“For the American people, this team will be proud to be American,” Biden said.
The path to bidening Biden’s candidates remains unclear as the Senate’s scrutiny is decided by two Georgian elections in Georgia early next year. Senate Republicans have so far warned against confronting President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud by acknowledging Biden’s victory. Nevertheless, lawmakers, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) all suggest that the next president be eligible for a cabinet.
The cabinet elections of incoming presidents were historically heard in the relevant committees of the Senate before the inauguration day. Two members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and former Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, were confirmed on Trump’s inauguration day. Six members of the original cabinet of former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush were confirmed on the inauguration day, respectively.
On Tuesday’s stage, each of the Biden candidates was given time to speak, and several took the time to indirectly confront themselves with their Trump administration counterparts.
Aware of this, Avril Haines, Biden’s candidate for national intelligence director, vowed to voice uncomfortable truths to Biden and other members of the administration. Secretary of State candidate Tony Blinken has promised to renew America’s commitment to global alliances, as has Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations.
“Multilateralism is back,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the president-elect’s candidate for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Blinken also recounted the story of his stepfather fleeing during the Holocaust, in which he fled from the Nazi hideout while fleeing the Nazis to meet a black American solider found in a tank.
“He knelt down and said the only three words his mother taught him by his mother before the war: ‘God bless America,'” Blinken said. “That’s how we are. America represents this to the world, no matter how imperfect.”
