WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden administration has been very proud to methodically publicize its agenda, in particular the $ 1.9 trillion pandemic relief measure the president hopes to deceive over the next few years. weeks. But a growing list of unforeseen challenges begins to revolt the White House’s plans.
In less than a week, two massive shootings have overshadowed President Joe Biden’s “Help is Here” tour, in which he planned to announce ways his administration is helping Americans recover from the pandemic. The White House has also struggled to respond to the growth of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border or to dampen a national effort by Republican legislatures to tighten electoral laws.
Biden’s meticulous approach to the presidency is intended to serve as a clear way out of the chaos of his predecessor, Donald Trump. But last week’s rapid advances remind us that even the most disciplined administration can only control so much.
“All presidents and their staff make plans, but every day the plans are exploited by reality,” said Ari Fleischer, who was George W. Bush’s press secretary when the administration’s priorities were suddenly flooded by terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. “External events intervene and force you to play defense or improvise or change your plans almost every day. If you can’t juggle, you don’t belong in the White House.”
Juggling intensifies at a particularly critical time for Biden. The most valuable asset of presidents is their time, especially during the first months of opening office, when concerns about future elections are more remote. On Tuesday there were signs that the patience of Biden’s diverse coalition could be worn out.
Two Democratic senators, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, condemned the lack of diversity in Biden’s cabinet. The examination of people advising Biden has intensified after last week’s shooting in Atlanta, which killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent. The violence came during a wave of attacks on Asian Americans over the past year.
Duckworth said she raised her concerns with the White House on Tuesday and she and Hirono threatened to withhold their votes on the candidacies until the administration addresses the matter. In a uniformly divided Senate, this measure could have important ramifications.
However, the two senators put aside their blockade of the nominees on Tuesday afternoon after assuring Biden administration assurances that more would be done. Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the White House will add a senior Asian-American liaison to the Pacific islands “that will ensure that the voice of the community is represented and heard.”
Biden could soon face another fight if he continues with his commitment to tighten gun regulations. After Monday’s shooting at a Boulder, Colorado supermarket that killed ten people, Biden urged Congress to close the loopholes in the fund-checking system and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Biden closed what is known as the Charleston Gap: a provision of federal law that gives discretion to the arms dealer whether to proceed with the sale if the FBI does not determine within three business days whether a buyer is eligible for buy a weapon.
“This is one of the best tools we have right now to prevent gun violence,” Biden said.
Biden, as a candidate, promised swift action on gun control, including a few steps on his first day in office. But the polarizing issue was quietly left out of the focus on the virus effort and the imperative to prioritize its agenda with narrow democratic majorities in Congress and the legislative filibuster.
During the general election, Biden managed to suppress much of the intra-party divisions that have so often broken Democrats by bringing them together around a central purpose: to defeat Trump.
After his election, his team adopted the same principle to unite the Democratic factions by reorganizing itself around a common motivation: to pass the massive $ 1.9 trillion COVID relief law. Biden’s aides made it clear to Democrats that there would be no debate over priorities. The pandemic relief, which focuses on vaccines and unemployment benefits, had to be the first at a time of historic crises.
Publicly, lawmakers and Democratic groups signed it even as background games began on what would come next. Biden’s aides have acknowledged that the fight for the sequence could become fierce, with disparate groups pushing for arms control, immigration, voting rights and climate change to become the central axis of the next White House action.
Following the shootings and a growing challenge on the southern border, West Wing aides in recent days have held a series of virtual meetings and calls to make strategies on how to proceed on active button issues, according to two collaborators of the White House not authorized to discuss private discussions. Biden urged advisers to take control of weapons, aides said.
Western wing aides privately acknowledge that they were surprised by the increase in migrants at the border and outrage over the conditions of their detention. After silencing opposition to an anti-pandemic bill that none of them voted on, Republican lawmakers have seized the border situation.
That makes Democrats nervous. Some Democratic lawmakers have called for more transparency at the border, though they fear the disclosure will allow Republicans to block the White House’s momentum.
Just before the news of the Colorado shooting, White House aides leaked the first word about their next priority, a potentially $ 3 billion package with money for road development, hospitals, schools and road systems. green energy. But for this program, like other legislative priorities, the White House faces tough prospects for any Republican support and would be forced to proceed throughout a partisan vote.
This would require keeping all Democrats in line and deploying procedural maneuvers to pass legislation without Republican votes.
Biden, an institutionalist in the Senate, has long been opposed to modifying the filibuster, though aides have said he would prioritize his agenda over preserving the legislative tool if it were to.
But the move would face fierce opposition from minority Republicans and could also find headwinds among moderate Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia who suggest more political struggles.
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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.