President-elect Joe Biden calls Trump 'one of the most irresponsible' presidents: 'Outrageous what he's doing'
President-elect Joe Biden has branded Donald Trump as "one of the most irresponsible presidents in history". Biden has also branded Trump's refusal to start a transition "illegal" during a news conference. Biden shared that Trump's decision to block a peaceful and dignified handover of power could in turn lead to the deaths of around 150,000 Americans by the inauguration.
Biden shared, "What the president is doing now is going to be another incident where he will go down in history as being one of the most irresponsible presidents in American history. It’s just not even in the norm at all. It questions if it’s even legal." He added that Trump is sending a "damaging message to the rest of the world. I think they’re witnessing incredible irresponsibility. An incredibly damaging message is being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions."
He said that he is very confident of the fact that Trump knows that he is not going to be able to win the election. "It’s hard to fathom how this man thinks. I’m confident he knows he hasn’t won and he’s not going to be able to win, and we’re going to be sworn in on January 20. It’s just outrageous what he’s doing," Biden continued.
He also spoke about the drastic increase in coronavirus cases across the country and is concerned that another 150,000 lives could be lost between now and February. According to data from the John Hopkins University, there have been around 11,717,951 confirmed cases across the United States so far. There have also been around 252,555 deaths. Biden said, "You’ve heard the projections... if nothing fundamentally changes between now and the beginning of February we’ll likely lose up to 400,000 lives, another 150,000 lives."
"There is no excuse not to share the data and let us begin to plan," Biden added referring to Trump's blocking of his transition. "On day one it’s going to take us time if we don’t have access to all this data. It’s going to put us behind a ball by a matter of a month or more and that’s lives. How many will be lost as a consequence to that I can't tell you," he continued.
On Thursday, November 19, Biden shared that Trump's own lawmakers are not pleased and disapprove of his actions. "I think most of the Republicans I have spoken to, including some governors, think this is debilitating," he said.
We had earlier reported that CEOs of a number of companies also held a video-conference recently discussing the collective action they could take in case Trump remained adamant on his position to not concede. Now, it seems the corporate leaders who have traditionally been allies to Republican presidents, have also started dumping Trump.
The business leaders, nevertheless, respect Trump’s move to litigate the results of the November 3 election but they have also advised him to cooperate with Biden’s transition team. According to a report by Axios, Thomas Donohue, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce and a longtime confidant of GOP presidents, acknowledged Biden as the winner of the presidential election and said that Trump “should not delay the transition in a moment longer”.