CORRECTION: posted May 6th - the original version of this post had erroneously identified Rep. Liz Cheney as being from Arizona. She represents Wyoming. We regret the error.
You can listen to this week’s full podcast here at anchor.fm :
https://anchor.fm/political-motives/episodes/PRESIDENT-BIDENS-FIRST-100-DAYS-e10650q
This week we discuss President Biden’s First 100 Days in office. The continued attempts by the former guy to spread “The Big Lie”, the ongoing investigation into the former guy’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and the Republican party’s ongoing descent into extremism.
Last Wednesday, President Joe Biden held his first joint address to Congress. While the room was at a fraction of capacity due to Covid-19 restrictions, President Biden paid homage to the extraordinary sight of his words visual backdrop with both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris being the first female House Leader and our first female Vice President, a fitting tribute and symbol of the historic nature of those two women holding those offices. It speaks to a wider reality that President Joe Biden’s presidency is shaping up to be one of the most consequential legislative agendas since FDR’s.
With the Covid-19 vaccination roll out deemed a resounding success by Americans and with the passing of Covid-19 relief legislation with the American Rescue Act of 2021, President Biden laid out his bold vision for rebuilding our country’s infrastructure with the American Jobs Plan and investing in families with the American Families Plan. These three bills have effectively boxed in Republicans leaving them to quibble over the definition of infrastructure, pushing voter suppression bills at the state level or supporting a dubious ballot recount effort in Arizona. While Biden goes big, Republicans continue to look like obstructionist extremists their continued ties to protecting Trump’s “Big Lie” diminishes their moral authority and credibility.
In any measure, President Biden’s First 100 Days has been a Master Class of political discipline and focus, with very few missteps. As President Biden and his surrogates, most notably Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and the entire White House Communications Team lead by Press Secretary Jen Psaki have stayed focused on how they will make American’s lives better and America stronger as the country begins to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. Not since FDR’s New Deal, have we seen such a massive realignment of government priorities and policies. Within his own party President Biden is getting high marks from both the moderate and the progressive wings and he is approaching his legislative agenda with pragmatism and clear-eyed resolve. While seeking bipartisan support he had made it clear to the obstructionist Republican party that inaction is not an option putting the GOP on notice that he has the majority of American’s support. Polling continues to show that his individual policy prescriptions from Paid Family Leave, investing in broad band, all paid for with tax increases against the 1% and corporations are wildly popular. The more aggressive the communications roll out the more impressed American’s are with his bold new vision. President Biden has called for an end to the failed “Trickle-Down” economic policies of Republican President Ronald Reagan, now espousing a new role for government to support and strengthen America’s lower and middle class.
While President Biden pushes forward his aggressive and expansive view of government for the modern era Republicans look backwards to re-litigating the election results and savaging their own party leadership.
With the Arizona state GOP pursuing a no holds barred, disorganized and ultimately dangerous recount of ballots in Maricopa county, GOP leaders face considerable backlash for their principled stands against the former guy’s treason and insurrection attempt. Both Congresswoman Liz Cheney (WY) and Senator Mitt Romney (UT) have been savaged by the extreme right of their party. Romney was widely booed at a GOP event over the weekend in Utah.
The ongoing schism within the Republican Party points to a dangerous road ahead as many on the right call for continued fealty to the former guy who seems to do nothing but wander around his over-priced club, photo bombing weddings and regaling wedding guests with the conspiracy theories of “The Big Lie” and non-existent election fraud. The GOP at the state level has pursued hundreds of bills across 47 states to suppress voter turnout targeting the poor and African American communities in an effort to restrict access to voting. It’s a transparent attempt to depress voter turn-out from traditionally Democratic constituencies and it provides President Biden an excellent opportunity to push the For The People Act and do away with the filibuster. The more the GOP pushes to disenfranchise the poor and African American voters the easier it will be for the Democrats to gain momentum for ending the Filibuster to pass this critical voter protection bill.
It becomes difficult to understand how a major political party believes that the road forward is paved with disseminating election fraud lies, making it more difficult to vote and backing a former leader who cost them the House, the Senate and the Presidency. The internal political dynamics of the House Caucus are on full display show the ongoing battle between the extreme right wing of the party that is obsessed with political conspiracies of “The Big Lie.” As the party swings to ever more extremes, they reduce their electoral power as moderate Republicans and Independents continue to abandon the party to the lunatic fringe. It is unclear how a contracting political party ever works for the Republicans. Perhaps the future of the GOP wresting away control of the party from the extremists lies in the ongoing investigations into the former guy’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Last week was also notable for the raid on Rudy Giuliani’s home and offices by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. While many believe this is directly tied to the first Impeachment and Rudy’s efforts in Ukraine to have the former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch removed from her post, the raid also included other Rudy compatriots most notably Victoria Toensing a lawyer and longtime GOP operative which could point to a wider area of interest. Perhaps beyond looking into whether Rudy was working on behalf of interests in Ukraine, this FBI raid could also uncover Rudy’s involvement in coordinating and planning the Jan 6th Capitol Insurrection. Not known for his technical aptitude when it comes to managing his personal electronics many on the Hill and senior Republicans are expressing growing unease as the FBI probe into the violence at the Capitol as it gets closer to individuals like Roger Stone and the former guy himself.
Does Rudy have advance knowledge or communications between the former guy and himself discussing plans of using the coup as a legal framework for invoking The Insurrection Act which could have allowed Trump to federalize the National Guard and postpone the election certification indefinitely.? It’s likely that Trump and Giuliani as well as others in his inner circle discussed using links to the Proud Boys and other white supremacy groups to foment violence which Trump could use as a pretext to take control, stopping the peaceful transfer of power. The FBI has had access to Rudy’s iCloud for some time ahead of the raid. Mining his digital footprint is likely to lead to extensive new avenues for investigations into corrupt practices, tax fraud and even his involvement in the attempted violent coup on Jan 6th.
So, with the Republican Party in convulsive fits of anarchy, President Biden continues to roll out a broadly popular legislative agenda that has widespread support. But there have still been a few low points in the First 100 Days of President Biden’s Administration.
We explore some of the more challenging issues bedeviling President Biden next on Political Motives.
While President Biden is getting high marks and significant popular support from Americans, he has had two notable stumbles on immigration and gun reform. America was roiled by gun violence with seven mass shootings in as many days in April. Once again, we went through the well-known political theatre of Republicans calling for thoughts and prayers while doing nothing to advance popular gun reform laws including legislation that would put in place universal background checks closing loopholes that allow for private gun sales to go unrecorded.
Now I have always been an outspoken advocate for far reaching gun control – from banning assault weapons, to removing liability immunity from gun manufacturers, to putting in place longer wait times for gun sales to other common-sense legislation designed to save lives and get weapons off our streets. President Biden has only utilized his Executive Order power to go after so called ghost guns which can be manufactured with 3D printers and instructions readily available in the dark corners of the web. With the polls behind him, President Biden has a mandate to craft a more expansive gun reform effort that would be backed by the majority of Americans. While he has decided to focus on more economic proposals which can tangibly impact American’s pocketbooks and the family budget a focus on gun reform would be heralded by many as a welcome advance in addressing America’s pervasive access to guns and gun violence.
The other issue where President Biden has been slower out of the gate is in the issue of Immigration. With the former guy having underfunded, and in many cases dismantled programs and governments resources that addressed immigration, President Biden has struggled to address one of his major campaign promises of re-uniting the families torn apart by the Trump Administrations cruel immigration policy of child separation at the border. This has been a low point of the new Administrations First 100 Days, but recent changes suggest that new resources being flooded in to address the problem are turning the tide. Just today, the Administration announced that they have been successful in re-uniting four of the families torn apart by Trump’s cruelty.
As both parties warily eye the 2022 mid-term elections, President Biden is building a solid case for Americans to maintain the House and Senate in Democratic control. While some hold out police reform as an area of possible bipartisan legislation, the filibuster and continued attacks on voting rights by Republicans, place greater pressure on Biden to walk the fine line between bipartisanship and progress. In painting the GOP as extremist and obstructionist, President Biden can point to significant legislative achievements that have helped to rebuild and strengthen America. That track record of success may be just the ticket to holding the House and expanding the Democratic hold of the Senate if Americans see that Biden’s agenda and policies are having such a positive and long-lasting impact on their lives.
With his wide-ranging American Jobs and American Families Acts, President Biden has started to reshape the role of government for generations to come.
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And one final note - I am encouraging everyone to get the Covid-19 vaccine. I received my second Pfizer vaccination on April 28th and had absolutely zero residual issues to either vaccine. So please remember to maintain social distance, wash your hands often and finally when indoors, “Wear a Mask to Save a Life.” Thanks for listening to POLITICAL MOTIVES. Until next time.