He will virtually visit a vaccination center while impeachment petitions are filed on Monday. He will make his first visit to the Pentagon when the trial is underway. He is expected at the National Institutes of Health later in the week. And he will work over the phone to garner support for his broad Covid-19 relief plan among mayors and governors – a tacit acknowledgment that Republican support in the concerned Senate can be increasingly elusive.
“The president himself would say that we keep him very busy, and he has a busy schedule this week,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday, adding, “I think it’s clear from the schedule and the intent do not spend too much time watching the process, if there is time. “
Confronting Trump’s role in the insurgency attempt last month has always been set to consume at least part of Biden’s opening days. With absolution almost certain, White House officials hope the trial will be swift and not distract from the urgent imperative to fight the coronavirus pandemic or confirm those nominated to Biden’s office.
In the meantime, Biden will proceed as normal – or as normal as he can be for a president whose predecessor is on trial for inciting a riot in the hope of clinging to power.
“Your focus will be to keep the pandemic in check, engaging with government officials who are at the heart and soul of the government and engaging with a number of leaders to get the project approved,” said a White House official.
In a brief exchange of words with reporters on Monday morning, after returning to the White House after a weekend in Delaware, Biden again yielded to the Senate when asked about Trump’s political fate.
“Look, he got an offer to testify. He decided not to. We are going to let the Senate do this,” said Biden before rushing to the Oval Office, where he was supposed to have a mid-morning intelligence meeting next to the deputy. President Kamala Harris.
Covid-19 vs. Relief Plan impeachment
Biden never had much of an appetite for a second impeachment trial, particularly one that interrupts his nominee’s confirmation to the Cabinet and delays the approval of his Covid-19 bill. But advisers say he came to the calculation, weeks ago, that trying to persuade Democrats in the House to stop impeaching Trump would not only be unsuccessful, it could also further undermine his agenda: divide his party.
“Trump is still the best thing to unify Democrats,” said a senior Biden adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the White House’s internal deliberations. “We cannot go any further without having the Senate trial.”
With the House in recess for the next two weeks, Biden is trying to keep the momentum alive for his $ 1.9 trillion economic package. He will continue to sell the plan, focusing on mayors, governors and business leaders, even while the Senate is conducting a trial.
The White House worked closely with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer on scheduling impeachment procedures, urging him to keep things moving as quickly as possible. Still, the trial is almost certain to last until the next week after one of Trump’s lawyers has called for suspension of proceedings to observe Saturday on Friday and Saturday night.
Aides acknowledge that the next two weeks in the nation’s capital will almost certainly be dominated once again by Trump, but believe that outside Washington there will be an opportunity for the president and vice president to present their case on the need for relief legislation. .
For his part, advisers say, Biden has no intention of offering his assessment of whether Trump should be sentenced. The president does not consider it necessary or productive to present his personal vision, fearing that it will further complicate his search for unity.
“Look, I ran like hell to beat him because I thought he was not fit to be president,” Biden told CBS News in his interview that aired before the Super Bowl. “I’m not in the Senate right now. I’m going to let the Senate make that decision.”
For some of Biden’s aides, it is not an unknown sensation to have his boss excluded by Trump. The underlying dynamics of last year’s presidential campaign was largely that of Trump monopolizing attention through his politically damaging behavior as Biden continued with the events altered by the pandemic, content to largely relinquish the spotlight for his rival’s self-destruction .
Now, however, the fate of Biden’s debut legislative achievement and the foundation of his presidential agenda lies in not allowing Trump to be distracted from his job in office.
The impeachment trial, which will begin on Tuesday, interrupts what had been a steady rhythm of announcements and executive actions, each with a daily theme, which Biden revealed during his first weeks in office. The calendar was organized long before his inauguration.
Counterprogramming
Barred from traveling because of the pandemic – except for his trip home to Wilmington – Biden will take a virtual tour on Monday afternoon for a vaccination site built inside State Farm Stadium in Arizona, which normally hosts the Arizona Cardinals and the Football Fiesta Colelge Bowl.
He is expected to receive instructions from the Pentagon and NIH later in the week, probably during the hours when the trial is underway. Federal health officials also planned to inform reporters and the White House continued with its daily instructions, a sign that the impeachment trial would not hinder normal business.
As AssSenators prepared to act as jurors in the impeachment trial, the other side of the Capitol was moving forward with Covid-19 relief. House committees were correcting the legislation during this week’s sessions, with the aim of finalizing their legislative text on Friday.
The goal is that all panels pass their parts and send it to the Budget Committee by February 16, where the larger project can be packaged together, approved and sent to the plenary the following week. Biden expects the bill to pass in mid-March, when federal unemployment insurance will expire. Any delay caused by the impeachment trial could complicate the schedule, although officials have long insisted that the Senate is able to do both at the same time.
“The Senate will do all three things next week. We will fulfill our constitutional responsibility and hold a trial. It will not last long. We will advance the nominees and continue to advance Covid relief legislation. The Senate can do all these things, and we we’ll do it, “Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said on” Fox News Sunday “.
A multi-day Senate impeachment trial has been a reality for the Biden government since before its formal start, although the timing and parameters of the process remained unclear in its early days.
White House officials insisted that it was up to the Senate to determine when the trial would take place, although Biden himself had revealed offhand that he would prefer some of his urgent affairs before the House was completed before that.
“The more time we have to start working and face these crises, the better,” he said two days after taking office.