Biden Pushes Past Trump Era With Picks 11/25 06:25

   Declaring "America is back," President-elect Joe Biden introduced his 
national security team, his first substantive offering of how he'll shift from 
Trump-era "America First" policies by relying on experts from the Democratic 
establishment to be some of his most important advisers.

   WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) -- Declaring "America is back," President-elect Joe 
Biden introduced his national security team, his first substantive offering of 
how he'll shift from Trump-era "America First" policies by relying on experts 
from the Democratic establishment to be some of his most important advisers.

   "Together, these public servants will restore America globally, its global 
leadership and its moral leadership," Biden said Tuesday from a theater in his 
longtime home of Wilmington, Delaware. "It's a team that reflects the fact that 
America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it."

   The nominees are all Washington veterans with ties to the Obama 
administration, a sign of Biden's effort to resume some form of normalcy after 
the tumult of President Donald Trump's four years in office. Another sign that 
Biden will soon be in charge: He scheduled a Thanksgiving address to the nation 
for Wednesday afternoon, planning to focus his remarks on shared sacrifices 
during the holiday season and expressing confidence that Americans will get 
through the coronavirus pandemic together.

   There are risks to choosing experienced hands from the previous Democratic 
administration. Besides Republican attacks, progressives fret that Biden is 
tapping some officials who were too cautious and incremental the last time they 
held power.

   Still, Biden's nominees were a clear departure from Trump, whose Cabinet has 
largely consisted of men, almost all of them white. Biden's picks included 
several women and people of color, some of whom would break barriers if 
confirmed to their new positions.

   On Tuesday they stood behind Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris 
spaced apart and wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, a 
contrast with Trump and many of his top aides who have largely eschewed facial 
coverings.

   The president-elect's team includes Antony Blinken, a veteran foreign policy 
hand well-regarded on Capitol Hill whose ties to Biden go back some 20 years, 
for secretary of state; lawyer Alejandro Mayorkas to be homeland security 
secretary; veteran diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be U.S. ambassador to 
the United Nations; and Obama White House alumnus Jake Sullivan as national 
security adviser.

   Avril Haines, a former deputy director of the CIA, was picked to serve as 
director of national intelligence, the first woman to hold that post, and 
former Secretary of State John Kerry will make a curtain call as a special 
envoy on climate change. Kerry and Sullivan's position will not require Senate 
confirmation.

   With the Senate's balance of power hinging on two runoff races in Georgia 
that will be decided in January, some Senate Republicans have already expressed 
antipathy to Biden's picks as little more than Obama world retreads.

   Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican and potential 2024 presidential 
candidate, argued that Biden is surrounding himself with people who will go 
soft on China.

   Sen. Marco Rubio, another potential White House hopeful, who sits on the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will consider Blinken's nomination, 
broadly wrote off the early selections.

   "Biden's cabinet picks went to Ivy League schools, have strong resumes, 
attend all the right conferences & will be polite & orderly caretakers of 
America's decline," Rubio tweeted.

   Biden said his choices "reflect the idea that we cannot meet these 
challenges with old thinking and unchanged habits." He said he tasked them with 
reasserting global and moral leadership, a clear swipe at Trump, who has 
resisted many traditional foreign alliances.

   The president-elect said he was "struck" by how world leaders have 
repeatedly told him during congratulatory calls that they look forward to the 
U.S. "reasserting its historic role as a global leader" under his 
administration.

   Trump, who has debated recently whether to mount another presidential 
campaign in 2024, appeared to defend his worldview on Tuesday.

   "We shouldn't go away from that --- America First," he said at the annual 
turkey pardon, a lighthearted pre-Thanksgiving White House tradition.

   While Trump expected total loyalty from his Cabinet and chafed at pushback 
from advisers, Biden said he expected advisers to tell me "what I need to know, 
not what I want to know."

   Further drawing a contrast with Trump, Haines said she accepted Biden's 
nomination knowing that "you value the perspective of the intelligence 
community, and that you will do so even when what I have to say may be 
inconvenient or difficult."

   Haines said she has "never shied away from speaking truth to power" and 
added "that will be my charge as director of national intelligence."

   Biden celebrated the diversity of his picks, offering a particularly 
poignant tribute to Thomas-Greenfield. The eldest of eight children who grew up 
in segregated Louisiana, she was the first to graduate from high school and 
college in her family. The diplomat, in turn, said that with his selections, 
Biden is achieving much more than a changing of the guard.

   "My fellow career diplomats and public servants around the world, I want to 
say to you, 'America is back, multilateralism is back, diplomacy is back,'" 
Thomas-Greenfield said.

   Mayorkas, who is Cuban American, also offered a nod to his immigrant 
upbringing.

   "My father and mother brought me to this country to escape communism," he 
said. "They cherished our democracy, and were intensely proud to become United 
States citizens, as was I."

   But Mayorkas might pose the most difficult confirmation challenge from 
Biden's early round of nominees.

   The Senate previously confirmed him in December 2013 by a party-line vote to 
be the deputy secretary of Homeland Security. The Senate was controlled by 
Democrats then, and all of the chamber's Republicans voted against his 
confirmation mainly because he was then under investigation by the inspector 
general in that department who had been appointed by President Barack Obama. At 
the time, the Senate historian's office said it was unprecedented for the 
Senate to vote on a nominee who was under investigation.

   The inspector general, John Roth, found in March 2015 that Mayorkas, as 
director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, appeared to give 
special treatment to certain people as part of the visa program that gives 
residency preference to immigrants who agree to invest in the U.S. economy.

   Meanwhile, there were signs on Tuesday that the stalled formal transition of 
power is now underway. Biden's team now is in contact with all federal 
agencies, according to a transition official who spoke on condition of 
anonymity to describe developments that have not been announced.

   At the Pentagon, Kash Patel, chief of staff to the acting secretary of 
defense, is heading the department's transition work. A transition task force 
has been assembled, led by Tom Muir, head of the Pentagon office that provides 
administrative and management services to all Defense Department facilities in 
the Washington area.

   Muir said the first meeting with Biden's team was held virtually on Tuesday 
morning and that he expected daily meetings to come --- some virtually and some 
in person. He said normal accommodations for the Biden team have been made, 
including provision of briefing materials, video-teleconferencing capabilities, 
and office space inside the Pentagon.

   Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also said his agency is 
working to get briefing materials to Biden's aides immediately and pledged a 
"professional, cooperative and collaborative" transition.

   The moves came a day after the head of the General Services Administration 
wrote the necessary letter of "ascertainment" acknowledging Biden as the 
apparent winner of the election, triggering the transition process.

   Trump, who continues to press a legal challenge to overturn the election 
results, again on Tuesday refused to concede his election loss.

   Trump tweeted that "the GSA does not determine who the next President of the 
United States will be."