Small desk, smaller man

The Donald Trump election "victory" charade continues on, four weeks after he was defeated by President-elect Joe Biden. And despite loss after loss in court, his pathetic insistence that the election was "stolen" is having a destabilizing impact on his supporters and, ultimately, the country at large. Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, placed Trump's recent false statements about the election in the context of information warfare, saying the president is running a "classic Russian-style disinformation campaign" known as the "firehose of falsehood." In this propaganda model, "you push out as many different stories and conspiracy theories and lies and half-truths as you possibly can, in order to flood the zone with disinformation," Rauch said. "The goal here is to confuse people, and he's doing very well at that." —CNN

• — Georgia. In his first television interview since Election Day, Trump revived numerous baseless claims of voter fraud yesterday and decried the use of Dominion Voting Systems machines in Georgia, which Biden won by just over 12,000 votes. He placed the blame for his loss squarely at the feet of Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, of whom he said, "I'm ashamed that I endorsed him," and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom he called "this character in Georgia who's a disaster"—for simply doing his job. —The Hill
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• — Pennsylvania. On Friday, a federal appeals court in a unanimous decision rejected the Trump campaign's effort to get a do-over of its lawsuit challenging the election results. A judge on the panel—one of Trump's nominees—wrote in a scathing decision that the campaign's "claims have no merit." The next day, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by state Republicans, who argued that a 2019 law that allowed no-excuse mail voting is unconstitutional, and sought to invalidate all no-excuse mail ballots in the state. —CBS News
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• — Wisconsin. Wisconsin finished its recount of the presidential results yesterday, confirming Biden's victory over Trump. Dane County reported a 45-vote gain for Trump, while Milwaukee County, whose recount Trump paid $3 million for, reported a 132-vote gain for Biden. Taken together, the two counties barely budged Biden's winning margin of about 20,600 votes, giving him a net gain of 87 votes. —Associated Press

Biden expands task force

There was good news and bad news for President-elect Joe Biden in recent days. He became the first presidential candidate in history to surpass 80 million votes, but he sustained a hairline fracture to his foot following a slip while playing with his dog. You win some, you lose some. Meanwhile, his transition team is preparing to tackle a coronavirus pandemic that has exploded across the U.S. To that end, three new members have been added to the incoming administration's coronavirus task force.

• — The task force was first rolled out earlier this month and has taken the lead in the transition to craft a "robust and aggressive response to contain the virus." That includes strategies to bolster testing and contact tracing and to distribute a potential vaccine.
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• — The transition team announced on Saturday that nurse Jane Hopkins, epidemiologist David Michaels, and Jill Jim, the executive director at the Navajo Nation Department of Health, are joining the team, which is co-chaired by former FDA commissioner David Kessler, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate professor of internal medicine at Yale University.
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• — The additions come amid an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases across the country. Cases are rising by more than 100,000 daily, and more than 93,000 patients are currently hospitalized. More than 265,000 Americans have died since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the CDC. —The Hill

MORE: Moderna to ask health regulators to authorize its COVID-19 vaccine —The Wall Street Journal

Stier: New EO threatens government competence

"Under the executive order, career public servants who have raised alarms about major problems on the horizon, given honest but unwanted advice, or proposed uncomfortable solutions could lose their jobs and be replaced by political appointees selected for their loyalty, not competence. All of this could be done out of public view, making the government less accountable and less effective." —Max Stier in USA Today

Max Stier is president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service.

MORE: Trump order could spark mass firings of civil servants, lawmakers warn —Reuters

Who's the next Flynn?

Last Wednesday, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn became the latest beneficiary of President Trump's habit of using his clemency power to benefit allies and well-connected offenders. Flynn, you'll recall, pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI and later sought to withdraw that plea, before Attorney General Bill Barr tried to drop the case altogether. While Flynn's pardon is no surprise, could there be more pardons coming in the 51 days until Trump's term ends?

• — Pardon me? It's not uncommon for outgoing presidents to issue sweeping pardons, though it can be controversial. Former President Bill Clinton was heavily criticized after he issued 140 pardons on his last day in office, including for his own brother and a well-connected Democratic donor. 
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• — Who's on Trump's list? Trump has repeatedly criticized former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. So pardons may be coming for Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos, who were both charged with crimes as a result of that probe. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who has been indicted for defrauding donors to a nonprofit, is another possibility.
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• — What about a self-pardon? Trump has indicated that he does believe he has the power to give himself clemency. "As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?" Trump tweeted in 2018. Hmm... —The Hill

WaPo Ed Board: Making social media great again

"[T]hese companies must ask themselves whether their only duty is to profit by keeping people's eyes on their screens, or whether it is also to protect and even improve the societies in which they play so influential a role. Whatever they answer, the rest of us ought to know about it. These networks have the capability to give us less polarizing versions of themselves, and they also have the capability to tell us whether or how they are doing it. They should do both—so that if Facebook determines it wants to be 'good for the world,' we know that's the path it is taking, and we also know what 'good for the world' is supposed to mean." —The Washington Post

MORE: Social media 'misinformation' endangers democracy, historians say —Newsday

Another Iranian assassination

Middle East experts fear that the killing on Friday of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in an ambush on the outskirts of Tehran, risks further raising tensions across the Mideast—less than a year after Iran and the U.S. stood on the brink of war following the assassination of an Iranian general. Fakhrizadeh has been named by the West as the leader of the Islamic Republic's disbanded military nuclear program. His death is also likely to complicate President-elect Joe Biden's expected efforts to return America to a nuclear deal similar to the 2015 pact the U.S. exited in 2018. —Associated Press

• — Iran suspects Israel. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Fakhrizadeh "the country's prominent and distinguished nuclear and defensive scientist," and said Iran's first priority after the killing was the "definitive punishment of the perpetrators and those who ordered it." He did not elaborate. Speaking earlier on Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel for the killing. —Associated Press
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• — Looking for vengeance. An op-ed published yesterday in the Iranian newspaper Kayhan called for Iran to launch an attack on the Israeli port city of Haifa if Israel is responsible for the killing. The op-ed writer, analyst Sadollah Zarei, says an attack needs to destroy facilities and cause "heavy human casualties." Kayhan is known for pushing for aggressive retaliation strategies. —The Hill
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• — Kush to the rescue? President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser, will lead a U.S. delegation to the Middle East this week. He will travel to Saudi Arabia and Qatar ostensibly to ease tensions in the region. Stay tuned. —Bloomberg

Wilkinson: Partisanship vs performance

"When party affiliation becomes a central source of meaning and self-definition, reality itself becomes contested, and verifiable facts turn into hot-button controversies. Elections can't render an authoritative verdict on the performance of incumbents when partisans in a closely divided electorate tell wildly inconsistent stories about one another and the world they share." —Will Wilkinson in The New York Times

Will Wilkinson is vice president of policy at the Niskanen Center.

MORE: Fred Hiatt: Suiting up for the politics of destruction —The Washington Post

"Biden Cabinet is shaping up to be an exceptionally middle-of-the-road, pro-establishment group. Not much choice given likely GOP control of Senate. But this is where Biden's always governed and wants to be either way. Trump campaign efforts to tar Biden Team with 'socialism' never stuck because they were never credible." —Ian Bremmer, founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media (@ianbremmer)

The Party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Reagan is gone. In place of the GOP, we're left with the Party of Trump (POT), with such delusions that it brings a whole new meaning to the term "pothead." —Dave M., Colorado

Funny thing is, nobody is drawing lessons from what really happened in North Carolina during the last midterm elections! Fortunately, that situation was addressed responsibly and maturely, demonstrating that the system does detect ballot fraud when it happens. —Mwasi M., Oregon

I am afraid for America. We have a rabid liar as a leader, and he is telling stories that his supporters believe. —Alice W., Utah

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