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WILMINGTON, Del. – Joe Biden’s transition team didn’t wait for a verdict in the presidential race before getting to work.
Long before Saturday’s victory for Biden, longtime aide Ted Kaufman had spearheaded efforts to ensure the former vice president could begin building a government in anticipation of a victory.
Kaufman is a former Senator from Delaware who was appointed to fill the seat vacated when Biden was elected vice president. He also worked on Barack Obama’s transition team in 2008 and helped write legislation that formalized the presidential transition process.
Biden first asked Kaufman to begin work on a just in case transition in April, shortly after the former vice president blocked the presidential nomination after a once-crowded Democratic primary.
The transition can be a hectic process even under normal circumstances.
Before Saturday’s race decision, a strange political limbo had taken hold. Biden’s team was moving forward but couldn’t deal with everything that needed to be accomplished; President Donald Trump claimed without proof that the election was stolen from him.
It was at least somewhat reminiscent of the presidential race in 2000 and that year’s post-election legal battle for the recount in Florida. After more than a month, the dispute between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore was decided by the Supreme Court, shortening the transition period to just 39 days before the January 2001 inauguration.
Clay Johnson, who led Bush’s transition team, said Biden’s advisers were looking forward to making sure the president-elect is indeed the president-elect.
Johnson said that in June 1999 – about 17 months before Election Day 2000 – Bush asked him to direct the possible transition, after seeing his father face trial 11 years earlier. Prior to election day, Bush had already decided that Andy Card would serve as chief of staff for both the transition and the White House.
Johnson thought they were ahead of their time. But then the recount came.
After about 10 initial days, Bush’s running mate Dick Cheney told Johnson to start raising funds and making staff decisions, declaring the race “will be resolved one way or another.”
Bush’s team was unable to conduct FBI background checks on potential government members and other appointees without any official winner being declared. Instead, he used a former White House general counsel to the Reagan administration to conduct interviews designed to explore potential issues that might arise during background checks.
“You have to assume they are and not be cocky, but they better work as hard as they are,” said Johnson of Biden’s team. “And they should have started doing it last Tuesday night.”
Biden’s campaign declined to comment on the transition process. His closest advisers say the top priority will be announcing a White House chief of staff, then assembling the pieces needed to deal with the coronavirus.
A president gets 4,000 nominees, and more than 1,200 of them must be confirmed by the Senate. This could be a challenge for Biden as the Senate could remain Republican-controlled.
The transition process formally begins once the General Services Administration determines the winner based on all available facts. It is vague enough guidance to cause Trump to pressure the agency director to stop.
It is also unclear whether the president will personally meet with Biden. Obama met Trump less than a week after the election, but there was no doubt that he had overtaken Hillary Clinton in Electoral College.
Whenever the trial begins, Biden will face the coronavirus, which has killed more than 230,000 Americans. Biden has vowed to use his transition period to meet with the governors of each state and ask them to impose a national mandate wearing the mask. He says he intends to circumvent any resistance to ensure such rules by county and local officials.
Another key decision will be how Biden will field his running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris. His campaign indicated that Biden will set up a White House-wide coronavirus task force like Trump did, but it’s unclear if he’ll touch Harris to execute it. Vice President Mike Pence heads the current panel.
Biden was huddled in his Wilmington home with top advisors and family. Harris has also remained close, occupying a Delaware hotel with her family since election night and joining Biden as he made his remarks in recent days.
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Biden’s former presidential primary rival, said he expects Harris to be “a true partner” for Biden and hopes to see her “handle important issues of great importance.”
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