United States President-elect Joe Biden has inherited a series of crises unseen in generations and intends to launch his government with dozens of executive orders, in addition to broad proposals legislative, in a ten-day “blitz” which aims to mark an inflection point in a country plagued by disease, economic turmoil, racial tensions and now the effects of the assault on the Capitol, seat of Congress.
Biden’s team has drafted a series of executive orders that he will be allowed to issue after his inauguration on Wednesday (20) to start reversing some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial policies. Aides hopes the wave of acts, without waiting for Congress, will create a sense of energy in the new president, even if the Senate brings his predecessor to justice.
On his first day in office, Biden intends to order a series of measures that will be partly concrete and partly symbolic. They include ending the ban on travel to and from several Muslim-majority countries, a return to the Paris climate agreement, widening of pandemic-related limits on tenant evictions and payments. student loans, an injunction to wear masks on buildings. federal and interstate trips and another for federal agencies on how to reunite children separated from their families after crossing the border, according to a memo distributed Saturday (16) by Ron Klain, future White House chief of staff, and obtained by the New York Times.
The executive order plans come after Biden announced he would pressure Congress to approve a $ 1.9 trillion ($ 10.6 trillion) pandemic and economic stimulus package. ), indicating his intention to be aggressive on political issues and confront Republicans from the start to accept their leadership.
Biden also intends to introduce comprehensive bills on day one of his tenure, providing a path to citizenship for 11 million people who are in the country illegally. Coupled with his promise to vaccinate 100 million Americans against the coronavirus within the first 100 days, this is a broad set of priorities for a new president, which could be a definitive test of his ability to strike deals. and to command the federal government.
For Biden, a strong start could be essential in bringing the country past the endless dramas surrounding Trump. In the 75 days since his election, Biden has hinted at the type of president he hopes to be – focused on big issues, resisting the more strident voices of his own party, and little interested in getting involved in the minute-by-minute political fight, via Twitter, which has characterized the past four years and helped lead the crowd in the fatal attack on Capitol Hill.
However, in a town that has turned into an armed camp since the Jan.6 attack, with possession festivities reduced due to the pandemic and the threat of domestic terrorism, Biden cannot count on a honeymoon.
While many Republicans, in particular, will be relieved by his rise after the arsonist Trump, the problems that await Biden are so threatening that even a veteran with half a century in politics can find it difficult to command the stateship. . And while the feuds of Trump-era parties abate somewhat, deep ideological divisions remain over the substance of Biden’s policies – on taxes, government spending, immigration, public health care and other Congresses.
“You have a public health crisis, an economic challenge of enormous proportions, ethnic and racial tensions, and steroid-driven political polarization,” said Rahm Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor who was the chief adviser to Presidents Barack. Obama and Bill Clinton. “These challenges call for far-reaching action. The challenge is whether there is a partner on the other side to negotiate.”
Biden’s transition was unlike any other president, as will be his first days in office. The spirit of change and the usual optimism that surrounds a newly elected president has been eclipsed by a defeated president who refuses to admit the fact and give up attention.
Biden has spent most of that time trying not to get distracted as he builds a White House office and team with government veterans who notably look like the Obama administration that ended. Four years ago. He assembled a team of great racial and gender diversity, but without many of the party’s more progressive figures, much to the left’s disappointment.
“He has obviously prioritized skill and long history in many of his appointments,” said Representative Ro Khanna of California, who was Senator Bernie Sanders’ national campaign co-chair in the primaries.
But, he said, Biden’s team were looking for progressives like her. “I hope we will continue to see progressives, who tend to be younger and more recent in the party, in many positions of under secretaries and assistant secretaries, even if they are not at the top.” , said Khanna.
At the top will be one of the most well-known figures in modern American politics, but one who has seemed to evolve in recent weeks. After a life in Washington, this tireless, talkative, consumer-oriented man who always had something to say and something to prove, seems to have given way to a more self-confident 78-year-old who has finally realized the dream of his life. .
He hasn’t felt the need to look for the cameras in the past ten weeks – in fact, his team have been working to protect him from unforeseen exposure, for fear of any stumbling blocks – a goal that will be more difficult after taking office.
“He’s a lot calmer,” said Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a close ally. “The angst of the dispute and the pressure of the campaign are behind us. Even after the campaign and the election, all the madness that has come from Trump’s pitch, you don’t know how it’s all going to play out. You can know how this will end., but is nervous as to how it will play out. So now this is all behind us. “
Throughout his career, Biden has been an indicator of the center of his party, more moderate in the 1990s when it was in fashion and more liberal in Obama’s day when the center of gravity changed.
It is motivated less by ideology than by the mechanisms of creating a law that satisfies various centers of power. A “tactful politician,” as he likes to say, Biden is described by his advisers and friends as more intuitive about other politicians and their needs than Obama was, but less of a modern thinker.
Like Obama – and notably unlike Trump – Biden sees little news on television, plus an occasional look at “Morning Joe” on MSNBC while walking the treadmill, or Sunday talk shows. Aides recalls that he rarely commented on what he heard on television.
Biden will be the first real creature from Capitol Hill to occupy the White House since President Gerald Ford in the 1970s. More than his recent predecessors, he understands how other politicians think and what drives them. But his confidence that he will be able to make deals with the Republicans comes from a time when bipartisan cooperation was valued, rather than looked down upon, and he may find that Washington has now become so tribal that the old ways fail. apply more.
“Joe Biden is someone who understands how politics work and the importance of political sensitivities on both sides, which is radically different from President Obama,” said former MP Eric Cantor of Virginia, who as that Republican House leader, negotiated with Biden and began to like him.
“I would think there might come a time when Washington can do something about it,” said Cantor, who lost a Republican primary in 2014 in part because he was seen as too inclined to work with Biden. “I don’t know at this point, the radical elements on both sides are so strong that it will be difficult.”
Biden’s determination to call on Congress for comprehensive reform of immigration laws highlights the difficulties. In his bill, which he plans to reveal on Wednesday, Biden will seek access to citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, including those in temporary situations and self-employed. saying Dreamers. [sonhadores], who have lived in the country since their childhood.
The bill will include increased foreign aid for devastated Central American economies, secure immigration opportunities for those fleeing violence, and increased prosecutions against drug traffickers and human beings.
Unlike previous presidents, however, Biden will not try to win Republican support by recognizing the need for new and significant investments in border security in return for his proposals, according to a person familiar with the matter. That could make it difficult to pass his plan through Congress, where Democrats will control both chambers, but with minimal leeway.
This all explains why Biden and his team decided to use the executive as much as possible at the start of government, as he tested the waters of a new Congress.
In his note to senior executives at Biden on Saturday, Klain underscored the urgency of the overlapping crises and the need for the new president to act quickly to “reverse the most serious damage from the Trump administration.”
While other presidents issued executive acts shortly after taking office, Biden plans to sign a dozen on his inauguration day, including the reversal of the travel ban, the order to carry masks and the return to the Paris agreement.
On the second day of the presidency, Biden will launch executive acts related to the coronavirus pandemic, aimed at helping schools and businesses reopen safely, expand testing, protect workers and clarify public health standards .
On the third day, he will order his cabinet organs to “take immediate action to provide economic aid to the families of the workers,” Klain wrote in the memo.
Congress has been largely stuck for years, and even with Democrats controlling the House and Senate, Biden will face a steep path after his first burst of executive orders. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, a former Democratic Senate leader who has worked with Biden for years, said the next president has a keen sense of the challenges he faces and the negotiations required.
As the leader, Daschle recalled that when things were going badly and he complained, Biden joked, “I hope the car is worth it,” referring to the driver’s vehicle offered to the Senate leader. Today, as Biden prepares to move into the Executive Mansion, Daschle said, “I’m almost inclined to say, ‘Well, whatever he’s got to face now, I hope it’s worth it. . ‘