Delaying transition endangers lives
The country just got a pair of badly needed breaks on its outofcontrol pandemic. The New Yorkbased drug maker Pfizer on Monday announced promising preliminary data from its trial of a coronavirus vaccine, suggesting widespread protection from the pathogen, while still months away, is within reach. That hopeful development came two days after another: the projection that former Vice President Joe Biden will be the next president, ushering in a newly serious federal response to the pandemic.
Even in defeat, however, President Trump is needlessly endangering Americans’ lives by hampering the management of the crisis. He is not only refusing to concede to his Democratic opponent but also standing in the way of the sort of orderly transition the nation has long taken for granted.
The Trump appointee who heads the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, is delaying the formal recognition of Biden’s victory that would facilitate the transition, blocking the routine provision of funding, office space, access to officials and systems, and other resources to the presidentelect’s team. Top officials across the government are reportedly expected to get orders to refuse to cooperate with the transfer of power.
It’s a disturbing echo of Trump’s feckless handling of his own transition in 2016, when Obama administration officials waited in vain for the thenpresidentelect’s representatives to show up for standard briefings on federal operations.
The president certainly has a right to pursue legal challenges to the election results, however dubious. But delaying a transition that looks inevitable will only hurt the country by breeding more disorder and inaction in Washington. Trump’s lieutenants in the administration and allies in Congress can begin to make amends by expediting the acknowledgment of this reality and facilitating a return to responsible leadership for the sake of their fellow Americans.
The virus that has killed nearly 240,000 of us while causing over 10 million confirmed infections is reaching record levels of spread nationwide, with more than 100,000 new cases and 1,000 deaths a day. Even California and the Bay Area have watched infections and hospitalizations rise in recent weeks despite our relative success in controlling the contagion. The administration itself can’t seem to keep the virus at bay: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson became the latest prominent official to test positive after attending an election night gathering at the White House.
Biden has signaled a decided shift in the right direction by encouraging mask wearing and supporting mandates to do so, designating experts to lead the national response, and promising to ramp up testing and tracing.
A peaceful, orderly, efficient transfer of power always serves Americans’ interests. In this case, it could save their lives.