President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris unveiled the members of their inauguration committee and a new website Monday.
The presidential inaugural committee will be led by Tony Allen, president of Delaware State University and a longtime aide to Biden. By Allen’s side will be Maju Varghese, who served as chief operating officer and senior adviser to the Biden campaign.
Erin Wilson, a Biden campaign aide, and Yvanna Cancela, a Nevada state senator, will also join the team as deputies.
In a statement following the announcement, Allen said he had “known and loved the Biden family for 25 years” before explaining how he pictured an inauguration in a pandemic.
“This year’s inauguration will look different amid the pandemic, but we will honor the American inaugural traditions and engage Americans across the country while keeping everybody healthy and safe,” Allen said.
Varghese was credited by the Biden team with transitioning the entire campaign “through an unprecedented shift to remote working” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition to the inauguration team leaders, the Biden transition revealed its new website, where supporters can buy merchandise and subscribe to emails, as well as its social media handle, @BidenInaugural.
Biden’s incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, warned last week that the Jan. 20 affair would be “scaled-down,” saying, “I think it’s going to definitely have to be changed. We started some consultations with House and Senate leadership on that. Obviously, this is not going to be the same kind of inauguration we had in the past.”
While he said during that same ABC News interview that Biden and Harris would follow safety precautions, including wearing masks, Biden remarked over the summer that he did not want to wear a mask during the swearing-in ceremony.
A Biden aide told CNN on Monday that this is still the case.