‘America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it’
Team Biden set to restore global ties — but some Republicans say his potential appointments are ‘Obama retreads’
Declaring “America is back”, President-elect Joe Biden introduced his national security team yesterday, his first substantive offering of how he’ll shift from Trump-era “America First” policies by relying on experts from the Democratic establishment to be some of his most important advisers.
“Together, these public servants will restore America globally, its global leadership and its moral leadership,” Biden said from a theatre in his longtime home of Wilmington, Delaware. “It’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it.”
The nominees are all Washington veterans with ties to former President Barack Obama’s administration, a sign of Biden’s effort to resume some form of normalcy after the tumult of President Donald Trump’s four years in office. There are risks to the approach as Republicans plan attacks and progressives fret that Biden is tapping some officials who were too cautious and incremental the last time they held power.
Still, Biden’s nominees were a clear departure from Trump, whose Cabinet has largely consisted of men, almost all of them white and wealthy. Biden’s picks included several women and people of colour, some of whom would break barriers if confirmed to their new positions.
The president-elect’s team includes Antony Blinken, a veteran foreign policy hand well-regarded on Capitol Hill whose ties to Biden go back some 20 years, for secretary of state; lawyer Alejandro Mayorkas to be homeland security secretary; veteran diplomat Linda ThomasGreenfield to be US ambassador to the United Nations; and Obama White House alumnus Jake Sullivan as national security adviser.
Avril Haines, a former deputy director of the CIA, was picked to serve as director of national intelligence, the first woman to hold that post, and former Secretary of State John Kerry will make a curtain call as a special envoy on climate change. Kerry and Sullivan’s position will not require Senate confirmation.
With the Senate’s balance of power hinging on two runoff races in Georgia that will be decided in January, some Senate Republicans have already expressed antipathy to Biden’s picks as little more than Obama retreads.
Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican and potential 2024 presidential candidate, argued that Biden is surrounding himself with people who will go soft on China. Senator Marco Rubio, another potential White House hopeful, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will consider Blinken’s nomination, broadly wrote off the early selections.
“Biden’s cabinet picks went to Ivy League schools, have strong resumes, attend all the right conferences & will be polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline,” Rubio tweeted.
Biden said his choices “reflect the idea that we cannot meet these challenges with old thinking and unchanged habits”. He said he tasked them with reasserting global and moral leadership, a clear swipe at Trump, who has resisted many traditional foreign alliances.
The president-elect said he was “struck” by how world leaders have repeatedly told him during congratulatory calls that they look forward to the US “reasserting its historic role as a global leader” under his administration. While Trump expected total loyalty from his Cabinet and chafed at pushback from advisers, Biden said he expected advisers to tell me “what I need to know, not what I want to know”.
Further drawing a contrast with Trump, Haines said she accepted Biden’s nomination knowing that “you value the perspective of the intelligence community, and that you will do so even when what I have to say may be inconvenient or difficult”.
Biden celebrated the diversity of his picks, offering a particularly poignant tribute to ThomasGreenfield. The eldest of eight children who grew up in segregated
Louisiana, she was the first to graduate from high school and college in her family. The diplomat, in turn, said that with his selections, Biden is achieving much more than a changing of the guard.
“My fellow career diplomats and public servants around the world, I want to say to you, ‘America is back, multilateralism is back, diplomacy is back’,” ThomasGreenfield said. Meanwhile, there were signs that the stalled formal transition of power is now under way. Biden’s team now is in contact with all federal agencies. The moves came a day after the head of the General Services Administration wrote the letter of “ascertainment” acknowledging Biden as the apparent winner of the election.
Tell me what I need to know, not what I want to know. President-elect Joe Biden
New life for Trump
Donald Trump is preparing for a new life at Mar-a-Lago after giving a 64-second press conference in which he did not mention the election at all.
In an impromptu appearance at the White House, Trump celebrated a new stock market record, and said he was “very thrilled” by new coronavirus vaccines. He went on to “congratulate” people within his administration who “worked so hard”, and “most importantly the people of our country because there are no people like you”.
The president declined to answer any questions, including whether he would concede defeat. Meanwhile, it emerged that renovations of living areas are under way for Trump, and his wife Melania, at Mar-a Lago, his club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Secret Service agents in the president’s protective detail have also been quietly asked if they want to relocate there. Former presidents receive Secret Service protection for life, and the agency’s Miami office will look at whether further security infrastructure is required at the resort.
Trump is expected to be at Mara-Lago by January 20, when Biden takes over as president. The president indicated he would not concede before leaving.
Trump also reposted a message from a supporter, saying “I concede NOTHING!!!!!”
A new poll showed Trump is the clear favourite for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. The Politico/Morning Consult poll had him on 53 per cent among Republicans. Mike Pence, the vice president, was in second place on 12 per cent, and Donald Trump Jr third on 8 per cent.