U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris introduced the top economic officials they have picked for their administration at an event Tuesday. FILE – Former Fed Chair Janet Yellen speaks with Fox Business Network guest anchor Jon Hilsenrath in the Fox Washington bureau in Washington, Aug. 14, 2019.The incoming president and vice president first made their picks public in a statement Monday, including the choice of former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen to be the first woman to lead the Treasury Department in its 231-year history. The economic team will face the immediate challenge of handling the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the world’s largest economy. FILE – In this July 27, 2016, file photo, Neera Tanden speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.Biden named Neera Tanden, currently president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington public policy research and advocacy group, as director of the government’s Office of Management and Budget. If confirmed by the Senate, Tanden would be the first woman of color and first South Asian American to head the agency. Biden also named Wally Adeyemo, a longtime economic policy official, to be Yellen’s deputy, the first African American to hold the second-ranking position at the Treasury Department. The president-elect named labor economist Cecilia Rouse, dean of Princeton University’s public and international affairs school, as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. She would be the first Black and the fourth woman to hold the job.Biden picked two other economists – Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey – as members of the economic council.”As we get to work to control the virus, this is the team that will deliver immediate economic relief for the American people during this economic crisis and help us build our economy back better than ever,” Biden said in a statement.FILE – Then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki stands in on a meeting in Washington, Feb. 27, 2015.On Sunday, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris named an all-woman communications team, to be headed by campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield and Jen Psaki as press secretary.Biden received his first President’s Daily Brief on Monday, gaining access to the report prepared by the U.S. intelligence community on national security issues the United States faces.Biden is preparing to take office at his inauguration as the 46th U.S. president on January 20. He holds an unofficial 306-232 vote lead in the Electoral College, which determines the outcome of U.S. presidential elections, not the national popular vote, although Biden leads there, too, by more than 6 million votes.The state-by-state vote in the Electoral College is set for December 14, with Congress certifying the outcome in early January.Biden’s transition to the presidency officially began last week after a government agency declared him the apparent winner of the November 3 presidential election.Trump, however, is continuing his long-shot legal effort to upend Biden’s victory even as the president says he will abide by the Electoral College outcome.Trump has refused to concede defeat while claiming, without evidence, that the election was rigged against him.Trump and his campaign have lost or withdrawn more than 30 lawsuits claiming vote and vote-counting irregularities, but they are appealing at least one of the verdicts against him to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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