With recounts looming, Donald Trump adds new administration picks

November 26, 2016

Madison, Nov 26: President-elect Donald Trump pressed forward Friday with two more administration picks, as failed Green Party candidate Jill Stein took new steps to force recounts across key Midwestern battlegrounds that could complicate Trump's push for national unity.

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Stein, who earned little more than 1 percent of the national vote, formally requested a Wisconsin recount Friday afternoon, vowing to do the same in the coming days in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin officials confirmed Friday evening they would move forward with the first presidential recount in state history. There is no evidence of election tampering in the states where Trump scored razor-thin victories, but Green Party spokesman George Martin insisted “the American public needs to have it investigated to make sure our votes count.”

“We're doing this to ensure the integrity of our system,” he said.

Trump's team ignored questions about the looming recounts. Set to assume the presidency in 55 days, he was focused instead on the daunting task of building an administration from scratch.

Gathered with family at his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach estate for the holiday weekend, the incoming president made two senior-level staff appointments and scheduled meetings with several more prospective administration officials.

He tapped Fox News analyst Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland to serve as deputy national security adviser and campaign attorney Donald McGahn as White House counsel. In a statement, Trump cited McFarland's “tremendous experience and innate talent” and said McGahn “has a brilliant legal mind, excellent character and a deep understanding of constitutional law.”

Having faced criticism about the inexperience of his initial picks, Trump finds in McFarland someone who previously worked under three presidents, although none since Ronald Reagan.McGahn, a veteran Republican election lawyer, served as Trump's attorney during the campaign.

Neither position requires Senate confirmation.

Trump transition spokesman Sean Spicer said the president-elect scheduled Monday meetings with eight more prospective administration hires, a group that includes several business leaders, Pennsylvania Rep. Lou Barletta, and David Clarke, the Wisconsin sheriff who is an aggressive opponent of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Facing external pressure from Stein, there were also signs of internal discord within the president-elect's small inner circle as Trump weighed his choices for secretary of state.

The options for the nation's chief diplomat include former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who lacks foreign policy experience but was intensely loyal to Trump, and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who aggressively opposed Trump's candidacy but is largely regarded as more qualified.

Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway took the unusual step of shining light on the controversy over the Thanksgiving holiday, tweeting that she had been “receiving a deluge of social media & private concerns re: Romney Some Trump loyalists warn against Romney as sec of state.”

Meanwhile, Stein announced on her website she has raised enough money to fund recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and was pursuing additional funding to do the same in Michigan.

Trump's Nov. 8 victory was unexpected and historic, by some measures.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leads the national popular vote by close to 2 million votes. Trump scored narrow victories in key battleground states, however, giving him the necessary 270 electoral votes to assume the presidency.

He won in Pennsylvania. He won in Wisconsin, breaking a Democratic winning streak dating back 32 years. He holds a slim lead in Michigan, where a Republican presidential candidate hadn't won since 1988; The Associated Press still hasn't officially called that race.

Wisconsin, where Trump leads by little more than 22,000 votes, has never before conducted a presidential recount. It will this year, state administrator Michael Haas announced Friday, citing recount requests by Stein and independent candidate Rocky De La Fuente.

“The Commission is preparing to move forward with a statewide recount of votes for President of the United States, as requested by these candidates,” Haas said, noting that the recount is expected to be completed by the Dec. 13 federal deadline.

In Michigan, Trump's 10,704-vote lead is expected to be certified by the state elections board Monday. The deadline to ask for a recount is Wednesday.

A statewide recount would cost Stein roughly $790,000, said Fred Woodhams, a spokesman for the Michigan secretary of state. An opposing candidate would have seven days to file objections to the recount petition, after which the board would schedule a public hearing and later issue a ruling on the objections.

Trump's transition team indicated he was focused on the challenges of governing.

Since arriving at his Palm Beach estate Wednesday, they said, the president-elect has spoken to the prime ministers of Greece, Hungary and Sweden, along with the presidents of Panama and Slovenia.

He is expected to return to his New York City home on Sunday.

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News Network
March 28,2020

Washington, Mar 27: The United States has seen a record 18,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 345 deaths over the past 24 hours, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.

There are now 97,028 declared virus cases in the country and there have been 1,475 deaths, Johns Hopkins said.

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News Network
July 4,2020

Geneva, Jul 4: The World Health Organization has updated its account of the early stages of the COVID crisis to say it was alerted by its own office in China, and not by China itself, to the first pneumonia cases in Wuhan.

The UN health body has been accused by US President Donald Trump of failing to provide the information needed to stem the pandemic and of being complacent towards Beijing, charges it denies.

On April 9, WHO published an initial timeline of its communications, partly in response to criticism of its early response to the outbreak that has now claimed more than 521,000 lives worldwide.

In that chronology, WHO had said only that the Wuhan municipal health commission in the province of Hubei had on December 31 reported cases of pneumonia. The UN health agency did not however specify who had notified it.

WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference on April 20 the first report had come from China, without specifying whether the report had been sent by Chinese authorities or another source.

But a new chronology, published this week by the Geneva-based institution, offers a more detailed version of events.

It indicates that it was the WHO office in China that on December 31 notified its regional point of contact of a case of "viral pneumonia" after having found a declaration for the media on a Wuhan health commission website on the issue.

The same day, WHO's epidemic information service picked up another news report transmitted by the international epidemiological surveillance network ProMed -- based in the United States -- about the same group of cases of pneumonia from unknown causes in Wuhan.

After which, WHO asked the Chinese authorities on two occasions, on January 1 and January 2, for information about these cases, which they provided on January 3.

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference on Friday that countries have 24-48 hours to officially verify an event and provide the agency with additional information about the nature or cause of an event.

Ryan added that the Chinese authorities immediately contacted WHO's as soon as the agency asked to verify the report.

US President Donald Trump has announced that his country, the main financial contributor to WHO, will cut its bridges with the institution, which he accuses of being too close to China and of having poorly managed the pandemic.

The WHO denies any complacency toward China.

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Agencies
April 28,2020

Washington, Apr 28: US President while addressing a news conference on coronavirus pandemic said his administration has launched "very serious investigations" into China's response to the novel coronavirus.

"And we are not happy with China, we are not happy with that whole situation, because we believe it could have been stopped at the source," he said. "It could have been stopped quickly and it wouldn't have spread all over the world," the BBC reported.

Trump has been critical of China as the pandemic has progressed and has frequently touted his decision to close the US borders to China in an effort to curb the outbreak. Some health experts have said the effort bought time for the US to prepare, but the Trump administration has been accused of squandering the opportunity.

"Nobody except one country can be held accountable for what happened," Trump said.

"Nobody's blaming anybody here, we're looking at a group of people that should've stopped it at the source."

The US will never forget those who were "sacrificed for a reason of incompetence or something else other than incompetence," he added.

"They" - referring to China - "could've protected the whole world - not just us - the whole world," he said.

At the starting of the conference Trump said COVID-19 cases are declining or stablising across the country.

"In all cases getting better," he said. "Really a horrible situation that we've been confronted with, but they're moving along."

He added there's a "hunger" to get back to work.

"Ensuring the health of our economy is vital to ensuring the health of our nation - these goals work in tandem."

The president has suggested an unnamed individual "a long time ago" could have stopped the "unnecessary death[s]" due to COVID-19.

"There has been so much unnecessary death in this country," he said.

"It could've been stopped and it could've been stopped short, but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way and the whole world is suffering because of it."

He did not say who he was referencing and gave no other details.

Trump was asked if he has considered delaying the November presidential election.

"I never even thought of changing the date of the election," he answered. "Why would I do that? November 3rd. That's a good number."

Trump called the suggestion "made up propaganda" and said that "sleepy Joe" Biden - his presumptive Democratic rival - was likely unaware his campaign had put the statement out.

Former Vice-President Joe Biden said at a virtual fundraiser last week that he thought Trump would "try to kick back the election somehow".

The president has frequently levelled insults at his Democratic opponent by questioning the former vice-president's mental fortitude.

"I look forward to that election," Trump said.

The president responded to a question criticising Health Secretary Alex Azar's early downplaying of the disease by saying it was "unfair". He claimed Democrats did the same, including Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.

"I was very fortunate through luck or whatever that we closed the border, we put a ban on China," he said.

"But I could tell you that Nancy Pelosi was dancing in the streets in Chinatown. She wanted to go, let's go out and party. That was late in February."

Back in February, Pelosi had encouraged people to visit San Francisco's Chinatown to help struggling businesses. She did not propose any parties, as the president suggested.

The city issued a stay-at-home order in March.

A reporter asked: If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died during the entirety of the Vietnam war, does he deserve to be reelected?

Trump took the question in stride.

"So, yeah, we've lost a lot of people but if you look at what original projections were, 2.2 million, we're probably heading to 60,000 - 70,000," he said.

"It's far too many - one person is too many for this. I think we've made a lot of really good decisions," he added. "The big decision was closing the border, doing the ban on people coming in from China."

He also brings up the "unbelievable" job his administration did with ventilators.

"I think we've done a great job. And I will say this - one person is too many."

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