Leaders at agencies across the federal government have been instructed not to cooperate with Joe Biden’s transition team until President Trump finally accepts that he’s lost the election, the Washington Post reports.

“Officials at agencies across the government who had prepared briefing books and carved out office space for the incoming Biden team to use as soon as this week were told instead that the transition would not be recognized until the Democrat’s election was confirmed by the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency that officially starts the transition.”

CBS News: Biden transition barrels forward while Trump administration stalls.

Joe Biden’s transition team is warning that it may take “legal action” if the General Services Administration fails to make an official determination that Joe Biden has won the election, Axios reports.

“A Trump administration appointee is refusing to sign a letter allowing President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week, in another sign the incumbent president has not acknowledged Biden’s victory and could disrupt the transfer of power,” the Washington Post reports.

“One near-certainty about Joe Biden’s Cabinet: Pete Buttigieg will be in it. Biden officials have made clear to donors and party officials the question surrounding Buttigieg is not if, but where, he lands,” Axios reports.

“The multilingual Buttigieg has told friends he wants U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but he may face internal competition from Julie Smith, a longtime Biden foreign policy confidant.”

“Other slots for Buttigieg range from Housing and Urban Development to Veterans Affairs to the Office of Management and Budget.”

“Never before has a president-elect inherited a complex set of urgent — and epic — emergencies like the ones confronting Joe Biden and America,” Axios reports.

“FDR, no doubt, inherited a hot American, Depression-era mess in 1932. President-elect Biden’s spoils, in some respects, are similarly rotten: a spreading pandemic, sky-high long-term unemployment, stratospheric federal debt, an outgoing president claiming the Democrat stole the election, a nation bitterly divided, and misinformation and lies spreading at scale on platforms available to every citizen for free.”

“Any one of these crises would take a presidential term to tame. Six, at once, seem almost incomprehensible in their scale and complexity.”