Monday, November 16 Political News Briefs
Here are today’s political news briefs.
CNN reported that four lawsuits from voters to challenge election results in four states where Joe Biden won were dropped — in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. On Friday, nine cases targeting Biden’s election victories were denied or dropped. Some of the lawsuits were from voters, some from the Trump campaign, and some from Republican allies. Some of the lawsuits are pending and some of the lawsuits were upheld, such as the positions of poll workers or making sure certain mail-in ballots were segregated, but nothing that is significant to the election outcome.
President Trump has claimed there was widespread election fraud in multiple states that caused tallies to go Biden’s way. He continues to make those claims.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, said the time has come for Trump to concede because tomorrow will be two weeks since the election. Hogan said he is concerned about the Covid-19 pandemic because it’s like being in the middle of a war and we don’t know what the game plan will be, and that we can’t wait till the end of January.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, another Republican, said it is clear that Joe Biden is the President-elect.
CBS News says Joe Biden has 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
President Trump tweeted that the “radical left Democrats, working with their partner the Fake News Media, are trying to STEAL this Election. We won’t let them!”
Emily Murphy, the head of the General Services Administration, a federal agency that is responsible to initiate a transfer of power between outgoing and incoming presidents, has been blocking a transition process for Biden by refusing to certify Biden as the election’s winner. She is getting a lot of criticism, but Trump tweeted last week that she was doing a great job.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was concerned about the transition because it could affect how quick the Covid-19 vaccine is distributed.
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On Friday the White House provided an update on Operation Warp Speed, a federal program to produce and deliver 300 million doses of vaccine for the coronavirus. President Trump gave remarks and on the White House’s YouTube page, there was an interpreter in a PIP towards the lower right corner. It is the first time that the White House has provided an interpreter for a briefing, and it’s the result of a lawsuit from the NAD. The interpreter is available on the White House’s YouTube page and doesn’t appear to be carried by major media providers.
President Trump said he is very proud of his administration for moving fast to lead the vaccine and response against the coronavirus. He touted the Pfizer vaccine that is 90% effective. Today news broke that a second vaccine produced by Moderna is 94% effective, so we’ll likely have two options on vaccines in the next few months.
President-elect Joe Biden gave a speech today urging Congress to work together to pass a new round of coronavirus relief. He wanted that we have a very dark winter ahead and that we must help workers and state governments who are struggling. He said he supports a national mask mandate. He said if Trump refuses to cooperate with a transition, more people may die.
Georgia is more than halfway finished with a hand recount of about 5 million ballots from the election. The deadline is Wednesday night. A representative for Biden said the recount so far has no impact on the final outcome of Biden winning Georgia. Biden had a 14,000 vote lead over Trump, and we’ll see how much that changes on Wednesday.
That’s all the political news briefs for today.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/16/politics/lawsuits-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin-georgia/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/2020-election-vote-ballot-count-results/?id=74222753
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gsa-official-blocking-bidens-transition-privately-plans-post/story?id=74234794&cid=clicksource_4380645_1_heads_hero_live_twopack_hed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYwbGPxQLrs
https://apnews.com/article/2nd-virus-vaccine-success-us-tests-5575a8a8ca3825a9bf39a5d234aba07b
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/16/politics/biden-economic-speech/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/fauci-says-biden-transition-key-quick-distribution-covid-vaccine-n1247893
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/16/us/joe-biden-trump