As Trump refuses to concede, NSA O’Brien pledges ‘professional transition’ to Biden

US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien on November 16 said that he will ensure a “professional transition” to the team led by Joe Biden. While speaking at the Global Security Forum, O’Biren said that he hopes Trump would turn out to have won a second four-year term, but he added that he would work with a new administration headed by Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris. The Republican incumbent Trump has insisted that the November 3 election was “rigged” and that he will be declared the winner after a series of legal challenged in several battleground states. 

However, O’Brien said, “If the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner — obviously things look that way now — we’ll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. There’s no question about it. They’re going to have very professional folks coming in to take these positions.”

He added, “We’ve passed the baton and had peaceful, successful transitions even in the most contentious periods”. 

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Trump refuses to concede; Biden prepares for transition 

According to US media projections, Biden has won the November 3 election. However, Trump has repeatedly alleged voter fraud and mounted legal fights in a number of battleground states. Trump claimed he “won” the race to White House on November 16, a day after acknowledging president-elect Joe Biden’s victory earlier. Lambasting the media for ‘assuming’ that Biden will descend to the US Presidency, Trump said that his side is not even being shown. While Twitter labelled all posts by 45th US President as “disputed”, Trump said that the presidential elections “attacked like never before”. 

Meanwhile, the 46th President-elect and his aides, on the other hand, have emphasised the importance of being briefed on White House efforts to control the pandemic and distribute prospective vaccines. While Trump is working on its own distribution plan, Biden’s chief of staff indicated that his transition team will proceed with their own planning separately because of the obstruction. As of now, Biden has said that his action plan is to deal with every individual, organisation in the country from business to labour, Republicans to Democrats, to try to pull together a serious and consistent plan so that he is ready on day one with everything from staffing to ultimately naming cabinet members. 

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