Incredible irresponsibility, Biden says on Trump's bid to subvert transition
US President-elect Joe Biden has said that Donald Trump “will go down in history as being one of the most irresponsible presidents” in connection with his refusal to concede victory in the elections and subverting attempts for a smooth transition of power.
At a press conference held after a meeting with Republican and Democratic governors, Biden said that Americans are “witnessing incredible irresponsibility”, adding that an “incredibly damaging message is being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions.”
“It’s hard to fathom how this man thinks. It’s hard to fathom,” Biden said. “It’s just outrageous, what he’s doing.”
Trump, the 45th US President, has so far refused to concede the November 3 presidential race to Biden, even though results released by election officials clearly give the race to the former US vice president. He has filed multiple lawsuits challenging the poll results in several states.
US president-elect Joe Biden said Trump was 'the most irresponsible president in history' during a press conference.
Latest news from the US here: https://t.co/HSrAJZPhwV pic.twitter.com/XlOGJcyv23
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 20, 2020
Biden was declared the winner of the US presidential election on November 7 after flipping the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to the Democrats’ column. Biden has 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 votes.
Biden has dubbed such efforts “embarrassing”, and insisted that his team has the resources they need to press forward even without the president’s support.
“I just think it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly,” he said at a press conference in his home state of Delaware. “How can I say this tactfully? I think it will not help the president’s legacy.”
The former Vice-President said his team has been denied access to federal agencies involved in COVID response activities, thereby affecting their ability to draw out a plan to combat the pandemic.
Meanwhile, micro-blogging site Twitter said it will hand over control of the presidential account @POTUS to Biden the moment he is sworn in on inauguration day on January 20, even if Trump has not conceded his election loss.
The @POTUS account is the official account of the President of the United States and is separate from the @realDonaldTrump account that Trump uses to tweet.
Biden, 78, will be the 46th US President when he is sworn in.
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The handover requires no sharing of information between the outgoing Trump team and the incoming Biden team, Twitter said, adding that all existing tweets on those accounts will be archived and Twitter will transfer the accounts – reset to zero tweets – to the Biden White House that day.
The same goes for @whitehouse, @VP, @FLOTUS, and a handful of other official accounts associated with the presidency, the report said on Friday.
Twitter also confirmed that staffers will meet with representatives from the Biden-Harris transition team in the coming months to review how the new administration plans to use its government-related accounts, The Hill reported.
An archive of Obama’s @POTUS account can be found under the handle @POTUS44.
(With inputs from PTI)
