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By ALEXANDRA JAFFE, MATTHEW LEE and AAMER MADHANI
Associated Press
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – In declaring “America is back,” President-elect Joe Biden presented his national security team with his first substantial offer of how he will change the “America First” policies of the Trump era by trust experts from the Democratic establishment to be some of your most important advisers.
“Together, these public servants will restore America to the world, its global leadership and its moral leadership,” Biden said Tuesday from a theater in his former home in Wilmington, Delaware. “It is a team that reflects the fact that the United States is back, ready to lead the world, not to retire.”
The nominees are all Washington veterans with ties to the Obama administration, a sign of Biden’s effort to resume some form of normalcy after the tumult of President Donald Trump’s four years in office. Another sign that Biden will soon be in charge: He scheduled a Thanksgiving address to the nation for Wednesday afternoon, planning to focus his remarks on shared sacrifices during the holiday season and expressing confidence that Americans will overcome the pandemic of coronavirus.
There are risks in choosing experienced hands from the previous Democratic administration. In addition to the Republican attacks, progressives worry that Biden is turning to some officials who were overly cautious and incremental the last time they took power.
Still, Biden’s nominees were a clear departure from Trump, whose cabinet has been largely made up of men, almost all white. Biden’s elections included various women and people of color, some of whom would break down barriers if confirmed in their new positions.
On Tuesday they stood behind Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, separated and wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, a contrast to Trump and many of his top aides who have largely avoided covering their faces.
The president-elect’s team includes Antony Blinken, a well-regarded veteran foreign policy expert on Capitol Hill whose ties to Biden go back some 20 years, for secretary of state; the lawyer Alejandro Mayorkas will be Secretary of National Security; veteran diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be US Ambassador to the United Nations; and former Obama White House alumnus Jake Sullivan as national security adviser.
Avril Haines, a former CIA deputy director, was selected to serve as director of national intelligence, the first woman to hold that position, and former Secretary of State John Kerry will make a curtain call as a special envoy on climate change. Kerry and Sullivan’s position will not require Senate confirmation.
Given that the Senate’s balance of power hinges on two Georgia runoff elections to be decided in January, some Senate Republicans have already voiced their antipathy to the Biden election as little more than Obama’s global retreads.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a potential presidential candidate for 2024, argued that Biden is surrounding himself with people who will be soft on China.
Senator Marco Rubio, another potential White House hopeful who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will consider Blinken’s nomination, widely ruled out the top picks.
“Biden’s cabinet picks went to Ivy League schools, they have strong resumes, attend all the right conferences, and will be educated and orderly caretakers of America’s decline,” Rubio tweeted.
Biden said his choices “reflect the idea that we cannot meet these challenges with old thoughts and unchanged habits.” He said he tasked them with reasserting global leadership and morals, a clear blow to Trump, who has resisted many traditional foreign alliances.
The president-elect said he was “impressed” by how world leaders have repeatedly told him during congratulatory calls that they hope the United States will “reaffirm its historic role as a world leader” under his administration.
Trump, who has recently debated whether to mount another presidential campaign in 2024, appeared to defend his worldview on Tuesday.
“We shouldn’t stray from that – America First,” he said at the annual turkey pardon, a joyous pre-Thanksgiving tradition at the White House.
While Trump expected full loyalty from his cabinet and was irritated by the rejection of advisers, Biden said he expected advisers to tell me “what I need to know, not what I want to know.”
In further contrast to Trump, Haines said he accepted Biden’s nomination knowing that “you value the perspective of the intelligence community and that you will do so even when what I have to say may be inconvenient or difficult.”
Haines said that “she has never shied away from speaking the truth to power” and added that “that will be my position as director of national intelligence.”
Biden celebrated the diversity of his selections, offering a particularly moving tribute to Thomas-Greenfield. The oldest of eight children who grew up in segregated Louisiana, she was the first to graduate from high school and college in her family. The diplomat, in turn, said that with his selections, Biden is achieving much more than a changing of the guard.
“My fellow career diplomats and public servants around the world, I want to tell you, ‘America is back, multilateralism is back, diplomacy is back,'” said Thomas-Greenfield.
Mayorkas, who is Cuban American, also winked at his upbringing as an immigrant.
“My father and mother brought me to this country to escape communism,” he said. “They appreciated our democracy and were very proud to become citizens of the United States, like me.”
But Mayorkas could represent the toughest confirmation challenge of Biden’s first round of nominees.
The Senate previously confirmed him in December 2013 via a party line vote to be the undersecretary of Homeland Security. The Senate was controlled by Democrats at the time, and all House Republicans voted against his confirmation primarily because he was being investigated by that department’s inspector general who had been appointed by President Barack Obama. At the time, the Senate historian’s office said it was unprecedented for the Senate to vote for a candidate who was under investigation.
Inspector General John Roth discovered in March 2015 that Mayorkas, as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, appeared to give special treatment to certain individuals as part of the visa program that gives residence preference to immigrants who agree to invest in the country. American economy.
Meanwhile, there were signs on Tuesday that the stalled formal transition of power is already underway. Biden’s team is now in contact with all federal agencies, according to a transition official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe developments that have not been announced.
At the Pentagon, Kash Patel, chief of staff for the acting defense secretary, leads the department’s transition work. A transition task force has been convened, led by Tom Muir, head of the Pentagon bureau that provides administrative and management services to all Defense Department facilities in the Washington area.
Muir said the first meeting with Biden’s team was held virtually Tuesday morning and that he expected daily meetings, some virtually and others in person. He said normal adaptations have been made for Biden’s team, including the provision of informational materials, video teleconferencing capabilities and office space within the Pentagon.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also said his agency is working to deliver informational materials to Biden attendees immediately and promised a “professional, cooperative and collaborative” transition.
The moves came a day after the head of the General Services Administration wrote the necessary “verification” letter recognizing Biden as the apparent winner of the election, triggering the transition process.
Trump, who continues to press a legal challenge to overturn the election results, again on Tuesday refused to admit his electoral defeat.
Trump tweeted that “the GSA does not determine who will be the next president of the United States.”
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Lee and Madhani reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.
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