President lauds Operation Warp Speed success but says New York will have to wait for vaccine

The Trump campaign is holding a press call on Michigan lawsuits

They’re trying to freeze certification of results pending challenges in the state, according to White House correspondent Josh Wingrove.

‘Not of much consequence’: Biden dismisses Trump’s refusal to acknowledge election result as an ‘embarrassment’

President-elect Joe Biden brushed off both Donald Trump’s refusal to conceded defeat in the presidential election and Republican lawmakers’ refusal to call him the next commander in chief, calling the incumbent an “embarrassment.”  

“We are already beginning the transition. We are well underway. The inability by the administration [to concede] … does not change the dynamic at all what we are able to do,” Mr Biden said during remarks on the 2011 Affordable Care Act in Wilmington, Delaware.

“We’re going to be going and moving along in a consistent manner putting together our administration and the White House,” he said, cracking a wide smile several times when asked about Mr Trump’s legal challenges and attacks on the election system. “Nothing’s going to stop that. I’m confident they’re not being willing to acknowledge we won is not of much consequence to our planning and what we’re able to do between now and January 20th.”

The Independent’s Washington Bureau Chief John T Bennett has more.

You can take the Trump out of Fox News, but you can’t take the Fox News out of Trump

Fox News may be falling out of love with Donald Trump but Donald Trump still loves watching them report so he can decide.

The president tweeted his TV Guide programming update for the Sean Hannity’s program later tonight.

Don’t be fooled though. The last time the president said to tune in to Fox, many thought he himself would be outlining his allegations of so-called voter fraud. In reality, it was a couple of hosts chatting it up.

Nearly 80 per cent of Americans say Biden won White House, ignoring Trump's refusal to concede

Nearly 80 per cent of Americans, including more than half of Republicans, recognize President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the Nov. 3 election after most media organizations called the race for the Democrat based on his leads in critical battleground states, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

While the race with Republican incumbent Donald Trump still remained undecided in three states by late Tuesday afternoon, Biden - who needed 270 Electoral College votes to win - had 279 of those votes to 214 for Trump, according to Edison Research. In the popular vote, Biden got 76.3 million, or 50.7% of the total, to 71.6 million, or 47.6%, for Trump.

The Reuters/Ipsos national opinion survey, which ran from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday, found that 79% of U.S. adults believe Biden won the White House. Another 13% said the election has not yet been decided, 3% said Trump won and 5% said they do not know.

The results were somewhat split along party lines: about six in 10 Republicans and almost every Democrat said Biden won. - Reuters

Trump administration still vetting for jobs for their second term

The Trump administration is continuing to vet potential nominees for a second term, maintaining the charade of electoral victory despite the election being called for Joe Biden.

Two sources told The Daily Beast that the White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) was still processing candidates for jobs across the federal government which would be taken up in early 2021.

Mr Biden’s inauguration is set for 20 January.

The PPO has, since February, been headed by John McEntee, a 30-year-old ultra loyalist who joined the Trump team in the early days of the campaign, but was fired by the then-chief of staff, John Kelly, in March 2018 for financial malfeasance.

At the time it was reported that he was accused of online gaming and tax fraud, and was escorted out of the White House without even being allowed to fetch his jacket.

The Independent’s Harriet Alexander has more.

Photo resurfaces of Biden welcoming Pence to White House for ‘smooth transition of power’

The political climate in the United States starkly differed four years ago from today.

Donald Trump, after shocking pollsters and winning the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, was welcomed to the White House by then-President Barack Obama to start the peaceful transfer of power between the two administrations.

Included in that transition of power was then-Vice President Joe Biden meeting with Mike Pence.

“I just met with @VP-elect Pence at the @WhiteHouse to offer our support for a smooth, seamless transition of power,” Mr Biden wrote in a tweet dated 10 November, 2016. The tweet included a picture of the two politicians in the vice president’s office.

The Independent’s Danielle Zoellner has more.

Watch: Biden giggles at Mike Pompeo joke about ‘transition to second Trump administration’

At least Biden and Pompeo seemed to be having fun today as the presidential election continues in a state of conflict. See below the two laugh it up.

And here is Pompeo’s original attempt at making light of the stalled outcome.

False claims of voting fraud, pushed by Trump, thrive online

It started months before Election Day with false claims on Facebook and Twitter that mail-in ballots cast for President Donald Trump had been chucked in dumpsters or rivers.

Now, a week after the final polls closed, falsehoods about dead people voting and ballots being thrown out by poll workers are still thriving on social media, reaching an audience of millions. Trump and his supporters are pointing to those debunked claims on social media as reason to not accept that Democrat Joe Biden won the election.

“These will probably persist for years or even decades unfortunately,” Kate Starbird, a University of Washington professor and online misinformation expert, said of the false claims about the U.S. election process. “People are very motivated to both participate in them and believe them.”

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Watch: Video montage shows Kayleigh McEnany mocking Democrats for not conceding 2018 midterms

"Democrats are being sore losers, and they refuse to acknowledge they lost the election, so what do they do?" Kayleigh McEnany asks. "They cry malfeasance, wrongdoing, criminality, fraud."  

The Daily Show compiled video clips of Republicans mocking Democrats who questioned electoral results during the 2018 midterm elections.  

The montage includes White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany - then a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee - needling Democrats for complaining about their loss in the Florida midterm elections.

Two years later, Ms McEnany has found herself echoing Donald Trump's baseless claims that the election was stolen from him. 

The Independent’s Graig Graziosi has more.

FACT CHECK: Trump’s claims on vaccine, election are wrong

Refusing to concede a presidential election he lost, President Donald Trump sought falsely to take full credit for drugmaker Pfizer Inc.’s announcement that its COVID-19 vaccine may be 90% effective, wrongly asserted the vaccine news was delayed until after Election Day to undermine him and repeated baseless claims of voter fraud.

Here’s a look:

VACCINE

TRUMP: ”’President Trump told us for some time we would be getting a Vaccine by the end of the year and people laughed at him, and here we are with Pfizer getting FDA approval by the end of this month. He was right.’ @MariaBartiromo.” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump’s suggestion — quoting Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo — that he stood alone in saying a COVID-19 vaccine was possible by year’s end is incorrect. Actually, top health experts said they considered that possible, though far from certain, and were more skeptical of Trump’s claim that a coronavirus vaccine would become available before the Nov. 3 election. The vaccine isn’t expected to become widely available to the general public before 2021.

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