Lawmakers certified Joe Biden as president hours after Trump supporters stormed Capitol in a day that raised dramatic questions about the peaceful transition of power. Here’s what you need to know
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Wilmington, Del., Nov. 9: U.S. president-elect Joe Biden speaks to reporters about efforts to confront COVID-19 alongside his vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris.
The latest
- President-elect Joe Biden unveiled and conferred with his coronavirus task force on Monday as he prepares to shake up U.S. pandemic policy as soon as he takes office. The news came as drug makers Pfizer and BioNTech said their COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90-per-cent effective in clinical trials, which Mr. Biden said was good news but did not change the “urgent reality” that masks and physical distancing will be needed well into 2021.
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday he had spoken with Mr. Biden about climate change, trade, COVID-19 and more and said that he’s confident a Biden White House would help press China for the release of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Beijing and the autocratic leaders of Russia and Turkey were slow to comment on Mr. Biden’s election over the weekend.
- As of Monday, Donald Trump has still not conceded Mr. Biden’s victory, which the Democratic candidate cemented on Saturday with new results in Pennsylvania and Nevada. Mr. Trump’s legal team continues to challenge ballot-counting methods in states where the President has claimed, falsely, that fraud was at work.
The new U.S. political map
Not all states have been called for Joe Biden or Donald Trump after Nov. 3′s election day and the vote-counting drama that followed it, but Mr. Biden has enough to get more than 270
Electoral College votes, the threshold needed to win. We’ll know exactly how many electors will support him when they cast their ballots on Dec. 14. For now, Mr. Biden can be considered the president-elect, thanks in large part to battleground states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan that he retook for the Democrats.
Next steps: How a new president is made
There are many more steps between now and January before Mr. Biden officially becomes president. Here are the key ones:
Any day now, possibly: The formal transfer of power begins with an independent agency, the General Services Administration, which manages federal property and procurement. It has to certify presidents-elect before they and their staff can access federal funds for the transition, but the GSA’s current leader, Emily Murphy – a Trump appointee – has not yet done this.
Dec. 8: This is the states' deadline to finish recounts and settle any disputes about their Electoral College slates, which have to be listed on official documents called certificates of ascertainment. This deadline is also important for the Trump legal team, which is challenging results and counting methods in some states.
Dec. 14: Electors vote in their respective states. Most electors will have signed pledges to support whoever won their states' popular votes: Since, for instance, a majority of Californians voted for Mr. Biden, he gets all 55 of their Electoral College votes. The only exceptions are Maine and Nebraska, which choose electors based on a mix of popular vote and congressional district results: Nebraska is giving four votes to Mr. Trump and one to Mr. Biden, and Maine three to Mr. Biden and one to Mr. Trump. Theoretically, electors can break their pledges, in which case their votes may be nullified or they can be fined. But “faithless electors” such as these have never changed an election’s outcome, and there would need to be dozens of them to do so this time.
Jan. 5: Runoff elections decide the outcome of two Senate races in Georgia that are too close to call. If the Republicans win either Georgia seat, as well as unconcluded races in Alaska and North Carolina they’re expected to take, the GOP will keep control of the Senate and could obstruct Mr. Biden’s cabinet appointments and legislative agenda. But if the Democrats win both Georgia seats, Mr. Biden will have both chambers' support in undoing Mr. Trump’s work.
Jan. 6: The newly elected House of Representatives and Senate convene to count the electoral votes and sort out any objections to the outcome. Contested votes can only be excluded by the consent of both chambers, which is unlikely since the Democrats retain control the House. When all objections are settled, the Senate president – who, at this point, will still be Vice-President Mike Pence – announces the results.
Jan. 20: The president-elect and his running mate are sworn in and assume their jobs. This inauguration will take more advance planning than most because of COVID-19, and the usual crowds of inaugurations past may be less pronounced.
Biden’s agenda so far
Mr. Biden and his transition team are already planning how to quickly undo many of the Trump administration’s most contentious policies once the government changes hands, such as:
- COVID-19: Mr. Biden’s first priority has to rethink the American pandemic plan, and he’s already named a task force whose recommendations he intends to start carrying out as soon as he takes office.
- Climate: The United States formally quit the Paris climate-change accords the day after the election, but Mr. Biden says the country will rejoin it. He also says he’ll commit to bringing U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2050, which would be a major step in preventing catastrophic climate change.
- Immigration: Mr. Biden’s Day 1 agenda would scuttle Mr. Trump’s travel ban on 13 countries (most of which are either Muslim-majority, African or both) and the diversion of Pentagon funds to a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Mr. Biden would also send an immigration bill to Congress giving so-called Dreamers, immigrants once covered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a path to citizenship.
- National unity: Mr. Biden’s Nov. 7 victory speech stressed that he would be a president who “seeks not to divide, but unify” and will govern in a bipartisan way.
Trump’s agenda so far
Mr. Trump has continued to claim, falsely, that the election was a fraud and he is the real winner. In several states, his lawyers are pursuing recounts and court challenges of counting methods. His campaign team says also planning a series of rallies to build support for this litigation.
Ottawa, 2016: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau walks down the Hall of Honour with Mr. Biden, then the outgoing vice-president.
What about Canada?
The next few weeks will be challenging for all countries, including Canada, as they get ready for Mr. Biden’s arrival while Mr. Trump still holds the levers of government. Key issues include:
- COVID-19: More people have been infected or killed by COVID-19 in the United States than any other country, and it remains to be seen how Canada will factor in to Mr. Biden’s plans to change that. In the meantime, Ottawa will have to sort out with the Trump administration whether to extend the closing of the land border, a safeguard against COVID-19 that has been renewed several times since March and next expires on Nov. 21.
- Climate: Mr. Trudeau has long fought to bring down Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions while also building new pipelines to bring Alberta’s oil to global markets, and the United States hasn’t been a reliable ally on either front for the past few years. Here, The Globe and Mail’s Adam Radwanski takes a look at how a Biden presidency might deal with fossil-fuel subsidies, vehicle emissions standards and other issues.
- China: The Trump era was a tense time for Sino-American relations in which Canadians got caught in the middle. Ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor are still in jail in China, detained in 2018 in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a Huawei executive at the behest of U.S. prosectors. The Biden presidency is an opportunity to smooth things over with Beijing or push for the men’s release, The Globe’s Nathan VanderKlippe explains.