All eyes on Georgia

The focus of the political world was on Georgia this weekend, as President Trump traveled there to campaign for incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The two Republicans face critical runoff elections on Jan. 5 that will determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. They also face Trump's wrath if they question his contention that the state's electoral system is rife with fraud—a point he continued to push at the rally, which many saw as an unofficial first event in a potential bid to return to the White House in 2024.

• — Turning up the heat. Trump called Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Saturday to push him to convene a special session in the state legislature to convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support Trump. Kemp refused, saying in a statement that "doing this in order to select a separate slate of presidential electors is not an option that is allowed under state or federal law."
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• — Raffensperger agrees. Georgia's embattled Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, said yesterday that calling a special legislative session to overturn the results of the presidential election would amount to "nullifying the will of the people."
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• — A debate and a no-show. Loeffler debated her Democratic challenger, Raphael Warnock, last night, and echoed Trump's baseless claims about voter fraud, while refusing to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election. At least Loeffler showed up. Perdue wouldn't even face his opponent, Jon Ossoff. Ossoff suggested that Perdue feared he might "incriminate himself" during the debate over questions about recent stock trades, which were allegedly based on insider information he received in the earliest days of the pandemic. —Newsweek

Douthat: Why do so many Americans believe the election was stolen?

"Anyone watching how [Trump] wielded power (or, more often, didn't) as president could have predicted that his efforts to challenge the election results would be embarrassing, ridiculous, and dismissed with prejudice in court. And anyone watching how the Republican Party dealt with his ascent could have predicted that its leaders would mostly avoid directly rebuking him, relying instead on the inertial forces of American democracy, the conscientiousness of judges and local officialdom, and Trump's own incompetence to turn back his final power grab. So far, so predictable. But speaking as a cynical observer of the Trump era, one feature of November did crack my jaded shell a bit: not his behavior or the system's response, but the sheer scale of the belief among conservatives that the election was really stolen." —Ross Douthat in The New York Times

Ross Douthat is a writer and an opinion columnist at The New York Times.

MORE: Trump's false fraud claims are laying groundwork for new voting restrictions, experts warn —NBC News

The new team that will fight Covid

As the U.S. approaches 200,000 new cases of COVID-19 diagnosed daily, President-elect Joe Biden officially unveiled the health team that will take on the pandemic in the new administration today. He named California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as secretary of Health and Human Services. Vivek Murthy will return to his role as surgeon general, and Rochelle Walensky was picked to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. —The Hill

• — Vaccine espionage? One of the Biden team's first priorities will be to distribute the Covid vaccine to millions of Americans. Meanwhile, others are trying to get it too. Former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs said yesterday that adversaries have attempted to steal intellectual property related to the coronavirus vaccine. "Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—we have seen to some extent all four of those countries doing some kind of espionage or spying, trying to get intellectual property related to the vaccine," Krebs said. —CNBC
  
  — Giuliani hospitalized. President Trump announced yesterday that his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for the coronavirus, making him the latest in Trump's inner circle to contract the disease. Giuliani was exhibiting some symptoms and was admitted last night to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington. He has traveled extensively to battleground states in an effort to help Trump subvert his election loss, often meeting with officials for hours at a time without wearing a mask. —Associated Press
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• — Arizona lawmakers quarantine. The two chambers of the Arizona state legislature will suspend their work this week in light of Giuliani's positive test. Less than a week ago. Giuliani spent hours testifying in front of Republican legislators there in a futile bid to overturn the state's election results. —The Hill

Is the party over for Barr?

Turn out the lights at Justice. The party may be over for Attorney General Bill Barr, who is considering stepping down before President Trump's term ends next month. He reportedly has been weighing his departure for some time, having concluded that he had completed the work that he set out to accomplish at the Department of Justice.

• — It is unclear whether Barr's deliberations were influenced by Trump's refusal to concede his election loss or his fury over Barr's acknowledgment last week that the DOJ has uncovered no widespread voting fraud. In any case, Trump has refused to say whether he still has confidence in his attorney general.
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• — Barr's tone lately is a departure from the presidential campaign, when he was among the loudest voices warning that mail-in ballots would result in mass election fraud. He routinely claimed in speeches and interviews that the potential for widespread voter fraud was high and posed a grave danger. Barr's claims were sometimes false or exaggerated and were widely refuted.
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• — Should Barr step down before Jan. 20, the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, would be expected to lead the department until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in. Both the Justice Department and the White House have declined to comment. —The New York Times

Hirson & Triolo: Confronting China effectively

"President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration and Congress need smart policies toward China, not just tough ones. ... The Trump Administration correctly recognized that aspects of previous U.S. policy toward China have been ineffective—in particular, the frequent reluctance to confront Beijing on problematic trade and foreign policies. But the administration—with cheerleaders from both parties in Congress—has erred by flipping to the other extreme. U.S. policy today is to find any tool to act unilaterally against China—from tariffs to controls on U.S. technology exports—without first plotting a sustainable strategy." —Michael Hirson & Paul Triolo on CNN

Michael Hirson is the head of China and Northeast Asia at Eurasia Group. Paul Triolo is the head of global technology policy at Eurasia Group.

MORE: China peddles falsehoods to obscure origin of Covid pandemic —The New York Times

US troops to leave Somalia

The Pentagon announced on Friday that President Trump has ordered the withdrawal of most of the roughly 700 U.S. troops in Somalia, who work to assist the East African nation's military with its long battle against terrorism. Most of the troops will be relocated to neighboring countries, where they will continue their counterterrorism efforts. The withdrawal is expected to be completed by an unspecified date in early 2021.

• — The announcement came just one week after acting Defense Sec. Christopher Miller made a surprise visit to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, on Nov. 27 to meet with American forces stationed there during the Thanksgiving holiday.
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• — American troops in Somalia conduct counterterrorism operations and train, advise, and support local military forces primarily against al-Shabab, which actively seeks to overthrow the U.S.-backed Somali government and establish a hardline Islamist nation.
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• — The U.S. troops typically train Somali soldiers to lead operations, but they do sometimes see combat too. An American service member was injured in a bomb attack by al-Shabab in September, and two American troops have been killed in action in Somalia in recent years. —Stars and Stripes

Rubin: Next up for Never Trumpers...

"Trump is leaving, but Trumpism remains an ongoing threat to multiracial democracy. Freed from tribal loyalties, Never Trumpers can prioritize measures that restore and strengthen the foundations, habits, and norms of democracy—an undertaking worthy of the aim to 'form a more perfect union.'" —Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post

Jennifer Rubin is a political opinion columnist at The Washington Post.

MORE: E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Two cheers for the Never Trump conservatives —The Washington Post

"When your candidate has been defeated by over 7 million votes, and he's making money by claiming fraud and refusing to concede, you're not a freedom fighter because you're excited for him to keep battling. You're one of the exploited who's been duped by a conman who rejects democracy." —Steven Beschloss, writer, journalist, and filmmaker (@StevenBeschloss)

Time Magazine will select its Person of the Year on Dec. 10, but unless it's Dr. Anthony Fauci, even Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will probably demand a recount. Dr. Fauci is an outstanding, overwhelming, and obvious choice.

In the worst year of our lives, Dr. Fauci has been what America painfully, sorely, desperately needed: A straight-out-of Brooklyn voice of sense and science, calmly and clearly explaining the virus, its implications, and methods of mediation. He has been the pilot you'd want flying the plane your family was on during a thunderstorm. 

His native New York City cannot name a school for Anthony Fauci; New York schools can only be named for people who are no longer alive, and hopefully this will not apply to Dr. Fauci for at least another 20 years. 

But there is a basketball arena, the Barclay Center, in his native Brooklyn. Tony Fauci was, to be charitable, an undersized basketball player (although team captain) in high school. Perhaps the basketball court at the Barclay Center could be named the "Anthony Fauci Court."

And a sign could be placed outside the Barclay Center announcing this. But not in gold letters. That wouldn't be his style. —Jim V., New York

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