Tag: President-Elect Biden

Biden denounces racial inequities in blasting Capitol riot

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President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday denounced what he described as an unequal justice system reflected in the lenient response to the mostly White rioters who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, suggesting a stark contrast with the treatment of racial justice demonstrators across the country last summer.

“You can’t tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesters yesterday they wouldn’t have been treated very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said in Wilmington, before beginning to hammer his fist against the lectern. “We all know that is true. And it is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. The American people saw it in plain view.”

In some of his most pointed remarks to date on racial inequity, a topic he sometimes struggles to discuss despite his support from many Black voters, Biden pledged that the disparities would be addressed as he announced his Justice Department leadership team, including federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland as attorney general. Continue reading.

Biden taps intelligence veteran for new White House cybersecurity role

Anne Neuberger, the NSA’s director of cybersecurity, will join Biden’s National Security Council.

President-elect Joe Biden plans to pluck a career intelligence official from the National Security Agency to serve in a newly created cybersecurity role on his National Security Council.

Anne Neuberger, who joined the NSA more than a decade ago and has been serving as the agency’s director of cybersecurity since 2019, will be named deputy national security adviser for cybersecurity in the incoming NSC, according to two people familiar with the plans.

Neuberger’s hiring indicates that the Biden White House intends to reelevate cybersecurity as a key national security priority, after President Donald Trump eliminated the role of cybersecurity coordinator in 2018. Continue reading.

Biden to pick Merrick Garland for attorney general

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President-elect Joe Biden will announce Judge Merrick Garland to be attorney general on Thursday, seeking to place in the nation’s top law enforcement job a respected federal appeals judge whose Supreme Court nomination Republicans blocked five years ago, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Why it matters: News of the selection, first reported by Politico, came just hours after the nation learned that Democrats would likely win both Senate runoffs in Georgia and take control of the Senate, making it harder for Republicans to block nominations.

  • That applies not just the attorney general nominee himself, but also whomever Biden nominates to replace Garland as an appellant judge in a crucial circuit. Continue reading.

Pence declares Biden winner of the presidential election after Congress finally counts electoral votes

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Vice President Pence declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election at the end of a violent and deadly day at the Capitol. Pence also announced that Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) had won the vice presidency, after the Senate and House rejected Trump loyalists’ challenges to Biden’s win in Pennsylvania and Congress finally counted the electoral votes.

Shortly thereafter, President Trump — who had defiantly told supporters at a rally that he would “never concede” — said in a statement that “there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.” Continue reading.

Biden condemns riots at Capitol, calls on Trump to demand end to siege

President-elect Joe Biden offered a scathing rebuke of the hundreds of pro-Trump rioters who continued to storm the U.S. Capitol Complex and disrupted the official declaration of the 2020 election results earlier on Wednesday.

Biden, who will become the U.S. president on Jan. 20, castigated the rioters and called upon law enforcement to quell violence in Washington.

“At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times,” the president-elect said from Wilmington, Delaware. “Let me be very clear: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America, do not represent who we are.” Continue reading.

Biden team expresses concern over ‘abrupt halt’ in cooperation with Pentagon

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President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team expressed concern Friday about what it described as an “abrupt halt” in cooperation with the Defense Department.

The Pentagon had said it was rescheduling meetings with the transition team originally planned for Friday until after the new year, but insisted the change was part of a “mutually agreed” pause for the holiday season.

“Our agency review teams continue making progress on a shortened timeline, and we’ve benefited from constructive cooperation within many departments and agencies, but we have met isolated resistance in some corners, including from political appointees within the Department of Defense,” Biden transition executive director Yohannes Abraham said in a briefing Friday. Continue reading.

Scoop: Pentagon halts Biden transition briefings

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Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios.

The latest: Biden transition director Yohannes Abraham contradicted the Pentagon’s official response to this story on Friday afternoon, telling reporters, “Let me be clear: there was no mutually agreed upon holiday break.”

  • “In fact, we think it’s important that briefings and other engagements continue during this period as there’s no time to spare, and that’s particularly true in the aftermath of ascertainment delay,” Abraham continued, referring to the Trump administration’s delay in recognizing Biden as president-elect. Continue reading.

Once friends, Biden calls Lindsey Graham ‘a personal disappointment’ for not recognizing election win

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When Stephen Colbert asked Joe Biden on Thursday whether he could patch up his once-close friendship with Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), the president-elect’s expression turned somber.

Graham, a close ally of President Trump, has declined to acknowledge Biden’s election victory and was accused of pressuring Georgia to discard mail-in ballots in a state that went for the Democrat.

Biden, who has made his willingness to work with Republicans a key campaign promise, declined to say whether their relationship was salvageable. Continue reading.

Biden to receive first dose of coronavirus vaccine on Monday

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President-elect Joe Biden and incoming first lady Jill Biden will receive their first doses of the coronavirus vaccine publicly on Monday, according to his transition team.

Incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki briefed reporters on the news in a call Friday. The development comes as other high-ranking government officials, including Vice President Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) received the vaccine on Friday.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be getting her vaccine the week after Biden gets it, the transition team said, with medical experts advising that they stagger the first doses.  Continue reading.