Current US President Joe Biden is yielding presidential influence to the newly elected head of the country Donald Trump, whose inauguration will take place only in January next year. Part of the Democrats are dissatisfied with him.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) writes about it.
As arguments, the newspaper cites the fact that it was Donald Trump who went to France, where he met with the French president of the country Emmanuel Macron and the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. Joe Biden was not at this meeting.
Trump was also the first to comment on the situation in Syria — on Saturday he declared that "this is not our fight". Biden commented on the situation only the next day.
After Trump threatened to raise tariffs, he dined at Mar-a-Lago with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and opened up diplomacy with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Trump was extremely quick to name the planned cabinet.
This state of affairs, namely that Biden and his team "left a communication and political vacuum during the transition period," worries many Democrats.
They say this "vacuum" symbolizes one of the biggest problems facing the party — its inability to deliver a consistent message to voters.
They also criticize Bidenʼs first meeting with Trump after the election for its friendly nature, because they believed that the US president would use it to publicly call on Trump to respect the independence of the Ministry of Justice and other institutions, to which he has already begun to choose candidates favorable to him.
“Most voters donʼt know Kesh Patel or even who Matt Goetz or Tulsi Gabbard are. But a lot more Americans would know if President Biden talked about them... The only way to win the attention war is to go to the voters and explain things to them, which President Biden has consistently avoided,” said Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, referring to the candidates Trump to the positions of the heads of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence Services of the United States, as well as the failed attempt to appoint Goetz as the attorney general.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last week refrained from directly criticizing Trumpʼs nominees. Instead, he emphasized that it is important that all of them pass inspections and hearings.
For other Democrats, the natural consequence of the defeat is that Biden and other party leaders will now take a more muted stance and pause to craft a measured response to Trump. But even those calling for an advisory pause say the party could do more both to define policy before Biden leaves office and to shape public opinion about the new administration.
A CBS/YouGov poll in late November found that 59% of voters approved of his handling of the transition. But other polls show that many voters are undecided about many of the candidates, suggesting that Democrats could do more to shape the agenda.
This passive transition on the part of the Biden administration contrasts with how President Barack Obama handled Trumpʼs first election victory in 2016.
When Trump, as president-elect, called on the administration to veto a UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlement expansion, Obama blocked it, saying at the time that "itʼs one president after another." Obama also held an official press conference at the White House after his election defeat, something Biden has not done more than a month after the election.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates noted that the president recently visited Africa and South America to strengthen international relations and that the Senate continues to confirm Bidenʼs judicial nominees. "President Biden appreciates every day of this term as he accelerates an unprecedented agenda that will benefit hard-working Americans for generations," he said.
Some Democrats are calling on Biden to use more force in his powers for the rest of his presidency. For example, it is about premature pardoning of those whom Trump, as president, may begin to persecute. And Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto wants Biden to provide additional protections for undocumented immigrants who are vulnerable to deportation.
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