Obama is pushing Susan Rice for secretary of state job: Sources

Former US President Barack Obama is pushing for Joe Biden to nominate his former national security adviser Susan Rice for secretary of state, Fox News says citing sources close to Biden.

Rice was nominated by Obama in 2008 to serve as the US ambassador to the UN, but later in 2013 the Democratic president made her national security advisor.

The Biden team vetted Rice when she made the “shortlist” of Biden’s potential picks for vice president before Sen. Kamala Harris was eventually chosen.

Bypassing an ascertainment delay from the General Services Administration, Rice already has the necessary clearances to prep for the role.

However, some Democrats are concerned that she might face a confirmation problem in a closely divided Senate following her involvement in the Benghazi attacks, but sources closer to Biden dismissed that thought.

An attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 killed four US diplomats, including then Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Then-UN ambassador Rice appeared on TV on behalf of then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton to recite “talking points” from a CIA memo and said the attacks were spontaneous and the result of an anti-Muslim video made by an American, but the theory was later disproved. 

Meanwhile, Rice’s office has not commented on whether the former vice national security advisor is interested in the job, but she has already expressed interest in serving a Biden administration when she was considered for former vice president’s running mate.

"I think I could bring my experience of almost now 20 years in the senior levels of the executive branch to bear to help tackle the most pressing problems we face," she told NPR’s Morning Edition.

"If there's an opportunity to serve again, I'm certainly eager to do so, but not because it's something that I want for myself," she added.

"I've been blessed to have served already at the highest levels. But if at a time when we are suffering domestically and internationally, people with skills and experience are asked to come back, my judgment is they should say yes, even if it may not be the best thing for them personally."

Sources close to Biden also say Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. is jockeying for the job, in addition to other potentials including Tony Blinken and Willliam Burns, both former deputy secretaries of state, and Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Trump’s refusal to concede election defeat will ‘cost us dearly’: Rice

Meanwhile, Rice wrote in an opinion piece on Saturday in The New York Times, that President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the disputed US election is harming national security.

Trump has yet to formally concede the 2020 race to Biden, claiming that widespread voter fraud has occurred in key battleground states.

Trump: Time will tell which administration takes office in January

US President Donald Trump says that "time will tell" which administration will take office in the White House in January.

His campaign has mounted multiple legal challenges in an effort to reverse the outcome of the November 3 election. Attempts in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania have already been either dropped or denied.

“The risks to our national security are mounting,” Rice wrote in the piece. “Vital exchanges of information and expertise that would help combat Covid-19 and jump-start the economy remain stalled.”

The delay could “cost us dearly in terms of American lives,” she added in the article.

“Despite the abbreviated transition timetable and the controversy surrounding the election, we on the exiting Clinton team did our utmost to provide [secretary of state Colin] Powell with everything that he might want in terms of information and support."

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