JOE: I’LL VISIT IRELAND AS PRESIDENT
New leader’s vow to cousin after historic election victory
Joe biden wants to visit Ireland when he takes office as US President, one of his relatives revealed yesterday.
The Democrat, who sent Donald Trump packing from the White House, made the pledge in a call to distant cousin Eamonn Thornton in Co Louth.
He said: “I told him we are going to hold you to your word that if you ever became President, that two years into your office you would come back and visit us. He said,
DEFEATED Donald Trump took his rage out on a golf ball, teeing off on his first day as a lame duck president – with even his own family urging him to concede the election.
Son- in- law Jared Kushner, who serves as his senior adviser, has reportedly urged Trump to concede to Democrat Joe Biden, which the President refuses to do, leading CNN to describe him as“flailing like an obese turtle in the sun”.
As a “black mood” descended on the White House, Trump returned to his golf course in Sterling, Virginia, but not before having another melt down on Twitter, returning to baseless accusations of “voter fraud”.
He retweeted quotes from former Republican House Speaker Ne wt Gingrich, saying: “If there’s a problem in the system about authentication, that would seriously affect the ENTIRE ELECTION .”
He also tweeted: “We believe these people are thieves. The big city machines are corrupt.
This was a stolen election.” As Ladbrokes of fered 10/ 1 odds that Trump would refuse to attend Biden’s inauguration in January, George W Bush, the only living Republican President, offered his “warm congratulations” to the President- elect.
He said: “Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country.”
Bush said Trump had a right to “request recounts and pursue legal challenges”, but added: “The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld, and its outcome is clear.”
Bush’s message is likely to infuriate Trump even further. Insiders say his incandescence soared on Saturday night when Biden made his first speech to the US as the nation’s President- elect.
Speaking in his home town of Wilmington, Delaware, he called on Americans to move away from a “grim era of demonisation”. He said: “For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the
ADVICE Kushner
disappointment tonight. I ’ve lost a couple of times myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again.
“This is the time to heal in America.” Trump’s “stolen election” claims are supported by several Republicans as well as his personal l awyer Rudy Giuliani. The former New York mayor has vowed to provide Trump with evidence of voter fraud, but has yet to produce any. He estimated his team would have four or five lawsuits over alleged voter fraud in battleground states by the end of the week.
Giuli ani t ol d Sunday Morning Futures yesterday : “It really would be wrong for him to concede. There is strong evidence that this was an election that in at least three or four states and possibly 10, it was stolen.
“It was based on false votes. Now you can’t l et that election go into history without challenging that.”
Unlike Kushner, husband of Ivanka Trump, the President’s eldest sons Don Jr and Eric, have encouraged him to keep on fighting.
While Trump and his team raged, Biden supporters continued to party yesterday, with a second day of street celebrations from east to west coast.
In Hollywood, supermodel Chrissy Teigen, 34, and her pop star husband John Legend, 41, joined the celebrations on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Biden began his first full day as President- elect by going to church in Wilmington with his family as usual, before he set about planning his transition. Sources said Biden would sign a series of executive orders on his first day in the Oval Office after his inauguration on January 20.
They predict he will reverse much of Trump’s domestic agenda and aim to improve America’s standing in the world.
In the first hours after taking his seat in Oval Office, Biden has said he will send a letter to the United Nations indicating that America will rejoin the effort to combat climate change, and reverse Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.
Biden will move swiftly to tackle the pandemic by appointing a “national supply chain commander” and establishing a “pandemic testing board”.
To date, America is approaching 10 million Covid- 19 infections since the outbreak, with 238,000 deaths.
Biden has said he will restore the rights of government workers to form unions, tackle homelessness and resettle more refugees fleeing war.
He has also promised to throw out Trump’s travel ban on mostly Muslim countries and begin calling foreign leaders in a bid to restore trust in the US. Dan Pfeif fer, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said: “Every president wants to come out of the gate strong and start fulfilling campaign promises before lunch on the first day.
“Executive orders are the best way to do that.”
Former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who has lived in the States since 2013, welcomed Biden’s win.
He said :“Often it is in a second term that the greatest steps to undermine democracy take place.
“There’s something very significant in the defeat of President Trump.”
He said leaders across Europe were heaving a “great sigh of relief ” as Biden would be “a force for cooperation amongst the liberal democratic countries of the world”.