Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly has said that the President’s delay in transitioning to a Joe Biden presidency “hurts their country’s national security.”
Trump has not publicly conceded to Joe Biden, and General Services Administration Administrator Emily Murphy, a Trump political appointee, has not signed vital documents declaring Biden the apparent winner.
Until those documents are signed, Biden won’t be able to get all the logistical and financial help his transition team needs to get to work.
“You lose a lot if the transition is delayed because the new people are not allowed to get their head in the game,” Kelly, who has at times criticized Trump since leaving the White House in January 2019, told Politico.
“The president, with all due respect, does not have to concede. But it’s about the nation. It hurts our national security because the people who should be getting [up to speed], it’s not a process where you go from zero to 1,000 miles per hour,”
Trump has rejected the electoral results which declared Biden winner of the 2020 presidential elections and launched legal actions to contest the results.
A growing number of Republican senators, including members of GOP leadership, said Thursday that Biden should get the intelligence briefings Trump is currently denying him.
According to Kelly, Biden should be receiving intelligence briefings because the “transition, in the national security realm in particular and the homeland security realm, is just so important that every day that the transition is delayed really kind of handicaps the incoming administration.’
“I know Mr. Trump better than most people do. I know that he’ll never accept defeat and, in fact, he doesn’t have to accept defeat here. He just has to do what’s best for the country and in the country’s interest.”
Kelly made a similar statement to CNN on a Friday November 13 interview.
“The delay in transitioning is an increasing national security and health crisis,” he wrote.
“The current administration does not have to concede, but it should do the right thing just in case the Constitutional system declares they lost,” he added.
“It is not about the GOP or the Democrat Party. It is not about the president or about Mr. Biden. It is about America and what is best for our people. Mr. Trump should order the transition process begin immediately. It is the right and moral thing to do.
