“We just are not getting all the information we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,” Biden said after receiving a virtual briefing from members of his national team for security and foreign policy agencies.
“I think it’s nothing short of irresponsible,” he said.
The president-elect said his team needed a clear picture of our position of power around the world and our operations to deter our enemies. confusion or catching up that our opponents may try to exploit. ‘
A Department of Defense spokesman told CNN that three briefings / interviews are planned for this week with the Biden transition team. Two of the briefings cover issues related to coronavirus, and the other one is about ‘cyber security’.
Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller defended the Pentagon’s transition work in a statement on Monday, citing the department’s 164 interviews with more than 400 officials, saying the agency had provided more than 5,000 pages of documents – far more than initially was asked by Biden’s transition team. . “
“DoD’s efforts have far exceeded those of recent administrations by more than three weeks to go, and we continue to plan additional meetings for the remainder of the transition and respond to all requests for information within our scope,” Miller said .
Yet a source familiar with the situation told CNN that critical meetings are outstanding.
A transitional official told CNN that the Department of Defense continues to deny and postpone meetings with members of the agency’s tensions.
“There has been no significant progress since transition officials spoke earlier this month about the relentlessness of the department’s political leadership,” the official said. “As the President-elect has alluded to, no department is more important to our national security than the Department of Defense, and a reluctance to cooperate could have consequences beyond 20 January.”
Biden said there are a number of pressing national security issues that his administration is preparing to address when he takes office next month, including the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis and the humanitarian crisis on the U.S. southern border. He reiterated his promise to deviate sharply from President Donald Trump’s isolationist foreign policy and instead to rebuild alliances around the world and work with partners to address global issues.
“We will have to regain the trust and confidence of a world that has begun to find ways to work around us or work without us,” Biden said.
The president-elect said part of the discussion earlier in the day focused on strategic challenges China and Russia pose to the United States. He spoke of ‘modernizing our defense priorities to better deter aggression in the future, rather than continuing to invest in heritage systems designed to address the threats of the past.’
Biden confirmed his comments last week, calling the recent cyber attack on US federal agencies and companies a serious risk to US national security. Trump, on the other hand, downplayed the attack and contradicted the public remarks of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who linked the hack to Russia.
Biden spoke of building coalitions to compete with China and hold the country’s government responsible ‘for trade abuses, technology, human rights and other fronts’.
The president-elect also focused on the humanitarian crisis on the U.S. southern border and the processing of asylum seekers.
“We will put in place human and orderly responses. This means we need to rebuild the capacity we need to process asylum seekers safely and quickly, without creating an imminent crisis in the midst of this deadly pandemic,” Biden said.
The Trump administration has taken steps to make it harder for people to claim asylum in the U.S. throughout his presidency.
Biden spoke about the mass distribution of authorized Covid-19 vaccines, saying his government would use the full powers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to combat the virus.
“Many of the agencies that are critical to our safety have done enormous damage,” Biden said. “A lot of them are hollowed out in staff, capacity and morale.”
“All of this makes it harder for our government to protect the American people, to defend our vital interests in a world where threats are constantly evolving and our opponents are constantly adapting,” the president-elect said.
Biden praised career officials in government departments, saying his team had received ‘exemplary cooperation’ from some agencies.
The briefing was expected to focus less on specific news in the news, and a broader focus on the country’s institutional health and well-being on the front lines of national security and foreign policy.
“This bombing was a reminder of the destructive power of an individual or a small group and the need for constant vigilance across the board,” Biden said from Wilmington, Delaware. He thanked the police officers who evacuated the area and first reactions to the scene.
Trump had not yet commented publicly on Monday afternoon about the explosion in Nashville, but the White House said in a news release last week that he had been informed of the incident.
Another approach is coming soon
He promised to undo Trump’s America’s isolationist foreign policy and restore the United States’ reputation on the world stage. Biden has pledged to rebuild international alliances, saying global challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis, require partnerships and international coordination.
Trump, on the other hand, has downplayed and questioned several of the U.S.’s long-standing alliances, including with NATO, and extracted the U.S. from various international bodies and treaties. Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement, the Iran agreement and the World Health Organization and other international treaties.
Biden will face a number of urgent challenges when he is sworn in as president next month, including the coronavirus pandemic, which killed more than 334,000 Americans on Monday afternoon.
The president-elect has named several top members of his foreign policy and national security team, including his longtime foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, as his nominee for secretary of state. Biden has chosen retired General Lloyd Austin, the former commander of the US Central Command, to be his secretary of defense.
He also named Avril Haines, a former CIA official and deputy national security adviser, as his choice for director of national intelligence, and Alejandro Mayorkas, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to lead DHS. Haines would be the first woman to lead the American intelligence community, and Mayorkas would be the first Latino to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
This story has been updated with more reporting.
CNN’s Arlette Saenz, Ryan Browne and Paul LeBlanc contributed to this report.