Politics updates: Trump mocked for claim that ‘I came up with vaccines’; Blunt won’t call Biden president-elect
USA TODAY’S coverage of the 2020 election and President-elect Joe Biden’s transition continues this week as he continues to roll out his picks for top positions in his administration and states continue to certify their vote counts.
President Donald Trump has yet to concede the race but his administration has cleared the way for Biden’s team to have access to federal resources and briefings during the transition.
Be sure to refresh this page often to get the latest information on the election and the transition.
Trump mocked for claim that ‘I came up with vaccines’
On his way out of office, President Donald Trump is going out of his way to take credit for emerging COVID-19 vaccines – to the point where he claims to have developed them himself.
“I came up with vaccines that people didn’t think we’d have for five years,” Trump said during his phone interview Sunday on Fox News, later adding that people would try to credit President-elect Joe Biden.
The Trump administration’s “Operation Ward Speed” has helped, but doctors and drug makers have been the ones who developed the actual vaccines that should be available for public use soon.
Jonathan Reiner, professor of Medicine and Surgery at George Washington University, said Trump sometimes sounds like King Louis XIV proclaiming “‘l’état, c’est moi’ – the state is me.”
“The PfizerBioNTech and the Moderna vaccines were created by brilliant and dedicated scientists and clinical trial-ists, as well as thousands of people who volunteered to be vaccinated for the studies,” Reiner said. “The glory goes to them.”
– David Jackson
Sen. Blunt refuses to call Biden president-elect, echoes election misinformation
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., declined to acknowledge Joe Biden was “president-elect” during an interview Sunday with CNN’s “State of the Union.” The refusal came as President Donald Trump and many elected Republicans continue to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
“The president-elect technically has to be elected president by the electors. That happens in the middle of December,” Blunt correctly said, sidestepping the reality that there is no doubt the electors will choose Biden as the next president of the United States.
“There is no official job president-elect,” Blunt said, arguing that the distinction was a “straw man” created by the media. But in 2016, Blunt’s office published a press release “congratulating President-elect Donald Trump” the day after the election and long before the electors met.
Federal and state courts have found the Trump campaign’s claims of fraud to be unfounded. While Blunt’s comments casting doubt on Biden’s status as president-elect echo the Trump campaign’s attacks on the legitimacy of the election, he did not go so far as to claim the election was stolen, as Trump has baselessly contended.
“I don’t think it was rigged but I do think there was some things that were done that shouldn’t have been done,” Blunt said without specifying what potential election wrongdoing he was referencing. “And I think there was some element of voter fraud as there is in every election. But I don’t have any reason to believe that the numbers are there that would have made that difference.”
wrap up its recount Sunday, affirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin as President Donald Trump prepares a lawsuit.
The completion of Dane County’s recount comes two days after Milwaukee County finished its recount. Trump’s campaign paid $3 million to cover the cost of the recounts in Wisconsin’s two most Democratic counties so he could pursue a long-shot lawsuit to claim the state’s 10 electoral votes.
hold the Biden administration to promises made on the campaign trail: addressing climate change, combatting the COVID-19 pandemic and offering student debt relief.
“This isn’t 2015 anymore. This isn’t 2010 anymore. It’s not 2005 anymore,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic socialist from New York, said at a rally with progressives last week. “The movement got us here. You all got us a seat at the table.”
But as progressives lean into their policy demands, one roadblock remains: Who will control the Senate?
Two runoffs in Georgia will determine whether Republicans maintain control of the chamber when the new Congress is sworn in in January. If the Republican majority holds, not only will it be difficult for Democrats to pass legislation, it will likely mean the progressive wish list will be left on the backburner.
– Rebecca Morin