Biden aims for more achievements despite the bane of lame-
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden says he’s “determined to get as much
done” as he possibly can in his final six months in the White House as he tries to
beat back a defining force that his lame-
July 23, 2024
By Aamer Madhani The Associated Press
Source:https://www.thestar.com/news/world/united-
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden says he’s “determined to get as much
done” as he possibly can in his final six months in the White House as he tries to
beat back a defining force that his lame-
Biden hopes to keep the spigot flowing with hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding from a series of major legislative wins early in his term — signature policy victories that could be undone should Republican Donald Trump return to the White House.
He also badly wants Israel and Hamas to agree to his proposed three-
Biden also will press to quickly fill federal judiciary vacancies — currently there
are 48 openings — and make other federal agency appointments, but he will undoubtedly
face pushback from Senate Republicans who want to keep Biden from notching any end-
Biden, in short, is rallying his team to help him defy political gravity.
“I’m still going to be fully fully engaged,” a gravelly voiced Biden, who is recovering
from COVID-
At the White House, staff are waiting for Biden’s expected return on Tuesday after he spent the last six days convalescing.
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients on Monday urged aides to keep their heads down and remain focused on the work that remains. He listed lowering housing and health care costs, implementing the administration’s key legislative achievements, and safeguarding democracy as among Biden’s top priorities for the final months of the administration.
The message is being echoed throughout the administration. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken told senior State Department officials that Biden wants his team to remain
laser focused on carrying out his foreign policy agenda. Blinken noted that there
is still “one-
Biden, who is scheduled to meet with Israel’s Netanyahu later this week, said during
his call to campaign staff that he was focused on getting a cease-
“I’ll be working really closely with the Israelis and with the Palestinians to try to work out how we can get the Gaza war to end and Middle East peace and get all those hostages home,” Biden told campaign staff. “I think we’re on the verge of being able to do that.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator, said that a cease-
Netanyahu has faced pressure from the far-
Biden’s leverage on Netanyahu, who is set to address Congress on Wednesday as part of his Washington visit, remains limited. And ramping up rhetorical pressure on Netanyahu, who wants to demonstrate to an Israeli audience that he remains popular on Capitol Hill and can withstand any pressure from the White House, is perilous, Miller said.
“You might get a cease-
Lame-
In 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law a $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry weeks before Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain. Bush also signed off on more than $17 billion to keep America’s auto industry afloat in the final weeks of his presidency as the economy tanked.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton launched negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David, Maryland, in one last — and ultimately unsuccessful — effort at winning Middle East peace at the end of his presidency.
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s efforts to end the war in Vietnam in the final months of his presidency flamed out in 1968. Historians have pointed to evidence that Democrat Johnson’s successor, Republican Richard Nixon, covertly sought to slow the effort out of fear that an agreement could hurt his election chances.
The foreign policy space — particularly helping seal an Israel-
“Between Ukraine and Gaza, the Biden national security team has been stretched. They have more than enough on their plate,” said Gordon Gray, a former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia who is now a professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. “Realistically, there might not be enough time for big breakthroughs.”
William Howell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said lame-
Howell said that Biden, who has vowed to help propel Harris’ White House bid, may
be able to turn himself into a juggernaut on the campaign trail now that he’s acceded
to pressure from the deep-
“His most important job over the new few months is setting the conditions to make Kamala Harris successful,” Howell said.
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Associated Press writers Chris Megerian in Wilmington, Delaware, and Seung Min Kim, Matthew Lee and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.