Schumer: Lack of coordination on transition ‘endangers lives’

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned on Monday that a lack of coordination between the Trump administration and the Biden transition team is endangering lives on the same day President-elect Joe Biden sounded the same alarm. 

“The idea that … the Trump administration is not coordinating with the Biden folks endangers lives, plain and simple,” Schumer told reporters on Capitol Hill. 

Asked what the administration should be doing, he added: “They should be coordinating.” 

Schumer’s comments come after Biden told reporters after a speech in Delaware that “more people may die if we don’t coordinate” as the Trump administration has so far refused to engage with Biden’s team. 

President Trump has refused to concede, and the General Services Administration (GSA) has not yet ascertained Biden as the winner of the presidential race, more than a week after news outlets projected him as the winner. The decision by the GSA is preventing Biden from getting access to federal resources, agencies and personnel. 

That, Biden warned, is preventing his transition team from gaining access to the Trump administration’s plan for distributing a future vaccine for the coronavirus. 

“If we have to wait until Jan. 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month and a half. And so, it’s important that it be done, that there be coordination now. Now or as rapidly as we can get that done,” Biden said.

Congressional Republicans have been careful not to get ahead of Trump, who has launched myriad unsuccessful legal challenges, though they appear increasingly resigned to Biden being sworn in as president in January. 

Schumer’s comments about the lack of coordination on vaccine planning comes after he railed against Republicans from the Senate floor earlier Monday. 

“The Republican majority is busy spreading conspiracy theories, denying reality, poisoning the well of our democracy. It seems like Republicans all over Washington are nudging each other aside to see who can say the most outlandish thing in support of President Trump’s baseless claims,” Schumer said from the Senate floor. 

“The Trump administration is denying national security briefings to President-elect Biden. It is actively refusing to coordinate with the incoming administration on the coronavirus. How unimaginably stupid is that?” Schumer added.