it was not pursuing charges.Still, the stock trading issue has surfaced in the runoffs: when the moderator at her debate with Warnock last Sunday pressed Loeffler about whether Senators should be allowed to trade stocks she avoided answering, calling the controversy about her trading a “conspiracy” and “left wing media lie”. 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      Democrats again look to Black voters to win Georgia runoffs and take the Senate

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      As James Brown’s funk classic Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud pulsed through the mobile sound system, Cliff Albright marched up a steep roadway, bellowing into a microphone trying to get people out of their doors.
      “Let’s go y’all,” he said. “Black voters matter every day, everywhere.”
      Albright and other members of the organization he co-founded, Black Voters Matter, walk with pride in these central Georgia neighborhoods. And for good reason.
      Turnout here in Houston county soared in the 2020 election. And although the county, staunchly Republican for decades, stayed red – Joe Biden narrowed the margin by over 6%. It’s in no small part due to the months of organizing here to mobilize the county’s Black voters, who make up around a third of the population.
      It was also the later vote tallies, from mail-in voting here in Houston county, that helped propel Biden past Trump to flip the state of Georgia. A fact that many people in these communities celebrate with a deep source of pride.
      “We put a lot of work in here,” Albright said, as he handed out literature, face masks and an invitation to a drive-in watch party of the evening’s US senate debate. “It’s been all year round, because we say Black votes matter 365. We do work not just around elections, but on the issues.”
      As early voting starts on Monday in the crucial Georgia Senate runoff elections, organizers like Albright, critical players in the efforts to flip the state from Republican to Democrat for the first time since 1992, are once again gearing up for another election.
      Black and minority organizers, who have for years been pushing to turn this state’s rapidly diversifying demographics into a more progressive politics, are being called on again to secure two Senate seats that would effectively hand Democrats control of the US legislature.
      Albright is optimistic that the communities he has worked to mobilize will turnout again and predicts, in fact, a rise in turnout.
      “You’ve got people now who have seen Georgia flip, when previously believed their vote might not matter. And what they’ve seen is that, you know what, if we come out in record numbers we can actually change the state. So some folks who may not have done it in November, who now want to be a part of it,” he said.
      As Trump continues to undermine the result in Georgia, and the election at-large, Albright believes the president’s baseless claims of widespread fraud, significantly directed at many communities of color around the country, will serve as extra motivation.
      “The fact that he [Trump] is out here trying to target us, to take our votes away, I think that’s going to stir up even more excitement,” he said. “If Trump keeps acting a fool, it’s going to backfire.”
      Black Voters Matter’s outreach efforts in central Georgia have been led by Fenika Miller, a lifelong resident of the city of Warner Robins, who has spent most of her career in grassroots organizing here. She admits feeling exhausted after the year-long election season. Thanksgiving was her first day off all year. It also marked the first time she had slept for eight hours.
      “This year feels like a three-year election cycle,” she said.

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      Miller was also selected as one of 16 Democrats, including former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, to cast an electoral college ballot for Biden on Monday, an honor she believes is a reflection of her community’s hard work.
      “The last time Georgia flipped I was a high school student. And the first time I’m going to cast a vote as an elector is going to be for a Democratic president. That’s a big deal,” she said.
      Miller is one of a number of Black women, including Abrams, that Democrats relied on in November who will be out again in January, empowered by the result last month.
      “Black women are leading our movements,” she said. “We are on the frontlines in a way that people don’t always necessarily see. We didn’t do this work to save our country, we did it to save ourselves, our families, our communities, our jobs, our childcare, just the basic things that our community needs.”
      Grassroots organizers across Georgia say the Covid-19 pandemic and protests over racial injustice helped spur people to motivate voters in ways they previously haven’t seen before.
      “Covid has highlighted to people how policy impacts their everyday lives and that elected officials make those policies. If you look at whether I get a stimulus relief for my business, some elected official makes that determination,” said Helen Butler, the executive director for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a group that works to get people registered to vote. “They knew it all along, but Covid has really brought it home because it is impacting so many people.”
      Nse Ufot, the CEO of the New Georgia Project, the voter registration group Stacey Abrams started in 2014, said the group had learned from the 2016 and 2018 elections in the state and become more vigilant about watching the entire registration and election process. That includes making sure that registered voters actually make it on to the rolls and aren’t wrongly removed once they’re there, she said (Georgia has faced scrutiny in recent years for its aggressive – and sometimes inaccurate – removal of voters). On election day in November, she said organizers showed up at polling stations that had been removed to give voters new information about where to go.
      “In the past that would have just meant that people were frustrated,” she said.
      Still, severe obstacles remain.
      Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger announced last month his office was investigating the New Georgia Project, focusing on an effort to get supporters to write postcards to people encouraging them to register and vote. Raffensperger suggested the group was soliciting votes from people who are ineligible, noting that he had received postcards from New Georgia Project addressed to his son, who died two years ago. Ufot strongly denies any wrongdoing, saying her group relies on state and other data to figure out where to send the postcards.
      Earlier this year, a nonprofit, the Voter Information Center, drew ire from election officials across the country for using faulty data to send misleading or incorrect voting information.
      “The fact that they’ve had three press conferences from the capitol stairs as opposed to reaching out to us tells us everything we need to know about their priorities and what this is designed to do,” Ufot said.
      “We use real lawyers to defend us and to defend our work. Every dollar that we have to spend to defend ourselves against the nuisance and partisan investigations is a dollar that we aren’t able to put into the field to register new voters and have high quality conversations about the power of their vote and the importance of this moment.”
      After years of investing in organizing, Ufot said it was rewarding to see the work pay off.
      “I’m definitely one of those people that’s like ‘you weren’t with us before November. Where have you been?’ Our position, our posture, is welcome to the fight, welcome to the work, grab a shovel,’” she said. More

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      Speculation swirls over Ivanka Trump’s potential run for US Senate in Florida

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      Speculation about the post-White House career of Ivanka Trump is now centered on Florida, where the soon to be ex-first daughter and senior aide to her president father has reportedly bought an expensive plot of land for a house and may be considering a run for Senate.Ivanka Trump is frequently mentioned as desiring a political career of her own and during her time working for Donald Trump has sought to position herself as a more media-friendly version of her father.Now US media reports are focusing on Florida – where Donald Trump owns the Mar-A-Lago resort – as a potential base for his daughter to launch a political career of her own.“Ivanka definitely has political ambitions, no question about it,” a source told CNN. “She wants to run for something, but that still needs to be figured out.”Florida might offer one potential avenue in a Senate race in 2022 when current Republican incumbent Marco Rubio’s seat is up for re-election. Rubio was a harsh critic of Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican nomination race but later morphed into a loyal supporter of Trump once he had the won election.“I think she’d be the immediate frontrunner if she ran for US Senate against Rubio, given her father’s popularity in the Sunshine State,” Adam C Smith, former Tampa Bay Times political editor and now consultant with Mercury Public Affairs, told CNN.Supporting the speculation are news reports that Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner – who has also been a prominent and influential member of the White House team for the last four years – are spending millions of dollars on a property in Florida that will serve as their future home base.The New York Post reported that the pair are spending more than $30m on a land lot on Miami’s exclusive Indian Creek Island, which has been dubbed the “Billionaire’s Bunker”. The island reportedly boasts its own private police force for its handful of ultra-wealthy residences.Ivanka Trump is not the only member of her family potentially eyeing up a political future post-Trump. Donald Trump Jr – who is popular with his father’s conservative base – is often seen as likely to make a serious bid to enter politics in his own right. Meanwhile, daughter-in-law Lara Trump has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the Senate in North Carolina. More

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      After Trump review: a provocative case for reform by Biden and beyond

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      At times, the Trump administration has seemed like a wrecking ball, careening from floor to floor of a building being destroyed, observers never quite knowing where the ball will strike next. At others, it has worked stealthily to undermine rules and norms, presumably fearing that, as the great supreme court justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunshine is the best of disinfectants”.
      These changes, far beyond politics or differences of opinion on policy, should trouble all those who care about the future of the American republic. Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer, veterans of Republican (Bush) and Democratic (Clinton) administrations, are students of the presidency whose scholarship is informed by their service. They have combined to write a field guide to the damage and serious proposals to undo it.
      Presidencies do not exist in a vacuum, and many of the excesses of which the authors complain did not begin in 2017. But Trump upped the stakes: the violations of rules and norms are not merely quantitatively more numerous but qualitatively different. Whether seeking to fire the special counsel investigating him, making money from his businesses or attacking the press, he has made breathtaking changes.
      As the authors write, “Trump has merged the institution of the presidency with his personal interests and has used the former to serve the latter”, attacking “core institutions of American democracy” to an extent no president had before.
      The American constitutional system, unlike the British, is one of enumerated powers. But over 230 years, norms have arisen. Unlike laws of which violations are (usually) clear, norms are “nonlegal principles of appropriate or expected behavior that presidents and other officials tacitly accept and that typically structure their actions”. In an illustration of the great American poet Carl Sandburg’s observation that “The fog comes on little cat feet”, norms “are rarely noticed until they are violated, as the nation has experienced on a weekly and often daily basis during the Trump presidency”.
      Those two axioms – that Trump’s offences are worse than others and that norms can easily be overcome by a determined president – show reform is essential.
      The first section of After Trump deals with the presidency itself: the dangers of foreign influence, conflicts of interest, attacks on the press and abuses of the pardon power.
      Here the reforms – political campaigns reporting foreign contacts, a requirement to disclose the president’s tax returns and criminalizing pardons given to obstruct justice – are generally straightforward. Regarding the press, where Trump has engaged in “virulent, constant attacks” and tried to claim his Twitter account was not a public record even as he happily fired public officials on it, the authors would establish that due process applies to attempted removal of a press pass and make legal changes to deter harassment of or reprisals against the media because “the elevation of this issue clarifies, strengthens, and sets up an apparatus for the enforcement of norms”.
      Goldsmith and Bauer’s second section focuses on technical legal issues, specifically those surrounding special counsels, investigation of the president, and the relationship between the White House and justice department.
      The American constitution is far more rigid that the British but it too has points of subtlety and suppleness. One example is the relationship between the president and an attorney general subordinate to the president but also duty bound to provide impartial justice, even when it concerns the president.
      The issues may seem arcane, but they are vital: “Of the multitude of norms that Donald Trump has broken as president, perhaps none has caused more commentary and consternation than his efforts to defy justice department independence and politicize the department’s enforcement of civil and criminal law.”
      And yet even as the attorney general, William Barr, sought a more lenient sentence for Roger Stone, stood by as Trump fired the US attorney in New York City, and kept up a “running public commentary” on an investigation of the origins of the investigation into the Trump campaign, the authors oppose those actions but remain cautious. They decline to endorse some of the more radical proposals, such as separating the justice department from the executive branch. More

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      The US election's 'safe harbor' deadline is here. What does that mean for Biden?

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      While Donald Trump continues to falsely insist he won the 2020 race, Tuesday marks an important deadline further cementing that Joe Biden will be inaugurated as America’s 46th president on 20 January.
      This year, 8 December is the so-called “safe harbor” deadline, which federal law says must fall six days before electors meet across the country to cast their votes for president. The statute says that as long as states use existing state law to resolve disputes about electors by the deadline, the votes cast by those electors will be “conclusive”. It is meant to act as a safeguard so that Congress, which will count the electoral votes on 6 January, can’t second-guess or overturn the election results.
      At least one Republican member of Congress, Mo Brooks of Alabama, has said he will object to electors and Republicans in Pennsylvania have urged lawmakers to do the same. Those challenges are unlikely to be successful because a majority of both houses would have to agree to the challenge. Democrats control a majority of the US House of Representatives.
      The Guardian spoke to Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, about the importance of the safe harbor deadline and what it could mean.
      Why is the safe harbor deadline so important?
      The key concept of safe harbor is the benefit that states get if they meet it. But it’s optional.
      It’s desirable that they get this benefit, but it’s not essential. And what makes it desirable is Congress promises to accept as “conclusive” – that’s the statutory language – any resolution that the state itself meets if it complies with these two requirements, one being timing and the other being the use of existing law.
      A state puts itself in as good a position as possible to have its electoral votes accepted by Congress if it’s safe-harbor-compliant. Because if Congress obeys its own promise, then it’s a done deal.
      Lacking safe harbor status doesn’t mean a state’s electoral votes are going to be rejected by Congress. It just means that they’re arriving in Congress without the benefit of a super-shield, if you will.
      Are there states that are at risk of not meeting safe harbor? It seems like every state has certified.
      Yes. Certification is not sufficient for safe harbor status.
      Electors have to be certified and they have to get their own certificates of ascertainment from the governor, and that then allows them to go to the state capitol and vote … That’s happened at least in enough states now for Biden to be above 270 electoral votes. There’s no danger of that not happening.
      States that have litigation procedures written into state law to challenge a certification, even after the certification has occurred … it’s often called a contest. That’s a term of art, in law, that means you’re contesting the certification. If any state has a procedure like that … that’s what has to be finalized by 8 December for safe harbor status.
      Wisconsin, for example, is a state that’s looking like at the moment like it’s not going to achieve safe harbor status because it has a hearing on 10 December in state court pursuant to a procedure that exists in state law … I’m not expecting that procedure to be successful in overturning certification. But I think it does mean that there will not be a final determination of that controversy or contest concerning the appointment of electors until after 8 December.
      And that opens the door for Congress to second-guess the electoral votes that Wisconsin is sending?
      It deprives Wisconsin of that super-shield that we were talking about. It doesn’t mean that Congress will reject the votes. I don’t think it puts Wisconsin’s votes in any practical jeopardy. But it does put them in a different legal status.
      Representative Brooks from Alabama says he’s going to object to Biden’s electoral votes. I don’t know if he specified which states. But in my judgment it is inappropriate for any member of Congress, representative or senator, to file an objection to any electoral votes that actually have safe harbor status.
      Congress should treat safe harbor status in the way the law calls for it to be treated. It’s conclusive. There shouldn’t be any objections filed to anything that a member of Congress believes to have safe harbor status. But if it doesn’t have safe harbor status, then I think it opens it up, as you said, to congressional second-guessing, in a way that safe harbor status shouldn’t.
      When a state meets safe harbor, a member of Congress and a senator can still object to its electoral votes. And I expect we will see those objections. You talked about safe harbor offering a super-shield. What does that protection actually look like?
      Unless there’s some court that’s gonna try and tell Congress what to do on 6 January, which I don’t really envision, then it’s up to Congress to police itself in terms of its own rules.
      Every conscientious member of Congress, whether representative or senator, once the objection is raised … they’re not supposed to say: ‘Who do I think won Georgia? Who do I think won Pennsylvania?’ They’re supposed to ask themselves: ‘Did Georgia and Pennsylvania utilize a procedure to achieve its own resolution of that issue? Did they do so by 8 December?’
      It’s up to Congress to abide by that rule that Congress created and not be tempted to second-guess a decision that it’s not supposed to second-guess. But human beings being human beings, if members of Congress want to ignore their own rules and second-guess something which they shouldn’t be second guessing, then who’s to stop them?
      A lot of people are going to hear that and say: ‘If it’s up to Congress to police itself, that’s not reassuring.’ I think a lot of people will have a hard time believing there are going to be Republican senators, with a few exceptions, that aren’t willing to go along with an objection.
      I totally get the realism there. And I understand why readers would want to think that. But here’s where I think maybe the safe harbor concept might provide a buffer for some.
      Take someone like Senator Rob Portman of Ohio. It might be that the concept of this super-shield could actually help him both in his own internal and mental deliberations and also with his constituency, by saying: ‘Look, I’m trying to do a job here and the job I’m supposed to do is respect state law. I’ve been told by the relevant act of Congress that I’m obligated to accept the state’s judgment. I’m not going to ask myself who won Georgia. I’m only going to ask myself whether Georgia reached a final answer.’
      How concerned should people be if a state like Wisconsin doesn’t meet safe harbor?
      This year, as a practical matter, I wouldn’t have any concern. I think it’s unfortunate that Wisconsin wound up where it will. I think it was unnecessary.
      I think the extent to which we get more objections of the Representative Brooks kind, it’s going to erode Congress’s own self-policing, which they should do, which is probably not a good thing.
      There’s no threat to Biden’s inauguration. What there is potentially … if one senator signs anything that Representative Brooks submits, that’s going to cause there to be a repeat of what happened in 2004 … I think there will be roll-call votes.
      Even though Biden’s going to be inaugurated, if a lot of senators go on record agreeing with Brooks, that’s agreeing with a claim that Biden didn’t win those states.
      I think that’s a very likely scenario.
      It’s taking us into a realm of American politics that I’m not sure we’ve had before. I mean, it’s a denial of reality that’s very dangerous.
      Elections require accepting results, even if your team loses. Your team will win next time, maybe. You give the winning team a chance to govern based on what the voters said this time. You have to acknowledge that reality. For significant numbers of members of Congress, going on the record, if that’s what happens, in defiance of that reality, that will be really dangerous for the operation of competitive elections.
      This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity More

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      Biden mulls options in case Republicans try to block cabinet picks

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      Joe Biden has had a fairly smooth cabinet appointment process so far, but there are rumblings that it could get choppier, and speculation that the Democratic president-elect may take a leaf out of the Donald Trump playbook to try to get the team he wants.Publicly, Democrats are hopeful that the confirmation processes for all of Biden’s cabinet nominees will go smoothly. But looming over the Biden team’s planning is the possibility that Republicans in the Senate decide to stonewall a nominee, blocking confirmation of anyone Biden puts forward.Their ability to do that will rest on who wins two Senate runoff races in Georgia. If Democrats win, they wrest control of the vital upper chamber away from Republicans. But if Republicans triumph, it raises the prospect they can stonewall any Biden nominee for a specific cabinet position.In that scenario, one option for Democrats would be to follow Donald Trump’s example and controversially install cabinet officials under the “acting” moniker, where they are not confirmed but serve in that role regardless.In the later period of his administration, Trump made a habit of appointing acting heads to federal agencies, thereby circumventing the usual confirmation process, even with Republicans controlling the Senate.“Frankly, it’s not an unhelpful precedent,” a Senate Democratic aide said of the idea of Biden appointing acting cabinet secretaries in the face of a Republican blockade.If Democrats control the Senate, the Senate majority will almost certainly move in lockstep to confirm Biden’s nominees as a demonstration of the incoming president’s promise to “lower the temperature” of American politics. If Republicans control the chamber, gumming up confirmations is a tempting way to generate leverage with a new president who has promised to work with the opposing party.It’s unclear which of Biden’s nominees Republicans will find most objectionable.So far, the most opposition Republicans have sounded on any of Biden’s nominees has been over Neera Tanden, the president of the progressive Center for American Progress. Biden nominated Tanden to run the Office of Management and Budget. Drew Brandewie, the communications director for the Texas senator John Cornyn, one of the highest-ranking Republicans in the Senate, tweeted that Tanden has “zero chance” of getting confirmed.Neera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senators’ whose votes she’ll need, stands zero chance of being confirmed. https://t.co/f6Ewi6OMQR— Drew Brandewie (@DBrandewie) November 30, 2020
      The Ohio senator Rob Portman, a former OMB director, told reporters he supported a hearing for Tanden but that she is “problematic as a nominee, and I would hope the Biden administration would reconsider nominating her.”If Republicans retain control of the Senate, Portman will chair one of the committees that handles Tanden’s nomination.Republicans are expected to aggressively fight at least a few of Biden’s nominees, not just Tanden. Conservatives have already started to signal a critical interest in the dealings of the consulting firm the secretary of state nominee Tony Blinken helped co-found, WestExec Advisers.Biden transition team officials, congressional Democrats, and veterans of the process are hesitant to think about a worst-case scenario like a Senate blockade over multiple nominees. The Biden transition team has set a goal of meeting with every member of Congress, according to a Biden transition official. The team is also in the process of setting up meetings between nominees and senators, the official said, a sign that the incoming administration still hopes it can engineer some bipartisan support.“Over the course of just the last eight days, President-elect Biden has put forward a group of experienced and committed nominees who will rebuild our relationships in the world and build back our economy,” the Biden transition team spokesman, Sean Savett, said in a statement.He added: “The process of engaging with Democratic and Republican members and offices is already well under way and it will only pick up in the weeks ahead. While we fully expected disagreement with some members of the Senate, we have no doubt that the American people fully expect the consideration and confirmation of qualified nominees.”Phil Schiliro, the former White House director for legislative affairs during the Obama administration, said he expected the confirmation period for Biden’s nominees to be similar to past ones.“I don’t think it’ll be aberrational,” Schiliro said. “In part because we’ve just had an aberrational presidency where norms have been broken repeatedly, and I think there are Republican senators who have had a real problem with that whether they can articulate it or not is one thing. But there’s been a real norm where there comes to confirmations for the cabinet that’d be done expeditiously and professionally and I would expect that’s going to happen again.”The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, the highest-ranking Republican official in the chamber, for example, broke longtime precedent on supreme court nominees when he refrained from allowing a hearing on Barack Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland. More recently, he went back on his own logic for refraining from holding hearings on Garland when Republicans quickly moved Amy Coney Barrett through the Senate’s hearings.In other words, there’s precedent for McConnell and the current crop of Republican leadership to buck longstanding Senate traditions. It’s also normal for a few cabinet nominees to not make it through the confirmation process.Schiliro noted though that Biden has a “history of good relationships with the Senate even though the Senate has changed a lot. There’s still a fair amount of members he has good relations with and there’s goodwill and trust.” More

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      Trump's attacks on election integrity 'disgust me', says senior Georgia Republican

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      Donald Trump’s attacks on Republican officials in Georgia and insistence his defeat by Joe Biden must be overturned are disgusting, the Republican lieutenant governor of the southern state said on Sunday.
      “It’s not American,” Geoff Duncan told CNN’s State of the Union. “It’s not what democracy is all about. But it’s reality right now.”
      The president staged a rally in Valdosta, Georgia on Saturday night. He began his speech, which lasted more than 90 minutes, by falsely claiming he won the state, which in fact he lost by around 12,000 votes in a result certified by Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger more than two weeks ago.
      “They cheated and they rigged our presidential election, but we will still win it,” Trump falsely insisted. “And they’re going to try and rig this [Senate] election too.”
      Two Georgia Republicans face 5 January runoffs which will decide control of the Senate. On Sunday evening, Kelly Loeffler will debate Rev Raphael Warnock, her Democratic challenger. Amid controversy over stock trades made by both Republicans during the Covid-19 pandemic, David Perdue has declined to debate his challenger, Jon Ossoff.
      In Valdosta, the president invited Perdue and Loeffler on to the stage. Neither reiterated his baseless claims about election fraud, Perdue coming closest by saying: “We’re going to fight and win those seats and make sure you get a fair and square deal in Georgia.”
      As Perdue spoke, the crowd chanted: “Fight for Trump!”
      Some suggest Trump’s assault on the presidential election could depress Republican turnout.
      “I think the rally last night was kind of a two-part message,” Duncan told CNN. “The first part was very encouraging to listen to the president champion the conservative strategies of Senators Loeffler and Perdue, and the importance of them being re-elected.
      “The second message was concerning to me. I worry that … fanning the flames around misinformation puts us in a negative position with regards to the 5 January runoff. The mountains of misinformation are not helping the process. They’re only hurting it.”
      CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Duncan: “At a certain point, does this disgust you?”
      “Oh, absolutely it disgusts me,” Duncan said.
      In Valdosta, Trump read from a prepared list of nonsensical evidence he said highlighted his victory. This included arguing that by winning Ohio and Florida he had in fact won the entire election, and also that winning an uncontested Republican primary was proof he beat Biden in November.
      Trump lost the electoral college 306-232 and trails in the popular vote by more than 7m. His campaign has launched legal challenges in various states. The majority have been rejected or dropped. The campaign filed a new lawsuit in Georgia on Friday.
      Trump vented fury at Republican governor Brian Kemp, a one-time ally who he called from the White House on Saturday to demand the Georgia result be overturned.
      “Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing,” Trump told supporters, adding: “For whatever reason your secretary of state and your governor are afraid of Stacey Abrams.”
      Abrams, a staunch voting rights advocate who Kemp beat for governor in 2018, helped drive turnout and secure the state for Biden, the first Democrat to win it since 1992.
      On Sunday, Duncan was asked if Kemp would do as Trump asks, and call a special session of the state general assembly to appoint its own electors for Trump, a demand one critic called “shockingly undemocratic”.
      “I absolutely believe that to be the case that the governor is not going to call us into a special session,” Duncan said.
      In an angry intervention earlier this week, Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling said of Trump’s attacks on Kemp, Raffensperger and other Republicans: “Someone’s gonna get hurt, someone’s gonna get shot. Someone’s gonna get killed. And it’s not right. It has all gone too far.”
      Duncan said “we’ve all all of us … got increased security around us and our families [but] we’re going to continue to do our jobs. Governor Kemp, Brad Raffensperger and myself, all three voted and campaigned for the president, but unfortunately he didn’t win the state of Georgia.”
      Duncan sidestepped a question about the wisdom of holding a rally where many attendees did not wear masks, as coronavirus cases surge. But he did call Biden’s request that Americans to wear masks for 100 days “absolutely a great step in the right direction”.
      On Saturday, the Washington Post found only 27 of 249 congressional Republicans were willing to acknowledge Biden’s victory. Duncan did so.
      “On 20 January Joe Biden’s going to be sworn in as the 46th president and the constitution is still in place,” Duncan said. “This is still America … as the lieutenant governor and as a Georgian I’m proud that we’re able to look up after three recounts and be able to see that this election was fair.”
      Raffensperger told ABC’s This Week: “We don’t see anything that would overturn the will of the people here in Georgia.”
      It was “sad, but true”, he added, that Trump had lost.
      “I wish he would have won. I’m a conservative Republican and I’m disappointed but those are the results.”
      In Valdosta, Trump did seem at points to recognise the end is near. With reference to policy on Iran and China, he described “what we would have done in the next four years”. He also said that if he thought he had lost the election, he would be “a very gracious loser”.
      “I’d go to Florida,” he said. “I’d take it easy.” More