President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday appointed several high-level staff members to his White House, while his top coronavirus advisers warned that President Donald Trump’s stalling of the official transition could compromise the country’s pandemic response.
Democrat Biden has been preparing to assume the presidency on January 20, meeting with advisers and laying out his plans to combat the disease, despite the increasingly dubious effort by Republican Trump to reverse the outcome of the November 3 election. .
Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon, the first woman to lead a winning Democratic presidential bid, will serve as deputy chief of staff in the Biden administration, her transition office said in a statement.
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Long-time advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti will join as Senior Adviser to the President and Adviser to the President, respectively. Dana Remus, the campaign’s lead attorney, will serve as an advisor to the president.
Another close adviser, Ron Klain, has already been appointed chief of staff.
United States Representative Cedric Richmond, who was Biden’s national campaign co-chair and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, will leave a seat in the House of Representatives in Louisiana to join as Senior Advisor and Director of the Office of Engagement. White House Public. The five-term lawmaker has experience bridging the gaps between the parties, which could help Biden advance his priorities in Congress.
The Biden administration will face a growing Covid-19 pandemic that has killed more than 247,000 people in the United States and shows no signs of slowing down.
Trump’s refusal to budge has put the normal transition to an incoming administration in limbo, with federal funding and office space still on hold until the administration recognizes Biden as the winner of the election.
In a call with reporters Tuesday, former U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy, who co-chairs Biden’s COVID-19 task force, said blocking Biden’s transition advisers from meeting with experts from the The government could harm its ability to deal with the pandemic next year.
Several doctor and nurse associations released a letter Tuesday urging the Trump administration to share critical Covid-19 data, such as inventories of equipment, medical supplies and hospital bed capacity, with Biden’s team.
Biden has also been unable to receive the classified intelligence reports that are normally offered to an elected president. Instead, he met with his own panel of national security experts, including several considered for high-level foreign policy positions, such as former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines and former US Ambassador. United before the United Nations Samantha Power.
“You know I haven’t been able to get the briefings that normally would have come by now,” Biden said during a brief look at the meeting offered to a small group of reporters. “So I just want to know your opinion on what you see ahead.”
Biden said he had spoken to 13 foreign heads of state so far, telling them: “America is back. And it is no longer the United States alone. ”On Tuesday he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump ally, as well as the leaders of India, South Africa and Chile.
CLARO BIDEN VICTORY
Trump has repeatedly claimed, without proof, that he is the victim of widespread electoral fraud, and his campaign has filed a series of lawsuits in battle states. Election officials from both parties have said they see no evidence of serious wrongdoing.
Biden won the national popular vote by more than 5.6 million votes, or 3.6 percentage points, and some ballots are still counted. In the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner, Biden has garnered 306 votes to Trump’s 232.
At a federal court hearing in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, United States District Judge Matthew Brann appeared skeptical of Trump’s request to prevent officials from certifying Biden’s victory in the state.
“At its core, you are asking this court to invalidate 6.8 million votes, thereby depriving all Commonwealth voters,” Brann said. “Can you tell me how this result can be justified?”
A defeat in the case of Pennsylvania would deal a severe blow to Trump’s slim chances of reversing the electoral result. To stay in office, Trump would have to overturn the results in at least three of the disputed states in an unprecedented fashion, and he has no apparent legal means to do so.
Pennsylvania’s highest state court rejected a Trump campaign appeal in a separate lawsuit, ruling that the electoral board in Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, acted reasonably to keep Trump campaign watchers behind barricades and 15 feet (4.5 m) away from the counting tables.
Trump supporters are also clinging to the hope that the recounts could reverse state results, although experts have said Biden’s margins appear insurmountable.
Georgia is conducting a manual recount on its own, but in Wisconsin, the Trump campaign would have to pay for a recount upfront. The Wisconsin Elections Commission estimated Monday that such a count would cost $ 7.9 million. Trump has until Wednesday to decide.
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger accused Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of appearing to suggest that he find a way to discount legally cast votes, a charge the South Carolina lawmaker called “ridiculous.”
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