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 Biden is due to meet with an advisory board led by former Surgeon
General Vivek Murthy and former Food and Drug Administration
Commissioner David Kessler to examine how best to tame a pandemic
that has killed https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps
more than 237,000 Americans.
The Democratic former vice president will then give remarks in
Wilmington, Delaware, about his plans for tackling COVID-19 and
rebuilding the economy. He spent much of the campaign criticizing
Trump's handling of the crises and has vowed to listen to scientists
to guide his own approach.
Trump has frequently clashed with top health officials over the
pandemic. Vice President Mike Pence is due to meet with the White
House coronavirus task force on Monday for the first time since Oct.
20.
Biden clinched the presidency on Saturday, four days after the Nov.
3 election, clearing the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes
needed to win the White House. He beat Trump by more than 4 million
votes nationwide, making Trump the first president to lose
re-election since 1992.
But Trump has not acknowledged defeat and has launched an array of
lawsuits to press claims of election fraud for which he has produced
no evidence. State officials say they are not aware of any
significant irregularities.
Trump has no public events scheduled for Monday, and he has not
spoken in public since Thursday. As part of a public campaign to
question the election results, he is planning to hold rallies to
build support for his fight over the outcome, campaign spokesman Tim
Murtaugh said.
Biden's advisers are moving ahead even still, also considering
candidates for top Cabinet posts. But the transition cannot shift
into high gear until the U.S. General Services Administration, which
oversees federal property, certifies the winner.
Emily Murphy, the Trump appointee who runs the agency, has not given
the go-ahead for the transition to begin. A GSA spokeswoman gave no
timetable for the decision.
Until then, the GSA can continue providing Biden's team with
offices, computers and background checks for security clearances,
but they cannot yet enter federal agencies or access federal funds
set aside for the transition.
The Biden campaign on Sunday pressed the agency to move ahead.
"America's national security and economic interests depend on the
federal government signalling clearly and swiftly that the United
States government will respect the will of the American people and
engage in a smooth and peaceful transfer of power," the campaign
said in a statement.
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RALLIES AND RECOUNTS
Trump, however, has shown no signs he will engage in a transition.
Murtaugh said Trump will hold a series of rallies to build support for the legal
fights challenging the outcome, though Murtaugh did not say when and where they
would take place.
Trump will seek to back up his as yet unsubstantiated accusations of voting
fraud by highlighting obituaries of dead people the campaign said voted in the
election, Murtaugh said.
Trump also announced teams to pursue recounts in several states. Experts said
that effort, like his lawsuits, are unlikely to meet with success.
"The chances of a recount flipping tens of thousands of votes across multiple
states in his favor are outside anything we have seen in American history,"
William Antholis, director of the University of Virginia's Miller Center think
tank, wrote in an essay on Sunday.
Leaders from across the globe have offered their congratulations to Biden,
including some Trump allies, but many of Trump's fellow Republicans have yet to
recognize the Democrat's victory.
Republican attorneys general from Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma
said they will take legal action on Monday to help the Trump campaign challenge
how Pennsylvania has handled mail ballots, a popular option this year for voters
seeking to avoid coronavirus exposure at crowded polling locations. It was not
clear how they would help Trump's legal team, which is headed by David Bossie, a
seasoned political activist but not a lawyer.
Pennsylvania, the state that clinched Biden's victory on Saturday, has been one
of the most hotly contested battlegrounds of the election.
Trump has repeatedly criticized mail voting as insecure, though he himself has
voted that way in past elections and election experts say it is as reliable as
other methods.
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan and Andrea Shalal in Washington and Trevor Hunnicutt
in Wilmington, Delaware; additional reporting by Makini Brice and Steve Holland
in Washington; writing by Andy Sullivan; editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lincoln
Feast.)
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