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Biden Nominates Pete Buttigieg For Transportation Secretary, Would Be First Openly Gay Cabinet Member
On Tuesday night, President-Elect Joe Biden nominated Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and former Democratic presidential candidate, as Transportation secretary. Buttigieg, if confirmed, will be the first confirmed openly gay cabinet secretary in United States history. “Pete’s experience and skills as a leader, manager and brilliant communicator combined with his heartland roots and his unqualified commitment to diversity and equality, will improve the lives of all Americans as Transportation Secretary,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Al...
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Biden Slams Trump’s Efforts To Overturn Election Results After Electoral College Victory
President-elect Joe Biden spoke on President Donald Trump‘s efforts to overturn the election results in a speech Monday night after his presidential victory was affirmed by the Electoral College. Since the 2020 election results were announced on November 7, Trump has repeatedly filed court cases to challenge the results but was unsuccessful. “Every single avenue was made available for President Trump to contest the results,” Biden said. “He took full advantage of each and every one of those avenues. President Trump was denied no course of action he wanted to take.” Biden noted Trump’s claim th...
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White House To ‘Thoroughly Disinfect’ Before President-Elect Joe Biden’s Arrival
After President Donald Trump flies to Florida on Inauguration Day, the White House will be “thoroughly disinfected” for President-elect Joe Biden. On Wednesday, the General Services Administration (GSA) said that it would “thoroughly clean and disinfect” surfaces touched by Trump administration officials. Hotspots include door handles, light switches and furniture, touched in the Trump and his staff final moments. Under a federal contract, one firm has been hired for $30,000 to provide “disinfectant misting services” to combat coronavirus in the White House. The Centers for Disease Control and...
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Biden To Appoint Lloyd Austin As First Black Defense Secretary
President-elect Joe Biden will tap retired four-star Army general Lloyd J. Austin to serve as Secretary of Defense, which would make him the first black person to head the Pentagon. As a career military officer, Austin would require a waiver from Congress, as the post was designed to allow civilians to have control of the military. While several former Defense Secretaries served in the military prior to their White House role, only two — George Marshall and James Mattis — have been career officers. Mattis similarly required a waiver from Congress to serve in the role, as seven years had not pa...
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Biden Picks California Attorney General Xavier Becerra As HHS Secretary
On Monday, President-elect Joe Biden announced the health team that will lead his administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On Biden’s roster includes California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whom Biden nominated as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, along with Dr. Vivek Murthy as his nominee for U.S. surgeon general. Biden also selected Dr. Rochelle Walensky as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith as his COVID-19 equity task force chair. Under the Biden transition, Dr. Anthony Fauci will serve as chief medical advis...
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WATCH: Trump Says He’ll Leave White House If Electoral College Confirms Biden Victory
At a White House pool spray on Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that if the Electoral College confirms President-Elect Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, he will leave the White House on Inauguration Day, but might not concede entirely.“Certainly I will,” Trump said to a reporter when she asked if he would leave the White House. “And you know that.” He then said that if the Electoral College did vote for Biden, that they would have “made a mistake,” and that it would be “a very hard thing to concede.” This is the first time Trump has made any show of acknowledging that he ...
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Who Is Doug Emhoff? First Ever ‘Second Gentleman’ Is More Than Just Kamala Harris’ Husband
Kamala Harris is making history as the first female, first black and first South Asian vice president, but she is not making history alone. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, will be the first ever second gentleman and the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president.The son of Barbara and Michael Emhoff, Emhoff was born in Brooklyn and grew up in New Jersey before moving to California with his family when he was 17 years old. After earning his J.D. from the USC Gould School of Law, Emhoff went on to become an entertainment lawyer. He joined DLA Piper, a multinational law firm, in 2017, but fol...
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Biden To Prioritize LGBTQ Rights In His First 100 Days Of Taking Office
Upon taking office in January, President-elect Joe Biden plans to hit the ground running in terms of granting freedoms and protections to LGBTQ individuals. He aims to lift the Trump administration’s ban on military service for transgender people, bar federal contractors from anti-LGBTQ job discrimination, create high-level LGBTQ-rights positions at the State Department and other federal agencies and nominate an LGBTQ person to a Cabinet position.His top legislative priority for LGBT issues is the Equality Act, a bill passed by the House of Representatives last year that stalled in the Senate....
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Officials Express Concern Over Giving Trump Access To National Security Secrets Once He Leaves Office
When a president leaves office, they are still entitled to classified briefings. But many ex U.S. intel officials argue that it would be unwise to grant President Donald Trump such access to national security secrets once he departs the White House in January.Trump has a history of carelessly revealing classified information. In 2017, he told the Russian foreign minister and ambassador about extremely sensitive terrorism threat information that the U.S. had received from Israel. Last year, he tweeted what experts later said was a secret satellite photo of an Iranian nuclear installation.David ...
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WATCH: Biden Declares ‘America Is Back’ After Announcing First Cabinet Nominees
On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden announced the first nominees for positions within his administration.“Together, these public servants will restore America globally, its global leadership and its moral leadership,” said Biden in a theater in Wilmington, Delaware, his current place of residence. “It’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it.” Biden has been adamant that the nation should begin to move away from President Donald Trump’s“America First” policy on international relations, and instead focus on creating strong relationship...
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