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Source: PA Images
President-elect Joe Biden signaled Sunday that he plans to act quickly to build his government, focusing first on the pandemic that is likely to dominate the early days of his administration.
Biden appointed a former surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, and a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler, as co-chairs of a task force on the coronavirus that will begin, and other members are expected to be announced Monday. .
Transition team officials said that also this week Biden would launch his agency’s review teams, the group of transition staff that have access to key agencies in the current administration to facilitate the transfer of power.
The teams would collect and review information such as budgeting and staffing decisions, pending regulations, and other work in progress from current staff in departments to help Biden’s team prepare for the transition.
“People want the country to move forward,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said in an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press, and to see Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris “get a chance to do the job, to get the virus under control and get our economy back ”.
It is not clear for now whether President Donald Trump and his administration will cooperate. He has yet to acknowledge Biden’s victory and has vowed to mount legal challenges in several highly contested states that decided the race.
On Sunday afternoon, a bipartisan group from the last three White Houses urged the Trump administration to move forward “to immediately begin the post-election transition process.”
The call came from the advisory board of the Center for Presidential Transition and was signed by officials from the administrations of Republican President George W. Bush and Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
“This was a very close campaign, but history is replete with examples of presidents who emerged from such campaigns to graciously help their successors,” members of the advisory board said in a statement.
Formal recognition of a new administration by its predecessor is necessary to free up the money necessary for the handover of power and to trigger the transition process in government agencies.
There were signs that leaders in Washington and abroad were preparing for a new administration.
Biden’s aides said the president-elect and the transition team had been in contact with Republican politicians.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of Trump’s closest allies, opened a cabinet meeting on Sunday congratulating Biden, a longtime former vice president and senator.
“I have a long and warm personal connection with Joe Biden for almost 40 years, and I know him as a great friend of the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said.
“I am confident that we will continue to work with both of them to further strengthen the special alliance between Israel and the United States.”
Bush, the only living former Republican president, also wished Biden well.
“Even though we have political differences, I know that Joe Biden is a good man, who has earned the opportunity to lead and unify our country,” Bush said.
Biden faces key personnel decisions in the coming days. The 10-week transition period before Inauguration Day, January 20, has already been shortened by the extra time it has taken to determine the winner of Tuesday’s election.
The second Catholic to be elected president, Biden began his first full day as president-elect by attending church at St Joseph on the Brandywine near his home in Wilmington, as he does almost every week.
After the service, he visited the church cemetery where several family members, including his late son Beau, rested.
Beau Biden, a former Delaware attorney general, died in 2015 of cancer. Before his death, he had encouraged his father to make a third run for the White House.
Biden said in a victory speech on Saturday that he would announce a working group of scientists and experts Monday to develop a “plan” to begin fighting the virus by the time he takes office.
He said his plan would be “built on the foundation of science” and “built with compassion, empathy and concern.”
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Biden’s senior adviser, Ted Kaufman, said the transition team will focus on the “nuts and bolts” of building the new administration in the coming days.
Biden may not make big cabinet decisions for weeks. But he built his presidential career around bipartisanship and has spent the days since Tuesday’s election vowing to be a president for all Americans. That suggests he might be willing to name a few Republicans to high-profile administrative positions.
Many former Republican officials broke with Trump to back Biden’s campaign. Biden’s selection of some of them to join the new administration could appease Senate Republicans, who may have to confirm many of Biden’s choices for top jobs. The Republican Party could retain control of the chamber after two special elections in Georgia on January 5.
However, too much cross-cutting cooperation could draw the ire of progressives. Some are already concerned that uncooperative Senate Republicans could force Biden to reduce his ambitious campaign promises to expand access to health care and lead a post-pandemic economic recovery that relies on federal investment in green technology. and jobs to help combat climate change.
Biden’s efforts at bipartisan reconciliation could still be derailed by Trump’s refusal to concede the race.
Symone Sanders, Biden’s senior campaign adviser, said that while several Republican politicians had been in contact with the president-elect in recent days, the campaign had yet to hear from Trump’s White House officials.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said Trump had the right to recount and legal challenges. But he noted that such efforts are unlikely to change the outcome and urged the president to reduce his rhetoric.
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