Axios

One near-certainty about Joe Biden's Cabinet: Pete Buttigieg will be in it. Biden officials have made clear to donors and party officials the question surrounding Buttigieg is not if, but where, he lands, Democrats close to Biden tell Axios.

The intrigue: Behind that certainty, though, are a range of questions about how to put his obvious political talent to use.

Apart from a few die-hards, most people close to President Trump know the race is over — but no one wants to be the sacrificial lamb who tells him to concede, people familiar with their thinking tell me.

Why it matters: Trump's long-shot legal war, aimed at preventing him from being the first one-term president in 28 years, is being enabled by active supporters — and a lot of passive appeasement.

President Trump plans to brandish obituaries of people who supposedly voted but are dead — plus hold campaign-style rallies — in an effort to prolong his fight against apparent insurmountable election results, four Trump advisers told me during a conference call this afternoon.

What we're hearing: Obits for those who cast ballots are part of the "specific pieces of evidence" aimed at bolstering the Trump team's so-far unsupported claims of widespread voter fraud and corruption that they say led to Joe Biden’s victory.

Tim Murtaugh, communications director for President Trump's re-election campaign, posted a fake front page purporting to be from a 2000 issue of the Washington Times that read "President Gore" on Twitter — calling it a "reminder that the media doesn't select the president."

Driving the news: The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, debunked Murtaugh: "Those photos have been doctored. The Washington Times never ran a 'President Gore' headline."

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his projected victory in the 2020 election on Sunday, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

Why it matters: The Saudi government has been one of the Trump administration's closest allies in the world, with White House adviser Jared Kushner sharing a personal friendship with MBS. Despite pressure from Congress, President Trump stuck by MBS after he was accused of ordering the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) has won re-election in Virginia's competitive 7th Congressional District, AP projects.

Why it matters: Spanberger's razor-thin victory against state Delegate Nick Freitas (R) comes as a relief to Democrats, who did not see the gains they expected in the House and instead netted a loss of four seats, despite taking the White House.

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams told CNN on Sunday that seeing Sen. Kamala Harris elected as the country's first woman, Black American and Indian American vice president "signals that the face of leadership does change."

The state of play: Democrats have lauded Abram's effort to boost voter turnout as a driving force behind Biden outperforming Trump in Georgia, per the Washington Post. She has been credited with registering roughly 800,000 new voters in Georgia through Fair Fight Action, an organization she founded after losing a contested 2018 gubernatorial race.

Former President George W. Bush issued a statement on Sunday congratulating President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their election victory.

Why it matters: Every living president has now congratulated Biden and acknowledged the outcome of the election, even as President Trump refuses to concede and continues to lodge unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said that Joe Biden's election victory could bring forth "a different tone" surrounding the coronavirus.

What he's saying: "I think you'll see a different tone now. I think you'll even see some governors start to take a different tone now that Mr. Trump is out of office. I think the political pressure of denying COVID is gone," Cuomo said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.

President Trump's continued unfounded claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him through widespread voter fraud and mail-in ballots is "rhetoric that gets picked up by authoritarians around the world," Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.

The big picture: Trump's refusal to concede the election has earned rebuke from a handful of prominent Republicans, including Romney, as world leaders congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that the "defund the police" slogan has the potential to lose public support for Black Lives Matter and other movements on the left.

Driving the news: Democrats are considering how to move forward after they did not see the gains they expected in the House in the elections. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) told colleagues on a caucus call the slogan hurt the party's electoral chances, per the Washington Post.

Progressive member of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that parts of the official Democratic Party campaign apparatus are "extraordinarily weak" and that the left was not to blame for defeats in the House.

Driving the news: After Democrats lost several key house races in divided districts, moderates were furious and pointing fingers at the progressive wing of the party. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who is narrowly leading her Republican challenger, vented on a caucus call that Democrats should never "use the words socialist or socialism ever again."

President-elect Joe Biden has released his new presidential transition website, where he outlined his plans to address four main issues: COVID-19, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change.

Why it matters: Even as President Trump continues to contest the election and push unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, the Biden team is moving forward as it faces a historic set of challenges.

This is an Axios election 2020 special. President-elect Joe Biden will enter office with some of the biggest challenges any American leader has ever faced. Axios’ Margaret Talev, Mike Allen, and Jim VandeHei join us to break down what he’s up against.

1. Axios AM Deep Dive: Biden's Washington
2. Biden: "This is the time to heal in America"
3. Kamala Harris: "You chose hope, unity, decency, science, and truth"
4. Biden's spoils: A hot American mess
5. Harris breaks through multiple barriers as VP-elect
6. Kushner advises Trump to pursue "legal remedies" to the election
7. Trump's 75-day finale, fully unrestrained
8. Map: Biden reaches 270

Joe Biden's historic win in the 2020 election made headlines around the country and the world. Here are some of the newspaper front pages from the morning after.

A source close to Jared Kushner said he has advised President Trump to pursue "legal remedies" to the election. A second source close to Kushner confirmed he had not advised Trump to concede.

Behind the scenes: The second source said some awkward conversations were happening in the president’s orbit and that almost everyone had by now accepted reality: that Trump has lost the election. But Trump is still insisting — falsely — that he won the election, and he has several advisers, including Rudy Giuliani, egging on what most in his orbit consider a futile legal fight.

Never before has a president-elect inherited a complex set of urgent — and epic — emergencies like the ones confronting Joe Biden and America. 

Why it matters: FDR, no doubt, inherited a hot American, Depression-era mess in 1932. President-elect Biden's spoils, in some respects, are similarly rotten: a spreading pandemic, sky-high long-term unemployment, stratospheric federal debt, an outgoing president claiming the Democrat stole the election, a nation bitterly divided, and misinformation and lies spreading at scale on platforms available to every citizen for free. 

The British government will spend £170 million ($220 million) on providing free meals to poor children and their families during the holidays, following a child hunger campaign by soccer star Marcus Rashford, AP reports.

The big picture: The program was spurred by a petition from the 23-year-old Manchester United forward and garnered more than 1 million signatures after initially being rejected by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government. It will affect nearly 1.7 million children in the U.K. over the next 12 months, Rashford said.

More than 12 hours after the U.S. television networks called the presidential race for Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted his congratulations to the president-elect.

Why it matters: Israel is one of the main allies of the U.S., but Netanyahu’s congratulatory tweet came long after most leaders around the world had already congratulated Biden.

Cities across the U.S. erupted in celebration and, in some cases, protest on Saturday after Joe Biden was projected to be the winner of the presidential election.

The big picture: Fireworks and honking cars could be heard in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, and street dancing was on display in New York City, Philadelphia and South Pasadena, among other cities, per AP and Twitter posts.

The latest "Saturday Night Live" cold open tackled President Trump's projected election defeat — with Jim Carrey and Maya Rudolph giving their take on the victory speeches of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris delivered hours earlier.

Details: Carrey's Biden repeated the real Biden's pledge to be a "president for all Americans." A notable difference in the speeches was that Carrey's Biden quipped "there must be a winner and there must be a looooooooser," in a nod to the comedian's line in his 1994 movie "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective."

President-elect Joe Biden said "this is the time to heal in America" and called on the nation to come together to get the coronavirus under control, address systemic racism, confront climate change and "restore decency."

Driving the news: Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris addressed the nation Saturday night at a drive-in style rally in Wilmington, Del., hours after news networks projected Biden as the winner of the U.S. presidential election.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said Saturday that the American people chose "hope, unity, decency, science, and yes, truth" in electing Joe Biden the 46th president of the U.S.

Driving the news: Harris, 56, will become the first woman, Black American and Indian American to serve as vice president. "While I may be the first woman in this office I will not be the last," she declared.

The Trump campaign legal team is throwing everything at the wall in battleground states — a last-ditch effort to use the courts to freeze time in states where President Trump was ahead (but keep counting in key places where he appeared behind).

Why it matters: None of the legal actions was poised to change the outcome, but the effort could delegitimize the 2020 election in the eyes of millions of Trump supporters even if the final math based on legitimate counts show Joe Biden the winner.

Jill Biden plans to continue working full-time as a teacher when she becomes first lady next year.

Why it matters: The college English professor, who holds four degrees including a doctorate, will be the first FLOTUS with a full-time job in 231 years, USA Today notes. She told CBS in August it's "important" to continue teaching. "I want people to value teachers and know their contributions, and lift up the profession," she said.

Of note: Her spokesperson Michael LaRosa said in an emailed statement that Jill Biden's role as first lady will be "focused on building her team and developing her priorities focused on education, military families and veterans, and cancer."

Go deeper: Biden era begins

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include LaRosa's comment.

President Donald Trump continued to falsely claim victory and spread baseless theories about voter fraud on Twitter Saturday after former Vice President Joe Biden became the president-elect, but Twitter took more aggressive action on some of his untrue tweets than others.

Driving the news: Early Saturday, four consecutive Trump tweets about the election were greyed out and labeled as misleading, making them harder to share and view. After the election was called, his subsequent false tweets were flagged, but Twitter declined to take more aggressive action.