Biden's fractured transition period

Throughout Joe Biden's presidential election campaign there were a lot of unkind people who were literally waiting for him each day to fluff his lines or say Guatemala was in Africa or say his wife was called Peggy or to fall over his dog. But his campaign was pretty well gaffe-free. Not totally. There were a few excrutiating moments like when he said George as he was talking about Trump. But he never fell over or fell up a step or kissed someone he shouldn't have kissed. Compared to the gesticulating Trump, Biden was calmness itself. But oh dear now he HAS fallen over his dog or his dog tripped him up or the lead got tangled or whatever and the poor president-elect has fractured a foot. All that time as good as gold and then whoops, just 52 days away from entering the White House in triumph he is hobbling around with a concrete foot or a special boot. I wish him well of course and by Inauguration Day he should be zippedy-doo-da bouncing on both feet. But for heaven's sake, Secret Service chaps, keep that dog away from him. One fall over is unfortunate, two would be extremely careless and three would be seen as a general trend and therefore highly alarming for the millions who chose him to be the 46th president of the United States.

Everyone is waiting for Biden except for Trump

In this intervening time between Trump and Biden I think it's safe to say that everyone, and I mean everyone except Trump, is waiting fingers-crossed for when the new president takes over. But in the meantime there are crises that will have to stay in the hands of Donald Trump: the coronavirus pandemic which is getting worse and worse in the US, Iran, hot for revenge against the state responsible for killing their chief nuclear scientist (Israel is on their mind), China, ever watchful for an edge, North Korea, maybe plotting some sort of spectacular test to prove Kim Jong-un is still around and feeling powerful, Isis which is supposed to be defeated but still seems to be increasing in menace once again, and Afghanistan where the Taliban are feeling happier than ever with the planned withdrawal of US troops down to just 2,500 in January. With just over seven weeks to go before Trump exits and Biden takes over that'a a helluva lot of issues to get right and sorted. The world is waiting for Biden, sure, but the world doesn't stop for Biden. In fact, as the killers of Iran's nuclear chief demonstrated, this so-called lame-duck period between US presidents is ripe for exploiting. Between now and January 20 I fear there are going to be a lot of unexpected and worrying developments. Not just because of the changeover of presidents but because the one leaving the White House is Donald Trump.

Did the US know beforehand about the targeting of Iran's nuclear chief?

The killing of Iran's nuclear programme director has all the hallmarks of one organisation. An organisation which has carried out extra-judicial hits aganst its country's enemies for decades. Mossad. Iran is seen by Israel as an existential threat to its existence. And the recent acceleration of the uranium-enrichment programme, under the supervision of Mohsen Fakhrizadah, the Iranian scientist heading the whole project, will have been viewed by Tel Aviv as a sign of progressive danger. Preemptive action to meet a threat and remove it before it becomes undefeatable is a military concept that has been justified on numerous occasions in the past. The US-lead invasion of Iraq in 2003 was justified on the basis that Saddam Hussein had nuclear, chemical and biological weapons which threatened the region and the world. It turned out to be preemptive action based on false intelligence but the initial argument for action was reasonable, had the intelligence been accurate. The bombing of Serb forces in Kosovo was justified by the West to prevent a humanitarian crisis. The US killing by armed drone in January of Iran's Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, was justified because there was intelligence that he planned further attacks on American forces in the region. Fakhrizadah was not the first Iranian nuclear scientist to be killed, but he was the top man, the founder and father of Iran's nuclear programme. If it was Mossad then I have no doubt that the argument in Tel Aviv would have involved similar language to the argument presented by the US and UK and others for ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction before they could be used in anger. But the timing of this hit has more to do with US/Israel politics than it does about the state of Iran's nuclear programme. In 53 days Joe Biden will be president of the United States and it is difficult to believe that he would sanction such an operation were the Israelis to ask before striking. Israel has always said it will take the necessary action against its enemies - whether the US approves or not. But Tel Aviv will always take Washington and the US president into account when planning an overseas operation like this whether it asks for approval/support or not. So, on the basis that Biden might have disapproved very strongly, the best time to carry out this mission was while Donald Trump was in power. Ergo, that's why it has happened now. So if it was Mossad, did Binyamin Netanyahu tell Trump beforehand? Well, it cannot be a coincidence that on Sunday, six days ago, Bibi Netanyahu (reportedly), Yossi Cohen, the director of Mossad, Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, met up in a Saudi city on the Red Sea coast. Was that when Israel informed the US that an assassination was imminent? Would Pompeo have raised any objections? It seems doubtful.

Trump has seen the future and it's golf

FIFTY-THREE DAYS TO GO: It's more than three weeks after the US presidential election and still there is no clear-cut acceptance of the result from the encunbent in the White House. But bit by bit the message is getting through. Now, in the latest development, Trump has reluctantly acknowledged that he might be leaving the White House. It must be very very hard for him to realise that he actually lost the election despite getting more votes than any previous Republican president. But now he has accepted that IF the electoral college announces that Biden won, and he lost, he will be out of the big white building. Of course earlier he allowed the transition procedures to go ahead and that was a true breakthrough. But still he fights on in the courts. Hoping for that miracle which he feels he deserves. But even the conservative-biased Supreme Court is not going to go against the grain and declare him the winner. So the future is golf. He should look forward to it. There are a lot of people in America who want legal proceedings to begin against Trump as soon as he has left office. They want the Biden Justice Department to institute investigations into his business dealings, taxes, etc etc. Do I think this is the right way forward? Bring Trump down with court appearances? No I don't. It would be terrible and unnecessarily vengeful for the new administration to go after Trump. He should be left alone and allowed to get on with his life. But if he is allowed to get away with whatever he may or may not have done wrong in his business world, won't he come back in 2024 and start all over again to be the 47th president? I seriously doubt it whatever he and his supporters are saying at the moment. There are too many others who want to stand for the Republican nomination in 2024. Life is going to move on. Trump is not going to remain a potent force for the next four years. By 2022, there will be a new Republican momentum and it won't be led by Trump.

Total confusion over Covid restrictions

Having just got used to the idea that for Christmas three households can get together inside to celebrate, the UK Government announces that London and many other cities will be categorised as Tier 2 locations once lockdown is lifted on December 2. And under Tier 2, two, let alone, three households are barred from meeting inside a house. So, for example, if friends or family are planning to join together for more than the stipulated four days over Christmas period, are they allowed to stay or what if they arrive, say, on December 20 and want to stay till the New Year? Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, announced separately that if people coming from abroad have a test five days after arriving from overseas they won't need to be in self-isolation. But if they arrive in a Tier 2, or worse still Tier 3 area, they won't be allowed to join up with other households anyway, so the relief from self-isolation is meaningless. I don't know whether every other country is announcing contradictory and confusing restrictions or restriction-liftings for this Christmas period. But as far as I can see, I don't know whether to lock my house and stay put like a hermit for the whole of December or have open house!

Strange omissions in Joe Biden's appointments and nominations

The ommissions in Biden's cabinet are more interesting than the names he has already made public. The two obvious ones are defence secretary and CIA director. It's extraordinary that when Biden introduced his chosen national security team for the first time this week there was no mention of who will be his choice for defence secretary, surely one of the most important appointments of all. It had been assumed that Michele Flournoy, a veteran Pentagon official who then set up one of the prestigious think-tanks in Washington, would be a shoe-in for the job but in the Democratic party, especially among the more progressive members of the House and Senate, there is opposition to anyone who at any time worked for one of the giant defence companies because of the fear of being influenced. When she left government, she was a board member of Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company which has extensive ties to the US defence industry. That time embedded with the defence industry could spoil her chances of being selected for a job which she has always wanted. She would of course be the first woman to be Pentagon chief. She knows the Pentagon, how it works and what needs to be done with it. But will Biden pick her? The fact that he left the job vacant and unmentioned when he showed off the rest of his national security team suggests there's a problem. Flournoy might not get it after all. Or if she does she could have a roasting during the confirmation period when she appears before the Senate, from the Democrat members. As or the CIA job, there's talk of Mike Morrell, formerly acting director and deputy director. While Morrell was a good man, it would seem strange for Biden to turn to him, a veteran who has in many ways done his time at the CIA and moved on. Perhaps Biden might consider hanging on to Gina Haspell, Trump's appointee. This might be controversial. But she is CIA through and through and she risked the sack by declining to put her weight behind Trump's desire for a thorough investigation into what the intelligence services were up to when he was standing for president in 2016. That could be seen as a plus point for her if Biden were to consider her. I think it might be an inspired move by the president-elect to keep Haspel in post.

Joe Biden's man for the Iran conundrum

THE TIMES PIECE I WROTE FOR TODAY: Jake Sullivan who is to be appointed national security adviser when Joe Biden becomes president in January must have winced when he read that President Trump had sought military options for attacking Iran’s nuclear plants before leaving the White House. For at the top of Mr Sullivan’s list of priorities as soon as he moves into the West Wing of the White House will be to reengage with Tehran with a view to the US returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which Mr Trump had unilaterally extracted American participation in 2018. Mr Sullivan, 43 and with a curriculum vitae that makes him the ideal choice for a diplomatic rather than military response to the Iran conundrum , will face a huge challenge not just in Tehran where the anti-US mood has increased under the severe sanctions regime imposed by the Trump administration but also in Congress if the Republicans retain majority control of the Senate. “Assuming the Republicans hold the Senate, the new president will likely run into some strong headwinds on this issue,” a former senior US official said. The Republicans and many Democrats opposed the deal. There is little doubt which direction the president-elect wishes to take on Iran. Mr Sullivan was a behind-the-scenes leading architect of the early stages of the 2015 nuclear deal. A brilliant Yale-educated lawyer and one of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides when she was secretary of state, he lay the groundwork, in secret, for the breakthrough telephone call between President Obama and President Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian leader, in September 2013. The 15-minute call led two years later to the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) signed by Tehran along with the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, under which phased relief from economic sanctions imposed in 2006 were agreed in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme. Has Mr Trump improved the president-elect’s negotiating position by his decision to impose even tougher sanctions on Tehran? “I think Jake is mindful that the Trump people will have bequeathed the future Biden administration a lot of leverage,” another senior former US official said. However, a simple re-entry into the deal would be tricky, he said, “particularly because the Iranians are so far out of compliance and then you have the Iranian election coming up in June where the hardliners are likely to come back”. “Iran’s behaviour in the region has been so bad that Jake and his colleagues understand that things are not the same as when they left office,” the former official said. “How they traverse this obstacle course will be interesting to watch,” he said.

Trump still rules the Republican party

It's quite extraordinary the hold Donald Trump has over the Republican party despite losing the election. He remains a dominating force. So much so that Republican governors and the grandees of the party - most of them - haven't dared to speak out about Trump refusing to concede to Joe Biden. Every day that passes it gets more and more embarrassing as the man in the White House hunkers down and continues to claim that he won the election and that Biden's victory was false, rigged or just not fair. Some Republicans have spoken out. Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, was the latest. Others have talked about the importance of a peaceful and smooth transition without actually saying it was high time the president stopped acting like he deserved to be president for ever. Why is this? Simple. Most of them are scared stiff of him and his huge - more than 70 million - supporters who wanted him to have a second term. If they voted, as they did, for Trump, and their Republican governors and senators go around saying Trump should get on with conceding defeat, these voters are going to think twice about voting them back in when their election comes up. So to avoid voters' revenge, they are keeping hush hush quiet which means that Trump will just carry on denying reality and relying on his millions of supporters to back him up. This is going to go on until January 19 2021. Do none of these Republican voters realise how unconstitutional and undemocratic this all is? At some point Republican governors, senators, House representatives, mayors, sheriffs and all must come out into the open and shout, "Thank you Mr President but kindly give it a rest. Biden won." So far, very few of them have had the guts to say it.

It's official, Trump will no longer be @POTUS

It's the acronym which every president of the United States enjoys and exclusively possesses. POTUS is coming down the corridor. POTUS is walking to Marine One. POTUS wants a double hamburger with cheese. POTUS, FLOTUS are en route. The Secret Service spend every day muttering the acronymns into their hidden sleeve mics. It's one of the many things Donald Trump is going to miss. And now just to remind him that he will not be POTUS on January 20 2021, Twitter has officially said that on January 20 @POTUS will be handed over to Joe Biden for his Twitter account. If Twitter says preparations are underway for the transfer of the @POTUS handle from Trump to Biden, Trump must have lost the election. He will still get Secret Service protection of course but they will be muttering something else into their mics. It won't be @EX-POTUS because that would be an acknowledgment by the current president that from January 20 he will be a former president, and he's still fighting against that description in the courts.

Trump is losing support

FIFTY-NINE DAYS TO GO: More Republicans by the day are removing their support for Donald Trump's lone battle against the election result, the election organisers, anyone who says he didn't win. Georgia and Michigan are now definitely Biden's, so where else to turn. He can't seriously believe a bunch of states will suddenly reverse the results and announce Trump as the winner. But every time someone high profile says the election went fine thank you, he gets mad. Like when he sacked Chris Krebs, head of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for daring to say in public that the election was trouble-free. Under normal circumstances he would have been praised from the rooftops by the whole of Congress and the nation for saving the election from outside foreign interference. He kept the Russians at bay. That was a helluva success, especially after all the warnings of hostile cyber attacks. But for announcing that he had the done the job he was paid to to do, he gets fired. What Krebs did fail to do, however, was to stop the president of the United States from trying to interfere in the election process. Because that's exactly what he's doing, trying to overturn a democratic vote because he didn't win. His Republican and Democratic predecessors must be weeping into their pillows at night to see the standard bearer of the Republican Party refusing to do business with the president-elect. Barack Obama has been going around saying how gracious and helpful George W Bush was when he was president-elect in 2008. That's the way it's supposed to be done. But it doesn't look like the 45th president is going to be either gracious or helpful towards Joe Biden.

How much longer will Trump wait before conceding?

When the recount results came through from Georgia today you would have thought someone in the White House would have got their abacus out and made a quick arithmetical calculation before paying a visit to the Oval Office. Not that anyone in the white House wants to be the one to say to the president, sorry it's all over. But the Georgia recount was pretty definitive. Biden won, Trump lost. You can't go on recounting, the counters will get sore fingers. There are few options left for the president. None of the judges so far have shown any interest in reversing the count in any of the disputed states, and even if one did, it wouldn't make any difference now. Biden has won 306 electoral college votes as opposed to Trump's 232. And he has won 51.1 per cent of the popular vote against Trump's 47.2 per cent. That's a relatively significant gap I would have thought, big enough to make it impossible for the president to continue to insist that he won the election. There is no evidence that some dark force stole the election and handed it to Biden. So how much longer can Trump wait before he finally concedes that he lost and Biden won? The intriguing thing is that even while Trump refuses to acknowledge the reality of the election result, he is rushing ahead with policy decisions to make sure his favourite administration issues are wrapped up before Januay 20. Like for example his order to the acting defence secretary Chris Miller to cut the US troop presence in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500 by January 15. That smacks of a president doing stuff in his final days because he knows they are his final days. He will have other last-minute actions up his sleeve I have no doubt. Let's hope they are not too drastic, like his calling for options to bomb Iran's nuclear installations. Fortunately his advisers, including Chris Miller, opposed such an idea. Well that was a relief. Meanwhile, without an official concession from Trump, Biden and his team are planning ahead in the dark, refused access to intelligence and any form of mutual discussion about the pandemic, the economy or anything ese. At least Kamala Harris is able to help out a little on the intelligence side. She is on the Senate intelligence committee which gets secret briefings. But who knows whether the real secret stuff is being withheld for the moment?

Australian report on their SAS shame

MY STORY IN THE TIMES THIS AFTERNOON: The Australian report into evidence of unlawful killings by special forces in Afghanistan will cast a dark shadow over the heroism and courage of tens of thousands of men and women who have served in the frontline of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two decades.The stark details of the accusations against Australian SAS soldiers will provoke widespread condemnation. But they will also raise questions about why such highly trained soldiers, elite in every sense, could have resorted to such brutality, violating, beyond any reasonable understanding of risk and danger, the accepted code of conduct in war. Soldiers with long experience of special forces combat do have an explanation but without offering any excuse for it. War is brutal and dehumanising, particularly for those who serve in tight military units involved in covert operations where maximum violence and aggression against the enemy are vital ingredients both for the success of their mission and for their own survival. “Recognising the incredible burden placed on each individual deployed to just survive through to another day isn’t well understood,” one former special forces commander said. No excuses were good enough, he said, but merely to see brutality devoid of context was to ignore the life soldiers in such units endured: “solitary, brutish and for many, short”. Small, very close military groups operating within a special forces bubble can sometimes reinforce a course of action which would seem to others outside the unit to be outrageous and beyond comprehension. In Iraq and Afghanistan over the years, atrocities and war crimes have been committed that have led to doubts about the moral, ethical and legal state of mind of individual soldiers and units within the US-led coalition. Among the most notorious was the Abu Ghraib prison abuses in Iraq in 2003 when Iraqi captives were subjected to physical, sexual and humiliating treatment by US soldiers, much of it caught on video camera. In November 2005 a squad of US Marines in Haditha took revenge after a roadside bomb killed one of their group. Twenty-four Iraqi civilians were killed including women and children. In Afghanistan on March 11 2012, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a US soldier, went on a rampage killing 16 Afghan villagers in Kandahar province. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The spotlight put on the Australian SAS has shown that war can turn even the most disciplined soldier into a reckless and out-of-control human being. What is disturbing in the Australian SAS case is that this was not a one-off single deployment problem but rather a culture that became deeply embedded. However, the former special forces commander pleaded: “That one group of soldiers acted improperly, probably illegally and absolutely immorally shouldn’t paint all others in the same light.” Military leaders also have to share the blame. They are supposed to set the tone and moral compass for the units under their command. If they turn a blind eye to unlawful actions and decisions when they become apparent they are as guilty as the soldiers accused.

Queen Nancy Pelosi wins reelection

SIXTY-TWO DAYS TO GO. Donald Trump doesn't like Nancy Pelosi. They have had words in the past. Now he must be staeming with rage to hear that she has won reelection as Speaker of the House. If she can do it, why couldn't he? Well, of course, he still doesn't accept that he failed to win reelection but eventually he will implicitly accept defeat when he leaves the White House for the last time in January and he will have to put up with seeing Nancy ruling the roost in the House of Representatives in her 80s and remaining third in line to the presidency. Very galling for him. Nancy meanwhile is unbelievable. She had originally said she would only stand for one term this time, partly because of her age I assume but also partly because of the firebrand younger generation Congresswomen who feel her time is up and that she needs to be replaced by a progressive Democrat. But she won some of them round and has sailed into another two years as Speaker. Good for her. She managed to sweet-talk her opponents who were angry at the relatively poor showing the Democrats made in the Congressional elections. But the anti-Pelosi brigade feel a lot more cheerful now of course because Joe Biden has become president-elect and Kamala Harris is vice president-elect. That has dramatically changed the atmosphere, even though a number of House Democrats lost their seats. Queen Nancy will continue to reign.

Joe Biden pushes on regardless as Trump thinks of 2024

SIXTY-THREE DAYS TO GO. Every day there is something new from Joe Biden. As president-elect and only nine weeks before he is inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States - 46th POTUS - he has a helluva lot of things to do and sort out, notably fix his cabinet and all the key officials he wants around him in the White House, in between taking calls from around the world from leaders desperate to get their spoke in before anyone else. It must be a non-stop time for Biden, giving him only an inkling of what he will face each day when he takes over. But while the Biden planning is getting to fever pitch, the incumbent president is carrying on as if nothing dramatic happened two weeks ago. It really is bizarre. Donald Trump will not, absolutely will not concede that he lost, let alone that Biden won. What is going to happen when we get really close to Inauguration Day? Will Trump refuse to participate? Will he demand a helicopter to take him to Florida? Will he go golfing? Or will he lock the door of his private bedroom in the White House and decline to come out? I think in the end Trump will do what's right but with huge reluctance. I believe he will be there at the January 20 inauguration and will try and look disinterested. He will probably never officially concede but he might use slighty concessionary language in a tweet or in a statement that vaguely embraces the idea that he will leave the White House and allow Biden in as caretaker president before he, Donald Trump, comes back in 2024 for his second four-year term. If he goes ahead and announces he is going to stand in 2024, there is no question that he will expect not only to be chosen as the Republican nominated candidate but that he will defeat Biden and Kamala Harris. So any concession he makes between now and January 20 will be marginalised as he promises to his millions of supporters: "I'll be back."

Trump's plans to pull out all US troops from Afghanistan by January 20

SIXTY-FOUR DAYS TO GO: A fuller version of the story I wrote for The Times today: President Trump is expected to order the withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq before he leaves office in January. In a move to honour his longstanding pledge to bring all troops home and to stop American involvement in “endless wars”, his dramatic shake-up at the top echelons of the Pentagon is believed to be part of the plan to bring forward the military pull-out timetable. Christopher Miller, parachuted in a week ago by the president as the acting US defence secretary, was a special forces officer in the first phase of the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. He has given the strongest indication that total troop withdrawals are his top priority. “Now it’s time to come home,” he wrote in a memo to all Pentagon staff over the weekend. “This fight has been long, our sacrifices have been enormous and many are weary of war. I’m one of them,” he wrote. Former US national security and defence officials are expressing concern that, with a new team in the Pentagon, Mr Miller will be under pressure to wrap up Afghanistan and Iraq before Joe Biden becomes president on January 20. There are currently 4,500 US troops in Afghanistan and 3,000 in Iraq. Under White House plans revealed last month by Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, the 4,500 troops in Afghanistan were set to be reduced to 2,500 by early 2021. The February 29 peace deal between the US and the Taliban in Qatar stipulated that all American and coalition troops would be withdrawn “within fourteen months following announcement of this agreement “, a timetable that underwrote a May 1, 2021 deadline. However, General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, has pushed against the 2,500 figure even though it was thought to be one of the options offered by the Pentagon earlier this year. He said that the timing of further cuts in the American troop presence between now and May 1 had to be based on conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. Mark Esper who was sacked by Mr Trump as defence secretary a week ago, supported the cautious approach towards further cuts in Afghanistan. He believed that Afghanistan was the prime cause of his firing. Before he was sacked, Mr Esper wrote a memo outlining half a dozen reasons why a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan was a bad idea. He included the importance of coordinating with allies, a former senior US defence official told The Times. Mr Trump had made clear to Mr Esper, through his national security adviser, that he intended to move ahead with withdrawal before January 20. But Mr Esper resisted saying that he and General Milley and the department of defence were "institutionally not on board" because the Taliban had failed to meet the conditions that US officials had agreed would be necessary to enable American troops to be withdrawn, the former official said. Acting defence secretary Christopher Miller has been warned by Senator Mitch McConnel, Republican majority leader of the Senate, and by Senator Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, that there would be considerable opposition to "an ill-considered" withdrawal among Congressional Rebublicans. "But Miller appears to be on board with merely doing Trump's bidding and is surrounded by a praetorian guard of Trumpists (Anthony Tata, Kash Patel, Douglas McGregor - all swept into influential Pentagon positions in the last week), who undoubtedly will be trying to pull this off", the former official said. There will be significant push back from General Milley and General Frank McKenzie, commander of Central Command. There would also be serious logistical obstacles to being able to accomplish a withdrawal in the timeframe the White House is talking about. There has been similar caution over Iraq. The 5,200 American troops in Iraq were reduced to 3,000 in September, reflecting growing US military confidence in the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces. However, there are concerns that the military presence in Iraq could also be up for grabs in the remaining nine weeks of Mr Trump’s presidency as a way of ensuring his foreign policy legacy. ReplyReply to allForward More metroops1 Sun, 15 Nov, 18:47 (22 hours ago) Before he was fired, Mr Esper wrote a memo to the White House outlining half a dozen reasons why a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan was a bad idea. He included the importance of coordinating with allies, a former senior US defence official told The Times. Mr Trump had made clear to Mr Esper that he intended to move ahead with withdrawal before January 20. But the Pentagon was "institutionally not on board", the former official said. Acting defence secretary Christopher Miller has been warned by Senator Mitch McConnell. Republican majority leader of the Senate, and by Senator Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, that there would be opposition to "an ill-considered" withdrawal. "But Miller appears to be on board with merely doing Trump's bidding," the former official said. to me

Trump says Biden won but refuses to concede

It looked like Donald Trump had finally given in when he tweeted that Joe Biden had won the election, although it was rigged. But the whole media world leapt on his words and pronounced that the president had at last accepted that his Democrat rival had beaten him. I can just hear Trump's reaction to the headlines. "No, I didn't accept anything of the sort. I never said that. How could they say I said that?" Because in very short order he had tweeted again, this time saying the election was totally rigged and it was fake media who had declared Biden the winner and that he would never concede. Not ever. So totally back to square one. That must have been a huge relief to his supporters who have been gathering in their thousands in Washington to demonstrate their faith in him. It just shows how risky it can be to tweet at all. Once you have thrown a few words together and pressed send, it can't be reversed. It's done, the damage is there for all to see. I'm sure Trump will be more cautious from now on. He knows that every word he utters whether verbally or by Tweet is read, interpreted, reinterpreted, analysed and retweeted by millions. He definitely said what he said and then definitely rowed back furiously. The next time he dares to mention the election we will all be watching and waiting and reading and wondering.

Trump will hang on until the very end

SIXTY-SIX DAYS TO GO. I have never seen such a sombre Donald Trump. No fire left, just an unstated acknowledgement that he might not be forming the next administration. His Rose Garden statement to the press was so unlike the Trump we have known for the last four years. Head down, no arm-waving. No pointing at members of the media, no slogans. He made his statement and then swivelled round and walked off in a very heavy sort of way, shoulders down. No Q and A. Not for the media who, he believes, campaigned against him from the moment he stepped into the White House in January 2017. But despite all that there is no question that he will fight to the end. He still believes that, for example, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia will be awarded to him eventually. And of course he won North Carolina, quite substantially. Everyone else in America knows that Joe Biden has won and will be president on January 20 2021. But Trump just will not accept the reality facing him. He looked a sorrowful figure. It was his first public appearance for about eight days. His closest aides had advised him to keep a low profile and he actually did as they suggested. Amazing. As it stands Biden is set to get 306 electoral college votes and so Trump has absolutely no chance of catching up let alone overtaking. His sombre look said everything but he still won't concede. Never, not in the proper traditional way.

Ageing Biden versus new feisty Democrat generation

SIXTY-SEVEN DAYS TO GO. Joe Biden still has more than nine weeks before he takes over the White House (Trump willing) but already he is facing up to the feisty set of young new-breed Democrats who are hoping for, no demanding, a radical and progressive programme which older Democrats, including Biden himself, are afraid the nation will view as socialism with a big S. Biden is by instinct and record a centrist who will seek the middle way with everything, probably even on climate-change although his ideas at the moment look to be pretty far-reaching. But the new generation of Congress members on the Democrat side are not going to put up with soft, soggy politics. They want radicalism to take over the country. I'm thinking here mainly about the Famous Four Congresswomen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) and Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts) - the so-called AOC Squad. Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest of the four at 31. Omar is 38, Tlaib, 44, and Pressley, 46. Joe Biden will be 78 on November 20. These four and others who support their progressive views will cause endless trouble for Biden when he takes over from Trump. But from the moment they launched themselves on the political scene they have added a breath of fresh invigorating air into the Democratic party. They are radical, sure, but they are firebrands of visionary ambition for their country. They will not just keep Biden on his toes, they will force him to be radical himself, to think the impossible even if Congress, especially a Republican-driven Senate, treads heavily on any truly transformative policies. The Democratic party needs the AOC Squad to inject new ideas and inspirational dreams into future policy-making. Nancy Pelosi, an institution who dared to stand up to Trump, is 80 and will be more wary of these four than anyone in the party. But it will be up to Biden and Pelosi - combined age nearly 160 years - to gather in the freshness and enthusiasm of the AOC Squad and make it work for the good of the whole nation over the next four years. I refuse to believe that Biden's first term is going to be destroyed by divisions both within the country and within the Democratic party.

Trump wants all troops out of Afghanistan before he leaves

SIXTY-EIGHT DAYS TO GO: From the way the Pentagon is being reshaped with Trumpite loyalists being appointed, it's pretty clear what the president is up to. He wants to get all American troops out of Afghanistan before he leaves office on January 20. If he does leave by January 20 of course. It's one of the legacy achievements I am convinced he is determined to have placed in concrete and he's running out of time. So out goes Mark Esper, the defence secretary he had begun to dislike quite a lot, in goes an outsider to do as his master orders, and most of the top civilian jobs are suddenly filled by other Trumpites. And to add spice to the Afghanistan all-out theory, Chris Miller, the new acting defence secretary, has bizarrely appointed someone as his main adviser who I assume was Trump's choice: Colonel Douglas Macgregor, retired but a very opinionated commentator for Fox News, especially on Afghanistan. He agrees with Trump that America's involvement should be brought swiftly to an end with not a single US soldier left. Although this is part of the deal signed with the Taliban, the withdrawal of the remaining 4,500 or so troops is supposed to be, as the military love saying, conditions-based. That means that if violence is still at a high level and the Taliban are still attacking Afghan security forces by the time the deal is supposed to be fully implemented next year then the US reserves the right to keep some forces in Afghanistan until stability is firm and settled. For the military that would mean keeping at least 2,500 special operations troops in situ to remind the Taliban of their commitment to the peace deal. I think Trump is more interested in honouring his pledge to get all US troops out than play a quid pro quo brinkmanship game with the Taliban. He probably thinks that if he gets all the troops out by Christmas, the Taliban might offer in return a total ceasefire. But if all US troops are pulled out it's far more likely that the Taliban will push on hard militarily to get maximum advantage before agreeing a political sharing deal with the Kabul government. So, this is what it's all about. The Pentagon changes are about Afghanistan, and if General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, tries to stop him from getting every soldier out by Christmas, Trump will just get him replaced. Watch this space.

What is Trump plotting?

SIXTY-NINE DAYS TO GO: There are so many whispers going around that Donald Trump is plotting some sort of coup. Never mind the legal action about the vote counting in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Alaska and North Carolina, it's something much darker. Well I have never believed in conspiracy theories and I won't make an exception even for Trump but the coup rumours are symptomatic of the fears going around that the president, now 69 days away from being ousted from the White House, is not going to play ball and will stay put. It hasn't helped that Trump has started to stuff the Pentagon with 100 per cent Trumpites, notably Anthony Tata, ex-Fox News aficionado, as under secretary of defence for policy, the third highest position in the Pentagon. But, unless I am mistaken or haven't heard yet, General Mark Milley is still chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and I can't see him staying silent if Trump suddenly orders something perceived to be outrageous or wrong or unlawful. These last 69 days are going to be tense and worrying. But Joe Biden and his transition people seem to be relaxed, laughing at Trump's behaviour. But beware, Mr President Elect, while Trump is in the White House you cannot be sure of anything. And there are more than 70 million American voters who are stamping their feet in anger and disbelief that their chosen man will no longer be president on January 20. A coup? No, but we don't know what may happen. Biden should be prepared.

There is a kind of madness going on in Washington

SEVENTY DAYS TO GO: For most of the rest of the world Donald Trump is gone and Joe Biden is already being presidential and marking out his territory for taking over the White House on January 20. But in the US, and in particular in Washington DC, there is a kind of madness going on. Trump is back in the White House and seems to have drawn up a list of revenge sackings. Mark Esper, the defence secretary, was the first to go, or "terminated" as Trump kindly put it in his tweet. Now James Anderson, acting top dog on defence policy at the Pentagon, has resigned because he knew he was about to be pushed. The directors of the CIA and FBI are on borrowed time and who knows who else will be on the Trump chopping block. Will his new acting defence secretary, Christopher Miller, formerly director of the National Counterterrorism Center, be ordered to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by Christmas, and all the remaining troops in Syria and complete the reduction in troop numbers in Germany before January 19? He knew Esper would never have agreed to all these orders. But was there a deal with Miller? "You get all these troops out as I promised the American people and you can be defence secretary for the next 70 days." Miller was a hotshot at the NCTC but how on earth is he going to cope at the Pentagon with Trump breathing fire down his neck. Apart from the sackings, there is all the craziness about the election and the voting. The Republicans have finally given their backing to Trump's demand for legal action, and court action has begun. Will any judge in the land agree to overturn the count and put Trump back in the frame? Surely not. They would be arguing against the constitution. So we have two presidents operating at the same time, Trump fighting for survival and kicking out at anyone who doesn't show him absolute loyalty, and Joe Biden assuming the mantle of the president as president-elect and ushering in the post-Trump era. There is going to be a mighty clash at some point. I don't mean violent. I mean a political rumpus like you have never seen before.

Everything Trump espoused will be overturned

SEVENTY-ONE DAYS TO GO Joe Biden can't be accused of being sleepy, even by Donald Trump. He is still 71 days away from taking over from Trump but already he and his officials have outlined a progressive programme from day one of his presidency. Right at the top - after tackling the coronavirus pandemic with a federal mask-wearing edict - will be climate change. After four years of a president refusing to believe the reality of the climate changing fast around the world, we will now have exactly the opposite, a president who trusts the scientists and will act accordingly. Rejoin the Paris agreement will be Biden's first move. Then there's the Iran nuclear deal fixed under Barack Obama. I assume the US will rejoin that too, although that nice chap the supreme ayatollah in Tehran welcomed Biden's victory like he had a bad smell under his nose. So we'll have to see whether Iran plays ball with a Biden America. I somehow doubt Biden will rush into lifting economic sanctions aganst Iran. Then there's America's exit from the International Nuclear Forces Treaty and the proposed extension to the New Start nuclear treaty and will Biden revive America's participation in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty? The US withdrew from it in 2002 under George W Bush. And what about the millions of dollars already spent on beginning the Trump Wall across the Mexican border? Will work just halt, leaving what was built as a white elephant on the border? So many decisions to be made. I hardly dare mention Guantanamo. Obama tried and failed to close it. Will Biden have a go? If he is going to be pressured from day one by the most progressive wing of the Democratic Party to introduce far-left policies, Guantanamo will surely be on their to-do list? Trump was quite happy for the Guantanamo detention camp to stay open for business and there was even talk about sending more terrorist suspects there but it never happened. Guantanamo is a forgotten boil on the face of the United States. There are just 40 detainees there today, costing American taxpayers a fortune in security and protection bills. They should be brought to the US for trial. Congress will have to be persuaded. The military commission system for Guantanamo detainees has patently not worked. I suspect however it will be way down Biden's priority list. Trump did his best to overturn everything Obama did in his eight years. Now it's Biden's turn to do the same to Trump. That's politics for you. At least Trump only had four years!

Biden's surprisingly slam-dunk victory

SEVENTY-TWO DAYS TO GO As the Donald Trump four-year era counts down to zero, it has to be said that after all the predictions of a very close race (including by me), Joe Biden has accomplished a significant victory, winning both the popular vote by an historic amount and by a very satisfactory margin, the electoral college vote. In fact such an impressive win that even if Trump lawyers manage to squeeze back a few votes to their man it will still make no difference to the outcome. The outcome - and this is for Trump and his sons - is NOT going to change. We now have a president-elect and everyone in the world bar Vladimir Putin, Xi Zinping, Kim Jong-un, the president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the increasingly awful Turkish president, have come out and congratulated Biden for his victory over Trump. Even another terrible leader, Nicolas Maduro, the alleged Venezuelan president, has commented about Biden and his willingness to work with the United States. Ha! The out-of-step leaders of Russia, China, North Korea, Mexico and Turkey are biding their time but it won't be long before they, too, will have to agree that Trump is on the way out. See above. By all accounts Trump is listening to no one and remains determined to fight Biden and the Democrats in the courts, thus making sure that his legacy will be shrouded in legal bluster and shameful accusations of a fake election. Who will dare speak to him and tell him to behave himself and do the right thing? None of his staff, clearly. Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, has tested positive with coronavirus and is out of it, Mike Pompeo could tell him but pobably won't. After all he has to live with him as his secretary of state until January 19. See above! The only person he might listen to is his daughter Ivanka. But she will feel sorry for her Daddy and won't want to be too harsh. His sons won't do it because they are hellbent on going to the courts to fight for their right to stay as the White House family. So maybe in the end it will be that long-suffering wife, First Lady Melania Trump who is apparently looking forward to a new life away from her husband once they leave the White House. Perhaps she might turn to the defeated presidential husband and say: "Oh for the goodness sake, Donald, stop being the child and act like a growed-up. I'm outa here."

Donald Trump is done finished kaputski!

However much he struggles and shouts and screams unfair and false and fake Donald Trump must know he is, as the headline says, done, finished, kaputski. Unless there is a miracle (miracle for him obviously) change in the voting choices still unchecked in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada, Trump will no longer be president and commander-in-chief on midnight January 19 2021. It's an extraordinary reversal for him. As someone who beat all the odds to defeat Hillary Clinton and become the 45th president in 2016, he now knows surely that he is not going to win a second term. The mathematics, Mr President, are against you big time. Never mind the laywers stuff, that's all waffle. If there is no evidence of voter fraud - and this is America for heaven's sake, not some "shit country" as he would call it - then lawyers will soon run out of steam because there is nothing to put before the judges. Again, deep down, Trump must know this. And even if he doesn't or refuses to listen to sensible people, there are others around him who absolutely know that this fight-to-the-finish legal battle nonsense is both futile and embarrassing. Mike Pence, vice president, has obviously got the message. Even though he is supporting Trump, as he always has, he is not screaming false and fake. He realises that his days of being vice president are also fast approaching the finishing line. He will fancy his chances of going for the White House job in 2024, although Trump is also hellbent on having another go, according to a former chief of staff. But in the meantime, Trump and Pence, it's time to step aside and let Sleepy Joe take the reins. He'll only do four years. So go and have a rest. But go, please go. No more of this ranting and raving. It's sooooo cringing. My only extra plea, Mr President --- please don't try again in 2024. You had your chance and you blew it.

It's time for Trump to read the runes

The clearest sign that Donald Trump is on the way out is the singularly spectacular dumping of him by the senior hierarchy of the Republican Party. They want nothing to do with his accusations of wholesale fraud and stop-the-vote demands. Those Republican politicians who have been reelected to the Senate are already thinking ahead to a Joe Biden administration and how they can deal with him and his more socialist-leaning colleagues, such as Bernie Sanders. The reaction to Trump's outraged statements about election fraud has been deafening by its silence. Republican senators may have all kinds of different views about all kinds of different things but the one thing they all agree on is the Founding Fathers' constitution and the way democracy works in the United States of America. Running around accusing the opposition of stealing the election without any evidence doesn't fit in with their view of how a president should conduct himself, Republican or Democrat. Indeed, it's thanks to the constitution and the election system that they are continuing to be senators. They were reelected, Mr President, thanks to good old-fashioned democracy at work. So Trump is getting no encouragement from the hugely satisfied reelected Republican senators, thank you very much. The only comment some of them have made is to support the view that all votes should be legal which is defnitely not the same as saying Biden is winning because all of his votes are illegal. Others, such as Senator Marco Rubio, a potential Republican president of the future, has expressed concern at the way Trump has resorted to accusing and abusing the Democrats. So, Mr President for another 74 days only, it's time to read the runes. Not only are you losing the presidential election (or reelection in his case), you are being abandoned by the grandees of your own party. Another sign of Trump's growing anger and frustration at the way he thinks he is being treated is that he got his two sons to make public complaints about the scandalous silence of his fellow Republicans. A family affair, all the less impressive for that. By the time the weekend is over it looks like Biden will have won Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania or as near as dammit. Then, Mr President for-not-much-longer-but-too-long-even-so, it will be your great opportunity to drop all this legal nonsense, accept the inevitable and be maganinmous in defeat. Will it happen? NO.

Biden inches forward but Trump's lawyers lurk

Donald Trump appears to be running out of time and options, apart from resorting to the courts. Looking at the map you can see why the US is so divided politically. It's all red in the heartland and blue round the edges east and west. But the numbers for Biden look to be beyond Trump. If Biden does snatch the prize from the incumbent to become the 46th president he will face a near-impossible task of uniting the country and persuading the Senate to support him. Mitch McConnell will continue to reign supreme as the Republican leader of the Senate and many of the Republicans who had been facing the chop actually survived, and easily, like Lindsey Graham. It's a paradox. Had Trump been leading the field, stretching the gap between him and Biden, you would have expected to see an increasing Republican majority in the Senate and a narrowing of the margin in the House of Representatives, even possibly taking control. Yet here we have Biden leading the field, albeit not substantially, and the Republicans will remain in charge of the Senate and the Democrats have performed pretty poorly in the House although still retaining control. It doesn't make sense. Perhaps the Democrat candidates were just not good enough even for Democrat voters. It's the only answer. If Biden wins Pennsylvania - and we might know by the end of today - the presidency will be his. Unless of course the figures are very close in which case there could be a recount or it will be the courts who decide. Trump has remained on 214 electoral college votes for 24 hours, while Biden has edged forward to 253. So unless Trump suddenly sees the last few states swinging in his favour, he is going to lose. "I don't like losing", he said yesterday. Well, get used to it, Mr President. You have another 75 days left of your presidency. Basically Trump has to win Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina to beat Biden. He could do it but according to all the counting estimates so far, Biden is ahead in two of the states. It could all be over by the end of the day, bar the court action which could drag it on to next week. After such a tumultuous four years it seems like tempting fate to say this but: Trump will go down in history as a one-term president. He ain't going to like that. Not one bit.

As usual nearly everyone got it wrong!

The Washington establishment, and in that august environment I include The New York Times and The Washington Post as well as 95 per cent of the most esteemed pollsters, simply got it wrong. Again. I never believed the polls showing a huge margin between Winning Biden and losing Trump. It just didn't make sense when you know that so many Republican voters don't necessarily want to tell the polling people the truth about how they are going to vote. ie Trump, no way changing to Biden. I'm talking here about ordinary folk, as Americans would say, not the really clever and in-the-know Republicans who decided ages ago that Trump should not be president - the Never-Trumpers. Ordinary folk often keep their views to themselves, either by giving answers that they think the pollsters want to hear or by not answering at all. The pollsters said Florida could have gone to Biden. But there was no way that was going to happen. Florida is full of Cuban immigrants who hated Castro's communis and Venezuelans who had fled to the wonderful United States of America to escape from the brutal "socialism" of President Nicholas Maduro. Why on earth would any of them vote for Biden who for all they know espouses the same sort of socialism they escaped from in their countries of birth? Florida was always going to go to Trump. I never had any doubt. I predicted that Trump would win in 2016, despite reading the most respected papers - see above - every day telling me that Hillary was streets ahead. She got clobbered and so did all those who were so sure Trump would be defeated. This time I have been predicting a very close result. Again in contrast to the majority of polls and Washington media who said Biden was heading for a big victory. With major states still to announce results, I believe the clever money will be on Trump winning reelection. If that happens the pollsters who got it so wrong again should take up market gardening and get plenty of fertiliser in. Trump for another four years? I reckon.

Trump's shortlist of sackings if he wins

Whatever the result in the US election certain key Trump cabinet members are going to be out of a job. Top of the list appears to be poor Mark Esper at the Pentagon. Dr Esper as he likes to be called has not been the most inspirational US defence (defense) secretary and he stuck his neck out once too often when dealing with his commander-in-chief. He wanted nothing to do with having troops on the streets during the Washington protests and showed about as much enthusiasm for bringing all US troops from Afghanistan back home by Christmas as a diner sitting in front of a plate of novichok salad. So if Trump wins reelection, Esper is out out out. If Biden wins, Esper is also out out out. Biden has in mind Michele Flournoy, a former head honcho on defence policy at the Pentagon and the founder of one of the hugely influential security think-tanks in DC. There is no possibility that Biden will ask Esper to stay on as Pentagon chief. Obama asked Bob Gates to stay as defence secretary when he took over from George W Bush. But Esper is no Gates. Then there's Gina Haspel, director of the CIA. Under normal circumstances she would expect to have to step down if Biden wins because he will have someone else lined up for such a crucial appointment. But if Trump wins, she might be out too. She has been at pains not to raise her head too much above the parapet since she took over. Her appointment after a career of covert intelligence service was well received within the CIA community. But she committed one grave error in the eyes of Donald Trump. She failed to leap to action when Trump was demanding a full-scale inquiry into his accusation that Obama secretly investigated him and the alleged links to Russia. She and others in the intelligence world said there was no evidence of any such thing. Even William Barr, the attorney general who is or was a Trumpite, didn't show much enthusiasm. Nor did Christopher Wray, the FBI director whose days are definitely numbered. So Gina Haspel might get the chop, and the FBI chief and maybe Barr as well, although he might survive a Trump reelection provided he shows 100 per cent loyalty and devotion. Anyone associated with health policy implementation will get the chop if Trump wins because he will want a clean sheet. Especially Dr Anthony Fauci, the virus-warning scientist who has fallen out with Trump so many times it's amazing he can still stand up. The only Trump appointee on the national security side likely to survive in his job if the 45th president wins is Mike Pompeo. He has remained totally loyal, although his failure to hand Kim Jong-un on a surrender plate may count against him. So there are going to be lots of new faces in the Washington establishment whether Trump or Biden is sitting in the Oval Office on January 20 2021.

Trump's lawyers are waiting in the wings

Donald Trump is all set to go to his lawyers when election night is over. He said so himself. "As soon as election is over we're going in with our lawyers." Particularly over Pennsylvania which will probaby be the tightest state of all and could be the decisive result to see who wins. Tuesday night is going to be one of the most volatile nights in America's political story. But hopefully not violent. Everywhere in Washington and in other cities the shops are being boarded up with what looks like rather inadequate cheap chipboard. But we all need a calm and decisive election. Gun sales are up by an alarming amount but fingers crossed this will be a moment in history when not a shot is fired. If Biden does win, either on the night or days/weeks later I shall be looking forward to seeing how Kamala Harris blossoms as vice president. I doubt she will be a quiet mouse in the background. She will have a chance to shine and make Biden look better too. If Biden loses, that will be one of my great regrets, not seeing Kamala Harris smiling from the White House. I stick to my prediction that this is going to be close call which, of coure, is why Trump has lined up his lawyers to be ready to start spouting constitutional law and drawing up all the arguments to present to the US Supreme Court. Good luck America.

Trump may be the underdog but he's still barking!

After nearly four years of Donald Trump it's difficult to think of him as an underdog. He would never refer to himself as an underdog. He's the Big Dog, with the Big Bite. But if the polls are to be believed, he is still the underdog in the presidential race because Joe Biden is ahead of him in the majority of the states, although the lead is narrowing. But with only two and a bit days to go before election day, being the supposed underdog is actually not a bad position for Trump because people often like to vote for the underdog if only to wipe the smile off the face of the expected winner. Joe Biden dare not go around looking as if he expects to win because if he loses the fall is going to be so mighty he might never again emerge again from his basement. In sport the underdog often wins because everyone in the crowd wills him or her to beat the favourite. Trump doesn't look or sound like an underdog and if he wins he will be so cocky the world better be on its guard. Biden and his Democrat campaign team are looking anxiously at the polls and wanting them to be true but are getting increasingly fearful that it's going to be 2016 all over again. Whereas Trump and his Republican campaign team are looking at the polls and convincing themselves that it WILL be a repeat of 2016, and that Biden will go the way of Hillary Clinton. It's going to be a tough call. All I can say is that Trump may be the underdog but my God he's still barking.