biden presidential administration transition monday game pass

14 min readDec 7, 2020

Georgia’s top election official said the state had “counted legally cast ballots, three times, and the results remain unchanged.” A bipartisan group of Senators are pursuing a $908 billion virus aid bill focusing on small businesses, unemployed workers and state, local and tribal governments.

Here’s what you need to know:

Georgia officials say the state will recertify election results today.
Stimulus talks, troop raises and funding the government: Congress faces a busy week.
Lawyers across the country urge bar associations to investigation Trump’s legal team.
Biden has selected Xavier Becerra as his nominee for secretary of health and human services.
Joe Biden’s hometown has become the center of the political universe. Residents are thrilled.
A diverse group of Democratic lawmakers will help lead the Biden inaugural committee.

ATLANTA — Georgia election officials on Monday said they would recertify the results of the state’s presidential race after another recount had reaffirmed Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over President Trump, the third time that results showed that Mr. Trump had lost the state.

“We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a news conference.

The announcement on Monday is the latest blow to Mr. Trump’s attempts to subvert the election results in Georgia. He lost in the initial election tally; in a manual hand recount ordered by the state; and in the latest recount, which was requested by his campaign and completed by machines after the state certified its results last month.

A top official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, Gabriel Sterling, said they were waiting for official results of the recount from one more county, expected later today, and then would re-certify.

The results of the machine recount on the secretary of state’s website show Mr. Biden with a lead of about 12,000 votes.

Most of the counties re-certified the results of the election on Friday, including Fulton County, but state election officials did not re-certify the results on Friday afternoon, which they had previously said would likely be the case.

Mr. Raffensperger’s announcement Monday came less than 48 hours after Mr. Trump appeared in the state at a rally intended to support the candidacies of Georgia’s two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who are locked in high-stakes runoff races. The president, however, spent much of his appearance airing a long list of personal grievances over his loss to Mr. Biden in Georgia and elsewhere, claiming falsely that fraudulent voting had stolen the election from him.

Mr. Raffensperger on Monday chastised both Mr. Trump and Stacey Abrams, the 2018 candidate for governor who acknowledged her loss but who claimed that her effort was hampered by Republican-designed voter suppression efforts. Some of Ms. Abrams’s supporters have claimed that the race was stolen from her.

“All this talk of a stolen election, whether it’s Stacey Abrams or the president of the United States, is hurting our state,” Mr. Raffensperger said.

On Sunday, the state’s lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan, and Mr. Raffensperger both said in television interviews that it was clear that Mr. Biden had won. But in an evening debate between Ms. Loeffler and her Democratic rival, Raphael Warnock, Ms. Loeffler declined to say, when questioned, that Mr. Trump had lost the election.

Mr. Trump has been pushing Gov. Brian Kemp to order an audit of signatures. The governor has said that he would also like to see an audit, but he has argued that his office does not have the authority to do so. The president has also urged the governor to order a special legislative session in which lawmakers might assign a new slate of delegates that would favor him. But the governor has repeatedly declined to call for a special session.

In a hearing on the election before the Georgia General Assembly on Thursday, Ryan Germany, the general counsel for the secretary of state’s office, made no mention of Mr. Trump but pushed back on the idea of a signature matching audit, saying such a move could be prompted only by specific complaints.

“These are law enforcement investigations,” Mr. Germany said. “Obviously we want to make sure when we’re opening them that we’re doing it based off of allegations that are actually investigatable and not feelings of, ‘I don’t like the result of this election.’”

— Richard Fausset

Stimulus talks, troop raises and funding the government: Congress faces a busy week.

A bipartisan group of senators is pushing a $908 billion stimulus compromise.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill face a set of looming challenges this week: breaking a stalemate on coronavirus relief negotiations, pushing through legislation needed to keep the government funded past Friday and neutralizing the threat of a presidential veto to the annual bill that authorizes raises for American troops.

Without a relief package from Congress since the spring, small businesses, unemployed workers and state and local governments have found themselves reeling from the economic devastation of the pandemic. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has called on Congress to act on a coronavirus relief package and predicted that lawmakers would return to the negotiating table for an additional round of relief after he assumes office.

A bipartisan group of senators is pushing a $908 billion compromise that would include nearly $300 billion for small businesses, $180 billion for unemployed workers and $160 billion for state, local and tribal governments. Lawmakers and staff members are still working on legislative text, and have yet to finalize details of a number of critical provisions — particularly a Republican demand for a sweeping liability shield.

The proposal, spearheaded by Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, has yet to receive approval from Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader.

Congressional leaders suggested a deal that could be merged with an enormous year-end spending package also under discussion, which must pass to keep the government funded beyond Friday. Given the number of outstanding differences and the renewed flurry of negotiations around a coronavirus deal, it is possible that Congress will approve a one-week stopgap bill to secure additional time to reach an agreement on both an omnibus package and stimulus provisions.

“That would be our hope because that is the vehicle leaving the station,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference in the Capitol last week.

Like Ms. Pelosi, Mr. McConnell has expressed a desire to reach a bipartisan agreement on a coronavirus package before the end of the year.

Discussing the relief package, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s №2 Democrat, said on ABC’s “This Week” that there were “a few remaining issues,” but he thought they could be worked out.

“We have a lot of work to do and just a few days to do it,” he said on Sunday.

Lawmakers face another hurdle — the threat of a presidential veto — to passing the latest National Defense Authorization Act. Leading Republicans and Democrats alike said they would press ahead on the legislation, despite President Trump’s demand that lawmakers add an unrelated repeal of a legal shield for social media companies. Mr. Trump threatened to veto the legislation over the provision, but in a rare move, Republicans have balked at his request.

— Hailey Fuchs and Emily Cochrane

Lawyers across the country urge bar associations to investigation Trump’s legal team.

Rudolph W. Giuliani speaking during a news conference in Washington last month.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Arguing that “a license to practice law is not a license to lie,” nearly 1,500 lawyers issued a letter on Monday calling on bar associations across the country to investigate and, if needed, penalize the members of President Trump’s legal team, including the architect of his post-election strategy, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

“It is indefensible for lawyers to falsely proclaim widespread voting fraud, submit a pattern of frivolous court claims and actively seek to undermine citizens’ faith in our election’s integrity,” said the letter, which was signed by several former judges, former federal prosecutors and law professors. “We condemn this conduct without reservation.”

The letter comes as Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have lost or withdrawn from nearly 50 legal challenges to this year’s election, including five in five different states within about three hours on Friday evening alone. Even so, Mr. Trump’s lawyers and those representing his Republican allies have continued filing lawsuits, igniting criticism that they are acting frivolously, even irresponsibly.

In their letter on Monday, the signers noted that Mr. Giuliani — who recently tested positive for Covid-19, according to President Trump — has made baseless arguments in public about “massive fraud” in the election, but has tempered his claims under questioning in court, saying he was not alleging fraud.

“Mr. Giuliani’s aim is obvious,” the letter said. “To fuel Mr. Trump’s campaign to delegitimize the outcome of the election.”

Among the signers were Philip Lacovera, a former deputy solictor general who worked on the case that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon; Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University; and Thomas Vanaskie, a former judge with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

The letter also took aim at another lawyer for Mr. Trump, Joseph DiGenova, who late last month publicly threatened Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who was fired by Mr. Trump after he declared that the 2020 elections were “the most secure in American history.”

During an interview on the conservative TV outlet Newsmax, Mr. DiGenova said that because of Mr. Krebs’s remarks he should be “taken out at dawn and shot.”

For the moment, only a handful of challenges to the election are still moving through the courts, including an emergency petition by Mike Kelly, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, requesting the Supreme Court hear his appeal of a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the state’s election results.

There are also state cases still alive in Georgia and Arizona and a federal case filed by the Trump campaign in Wisconsin. Sidney Powell, a former lawyer for Mr. Trump whom the campaign has disavowed, has filed four more federal cases of her own — in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona.

All of these efforts are running out of time to succeed. On Tuesday, the nation will reach the so-called safe harbor deadline, the date by which all state-level election challenges are supposed to be completed.

Then on Dec. 14, the Electoral College will cast its votes, making any attempt to overturn the results of the election nearly impossible.

— Alan Feuer

Biden has selected Xavier Becerra as his nominee for secretary of health and human services.

Xavier Becerra served 12 terms in Congress, representing Los Angeles, before becoming the attorney general of California in 2017.Credit…Alex Brandon/Associated Press

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has selected Xavier Becerra, a former congressman who is now the Democratic attorney general of California, as his nominee for secretary of health and human services, ending a politically delicate search that brought complaints from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about a lack of Latinos in the incoming cabinet.

Mr. Becerra became Mr. Biden’s clear choice only over the past few days, according to people familiar with the transition’s deliberations, and was a surprise. He has carved out a profile more on the issues of criminal justice, immigration and tax policy, and he was long thought to be a candidate for attorney general.

But as attorney general in California, he led legal efforts on health care, including leading 20 states and the District of Columbia in a campaign to protect the Affordable Care Act from being dismantled by Republican attorneys general. He has also been a leading voice in the Democratic Party for women’s health.

If confirmed, he will immediately face a daunting task in leading the department at a critical moment during a pandemic that has killed more than 281,000 people in the United States — and one that has taken a particularly devastating toll on people of color.

Mr. Becerra, 62, served 12 terms in Congress, representing Los Angeles, before becoming the attorney general of his home state in 2017. He is the first Latino to hold that office, and while in Congress he was the first Latino to serve as a member of the Ways and Means Committee. He also led the House Democratic Caucus, which gave him a powerful leadership post.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, will be tapped to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a person familiar with Mr. Biden’s deliberations. Ms. Walensky, whose selection was reported earlier by Politico, will replace Dr. Robert R. Redfield as the leader of the scientific agency at the forefront of the nation’s pandemic response.

— Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Michael D. Shear

BIDEN’S TEAM

Read the full story on Mr. Biden’s pick for health and human services.

Joe Biden’s hometown has become the center of the political universe. Residents are thrilled.

A woman watched from her house as President-elect Joseph R. Biden attended St. Ann’s Church in Wilmington, Del. Mr. Biden has transformed the city into a federal-government-in-waiting. Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

WILMINGTON, Del. — The hometown of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has long wrestled with its image problem. Namely, it does not have one.

If people could find Wilmington on a map — and many couldn’t — they thought of it as a convenient pit stop along the Northeast Corridor, which was dominated by far larger, more important, more colorful places. It is a city lacking a well-known culinary dish, historical event, professional sports team or even a particular turn of phrase.

And yet, against dubious odds not unlike those that Mr. Biden overcame in reaching the presidency after three tries, Wilmington appears determined to ride the Biden wave to long-elusive glory.

“Usually, nobody pays attention to us, and now we are on the news every night!” exclaimed Karen Kegelman of the Delaware Historical Society, whose first memorable encounter with Mr. Biden dates back to when he spoke at her high school graduation. She is 53.

The president-elect has transformed the city into a federal-government-in-waiting. He delivers speeches and television interviews from the Queen, a restored theater downtown. His motorcade, 20 vehicles long, regularly brings traffic to a halt, and gawking drivers appear delighted. Cabinet nominees swan through the opulent lobby of the Hotel Du Pont. Suddenly, all of Wilmington is bathing in the dizzying warmth of an unexpected spotlight.

“It creates great curiosity about the city,” Mayor Michael S. Purzycki said, “people coming by all the time wanting to know what is going on, tell me about your city.”

Mr. Purzycki harbors no illusions regarding the colorless reputation of his town: “Wilmington has always been on I-95 between Washington, Philly and New York, you know.” He compared its famously dull, corporate vibe to the unvarying “Mad Men” uniform worn by the legions of lawyers and chemical engineers who once populated its downtown: “a white shirt, a sincere tie and 12-pound wingtips.”

— Neil MacFarquhar

NEW RECOGNITION

After centuries of obscurity, Wilmington is having its moment.

A diverse group of Democratic lawmakers will help lead the Biden inaugural committee.

Representatives James E. Clyburn of South Carolina speaking at a press event in the Capitol Building in September.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inaugural plans are moving forward with the announcement of a diverse selection of committee co-chairmen and women: Representatives James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, Cedric L. Richmond of Louisiana and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles.

“These leaders reflect the strength, spirit, and diversity of America and have always held a steadfast commitment to restoring the soul of the nation, building back the middle class, and unifying the country,” Mr. Biden said in a statement on Monday. “We are proud of their support and know they will help plan an inauguration that will reflect our nation’s shared values.”

Last month, the Biden team announced that the inaugural committee will be led by Tony Allen, the president of Delaware State University, a historically Black school in Mr. Biden’s home state, and Maju Varghese, the chief operating officer on the Biden campaign.

Mr. Clyburn, the House majority whip, is the highest-ranking Black member of Congress. His early endorsement of Mr. Biden ahead of South Carolina’s primary in February is credited with helping to shift the party’s nomination to Mr. Biden.

Members of the committee have the challenge of staging the inauguration during a pandemic, which requires limiting the guest list and ensuring those who attend are safe. In the past Congress has distributed around 200,000 tickets, but that number will be much lower this year. And Mr. Biden is not expected to host celebratory balls, which have been a staple of past inaugurations, as he heeds advice from health officials to avoid large indoor gatherings.

“While we are going to focus on keeping people safe this year, we will make sure Americans have the opportunity to celebrate this pivotal moment for our country,” Ms. Whitmer said in a statement.

President Trump, who continues to argue, contrary to considerable evidence, that the election was stolen from him, has not said whether he plans to attend the Jan. 20 transfer of power from his government to Mr. Biden’s.