Our live coverage has ended. Read more about the Biden transition here.
Nevada District Judge James Russell rejected a Republican attempt to declare President Trump the winner of the Nevada election.
One day after a lengthy evidentiary hearing, Russell wrote that the “contestant did not prove under any standard of proof” the long list of accusations against the Biden-Harris campaign, including paying voters to cast ballots.
Russell denied their request to replace Democratic electors with Republican electors.
Some background: After more than 30 defunct lawsuits in 30 days, attempts by Trump and his backers to overturn the election of Joe Biden as the next president have failed in court — sometimes repeatedly, with judges gutting claims and shutting down all possible legal avenues to interfere with the Electoral College.
The President’s effort isn’t stopping, with more lawsuits and appeals getting filed almost daily and more than $170 million raised in response to pleas for cash from Trump.
Officials across the country has confirmed that the 2020 vote was secure.
President-elect Joe Biden said that since his January inauguration will come as the country is still battling the coronavirus pandemic, the events may be altered to keep attendees safe.
Biden said that means it’s “highly unlikely” there will be millions of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
He added that while there will likely be the traditional “platform ceremony,” he isn’t sure of all of the details yet.
“The key is keeping people safe,” he added.
The President-elect said while safety is the first consideration, he also wants to “still allow people to celebrate,” adding that there will likely be virtual events to mark the occasion.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will announce members of their health team early next week, transition adviser Jen Psaki said, adding that the next couple weeks will be “very busy.”
“I would expect — or you should all expect to have a very busy next couple of weeks,” Psaki added. “Hope you have your coffee and your spinach or whatever keeps you going because it will be busy between now and Christmas.”
While they would not reveal what kind of executive orders the President-elect intends to pass immediately when he assumes office, the team stressed that Biden campaigned on tackling the four crises that we are simultaneously facing in the country, which include the public health crisis, the climate crisis, the racial justice crisis and the economic crisis.
Seated next to Vice President Mike Pence, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield made it clear that he recognizes President Trump lost the election and a new administration will soon be in charge.
Redfield praised the work of the men and women of the CDC, noting that they will continue to guide the nation’s response to coronavirus, “after we’re gone,” referring to himself and the vice president.
Pence then thanked CDC staff and Redfield specifically for the work he has done leading the agency, but made no mention of any sort of new administration or change in leadership.
Political questions from Democrats and a new Republican litmus test have suddenly become complicating factors in one of President-elect Joe Biden’s most critical choices: picking a new Attorney General to lead the Justice Department out of its highly politicized era.
This creates competing realities for Biden. He must get an attorney general confirmed by a Senate that could be controlled by Republicans, some of whom tell CNN they will only vote for a candidate who pledges to continue an investigation into the 2016 election.
But even more significant, Biden is also feeling pressure from top Democrats and allied groups who believe he must nominate a person of color to at least one of the top four Cabinet posts, likely as attorney general.
Biden’s list of contenders for the job — from Sally Yates, former deputy attorney general, to Doug Jones, soon to be former senator from Alabama who was defeated in November — largely centers on former prosecutors whose history at the department could lend credibility with the public and career officials.
Others said to be in contention include Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts governor and former Justice Department civil rights chief; Jeh Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary under Obama; California Attorney General Xavier Becerra; and Lisa Monaco, a former Homeland Security adviser in the Obama White House and who previously worked at the FBI and as top national security prosecutor at Justice.
Biden, along with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, are interviewing contenders and weighing the decision. They are not expected to announce a decision until next week at the earliest, people familiar with the matter told CNN, but with a goal of doing so well before the holidays. The timing is also contingent on the nomination of a Secretary of Defense.
Democratic lawmakers and allied groups are pressuring Biden’s transition team after Biden selected White nominees for both his top job at the State and Treasury departments. The calculation is complicated by the fact that Michele Flournoy, who is also White, is seen as Biden’s leading contender to lead the Defense Department.
The job, for whomever Biden picks, will be a heavy lift. The pick will be stepping into a Justice Department damaged by the Trump administration and with low morale among career officials, many of whom have been publicly called out by President Trump, Barr and other Republicans.
Read more here.
State Department officials who work with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have told the career transition team at the State Department that he will meet with the incoming Biden team at the right time, according to two sources familiar with the message.
It comes as a bit of a surprise from Pompeo who has not yet publicly recognized President-elect Joe Biden’s victory or openly welcomed the incoming Biden team, even though outgoing secretaries of state in the past have met with their successors as a show of good faith and commitment to US national security regardless of political party.
During the transition from President George W. Bush to President Barack Obama then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dinner with Hillary Clinton, who Obama had selected to lead his State Department. After the dinner Rice said that Clinton would do a great job as America’s top diplomat.
Pompeo was also able to draw from the advice of former secretaries when he was picked to be Trump’s second secretary of state in 2018. He reached out to every living former Secretary of State, no matter the party, for advice after being nominated.
“That’s the kind of style he has,” Brian Bulatao, who worked with Pompeo at the CIA and went with him to the State Department, told the New York Times at the time.
Pompeo’s willingness to meet with Biden’s team, through those he works with at the State Department, comes as he has not publicly committed to meeting with anyone on Biden’s team.
“You asked my wisdom for the next administration. They’re plenty smart enough. They’ll figure their way through this,” Pompeo said on Friday, before saying to world leaders that Biden’s team is not going to pick the right path forward on Iran.
Pompeo has also said “we’ll make this work” of the transition at the department, but he has not detailed what he means by that.
His comments last month about there being a smooth transition to a second Trump administration, which some said was a joke, also created confusion and anger within the ranks of career US diplomats. But those comments were met with praise by Trump.
Pompeo has not yet talked to Tony Blinken, Biden’s pick to be secretary of state, he said at the end of last month. It remains unclear if Pompeo intends to meet with Blinken one-on-one or meet with the group of Biden transition officials at the State Department.
President-elect Joe Biden released a statement on the November jobs report ahead of his remarks on the subject later this afternoon in Wilmington, Delaware.
He expressed optimism in the bipartisan efforts in the Senate around the $900 billion relief package but reiterated that whatever stimulus that is passed during the lame duck session will be just a start.
“As we inherit this economic crisis, Vice President-elect Harris and I are working on the plan we will put forward for the next Congress to move fast and control the pandemic, revive the economy, and build back better than before,” Biden said. “And, we hope to see the same kind of spirit of bipartisan cooperation as we are seeing today.”
Earlier this week, Biden introduced key members of his economic team, including Janet Yellen, who would be the first woman to serve as Treasury secretary if confirmed, who will be tasked will helping the economy recover.
What the report showed: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the US economy added 245,000 jobs in November on a seasonally adjusted basis. It was 224,000 fewer than economists had expected, as the job recovery continues to slow.
The unemployment rate inched down to 6.7%, from 6.9% in October.
Eight months after Covid-19 brought the economy to a screeching halt and following better-than-expected improvements over the summer months, the recovery is running out of steam.
The economy is still down 9.8 million jobs since February, before the crisis began.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered a brief vote of confidence in the incoming Biden administration on the issue of Iran, saying, “You asked my wisdom for the next administration. They’re plenty smart enough. They’ll figure their way through this.”
Pompeo’s comments came following a plea for the international community to maintain pressure on Iran rather than “appease” them, which he said would be “fundamentally the wrong direction.”
President-elect Joe Biden’s first round of personnel announcements last month featured some members of his national security team, but notably missing were his picks for defense secretary and CIA director.
The Biden transition team had also made clear to allies early on that they hoped to roll out an economic team along with the public health team with the most urgency.
But while Biden did name key members of his economic team earlier this week including Janet Yellen for Treasury secretary, announcements regarding his public health team – including his choice to lead the Health and Human Services Department, a position that will be hugely important as the Biden administration tries to contain Covid-19 – are still outstanding.
Another other top appointment still to come is that of attorney general.
Multiple people familiar with transition discussions said in recent days that all of these yet-to-be-announced positions are being held up, at least in part, by furious discussions – and lobbying – taking place about racial diversity in the Biden’s administration.
The defense secretary appointment is a prime example. As CNN has previously reported, veteran Pentagon official Michèle Flournoy was once seen as a lock for the position.
However, she was not a part of Biden’s first round of national security team announcements in November, and multiple sources say she has perhaps, more than anyone else, gone dramatically from being seen as a shoe-in for a top job to now being in limbo. Behind the hold-up is racial diversity in Biden’s top Cabinet positions.
“They’re absolutely not going to have the top four cabinet positions be White,” one person familiar with transition discussions said – a reference to the four Cabinet positions of secretary of state, treasury secretary, defense secretary and attorney general.
There was a domino effect of sorts after Tony Blinken was named secretary of state, sources said. Before Election Day, there was a good amount of speculation that Susan Rice, Obama’s former national security adviser who is Black, could get that role.
But when Democrats did not take control of the Senate last month and the job ultimately went to Blinken – followed by the Treasury role being given to Yellen – the Biden team came under even more scrutiny and pressure to ensure that there are non-white individuals named to the remaining top roles like defense secretary, attorney general and HHS secretary.
Another example: Biden is said to be a big personal fan of Alabama Sen. Doug Jones and likes the idea of naming him to be his attorney general, but that’s now also complicated by the fact that both Blinken and Yellen are White.
As we’ve reported, racial diversity is emerging as a key factor in the Health and Human Services secretary appointment as well, with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus publicly calling on Biden to choose New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Those lawmakers are also pushing Biden to choose either California Attorney General Xavier Becerra or Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez to serve as the US attorney general.
Meanwhile, the NAACP said it had asked for a meeting with Biden and Harris so they can discuss the importance of civil rights and diversity issues being adequately represented in the new administration. Earlier this week, the president of the group told CNN that they had not heard back about their request.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Biden said Thursday that he will keep his repeated promise to create an administration that looks like America.
“When it’s all over, people will take a look and say, I promise you, you’ll see the most diverse cabinet, representative of all folks, Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Latinos, LGBTQ, across the board,” Biden said. He said they planned to meet with the NAACP on Tuesday.
Vice President Mike Pence is en route to Georgia, where he will participate in a mix of official business and campaign activity.
Joining him on his flight are Rep. Doug Collins, GOP chair Ronna McDaniel and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield.
CNN’s Kristen Holmes reports that Pence will be greeted by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp later Friday when he makes a stop in Savannah to campaign with Republican Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The vice president’s first stop is Atlanta, where he will visit the CDC and participate in a briefing on vaccines.
President Trump is also slated to travel to Georgia tomorrow and hold his first post-election rally.
All eyes are on the Peach State as the Jan. 5 runoff election will decide which party controls the Senate.
President-elect Joe Biden will deliver remarks this afternoon in Wilmington, Delaware, on the final jobs report of 2020 released this morning that continues to show the grave impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the US economy added 245,000 jobs in November on a seasonally adjusted basis. It was 224,000 fewer than economists had expected, as the job recovery continues to slow.
The unemployment rate inched down to 6.7%, from 6.9% in October.
Eight months after Covid-19 brought the economy to a screeching halt and following better-than-expected improvements over the summer months, the recovery is running out of steam.
The economy is still down 9.8 million jobs since February, before the crisis began. That’s still more jobs than were lost during the Great Recession. If hiring were to continue at its current pace, it would take until March 2024 for the job market to return to its February 2020 peak.
Earlier this week, Biden introduced key members of his economic team, including Janet Yellen, who would be the first woman to serve as Treasury secretary if confirmed.
The President-elect said his transition team “is already working on what I’ll put forward in the next Congress to address the multiple crises we are facing, especially our economic and Covid crises.”
President-elect Joe Biden’s margin over President Donald Trump in the nationwide popular vote is now more than 7 million votes and may continue to grow as several states continue counting votes.
Biden’s lead over Trump is the second largest since 2000, and is about two and a half times larger than Hillary Clinton’s popular vote lead over Trump in 2016.
As of Friday morning, Biden had won about 81.2 million votes, the most votes a candidate has won in US history, and Trump had won about 74.2 million. Trump’s vote count makes him the second-highest vote earner in American history.
Despite Biden’s decisive victory and the Trump administration starting the formal presidential transition process, the President has refused to concede the race and continues to make baseless claims about widespread voter fraud.
Biden won 306 electoral votes, while Trump has 232. Two hundred and seventy electoral votes are needed to become president.
Americans voted by mail in record numbers this year to protect themselves from the coronavirus pandemic, and experts had warned that as a result, there would be a lengthy vote count that would likely not resolve until days or weeks after Election Day.
President Trump is headed down South tomorrow for his first in-person push for the US Senate runoffs next month in Georgia. The Jan. 5 runoff election will decide which party controls the Senate.
But his trip is being met with some trepidation by local Republicans, as the President continues to take aim at the state’s GOP leadership over the outcome of the November election.
On Saturday, Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech in Valdosta, Georgia, accompanied by both GOP Senate runoff contenders, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Valdosta, an azalea tree-filled city in south Georgia, is a conservative stronghold in the state.
The event will be held at an airport, and according to the RNC, “all attendees will be given a temperature check, masks which they are instructed to wear, and access to hand sanitizer.” Georgia is one of several states without statewide a mask mandate.
Loeffler and her Democratic challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock are set to debate Sunday night.
Trump’s current relationship with Peach State Republicans is dicey at best. After losing the state to Joe Biden, he has continuously attacked Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (both Republicans).
According to CNN’s Ryan Nobles and Alex Rogers, this has not only discouraged Republican voters but also undermined confidence in the integrity of the election as a whole. On Wednesday, a voting official even went so far as to plead with the President to denounce threats of violence.
There are also concerns that Trump’s continued ire is imperiling the reelection chances of Georgia’s Republican senators – and consequent Republican control of the Senate.
Despite Trump’s mixed reception in the state, the senators have remained publicly supportive of the President. On Wednesday, Loeffler tweeted, “I’m SO proud to have our President’s support & thrilled to welcome him back to Georgia!”
The Democrats are also campaigning. Former President Barack Obama and Stacey Abrams will join a virtual rally alongside Democratic Senate candidates Warnock and Jon Ossoff today.
This reporting originally appeared in CNN’s The Point with Chris Cillizza newsletter.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris sat down with CNN yesterday for their first joint interview since winning the election as they continue to build out their incoming administration and prepare to battle the coronavirus pandemic and its impacts.
If you are just catching up on the interview, here are some key moments:
Read more here.
Watch:
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who is known as a close ally of President Trump, says that intelligence shows that foreign adversaries are amplifying the President’s claims about voter fraud.
Ratcliffe told CBS in an interview that the purpose is “to undermine public confidence in our democratic processes.”
Trump has been pushing baseless voter fraud claims since losing the election last month. There is no evidence of widespread election fraud.
The comments by Ratcliffe are notable in that he was one of the President’s most vocal supporters when he was in Congress.
Ratcliffe declined to say which countries were doing it. CNN has reported that before the election, Russia was amplifying false claims about mail-in voting that said it would lead to fraud, a claim the president repeatedly made.
Other countries, like China and Iran, also often amplify narratives that fit their strategies.
Ratcliffe said that so far there’s no indication foreign adversaries or criminal groups were able change the vote results, which is in line with what we’ve heard from other election security officials.
He noted that voter fraud isn’t an intelligence issue, but rather one for domestic law enforcement.
Attorney General William Barr said in an interview with the Associated Press published Tuesday that the Justice Department hasn’t found evidence to support allegations of widespread fraud that could have changed the result of last month’s presidential election.
Speaking on NBC’s Today, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he accepted President-elect Joe Biden’s offer to serve as his chief medical adviser “right on the spot.”
Additionally, when asked about Biden asking Americans to wear a mask for 100 days, Fauci said he believes this is a good idea.
“I spoke to him about that, he just wants to get — and it’s a good idea — uniform. He’s saying, ‘Hey folks, trust me, everybody for 100 days’ that might be that after that we still are gonna need it, but he just wants everybody for a commitment for 100 days, and I discussed that with him, and I told him I thought that was a good idea,” Fauci said.
Biden told CNN yesterday in a wide-ranging interview that he has asked Fauci to be a chief medical adviser and to be a part of his Covid-19 response team when his administration begins next month.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris continues to construct her key team of senior staffers who will accompany her to the White House, announcing Thursday the hiring of three top roles including chief of staff.
The staffers — all of whom are women and two of whom are people of color — highlight the incoming administration’s commitment to diversity.
Harris tapped Hartina Flournoy, a Black woman, as her incoming chief of staff. She currently serves as chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton.
While no official policy designations have been set, sources say Harris wants to be a part of the administration’s rebuilding of small and medium businesses stripped by the pandemic, in part because they disproportionately affect women and people of color.
The vice president-elect is also eyeing a role in the administration’s education platform — as many children without proper access to broadband during the pandemic have fallen behind.
Harris has long focused on the welfare of children throughout her prosecutorial career, in the Senate and during her own presidential campaign. Her first major policy proposal last year during the campaign pledged to boost teacher pay.
Over time, she’ll look to solidify her foreign policy and national security accolades, leaning on her four years of experience as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a source adds.
That is in addition to Harris’ possible role in any criminal justice and climate justice reform, drawing on her years as California’s attorney general and San Francisco district attorney.
The arsenal of key staff that Harris is surrounding herself with will be essential in securing the work that rounds out her record.
For her part, Flournoy has prior relationships with many top Biden advisers, having worked with them in her different capacities in Washington.
McEldowney, a veteran in the foreign policy arena, has deep ties to the community as well. Kosgoulu, who spent many years on Capitol Hill, could serve as an emissary for Harris who, once inaugurated, will become the president of the Senate.
But the most important relationship of them all, is the one Harris builds with the President-elect.
“The first obligation is to do what is asked by the President of the United States,” Moore, who served as director of White House political affairs to Bill Clinton and watched his relationship to Gore flourish, said.
After more than 30 defunct lawsuits in 30 days, attempts by President Trump and his backers to overturn the election of Joe Biden as the next president have failed in court — sometimes repeatedly, with judges gutting claims and shutting down all possible legal avenues to interfere with the Electoral College.
The President’s effort isn’t stopping, with more lawsuits and appeals being filed almost daily and more than $170 million raised in response to pleas for cash from Trump.
But officials across the country confirmed that the 2020 vote was secure. Biden’s victories have already been certified in six of the most closely contested states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. His wide Electoral College win over Trump is secured, and will be formalized this month.
Judges have rejected Trump’s attempts so thoroughly over the past few weeks, they’ve shut down the cases on nearly every question they’re asked.
One federal judge in Pennsylvania, Matthew Brann, wrote he couldn’t do what the Trump campaign and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani wanted because it would be unconstitutional. A judge in Michigan, Timothy Kenny, explained point by point why witness statements suspecting fraud fell short.
A judge on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrote in a concurring opinion last weekend, which denied a Republican attempt to throw out millions of absentee votes in the state, that the court shouldn’t “lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters.”
And yet, Trump’s dreams linger in court. Ongoing cases still look to push false narratives of fraud — often built on their disbelief of Biden support in heavily Democratic cities and unhappiness with absentee voting.
Here’s a look at the lawsuits the Trump campaign and allies have won and lost:
Read more here.
