Big boot to wield in battle for office

WASHINGTON: US president- elect Joe Biden has a foot fracture and will probably have to wear a medical boot, his team said on Monday ( AEDT).

The 78- year- old was taken to the doctor after he slipped while playing with his dog.

Mr Biden, who will become the oldest US president once sworn in next month, suffered the injury with Major, one of his two german shepherds.

The president- elect’s personal physician Kevin O’Connor initially said X- rays had not uncovered any “obvious fracture”, but added an additional scan would be done.

That scan “confirmed hairline fractures ... in the midfoot,” Dr O’Connor said in a subsequent statement released by Mr Biden’s office.

He added that the former vice president, who won the election against Donald Trump in November, “will likely require a walking boot for several weeks”.

Mr Trump, a famously finicky germophobe, was the first president in more than a century to not have a dog.

It came as Mr Trump indicated in his first TV interview since the November 3 poll that he would never concede to Mr Biden or abandon his theory of mass ballot fraud.

“It’s not like you’re gonna change my mind. My mind will not change in six months,” Mr Trump told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News. “This election was rigged. This election was a total fraud.”

The 45- minute interview was mostly a monologue of evidence- free claims, virtually unchallenged by Ms Bartiromo.

Despite his unprecedented attack on the validity of the US election system, his legal team has yet to provide any evidence that stands up in court.

Case after case has been rejected by judges around the country. The latest came from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which turned down a lawsuit filed by Trump supporters seeking to contest Mr Biden’s win in the state.

“We’re trying to put the evidence in and the judges won’t allow us to do it,” Mr Trump said. “We are trying. We have so much evidence.”

Ignoring the usual boundaries between his office and the judicial and law enforcement system, Mr Trump complained that the Department of Justice and FBI were not helping him.

They are “missing in action”, he said, also questioning the point of the Supreme Court if it doesn’t intervene.

Mr Biden meanwhile moved ahead with his appointments, naming an all- female senior White House communications team, in what his office called a first in the country’s history.

Among those named was Jen Psaki, who will serve in the highly visible role of White House press secretary.

Ms Psaki, 41, has held positions including White House communications director.