Democrats press Biden to protect executive branch from Trump's return

[question everything]

Capitol Hill Democrats are pressing the White House to pull out all the stops to gird the executive branch against President-elect’s Trump’s promised efforts to tear down federal agencies and restructure them to his liking.

The lawmakers want President Biden to get aggressive — and creative — with unilateral actions in the final weeks of his administration. The idea is both to protect the Democrats’ policy victories and to fortify the Justice Department, the intelligence agencies and other offices in Trump’s crosshairs.

“There’s a lot that the Biden administration can do, and I know that they’ve done some scenario planning,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said. “It would be a huge political malpractice for them not to anticipate this scenario and have some plans in place.”

The Democrats are quick to point out that, with Republicans in control of the lower chamber, no major legislative changes are likely in the postelection, lame-duck session. With that in mind, they see Biden as a kind of preemptive firewall against Trump’s vows to claw back their legislative wins and gut large parts of the federal bureaucracy in a “deep state” purge designed to streamline government and root out his executive branch critics.

(snip)

Many want the president to launch a blitz of executive orders, finalize eleventh-hour regulations and open the spigots of funding for federal projects that have already been appropriated by Congress. Some of those strategies might be more effective than others, the Democrats acknowledge, but Trump’s imminent return, they add, demands a spaghetti-at-the-wall approach to see what sticks.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-press-biden-protect-executive-110000465.html

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[Autumn]

2. Dems should have been doing this for the last four years. nt

[Alice B.]

5. Yep

[Hotler]

3. We can't win with gentlemanly politics. nt

[Alice B.]

4. THIS is also what I've been wanting to hear

[W_HAMILTON]

6. This is mostly ignorant.

Anything Biden can do on his own solely through the executive can -- and will -- also be immediately undone by Trump solely through the executive. And that's assuming they aren't hung-up or immediately rescinded by the Republican-controlled courts.

Growing a little tired of everyone expecting the Biden administration to work last-minute miracles here. All people had to do was vote for the Democrat in 2016 or 2024 and we wouldn't have this problem. They didn't, so don't turn around and expect Democrats to fix the problems as they are on their way out the door that voters brought about themselves by not voting for Democrats. It doesn't work like that. If people were too stupid to realize this ahead of time, they could have listened to the smarter people that were warning of this rather than the dipshit Republican liars they chose to believe instead.

[WarGamer]

16. and... you've given the perfect answer. 100% true.

Most people DEFINITELY didn't listen to the smarter people in the run-up to the election.

[MineralMan]

7. Anything an outgoing President can do

can be undone by the incoming President.

If you think otherwise, you are woefully incorrect.

This kind of expectation is naive and will not be met.

[leftstreet]

10. It would have to be something wildly popular with the public

So the incoming administration would risk political suicide by clawing it back

[MineralMan]

12. Nothing like that comes to mind.

We just had an election, which we lost. Now, we have all three branches in Republican hands. We're going to need some better ideas.

I was surprised by the results. Perhaps I shouldn't have been. Perhaps we all shouldn't have been.

[Yavin4]

8. Biden is stuck in a long forgotten era of American politics. n/t

[BOSSHOG]

9. Everything trump is doing

Is designed to weaken our country. That is his orders.

[Ocelot II]

11. What can he do that Trump can't easily undo?

Executive orders can be rescinded and appointments can be revoked. Still, they should try everything; at least set up some speedbumps and throw as much sand in Trump's gears as possible. A few things might stick for awhile until they're noticed. Trump's people are mostly incompetent nitwits with no government experience so it's possible they won't find the easter eggs for awhile.

[MineralMan]

13. You have a point, there.

I suspect, though, that the blaming will continue long after the inauguration. "If only Biden had..." followed by some suggestion that wouldn't have worked in the first place.

We're in for a rough time, no doubt. We're going to need to reformulate our plans for the future and not do what we did this year, I think. We had some incorrect assumptions about how people were going to vote. We need to figure that out and make some corrections before 2026. Yes, we are.

[Zeitghost]

14. Anything Biden can unilaterally do

Trump can unilaterally undo. That's how executive powers work.

[leftstreet]

15. Unless it would be political suicide to do so

Something insanely popular with voters?