A nation on cusp of change
BIG PLANS AHEAD: McConnell blasts Trump as Biden readies to take reins
WASHINGTON — Presidentelect Joe Biden is making a sober entrance to the nation’s capital Tuesday, ready to assume power as America reels from the coronavirus pandemic, soaring unemployment and grave concerns about more violence as he prepares to take the oath of office.
Biden, an avid fan of Amtrak, had planned to take a train into Washington ahead of Wednesday’s Inauguration Day but scratched that plan in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
He instead flew into a military airbase just outside the capital on Tuesday afternoon and was set to motorcade into fortress D.C. — a city that’s been flooded by some 25,000 National Guard troops guarding a Capitol, White House and National Mall that are wrapped in a maze of barricades and tall fencing.
Shortly before Biden departed for Washington, the U.S. reached another grim milestone in the pandemic, surpassing 400,000 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
“These are dark times,“Biden told dozens of supporters in an emotional sendoff in Delaware before departing for Washington. “But there’s always light.”
Meanwhile, on his last full day as majority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 had been “provoked by the president and other powerful people,” saying publicly for the first time that he holds President Donald Trump at least partly responsible for the assault.
“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said, referring to attempts by Trump to overturn the election based on bogus claims of voter fraud. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”
The Kentucky Republican has indicated privately that he believes that Trump committed impeachable offenses, but he has said he has yet to decide whether to vote to convict the president, and many senators in his party are awaiting a sign from McConnell before making their own judgments. It would take 17 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats to find the president guilty, which would allow the Senate to hold a second vote to disqualify Trump from public office in the future.
McConnell’s remarks came hours before he was set to meet face to face with his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, to work out a set of rules for the trial and the coming Senate session, when the chamber will be split 50-50 between the parties. Democrats will hold control because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have the power to break Senate ties, but Schumer will need at least some cooperation from McConnell to run the chamber and get things done.
On impeachment, the Republican leader appeared to be striking a far different posture than he did a year ago, when the Senate first sat in judgment of Trump. Then, McConnell acted at the White House’s behest to set trial rules that would favor acquittal. Now, he has told allies he hopes never to speak to Trump again and is doing nothing to persuade senators to back him, instead calling the impeachment vote a matter of conscience.
But as Democrats take unified control of Washington, he warned them that pursuing a partisan agenda would come at their own political risk.
Biden, who ran for the presidency as a cool head who could get things done, plans to issue a series of executive orders on Day One — including reversing Trump’s effort to leave the Paris climate accord, canceling his travel ban on visitors from several predominantly Muslim countries, and extending pandemic-era limits on evictions and student loan payments.
Trump won’t attend Biden’s inauguration, the first outgoing president to skip the ceremony since Andrew Johnson more than a century and a half ago. Trump remained out of sight in the White House on Tuesday with a bare announced schedule. Aides said he had recorded a farewell message and was consulting with advisers on final-hour pardons and grants of clemency.
Trump plans to depart from Washington Wednesday morning in a grand airbase ceremony that he helped plan himself.
At his Delaware farewell, held at the National Guard/ Reserve Center named after his late son Beau, Biden paid tribute to his home state.
“I’ll always be a proud son of the state of Delaware,” said Biden, who struggled to hold back tears as he delivered brief remarks.
Aides say that Biden’s first event in Washington, along with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, will be to take part in an evening ceremony at the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial to honor the 400,000 American lives lost to COVID-19.
Inaugural organizers on Monday finished installing some 200,000 small U.S., state and territorial flags on the National Mall, a display to represent the American people who couldn’t come to the inauguration, which is restricted under the tight security and COVID restrictions.
It’s also a reminder of all the president-elect faces as he looks to steer the nation through the pandemic with infections and deaths soaring.
Out of the starting gate, Biden and his team are intent on moving quickly to speed up the distribution of vaccinations to anxious Americans and pass his $1.9 trillion virus relief package, which includes quick payments to many people and an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Biden also plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on the first day of his administration, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status. That would be a major reversal from the Trump administration’s tight immigration policies.
As Biden prepared to make his way to Washington, five of his Cabinet picks were appearing on Tuesday before Senate committees to begin confirmation hearings. Treasury nominee Janet Yellen, Defense nominee Lloyd Austin, Homeland Security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken and Director of National Intelligence nominee Avril Haines were being questioned.
Aides say Biden will use Wednesday’s inaugural address — one that will be delivered in front of an unusually small in-person group because of virus protocols and security concerns and is expected to run 20 to 30 minutes — to call for American unity and offer an optimistic message that Americans can get past the dark moment by working together. To that end, he extended invitations to Congress’ top four Republican and Democratic leaders to attend Mass with him at St. Matthew’s Cathedral ahead of the inauguration ceremony.