NEW: His staff seems "eager to engage." His appointments reflect a "coalition" style of governance. And his policies call for big federal $ to help those struggling most. Progressives size up ⁦@POTUS⁩ - by ⁦@ngaudiano⁩ & ⁦@WARojasbusinessinsider.com/biden-sanders-…
Progressives have found a lot to like about President Joe Biden's first 100 days. That's a welcome surprise for them and for the White House, considering the preelection warnings from the left of an intraparty "World War III" if Democrats could just knock Trump out of power.
Liberals are praising Biden, long known as a moderate, saying he's taken "bold" and "necessary" action on the pandemic. They say he's going bigger than Obama on stimulating the US economy, appointing progressives to key administration jobs, and being open to their ideas overall.
They still have big gripes on the climate emergency, as evidenced by a public-relations stunt last week outside the White House involving piles of cow manure. And they're none too thrilled about Biden's performance in raising the minimum wage.
At least some prominent progressives told @thisisinsider they were willing to cut Biden some slack. “All of us miss the mark every day," Sen. Bernie Sanders said during an interview on Capitol Hill — pausing for a beat to let the self-deprecating quip sink in.
Biden gets an "A minus" so far, said Rep. Mark Pocan, who reminded Insider that he'd campaigned for Sanders during the 2020 primaries. Pocan pinned his high grade on Biden's willingness to "do things that are maybe not progressive or conservative but absolutely necessary."
Pocan pointed to things "like getting vaccines in arms and rebuilding the government infrastructure after the worst presidential administration in probably our nation's history."
Cenk Uygur, a progressive who started "The Young Turks" talk show, said Biden didn't deserve credit because he lost on a $15 minimum wage. He said he expected the admin to "butcher" its own infrastructure plan. Biden has acknowledged he's "prepared to compromise" on the package.
Progressives are "now given access, and they're so used to being outcasts that even the access is kind of making them drunk on the Biden administration," Uygur said.
"And I don't think they're seeing straight. He's barely given us anything, and the future is going to be abysmal.”
Biden's standing with progressives is remarkable, given the friction that followed the 2016 Democratic presidential primary between Sanders and Hillary Clinton, who ultimately lost to Trump.
In 2019, Biden described his own politics as "center left." Progressives say his "bold" stances now are a function of the party's leftward shift and a set of crises coming out of the Trump era that demand big solutions.
“He finds himself, the base of the party, in a very different place than other past Democratic presidents did, so he has a lot more freedom to do bigger things," Jeff Weaver, Sanders' 2016 campaign manager, said.
Check out the full story full of progressive voices sizing up the first 100 days of Biden with a subscription to @thisisinsider - Click from here to sign up: businessinsider.com/biden-sanders-…

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More from @dsamuelsohn

24 Apr
NEW: Meet Rep. Peter Meijer, a millennial GOP congressman who's intro to Congress was a vote to impeach Trump. Then he had to buy a flak jacket. A GREAT long-read from @adamwren who spent time in Grand Rapids, Mich. with the 33 yo supermarket scion. ($) businessinsider.com/peter-meijer-t…
Meijer got elected in November to Gerald Ford's old House seat. He's since earned the vitriol of Trumpland as one of the 10 Republican members of Congress to condemn the president of the United States for his role in fomenting the tragic events of January 6.
Meijer's family (of the Midwestern supermarket chain) is worth $12.6 billion, according to Forbes, so he is better-inoculated from Trumpist ire than the average GOP freshman.
Read 15 tweets
23 Apr
NEW: In 2014, long before becoming the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation, Matt Gaetz pushed Florida to enact what he called a "scorched earth" policy toward sexual predators. by @rbravender ($) @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/matt-gaetz-sex…
Gaetz, then 31 years old, served as chair of the Florida House of Representatives' Criminal Justice subcommittee. He cosponsored bills that increased the mandatory prison time for convicted sexual offenders, calling it some of the most important work his subcommittee would do.
Now that Gaetz himself is under fed investigation, his record is getting renewed attention. Insider watched 11+ hours of archived hearings in the Florida House to understand how the up-and-coming pol talked about issues like sentencing sex offenders & sex trafficking.
Read 13 tweets
23 Apr
SCOOP: Brian Netter, a former clerk for SCOTUS Justice Stephen Breyer, has stepped down as a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown to become a top official in DOJ's civil division, per 2 people familiar with his move. by @cryanbarber ($) @thisisinsider
businessinsider.com/doj-lawyer-wom…
Netter is corporate lawyer who recently represented the World Cup-winning women's national team in an equal pay case against US Soccer. He'll have a top role at Justice overseeing the defense of Biden administration policies in court.
Court challenges have already started. On Thursday, a group launched by ex-Trump WH aide Stephen Miller joined Texas's AG in a case accusing the Biden admin of exposing Americans to COVID infections by allowing migrants who cross the US-Mexico border to be released into the US.
Read 4 tweets
23 Apr
"I think the truth is Garland wants an investigation of Trump like he wants a hole in the head. It's the last thing he wants as attorney general," one former top Justice Department official told Insider. ($) @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/biden-trump-ju…
In interviews, former Justice Department officials said the department would have to balance the strength of any case charging Trump against the perception, however fair, that the prosecution was politically motivated.
For the department to bring a case, they said the evidence against Trump would need to be overwhelming to render a decision not to prosecute — based strictly on his status as a former president — untenable.
Read 7 tweets
23 Apr
NEW: DOJ appears to be taking a backseat to state & local investigators as they pursue investigations competing for the distinction of being the first to turn former President Trump into a criminal defendant. by @cryanbarber & @WARojas ($) @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/biden-trump-ju…
As Merrick Garland has settled in as attorney general, there have been no public signals of his department pursuing Trump. At the same time, state and local prosecutors in NY & Georgia have only ramped up their scrutiny of Trump as a businessman and his actions as president.
"I think the truth is Garland wants an investigation of Trump like he wants a hole in the head. It's the last thing he wants as attorney general," one former top Justice Department official told Insider.
Read 14 tweets
22 Apr
NEW: Marjorie Taylor Greene is still trolling a congressional colleague — the mother of a transgender daughter — with an anti-trans poster from across their Capitol Hill hallway by @TinaSfon ($) @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylo…
Rep. Marie Newman (D-ILL) says she hasn't spoken with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) since their initial dust up. Nor has her staff spoken with Greene's staffers about the issue, to Newman's knowledge.
"I'm not surprised at [Greene's] behavior at all because I think she's going to continue to display the disrespectful behavior. She always has," Newman told @thisisinsider on Wednesday.
Read 4 tweets

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