How The Biden Admin Is Trying To Preempt Trump Admin Plans
The Biden-Harris Admin has been working for months to try and cement their legislative accomplishments, protect civil servants, and guard against other key elements of Trump’s second-term agenda.
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It’s easy to rile people up. It’s easy to farm for engagement by stoking conspiracy theories. I won’t be doing that. I’ll be doing my best to keep a level head and present people with a clear-eyed analysis of what just happened, what’s to come, and what can realistically be done about it. That’s what people need right now. And that’s what I’m going to do in this newsletter in the coming years.
While we’re all still processing the 2024 election results, diagnosing why Trump won, and figuring out what we can do to prepare for a future Trump Administration, I think it’s important to write about what’s going on behind the scenes in the Biden-Harris Administration right now. While some may think they’re doing nothing, Biden and his team are making some moves to preempt the future Trump Administration’s actions.
I’ve written over 40 articles on Project 2025, Trump’s Agenda 47, and what we can expect from a second Trump term. As the Trump Transition team moves forward and we have more information on Trump’s Cabinet appointees, I’ll write more articles about what we can expect Trump’s first days in office to look like.
In this piece, I’m focusing on how the Biden-Harris Administration is preparing for a second Trump term and how they’re attempting to cement their legislative accomplishments, protect civil servants, and guard against other key elements of Trump’s second term agenda.
On Wednesday, President Biden is scheduled to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House. But while he’s meeting with Trump, Biden’s Administration officials will be hard at work seeking to safeguard his legacy. It’s an effort that has been ongoing for months.
Protecting Civil Servants From Trump’s Planned Purge
Donald Trump, the Heritage Foundation, and other right-wing organizations want to avoid what happened in 2016 when Republicans weren’t fully prepared for Trump’s win. Trump blames the chaos of his first term not on himself but on career civil servants who kept the government running and pushed back on some of his illegal maneuvers.
Trump has for years now been talking about how he wants to “dismantle the Administrative State” or “dismantle the Deep State,” as Trump described it in his Agenda 47 platform. They now have a plan to do that. Both Trump’s plan and Project 2025 call for the purging of federal workers through the reinstatement of “Schedule F.”
In October 2020, during the final months of his presidency, Trump signed a “Schedule F” executive order that reclassified tens of thousands of federal workers as “at-will” employees, making them easier to fire for no cause. Non-partisan federal workers usually have civil service protections that prevent them from being directly fired by the President. This protection prevented Trump from purging vast swaths of federal workers who, at times, questioned or refused to implement some of his often illegal proposals.
Upon taking office, President Biden immediately rescinded Trump’s Schedule F executive order. President-elect Trump plans to reissue that executive order and begin his purge as soon as he re-enters office.
The next part of the plan after the purge of tens of thousands, more than 50,000 workers have been discussed, is to replace them with loyalists. Project 2025 provides a detailed blueprint for rapidly implementing this purge. This is why they’ve created their database of conservatives eager to serve in the federal government. Think of it as a Republican LinkedIn. They’ve been recruiting and training thousands of right-wing professionals, so they’re ready to be installed on day one. I spoke about this training of loyalists in my recent appearance on MSNBC and about the impact of this potential purge in a conversation with Rep. Jared Huffman (R-CA).
However, given the public nature of the Project 2025 playbook, the Biden-Harris Administration saw these plans and prepared accordingly. Trump’s plan to do this on “day one” just got more difficult.
In April of this year, President Biden announced the finalization of a new rule to protect 2.2 million civil servants from political firings. The rule, issued by Biden’s Office of Personnel Management, had been in the works since September 2023 and was a direct response to Project 2025’s proposed plans to purge civil servants and Trump’s endorsement of the plan.
CNN published more details about the rule in an article at the time of its finalization:
The rule finalized Thursday helps “safeguard federal employees from political firings” and “ensures that they are not being hired based on their political affiliations, but on merit and expertise,” said Bitsy Skerry, regulatory policy associate for the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Public Citizen.
It strengthens and clarifies existing rights for career civil servants by making clear that civil service protections cannot be taken away from employees unless they give them up voluntarily. And it makes it harder to shift jobs into a status where protections could be stripped away.
Given the fact this rule change went through the regulatory process, it can’t be as easily immediately reversed with one executive order. The change would have to go through another regulatory process to reverse Biden’s rule before a new one could be implemented, a Biden official told CNN. It’s a process that could take months. So, while this doesn’t prevent the purging of civil servants, it certainly could delay it.
Aside from the regulatory process delays, Trump’s Schedule F executive order will likely be challenged in court, but even if blocked, those challenges could be escalated to the Supreme Court. The purge will likely ultimately take place unless the Supreme Court were to step in and block it. Given the arguments supported by the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority in their immunity ruling, they appear to support the unitary executive theory that would empower Trump to make these changes unilaterally.
We’ll see how all this plays out, but it’s clear that Biden’s effort will throw a wrench in Trump’s plan for an immediate purge, although perhaps only temporarily.
Racing To Issue Money From Legislative Achievements
While they don’t get enough credit for it, the Biden-Harris Administration has an objectively impressive list of legislative accomplishments. Now, they’re racing to deliver as much of the unallocated funds as possible before Trump and Republicans potentially freeze or roll back those pieces of legislation.
The Biden-Harris Administration passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, and the $750 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which includes the largest climate investment in American history.
While the American Rescue Plan has issued its funds, these other laws still have a lot of money left to be allocated.
White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian told CNN the Biden-Harris Administration is “really heads down” trying to “get this money out the door, get agreements signed and get these benefits to the American people. We have had that urgency since the day these bills have passed because we know the power of this agenda and the power of the transformational work that is happening as we implement each piece of legislation.”
CNN also published a breakdown of these costs and what’s remaining:
“The Biden administration has announced $642.1 billion in total from those three pieces of legislation — which represents 92% of the funding available to spend by the end of the fiscal year 2024, a White House official said.
That has included $504.1 billion for infrastructure, making up 96% of the funding available from the infrastructure law. About $288 billion won’t be available until fiscal year 2025 or later. That formula funding goes to states for work on roads, bridges and clean water programs.
About $103 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding, which makes up 92% of the law’s total, has been announced as of late October. That money can be used for things such as clean energy rebates, helping coastal communities prepare for rising seas, and slashing pollution from oil and gas operations. There is also $14.8 billion for the law after fiscal year 2025.”
When it comes to the CHIPS and Science Act, the administration is also rushing to allocate these funds:
“Through the CHIPS Act, the Commerce Department has $39 billion available for federal subsidies for companies as they aim to boost semiconductor chip manufacturing in the US, along with $11 billion in research and development funding.
The department has allocated the vast majority of the federal incentives — about $36 billion — and plans to announce the rest by the end of the year, a White House official said. Additional CHIPS announcements could come as soon as this week, an administration official said.”
This comes as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) has signaled that Republicans will try to repeal parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically targeting climate initiatives. Speaker Johnson also said Republicans would try to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act before later walking that statement back.
Needless to say, ensuring these legislative achievements reach their fullest implementation possible before the Trump Administration enters office is a worthy endeavor.
Safeguarding Some Climate Change Progress
There isn’t much President Biden can do to prevent President-elect Trump from rolling back most of his environmental regulations as Trump did to Obama’s regulations in his first term. Biden also can’t prevent Trump from leaving the Paris Climate Agreement. However, the Biden-Harris Administration can get ahead of a partial repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act by continuing to issue funds.
The New York Times has some additional reporting on how this fund allocation is being expedited:
“We have a long to-do list,” John Podesta said. He said the administration had issued $98 billion in climate and clean energy grants in the fiscal year that ended in September, which was 88 percent of the funding available for that year. The rest will be delivered before Mr. Biden leaves office, he said.
Separately, the E.P.A. intends to obligate all of the $5 billion that Congress gave it for a Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, which goes to states, tribes and local governments that submit plans for reducing emissions. So far, 45 states have applied, with Florida, Kentucky, Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming declining to participate.
The Biden-Harris Administration has also accelerated federal permitting processes to advance clean energy projects, aiming to entrench these initiatives before potential policy reversals from Trump and the Republicans.
Unfortunately, climate change progress is one of the grimmer policy areas where there will be a lot of unchecked regression.
Last-Minute Aid To Ukraine
While there has been talk within the Biden-Harris Administration of how to “Trump-proof” their foreign policy, this is another area where Trump will have wide latitude to undo everything Biden has done. Trump will likely once again seek to weaken the NATO alliance, appease dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin, and end aid to Ukraine.
The Biden-Harris Administration is seeking to rush the remaining $6 Billion in approved aid to Ukraine before Trump enters office as fear grows over Trump’s likely ending of that aid. But there are challenges here that complicate the timely delivery of that aid. Politico reports:
“The plan, described by two administration officials who were granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, is the only option the White House has to keep sending equipment to Ukraine to fight off continued Russian offensives. But the problems are immense. It normally takes months for munitions and equipment to get to Ukraine after an aid package is announced, so anything rolled out in the coming weeks would likely not fully arrive until well into the Trump administration, and the next commander in chief could halt the shipments before they’re on the ground.”
How President-elect Trump approaches the Russia-Ukraine war will be an early challenge in his administration, especially as North Korean troops continue to be deployed alongside Russian troops.
When it comes to judicial appointments, money already deployed, and key components of legislation already implemented, Trump can’t touch that part of Biden’s legacy. But when it comes to Trump’s plans pertaining to mass deportations, foreign policy, reshaping the federal government, and surrounding himself with loyalists, there is little Biden can do to prevent that.
That will be on us, the voters, and whatever version of the Democratic Party rises from this loss.
Another day, another dollar. Or a few billion dollars actually. Thank you for providing some positive notes, Ahmed. I’m glad to hear that attempts are being made to mitigate this disaster.
Oh my goodness this article makes me feel so much better!! Thank you so much for sharing this and your hard work in investigating this.