Busy Biden’s Final Weeks of Executive Orders and Actions Leave Trump With Much To Undo Once He Takes the Oath

President Biden took to the Oval Office last week to deliver his farewell address to the nation and declared, “I believe the America of our dreams is always closer than we think, and it’s up to us to make our dreams come true.”Some of Mr. Biden’s final acts in office aren’t making one person’s dreams come true, those of President-elect Trump.“Biden is doing everything possible to make the TRANSITION as difficult as possible, from Lawfare such as has never been seen before, to costly and ridiculous Executive Orders on the Green New Scam and other money wasting Hoaxes,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Fear not, these ‘Orders’ will all be terminated shortly, and we will become a Nation of Common Sense and Strength. MAGA!!!”Mr. Biden has used executive orders and the less formal executive actions as he readies for the moving vans to pull up to the White House after he leaves office Monday. In one of the biggest moves, the Biden administration last week announced it would extend the temporary legal status of nearly 1 million immigrants from Venezuela, El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine. That move would limit Trump’s ability to deport them for the first 18 months of his presidency, but it likely won’t last.Trump has vowed to execute his own a slew of executive orders when he takes office, and Mr. Biden’s move can be rescinded by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, with a 60-day notice. During his first term, Trump moved to terminate some parts of TPS, which was fought in the courts by the American Civil Liberties Union. Trump’s action was eventually upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In December, Mr. Biden announced nearly $2.5 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine. The Biden administration has given Ukraine more than $65 billion in aid since the war began in late February 2022, CNN reported. “At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. Trump and his allies have criticized aid to Ukraine and he has said he wants the war to end quickly.And ten days before Mr. Biden’s departure, the administration expanded sanctions on Moscow’s energy sector, hitting two major Russian oil producers and nearly 200 vessels that move Russian oil. “Some will ask why we waited for the end of the Administration to introduce sanctions on Russian oil,” the White House said in a statement. “The answer is this: for sanctions to be successful, they must be sustainable.”In another move that occurred after he lost the election, Mr. Biden commuted death-row sentences and granted clemency to a record number of prisoners. Just before Christmas, Mr. Biden commuted the sentences of 37 death row inmates, citing his conscience as a force behind the decision — even though he left the death sentences intact for three men charged with hate-motivated mass shootings and terrorism.“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Mr. Biden said. Yet he targeted Trump directly, saying, “in good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”Trump transition spokesman Steven Cheung ripped the commutations. “These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones,” Mr. Cheung wrote. “President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people.”Mr. Biden on Friday also commuted the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, making him the president who has commuted more individual sentences than any other. And Mr. Biden recently approved yet another batch of student loan relief, wiping away the debt of another 150,000 borrowers to bring his total in four years to 5 million. The total cost to the American people has been more than $183 billion throughout his presidency, even though the Supreme Court struck down a wider giveaway plan in 2023.“Since Day One of my Administration, I promised to ensure higher-education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity, and I’m proud to say we have forgiven more student loan debt than any other administration in history,” the president said in a statement.Trump has not been a fan of the policy. In November, Politico reported that “Trump transition advisers and outside allies have been discussing ways to quickly unwind the various Biden-era initiatives that offered new or easier paths to loan forgiveness for borrowers, according to two people familiar with the discussions.”Early this year, Mr. Biden also issued a ban on new offshore oil and natural gas drilling in most American coastal waters. The order covers more than 600 million acres of federal waters, including the American East coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Coast. “My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.For his part, Trump has pledged to reopen drilling, possibly in his own executive order on the first day he takes office. And he said during a January 7 press conference at Mar-a-Lago that he will immediately reverse Mr. Biden’s order.Further, the Biden administration announced last week that it will remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list. A senior administration official told CNN that an “assessment has been completed, and we do not have information that supports Cuba’s (terrorism) designation.”Trump’s Secretary of State during his first term, Mike Pompeo, designated Cuba as a state terror sponsor in January 2021, just days before the president left office. In a statement he said the communist nation off the coast of America was “providing support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists.” Mr. Biden’s move is expected to be swiftly rescinded by Trump.

Busy Biden’s Final Weeks of Executive Orders and Actions Leave Trump With Much To Undo Once He Takes the Oath

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