Washington, Nov. 25, (dpa/GNA) – US President-elect Joe Biden will soon receive the president’s daily intelligence briefings after the White House approved the move, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said Tuesday, in a key step toward Biden assuming the presidency.
“Following the statutory direction of the Presidential Transition Act, ODNI will provide requested support to the transition team,” the ODNI said in a statement.
“This afternoon the White House approved ODNI to move forward with providing the [President’s Daily Brief] as part of the support to the transition.”
The daily briefings, which provide a summary of the most-important US intelligence, are a central part of the smooth transition of presidential administrations.
“It will be starting very shortly, maybe as early as tomorrow,” Biden said of the briefings during a interview with NBC on Tuesday.
Biden added that Trump administration’s outreach to his transition team “has been sincere, it has not been begrudging so far.”
The president-elect on Tuesday also presented his future national security team to the public, highlighting their decades of experience in public service.
Biden stressed that his nominees would help return the US to its position as a global leader following the unpredictable years of the Trump administration. If confirmed by the Senate, his nominees would include the first Latino to lead the US Department of Homeland Security and the first woman to be director of national intelligence.
“I’ve long said that America leads not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. And I’m proud to put forward this incredible team that will lead by example,” Biden said.
Both Antony Blinken, Biden’s pick for secretary of state, and Alejandro Mayorkas, the future administration’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described how their families fled communist regimes in Europe and Latin America and eventually settled in the US.
Among the speakers was former secretary of state John Kerry, who Biden nominated to be the first presidential envoy for climate.
Kerry noted that the US will rejoin the Paris climate agreement on the first day after Biden takes office and will take additional steps to combat climate change over the next four years.
“America is back, multilateralism is back, diplomacy is back,” said Biden’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
Later on Tuesday Biden said his priorities in the first 100 days of his presidency include passing legislation to reform the US immigration system, rolling back President Donald Trump’s executive orders on the environment and providing economic assistance.
The president-elect said the immigration legislation will include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the country.
He said his legislative agency will “depend on the cooperation I can and cannot get from the US Congress.”
Biden also said he does not plan on using the US Justice Department as a “vehicle” to insist on investigations of Trump.
GNA