Joe bidens, transition to the white house can now begin in earnest until now hes been doing it without the support of the federal office thats tasked with overseeing the transfer of power will then 2 weeks after his victory speech, the head of the General Services administration has finally told the president elect the transition can formally begin means bidens new administration can meet with federal officials to work on the Pandemic Response and National Security. Trump took to twitter to announce that hes ready for the transition. He wrote, i want to thank emily murphy at g. S. A. For her steadfast education and loyalty to her to our country. Shes been harassed, threatened, and abused, and i do not want to see this happen to her family or employees of the g. S. A. Ok, strongly continues. Well continue to keep up the good fight, prevail saying nevertheless, in the best interest of our country, hes recommended that emily and her team do what needs to be done. He went on to say that hes told his team to do the same. Well, joe bidens Transition Team has welcomed the move from the statement. His team says today a decision is needed to step is a needed step brother to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation in the days ahead. Transition officials will begin meeting with federal officials to discuss the Pandemic Response. Have a full accounting of our National Security interests and gain complete understanding of the trunk administrations efforts to holo out. Government agencies were 2 correspondents covering the story. She had britains ears in wilmington pedicle hain is in washington d. C. Lets start with passy. As a parent, just explain to us what this all means, how important it is. Its a pretty big deal. Why is that . While its the 1st time weve heard anything from the president that shows even the remote possibility that he has knowledge is that he is not, in fact going to be the next president of the united states. Now he said in that tweet a couple of things, lets unpack that. He said that hes not going to win, hes still going to continue with the fight. Thats looking really, really unlikely. A couple of interesting things. He said hes directed the g. S. A. Administrator. Well, in her statement, she specifically said, i came to this decision independently. She has brought up the threats that she says shes been facing the line about the phone. She went on to say they are even threatening her pets. But still, she is not in this letter actually saying joe biden is in fact president elect. But saying that that is going to be left up to the electoral process. Still, its a big deal, not just because the action is happening. And now the biden team that she has will talk about they could move forward, but its the 1st sign that the president is starting to get indication that yes, in fact, come january 20th at noon, thats no longer going to be his house. So the 1st indication, of course, on twitter that, that is starting to sink in. Yeah, lets talk a little bit more about that twist to that twitter toilets that donald trump put out. What do you make of it . I think its a, its a very big deal in that. Hes finally starting to say ok, lets talk about the transition. Even though im still going to, when im still going to fight, theres been a lot of reporting that he feels like he needs to fight to send a message to his supporters. And its been really remarkable how few republican politicians or leaders have come out to say its over. Its been weeks, its time to move on joe bidens, one. This might give them more cover to do so. He has been threatening very clearly if people spoke out against him, hes going to get involved and they have to get the republican nomination again, and that he can just send out a tweet and possibly cost them their jobs. The other factor here is georgia. The entire fate of the biden agenda is going to come down to 2 senate races that were too close that go to a runoff in georgia. So they have to basically its, you have to get 50 percent, they didnt. So whoever wins those 2 races will determine the senate who controls the senate and that will determine just how and bischof joe biden can be when he takes office as president. So the concern among republicans, if weve already started to see this one of trumps lawyers sort of tweeted out that hey, these 3 publicans in georgia because republicans are in the state of georgia, georgia. They couldnt guarantee that. Trump was the president s or dont show up to vote in those senate races. And Mitch Mcconnell likes being in power, so theyre trying to walk this balancing act to try to maintain control of the senate, not get on, present, bad sides in case he actually maintains control of the g. O. P. Out of office. But this is actually starting to show momentum against the president. Weve seen National Security leaders, republican big waves come out and say its over. This is hurting democracy. Its hurting National Security. Weve seen really important c. E. O. s of the richest people in the country, the tend to donate to these republicans. Theyve come out and said this is bad, its time to move on. So now that the president just opened up a little bit of a crack on twitter, its going to be very interested in the next day to see if anyone stands up and says ok, its, its real time to go. Time to accept that youve lost the election. So thats what were watching for in the coming days. But for the news tonight, out of the white house is the president , not conceding, not making a phone call to joe biden, saying hell be there at the inauguration invite them over for tea tradition. But he is say that the fight continues, but the transition can begin just in case seems very hard to imagine an invitation for tea at this point anyway, pedicle him. Thank you live in washington d. C. As she had her. Townsend, who is in wilmington, delaware, thats the home state of president elect, joe biden. And she had with, as we said earlier from the biden harris Transition Team, tell us a little bit more about what theyre saying about all this. Right. And it was interesting, those 3 priorities that they, that they mention in that statement that you do, you read out earlier. So 1st of all they want to discuss the Pandemic Response with federal officials that they want a full accounting of our National Security interests. And they want to gain complete understanding of the trumpet, ministrations efforts to hold government agencies. So interesting triumvirate, there of priorities. Clearly this does mean that they have now referred draw resources to begin that transition. They can get rent, office space, they can hire personnel. Interestingly, they were actually fundraising for the transition process. I see a member of the pool. The biden traveling pool is already also. What do you do with all that money that you raised . Just in the last few days saying that you needed money for the transition, and the biden camp hasnt go back to reporters as yet, but they have the money. But clearly, what we have been hearing for for weeks now is the biggest concern as this transition process was structuring. Was it was the Pandemic Response that they just didnt have a clear idea of where the government was in its planning for a vaccine. And its, and its, and its current response with as far as personal protective equipment and so on is concerned. They didnt understand about supply trains for both p. P. E, but also for the sort of the sort of equipment will be needed to roll out of vaccine quickly. And weve been hearing over the last few days. All this positive news potentially about about a vaccine rollout. But the biden team was simply in the dark. It has to be said that there are career Civil Servants who are planning the rollout of a vaccine for example. And they will remain in the administration off to if and when the troubled ministration does eventually leave. So there is comfort there, but the biden camp really clear that they want to start planning now for Pandemic Response of that is the priority. And that was reflected in the state of the we, that we got from the biden to have a few of our girls go. Sam, do you think we need to see more republicans coming out and saying, you know, donald trump needs to concede . Will this be seen as, as a wake up call . No, because donald trump hasnt conceded and he says the fight, the fight goes on. There are 70, well over 70000000 people voted for donald trump. This is a huge constituency, and you cant just dismiss that. That is a big chunk of the american electorate who believes in double trouble again. We also have the polls suggesting that a big chunk of that believes the troll hasnt lost the election. So this is a very important constituency. It shouldnt be just discounted glibly. Has every right to, to go to the, you know, to use the fullest extent of the law courts in order to make his claims. They are then being ferried out pretty pretty quickly by, by judges. But the point is he does have that right. Official certification is still under way the Electoral College doesnt. He told us he has every right to do all of this and hes not conceding as, as yet. There was a sense of more and more republicans telling him behind the scenes that it was over. And indeed with his buddy reporting to us that all trump himself knows its over because all sorts of analysis as to what motivations donald trump may have had in continuing to fight not least revenge because you know, people do forget for the wild conspiracy theories that were floating amongst democrats who are now top taunting as republicans fight their own wild conspiracy theories. You were still there showing off the trump elections. They didnt want to legitimize his election. They said, oh, he was putins puppet, that he was being blackmailed through a sex tape by vladimir putin. So its possible numbers of clinton voters were saying that sort of thing with donald trump was an accident. It hasnt been forgotten that they were trying to deal it just summarize him by saying that there was and it was russian collusion which the miller investigation didnt didnt find. So there is the all rule wombs which the democrats, as they lost the Republican Base for coming up with crazy conspiracy theories seem to be forgetting that they were almost a nightly basis over several years repeating amazing conspiracy theories without any, any proof or factual basis that is a rule or issue for, for, for the republicans, or we should remember that advice. This process began with president obama when it was donald trump and the republicans who attempted to deal it was barack obama by saying he was unable to american. So we are having this tit for tat process now as part of electoral politics to deal it is the winner of any election. Democrats are just as guilty as the republicans. The democrats did concede following the projections on election night. That was what actually did take a few days. So this is just part of the process. And of course, trump is also looking at his own future whether he wants to run again. Hes looking to georgia, the Republican Party is looking to georgia to even if they do feel uneasy about all of this. This is still good for the base for their strong base in georgia to come out if theyre incredibly angry about what they feel is a stolen election. This has to be good for trump turnout. They would have all these republican turnout in the georgia election. So there are various reasons or even though there was much background reporting that everyone kind of knew that the jig was up. Ok, thank you for that. You have a tons of a life for us in wilmington, delaware . Well, let us bring in the cofounder of the transition integrity project. So the g. S. A. Is not actually determining the winner, right . Its just saying the transition process has been unlocks, but still, i mean, how major is this in your opinion . Well, i think its very important. Theres about 11 weeks between election day inauguration day. And the purpose of those 11 weeks is basically to prepare the new administration to be able to take action rapidly. You know, you talk about National Security briefings, making sure they are where all the threats that are out there not reached in. And that is also obviously getting ready to hit the ground running on. Being able to take over the management of the pandemic, including hopefully rolling out a vaccine really quickly at the beginning of the year. But the most important thing is getting all the people who need to be approved to get senatorial crew to get security clearances. And there are thousands of them, and that process has been stalled until now. So the fact that we now have an ability through the g. S. A. To begin the process of doing all those clearances and getting all these processes means that the binding is finished and hopefully hit the ground. Running on the afternoon of january 20th. President says he directed the General Services administration to do this. The administrators want to know, he says, to go ahead with what needs to be done. The administrator of the g. S. A. , emily birth, he says she was never directly or indirectly pressured by anyone about the timing or substance of this decision. What should we make of that . Well, most part, my suspicion is the truck probably has no idea what actually goes into the transition process. After all, when he came in 2016, his people didnt show up to the briefings that the obama people, if youre fully prepared for them in many, many cases. So do the transition properly on the front end of this administration. So its not surprising, theyre not doing it properly on the back end. In the biden, her transition statement about this letter from the g. S. A. They talk about transition officials meeting with federal officials to discuss the Pandemic Response to 3 things. A noted the penn demick response to get a full accounting of National Security interests and to gain a complete what i thought was quite interesting to gain a complete understanding of the Trump Administrations efforts to hollow out government agencies. What are they getting at their . Well, one of the things that the Trump Administration has been all about is what steve benen referred to as the deconstruction of the administrative state. Where that basically means is trying to destroy as much of the federal bureaucracy as possible. And theyve been quite successful at that particular pockets of the federal bureaucracy, state department, its been talked about a lot, but the Environmental Protection agency and many other agencies have seen the departure of many Civil Servants. So thats what theyre referring to when they talk about the hollowing out on a big part of what the buy ministrations going to have to spend its, you know, 1st term, not the spirit is rebuilding all that administrative infrastructure and the 1st thing they need to do that is to figure out whats actually been destroyed because of course all of this happened kind of behind closed doors. Do you think were likely now to say this is a question i put to our correspondent, i want to put it to you. Do you think were likely to say more Establishment Republicans coming out and saying ok, you know, its time donald trump, you need to concede, or do you think that trumps apparent willingness to cooperate with the transition to an extent will allow them to, to, to sort of take a step back and remain seated, take the take their foot off the gas as well. I think the elected republicans are mostly like a bunch of and wins on the ice and who want to be the 1st one of the water for the, you know, the seals and shorts that are waiting for them in this film a short, in this case. Trump and his twitter account. I think its possible that we may see a bit of whats the 1st couple come out and start to say that he shouldnt see it. You may see, you know, a couple of dozen republicans in the senate, for example, coming out and saying that the next couple of weeks. I personally dont ever going to make a formal concession. However, its just not that style. I mean, if he doesnt make a formal concession, i mean, hes never going to give up fighting there. Do you think thats about holding on Small Holding on to supporters or do you think thats just, you know, part of donald trump . I think its both. I mean, honestly, you know, the 70000000 or so people who voted for them are in a really important piece to see. No matter what you want to do him out of the presidency. He may want to run again in 2024. Wouldnt surprise me if i were to run for reelection on the afternoon of january 20th. 2021 is intending his, you know, to make a big comeback. Thats not what it actually election stolen from him, but perhaps he wants to monetize them in other ways. You know, he can charge people 9. 99 a month to subscribe to a trump t. V. And he can get, you know, several tens of millions of these people that may solve many of the financial challenges hes likely to face up to the after he leaves the arts. I meant just finally, i want to come back to you to what this actually or names. I mean, this is not an official statement that joe biden is, the new president from the g. S. A. Just remind our International Viewers of how this all works. The Electoral College, you know, the giving the results to congress, how the next, what do you say 11 weeks sort of plays out. Yeah. Its not the media that determines who the president is. What present the election was called 2 weeks ago, but that was an actually want to turn it in, or is it up to, you know, the g. S. A. Or donald trump, or anybody else to sort of unilaterally declare that bind is when you actually process words as follows. By december 8th, all the states need to submit their electoral votes to the Electoral College which then nice on december 14th and got us. Those votes were going to be tallied and sent to congress. And congress will certify the results on january 6th. To explain who are not rationing that certification process is what finally determines of