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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

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      'If I lost, I'd be a very gracious loser': Trump pushes false fraud claims in Georgia – video

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      Donald Trump campaigned for two Republican senators in Georgia on Saturday, at a rally that some in the party feared could end up hurting their chances by focusing on his efforts to reverse his own election defeat. In his first rally appearance since he lost to Joe Biden, Trump repeated baseless claims of widespread fraud in the presidential election. The crucial January runoff will determine which party controls the Senate
      Trump rails against election result at rally ahead of crucial Georgia Senate runoff More

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      Trump heads for Georgia but claims of fraud may damage Senate Republicans

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      Donald Trump will return to the campaign trail on Saturday – not, notionally at least, in his quixotic and doomed attempt to deny defeat by Joe Biden, but in support of two Republicans who face January run-offs which will decide control of the US Senate.The president and first lady Melania Trump are due to appear in Valdosta, Georgia at 7pm local time.“See you tomorrow night!” Trump tweeted on Friday, as Vice-President Mike Pence stumped in the southern state.But the president couldn’t help tying the Senate race to his baseless accusations of electoral fraud in key states he lost to Biden.“The best way to insure [sic] a … victory,” he wrote, “is to allow signature checks in the presidential race, which will insure [sic] a Georgia presidential win (very few votes are needed, many will be found).“Spirits will soar and everyone will rush out and VOTE!”To the contrary, many observers postulate that Trump’s ceaseless baseless claims that the election was rigged could depress turnout among supporters in Georgia, handing a vital advantage to Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the Democratic challengers to senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.If Ossoff and Warnock win, the Senate will be split 50-50, Kamala Harris’s vote as vice-president giving Democrats control. Polling in both races is tight.Trump’s recalcitrance is being encouraged by congressional Republicans. On Saturday the Washington Post reported that only 25 of 247 Republican representatives and senators have acknowledged Biden’s victory.Biden won the electoral college by 306-232, the same result Trump said was a landslide when it landed in his favour over Hillary Clinton. The Democrat is more than 7m ballots ahead in the national popular vote, having attracted the support of more than 81 million Americans, the most of any candidate for president.Democrats performed less well in Senate, House and state elections, however, making the Georgia runoffs vital to the balance of power in Washington as leaders look for agreement on much-needed stimulus and public health measures to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic and its attendant economic downturn.Earlier this week, two lawyers who have both been involved in legal challenges to Biden’s victory and trafficked in outlandish conspiracy theories, Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, told Trump supporters not to vote in Georgia unless Republican leaders act more aggressively to overturn the presidential result.“We’re not gonna go vote 5 January on another machine made by China,” Wood said on Wednesday. “You’re not gonna fool Georgians again. If Kelly Loeffler wants your vote, if David Perdue wants your vote, they’ve got to earn it. They’ve got to demand publicly, repeatedly, consistently, ‘Brian Kemp: call a special session of the Georgia legislature’.“And if they do not do it, if Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue do not do it, they have not earned your vote. Don’t you give it to them. Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election?”After a rush of defeats on Friday, Trump has won one election-related lawsuit and lost 46. But he continues to attack, in Georgia slamming Governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for overseeing a contest in which the state went Democratic for the first time since 1992.Matt Towery, a former Georgia Republican legislator now an analyst and pollster, told Reuters Trump could help in the state “if he spends most of his time talking about the two candidates, how wonderful they are, what they’ve achieved.“If he talks about them for 10 minutes and spends the rest of the time telling everyone how terrible Brian Kemp is, then it will only exacerbate things.”Gabriel Sterling, the Republican manager of Georgia’s voting systems, this week blamed the president and his allies for threats of violence against election workers and officials. On Friday, he said: “I think the rhetoric they’re engaged in now is literally suppressing the vote.”At a rally in Savannah, the vice-president was greeted by chants of “stop the steal”.“I know we’ve all got our doubts about the last election,” Pence said, “and I actually hear some people saying, ’Just don’t vote.’ My fellow Americans, if you don’t vote, they win.”Kemp and Loeffler missed campaign events on Friday after a young aide to the senator was killed in a car crash.Former president Barack Obama held a virtual event in support of Warnock and Ossoff. From Wilmington, Delaware, where he continues preparations to take power on 20 January, Biden said he would travel to Georgia at some point, to campaign with the Democratic candidates. More

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      Biden's outspoken nominee to run budget office deletes 1,000 tweets

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      [embedded content]
      Joe Biden’s nominee for a key economic post has deleted more than a thousand of her own tweets, some of which were critical of senators who now hold her fate in their hands.
      The Daily Beast first reported the steps by Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress (CAP) think tank who Biden has nominated to lead the federal Office of Management and Budget.
      “Can people on here please focus their ire on [Senate majority leader Mitch] McConnell and the GOP senators who are up [for re-election] this cycle who enable him,” Tanden wrote in June 2019, in a tweet recovered by the Beast.
      Tanden named those “enablers” as Cory Gardner, Susan Collins, Joni Ernst, John Cornyn, David Perdue, Thom Tillis “and many more”.
      A tweet calling McConnell “#MoscowMitch”, a common nickname for the majority leader among liberals during the investigation of Donald Trump’s links to Russia, was also among those deleted.
      Tanden’s fate may hinge on two runoff elections in Georgia in January. If Democrats win both seats – one held by Perdue – they will control the Senate via Kamala Harris’s casting vote as vice-president. That would make Tanden’s confirmation achievable – if party discipline held.
      But Tanden, a former policy aide to Hillary Clinton, has also been a fierce critic of senators from the Democratic side of the aisle, for example the progressive Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.
      “It’s an odd choice for Biden and his ‘healing’ presidency to bring someone in who is so combative, especially on Twitter, being that we just ended a four-year Twitter presidency,” Josh Fox, a climate activist and Sanders surrogate, told the Beast. “She causes ire unnecessarily.”
      Fox also said CAP “pretends to be aligned with progressive values, but Neera Tanden seems so cynical that she attacks progressive policies like a ban on fracking, the Green New Deal and Medicare for All”.
      The Massachusetts progressive Elizabeth Warren is among prominent Democratic senators who have backed Tanden.
      Republicans have been quick to tell reporters Tanden will not be confirmed if their party can help it. On Monday, Cornyn, from Texas, told reporters he thought Tanden was Biden’s “worst nominee so far”.
      “Her combative and insulting comments about many members of the Senate, mainly on our side of the aisle, [create] certainly, a problematic path,” he said.
      The Beast said Tanden had deleted at least one tweet in support of MJ Hegar, the Democrat Cornyn beat for re-election last month.
      Speaking on MSNBC, Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic senator from Missouri, accused Republicans of displaying “a whole new level of hypocrisy”.
      “The Republican senators are now all of a sudden worried about tweets that hurt their feelings,” she said. “This is just ridiculous.
      “We’ve had a president who has used his Twitter account like a battering ram, going after not just his political opponents but Republican senators, unfairly, with incredibly brutal tweets. Now all of a sudden it’s a disqualification for someone to serve in the cabinet that engaged in her own opinion on Twitter? I think that’s dumb.”
      In a statement emailed to the Guardian, a transition spokesperson said Biden would “choose the most-qualified, most experienced candidates capable of leading on day one” and “looks forward to working in good faith with both parties in Congress to install qualified, experienced leaders.
      “The president-elect has been heartened to see a number of Republican senators express their desire to work together and indicate that they believe that presidents deserve latitude in building their team.”
      Jen Psaki, Biden’s incoming White House press secretary, said Tanden was “a brilliant policy expert and she knows how vital funding for [government] programs is. As a child, for a period her family relied on food stamps to eat, on Section 8 vouchers to pay the rent and on the social safety. Her fresh perspective can help meet this moment.”
      Tanden did not comment on the Daily Beast report. She tweeted: “After my parents were divorced when I was young, my mother relied on public food and housing programs to get by. Now, I’m being nominated to help ensure those programs are secure, and ensure families like mine can live with dignity. I am beyond honored.”
      She has also changed her Twitter biography. It now reads: “Director of OMB nominee, liberal, Indian American, feminist, mom, wife. Not in that order. Views expressed are most definitely my own.” More

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      Romance novelists raise $400,000 for Georgia Senate races – with help from Stacey Abrams

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      Rallying behind Stacey Abrams, the Democratic politician, voting rights activist and romance author, American romance novelists have helped raise nearly $400,000 to help elect two Democratic senators in Georgia.Now, Abrams herself has joined the “Romancing the Runoff” fundraiser, and has donated a copy of the first of her eight published romance novels–one signed with both her real name, and her pen name, Selena Montgomery.“I’m privileged to be one of you,” Abrams wrote on Twitter, praising the romance authors’ “amazing” fundraising efforts.Abrams’ work fighting against suppression of black voters and organizing voter registration efforts is widely credited with helping Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in more than a quarter century. Democrats have said her work was “pivotal” in flipping Wisconsin and other battleground states.Thank you @RomancingRunoff for your amazing efforts. I’m privileged to be one of you. For the cause, I’d like to throw in an autographed copy of my first novel, Rules of Engagement, in the rare hardback version. Both Selena & Stacey will sign. 😉https://t.co/32aiezmJmW— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) November 25, 2020
      Since election day, Abrams has not stopped fighting: a January runoff between two pairs of Democratic and Republican candidates in Georgia will determine whether Republicans maintain control of the US senate – and have the votes to block Democrats and the incoming Biden administration from enacting any substantial new policy agenda.In the week after the election, Abrams helped raise $3.6m in just two days to help campaigns for the Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock as they fight re-matches in a runoff election against the incumbent Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.Meanwhile other American romance novelists, many of whom have active social media platforms, began organizing to auction off romance-novel related items to support the Democratic candidates through donations to the New Georgia Project, Black Voters Matter, and Fair Fight, the voting rights group Abrams founded.“Democracy only thrives when every vote can be cast and counted, and we are fighting to help dismantle the legacy of voter suppression in Georgia,” the four bestselling authors who organized the auction said in a statement.Political activism is not a new development in the American romance writing community, which has been fighting fierce battles over entrenched racism in the publishing industry, as well as within their own industry trade group, the Romance Writers of America, for years.But the Georgia fundraising effort is also a testament to romance novelists’ pride in Abrams, who has continued to tout her work as an author of romantic suspense, even as she has become a star in national Democratic politics and a bestselling author of political nonfiction, including her memoir, Lead from the Outside.When writers who got their start publishing romance novels move on to more prestigious genres, “they sometimes back away from romance, like it’s this dirty secret in their past: ‘Oh, I don’t write those kinds of books any more,’” the author Courtney Milan, one of the auction’s organizers, said. “Stacey Abrams has never once done that to us.”“She’s not playing the game of trying to advance where she is by denigrating where she’s been,” Milan said. “She’s very clear that she doesn’t think any apologies are needed, which they aren’t.“I revel in having been able to be a part of a genre that is read by millions and millions of women, in part because it respects who they are,” Abrams told Entertainment Weekly in an interview in 2018, when she was campaigning to be governor of Georgia.Asked by the Washington Post how she would respond to people who made fun of the romance genre, Abrams wrote: “Telling a well-crafted story is hard. Full stop. Regardless of genre, good writing is good writing”. She added that she was “honored to be in the company of extraordinary writers.”The “Romancing the Runoff” auction had grown past its initial goal of raising $20,000, Milan said, as a wide range of authors and romance fans donated thousands of items, including first editions of romance novels, including the first Harlequin novel published by a black author, Sandra Kitt’s Rites of Spring; one-on-one sessions for writing advice, a chicken recipe from Dame Barbara Cartland, and handmade crafts, such as a “blue wave” crocheted scarf to a hand-embroidered sampler reading “F*ck the GOP”.The fantasy and science fiction novelist Neil Gaiman also joined the effort, donating a signed collector’s edition of one of his novels that sold for $4,590.A spokesperson for Fair Fight did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment about the Romancing the Runoff fundraiser beyond Abrams’ tweet.Milan said she had “no clue” how much money the copy of Abrams’ own signed romance novel might raise for the Georgia election, but she expected it would “easily be four figures”.Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on political advertising in Georgia in the weeks before the runoff election on 5 January, NBC News reported this week, with at least $46m already spent since election day. More