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Reagan Reese(Daily Caller)
In his final days as president, Joe Biden has made a series of moves that set the Trump administration up for a tougher transition and first 100 days in office.
From approving more student debt relief to trying to auction off part of the border wall, there has been a flurry of last-minute maneuvers.
President-elect Donald Trump first voiced his frustration with Biden and his administration while appearing on the Hugh Hewitt show Jan. 6.
“They talk about a transition, they’re always saying they want to have a smooth transition of party to party, of government. Well, they’re making it really difficult. They’re throwing everything they can in the way, they’re giving out trillions of dollars in nonsense, in Green New Deal crap, that isn’t worth a damn thing,” an irritated Trump told Hewitt. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Biden-Harris Admin Rapidly ‘Trump-Proofing’ DOJ As Election Looms)
Trump initially called out Biden’s actions during the transition as the president moved to ban future offshore oil and gas activity across 625 million acres of the outer continental shelf. That area alone is larger than the amount of land included in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The action, which incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called disgraceful, will shut down future drilling along the East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, 250 million acres along the West Coast and 44 million acres of the Bering Sea along the Alaskan Coast.
“I see it just came over that Biden has banned all oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of US coastal territory. It’s just ridiculous, I’ll un-ban it immediately, I have the right to un-ban it immediately. What’s he doing? Why is he doing it?” Trump said when appearing on the Hugh Hewitt show. “You know we have something that nobody else has it been. Nobody has to the extent we have it, and it’ll be more by the time we finish, because I’ll be able to expand.”
After Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election, Democratic lawmakers petitioned to the president to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) extensions before Trump takes office and cracks down on illegal immigration.
With ten days left, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that more than 900,000 beneficiaries of TPS will be allowed to register for an 18-month extension. The move added TPS extensions for roughly 600,000 Venezuelans living in the country.
Biden took other actions before passing the border crisis issue off to Trump. In December, the president’s administration began auctioning off parts of the border wall and its materials before Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton obtained a court order stopping the practice.
The president also decided to dish out one last payment to Ukraine, giving them $500 million worth of aid in his final days in office. As part of the aid, Ukraine will receive air defense missiles, gear to help the country use F-16 jets and air-to-ground armaments. (RELATED: Biden Caves, Allows Ukraine To Use US Missiles For Long-Range Strikes Inside Russia)
On Jan. 6, the president also made some consequential foreign policy decisions as his administration decided to transfer 11 Yemeni detainees to Oman, NPR reported. Then, on Tuesday, Biden decided to move Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism because the country had not provided aid to a terrorist organization for the last six months and provided no indication that it would sponsor terrorism.
Members of the president’s own party decried the decision.
“This is Joe Biden literally sinking the Democratic Party in the state of Florida. Big time,” Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz told Axios. “Just as we try to patch the hole in the boat, Biden punches another hole in it. Florida is a red state, and Biden just waved the white flag of surrender.”
The president also used the final days of his administration to relieve more student debt for 150,000 Americans. Despite a Supreme Court decision striking down similar forgiveness in 2023, Biden and his administration have now forgiven a combined $183.6 billion in student loan debt accumulated by more than 5 million borrowers.
“Four years ago, President Biden made a promise to fix a broken student loan system. Today, life-changing student debt relief is possible for more than five million borrowers—more than any other administration in history,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
Trump will also have an uphill battle when trying to get all federal workers back to in-person work after the Social Security Administration and its union said they would allow employees to continue teleworking into 2029.
“It was like a gift to a union, and we’re going to obviously be in court to stop it,” Trump said in a December press conference. “If people don’t come back to work, come back into the office, they’re going to be dismissed.”
