President Trump announced the firing of the defense secretary in a series of tweets, saying, “Mark Esper has been terminated” and announcing that Christopher C. Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will be acting secretary of defense.
President-elect Joe Biden, during remarks from Delaware on Monday, urged Americans to wear masks as part of a collective effort to fight the coronavirus as he ramped up his transition to the presidency. Earlier, Biden announced members of a 13-person advisory board to help shape his response to the pandemic.Here’s what to know now:
- Trump fires Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a tweet
- Biden urges mask-wearing, saying it will help pull the country together as it fights the pandemic
- There will probably be no final word on whether Trump seeks a recount in Wisconsin until next week
- Alaska won’t begin to count mail ballots until Tuesday
- Analysis: Silicon Valley gears up for new relationship with a Biden White House
- Georgia’s Republican lieutenant governor says he’s not aware of ‘credible examples’ of fraud
- Pence falsely credits Operation Warp Speed for Pfizer’s announcement; company did not join the initiative
- Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson has tested positive for the coronavirus, a HUD spokesman confirmed. Carson was at the White House on Tuesday for the election night party.
- A Trump administration appointee is refusing to sign a letter allowing Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week, in another sign the incumbent president has not acknowledged Biden’s victory and could disrupt the transfer of power.
- Biden and his advisers plan this week to demonstrate a far more assertive strategy against the coronavirus than Trump’s, and Biden may take a more proactive role in the coming weeks in congressional negotiations over an economic stimulus package.
- Lawmakers return to Washington on Monday for Congress’s lame-duck session confronting a number of major problems but lacking clear signals from Trump.
8:05 p.m.Link copied
Vote Counting continues until late this year
Trump fires Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a tweet
By Donna Cassata
Trump announced Monday on Twitter that he has fired Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper.
“Mark T. Esper has been terminated,” Trump said in tweets in which he also announced that Christopher C. Miller, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will be acting defense secretary.AD7:19 p.m.Link copied
Biden urges mask-wearing, saying it will help pull the country together as it fights the pandemic
By John Wagner
Biden on Monday implored Americans to wear masks, calling what he characterized as a small act vital to the country’s fight against the coronavirus as it awaits the widespread availability of a vaccine.
“So please, I implore you, wear a mask, do it for yourself, do it for your neighbor. A mask is not a political statement, but it is a good way to start pulling the country together,” Biden said in speech from Wilmington, Del., which followed a briefing from his newly appointed coronavirus advisory task force.
In his remarks, Biden welcomed the promising news about a vaccine from the drug giant Pfizer but cautioned that “we’re still facing a very dark winter” and said “there’s a need for bold action to fight this pandemic.”
“The challenge before us right now is still immense and growing,” he said, explaining that his task force would “advise on detailed plans built on a bedrock of science.”
“The bottom line, I will spare no effort to turn this pandemic around once we’re sworn in on January 20 to get our kids back to school safely, our businesses growing and our economy running at full speed again,” Biden said.
He also made a plea to those who didn’t vote for him to put aside differences and join the fight against the virus.
“This election is over,” Biden said. “It’s time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric that [is] designed to demonize one another. It’s time to end the politicization of basic responsible public health steps like mask-wearing and social distancing. ”AD6:36 p.m.Link copied
There will probably be no final word on whether Trump seeks a recount in Wisconsin until next week
Will Trump’s campaign really seek a recount of the election results in Wisconsin?
It’s unclear. On the day after the election, his campaign manager promised that a petition would be filed “immediately” to seek a recount of the results in the state, where unofficial tallies show Biden leading Trump by about 20,500 votes.
But under Wisconsin law, a recount petition in a presidential election cannot be filed until all counties complete a canvass of local results. The state’s 72 counties have until Nov. 17 to finish the process. Once all of them have reported results to the state, that will start the clock for the filing of the petition that requires it to be submitted no later than 5 p.m. on the first business day following the last county’s submission.
As a result, the Trump campaign is unlikely to be able to file for the recount until sometime next week.
Only after local canvasses are complete can the state formally conclude that the results are close enough to allow for a recount under state law. A candidate may petition for a recount if the margin of a race is under 1 percent — but must agree to pay for the recount unless the margin is under 0.25 percent. Unofficial results show Biden leading by 0.6 percent.
With the Trump campaign battling in multiple states, the Wisconsin vote does not necessarily appear to be determinative to the outcome of the race. As a result, by next week, the campaign could rethink whether to file for the recount.
After all, when Green Party candidate Jill Stein sought a recount of the Wisconsin results in 2016, she was required to wire nearly $3.5 million to the state to pay for the effort before it began.AD6:12 p.m.Link copied
Alaska won’t begin to count mail ballots until Tuesday
By Paulina Firozi
As of Monday morning, six days after Election Day, an estimated 46 percent of votes in Alaska had been counted, according to Edison Research.
That’s in part because no mail ballots have been included in the total. The state won’t begin to tabulate mail ballots until Tuesday, which means perhaps a third of votes could still be pending.
That means Alaska’s three electoral college votes are up for grabs, although Biden’s projected win in Pennsylvania on Saturday put him over the required 270 votes to clinch the presidency.
With the estimated 46 percent of votes counted in Alaska, Trump has about 51,000 more votes than Biden in the state he won by a margin of 14.7 points in 2016.
Alaska’s Senate race is also still in limbo. Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan has more than 53,000 votes more than Democratic Party-endorsed challenger Al Gross as of Monday morning.
Gross has said he believes his campaign will win once more votes have been counted, and he has continued to call for donations while awaiting the official results.
Meanwhile, the battle for control of the Senate is expected to fall on the results of a pair of runoff elections in Georgia in January.AD6:00 p.m.Link copied
Analysis: Silicon Valley gears up for new relationship with a Biden White House
By Cat Zakrzewski
Silicon Valley stands to benefit from the first executive orders that Biden plans to sign when he’s sworn into office in January.
Biden plans to immediately reverse some of Trump’s actions on immigration and climate change. These have been among the most publicly contentious issues between Silicon Valley and Trump since the early days of his administration.
Biden plans to reinstate a program allowing “dreamers,” who were brought to the United States illegally as children, to remain in the country. He also plans to repeal the ban on almost all travel from some majority-Muslim countries. Many chief executives protested these Trump administration moves and challenged them in court, arguing that the immigration crackdowns were negatively affecting their employees and efforts to recruit the best engineering talent from all over the world.Read the full storyAD5:19 p.m.Link copied
Georgia’s Republican lieutenant governor says he’s not aware of ‘credible examples’ of fraud
By John Wagner
Geoff Duncan, the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, said Monday that his office has seen no “credible examples” of widespread voter fraud in his state, which is among those in which Biden holds a narrow lead and Trump alleges cheating.
Appearing on CNN, Duncan said his office has been in close contact with Georgia’s secretary of state and attorney general.
“We’ve not had any sort of credible incidents raised to our level yet, and so we’ll continue … to make sure every legal ballot is counted is there, but at this point we’ve not seen any sort of credible examples,” he said.
“If there’s an issue out there, we want to make sure we understand it, investigate it, and be able to make sure that we’re able to rectify it,” Duncan added.
Pressed by anchor John Berman as to whether he’s seen anything of that sort yet, Duncan said he has not.
“At this point, we’ve not seen any sort of credible examples,” he said.AD5:05 p.m.Link copied
Pence falsely credits Operation Warp Speed for Pfizer’s announcement; company did not join the initiative
Vice President Pence on Monday credited Operation Warp Speed for the announcement by drugmaker Pfizer that an analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested it was highly effective in preventing covid-19, even though Pfizer did not join the Trump administration initiative.
“Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realDonaldTrump, @pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers,” tweeted Pence, who heads the White House coronavirus task force and has maintained a low profile since the election.
Pfizer, unlike its competitors, did not join Operation Warp Speed, the government initiative designed to erase the financial risk of vaccine and therapeutics development by providing funding to companies and helping coordinate the trials. Instead, Pfizer plowed $2 billion of its own money into the project, a partnership with German biotech firm BioNTech, and then struck a $1.95 billion contract with the U.S. government to provide 100 million doses, contingent on the vaccine’s effectiveness.
In an interview with the New York Times, Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president at Pfizer and head of its vaccine research and development, sought to distance the company from the initiative and presidential politics.
“We were never part of the Warp Speed,” she said. “We have never taken any money from the U.S. government, or from anyone.”
Earlier Monday, Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, questioned the timing of Pfizer’s announcement, suggesting it was withheld until after the election to benefit Biden.
“The timing of this is pretty amazing,” he tweeted. “Nothing nefarious about the timing of this at all right?”