Good morning.
Joe Biden has insisted his presidency will not be a “third Obama term”, during his first sit-down interview since the election. He said “we face a totally different world” than under Barack Obama, arguing that Donald Trump had “changed the landscape”. The clarification may have been necessary: it followed the announcement yesterday of the first picks for Biden’s cabinet, many of whom are political veterans from the Obama administration.
The top spots have been filled by politicians who could fairly be described as establishment figures. Martin Pengelly asks what this tells us about Biden, from a focus on internationalism to a return to traditional Washington politics. The vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, praised Biden for making good on his promise of diversity in the cabinet, saying they had selected a cabinet “that looks like America – that reflects the very best of our nation”.
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‘This is not a third Obama term’, says Joe Biden in first sit-down interview – video
But even with an experienced team behind him, Biden still has a lot of work to do. He won a record number of votes but Trump got just 6m fewer – and 11m more than he did in 2016. If Biden is serious about a united America, the answer lies in winning over the working-class voters who have come to believe that Trump represents them, argues Bernie Sanders.
[Donald Trump] uses racism, xenophobia and paranoia to convince a vast swath of the American people that he was concerned about their needs, when nothing could be further from the truth. His only interest, from day one, has been Donald Trump.
The president is walking an increasingly lonesome road
While longtime allies rally around Biden, Trump’s seem to be deserting him. Heavyweight supporters from the president’s previous favourite channel, Fox News, are distancing themselves from Trump and his baseless attempts to overturn the election result. Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh all said Biden had won the election on the channel this week, with Limbaugh attacking Trump’s lawyers for failing to provide any evidence of voter fraud in Pennslyvania.
Instead, Trump has continued his pivot towards more supportive media outlets, including Newsmax and One America News (OANN). But YouTube has been less impressed with their performance: the platform suspended OANN for a week and blocked it from making money from existing videos, after it repeatedly spread misinformation about coronavirus.
Trump is reportedly planning to pardon Michael Flynn … after the presidential turkey
Trump intends to pardon the disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn before the end of his term, multiple reports have suggested. Flynn admitted he lied to the FBI about his contacts with a former Russian ambassador to the US, and he was a cooperating witness in Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s links to Moscow. The issue has given him celebrity status among the far right.
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‘Will you pardon yourself?’: Trump ignores questions after pardoning turkey – video
The president will probably be hoping this pardoning is better received than his last. The annual Thanksgiving turkey pardoning took place yesterday and was a “muted affair that … struggled to break through on cable news”. David Smith described it as a “sad spectacle” of an “ageing comic” in his analysis, which must take the biscuit for the best headline of 2020.
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Millions of Americans are traveling and gathering for Thanksgiving this year, in spite of urgent pleas from healthcare workers, health authorities and hospitals not to do so.
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In other news …
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Meghan Markle has revealed she had a miscarriage after her first child, in an article for the New York Times. She also addressed the stigma around pregnancy loss and called for people to ask about one another’s wellbeing more often.
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A Russian warship threatened to ram a US destroyer during a rare naval standoff off Russia’s Pacific coast. Russia said the destroyer threatened the US ship for “operating illegally” in its territorial waters, while the US navy said it was carrying out a “freedom of navigation operation.”
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Apple’s security chief has been charged with bribing police with hundreds of free iPads to try to get concealed firearms licences for its employees. Prosecutors in California said two officers were involved in the scam in which they denied licences unless something was offered in return.
Stat of the day: less than half of US families are ‘very confident’ they can afford food next month
As Thanksgiving approaches, a census bureau study has found that less than half of American families are “very confident” about having enough money to afford the food needed over the next month. A shocking 5.6m households struggled to afford food over the past week, and families of colour are disproportionately affected: 27% of Black and 23% of Latino respondents with children reported sometimes or often not having enough to eat over the past week, compared with 12% of white people.
Don’t miss this: photojournalist Donna Ferrato talks women’s rights, Trump, and the fight for change
Donna Ferrato is an internationally renowned photojournalist, most famous for her work on domestic violence. Here she talks to Guy Lane about the impact of Trump’s presidency on women’s rights, the war on abortion, and the power of photography.
The good thing with Trump was that everything was becoming more transparent – we were seeing how the world worked more clearly than under any other president we ever had.”
Last Thing: Justin Trudeau has been pranked by a Greta Thunberg impostor
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was the latest victim of the Russian comedians Vovan and Lexus, taking part in a phone call with someone he believed was the climate activist Greta Thunberg. The pair released a recording of the prank call this week, which captured Trudeau realising he was being fooled when “Thunberg” asked to meet some of the characters from South Park.
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