Author: PolitCens

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is the winner in the southwestern state of Arizona, according to major U.S. news outlets, adding to his electoral victory even as President Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge defeat.
 
With more than 99 percent of the votes counted in the state, Biden leads President Donald Trump by about 11,000 votes.
The New York Times, CNN, NBC News and The Washington Post were among the news organizations Thursday that projected Biden the winner in Arizona, historically a Republican stronghold. Fox News and Associated Press called Arizona for Biden last week.
 
Edison Research also has projected Biden the winner in Arizona, giving him 290 electoral votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the outcome of the election.  
 
Biden had previously cleared the 270 vote threshold to win the White House, paving the way for his inauguration on Jan. 20.
 
Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly made unfounded claims that he was defeated by widespread election fraud. But a statement released Thursday by the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, established by Trump in 2018, said the Nov. 3 election was the most secure in U.S. history. The agency’s declaration was the most direct rejection to date of Trump’s campaign to undermine the integrity of the election.  
 
State election officials also report no serious irregularities while Trump’s legal challenges have failed in court.
 
While Biden is the projected winner of the presidential election, results are subject to legal challenges and recounts.
 
States are required to meet a Dec. 8 deadline to certify their vote counts and pick electors for the Electoral College, which will officially select the new president on Dec. 14. 
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When Twitter started blocking President Donald Trump’s postings claiming widespread voter fraud, some cheered. Others started looking for the social media exits.
 
They found a new option at Parler.
 
Fed up with what they see as an anti-conservative bias by managers of the major social media platforms, Trump supporters are telling their followers on Twitter and Facebook to “Follow me on Parler.”
 
From the French word “to speak” or “to talk” but pronounced “PAR-lor,” the social media app is a lot like Twitter, with users posting messages and following topics searchable as hashtags.
 
Launched in 2018 in Nevada, Parler welcomed newcomers to “a non-biased, free speech social media focused on protecting user’s rights.”
 
Over the past year, conservative celebrities have flocked to Parler, a trend that has accelerated since the 2020 U.S. election. As Twitter and Facebook tried to tamp down misinformation about the election, more than 4 million accounts were launched on the app within days, the company says.   
 
Among Parler users are Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.  
 
Posts on Parler are called “parlays.” One on Thursday, under the hashtag #StoptheSteal, said “Shocker Pro Marxist Pope Francis congratulates Crooked Joe!”
“To parlay is to have a discussion bridging the differences,” said Amy Peikoff, Parler’s chief policy officer. “Coming to an understanding between two different viewpoints, and this is the sort of discussion that we want to foster on Parler.”
 
Previous alternatives to Facebook and Twitter have popped up in the U.S. claiming to be true bastions of free speech. Gab, which became a haven for neo-Nazis, was booted from the app stores of Apple and Google because it didn’t take down hate speech.
 
But the popularity of Parler – and other right-wing sites such as MeWe and Rumble, a video site – comes amid growing pressure on social media firms to do more to monitor their sites, particularly addressing misinformation about voting and the election results.  
 
Twitter, Facebook and to a lesser extent Google, the owner of YouTube, have put labels on tweets, posts and videos that claim election fraud. In some cases, they stopped the content from being shared and spreading.
 
Much of the conversation on Parler echoes Trump’s unsupported claim that the November 3 election was stolen by Democrats through massive voter fraud.  #StoptheSteal is a top hashtag for those who claim without proof that former Vice President Joe Biden, the projected winner of the 2020 presidential race, stole the election.
 
Last week, Facebook took down a Stop the Steal group that had gained more than 300,000 users in 24 hours. Facebook said it stopped the group because it was trying to incite violence.
   
“The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group,” a Facebook spokesman told The New York Times.
 
Parler users have also crossed that line at times: An Arkansas police chief used the site to urge violence against Democrats he claimed were preventing Trump’s reelection. When the posts appeared in news stories, his public account was removed and he was forced to resign.  
   
While the Parler algorithm does not promote posts to keep users engaged, the company says it is serious about its commitment to free speech and does not block extremist content.  
   
“The fact that we don’t block out the content from various extremists does not mean that our goal is to further all of those views,” said Parler’s Peikoff. “What we are planning to do is give the widest freedom possible so that people can have a full discussion.”  
   
For years, the leading social media companies have been criticized for their finely tuned algorithms designed to boost users’ time spent on the sites. That has led to some users receiving a stream of increasingly extremist content on their feeds, according to Michael Karanicolas, the Wikimedia fellow at the Yale School of Law.
   
The rise of Parler, he said, “potentially suggests that if platforms do try and steer people away from these echo chambers and steer people away from what they want, the people will just migrate elsewhere.”
 
There is one potential customer that Parler has not yet managed to attract: Trump, himself.
 
While @TeamTrump, Trump’s reelection campaign, is on the site with 2 million followers, the president isn’t on Parler, yet.
 
With nearly 89 million followers on Twitter, Trump is still tweeting, even as Twitter has been putting warning labels on more of his tweets.
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China on Friday extended its congratulations to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin made a statement at a regular daily briefing.“We extend congratulations to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris,” Wenbin said. “We have been following the reaction to the U.S. presidential election of both the United States and the international community,” he said without elaborating on his country’s delay.“We respect the choice of the American people. Meanwhile we understand the results of the U.S. election will be determined according to U.S. laws and procedures,” Wenbin said.Biden is projected to become U.S. president on Jan. 20 based on what is deemed to be an insurmountable lead in the ongoing vote counting from the Nov. 3 election. The results remain subject to court challenges and recounts, and will not be official until certified by the individual states, which must happen no later than Dec. 8.China, along with Russia, did not join other governments last week in congratulating Biden after he was projected Saturday to have secured enough Electoral College votes in the election to win the U.S. presidency.Under a Biden administration political analysts expect few changes in U.S.-China relations, which have recently been tense due to President Donald Trump’s criticism of Beijing’s trade and human rights record and accusations of spying and technology theft.
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Turkish analysts say Joe Biden’s projected presidential election victory could prove to be a pivotal moment in Turkey’s relations with the United States — one that could see Ankara pivoting back to its traditional Western allies or further deepening ties with Russia and China. While many European leaders were quick to offer congratulations to Biden, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan belatedly issued a statement Wednesday acknowledging Biden’s victory. In it, Erdogan stressed the “strategic” nature of bilateral ties and said they should be further strengthened based on common interests. The Turkish leader also sent a message to President Donald Trump, thanking him. Under Trump, critics say, Erdogan paid little price for confronting fellow NATO members and cozying up to Moscow, with the U.S. president opposing calls in the U.S. Congress for sanctions against Turkey.A Biden presidency, some analysts are predicting, will bring very different things for Erdogan. “The message from Biden will be to Turkey, do behave like an ally,” said International relations teacher Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. He told VOA he believes Biden’s victory could be a watershed moment in bilateral relations.”A Biden presidency gives you the opportunity to actually change tracks, not necessarily giving up on your interests but change your style. But if Turkey insists on defying everyone, I don’t think we can get anywhere, and the key to that is the S-400,” Ozel said. The S-400 is an advanced missile system that Turkey bought from Russia despite Washington’s warning that the purchase violated U.S. law and that the missile’s radar compromises NATO defense systems.A defiant Ankara test-fired the system last month, despite a warning from U.S. senators that the move would trigger sanctions. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at a November gathering of Turkish ambassadors, called on Washington to get over its objections to the S-400, declaring the issue was “done.”Biden’s challenge Among the first critical foreign policy decisions Biden could face is whether to sanction Turkey over the S-400. Erdogan’s deepening ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin are raising concerns within NATO.Under the so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, Biden has a broad range of options when it comes to sanctions – from symbolic to severe financial measures.The U.S. could take action against Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. Despite a New York court jailing of a senior Halkbank official in 2018 for extensive violations of Iran sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department has so far held off on penalizing Turkey.In early 2021, Halkbank faces charges again in a New York court for alleged sanction-busting. Analysts say that until now, Ankara has banked on its strategic importance to avoid sanctions. Turkey borders Iran, Iraq, Syria, hosts a U.S. radar base, and allows the U.S. military to operate from its Incirlik air base, one of the region’s largest.Observers warn Turkey could be overplaying its hand. “Plenty of people in the United States believe they can manage things without Turkey,” cautions Ozel, who says Washington’s need for Incirlik “is being questioned more seriously today than before.”Analysts say Ankara’s hardline stance towards Washington is perhaps a negotiating ploy. They say Mr. Erdogan is aware that Biden will likely take a more robust stance towards Moscow and that Turkey can play a critical role in that strategy.”No doubt there is a lot of anger directed at Turkey, at President Erdogan himself,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow of the European Council of Foreign Relations. “There will be a tendency also to see if the U.S. can peel Turkey back from its reliance on Russia. And I think Erdogan knows how to play this game; he knows how to play the U.S. against Russia and vice versa, and that will be an interesting dance to watch.”But some warn of far-reaching consequences if that dance should end with U.S. sanctions on Turkey.”Hostile actions against Turkey will eventually align Turkey with the Eurasian and Asia powers like Russia and China,” said retired Admiral Cem Gurdeniz. “This is going to be inevitable because they are threatening the very existence of Turkey.”The legacy of Turkey’s 2016 failed coup by disaffected military officers could also be a complicating factor for Biden. Suspicions in Ankara remain that the Obama administration, which Biden served in, was involved in the attempted military takeover, a charge Washington has denied. But Aydintasbas says Biden’s experience of working with Turkey could serve the relationship well. “The tail end of the Obama administration relations between Turkey and Washington was pretty bad. But Biden himself emerged as an Erdogan whisperer. It was Biden who was dispatched to Turkey after the failed coup attempt in 2016 to repair the relationship. So the one-on-one relationship between the two may not be so bad, ” he said.  
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The balance of power in the U.S. Congress will come down to just two Senate races in one Southern state – Georgia — where the presidential contest remains too close to call. As VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, those two Senate seats will determine if there is a divided government during President-elect Joe Biden’s first two years.
Camera:  Adam Greenbaum           Producer: Katherine Gypson
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Joe Biden, projected to become America’s 46th president in January, has vowed to stop constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s presidency. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports.
Camera:  Spike Johnson and Christian von Preysing     Producer: Elizabeth Lee
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When Joan Martin heard that Joe Biden had been declared the winner of the presidential election, the retired nurse and avowed supporter of President Donald Trump was deeply unsettled. To steel herself, she thought about how her household weathered Hurricane Katrina when it battered her hometown of Picayune, Mississippi, in 2005.
As the storm blew toward the town, Martin rushed out into her yard to carry her 85 show chickens to safety. Outside, howling winds lashed her family’s barn, lifting the edges of the roof off its moorings.
“The next day they (the chickens) were very concerned about the changes in the yard — we had trees down,” said Martin, 79. “They were very eyes-wide. But within two days, they said, ‘Oh, yeah, we can deal with this,’ and they did. So I have to follow their lead.”
Across the country, many of the 71.9 million people who voted for Trump — especially his loyal, passionate base — are working through turbulent emotions in the wake of his loss. Grief, anger and shock are among the feelings expressed by supporters who assumed he would score a rock-solid victory — by a slim margin, maybe easily, perhaps even by a landslide.
There is also denial. Many are skeptical of the results, saying they don’t trust the media’s race call for Biden, the way election officials counted the ballots, the entire voting system in America. Their views echo the unsupported claims Trump has made since Election Day.
This despite the fact that state officials and election experts say the 2020 election unfolded smoothly across the country and without widespread irregularities. Trump and Republicans have pointed to isolated problems, but many are explained by human error. Many of the Trump campaign’s legal challenges have been dismissed in court. And with Biden leading Trump by solid margins in key battleground states, none of those issues would have any impact on the outcome of the election.Daniel Echebarria, a 39-year-old supporter of President Donald Trump, poses for a picture in Carson City, Nev., where he works as a teacher.Still, any fragment of possibility is enough for some Trump supporters. Their comments lay out the political challenge ahead for the president-elect: The longer Trump casts doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s win, the harder it will be for the new president to unite a riven country, as he has said he wants to do.”I’m really not in a live and let live mood,” said Daniel Echebarria, a 39-year-old school teacher who lives in Sparks, Nevada.
Echebarria said he was surprised by the election results, questioned some of the numbers and would like to see the president continue with his legal challenges. But he also said he doesn’t consider the result “a big rig job” and doesn’t want to see Trump deny the results into January. Still, he’s not feeling particularly united, either.
Echebarria said he believes Democrats never gave Trump a chance to govern and cites the Russia investigation and the impeachment trial as examples.
“I think that the president was prohibited from getting a lot of his agenda done because so much time and effort had to be put against defending against these,” he said.
Several Trump supporters interviewed by The Associated Press in recent days were rankled by widespread celebrations of Biden’s win in liberal cities. They saw hypocrisy in the public, outdoor gatherings after Democrats condemned Trump supporters for attending big rallies — some were held indoors — amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“Sad” is how Lori Piotrowski sums up her mood. The president of the Boulder City Republican Women club in Nevada at first sounds much like any other deflated supporter.
“You always want your candidate to win. You’re a little let down. You worked hard,” she said.
But Piotrowski also described herself as “extremely” surprised by the result of the election. She’s struggling to reconcile her version of the campaign with the results. She says she saw so many images of large Trump rallies in the final days. On a recent drive from Las Vegas to Reno — through rural, GOP-leaning Nevada — she saw only Trump signs and banners, she said.
“The votes didn’t reflect that amount of enthusiasm. I just find that very surprising,” she said. “It makes me wonder.”
Biden won Nevada by racking up votes in the state’s urban areas.
Piotrowski, like many Trump supporters, wants to see Trump’s legal challenges continue. A massive surge in mail voting and the slower tally of those votes has made the vote count look unfamiliar and strange. Piotrowski said it concerns her that races were called with so many ballots outstanding, although that is often the case.
“It just seems to me that there’s a lot of things that can be improved in the system so that people felt more confident,” she said.
She said she hasn’t listened to any of Biden’s speeches since Election Day.
Za Awng, of Aurora, Colorado, is also suspicious of the vote count.
Awng, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Myanmar, has embraced Trump as a politician who echoes his conviction that China’s influence in the world must be sharply curtailed, and as one who shares his Christian values.
This spring, Awng lost his job as a chef for two months when the pandemic forced the closure of the restaurant where he works. Back at work now, he credits Trump with working hard over the last four years to improve the economy. It was hard for him to grasp how the president could lose.
“I believe there is something wrong,” he said, pointing to what appear to be Democratic shifts in the tally but were a result of mail-in votes being counted later. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to cast mail ballots after Trump baselessly declared mail voting fraudulent.
“I hope there will be counting again and maybe it will change,” he said.
Even in less tense times, Jim Czebiniak seeks solace in hours of evening prayer. So when Czebiniak, an avid Trump supporter who lives in the upstate community of Knox, New York, heard that Biden had been declared the winner, he turned once again to worship in a search for answers.
“First of all, I went to the Lord and I asked him why, why is it going like this? The Lord said, ‘Because I’m working on stuff. Just relax and let things work themselves out,'” said Czebiniak, 72, who is semi-retired from a career writing custom software.
“To quote what’s-his-name from the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger: ‘You can’t always get what you want,'” Czebiniak said.
Still, Czebiniak said he is far from ready to accept a Biden presidency. He cited several unsupported claims made by the Trump campaign.
“The election isn’t really called yet,” Czebiniak said, days after all the major U.S. television networks and the AP examined vote counts in key states to declare Biden the overall winner. “I don’t trust anything that’s going on there with all this vote counting.”
Unlike many Trump supporters, Michelle Sassouni wasn’t shocked by the outcome of the election or the aftermath.
The 29-year-old in Tampa, Florida, is an active member of her region’s Young Republicans Club and a co-host of a video show, “Moderately Outraged.” She floated the idea of Biden’s nomination, and potential to win, months ago.
“Everyone laughed at me on the show,” she said. With many liberal friends, she had seen the strong opposition to Trump. She even understands it somewhat. “I don’t love everything he does, but I voted for him because I’m a Republican.”
But Sassouni doesn’t see danger in Trump’s vow to fight the results in court. People need to be reassured of the results, and a court fight might give them confidence, she said.
“If you voted for Joe Biden, wouldn’t you want to know that he won fair and square so that there’s not this cloud over his head?” she asked. “If half the country believes there was some sort of election tampering, then that creates distrust in the system, that creates distrust in Western democracy as a whole.”
Martin, the retiree in Mississippi, says she’s planning to resume her daily life, tending to her animals and avoiding talking about the country’s change in leadership as a way to deal with the stress and trepidation she feels.
“I’ll go out in the yard to check and talk to my chickens and say my old-fashioned hymns and get by,” she said.
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A Joe Biden presidency is likely to involve a deeper U.S. engagement with Southeast Asia, some analysts say, offering trade for their pandemic-hit economies and security leverage against regional heavyweight China—but also bringing uncomfortable questions on rights and democracy.Southeast Asia knows Biden from his time as vice president in the administration of President Barack Obama, whose “Asia pivot” lavished diplomatic capital and resources on a strategic trade and defense vision for the region aimed at expanding economies that are home to 650 million people and checking China’s march.President Donald Trump’s approach to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations has seen defense sales, bilateral trade deals and promises of support in the face of an increasingly assertive Beijing, which has ramped up its bases in the contested South China Sea.Trump also brought threats to the same countries, however, over trade deficits. The sudden withdrawal from the Obama-era Trans-Pacific Partnership after years of talks on the world’s largest low-tariff trade zone left allies wondering whether the U.S. could still be counted on as a long-term partner.Now, ASEAN leaders are expected this weekend to sign a rival trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, anchored by China.Some analysts predict that under Biden, America will be a more visible ally.“Biden will reconstruct US foreign policy in Southeast Asia,” said Ade M Wirasenjaya, who lectures on International Relations at the Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia.“Biden has political insignia with Democrat and predecessor Obama. He will be more calm and build relationships in a multilateralist way than Trump.”Biden—and his top officials—also will show up, said Emeritus Professor Carl Thayer of the University of New South Wales, in Australia.“President-elect Biden has already proclaimed ‘we’re back!’ meaning that top U.S. officials will turn up for high-level meetings with their ASEAN counterparts,” he said.Trump skipped several key ASEAN summits, while China routinely sends top leaders.Trump’s trade war with China also left blisters across the region’s export-reliant economies—some countries benefiting from a shift of supply chains, others losing investment from battered Chinese firms as protectionist measures toxified the trade environment.FILE – President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He have lunch after signing the ‘Phase 1’ U.S.-China trade agreement, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Jan. 15, 2020, in Washington.The projected change in the White House has been welcomed by ASEAN leaders, many stunned by America’s sudden retreat from leadership on major global issues like trade and climate change.Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, whose country is Southeast Asia’s second biggest economy and Washington’s oldest Asian ally, said he “looks forward to working closely” with the incoming president, while Halimah Yacob, Singapore’s president took to Facebook to praise the president-elect and his running mate, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.“This is the historic moment for women minorities in the U.S., and around the world,” Yacob said on Facebook.Elephant in the room?There may be awkward conversations, however, once Biden takes office in January.Biden will “pay attention to issues related to human rights and democratic development, which has been overlooked by the Trump administration,” said Kavi Chongkittavorn, a Bangkok-based veteran diplomatic commentator.Trump paid less public attention than his predecessors to pro-democracy movements and questions of human rights, dismaying activists from Thailand to Cambodia. Analysts say that served to embolden regional strongmen such as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, as well as the ex-generals who stack Thailand’s government, and even Vietnam’s communist leadership.Kavis said Biden will be more attentive and “zero-in on Thailand and its future strategic role,” said Kavi.Trade and securityWhile the TPP deal is unlikely to re-emerge as it was, Southeast Asian leaders who are meeting this week in Vietnam will be hoping for swift reassurances from a Biden administration on free trade.Equally, they will be keen to have a reboot of the climate change agenda, which they see as integral to the future of a region hit by historic droughts and storms.Their main concern, though, is the rapid advance of China. It is now the biggest trading partner with ASEAN and a military power with its eyes firmly set on dominating the South China Sea, as well as completing a lattice of debt-funded infrastructure projects to realize its Belt and Road Initiative ambitions.Trump had promised to turn up the economic and military heat on China in a second term, offering Southeast Asian states—an area his administration defined as the Indo-Pacific—valuable leverage in their negotiations with their neighborhood superpower.Biden will have to address the same concerns, experts say.“No matter who runs the White House, there’s still an increasing convergence of strategic interests in the South China Sea and bilateral economic ties are still flourishing,” said Le Hong Hiep, an academic at the Contemporary Southeast Asia ISEAS – Singapore based Yusof Ishak Institute.First, though, he will have to seize the chance to remake old friendships and show that America remains a long-term ally that will not divide and rule a Southeast Asian bloc already being fractured by China’s wealth and influence.“Biden will become a strategic partner with ASEAN,” Wirasenjaya said, “particularly to reduce China’s aggression in the South China Sea.” 
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U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has held additional congratulatory telephone calls with world leaders as he moves forward with preparations ahead of his inauguration January 20. The calls come as President Donald Trump refuses to concede following the November 3 election and challenges the results.The Biden-Harris transition team says Biden spoke with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and South Korean President Moon Jae-in during separate calls Wednesday, thanking them for their congratulations. The statement said the conversations covered climate change, COVID-19 and strengthening democracy.Biden spoke earlier in the week with leaders from Britain, Canada France, Germany and Ireland, according to transition officials. NATO ally Turkey also reached out, according to reports.Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, says he and President-elect Biden had a “meaningful conversation” about the importance of their countries’ alliance and working together on mutually important issues, particularly regional security.Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga attends to deliver his policy speech at the upper house of parliament in Tokyo, Oct. 26, 2020.Suga told reporters in Tokyo he congratulated Biden and Kamala Harris as the first female vice president-elect. There was no mention of Trump’s refusal to concede.The Japanese prime minister told Biden regional security is an increasingly important issue. “I said [to Biden] that the Japan-U.S. alliance, as the security environment around Japan is turning increasingly severe, is indispensable for the peace and prosperity not only for the region but also for international society, and we need to further strengthen it.”He said Biden agreed, and told Suga he looked forward to strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance and working together on achieving peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.China has built and militarized man-made islands in the South China Sea and is pressing its claim to virtually all of the sea’s key fisheries and waterways. Japan is concerned about China’s claim to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, called Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea.Suga said he and Biden agreed to meet as soon as possible. Suga was elected in September, replacing Shinzo Abe, who resigned for health reasons. 
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The anxieties of Britain’s ruling Conservatives about how Anglo-American relations may unfold under a Biden administration were partly calmed midweek when President-elect Joe Biden chose to phone Prime Minister Boris Johnson ahead of conversations with France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel.“Special relationship maintained as Johnson is first on Joe Biden’s call list,” the Times of London proclaimed on its front page Wednesday. The two men spoke for around 25 minutes. Britain’s newspapers — and Downing Street officials privately — appeared gleeful, too, that Biden phoned Johnson ahead of talking with Ireland’s Micheal Martin.“The prime minister warmly congratulated Joe Biden on his election as president of the United States,” a spokesman said. “They discussed the close and long-standing relationship between our countries and committed to building on this partnership in the years ahead, in areas such as trade and security, including through NATO.”About-faceSpeaking in the House of Commons Wednesday, Johnson hailed his “refreshing” conversation with Biden, and in his enthusiasm misspoke, describing Donald Trump as the “previous president.” Trump once described Johnson as “Britain Trump,” lauding him for championing Brexit and embracing him as a kindred spirit.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during the weekly question-time debate at the House of Commons in London, Britain, Nov. 11, 2020.“One of the many merits of the excellent conversation I had yesterday with president-elect Joe Biden was that we were strongly agreed on the need for once again the UK and the US to stand together to stick up for our values around the world,” Johnson told lawmakers.Speaking later Wednesday during a visit to a food distribution center in the British capital, Johnson said: “Sticking up for democracy around the world, human rights, free trade, NATO – Joe Biden is a very strong believer in the transatlantic alliance and indeed the special relationship — and above all climate change.”But there was no mention by Johnson, or his aides, about whether the pair had discussed during the phone call a key issue that’s been dividing Britain’s Conservatives and America’s Democrats — Johnson’s threat to ignore parts of Britain’s withdrawal Brexit agreement with the European Union regarding Northern Ireland.A Biden spokesman later said the issue had been raised. The Democrats have warned that Britain’s exit from the European bloc should not impact the island of Ireland or undermine peace there.Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 29, 2016, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria.In a podcast discussion last year, Blinken expressed concern that the Good Friday Agreement could be compromised because of Brexit. “The United States played a pivotal role in getting peace in Northern Ireland,” he said. “It certainly is a lot harder without the EU and no one, of course, wants to go back to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland,” he added.Germany“I think their instincts will be to downgrade Britain a bit and try to work with Germany more on transatlantic relations,” said Kundnani. “But then I suspect it will become apparent pretty quickly that on several major issues, particularly around China and Russia, Germany won’t be as cooperative. I am curious how then the Biden administration reacts and how it recalibrates?”British diplomats appear to be planning for just that eventuality. Peter Ricketts, a former British national security adviser, told British broadcasters that Biden won’t come with any sentimental regard for the British. “Britain is going to have to earn its keep with Washington and show we are working in ways they help the American interest as well,” he said.
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President Donald Trump’s campaign launched a new legal effort this week aimed at stopping the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, as the president continued to refuse to concede to President-elect Joe Biden. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
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U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has announced his choice of longtime adviser Ron Klain to be his White House chief of staff.Klain previously served as Biden’s vice-presidential chief of staff during the administration of President Barack Obama, and was the official Obama put in charge of the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014.“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,” Biden said in a statement Wednesday.Klain called the new appointment “the honor of a lifetime.”Biden is continuing to meet with his transition advisers, who include experts familiar with issues he will face early in his administration, as he plans for taking control of the American government when he is inaugurated on January 20. 
The projected winner of the November 3 election, Biden has named an array of advisers to look at the operations of agencies throughout the government. He said Tuesday he could announce some key appointments before the annual Thanksgiving holiday on November 26.     U.S. President Donald Trump departs after placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider as he attends a Veterans Day observance in the rain at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, Nov. 11, 2020.Trump seeks to overturn election results
President Donald Trump has not conceded his apparent loss to Biden in last week’s national election and has filed numerous lawsuits contesting the outcome in key battleground states.   With scant evidence so far, Trump has claimed that voting and vote-counting irregularities cost him the election. He is seeking to overturn Biden’s victory and claim a second four-year term in the White House.     So far, however, judges have dismissed all the Trump lawsuits, with more yet to be considered. Election analysts interviewed by VOA and other news organizations say they do not think Biden’s claim to victory will be reversed.      According to unofficial vote counts, Biden has won more than the 270-vote majority in the Electoral College that determines the outcome of U.S. presidential contests. He is ahead in the vote count in two more states, Georgia and Arizona, that could ultimately give him a 306-232 advantage in the Electoral College, where the most populous states have the most votes.     Biden’s possible final Electoral College tally is the same total as in 2016, when Trump came out on top, unexpectedly defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton.    Congratulations from leaders worldwide
Leaders of U.S. allies in Europe, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have called Biden to congratulate him, ignoring Trump’s contention that he will yet win.  Biden spoke late Wednesday with the leaders of Australia, Japan and South Korea.     Biden visited the Korean War Memorial in Philadelphia on Wednesday in observance of Veterans Day.      Trump traveled to Arlington National Cemetery near Washington. It was Trump’s first public event since last Thursday, when he leveled a string of unfounded allegations about widespread election fraud.     Trump has continued his barrage of complaints about the election outcome on Twitter, posting the comments of Republicans supporting his claims that he was cheated out of winning.      U.S. President-elect Joe Biden smiles as he speaks at the theater serving as his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, Nov. 10, 2020.Most Americans view Biden as election winner
However, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday indicated that nearly 80% of Americans, including half of Republicans, say Biden is the rightful winner.      Meanwhile, Biden told reporters at a Tuesday news conference that Republican leaders, most of whom have not acknowledged his victory, are “mildly intimidated by the sitting president.”     Biden said Trump’s refusal to concede is “an embarrassment, quite frankly. How can I say this tactfully? I think it will not help the president’s legacy.”   Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 2 MB480p | 3 MB540p | 3 MB1080p | 15 MBOriginal | 26 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioEven though the Electoral College vote is determinative in U.S. presidential elections, Biden is leading Trump by 3.2 percentage points and more than 5 million votes in the national popular vote count as final votes are tabulated.   
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U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska won reelection Wednesday, assuring Republicans of at least 50 seats in the 100-member Senate for the next two years, while leaving control of the chamber uncertain until two runoff elections are held in Georgia in early January.After slow vote-counting in the northwestern-most state of the U.S. after the November 3 election, news media concluded that Sullivan had an insurmountable lead over Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who ran as an independent candidate with Democratic support. The contest was called with Sullivan, a conservative, ahead by 20 percentage points.FILE – Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, testifies during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 7, 2020.With Republicans assured of at least half the Senate seats, attention now turns to the two January 5 runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia.Two conservative Republican lawmakers — Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — now hold the two seats, but both failed in separate contests last week to win a majority, forcing them into the runoffs.Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist who narrowly lost a 2017 race for a seat in the House of Representatives before trying to oust Perdue from the Senate seat he has held since 2015.FILE – Republican candidate for Senate Sen. David Perdue speaks at Peachtree Dekalb Airport in Atlanta, Nov. 2, 2020.FILE – Democratic candidate for Senate Jon Ossoff points after a news conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Nov. 10, 2020.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in early 2020, is facing Raphael Warnock, a progressive Democrat who is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.Warnock led a multi-candidate field in last week’s voting, with Loeffler second, but he finished well short of the majority he needed to avoid a runoff. In their initial contest last week, Perdue narrowly led Ossoff, but a third candidate won enough votes to keep both Perdue and Ossoff from hitting 50%.Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Sen. Kelly Loeffler gestures at a campaign rally in Marietta, Georgia, Nov. 11, 2020.FILE – Raphael Warnock, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks during a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, Nov. 3, 2020.As it stands, Democrats will hold at least 48 seats in the Senate over the next two years, a net gain of one seat after losing one and gaining two in last week’s voting.If Republicans retain either of the Georgia seats or both, they will hold a majority in the Senate for the next two years. But if Ossoff and Warnock were both to win, there would be a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats.In the case of a tie vote in the Senate, the decisive vote is cast by the vice president, in this case Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Democrats would thus be able to secure a majority on all the chamber’s committees that consider legislation and approve the president’s appointments to key government positions and judgeships on federal courts.Such a legislative majority, if Democrats voted as a bloc, would give President-elect Joe Biden a chance to win approval for his legislative agenda on a host of issues.But if Republicans retain control of the Senate, coupled with continued Democratic control of the House of Representatives that is already assured, the prospective Biden administration and fractious lawmakers likely would be forced into extensive negotiations over such contentious issues as taxes, immigration, health care and more. 
 
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President Donald Trump’s campaign launched a new legal effort this week aimed at stopping the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, as the president continued to refuse to concede to President-elect Joe Biden. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
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The top elections official in the southern U.S. state of Georgia on Wednesday ordered a hand audit of the close vote there between President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. With almost all the votes counted in Georgia, Trump’s Democratic challenger for a four-year term in the White House is leading by 14,112 votes out of the nearly 5 million votes cast in the state. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has said he wanted Trump to win the election, but pushed back against Republican claims that the Georgia vote count was plagued by irregularities. Georgia has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference in Atlanta, Nov. 11, 2020.As he announced the close inspection of the Georgia vote, Raffensperger surrounded himself by local election officials and voiced support and admiration for their work. “Their job is hard. They executed their responsibilities, and they did their job,” Raffensperger said. He said he will invite both Democratic and Republican observers to watch the recount because “the stakes are high.” Ballots will be re-scanned on computers in the state, in addition to a human review of printed text on ballots, a process officials hope to complete by November 20. “This will help build confidence,” Raffensperger said. “It will be an audit, a recount and a recanvass, all at once.” According to unofficial vote counts throughout the United States, Biden has already won the popular vote in enough states to amass more than the 270-vote majority needed in the 538-member Electoral College to claim victory. The Electoral College is determinative in deciding U.S. presidential elections, not the national popular vote, although the most populous states hold the most sway in the Electoral College. U.S. national news media have not declared the winner in Georgia, where 16 electoral votes are at stake, nor in the western state of Arizona, where Biden is leading by 12,813 votes and 11 electoral votes are at stake.  
 
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As election misinformation raged online, Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday its post-election ban on political ads would likely last another month, raising concerns from campaigns and groups eager to reach voters for key Georgia Senate races in January.
 
The ban, one of Facebook’s measures to combat misinformation and other abuses on its site, was supposed to last about a week but could be extended. Alphabet Inc.’s Google also appeared to be sticking with its post-election political ad ban.
 
“While multiple sources have projected a presidential winner, we still believe it’s important to help prevent confusion or abuse on our platform,” Facebook told advertisers in an email seen by Reuters. It said to expect the pause to last another month though there “may be an opportunity to resume these ads sooner.”
 
Facebook later confirmed the extension in a blog post.
 
Baseless claims about the election reverberated around social media this week as President Donald Trump challenged the validity of the outcome, even as state officials reported no significant irregularities, and legal experts cautioned he had little chance to overturn Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
 
In one Facebook group created on Sunday, which rapidly grew to nearly 400,000 members by Wednesday, members calling for a nationwide recount swapped unfounded accusations about alleged election fraud and shifting state vote counts every few seconds.
 
“The reality is right now that we are not through the danger zone,” said Vanita Gupta, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
 
Google declined to answer questions about the length of its ad pause, although one advertiser said the company had floated the possibility of extending it through or after December. A Google spokeswoman previously said the company would lift its ban based on factors such as the time needed for votes to be counted and whether there was civil unrest.
 
The extensions mean that the top two digital advertising behemoths, which together control more than half the market, are not accepting election ads ahead of the two U.S. Senate runoff races in Georgia that could decide control of that chamber.
 
Democratic and Republican digital strategists who spoke to Reuters railed against those decisions, saying the ad bans were overly broad and failed to combat a much bigger problem on the platforms: the organic spread of viral lies in unpaid posts.
 
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, along with the Senate campaigns of Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, called for an exemption for the Georgia Senate run-offs so they could make voters aware of upcoming deadlines.
 
Ossoff faces incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue, and Warnock faces incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
 
“It is driving us absolutely bonkers,” said Mark Jablonowski, managing partner of DSPolitical, a digital firm that works with Democratic causes.
 
“They’re essentially holding the rest of the political process hostage,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, who said he thought the companies’ concerns about ads on the election outcome did not require a blanket ban. “This is something that deserves a scalpel and they’re using a rusty ax,” he added.
 
The companies declined to say when they would lift other “break-glass” election measures introduced for unpaid posts, like Facebook’s limits on the distribution of live videos and demotions of content that its systems predict may be misinformation.
 
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said those emergency measures would not be permanent, but that rollback was “not imminent.”
 
Google’s YouTube, which is labeling all election-related videos with information about the outcome, said it would stick with that approach “as long as it’s necessary.”
 
The video-sharing company bans “demonstrably false” claims about the election process, but has used the tool sparingly, saying hyperbolic statements about a political party “stealing” the election does not violate the policy.
 
However, Twitter Inc. has stopped using its most restrictive election-related warning labels, which hid and limited engagement on violating tweets. Instead, the company is now using lighter-touch labels that “provide additional context,” spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said.
 
Twitter placed a label reading “this claim about election fraud is disputed” on two of Trump’s tweets Tuesday morning, but each was retweeted more than 80,000 times by that evening.
 
Democratic strategists, including members of the Biden campaign who tweeted criticism of Facebook, said social media companies’ measures were not effectively curbing the spread of viral lies.
 
Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, said the ad pauses were needed but not sufficient for tackling false information.
 
“Clearly President Trump does not think the election is over, so I don’t think the platforms should treat it as if it is,” she said. 
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A day after President Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, three staunch loyalists to the president were named to top defense jobs. Among them was a former Fox News commentator who failed to get through Senate confirmation because of offensive remarks he made, including about Islam.
The abrupt changes sent reverberations through the Pentagon as nervous civilian and military personnel waited for the next shoe to drop. And they fueled worries of a wider effort to drum out anyone considered not loyal enough to Trump.
The unease was palpable inside the building throughout the day over concerns about what the Trump administration may do in the months before President-elect Joe Biden takes office and whether there will be a greater effort to politicize the historically apolitical military. While radical policy shifts seem unlikely before the Jan. 20 inauguration, the changes could further damage prospects for a smooth transition already hampered by Trump’s refusal to concede his election loss.
James Anderson, who had been acting undersecretary for policy, resigned Tuesday morning and he was quickly replaced by Anthony Tata, a retired Army one-star general. A short time later, Joseph Kernan, a retired Navy vice admiral, stepped down as undersecretary for intelligence, hastening what had been an already planned post-election departure. Kernan was replaced by Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who becomes acting undersecretary for intelligence.
The departures came on Christopher Miller’s second day on the job as defense chief. Miller also brought in his own chief of staff, Kash Patel, to replace Jen Stewart, who had worked in that job for Esper. Patel and Cohen-Watnick are both considered staunchly loyal to Trump and previously worked at the National Security Council.
Patel was among the small group of aides who traveled with Trump extensively during the final stretch of the campaign. He also is a former prosecutor in the national security division of the Department of Justice and former staff member on the House Intelligence Committee. In that post, he was a top aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., leading the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Patel was linked in media accounts to efforts to discredit the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He moved to the National Security Council in February 2019, and earlier this year, he traveled to Syria for rare high-level talks aimed at securing the release of two Americans who have been missing for years, including journalist Austin Tice.
Cohen-Watnick was a protégé of Trump’s initial national security adviser, Michael Flynn, but was replaced in the summer of 2017 by Flynn’s successor, H.R. McMaster, as part of a string of shakeups at the White House and National Security Council.
While the personnel changes added to the tumult in the wake of Esper’s departure, it’s not clear how much impact they could have on the massive Pentagon bureaucracy. The department is anchored by the tenet of civilian control of the military, and much of the day-to-day activities are conducted by career policy experts and military leaders in the U.S. and around the globe who adhere to a strict chain of command.FILE – Pentagon is seen from an airplane over Washington, DC.Also, many of Trump’s policies and defense priorities have already been put in motion by Esper and his predecessors, guided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including the chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley. All of those military leaders remain in place.
This is Trump’s second attempt to secure the policy job for Tata. Earlier this year, Trump appointed Tata to the post, but the Senate canceled a hearing on the nomination when it became clear that it would be difficult if not impossible to get him confirmed. Tata withdrew his name from consideration for the job, which is the third-highest position in the department. Trump then appointed Tata to serve in the job of deputy undersecretary.
There has been continuing tumult in the Pentagon’s policy shop. John Rood was forced to resign as undersecretary for policy in February after he drew White House ire for warning against the U.S. withholding aid to Ukraine, the issue that led to the president’s impeachment.
Tata will be “performing the duties of” the undersecretary job, rather than holding the “acting” title. Officials who carry the “acting” title have more authority than those who are “performing the duties of” the job.
According to reports, Tata posted tweets in 2018 calling Islam the “most oppressive violent religion I know of,” and he called former President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader” and referred to him as Muslim. The tweets were later taken down.
At the time of the Senate hearing, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Trump must not prioritize loyalty over competence and install someone in a job if the “appointee cannot gain the support of the Senate, as is clearly the case with Tata.”
Defense officials said Miller, who previously was director of the National Counterterrorism Center, continues meeting with staff and becoming familiar with the Pentagon and its wide range of complex and critical national security issues and mission.
Anderson’s departure was first reported by Politico.
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