A look at Biden’s 1st 2 years in office as administration faces new challenges in 2023

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• Judy Woodruff:

  As 2022 comes to an end, and President Biden reaches the halfway point of his first term in office, an average 43 percent of Americans tell pollsters they approve of the job he's doing, this as the president prepares to face a new reality next week, a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

  Laura Barrón-López is here to walk through this White House's challenges and accomplishments so far and to look ahead to 2023.

  Laura, hello.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Hello.

• Judy Woodruff:

  You do cover the White House.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  I do.

• Judy Woodruff:

  So, you're familiar with a lot of this.

  So let's start by looking back. First two years, what is it generally seen were the accomplishments of this White House? And this is with Democratic control in the Congress.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  This was.

  These first two years was full Democratic control. And a number of the big-ticket items were voted along party lines, so just Democrats passing those for Biden. That includes, of course, the big COVID response funding at the beginning of his presidency and then, more recently this year, the Inflation Reduction Act, which was that big Democratic wish list bill that had climate change, action, prescription drug reform, as well as, of course, Affordable Care Act subsidies.

  But some of the things that Biden, President Biden loves to talk about the most himself are the bipartisan bills that he's been able to pass. He promised that he was going to be able to do that when he was running for the presidency. And so he has actually quite a long list of bipartisan legislation that he's enacted.

  And this is not an exhaustive list, but it includes investment in semiconductor manufacturing — that's the big China competitiveness bill — expansion of health care for veterans that were exposed to burn pits, the big bipartisan infrastructure bill that was passed with a number of — like, big negotiations that went on for a long time, gun safety, protections for same-sex marriage, Ukraine aid, and averted a rail strike.

  So all of these things were big bipartisan bills, and something that the president has really tried to champion and say, look, a lot of people doubted that I could work with Republicans, and yet he did during his first two years.

• Judy Woodruff:

  So, now we know what happened in the midterms is, the Democrats lost their majority in the House, narrow, but they lost it, and yet President Biden sounding positive about the way things are going and sounding positive about what he's going to do, whether he's going to run again.

  You're talking to people inside the White House. What are they saying?

• Laura Barrón-López:

  People inside the White House are very confident.

  Of course, they have this big pep in their step after the midterms. And they really do feel as though, even though they are entering this new arena with a divided Congress, that there could be more pressure on Republicans than on the administration. They're going to focus heavily on talking about what they got done and implementing a lot of those big bills we just went over.

  I was talking to a number of Democratic lawmakers today, including Senate Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii. And he told me that he really thinks Biden's success comes down to the fact that he allowed Congress to work by itself and to really just work amongst each other, and that President Biden didn't try to overstep, didn't try to strong-arm them too much, and really gave them room to negotiate.

  And they — Senator Schatz said that may be an older legislative tactic that clearly comes from President Biden's years in the Senate, but that they think that it works.

  And I was also talking to a White House ally today. And they said that, inside the White House, what they look at is that President Biden has been able to pass a lot of big-ticket items, bipartisan items, within his first two years, and that has been a key to success for presidents that have been reelected.

• Judy Woodruff:

  So now that they are about to face this Republican majority in the House, what is the White House doing to prepare, to get ready?

• Laura Barrón-López:

  So, there are going to be a lot of investigations when House Republicans take control.

  And they have talked about investigations into Hunter Biden. They have talked about investigations into Cabinet members, a number of Cabinet members.

  And Representative James Comer, who is prepared to take over a key committee, the Oversight Committee in the House, had this to say about investigations:

• Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

  In the 118th. Congress, this committee will evaluate the status of Joe Biden's relationship with his family's foreign partners and whether he is a president who is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars and influence.

  I want to be clear. This is an investigation of Joe Biden. And that's where the committee will focus in this next Congress.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  In addition to investigations into the president himself, there's talk of investigations into Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Homeland Security Department, as well as a number of other Cabinet officials.

  And the White House has been preparing by designating an entire team, hiring more legal counsel, hiring a specific communications team to handle this. They also expect to add to that team even more next year. And they also have tried to help federal agencies prepare, telling them that they need to beef up on staff in preparation for all of this oversight that is to come.

  And they in the future are also saying that they think that they're going to be able to draw more contrasts with — than they had in the past, because, again, this was full Democratic control. Now it's going to be a split Congress…

• Judy Woodruff:

  Right.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  … and that, as Republicans — now that they're in control of the House, can't just be an opposition party. They are going to feel — the White House thinks that they can draw more contrasts with House Republicans.

• Judy Woodruff:

  So, Laura, you talk to a lot of people.

  What is the sense of whether or not, given the changing majority in the Congress, of whether this president is going to be able to get any significant legislation passed for his next two years?

• Laura Barrón-López:

  So, first up, what I heard from a lot of the people that I talked to today was that whether or not they're going to be able to do anything about immigration.

  And what we know right now is that the Title 42 deportation policy that was started under Trump in response to the pandemic, which allows for the immediate deportation of migrants trying to seek asylum in the U.S., that that is going to be held in place into the new year, and then the Supreme Court is going to rule on that.

  The White House, in response to that, this week called on Congress, called on House Republicans to work with them to try to pass some comprehensive immigration reform. And so the Democrats that I spoke to today think that that could be a possibility.

  Of course, it's a bit of a long shot. But there's that. There's also potential more legislation to address competitiveness with China, whether it's in the labor market or manufacturing.

  And, again, the White House ally that I spoke to today said that, if you look at — they're looking at right now the number, the handful of Republicans, about six that voted for the infrastructure bill and about 12 that voted for the CHIPS bill, the semiconductor bill, the House Republicans that are remaining in the House, that those could be people that they could potentially work with in the new Congress.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Really, really interesting.

  Laura Barrón-López, you're going to be watching it all. Thanks very much.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Thank you.

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