| | |  | BY TIM ALBERTA | FIRST IN NIGHTLY — After five years spent bullying the Republican Party into submission, President Donald Trump finally met his match in Aaron Van Langevelde. Who? That’s right. In the end, it wasn’t a senator or a judge or a general who stood up to the leader of the free world. There was no dramatic, made-for-Hollywood collision of cosmic egos. Rather, the death knell of Trump’s presidency was sounded by a baby-faced lawyer, looking over his glasses on a grainy Zoom feed on a gloomy Monday afternoon, reading from a statement that reflected a courage and moral clarity that has gone AWOL from his party, pleading with the tens of thousands of people watching online to understand that some lines can never be uncrossed. “We must not attempt to exercise power we simply don’t have,” declared Van Langevelde, a member of Michigan’s board of state canvassers, the ministerial body with sole authority to make official Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. “As John Adams once said, we are a government of laws, not men. This board needs to adhere to that principle here today. This board must do its part to uphold the rule of law and comply with our legal duty to certify this election.” Van Langevelde is a Republican. He works for Republicans in the statehouse. He gives legal guidance to advance Republican causes and win Republican campaigns. As a Republican, his mandate for Monday’s hearing — handed down from the state party chair, the national party chair and the president himself — was straightforward. They wanted Michigan’s board of canvassers to delay certification of Biden’s victory. Never mind that Trump lost by more than 154,000 votes, or that results were already certified in all 83 counties. The plan was to drag things out, to further muddy the election waters and delegitimize the process, to force the courts to take unprecedented actions that would forever taint Michigan’s process of certifying elections. Not because it was going to help Trump win but because it was going to help Trump cope with a loss. The president was not accepting defeat. That meant no Republican with career ambitions could accept it, either. Which made Van Langevelde’s vote for certification all the more remarkable. With the other Republican on the four-person board, Norman Shinkle, abstaining on the final vote — a cowardly abdication of duty — the 40-year-old Van Langevelde delivered the verdict on his own. At a low point in his party’s existence, with much of the GOP’s leadership class pre-writing their own political epitaphs by empowering Trump to lay waste to the country’s foundational democratic norms, an obscure lawyer from West Michigan etched his name into history by standing on principle. It proved to be the nail in Trump’s coffin: Shortly after Michigan’s vote to certify, the General Services Administration finally commenced the official transition of power and Trump tweeted out a statement affirming the move “in the best interest of our Country.” Still, the drama in Lansing raised deeper questions about the health of our political system and the sturdiness of American democracy. Why were Republicans who privately admitted Trump’s legitimate defeat publicly alleging massive fraud? Why did it fall to a little-known figure like Van Langevelde to buffer the country from an unprecedented layer of turmoil? Why did the battleground state that dealt Trump his most decisive defeat — by a wide margin — become the epicenter of America’s electoral crisis? Read the rest in POLITICO Magazine, a story based on Tim’s conversations with more than two dozen Michigan insiders — elected officials, party elders, consultants, activists — about why the state was ripe for this sort of slow-motion disaster. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. A programming note: Nightly will not publish on Thursday, Nov. 26 and Friday, Nov. 27. We’ll be back on our normal schedule on Monday, Nov. 30. Reach out at talberta@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @timalberta and @renurayasam.
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| | TRACK THE TRANSITION: President-elect Biden has started to form a Cabinet and announce his senior White House staff. The appointments and staffing decisions made in the coming days send clear-cut signals about Biden's priorities. Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, it tracks the appointments, people, and the emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming Biden administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | DUDE, WHERE’S MY CZAR? Michael Grunwald emails Nightly: There’s been a lot of coverage of Biden’s decision to name former Secretary of State John Kerry as his climate czar. Which is weird, because Biden didn’t name Kerry as his climate czar. Instead, he named Kerry as his climate envoy, which is a very different thing. Kerry will return to his role as an international diplomat, jetting around the world and jawboning with bigshots. This is an important signal that the United States will be returning to the global climate stage in a big way, because Biden and Kerry are very close, and they both care a lot about preventing climate change. Kerry is a high-profile, high-level choice, which suggests climate will be a serious element of Biden’s foreign policy. But Biden plans to name someone else to oversee his domestic climate policies, which is the kind of job that usually gets associated with czardom. There’s no indication that Kerry will have anything to do with the climate investments, climate regulations and climate legislation that will help determine the trajectory of U.S. emissions. Biden hired him to be a global influencer, not a national policymaker. MORE BATON PASSING — Trump today granted Biden access to presidential intelligence briefings, according to two White House officials, after stonewalling the information during his ongoing resistance to the transition of power. The President’s Daily Brief, a summary of high-level national security intelligence, is routinely shared with the president-elect to prepare him for his move into the White House. But until today, Trump had refused to loop Biden into the briefs as he challenged the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential election. Officials are still working out the coordination, but the briefings for Biden are likely to start early next week, one official added.
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Biden poses for a picture with Syracuse Orange fans before the NCAA Men’s Final Four semifinal between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Syracuse Orange on April 2, 2016, in Houston. | Getty Images | Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. Tonight, deputy production director and Morning Money co-author Aubree Eliza Weaver emails us from Syracuse, N.Y.: Up here, we long ago accepted that we’re not the first place folks think of when visiting New York. So we’ve learned to tightly embrace the few things that set us apart. We’ve held onto the same few “victories” for as long as I can remember: Syracuse University basketball, the supremacy of salt potatoes and our ability to drive seamlessly in blizzard conditions. But now we have another claim to fame: The president-elect is a Syracuse University law school graduate. That means we get to count him as our own — just like Carmelo Anthony, the basketball player whom many of us refuse to acknowledge was actually born and raised somewhere other than ’Cuse. (I say that as someone who does not follow basketball but knows the rules of my hometown.) A quick search on local new sites elicits dozens of headlines touting Biden’s central New York connections: “Joe Biden’s years in Syracuse: An enduring bond unshaken by success and pain”; “Joe Biden has deep roots in Syracuse, Central New York”; “In President-elect Joe Biden’s former Syracuse neighborhood, a celebration has begun.” Locals are even writing about what it’s like to live near the Stinard Avenue home that the president-elect occupied nearly 50 years ago . When Syracuse finds an angle, we hold onto it for life. Biden does have many ties to Central New York. In 1968, Biden graduated from Syracuse’s College of Law. Since then, he’s spoken at the law school’s commencement four times — 1994, 2002, 2006 and 2016 — and was the university’s commencement speaker in 2009. In his 2016 speech, Biden lauded his alma mater: “The type of loyalty that this school has extended to me is truly rare and genuinely welcoming.” His eldest son, Beau, also attended law school at Syracuse, graduating in 1994. The region played a key role in Biden’s marriage to his first wife, Neilia — a Skaneateles, N.Y., native. The pair met while on spring break in the Bahamas in 1963, when Biden was still a junior at the University of Delaware and Neilia was a sophomore at Syracuse. Just a couple years later, Biden moved north to attend Syracuse, where Neilia was enrolled and working towards her master’s degree. Biden has gone on to have a long and illustrious career since his days on the hill — let the record show that SU Hill came well before Capitol Hill — and his biggest job yet is just getting started. Sure, Biden also has close ties to other cities, like his hometown of Scranton, Pa., or Wilmington, Del., where he grew up and later started his family. But when all is said and done, Biden spent some of his most formative years right here in Syracuse, and we’re more than willing to take partial credit for the man headed to the Oval Office. Is it too soon to discuss painting it orange?
| | VERMONT GOES RED (NOT ON THAT MAP) — For months, Vermont has been a model for keeping Covid contained — a regular spot of green or yellow on a map of states largely colored red on Covid Exit Strategy’s website . Even though it borders New York, it was able to keep a large outbreak at bay throughout the spring and summer. But Vermont now has one of the country’s fastest-growing Covid rates. Things are likely to get worse before they get better, Nightly’s Renuka Rayasam writes. “We have not yet seen the peak in severe illness that we anticipate,” said Gilman Allen, director of critical care and associate chief medical officer at the University of Vermont Medical Center. “We are in the early phases of a second surge.” The Vermont National Guard is in the midst of reconstructing a 250-bed field hospital that had been taken down this summer. Republican Gov. Phil Scott has pretty much banned social gatherings that include people from different households. And five Vermonters have died since Nov. 7, the first Covid deaths since Aug. 6, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Vermont was largely a victim of its own success. New cases were so low over the summer that Vermonters were lulled into a sense of Covid complacency, Allen said. Students went back to school and businesses opened their doors. But mostly people started hanging out in bigger groups indoors. Informal gatherings are driving about 70 percent of new cases, said Tracy Dolan, Vermont’s deputy commissioner of public health. Earlier in the pandemic, a person who tested positive would list about two to three people who could have been close contacts, according to the state’s contact tracers. Now they list between eight and nine new contacts. “People began to relax,” she said. That doesn’t mean things are hopeless. The elements that kept Covid from spreading during the first wave are still in place. The state has an abundance of testing, lots of contact tracing and mask compliance remains above 94 percent, even though Scott waited until August to issue a mask mandate. When cases rose this month, Scott responded with a spate of new measures including closing bars and recreational sports. He placed strict restrictions on the state’s ski resorts and made $2.5 million in grants available to help ski areas comply with guidance. He’s kept schools open. The Covid growth in Vermont isn’t as out of control as it is in other parts of the country. Right now 22 people total in the state, which has about 624,000 people, are hospitalized with Covid. In South Dakota, which has about 885,000 people, 574 people are hospitalized. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean credits Scott for breaking with Trump — and some other Republican governors like South Dakota’s Kristi Noem — in his approach to containing Covid. (Scott said that he didn’t vote for Trump this year.) “I mean Scott doesn’t go out of his way to antagonize Trump, but he just didn’t feel like he needs to kiss his butt to get what he wants,” said Dean. “We don’t do that in Vermont; butt kissing is not our specialty.”
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| | DON'T MISS THE MILKEN INSTITUTE FUTURE OF HEALTH SUMMIT 2020: POLITICO will feature a special edition Future Pulse newsletter at the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit. The newsletter takes readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of global health industry leaders and innovators determined to confront and conquer the most significant health challenges. Covid-19 has exposed weaknesses across our health systems, particularly in the treatment of our most vulnerable communities, driving the focus of the 2020 conference on the converging crises of public health, economic insecurity, and social justice. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage from December 7–9. | | | | | | | TAKING A BREAK — Covid cases are soaring, businesses are staring at a gloomy winter, millions of Americans are struggling and Congress ... is on recess. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, congressional reporter Sarah Ferris talks about why there’s still no deal on another round of coronavirus relief — and what role Biden will play in future negotiations.
| | | | Nightly asks you: What are your plans for Thanksgiving this year during the spike in Covid-19 cases? Submit your answers in our form, and we’ll use select responses in Wednesday’s edition.
| | FROM THE AGRICULTURE DESK |
| CORN RECEIVES KERNEL OF JUSTICE — Trump officially pardoned Corn the turkey from the dinner table today, presenting a chipper mood as his presidency enters its twilight. Standing before about 100 guests on a sunny fall day, with first lady Melania Trump at his side, the president cracked jokes as he partook in a White House tradition for the last time of his term in office. “Thanksgiving is a very special day for turkeys. Not a very good one, when you think about it,” Trump said. After his remarks, Trump hovered his hand over Corn and pardoned the fowl. Another turkey, Cob, was dubbed the backup bird this year, but he was not spotted at the White House ceremony. “We hope — and we know it’s going to happen — that Corn and Cob have a very long, happy and memorable life,” Trump said. Turkeys pardoned at the White House are bred for slaughter and are often too unhealthy to support long lifespans. Most die a few months after getting pardoned.
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| | | FOUR CALLING BIRDS, THREE HOUSES BUBBLING — Boris Johnson handed a Christmas gift to Britain: freedom to see loved ones (and some less loved ones) despite coronavirus restrictions. The prime minister agreed to a “Christmas bubble” scheme that will allow people across the country to spend time together during the holiday season. It amounts to a five-day grace period, between Dec. 23 and Dec. 27, during which three different households will be allowed to mix. They can meet in private homes, places of worship and outdoors, but not in hospitality or entertainment venues. The scheme will not allow people to see everybody they hope to, but ministers settled on three households as a compromise within ongoing infection control measures. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have, at times, gone for differing pandemic response measures. The aligned approach over Christmas was agreed to after talks among U.K. Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove and first ministers of the three devolved nations. In a statement, Gove said the pact would “offer hope for families and friends who have made many sacrifices over this difficult year.” Macron follows along: Coronavirus lockdown rules will be eased incrementally in France too, starting on Saturday ahead of the Christmas holiday, President Emmanuel Macron announced in a televised address tonight. He also said that he would not make getting the Covid-19 vaccine compulsory, when it becomes available. Rym Momtaz has more from POLITICO Europe.
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| | | CLOONEY VS. BUDAPEST — George Clooney has become embroiled in a spat with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán , after the actor criticized the Budapest government as an example of the “anger and hate” seen around the world, Europe assistant news editor Emma Anderson writes. In an interview with GQ published last week , Clooney spoke about filming his upcoming sci-fi film “The Midnight Sky,” in which he plays a scientist in a post-apocalyptic world. “We weren’t in the middle of a pandemic when it happened, but there were still all these other elements, you know, these elements of how much hate and anger we were sort of all of us experiencing at this moment in our history, all over the world. Go to Bolsonaro in Brazil or Orbán in Hungary, or look around: lots of anger and hate,” said Clooney, who is married to human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. “If you played it out, this [film] takes place in 2049, if you played it out 30 years, this could very well be what our reality is if that kind of hate is allowed to fester.” Orbán’s government has hit back, Reuters reported today, calling Clooney’s comments “foolish.” “George Clooney is a good actor so deserves respect, but … nobody should treat him like a global political oracle,” foreign affairs spokesman Tamás Menczer told pro-Orbán news channel HirTV late on Monday. “He has people whispering in his ears.” Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
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