The Daily 202: Trump eggs on boos that previous leaders shushed

The same thing happened when Bob Dole told his supporters in 1996 that he had called to congratulate President Bill Clinton on his reelection. “No, no, no,” Dole said as the boos broke out. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I’ve said repeatedly in the campaign that the president is my opponent, not my enemy, and I wish him well, and I pledge my support in whatever advances the cause of a better America because that’s what the race was about in the first place.” 

Obama grew annoyed just before the election in 2016 when a crowd he was speaking to in North Carolina would not stop booing a Trump supporter who was heckling him. “Don’t boo,” the then-president said after a lengthy admonition. “Vote.”

There are dozens of examples, and a handful of counterexamples, of leaders in both parties graciously accepting the will of the American people over more than two centuries. In the case of President Trump, the story of the last two weeks is bigger than his refusal to concede. In addition to sowing doubt in the integrity of the electoral system, Trump is using his powerful platform to elevate the booers over the healers. 

It is not surprising. After all, Trump encouraged lock-her-up chants during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. But it is nonetheless deeply at odds with the American tradition. And this ugly ending to his term will make it harder for leaders of goodwill in both parties to help bind the nation’s wounds.

Warming up the crowd during a Trump rally in September, Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted (R) urged people to buy Trump campaign masks to wear amid the coronavirus pandemic. For suggesting they put on “MAGA” masks, the president’s supporters loudly booed Husted, even though he was a co-chair of Trump’s campaign in the state. “If you go into a grocery store where you’ve got to wear one,” Husted said. “Hang on. Just listen up. Just listen up.” Amid the heckling in Dayton, Husted shrugged and relented: “All right, I get it!”

While Trump relishes when his supporters boo and jeer people he perceives as enemies, the president has never responded well when he has gotten booed. Last November, Trump was booed when he took his seat at Madison Square Garden to watch an Ultimate Fighting Championship match. That came a week after Trump was booed during Game 5 of the World Series in Washington when he was introduced by the announcer. The crowd’s sustained booing hit almost 100 decibels, followed by chants of “Lock him up” and “Impeach Trump.” In response to these episodes, Trump flew to Alabama for a college football game where advisers assured him that he would get cheered. Then he posted the video on social media.

On Saturday, Trump’s motorcade took whatever the opposite of a victory lap is through a crowd of pro-Trump protesters who had gathered in Washington to falsely claim that the election had been stolen from the man they adore. Trump celebrated the massing of his supporters on social media. His press secretary ludicrously claimed that more than a million people had gathered. A few hours later, violence broke out between protesters and counterprotesters.

As President-elect Joe Biden relaxed in Rehoboth Beach, Del., Trump rage-tweeted 49 times on Sunday – with a break for a round of golf in between. At 7:47 a.m., the president tweeted what many read to be an acknowledgement of Biden’s victory: “He won because the Election was Rigged.” At 9:19 a.m., the president tried to clean that up: “He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING!” At 9:55 a.m., Trump approvingly shared a news story about Virginia Wesleyan University dean Paul Ewell saying that anyone who voted for Biden is “ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian.” This would apply to 78.8 million people. Trump called this “Progress!”

At 2:20 p.m., Trump attacked John Bolton for saying on ABC’s “This Week” that Republicans need to acknowledge Biden won the election. The president described a man he hired to be national security adviser as “a real dope”: “Bolton was one of the dumbest people in government that I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ to work with,” Trump wrote. “A sullen, dull and quiet guy, he added nothing to National Security except, ‘Gee, let’s go to war.’”

At 2:31 p.m., Trump praised GSA administrator Emily Murphy, who is refusing to sign the paperwork that would allow Biden to receive intelligence briefings and let his transition team access needed government resources: “Great job Emily!” At 4:51 p.m., Trump shared a video with the caption “GOOD vs. EVIL” to describe his supporters versus those who oppose him. Trump shared another video at 4:55 p.m. of his motorcade driving through the crowd of supporters from Saturday’s protest, with the caption: “Spirit like never before!” 

At 8:46 p.m., after claiming that he still has several lawsuits to file, Trump posted: “Why does the Fake News Media continuously assume that Joe Biden will ascend to the Presidency, not even allowing our side to show, which we are just getting ready to do, how badly shattered and violated our great Constitution has been in the 2020 Election.” Trump closed out the day with a tweet at 11:55 p.m.: “I WON THE ELECTION!” The president was back at it at 8:15 a.m. on Monday, falsely claiming that this was the “most fraudulent Election in history!”

Obama said in an interview with NPR that aired this morning that the president’s unwillingness to cooperate with the transition is “yet one more example of how Donald Trump’s breach of basic democratic norms is hurting the American people.” The former president said he takes Trump’s refusal to concede seriously but added that he does not think Trump will be successful in “denying reality.” 

“I’m distressed that you haven’t seen more Republican leadership make this clear because the amount of time that’s being lost in this transition process has real-world effects,” Obama said. “Look, we’re in the middle of a pandemic. We’re in the middle of an economic crisis. We have serious national security issues.”

Four years ago, Hillary Clinton conceded to Trump the day after the election. “This is painful, and it will be for a long time,” she told supporters. “We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought, but I still believe in America and always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead.”

President George H.W. Bush, the last incumbent defeated for reelection, conceded to Clinton on election night. “We respect the majesty of the democratic system,” Bush said, promising to “get behind” the new president. He later joked that voters gave him “the Order of the Boot.”

Finally, compare Trump’s petulance to Dole’s handling of his defeats. In addition to losing in 1996, he also lost as Gerald Ford’s running mate in 1976. Afterward, Dole was self-deprecating. “Contrary to reports that I took the loss badly,” he said, “I want to say that I went home last night and slept like a baby — every two hours I woke up and cried.”

After five-and-a-half years of writing The Daily 202, I am thrilled to start my next chapter at The Washington Post. In February, I will become a columnist for the Opinions section. I will helm this newsletter and the Big Idea podcast through the inauguration. (Read the announcement here.)

One person was stabbed and four police officers were injured, one seriously when a chemical was sprayed into an eye. “For the better part of [Saturday], police managed to keep supporters of Trump and his opponents apart, save for minor skirmishes during a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally,” Peter Hermann and Lauren Lumpkin report. “Tensions grew as the main march moved from Freedom Plaza to outside the U.S. Supreme Court, and as the final speeches ended, clashes turned into roving street fights that left police struggling to keep up. … The groups met head-on at H Street near 11th Street, north of Metro Center. Police in riot gear rushed toward the fray, but not quickly enough to stave off a brawl involving dozens, including the Proud Boys, that left participants bloodied and one man stabbed three times in the back and seriously wounded. ‘I came here to fight,’ a Trump supporter yelled moments before the clash began. … 

“D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said people from both sides — and from outside and inside the region — came ‘intent on clashing,’ and ‘the police department was put directly in the middle of it.’ … In all, police arrested 21 people, including one juvenile, on charges that include assault, disorderly conduct and inciting violence. Eight firearms were seized and five people were arrested on gun charges, including two Newsham said were linked to a Georgia-based militia group … 

“Trump — who in September refused to denounce the Proud Boys and instead urged them to ‘stand back and stand by’ — appeared to relish in the mayhem. In one tweet, Trump wrote, ‘Antifa SCUM ran for the hills today when they tried attacking the people at the Trump rally, because these people aggressively fought back.’ The outgoing president also tweeted for D.C. police to ‘Get going — do your job and don’t hold back!!!’ in arresting counterprotesters. He accused [Mayor Muriel] Bowser of ‘not doing her job!’ as he linked to a video of a man being hit in the face from behind and falling to the pavement, bleeding and unconscious. But the video showed only part of the incident. A longer video posted online shows the man pushing a counterdemonstrator to the ground, stomping on his head and balling one hand into a fist, shaking it at people.”

“Trump’s attorneys filed a revised version of the lawsuit, removing allegations that election officials violated the Trump campaign’s constitutional rights by limiting the ability of their observers to watch votes being counted,” Jon Swaine and Elise Viebeck report. “Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani, his personal attorney, have said repeatedly that more than 600,000 votes in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh should be invalidated because of this issue. Trump’s pared-down lawsuit now focuses on allegations that Republicans were illegally disadvantaged because some Democratic-leaning counties allowed voters to fix errors on their mail ballots. Counties have said this affected only a small number of votes. … In its revised lawsuit, the Trump campaign again asked U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann to block the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results. But a secondary request to block the certification of all votes where observer access was allegedly restricted was deleted in the amended suit.”

“Giuliani has made several wild claims,” Glenn Kessler writes in a fact check that gives the president’s lawyer four Pinocchios. “His claims have been echoed in weekend tweets by [Trump], accusing a software company of somehow manipulating the vote in favor of Biden. These presidential tweets have been flagged by Twitter as misleading. Moreover, this nonsense has already been debunked by Trump’s own government.”

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, said it is imperative for GOP leaders to explain to voters the president lost the election. “I think as every day goes by, it’s clearer and clearer there isn’t any evidence,” Bolton told ABC’s “This Week.” “But if the Republican voters are only hearing Donald Trump’s misrepresentations, it’s not surprising that they believe it.”

“Camilo Sandoval said in an interview that he has taken a break from his government duties to work for the Voter Integrity Fund, a newly formed Virginia-based group that is analyzing ballot data and cold-calling voters in an attempt to substantiate the president’s outlandish claims about illicit voting,” Swaine and Lisa Rein report. “Sandoval is one of several Trump appointees in the federal government — some in senior roles — who are harnessing their expertise for the project … Federal employees are required under ethics rules to keep political activity separate from their government roles. Officials with the Voter Integrity Fund said the political appointees participating in the project are doing it in their personal time.” 

“Rather than revealing widespread — or even isolated — fraud, the effort by Trump’s legal team has so far done the opposite: It’s affirmed the integrity of the election that Trump lost. Nearly every GOP challenge has been tossed out. Not a single vote has been overturned,” David Fahrenthold, Emma Brown and Hannah Knowles report. “A ‘dead’ voter turned out to be alive. ‘Thousands’ of problematic ballots turned out to be one. Election-changing problems turned out to involve a few dozen, or a few hundred, ballots. … 

“The mismatch between Trump’s rhetoric about voter fraud — and his ability to prove it — was particularly stark in Georgia. There, Trump’s campaign said this week that it had found the clearest possible evidence of fraud: A dead man had voted. ‘Someone used the identity of James Blalock of Covington, Georgia to cast a ballot in last week’s election, even though Blalock died in 2006,’ the campaign posted on its website, along with a screenshot of Blalock’s obituary. … Trump’s campaign had one thing right. James Blalock is dead. But he wasn’t the one who voted. ‘I knew it wasn’t fraud,’ said Mrs. James Blalock, a 96-year-old widow, in an interview with Atlanta’s WXIA-TV … Mrs. Blalock, whose first name is Agnes, had chosen to be listed on the voter rolls under her husband’s name — which is now an uncommon practice but is legal. She … voted for Biden.”

“Democrats tell their audiences that victory would give Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris a tie-breaking Senate vote, unlocking the party’s agenda. Republicans warn that there’d be no stopping the Democrats if the Senate seats are lost. But so long as Trump remains unwilling to concede, they’re unwilling to explain exactly why,” Dave Weigel reports. “Instead, [Kelly] Loeffler and [David] Perdue appear to be running campaigns that tightly track with Trump’s messaging, while also signaling that a loss of either of these seats could be somehow apocalyptic. … Trump’s denial of the results is shared by many of his most passionate supporters, people that Loeffler and Perdue need to energize to win in January. Both have called for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to resign, channeling Republican anger at the state backing Biden, but not citing anything that Raffensperger might have done wrong.”

Perdue declined an invitation to participate in a Dec. 6 debate with Jon Ossoff. “The senior senator from Georgia drew fire after withdrawing from a debate just before Election Day, following a debate that saw Ossoff label Perdue a ‘crook’ and Perdue accuse Ossoff of profiting off China. Instead, Perdue attended a Trump rally in northwest Georgia,” CNN reports.

“The parts of America that have seen strong job, population and economic growth in the past four years voted for Biden, economic researchers found. In contrast, Trump garnered his highest vote shares in counties that had some of the most sluggish job, population and economic growth during his term,” Andrew Van Dam and Heather Long report. “Trump fared well among voters who said the economy was their top concern, and he even won votes in places that didn’t fare particularly well under his presidency. This is perhaps a continuation of the 2016 election, when Trump won a huge share of places that had struggled under [Obama]. These trends help explain why Biden was able to flip the counties that contain Phoenix, Fort Worth and Jacksonville, Fla., all of which are growing and prosperous urban hubs. And it helps explain why Trump did better than expected in Osceola County and Miami-Dade counties, the two Florida counties with some of the state’s highest unemployment rates. … The economy often decides elections, but the surprise in this case was that good economic performance didn’t appear to favor the incumbent. …

“In the 2000 election, Republican George W. Bush won 2,417 counties that drove 45 percent of the U.S. economy, while Democrat Al Gore won 666 counties that made up to 55 percent of the economy, a fairly even split of the economic map. In 2020, Biden won 490 counties that account for 70 percent of the U.S. economy, while Trump won 2,534 counties amounting to just shy of 30 percent of the economy, according to an analysis by Mark Muro, senior fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, and his team … For Democrats, it was a notable increase from 2016, when Hillary Clinton won counties amounting to 64 percent of the U.S. economy. The United States is transforming into a knowledge and digital economy, and the political map appears to be shifting with it. Some call it the urban versus rural divide, but it is also a digital versus blue-collar split.”

“Exit polls in Pennsylvania show that Biden’s victory came not from big inroads among White voters without college degrees,” Dan Balz notes. “He lost them by about the same margin — 32 points — as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. And in 2020, those voters made up 45 percent of the Pennsylvania electorate, compared with 40 percent in 2016. Biden won with Black votes in Philadelphia and a larger share of the suburban vote around Philadelphia than Clinton four years ago. One major question is whether, without Trump on the ballot in the future, suburban voters — especially White women with college degrees — will remain strongly Democratic or revert to previous patterns as a key swing vote? Results of some House races suggest Trump was a bigger problem for some suburban voters than the Republican brand itself.” 

“Biotechnology firm Moderna announced Monday that a preliminary analysis shows its experimental coronavirus vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective at preventing illness, including severe cases — a striking initial result that leaves the United States with the prospect that two coronavirus vaccines could be available on a limited basis by the end of the year,” Carolyn Johnson reports. “The news comes a week after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech lifted the stock market and people’s hopes with the news that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90 percent effective. Moderna’s vaccine … is being tested in 30,000 people. Half received two doses of the vaccine, and half received a placebo. To test how well the vaccine works, physicians closely monitored cases of covid-19 to see whether they predominantly occurred in people who received the placebo group. Of the 95 cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, 90 were in the group that received the placebo … With cases of covid-19 confined almost exclusively to trial participants receiving a placebo, that sends a strong signal that the vaccine is effective at thwarting the virus. The data have not yet been published or peer reviewed … 

“Moderna has committed to completing its trial before applying for emergency-use authorization — which means waiting until there are 151 cases of covid-19 in the study. … It is …. expected to reach its endpoint in seven to 10 days … [Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel] anticipates a vaccine might begin to become available to those at high risk in the second half of December. Unlike Pfizer, which invested $2 billion of its own money in researching and developing a vaccine, Moderna is part of Operation Warp Speed, the government initiative designed to erase the financial risk of vaccine and therapeutics development by providing upfront funding to companies and helping coordinate the trials. Moderna received $2.5 billion from the U.S. government to support research, development and manufacturing of its vaccine candidate, whereas Pfizer signed a contract to sell doses to the U.S. government.” 

“The milestone came one week after the country hit 10 million cases, a testament to just how rapidly the virus is spreading — the first 1 million cases took more than three months. This new wave has increased covid-19 hospitalizations past the peaks seen in April and July, straining health-care systems and pushing some reluctant Republican governors to enact statewide mask mandates for the first time,” Paulina Firozi and Hannah Knowles report. “Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Sunday announced sweeping new limits on gatherings for three weeks — including a ban on indoor dining at restaurants and bars, and a halt to in-person classes at high schools and colleges. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) also laid out a slew of new rules, which prohibit indoor social gatherings with people outside one’s household and indoor service at restaurants, bars and more. … New Mexico and Oregon on Friday ordered extensive new statewide shutdowns … North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) on Friday issued a statewide mask mandate and new capacity limits on businesses.”

• Trump coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas urged Michiganders to “rise up” against the new restrictions. He later sought to clarify on Twitter he was not trying to incite violence.
• The virus killed the parents of Raiden Gonzalez, a 4-year-old in San Antonio. Now he’s being raised by his grandmother. (NBC)
• El Paso is so overwhelmed by cases that inmates have been enlisted to assist the medical examiner with the overflow of corpses at the morgue. The prisoners are being paid $2 an hour to move bodies. (Star-Telegram)
• D.C. reported another record number of new cases, and tighter restrictions took effect in Virginia this morning. D.C. authorities have stepped up enforcement of coronavirus rules: Harry’s, a bar packed with Trump supporters, was fined $1,000 for violating masking and other rules on Saturday. (Michael Laris)
• Doctors are calling it quits under the stress of the pandemic. Thousands of medical practices have closed. (NYT)
• North Dakota nurses are worried about working with infected colleagues now that the governor has allowed the state’s beleaguered hospitals to allow infected, but asymptomatic, workers to treat coronavirus patients. (AP)
• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) threatened to sue the Trump administration for equitable vaccine distribution. (Politico)
• Authorities shut down parties across New York City over the weekend, including an illegal fight club where more than 200 people stood shoulder to shoulder shouting as two men sparred in a warehouse. (NYT)
• Nearly 40,000 international students have delayed their plans to enter U.S. colleges because of the pandemic. (Nick Anderson)

“In the states where the virus is spiking highest — particularly in the Upper Midwest — Republicans made substantial gains down-ballot. Often they did so by railing against the very tool that scientists say could best help arrest the virus’s spread,” Griff Witte reports. “Victories in state and local races have allowed GOP leaders to claim a mandate for their let-it-be approach to pandemic management, with pleas for ‘personal responsibility’ substituting government intervention. As hospitals fill and deaths climb, it’s a philosophy that public health experts warn could have disastrous consequences this winter. … 

“In Iowa, cases have grown by nearly 180 percent in two weeks, and the average daily death count is well above its springtime peak, according to state data. Yet Trump — who held mostly maskless rallies in Iowa — won the state by a large margin, as did Joni Ernst, the incumbent Republican U.S. senator. … Republicans in North Dakota were also rewarded by voters, with the party managing to deepen its dominance of state government even as coronavirus cases jumped tenfold in the three months before the election. … Next door, in Montana … [voters chose] Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), who was photographed without a face covering and embracing maskless supporters while on the campaign trail, [as governor]. Gianforte said he will consider rolling back the state’s restrictions in a bid to boost the economy. … In states that still have Democratic governors, losses in the legislature erased any hopes that they would have an easier time implementing their virus-fighting strategies.”

Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka (R) said Sunday that he tested positive, and Democrats called on him to resign for trying to hide a covid-19 outbreak on his side of the aisle. After an outbreak on the GOP side of the aisle, fellow Republicans were warned about the new cases. But the diagnoses was concealed from Democrats who had gathered with them for a special legislative session. The Minneapolis Fox affiliate reported that, days before the outbreak in the GOP caucus, Republicans held a large, in-person dinner party at an event center with more than 100 attendees. (Star Tribune)

“Across the country, local governments are struggling to push Cares Act money into the hands of the people who need it most. Officials say the funds were slow to trickle down to them, in part because of political squabbling. Stringent and evolving rules from the Treasury Department complicated the process,” Rebecca Tan and Rachel Chason report. “For many localities, it has been an unprecedented task: quickly distributing millions in relief while trying to curb a rising tide in infections and fill gaping budget holes. Some simply did not have the infrastructure in place to make it happen. Now, as individuals grow more desperate for testing, rental assistance and business relief, officials face a looming deadline: If they do not use their funds by Dec. 30, the money must be returned to the federal government.”

While Americans contemplate not getting to see their families at Thanksgiving or Christmas, thousands of electronic music fans in Taiwan danced frenetically this weekend to thumping music at a Ultra festival. The island of more than 23 million has gone more than 200 days without reporting a single locally transmitted coronavirus infection, making it possible for the crowd to pack the makeshift arena like it was 2019. (Antonia Farzan)

New Zealand, which has virtually eliminated community transmission of the coronavirus, is making masks mandatory on public transportation in Auckland this week and may soon extend that requirement nationwide. Last week, health officials partially closed Auckland’s central business district after discovering that a young woman who worked in a clothing store had tested positive. The case was connected to a known cluster of infections that traced back to an employee of a quarantine hotel. (Farzan)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced he will be entering self-quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive. Johnson contracted the virus this spring and was hospitalized with severe symptoms. Because it is not yet known with certainty how long coronavirus antibodies last, it is unclear whether Johnson is still immune. (Farzan)

France’s second wave of cases appears to have passed its peak. The health minister credited a new lockdown. (Farzan)

“Three days after the election, the Department of Agriculture sent a proposal to the White House that would allow poultry plants to increase their line speeds — a move that the Obama administration had previously rejected for fear of endangering meatpacking workers. The proposal is among the 145 rules that the White House’s Office of Management and Budget is currently evaluating as a key step in the formal rule-making process for major regulations. Other significant regulations — defined as having a large impact on the economy, the environment, public health and safety, or state and local governments — could come under White House review in the coming days and could potentially be completed before Trump leaves office,” NBC News reports. “While most executive orders can be quickly reversed by the stroke of a pen — as Biden has already vowed to do — completed regulations are significantly harder to dislodge. Once a rule is officially published in the Federal Register, it usually requires either a court decision or the same laborious rule-making process to reverse.”

“First came a leaked U.N. document showing yet another sharp rise in Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. Then, satellites tracked an Iranian oil tanker — the fourth in recent weeks — sailing toward the Persian Gulf after delivering Iranian petroleum products to Venezuela,” Joby Warrick and Souad Mekhennet report. “The first item was further proof of Iran’s progress in amassing the fissile fuel used to make nuclear energy and, potentially, nuclear bombs. The second revealed gaping holes in President Trump’s strategy for stopping that advance. Over the summer, the administration made a show of seizing cargo from several other tankers at sea in a bid to deter Iran from trying to sell its oil abroad. Yet Iran’s oil trade, like its nuclear fuel output, is on the rise again. The Trump administration is entering its final months with a flurry of new sanctions intended to squeeze Iran economically. But by nearly every measure, the efforts appear to be faltering. …

“The tankers that arrived in Venezuela in recent weeks are part of a flotilla of ships that analysts say is now quietly moving a million barrels of discounted Iranian oil and gas a day to eager customers from the Middle East to South America to Asia, including China. The volume represents a more than tenfold increase since the spring … Other countries, many of them scornful of Trump’s unilateralism on Iran, are showing increasing reluctance to enforce the restrictions, even as Iran embarks on a new expansion of its uranium stockpile … As a result, Trump is widely expected to leave [Biden] with a crisis that is worse, by nearly every measure, than when he was elected four years ago: an Iranian government that is blowing past limits on its nuclear program, while Washington’s diplomatic and economic leverage steadily declines.”

The Biden administration will seek to restore stability at the Pentagon. “A Republican Senate would also probably result in more centrist nominees for top Pentagon positions,” Missy Ryan reports. ”Leading the list of possible candidates for defense secretary is Michele Flournoy, who headed the department’s policy operation under President Barack Obama … Others who might be considered include former homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson, who also served as the Pentagon’s top lawyer under Obama and would become the first African American defense secretary; and retired Adm. William McRaven, who served as head of U.S. Special Operations Command and emerged as a vocal critic of Trump.”

“While Black activists remain excited about Harris’s ascent, many now worry that the administration will not deliver much beyond her historic election,” Chelsea Janes and Sean Sullivan report. “Their worries are underlined by the ongoing uncertainty over what exactly Harris’s portfolio will be in the Biden administration, and how much freedom she will have to chart her own course on issues like racial justice and immigration. … Biden has not announced a portfolio for Harris, the way Biden handled the economic stimulus for Obama, and Harris’s allies are watching anxiously to see if she will be allowed to choose her top staffers or if Biden loyalists will be installed. … Longtime White House watchers say a critical question is whether Harris is allowed to assemble her own senior staff. During her presidential run, disagreements among Harris’s aides sometimes spilled into public view, prompting concerns in the party about her abilities to manage such a team. But after dropping out of the primaries, Harris slimmed down her operation as she competed to be Biden’s running mate.”

• People of color make up 46 percent of Biden’s transition team, according to CNN. Forty-one percent of the team’s senior staff are people of color and the majority of the transition staff – 52 percent – are women.
• “Confronted with a shrunken majority, House leaders are discouraging fellow Democrats from taking jobs with the incoming Biden administration — out of concern that Republicans could nab any vacated seats,” the New York Post reports. “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) … told the Biden transition team not to poach its members because of the party’s slim majority.”

“SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday in a spectacular evening liftoff that came days after the company’s Dragon capsule became the first privately owned and operated spacecraft to be certified by NASA for human spaceflight,” Christian Davenport and Hamza Shaban report. “SpaceX earned that designation and the right to undertake what NASA hopes will be regular missions to the space station and back after it completed a test flight of two astronauts earlier this year. … With Sunday’s launch, NASA took another step toward a new era in human spaceflight in which private companies partner with the government to build and design spacecraft and rockets. And it marked a coming-of-age moment for SpaceX, the California company founded by Elon Musk that was once viewed as a maverick start-up.”

• Protests turned to celebrations as Peru’s interim president offered his resignation. (Simon Tegel)
• Hurricane Iota is intensifying and is set to slam Central America days after Eta devastated the region. “The system is forecast to strike Honduras and Nicaragua at major hurricane (Category 3 or greater) intensity,” Matthew Cappucci and Andrew Freedman report.
• A federal judge in New York ruled that DHS acting secretary Chad Wolf lacked the legal authority to limit DACA recipients’ permits. (Maria Sacchetti)

Asked if he would consider a position in Biden’s cabinet, Obama said: “Michelle would leave me. She’d be like, what? You’re doing what?” (CBS)

The Trump administration has come full circle: 

A Stanford professor who served as Obama’s ambassador to Russia had this suggestion for Biden:

Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has supported the QAnon theory and downplayed the pandemic, said gyms in D.C. aren’t open, then shared a video of her routine. D.C. gyms are open, by the way: 

John Oliver explained why Trump’s claims of fraud don’t hold water:

We compiled the four most memorable moments from Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday: