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(CNN) – President Donald Trump finally confirmed Thursday that he will leave the White House in January, after weeks of the United States plunging into a dark period of uncertainty – where the fate of democracy sometimes seemed to hang by a thread – but ignored in in much of the growing challenges his successor faces when he leaves.
“It will be a very difficult thing to admit,” Trump told reporters Thursday night in the Diplomatic Reception Room, where he repeated his baseless claims of “massive fraud.” And he said that if the Electoral College had declared Biden the winner they would have “made a mistake”.
Trump’s meeting with reporters after a phone call with US intelligence members failed to secure a concession. He went on to cast untruths about voter fraud that simply doesn’t exist, refused to say whether he would attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, and launched dangerous criticism of the electoral system in Georgia, a state where he lost but plans to campaigning next month. by two Republican senators facing a second round that will determine control of the United States Senate.
Trump meeting with reporters
Notably, Trump continued to promote his false narrative that the US is turning the corner of the pandemic, but acknowledged it will go away next year and taught reporters “don’t let Joe Biden take credit. for “developing coronavirus vaccines” because I was the vaccine and I was pushing people more than ever. “
The comments immediately reflected the president’s astonishing narcissism and his inability to cope with the anxiety and financial pain that so many Americans face this week’s vacation, as the lines at food banks stretched between blocks and hospitals. once again they faced capacity constraints. .
the message
But his comments were greeted if only as an admission that Trump, who essentially abdicated his leadership in the pandemic, would be leaving White House grounds in January, allowing a new administration to try and pull the nation out of it. every turn. deeper crisis that the president has largely refused to see or acknowledge.
The president-elect tried to cheer weary Americans this week with a promising message of thanks, promising that this “bleak season of division” would soon usher in a year of light and unity. But in addition to the encouraging news about the effectiveness of vaccines in development, the news in these tumultuous weeks since the election has largely indicated the myriad challenges Biden faces, from the millions of Americans about to fall off a financial precipice. when unemployment benefits expire, due to the complexity you have to deal with developing a deployment plan for the coronavirus vaccine and then convincing skeptical Americans to get it.
Millions on the brink of the financial precipice
The images of Americans flooding food pantries in every U.S. city this week – more than 50 million Americans could face food insecurity by the end of the year, according to Feeding America – were a chilling reminder of the cost of the split. and Washington’s Intransigence, as House and Senate members were on vacation this week with no sign of another emergency pandemic stimulus package in sight.
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Although more than 20 million Americans still received some form of dole in early November, and another 778,000 filed for the first time last week, according to a new report from the Department of Labor, Republican leaders and Democrats in Congress proved unable to even meet to negotiate another aid package.
Division
They remained divided on those partisan lines despite the fact that the emergency pandemic benefits approved by Congress in March expire on December 26 for an estimated 7.3 million workers, independent contractors, freelancers and other Americans. who did not qualify for regular unemployment benefits in their states, according to an analysis by the Century Foundation. Another 4.5 million Americans, who have been given 13 additional weeks of unemployment beyond the 26 weeks normally offered by most states, face the same December limit.
The Walt Disney Company just announced it will lay off 32,000 employees next year. And much of the relief for small businesses has already been exhausted, and other protections that troubled Americans have relied on are also expiring, such as a moratorium on evictions and deferred payments on mortgages and student loans.
“We can’t keep getting these hits”
The inability of leaders to work together in Washington is acutely felt by small business owners and workers who, once again, see their livelihoods compromised as cities and jurisdictions across the country impose new constraints on companies to seek to control the dizzying number of covid-19 cases.
As Los Angeles County closed the outdoor dining area again this week, with the region facing an expected shortage of ICU beds within two to four weeks, restaurateur Tom Sopit said the move “would devastate. and would decimate “his industry once again.”
“We can’t continue to receive these hits, especially without federal help or someone else’s help,” Sopit told CNN’s Kate Bolduan. “This can’t go on without help.”
“Some of my employees are still behind on the rent, some of them are living from payroll to payroll, and once again there is no federal aid. The Senate is on vacation, “Sopit, the owner of Employees Only, said Wednesday in” Erin Burnett OutFront. “” Whenever they shut us down, they need to make sure there is relief to help us right now. “
Biden calls for unity
Although Biden has run for president with a platform where he could work with leaders from both sides to reach a compromise, there is still no indication whether he can lead Congress to action at a time when many Republicans, who they fear Trump, they have not yet recognized their electoral victory.
Biden urged members of Congress to “come together” and pass a Covid aid package like the Heroes Act, the $ 2 trillion package passed in March.
But even when the Trump White House was compromised, which is no longer the case, Republicans opposed the size of the package the Democrats were proposing (as well as the dollar figures that Trump said he would accept). Although Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled this week that he would be open to “a targeted bill” somewhere on the order of half a billion, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far refused. surrender its resistance to a proposal for a smaller and more fragmented package.
The complicated task of distributing the vaccine in the United States
It’s not just the lack of economic relief that could send Biden off to a shaky start, as some economists warn of a double downturn. He and his team are trying to prepare for the daunting task of distributing the vaccine and convincing Americans to get it at a time when funding details of how it would be carried out are still unclear.
In October, health departments and officials who will manage the vaccine distribution said in a letter to Pelosi, McConnell and other top Congressional leaders that they would need $ 8.4 billion to distribute a Covid-19 vaccine in the next package. . additional emergency funds for the pandemic. Many troubled states have devised their vaccine distribution plans largely without knowing how they will cover the enormous costs.
The $ 8.4 billion figure would cover worker recruitment and training, data modernization, cold supply chain management to safely transport certain low-temperature vaccines, and money to combat vaccine misinformation. among others. other costs.
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Experts hope that Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna announcements that their vaccines are over 90% effective will help address vaccine skepticism. But a Gallup poll released on Tuesday showed that over 40% of Americans still say they would not agree to receive an FDA-approved vaccine to prevent coronavirus if it were available for free.
Skepticism
This was an improvement over October, when only half of Americans said they would be looking for a vaccine, but indicated strong vaccine skepticism in the US that Biden will have to overcome. Distrust of vaccines runs even deeper in Black and Latino communities that have been disproportionately affected by the virus, indicating the need for Congress to make funds available for a vaccine education campaign.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s foremost infectious disease specialist, addressed the need to address skepticism in the black community in an interview with theGrio this week.
Fauci noted that “historically, especially the black community and to some extent the LatinX community has been treated in a way that has historically been shameful for decades,” Fauci told Byron Allen, CEO of Entertainment Studios, who led the interview.
“It’s not easy to forget”
“It’s not easy to forget,” he said. “So we have to get in touch with the community and explain to them that we have done everything possible to make this process transparent and independent.”
He stressed the importance not only of the message, but also of finding the right people to deliver it and build trust.
“You don’t want a white man in a suit like me to walk into the community and say, ‘Trust me, I’m from the federal government,'” he said. “So you really want committed people who are truly respected in the community.”
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