‘America is back’, says Biden as he introduces new national security team
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden announces his national security nominees and appointees at his transition headquarters
in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., November 24, 2020. © REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday introduced a slate of veteran diplomats and policy-makers who will make up his national security and foreign policy team, saying: “America is back, ready to lead the world.”
Biden, 78, at an event in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, presented his picks for secretary of state, national security advisor, homeland security secretary, intelligence chief, UN ambassador and climate change envoy.
“These public servants will restore America’s global leadership and moral leadership,” Biden said as the six men and women stood behind him wearing face-masks on the stage of the Queen theater.
Biden said that after he is inaugurated on January 20, 2021 and Donald Trump leaves the White House, the United States will “once again sit at the head of the table, ready to confront our adversaries and not reject our allies.”
“It is a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it,” the former vice president said in a jab at President Trump’s go-it-alone “America First” policies.
Biden’s remarks came shortly after Trump suffered further setbacks in his unprecedented effort to overturn the results of an American presidential election with unsubstantiated claims of fraud.
France 24’s Kethevane Gorjestani reports on the US presidential transition
Pennsylvania and Nevada certified the November 3 election results on Tuesday, a day after the state of Michigan did so, a move which triggered the General Services Administration (GSA) to launch the transition process.
As more members of his Republican Party came out demanding an end to the impasse, Trump signed off on the GSA move, effectively admitting defeat but still refusing to concede.
“The GSA does not determine who the next President of the United States will be,” the president tweeted on Tuesday along with a picture of himself in the Oval Office with the caption: “I concede NOTHING!!!!!”
The 74-year-old Trump, who has made few public appearances since his defeat, later attended a traditional Thanksgiving turkey-pardoning event at the White House.
He appeared to at least indirectly address the election at one point, saying: “I say America First, shouldn’t go away from that, America First.”
‘Diplomacy is back’
The GSA determination that Biden is the apparent winner gives him access to classified briefings on national security threats and will allow his aides to coordinate with health officials on addressing the worsening coronavirus pandemic.
Biden, in an interview with NBC Nightly News, said intelligence briefings were expected to begin soon and cooperation is being worked out in other areas.
“We’ve gotten outreach from the National Security shop,” he said. “We’re already working out meeting with the Covid team in the White House.
“The outreach has been sincere,” Biden said. “There’s not been begrudging so far. And I don’t expect it to be.”
Unveiling his cabinet selections, Biden said world leaders had told him they were “looking forward to the United States reasserting its historic role as a global leader.”
“This team meets this moment,” he said. “They embody my core belief that America is strongest when it works with its allies.”
The slate unveiled by Biden includes veterans of the Barack Obama administration and signals a return to traditional US diplomacy and multilateralism.
Antony Blinken, Biden’s choice for secretary of state, said the United States cannot solve global problems on its own.
“We need to be working with other countries,” the former State Department official said. “We need their cooperation. We need their partnership.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden’s choice to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, echoed those sentiments.
“America is back. Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is back,” said Thomas-Greenfield, a seasoned career diplomat.
“The challenges we face — a global pandemic, a global economy, the global climate change crisis, mass migration and extreme poverty, social justice — are unrelenting and interconnected, but they’re not unresolvable if America is leading the way.”
Former secretary of state John Kerry, who Biden chose as his special envoy on climate change, confirmed the new administration would bring the US back into the Paris climate accord which Trump pulled out of in 2015.
Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas was named to head the Department of Homeland Security, whose policing of tough immigration restrictions under Trump was a frequent source of controversy.
Avril Haines was nominated to be the director of national intelligence, the first woman to hold the post, while Jake Sullivan was named national security advisor.
Former Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen is expected to be named Treasury Secretary, the first woman to hold the job.
‘Delay the inevitable’
With Biden having won a comfortable victory, Trump’s last card is to try to disrupt the normally routine process of state-by-state certification of the vote and challenge election results in the courts with claims of irregularities.
The legal efforts have fallen flat, however, along with the attempts to delay state certification.
“The Trump campaign’s legal efforts have no basis in fact, no basis in law,” said Bob Bauer, a senior advisor to the Biden campaign and a former White House counsel. “Their only purpose is to delay the inevitable.
(AFP)