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US President Donald Trump has said that he no longer opposes government aid for Joe Biden’s transition team in his closest statement yet to finally admit he lost the presidential election.
Trump’s tweet that the General Services Administration should “do what needs to be done” came after the agency’s director, Emily Murphy, said she was releasing long-delayed assistance.
President Trump has spent the past three weeks since the Nov. 3 election claiming without any evidence that Joe Biden’s convincing victory was the result of fraud.
Murphy, who denies acting under political pressure, has so far refused to deliver the standard aid package his agency administers to Biden’s incoming team.
I want to thank Emily Murphy of GSA for her steadfast dedication and loyalty to our country. She has been harassed, threatened, and abused, and I don’t want this to happen to her, her family, or GSA employees. Our case continues STRONG, we will continue with the good …
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 23, 2020
Lawmakers and business executives have lobbied the little-known federal agency to acknowledge the election results and free up millions of dollars in federal funding, office space and briefings for Biden’s team.
The GSA had said that Murphy, who was appointed to his job by Donald Trump in 2017, would “determine” or formally approve the transition when the winner was clear.
“Contrary to media reports and innuendo, my decision was not made out of fear or favoritism,” Ms Murphy wrote.
The Presidential Transitional Act of 1963 does not set a firm deadline for the GSA to act, but historically the agency has acted once the media calls for a winner, which happened on November 7.
Biden certified as the winner in Michigan
Michigan has certified Joe Biden as the winner of the US state electoral poll, which gave the Democratic president-elect of the United States another 16 electoral college votes.
The State Canvessers Board voted three to one in his favor after he outpointed Donald Trump by nearly 156,000 votes out of 5.5 million cast.
The certification is likely to end Trump’s efforts to reverse the outcome in Michigan, one of the key states he needed to capture to win re-election.
However, the US president’s legal team later said it would continue to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“Certification by state officials is simply a procedural step,” Jenna Ellis, legal counsel for Trump’s 2020 campaign, said in a statement.
Without providing any evidence to support his claim, he added: “We will continue to fight electoral fraud across the country as we fight to count all legal votes. Americans must be assured that the final results are fair and legitimate.”
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Joe Biden had previously announced a foreign policy and national security team packed with veterans from the Barack Obama years, signaling an end to the turmoil under President Trump and a return to traditional American diplomacy.
It included Irish-American Jake Sullivan as a national security adviser; He previously advised Biden when he was vice president of Barack Obama.
Former State Department Number Two Antony Blinken will be the new US Secretary of State.
Biden also named the first female intelligence chief, the first Latina head of Homeland Security, and a heavyweight on climate issues: the top diplomat of the Obama era, John Kerry.
As President Trump continued to make desperate attempts to overturn the election results of three weeks ago, Biden’s release of cabinet names was his biggest step, but it indicates that he is ready to change the direction of the United States on January 20.
The list released by the Democratic team ahead of a formal announcement tomorrow showed momentum to regain the leading US role in multilateral alliances, in contrast to Trump’s “America First” regime.
The president-elect of the United States @Joe Biden has announced his elections for high-level cabinet posts with @ABlinken nominated to be Secretary of State and Irish-American Jake Sullivan elected to National Security Advisor. @rtenews pic.twitter.com/aZ8vUZzNpp
– Brian O’Donovan (@BrianOD_News) November 23, 2020
“They will bring the world together to take on our challenges like no other, challenges that no nation can face alone,” Biden tweeted. “It is time to restore American leadership.”
Blinken, a longtime adviser to Joe Biden, will spearhead a swift dismantling of Trump’s independent policies, including rejoining the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization and the resurrection of the Obama-crafted Iran nuclear deal.
Biden appointed the first woman, Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, and Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas, to head the Department of Homeland Security, the agency whose monitoring of strict immigration restrictions under Trump was a frequent source of controversy.
Noting the Democratic president-elect’s campaign promise to raise the profile of the threats of global warming, he appointed John Kerry as a new special envoy for climate affairs.
And in a further message about America’s new engagement with the international community, Biden appointed career diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield as UN ambassador.
The selections underscore an emphasis on professionals whom Biden already knows well, in contrast to President Trump’s White House, where officials were often elected without having traditional backgrounds for the job or were proven incompatible and departed acrimoniously.
With their long working histories in high-level government positions, the incoming team will also have the advantage of already established relationships both in Washington and on the international stage.
The announcements come in an unprecedented context in which Donald Trump refuses to admit defeat and blocks Biden’s access to the normal process of preparing an incoming government.
So far, only a slowly growing minority of Republican leaders have denounced Trump’s conspiracy theory that massive fraud stole his victory, despite no evidence of this.
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