Friday, November 13, 2020

On Politics: A Surging Virus and a Muddled Transition

Shut out by current Trump aides, Biden’s team turns to former ones: This is your morning tip sheet.

The 2024 G.O.P. contenders still won’t say anything critical about Trump. But how will that play out if he runs again in four years? It’s Friday, and this is your politics tip sheet.

Where things stand

  • Joe Biden is ready to settle into the driver’s seat and get rolling — but he needs to get his hands on the keys first. And so far, President Trump has refused to give them to him. Biden still hasn’t received access to government offices, secure communications or classified briefings on national security, leaving lawmakers in both parties worried.
  • But especially vexing to his team is the fact that Trump’s denial of the election results has left him in the dark about crucial elements of the federal coronavirus response — at a time when the virus is exploding across the country. Unable to work with the White House on a transition, Biden’s advisers have been left to glean what they can from former Trump administration officials.
  • And Biden’s team is focusing on planning elements of its coronavirus strategy that don’t depend on information from the Trump administration. That includes a nationwide testing plan, which Trump never put in place and Biden is designing from scratch with help from experts at the Rockefeller Foundation.
  • Despite the White House’s refusal to cooperate, Biden has been talking to world leaders — though he had to make his first contacts without the secured phone lines that he could have used if he were officially recognized as president-elect. He has received congratulatory calls from national leaders in Asia, Europe and Australia.
  • Yesterday he also talked to Pope Francis, whom Biden thanked for “promoting peace, reconciliation and the common bonds of humanity around the world,” his transition office said.
  • Biden, who is only the second Catholic to be elected president, pledged to work with the pope to fight global warming and to care “for the marginalized and the poor.”
  • This week, James Lankford, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, told a radio interviewer that he would step in to make sure Biden had access to daily briefings if the president still wasn’t making them available by the end of the week.

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  • And yesterday, Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican and member of the Senate leadership, said he agreed that Biden should have access to those files. “I don’t think they need to know everything,” Blunt said of Biden’s advisers. “I think they do need to know some things, and national security would be one of them.”
  • Like most of their G.O.P. colleagues, Lankford and Blunt have not yet acknowledged outright that Biden won the race, even if their comments make it fairly clear how they see things. Lankford, for his part, appeared to back off his earlier comments slightly, saying yesterday that while he supported briefings for Biden, “we still don’t know who the president’s going to be.”
  • But other Republicans have simply stopped playing along with Trump’s claim that the election’s results are in doubt. Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, who just days earlier had said that he wanted to wait until legal disputes played out before accepting the winner of the election, changed his tune yesterday.
  • “We need to consider the former vice president as the president-elect,” DeWine said on CNN. “Joe Biden is the president-elect.”
  • Karl Rove, an influential top adviser to President George W. Bush, published an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday titled, “This Election Result Won’t Be Overturned.”
  • When asked for a date by which Trump should accept the reality of his loss, Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, set a firm deadline: Dec. 13, one day before the Electoral College delegations will cast their votes for president.
  • This all produces a complex calculus for Republicans looking to run for president in 2024. None of those widely seen as contenders have spoken out to say that Trump should accept the results and move on.
  • Trump himself is talking seriously about running for president again in 2024, according to his advisers, who say that he now privately acknowledges what he publicly disputes: that he has lost.
  • And no matter what path he chooses, it’s increasingly clear that removing the 45th president from the Oval Office will not mean keeping him out of the news cycle.
  • “When you look at the number of votes that he got, you look at the kind of enthusiasm that he engenders, I mean — he’s going to be a very, very significant figure whether he’s in the White House or not,” said Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri seen as a potential presidential candidate. “I don’t know who else would be considered the leader, if not for him.”

Photo of the day

Oliver Contreras for The New York Times

The sunset behind the White House colored the sky pink yesterday.

The path from Election Day to Inauguration Day.

The two-and-a-half-month period from Election Day to Inauguration Day usually goes by the book. Milestones must be met, and protocols guide things along.

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But this year, Trump’s refusal to accept the results — and his party’s enabling of him — has blown up the usual timeline, complicating the process and making these matters of federal minutiae an issue of public concern, as Maggie Astor writes in a detailed explainer.

At every step of the way, from election to inauguration, where once there was a presumption that things would simply follow tradition, there is now an opportunity for Trump’s team to grind up the gears.

First, after completing a final vote count, the governor of each state must issue a “certificate of ascertainment,” announcing the winner of his or her state’s presidential election. The Trump campaign has sought to slow down or delay the ascertainment process, hoping that in states where Republicans control the legislature, if the governor missed the deadline to announce results, the legislature could then step in and name pro-Trump electors.

In Pennsylvania and Michigan, for instance, Republicans have filed lawsuits to block certification based on baseless allegations of voting or counting irregularities, but judges have so far rejected their arguments.

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Each state’s electors will then cast their votes on Dec. 14, and most states have laws that force their electors to vote for the candidate who is certified as that state’s winner. On Jan. 6, Congress will count and certify the electoral votes, and the winner will be sworn in two weeks later.

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Thursday, November 12, 2020

On Politics: A Time to Reflect, and Look Forward

We asked for your thoughts after this chaotic election. You saw hope, sadness, determination, hopelessness … and reasons to carry on.
Author Headshot

By Lisa Lerer

Politics Newsletter Writer

Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. I’m Lisa Lerer, your host.

We have spent a lot of time writing, thinking and talking about politics in this newsletter over the past 26 months. (A lot of time: This is our 995th edition since starting this little project on Sept. 10, 2018!)

No one could have predicted how this election would go: a deadly pandemic. National protests over police brutality. An economic nosedive. A hard-fought, contentious campaign. (OK, we definitely predicted that last one.)

With the election finally over, I thought it might be nice to share the stage. We asked how you were feeling after the tumultuous political season. And did you ever answer!

We got so many thought-provoking responses about the future of our country and its politics that I couldn’t resist sharing some.

For Joe Massaua, a high school senior in Villanova, Pa., the election made him feel excited about what the future could bring …

We have pressing problems to solve now: Covid-19, a recession, racial justice and climate change. America is on a path to be more unified than before; we need to see it through, with actions from our local leaders and those on the national stage. We are one diverse American community. I sincerely hope those on both sides will put politics aside to work for the good of the American people.

… but Drew Currie, writing from Colorado, says there may be no way to patch up the country’s differences.

It’s time to find a way to split officially into two nations. Let’s avoid civil war. Let’s use words to find our way through a peaceful division.

Kate Landry of Hickory, N.C., worries about President Trump’s lasting impact …

It seems like Trump has ripped the Band-Aid off a festering wound of racism, ignorance and all-around anger and hatefulness. I’m sad and discouraged.

… while Martin Sherlock of Naples, Fla., blames the news media.

I have listened to the media bad-mouth and call the president all kinds of names for well over four years. I am waiting to see how you bad-mouth the next president! The media does not have any conservative reporter or staff, which I consider a big problem of division. Mr. Trump is positively correct when he says that it is all fake news.

Lee Cross of Fort Smith, Ark., just wants to get back to not thinking about politics …

I am looking forward to getting off this political roller coaster that we’ve been on for the past week and getting back to the ever-growing stack of must-read journals and want-to-read books. And since the Christmas holidays will be very much subdued this year it is my fervent hope that for once we can observe the season of Advent the way it should be observed. All of us need time for peaceful reflection and — no matter what our beliefs — hopes and prayers for the Biden-Harris administration.

… but Tom Levy of Oakland, Calif., says the fight is far from over …

For those of us who wrote postcards and letters, and phone- and text-banked to voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia to get out the vote — the election is decidedly NOT over. That’s because two Senate seats in Georgia are still up for grabs in runoff elections scheduled for Jan. 5. Take a break. Sleep in. And rest up. Because those of us determined to do our best to help elect Democrats to the Senate in Georgia are about to jump in across the country.

… and Richie Feathers of Boston is already worried about the race after the runoffs.

Instead of basking in the victory for longer than a day, I’m already worried about 2022, which, if history is any indication, will now skew red. This anticipated rebuke of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be especially frustrating because voters will claim not enough got done, but turn in their votes for Republican senators who ensure not enough will get done.

Sam Fisher, of Katy, Texas, sees some hope for political dialogue close to home …

I’m looking forward to the knot hopefully disappearing from my stomach and my hair ceasing to fall out! I’m hopeful because my oh-so-dear friend and my oh-so-dear cousin have polar opposite views from mine, politically speaking, and through all of this, we are working hard to listen to one another, learn from one another, respect one another, love one another and find common ground. And dadgum it, if we can do it, the whole nation should be able to!

… and Darrell Sabin, of Moraga, Calif., sees the healthy functioning of a two-party system.

I look at this election and feel more comfortable than ever that our form of government will last the test of time. This election showed that we have two healthy parties. The Republicans and the Democrats set records in voter turnout. Our country fortunately has both Republicans and Democrats. Neither party has all the answers. Both parties are wrong and both parties are right “some of the time.” One party corrects the other party. Messy — but healthy.

But Jo Baxter of Palm City, Fla., sees hopeless divisions …

I don’t see much hope in this divided, mean environment, when both sides can’t even agree on the facts of a given situation. I am thrilled about Biden’s election, but scared by the sheer numbers of Trump’s support. Trump may eventually move out of the White House, but he has sullied the Oval Office forever.

… and Jeanne-Marie Lane of Everett, Wash., sees an uphill battle ahead.

I am not actually looking for stupendous, noteworthy moments for the next four years. I am hoping for a return to communication and actions resulting from willingness to compromise on both sides of issues, because Trump won’t be in the middle causing continual conflict and mistrust.

It may take the next four years for all of us to recover, even slightly. To return to respect for each other. We’ve been in a war zone and it may take more than years to feel better about ourselves and each other and recover.

Ginny Swart, of Cape Town, simply wonders whether the nearly $14 billion spent on the election could have been put to better use …

The mind boggles. They could have fixed climate change for that. Fixed Iran. Fixed the health service. All that money wasted.

… and Lynn Alvey of Milwaukee speaks for all of us — especially those of us at On Politics.

Has it really been a week since the election? Why does it seem like years?

Readers’ responses were edited and condensed. Thanks, as always, to my colleague Isabella Grullón Paz for her help.

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Drop us a line!

We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We’ll try to answer it. Have a comment? We’re all ears. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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From Opinion: Trump’s loss and refusal to concede

Will President Trump eventually concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden? Or is his refusal the next act in an unending showman’s routine?

The Times columnist Thomas Edsall argues that Mr. Trump’s “refusal to concede, and the support he is getting from his fellow Republicans, is part and parcel of the sustained drive by the right, especially since Barack Obama won a majority in 2008, to constrain and limit political participation by minorities by every available means.”

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He writes that tactics such as “gerrymandering, voter suppression, restricting the time and place of balloting, setting new rules for voter identification and so forth” are not just part of Mr. Trump’s next act but the continuation of long-term Republican efforts. Yet they have not stopped Mr. Biden from securing commanding victories in both the Electoral College and the national popular vote.

All of this calls for “a reckoning,” says the Times columnist Bret Stephens. “Trump’s loss is entirely on him — albeit in ways that roundly indict the conservative movement that made him its hero.”

Mr. Trump lost not simply because of strategic failures, but also for “two main and mutually reinforcing reasons,” writes Mr. Stephens. “The first is that he’s immoral — manifestly, comprehensively and unrepentantly.” The second? “Conservatives never tried to check his immorality. They rationalized, excused, enabled and ultimately celebrated it.”

Mr. Trump needed reality checks in order to succeed, says Mr. Stephens, but he had only an echo chamber. And it’s that very echo chamber and lack of expressed disapproval from Republicans that has both sealed Mr. Trump’s defeat and enabled his refusal to concede.

— Adam Rubenstein

… Seriously

“Gritty est populaire à cause du nihilisme.” Sometimes what you really need is a Gritty explainer, en français.

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Thanks for reading. On Politics is your guide to the political news cycle, delivering clarity from the chaos.

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