Rebecca Shabad

President-elect Joe Biden will introduce Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday as his nominee for transportation secretary.

Biden will hold the event with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in Wilmington, Delaware, around 11:45 a.m. ET. An advisory from the Biden transition team described Buttigieg, the openly gay former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, as “a barrier-breaking and transformational public servant from the industrial Midwest who embodies a new generation of American leadership.”

If confirmed by the Senate, the Biden transition said, Buttigieg would work to implement Biden’s agenda by “rebuilding modern, sustainable infrastructure nationwide and creating millions of good-paying union jobs.”

Buttigieg would also be the first openly gay person confirmed to lead a Cabinet department.

The former mayor, 38, ran against Biden and Harris in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, but ended his bid just before the Super Tuesday primaries. He then quickly endorsed Biden for president.

Biden and Harris also will meet virtually with governors in the afternoon.

In other transition news:

• Biden plans to nominate former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to lead the Department of Energy and is expected to name Gina McCarthy as his domestic climate coordinator, NBC News reports. McCarthy — a former EPA chief under President Barack Obama — will work with former Secretary of State John Kerry, whom the president-elect has tapped as his climate czar.
• Trump called out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for defying him Tuesday when he congratulated Biden on his election victory and called him the president-elect. In a tweet after midnight, Trump shared a story about his allies slamming McConnell and added, “Mitch, 75,000,000 VOTES, a record for a sitting President (by a lot). Too soon to give up. Republican Party must finally learn to fight. People are angry!”
• The president has come so close to firing FBI Director Christopher Wray in recent months that the White House counsel’s office has warned him not to do so because it could put him in potential legal jeopardy, NBC News reports.
• Trump is set to hold a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, his first since May, at 11:30 a.m. ET. The meeting is closed to the press.
• In an interview on CNBC on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the general public will receive the Covid-19 vaccine “by the end of February into March.”
• Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., a member of “the squad” in the House, spearheaded a letter signed by more than 40 House lawmakers and representatives-elect calling on Biden to end the federal death penalty on his first day in office.