Joe Biden has announced Connecticut’s education chief Miguel Cardona as his pick for secretary of education, his third Latino cabinet member in his proposed administration. 

“An educator will lead our Department of Education. I am proud to nominate Dr Miguel Cardona to ensure our teachers are taken care of, and our children have an opportunity to thrive,” the president-elect wrote on Twitter.

Donald Trump raised concern about his country’s trade deficit with Vietnam in a phone call on Tuesday with its prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the White House said.

“President Trump raised concerns regarding the trade deficit and urged Prime Minister Phuc to take bold steps to ensure fair and reciprocal trade between the United States and Vietnam,” White House spokesperson Judd Deere said.

Trump’s presidency is reflected in a broad range of numbers representing everything from the US death toll during the coronavirus pandemic to the miles of his “big, beautiful wall” along the border with Mexico to the tens of thousands of tweets he sent during four years in office.

Some of the numbers that are part of his legacy:

• 322,000 and counting: Number of US deaths attributed to COVID-19.
• 6: Coronavirus vaccines being developed and-or distributed under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed programme.
• 2: Coronavirus vaccines — by Pfizer and BioNTech, and a separate one by Moderna — that US regulators approved in 2020 for emergency use.
• 0: Comprehensive healthcare overhaul plans Trump introduced despite repeated promises to replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act with a plan that would cover everyone at a lower cost.
• 3: Justices added to the Supreme Court, establishing a solid 6-3 conservative majority.
• 221: Federal trial-level and appeals court judges added to the judiciary.
• $3.1 trillion: 2020 budget deficit, the largest in dollar terms in US history. Trump had pledged during the 2016 campaign to eliminate the gap between federal spending and revenue. Tax cuts Trump enacted in 2017 contributed to the imbalance, and it ballooned further after Congress passed $2.4 trillion in economic relief earlier this year to help unemployed workers, business owners and others weather the financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
• 3: In-person meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (in Singapore, Vietnam and the Korean demilitarised zone).
• $21 trillion: Federal debt in December, when it exceeded the size of the economy for the first time in history outside the Second World War.
• 82: Number of Trump administration environmental and public health rollbacks tracked on Harvard University’s rollback tracker.
• 4: Men who served as acting secretary of defence, the most in any administration.
• 203: Days the Pentagon operated without a Senate-confirmed defence secretary, the longest stretch in the history of the office.
• 450: Miles of Trump’s “big, beautiful” steel wall along the US-Mexico border expected to completed by year’s end.
• 39%: Trump’s average approval rating among American adults in AP-Norc polls over the course of his presidency. Assessments of Trump’s performance were remarkably stable, compared with his recent predecessors, ranging from a low of 32 per cent to a high of 43 per cent in AP-Norc polls.
• 1 billion: Barrels of oil and gas pumped from federally managed lands in 2019 as the administration sped permits and opened wilderness and other areas to the industry.
• $135bn: Expected growth in the defence budget under Trump. President Barack Obama’s final defence budget for 2017 totalled $605bn; Trump’s final defence budget for 2021, approved by Congress in December, totalled $740bn. Trump said he planned to veto the bill for unrelated reasons, but Congress had enough votes to override a veto and enact the bill over his objections.
• 4: International agreements Trump pulled the US out of: Iran nuclear deal, Paris climate agreement, Open Skies Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
• 13: Federal executions scheduled since July, when the administration resumed putting inmates to death after a 17-year hiatus, making Trump the most prolific execution president in more than 130 years. Federal executions will be carried out until just before the 20 January inauguration of president-elect Joe Biden.
• 315: Days Trump has visited a golf course as president, according to Factba.se, a data analytics company.
• 418: Days Trump has visited a property he owns, according to Factba.se.
• 1: New branch of US military: the Space Force.
• 15%: Drop in trade deficit with China between January-September 2020 and a year earlier. This followed a 19 per cent drop in 2019 to $308bn, the lowest since 2013.
• 25,000 and counting: Tweets, including original messages and retweets, sent by Trump since he took office on 20 January 2017, according to Factba.se.

The president’s call for larger stimulus checks appears to have aligned him with Democrats ahead of the Georgia run-off election.

Raphael Warnock welcomed the president’s stance and said he and Jon Ossoff would support $1,200 checks when they defeat Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who supported the $600 checks in the bill.

The California congressman and House Intelligence Committee chairman took to Twitter to condemn the outgoing president’s latest pardons.

 “If you lie to cover up for the President, you get a pardon. If you are a corrupt politician who endorsed Trump, you get a pardon. If you murder civilians while at war, you get a pardon,” he tweeted.

House majority leader Nancy Pelosi says she is happy to put to a vote Donald Trump’s call for $2,000 Covid stimulus checks for every American.

Donald Trump has placed his senior counselor Hope Hicks on the board of the prestigious Fulbright academic exchange programme, part of a flurry of final appointments cementing his influence over various important institutions even once he leaves office.

The 12-member panel oversees the Fulbright Program, which exchanges US students and academics with other countries, and is considered to be the most prestigious international exchange programme in the world. Board members serve three-year terms, and get compensated for travel and office expenses. 

Josh Marcus has more below: 

Donald Trump has issued a fresh flurry of presidential pardons – to aides who lied in the Russia probe, Blackwater guards and Republican politicians.

In what will seen by his critics as misuse use of his powers less than 30 days before he leaves the White House, it was announced the president had issued a total of 20 pardons and commutations. 

Andrew Buncombe has more below: 

Donald Trump has demanded Congress raises Covid relief payments and drop foreign aid before he will sign the stimulus bill.

The outgoing president attacked the $900bn pandemic relief package sent to his desk for signing in a new video released by the White House.

Donald Trump has pardoned a former California congressman who misused campaign funds and spent $625 on flights for his pet rabbit.

Duncan Hunter pled guilty to one count of misuse of campaign funds and was due to begin. an 11-month prison sentence in January.