The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Biden could start off with blitz of rollbacks
President- elect plans to rejoin Paris accord, address pandemic on Day One.
WASHINGTON— President- elect Joe Biden is poised to unleash a series of executive actions on his first day in the Oval Office, prompting what is likely to be a yearslong effort to unwind President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda and immediately signal a wholesale shift in the United States’ place in the world.
Wha the plans to do
In the first hours after he takes the oath of office on the West Front of the Capitol at noon Jan. 20, Biden has said, he will send a letter tothe United Nations indicating that the country will rejoin the global effort to combat climate change, reversing Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement with more than 174 countries.
Biden’s afternoon will be a busy one.
He has vowed that on Day One he will move rapidly to confront the coronavirus pandemic by appointing a “national supply chain commander” and establishing a “pandemic testing board,” similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s war time production panel. He has said he will restore the rights of government workers to unionize. He has promised to order a new fight against homelessness and resettle more refugees fleeing war. He has pledged to abandon Trump’s travel ban on mostly Muslim countries and begin calling foreign leaders in an attempt to restore trust among the United States’ closest allies.
“Every president wants to come out of the gate strong and start fulfilling campaign promises before lunch on the first day,” said Dan Pfeiffer, who served as a senior adviser to President Ba rack O ba ma
and helped choreograph Obama’s first days in the White House. “Executive orders are the best way to do that.”
Why itmatters
For Biden, who won the election in a deeply divided nation, the early signals he sends as the country’s new leader will be critical. Onthe trail, he repeatedly said he was campaigning as a Democrat but would govern “as an American.” Following through on that promise will require him to demonstrate some respect for parts of the Trump agenda that were fiercely supported by the more than 70 million people who did not cast ballots for him.
“How far ishe going to go?” Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator, asked on CNN on Saturday, hours after Biden had been declared the victor. “If you want to showthat you want towork on a bipartisan basis, then you don’t go out right away and sign all the executive orders on immigration and bypass the Congress.”
But there is no question Biden and members of his party are eager to systematically erase what they view as destructive policies the
president pursued on the environment, immigration, health care, gay rights, trade, tax cuts, civil rights, abortion, race relations and more.
What’s next
Some of that will require cooperation with Congress, whichmay remain divided next year. If Republicans maintain control of the Senate, Biden’s pledges to roll back Trump’s tax cuts are almost certain to run headfirst into fierce opposition from that chamber. Efforts to advance a more liberal agenda on civil rights and race relations — centerpieces of Biden’s stump speech during his campaign — may falter. And his efforts to shape the new government with appointments could be constrained by the need to win approval in a Republican Senate.
But Biden may be able to achieve some goals with nothing more than the stroke of a pen. Trump largely failed to successfully negotiate with House Democrats during his four years in office, leaving him no choice but to use executive actions to advance his agenda. Biden can use the same tools to reverse them.