President-elect Joe Biden plans to take immediate action to turn the page of the Trump era following his inauguration speech this week, Chief of Staff Ron Klain said Sunday after outlining Biden’s plan for his first days in office.
Biden plans a 10-day blitz of executive action against what his administration calls the “four crises” the country is facing – Covid-19, the economic downturn, racial injustice and climate change.
“He is coming back to the White House after delivering that speech in the Capitol and taking immediate steps to move this country forward,” Klain told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Biden will officially take office on Wednesday at noon ET. Klain said Biden’s inaugural speech would be “a message to move this country forward, a message of unity, a message to get things done.”
Klain outlined Biden’s plans for his early days in a memorandum sent to White House staff on Saturday entitled “Outline of the First Ten Days,” which was provided to NBC News.
“We are dealing with four overlapping and growing crises: the COVID-19 crisis, the resulting economic crisis, the climate crisis and a racial equality crisis,” Klain writes in the memo.
“In his first ten days, President-elect Biden will take decisive action to address these four crises, prevent other urgent and irreversible damage, and restore America’s place in the world,” added Klain.
The executive actions come in multiple forms, including executive orders, presidential memoranda, and cabinet agency guidelines.
Among the first actions Biden will take on Wednesday include re-joining the Paris climate change agreement and repealing President Donald Trump’s travel ban, which applies to several Muslim-majority countries. Biden will also require masks on federal property and inter-state travel and take action to expand expulsion and exclusion restrictions.
On Thursday, Biden will sign executive actions regarding the reopening of schools and businesses, and on Friday he will “direct his cabinet authorities to take immediate action to provide economic aid to working families most severely affected by this crisis,” said the memo.
According to the memo, Biden will “take important early steps to promote equality and support communities of color and other disadvantaged communities next week”.
Biden will also take action that week to address climate change, expand access to health care and “restore the dignity of our immigration system and border policies,” the memo said.
The memorandum is few in detail, noting that Biden spreads out executive actions to highlight the activity.
It also notes that while the objectives behind the executive actions are “daring”, they are supported by “well-founded” legal theory and represent “a restoration of an appropriate, constitutional role for the president.”
Klain wrote in the memo that legislation will be needed for the government’s more ambitious agenda items, including immigration reform and raising the federal minimum wage.
Biden on Thursday unveiled his $ 1.9 billion Covid-19 emergency agenda, calling for measures to help the country combat the public health crisis and for new cash injections to boost the economy. The plan would also increase the federal minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.
Democrats control the House of Representatives and will soon take control of the Senate, following the defeat of two Republicans in the first Senate races in Georgia earlier this month. But Klain said on Sunday that given the small majority of Democrats, the Biden team will push for GOP support for its plans.
Democrats have 222 seats in the House compared to the GOP’s 212, and the parties will split the Senate evenly by 50-50, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris able to bring a tie.
“We are going to try hard to work with people in both parties,” Klain said on CNN.
“ The American people voted in November and they voted for Joe Biden by an overwhelming majority, no doubt, but they elected an evenly divided Senate, they elected a closely divided Congress, we’ll have to find ways for Democrats and Republicans to do things get it done. , ”he added.