Joe Biden names former Ebola tsar Ron Klain as chief of staff – as it happened

• Joe Biden picked Ron Klain as his chief of staff. Klain served as “Ebola czar” during the Obama administration and has been sharply critical of Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
• Pressure mounted for Donald Trump to accept the results of the presidential race. A number of world leaders have called president-elect Joe Biden to congratulate him on his victory, and it’s unclear how the Trump campaign’s lawsuits will help the president pull ahead in states like Pennsylvania, where he now trails by more than 50,000 votes.
• Trump reportedly met with his senior advisers today to map out his next steps. According to reports, the president’s advisers do not expect him to concede that he has lost, but Trump may announce he is no longer challenging the results of the election.
• Control of the Senate will officially come down to the two runoff races in Georgia, after the AP declared Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan to be the winner of Alaska’s Senate race. Democrats would have to win both Georgia runoffs to flip control of the Senate.
• Georgia’s secretary of state announced a hand recount. The state’s Republican secretary of state has faced calls from Republicans, including the two senators facing a runoff, to resign.
• The US recorded more than 1m new coronavirus cases in the past 10 days. States across the country are seeing surges ahead of Thanksgiving.
• Andrew Cuomo announced new restrictions in New York in response to a national surge in coronavirus infections. The Democratic governor said that, starting Friday, the state’s bars and restaurants with liquor licenses will be required to close by 10pm, and gatherings in private homes will be capped at 10 people.
• Biden and Trump participated in ceremonies to commemorate Veterans Day. While the president-elect laid a wreath at the Korean war memorial in Philadelphia, the current president paid his respects at Arlington national cemetery.

Waleed Shahid, the communications director for the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, said Klain “understands the Democratic party has moved in a more progressive direction”.

Progressives and moderates came together to help elect Joe Biden. But post-election, the two camps have already begun to spar over the party’s future, with progressives saying that Biden should embrace more ambitious policy on climate change, policing and healthcare.

Klain thanked people for “kind wishes” after news broke that he will be the next chief of staff.

In a statement sharing the news, Joe Biden praised Klain’s “deep, varied experience”.

“Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years that we have worked together, including as we rescued the American economy from one of the worst downturns in our history in 2009 and later overcame a daunting public health emergency in 2014,” said Biden. “His deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again.”

Klain said: “It’s the honor of a lifetime to serve President-elect Biden in this role, and I am humbled by his confidence.:

The president-elect has named Klain, who served as the “Ebola tsar” during the Obama administration, as chief of staff.

Klain, 59, has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump’s pandemic response. He first worked with Biden in the 1980s.

In a statement congratulating Klain, Elizabeth Warren said, he is a “superb choice for Chief of Staff. He understands the magnitude of the health and economic crisis and he has the experience to lead this next administration through it.”

Joe Biden is expected to name Ron Klain as his chief of staff, the New York Times reports:

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will name Ron Klain, a veteran Democratic operative and a decades-long confidant, to be his White House chief of staff as early as Thursday morning, according to several people familiar with Mr. Biden’s decision.

Mr. Klain, a lawyer with deep experience on Capitol Hill, advising President Barack Obama and in corporate board rooms, has been seen for months as the likeliest choice to manage Mr. Biden’s team in the White House. Known for steady nerves, he also has a fierce wit, which he has frequently unleashed on President Trump on Twitter.

He was particularly critical of Mr. Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, having served as the “Ebola czar” under Mr. Obama during an outbreak of the deadly disease in his second term. A video of Mr. Klain lecturing Mr. Trump about the pandemic was widely seen during the campaign.

The choice of Mr. Klain, who first went to work for Mr. Biden in 1989 when Mr. Biden was a senator from Delaware and Mr. Klain was a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, signals that Mr. Biden intends to rely on a tight circle of Washington insiders who have been by his side for years.

Read more here.

Trump tweeted that he has given his “full support and endorsement to Ronna McDaniel to continue heading the Republican National Committee.” He also said, With 72 MILLION votes, we received more votes than any sitting President in U.S. history – and we will win!”

But Trump has lost the US presidential election.

McDaniel earlier today deleted a tweet that implicitly admitted that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election. In a tweet encouraging Georgia voters to back Republican senators in runoff elections in January, she said that Harris would be the deciding vote if Democrats win the Georgia races, resulting in a tied Senate.

But McDaniel has also enthusiastically backed the Trump campaign’s efforts to loob long-shot lawsuits and echoed the president’s false claims of voter fraud, despite a lack of evidence.

Trump named McDaniel, a steadfast loyalist, the head of the GOP in December 2016.

While Trump has continued to express hope that he will win an election he has lost, and transition to a Biden administration has stalled, the AP reports that the president’s involvement in day-to-day governing has “nearly stopped”:

Though he has been in the Oval Office late two nights this week, the president has done little in the way of governing and has instead been working the phones.

He has called friendly governors — in red states like Arizona, Texas and Florida — and influential confidants in the conservative media, like Sean Hannity. But he has not been as responsive to Republican lawmakers as before the election. Always an obsessive cable news viewer, he has been watching even more TV than usual in recent weeks, often from his private dining room just off the Oval Office.

Trump’s approach to two crucial Senate run-off elections in Georgia remains an open question: He has not yet signaled if he will campaign there, and aides have started to worry that the extended legal battle could sap support for the GOP candidates.

Trump has also begun talking about his own future upon leaving office. He has mused about declaring he will run again in 2024,and aides believe that he will at least openly flirt with the idea to enhance his relevance and raise interest in whatever money-making efforts he pursues.

While he ponders his options, his involvement in the day-to-day governing of the nation has nearly stopped: According to his schedule, he has not attended an intelligence briefing in weeks, and the White House has done little of late to manage the pandemic that has surged to record highs in many states.

Read more here.

The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports:

Twitter took more than an hour to flag a conspiracy theory shared by Donald Trump on the platform Wednesday afternoon, which baselessly suggested ballot fraud.

The president, who lost to Joe Biden last week, shared a video of election workers in Los Angeles collecting valid, mail-in ballots that were posted on or before election day from a ballot drop box. The video, which has been shared thousands of times in recent days, falsely suggested something unusual was under way and has been repeatedly debunked. The Los Angeles county registrar confirmed that the ballots were collected on 4 November, and were later processed and counted.

The narrator of the video also questioned why the election results were “called” prior to the ballots being collected. Media organizations project the winner of election races based on a number of factors including exit polling, early votes and, in California’s case, the fact that it has a longstanding record of electing Democratic presidential candidates. The state, however, still processes and counts all valid ballots.

“It’s going to be really nice to have a President who isn’t an internet troll trafficking already debunked conspiracy theories,” the spokesman for California’s secretary of state tweeted in response to Trump’s sharing of the video.

An hour after it was posted, the tweet still had not been removed or flagged by Twitter, despite the company’s policies on misinformation. The social media platform has flagged at least six Trump tweets for misinformation in the days since the election. When a tweet is flagged, it cannot be retweeted, limiting the ability for the misinformation to spread.

But as of Wednesday afternoon, Trump’s tweet containing misinformation had been retweeted 71,000 times and favorited more than 183,000 times. When contacted for comment, Twitter said it had placed a label on the tweet “to add more context for anyone who might see the Tweet”.

Miranda Bryant reports:

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has abruptly beefed up its advice to Americans on wearing masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus and warned against traditionally large gatherings over the holidays.

Thanksgiving celebrations are safest kept within households – and face masks protect the wearer as well as those around them, the federal public health agency said this week, in new, more robust coronavirus guidelines.

With just over two weeks to go before Thanksgiving, the CDC issued guidance on Tuesday on how to celebrate safely during the pandemic.

Despite cases surging across the US, the CDC did not go as far as to rule out gatherings on Thursday 26 November. But it did suggest alternatives to hosting events with people from other households in person, such as communing online for virtual meals.

“Traditional Thanksgiving gatherings with family and friends are fun but can increase the chances of getting or spreading Covid-19 or the flu … The safest way to celebrate this year is to celebrate with people in your household,” its latest online guidance says.

However, it also included tips for those who are still planning to celebrate with other households.

Other than mask-wearing, social distancing and hand washing, it also advised eating outdoors, limiting numbers, bringing your own food, drinks and utensils and opting for single-use condiments and disposable plates and utensils.

Read more:

Ohio’s governor has announced that the state will issue a new order restricting large social gatherings including wedding receptions and banquets, as coronavirus cases surge.

Governor Mike DeWine said that an existing order that limits gatherings of more than 10 people is not being observed by all residents. During a press conference today, DeWine said the state is in a “third wave” of the pandemic and announced that the state will be reissuing a mask mandate. He noted that officials will make a decision next week on whether to keep bars, restaurants and other businesses open and will monitor closely how well residents are observing mask requirements inside shops.

The state tallied a record 6,500 Covid-19 cases on Tuesday.

Martha McSally, the Republican senator of Arizona who lost the election to keep her seat, has yet to formally concede.

McSally is followed in the footsteps of Donald Trump, resisting concession despite the fact that she trails her Democratic opponent Mark Kelly by about 80,000 votes. With only about 45,000 votes left to count in Arizona, it is mathematically impossible for McSally to win.

Arizona, which has long been a conservative bastion, has been undergoing a political transformation – thanks largely to progressive Latino-led activism in the state. With Kelly headed to Capitol Hill, Arizona will have Democratic senators. Although the presidential race remains close, Joe Biden has maintained a lead over Donald Trump in the state.

This is not the first time McSally has lost a senate race in Arizona. She lost her 2018 Senate bid against senator Kyrsten Sinema before appointed to the Senate by the state’s Republican governor Doug Ducey after the death of John McCain.

Miranda Bryant reports:

The US has recorded more than 1m new coronavirus cases in just the past 10 days as the national total soared past 10m cases amid a widespread surge – while Texas on Wednesday became the first to record a million cases as a state.

The soaring figures came as experts warned that even though successful vaccines are coming into view the White House appears to be doing little to contain a pandemic increasingly out of control.

“In the last couple of months you have seen the federal government basically throw in the towel,” Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health told NBC on Wednesday morning.

He added: “There’s been no new guidance, very little effort coming from the federal government and I think that is definitely contributing to a nationwide surge.”

Daily cases for the country have steadily climbed throughout November to record a total of 1,129,463 cases in the last 10 days alone, figures from Johns Hopkins University show.

Meanwhile, Texas, America’s second-most populous state, has recorded 1,010,364 cases since the start of the pandemic in March and 19,337 deaths.

No other state has alone reached the 1m figure. And New York, which was the worst Covid-19 hotspot in the world during the initial cascade of US cases in the spring, then used restrictions to squash infections, is now seeing rates creeping up again.

Jha said “people are getting tired” of taking precautions, even as warnings abound about family gatherings in the fast-approaching holiday season becoming spreader events.

He added that with what appears to be the good news that the world is on the cusp of approving successful vaccines, all Americans could expect to be inoculated relatively soon.

“We are about three to six months away from widespread availability of a vaccine, people need to hold on … we’re so close to actually turning the corner on the virus,” he said.

But he warned that in the meantime Americans need to restrict their Thanksgiving plans at the end of November. “This is a bit heartbreaking, because it just can’t be a normal Thanksgiving,” he said.

Read more:

The popular video-sharing app TikTok says its future has been in limbo since Donald Trump tried to shut it down earlier this fall and is asking a federal court to intervene, the Guardian’s Kari Paul reports:

Trump in August signed an executive order to ban TikTok if it did not sell its US operations in 45 days. The move forced TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to consider deals with several American companies before ultimately settling on a proposal to place TikTok under the oversight of the American companies Oracle and Walmart, each of which would also have a financial stake in the company.

But TikTok said this week it’s received “no clarity” from the US government about whether that proposal has been accepted.

The deal has been under a national-security review by the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which is led by the treasury department. The department didn’t return emailed requests for comment this week.

“With the November 12 CFIUS deadline imminent and without an extension in hand, we have no choice but to file a petition in court to defend our rights and those of our more than 1,500 employees in the US,” TikTok said in a written statement Tuesday.

Trump has cited concerns that the Chinese government could spy on TikTok users if the app remains under Chinese ownership. TikTok has denied it is a security threat but said it is still trying to work with the administration to resolve its concerns.

The legal challenge is “a protection to ensure these discussions can take place”, the company said.

The Trump administration had earlier sought to ban the app from smartphone app stores and deprive it of vital technical services. To do this, the US could have internet service providers block TikTok usage from US IP addresses, as India did when it banned TikTok, effectively making TikTok unusable.

Such actions were set to take place on 20 September but federal judges have so far granted TikTok extensions.

Read more:

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Pressure mounted for Donald Trump to accept the results of the presidential race. A number of world leaders have called president-elect Joe Biden to congratulate him on his victory, and it’s unclear how the Trump campaign’s lawsuits will help the president pull ahead in states like Pennsylvania, where he now trails by more than 50,000 votes.
• Trump reportedly met with his senior advisers today to map out his next steps. According to reports, the president’s advisers do not expect him to concede that he has lost, but Trump may announce he is no longer challenging the results of the election.
• Control of the Senate will officially come down to the two runoff races in Georgia, after the AP declared Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan to be the winner of Alaska’s Senate race. Democrats would have to win both Georgia runoffs to flip control of the Senate.
• Andrew Cuomo announced new restrictions in New York in response to a national surge in coronavirus infections. The Democratic governor said that, starting Friday, the state’s bars and restaurants with liquor licenses will be required to close by 10 pm, and gatherings in private homes will be capped at 10 people.
• Biden and Trump participated in ceremonies to commemorate Veterans Day. While the president-elect laid a wreath at the Korean war memorial in Philadelphia, the current president paid his respects at Arlington national cemetery.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Donald Trump met with senior advisers today to discuss his next steps after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election, according to NBC News.

It has been four days since every major news outlet declared Biden to be the winner of the presidential race, but Trump has refused to concede that he has lost.

Trump’s campaign is moving forward with lawsuits in multiple battleground states, but it’s unclear how those lawsuits could help the president erase Biden’s leads in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where the Democrat leads by tens of thousands of votes.

According to reports, Trump’s advisers do not expect him to concede, but the president may announce he is no longer challenging the election results.

Some of Donald Trump’s advisers now say he will likely never concede that he lost the presidential race, according to NBC News.

NBC reports:

‘Do not expect him to concede,’ one top aide said. More likely, the aide said, ‘he’ll say something like, ‘We can’t trust the results, but I’m not contesting them.’’

Another adviser said that after the legal battles and recounts, the closest the president is likely to get to a concession is, ‘he’ll acknowledge the results and that we’ll never know how accurate they are.’

‘But we’re not there yet,’ the adviser said.

In the meantime there is also growing frustration inside the White House — what allies described as ‘embarrassment’ as well as ‘uncertainty and doubt and confusion’ — over the president’s refusal to acknowledge the election result and chart a path forward.

‘This is unsustainable,’ another aide said.

Although a concession is considered a hallmark of the peaceful transfer of power, Trump does not have to concede to clear the way for Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Regardless of Trump’s efforts to spread baseless concerns about the integrity of the election, Biden will be sworn in as the next president on January 20.