What can we expect from Biden's lame-duck denouement?

Free from the constraints of a contentious reelection campaign, how will President Biden spend his final five months in office?

Illustration of Joe Biden standing alongside arrow signs
Joe Biden is now in a period in which the power of his presidency is perceived as diminishing while his eventual successor's inauguration draws nearer
(Image credit: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Getty Images)

This week, President Joe Biden rolled out a broad multi-agency initiative to help "crack down on all the ways that corporations — through excessive paperwork, hold times, and general aggravation — add unnecessary headaches and hassles to people's days and degrade their quality of life." In addition to its slate of proposed actions, the project, dubbed "Time Is Money," includes a call for Americans to "share their ideas for how federal action can give them their time back." It's a hint, perhaps, as to how Biden and his team plan to refocus their remaining in office after freeing themselves from the constraints of a now-abandoned reelection campaign. 

With five months left in office, Biden is now firmly in his lame-duck era: a period of planned obsolescence in which the power of his presidency is perceived as diminishing while his eventual successor's inauguration draws nearer. At the same time, Biden is now in a position to focus solely on governing without the distractions and hedging that come with running a national campaign for reelection. The president sits at a peculiar nexus that sees him politically weakened and empowered at the same time. As the clock counts down to election day and inauguration day after that, what can we expect from Biden in this final phase of his presidency? 

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Rafi Schwartz, The Week US

Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.