The U.S. State Department has been preventing President-elect Joe Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders, highlighting the Trump Administration's blatant unwillingness to facilitate the transition process.
As reported by CNN, Biden has been unable to receive dozens of official messages from world leaders through the State Department, which supports all formal communication for the Office of the President-elect; which is a blatant violation of established norms, as President Trump refuses to concede.
President-elect Biden has communicated with several world leaders since his historic electoral victory, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; albeit without the logistical and diplomatic support from the State Department, which has been consistently impeding the transition process.
It has also been reported that in an effort to bypass this roadblock, foreign leaders have reached out to former Obama-era diplomats to get in touch with President-elect Biden's team; once it was inferred that the State Department was not facilitating the new Administration.
President Trump has repeatedly refused to acknowledge Biden's victory, pursuing legal action in key swing states, and peddling a narrative that perpetuates issues pertaining to voter fraud and deliberate miscounting. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when inquired about the transitional process, stated that "there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration", adding more fuel to the fire as to whether the Administration will be cooperative in the process.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has refused to share Presidential intelligence briefings with Biden, while the Administrator of the General Services Administration has refused to issue the President-elect a letter of "ascertainment" which would allow the transfer of power to begin - thereby posing multiple roadblocks for the incoming Biden Administration.
WASHINGTON: US President-elect Joe Biden pressed ahead with his transition Wednesday despite Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge defeat, naming a seasoned Democratic operative as chief of staff in his first public White House personnel choice. Biden’s inauguration is on January 20.
Biden tapped longtime aide Ron Klain, who previously served as his first chief of staff while vice president, acknowledging the two had a long road ahead in fighting the coronavirus pandemic as well as healing a deeply divided nation.
“His deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again,” Biden said.
He made the announcement after visiting the Korean War Memorial in Philadelphia earlier in the day for a solemn wreath-laying ceremony to mark Veterans Day in the US.
President Trump attended a separate, simultaneous ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, in what should have been a moment of national unity but instead highlighted the Republican’s refusal to acknowledge election defeat.
The president made no public remarks during the somber wreath-laying ceremony, his first official appearance since the November 3 vote. Since media called the race four days ago Trump has not addressed the nation other than via Twitter and a written statement released to mark Veterans Day, and has not conceded to Biden, as is traditional once a winner is projected in a US vote. Early Wednesday he was tweeting fresh evidence-free claims of election wins and ballot tampering, despite the consensus from international observers, world leaders, local election officials and US media that the vote was free and fair.—AFP
WASHINGTON: Pope Francis spoke with Joe Biden by telephone Thursday to offer “blessings and congratulations” to the US president-elect on his victory, the Democrat’s transition team said in a statement.
“The president-elect thanked His Holiness for extending blessings and congratulations and noted his appreciation for His Holiness’ leadership in promoting peace, reconciliation, and the common bonds of humanity around the world,” according to a readout of the call provided by Biden’s office.
Biden, 77, is only the second Catholic elected to the US presidency, after John F Kennedy in 1960.—AFP
LONDON/NEW YORK: President Donald Trump's challenge of the US election result in the courts has emboldened some to bet he can still win, even as most bookies have settled bets by accepting that President-elect Joe Biden will succeed him.
Trump still has a 10% chance of remaining in the White House for a second term, according to Betfair, an online betting exchange that matches opposing wagers by punters. That is up from 3% late last week.
Democrat Biden is currently projected to win 279 electoral college votes, more than the 270 he needs to become president. He is ahead of his Republican rival Trump in the voting count in states that would bring his electoral vote total to 306, according to Edison Research.
All major U.S news organizations have called the Nov. 3 election for Biden based on preliminary voting tallies.
Major bookmakers, such as Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and William Hill, have paid out bets on the basis that Biden won, but many online exchanges such as Betfair have not settled bets and remain open for election wagers.
The discrepancy shows how some punters are backing Trump's long-shot bid to overturn the election outcome in the courts, based on unproven claims of extensive voting fraud and irregularities.
"I'm a loyal Trump supporter and I put my money where my mouth is," said Chris French, a 53-year-old mortgage broker from West Sussex in Britain. After losing a 50 pounds ($66) bet on Trump with a bookie that settled bids once TV networks called the presidency for Biden, French placed a new 10 pounds bet on Trump this week with an online exchange that still accepted wagers.
"Trump was so far ahead on the election day. I believe things will turn once fraud is uncovered," French added.
Despite a flurry of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign in the last few days, legal experts say the litigation has scant chance of changing the outcome.
A Trump campaign spokesman said: "With every action we take, we are moving closer to the goal of re-electing President Trump. More than 70.5 million Americans voted for the President and he owes it to them - and everyone who voted for Joe Biden as well - to ensure that the election was fair and secure."
The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Nearly 80% of Americans, including more than half of Republicans, recognize Biden as the winner of the presidential election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published this week.
Prominent Republican lawmakers and other Trump allies have defended Trump's refusal to concede, arguing he has the legal right to contest the results.
Betting exchanges such as Betfair and Predictit that are still taking bets on the election said they needed more certainty to call the outcome, and declined to specify when they would follow the lead of the bookies. A Predictit spokeswoman said the company was "seeking clarity in light of ongoing vote counts, potential recounts and any legal challenges."
Not all betting exchanges remain open to election bets. Smarkets settled bets on Saturday after US TV networks called the election for Biden. "It appeared clear that Biden's leads in the key swing states was unassailable," a spokesman for the firm said.
Those who are still bullish on Trump's odds remain defiant. "I think the betting odds show that there are some smart people that are realizing this is not over," said Nathan Lands, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Trump supporter.
President Trump has reportedly revealed privately that he wants to start a digital media company to "clobber" Fox News, and undermine the country's largest conservative oriented media network.
What is the strategy at play? As reported by Axios, some Trump advisers believe that Fox News made a mistake with an early call of President-elect Biden's electoral win in Arizona, which allegedly enraged President Trump and gave him a tangible reason to attack a network that has effectively served as a mouthpiece for the Trump Administration since the past four years.
"He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it", said a source with detailed knowledge of President Trump's intentions on this matter, adding that rather than a costly and conventional cable-based network, Trump is considering harnessing digital media to stream online; which would be notably cheaper, and could potentially reach a wider audience.
Furthermore, President Trump's digital platform would aim to specifically target his throngs of conservative supporters, many of which have been subscribed to Fox News, with the source adding that the network would spend "a lot of time slamming Fox".
Despite Fox News' consistent support of the Trump Administration, with many political commentators arguing that there was a constant "feedback loop" between the numerous pundits on the network and the President himself, Trump has vocally criticised the network, stating that "Fox has changed a lot - somebody said: What's the biggest difference between this and four years ago? And I say Fox."
On Wednesday, President-elect Joe Biden named his longtime adviser Ron Klain as the White House Chief of Staff, as his first major appointment in building his administration; regardless of whether President Trump formally concedes.
Biden has worked with Klain for decades, hiring him as an adviser during his earlier Presidential campaigns, and eventually appointing him as his Chief of Staff under the Obama Administration.
Seen as a trusted and competent political aide, Klain has also worked with Vice President Al Gore under the Bill Clinton Administration, and was appointed as President Obama's Ebola national response coordinator.
As Biden's Chief of Staff under the Obama Administration, Klain also helped to oversee the implementation of a $787 billion Recovery Act to boost the American economy after the global financial crisis in 2007/08.
In a statement, President-elect Biden mentioned that “Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years that we have worked together, including as we rescued the American economy from one of the worst downturns in our history in 2009 and later overcame a daunting public health emergency in 2014".
Biden added that "His deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again". Klain described his appointment as the “honor of a lifetime”.
As President-elect Biden moves forward with the transition, President Trump has outrightly refused to concede, as his campaign has continued its legal efforts to overturn the results in key states.
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden attended separate Veterans Day events Wednesday in a stark illustration of the chasm between the incoming and outgoing administrations.
Trump attended a wreath-laying ceremony in rainy weather at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington.
He made no public remarks. In a written statement released earlier in the day he said: “We enjoy the privileges of peace, prosperity, and freedom because of our veterans, and we are forever indebted to them beyond measure.”
Biden attended an event at a Korean War memorial in Philadelphia.
He also released a statement in which he also noted the debt owed to the armed forces, and said the nation’s “one truly sacred obligation” was “to prepare and equip our troops we send into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families when they return home.”
Trump has refused to concede defeat in the November 3 election won by Biden, and is also refusing to cooperate in the transition to a new administration in January.—AFP
Nearly 80% of Americans, including more than half of Republicans, recognize President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the Nov. 3 election after most media organizations called the race for the Democrat based on his leads in critical battleground states, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Biden - who needed 270 Electoral College votes to win - had 279 of those votes to 214 for Trump with results in three states not yet complete, according to Edison Research. In the popular vote, Biden got 76.3 million, or 50.7% of the total, to 71.6 million, or 47.6%, for Trump.
The Reuters/Ipsos national opinion survey, which ran from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday, found that 79% of U.S. adults believe Biden won the White House. Another 13% said the election has not yet been decided, 3% said Trump won and 5% said they do not know.
The results were somewhat split along party lines: about six in 10 Republicans and almost every Democrat said Biden won.
Edison Research, which conducts exit polling for Reuters and major media outlets, called the race for Biden on Saturday after he expanded his lead over Trump in Pennsylvania and appeared well on his way to amassing 270 electoral votes.
Trump has yet to recognize the result of the race. He prematurely declared victory well before the votes had been counted and has repeatedly complained without evidence that he is the victim of widespread voter fraud.
His claims have been echoed by members of Trump’s cabinet. U.S. Attorney General William Barr has authorized federal investigations of “substantial” allegations of voting irregularities, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said he foresees “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was part of a broader survey that was conducted Friday to Tuesday and included responses before the presidential race was called.
It showed that 70% of Americans, including 83% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans, trust their local election officials to “do their job honestly.”
The poll also found that 72% think the loser of the election must concede defeat, and 60% think there will be a peaceful transition of power when Trump’s term ends in January.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,363 U.S. adults in all, including 469 respondents who took the poll between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 5 percentage points.
With President-elect Joe Biden slated to formally take up office in the White House in the year ahead, the upcoming U.N. Summit on Climate Change may have been given a boost by this change of administration, as the United States could be expected to find themselves back in the fold of the Paris Agreement.
The U.S. Presidential Election precedes an unprecedented period of collective international climate action, in which China, the European Union, Japan and many others have agreed to commit to long-term targets on controlling greenhouse gas emissions to meet their targets for the Paris Climate Agreement.
The United States' reintegration into the fold of the Paris Agreement, along with Biden's proposals for a "green economy" in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, could mark a historic period in which the world's largest contributors of greenhouse gases would be committed to a collective goal of reducing emissions drastically.
President-elect Biden has vowed to return the United States to the Paris Agreement, from which President Donald Trump unceremoniously withdrew in June 2017; setting a goal of reaching "net zero emissions" by 2050.
Furthermore, it can also be observed that President Biden, upon his formal return to the White House, could seek to reverse many of President Trump's unprecedented policy decisions, especially pertaining to the United States' withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the Iran Nuclear Deal (or the JCPOA).
According to sources familiar with President Trump, he is being "bombarded with book and TV deals" that could be worth a staggering $100 million, after his tumultuous term in office.
The President has also been courted by numerous conservative and far-right outlets, all of whom aim to translate over 70 million votes into potential viewers, adding that "all the anti-Trump books have made big bucks, so this from Donald is a surefire hit".
According to Dana Canedy, the publisher for Simon and Schuster - a publishing house with which the President previously published his book "Crippled America" - "Everyone who leaves the White House has one or more books in them and that becomes part of public history. I think that would be not only appropriate but important.”
Interestingly, Simon and Schuster are Hillary Clinton's long-time publishers, and also published Bob Woodward's previous two books on the outgoing President, not to mention scathing memoirs by John Bolton and Mary L. Trump.
It is not uncommon for Presidents to land lucrative publishing deals after their tenures in the White House, and President Trump could very likely remain a part of popular culture and political rhetoric for years to come.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Joe Biden said on Tuesday that nothing would stop the transfer of power in the U.S. government, while President Donald Trump pursued lawsuits in several states in a long-shot bid to hold on to power.
Trump’s campaign said it would file a lawsuit to stop Michigan from officially certifying Biden as the winner there until the state could verify that votes were cast lawfully, the latest in a flurry of lawsuits in battleground states to try to back up Trump’s unsupported claims of widespread fraud.
Legal experts have said Trump’s litigation has little chance of changing the outcome, and state officials have said there were no significant irregularities in the Nov. 3 election.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters faced a possible setback in Pennsylvania. A witness who had raised accusations of ballot tampering recanted his allegations, according to Democrats in Congress who were briefed on the investigation.
Trump’s accusations of fraud did not appear to be gaining traction with the public. Nearly 80% of Americans, including more than half of Republicans, recognize Biden as the winner, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Top Republicans in Congress, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, said Trump had a right to challenge Biden’s victory, and others echoed the president’s unfounded accusations of widespread fraud. Privately, some aides said Trump would need to produce credible evidence soon to retain their support.
Biden secured more than the 270 votes in the Electoral College needed to take the presidency by winning Pennsylvania on Saturday after four tense days of counting, which was delayed by a surge in mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden said in a speech in Delaware that his team was pushing ahead with forming a new administration to take over on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2021, no matter what.
“We’re going to be going, moving along, in a consistent manner, putting together our administration, the White House, and reviewing who we’re going to pick for the Cabinet positions, and nothing’s going to stop that,” he said on Tuesday. Biden said it was an “embarrassment” that Trump has not conceded the election.
Taking questions from the media for the first time since his victory, Biden was asked what he would say if Trump were watching. He said: “Mr. President, I look forward to speaking with you.”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo predicted a “second Trump administration,” in comments at odds with congratulatory phone calls from the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Ireland to Biden.
Trump installed loyalists in top positions at the Pentagon, one day after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper, which could potentially make it easier to use U.S. troops to respond to domestic protests.
The Biden transition team has been unable to move into federal government office space or tap funds to hire staff because a Trump appointee who heads the federal office charged with recognizing election results has not yet done so.
WASHINGTON: A week after losing the US election, President Donald Trump remained shut up in the White House on Tuesday, pushing an alternate reality that he is about to win, while Democrat Joe Biden ignored him and acted like a leader in waiting by taking a string of calls from foreign capitals.
Biden is increasingly moving toward the moment in 71 days when he will take the oath of office.
In his latest exchanges with international leaders, he talked Tuesday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ireland's prime minister, Micheal Martin, and was due to speak with French President Emmanuel Macron later.
But the formal process of Biden's transition is being blocked by Trump while he attempts to overturn the election results in court on the basis of so far flimsy fraud allegations.
"WE WILL WIN!" the Republican president tweeted early Tuesday. "WATCH FOR MASSIVE BALLOT COUNTING ABUSE."
Trump's attempt to hold on to power has become all consuming for the man who often makes a point of publicly mocking rivals as "losers."
Emphasizing the atmosphere of intransigence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a testy news conference that he was preparing for "a smooth transition to a second Trump administration."
Since Election Day on November 3, Trump has made few public appearances and seems to have all but shelved normal presidential duties.
His only known activities outside the White House have been to play golf twice over the weekend, after the results came in.
Normally routine secret presidential intelligence briefings have been off the daily schedule. He has made no mention of the dramatic rebound in the Covid-19 pandemic across the country.
And his once near daily press conferences, interviews with Fox News or impromptu question-and-answer sessions with White House journalists have dried up.
In place of that, Trump has spent much of his time tweeting, mostly about what he claims is the stolen election.
Trump's only significant presidential action has been the abrupt firing of defense secretary Mark Esper on Monday, which he announced on Twitter.
Transition blocked
Exactly four years ago Tuesday, Trump had just scored his surprise victory against Hillary Clinton and toured the White House for the first time as a guest of Barack Obama.
That courtesy to a presidents-elect is an old tradition, highlighting the nation's near sacred respect for the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump has not only failed to invite Biden for a chat in the Oval Office, he is blocking the Democrat from access to facilities, funding and expertise that usually come in a ready made package to help the incoming leader.
Release of this transition aid is controlled by the General Services Administration head Emily Murphy, who was appointed by Trump.
Biden, who won with a record number of votes but acknowledges that nearly half the electorate nevertheless backed Trump, is apparently choosing to ignore the chaos.
Rarely even mentioning Trump, Biden has set up a coronavirus task force and on Tuesday was delivering his latest policy speech -- this time on the fate of the Obamacare health care plan which Trump wants the Supreme Court to dismantle.
The latest major foreign leader to reach out with congratulations, ignoring Trump's claim that he won last Tuesday, was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who referred to Biden's "election success."
Republicans back Trump
Washington is buzzing with speculation over who, if anyone, in Trump's inner circle will finally persuade him to go.
Former President George W. Bush, the only living Republican ex-president, congratulated Biden on his victory, but he is an outlier in a party dominated by the still hugely popular Trump.
On Monday, the Republican leader in Congress, Senator Mitch McConnell, said Trump was "100 percent within his rights" to challenge the election in court.
None of the lawsuits appears to have the potential to change the result of votes and even a planned recount of Biden's paper-thin victory in Georgia, or anywhere else, would be unlikely to change the fundamental math.
But Trump added a potential new weapon to his crusade against the results on Monday when his attorney general, Bill Barr, agreed to authorize probes into "specific allegations" of fraud.
Barr added a caveat that "specious, speculative, fanciful or far-fetched claims should not be a basis for initiating federal inquiries."
However, Barr's unusual intervention in the dispute prompted worries that Trump will go even further in his efforts. The Justice Department's top election crimes prosecutor, Richard Pilger, resigned in protest.
WASHINGTON/WILMINGTON: President Donald Trump will push ahead on Tuesday with longshot legal challenges to his loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden in last week's election, as Republican officials at the state and federal level lined up behind him.
Pennsylvania Republican state lawmakers plan to call for an audit of the results in the state that gave Biden enough electoral votes to win, the day after US Attorney General William Barr told federal prosecutors to look into "substantial" allegations of irregularities.
Trump for months before the election made repeated claims without providing evidence that results would be marred by fraud and has kept up those unfounded allegations over the past week. Judges have tossed out lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia, and experts say Trump's legal efforts have little chance of changing the election result.
But Congress's top Republican, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on Monday lined up behind Trump, saying that he was "100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities," without citing any evidence.
The dispute is slowing Biden's work in preparing for the work of governing, as a Trump appointee who heads the office charged with recognizing election results has not yet done so.
Biden on Saturday secured the more than the 270 votes in the Electoral College needed to win the presidency. He also led Trump in the popular vote by 4.6 million votes on Tuesday morning as states continued to count the remaining ballots.
BARR MOVE PROMPTS RESIGNATION
Barr's directive to prosecutors prompted the top lawyer overseeing voter fraud investigations to resign in protest.
Barr told prosecutors on Monday that "fanciful or far-fetched claims" should not be a basis for investigation and his letter did not indicate the Justice Department had uncovered voting irregularities affecting the outcome of the election.
But he did say he was authorizing prosecutors to "pursue substantial allegations" of irregularities of voting and the counting of ballots.
Richard Pilger, who for years has served as director of the Election Crimes Branch, said in an internal email he was resigning from his post after he read "the new policy and its ramifications".
The previous Justice Department policy, designed to avoid interjecting the federal government into election campaigns, had discouraged overt investigations "until the election in question has been concluded, its results certified, and all recounts and election contests concluded."
Biden's campaign said Barr was fueling Trump's far-fetched allegations of fraud.
"Those are the very kind of claims that the president and his lawyers are making unsuccessfully every day, as their lawsuits are laughed out of one court after another," said Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to Biden.
One of Barr's predecessors as attorney general, Republican Alberto Gonzales, told CNN on Tuesday the timing of Barr's memo was "very, very unfortunate" because it contributes to the perception that the Justice Department was being used for political purposes.
"If you're asking me do I think there have I seen evidence of widespread fraud, to a level that would overturn the results of this election? No, I have not," said Gonzales, who served under former President George W. Bush.
REPUBLICANS REMAIN LOYAL
Although a few Republicans have urged Trump to concede, the president still held the support of prominent party leaders who had yet to congratulate Biden.
Trump's campaign on Monday filed a lawsuit to block Pennsylvania officials from certifying Biden's victory in the battleground state, where Biden led by more than 45,000 votes.
It alleged the state's mail-in voting system violated the US Constitution by creating "an illegal two-tiered voting system" where voting in person was subject to more oversight than voting by mail.
It was filed against Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and the boards of elections in Democratic-leaning counties that include Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Boockvar's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"The Trump campaign's latest filing is another attempt to throw out legal votes," Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said on Twitter.
Pennsylvania state Representative Dawn Keefer on Tuesday planned to call for a legislative audit of the state's election results.
Biden, who has begun work on his transition to the White House, will give a speech on Tuesday defending the Affordable Care Act, the landmark healthcare law popularly known as Obamacare, as the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on a lawsuit backed by the Trump administration to invalidate it.
Trump and Republicans have repeatedly tried to do away with the 2010 law passed under President Barack Obama, with Biden as his vice president.
The Supreme Court fended off previous challenges in 2012 and 2015. The court now has a 6-3 conservative majority after Trump's third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, was confirmed last month.
As Biden begins work on his transition, his team is considering legal action over a federal agency's delay in recognizing his victory over Trump.
The General Services Administration normally recognizes a presidential candidate when it becomes clear who has won so a transition of power can begin.
But that has not yet happened and the law does not spell out when the GSA must act. GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, appointed by Trump in 2017, has not yet determined that "a winner is clear," a spokeswoman said.
WASHINGTON: US monetary policy won't be a top-of-mind concern for President-elect Joe Biden as he prepares to take office in January, with the Federal Reserve's economic arsenal already deployed against an ongoing recession and decisions about federal spending more pressing for the next administration.
But over his first year in office Biden will have to decide how deep an imprint he wants to put on the US central bank, and particularly whether Fed Chair Jerome Powell's push this year to refocus it on job growth has earned enough credibility among Democrats to be reappointed.
Among the considerations the incoming Democratic president will have to weigh are likely calls from progressives for more extensive change at the Fed, given that the party's platform included reforms to make the Fed more attentive to issues like racial wealth inequality, and whether Powell is the right figure to pursue that.
Opposition to Powell may also arise from those who want tougher financial regulation. Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren, now a key voice on financial regulatory issues, opposed his nomination in 2018.
As he balances the varying demands of those who brought him to office, Biden may want to put his own stamp on the central bank when Powell's term as Fed chief ends in Feb. 2022, said Vincent Reinhart, a former Fed official who is now Mellon's chief economist, noting the Democrats' extensive cadre of economic policy experts.
Among them, current Fed Governor Lael Brainard has been mentioned as a possibility to replace Powell or become the next US Treasury secretary; Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, the first Black to run one of the Fed's regional branches, has become an influential voice within the Fed system on issues of economic fairness, and during Biden's years as vice president was an assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
NOMINEE OF LEAST RESISTANCE
Still, Powell won't be without strengths when the issue of his future comes up. He has been a steadying hand at the central bank who not only managed a forceful Fed response to the coronavirus pandemic, but survived a tumultuous relationship with Republican President Donald Trump in part by building support among both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
If Republicans keep control of the Senate, and thus over confirmation of Biden's appointees, those alliances could be an asset for Powell, a 67-year-old Republican cut from the same moderate, bipartisan cloth as the president-elect, and a well-known figure in institutional Washington. Two run-off elections in Georgia in January will determine which party controls the Senate.
Powell "would be the nominee of least resistance," if Republicans do maintain control of the Senate, Cornerstone Macro analyst Roberto Perli wrote recently.
Even beyond those dynamics, Powell has delivered what is arguably one of the most significant reforms to US monetary policy since former Fed chief Paul Volcker redirected the central bank in the late 1970s and early 1980s to fight inflation. In Powell's case, it involved recasting the Fed as a job promoter first and an inflation fighter second.
The rollout of the Fed's new framework drew praise from progressive economists, union officials and others over the summer, including top Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein, who called the new approach "music to my ears."
VICE CHAIR APPOINTMENTS
Terms for the Fed's two vice chairs, Richard Clarida and Randal Quarles, will also expire during Biden's first year. Clarida is a respected economist who managed the shift in Fed policy during a nearly two-year review. Quarles, as the Fed's vice chair for supervision, may be the least likely of the three to be asked to stay on if the Biden administration pursues the tougher oversight sought by Warren and others.
Trump has two appointments to the Fed's seven-member board of governors pending before the Senate, but it is not clear whether they will be confirmed in the lame-duck session that will end in early January when a new Congress convenes. If not, then Biden would have those openings to fill as well.
Beyond personnel, Biden will face choices over whether and how to have the Fed build criteria such as racial wealth and employment outcomes into its analysis, something Powell and other policymakers like Bostic have moved towards on their own.
In an email supporting the Fed's new framework, Bernstein said he still felt changes to the Federal Reserve Act were warranted "for when someone with Powell's sensibility isn't leading the show."
Changes to the Fed's governing statute would be less likely with a Republican-controlled Senate, a constraint that may bind many of Biden's ambitions.
EMERGENCY PROGRAMS
And there may be one short-term hitch with the Fed for Biden to address.
Many of the emergency lending facilities the central bank established this year to fight the current crisis are due to expire on Dec. 31, and any reauthorization would require the approval of the outgoing Trump administration.
Fed officials feel those programs have helped markets operate normally through a historic downturn, and if Trump refuses to approve their extension it could be a source of trouble at least for the weeks until Biden takes office.
At a press conference last week held before Biden's victory in the Nov. 3 election became clear, Powell said the Fed was "just turning to this issue now and we have not made any decisions" about whether the economy is ready to do without the emergency measures credited with stopping a full-blown financial crisis last spring.
BRUSSELS: "One election" in the United States will not reverse the shift in EU-US ties that began under President Donald Trump, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday.
"It is time for a new trans-Atlantic agenda," she told EU ambassadors in a videolink conference.
Von der Leyen emphasised that the Western alliance built on US-European cooperation still endured, "based on shared values and history".
And she offered warm congratulations to US president-elect Jose Biden and his vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris.
But, alluding to the impact Europe felt under Trump -- which included tariffs and threats of a trade war, the US withdrawal from international accords and organisations, and questions over the US defence umbrella -- von der Leyen said things could not go back to the way they were before.
"Some shifts in priorities and perceptions run much deeper than one politician or administration. And they will not disappear because of one election," she said.
"We cannot turn the clock back," she said. "And we cannot go back to the exact same agenda we had five years ago."
The new agenda, she said, "should cover everything from security to sustainability, from tech regulation to trade, from levelling the global economic playing field to strengthening global institutions."
Von der Leyen said she looked forward to Biden making good on his promise to have the US rejoin the Paris climate accord, which Trump abandoned.
"Our focus should be on providing joint leadership to address the global challenges of today, without being nostalgic for the world of yesterday," she said.
In a possible point of transatlantic friction, she reiterated Europe's intention to rein in internet behemoths -- most of them American, such as Google, Amazon and Facebook -- to ensure fair competition in the EU, and make them pay "appropriate taxes".
"It cannot be that commercial giants benefit enormously from our single market but fail to pay taxes where they should," she said.
She added that the EU would give talks at the level of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development until a previously set deadline of mid-2021 to work out a tax regime, otherwise the European Commission "will come forward with our own proposal".
(Wilmington) President-elect Joe Biden's transition team is considering legal action over a federal agency's delay in recognizing the Democrat's victory over President Donald Trump in last week's election, a Biden official said.
The General Services Administration (GSA) normally recognizes a presidential candidate when it becomes clear who has won an election so that a transition of power can begin.
That has not yet happened despite U.S. television and news networks declaring Biden the winner on Saturday after he secured enough electoral votes to secure the presidency.
The law does not clearly spell out when the GSA must act, but Biden transition officials say their victory is clear and a delay is not justified, even as Trump refuses to concede defeat.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that there was widespread voting fraud and has filed a raft of lawsuits to challenge the results.
Election officials across the country say there has been no evidence of significant fraud, and legal experts say Trump's efforts are unlikely to succeed.
GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, appointed by Trump in 2017, has not yet determined that “a winner is clear,” a spokeswoman said.
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump, in the aftermath of his defeat to Joe Biden, has "fired" Defense Secretary Mark Esper, further fuelling the controversy around his refusal to concede defeat in the election.
The move came with a meagre 10 weeks left in President Trump's tumultuous tenure in the White House, highlighting his unstable relationship with the intelligence and security community, especially if they did not effectively serve his own political ambitions.
President Trump and Esper collided repeatedly over pressure from the White House to deploy federal troops to quash civil unrest, especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the President's plan to abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan; putting the national security establishment's plans under jeopardy.
Democrats lambasted the President's decision to relieve the Defense Secretary of his duties, with Nancy Pelosi adding that Esper's firing was "disturbing evidence that President Trump is intent on using his final days in office to sow chaos in our American Democracy and around the world", stating that "again and again, Trump's recklessness endangers our national security".
Trump has named Christopher Miller, head of the National Counterterrorism Center as acting Secretary of Defense, who not only served as a White House counterterrorism advisor, but also as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for "special operations".
BEIJING: China, which has held off on congratulating US presidential election winner Joe Biden even as leaders of other countries have done so, said on Monday it would follow custom in responding to the result.
Democrat Biden clinched enough states to win the presidency but incumbent President Donald Trump has not conceded and is making legal challenges to the outcome of the Nov. 3 election.
"We noticed that Mr. Biden has declared election victory," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a daily media briefing. "We understand that the U.S. presidential election result will be determined following US law and procedures."
In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent congratulations to Trump on Nov. 9, a day after the election.
Relations between China and the United States are at their worst in decades over disputes ranging from technology and trade to Hong Kong and the coronavirus, and the Trump administration has unleashed a barrage of sanctions against Beijing.
While Biden is expected to maintain a tough stance on China -- he has called President Xi Jinping a "thug" and vowed to lead a campaign to "pressure, isolate and punish China" -- he is likely to take a more measured and multilateral approach.
"We always believe that China and the United States should enhance communication and dialogue, manage differences on the basis of mutual respect, expand cooperation on the basis of mutual benefit and promote sound and stable development of bilateral relations," Wang told the briefing.
Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's People's Daily, said in a tweet: "China hasn't congratulated Biden on his victory as quickly as Western countries did."
"I think it's because China needs to keep larger distance from the US presidential election to avoid getting entangled in its controversy. This actually shows that China respects the US as a whole," he added.
Earlier on Monday, Chinese state media struck an optimistic tone in editorials, saying relations could be restored to a state of greater predictability, starting with trade.
While acknowledging that Washington was unlikely to ease pressure on China over issues such as Xinjiang and Hong Kong, the Global Times said Beijing should work to communicate with Biden's team.
"It's in the common interests of people from both countries and of the international community that China-U.S. relations become eased and controllable," it said.
The China Daily said it was "obvious" improving ties with China could start from trade, and reviving trade talks was critical to restoring some understanding and trust.
Wang Huiyao, head of the Center for China and Globalization and an advisor to the government in Beijing, said he expects more dialogue under a Biden administration.
"Biden's election means an opportunity to re-establish relations with the U.S. as he is more likely to uphold multilateralism. That means China and the U.S. can start discussing issues including climate change, pandemic control and trade," Wang told Reuters.
On China's Twitter-like Weibo, top trending items included the hashtags "#BidenSpeaksToTheWholeCountry#", viewed 1.21 billion times, and "#Trump will lose special Twitter protections in January#".
UNITED NATIONS, UNITED STATES: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday congratulated Joe Biden on winning the US presidency -- and the American people for a "vibrant exercise of democracy."
Biden was projected as the winner of the bitterly contested November 3 election on Saturday by US media, though President Donald Trump has yet to concede.
"The Secretary-General congratulates the American people for a vibrant exercise of democracy in their country's elections last week," spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
"He congratulates the President-elect and Vice President-elect and reaffirms that the partnership between the United States and the United Nations is an essential pillar of the international cooperation needed to address the dramatic challenges facing the world today."
Dujarric did not explain why Guterres waited two days to offer his congratulations to Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris.
From Saturday, dozens of world leaders and heads of international organizations offered their well wishes to the Democratic duo.
Diplomats who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity said Guterres, whose term ends at the end of 2021, was not planning to ask for a second term if Trump were reelected.
WARSAW: A faithful ally of Donald Trump, Poland's populist government is struggling to digest his defeat and is worried the president-elect will be far more critical of its domestic policies, experts said Monday.
While much of the world hailed Joe Biden's win on Saturday, Polish President Andrzej Duda issued a curiously-worded tweet congratulating him for his "successful presidential campaign".
Duda also failed to mention Biden in a speech for the ratification of a US-Poland defence co-operation pact, referring instead to "a very heated time indeed" in US political life.
Four years ago, Duda had rushed to send his "warmest congratulations" to Trump very soon after the candidate's victory was confirmed.
Poland's state broadcaster TVP has also been reticent over Biden's victory, describing him as a politician "referred to by some US media as the winner of the presidential election".
Over the weekend, TVP quoted Trump and Russian media talking about possible election fraud.
"TVP is more engaged than Fox News," political scientist Marcin Zaborowski told AFP.
Zaborowski said the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party "are very unhappy about losing such a powerful ally on the international scene".
"Isolated within the European Union, the PiS had the comfort of being supported on the other side of the Atlantic thanks to Trump," he said.
Ties between Trump and Poland's ruling party, which has been in power since 2015, have been particularly close.
In June, just days from a presidential election in Poland, Duda visited Trump during his campaign and received a strong endorsement from the US leader.
Duda was the first foreign leader to visit the White House since it first eased coronavirus restrictions.
'Poland will lose its status'
The new president-elect, who is highly knowledgeable about the Central Europe region, will doubtlessly be a more difficult partner.
During a town hall meeting last month, candidate Biden made some critical remarks on the region.
"You see what's happened in everything from Belarus to Poland to Hungary, and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world," he said.
He has also criticised homophobic comments made by leaders in Poland, where several regions have declared themselves "free" from "LGBT ideology".
"LGBTQ+ rights are human rights - and 'LGBT-free zones' have no place in the European Union or anywhere in the world," he said on Twitter.
"Poland will lose its status of privileged partner and both the PiS and President Duda are worried," said Ryszard Schnepf, Poland's former ambassador to the US.
"They do not know how they are going to be treated by the new administration," he said.
But Zaborowski said that, while he was critical of Poland, Biden has no intention of undermining strategic relations between the two countries.
"These relations can remain strong -- and even become stronger," he said, referring in particular to a shared scepticism of Russia.
"In areas such as politics in the post-Soviet space, Warsaw has more in common with a Biden White House than with Trump," he said.
