Biden picks Cabinet, declares ‘America is back’
OPresident- elect presents security and foreign policy team that will restore country’s global leadership
WILMINGTON: President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday introduced a slate of veteran diplomats and policy-makers who will make up his national security and foreign policy team, saying: “America is back, ready to lead the world.”
Biden, 78, presented his picks for secretary of state, national security advisor, homeland security secretary, intelligence chief, United Nations ambassador and climate change envoy.
“These public servants
will restore America’s global leadership and moral leadership.”
Biden said that after he is inaugurated on Jan 20 and President Donald Trump leaves the White House, the United States will “once again sit at the head of the table, ready to confront our adversaries and not reject our allies”.
“It is a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it,” he said in a jab at Trump’s go-it-alone
“America First” policies.
Biden’s remarks came after Trump suffered further setbacks in his efforts to overturn the results of the election with unsubstantiated claims of fraud.
Pennsylvania and Nevada certified the Nov 3 election results on Tuesday, a day after the state of Michigan did so, a move which triggered the General Services Administration (GSA) to launch the transition process.
As more members of his Republican Party came out demanding an end to the impasse, Trump signed off on the GSA move, effectively admitting defeat.
But the president on Tuesday tweeted a picture of himself in the Oval Office with the caption “I concede NOTHING!!!!!”
The GSA determination gives Biden access to classified information which will allow his aides to address the worsening coronavirus pandemic.
Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not recognised president-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US presidential election, despite orders from Trump to begin his administration’s transition.
The Russian president said he has been waiting for an “end to the domestic political standoff” before he will recognise the presidentelect.
Putin said there is “no hidden motive, that we like someone, or that we dislike someone” by withholding his congratulations to the president-elect. – AFP/The Independent