Biden Signs Executive Orders for Covid Response

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Biden rolls out ‘full-scale, wartime’ coronavirus strategy, including requiring masks on some planes, trains and buses.

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Biden Rolls Out Coronavirus Strategy

President Biden signed a string of executive orders and presidential directives on Thursday, rolling out a “full-scale, wartime” coronavirus strategy, including requiring masks on some planes, trains and buses.

I understand the despair and frustration of so many Americans, and how they’re feeling. I understand why many governors, mayors, county officials, tribal leaders feel like they’re left on their own without a clear national plan to get them through the crisis. Let me be very clear. Things are going to continue to get worse before they get better. The memorial we held two nights ago will not be our last one, unfortunately. There are moments in history when more is asked of a particular generation, more is asked of Americans than other times. We are in that moment, now. History is going to measure whether we are up to the task. I believe we are. Next one is making sure that the National Guard and FEMA support is available. This next one is relates to expanding access to treatment for Covid-19.

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President Biden signed a string of executive orders and presidential directives on Thursday, rolling out a “full-scale, wartime” coronavirus strategy, including requiring masks on some planes, trains and buses.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden, pledging a “full-scale wartime effort” to combat the coronavirus pandemic, signed a string of executive orders and presidential directives on Thursday aimed at combating the worst public health crisis in a century, including new requirements for masks on interstate planes, trains and buses and for international travelers to quarantine after arriving in the United States.

“History is going to measure whether we are up to the task,” Mr. Biden declared in an appearance in the State Dining Room of the White House, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, his chief Covid-19 medical adviser, by his side.

With thousands of Americans dying every day from Covid-19, a national death toll that exceeds 400,000 and a new, more infectious variant of the virus spreading quickly, the pandemic poses the most pressing challenge of Mr. Biden’s early days in office. How he handles it will set the tone for how Americans view his administration going forward, as Mr. Biden himself acknowledged.

In a 200-page document released earlier Thursday called “National Strategy for the Covid-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness,” the new administration outlines the kind of centralized federal response that Democrats have long demanded and that President Donald J. Trump refused.

Calls for unity were already fraying a day into the new administration. On Capitol Hill, Representative Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, accused the Biden team of offering “old Washington spin.” And the new president took a shot at his predecessor, saying, “For the past year we couldn’t rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and coordination that we needed, and we have seen the tragic cost of that failure.”

But the Biden plan is in some respects overly optimistic and in others not ambitious enough, some experts say. It is not clear how he would enforce the quarantine requirement. And his promise to inject 100 million vaccines in his first hundred days is aiming low, since those 100 days should see twice that number of doses available.

Mr. Biden bristled at a reporter’s question when he was asked if the goal should be for a higher number. “When I announced, you all said it’s not possible,” Mr. Biden said. “Come on, give me a break, man.”

Because the currently approved coronavirus vaccines require two doses, but some Americans have already had their first shots, Mr. Biden’s promise should cover 65 million to 70 million Americans, said Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under Mr. Trump.

“I think we can reach that goal and probably reach higher, by focusing on how many people are being vaccinated for the first time each day,” Dr. Gottlieb said. With vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna already granted emergency approval and a third, by Johnson & Johnson, likely to be authorized soon, he said, “we can definitely reach many more patients.”

Beyond the 100-day mark is where the problem lies. Federal health officials and corporate executives agree that it will be impossible to increase the immediate supply of vaccines before April at the earliest, because of lack of manufacturing capacity.

“The brutal truth is it’s going to take months before we can get the majority of Americans vaccinated,” Mr. Biden said.

It makes political sense for Mr. Biden to lower expectations, and on Capitol Hill, the new president is not getting much of a honeymoon. The No. 2 House Republican, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, said in a statement, “Comments made about vaccine supply and distribution by the White House’s coronavirus czar are old Washington spin.” He added, “The fact is the Biden administration inherited contracts for 300 million doses of vaccines for two approved vaccines and two in the final stage of clinical trials.”

But the Biden team has been quick to point fingers at what they see as the Trump administration’s failures.

“What we’re inheriting is so much worse than we could have imagined,” said Jeff Zients, the new White House Covid-19 response coordinator, adding, “The cooperation or lack of cooperation from the Trump administration has been an impediment. We don’t have the visibility that we would hope to have into supply and allocations.”

In a display of his oft-stated promise to put federal health experts front and center, Mr. Biden was accompanied in the State Dining Room by Dr. Fauci and Mr. Zients. Four other officials participated by video: Xavier Becerra, the nominee for health secretary; Vivek Murthy, the nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, an adviser on racial equity in health.

Efforts to untangle and speed up the distribution of vaccines — perhaps the most pressing challenge for the Biden administration that is also the most promising path forward — will be a desperate race against time, as states across the country have warned that they could run out of doses as early as this weekend.

Though Mr. Biden has indicated his administration would release more doses as they became available and keep fewer in reserve, he said last week that he would not change the recommended timing for second doses: 21 days after the first dose for Pfizer’s vaccine, and 28 days for Moderna’s.

The administration is asking Congress for $1.9 trillion for pandemic relief, and White House officials said they would need much of that money to put their Covid-19 plan into place.

Fauci warns of virus variant risks, but voices confidence in vaccines.

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Fauci Promises Coronavirus Response Based on Science

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser for Covid-19, addressed reporters from the White House on Thursday, and warned the nation was “still in a very serious situation” because of the pandemic.

First of all, obviously, we are still in a very serious situation. I mean, to have over 400,000 deaths is something that, you know, is unfortunately historic in the very in the very bad sense. When you look at the number of new infections that we have, it’s still at a very, very high rate. Hospitalizations are up. There are certain areas of the country, as I think you’re all familiar with, which are really stressed from the standpoint of beds, from the standpoint of the stress on the health care system. However, when you look more recently at the seven-day average of cases, remember, we were going between three and 400,000, and two and 300,000. Right now, it looks like it might actually be plateauing. One of the things that we’re going to do is to be completely transparent, open and honest. If things go wrong, not point fingers, but to correct them and to make everything we do be based on science and evidence. It was very clear that there were things that were said, be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine hydroxychloroquine and other things like that, that really was an uncomfortable because they were not based on scientific fact. I can tell you, I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the president. So it was really something that you didn’t feel that you could actually say something, and there wouldn’t be any repercussions about it. The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is, and know, that’s it. Let the science speak. It is somewhat of a liberating feeling.

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Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser for Covid-19, addressed reporters from the White House on Thursday, and warned the nation was “still in a very serious situation” because of the pandemic.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, addressing reporters from the White House for the first time in months, warned Thursday that the nation is “still in a very serious situation” because of the coronavirus pandemic, but he said that so far, vaccines appear effective against new variants of the virus circulating in the United States.

Dr. Fauci, the longtime government infectious disease expert who is now President Biden’s chief medical adviser for the pandemic, said that while the number of cases appeared to be “plateauing” on a seven-day average, there were new signs of more infectious versions of the virus that could cause spikes in cases in the coming months.

He also pointed to “much more concerning mutations” in the versions of the virus circulating in South Africa and Brazil than in the variant first identified in Britain. The British version is about twice as contagious as the form of the virus that first emerged in China one year ago, and has turned up in at least 20 states in the U.S., he said. But it is not more virulent than other forms, no more likely to cause severe illness or death.

The so-called U.K. variant is more contagious because it is better at latching on to receptors in the nose, lungs and digestive tract, he said, adding that masks are now all the more essential.

So far, the variant that surfaced in South Africa has not been detected in the United States, Dr. Fauci said. But he noted that the United States has not been sequencing the genomes from virus samples to track variants “at the level that we would have liked.”

He went on to say that while some of the mutations in the variants from South Africa and Brazil may diminish the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines authorized for use in the United States, the vaccines have a considerable “cushion effect,” and will still provide strong protection.

But if mutations do make it necessary to modify the vaccines, he said: “That is not something that is a very onerous thing. We can do that given the platforms we have.”

Dr. Fauci said the emergence of new variants “is all the more reason why we should be vaccinating as many people as you possibly can.” The reason is that viruses need to infect people so they can replicate and mutate. “And if you can suppress that by a very good vaccine campaign, then you could actually avoid this deleterious effect that you might get from the mutations,” he said.

If the United States can vaccinate 70 percent to 85 percent of the population by the middle or end of the summer, he predicted that “by the time we get to the fall, we will be approaching a degree of normality. It’s not going to be perfectly normal, but one that I think will take a lot of pressure off the American public.”

He added that work was still needed to instill confidence in the vaccines and persuade the public to accept them, particularly Black and Hispanic communities.

Dr. Fauci’s return to the White House briefings underscored the new scientific and political climate in Washington. Often sidelined by President Donald J. Trump, who at times threatened to fire him, he made it clear that he was happy to speak freely.

“The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is, and know that it’s, ‘Let the science speak’ — it is somewhat of a liberating feeling,” he said.

Long known for speaking his mind, and without mentioning Mr. Trump’s name, Dr. Fauci stated the obvious: Contradicting the now-former president had sometimes “got me into trouble.” He said he never liked doing so because “you didn’t feel like you could actually say something, and there wouldn’t be any repercussions.”

Asked if he felt he was back now, after essentially being banished by Mr. Trump, Dr. Fauci smiled and said, “I think so.”

Sheryl Stolberg and Apoorva Mandavilli contributed reporting.

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McConnell plans to ask for impeachment trial delay to allow Trump’s legal team time to prepare a defense.

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‘It Will Be Soon,’ Pelosi Says of Trump Impeachment Trial

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the impeachment charge against former President Donald J. Trump would be sent to the Senate for trial “soon,” but didn’t pinpoint a date.

“We will be, in another few days when I’ll be talking with the managers as to when the Senate will be ready for the trial of the then-president of the United States for his role in instigating an insurrection on the House, on the Capitol of the United States, on our democracy, to undermine the will of the people. It’s up to them to decide how we go forward, when we go forward. It will be soon. I don’t think it will be long, but, but we must do it.” Reporter: “You mentioned unity, a message of unity yesterday. Are you at all concerned about moving forward with an impeachment trial, could undercut that message and alienate Republican supporters of the president?” “No, no, I’m not worried about that. The fact is, the president of the United States committed an act of incitement of insurrection, I don’t think it’s very unifying to say, ‘Oh, let’s just forget it, and move on.’ That’s not how you unify. You don’t say to a president, ‘Do whatever you want in the last months of your administration. You’re going to get a get out of jail card free.’ Because, because people think we should make nice, nice, and forget that people died here on Jan. 6. That the attempt to undermine our election, to undermine our democracy, to dishonor our Constitution — no, I don’t see that at all. I think that would be harmful to unity.”

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the impeachment charge against former President Donald J. Trump would be sent to the Senate for trial “soon,” but didn’t pinpoint a date.CreditCredit...Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, told senators on Thursday that he planned to ask Democrats to delay the start of former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial until early February to allow Mr. Trump’s legal team time to prepare a defense, according to a person familiar with his remarks.

The proposal emerged as Mr. McConnell and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the incoming majority leader, haggled privately behind the scenes over the timing and structure of the proceeding and Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused again to say when she would transmit the impeachment charge to the Senate, thus prompting the start of the trial.

The uncertainty has left Democrats puzzling over how to push forward in trying the former president for his role in egging on the violent mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 without overshadowing President Biden’s first days in office. Ms. Pelosi insisted the trial would not detract from Mr. Biden’s call for unity and implied the prosecution’s case could be speedy, but would not pinpoint a precise date for pressing the charge, beyond saying the House would do so “soon.”

“I don’t think it’s very unifying to say ‘Let’s just forget it and move on,’” the speaker told reporters in the Capitol. “Just because he is now gone — thank God — you don’t say to a president, ‘Do whatever you want in the last months of your administration, you are going to get a get-out-of-jail-free card’ because people think we should make nice-nice, and forget that people died here on Jan. 6, that he attempted to undermine our election, to undermine our democracy, to dishonor our Constitution.”

Once a trial gets underway, lawmakers in both chambers agree it should move quickly. Still bitter over the length and repetition of last year’s trial of Mr. Trump, senators were closing in on rules that would compress the meat of the trial into just three days of oral presentations, with the prosecution and defense each getting up to 12 hours to make their case, people involved in planning said. When the Senate tried Mr. Trump a year ago, each side had up to 24 hours.

Ceremonial requirements, deliberations and votes would add several additional days, but the trial could be the speediest presidential impeachment trial in history.

Still, the timeline could balloon if either the House managers or Mr. Trump’s defense team asked to call witnesses. On Thursday, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on a conference call with Republican senators that Mr. Trump had hired a lawyer, Butch Bowers, according to a person on the call.

Mr. Bowers, whose practice is based in South Carolina, did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Whether Democrats would be able to secure enough Republican votes to convict the former president remained unclear. Mr. McConnell has said he has not made up his mind yet.

His counterpart in the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, said on Thursday that he did not believe that Mr. Trump incited the attack at the Capitol.

“I don’t believe he provoked it, if you listen to what he said at the rally,” Mr. McCarthy said on.

The remarks struck a different tone than Mr. McCarthy did last week on the House floor, when he argued during the impeachment debate that Mr. Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack.

“He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding,” Mr. McCarthy said then.

The No. 2 official at the F.B.I. is departing.

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As the deputy director of the F.B.I., David L. Bowdich successfully navigated the fraught relationship between the bureau and the Trump administration.Credit...Pool photo by Andrew Harnik

The deputy director of the F.B.I. announced to the bureau’s staff on Thursday that he was retiring, departing the bureau as the Biden administration takes over.

The exit of the official, David L. Bowdich, which had been planned, comes as the White House offered assurances on Thursday that President Biden would keep Christopher A. Wray as the bureau’s director.

Mr. Bowdich, who was promoted to the No. 2 post at the F.B.I. in 2018, had successfully navigated the fraught relationship between the bureau and the Trump administration. But some inside the F.B.I. questioned his close relationship with former Attorney General William P. Barr and whether he did enough to protect the bureau from Trump allies in Congress who repeatedly took aim at the Russia investigation.

Mr. Bowdich, who as deputy was the most senior agent in charge of operations at the F.B.I., became deputy director in March 2018 after the firing of Andrew G. McCabe, long a target of former President Donald J. Trump’s scorn. Mr. Bowdich began his career as an F.B.I. special agent in 1995 and spent much of it on criminal matters.

Mr. Bowdich will be replaced by Paul M. Abbate, currently the associate deputy director at the F.B.I., according to officials familiar with the matter. Mr. Abbate is a seasoned counterterrorism investigator who has run the field office in Washington, D.C. — the bureau’s second-largest — as well as the Detroit office, which has a robust program to fight domestic terrorism.

At the Justice Department, the Biden administration took steps to ensure a smooth transition, telling the nation’s U.S. attorneys to remain in their positions for now.

“Any transition process will be designed to minimize disruption within your offices,” Corey F. Ellis, the head of the division that supports U.S. attorneys and their offices, said in an email, citing Biden officials.

The Biden transition team hoped to have a list of potential nominees by early next week, according to two people with knowledge of the deliberations, though they cautioned that the situation was fluid.

The department also installed officials to lead it through the transition. In addition to Monty Wilkinson, who will serve as the acting attorney general, and John Carlin, who will be his acting deputy, Matthew Colangelo, a former counsel in the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, will serve as the acting associate attorney general, the department’s No. 3 official.

Elizabeth Prelogar, who worked on the Russia investigation, will serve as the acting solicitor general.

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For the impeachment trial, Trump settles on a South Carolina lawyer arranged through Lindsey Graham.

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Former President Donald J. Trump’s lead defense lawyer will be Butch Bowser.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Former President Donald J. Trump’s new impeachment lawyer, Butch Bowers, is a South Carolina-based attorney who was arranged through Senator Lindsey Graham and has a long history of representing politicians in his home state.

Mr. Bowers will lead Mr. Trump’s defense in the eventual trial for his second impeachment, Mr. Graham and Jason Miller, an adviser to Mr. Trump, confirmed.

The search capped weeks of frantic searching for an attorney willing to represent Mr. Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot by his supporters at the Capitol. The former president’s lawyers from the first impeachment trial had made clear that they did not want to be a part of the looming trial. And despite the desire of Mr. Trump’s longtime friend and personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to be involved, the former president has made clear that he won’t be.

Mr. Bowers is well known in the insular world of South Carolina politics, where he represented two former governors, Mark Sanford and Nikki Haley.

Mr. Graham announced on a Senate Republican conference call that Mr. Bowers would be representing the president in the trial and had been retained Wednesday night, a person on the call confirmed. Mr. Graham’s announcement was first reported by Punchbowl News.

Mr. Bowers and Mr. Graham did not respond to requests for comment.

Operatives in South Carolina generally said that Mr. Bowers would be a good fit for the president, and that he had a profile that would be useful with some of the senators.

“He’s not a MAGA Republican so it will help with establishment Republicans,” said Bakari Sellers, a Democratic strategist based in South Carolina.

National Guard troops who protected the Capitol for Biden’s Inauguration were told to sleep in a parking garage.

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National Guard soldiers resting in the parking garage of the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.Credit...The New York Times

National Guard troops brought in to protect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration were ordered to sleep in an unheated garage hours after being booted from the Capitol on Thursday, prompting an uproar among lawmakers who scrambled to move them back.

On Friday, Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire demanded that state’s troops be sent home.

“I’ve ordered the immediate return of all New Hampshire National Guard from Washington D.C.,” Mr. Sununu, a moderate Republican, said on Twitter. “They did an outstanding job serving our nation’s capital in a time of strife and should be graciously praised, not subject to substandard conditions.”

The Pentagon, which oversees deployment of the Guard, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The troops in the garage were among the more than 20,000 National Guard personnel who provided security for the inauguration on Wednesday. They were relocated on Thursday afternoon to the nearby Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building, said Capt. Edwin Nieves Jr., the spokesman for the Washington, D.C., branch of the National Guard.

Early Friday morning, the D.C. Guard said that the soldiers had been moved back to the Capitol from the parking garage. Capt. Nieves said that they would take future breaks “near Emancipation Hall,” a part of the Capitol complex.

Captain Nieves said that the Guard troops had been temporarily moved out of the Capitol on Thursday afternoon at request of the Capitol Police because of “increased foot traffic” as Congress came back into session. He did not specify how many soldiers had been moved.

The acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda Pittman, said in a statement on Friday morning that the police did not tell the Guard to leave the Capitol except on Inauguration Day, when the swearing-in ceremony was taking place.

“As of this morning, all Guardsmen and women have been relocated to space within the Capitol Complex,” Ms. Pittman said. “The Department is also working with the Guard to reduce the need for sleeping accommodations by establishing shorter shifts, and will ensure they have access to the comfortable accommodations they absolutely deserve when the need arises.”

Two Guard soldiers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that they had been relocated without explanation and that they were without electrical power, heat or adequate restroom facilities. One soldier estimated that there were 1,000 troops sharing one portable restroom outside the garage.

“Zero guidance on mission, length of mission, nothing,” the soldier said.

The soldiers also said that their fellow troops were breathing in exhaust fumes because the garage at the Thurgood Marshall center was still in use for parking.

Captain Nieves said that the garage had heat and restrooms.

Reports of the move prompted protests from lawmakers from both parties, including House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York. Some offered to house the Guard troops in their offices.

“This is unacceptable and must be fixed,” Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, wrote on Twitter.

On social media, some lawmakers said they were making efforts to move the troops back to the Capitol.

In a tweet, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said that he had spoken to the acting chief of the Capitol Police about the issue.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said that 12 Guard soldiers had been removed from their duties at Mr. Biden’s inauguration, two of them over texts and social media posts that made threatening comments toward political officials. (An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that all 12 soldiers had been removed over threatening remarks.)

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Biden is invoking the Defense Production Act. Here’s what that means.

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Vaccinations underway in Minneapolis on Tuesday. President Biden directed federal agencies to more aggressively employ the Defense Production Act to increase production of materials needed for vaccines.Credit...Octavio Jones for The New York Times

In a briefing on Thursday, President Biden said he was carrying out his longstanding pledge to invoke the Defense Production Act to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

During the presidential campaign, he had called for using the Korean War-era law to increase the nation’s supply of essential items like coronavirus tests and personal protective equipment. On Thursday, he signed an executive order directing federal agencies to make use of it to increase production of materials needed for vaccines.

Former President Donald J. Trump made limited use of the law, which allows the federal government to impose some control over private-sector industry to ensure the production of material that is deemed necessary for national defense. It traces back to the Korean War.

Congress enacted it with military necessities like steel and tanks in mind, but lawmakers expanded it after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to cover other areas, including public health and safety. In 2019, it was reauthorized until 2025.

One part of the law lets the government alter the order in which companies fulfill their contractual obligations by telling them to prioritize some existing contracts ahead of others. For example, if a company makes surgical masks and other paper products, the government could tell it to put the other items on hold to free up production for masks. The Pentagon routinely uses this authority with defense contractors.

It is an open question whether the government could use the law to force a company to accept a new contract for a product it does not already make.

Avril Haines is the only member of Biden’s cabinet approved so far.

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Avril D. Haines is now the director of national intelligence.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

President Biden began his first full day in the White House on Thursday with only one member of his cabinet approved by Congress — Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence — in a break from recent precedent that could delay the administration’s efforts to implement its broad policy agenda.

The Senate confirmation on Wednesday, after Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn into office, came after a last-ditch deal to avoid breaking the long tradition of confirming a new president’s top national security officials on Inauguration Day.

An 84-10 vote elevated Ms. Haines, signaling broad bipartisan support that Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat and likely new chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said was welcome.

Former President Donald J. Trump consistently maligned the nation’s intelligence officials throughout his time in the White House, politicizing intelligence in a way his predecessors sought to avoid. Mr. Trump’s first director of national intelligence, former Senator Dan Coats, won confirmation easily in 2017, but he was not confirmed until mid-March that year.

The confirmation process has been delayed this year because of the unusual nature of the White House transition, in which the outgoing president never conceded, and Republicans declined for weeks to recognize Mr. Biden’s victory. The late resolution of two Georgia races also left the balance of power in the Senate up in the air until two weeks ago.

The Senate, where Democrats are in charge only by virtue of the vice president’s tiebreaking power, held confirmation hearings on Tuesday for four more cabinet nominees: the Treasury, state, homeland security and defense secretaries.

On Thursday, hearings are set to continue as lawmakers consider the nomination of Pete Buttigieg to be secretary of transportation. If confirmed, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., would be a key player in advancing Mr. Biden’s ambitious agenda on both rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and on climate change.

On Friday, the finance committee is expected to hold a meeting on the nomination of Janet L. Yellen, the former chair of the Federal Reserve whom Mr. Biden nominated to be Treasury secretary.

As Mr. Biden pressed for his slate of nominees to be confirmed, his administration on Wednesday afternoon announced the appointment of acting leaders for more than 30 federal agencies.

The White House press secretary, Jennifer Psaki, said in her first briefing on Wednesday that Mr. Biden had been in communication with members of Congress, underscoring the urgency to have a team in place to tackle key issues.

Ms. Psaki said the desire to get a cabinet in position was “front and center for the president.”

“We have prioritized getting our national security team in place, given the crisis we’re facing, given the importance of keeping the American people safe at this time,” she said. “But we are eager for those to move forward quickly in the coming days.”

When asked by a reporter about whether Mr. Biden had confidence in the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, Ms. Psaki did not answer directly. On Thursday, she clarified the issue on Twitter, saying that the president “intends to keep FBI Director Wray on in his role and he has confidence in the job he is doing.”

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Congress granted a waiver to allow Austin to serve as defense secretary, clearing the way for confirmation Friday of the first Black American to hold the job.

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Congress Grants Waiver for Austin to Serve as Secretary of Defense

The House and Senate on Thursday held back-to-back votes approving a special waiver to allow Lloyd J. Austin III, a retired four-star Army general, to serve as secretary of defense even though he has not been out of uniform for the required seven years.

“We have an enormous problem right now with white supremacy. We also have a problem within our military ranks. Now, let me be perfectly clear: I have 100 percent confidence in our military, but this is an issue that they do need to address, is the rise of white supremacy and white nationalism within their ranks. Having a highly qualified African-American be secretary of defense will be an enormous step towards addressing that problem.” “There is a strong pool of diverse civilians and former military leaders with qualifications and experience to serve as secretary. President Biden could have selected from this talent pool, but he chose not to. I voted for the waiver for General Mattis, and I will vote for the waiver for General Austin. For me, it’s just fair: a waiver for a Republican president and a waiver for a Democrat president.” “And I think the president has chosen well, and I urge my colleagues to grant this waiver. This, I would add, is not confirmation. Our brothers and sisters in the United States Senate will still have to judge and give advice and consent to this appointment, but this waiver is a precondition to them considering it on the merits.” “On this vote, on this vote, the yeas are 326, the nays are 78. The bill is passed.” “On this vote, the yeas are 69, the nays are 27. The 60-vote threshold having been achieved, the bill is passed.”

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The House and Senate on Thursday held back-to-back votes approving a special waiver to allow Lloyd J. Austin III, a retired four-star Army general, to serve as secretary of defense even though he has not been out of uniform for the required seven years.CreditCredit...Pool photo by Greg Nash

The House and Senate on Thursday approved a special waiver to allow Lloyd J. Austin III, a retired four-star Army general, to serve as secretary of defense, eliminating a hurdle to confirmation of a crucial member of President Biden’s national security team as congressional leaders rushed to quickly install him at the Pentagon.

The back-to-back votes came as Senate leaders set a Friday morning vote to confirm General Austin, who would be the first Black American in the nation’s history to hold the post. Earlier in the day, the Armed Services Committee approved both the nomination and the special dispensation, which is required for any Pentagon chief who has been retired from active-duty military service for fewer than seven years.

The waiver passed both the House and the Senate in overwhelming bipartisan votes. The House took the unusual step of bypassing its own Armed Services Committee and sending the waiver directly to the floor, and in the Senate, lawmakers refrained from debating the measure, putting it to a vote just minutes after it was passed in the House. Congress approved a similar measure four years ago for President Donald J. Trump’s first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, a retired four-star Marine officer.

The flurry of activity on Capitol Hill reflected a sense of urgency among Democrats to rapidly install General Austin at the Pentagon, a step normally taken on a new president’s first day in office to signal the continuity of American power as the presidency changes hands.

For weeks, General Austin’s chances for getting the waiver seemed tenuous, with members of both parties saying they were reluctant to circumvent the statutory requirement twice in a row. Some Republicans clearly saw rejecting the waiver as a way to take a poke at one of Mr. Biden’s nominees without having to oppose his confirmation outright.

But over the last two weeks, officials from Mr. Biden’s transition team put intense pressure on Democrats to approve General Austin. Their effort was ultimately aided by Democratic leaders who emphasized the historic nature of the nomination and warned their members not to send a message of obstruction on the first full day of Mr. Biden’s presidency.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California leaned on her members on Thursday to grant General Austin the waiver, according to multiple Democrats familiar with the remarks, asking them on a private conference call: “Can you give the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt?”

The siege by Trump supporters at the Capitol earlier this month, and the participation of some veterans and active-duty members of the military, underscored the military’s continued failure to root out white supremacy and right-wing extremism from its ranks. General Austin said at his confirmation hearing that this would be one of his top priorities.

“We cannot overlook the historical significance of Secretary-designate Austin being the first African-American selected to be secretary of defense in our history,” Representative Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a letter to Democratic lawmakers this week.

“Our country is facing a violent insurrection from right-wing extremists, driven primarily by white supremacist organizations,” he wrote. “In the face of these realities, it would be a grave mistake for the United States House of Representatives to block Secretary-designate Austin from being confirmed as our secretary of defense.”

Kamala Harris’s rise is celebrated in India, especially in her ancestral village.

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Kamala Harris Celebrated In India

Kamala Harris’s ancestral village in southern India celebrated her swearing-in as vice president.

“Joe Biden, Joe Biden.” “She has done all on her own. All that I will tell her so far she’s been telling her mother’s taught her everything. I’ll say, do whatever Shyamala taught you do that bit. You have been doing fine, so far. Keep it up, that’s all I can say.” “Kamala is a good speaker. Because — I was not — she didn’t throw any surprise. She mentioned her mother as she often does, which was I was happy about that.”

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Kamala Harris’s ancestral village in southern India celebrated her swearing-in as vice president.CreditCredit...P. Ravikumar/Reuters

As inauguration festivities were winding down in Washington, parallel celebrations were underway more than 8,000 miles away in Kamala Harris’s ancestral village.

The village in southern India, Thulasendrapuram, is where Ms. Harris’s maternal grandfather was born more than 100 years ago. On Election Day, residents there held a special ceremony at the village’s main temple to wish her luck.

To celebrate Ms. Harris’s inauguration as vice president, they began setting off fireworks at dawn on Wednesday under a coppery sun. Children and elderly people danced on narrow streets hemmed in by lush green paddy fields. And residents held up photos of Ms. Harris in front of the same temple, where believers had flocked to pray for her success in office.

Gopalan Balachandran, Ms. Harris’s uncle, watched the inauguration from his home in Delhi.

“We are all very proud of her,” he said in an interview, adding that he advises his niece on the occasional family Zoom call to “just keep doing what your mother taught you.”

Ms. Harris often speaks of her South Asian roots and the political activism her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, was steeped in — first as a child in India, and later as a student at the University of California, Berkeley.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi singled out Ms. Harris on Thursday in one of his congratulatory tweets to the Biden administration.

Former President Donald J. Trump was supported by many people in India, but he was regularly mocked on Indian social media platforms and generally disdained by the country’s urban intellectuals.

India’s main English-language newspapers struck a tone of relief on Thursday about the transition of power in the United States. “America returns,” The Economic Times proclaimed in a banner headline.

Gurcharan Das, a prominent author in New Delhi who once championed Mr. Modi but later became disillusioned with the prime minister’s polarizing Hindu nationalist agenda, said that he hoped the Biden administration would help heal America’s split.

That the inauguration followed the assault on the U.S. Capitol, he added, was an “affirmation that institutions work in America.”

“That is a very good lesson for India,” Mr. Das said. “Institutions are only so good as they are independent.”

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Biden plans to hold a ‘Climate Leaders’ Summit’ on Earth Day.

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Then-Secretary of State John Kerry signing the Paris climate agreement on April 22, 2016, which was Earth Day. Mr. Kerry is now President Biden’s special envoy for climate.Credit...Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Biden has settled on April 22 — Earth Day — as the date he will convene a summit of world leaders to discuss climate change, according to an administration planning document.

Mr. Biden has made tackling climate change a core issue of his administration. He promised on the campaign trail to rejoin the Paris climate agreement — which he did Wednesday — and to convene a global summit in his first 100 days in office to “rally the world to urgent and additional action.”

The administration intends to announce the summit date and other details about its international and domestic policy plans on Wednesday, which will be devoted to climate issues.

In addition to announcing the summit, Mr. Biden will sign an omnibus executive order that will initiate a “series of regulatory actions to combat climate change domestically” and that “elevates climate change as a national security priority,” according to the document, parts of which were first reported by The Washington Post. He will direct “science and evidence-based decision making in federal agencies” and also re-establish the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

The Climate Leaders’ Summit will be conducted largely online given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Administration officials felt that holding it virtually was preferable to potentially postponing it, two people familiar with the planning process said.

Under the Paris agreement, countries will be expected by November to ratchet up the emissions targets they promised in 2015. But several policy experts said they did not believe the April summit would be the place where the United States or other nations would announce new pledges.

Paul Bodnar, a former climate negotiator under President Barack Obama and the managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a climate research group, said holding a summit this early in the administration presents a challenge, and that figuring out the “range of actions countries can work together on takes more than 90 days.”

One area that he and others said they expected Mr. Biden and his international climate envoy, John Kerry, to focus on was a global sustainable recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

“How is the world going to climb out of the economic morass in a way that accelerates and advances the climate agenda?” Mr. Bodnar asked.

David Waskow, director of the climate initiative at the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, said the summit will be a way for the United States to show that it is re-engaging internationally on climate change and pushing for ambition. But, he said, after four years of the Trump administration’s hostility to the climate change crisis, some humility will also be in order.

“This new administration has to come back ready to hold hands with other countries,” Mr. Waskow said.

April 22 will be the fifth anniversary of when leaders signed the Paris agreement at the United Nations, bringing it officially into force. Mr. Kerry, who at the time was President Obama’s secretary of state, signed the accord with his granddaughter on his lap.

Here’s how the Biden administration began addressing key issues with executive actions.

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President Biden signing executive orders on his first day in office.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden signed a raft of measures late Wednesday to dismantle some of the Trump administration’s most contentious policies, moving hours after taking office to sweep aside his predecessor’s pandemic response and reverse his environmental policies and anti-immigration orders.

Here are some of the most notable issues President Biden addressed with the 17 executive orders, memorandums and proclamations:

The pandemic

Mr. Biden signed an executive order appointing Jeffrey D. Zients as the Covid-19 response coordinator, an effort to “aggressively” gear up the nation’s response to the pandemic. Mr. Biden is requiring social distancing and mask wearing on all federal property and by all federal employees, and starting a “100 days masking challenge” urging all Americans to wear masks.

Mr. Biden is also reinstating ties with the World Health Organization after the Trump administration chose to withdraw the nation’s membership and funding last year.

Immigration

With an executive order, Mr. Biden has bolstered the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children from deportation. Mr. Trump sought for years to end the program. The order also calls on Congress to enact legislation providing permanent status and a path to citizenship for those immigrants.

Three other orders revoke the Trump administration’s plan to exclude noncitizens from the census count, overturn a Trump order that pushed aggressive efforts to find and deport unauthorized immigrants, and block the deportation of Liberians living in the United States.

Mr. Biden has also ended travel restrictions for people from several predominantly Muslim and African countries and halted construction of the border wall with Mexico.

Climate Change

Mr. Biden has signed a letter to re-enter the United States in the Paris climate accords, which it will officially rejoin 30 days from now. Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, under which nearly 200 nations have pledged to cut greenhouse emissions, in 2019.

In additional executive orders, Mr. Biden began the reversal of many environmental policies, including revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline; reversing the rollbacks to vehicle emissions standards; undoing decisions to slash the size of several national monuments; enforcing a temporary moratorium on oil and natural gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and re-establishing a working group on the social costs of greenhouse gasses.

Racial and L.G.B.T. Equality

Mr. Biden will end the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission, which released a report on Monday that historians said distorted the role of slavery in the United States. The president also revoked Mr. Trump’s executive order limiting the ability of federal agencies, contractors and other institutions to hold diversity and inclusion training.

Mr. Biden designated Susan E. Rice, the head of his Domestic Policy Council, as the leader of a “robust, interagency” effort requiring all federal agencies to make “rooting out systemic racism” central to their work.

Another executive order reinforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require that the federal government does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, a policy that reverses Trump administration actions.

The Economy

Mr. Biden is moving to extend a federal moratorium on evictions and has asked agencies, including the Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development Departments, to prolong a moratorium on foreclosures on federally guaranteed mortgages that was enacted in response to the pandemic. The extensions run through at least the end of March.

The president is also moving to continue a pause on federal student loan interest and principal payments through the end of September.

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In his Senate confirmation hearing, Pete Buttigieg urges ‘generational’ opportunity to transform transportation.

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Buttigieg Says Transportation Policy Is Key to the ‘American Dream’

In his remarks before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Pete Buttigieg focused on a broad vision for his tenure if confirmed as transportation secretary.

First and foremost, I want you to know that if confirmed, I will work every day to make sure the department meets its mission of ensuring safety — safety for both travelers and for workers. And I look forward to working closely with Congress to do so. Safety is the foundation of the department’s mission, and that takes on new meaning amid this pandemic. We also have a lot of work to do to improve the infrastructure in this country, a mission that will not only keep more people safe, but will grow our economy as we look to the future. Now is the time, and I believe we have a real chance to deliver for the American people. I believe good transportation policy can play no less a role than making possible the American dream — getting people and goods to where they need to be, directly and indirectly creating good-paying jobs. But I also recognize that at their worst, misguided policies and missed opportunities in transportation can reinforce racial and economic inequality by dividing or isolating neighborhoods, and undermining government’s basic role of empowering Americans to thrive. So much is at stake today, and so much is possible as our country works to emerge from the crises of this moment with bipartisan appetite for a generational opportunity to transform and improve America’s infrastructure. So the chance to lead this department at this historic moment is not one that I take lightly. And if confirmed, I promise to bring the same sense of duty and commitment that led me to serve my hometown as mayor, and that motivated me to serve our country in the Navy Reserve.

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In his remarks before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Pete Buttigieg focused on a broad vision for his tenure if confirmed as transportation secretary.CreditCredit...Pool photo by Stefani Reynolds

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., pledged on Thursday that if he is confirmed as the secretary of transportation that he would align the department with President Biden’s goals on nationwide infrastructure reform.

In his confirmation hearing, held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Mr. Buttigieg said there was a “generational opportunity” to transform the country’s infrastructure in a way that also advances Mr. Biden’s goals on climate change, racial justice and job creation.

While shying away from specific policy proposals for most of the hearing, Mr. Buttigieg, who ran for president in the 2020 election, said he would tighten transit safety regulations, most notably in the aviation industry. He also pledged to work with the nation’s state, local and tribal leaders on transit concerns and said he would try to mitigate the effect transportation policies have had on poor and minority communities.

“I believe good transportation policy can play no less a role than making possible the American dream,” he said. “But I also recognize that at their worst, misguided policies and missed opportunities in transportation can reinforce racial and economic inequality.”

Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi who chaired the committee for the last time as the Senate finalized its transfer of power, said he was concerned with how the nation would pay for the ambitious transportation program proposed by the Biden administration but that he was “quite certain” Mr. Buttigieg would be confirmed and looked forward to working with him.

Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Democrat on the committee, said Mr. Buttigieg’s experience as a mayor would be beneficial, and praised his initiative, called Smart Streets, which sought to revitalize South Bend’s downtown through road and sidewalk changes.

“As a mayor,” she said, “I know you’re no stranger to the challenges a region faces on transportation infrastructure issues.”

If confirmed, Mr. Buttigieg would take over the department — with 55,000 employees and a budget of $87 billion — at a time when the nation’s transportation systems are reeling from the pandemic.

Some of Mr. Buttigieg’s critics have said his record on policing and race relations — including his firing of a Black police chief and his inability to diversify South Bend’s overwhelmingly white police force — and his relatively thin experience working on large transportation projects demonstrate he has much to prove.

Charlottesville, which inspired Biden’s presidential run, has a message for him as he calls for unity.

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Susan Bro, the mother of Heather Heyer, a protester killed in the Charlottesville violence in 2017.Credit...Matt Eich for The New York Times

Susan Bro recognized the palpable anger and open bigotry on display in the mob that attacked the United States Capitol earlier this month. It reminded her of the outpouring of hate that killed her daughter, Heather Heyer.

That was in 2017, when white supremacists, self-avowed neo-Nazis and right-wing militias marched on Charlottesville in the name of intolerance — and former President Donald J. Trump — and one of them drove a car into a crowd, fatally injuring Ms. Heyer.

More than three years later, Ms. Bro and other Charlottesville residents say they have a message for the nation after the latest episode of white violence in Washington, and for President Biden, who is emphasizing themes of healing and unity in the face of right-wing extremism.

Healing requires holding perpetrators accountable, Ms. Bro said. Unity follows justice.

“Look at the lessons learned from Charlottesville,” she said. “The rush to hug each other and sing ‘Kumbaya’ is not an effective strategy.”

Mr. Biden regularly invoked Charlottesville during a campaign in which he reclaimed five states that Mr. Trump had won in 2016. And though Mr. Biden nodded to the violence here and at the Capitol during his inaugural address on Wednesday, he framed the solutions in the sort of terms that Ms. Bro questioned, demonstrating a belief that kindness and compassion could overcome systemic discrimination.

In interviews this week, Charlottesville activists, religious leaders and civil rights groups who endured the events of 2017 urged Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party to go beyond seeing unity as the ultimate political goal and prioritize a sense of justice that uplifts the historically marginalized.

When Mr. Biden called Ms. Bro on the day he entered the presidential race in 2019, she pressed him on his policy commitments to correcting racial inequities. She declined to endorse him, she said, focused more on supporting the antiracism movement than any individual candidate.

Local leaders say this is the legacy of the “Summer of Hate,” as the white supremacist actions and violence of 2017 are known in Charlottesville. When the election of Mr. Trump and the violence that followed punctured the myth of a post-racial America, particularly among white liberals, these leaders committed themselves to the long arc of insulating democracy from white supremacy and misinformation.

“We were the canary in the coal mine,” said Jalane Schmidt, an activist and professor who teaches at the University of Virginia and was involved in the 2017 activism. She compared the current political moment to the aftermath of the Civil War, framing the choice for Mr. Biden’s administration as either committing to sweeping change akin to Reconstruction or going along with the type of compromise that brought its end.

“We have a whole major political party that, too large of a section of it, supports undemocratic practices, voter suppression and the coddling of these conspiracy theories,” Dr. Schmidt said, referring to Republicans. “So healing? Unity? You can’t do that with people who don’t adhere to basic democratic principles.”

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Federal authorities have charged a man they say beat officers with a hockey stick during the Capitol riot.

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Another arrest has been made in the mob attack on the Capitol this month.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

Federal authorities in Michigan have arrested a man suspected of using a hockey stick to repeatedly hit police officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — including beating one who had already fallen to the ground.

Like other suspects, the man, Michael Joseph Foy, has been charged with obstruction of a congressional proceeding and unlawful entry into a restricted building. But he also faces additional serious charges, including forcibly assaulting a federal officer.

Mr. Foy is one of several suspects in the riot charged with attacking police officers in assaults caught on video. Prosecutors this week also charged a Connecticut man, Patrick E. McCaughey, with trapping a police officer, Daniel Hodges, behind a riot shield as a crowd pressed against him. In a widely-seen video of the encounter, Officer Hodges cried for help until eventually being pulled to safety.

According to an F.B.I. affidavit made public after Mr. Foy’s arrest, investigators identified him in numerous videos and photographs on social media from the riot, including a compendium of footage of violence against police published by The New York Times.

Another video, posted on YouTube, appears to show Mr. Foy “lifting the stick above his head and swinging it down rapidly, striking an individual on the ground several times. At no point does it appear that the individual on the ground is acting aggressively, nor does it appear that the attack in justified,” the affidavit said.

The officer was not identified in the court filing.

The F.B.I. identified Mr. Foy using postings on his father’s Facebook page; among other things, his father wrote, in discussing a picture of his son in the riot, “he was raised better.” Other postings about Mr. Foy cited in the complaint indicate that he is a former member of the Marine Corps.

Trump extends Secret Service protection for his children, cabinet secretaries and chief of staff.

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Donald J. Trump extended Secret Service protection for his adult children, among others, for six months. Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

As one of his last acts as president, Donald J. Trump extended Secret Service protection for his adult children for six months, as well as for two cabinet secretaries and the White House chief of staff, an administration official said on Wednesday.

The protections are for each of Mr. Trump’s adult children and their spouses, as well as the former Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, the former national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien and the former chief of staff Mark Meadows, the official said.

The Washington Post reported earlier on the extensions.

The moves mean that the federal government will continue to pay for expensive security arrangements for the wealthy former first family, unless President Biden decides to undo them. But that could be a delicate move for Mr. Biden that might depend on threat assessments by security agencies.

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