THE
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SEEMS DEAD SET ON SCREWING WITH BIDEN’S TRANSITION
In addition to their numerous (and unlikely to
be successful) legal challenges, the current administration is holding up
crucial transition processes.
BY ERIC LUTZ
NOVEMBER 9, 2020
It was a given that Donald Trump would not lose
the election gracefully. Conceding to Joe Biden, hosting him in the
Oval Office, standing next to him on Inauguration Day as he promises to use his
mandate to chart a new course for a divided, ailing country—nothing in Trump’s
five decades in the public eye suggested he would be remotely capable of doing
any of these things. Rather than accept his defeat, the president remains in
denial: In the days since the race was called for Biden and Kamala
Harris, his enablers in the Republican Party and his administration are
shamefully feeding the delusion.
Other than a smattering of more moderate
lawmakers like Mitt Romney and former GOP officials like George
W. Bush, most Republicans—including party leaders—have yet to acknowledge
Biden’s victory, and some are openly and recklessly encouraging Trump to keep
fighting. “President Trump should not concede,” Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News on
Sunday. Jared Kushner, Rudy Giuliani, and others in the
president’s inner circle agree, and have been egging on his risible legal
challenges and even a potential return to the rally stage, CNN's Jake
Tapper reported Sunday night. How much they
actually think any of this will change the state of play is unclear. Giuliani,
standing outside the Four Seasons Total Landscaping office in Philadelphia for
a press conference over the weekend, certainly seemed to be tricked by his own
smoke and mirrors. But sources suggested to Tapper that Team Trump
mostly seems to be aware of the reality they’re facing, even if the president
does not: “There is no credible strategy of recounts that result in anything
other than Joe Biden as president-elect,” sources told Tapper. “This is about
appeasing the president’s ego and currying favor with him.”
That’s embarrassing for all involved. But it’s
also already a stick in the spokes for the incoming Biden administration,
threatening the orderly transition of power and potentially impeding
preparations on a number of fronts, including, the Washington Post reported, the
distribution logistics for a highly anticipated COVID vaccine. As the Post and
other outlets reported Sunday, it’s not just Republican lawmakers and members
of Trump’s inner circle refusing to acknowledge Biden’s victory.
Trump-appointee Emily Murphy, who as head of the General Services
Administration is responsible for recognizing the election of a new president
and authorizing the transition process, has yet to sign paperwork releasing
millions of dollars and access to government officials and resources to the
Biden team, and does not appear to have plans to do so anytime soon, a reflection
of the president’s own refusal to accept the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.
“Her action now has to be condemned,”
Democratic Representative Gerald E. Connolly told the Post.
“It’s behavior that is consistent with her subservience to wishes of the president
himself, and it is clearly harmful to the orderly transition of power.”
In a letter to the Trump administration obtained by Politico,
a bipartisan group of former transition and White House officials called on the
GSA to initiate the transition process and cooperate with the incoming Biden
team, opening up funds and allowing the new administration to coordinate with
the agencies it will soon oversee. “We urge the Trump administration to
immediately begin the post-election transition process,” the letter read, “and
the Biden team to take full advantage of the resources available under the
Presidential Transition Act.” But Murphy has appeared unmoved so far, implying
in a statement that the 2020 race remains unresolved. “An ascertainment has not
yet been made,” Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for GSA, said in a
statement.
While a formal concession and an appearance by
the president at their successor’s inauguration are important symbols of the
peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next, they are merely
norms. Biden will be sworn in on January 20 regardless of whether he receives a
congratulatory phone call from Trump. But the transition process the GSA
green-lights is no mere formality. In addition to lending legitimacy to the
incoming president, it is an important part of ensuring that the
president-elect can hit the ground running on the day their term begins. That’s
always important, but especially so for an administration that will inherit a
major national emergency. “Every day counts in a transition,” David
Marchick, director of the Center for Presidential Transition, told
Politico. “This year more than any transition since 1932.”
The lack of acknowledgement, let alone cooperation,
on behalf of Trumpworld underscores the extent of the damage the current
president could still exact on the country in the limited time he has
remaining. Over the course of the last four, seemingly interminable years, his
chaos and incompetence have eroded institutions, exacerbated existing problems
and created new ones, and inflicted a daily barrage of scandal on the nation.
With his loss last week, there is now light at the
end of the tunnel. But his refusal to concede is a reminder that we have a ways
to go still before we reach it.
