

The most important power of the President in the early days is to set the agenda - to lay out the issues that will be debated and to push Congress toward the issues that he wants examined.

The nation might be in crisis, but he won't act like a trapped President. And Biden must lead in a world where the conservative media continues to pump out conspiracy theories and smears as he moves forward.īut Biden's effort to start fresh could work. The fury and anger of Trump's loyal base, part of the GOP, will loom large. Though Republicans have lost control of the Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell still holds immense power if his caucus remains united and the Democrats don't abandon the filibuster. Biden will inevitably come under fire for using the same kind of executive action that Trump was criticized for using. There is even some chance that a sufficient number of Republicans could break toward conviction.
BIDENS 100 DAY PLAN TRIAL
With the Senate doing the heavy lifting, the trial and the vote will allow Democrats to achieve some measure of accountability.

If Biden works on getting this agenda going, the Senate impeachment trial of Trump would not stifle Biden's first 100 days. He is working to open new vaccine centers and has said he will use the Defense Production Act to ramp up the distribution of shots. His incoming administration has promised to vaccinate 100 million people in 100 days. There Biden has also shown he will not be passive. Nonetheless, given the circumstances, the plan is extremely ambitious.īesides executive orders and legislation, the biggest issue in the coming months is an implementation issue. Unlike some other famous first 100 days, like FDR in 1933, Biden's plan primarily aims to reverse the direction of policy under his predecessor and stabilize society from the pandemic rather than setting out on a fundamentally new path that remakes public policy. Biden's stimulus plan would provide the kind of economic assistance to states and localities, $350 billion worth, that Republicans have blocked and move toward a bold immigration plan that undoes the era of restrictionism. He will also do what Trump refused to do to fight the pandemic, including a mask mandate on federal property and interstate travel and working to reunite families separated at the US-Mexico border. Through executive action, he plans to end the travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries and rejoin the Paris climate accord on his first day in office. Even with many Democrats wondering how he will make any progress as the Senate deals with the articles of impeachment and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell relies on the filibuster to obstruct, the President-elect won't be locked down.īiden's goal is to reverse the damage that Democrats believe has been inflicted by Trump. That means in 19 there will be a hell of a fight."īiden hopes to convey the same message at a moment of even greater urgency. I'll never make it that far, of course, so let's assume that we have to do it all in 19, and probably in 1966 we'll lose our big margin in Congress. we would have about 110 months to his 144 months. "I really intend to finish Franklin Roosevelt's revolution. "Bill, I've just been figuring out how much time we would have to do what we want to do," Moyers recalled Johnson saying. Johnson's message was that he had about a year and a half before the politics of the midterms kicked in and his chances for legislating started to dwindle. Johnson clutched a notepad with a truncated scheduling filled with handwritten columns of months going from November until 1968. Kennedy, Johnson mapped out a schedule to his closest advisers, including Bill Moyers, to impress upon them just how quickly their window for making progress would be open. Upon taking over the presidency in November 1963 following the tragic assassination of John F.
