'We have 74 days': Biden vows to 'make every day count' before officially leaving office

07 November 2024

President Joe Biden's lame-duck period will look much different with President-elect Donald Trump preparing to enter the White House as opposed to Vice President Kamala Harris. Now, the 82 year-old outgoing chief executive is planning to use his final months as president to minimize the amount of damage Trump will be able to do once he takes the oath of office.

The UK-based Daily Telegraph reported that in a recent address from the Rose Garden, Biden hinted at some final initiatives his administration was taking on as his tenure in the White House comes to a close. This includes measures to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, as well as ensuring Ukraine has sufficient supplies and support to continue fighting Russia.

"“Together, we’ve changed America for the better. Now we have 74 days to finish the term," Biden said. “Let’s make every day count. That’s the responsibility we have to the American people.”

Trump has pledged to be a "dictator" on "day one" of his second term, particularly in opening up new lands for oil drilling. And during his September debate with Harris on ABC News, he notably refused to say outright that he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia. Given Trump's documented closeness with Putin — which included at least seven calls to the Russian leader as a private citizen — it's unlikely he would continue the Biden administration's support of Ukraine.

Biden also called on the incoming administration to preserve landmark legislation he passed like the CHIPS and Science Act (which created roughly 115,000 jobs in the semiconductor industry), the Inflation Reduction Act (which made billion-dollar investments in renewable energy infrastructure) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which funded more than $1 trillion in improvements to roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure like rural broadband internet access.

“The road ahead is clear, assuming we sustain it,” Biden said. “There’s so much, so much we can get done, and we’ll get done based on the way the legislation was passed.”

The outgoing president also promised a "peaceful and orderly transition" on January 20, when Trump will be officially inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. This is a stark change from his predecessor, when Trump tried unsuccessfully to overturn the 2020 election both in the courts and in his supporters' disruption of Congress' certification of Electoral College results on January 6, 2021 The Telegraph noted that Biden asked Americans to "bring down the temperature" of political rhetoric in the U.S. following a contentious election season.

Biden's speech comes after Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles called on him to "stand up" and "make some things shake" before leaving office in January. While she didn't specifically mention what she wanted him to do, Biles' tweet garnered plenty of responses from X (formerly Twitter) users who hoped he would pass a bevy of executive orders designed to hamstring the incoming administration.

Following the Supreme Court's Trump v. United States decision in July, Biden became the first sitting president to be granted absolute broad immunity from criminal prosecution for anything deemed an "official act." In her dissent, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the 6-3 ruling — in which all six Republican appointees were in the majority and all three Democratic appointees dissented — would allow a president to get away with virtually any crime, including the assassination of a political opponent.

Click here to read the Telegraph's full article.

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