Joe Biden plans to appoint a task force on Monday to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
Washington:
US President-elect Joe Biden took the first steps on Sunday to take control of the White House in 73 days, but Donald Trump has shown no sign of being ready to admit defeat and has continued to cast doubt on the election results.
As kudos from world leaders and supporters poured in after a loud day of celebrations, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris launched a transition website, BuildBackBetter.com, and a Twitter feed, @ Transition46.
As Trump refuses to concede Tuesday’s election and most Republican lawmakers adopt studied silence, former President George W. Bush said “the outcome is clear.”
Bush, 74, the only surviving former Republican president, said he called “President-elect” Biden and Harris to send him “warm congratulations.”
While Trump has the right to demand recounts and initiate legal action, Bush said that “the American people can be confident that this election was fundamentally fair, their integrity will be upheld and its outcome clear.”
“Although we have political differences, I know Joe Biden is a good man, who has earned his chance to lead and unify our country,” Bush said in a statement. “We must unite for the good of our families and our neighbors, as well as for our nation and its future.”
The transition website lists four priorities for an administration led by former vice president Barack Obama: Covid-19, economic recovery, racial fairness and climate change.
“The team being built will meet these challenges from day one,” he said in a reference to Jan. 20, 2021, when Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.
Biden, who turns 78 on November 20, is the oldest person ever elected to the White House. Harris, 56, the young senator from California, is the first woman and the first black person to be elected vice president.
Biden plans to appoint a task force on Monday to fight the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 237,000 lives in the United States and is raging across the country.
He also announced his intention to join the Paris climate agreement and would issue an executive order on day one to overturn Trump’s travel ban to predominantly Muslim countries.
Biden has vowed to appoint a cabinet that reflects the diversity of the country, although he may struggle to gain Senate approval for more progressive appointments if Republicans retain control of the Senate – an outcome that will depend on two races in the second round in Georgia in January.
– ‘Accept the inevitable’ –
Biden, after John F. Kennedy, the second Catholic to be elected President of the United States, attended church Sunday morning in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, and visited the graves of his late son, Beau Biden. of brain cancer in 2015, and his first wife and daughter, who died in a car crash in 1972.
Trump, 74, was golfing on Sunday at his course near Washington, the same spot he was in on Saturday when U.S. TV stations reported Biden had received enough constituency votes for the victory.
“Since when does Lamestream Media call who will be our next president?” Trump complained in a tweet on Sunday.
First Lady Melania Trump also contributed, tweeting: “The American people deserve a fair election. Every legal vote – not illegal – must be counted.”
The Trump campaign has raised legal challenges to the results in several states, but no evidence has so far emerged of widespread irregularities that would impact the results.
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Symone Sanders, a senior advisor to Biden, dismissed the court challenges as “baseless legal strategies.”
Biden received nearly 74.6 million votes against Trump’s 70.4 million nationwide and has a 279-214 lead in the electoral college that determines the presidency.
Biden also leads in Arizona, which has 11 electoral votes, and Georgia, which has 16, and if he won both he would end up with 306 electoral votes – the same total won by Trump in 2016 when he upset Hillary. Clinton.
Only two Republican senators, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, praised Biden, and Democratic Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina said the Republican Party had a “responsibility” to help convince Trump that it was time to give up.
Romney, who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial, said the president would eventually “come to terms with the inevitable.”
The Utah senator added that he “would rather see the world witness a more gracious start, but that just isn’t in the nature of man.”
– “Do not concede, Mr. President” –
But Trump’s ally, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has said the president should keep fighting.
“We’ll work with Biden if he wins, but Trump hasn’t lost,” Graham told Fox News‘ Sunday Morning Futures. “Don’t give in, Mr. President. Fight hard.”
Another Trump ally, parliamentary minority leader Kevin McCarthy, told the same show it was too early to call the election.
“What we need in the presidential race is to make sure that every legal vote is counted, that every recount is complete and that every legal challenge must be heard,” McCarthy said.
In a victory speech on Saturday, Biden vowed to unite the bitterly divided nation and reached out to Trump supporters, saying “these are not our enemies, they are Americans.”
“Let’s give ourselves a chance,” he said. “May this dark era of demonization in America begin to end, here and now.”
While only a handful of Republican lawmakers praised Biden, leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and other European countries have done so with Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Israel. , Japan and South Korea.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
