100 Days in Office: Biden Beats Trump

Joe Biden has been the U.S. president for almost 100 days after taking office on January 20, 2021. Having been nicknamed Sleepy Joe during the election campaign by incumbent President Donald Trump, Biden has woken up to the challenges of the presidency only in the eyes of half of Americans. Yet, he is beating the score of former adversary Trump, who only had an approval rating of 42 percent after 100 days in office.

What has Biden accomplished since taking office three months ago? With regards to the coronavirus pandemic, Biden promised "that within 100 days we can change the course of the disease and change life in America for the better." Indeed, few countries’ vaccination campaigns have been as successful as the U.S.’, even though Biden arguable took a page out of Trump’s “America First” playbook by heavily incentivizing U.S. manufacturers to sell vaccine production domestically with the help of the Defense Production Act.

In his first 100 days in office, Biden also rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement and the WHO, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and border wall projects, walked back Trump era immigration curbs, re-tightened environmental and anti-discriminatory legislation and passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package. He also proposed two more giant spending bills, the $2.3 trillion jobs and infrastructure package and the $1.9 trillion American Families Plan, which includes provisions for free community college and two years of free, universal pre-school. Yet, his approval rating at this point remains rather low compared with former presidents before Trump. At the 100-day mark, Barack Obama enjoyed an approval rating of 69 percent, Th while Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush even had approval ratings upwards of 70 percent.