REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden says he is “determined to get as much done as possible” in his final six months in the White House, as he tries to defeat a defining force that his lame-duck predecessors struggled to defeat: diminished relevance.
Biden hopes to keep the money tap open with hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding from a series of major legislative victories early in his term — signature policy victories that can be undone should Republican Donald Trump back to the White House.
He also desperately wants Israel and Hamas to agree to his proposed three phase ceasefire deal to bring home the remaining Israeli hostages and potentially pave the way for an end to the nine-month war in Gaza. That would require a significant degree of risk on the part of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leadership of Hamas.
Biden will also push to quickly fill vacancies in the federal judiciary — There are currently 48 vacancies — and make other appointments to federal agencies, but he will undoubtedly face opposition from Senate Republicans who want to prevent Biden from securing a victory at the end of his term.
In short, Biden is mobilizing his team to help him defy political gravity.
“I will still be fully engaged,” Biden said in a hoarse voice, who is recovering from COVID-19 at his beachfront home in Delaware, he promised his aides during a phone call Monday to his former campaign headquarters.
At the White House, staff await Biden’s expected back on tuesday after he had been recovering for the past six days.
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients on Monday urged his aides to keep their heads down and stay focused on the work ahead. He cited lowering housing and health care costs, implementing the administration’s key legislative accomplishments and protecting democracy as Biden’s top priorities for the administration’s final months.
The message is being repeated throughout the government. Minister of Foreign Affairs Antony Blinken told senior State Department officials that Biden wants his team to remain focused on carrying out his foreign policy. Blinken noted that there is “an eighth” of Biden’s term left, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Biden, who is expected meets Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu later this week, said in his call to campaign staff that he was focused on reaching a ceasefire agreement and expressed optimism that a deal was close. His standing with some in his liberal base has plummeted as the death toll in Gaza has risen. More than 39,000 According to the Hamas-led Health Ministry, people have died.
“I will be working very closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians to try to figure out how we can end the war in Gaza, create peace in the Middle East, and get all of those hostages home,” Biden told campaign officials. “I think we’re on the cusp of being able to do that.”
According to Aaron David Miller, a former US peace negotiator in the Middle East, a ceasefire appears closer than it has been during the conflict.
Netanyahu has faced pressure from far-right members of his coalition to oppose a deal that would prevent Israel from eliminating Hamas in Gaza. But the Israeli prime minister may have some wiggle room when Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, goes into a three-month recess on July 28. Far-right members of his coalition would be unable to hold a vote of no confidence during that period.
Biden’s leverage over Netanyahu, who will address Congress on Wednesday as part of his visit to Washington, remains limited. And ramping up rhetorical pressure on Netanyahu, who wants to demonstrate to an Israeli audience that he remains popular on Capitol Hill and can withstand any pressure from the White House, is dangerous, Miller said.
“You could get a ceasefire regardless of what Biden does or doesn’t do,” added Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Biden and Kamala Harris have to be careful about how Republicans can interpret, exploit and use anything that is seen as pressure on Israel.”
Presidents who have failed to play by the rules have used the final days of their presidencies to criticize major policies.
In 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law a $700 billion financial services industry stimulus bill, weeks before Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain. Bush also signed more than $17 billion into the U.S. auto industry in the final weeks of his presidency, as the economy tanked.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton initiated negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David, Maryland, in a last-ditch — and ultimately failed — attempt to bring peace to the Middle East at the end of his presidency.
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s efforts to end the Vietnam War in the final months of his presidency failed in 1968. Historians have pointed to evidence that Democrat Johnson’s successor, Republican Richard Nixon, secretly tried to slow the efforts out of fear that a deal could harm his election chances.
Foreign policy, particularly helping to broker a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, may be Biden’s best hope for a final, legacy-defining moment.
“Between Ukraine and Gaza, Biden’s national security team is overstretched. They have more than enough on their plate,” said Gordon Gray, a former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia who is now a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. “Realistically, there may not be enough time for major breakthroughs.”
William Howell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said that while lame duck status puts limitations on the presidency, it doesn’t necessarily make someone inactive.
Howell said Biden, who has pledged to support Harris’ bid for the White House, could potentially emerge as a driving force on the campaign trail now that he has bowed to pressure from wealthy donors who threatened to withhold his money if he did not leave the campaign.
“His most important task over the next few months is to create the conditions for Kamala Harris to be successful,” Howell said.
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Associated Press reporter Chris Megerian in Wilmington, Delaware, and Seung Min Kim, Matthew Lee and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.