Donald Trump has spent weeks now on his deranged campaign to keep his grip on power—and, in the process, impeded the transition work of the man who will actually be president January 20, Joe Biden. Biden has mostly stayed quiet on that unprecedented obstruction, stressing the importance of cooperation between the outgoing and incoming teams but largely keeping the focus on the crises he’ll inherit. As his efforts to address those crises become increasingly complicated by the Trump administration’s nonsense, though, Biden appears to be losing his patience with the current president’s temper tantrum—and is calling on those enabling him to cut the crap.
Speaking in Wilmington on Monday, Biden tore into political appointees at the Defense Department and Office of Management and Budget for putting “roadblocks” in the way of his transition team, warning that America’s national security would be put at risk if the Trump administration continued to get in the way of his team’s preparations. “Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,” Biden said. “It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.”
The comments represented Biden’s strongest and most direct admonishment of the Trump administration’s failure to cooperate with his team as the president insists he was the rightful victor of last month’s election and lashes out at anyone who says otherwise. Chris Miller, Trump’s acting Pentagon chief, denied hamstringing the Biden team, saying in a statement that his department is “working with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities” and will “continue to do so.” “The American people expect nothing less,” Miller said, “and that is what I remain committed to.”
But his commitment to a peaceful transition has been far from clear. A week and a half ago, Miller stunned Pentagon staffers—and frustrated the Biden team—when he abruptly canceled transition meetings and activities, even as what is likely the largest cyberattack against the government in United States history came into view. Miller claimed the directive was a mutually agreed-upon holiday pause in briefings, but the Biden team denied that characterization, and Miller’s own staffers were reportedly “shocked” by the move.
Miller wouldn’t be alone in gumming up the transition process; for weeks, General Services Administrator Emily Murphy refused to ascertain the election results and allow Biden’s transition to begin in earnest. That delay threatened to put Biden’s team behind on its planning on issues ranging from the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to national security issues. Murphy eventually signed the letter of ascertainment, but Biden’s remarks Monday underscore the extent to which the administration has continued to obstruct the one that will replace it in just a few weeks. The stakes of that resistance are high: On the national security front, the U.S. is facing the fallout from a massive Russian hack that compromised a broad swath of government agencies, including the department that oversees America’s nuclear stockpile. Meanwhile, the country is mired in the worst stretch of the pandemic yet—a spiraling crisis that Trump has ignored as he rage-tweets voter fraud conspiracies from the golf course.
On Tuesday, Biden is expected to address that failure of leadership; according to Axios, the president-elect is planning to critique the current administration’s vaccine rollout and to warn of the dangers facing the country in the coming weeks as straining hospital systems suffer an anticipated influx after the holidays. No such admonishment is likely to shame Trump or his enablers; they’ve already made clear that they will always put Trump’s interests over those of the country. But Biden’s realism — about the pandemic; about the critical agencies that have been “hollowed out” on Trump’s watch; about the “difficult circumstances” his transition officials have navigated ahead of Inauguration Day — is a welcome counterpoint to the childishness of the departing administration.
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