Biden begins transition plans as Trump refuses to concede

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday signed the paperwork that officially grants the state's 16 electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden.

“The Governor has formalized the certification delivered to our office by the Secretary of State – as is required by state law,” Kemp spokesperson Tate Mitchell told CNN in an email.

Earlier on Friday, Kemp announced he would “follow the law” and certify the electoral votes for Biden.

State law requires Kemp, a Republican, to award Georgia’s electoral votes to the certified winner of the presidential election. A federal judge on Thursday rejected a last-ditch lawsuit that tried to block certification, and Biden’s victory was certified Friday afternoon by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

“Earlier today, Secretary Raffensperger presented the certified results of the 2020 general election to my office,” Kemp said at a news conference. “Following Judge (Steven) Grimberg’s ruling yesterday, state law now requires the governor’s office to formalize the certification, which paves the way for the Trump campaign to pursue other legal options and a separate recount if they choose.”

Because of the close margin, the Trump campaign can request a recount. Georgia already conducted a statewide audit, hand-counting about 5 million ballots, to any future recount is extremely unlikely to change the results.

Certifying election results is typically a formality, but the process has become the latest battleground in President Trump's longshot attempt to cling onto power. His campaign is trying to block or delay certification in key states in hopes of overturning Biden's victory through the Electoral College.

After the news conference, Kemp’s office put out a news release saying, explicitly, “Governor Kemp Formalizes Election Certification.” But Kemp also embraced some of Trump’s complaints about the process in Georgia. 

Kemp asked Raffensperger to conduct a partial audit of absentee ballots to double-check that the signatures matched – caving to a persistent demand from Trump throughout the post-election process. It’s unclear if this can happen at this stage of the process, and CNN has reached out to Raffensperger’s office for comment. 

Trump has berated Kemp on Twitter over the signature-matching issue, blaming the governor for a legal agreement the state reached earlier this year with Democratic groups regarding absentee ballots. Raffensberger's office has said Trump is mischaracterizing that agreement, known as a consent decree, by falsely claiming it weakened verification rules for absentee ballots. Signature-matching is used to verify the identity of absentee voters.

Kemp also said it was “unacceptable” that small batches of uncounted ballots were found during the audit. Election officials have repeatedly said these mishandled ballots were caused by mistakes and incompetence – not fraud.

Watch:

The Michigan State Board of Canvassers is scheduled to meet on Nov. 23 to certify election results. The board’s certification of election results is what triggers electors to be selected, which is what gets sent to the Electoral College. 

The Michigan State Board of Canvassers is made up of two Democrats and two Republicans. The members are appointed by the governor “with the advice and consent of the Senate,” according to the law. 

Here's what we know:

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has certified President-elect Joe Biden's narrow victory in the state, according to a news release.

The announcement caps off a whirlwind day where Raffensperger’s office announced that the results were certified, only to send a “correction” one hour later, saying the process was still ongoing. They followed that up with a third news release around 4 p.m. that said certification was completed.

An official from the Raffensperger’s office told CNN that the latest announcement is accurate, and that the results were certified. This is a blow to President Trump’s efforts to overturn the results.

Biden won Georgia by 12,670 votes, or 0.26% of the nearly 5 million ballots cast statewide, according to final certified results from the Secretary of State.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is expected to follow suit by certifying that Georgia’s electors will go to Biden. It’s unclear when that will happen – the deadline is Saturday night – but Kemp is set to speak tonight.

A Nevada District judge has denied a request by a losing Republican congressional candidate for a re-vote in the state’s largest county Clark County.

Losing candidate Jim Marchant had requested a new election in just one of the seven counties covered by congressional district – the Democratic-rich Clark County. For that reason, Judge Gloria Sturman denied the request. She also said that it would have been difficult for Marchant to make up the 30,000 votes between Marchant and Democrat Steven Horsford.

A similar case filed by the conservative activist Sharron Angle and the Election Integrity Project begins in Sturman's court soon. And another losing Republican Congressional candidate heads into Sturman’s court on Monday over the same issues. 

President Trump will participate in this weekend's virtual G20 summit, an administration official said. This year's summit is hosted by Saudi Arabia.

It's not clear which sessions he will be present for, but he will represent the US during the yearly gathering of industrialized nations.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in Wilmington, Delaware.

This is the first in-person meeting the lawmakers hold with Biden since he won the election.

Reporters were allowed in for an extremely brief spray, where the four could be seen sitting around in a socially distant matter at a big table wearing masks. 

Biden told Schumer and Pelosi that when he is President, his Oval Office will be “mi casa, you casa," which translates from Spanish to "my house is your house."

Biden did not answer any shouted questions, and pooled press was ushered out quickly as soon as a question was shouted. 

The meeting comes as Covid-19 cases continue to surge in the country and another stimulus deal is yet to be reached in Congress.

Some of the last remaining stimulus programs for the unemployed, renters and student loan borrowers are set to expire at the end of December unless Congress or President Trump take action. While Congress moved swiftly to deliver trillions of dollars in pandemic relief programs when the country first shut down in March, a lot of those benefits have already lapsed.

Despite bipartisan support for another stimulus package, lawmakers have failed to come to any agreement for months, and there is little confidence that a deal could be reached in the lame-duck session.

More than 2,000 American deaths were recorded by Johns Hopkins University on Thursday — the highest number since early May.

Joe Biden’s team is making a fundraising push for its transition operations as the General Services Administration has yet to ascertain Biden as the election winner – a move that would open up millions of dollars in federal money for the president-elect’s transition work.

The Biden transition team sent it’s a grassroots fundraising plea to its supporter list on Friday, with the e-mail reading, “without ascertainment, we need to fund the transition ourselves, and that's why we're reaching out to you today.”

The transition team started its fundraising efforts months ago and has raised more than $10 million in private donations for the transition efforts so far, a source familiar with the fundraising efforts said. But the e-mail sent today represents a new phase in their fundraising process as they are now turning to grassroots donors in their push. 

More details: Three Democratic bundlers said they have recently received requests to raise more money for the transition operation as the GSA’s ascertainment is stalled. 

The recent fundraising efforts come as the transition is unable to access millions of dollars in appropriated funding for its work as the GSA administrator Emily Murphy has not formally recognized Biden as the winner of the election.

The transition team started raising money for its operations several months ago. The maximum contribution to the transition is $5,000, significantly smaller than the $360,600 donation limits for the Biden Victory Fund in the general election.

Even as some Republicans are starting to speak out about President Trump's attacks on the election results, a wide array of Republicans continue to back the President — and some are endorsing his long-shot strategy of winning in the Electoral College and subverting the will of voters in key battleground states.

North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, who will serve on the House GOP's leadership team in the next Congress, on Friday characterized the unsubstantiated allegations leveled by the Trump team as "breathtaking" and "serious enough that they need to be investigated."

Hudson said "yes" states should delay certifying the results until the allegations are "adequately investigated."

Asked if he'd be okay if state legislatures named electors that differed from the outcome of the vote counts in their states, Hudson told CNN, "Yeah, that's the constitutional process."

"I mean, it's breathtaking to think about," Hudson said of the allegations. "And if it's not true, then there needs to be a reckoning on our side."

Federal law encourages states to resolve disputes over vote-counting by Dec. 8, six days before electors meet in their state capitals to cast their ballots. If Biden’s win is certified by Dec. 8, Congress must recognize the pro-Biden electors. 

Under the longshot theory, Republican-led legislatures could appoint pro-Trump slates of presidential electors, even if Biden carried the popular vote in their state, assuming a state has not certified the vote in time.  

Asked on Thursday if his state should delay certifying the election, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar told CNN, “I believe it should.” 

Gosar also said the “state has the ability” to name its own electors to the Electoral College if the results aren’t certified as part of the “system set up by our founders.” And when asked if he would support the state legislature naming its own electors, Gosar said, “I do.” 

President Trump seemed to recognize that he will not remain President for much longer while delivering remarks on lowering drug prices on Friday, implying that it will be up to the new administration as to whether the rules remain in place. 

He seemingly recognized that he won’t be in power much longer, however later in his remarks he again falsely claimed he won the election.

Trump also baselessly accused drug companies of withholding news about the efficacy of their vaccines until after the election as some sort of retaliation against Trump for the policies he is instituting. 

Trump added that if an announcement on vaccines was made prior to the election, he might have won.

Trump ended his remarks to the media by refusing to take any questions from reporters.

This was his first public appearance in a week. He last took questions from the press on Election Day, 17 days ago and still won't publicly acknowledge that he has lost the election. 

His speech in the briefing room lasted just 22 minutes.