Networks call Georgia for Biden as security officials say vote was ‘secure’
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Your support makes all the difference.As Donald Trump continues to refuse conceding the 2020 presidential race to Joe Biden, the president-elect was said to have spoken with Senate Republicans who have begun to admit he should at least receive intelligence briefings that have so far been denied.
On Friday afternoon most networks called Georgia for Mr Biden and North Carolina for Mr Trump bringing their respective electoral college vote totals to 306 to 232.
US federal and state cybersecurity officials, meanwhile, have delivered a direct rebuke to Donald Trump, who continues to allege irregularities and widespread fraud without evidence.
Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the 3 November vote was “the most secure in history" in a report published Thursday, and added that Americans should trust the result. His agency had not find any evidence of ballots being lost, deleted or altered, he said.
Biden win in Arizona ‘confirmed’ as analyst says there is now no way back for Trump
Joe Biden has finally been announced as the winner in Arizona by one of the last remaining analysts to call the state, days after the Associated Press, Fox News and several other networks projected his victory, writes Stuti Mishra.
Mr Biden no longer needed to win Arizona’s 11 electoral votes, which take him to a total of 290, after he was declared the winner in the crucial swing state ofPennsylvania on Saturday.
Biden win in Arizona ‘confirmed’ as analysts say there is no way back for Trump
Joe Biden has managed to turn Arizona blue after 24 years
Georgia to recount election votes by hand after Trump campaign plea
#icymi
Georgia's secretary of state Brad Raffensperger has announced that the state will conduct a hand recount of ballots cast in the 2020 US election.
His announcement came after the Trump campaign and the state's Republican Party sent a letter to Mr Raffensperger on Tuesday requesting a manual hand recount before the state certifies its results.
Russia pronounces on expected Biden foreign policy - but is yet to congratulate him on victory
Russia expects US foreign policy under Joe Biden to resemble Barack Obama’s, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov says.
The similarities would be particularly close on the issues of climate change and Iran, he predicted.
His comments came despite his boss, Vladimir Putin, still not having phoned the US president-elect to congratulate him on winning the election.
The Kremlin said on Monday it would wait for the official results before commenting on the election’s outcome, and that it had noted incumbent Donald Trump's announcement of legal challenges related to the vote.
Germany seeks Biden leadership on arms control
Heiko Maas, Germany’s foreign minister, says he hopes US-European relations will improve under Joe Biden’s presidency, but that there are still enough disagreements to suggest that not everything would be different.
Speaking at the Paris Peace Forum on Thursday, Mr Maas added he hoped Washington would take a lead on arms control and also do more to counter the influence of Russia and China, in contrast to Donald Trump’s administration.
His French opposite number, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said he expected co-operation to improve on tackling Covid-19, and dealing with climate change.
US breaks single-day records for Covid hospitalisations and cases, demonstrating scale of challenge Biden will face
The United States has broken another pandemic record, with more than 140,000 new cases recorded in the previous 24-hour period, writes Gino Spocchia.
It marked the ninth straight day of new cases topping 100,000, with 142,279 new cases reported on Wednesday, according to Reuters analysis.
The previous high had been recorded as recently as Tuesday, when 136,325 new cases were reported, and as the White House coronavirus task force warned of a nationwide “acceleration”.
US breaks single-day records for Covid hospitalisations and cases
Americans both hospitalised and infected with disease break records on same day, amid nationwide ‘acceleration’
Trump’s ‘slush fund’: Experts say money for legal battle could go to president
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A longtime campaign finance attorney has called Donald Trump’s election defence fundraising campaign a “slush fund”, writes James Crump.
Last week, as Mr Trump’s chances of reelection dwindled when President-elect Joe Biden pulled ahead in several swing states, his campaign sent out emails and text messages that led to a website raising money for an “election defense fund” to contest the outcome.
Trump’s ‘slush fund’: Experts say money for legal battle could go to president
‘Trump may just continue to string out this meritless litigation in order to fleece his own supporters of their money,’ says campaign finance attorney Paul S Ryan
White House planning lame duck blitz, report says
Politico is reporting that Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, is plotting a blitz of executive action on immigration and other areas for Donald Trump’s “lame duck” period - despite the president not having conceded defeat in the election.
Mr Meadows held a call with senior aides to discuss potential moves on China, school choice, and health care - that last being a major Biden area of interest - according to the report.
“Since taking office, President Trump has never shied away from using his lawful executive authority to advance bold policies and fulfill the promises he made to the American people, but I won’t speculate or comment on potential executive action,” White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere told the website.
Biden’s first 100 days: What the next US president can and can’t do
Despite complaints from progressive activists who backed Joe Biden’s Democratic primary challengers, the president-elect will enter office in January with the most ambitiously progressive platform of any incoming executive in US history, writes Griffin Connolly.
Whether he can follow through on the most transformative elements of that policy agenda depends almost entirely on who controls the Senate, which appears likely to hinge on a pair of runoff races in Georgia that, if Democrats win, would give them a 50-50 chamber split, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris casting tiebreaker votes.
What Biden can and can’t do as president
If Mitch McConnell remains majority leader, that will severely reduce what a Biden administration can accomplish
Nearly half of Republicans believe Trump will be sworn in for second term, poll claims
A YouGov poll finds that nearly half of Republicans - 46 per cent - believe Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term in January, despite having lost the election.
That figure drops to 17 per cent among all Americans. Two-thirds, or 65 per cent, believe Joe Biden - the actual winner - will be sworn in.
‘Math doesn’t care about Trump’s feelings’
Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor has ridiculed Donald Trump for his claims that he may still win the swing state where Joe Biden leads by more than 50,000 votes, reports Clea Skopeliti.
In an interview with CNN's John King on Wednesday, Democrat John Fetterman mocked the president’s unfounded claims of voter fraud, as well as his lack of understanding of the unlikelihood of overturning a margin as large as Mr Biden’s.
"Math doesn't care about his feelings, it doesn't care about anyone's feelings!" he said. "The math in Pennsylvania is damning for the president."
‘Math doesn’t care about Trump’s feelings,’ Democrat says
The count in Pennsylvania is ‘damning’ for the president, the lieutenant governor says
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