US President-elect Joe Biden will announce the first of his Cabinet appointments on Tuesday and is planning for a scaled-down inauguration due to the COVID-19 pandemic, aides said on Sunday, as he lays the foundation for his new administration despite President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede.
Since Biden, a Democrat, was declared the winner of the Nov 3 election two weeks ago, the Republican president has launched a barrage of lawsuits and mounted a pressure campaign to prevent state officials from certifying their vote totals, suffering another emphatic legal setback on Saturday in Pennsylvania.
Ron Klain, Biden’s choice as White House chief of staff, again urged that the Trump administration – specifically a federal agency called the General Services Administration (GSA) – formally recognise Biden’s victory to unlock resources for the transition process.
“I hope that the administrator of the GSA will do her job,” Klain added, referring to GSA chief Emily Murphy.
Biden is due to take office on Jan 20.
“A record number of Americans rejected the Trump presidency, and since then Donald Trump’s been rejecting democracy,” Klain told ABC’s “This Week” programme.
Biden, working in his home state of Delaware, has announced a series of selections for White House posts. Klain said that “you’re going to see the first Cabinet picks this Tuesday,” but declined to reveal the choices or the posts to be filled.
‘National embarrassment’
Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress are now breaking ranks though many, including the most senior ones, have not.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has served as a Trump adviser, called the president’s legal team a “national embarrassment.”
“They allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom they don’t plead fraud and they don’t argue fraud,” Christie told ABC’s “This Week,” adding that “if you’re unwilling to come forward and present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn’t exist.”
“We’re beginning to look like a banana republic,” Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan told CNN’s “State of the Union” programme, criticising the refusal of many in his own party to acknowledge Trump’s defeat. “Frankly I’m embarrassed that more people in the party aren’t speaking up.”
Republican Senator Kevin Cramer told NBC’s “Meet the Press” programme that the start of the presidential transition process is overdue, though he declined to recognise Biden’s victory.
“I hope they would start to accept the reality,” Klain said of Republican leaders.
Critics have said Trump’s refusal to facilitate an orderly transition carries serious implications for national security and the fight against COVID-19.
Klain said Biden is being denied intelligence briefings to which he is entitled, FBI background checks on potential Cabinet nominees, and access to agency officials to help develop plans including avoiding delays in COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Jen Psaki, a senior advisor to Biden’s transition team, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that legal action to compel the GSA to recognise Biden “isn’t our preference.”
Biden received six million more votes nationwide than Trump and, more importantly, prevailed 306-232 in the state-by-state Electoral College system that determines the election’s victor. – Nov 23, 2020
