“Right now, we just aren’t getting all of the information we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,” Biden said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, following a brief from members of his national security and foreign policy agency review teams.
He went on to call for “full visibility” from agencies to “avoid any window of confusion or catch-up that our adversaries may try to exploit.” He specifically highlighted obstruction from the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget.
Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough pushed back on Biden’s assertion, telling Newsweek in an email statement that the department “has been completely transparent with the Biden-Harris Transition Team on the fiscal 2021 budget. We have also provided topline information on the fiscal 2022-2026 program to the Biden-Harris Transition Team. The Office of Management and Budget has not yet authorized the release of the full details of the FY22-26 program.”
The president-elect was vocal about the challenges his administration will face after he is inaugurated on January 20. Biden promised Monday to rebuild alliances with foreign entities and restore America’s global reputation following President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach.
“We’re going to have to regain the trust and confidence of a world that has begun to find a way to work around us or work without us,” Biden said.
The former vice president has already named several top members of his national security and foreign policy teams, many of them having served in the Obama administration. He tapped his longtime foreign policy adviser Antony Blinken to serve as secretary of state, Avril Haines for director of national intelligence and Alejandro Mayorkas to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
“These individuals are equally as experienced and crisis-tested as they are innovative and imaginative,” the president-elect said in a previous statement. “Their accomplishments in diplomacy are unmatched, but they also reflect the idea that we cannot meet the profound challenges of this new moment with old thinking and unchanged habits—or without diversity of background and perspective.”
On Monday, Biden said a key challenge for his White House will be to rebuild the “full set of our instruments of foreign policy and national security.”
“The truth is, many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage,” he said. “Many of them have been hollowed out—in personnel, capacity and in morale. The policy processes have atrophied or have been sidelined…. It makes it harder for our government to protect the American people.”
Newsweek has reached out to the White House for comment on Biden’s remarks but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Update (12/29/2020): This story has been updated to include comment from the Department of Defense.
