WASHINGTON — President Biden began his second year in office by attacking Republicans, embracing powerful new attacks aimed at determining a choice for voters between Biden’s Democrats and the Republican Party still under the thumbs of former President Donald J. Trump.
The sharp tone comes as Biden seeks to launch his largely deadlocked agenda in Congress. With the midterm elections looming toward the end of the year, the president faces a challenge he has largely avoided: drawing Mr. Trump and other Republican leaders into a direct clash of ideas.
On Thursday, Biden delivered a ferocious speech promising to hold Trump accountable and vowing to use all the powers of his office to thwart the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the 45th president. It was the harshest example since Mr Biden took office of his bipartisan efforts, lamenting “the big lie told by the former president and by so many Republicans who fear his wrath”.
A day later, he took another opportunity to focus on bipartisan differences as he lauded that the unemployment rate had fallen to 3.9 percent. He predicted that Republicans would accuse him of failing to address the economic pain caused by high inflation in recent months.
“Mlarkey,” Biden said. They want to talk about recovery because they voted against the legislation that led to this happening. They voted against tax cuts for middle-class families. They voted against the money we needed to reopen our schools, to keep police officers and firefighters in business, and to lower health care premiums.”
“I refuse to let them stand in the way of this recovery,” he added. “Now my focus is on keeping this recovery strong and lasting, despite the Republican obstruction.”
For some of Biden’s Democratic allies, the change in tone is a welcome shift from the dominant theme of the president’s first year, when he often focused on his desire to unite the country and struggled to negotiate with members of his own party.
Now, they say, it is time for Biden to focus not only on his own accomplishments, but also on how the Republican Party will threaten to reverse those efforts if he returns to power on Capitol Hill — something he hasn’t been at the center of. From his presidency to date.
“What Biden, the White House, and the Democrats need to do is force a choice that takes into account not only criticism of Republicans, but what is their solution?” Robert Gibbs, who served as President Barack Obama’s press secretary during the year leading up to the 2010 midterm elections, said, “This will be critical to the start of 2022 and ultimately the setting of the 2024 schedule.”
Gibbs said Biden, then the vice president, often advised Obama to keep the focus on his rivals at the other end.
What he used to say to President Obama was: ‘It’s tough compared to the Almighty.’ “It’s easier when compared to the alternative,” remembers Mr. Gibbs.
Republicans are not holding back. Trump issued a statement calling Biden’s speech “the last gasps of a discredited and corrupt left-wing political and media establishment,” and vowed to respond at the polls.
The stakes are high. Biden and his party are in grave danger of losing their already bare majority in the House and Senate during the midterm elections, an outcome likely to rob the president and his team of any real hope of significant progress in Congress. the rest of his term.
The obstacles to progress are severe.
During his first year in office, Mr. Biden has seen his political efforts at home and abroad hampered by Supreme Court rulings, supply-chain glitches, lawmakers from his own party, and most of all, coronavirus variables stretched — endlessly, it seems, To everyone’s dismay – the need for masks, vaccinations, and social distancing.
Mr. Biden has had some major successes to highlight: He passed Covid recovery legislation early in his term, and he found agreement with some Republicans on a $1 trillion measure to invest in infrastructure projects across the country.
But the virus is still rampant — an almost constant reminder of Mr. Biden’s campaign pledge to finally end the pandemic. His $1.8 trillion social policy legislation is struggling at best, practically dead at worst. The voting rights bill, which he says will correct an “existential threat” to the country, faces the sharpest controversy in Congress. Russian President Vladimir Putin hits his chest at the Ukrainian border. Every day, there is evidence that climate change is getting worse.
Democrats hope the president will begin to change these facts by March 1, when he delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress and provides a formal assessment of the country under his leadership so far.
“It’s your best opportunity to stand up to the American people and make your argument about what you can do before fall and what the choice will be,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a veteran Democratic communications expert who has worked with Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton.
For that to happen, Biden’s team needs to correct a number of things, according to the people who encourage it to succeed.
The pandemic, which polls show is the biggest drag on the president’s popularity, should begin to wane — at least in the daily lives of most Americans. And the administration needs to be seen doing more to address people’s frustrations, such as the current lack of Covid tests that has led to long queues and empty shelves at pharmacies.
Administration officials note that Biden has authorized the purchase of 500 million home tests that Americans can order for free. They say the first tests will ship this month with more to come.
The economic recovery from the two-year pandemic may be one of the best stories the president tells on March 1. Job growth slowed somewhat in the second half of last year, but unemployment is so low that many employers are struggling to find workers. If he were to deliver his State of the Union address now, Mr. Biden could rightly claim he presides over a thriving economy.
However, inflation has driven up prices, which is adding to the disconnect for many people: they aren’t as good about the economy as the numbers suggest they should. On Friday, Republicans took advantage of lower-than-expected job growth to attack Biden’s policies.
“Whether it’s because of anemic job growth, high inflation or a massive supply chain crisis, Democrats are doing a terrible job of managing the economy,” said Mike Berg, a spokesman for the Republican National Congress Committee.
Jen Psaki, the president’s press secretary, has repeatedly blamed people’s feelings about living in a pandemic for this separation.
“It’s not about the data and more about what people go through in their daily lives,” she said last week. “It just doesn’t seem normal. They are worried about there is a shortage of staff and canceled flights, or there are not enough teachers in the school because of the Omicron outbreak. We understand that.”
Central to the administration’s response to those sentiments is the attempt to pass Biden’s social policy legislation, known as Building Back Better. The president argues that passing the law would lower prices for things like child care and medicine, making people feel more secure about their financial future.
But the legislation has become mired in a dispute with Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who objects to some provisions of the plan and how it will be funded. In the Senate, where Democrats control exactly 50 of the 100 seats, Manchin’s support is necessary to pass the law.
The spectacle of the president engaging in desperate negotiations with a member of his own party has been going on for months, with little evidence of a resolution any time soon. White House officials say they hope lawmakers can work with Mr. Manchin in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Mr. Biden is keen to avoid another foreign policy scene such as the rapid evacuation from Afghanistan that followed the president’s withdrawal of troops. But this is not entirely within his control.
Biden has steadily ramped up threats of sanctions against Russia if Putin sends troops across the border into Ukraine. Whether these threats are enough to stop Mr. Putin in the long term may help determine whether Mr. Biden has a positive story to tell by the time he addresses Americans in March.
White House officials began to think about that speech. Speaking to reporters Friday, Mr. Biden was upbeat as usual, dismissing fears that the burdens imposed by the pandemic will never be lifted.
“No.,” he said, reviewing the kind of message his aides hope he can send within seven weeks. “The new normal won’t be what it is now; Will be better. “