US President-elect Joe Biden consolidated his electoral victory on Friday when he won the state of Georgia when President Donald Trump said “time will tell” if another administration takes office soon, the closest he has come to recognizing that Biden could succeed him.
Edison Research, which made the Georgia call, also projected that North Carolina, the only other state on the battlefield with a pending vote count, would go to Trump, ending the electoral vote count at 306 for Biden and 232 for Trump.
The numbers gave Biden, a Democrat, a resounding defeat over Trump in the Electoral College, equal to the 306 votes that Trump, a Republican, won to defeat Hillary Clinton, a 2016 victory that Trump called “crushing.”
At a White House event where he predicted that a coronavirus vaccine would be available to the entire population in April, Trump came closer to acknowledging that he could leave the White House in January, but said “time will tell.”
“This administration is not going to close. Hopefully what happens in the future, who knows what administration it will be? I guess time will tell, ”Trump said in his first public remarks in more than a week after losing to Biden.
Trump did not answer questions after the event.
Trump, a Republican, has claimed without proof that he was duped by widespread electoral fraud and has refused to budge. State election officials do not report serious wrongdoing, and several of their legal challenges have failed in court.
While Trump had yet to give in, Biden officials reiterated that they were moving forward with transition efforts regardless.
Although the national popular vote does not determine the outcome of the election, Biden was ahead by more than 5.3 million votes, or 3.4 percentage points. His participation in the popular vote, 50.8%, was slightly higher than Ronald Reagan’s participation in the vote in 1980, when he defeated Jimmy Carter.
To win a second term, Trump would need to reverse Biden’s leadership in at least three states, but so far he has not been able to present evidence that he could do so in any of them. States face a “safe harbor” deadline of December 8 to certify their elections and elect voters to the Electoral College, which will officially select the new president on December 14.
Biden’s legal team in Georgia said Friday that they do not expect a manual vote recount in the state to change the results there.
A Michigan state court on Friday rejected a request by Trump supporters to block the certification of votes in Detroit, which was largely in favor of Biden. And Trump’s campaign lawyers dropped a lawsuit in Arizona after the final vote count invalidated it.
Federal election security officials have found no evidence that any voting system has eliminated or lost votes, changed votes, “or been compromised in any way,” two security groups said in a statement issued Thursday by the main agency. cybersecurity agency.
Also read: Donald Trump, still without admitting defeat, proclaims the progress of the vaccine
Trump was scheduled Friday afternoon to make his first public remarks since Biden was projected as the winner of the Nov.7 election. The White House said it will address the nation on efforts by the government and drug makers to develop effective treatments for the coronavirus pandemic. .
TRANSITION TALK
Biden officials said Friday they would move forward with the transition, identifying legislative priorities, reviewing federal agency policies and preparing to fill thousands of jobs in the new administration.
“We are moving forward with the transition,” Jen Psaki, senior adviser to Biden’s transition team, said in a conference call on Friday, while emphasizing that Biden still needs “real-time information” from the Trump administration to deal with the resurgent pandemic and threats to national security.
Psaki urged the Trump White House to allow Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to receive daily intelligence reports on potential threats around the world.
“With each passing day, it becomes more worrisome that our national security team and the president-elect and vice-president-elect do not have access to those threat assessments, intelligence reports, real-time information about our commitments around the world.” Psaki said. “Because, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know.”
Biden will be briefed by his own group of national security experts next week, he said. He met with transition advisers again Friday at his Delaware beach home, where he is planning his approach to the pandemic and preparing to appoint his top appointees, including cabinet members.
Trump’s refusal to accept defeat has stalled the official transition. The federal agency providing funding to an incoming president-elect, the General Services Administration, has yet to acknowledge Biden’s victory, denying him access to federal office space and resources.
Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera, a Trump confidant, said he had spoken to the president by phone on Friday and that Trump had given him the impression that he would follow the U.S. Constitution and resign after he was appointed. all votes will count.
“He told me it’s realistic. He told me that he would do the right thing, “Rivera said in an interview with Fox.” I don’t have the impression that he was plotting to overthrow the elected government. He just wants a fair fight. “
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