WASHINGTON (AP) - The collapse of the Afghan government, a surge in COVID-19 cases caused by the delta variant, devastating weather events, a disappointing employment report. Whats Next?
After a torrent of crisis, President Joe Biden hopes to turn the page in a relentless summer and refocus his presidency this fall around his central economic agenda.
But the recent cascade of problems is a sobering reminder of the unpredictable weight of the office and new evidence that presidents can rarely afford to focus on just one crisis at a time. Biden's unbreakable summer he put his White House in an emergency position and sent his own poll numbers into the fall.
"The presidency is not a job for a monomaniac," said presidential historian Michael Beschloss. "You have to multitask 24 hours a day."
That has never been truer than the summer of 2021, which began with the White House's proclamation of the nation's "independence" from the coronavirus and defiant bipartisanship in a massive infrastructure package. Later COVID-19 came roaring back, the Withdrawal from Afghanistan turned into chaos and hiring slowed down.
Biden now hopes that after Labor Day he will rethink the national conversation toward his twin national goals of pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill and pushing through a Democrats-only expansion of the social safety net t.
White House officials are eager to shift Biden's public calendar to issues that are important to his agenda and that they believe are the most important thing to the American people.
"I think the president can be expected to communicate in the coming weeks on a variety of issues that are front and center on the minds of the American people," said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
"You can certainly expect to hear more from him about his Build Back Better agenda, about COVID and his commitment to control the virus, talking to parents and those who have children going back to school."
During the chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan, the White House was instrumental in explaining the consequences of Biden's withdrawal decision and the effort to evacuate Americans and allies from the country. Now, officials want to put the State Department and other agencies at the forefront in efforts to help stranded Americans and support evacuees, while Biden moves on to other issues.
It is partly a reflection of an unspoken belief within the White House that despite all the scenes of chaos in Afghanistan, the public backs his decision and it will fade from memory in the midterm elections.
Instead, the White House is gearing up for a legislative race that approves more than $ 4 trillion in domestic funding that will make up much of what Biden hopes will be his first-term legacy before the prospects for major legislation sink. sell out before 2022. Races.
On Friday, in comments on The disappointing employment report for August, Biden attempted to return to the role of public vendor for his domestic agenda and reclaim the mantle of warrior for the middle class.
"For those big corporations that don't want things to change, my message is this: it's time for working families, the people who built this country, got a tax cut," Biden said. He renewed his calls for increasing corporate rates to pay for free community college, paid family leave and an expansion of the child tax credit.
"I'm going to stand up to them," Biden said of corporate interests.
Although Biden may want to turn the page, attendees are aware that the crises are not over with him.
Biden plans to speak this week about new efforts to contain the delta variant and protect children in schools from COVID-19. And his administration continues to face criticism for its decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan before all US citizens and allies could leave.
"President Biden desperately wants to talk about anything but Afghanistan, but Americans hiding from the Taliban, ISIS and the Haqqani network don't give a fuck about news cycles, long weekends and polls, they want to get out. Republican said. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska. He called on the Biden White House on Friday to provide a public accounting of the number of Americans and their allies still trapped in Afghanistan.
Biden will also soon be dealing with the aftermath of the Government COVID-19 Protection Package Two Anchor Rope: The federal moratorium on evictions recently expired and, as of Monday, an estimated 8.9 million people will lose all unemployment benefits.
The president also continues to grapple with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which hit the Gulf states and later hit the Northeast. After visiting louisiana last weekYou'll see some of the damage in New York and New Jersey first-hand on Tuesday.
He's already trying to turn the destruction caused by the hurricane into a new argument for infrastructure spending that has been driving all the time, saying to local officials in Louisiana, "It seems to me that we can save a great deal of money and a lot of pain for our constituents, if when we rebuild, we rebuild it in a better way."
According to White House officials, even when other issues dominated the headlines, Biden and his team have had regular conversations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. , R-Kentucky, on the president's legislative agenda. His legislative team held more than 130 calls and meetings with members of Congress, their chiefs of staff, and advisers on the infrastructure bill and spending package, and his administration has held more than 90 meetings with legislative staff on drafting of the reconciliation bill.
In response to concerns raised by senior Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., about the price tag of the roughly $ 3.5 trillion social spending package, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told CNN on Sunday he was convinced the Democrat was persuasive โabout the legislation.
Cabinet officials have also engaged with lawmakers, the officials said, traveling to 80 congressional districts to promote the agenda across the country while Biden remained in Washington.
Biden, Beschloss said, may have an advantage over some of his predecessors in going beyond crises to keep his legislative agenda on track, given his 50 years of experience in national politics.
"If there's anyone who has a sense of proportion, distance and perspective at a time like this, they do," Beschloss told The Associated Press. "For someone who has been in national life much more briefly and was new to the presidency, it surprises him all the time."
