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Biden’s first 100 days: COVID-19, jobs, foreign policy, immigration, guns and dogs
U.S. President Joe Biden completes 100 days in office on Friday, April 30.
Washington: U.S. President Joe Biden completes 100 days in office on Friday, April 30.
Judging a president's performance after 100 days in office is an American political tradition that historians say began with Franklin Roosevelt's first term in 1933, when he embarked on a rapid-fire rollout of measures to counter the Great Depression.
Here are some of the key policy issues of Biden's first 100 days and how he has fared so far:
COVID-19 Response
Biden's major COVID-19 promise was 100 million shots in Americans' arms by his first 100 days in office. Some 290 million shots have been distributed, more than 230 million administered, and about 96 million Americans are fully vaccinated, 29% of the population.
Biden's vaccination campaign built on efforts started under President Donald Trump to manufacture and distribute the shots, but he added mass vaccination sites and ramped up government agencies to aid the distribution effort.
Jobs and Economy
Biden, a Democrat, devoted much of his first several weeks in office to passing a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill to limit the pandemic's economic fallout.
The American Rescue Plan, passed over Republican opposition, delivered on the key economic promise Biden made on the campaign trail: checks for Americans.
Helped by the stimulus plan for families and businesses and also by the steady rollout of vaccines, economic growth is expected to top 7% this year, the fastest since 1984. It would follow a 3.5% contraction last year, the worst performance in 74 years.
Foreign Policy
Biden has proved to be unexpectedly tough on foreign policy regarding America’s chief challengers. He has imposed sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s interference in the 2020 elections and a massive cyber hack attributed to Russia, and referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "killer."
Biden has held on to Trump-era sanctions on Iran and refused to lift them as a condition for getting Tehran involved in direct negotiations over its nuclear program.
Immigration
Biden moved swiftly to reverse some of Trump's hard-line immigration policies, but he has struggled to deal with a sharp rise in the arrival of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, including tens of thousands of families and unaccompanied children.
Guns and Policing
U.S. mass shootings, which slowed during the coronavirus lockdowns, surged again in 2021, to 163 such events this year, as of April 26, compared with 94 over the same period in the prior year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The rise shows how little immediate power Biden has as president to change Americans’ easy access to firearms, though he held campaign events with victims of gun violence promising action.
Climate Change
Biden moved quickly to have the United States rejoin the 2015 Paris Agreement to tackle climate change and enlisted an "all of government" approach to deliver on a campaign promise to decarbonize the American economy by 2050.
Responding to increasingly dire warnings about the threat of climate change and pressure from a new generation of activists, his administration's actions go beyond those of President Barack Obama's in ambition.
Diversity
Biden’s Cabinet nominees were more diverse in terms of race and gender than any predecessor, at 46% women and 50% nonwhite. So far, 21 of 23 Cabinet-level nominees requiring U.S. Senate approval have been confirmed.
Biden has appointed double the number of women than his predecessors, on average, as well as Pete Buttigieg as the first openly gay Cabinet secretary, Lloyd Austin as the first Black defense secretary, Deb Haaland as the first Native American interior secretary and Alejandro Majorkas as the first immigrant to head the Department of Homeland Security.
Unity
After Trump's confrontational style, more Americans have embraced Biden's more earnest, conventional style in his first 100 days in office.
Polls show that more than half of Americans approve of the job he is doing so far, including some Republican voters.
Cats and Dogs
The Bidens brought their two German Shepherd dogs to the White House and promised to introduce a cat as well.
Major, the younger dog, was to get training outside the White House after two biting incidents at his new home, a spokesman for first lady Jill Biden said this month.(Reuters)