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Biden Transition News: Live Updates - The New York Times

Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. officially named top members of his economic team on Monday, showcasing his commitment to diversity and placing several women in top economic roles.

With the picks, which require Senate confirmation, Mr. Biden is sending a clear message that economic policymaking in his administration will be shaped by liberal thinkers with a strong focus on worker empowerment as a tool for economic growth. They include:

  • Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton labor economist, to run the three-member Council of Economic Advisers. She would be the first Black woman to lead the council. A labor economist, she worked on Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers for two years and at the White House’s National Economic Council during the Clinton administration.

  • Neera Tanden, the chief executive of the Center for American Progress, to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Ms. Tanden, who would be the first Indian-American to lead the Office of Management and Budget, has advocated aggressive spending to alleviate economic harm from the pandemic and has dismissed concerns about adding to the deficit at the current moment.

  • Janet L. Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, as Treasury secretary. Ms. Yellen, who is also a labor economist, was one of the first officials to suggest allowing the labor market to run “hot” — meaning leaving interest rates lower for longer — in order to help lift wages and get more people into jobs.

  • Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey were named to join Ms. Rouse on the Council of Economic Advisers, which is a three-member team that advises the president on economic policy. They both come from a liberal, labor-oriented school of economics that views rising inequality as a threat to the economy and emphasizes government efforts to support and empower workers. Mr. Bernstein was Mr. Biden’s first chief economist when he was vice president. Ms. Boushey was a top policy adviser to Mrs. Clinton in 2016. Both have advocated a large stimulus package to help workers and businesses hurt by the pandemic recession.

  • Adewale Adeyemo, known as Wally, a senior international economic adviser in the Obama administration, as deputy Treasury secretary. An immigrant from Nigeria, he has extensive experience working at the Treasury Department during the Obama administration, when he was a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff.

  • Brian Deese, a former Obama economic aide who helped lead that administration’s efforts to bail out the American automotive industry, has also been selected to lead the National Economic Council, according to three people with knowledge of the selection. Mr. Deese is a veteran of economic policymaking, having served as the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget and the deputy director of the Economic Council under Mr. Obama, as well as a special adviser on climate change.

The appointments could fall short of hopes within the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which has been frustrated that their views are not being sufficiently represented in early personnel decisions. In particular, the decision to select Ms. Tanden, a divisive and partisan figure in the party, could culminate in an intraparty fight, as well as a confirmation battle.

Republicans, who are fighting to retain control of the Senate, are unlikely to easily pass Ms. Tanden, who advised Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and has been one of the most outspoken critics of President Trump.

Mr. Biden’s other picks are expected to be less contentious.

Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

President Trump’s window to use the courts to overturn the victory of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is closing quickly as the so-called safe harbor deadline — the date before which any election controversies must be settled — approaches on Dec. 8. Then the voting results are considered final.

Still, in the past week, Republicans have launched last-ditch efforts to halt or reverse the certification process in three key swing states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Each of these suits make extraordinary demands on the judges hearing them and would require unprecedented decisions to succeed.

There also two federal lawsuits moving through the courts seeking to reverse the certification process in Michigan and Georgia. Both of them were filed by Sidney Powell, a former member of Mr. Trump’s legal team who was disavowed by the president last week after she made wild accusations that foreign leaders and some Republican officials were involved in a scheme to manipulate voting machines.

Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, Mr. Trump referred to the numerous — and almost completely unsuccessful — election-related lawsuits that he and his supporters have filed in recent weeks saying, “It’s hard to get to the Supreme Court.”

But he has at least one current path to the nation’s highest court in his continued effort to undermine the election — though it is not a guaranteed one — and even if the justices accept his case and rule in his favor, there isn’t all that much he stands to gain.

Mr. Trump’s road there was paved on Friday when he and his legal team were handed a defeat in a unanimous ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, which soundly rejected their attempts to stop or reverse the certification of election results in Pennsylvania. (Pennsylvania certified its election results last week.)

The blistering appellate decision upheld an equally searing ruling from earlier in the month by Matthew W. Brann, a district judge in Pennsylvania, who wrote that Mr. Trump’s attempts to derail the commonwealth’s election were based on “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”

Shortly after the Third Circuit’s ruling came down, Mr. Trump’s lawyers vowed to ask the high court to reconsider the case, but by Monday morning they had not done so yet. And even if the Supreme Court granted the request to reverse the campaign’s appellate loss, it might not get much, given the narrow way in which Mr. Trump’s lawyers structured the original appeal.

Instead of contesting the substance of Judge Brann’s ruling, Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked the Third Circuit only for permission to file a revised version of its initial complaint. Assuming the Supreme Court takes the case and abides by the strict terms of the president’s appeal, it would be able to do no more than return the matter to Judge Brann’s court for further action.

Mr. Trump’s defeat in the Third Circuit left him relying on an ever-dwindling number of suits across the country geared toward overturning the results of the election. On Saturday, he suffered another legal loss when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed out a suit by some Republican supporters that had also sought to stop certification of the commonwealth’s vote count.

That suit, led by Representative Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania, claimed that a state law authorizing mail-in ballots was unconstitutional and sought retroactively to nullify their use in the election — a move that, if successful, would have tipped the state to Mr. Trump. But the mail-in ballot law was passed last year with bipartisan support and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed Mr. Kelly’s attempts to overturn it, saying he had filed his claims too late.

Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Planning for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration is intensifying, with his team announcing on Monday the formation of a Presidential Inaugural Committee that will be carefully attuned to the challenge of managing inauguration activities amid a pandemic.

The organization rolled out the names of senior leaders of the committee, as well as a website for the team, on Monday morning. The committee is expected to work with the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, the announcement said.

The committee will be helmed by Tony Allen, the president of Delaware State University, an historically Black school in Mr. Biden’s home state.

“This year’s inauguration will look different amid the pandemic, but we will honor the American inaugural traditions and engage Americans across the country while keeping everybody healthy and safe,” Mr. Allen said in a statement.

Maju Varghese, the chief operating officer on the Biden campaign, will serve as executive director. State Senator Yvanna Cancela, Democrat of Nevada and an early Biden supporter, and Erin Wilson, who was Mr. Biden’s political director during the campaign, have been named as deputy executive directors, according to a release from the organization.

Credit...Pool photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez

Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, has emerged as the front-runner to succeed Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. But Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to be in no rush to make his choice.

Though many names have been floated to succeed Ms. Harris, Mr. Padilla has emerged as the front-runner, according to more than a half-dozen advisers, political consultants and fellow lawmakers familiar with the governor’s thinking.

Mr. Newsom faces extraordinary crosscurrents of factional rivalry and identity politics in a state where the Democratic Party is thoroughly defined by both. He has spoken about the Senate appointment not as a political bauble that he is eager to dispense, but as a burdensome task that is likelier to generate grudges than personal gratitude and popular excitement.

Mr. Padilla, 47, has emerged as the favorite of Latino lawmakers, advocacy groups and a number of labor officials. But other Latino candidates also have supporters. Xavier Becerra, 62, California’s attorney general, has run and won statewide and has represented Los Angeles in Congress.

And Mayor Robert Garcia, of Long Beach, 42, the city’s first openly gay mayor, has an enthusiastic base.

Active campaigns are also underway to urge Mr. Newsom to replace Ms. Harris with a woman, particularly a Black woman. Led by longtime state Democrats like Willie Brown and groups of high-dollar female donors, they argue that when Ms. Harris assumes her new office, the Senate will once again have no Black female members.

At least two Black women in California’s House delegation are pursuing the appointment: Representatives Barbara Lee, 74, and Karen Bass, 67.

Some Democrats have also suggested that Mr. Newsom could appoint a distinguished figure in the late stages of their public life, who would serve out the remaining two years of Ms. Harris’s term without seeking re-election — someone like Dolores Huerta, the civil rights leader and labor organizer, who is 90.

Credit...Drew Angerer/Bloomberg, via Getty Images

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Sunday announced an all-female White House communications staff, with Jennifer Psaki, a veteran of the Obama administration, in the most visible role as White House press secretary.

“Communicating directly and truthfully to the American people is one of the most important duties of a president,” Mr. Biden said in a statement, drawing an implicit contrast with the Trump administration’s use of the White House briefing room to disseminate falsehoods and try to undermine the credibility of the news media.

The transition team also announced that Kate Bedingfield, 39, who served as a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, will serve as the White House communications director. Karine Jean Pierre, who previously served as the chief public affairs officer for MoveOn.org, will be the principal deputy press secretary. Pili Tobar, a former immigrant advocate with the group America’s Voice, will serve as the deputy White House communications director.

Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Mr. Biden on the campaign, will serve as the senior adviser and chief spokeswoman for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Ashley Etienne, a former senior adviser to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will serve as the communications director for Ms. Harris.

“President-elect Biden has a history of advocating on behalf of women in the U.S. and around the world, and today’s announcement is a continuation of that work,” Ron Klain, the incoming chief of staff, said in a statement.

Ms. Psaki, 41, previously served as the White House communications director for President Barack Obama and as the State Department spokeswoman under Secretary of State John Kerry.

On Twitter, Ms. Psaki said she saw her job as trying to “rebuild trust of the American people” and she noted that many of the women on the team, including herself, were also mothers of young children. (Two of Mr. Trump’s press secretaries were also mothers of young children.) She said she planned to “think outside of the box” about how to use the podium to make the Biden-Harris agenda more accessible to the public. She did not say whether she planned to reinstate the daily press briefing.

Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

President Trump on Monday lashed out at Georgia’s Republican governor, calling him “hapless” and suggesting on Twitter that he should pursue Mr. Trump’s baseless allegations about voter fraud in the state.

In two tweets, Mr. Trump said that Gov. Brian Kemp should overrule Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and order that ballot signatures be reviewed and the number of envelopes and ballots be compared. He said doing so would reveal rampant fraud, an assertion that has been rejected by the state’s Republican elections officials. Georgia has already completed an audit of the election in the state, recounting over five million ballots by hand that reaffirmed President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory there.

Mr. Trump’s remarks on Twitter came a day after he said during an interview that the F.B.I. and the Justice Department might be “involved” in what he again groundlessly called a fraudulent presidential election, hinting that the nation’s law enforcement agencies were biased against his fading efforts to remain in office.

No significant evidence has been found to support the president’s claims, and several judges in multiple states have quickly dismissed lawsuits by his legal team alleging fraud.

“This is total fraud. And how the F.B.I. and Department of Justice — I don’t know, maybe they’re involved — but how people are allowed to get away with this stuff is unbelievable,” Mr. Trump said in a roughly 45-minute interview with the Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. It was his first one-on-one interview since his defeat by Mr. Biden.

With several important federal deadlines coming up for the election process, including a Dec. 8 deadline for states to resolve all election disputes, Mr. Trump declined to say when his time fighting the results would be up. “I’m not going to say a date,” Mr. Trump said.

During a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday night, Christopher Krebs, the former government official who had overseen cybersecurity efforts for the 2020 election and was fired in mid-November, reaffirmed his confidence in the integrity of the vote and called Mr. Trump’s unfounded allegations of voter fraud “farcical.”

An increasing number of Republican lawmakers have begun to acknowledge Mr. Biden’s victory. But many, including the party’s leaders, still refuse to do so.

Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on Monday on President Trump’s efforts to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the calculations used to allocate seats in the House — a decision that could shift political power from Democratic states and districts to areas that are older, whiter and typically more Republican.

But even if the court rules for the administration, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. may try to reverse course once he takes office, prompting further litigation.

A ruling for the Trump administration during its final days in power would upend the agreement that the census must count all residents, whatever their immigration status. And it is not clear that congressional officials would accept what they may view as flawed calculations.

The core question in the case — who counts for purposes of congressional reapportionment — is fundamental and largely untested. The Constitution requires congressional districts to be apportioned “counting the whole number of persons in each state,” using information from the census. The Trump administration’s new approach sought to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment.

The case before the court, Trump v. New York, No. 20-366, was brought by two sets of plaintiffs, one a group of state and local governments and the United States Conference of Mayors, and the second a coalition of advocacy groups and other nongovernmental organizations.

A three-judge panel of the Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that the new policy violated federal law. Two other courts have issued similar rulings, while one said the dispute was not ripe for consideration.

Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. visited an orthopedic specialist in Newark, Del., on Sunday afternoon after he twisted his ankle playing with his one of his dogs over the holiday weekend, according to his office, an injury that his doctor said resulted in hairline fractures that would require him to wear a boot for several weeks.

Although initial X-rays showed no obvious fracture, a “follow-up CT scan confirmed hairline (small) fractures of President-elect Biden’s lateral and intermediate cuneiform bones, which are in the midfoot,” Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the director of executive medicine at GW Medical Faculty Associates, said in a statement distributed by Mr. Biden’s office.

Mr. Biden left the doctor’s office Sunday just before 6:30 p.m., after a visit that lasted just over two hours, and then went to an imaging center for a short time for the additional CT. A Biden spokesman said the president-elect had scheduled the follow-up on Sunday to avoid disrupting his schedule on Monday.

Mr. Biden is already operating on a crunched transition time frame, after the head of the General Services Administration did not formally acknowledge the presidential election results for weeks after Election Day, temporarily depriving Mr. Biden of access to federal resources and preventing his advisers from beginning coordination with Trump administration officials.

A van was maneuvered to block reporters and photographers from seeing Mr. Biden as he entered the doctor’s office.

The dog Mr. Biden was playing with when he was injured is Major, a German shepherd the Bidens had fostered and then adopted in 2018. They have another German shepherd, Champ, and have announced plans to get a cat when they move into the White House next year, as well.

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