Multiple guests expressed concern on the Sunday morning political talk shows about a surge in coronavirus cases ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, which experts say may contribute to an even greater increase.
President Trump’s refusal to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden was also in the spotlight more than two weeks after the former vice president was declared the election winner.
The director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on Sunday said that the current wave of coronavirus cases is worse because Americans are not “acting with common purpose” the way they were in the spring.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, warned that the U.S. was in a “very, very difficult situation at all levels” with regard to the coronavirus pandemic, but said “we should not look upon this as a hopeless situation.”
“I really think it’s very unfortunate that the whole process has been politicized and therefore the context has created conditions whereby people’s perception have been exacerbated, and we are where we are today,” Moncef Slaoui said.
“We are ready to start shipping vaccines within 24 hours from approval. Ship them to the sites that each state that are located — a quantity of vaccine that’s proportional to their population tells us where to deliver the vaccine. We’ll have the vaccines there the next day after approval, and hopefully people will start to be immunized, I would say within 48 hours from the approval,” said Moncef Slaoui on ABC’s “This Week.”
Kate Bedingfield, a top communications adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, said Sunday that Biden and his team are not concerned about President Trump’s bids to overturn the results of the presidential election in court.
“Legal action isn’t our preference,” Jen Psaki said. “If it was, we would have done it days ago because we’ve known the clear outcome for two weeks now, and that’s the only trigger for ascertainment.”
President-elect Joe Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain said on Sunday that the General Services Administration’s (GSA) refusal to ascertain Biden as the winner of the election was preventing his team from conducting background checks on people he wants in his Cabinet.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said on Sunday that it was “past time to start a transition” to President-elect Biden’s administration, adding he would “rather have a president that has more than one day to prepare.”
“I think he’s just playing for time in hopes that something will emerge that allows him either to have a good reason why he’s lost or in his mind, maybe still to win,” former national security adviser John Bolton said. “But I think that simply emphasizes the need for senior Republican leaders to join those who have begun to come out and say Trump’s behavior is inexcusable.”
Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) said Sunday that the GOP has been “very reluctant to stand up” to President Trump, who has refused to recognize President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday that he’s “embarrassed that more people” in the GOP “aren’t speaking up” against President Trump in the wake of the election.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Sunday said GOP members need to “run down every single irregularity” in the 2020 election, adding to continued efforts from President Trump and his allies to delay the certification of election results.
Stephen Moore, an economist and outside adviser to President Trump, said he thinks the president will leave office “triumphant,” pointing to optimistic projections for the economy and noting the announcement that a COVID-19 vaccine could be just weeks away.
