Biden Transition Begins As Trump Refuses To Concede

WASHINGTON, DC —President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris got their first briefing Monday from a team of experts they've named to coordinate the nation's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump refused to concede the election, continuing a flurry of lawsuits without offering credible evidence that could change the outcome of the election.

The briefing from a task force, named just hours earlier, came the same day Pfizer said trials of a vaccine it is developing shows 90 percent efficacy, putting the pharmaceutical giant on track to ask the Food and Drug Administration later this month to approve it for emergency use.

Biden, while expressing cautious optimism, said in a statement that even if the vaccine is approved and some Americans are vaccinated later this year, "it will be many more months before there is widespread vaccination in this country." Vaccine availability does not change the "urgent reality" that Americans will have to wear masks, social distance and take other steps to mitigate the virus in the months ahead, he said.

Though Trump continues to promote baseless claims that the election was "stolen" by Democrats, the Biden administration transition website, "Build Back Better," is online.

The 12-member panel includes Vivek Murthy, a former surgeon general; David Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a Yale University professor, according to The New York Times and other reports.

Transition team officials said that also this week, Biden will launch his agency review teams, the group of transition staffers who have access to key agencies in the current administration to ease the transfer of power. The teams will collect and review information such as budgetary and staffing decisions, pending regulations and other work in progress from current staff at the departments to help Biden's team prepare to transition.

"People want the country to move forward," said Kate Bedingfield, Biden deputy campaign manager, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," and see that Biden and Harris "have the opportunity to do the work, to get the virus under control and to get our economy back together."

Trump has yet to concede, with lawsuits filed and more planned in his quest to have the projected election result overturned.

At least four lawsuits by Trump's legal team will continue to move forward on Monday, Rudy Guiliani, a Trump attorney and former New York City mayor, has said.

One lawsuit, filed in Arizona's Maricopa County, alleges poll workers either cast ballots for in-person voters on Election Day or urged them to do so, even though mistakes were made and the ballots would not be counted.

Pro-Trump counterprotests have erupted across the country as Trump supporters picked up the president’s unproven claims that the election had been rigged against him by mail-in balloting — which had assured the rights of all Americans to vote without putting their health at risk in the middle of a pandemic.

“It’s not over until it’s over,” Frank Dobbs, a self-described stay-at-home dad who hoisted a Trump 2020 flag at a rally in Henderson, Nevada, told The Associated Press. “There's still the courts. If ever there's ever a time to expose widespread fraud, this is the president to do it.”

Meanwhile, Biden pledged to “end a grim era of demonization” and usher in a new era of cooperation in his first remarks Saturday evening as president-elect of the United States.

Biden and Harris, pushed past the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency earlier in the day, and are projected by The Associated Press and other news organizations to limit President Donald Trump to a single term in the White House.

Biden, who jogged onto the stage in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, wearing a black suit, black face mask and light blue tie, said it is time to “lower the temperature” in America and unite and heal.

The 2020 election and the years leading up to it have been among the most divisive in history, marked by what Biden called a conscious choice by Democrats and Republicans in Congress not to work with one another.

“It’s a decision, it’s a choice,” said the 77-year-old Biden, known for his skills as a negotiator both as President Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years and as a U.S. senator.

“If we decide not to cooperate, the we can decide to cooperate, and I believe this is a mandate given to us by the American people,” he said. “It’s a choice I will make, and I will call on Republicans and Democrats to make that choice with me.”

Repeating a theme familiar on the campaign trail, Biden said he will be a president who “doesn’t see red states or blue states, only sees the United States.” He said he would work “with all my heart” to win the confidence of all Americans.

“I’m a proud Democrat, but I will govern as an American president,” he said. “I’ll work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as those who did.”

Biden was introduced by Harris, whose election marks several historic firsts.

The 56-year-old Harris wore a white suit in a nod to the women’s suffrage movement and the 100th anniversary this year of the date women gained the right to vote. She is the first woman vice president, the first Black vice president, the first vice president of Indian descent and the first daughter of immigrants to serve as vice president.

Biden had “the audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exist in our country” by selecting a woman as his running mate, Harris said.

“Every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities,” she said. “While I may be the first woman vice president, I won’t be the last.”

She acknowledged the work of “all the women who have worked to secure and protect the right to vote,” and said: “I stand on their shoulders.”

Biden said his first action as president-elect would be to announce a group of scientists and medical experts on Monday to help him assemble a plan “built on bedrock science” and “constructed out of compassion, empathy and concern” to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Its elements are expected to include investments in personal protective equipment and loans for small businesses, as well as more standardized public health guidelines.

“Our work begins with getting COVID under control,” he said, adding it without a plan, it is impossible to “repair the economy, restore our economy or relish life’s most precious moments.”

Biden did not mention Trump by name in his remarks, but the president’s handling of the COVID-19 virus outbreak, which has infected 9.8 million people in the United States and killed more than 237,000 as of Saturday, was a defining issue in the election.

It sharply illustrated not only the differences between Trump and Biden, but also how Americans voted in an election on pace for the highest voter turnout in U.S. history. More than 102 million Americans voted early by mail, and overall turnout of nearly 145 million people shattered previous records.

As the count continues, Biden has earned 75.5 million of those votes, compared to 71 million for Trump. The previous record for the most votes earned in a presidential election went to Obama, who earned 69,498,516 votes in the 2008 election.

The president-elect touted the fact that he and Harris won more votes than any presidential ticket in history, calling it “a convincing victory, a victory for the people.”

He said he was surprised at the “outpouring of joy” as Americans spilled into streets across the country, banging pots and pans, honking their car horns, and dancing and cheering.

For many, the Biden-Harris win is a salve for a nation deeply wounded by the rancor and divisiveness of the past four years, and a repudiation of Trump's aggressive form of populism that ushered in a confrontational, antagonistic and aggressive style of politics.

The spontaneous celebrations had echoes of other times Americans took to the streets to mark milestones in history — for example, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage and the election of America’s first Black president, whom Biden served for eight years.

“Once again,” Biden said, “America’s bent the arc of the moral universe toward more justice.”

More Election 2020 Coverage:

• Joe Biden Projected Winner Over Donald Trump In Presidential Race
• Mostly Joyful, Americans Spill Into Streets With Biden-Harris Projection
• Pro-Trump Counterprotests Erupt After Presidency Called For Biden
• U.S. Reacts After Biden Projected Winner Of Presidential Election
• Harris Becomes First Black Woman, South Asian Elected VP
• 'A Lot Of Litigation' Ahead, Trump Predicts In Fight To Keep Job
• Recount Possibility: 7-State-Breakdown Of How The Process Would Work
• What To Know If Presidential Election Results Go To Supreme Court
• AP Fact Check: Trump's Erratic Assault On Election Integrity
• Advocates Race To Find Georgia Voters Who Cast Bad Ballots
• Explainer: What Is A 'Cured' Ballot?
• Trump Wins White Evangelicals, Catholics Split: AP VoteCast
• Trump Inroads With Latinos Confounds Democrats
• GOP Women Elected To U.S. Congress Hits Record Number
• Did Social Media Actually Counter Election Misinformation?