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

Of course he did.

Farewell Bryan Ware, assistant director for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, we hardly knew ye.

Graeme Massie does the honours.

The US secretary of state is beginning a European and Middle Eastern denialism tour today despite the ongoing political chaos at home and with the topic of his boss’s refusal to concede expected to dominate the conversation. Awkward.

The week-long tour will see Pompeo, a staunch supporter of the president, visit France, Turkey, Georgia, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Each of these countries has already congratulated Biden on his election victory.

Mayank Aggarwal has this report.

Reacting several days after most other world powers acknowledged the result, China’s foreign ministry has finally acknowledged the Democrat’s victory, saying: “We respect the choice of the American people.”

“We extend congratulations to Mr Biden and [Kamala] Harris,” spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular daily briefing in Beijing. "We understand the results of the US election will be determined according to US laws and procedures."

China will hope for a reset of relations with the US under Biden after four years of fractious trade wars, tariffs and racist rhetoric under Trump - who has angrily blamed the country for the coronavirus after it emerged in the city of Wuhan late last year - but tensions between the two rival superpowers is unlikely to be resolved entirely.

Namita Singh reports.

Olivia Nuzzi, Washington correspondent for New York magazine, attempts to answer the above question from an incredulous John Berman on CNN’s New Day.

The president’s loyal trade adviser Peter Navarro has meanwhile been on Fox Business and echoing Mike Pompeo’s talk of a “second Trump term”, which is simply not going to happen as the numbers below make crystal clear.

For Indy Voices, Andrew Feinberg brings us the latest from Washington on the president digging in with falsehoods and smears and offers his insights into how Joe Biden can counteract the tactic.

The president-elect is reportedly considering the former first lady, secretary of state and defeated 2016 candidate for a role in his administration, with Hillary said to be in the running to become the US ambassador to the UN.

Namita Singh has more.

While Twitter has done a sterling job of censoring the president’s bilious, misinformation-spewing tweets since election day, the same cannot be said for Silicon Valley counterparts Facebook and YouTube.

The former apparently has no problem with ex-Trump strategist Steven Bannon calling for Dr Anthony Fauci to be beheaded and now the latter says videos wrongly proclaiming a victory for the incumbent, rather than the crushing defeat he actually suffered in reality, are absolutely fine and just part of healthy political discourse.

Adam Smith has this report.

Anthony Cuthbertson has the very latest on the dire extent of the pandemic in America, which the president continues to do nothing about as he broods in the dark and plots a return to television.

That’s the word in Washington right now but his niece Mary Trump believes it’s unlikely on the grounds that her uncle could not face the humiliation of a second major defeat on the national stage.

Oliver O’Connell has more from the psychologist and author.

A second wave of coronavirus infections has enveloped the White House as Trump continues to attack the Democratic electoral process - with no top officials left to counter his worst impulses, writes Chris Riotta.

Chief of staff Mark Meadows was reportedly one of the few voices in the president’s orbit encouraging him to consider conceding to president-elect Joe Biden but then he came down with the novel coronavirus after attending an election night party in the West Wing and was forced to absent himself at the critical moment, as the president fired out a bevy of misinformation and outright lies surrounding the national vote on social media.

At least seven people who attended the event have since tested positive for Covid-19, from housing secretary Ben Carson to lobbyists like Jeff Miller and a number of advisers including Corey Lewandowski, who was helping to lead the recount efforts in crucial battleground states.

What a perfect end.