Biden warns 'more people may die' if Trump refuses to cooperate on transition – as it happened

Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, told the Washington Post that senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina was among several members of his party who pressured him to toss out legally cast ballots so that Trump could win the state.

From the Post:

In a wide-ranging interview about the 2020 election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation with a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia results, including claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgia’s voting machines, is a “leftist” company with ties to Venezuela that engineered thousands of Trump votes not to be counted.

The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, that both he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats in recent days, including a text to him that read, “You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.”

“Other than getting you angry, it’s also very disillusioning,” Raffensperger said of the threats, “particularly when it comes from people on my side of the aisle. Everyone that is working on this needs to elevate their speech. We need to be thoughtful and careful about what we say.” He said he reported the threats to state authorities.

The pressure on Raffensperger, who has bucked his party in defending the state’s voting process, comes as Georgia is in the midst of a laborious hand recount of roughly 5 million ballots. President-elect Joe Biden has a 14,000-vote lead in the initial count.

The normally mild-mannered Raffensperger saved his harshest language for US Rep Doug Collins (R-Ga.), who is leading the president’s effort to prove fraud in Georgia and whom Raffensperger called a “liar” and a “charlatan.”

Read the rest of the remarkable interview by the Post’s Amy Gardner here.

Charges against Attica Scott, a Kentucky state representative who was arrested while protesting police brutality, have been dropped.

Scott, the only Black woman in Kentucky’s legislature, has been advocating for justice for Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old woman who was shot and killed by police who raided her home.

Along with activist Shameka Parrish-Wright and her daughter Ashanti Scott, Attica Scott was arrested before local curfew while walking into a church that provided refuge for protestors. The Scotts and Parrish-Wright were among 200 protestors who were arrested after Louisville mayor Greg Fischer amped up law enforcement and enacted a 9pm curfew amid protests in September.

A grand juror in the Breonna Taylor case told the Associated Press that prosecutors wanted to give police “a slap on the wrist and close it up.”

From the AP:

The woman is the third grand juror to speak anonymously about the September proceedings, joining two others who said the 12-member panel was not given the option to consider charges against the officers who fatally shot Taylor in March.

The woman, in her first published interview, told The Associated Press that when the proceedings concluded with three wanton endangerment charges for one officer, she felt herself saying “no, that’s not the end of it.”

“I felt like there should’ve been more charges,” she said in a phone interview. She echoed two other grand jurors’ complaints that the panel wasn’t allowed to consider additional charges because prosecutors told them the use of force was justified.

“All of them went in blindly, you really couldn’t see into that lady’s apartment as they explained to us, there was just a TV on,” she said of Taylor’s Louisville apartment. The police “went in there like the O.K. Corral, wanted dead or alive.”

The grand jury charged former officer Brett Hankison with three counts of wanton endangerment for firing into the apartment of Taylor’s neighbor. The two officers who shot 26-year-old Taylor were not charged.

In October, another grand juror said the jury was not offered the option of considering homicide charges against the officers who killed Taylor.

Read more background:

Last week Oklahoma senator Jim Lankford, a Republican, argued that Joe Biden should be receiving classified intelligence briefings despite the standstill with the GSA. Lankford said he would step in if the standoff continued.

But that was last week. This week Lankford sounded less worried:

After saying he would step in if President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris still weren’t receiving detailed intelligence briefings Friday, Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.) said over the weekend his comments had been blown out of proportion.

“I’m not in a hurry, necessarily, to get Joe Biden these briefings, it’s been interesting how the media, the national media, not this network, but others have twisted this term ‘step in.’ I happen to chair the committee that oversees GSA, that is the entity that has to be able to make this call,” Mr. Lankford said an interview with the pro-Trump Newsmax TV Saturday.

On Wednesday, in an interview with KRMG radio in Tulsa, Okla., Mr. Lankford said: “If that’s not occurring by Friday, I will step in as well and be able to push and say, this needs to occur,”

Mr. Lankford said he was using the term “step in” to ask the General Services Administration about their process and act as a sounding board for the agency.

Illinois congresswoman Cheri Bustos has tested positive for coronavirus as well:

U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, of Illinois, revealed Monday she was experiencing mild symptoms of COVID-19 after testing positive for the virus, the lawmaker posted on social media.

Bustos, D-Moline, represents Illinois’ 17th Congressional District, which covers the northwest portion of the state.

In a tweet, the congresswoman said she still felt well despite experiencing symptoms. Consistent with medical advice, Bustos plans to work from her Illinois home until she’s cleared by her physician.

Health officials have predicted a significant spike of coronavirus cases. Lawmakers are not immune to the virus. Michigan congressman Tim Walberg also has tested positive for the virus.

With daily case rates doubling in California over the last 10 days, governor Gavin Newsom pulled the “emergency brake” on reopening and brought 94% of Californians back under the most severe coronavirus restrictions.

The first week of November saw the fastest rate of increase in cases in California since the start of the pandemic -- 51.3% -- Newsom said. The state reported 9,890 cases in the last 24 hours, with a seven-day average of 8,198.

Last week, California became the second state to surpass 1m total cases.

“Every age group, every demographic, racial, ethnic, every part of the state. we are seeing case rates increase and positivity rates increase,” Newsom said. “It’s no longer concentrated in just a handful of counties. We are seeing community spread broadly throughout the state of California.”

Three weeks ago, transmission was low enough that only nine of California’s 58 counties were under the most restrictive reopening status. Now, 41 counties are in this tier, with some moving back multiple tiers at once. Dr Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services, said these drastic actions are necessary. “We must keep transmission low,” he said. “That is to avoid flooding the healthcare delivery system.”

While a surge was predicted with the flu season, contract tracers have identified private household gatherings as a major source of spread. Recently, Newsom drew criticism for attending a friend’s birthday party at the upscale French Laundry in Napa.

“It was a little larger group than I had anticipated,” Newsom admitted Monday. “I made a bad mistake. Instead of sitting down, I should have stood up, walked back, got in my car and drove back to my house. Instead, I chose to sit there with my wife and sit there with my wife and a number of other couples that were outside with my household.

“I want to apologize to you because I need to preach and practice, not just preach and not practice,” he continued. “You should expect nothing more of me and I expect more of myself. When I say minimize mixing, I mean it.”

And that’s it. Biden concluded the questions and has left the stage.

Biden is also dinging outgoing president Donald Trump for not doing enough on the pandemic. Biden said it’s “beyond” his comprehension that the president is not doing enough and playing golf instead.

If Biden is frustrated with anything though, it’s by executive elected officials refraining from issuing guidance and taking steps to curb the coronavirus spread.

“What the hell is the matter with these guys? What’s the matter with them? Resist?”

But Biden did praise governors, including conservative ones. He said he had “enormous respect” for some of them who have issued orders to prevent the spread. Biden pointed to the governors of North Dakota, Ohio, and Utah, as well. They are all Republican governors. He also praised Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Biden, throughout these questions, is presenting himself as less annoyed by the absence of the Trump administration’s coordination than anything else. He said:

“I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started.”

Biden sounded a hopeful note though about Trump coming around and coordinating with the incoming Biden administration.

“I am hopeful that the president will be mildly more enlightened before we get to January 20th,” Biden said.

Biden is now going back to the larger argument behind his campaign: “The refusal of Democrats and Republicans not to cooperate with one another...is a conscious decision.”

Biden for weeks has said he thinks legislators need to “lower the temperature” of partisanship across the country.

Biden is arguing why coordination with the outgoing Trump administration

“Everyone on our call today agreed that...the sooner we have access to this administration’s distribution plan the sooner” we can move this vaccine forward.

Biden continued “right now Congress should come together and pass a coronavirus relief package, like the HEROES act, which the House passed months ago.”

After brief remarks by Harris about their meetings with business leaders just before they appeared, Biden took the podium.

Biden said the meetings “reinforced what I thought from the beginning. We’re ready to come together. The unity was astounding.”

There has been a standstill from the General Services Administration, the department of the federal government whose duties include “ascertaining” the winner of the presidential election. GSA administrator Emily Murphy, who was appointed to the post by Donald Trump, hasn’t certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.

As a result Biden’s transition team has not received the federal resources and classified information usually made available by the GSA to the president elect at this point after an election.

But a new ABC News report suggests that Murphy is at the very least aware that Biden won the presidential election. Murphy is reportedly putting feelers out about a new job, a move a GSA administrator wouldn’t do if the current administration was set to remain for four more years.

Here’s the report:

Emily Murphy, head of the GSA, recently sent that message to an associate inquiring about employment opportunities in 2021, a move that some in Washington interpreted as at least tacitly acknowledging that the current administration soon will be gone.

[...]

A GSA spokesperson denied the account that Murphy was actively looking for a job, but noted that it wouldn’t be unusual for someone in government, especially a political appointee, to consider future opportunities.

“The administrator remains focused on doing her job,” the spokesperson added.

Trump, responding to a Nov. 5 tweet related to Veterans Small Business Week, on Sunday tweeted: “Great job Emily!”

Congressional Democrats have accused Murphy of undermining the peaceful transition of power and could subpoena her for testimony on Capitol Hill to explain why she’s doing so.

And while it’s true that there’s often a reshuffling of officials after a presidential election, regardless of whether the incumbent returns, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, insisted that Murphy reaching out privately about future employment opportunities “exposes the hypocrisy” of the Trump administration’s position.

The remarks by president-elect Joe Biden and vice-president elect Kamala Harris on the economy are expected to start soon. The pool reporter covering the president-elect emailed other reporters that he’s being into the room where Biden will give remarks, a sign that the speech is imminent.

True the Vote, a conservative group with a history of leveling baseless voter fraud claims, abruptly dismissed lawsuits in four battleground states that sought to block the certification of votes in Democratic-friendly areas.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the groups dismissed the suits. James Bopp, an attorney representing True the Vote, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The group voluntarily dismissed suits in Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan on Monday, less than a week after each of them had been filed. The lawsuits relied on specious allegations of election irregularities to try and stop results from being certified in certain counties. In Wisconsin, for example, the suit sought to block certification of results in three counties, including Dane and Milwaukee, two of the most populous in Wisconsin and home to reliably Democratic votes. In Michigan, the suit sought to block certification in Wayne county, home of Detroit, as well as Ingham and Washtenaw counties, both of which voted overwhelmingly for Biden.

Sam Bagenstos, a former Justice Department official and law professor at the University of Michigan, told the Detroit Free Press, the suits appeared targeted. True the Vote, he said, “picked the big Democratic jurisdictions and said, ‘Let’s invalidate all the votes of the people there.’”

“It’s outrageous and anti-democratic and it’s based on nothing in terms of the allegations,” Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, said the suits were “racist.”

Top elected officials are embracing legalizing marijuana and enjoying the windfalls of doing so. In Virginia, governor Ralph Northam is going to introduce legislation legalizing marijuana in his state:

Gov. Ralph Northam said Monday he plans to introduce legislation legalizing marijuana when the General Assembly convenes in January, setting the state on a path to become the first in the South to allow recreational use of the drug.

“We are going to move forward with legalizing marijuana in Virginia,” Northam said. “I support that and am committed to doing it the right way. … It’s not going to happen overnight.”

Northam, a physician who says he’s never used the drug, said he supports legislation that would lay out an 18 to 24 month timetable for the state to establish and regulate the new marketplace.

Similarly, in Chicago, mayor Lori Lightfoot is retaining hundreds of jobs because of marijuana revenue. According to the Chicago Sun-Times:

Buoyed by higher than expected marijuana revenues, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Saturday canceled plans to lay off 350 city employees to help secure the 26 City Council votes she needs to pass her “pandemic budget.”

Revenues generated by the sale of recreational and medical marijuana have “gone through the roof”— topping $100 million statewide for the first time in October and $800 million in the first 10 months.

That will allow the city to cancel the layoffs and “bond against” a “conservative estimate” of future cannabis revenues — to the tune of $15 million in the corporate fund.

Even as Republicans pour as much resources and manpower into Georgia as possible, Trump is finding a way to stir up tensions. He and Georgia Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger have been in a heated feud about accusations from the president and allies about voting irregularities in the state.

Per Vice’s Cameron Joseph:

Georgia’s Republican secretary of state has had enough of President Trump’s lies about voting integrity.

After a week of attacks from Trump and his allies claiming that his apparent loss in Georgia was due to voting irregularities, Brad Raffensperger fired back Sunday night, writing a series of Facebook posts knocking back the claims and taking a swipe at Rep. Doug Collins, a top Trump deputy.

In one particularly pointed post, Raffensperger defended the state’s process of matching absentee vote signatures before swinging at Collins, who was tasked with leading Trump’s post-election efforts in the state after he lost a Senate bid two weeks ago.

Underscoring Republicans’ all-in approach in Georgia, Karl Rove will run finance operations for the joint entity between the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the incumbent Republican senators running for reelection.

Politico’s Alex Isenstadt has more:

Senate Republicans have tapped Karl Rove to oversee their fundraising program for the Georgia runoff elections, according to a person familiar with the effort.

The former George W. Bush adviser will serve as national finance chairman for the Georgia Battleground Fund, a joint fundraising account formed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee that will benefit Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia will determine which party controls the Senate next year.

The Georgia contests have become a focal point for both parties. Outside groups have begun to spend heavily and potential future presidential hopefuls, such as Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, are hitting the trail for the Republican candidates. Vice President Mike Pence is slated to travel to Georgia later this week.

The Senate races will decide control of the Senate. Those two races are runoffs between Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff and Loeffler and Reverend Raphael Warnock. Georgia is a state Democrats have been hoping to turn reliably blue for years now. Joe Biden appears to have won the state, a foreboding sign for Republicans. At the same time, it’s been years since a Democrat held a statewide office in Georgia.

The Trump administration made yet another major policy move undercutting the the president-elect’s incoming administration. Per The New York Times:

In a last-minute push to achieve its long-sought goal of allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the Trump administration on Monday announced that it would begin the formal process of selling leases to oil companies.

That sets up a potential sale of leases just before Jan 20, Inauguration Day, leaving the new administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has opposed drilling in the refuge, to try to stop the them after the fact.

“The Trump administration is trying a ‘Hail Mary’ pass,” said Jenny Rowland-Shea, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal group in Washington. “They know that what they’ve put out there is rushed and legally dubious.”

The Federal Register on Monday posted a “call for nominations” from the Bureau of Land Management, to be officially published Tuesday, relating to lease sales in about 1.5 million acres of the refuge along the coast of the Arctic Ocean. A call for nominations is essentially a request to oil companies to specify which tracts of land they would be interested in exploring and potentially drilling for oil and gas.

Joe Biden’s transition team sent out a preview of the speech he and vice-president elect Kamala Harris will deliver later today. Per the transition:

Today, the president-elect and vice president-elect will meet with business and labor leaders to discuss the economic recovery and building back better in the long term. He’ll bring together leaders from business and labor to discuss how - despite our different perspectives - we can work together to reach our common goals. President-elect Biden will deliver remarks on ensuring our workers and businesses can operate safely and rebuilding our economy to be more resilient and inclusive. And, he’ll discuss how our economy and the virus are intertwined, and say that we must contain the virus in order to get our economy back on track. Participants in the briefing:

• Richard Trumka, President of AFL-CIO
• Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors
• Mary Kay Henry, President of SEIU
• Satya Nadella, President and CEO of Microsoft
• Rory Gamble, President of UAW
• Brian Cornell, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Target
• Marc Perrone, President of UFCW
• Lee Saunders, President of AFSCME
• Sonia Syngal, CEO of Gap

The Coronavirus continues to affect not just the general public but members of Congress as well. In Michigan, congressman Tim Walberg, a Republican, tested positive for COVID-19:

LANSING — Michigan congressmen Tim Walberg says he has tested positive for the coronavirus and has mild symptoms.

Walberg, R-Tipton, issued a statement Monday that said he learned of the positive test result Sunday.

“My symptoms are mild, and I remain in good spirits,” he said.

Walberg is the second member of Michigan’s congressional delegation to test positive for COVID-19. U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland, tested positive last month.

“It has been more than a week since I have attended a public event. In conjunction with health officials, my office and I are in the process of reaching out to individuals I had contact with before my self-isolation began.”

And Arizona congresswoman Debbie Lesko, also a Republican, is isolating because of the virus as well:

One of the most convoluted parts of the 2020 November election results has been the gains Donald Trump made among minority voters. The Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch does a deep dive into the results. The explanation, in sum, isn’t so simple.

Trump is feuding with multiple midwestern governors today. Besides Ohio Republican governor Mike DeWine he’s also in a squabble with Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.

Whitmer shot back at previous comments by a top aide to Trump in a call with reporters this morning, according to the Detroit Free Press:

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Monday denounced as shocking and reckless a call from a Trump administration official for Michigan residents to “rise up” over new coronavirus restrictions she announced Sunday.

“It’s just incredibly reckless, considering everything that has happened, everything that is going on,” Whitmer said in a call with Capitol reporters.

On Sunday night, Whitmer announced a three-week closure of indoor service at bars and restaurants, closure of the Detroit casinos and suspension of in-person learning for high school and college students, starting Wednesday, along with other measures aimed at bringing down surging coronavirus numbers.

Soon after Whitmer’s news conference, Scott Atlas, President Donald Trump’s top coronavirus adviser, tweeted: “The only way this stops is if people rise up. You get what you accept.”

In October, federal and state officials arrested 14 men in connection with an alleged plot to kidnap Whitmer and put her on trial for “treason.” Evidence in the case suggests the men were connected with armed anti-government groups and saw Whitmer as “a tyrant” because of emergency orders she had issued to control the coronavirus.

There’s another important rub for Republicans in Georgia: a fear that party infighting will trip up their chances of retaining both Senate seats.

Here’s more:

Former Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) said he hoped the infighting would die down so the party could unify behind Sens. Perdue and Loeffler but added, “No one party is going to dominate forever. We did dominate for a period of time. Now it’s competitive.”

The American political universe is turning its attention to Georgia, where two Senate races will decide control of the Senate in 2021. In the race between incumbent Republican senator David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff, there’s been a standoff over debates.

Here’s Politico reporter James Arkin:

Ohio governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, seems to have fallen back into the crosshairs of Trump.

DeWine said on Sunday that Trump should follow the normal traditions of handing power to president-elect Joe Biden. Trump has refused to concede the election and the top administrator at the General Services Administration, has refrained from certifying the election outcome, a usually standard move that comes shortly after a presidential election is called.

On Sunday DeWine said:

“It’s clear that, certainly, based on what we know now, that Joe Biden is the president-elect. And that transition, for the country’s sake, it’s important for a normal transition to start through,” DeWine – a Republican like Trump – said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And the president can go on his other track and his legal track. We should respect that, but we also need to begin that process.”

As part of his media tour for his new book, former president Barack Obama sat down with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. In that interview he lapped praise on George W. Bush and how the Bush administration handed off the federal government to Obama’s incoming administration.

The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly has more:

In an interview with the Atlantic to mark publication of his memoir A Promised Land, Barack Obama ponders Joe Biden’s chances of working with Republicans in Congress, comes close to admitting to being a never-Trump conservative himself – and compares America under Trump to Central Asia under Genghis Khan.

“If we were going to have a rightwing populist in this country,” Obama says, “I would have expected somebody a little more appealing.”

Trump is refusing to admit defeat by Biden, despite a 5m deficit in the popular vote and an electoral college loss by 306-232, the margin by which he beat Hillary Clinton.

“For all the differences between myself and George W Bush,” Obama said, “he and his administration could not have been more gracious and intentional about ensuring a smooth handoff. One of the really distressing things about the current situation is the amount of time that is being lost because of Donald Trump’s petulance and the unwillingness of other Republicans to call him on it.”