What Biden will do in the first 100 days at the White House on Covid and beyond

Joe Biden, the new president-elect, will face enormous pressure to implement a priority list on a range of issues ranging from foreign policy to the climate crisis, reversing many of the drastic changes made by his predecessor.

But Biden's first and most pressing task for his first 100 days in the White House will be to launch a new national plan to combat the coronavirus crisis, which has claimed more than 220,000 deaths in the United States and infected millions – plus than any other country in the world – as well as taking steps to address the dire economic consequences.

Moderate Biden will also have to contend with his side – a Democratic party with an increasingly influential liberal wing, hungry for major institutional changes to try to answer some of the most pressing questions about the country's future – writes The Guardian .

"He basically has to do something historical," said Saikat Chakrabarti, a Democratic activist and former chief of staff of New York progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "He was given a depression, a pandemic, and he was elected with a mandate to solve these things and do something big."

At best for Biden, the Democrats would take control of both houses of Congress. If that were to happen, Biden and his team could carry out their most ambitious plans for a presidency with the same feeling as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who has seen the radical New Deal recovery and relief programs in response to the economic crisis of the thirties.

"In many ways, they will be in the same situation we found ourselves in 2009. But in some ways worse," said former Obama administration deputy labor secretary Chris Lu, who managed the transition team. of the 44th president in 2008. We arrived during the Great Recession, and they too will take over in a period of recession ”. They also have the further and much more difficult challenge of dealing with a public health crisis ”.

Biden's "first agenda" in office would likely be aimed at containing the death toll and addressing economic damage, said Neera Tanden, who was director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign, and was then senior advisor at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS).

Biden's campaign proposed a science-led plan that includes a national mandate for face masks (although local authorities would have the final say on implementation), expansion of testing and contact tracing, adoption of measures to prevent surprise medical billing for Covid treatments; and increased federal financial assistance for families in need.

In Congress, the sense of urgency is on a bill that lawmakers have been unable to pass in recent weeks. While the Democrats pushed for a $ 2tn package, the Republicans refused to pay, especially for a test expansion.

"I think the most important thing is probably a legislative package that addresses the virus, and the ability to contain the virus and then respond to the economic pain that the virus has caused," Tanden said.

Over the course of his presidential campaign, Biden shared with voters a list of what he would do if he were elected president, many of which would directly reverse the work of the Trump administration. These include re-entry into the Paris climate agreement, which the United States will exit on November 4, 24 hours after election day. It would also join the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, in which Tehran agreed to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for lifting tough economic sanctions. It will also push for an extension of Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, which Trump and his allies have repeatedly attempted to dismantle.

There is also a strong expectation that Congress will consider some kind of police reform package following the summer mass protests over George Floyd's killing in Minneapolis, although it is unclear whether such proposals would ultimately end surviving the partisan impasse in the legislative process.

And there would be immense pressure for a Biden administration to review the filibuster, an outdated regulation that allows the minority to block legislation and appointments.

The fate of Biden's first 100 days largely depends on which party controls the House of Representatives and the Senate – and how many seats. Incoming presidents often bring a new Senate majority with them. In 1980, the election of Ronald Reagan brought with it 12 Republican victories in the Senate. In 2004, when George Bush won re-election, Republicans won five seats in the Senate. And when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, the Democrats overturned eight seats in the Senate. The Democrats already hold the House, and this year the party is favored to garner one to eight Senate seats. If he could add four seats to his tally, or three seats plus the White House, that would give the Democrats a meager majority in the House.

Control of the Senate is crucial for a Biden presidency. Without it, much of his program will remain in limbo. Biden said there is a hidden swath of Republican senators open to working with Democrats under Biden's administration. But the current senators are a bit more pessimistic.
Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, shrugged when asked if there are more than a handful of Republican senators who could work with Democrats under a Biden presidency.

"All I know is that we have seen 46 spineless Republicans over the past four years and many in the House who have shown no courage in facing the most corrupt and divisive president of our lives," Brown said.

With or without the democratic control of the Senate, however, the early days of a Biden administration will likely also see a flurry of executive action addressing pressing foreign policy issues and overriding the Trump administration's actions.

By inauguration day there will be just over two weeks before the expiration of the New Start treaty, the only arms control deal to survive the Trump era. If Moscow is willing (and Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested it is), the treaty can be extended up to five years with an exchange of diplomatic notes.

Senior Democrats also say Biden will move immediately to restore US membership of the World Health Organization (WHO) and resume financial contributions, announce that the US will join the Paris climate agreement and revoke the travel bans by the Trump administration for travelers from Muslim countries.

Biden has also promised to join the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA), though timing will depend on a sequencing deal with Iran on what Tehran will need to do first to return. to respect the limits of the JCPOA on its nuclear activities.

"I think part of what they will do is try to rebuild the international order – not to look exactly the same as it once did – but to once again have a focus on international norms, agreements, treaties," said Ben Rhodes. Obama's closest foreign policy adviser.

“There are many things that can be done spontaneously to best collect the pieces of infrastructure that were in operation in 2016. And then there will be other areas where you have to start from scratch, as if a hurricane comes in and blows everything up. ".

Rhodes cited the fight against disinformation and threats to democracy as new global priorities where institutions and policies must be developed from scratch. The Biden platform calls for the convening of a summit of democracies in its first year in office, in an attempt to regain the mantle of "free world leader" for the United States.

There will be pressure from the party's progressives to go beyond simply restoring the pre-Trump international order, particularly in re-evaluating US relations with autocratic allies like Saudi Arabia. One option on the table is an early presidential signature on legislation, already agreed by Congress, to curb US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

"There's a whole list of things Trump has done with executive power that are pretty easy to reverse – basically reinvest in the UN, the WHO, the Paris climate deal, the JCPOA," said Matt Duss. , foreign policy adviser to Bernie Sanders. "The question is: how do you go to the next step and the next and start moving a new agenda."

For months, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and the more institutional wing have been in relative harmony, as they have come together around a single mission: to prevent Trump from winning a second term.

But tensions are starting to emerge over who Biden should put in his cabinet. Publicly and privately, Democratic groups have been polling members, starting to strategize, and throwing some warnings about how Biden should take over a possible administration.

Biden himself has vowed to make it more diverse than any other. Powerful Democratic leaders have also argued for a Biden administration that includes African Americans who run agencies other than the Department of Building and Urban Development or the Department of Transportation.

But in ideological terms, Liberal Democrats have begun to quietly push for progressive champions such as Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, or Lael Brainard, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, for powerful positions. and high profile. Warren was mentioned as a potential secretary of the treasury or attorney general. Sanders is trying to run the Department of Labor. Brainard has also been mentioned as a possible secretary of the Treasury.

If Biden wins, he is expected to bring close allies in the White House to the White House, many of them more centrist than liberal. Ron Klain, Biden's former chief of staff when he was vice president of the Obama administration, may return. Delaware Senator Chris Coons, Biden's longtime friend, has been mentioned in foreign policy circles as a possible secretary of state, alongside former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice and Connecticut senator Chris Murphy.

Murphy told the Guardian that foreign policy was the key to fighting the coronavirus.

"We can't ultimately fight this virus or any other virus if we don't have allies and friends, unless we're involved in the global vaccine effort, unless we build our global public health prevention infrastructure," Murphy said. .

Some of the possible appointments depend on the outcome of the other 2020 elections. Alabama Senator Doug Jones, Biden's longtime friend and Democrat most poised for re-election, has been mentioned as a possible attorney general. Others have pointed to Warren or former Senator Amy Klobuchar, or former interim Attorney General Sally Yates. Biden himself said he would like to reinstate the Justice Department's civil rights division and further incorporate it into the White House.

But Jones told the Guardian that Biden wants him in the Senate.

"Joe Biden wants me in the Senate and that's where he focuses on trying to help me and I on trying to help him," Jones said in an interview. "And that's the goal … because I can best help a Biden administration bring together the kind of coalition that will be needed to push the legislation forward," he said.

“This is the key. He needs a voice like mine in the US Senate to make things happen, to bring people from both sides together, ”Jones added.

(Extract from the review of the foreign press by Epr Comunicazione)