“The entire National Mall will be closed for Inauguration Day, only accessible by media and security personnel,” the Washington Post reports.
“The extraordinary closure is the latest in a series of security measures to harden the city against the type of violence that rocked the Capitol on Jan. 6. Local and federal officials had already established a downtown security zone and called up more than 20,000 National Guard troops to protect the presidential swearing in on Jan. 20.”
President-elect Joe Biden will no longer be taking an Amtrak train to Washington for his inauguration because of security concerns, the AP reports.
“Senate Republicans are heeding calls to protect national security, agreeing to hold a confirmation hearing Friday for Joe Biden’s nominee for director of national intelligence,” Axios reports.
” The hearing will take place at noon via WebEx. It will occur virtually, since senators are in recess until Jan. 19. The hearing will be held by the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose top Democrat is Mark Warner of Virginia.”
“President-elect Joe Biden’s inaugural committee is producing a television special for the night of his inauguration next week in lieu of the normal in-person festivities,” Politico reports.
“The prime-time event will air on broadcast channels ABC, CBS and NBC but not Fox. Cable news networks CNN and MSNBC will carry it live. Fox News will not.”
“Signaling a dramatic new direction for U.S. foreign assistance, President-elect Joe Biden is expected to announce Wednesday that he will nominate former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power to head the U.S. Agency for International Development,” NBC News reports.
“Biden is also expected to enhance Power’s role by elevating the position to membership on the National Security Council.”
New York Times: “As up to 15,000 troops continued to arrive in Washington from all over the country, Defense Department officials had been weighing whether to deploy them with arms. Mr. McCarthy has decided that at the very least those around the Capitol building will carry weapons, said the officials, who confirmed the decision on the condition of anonymity.”
“Mr. McCarthy’s decision came after a meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. Ms. Pelosi, according to congressional staff members, demanded that the Pentagon take a more muscular posture after a mob, egged on by President Trump last week, breached the Capitol.”
Washington Post: Secret Service launches massive security operation to protect Biden inauguration.
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon body comprising the military’s top generals, issued a memo to the entire U.S. military on Tuesday condemning the Capitol riot and confirming Joe Biden will become the 46th commander in chief of the armed forces on Jan. 20,” the Washington Post reports.
President Trump told reporters the 25th Amendment “is of zero risk to me but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration,” Bloomberg reports.
“President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration is in danger of not having a single Cabinet official confirmed on Inauguration Day, upsetting a tradition going back to the Cold War of ensuring the president enters office with at least part of his national security team in place,” the Washington Post reports.
“Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has landed on the cover of the February issue of Vogue magazine, but her team says there’s a problem: the shot of the country’s soon-to-be No. 2 leader isn’t what both sides had agreed upon, her team says,” ABC News reports.
“Instead of the powder blue power suit Harris wore for her cover shoot, the first African American woman elected vice president is instead seen in more casual attire and wearing Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, which she sometimes wore on the campaign trail.”
“President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is expected to make a major push on Tuesday that calls on Republicans to swiftly confirm the president-elect’s national security picks so they’re in place when the Democrat takes office next week,” Politico reports.
“Amid fallout from the deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol, Biden officials and congressional allies will begin making the case Tuesday that there is a unique urgency in getting the positions filled as soon as possible so there is no gap in national security during a presidential transfer of power.”
“Law enforcement authorities, responding to threats of violence before the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration, will deploy up to 15,000 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital and set up checkpoints in the city to avoid the botched response that helped rioters overrun the Capitol last week,” the New York Times reports.
Associated Press: “In keeping with the theme of unity, the committee also announced that after he is officially inaugurated, Biden, Vice President-elect Harris and their spouses will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, and will be joined there by former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and their wives.”
Politico: “The push for sweeping use of executive action has created a strange dynamic within the Democratic Party. Lawmakers are increasingly eager to cede their legislative power to Biden — but Biden says he doesn’t want it.”
“In addition to the pressure progressives are putting on Biden to immediately forgive student loan debt, they’re advocating for him to direct his attorney general to review the process for removing or reclassifying marijuana on the list of ‘scheduled substances,’ and to issue a national emergency declaration for the climate change crisis.”
“President-elect Joe Biden plans to nominate William J. Burns, a former career diplomat who has served both parties and won respect at home and abroad, to run a CIA that has been badly battered by the Trump administration,” the Washington Post reports.
“The choice of Burns is the incoming administration’s last major personnel decision, and it highlights the qualities that characterize Biden’s foreign policy team. Burns is an inside player — brainy, reserved, collegial — and loyal to his superiors, sometimes to a fault, as he conceded in his 2019 memoir.”
Politico: “President-elect Joe Biden has grown frustrated with the team in charge of plotting his coronavirus response, amid rising concerns that his administration will fall short of its promise of 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days.”
“Biden has expressed criticism on multiple occasions to groups of transition officials — including one confrontation where Biden conveyed to Covid coordinator Jeff Zients and his deputy, Natalie Quillian, that their team was underperforming. … In interviews, multiple senior transition officials defended Zients and stressed the enormity of the challenge, noting that the Trump administration has refused to share key information for weeks.”
“Kamala Harris’s vice presidential portfolio was nebulous before last week. But thanks to Democrats’ upset victories in two Georgia Senate run-offs, Harris has unexpectedly earned a new title: Senate tie breaker,” Politico reports.
Vice President Mike Pence will attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, NBC News reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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