Election 2020 live updates: Biden urges Americans to wear masks to protect against coronavirus; Trump ousts Esper as defense secretary

6 min readNov 9, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden, during remarks from Delaware on Monday, urged Americans to wear masks as part of a collective effort to fight the coronavirus as he ramped up his transition to the presidency. Earlier, Biden announced members of a 13-person advisory board to help shape his response to the pandemic.

President Trump, who has yet to concede the election, announced the firing of the defense secretary in tweets, saying, “Mark Esper has been terminated” and Christopher C. Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will be acting secretary of defense.

Joe Gloria, the registrar of voters in Nevada’s Clark County — a Democratic stronghold that has helped Biden gain a lead of more than 36,000 votes over Trump statewide — on Monday defended the integrity of the county’s election results, which have come under attack by the Trump campaign and the Nevada GOP.

“We’ve had answers for every allegation that has been brought forward,” Gloria said at a news conference on Monday. He said his office had responded publicly as well as forwarded information to the secretary of state for investigation. “If there’s anything that’s been done illegally, unfortunately, we’re going to find it,” he said.

The Trump campaign and Republicans have sued unsuccessfully in state and federal courts seeking changes to ballot-counting in Clark County. Now, they are arguing on social media and at protests that voting there has been riddled with fraud. At a news conference Sunday, Trump supporters gathered to hear Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union claim, “thousands of examples of voter irregularities,” an evidence-free claim.

The campaign has not submitted a formal complaint to Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford (D), nor has it filed any new evidence in court. Ford tweeted about the allegations, saying his office had been flooded with questions about complaints that had not been filed with his office. “PR doesn’t cut it,” he tweeted. “File an official complaint.”

Last week, the Trump campaign sent to the Justice Department a list of more than 3,000 voters who it claimed had voted illegally after moving out of state. Many of those voters had moved to addresses that were obviously for military installations both domestic and abroad, and military service members — as well as college students — may legally vote in Nevada even after moving elsewhere.

At Sunday’s news conference, campaign allies claimed that the number of illegal votes from nonresidents had climbed to 9,000. They also referred to an unnamed whistleblower who purportedly worked on ballot-counting for Clark County and allegedly saw a Biden-Harris van at a polling place in Clark County. Schlapp said that the van’s doors were open and that the person claims to have seen ballots “opened with letter openers, and ballots were filled in and resealed in envelopes.”

Dan Kulin, a spokesman for the county, said he could not respond to that specific allegation without more details. But generally, he said, “many groups collected signed and sealed mail ballot returns and delivered them to one of our mail ballot drop boxes. This is allowed under state law.”

Analysis: Biden will get tougher on Russia and boost election security. Here’s what to expect.
By Joseph Marks
Biden is expected to significantly shift how the government handles cybersecurity threats when he takes office in January.

Those changes probably will include a top-level focus on election security after the White House virtually ignored the topic for the past four years and a far tougher stance on Russian hacking and disinformation campaigns than Trump, who was often unwilling to publicly criticize Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

“There are members of the Trump administration that prioritized cybersecurity, but Trump never has — and that will be different with Biden,” said Chris Painter, who served as the State Department’s top cybersecurity official during the Obama administration and for the first few months of the Trump administration. Trump frequently misstated basic facts about cybersecurity and seldom mentioned the topic publicly.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who on Saturday congratulated Biden on his election win, said in a tweet Monday that he spoke with the former vice president and is ready to work with him to address global challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic.

“I just spoke with @JoeBiden, and congratulated him again on his election,” Trudeau tweeted Monday afternoon. “We’ve worked with each other before, and we’re ready to pick up on that work and tackle the challenges and opportunities facing our two countries — including climate change and COVID-19.”

Biden’s election is likely to bring the return of friendlier relations between the United States and its closest ally, analysts say. But there also may be some areas of tension, including on the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Biden has said he would rescind the permit for the project upon entering the White House.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine says he will be leaving as a new administration takes charge in January, acknowledging that Biden has won even though Trump has not conceded.

Bridenstine, in an interview with Aviation Week, said that the president-elect should pick his own person to run the agency.

“For that, what you need is somebody who has a close relationship with the president of the United States. You need somebody who is trusted by the administration…. including the OMB [Office of Management and Budget], the National Space Council and the National Security Council, and I think that I would not be the right person for that in a new administration,” said Bridenstine, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma.

Bridenstine was narrowly confirmed to the post in 2018, but has worked diligently to win support from both Democrats and Republicans. He tirelessly pushed the agency’s top priority in space: a return of astronauts to the moon by 2024, an ambitious timeline that was dramatically accelerated by the White House.

Space has not gotten much attention yet by the Biden administration, but many Democrats think that under Biden NASA would remain focused on a moon mission but at a slower timeframe.

It’s unclear, however, what would happen to the National Space Council, which was resurrected under Trump.

Bridenstine also oversaw the first flight of NASA astronauts from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle retired in 2011, continuing an Obama-era program. The next flight of astronauts is scheduled for Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) issued a statement Monday congratulating Biden on his “apparent victory” and counseled patience as Trump pursues challenges to the results in states where Biden holds narrow leads.

“First, I would offer my congratulations to President-elect Biden on his apparent victory — he loves this country, and I wish him every success,” said Collins, who won a fresh six-year term in last week’s election. “Presidential transitions are important, and the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect should be given every opportunity to ensure that they are ready to govern on January 20th.”

But Collins said she also understands that Trump “and others have questions about the results in certain states.”

“There is a process in place to challenge those results and, consistent with that process, the President should be afforded the opportunity to do so,” she said. “I know that many are eager to have certainty right now. While we have a clear direction, we should continue to respect that process. I urge people to be patient.”

A top Georgia election official pushed back Monday on baseless claims of voter fraud and social media allegations of irregularities, and warned the public that a recount probably would not change the outcome of the presidential race.

Gabriel Sterling, the voting system implementation manager at the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, said claims of widespread illegal activity were false, declaring Election Day “an amazing success” and chastising those “trying to undermine the system that was put together” by state and county officials.

The state is probably headed to a recount of the presidential election because of Biden’s narrow lead over Trump. The statewide recount, the first of its kind in Georgia, probably will unearth illegally cast votes, as there are in every election, Sterling said. But the recount probably will not “fundamentally” change the outcome of the election, he said.

Noting that “every election is imperfect,” Sterling added: “We are going to find that people did illegally vote. That’s going to happen. … Is it 10,353? Unlikely,” he said, referring to Biden’s narrow margin as of Monday morning. “When the margins are this tight, every little thing matters, so this office will thoroughly investigate” potential issues during the recount, he said.

All 159 counties must certify election results by Friday for the state to begin its audit. The state must finish its audit and certify statewide results no later than Nov. 20, after which the losing candidate can request a recount.

Statewide, 1.3 million voters cast absentee ballots, and there were about 136,400 requested absentee ballots that were not cast, he said. Among military and overseas ballots, 18,407 were accepted and 7,786 requested ballots were not returned by the deadline, he said.

Election 2020 live updates: Biden urges Americans to wear masks to protect against coronavirus; Trump ousts Esper as defense secretary

Written by Paadmaro