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Kamala Harris’ historic election as vice president celebrated in ancestral village in India
Firecrackers erupted and prayers were held in Thulasendrapuram, the village where Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ maternal grandfather was born and raised, after she made history by becoming the first woman, the first Indian American and the first Black woman to win the second-highest U.S. office.
Residents wrote “Congratulations Kamala Harris. Pride of our village” in colorful powder in front of their homes and celebrated by handing out buckets of freshly made traditional sweets and playing music, according to Reuters. At the village temple, a priest performed a special prayer in celebration of Harris’ win. Some residents waved posters featuring a photo of Harris, while others set off firecrackers.
Villagers had also assembled at a temple for a ritual and prayed for a Biden-Harris victory in the days leading up to the election.
Residents hold placards with the portrait of US Democratic Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, as they celebrate her victory in the US election, at her ancestral village of Thulasendrapuram in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on November 8, 2020. – Residents set off firecrackers in the ancestral home of Kamala Harris on November 8 as India celebrated the vice president-elect’s victory in the US election, as others hailed her achievement as historic and a “proud moment” for the country. (Photo by STR / AFP) (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
5:09 PM / November 8, 2020
Biden expected to unveil executive orders on first day of presidency
President-elect Biden is expected to unveil a slate of executive orders and other legislative pushes on the first day of his presidency, according to two sources familiar with the transition. These moves will include rescinding the “Muslim ban,” rejoining the Paris Climate agreement, rejoining the WHO, restarting the DREAMers program and implementing a temporary moratorium on deportations in order to review the deportation system. He is also expected to send a bill to Congress to grant citizenship to the DREAMers.
Biden discussed these measures on the campaign trail.
The president-elect is also expected to announce a COVID-19 task force on Monday. White House staff announcements are also expected soon, possibly as soon as Monday. This week, the transition team will be starting the agency review process and beefing up its staff to around 350 ahead of inauguration.
4:23 PM / November 8, 2020
Trump campaign communications director tweets photo that newspaper says contains doctored front page
Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh tweeted a photo of the campaign headquarters papered with what appeared to be old copies of the Washington Times with the headline “President Gore.”
But The Washington Times responded that they had never run such a front page. “Those photos have been doctored,” The Washington Times tweeted. “The Washington Times never ran a ‘President Gore’ headline.”
The Washington Times also wrote that Murtaugh had been notified of the error. Shortly afterward, it appeared Murtaugh had deleted the tweet.
3:18 PM / November 8, 2020
Four Seasons Total Landscaping issues statement saying they were “honored” to host Giuliani’s press conference
President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani held a press conference Saturday at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, not the hotel, where many had assumed a press conference would take place. According to The New York Times, it was an intentional move by the Trump team to hold the event at a parking lot in a less upscale location.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping posted a statement on Facebook on Sunday that it was “honored to be asked to host a press conference at our facility.”
“We thank all of those that have shown support for our business and while we understand the negative comments, it saddens us that we have received such harsh judgement,” the company said. “Our team at Four Seasons would have proudly hosted any presidential candidate’s campaign at our business. We strongly believe in America and in democracy. We hope that our fellow Americans can join together and support all local small businesses during this time.”
Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney for President Trump, speaks at a news conference in the parking lot of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company on November 7, 2020 in Philadelphia.
BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images
1:57 PM / November 8, 2020
First lady Melania Trump calls for “complete transparency” in first public comment since Biden’s win
First lady Melania Trump offered her first remarks on the election since Mr. Biden and Harris were projected the winners, calling for all ballots cast legally to be counted.
“The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted. We must protect our democracy with complete transparency,” she tweeted.
The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted. We must protect our democracy with complete transparency.
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) November 8, 2020
Election officials have reported few if any ballot irregularities, and the president’s legal team has not produced evidence of widespread fraud, despite his allies’ continued public pronouncements.
Her statement comes after CNN reported on Sunday that the first lady had advised the president to accept he had lost, which CBS News has not confirmed. Trump campaign officials quickly disputed the report, saying it was false.
12:41 PM / November 8, 2020
George W. Bush speaks with Biden and Harris to offer congratulations
Former President George W. Bush, the only living Republican president, said he spoke with Mr. Biden and Harris to wish them congratulations on their win and said he offered Mr. Biden “my prayers for his success and my pledge to help in any way I can.”
“Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country,” Mr. Bush said in a statement.
The 43rd president also congratulated Mr. Trump and his supporters on the campaign, calling the 70 million votes he received “an extraordinary political achievement.”
Marking the record voter turnout, Mr. Bush said the number of people who participated in the election is a “positive sign of the health of our democracy and a reminder to the world of its strength.”
“No matter how you voted, your vote counted,” he said. “President Trump has the right to request recounts and pursue legal challenges, and any unresolved issues will be properly adjudicated. The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld and its outcome is clear.”
Mr. Bush said the nation faces difficult challenges that “will demand the best of President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris — and the best of us all” and made an appeal for unity.
“We must come together for the sake of our families and neighbors, and for our nation and its future,” he said. ‘There is no problem that will not yield to the gathered will of a free people.”
Bush urged the country to “join us in wishing our next president and vice president well as they prepare to take up their important duties.”
11:49 AM / November 8, 2020
Toomey urges patience with vote-counting in Pennsylvania
Toomey urges patience with vote-counting proc…
05:54
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, said Sunday the vote-counting process should play out as Mr. Trump continues to claim he won the election and allege without evidence the system was rife with irregularities and fraud. CBS News projected Mr. Biden as the winner of the presidential race Saturday.
“You know, 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, and they and the president deserve to have this process play out,” Toomey said on “Face the Nation.” “Now, I understand yesterday the media projected how this is going to end and the media projection is probably correct. But there is a reason that we actually do the count.”
Transcript: Senator Pat Toomey on “Face the Nation”
Toomey said the vote-counting should “come to its proper conclusion,” which would bolster Americans’ confidence in the election.
The Pennsylvania Republican said that each election has irregularities, including in his home state, and urged anyone who claims there was fraud to allow their disputes to be adjudicated.
“If there is evidence of fraud or wrongdoing, by all means, go into a federal court, get it corrected, punish the wrongdoers, correct the vote count, do what we need to do. That’s what I think should happen,” he said.
11:26 AM / November 8, 2020
Biden heads to church and visits family gravesite on first full day as president-elect
President-elect Joe Biden visits family graves after a church service in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 8, 2020.
JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
Mr. Biden attended Mass with his daughter Ashley and grandson Hunter on Sunday morning, arriving at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware, shortly after 10:30 a.m. A crush of cameras were on hand to capture Mr. Biden’s arrival on his first full morning as president-elect.
About an hour later, Biden and his family members exited the church and walked through the cemetery in the direction of the gravesite of his late son Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of 46 in 2015. His first wife Neilia and late daughter Naomi, who were both killed in a car crash in 1972, are also buried in the cemetery.
He last visited their graves on the morning of Election Day.
10:09 AM / November 8, 2020
Trump returns to Virginia golf course after loss to Biden
As he did Saturday, Mr. Trump is spending the day at his golf course in Sterling, Virginia. The American people have not heard directly from the president since Mr. Biden was projected to win the presidential election, but he has taken to Twitter to allege spurious claims of voting irregularities.
Mr. Trump also released a statement Saturday indicating he would not accept Mr. Biden’s victory because he had not yet been certified the winner.
9:40 AM / November 8, 2020
60.1% of eligible voters cast ballots in 2020, the highest since 1908
By The Numbers: Election turnout
The number of Americans who cast votes in the presidential race will total well over 145 million, the largest in history, and it’s still growing as votes are counted. More than 100 million of those votes were cast early, double the 47 million early votes from four years ago.
A projected 66.3% of eligible voters turned out, up sharply from 60.1% in 2016. That’s the highest percentage of eligible voters since 1908, when turnout stood at 65.7% of eligible voters.
But it’s also far short of the all-time largest share of voters to turn out. That record was set in the bitterly disputed election of 1876, when 82.6% of eligible voters cast ballots.
9:07 AM / November 8, 2020
Exit poll analysis shows how Biden won
Mr. Biden became the projected winner of the 2020 presidential election largely because he was able to convince enough voters that he could better handle the coronavirus pandemic and that he had the right temperament for the job, according to CBS News’ analysis of the exit poll data.
The data show that voters who supported Biden were looking for a candidate with good judgment and for someone who could unite the country. Bringing the country together might be difficult, since voters who backed Mr. Trump did not say they saw the coronavirus as a serious problem — as Biden voters do — and roughly half of these voters say they’re scared of a Biden presidency.
The president-elect had the support of some groups that traditionally vote Democratic and made some inroads with some not-so-traditional Democratic groups, like men and seniors.
8:11 AM / November 8, 2020
Biden’s focus turns to transition, with COVID task force set to be named Monday
Mr. Biden said he will announce a task force to lead his preparations to respond to the pandemic on Monday as his team turns its focus to staffing the executive branch.
“On Monday, I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as Transition Advisors to help take the Biden-Harris COVID plan and convert it into an action blueprint that starts on January 20th, 2021,” he said. “That plan will be built on a bedrock of science. It will be constructed out of compassion, empathy, and concern. I will spare no effort — or commitment — to turn this pandemic around.”
The campaign unveiled a Twitter account and website for the transition team, which will focus on “determining implementation options for policy, developing management agendas for federal agencies, and selecting personnel to serve in the administration.”
According to two sources familiar with the expected transition process, the transition team will soon begin rapidly expanding. Many of the staffers will come from the campaign, with 300 to 350 people expected to be on staff by the time of the inauguration.
The first step will be the agency review team process, essentially a cram session for the incoming administration about how the federal government operates. CBS News is also told that senior-level White House and administration staff are expected to be announced soon. As of now, Cabinet announcements will not be rushed, with Mr. Biden given the time to consider his options at length, even as names swirl about potential appointments.