U.S. President-elect Joe Biden leaves the Queen Theater where earlier in the day he addressed the media about the Trump Administration’s lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act on November 10, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Adelman, who is an adjunct professor at New York University, said this is a “very delicate time” in the U.S. and that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have done what other modern winning campaigns have done in the past, which is to form agency review teams. They are people tasked with evaluating the operations of federal agencies, who will help the new administration achieve their promised policy goals outlined during the campaign.
The sort of stubborn unwillingness to engage in the transition is unprecedented, it’s harmful to the United States and … raises risks for the whole world.
David Adelman
Former U.S. ambassador to Singapore
However, while the transition has not yet been negatively affected, the new administration will soon need access to the President’s Daily Briefing, he said.
“The PDB is historically, by now, being given to the president elect. That has not yet happened,” he said.
“In the next couple of weeks, we’re going to get to the point where they’re going to really be in need of the highly confidential briefings in order to really do their job and prepare for the transfer of power,” Adelman said.
There’s “great risk” to the world, and it is “potentially catastrophic if the President-elect doesn’t begin to receive that highly confidential information in the weeks leading up” to the inauguration, he added.
Asked if Trump will concede, Adelman said the president will have to.
“The votes will be certified here in the next couple of weeks and there’s an inauguration scheduled for January 20th,” he said.
“The sort of stubborn unwillingness to engage in the transition is unprecedented, it’s harmful to the United States and … raises risks for the whole world,” he added. “I expect in the next week or so, we’ll see some softening of the president’s position, and an openness to at least the very basics of a transition and preparation for the peaceful transfer of power on January 20th.”
