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WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Mike Pence called his future successor Kamala Harris to offer his congratulations, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
This is the first known contact between elected officials of outgoing and incoming administrations. President Donald Trump has not contacted President-elect Joe Biden or invited him to the White House, and has instead spent the weeks since he lost the November 3 election to the White House, trying to Undermining the legitimacy of Biden’s victory with unsubstantiated allegations of massive electoral fraud that culminated in the violent storming of the Capitol building last week.
Pence, who didn’t speak with Trump for days after the siege, has become an unexpected – albeit belated – advocate for Biden’s victory. The vice president has withstood enormous pressure from Trump to try to interfere with Congressional certification of the electoral college vote count last week – even though he doesn’t have such power. And he announced he would attend Biden’s inauguration on Jan.20, which Trump refuses to do – making him just the fourth president in the country’s history to avoid the symbolic passing of the torch.
Pence and Harris spoke Thursday afternoon and had a “good call”, according to one of the people familiar with the conversation, with Pence congratulating Harris and offering to help. People spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private exchange.
The call came less than a week before Biden and Harris took office and just over a week after Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol and attempted to stop the peaceful transition of the power after delivering a speech calling on them to “fight”. Five people died, including a Capitol Hill police officer, and Trump was removed from office for inciting an insurgency.
While Trump has remained largely behind closed doors, without his Twitter spokesperson and angry since his loss, Pence has stepped up and performed many ceremonial duties of the presidency.
On Thursday, Pence received a briefing at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington from the FBI and other agencies on the safety of the inauguration and stopped to thank the White House telephone operators, by giving them a framed thank you letter. He later saluted members of the National Guard now protecting the Capitol building from further attacks.
This weekend, he will travel to thank the troops – first by plane to Lemoore, Calif., To speak to the sailors, then to Fort Drum, New York, to speak in front of the soldiers of the 10th Division of mountain, many of whom have recently returned from Afghanistan.
Pence was also the one who coordinated with lawmakers and the DC National Guard while the Capitol was under siege and in hiding. And last Friday he called the family of the slain Capitol policeman Brian Sicknick, who died of his injuries in the attack.
Pence’s appeal for his successor is a continuation of the traditional show of courtesy between outgoing and incoming leaders that Trump has flouted. In 2008, then-Vice President Dick Cheney called Biden to congratulate him on the night of his victory and invited Biden and his wife, Jill, to visit the Vice Presidential Residence on the Observatory grounds. naval ship shortly before the 2009 inauguration.
And in November 2016, Biden, Pence and their spouses met for lunch at the Naval Observatory after a previous meeting at the White House.
“I told Mike, the vice president-elect, that I’m available for him 24/7,” Biden said after the meeting. “I intend to be available to Mike as a senior manager for him as he moves.
It’s unclear if Pence will do the same for Harris. Pence and his wife will be traveling over the weekend. And much of Washington is under heightened security after last week’s violent insurgency on Capitol Hill, with law enforcement officials warning of a greater potential for violence around Biden’s inauguration.
While Biden said last week that he welcomed Trump’s decision to skip his nomination, he said he would be “honored” for Pence to attend.
“I think it is important,” he said, that, as far as possible, “historical precedents” regarding the peaceful transfer of power “are maintained”.
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