Presumed winner of the November 3 presidential polls in the United States, Joe Biden, continues to project confidence as the next President of the country, telling world leaders who have reached out to him after the polls to congratulate him on his presumes victory that “America is back”.
Biden’s exhortation to the world leaders, especially those leading such countries as Great Britain, France, Ireland and Germany, among others, comes in the continuing chaotic aftermath of the US presidential polls, with incumbent president Donald Trump, Biden’s opponent in the November 3 polls, withholding a concession to Biden, while sustaining his legal challenges to the election.
Biden has fielded calls from foreign leaders in recent days, with the leaders offering their congratulations on the former vice-president’s projected victory in the presidential election, even as incumbent President Trump refuses to concede defeat.
Yesterday, the Biden transition office said “…the president-elect on Tuesday spoke to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin”. Mr. Biden spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday.
According to Biden, “I’m letting them know that America is back. We’re going to be back in the game”. Biden spoke at a news conference in Delaware, taking questions for the first time as president-elect after delivering remarks on health care. He also called incumbent President Trump’s refusal to concede victory in the election to him as “an embarrassment”. President Trump also tweeted soon after Biden’s remarks that he would ultimately win the still-contested November 3 presidential polls which the country’s media have already called for former vice president Biden.
Biden and his campaign are also said to be forging ahead with the transition to the White House with 71 days until Inauguration Day, despite the Trump administration’s refusal to take the formal steps necessary to ensure a smooth transfer of power.
Under relevant law, the Biden transition team cannot start formal meetings with officials of the current Trump administration across the government or access secure facilities to work with classified information before the head of the US General Services Administration (GSA) determines that the pair are likely the next president and vice president. The GSA administrator has declined to make that determination.
“We believe that the time has come for the GSA administrator to promptly ascertain Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as president-elect and vice president-elect,” an unidentified Biden-Harris transition official said Monday night on a telephone briefing with reporters, adding that the transition could pursue legal options if the administration continues to stall.
One consequence of the GSA’s unwillingness to “ascertain” a winner is that the congratulatory phone calls Mr. Biden is receiving from world leaders are happening without the help of the State Department, according to a transition official.
Mr. Biden himself said the delay in formally recognizing the presidential outcome is “not of much consequence.”
“We’re already beginning the transition. We’re well underway,” Mr. Biden said. But he also called Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede “an embarrassment” and suggested that “it will not help the president’s legacy.”
Mr. Trump has refused to concede the election since Mr. Biden was projected to be the winner on Saturday, and his campaign is pursuing lawsuits in a handful of states challenging the results. The campaign has not produced evidence of widespread voter fraud on a scale that would change the election results.
Also during his remarks on Tuesday, Biden promised a “dramatic expansion” to health care under his administration on Tuesday, the same day the US Supreme Court is hearing a case on the merits of the Affordable Care Act.
The Supreme Court ruled eight years ago to leave intact the essential components of the law known as Obamacare, but the court is now controlled 6-3 by a conservative majority following the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Tuesday’s hearing at the Supreme Court is part of an effort by elected Republican officials’ and the Trump administration to get rid of the ACA, a long-held GOP goal that has repeatedly failed in Congress and the courts.
During his address in Delaware, Biden criticised Republicans for their efforts to dismantle the ACA while the nation is in the midst of a global pandemic, at one point calling the challenge “cruel and needlessly divisive.”
Should the Supreme Court side with the Republicans, health care coverage for more than 23 million people could be thrown into jeopardy.
“This case represents the latest attempt by the far-right idealogues to do what they’ve repeatedly failed to do for a long time — in the courts, congress, the court of public opinion, over the last decade — to eliminate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act,” Biden began.
“Now, in the middle of a deadly pandemic that has infected more than 10 million Americans, nearly 1 in every 32 Americans, often with devastating consequences to their health, these idealogues are once again trying to strip health coverage away from the American people,” the president-elect continued.