Biden pledges to overcome a truculent Trump

AFP

Vowing “to get right to work,” US president-elect Joe Biden shrugged off incumbent President Donald Trump’s fierce refusal to accept the election outcome as “inconsequential,” even as Democrats elsewhere warned that the Republican president’s actions were dangerous.

Raising claims of voter fraud, Trump has blocked the incoming president from receiving intelligence briefings and withheld federal funding intended to help facilitate the transfer of power.

Trump’s resistance, backed by senior Republicans in Washington and across the country, could also prevent background investigations and security clearances for prospective staff and access to federal agencies to discuss transition planning.

As some Democrats and former Republican officials warned of serious consequences, Biden sought to lower the national temperature on Tuesday as he addressed reporters from a makeshift transition headquarters near his home in downtown Wilmington.

Biden described Trump’s position as little more than an “embarrassing” mark on the outgoing president’s legacy, while predicting that Republicans on Capitol Hill would eventually accept the reality of Biden’s victory. The Republican resistance, Biden said, “does not change the dynamic at all in what we’re able to do.”

Additional intelligence briefings “would be useful,” Biden added, but “we don’t see anything slowing us down.”

The measured comments come as Biden prepares to confront dueling national crises that actively threaten the health, safety and economic security of millions of Americans irrespective of the political debate. Coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths are surging, the economy faces the prospect of long-term damage and the nation’s political and cultural divides may be worsening.

Biden is betting that his low-key approach and bipartisan outreach will help him govern effectively on Day One. But just a little over two months before Biden will be inaugurated, Trump and his allies seemed determined to make his transition as difficult as possible.

From his Twitter account on Tuesday, Trump again raised claims of “massive ballot counting abuse” and predicted he would ultimately win the race he has already lost.

His allies on Capitol Hill, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have encouraged the president’s accusations.

Trump’s tweets were swiftly flagged by the social media network as disputed claims about election fraud. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

In fact, election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well, and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities.

The issues Trump’s campaign and its allies have pointed to are typical in every election: problems with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postal marks on mail-in ballots, as well as the potential for a small number of ballots miscast or lost.

With Biden leading Trump by wide margins in key battleground states, none of those issues would have any impact on the outcome of the election.

America’s allies began to acknowledge what Trump would not. French President Emmanuel Macron met Biden via video conference. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, among six world leaders, congratulated Biden.