President Joe Biden isn’t accepting the idea that he’s a lame duck president. He continues to build on his already impressive record with actions and ideas to help the American people. He’s also setting up Kamala Harris for potential presidential success, which could end up being the most profound part of his legacy.
The most recent incredible success from Biden and his team is securing the release of two Americans detained in Russia, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Washington Post Opinions contributor, are also being released as part of the deal.
Gershkovich and Whelan had been convicted of bogus espionage charges by Putin’s regime. Bringing them home was a promise Biden made in his Oval Office speech explaining his decision to end his reelection campaign.” We’re … working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world,” Biden said. Mission accomplished.
At home, Biden is committed to seeing through his student loan debt relief plans. The administration sent out emails to borrowers Wednesday, letting them know that some—or in some cases—all of their debt will be canceled this fall when his executive order is fully implemented, and explaining how they can benefit. That’s relief for about 30 million borrowers, according to the White House. “Despite attempts led by Republican elected officials to block our efforts, we won’t stop fighting to provide relief to student loan borrowers, fix the broken student loan system, and help borrowers get out from under the burden of student debt,” Biden said.
Biden also developed a sweeping plan for combatting housing costs and out-of-control rent inflation. It’s an ambitious proposal, giving corporate landlords a choice: “either cap rent increases on existing units at 5% or risk losing current valuable federal tax breaks.” That last part would take Congress’s help. The action he can, and is, taking on his own is ordering agencies to inventory federal lands that can be repurposed “to build tens of thousands of affordable homes.”
The Biden Department of Housing and Urban Development just announced $325 million in Choice Neighborhoods grants, to “build over 6,500 units of new housing, support small businesses, build childcare centers and new parks, and will be used to leverage more than $2.65 billion in additional public and private investments in these neighborhoods.” Choice Neighborhoods is a HUD initiative to revitalize struggling neighborhoods into mixed-income housing.
In another family friendly action, Biden is fighting price gouging on families by airlines. He’s proposing a ban on the extra fees airlines charge parents to sit with their children. “The idea that parents ought to be seated next to their own children on a flight is common sense and also seems like something that ought to be standard practice,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters in announcing the action.
Biden is also looking to future-proof against the potential dangers of AI technology with an order directing every federal agency and department that could be affected to create standards and regulations overseeing AI—that’s from health care to housing to national security. “This landmark executive order is a testament of what we stand for: safety, security, trust, openness, American leadership, and the undeniable rights endowed by a creator that no creation can take away,” Biden said as he signed the order.
The Biden administration is also galvanized to step up the fight against fentanyl, with Biden on Wednesday directing all related federal agencies to coordinate actions to stop the flow of the drug. “Today, I will issue a National Security Memorandum directing every federal Department and Agency to do even more to stop the flow of narcotics—including fentanyl—into our country,” Biden said in a statement.
“It will increase intelligence collection on traffickers’ evolving tactics to smuggle narcotics into our country. And it will help our law enforcement personnel seize more deadly drugs before they reach our communities.”
Biden is not going to rest on his already impressive laurels, and he’s clearing the way for Harris and a future Democratic House and Senate—voters willing—to keep his vision for America alive.
Let’s thank Biden for his hard work by helping secure his legacy. Help put Kamala Harris in the White House!
