WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday sought to reframe his presidency as one of “challenges but also enormous progress,” saying he would restart efforts to pass his signature legislative agenda and use the midterm election campaigns to push harder against Republican obstinance.
“For all this progress, I know there’s a lot of frustration and fatigue in this country,” Biden said during a news conference marking his first year in office, referring to the deadly and persistent COVID-19 pandemic. “But while it’s cause for concern, it’s not cause for panic.”
“It’s not going to go away immediately,” he added. “But I’m not going to give up and accept things as they are now.”
Biden, who took office on Jan. 20 of last year, said he would rely on help from the Federal Reserve to combat historic inflation and promised the new infrastructure law would “supercharge” efforts to cure supply-chain lags that have led to some empty store shelves.
He sought to diffuse ongoing tension with Russia, suggesting a “minor incursion” in Ukraine would spark less reaction than a full invasion and offering some concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin in exchange for backing down from a larger confrontation, including an expectation that Ukraine would not join NATO “in the near term.”
“What I’m concerned about is that this could very easily get out of hand,” Biden said, adding the U.S. has “to make it clear to him that there are prices to pay that could, in fact, cost his country an awful lot.”
He also signaled that he would restart efforts to pass his $1.7 trillion plan to combat climate change and build up social programs, arguing that families suffering from inflation would be helped the most by proposed child care subsidies. Biden said he expected to break up the bill into “chunks” that might garner majority support, citing a $500 billion provision for energy and environmental programs.
Biden, whose approval rating stands at 44%, according to a CBS News poll this week, has already cemented major legislative accomplishments — a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package that has propelled job growth and a $1.2 trillion investment in upgrading America’s infrastructure that passed with bipartisan support.
But runaway inflation, which has risen to levels not seen in 40 years, is a top concern for voters and is bogging Biden down, according to the CBS poll.
Biden said voters in the November midterm election would likely consider “what is the trajectory of the country? Is it moving in the right direction? I don’t know how you can say it’s not.”
“I understand the overwhelming frustration, fear and concern with regard to inflation and COVID,” he added. “I get it.”
Meanwhile, other top domestic priorities — federal voting rights legislation and a major domestic spending program with investments to combat climate change and provide financial relief for working families — have stalled in the evenly divided Senate, where the White House has been unable to persuade two moderate Democrats to get on board.
Those senators, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, stand apart from their 48 other Democratic colleagues and two independents in refusing to change Senate rules requiring 60 votes to pass voting rights bills.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., has set in motion a vote on that procedural change that could come Wednesday evening, although it is expected to fail without a change of heart from Manchin and Sinema.
Manchin, who served in the Senate alongside Biden, has also been the main impediment to the president’s domestic spending program, dubbed “Build Back Better.” After months of negotiations, Manchin took the White House by surprise last month when he announced in a TV interview that he could not support the legislation.
Biden is hoping to regroup and work out an agreement with Manchin — the rare Democrat representing a state that voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in 2020 — to salvage at least part of the package. However, the White House appears to have made little headway in negotiations. Wary of upsetting Manchin and keenly aware that he holds the leverage in these talks, Biden seems keen on preventing difficult conversations from spilling into public view.
Overall, Biden has struggled to lend credence to the central pillars of his candidacy. He had promised to ease political polarization and unify an atomized country, and prove to the world that democracies can deliver for people more effectively than autocracies.
“I didn’t overpromise,” Biden said in response to a question about his first-year stumbles. But he added that he wished “my Republican friends” would “get in the game of making things better in this country.”
“I actually like Mitch McConnell,” Biden said of the Republican leader in the Senate. “But he has one straightforward objective: Make sure that there’s nothing I do that makes me look good — in his mind — with the public at large.”
A year after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, only a quarter of Republicans accept Biden as the legitimately elected president. And only two GOP lawmakers are participating in the House investigation of the events of that day.
At the same time, Biden is struggling to maintain a fragile peace in Europe, where Putin’s positioning of 100,000 troops along his country’s border with Ukraine has the administration increasingly worried about an invasion. Although Biden and Putin have spoken twice and aides from both sides continue to engage in talks, there has been little progress in finding a diplomatic off-ramp.
Biden’s struggle in swaying Putin comes just months after the chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan saw the Taliban topple the country’s government in surprisingly short order and has further undermined the president’s promise to allies that “America is back.”
