President-elect Joe Biden is reportedly planning to issue executive orders to quickly reverse some Trump measures
The orders do not require congressional approval and would reverse the US exit from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization
When he enters office in January, Biden is expected to sign a flurry of executive orders – measures that do not require legislative approval from Congress:
-Rejoin the Paris climate accords that aim to control climate change – the US in fact only left them on 4 November after Trump made it a promise in his 2016 campaign
–Reverse the US exit from the World Health Organization – Trump promised to leave during a row over the coronavirus pandemic
-Repeal Trump’s ban on travel to the US from some Muslim-majority countries
-Reinstate DACA – a programme that deferred the threat of deportation for undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children.
In his first speech as president-elect on Saturday, Mr Biden said it was “time to heal” the US and vowed “not to divide but to unify” the country. Addressing Trump supporters directly, he said: “We have to stop treating our opponents as enemies.”
He and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris have launched a website for the transition.
The projected election result means Mr Trump becomes the first one-term president since the 1990s. The Republican president’s campaign has filed a barrage of lawsuits in various states but election officials say there is no evidence that the vote was rigged against him, as he has said.
In another development, former Republican President George W Bush congratulated Mr Biden on his victory, saying the American people could have confidence that the election had been fundamentally fair and that its outcome was clear. He also congratulated Mr Trump on a hard-fought campaign.
But other senior Republicans have so far refused to acknowledge the result of the ballot. The Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, told Fox News that all recounts and legal challenges should be completed, adding: “Then and only then, America will decide who won the race.”
Republican Senator for South Carolina Lindsay Graham on Sunday also urged President Trump not to concede the presidential election, as pressure for him to accept defeat builds even while he mounts legal challenges.
“This is a contested election. The media doesn’t decide who becomes president. If they did, you would never have a Republican president for forever, so we’re discounting them,” Republican Senator for South Carolina Lindsay Graham told Fox News on Sunday.
“President Trump should not concede.”
Graham said there were “allegations of system failure and fraud”, citing evidence of “six people in Pennsylvania registering after they died and voting after they died”.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz echoed Graham’s sentiments on Fox News, asserting there were “serious disputes” in key states over the vote total.
“We should allow the legal process to move forward and when that process is concluded, which it will be in a matter of weeks, we will know who prevails in the election,” he said.
“But the fact that the big newsrooms in New York City want Donald Trump to lose, they don’t get to decide that. That’s a question for the voters.”
With agency report
Leave a Reply