Biden Chooses His Health Experts - 12/9/20

On this episode of Quick News Daily, I go over President-elect Biden's latest nominees and appointees, including his surprising (to me) pick of retired Gen. Lloyd Austin for Defense Secretary, as well as the great news that Dr. Fauci will be his COVID expert. Also, we talk about Chris Krebs' lawsuit, a follow up to the raid on Rebekah Jones' home, and that useless executive order from Trump.

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Transcript:

BIDEN NOMINEES

Flipping over to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which wackjob Dr. Ben Carson is currently leading, Biden has selected Rep. Marcia Fudge as his nominee. She has been lobbying to be the first Black female Agriculture Secretary, but the rumor is that Biden is planning on choosing former Obama agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, so here she is. 

This is kind of interesting because as early as last month, Fudge had an interview with POLITICO where she said “As this country becomes more and more diverse, we're going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in. You know, it's always ‘we want to put the Black person in Labor or HUD.’” I’m not exactly sure what changed in that time period, but I suppose you never know how you’re going to react until you get the call. 

She will have an important job since a lot of folks are going to be facing eviction and back-rent bills, as well as the existing homelessness problems. She will also be reinstating the rule from the Obama era that aims to help fair housing. That rule required local governments to track patterns of segregation with a checklist of 92 questions in order to gain access to federal housing funds. Lastly, she’ll be stopping a Ben Carson rule that required plaintiffs to meet a higher threshold to prove unintentional discrimination, known as disparate impact, and gave defendants more leeway to rebut the claims.

Honestly, the one downside to Marcia Fudge being nominated here: it’s not Cory Booker! Remember how Trump was campaigning at the end and kept telling “suburban women” that big, scary Cory Booker was going to come in and destroy their neighborhoods? What a shame. 

BIDEN COVID PLAN AND NOMINEES

Sticking with Biden just a bit more, he also unveiled a three-point plan to fight the coronavirus in his first 100 days in office. Point one is to get at least 100 million Americans vaccinated in his initial 100 days, point two is his pledge to sign a face mask mandate on his first day in office, and point three is getting kids back to school safely. I was actually surprised about the mask mandate because I thought he said he wasn’t going to do that, but actually it seems like it’s a little more targeted and specific than just saying everyone has to wear one. His mandate would require masks in places like federal buildings and on planes, trains and buses for interstate travel. Biden also said that he would work with governors and mayors to pass masking mandates in communities across the country.

In terms of getting kids back to school, which helps kids’ learning as well as opening up the economy since parents don’t have to be home with them, Biden says Congress will need to provide the necessary funding to protect students, educators and staff.

This plan came on the same day that he announced a lot of his nominees for key public health positions. He announced that his chief medical adviser on the pandemic will be Dr. Fauci. Xavier Becerra, California's current attorney general, will be his nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services (I’m sure Kamala Harris had some say in that, seeing as that was her old position). Dr. Vivek Murthy, who was US surgeon general for President Obama, will be his nominee for surgeon general.

Biden transition co-chair and former Obama administration official Jeff Zients will serve as coordinator of the Covid-19 response and counselor to the President. Natalie Quillian, who is also a former Obama person, will be the deputy coordinator of the COVID response. 

This list goes on: Dr. Rochelle Walensky will be his CDC Director (she’s currently Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital). And, finally, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith will serve as the chairwoman of Biden’s COVID Equity Task Force (she’s currently serving as a co-chair of Biden’s transition team). 

Guys, I don’t know if I like this: there are waaaay too many qualified people on this list. I thought we were supposed to have people who were loyal to our president, not these experts! I’m just kidding, this is a super refreshing list of appointees and nominees. I think I’m most happy for Dr. Fauci for getting that new title, and hopefully being treated as the expert he is and with appreciation by the President of the United States. 

The one thing I will say for all my history nerds out there, is that with all of these former Obama people coming back in, it sort of feels like when John Adams took over for George Washington. Since nobody knew how to transfer power because no leader had given up power until George Washington, and because Adams was a short, uncharismatic guy (there we go again with the bias against us short people), Adams wanted to make sure he’d win and not spook any of the important people who would endorse him. As a result, he ended up keeping pretty much all of George Washington’s cabinet. That would end up being a bad move for him because Alexander Hamilton had resigned towards the end of Washington’s presidency, but in many ways, he was more of George Washington’s vice president than Adams, meaning that all of the cabinet was basically taking orders from him and ignoring Adams. I don’t think that’s going to happen to Joe by any means, but it seems a bit odd to be bringing so much of the band back together. At the same time, if you know people have done a good job in the past and that they’re qualified, why not? 

KREBS LAWSUIT

I mentioned Chris Krebs in the beginning, so here he is. Yesterday, Krebs filed a lawsuit against the Trump campaign, attorney Joseph diGenova and the cable channel Newsmax. He’s seeking an injunction ordering Newsmax to remove the diGenova interview from its website, as well as monetary damages, for defamation. 

He said diGenova defamed him in that interview by saying that Krebs "should be drawn and quartered" or "shot at dawn" because he said the election was the most secure in our history. Krebs claims that he’s received death threats after this interview. 

Let’s just clearly put in perspective why this is such a big deal: diGenova is a lawyer for the President of the United States. More accurately, he’s a lawyer for his re-election campaign, but nonetheless, it is insane that someone that close to the president is saying people should be shot or drawn and quartered. This is why I said Biden’s choices so far for nominees and appointees have been so refreshing. I wish the best to Chris Krebs. 

FLORIDA

Another follow up story is a callback to yesterday when we talked about Rebekah Jones and that raid on her house. 

According to the Tampa Bay Times, “Ron Filipkowski, a lifelong Republican who was appointed to the 12th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission by DeSantis, resigned Tuesday morning after reviewing the search warrant affidavit the state used to seize computers and phones from Rebekah Jones.”

He said that he resigned from this commission to bring attention to the way DeSantis has handled “public access to truthful data” and the raiding of a data analyst’s home. 

Filipkowski is no joke: he’s a former Marine, as well as a former state and federal prosecutor. 

In his resignation letter, he said “recent events regarding public access to truthful data on the pandemic, and the specific treatment of Rebekah Jones has made the issue a legal one rather than just medical. I no longer wish to serve the current government of Florida in any capacity.” 

Also, according to a friend of his, he privately said he was alarmed by the raid, telling the friend “What’s the crime? The crime is hacking into an email server to tell people to tell the truth? That’s not a horrible crime, if it’s a crime at all.” He compared her situation to the legal doctrine called necessity, which allows someone to break the law to prevent a more serious harm.

Interestingly enough, Filipkowski also helped both the Lincoln Project and Center for American Progress Action Fund during the presidential campaign. Thank you, Ron Filipkowski. 

EXECUTIVE ORDER

I just want to briefly rant about that executive order that Trump signed yesterday, because it’s total BS. Also, I just love that new transition I made, and I want to use every opportunity I can to play it. 

That executive order that Trump signed is called something super-MAGA like “The America First Vaccine Priority” or something like that. I’m not exaggerating, I swear it had “America First” in there somewhere. He signed it because it helps Fox News pretend he’s actually doing something, but the bill just prioritizes the shipment of vaccines to the U.S. before it can go to other countries. 

First of all, that doesn’t necessarily seem equitable or fair if we passed on a deal, no matter how much I’d rather have those vaccines. Second, you can’t just sign a piece of paper and we magically get more vaccines. The company had to agree to a deal, and unless you’re embracing socialism and seizing the means of production, this doesn’t mean anything! Also, last time I checked, an insane amount of insane Americans are scared out of their minds when they even have to read the word socialism. This executive order is meaningless, and not worth the paper it’s printed on. It might as well have been one of those blank pieces of paper he signed his name on when he was at Walter Reed, pretending like he was a workaholic. 

Also, I almost forgot. The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear one of Trump’s election fraud lawsuits that started in Pennsylvania. I guess I wasn’t too surprised because I don’t think John Roberts or Gorsuch or even Kavanaugh wanted to touch this because they know it’s not even a real argument. At the same time, I suppose you can’t ever underestimate how low these Republicans are willing to go. Either way, the cable news channels were freaking out about it. I swear I thought that Wolf Blitzer was going to have a heart attack the way he was talking about it. They just kept playing that breaking news sound effect and graphic. Again, maybe this is just a me thing, but I wish they would have just chilled out a bit. 

END

Okay everyone, that’s all I got for ya. Once more: I decided I’ll be taking tomorrow off, but expect a new episode on Friday. On these days where I’m more busy and don’t necessarily have a ton of time to write a script and everything, I’m toying of doing Instagram/Facebook live chats where I’ll just go over news and articles in real-time, and then you guys would get to ask questions or suggest what news you want to go over. Then I’d post that as a podcast as well, eventually. The only downside is that it clearly wouldn’t be as organized as this, but maybe it would still help you get the news and help me save some time. So, let me know if you have strong feelings one way or the other about that. You can reach out on any social media platform; I’m on those as @QuickNewsDaily, or you can email me directly at [email protected]. 

SOURCES

GOP lawyer resigns over treatment of Florida data analyst
Former Cybersecurity Chief Sues Trump Campaign and Others, Charging Defamation
Biden names retired Gen. Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense nominee
Biden to tap Marcia Fudge to lead housing agency
Biden details plan to combat coronavirus pandemic in first 100 days