WASHINGTON (AP) – At the White House, President Joe Biden led a targeted launch of his administration, using his early days in office to break sharply with his predecessor as he signed executive orders intended as a flashy display of action to to address the historical challenges he inherited.
But outside the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, signs are everywhere that these crises are as deep and intractable as ever. The coronavirus pandemic, the economy is faltering, and Republicans in Congress have expressed objections to many of Biden’s plans.
Biden wants to jump-start his first 100 days in office with action and symbolism to reassure a divided and tired audience that help is on the way. He also knows that what a president can do on his own is limited, so he calls on Congress to act while being forthright with Americans that dark days lie ahead.
“The crisis is not getting any better. It’s getting deeper, ”Biden said Friday of the fallout from a pandemic. “Much America is suffering. The virus is on the rise. Families are hungry. People are at risk of being deported again. Job losses are increasing. We must act. “
“The bottom line is this: we have a national emergency. We have to act as if we were in a national emergency, ”he said.
Biden’s first moments as president were intended to stabilize American democracy itself.
He took the oath just before noon on Wednesday in front of a Capitol that still bore scars from the uprising that took place exactly two weeks earlier and was intended to stop Biden’s takeover. The violence underscored the fragile nature of the peaceful transfer of power and led to Donald Trump’s historic second deposition.
Biden opposed calls for the inauguration to be moved to a safer indoor environment. He intended to keep the usual inauguration trappings as a signal that normalcy could be achieved, even though there were signs everywhere that things were far from normal: a military presence resembling a war zone, guests on stage wearing masks, a National Mall filled with 200,000 American flags that replaced the American people who were asked to stay away because of the pandemic.
Biden was clear and direct about the confluence of crises facing the nation. More than 410,000 Americans have died in the pandemic, millions are out of work, and the aftershocks of a summer of racial justice reckoning can still be felt.
“You can hear this collective sigh of relief that Trump is gone, but we don’t have time for a sigh of relief from the cascading crises,” said Eddie Glaude Jr., chair of the African American studies department at Princeton University. “We don’t want to assume that Biden’s election will solve everything. The scale of the problems is immense and the question for us is: do we respond on scale. ”
The changes within the White House have been rapid.
After Trump’s departure, his last staff members disappeared and a thorough cleanup began. There had been multiple COVID-19 outbreaks in the White House, and as a physical manifestation of a new approach to the virus, plastic shields were placed on desks and dozens of new hires were told to work from home.
New photos were posted on the walls of the West Wing and the Oval Office got a quick makeover. Gone were an Andrew Jackson painting and the desk’s Diet Coke button; in came images of Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez. But the most important symbol, the most obvious break from the previous government, came from the president himself.
When Biden sat down at the Resolute Desk on Wednesday to sign his first batch of his executive orders, he wore a mask. Trump had resisted wearing one, only putting one on occasionally and turning wearing a mask into a polarizing political issue instead
Biden urged all Americans to wear a mask for the next 100 days and used his platform to model the same behavior, one of the many ways he tried to change the tone of the presidency in his first few days.
Daily press conferences returned, without the allegations of “fake news” that only marked sporadic briefings in the Trump era. Biden held a virtual swear-in to hundreds of White House staffers, telling them to treat each other with respect or they’d be fired, a marked change from the controversial rivalry-driven Trump West Wing. Calls to the leaders of Canada and Mexico were made without drama.
The executive actions Biden signed during the week were a mixture of concrete and symbolic actions designed to undo the heart of Trump’s legacy. Biden halted construction of the border wall, rejoined the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, and strengthened vaccine production facilities.
But the power of the executive actions pales in comparison to the $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid package he requested from Congress. Biden hasn’t ruled out the possibility that Charles Schumer, DN.Y., leader of the Senate majority, will be asked to push it through with tactics that require only democratic support. But the president, who has spent decades in the Senate, hoped to convince Republicans to back the measure.
“Leaning on executive action makes sense at first, you can get things going and get going right away without waiting for Congress,” said Robert Gibbs, President Barack Obama’s former press secretary. But this is going to take a while. As it was for us in 2009, change does not come overnight. “
“Anything he’s inherited is likely to get worse before we see any improvement,” Gibbs said. “One thing you will learn on January 20 is that you suddenly have it all.”
Only two cabinet nominees were confirmed at the end of the week, much to the frustration of the White House. But with the announcement on Friday night that Trump’s impeachment process won’t begin until the week of Feb. 8, Biden’s aides were optimistic that the Senate would confirm more before then.
The process emerges as an unwelcome distraction for the Biden team. But while Trump will shadow the White House, Biden aides have noted that the former president is drawing far less attention now that his Twitter account is gone. They have expressed confidence that the Senate can balance the impeachment process with both cabinet affirmations and the handling of the COVID-19 bill.
Biden has made it clear that leading the nation through the pandemic will be his signature task, and some Republicans believe Trump’s implosion could create an opening to work down the aisle on an aid deal.
“There is a very limited consent structure for Congressional Republicans who want to get past the Trump era and establish their own political identities,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who was a senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Romney is now senator in Utah.
“There is an old saying: ‘Make the most important the most important.’ And Biden’s White House knows that’s the most important thing, ”Madden said. “If they can improve the pandemic response in the next 100 days, then they can move on to other priorities, they will have the capital for legislative battles. But they have to do it right. “
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