Trump appointee refuses to sign key letter allowing Biden's transition team to get to work
The Daily 202's Big Idea
The Washington Post
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 November 2020
⏱️ 13 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning. I'm James Holman from the Washington Post and this is the Daily |
| 0:06.3 | 202 for Monday, November 9th. In today's news, the US will surpass 10 million confirmed COVID cases later today. |
| 0:15.0 | While most Americans agonized over the election results, |
| 0:19.0 | others fought for their lives. |
| 0:21.0 | And President-elect Biden announces his coronavirus task force. |
| 0:29.4 | But first, the big idea. |
| 0:38.9 | The administrator of the General Services Administration, a low-profile agency in charge of federal buildings, has a little-known role when a new president is elected to sign paperwork |
| 0:44.3 | officially turning over millions of dollars as well as give access to government |
| 0:49.4 | officials office space and agencies and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded |
| 0:54.7 | transition teams of the winner. But GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, a Trump |
| 1:00.9 | appointee, refuses to sign such a letter, and President Trump himself refuses to concede. |
| 1:07.0 | And the Trump administration, in keeping with the President's failure to concede, has no immediate plans to sign such a letter. This could lead to the |
| 1:15.8 | first transition delay in modern history except for in 2000 when the Supreme Court decided |
| 1:21.3 | a recount dispute between Al Gore and George W Bush in December. |
| 1:25.0 | Pam Pennington, a spokesman for GSA, said in an email that, quote, |
| 1:29.0 | an ascertainment has not yet been made. |
| 1:32.0 | Lisa Rying, Jonathan O'Connell, and Josh Dossi report that this statement leaves experts |
| 1:36.2 | and veterans of past transitions, to wonder when the White House expects the handoff from what |
| 1:40.8 | administration to the next to begin. Is it when the president has exhausted all of his legal the or sometime after that. There are 73 days between now and President-elect |
| 1:56.5 | Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20th. In a call with other administration |
| 2:01.2 | officials, Mary Gilbert, the head of the presidential transition team at the GSA, told colleagues that the agency is in a quote holding pattern and that they should under no circumstances allow people from Biden's landing teams inside. |
| 2:15.0 | Inside sources say that this delay has already gummed up vital discussions on critical issues, |
... |
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