Biden: White House transition efforts ‘sincere’ but no word from Trump

• President-elect Biden praised the fluidity of his delayed presidential transition, saying the White House’s efforts to convey it to him are “sincere.”
• The transition was allowed on Monday after an unprecedented two-week standoff as President Trump baselessly challenged the election result.
• Speaking to NBC News, Biden said he was cleared to receive the daily presidential briefing and the agencies provided information.
• Biden said their respective chiefs of staff spoke, but did not hear directly from Trump.
• Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.

President-elect Joe Biden described the White House’s efforts to help him prepare for power as “sincere,” after his long-delayed transition was allowed to continue.

But he said he still had no contact with President Donald Trump himself, who continues to falsely claim he won the election.

In his first interview after Election Day, Biden told NBC News’ Lester Holt that the progress of his transition had “not been grudgingly so far.”

Trump refused to admit defeat. However, on Monday, after increasing public pressure, he said he had “recommended” the General Service Administration to continue offering transition resources to Biden.

(GSA administrator Emily Murphy said her decision to do so was independent of political influence.)

This ended a two-week standoff in which Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were forced to develop an informal transition without full access to the federal government and its vast resources.

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When asked if there had been “backchannel” communications with Trump during this time, Biden said he had heard nothing.

“I think his chief of staff and my chief of staff have spoken, but no, I haven’t heard anything from President Trump,” Biden said.

Nonetheless, information from the White House had started to circulate, Biden said.

He described the outreach to national security officials and the coronavirus task force, and expects to receive the Presidential Daily Brief – which includes high-level information on national security – “maybe as early as tomorrow” .

Biden said it “felt good” to make up for lost time in his delayed transition.

“I think we are not going to be as far behind the curve as we thought in the past,” he said.

“And there’s a lot of fleshy talk, and I have to say the awareness has been genuine. It hasn’t been reluctantly so far. And I don’t expect it to be.”

“It’s a slow start, but it’s starting.”

Biden announced several of his picks for senior cabinet positions on Tuesday, including Antony Blinken as Secretary of State, Alejandro Mayorkas for Homeland Security and Avril Haines for Director of National Intelligence.

Asked whether his appointments marked a return to the era of President Barack Obama – in which he was vice president – he said: “This is not Obama’s third term because we are facing a whole different world than the one we faced in the Obama-Biden administration. “