The incoming Biden administration needs information on the COVID-19 pandemic, including the “all-important issue of vaccine distribution,” from federal agencies in order to prepare to take office, President-elect Joe Biden told reporters on Thursday.
Biden added that the transition team “hadn’t ruled out” legal action against General Services Administration chief Emily Murphy, who is responsible for recognizing Biden’s victory and allowing federal agencies to begin sharing information with his team.
In the speech, the president-elect put emphasis on five points that he says are key to his plan to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden also highlighted the need for cooperation from the GOP in bringing the spread of the virus to an end, and said that a meeting with a bipartisan group of governors from the National Association of Governors before the speech had gone well.
Biden attempted to draw a line between institutional GOP governors and the Trump administration, which has not cooperated with his transition and denied it access to key information around vaccine distribution.
“We don’t have access to all the information that we need to get from all the various agencies,” Biden said, adding that information from the states was helping his transition get around the Trump administration’s roadblock. “We haven’t been able to get into Operation Warp Speed, but we will take what we’ve learned today and build it into our plan.”
Operation Warp Speed is the Trump administration’s plan to accelerate production of a COVID-19 vaccine.
On a call with reporters on Wednesday, Operation Warp Speed official Gen. Gustave Perna said that that the effort would have enough doses by the end of December of two vaccines shown to be effective to inoculate 20 million Americans.
Biden re-emphasized his priorities as discussed with the governors, which focus on fiscal support to states and small businesses, vaccine distribution, increasing national guard and FEMA funding, implementing a national mask mandate, expanding testing, and funding infrastructure investments.
Biden met with ten governors before the speech, half of whom were Democrats, and half of whom were Republicans. The speech — and meeting — comes as President Trump hamfistedly tries to overturn the results of the election and overthrow Biden’s administration before it takes office.
The president-elect stuck fast to his message of bipartisanship, saying that “we agreed that we’ll continue to work and meet with the governors on a regular basis, continue to seek their input, and that our COVID teams will follow up and coordinate on the issues coming out of that call.”
“The bottom line: we can do this,” Biden said. “There’s nothing beyond our capacity, but we have to come together as a country.”
Glad to hear that they are starting to put Fat Nixon’s fat derriere on the fiery Weber grill. Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.
One minor point, they have to have that plan to actually share.
Their dog might have ate it.
And half the country has said “fuck ideas, plans and leadership, we want more of the gormless, unhinged, incompetent, directionless, malignant, narcissistic, orange smegmaweasel!!”
It’s still a bit amazing that we’re having this nightmare of a transition…with a clear election result you’d think that everyone would be onboard aside from some who just don’t want to give up. That’s how every election has been, even in 2000 (and the really awful SC decision) people moved on after the result was clear.
And yet, here we are, with a Republican party that refuses to bow to the reality being led by a madman who is trying to undermine our democracy. And, if he can’t get his way and stay in office, he’s going to light the nation on fire with thousands of dead Americans and a raging virus infection. It should be unimaginable that we’d be here, that major political figures would be working to undermine the election result, openly and unabashedly, and that an entire political party that prides itself on its patriotism is standing by and applauding the deceit.
Things get worse from here too…it’s now obvious that the Republican party is being controlled by its white supremacist base, and that base demands nothing less than the overthrow of our democracy to install their Christian theocracy with whites in power (and white males running everything). It really is a religious war to them, and in war everything is fair…and they aren’t going away or dying fast enough to make the nation turn towards diversity and democracy fast enough. It will take immense effort by the rest of Americans to turn the tide, and it’s not really clear to me that we have it in us, too many aren’t willing to fight as hard or get stuck on minor things when the fate of the nation is on the line.
I was hoping to watch the nation march towards freedom and equality after Obama was elected…now I wonder if I’ll see a truly diverse, just America before my life is over.