(BLOOMBERG) – The incoming and outgoing U.S. presidents offered starkly different messages on the eve of Thanksgiving – with Joe Biden focusing a speech on the need to quell the coronavirus, while Donald Trump pardoned a longtime ally and called for overturning the election. Their plans for the day also diverged.
The president continues to dispute the results of the Nov. 3 vote, even as states certify their results and his legal challenges fail to gain ground. Biden has begun the transition, is naming his cabinet and has assumed the mantle of president-elect even though Trump digs in and refuses to concede.
Trump on Wednesday scrapped a visit to a Republican hearing in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but called in by phone to demand that the results of the presidential election in that state, which was called for Biden, be overturned.