President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s transition began in earnest on Tuesday, after President Trump authorized intelligence agencies to begin briefing his successor on classified information delivered in the President’s Daily Brief, and transition teams started communicating with their counterparts in agencies throughout the federal government.
Mr. Biden also formally announced top members of his national security team on Tuesday in Wilmington, Del.
“Our teams can prepare to meet the challenges at hand,” he said. “To control the pandemic, to build back better, and to protect the safety and security of the American people.”
Mr. Biden’s nominees seemed intent on fully repudiating the current administration’s “America First” isolationism.
“Diplomacy is back,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat and Mr. Biden’s pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Antony J. Blinken, the nominee for secretary of state, said America needed the “humility and confidence” to depend on its allies.
The president-elect also formally introduced Alejandro N. Mayorkas, a Cuban-American, as his pick to run the Department of Homeland Security, and Avril D. Haines, who would be the first woman to be the director of national intelligence. In her remarks, Ms. Haines warned Mr. Biden that she would bring him news that would be politically “inconvenient or difficult,” a contrast with the outgoing administration.
Mr. Biden also appointed John Kerry, who was previously President Obama’s secretary of state, to a new role inside the National Security Council to put “climate change on the agenda in the Situation Room,” after four years of the Trump administration trying to have the words struck from international agreements.
A major player who has yet to be named is Mr. Biden’s secretary of defense, though the leading candidate is believed to be Michèle Flournoy, who served as the under secretary of defense for policy under Mr. Obama and, in the Trump years, created a foreign policy advisory firm with Mr. Blinken, WestExec Advisors.
While Mr. Trump ended his blockade of the start of a formal transition process, he continued to refuse to concede defeat, even as states — including the battleground of Pennsylvania — certified their election results.
Transition officials said their teams had made contact with every federal agency to begin setting up meetings. About 20 of those meetings took place on Tuesday, including at the Department of Homeland Security and the Education Department. The officials said the reception from the Trump administration was responsive and helpful.
The stock market surged on Tuesday on the news that a robust transition was set to begin, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing past 30,000 for the first time. Investors appeared to be further buoyed by reports that Mr. Biden was expected to choose Janet L. Yellen, a former chair of the Federal Reserve, as Treasury secretary. If they are selected and confirmed, Ms. Yellen and Ms. Flournoy would be the first women to hold their respective posts.
President Trump, continuing to pay scant attention to the duties of an office in which he has 56 days yet to serve as U.S. coronavirus deaths topped 2,000 for the first time since May, is expected to head to Pennsylvania today to meet with Republican lawmakers in his unending quest to overturn the election.
His visit comes the day after Pennsylvania finalized its election results and found that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. beat the president there by more than 80,000 votes.
The president will attend a meeting that Republican state lawmakers are calling a hearing about election irregularities, three people briefed on the trip said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a trip the White House has not announced.
The event is not actually a “hearing,” as it takes place away from the state legislature and is instead a meeting of Republicans. It will be the first trip that Mr. Trump has made away from the White House outside of golf excursions since the Nov. 3. election. Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, is also attending and is said to have encouraged Mr. Trump to go.
Mr. Trump on Monday relented to allow a formal transition to Mr. Biden’s administration to begin. But a short time after, he tried to make clear he wasn’t actually conceding, and the trip to Pennsylvania appeared to be part of that effort. People familiar with the discussions expected Mr. Giuliani’s team to file more lawsuits in the coming days. A suit the team had filed in Pennsylvania was derided and dismissed by a Pennsylvania judge last weekend.
A power struggle for the top Democratic slot on the Senate Judiciary Committee may be emerging after the decision of Senator Dianne Feinstein of California to step aside next year.
After her announcement on Monday, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat and next in line on the committee, said he intended to take on the role, noting that his 22 years on the panel provided the experience needed to challenge Republicans over the courts.
But some of the same progressives who sought to push out Ms. Feinstein, deeming her insufficiently aggressive against Republicans, also signaled that they did not want Mr. Durbin. Instead they began nudging Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island to consider a bid. Mr. Whitehouse, a former federal prosecutor, has railed against Republicans for trying to mount a conservative takeover of the courts with the help of a network of undisclosed financial contributors.
Mr. Whitehouse’s office had initially declined to weigh in on the possibility of seeking the Judiciary Committee position, but on Tuesday evening he issued a statement that, without directly challenging Mr. Durbin, left the door open to pursuing the top slot. Mr. Whitehouse said it would be up to fellow Democrats to decide who should fill the post.
“In the wake of Ranking Member Feinstein’s announcement, I look forward to the question of succession on the Senate Judiciary Committee being decided by the caucus,” he said. “I will abide by the caucus’s decision.”
The potential clash illustrated the challenge Democrats are likely to face as the party seeks to reconcile the views of progressives demanding sweeping changes, new leadership after the election and others who believe the results showed that voters want to steer a more moderate course.
Unlike Republicans, who have established term limits on chairmanships, Democrats typically follow seniority in committee assignments. Besides being the party whip, Mr. Durbin is also the top Democrat on the Appropriations panel that handles military spending, a very influential position.
Some Democrats may consider that enough. But Mr. Durbin, who just won re-election, is a very practiced player in internal party politics and has survived at the top for years, suggesting that he would be difficult for Mr. Whitehouse to defeat.
Whether the position up for grabs will become the chairman of the panel or the top Democrat under Republican control will depend on the outcome of two Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5.
After nearly three weeks of silence, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, congratulated President-elect Joseph R. Biden on Wednesday, becoming one of the last major world leaders to acknowledge his victory.
In his message to Mr. Biden, Mr. Xi said that China and the United States should “uphold the spirit of nonconflict and nonconfrontation,” adding that the countries should “focus on cooperation and manage differences,” according to the state-controlled Xinhua news agency.
Mr. Xi “pointed out that promoting the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. relations not only conforms to the fundamental interests of the two peoples, but is also the common expectation of the international community,” Xinhua wrote.
China’s vice president, Wang Qishan, congratulated Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Chinese state media said.
The Chinese government has been slow to acknowledge Mr. Biden’s victory, saying it would respect American laws and procedures for determining the winner of the election. Last week, China’s Foreign Ministry congratulated Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, but Mr. Xi himself had remained silent, at least according to official media.
U.S.-China relations have plummeted to their lowest levels in decades, as the Trump administration has sparred with Beijing over trade, technology, human rights and other issues. Chinese politics experts have said Beijing was initially gun-shy because President Trump had not conceded and officials were aware of the lawsuits that his campaign was threatening to file that could challenge the results.
Although Mr. Biden is less likely to adopt a similarly bellicose approach, few experts think his presidency would quickly reset relations. On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden called Mr. Xi “a thug.” He has said that China’s rise represents the “greatest strategic challenge” to the United States and its allies.
The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid controlled by China’s ruling Communist Party, said the party’s calculus had changed because the General Services Administration on Monday finally allowed Mr. Biden’s team to begin the transition process.
“China thinks the election situation in the U.S. has settled,” the newspaper wrote in a tweet.
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November 25, 2020 at 10:00PM
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