Summary
From Joan E Greve and me:
- Georgia recertified Joe Biden’s victory in the state, after two separate recounts confirmed the Democrat’s win there. Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said this morning, “We have now counted legally-cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged.”
- The US is nearing 15m cases of coronavirus, as infections surge across the country after the Thanksgiving holiday. According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the US has reported 14,933,847 cases of coronavirus since January.
- Joe Biden’s team confirmed Xavier Becerra would be nominated to lead the department of health and human services. Former surgeon general Vivek Murthy will also be nominated to reprise his role under the Obama administration, and Dr Anthony Fauci will serve as Biden’s chief medical adviser, while staying on as the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
- Biden is expected to choose Lloyd Austin, the former commander of US Central Command, to lead the Pentagon, Politico reports. Until recently, defense adviser Michèle Flournoy was widely expected to be the top candidate for the post. If confirmed to the position, Austin would be the first Black man to lead the Defense Department.
- The House will vote on a one-week spending bill on Wednesday, majority leader Steny Hoyer confirmed. If the legislation passes, it will allow the federal government to avert a shutdown while giving lawmakers another week to reach an agreement on an omnibus spending bill. Congress will also have additional time to negotiate over another coronavirus relief bill.
- Trump said Rudy Giuliani is “doing very well” after being hospitalized with coronavirus. “Rudy’s doing well. I just spoke to him,” Trump said of his personal attorney this afternoon. “He’s doing very well. No temperature. He actually called me early this morning. He was the first call I got, and he’s doing very well.”
Updated
Melania Trump drew backlash on Monday after announcing that a new tennis pavilion is set to be unveiled on the south grounds of the White House, as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to surge across the country.
“It is my hope that this private space will function as both a place of leisure and gathering for future first families,” the first lady said in a written statement on Monday, which came just weeks before the Trump family turns the White House over to his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, who handily won the 2020 presidential election.
The first lady went on to thank the “talented craftsmen” who worked on the project and the “generous supporters of the White House”.
“282,345,” David Corn, Mother Jones’ DC bureau chief, noted in a terse response, in reference to the number of people who have died in the US due to coronavirus.
Molly Jong-Fast, editor-at-large for the Daily Beast, echoed the sarcastic analysis of others who joked that the first lady had “her finger on the pulse of America”. She tweeted: “Oh good, those people in their ICU beds will feel so much better knowing that [Trump] has finished her tennis pavilion.”
A photo of the newly unveiled structure included the colonnade, parapet wall and fanlight windows meant to tie the new building to the look and feel of the White House.
In a release, Melania Trump’s office revealed it had been inspired by the architecture of its east and west wings. Former president Barack Obama had previously turned the tennis court into one suitable for basketball.
Report: Biden has chosen retired general Lloyd Austin for defense secretary
Joe Biden is expected to choose Lloyd Austin, the former commander of US Central Command, to lead the Pentagon, Politico reports.
Politico reports:
The decision comes two weeks after Biden announced the other senior members of his national security team. Although Michèle Flournoy, who was widely seen as Hillary Clinton’s choice to be defense secretary had she won the election in 2016, was initially viewed as the frontrunner for the job, Biden has been under growing pressure to nominate a Black person to be his defense secretary.
In recent days, Austin, the former commander of US Central Command, had emerged as a top-tier candidate, although Biden also considered former Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson for the job, several people familiar with the discussions said.
Updated
Millions of Californians put under strict Covid lockdown
From Vivian Ho in San Francisco, Martin Pengelly in New York and agencies:
More than three-quarters of California’s population are now living under the harshest lockdowns in the US, as Covid-19 cases hit record levels in the country’s most populous state.
Regional stay-at-home restrictions went into effect for nearly 23 million residents in southern California and 4.4 million residents in a large swath of the Central Valley on Sunday night, as ordered by the state governor, Gavin Newsom. The orders take effect on a region-by-region basis when hospital intensive care unit beds in the region dropped to below 15%.
The southern California region and the San Joaquin Valley region joined five counties in the Bay Area region whose local leaders pre-emptively ordered its 6 million residents to enter lockdown starting at 10pm on Sunday. “We cannot wait until after we have driven off the cliff to pull the emergency brake,” said the Santa Clara county health officer, Dr Sara Cody.
The restrictions, which require people to stay home and minimize contact with other households, will remain in place for at least three weeks, covering the Christmas holiday.
All retail stores can stay open, although at 20% capacity, along with outside spaces such as parks and beaches, but restaurants, bars, hair and nail salons and tattoo shops are required to close.
California reported 24,735 positive cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the average to 21,924 cases a day. The state had a 10.5% seven-day positivity rate, meaning that in the past week, one in 10 Californians tested for coronavirus came back with positive results. Newsom noted that the rate of growth on the state’s positivity rate was “very, very acute” – just 30 days ago, the state’s positivity rate was at 3.4%. Health officials believe the numbers will only get worse before they get better.
“We know that those cases that potentially occurred around people’s dinner tables, activities, plans, travel through Thanksgiving are going to show up right about now. We’re going to be seeing that for many days to come,” said Dr Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services. “We believe that the levels of transmission that we’ve been reporting so far will likely continue to go up some because of those activities.”
Read more:
Florida scientist publishing coronavirus data says police seized her computer at gunpoint
Rebekah Jones, the former chief data scientist at Florida’s health department who said she was fired for refusing to manipulate Covid-19 data, said the police seized a computer she was using to publish a coronavirus data dashboard of her own.
“At 8:30 am this morning, state police came into my house and took all my hardware and tech,” she said on Twitter. “They were serving a warrant on my computer after [the health department] filed a complaint. They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids.”
Jones began been publishing state coronavirus data updates on her own website after she was fired in May for refusing to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen”. Florida’s official site undercounts the infection total and overcounts the number of people who are tested, to minimize the severity of the pandemic in the state, she has said.
1/
— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) December 7, 2020
There will be no update today.
At 8:30 am this morning, state police came into my house and took all my hardware and tech.
They were serving a warrant on my computer after DOH filed a complaint.
They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids.. pic.twitter.com/DE2QfOmtPU
“They took my phone and the computer I use every day to post the case numbers in Florida, and school cases for the entire country. They took evidence of corruption at the state level,” she said, adding that the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis “sent the gestapo”.
Read more about Jones:
Updated
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s leading Democrat, has criticized his Republican colleagues’ decision to invite an anti-vaxxer doctor to testify on Tuesday.
“While President-elect Biden is nominating experienced, committed public servants to lead the next administration’s healthcare policy, the Republican majority is inviting prominent anti-vaxxers to Senate committee hearings,” Schumer said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer criticizes Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson's decision to invite Dr. Jane Orient, who is critical of vaccine mandates, to testify Tuesday on COVID-19 treatments and urges him to revoke the invitation. https://t.co/sHLQRWU5h8 pic.twitter.com/vRY7nJeyA0
— Emmanuel Touhey (@Irishmanindc) December 7, 2020
Updated
Report: Trump administration declined Pfizer offer for more vaccine doses
Administration officials turned down an offer from Pfizer this summer to secure additional doses of its vaccine, the New York Times has reported.
The Times reports:
Trump administration officials passed when Pfizer offered in late summer to sell the U.S. government additional doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, according to people familiar with the matter. Now Pfizer may not be able provide more of its vaccine to the United States until next June because of its commitments to other countries, they said.
The US is expected to authorize the two-dose treatment from Pfizer and BioNTech this week and has bought up enough of the vaccine for 50m Americans. Meanwhile the European Union has secured 200m doses and Britan plans to begin vaccinations on Tuesday using the Pfizer treatment.
Donald Trump today signed an executive order designed to prioritize that vaccines get to “American citizens before sending it to other nations” but it’s unclear that the order would have any practical effect.
Read more from the Times here.
Updated
Anti-vaccine doctor to testify at Senate committee hearing on Covid mandates
The doctor heading a controversial physician’s advocacy group opposing government involvement in medicine has been announced as a leading witness at a US Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee hearing on Tuesday.
Jane Orient has rejected any “anti-vaxxer” label but her criticism of coronavirus vaccines has drawn scathing rebukes from some senior politicians infuriated by her invitation to testify to Congress.
“At such a crucial time, giving a platform to conspiracy theorists to spread myths and falsehoods about Covid vaccines is downright dangerous and one of the last things Senate Republicans should be doing right now,” the Senate minority leader and New York Democrat, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement released on Sunday.
Critics have cited Orient’s promotion of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment as well as her organization’s view that federal vaccine mandates are a violation of human rights.
Beating the anti-vaxxers: how star power can help squash vaccine mythsRead more
In a statement provided to the Senate last year, Orient called vaccine mandates “a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy and parental decisions”.
“The regulation of medical practice is a state function, not a federal one,” she wrote. “Governmental pre-emption of patients’ or parents’ decisions about accepting drugs or other medical interventions is a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy, and parental decisions about child-rearing.”
Orient is one of four medical professionals set to testify in the hearing in which federal health officials will weigh vaccine mandates and other initiatives to combat a worsening coronavirus pandemic that, so far, has killed more than 282,000 Americans.
Read more:
Joe Biden suggested he’d name his pick for defense secretary and attorney general this week, speaking with reporters as he left a venue after meeting with healthcare advisers.
Leaving the theater, Biden suggested he would have an announcement about Defense Secretary on Friday pic.twitter.com/mMeZPNERQE
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) December 7, 2020
Updated
Today so far
That’s it from me for now. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Georgia recertified Joe Biden’s victory in the state, after two separate recounts confirmed the Democrat’s win there. Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said this morning, “We have now counted legally-cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged.”
- The US is nearing 15m cases of coronavirus, as infections surge across the country after the Thanksgiving holiday. According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the US has reported 14,883,966 cases of coronavirus since January.
- Joe Biden’s team confirmed Xavier Becerra would be nominated to lead the department of health and human services. Former surgeon general Vivek Murthy will also be nominated to reprise his role under the Obama administration, and Dr Anthony Fauci will serve as Biden’s chief medical adviser, while staying on as the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
- The House will vote on a one-week spending bill on Wednesday, majority leader Steny Hoyer confirmed. If the legislation passes, it will allow the federal government to avert a shutdown while giving lawmakers another week to reach an agreement on an omnibus spending bill. Congress will also have additional time to negotiate over another coronavirus relief bill.
- Trump said Rudy Giuliani is “doing very well” after being hospitalized with coronavirus. “Rudy’s doing well. I just spoke to him,” Trump said of his personal attorney this afternoon. “He’s doing very well. No temperature. He actually called me early this morning. He was the first call I got, and he’s doing very well.”
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated
The CEOs of two drug companies producing coronavirus vaccines have reportedly both rejected invitations to appear at a White House “Vaccine Summit” tomorrow.
Stat reports:
The Trump administration has openly feuded with Pfizer in recent weeks over its involvement in Operation Warp Speed and the timing of a data release showing its vaccine to be highly effective, but had nonetheless invited CEO Albert Bourla to appear on a panel about the vaccine development process. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel was also invited, but neither he nor another company executive will attend.
The vaccine manufacturers’ absences will be conspicuous at a ‘Vaccine Summit,’ an event that drug industry figures and one Trump administration official largely viewed as a public relations stunt when STAT first reported the event last week.
Donald Trump called FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn to the White House last week to explain why his agency was not moving faster to approve the vaccine, according to reports.
US nears 15m cases of coronavirus
The number of coronavirus cases in the US is approaching 15 million, as infections surge across the nation.
According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the US has confirmed 14,883,966 cases of coronavirus since January.
The US death toll also continues to climb, with 283,211 Americans now having died of coronavirus.
The country confirmed 175,663 cases yesterday, according to JHU, so the case total will likely surpass 15m by tomorrow.
Updated
Rochelle Walensky, who will be nominated by Joe Biden to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pledged to pursue a science-driven response to the coronavirus pandemic.
I began my medical career at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and I've spent my life ever since working to research, treat, and combat infectious diseases.
— Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH (@RWalensky) December 7, 2020
I'm honored to be called to lead the brilliant team at the CDC. We are ready to combat this virus with science and facts.
“I began my medical career at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and I’ve spent my life ever since working to research, treat, and combat infectious diseases,” Walensky, a professor at Harvard medical school, said in a tweet.
“I’m honored to be called to lead the brilliant team at the CDC. We are ready to combat this virus with science and facts.”
House will vote on one-week spending bill, Hoyer confirms
House majority leader Steny Hoyer has confirmed the chamber will vote on a one-week spending bill on Wednesday to avert a government shutdown.
“I am disappointed that we have not yet reached agreement on government funding,” Hoyer said in a tweet. “The House will vote on Wednesday on a one-week CR to keep government open while negotiations continue.”
I am disappointed that we have not yet reached agreement on government funding. The House will vote on Wednesday on a one-week CR to keep government open while negotiations continue.
— Steny (Wear a Mask) Hoyer (@LeaderHoyer) December 7, 2020
Government funding is set to run out on Friday night, so a week-one spending bill would allow the country to avoid a shutdown and give lawmakers another week to reach an agreement on an omnibus bill.
The extension will also give Congress more time to potentially strike a deal on another coronavirus relief deal, although liability protections remain a major sticking point between Democrats and Republicans.
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the watchdog group that raised concerns about Peter Navarro’s potential Hatch Act violations, thanked the office of special counsel for its investigation.
“In an administration full of people illegally using their government positions to influence an election, Navarro has been one of the worst,” Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of CREW, said in a statement.
“We thank OSC for their thorough investigation and finding of Navarro’s repeated wrongdoing.”
The OSC concluded Navarro, Donald Trump’s senior trade adviser, repeatedly violated the Hatch Act by making partisan statements about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during media interviews before the presidential election.
The OSC sent its report to Trump for potential disciplinary action, but the president has previously decided against such action for other advisers accused of violating the Hatch Act.
“Navarro’s blatant violations of the Hatch Act are rivaled only by Kellyanne Conway,” Bookbinder said. “This isn’t about not knowing better, it is about a lack of interest in following the law, even when the cost to our democracy is severe.”
Navarro repeatedly violated the Hatch Act, OSC finds
The office of special counsel has released a report concluding that Peter Navarro, the president’s senior trade adviser, repeatedly violated the Hatch Act, which restricts government employees from engaging in partisan activities.
The report asserts that Navarro “violated the Hatch Act by using his official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of the 2020 presidential election through both media appearances and social media.”
The OSC recorded at least six instances of Navarro attacking Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris during media interviews conducted between May and October of this year.
The report noted that five of the six interviews came after the OSC sent Navarro a July letter informing him he was being investigated for potential Hatch Act violations.
“Dr. Navarro’s violations of the Hatch Act were knowing and willful,” the report says.
The report was referred to Donald Trump for potential disciplinary action, but it seems unlikely the president will take such action, given that more than a dozen of his advisers have faced similar allegations.
Dr Anthony Fauci is not expected to appear in person at Joe Biden’s event tomorrow, where the president-elect will introduce his team of health care advisers.
According to CBS News, Fauci will instead send a video message for the event in Wilmington, Delaware. Some of Biden’s other advisers are also expected to appear remotely.
NEW: Dr. Anthony Fauci won’t appear in person Tuesday when @JoeBiden unveils members of his health team, a person familiar with the plans tells me. Will send a video message. Some other picks also likely to appear remotely instead of at The Queen with the PEOTUS in Wilmington.
— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) December 7, 2020
Biden announced today that Fauci would serve as his chief medical adviser, while staying on as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The infectious disease expert has led the NIAID since 1984 and has become a household name since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Georgia re-certifies Biden victory
Georgia has re-certified the presidential election results after the latest recount requested by Donald Trump’s campaign affirmed Joe Biden’s win in the state.
It was signaled earlier today that the state would once again certify the results and now it’s just happened, the Associated Press and Reuters report.
What is normally a routine, uncontroversial bureaucratic step – but has become in this election a high-drama, fraught act of preserving American democracy – was performed by Georgia’s Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger moments ago.
The recertification followed a hand recount that was triggered by an audit and a formal recount that was requested by Trump’s re-election campaign, both of which upheld Biden’s victory in the state, a press release from Raffensperger’s office stated.
Mic drop, Stacey Abrams, Raffensperger, Gabriel Sterling.
Updated
Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker warned today that from Friday, hospitals in the state will temporarily curtail in-patient elective surgeries that can safely be put off, amid the surge in coronavirus infections.
The Boston Globe reports that:
“Our hospitals are working day and night to provide the critical care to people that they need,” Baker said during his regular State House briefing.
He said that starting Friday, hospitals will “curtail elective procedures that can be safely postponed. This action will free up necessary staffing and beds.”
The governor also announced an expansion of the state’s free Covid-19 testing program.
“Today’s plan includes three new free express testing locations in Framingham, New Bedford and Lynn,” Baker said, adding that the locations “will have the capacity to do up to 1,000 tests per day per site. The Framingham location is launching today, and the rest will be open and operational by the end of December.”
Other parts of the state will see more testing resources as well.
“Today we’re also announcing the expansion of free testing in four counties: Barnstable, Berkshire, Franklin and Hampshire,” Baker said. “And western Massachusetts free testing sites will be coming to Amherst, Great Barrington, Greenfield, North Adams, and Pittsfield.”
Updated
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Georgia is moving forward with recertifying Joe Biden’s victory after a second recount confirmed his win. Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said this morning, “We have now counted legally-cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged.”
- Joe Biden’s team confirmed Xavier Becerra would be nominated to lead the department of health and human services. Former surgeon general Vivek Murthy will also be nominated to reprise his role under the Obama administration, and Dr Anthony Fauci will serve as Biden’s chief medical adviser, while staying on as the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
-
Trump said Rudy Giuliani is “doing very well” after being hospitalized with coronavirus. “Rudy’s doing well. I just spoke to him,” Trump said of his personal attorney this afternoon. “He’s doing very well. No temperature. He actually called me early this morning. He was the first call I got, and he’s doing very well.”
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Giuliani is 'doing very well' and has no fever, Trump says
Donald Trump provided an update on his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who was admitted to a hospital yesterday after testing positive for coronavirus.
After awarding the presidential medal of freedom to wrestler Dan Gable in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that Giuliani is “doing very well.”
TRUMP says the first call he got this morning was from Giuliani:
— Zach Purser Brown (@zachjourno) December 7, 2020
"Rudy's doing well, I just spoke to him and he's doing very well. No temperature." pic.twitter.com/ioAfLvBt32
“Rudy’s doing well. I just spoke to him. He’s doing very well. No temperature. He actually called me early this morning. He was the first call I got, and he’s doing very well,” Trump said.
The president praised Giuliani, saying, “Greatest mayor in the history of New York, and what he’s doing now is more important, and he will admit that.”
Giuliani has led Trump’s legal efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, which have been broadly unsuccessful. Giuliani has also championed the president’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud.
Donald Trump awarded the presidential medal of freedom to wrestler Dan Gable in the Oval Office moments ago.
Gable and his family, like the president, did not wear masks as the Oval Office ceremony unfolded.
Dan Gable event in Oval pic.twitter.com/RintfExcYZ
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 7, 2020
In his remarks, Trump celebrated Gable’s wresting career, which included a gold medal at 1972 Olympic Games.
The president made several comments about the election during the event, saying at one point, “In politics, I won two, so I’m 2 and 0, so that’s pretty good, too.”
The blog has fact-checked this about 1,000 times, but here we go again: Trump did not win the presidential election. Joe Biden has been declared the winner of the race, and he will be inaugurated next month.
The Trump campaign’s legal efforts to reverse Joe Biden’s victory, which have been viewed as a long-shot at best, seem to be coming to a close now that Rudy Giuliani has been hospitalized with coronavirus and additional lawsuits have been dismissed.
From CNN’s Kaitlan Collins:
Between rapidly approaching deadlines, Giuliani being hospitalized and a string of court losses, there is a sense developing internally that the Trump legal team’s efforts are coming to a close, according to multiple people. Fewer calls, meetings happening, etc.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) December 7, 2020
Dr Anthony Fauci warned the next month could bring even more alarming numbers of new coronavirus infections, unless Americans engage in substantial efforts to mitigate spread.
Appearing at New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s press conference, the infectious disease expert said the country would likely see the effect of the Thanksgiving surge in the next week to week and a half, after many Americans gathered in person to celebrate the holiday, despite public health warnings against doing so.
“Without substantial mitigation, the middle of January could be a really dark time for us.”
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) December 7, 2020
Dr. Fauci made a guest appearance during New York Gov. Cuomo’s coronavirus briefing pic.twitter.com/xRap003wBN
Fauci added that the Thanksgiving surge will likely not be under control before more Americans start traveling for Christmas and Hanukkah, meaning the country will likely be dealing with a surge on top of a surge by the end of the month.
“Without substantial mitigation, the middle of January could be a really dark time for us,” Fauci said.
Joe Biden will formally announce his team of healthcare advisers during an event in Wilmington, Delaware, tomorrow, his transition team just announced.
The president-elect’s team confirmed earlier today that he would nominate Xavier Becerra to lead the department of health and human services.
Former surgeon general Vivek Murthy will also take on the same role again, pending confirmation, and Dr Anthony Fauci will serve as Biden’s chief medical adviser, while staying on as the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Updated
Federal judge dismisses lawsuit challenging Biden's victory in Georgia
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia.
The lawsuit was brought by former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell and relied on baseless conspiracy theories to argue Biden’s victory, which has been upheld by two recounts, was illegitimate.
“They want this court to substitute its judgment for the 2.5 million voters who voted for Biden,” US district judge Timothy Batten said of the lawsuit. “This I’m unwilling to do.”
Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said today that the state would move forward with recertifying Biden’s victory after another recount confirmed his win.
Shortly after that announcement was made, Donald Trump once again lashed out against Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, whom the president has repeatedly criticized in the weeks since the election.
Planned Parenthood praised the nomination of Xavier Becerra to lead the department of health and human services.
“Xavier Becerra is a staunch sexual and reproductive health champion who understands the urgent need to tackle inequalities in our health care system,” Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement.
“As California’s attorney general, he fought back against the domestic gag rule and led the defense of the Affordable Care Act — a case that is now before the Supreme Court.”
Johnson also praised Joe Biden’s broader health care team that will be in charge of tackling the coronavirus pandemic once the president-elect takes office.
Johnson said, “The president-elect has chosen a group of talented and experienced leaders who will finally help the country overcome this pandemic, which is wreaking its worst health and economic havoc among communities of color.”
Senate Republicans are already preparing their talking points against Xavier Becerra, who will be nominated to lead the department of health and human services.
The Washington Post reports:
A senior Republican aide on Capitol Hill said Sunday night that the GOP plans to focus on Becerra’s support for Medicare-for-all and whether he truly has expertise in health-care policy.
Joe Biden’s team has touted Becerra’s support for the Affordable Care Act as a congressman and his defense of the bill as California’s attorney general to justify his appointment.
However, it is true that Becerra does not have the same level of medical experience as some of the other contenders for the HHS job, such as former surgeon general Vivek Murthy.
Donald Trump once again lashed out against Georgia’s Republican governor, as the state prepares to recertify Joe Biden’s victory there.
“The Republican Governor of Georgia refuses to do signature verification, which would give us an easy win. What’s wrong with this guy? What is he hiding?” Trump said in a tweet.
The Republican Governor of Georgia refuses to do signature verification, which would give us an easy win. What’s wrong with this guy? What is he hiding?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2020
It is not possible to conduct signature verification on absentee ballots at this stage, as absentee ballots are separated from their exterior envelopes once a signature has been verified. There is also no evidence of widespread fraud in Georgia (or any other US state).
But that has not stopped Trump and a number of his allies from sharply criticizing governor Brian Kemp over the issue.
Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, announced this morning that the state would move forward with recertifying Biden’s victory after two separate recounts confirmed the results.
Xavier Becerra pledged to ensure Americans’ access to quality health care if he is approved as secretary of health and human services.
In Congress, I helped pass the Affordable Care Act. As California's Attorney General, I defended it. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, I will build on our progress and ensure every American has access to quality, affordable health care—through this pandemic and beyond.
— Xavier Becerra (@XavierBecerra) December 7, 2020
“In Congress, I helped pass the Affordable Care Act. As California’s Attorney General, I defended it,” Becerra said in a tweet.
“As Secretary of Health and Human Services, I will build on our progress and ensure every American has access to quality, affordable health care—through this pandemic and beyond.”
Joe Biden’s team confirmed today that the president-elect would nominate Becerra to lead the department of health and human services, a key position amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Georgia to recertify Biden's victory after two recounts
Georgia’s secretary of state announced the state would recertify Joe Biden’s victory today, after two separate recounts.
“It’s been a long 34 days since the election on November 3,” Brad Raffensperger said at a press conference. “We have now counted legally-cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged.”
Georgia conducted a full hand recount shortly after the election, which showed Biden still leading by about 13,000 votes.
Despite that hand recount, Donald Trump’s campaign still requested another recount because of the narrow margin of Biden’s victory.
That recount has now confirmed Biden’s victory in Georgia, making the president-elect the first Democrat since Bill Clinton to carry the state.
This morning, Joe Biden’s transition team announced the co-chairs of his inaugural committee.
Congressman Jim Clyburn, who resuscitated Biden’s primary campaign by endorsing him before the crucial South Carolina primary, will serve as the chair of the committee.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, congressman Cedric Richmond and congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester will also serve as co-chairs. (Richmond announced last month that he would leave Congress in January to take a senior role in the Biden administration.)
“Kamala and I are honored and grateful to these leaders for joining our inaugural committee as co-chairs and helping to organize a safe inauguration for all Americans,” Biden said in a statement.
“These leaders reflect the strength, spirit, and diversity of America and have always held a steadfast commitment to restoring the soul of the nation, building back the middle class, and unifying the country. We are proud of their support and know they will help plan an inauguration that will reflect our nation’s shared values.”
It’s still unclear exactly what form Biden’s inauguration will take, given public health restrictions on large gatherings. When a reporter said last week that he wanted to know what Biden’s inauguration would look like, the president-elect quipped, “So would I.”
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.
Here’s what the blog is keeping an eye on today: Donald Trump will present the presidential medal of freedom to wrestler Dan Gable, while Joe Biden will meet with his transition advisers.
Both chambers of Congress are in session, as lawmakers continue to work toward a bipartisan deal on another coronavirus relief package.
Congress also must pass a spending bill by Friday night to avert a government shutdown, so all eyes will be on Capitol Hill this week.
It is the 79th anniversary of the Pearl harbour attack today, and in the last few minutes both vice president Mike Pence and secretary of state Mike Pompeo have paid tribute on social media to those who lost their lives on that day.
On Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, we honor the memory of the thousands who gave their lives 79 years ago. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed the course of history forever & we will never forget or fail to honor the sacrifice of those lost as they defended our freedom & our Nation. pic.twitter.com/9IDsAtade7
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) December 7, 2020
On National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, we remember the 2,403 service members and civilians who perished during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. And we honor the many heroes who saved countless more lives on that dark day. pic.twitter.com/7RuylvGyp0
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) December 7, 2020
Sarah Ranking reports for the Associated Press that the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) began work this morning to remove a prominent statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, who fought against the United States military in the US civil war. The removal comes after an effort initiated this fall after allegations of systemic racism roiled the school.
A crew was inspecting the statue at the public military college in Lexington, poised to haul away the statue of Jackson that some cadets were required to salute until several years ago.
VMI’s board voted to remove the statue in late October after the Washington Post published a story that described an “atmosphere of hostility and cultural insensitivity” at VMI.
The piece detailed incidents such as lynching threats and a white professor reminiscing in class about her father’s Ku Klux Klan membership.
Founded in 1839, VMI says it is the oldest state-supported military college in the US.
A bust of Jackson was removed from the Old House Chamber inside the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond in July.
Antony Blinken pays tribute to former Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes, who has died aged 87
President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has this morning paid tribute to Sarbanes, who has died aged 87.
As staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I had the privilege of watching Paul Sarbanes in action. A fierce intelligence married to deep principle — and the best questioner on the committee. My thoughts are w/John and his entire family. https://t.co/axHf2zICbu
— Antony Blinken (@ABlinken) December 7, 2020
Sarbanes, who represented Maryland for 30 years in the Senate, helped write landmark anti-fraud legislation and draft the first article of impeachment against Republican president Richard Nixon as a congressman.
The Democrat “passed away peacefully this evening in Baltimore,” said a Sunday statement by his son Rep. John Sarbanes, who represents Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District.
“Our family is grateful to know that we have the support of Marylanders who meant so much to him and whom he was honored to serve,” the congressman said.
Updated
Azar says he expects 'any adult in the US' will be able to get a Covid vaccine by mid-2021
Axios have an exclusive interview with HHS secretary Alex Azar airing tonight on HBO, and they’ve just dropped a clip of it, in which Azar says he hopes life will be back to normalcy by the fall of 2021.
HHS @SecAzar tells @mikeallen he expects “any adult in the U.S.” will be able to get a COVID vaccine by mid-2021.
— Axios (@axios) December 7, 2020
Allen: “So packed ... NFL stadiums. Next fall?”
Sec. Azar: “That is my hope.”
Watch the full #AxiosOnHBO interview this Monday at 11 pm ET/PT on all HBO platforms. pic.twitter.com/cbegzHX7oK
He’s being interviewed by Mike Allen, and says:
My expectation is that next year, we return to normalcy in our lives, thanks to the incredible work of Operation Warp Speed and these vaccines, as well as the therapeutics to take care of people.
Allen presses him on whether there will be full NFL stadiums, and Azar says “That is my hope”.
Kira Lerner and Indrani Basu write for us today on how amid the pandemic, US poll workers risked their health to handle the election:
On 5 November, two days after election day, an employee in the Onondaga county, New York, Board of Elections office went home early. She felt exhausted, according to election commissioner Dustin Czarny, and assumed the long shifts were to blame.
A week later she was hospitalized, tested for Covid-19, and learned she had contracted the virus. By then, unbeknownst to the other employees, the virus had spread through the office where staff was working long shifts to count absentee ballots before New York’s certification deadline. Roughly 200 employees and volunteers who counted absentee ballots were sent home on 13 November and instructed to get tested. In total, 12 employees tested positive.
“We had almost everybody in the office last week before Friday the 13th,” Czarny said. “Of course this all happened on Friday the 13th.”
Czarny and the other commissioner closed the office and stopped vote counting for the week, informing New York they would miss the 28 November certification deadline. Czarny said the crisis is exactly what he’d hoped to avoid as they administered an election in the middle of a pandemic.
“This is what we were fearing and it happened,” he said.
For local election officials, the 2020 election was guaranteed to be a struggle. Record numbers of voters requested absentee ballots because of the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing election administrators to adapt to an unprecedented election. Officials had to hire additional staff, find warehouses and other locations to store ballots, and acquire protective equipment to ensure that their staff stayed healthy and safe.
Despite their best efforts to stop the virus’s spread, several dozen poll workers and election officials across the country have tested positive for Covid-19, even as the link to election day in most cases is unclear. According to a Votebeat analysis of local reports, there were Covid-19 cases among election workers in at least nine counties in five states before election day, and at least 24 counties in 14 states reported positive cases among election workers in the days and weeks after.
These cases represent only the ones that received media coverage and could be traced to an election operation. The actual number of such cases is likely much higher, given the severity of the virus.
Read more of Kira Lerner and Indrani Basu’s report here: Amid the pandemic, US poll workers risked their health to handle the election
One state that is taking stronger measures is California. But it remains to be seen how widely the are adopted in practice.
Dan Whitcomb reports for Reuters that the sheriffs of Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties have said they will refuse to enforce a new stay-at-home order, emboldening non-essential businesses to remain open.
California is attempting to compel much of the state to close shop and stay at home today. Democratic party Governor Gavin Newsom’s order was triggered in areas where fewer than 15 percent of intensive care hospital beds were available, affecting more than 23 million people in Southern California.
In addition five counties in Northern California surrounding the San Francisco Bay area have voluntarily imposed the restrictions even before reaching the ICU threshold.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said in a videotaped message posted on the department’s website that his office “will not be blackmailed, bullied or used as muscle” to enforce the governor’s orders.
“Orange County Sheriff’s deputies will not be dispatched to, or respond to, calls for service to enforce compliance with face coverings, social gatherings or stay at home orders,” his counterpart in Orange County, Don Barnes, said in a written statement.
It’s not a surprise when, even with the death toll in the US at 282,103, there are Republicans calling for the Trump administration’s senior health team to go because they have been too forceful in trying to prevent the spread of the disease. The US has had more coronavirus cases than any other country on earth.
Anthony Fauci must go.
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) December 6, 2020
Deborah Birx must go.
Robert Redfield must go.
It’s time for these power-hungry bureaucrats to be removed from any and all spheres of influence. pic.twitter.com/MOPG4OpSfC
Arizona’s Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, as well as calling for Fauci, Birx and Redfield to step down, is touting that he will be appearing on the radio in Phoenix today to discuss “Arizona’s response to the Covid-19 hysteria”. Arizona has seen nearly 7,000 deaths from coronavirus, and has seen a 12% increase in cases in the last seven days.
Dr. Deborah Birx says it is 'frustrating' to see governors give up on measures that proved effective
California reported more than 30,000 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, exceeding the state’s previous high of set on 4 December. It also marked a new record for hospitalized Covid-19 patients.
New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia also announced record one-day rises in new infections.
Nationwide, Covid-19 infections in United States are at their peak with a rolling weekly average of over 190,000 new cases being reported each day.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, has come under fire for failing to speak out against the country’s shortcomings on the pandemic. But she told the NBC News program Meet the Press on Sunday that it was “frustrating” to see governors and mayors give up on measures that proved effective in slowing the virus in the spring.
“I hear community members parroting back those situations, parroting back that masks don’t work, parroting back that we should work towards herd immunity, parroting back that gatherings don’t result in super-spreading events,” Birx said.
Attempting to set the record straight, she said, “You cannot gather without masks in any indoor or close outdoor situation.”
Updated
CNN has four key takeaways from that Loeffler debate with Rev. Raphael Warnock. They, naturally, highlight Loeffler’s refusal to accept Joe Biden’s election win. But Clare Foran was also critical of Warnock’s evasiveness on two key issues – how much coronavirus releif should Congree be looking at, and how many people should be on the US supreme court bench:
Warnock was questioned during the debate about what topline number for total cost he would support for a new Covid relief package in Congress, as lawmakers in Washington are searching for a deal to pass such a proposal before the end of the year.
When asked to specify a number, he sidestepped, saying, “Look, I think that we should at least make sure that whatever we do, workers are at the center of that relief.”
The Democratic challenger also sidestepped when asked whether he supports expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court to offset recent appointments to the bench from Trump and whether he thinks there should be term limits for justices.
“People aren’t asking me about the courts and whether we should expand the courts. I know that’s an interesting question for people inside the beltway to discuss,” he said in response. When pressed again, he said, “I’m really not focused on it.”
CNN noted two similarities with the candidates too. They both portrayed their opponents as out of touch, and both said they would be happy to take a Covid vaccine.
Read more here: CNN – 4 takeaways from the Georgia Senate debate
Over the weekend there were TV debates for the Georgia runoffs. Senator Kelly Loeffler made herself one of the main talking points, with her refusal three times to accept that Joe Biden has won the US election. Biden leads the popular vote count by more than 7 million votes and is projected to win the electoral college vote by 306 to 232.
This, though, was the dramatic visual image – Republican incumbent David Perdue refused to debate his opponent Jon Ossoff.
Ossoff repeatedly criticised Perdue over his absence, saying:
The reason that we are losing thousands of people per day to this virus is because of the arrogance of politicians like David Perdue. So arrogant that he disregarded public health expertise and so arrogant that he’s not with us here today to answer questions. It shows an astonishing arrogance and sense of entitlement for Georgia’s senior US senator to believe he shouldn’t have to debate at a moment like this in our history.
There was also a surreal moment where the format of the debate called for the two opponents to ask questions of each other. Ossoff didn’t pull any punches:
It’s a strange situation to be asking a question of a sitting United States senator who is not here to debate, as he asks for the votes of the people to be reelected. I’d ask why he continues to oppose $1,200 stimulus checks for the American people at this moment in crisis, why he fought against them in the first place and why he isn’t in Washington right now championing direct financial relief? If I had the opportunity to ask the senator a question, if the senator were not too much of a coward to debate in public, then that’s what I’d ask him.
Sierra Carter is an assistant professor of psychology at Georgia State University, and she writes this morning on how racism literally ages Black Americans faster, according to a 25-year study. She writes:
I’m part of a research team that has been following more than 800 Black American families for almost 25 years. We found that people who had reported experiencing high levels of racial discrimination when they were young teenagers had significantly higher levels of depression in their 20s than those who hadn’t. This elevated depression, in turn, showed up in their blood samples, which revealed accelerated ageing on a cellular level.
Our research is not the first to show Black Americans live sicker lives and die younger than other racial or ethnic groups. The experience of constant and accumulating stress due to racism throughout an individual’s lifetime can wear and tear down the body – literally “getting under the skin” to affect health.
These findings highlight how stress from racism, particularly experienced early in life, can affect the mental and physical health disparities seen among Black Americans.
As news stories of Black American women, men and children being killed due to racial injustice persist, our research on the effects of racism continues to have significant implications.
Covid-19 has been labeled a “stress pandemic” for Black populations that are disproportionately affected due to factors like poverty, unemployment and lack of access to healthcare.
Read more here: Sierra Carter – Racism literally ages Black Americans faster, according to our 25-year study
Fox News contributor Juan Williams is rather strident in an op-ed over at The Hill this morning: Trump is feasting on a dying GOP
Watching President Trump’s conspiracy-mongering about his defeat in last month’s presidential election, I flashed back to something former Republican speaker John Boehner said in 2018.
“There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump Party,” Boehner said. “The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”
Or is it a dying political party?
The last rites started a month ago. Trump lost the presidential race to Joe Biden, including a stunning defeat in Georgia, a state dominated by Republicans for nearly 30 years.
The wheezing death rattle for the GOP continued this past weekend.
Trump arrived in Georgia to campaign for two Senate Republicans facing run-off elections on Jan. 5, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
But his message twisted his knife into the Republicans.
After weeks of saying the presidential election was rigged in Georgia and elsewhere, Trump spent most of his rally ranting his baseless grievances and telling his fans not to accept his loss because Democrats “steal and rig and lie.”
So, why should Republicans vote in those races if they believe Trump’s claim that the presidential election was rigged?
That makes no sense unless he is trying to get the party to kill itself.
Read more here: The Hill – Juan Williams – Trump is feasting on a dying GOP
Judging by this tweet, Donald Trump Jr is going to be absolutely furious when he finds out who is in charge of the country.
Would be amazing if our government actually looked into this shit rather than just letting it go because they’re afraid the media will call them mean things. https://t.co/6phwrMr8Ni
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 7, 2020
The choice of Xavier Becerra, 62, a Latino former congressman, comes as Joe Biden has faced more pressure to add diversity to his cabinet appointments, including complaints from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about the number of Latinos.
Becerra – if confirmed by the Senate – will lead the health agency as officials struggle to contain a resurgence of the coronavirus, including record infections and a daily death toll that has exceeded 2,000 in recent days, and to prepare for a mammoth effort to vaccinate Americans against the virus.
Biden’s choice of Becerra gives him an administrator with a long record of supporting the Affordable Care Act - former president Barack Obama’s key domestic policy achievement.
Becerra played a key role in passing the landmark law during his time in Congress, and in his current role in California leads the coalition of 20 states defending the program better known as Obamacare, including in a case before the Supreme Court last month.
“Biden is living up to his commitment to make the cabinet a reflection of diversity,” said Robert Garcia, mayor of Long Beach, California, and a longtime ally of Becerra and Biden.
Garcia said Becerra “has a strong record on healthcare but I think it goes beyond that. The president-elect selected someone with the highest levels of integrity and intellect.”
Becerra served as a Democratic US representative from 1993 to 2017 before moving back to his home state to become attorney general. In that post, he succeeded vice president-elect Kamala Harris.
Biden is also expected to nominate Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, to run the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a different person familiar with hiring for the President-elect’s health team told Reuters.
Biden already has asked Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, to stay on as chief medical adviser.
The former vice president also has named Jeff Zients, an economic adviser touted for his managerial skills, as a coronavirus “czar” to oversee an unprecedented operation to distribute hundreds of millions of doses of a new vaccine, coordinating efforts across multiple federal agencies.
Biden picked Vivek Murthy, a physician and former surgeon general who has gained prominence in recent months as co-chairman of Biden’s advisory board dealing with the pandemic, to return for a second term as surgeon general.
Congress is in session today, and all eyes will be on whether there’s any movement on a coronavirus economic package. David Morgan for Reuters sets the scene, saying that a group from the Democratic-led House of Representatives and Republican-run Senate is expected to roll out the formal text of a $908 billion Covid-19 relief bill.
“With the economy weakening, and with so many of these initiatives from the first package running out as soon as the day after Christmas, you know, it would be what I call stupidity on steroids if Congress doesn’t act,” Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat and member of the bipartisan group that wrote the proposal, told CNN’s State of the Union yesterday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hope to attach a new coronavirus aid package to an emerging $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill that Congress must pass by Friday when funding for US government agencies expires.
“We hope it will take us very close to something we can put into the omnibus,” Pelosi told reporters on Friday, saying Democrats view the legislation as a possible basis for further bicameral negotiations.
Lawmakers enacted $3 trillion in aid earlier this year but have not been able to agree on fresh relief since April.
A range of emergency aid programs set in place in response to the pandemic, including additional unemployment benefits and a moratorium on renter evictions, expire at the end of December.
A new package would set new emergency assistance for small businesses, unemployed people, airlines and other industries during the pandemic. But lawmakers have opted not to include stimulus checks to individuals out of concern that a higher price tag could delay passage.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy said on Sunday the relief bill should not include $1,200 direct payments to Americans.
“This is not a stimulus bill, it*s a relief bill,” he said on Fox News Sunday adding that “there may be a stimulus check, but that would be part of a different piece of legislation.”
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine told CNN on Saturday that he and other lawmakers would block the Senate from recessing for the year unless Covid-19 relief had been enacted.
Kaine said the $908 billion bipartisan proposal was too small but included key aid for state and local governments, food and housing. He predicted that Biden’s plans for a robust economic recovery package would make it easier for Democrats to accept a smaller bill.
McConnell, who has pushed to limit spending to $500 billion, circulated a list of “targeted” relief provisions to Senate Republicans last week that he said president Donald Trump would sign.
However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted McConnell’s proposal, saying Americans need urgent relief or they will risk losing their unemployment insurance benefits the day after Christmas.
“If he sticks to his bill, which is an emaciated bill with no unemployment and no state and local relief, it’s not going to get anywhere because it doesn’t have broad support,” Schumer told a news conference yesterday.
As the coronavirus epidemic worsens, US health experts hope Joe Biden’s administration will put in place something Donald Trump’s has not, even after ten months of the pandemic: a comprehensive national testing strategy.
Such a strategy, they say, could systematically check more people for infections and spot surges before they take off. The health experts say it would be an improvement from the current practice, which has professional athletes and students at elite universities getting routine tests while many other Americans stand in line for hours if they get tested at all.
“We have had no strategy for this virus. Our strategy has been no strategy,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard University researcher focused on use of testing to track disease.
Mike Stobbe and Matthew Perrone write for the Associated Press that some experts say the lack of such a system is one reason for the current national explosion in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
“If we’d had a more robust approach and testing was scaled up as one of the tools, I think much of this third surge would have been avoidable,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
There are differing opinions on what such a strategy should look like, but many experts say rapid and at-home tests should be used so Americans can check themselves and stay away from others if they test positive.
The president-elect has endorsed that strategy, called for making testing free for all Americans, and said government experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies should be empowered to coordinate the entire effort.
“The reality is we’re not testing enough today,” Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, co-chair of Biden’s coronavirus advisory board, told the AP this week.
Testing was one of the first and most enduring stumbles in the federal government’s response to the coronavirus epidemic that hit the nation early this year.
In February, the CDC distributed test kits to public health laboratories that initially were faulty. US officials worked with companies to expand testing, but shortages of chemicals, materials and protective equipment meant fewer tests were available than what experts said was necessary.
Worse, some experts say, states and cities competed against each other to buy limited testing services and materials, and with little guidance or training on how to best use the tests.
And then the president kept falsely complaining that the only reason the US had a high number of cases was because it was doing a high number of tests.
Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the University of Nebraska College of Public Health says “It shouldn’t be anybody who needs a test can get a test. It should be anybody who has a positive test immediately gets isolated” and the people they were in contact with checked and placed in quarantine.
He was echoed by Nunez-Smith, the Biden coronavirus adviser. “Testing is only useful when we can act on the test,” said Nunez-Smith, a Yale health equity researcher.
Who is a healthcare worker? In the eyes of Dr José Romero, it’s an intensive care nurse, a pulmonologist, an ambulance driver. But it is also the hospital’s housekeeping staff, workers who bring patients meals, and the aides who care for the elderly in long-term care homes.
Romero is the chair of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory panel, a closely watched group whose recommendations on how to prioritize vaccines will form the backbone of state and local plans for distribution.
Ultimately, states and even individual hospitals will need to make decisions about who gets the first, very limited doses of a Covid-19 vaccine. But the deliberations of Romero and his colleagues will weigh heavily.
And over eight months of discussion, “justice” remains a guiding principle, Romero told the Guardian in an interview.
“When we talk about healthcare personnel, we’re not just talking about doctors and nurses,” he said “We’re talking about those persons who help deliver the care in an indirect way.”
These concerns reflect the intersection of two of the defining events of 2020 – the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on the working class, racial and ethnic minorities and women, and the harsh spotlight the virus cast on decades-long health inequalities that proved to be an inflection point in calls for racial justice.
“We are not prescriptive, we do not give doses, but we make it very clear, those persons in those groups,” including “lower-wage earners” should be included in early vaccinations, Romero said.
“We want to make sure the hospitals understand that they are part of our group of healthcare providers, and we’ve said that over and over again,” said Romero. “We believe very, very strongly in that.”
Read more of Jessica Glenza’s report here: Justice must be guiding principle in US vaccine rollout, says top expert
Attorney General Barr considering stepping down before Trump leaves office – reports
There’s lots of reports around this morning that Attorney General William Barr is considering stepping down before Donald Trump leaves office on 20 January. The New York Times claims to have spoken to three people familiar with the matter and writes:
It was not clear whether the attorney general’s deliberations were influenced by Trump’s refusal to concede his election loss or his fury over Barr’s acknowledgment last week that the Justice Department uncovered no widespread voting fraud. In the ensuing days, the president refused to say whether he still had confidence in his attorney general.
One of the people insisted that Barr had been weighing his departure since before last week and that Trump had not affected the attorney general’s thinking. Another said Barr had concluded that he had completed the work that he set out to accomplish at the Justice Department.
But the president’s public complaints about the election, including a baseless allegation earlier last week that federal law enforcement had rigged the election against him, are certain to cast a cloud over any early departure by Barr. By leaving early, Barr could avoid a confrontation with the president over his refusal to advance Trump’s efforts to rewrite the election results.
Read more here: New York Times – Barr is said to be weighing whether to leave before Trump’s term ends
Joe Biden has had a fairly smooth cabinet appointment process so far, but there are rumblings that it could get choppier, and speculation that the Democratic president-elect may take a leaf out of the Donald Trump playbook to try to get the team he wants.
Publicly, Democrats are hopeful that the confirmation processes for all of Biden’s cabinet nominees will go smoothly. But looming over the Biden team’s planning is the possibility that Republicans in the Senate decide to stonewall a nominee, blocking confirmation of anyone Biden puts forward.
Their ability to do that will rest on who wins two Senate runoff races in Georgia. If Democrats win, they wrest control of the vital upper chamber away from Republicans. But if Republicans triumph, it raises the prospect they can stonewall any Biden nominee for a specific cabinet position.
In that scenario, one option for Democrats would be to follow Donald Trump’s example and controversially install cabinet officials under the “acting” moniker, where they are not confirmed but serve in that role regardless.
In the later period of his administration, Trump made a habit of appointing acting heads to federal agencies, thereby circumventing the usual confirmation process, even with Republicans controlling the Senate.
“Frankly, it’s not an unhelpful precedent,” a Senate Democratic aide said of the idea of Biden appointing acting cabinet secretaries in the face of a Republican blockade.
If Democrats control the Senate, the Senate majority will almost certainly move in lockstep to confirm Biden’s nominees as a demonstration of the incoming president’s promise to “lower the temperature” of American politics. If Republicans control the chamber, gumming up confirmations is a tempting way to generate leverage with a new president who has promised to work with the opposing party.
It’s unclear which of Biden’s nominees Republicans will find most objectionable.
Read more of Daniel Strauss’ report here: Biden mulls options in case Republicans try to block cabinet picks
Alex Seitz-Wald has this for NBC News this morning, suggesting that while Biden’s Cabinet isn’t shaping up to be a progressives’ dream team, it’s far from their nightmare scenario. He writes:
Elizabeth Warren is not going to be treasury secretary. Bernie Sanders seems unlikely to lead the Labor Department. And progressives have so far failed to persuade president-elect Joe Biden to put their favored candidates in top jobs for his administration.
But they appear to have succeeded in making enough noise to keep out their biggest foes, at least for now.
“On the domestic side, the worst of the worst have so far been blocked,” said David Segal, the executive director of the group Demand Progress, which has been outspoken in its criticism of some Biden appointees.
“There might not be knock-down drag-out public fights where activists and senators try to take down particular nominees — but if that’s the case, it will have been the threat of those fights that will have made them unnecessary,” he said.
Biden has been performing the delicate balancing act of selecting people who not only would be “accepted by all elements of the Democratic Party,” as he recently put it, but who also stand a reasonable chance of getting confirmed by a Senate that will be in GOP hands if Democrats don’t win next month’s Georgia runoffs.
Read more here: NBC News – Biden’s Cabinet isn’t shaping up to be progressives’ dream, but it’s far from their nightmare
Welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Monday. Here’s a quick catch-up on where we are, and a little of what we might see today.
- More than 23 million people in Southern California have been placed under one of the harshest of lockdowns yet in the United States, as Covid-19 cases hit record levels in the country’s most populous state.
- US health secretary Alex Azar has insisted the Trump administration does have a plan to distribute coronavirus vaccines, after president-elect Joe Biden said he had not seen a detailed blueprint.
- Xavier Becerra will be the next health secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, he will be the first Latino to lead the nation’s healthcare.
- Yesterday there were 175,663 new coronavirus cases in the US, and 1,113 further deaths. That takes the total death toll to 282,092. There hasn’t been a single day with fewer new cases than 100,000 since before 3 November.
- Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has tested positive for Covid-19, the president tweeted on Sunday, prompting Arizona to close its legislature after the lawyer visited the state last week.
- Senator Kelly Loeffler refused three times to accept Joe Biden’s overwhelming election victory during a TV debate ahead of the Georgia Senate runoff.
- The Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan, said Trump’s attacks on election integrity ‘disgust me’.
- The first official explanation of an illness that affected US diplomats in Cuba says ‘pulsed’ energy may have led to unexplained symptoms.
- President Donald Trump presents the medal of Freedom to wrestler Dan Gable. President-elect Joe Biden will meet with his transition team and receive a daily briefing. Both chambers of Congress are in session.
