President-elect Joe Biden couldn’t help but laugh when a reporter asked him about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement about planning a “smooth transition” for President Donald Trump’s second term.
On November 10, Biden was holding a press conference in defense of the Affordable Care Act, but while taking questions afterward, journalists persistently asked about his thoughts on Trump and his refusal to concede the presidency, which has put a hold on granting Biden’s team access to the $6.3 million set aside to kickstart the transition process.
There was extra fervor on the topic since Pompeo smiled and said earlier in the day that Trump’s administration was preparing The White House for his re-election, despite the fact he has lost the presidency and has provided zero evidence of election fraud.
The president-elect calmly refuses to give “any of the assertions made by the president or secretary of State Pompeo” credence and then starts to laugh when thinking about “Secretary State Pompeo” and his baseless claims made during a State Department news conference on Tuesday.
During Biden’s press conference, he announced that come January, his administration will immediately start working with Congress to implement a new healthcare agenda. “We’re going to do everything in our power to ease the burden of health care on you and your families,” Biden said, as reported by CNN. “That starts by building on the Affordable Care Act with the dramatic expansion of health care coverage and bold steps to lower health care costs.”
Biden Called Trump’s Refusal to Accept the Results of the 2020 Presidential Election ‘An Embarrassment’
While Biden said that Trump’s refusal to accept defeat was “an embarrassment” that “will not help the president’s legacy,” he assured reporters that this hasn’t halted his team from beginning the transition process. “We don’t see anything slowing us down, quite frankly,” Biden said. While it would be “useful” for Trump to concede, the president-elect said his transition team “can get through without the funding.”
As for the GOP members standing by Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of an illegitimate election, “I think that the whole Republican Party has been put in the position — with a few notable exceptions — of being mildly intimidated by the sitting President,” Biden said.
Biden said he will “put America back in the place of respect that it had before” Trump’s presidency. “I know from my discussions with foreign leaders thus far that they are hopeful that United States democratic institutions are viewed once again as strong and enduring. But I think at the end of the day, it’s all going to come to fruition on January 20,” he said.
Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris Also Spoke to Defend the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday
GettyKamala Harris spoke out to defend the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday.
California Senator Kamala Harris, who’s now the country’s official Vice President-elect gave an opening speech to argue against the Trump administration’s efforts to strike down the Affordable Care Act.
“I know we all know that we just had an election in America — an election where health care was very much on the ballot. Our country had a clear choice in this election,” Harris said. “Each and every vote for Joe Biden was a statement that health care in America should be a right and not a privilege. Each and every vote for Joe Biden was a vote to protect and expand the Affordable Care Act, not to tear it away in the midst of a global pandemic.”
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