Article
Joe Biden enters the Always Be Closing phase of his first term
Aug
Somehow, someway, Joe Biden is back in the game.
After enduring a brutal year dominated by economic angst, legislative setbacks, and sinking approval ratings, the president is suddenly on the verge of a turnaround that, the White House believes, could salvage his summer — and alter the trajectory of his presidency.
“There’s just so much at stake here,” said one adviser to senior party leaders, describing how, overnight, a sense of enormity was added to the immediate calendar.
Over the next few weeks, the president will have to land the centerpieces of his domestic agenda aimed at boosting the nation’s global competitiveness and revamping whole swaths of its economy. Major decisions on student loans and expanding abortion rights hang in the balance. There’s also the matter of containing twin outbreaks of monkeypox and the coronavirus, the last of which Biden just spent five days personally fending off.
If that weren’t enough, he’s juggling a slate of foreign affairs challenges as well — headlined by longer-term efforts to reset with Iran on a nuclear deal and negotiate the release of a basketball star and another American jailed in Russia.
It’s a massive political to-do list set against the backdrop of a midterm election likely to cost Democrats full control of Washington. And within a White House, that’s often felt under siege, there’s broad recognition that how Biden executes it will determine the difference between a historic first term and a tragic lost opportunity.