President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. continued to overcome President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results on Friday, as only a few Republican lawmakers started to break ranks and acknowledge Mr. Biden’s electoral victory.
Georgia became the first contested state to certify Mr. Biden’s victory, a move that likely seals the state’s 16 electoral votes for the former vice president, although Mr. Trump could still demand a machine recount.
Georgia’s certification is the first of a series of battlegrounds that could officially declare Mr. Biden the winner in the coming days, with Michigan and Pennsylvania facing a certification deadline on Monday and Nevada on Tuesday.
Though Mr. Biden won Michigan decisively, the outcome of the state’s 16 electoral votes was a source of intense focus on Friday, as top Republican lawmakers from the state visited the White House at the president’s invitation. After the meeting, the lawmakers said that they would “follow the normal process” in certifying the state’s vote tally and honor the electoral outcome, dealing a blow to one of the president’s most brazen attempts to subvert the electoral process.
More Republican lawmakers on Friday also publicly acknowledged Mr. Trump’s loss. Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, referred to Mr. Biden and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris as “president-elect” and “vice-president elect” in an interview on ABC News. Representative Kay Granger, Republican from Texas, said on CNN that she had “great concerns” about Mr. Trump’s efforts to the upend the election, saying, “It’s time to move on.”
And Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee became the most prominent Republican lawmaker to press Mr. Trump to start the transition process, saying on Friday that it looks like Mr. Biden had a “very good chance” of winning.
Mr. Biden met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, during the first in-person gathering of the Democratic leaders since the election.
They said the meeting was focused on the need for Congress to pass a coronavirus aid package in the coming weeks, rather than waiting for Mr. Biden to take office in January.
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, tested positive for the coronavirus at the beginning of the week and has been isolating since Monday, a spokesman for Mr. Trump said on Friday.
He added that Mr. Trump has shown no symptoms and is following virus protocols.
Mr. Trump is the latest person close to the president who has tested positive for Covid-19. Barron Trump, the president’s youngest son, tested positive last month. Melania Trump, the first lady, also tested positive in October. In July, Mr. Trump’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, had tested positive for the virus.
President Trump tested positive for the virus in October and was hospitalized as his symptoms worsened. The president underwent a series of invasive therapies typically reserved for people seriously sick with Covid-19.
Donald Trump Jr.’s announcement comes hours after Rudolph W. Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani, a special assistant to the president, announced on Twitter that he had tested positive. This week, two Republican senators, Rick Scott of Florida and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, also said they had the virus.
After an exposure to the virus, symptoms can take up to 14 days to appear, if they ever appear at all. In that time, the virus can still spread from person to person.
According to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mr. Trump should isolate for at least 10 days following his positive test. The spokesman did not indicate which test Mr. Trump had taken.
In recent months, Mr. Trump has questioned the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, saying in a Fox News interview that since deaths from the virus had dropped to “almost nothing” the outbreak had come under control. That day deaths in the United States topped 1,000.
Mr. Trump’s diagnosis, reported earlier by Bloomberg, comes as the virus is surging across the nation. As of Thursday, at least 1,962 new coronavirus deaths and 187,428 new cases were reported in the United States.
The Trump administration has scheduled the executions of three more federal inmates on death row for the final weeks and days of President Trump’s term.
The executions are scheduled to occur shortly before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has signaled his opposition to the death penalty, enters the White House in January.
With the announcement on Friday, the Justice Department plans to execute a total of six inmates during the presidential transition. The first, Orlando Cordia Hall, was put to death on Thursday night.
Press officers at the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration revived the federal death penalty last summer after a nearly two-decade hiatus. Since July, the federal government has executed eight prisoners.
Those scheduled to die find themselves just weeks away from the start of an administration that has signaled it would not seek to carry out their death sentences. Mr. Biden has promised to work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and incentivize states to follow suit.
In its announcement, the Justice Department said that the three men scheduled to die — Alfred Bourgeois, Corey Johnson and Dustin John Higgs — were convicted of brutal murders. Mr. Bourgeois’s execution is scheduled for Dec. 11. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Higgs are scheduled to die less than a week before Mr. Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
In three separate statements, lawyers for the men objected to the move to execute their clients. Lawyers for Mr. Johnson said his intellectual disability should prohibit his execution from being constitutionally carried out. A lawyer for Mr. Bourgeois similarly argued that his client had an intellectual disability, and that the Constitution and the Federal Death Penalty Act barred his execution.
A lawyer for Mr. Higgs claimed that his client “did not kill anyone.” Rather, he asserted, the sole gunman in Mr. Higgs’s case was his co-defendant, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release.
Additionally, two other federal inmates are scheduled to die before the end of Mr. Trump’s term. Lisa M. Montgomery’s execution is scheduled for Dec. 8, although a federal judge enjoined the government from doing so before Dec. 31. The execution of Brandon Bernard is scheduled for Dec. 10.
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transcript
Biden Transition Pushes Ahead Despite Trump’s Obstacles
Yohannes Abraham and Jen Psaki, spokespeople for the Biden-Harris transition team, told reporters on Friday that the delayed presidential transition might have a harmful effect on the country.
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“As Jen mentioned, the G.S.A. administrator has yet to ascertain the results of the election despite an overwhelming consensus that Joe Biden is the winner of the election, therefore, the president-elect. And as Jen also mentioned, we continue to move forward in the absence of an ascertainment decision for the non-ascertainment does place limits on the resources available to the transition, and most importantly, our access to federal agencies. This isn’t a game — who gets to talk to whom. Our inability to start a formal agency review process has the potential to have real impacts on families across the country. Earlier this week Dr. Fauci said that the lack of ascertainment would delay vaccine distribution, leading medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and the American Nurses Association also wrote a letter urging the Trump administration to coordinate with the Biden transition on Covid-19 planning.” “Our teams can’t speak with or engage with administration officials because the ascertainment has been delayed. And we would certainly love to have that engagement, and love to be discussing with the — and people who have been experts on a range of issues from foreign policy to health policy, you know, preparations to take over Jan. 20. But our team has been very careful, of course, about following those rules and guidelines and we’ll have to abide by that until ascertainment happens.”
The Biden-Harris transition team is moving “full speed ahead,” a spokeswoman told reporters on Friday, even as its concern grows that the delayed presidential transition might have a harmful effect on the nation.
In a virtual briefing, two spokespeople for the transition renewed the team’s pressure on the General Services Administration chief, Emily W. Murphy, to approve paperwork giving President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his staff access to federal resources, data and personnel. Ms. Murphy has declined to do so amid President Trump’s continuing refusal to accept Mr. Biden’s presidential election victory.
“This isn’t a game,” said Yohannes Abraham, a spokesman for the transition. He noted that growing number of business groups and leaders, including the heads of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, called in recent days for the transition process to begin.
Asked whether the Biden team has had unpublicized contact with Trump administration officials, as some reports have indicated, Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman, said, “We certainly would love to have that engagement.” But she said the transition team “has been very careful, of course, about following those rules and guidelines and we’ll have to abide by that until ascertainment happens.”
Ascertainment is the term applied when the G.S.A. concludes that the election has produced a winner and a transition can begin.
Underscoring the strange limbo Mr. Trump has created for Mr. Biden’s team, Mr. Biden tweeted on Friday a plea for private donations to fund his transition activities. “Here’s the deal: Because President Trump refuses to concede and is delaying the transition, we have to fund it ourselves and need your help,” Mr. Biden wrote. Clicking the link leads to a form hosted by the Democratic ActBlue network which suggests donations ranging from $15 to $5,000, though users can give any amount.
The officials offered no specifics about when the transition might announce further personnel appointments, including Mr. Biden’s first cabinet nominees.