White House co-op ‘sincere’

President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday that communication from the Trump administration to help with his transition has been "sincere" since the General Services Administration ascertained his election win on Monday.

"Immediately, we've gotten outreach from the national security shop to just across the board," Biden told NBC News' Lester Holt in his first interview as President-elect.

"And they're already working out my ability to get presidential daily briefs, we're already working out meeting with the Covid team in the White House and how to not only distribute but get from a vaccine being distributed to a person able to get vaccinated."

"So I think we're gonna not be so far behind the curve as we thought we might be in the past," he added.

Biden's comments come one day after the GSA informed him that the Trump administration is ready to begin the formal transition process. His transition team is now in talking to all federal agencies, a transition official told CNN.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases doctor, said Tuesday he has had preliminary conversations with members of Biden's team and looks forward to more substantive discussions in the future.

An administration official said the White House has given approval for Biden to receive the president's daily classified intelligence brief.

The decision means Biden will have access to the latest intelligence reports about major national security threats around the globe.

The GSA letter was the first step the administration has taken to acknowledge President Donald Trump's defeat and marked a considerable turning point against his bid to overturn his loss.

Still, the Biden team had not waited for the formal transition process to begin preparing for the presidency, as Biden introduced a slate of veteran diplomats and policy-makers on Tuesday.

Looking ahead to his administration, Biden vowed his term would not be "a third Obama term."

"We face a totally different world than we faced in the Obama-Biden administration," he said. "President Trump has changed the landscape."

He continued, "It's become America first. It's been America alone. We find ourselves in a position where our alliances are being frayed. It's a totally -- that's why I've found people who join the administration and keep points that represent the spectrum of the American people as well the spectrum of the Democratic Party."

Asked Tuesday if he supports investigations into Trump after he leaves office, as some Democrats have called for, Biden vowed to "not do what this President does and use the Justice Department as my vehicle to insist that something happen."

"There are a number of investigations that I've read about that are at a state level. There's nothing at all I can or cannot do about that. But I'm focused on getting the American public back in a place where they have some certainty, some surety, some knowledge that they can make it," he said.

"The middle-class and working-class people are being crushed. That's my focus."

And asked whether he has spoken with Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren about Cabinet positions, Biden said, "We already have significant representation among progressives in our administration, but there's nothing really off the table."

He added, however, that "taking someone out of the Senate, taking someone out of the House, particularly a person of consequence, is really a difficult decision that will have to be made."

Biden told NBC that he would consider appointing Republicans who voted for Trump to his Cabinet.

"I want this country to be united. The purpose of our administration is once again uniting. We can't keep this virulent political dialogue going. It has to end," Biden said.

'AMERICA IS BACK'

While introducing his foreign policy and national security team in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said the United States will be "ready to lead" again on the global stage, turning the page on Republican President Donald Trump's "America First" policies as he pledged to work together with the nation's allies.

The president-elect said his team, which includes trusted aide Antony Blinken as his nominee for US secretary of state, would shed what Biden described as "old thinking and unchanged habits" in its approach to foreign relations.

"It's a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it, once again sit at the head of the table, ready to confront our adversaries and not reject our allies, ready to stand up for our values," Biden said at the event.

US foreign policy under a Biden administration is likely to take more of a multilateral and diplomatic approach aimed at repairing Washington's relationships with key allies and pursuing new paths on issues such as climate change.

His promise to embrace alliances, including in the Asia-Pacific region, follows a deterioration in bilateral ties between the United States and China, the world's top two economies, that has triggered comparisons with the Cold War.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday congratulated Biden on his US election victory, state media reported.

In his telegram, Xi said both countries should "stick to no conflict or confrontation, mutual respect, (and) the spirit of win-win cooperation" in order to promote the "noble cause" of world peace and development.