President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team has new problems with the Trump administration, the latest in one series of shocks between them. There is disagreement over access to the Pentagon, according to CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe.
Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller said his team and the president-elect’s office agreed to mutually suspend some meetings scheduled for Friday until after the holidays. However, Yohannes Abraham, executive director of the Biden-Harris transition, told reporters Friday that it was not agreed.
He said Mr Biden’s team continues to face “isolated resistance” from political appointees in the Department of Defense, and similar problems at some other agencies he refused to appoint.
Miller said the Pentagon has complied with hundreds of requests for staff interviews and delivered thousands of pages of documents. The Pentagon also announced it would suspend daily security meetings for the rest of the year, in what it calls a “vacation.”
The break comes when the president-elect announces more historic cabinet appointments.
He is expected to appoint the congresswoman of New Mexico Deb Haaland to hold the position of head of the Department of the Interior, the first Native American woman on paper. The Department of the Interior has oversight of about one-fifth of the nation’s land, including federally controlled tribal areas.
Biden also plans to appoint Michael Regan, North Carolina’s top environmental official, to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Regan would be the first black man to lead the EPA.
Meanwhile, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is heading to Georgia on Monday to campaign for Democratic Senate second-round candidates Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Rafael Warnock. First daughter Ivanka Trump will be there the same day to campaign with Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
The president-elect’s aides have not yet said whether he could return to Georgia before the January 5 second round.
Mr. Biden and Dr. Jill Biden will have to fulfill their commitment to publicly take the Covid-19 vaccine Monday. Harris and her husband will get the vaccine next week.
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