While Donald Trump golfs and pouts, not always in that order, President-elect Joe Biden's office is taking it upon themselves to offer up some leadership previews—some declarations of what they intend to do immediately upon taking office to fill the hollow spaces after Trump lost the election and simply stopped pretending to give a damn about his supposed presidential duties.
On CNBC, Biden pandemic advisory board member Dr. Celine Gounder let it be known that Biden will be invoking the Defense Production Act to accelerate vaccine production. It will happen, she told the network: "The idea there is to make sure the personal protective equipment, the test capacity and the raw materials for the vaccines are produced in adequate supply."
Vaccine distribution is currently happening at a far more sluggish pace than the Trump-led federal government claimed it would, and the current administration has given no indication they intend to prod things along in their last weeks of office. Theoretical task force head Mike Pence is on a ski vacation in Colorado. Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, mingling with pardoned guests and generally being an ass. They've given up.
The Biden team can't do much about that other than prod until the inauguration. So for now we're getting the equivalent of leadership movie trailers—little previews of what president-ing during a national crisis might look like if everyone in the building hadn't been selected solely based on how vigorously they could shine Dear Leader's boots.
Posted with permission from Daily Kos.
