Biden's first 100 days in office to be met with 'heavy loads on his back': Karl Rove
Some of Biden’s pledges, including raising taxes and changing immigration, require legislation, Karl Rove said
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove warned on Wednesday that President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office will be met with “heavy loads on his back.”
Rove made the comments on “Varney & Co.” shortly before Biden was scheduled to take the oath of office. He noted that Biden will be able to “get some” stuff done through executive orders, “but not a lot,” explaining that many things he has been talking about, including raising taxes and changing immigration policies, require legislation.
Biden has repeatedly pledged to roll back Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which slashed the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% and the individual tax rate to 37%.
Biden wants to restore the corporate tax rate to 28% and raise the top income rate to 39.6% -- with a caveat that taxes won't rise on any American earning less than $400,000.
Biden has also pledged to place a 100-day moratorium on deportations – one of several items on his agenda that will reverse some of Trump’s signature policies.
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Rove explained the “heavy loads” he believes Biden is coming into office with, noting that Biden did not run “a traditional campaign in which he laid out an agenda in which there were controversies about that agenda, that questions were asked [and] he defended it.”
“He was basically making the argument Donald Trump has bungled COVID and I’ll be a normal president,” Rove continued, adding that “all the rest of this stuff was not part and parcel of every day of the campaign.”
“So he’s not got a mandate from the American people,” Rove went on to explain. “They voted for him because he was not Donald Trump and because he said I’ll do better on COVID. That’s it.”
He then explained the second “heavy load” noting that “in the opening days of your term it is hard to get several things done, let alone the big exhaustive list that he’s talking about, particularly when some of them are big surprises.”
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Rove brought up Biden’s immigration bill as an example.
“How often did he talk about this immigration bill during the campaign and now suddenly it’s the first thing he sends to Capitol Hill,” Rove said.
A radical immigration overhaul to be proposed this week by President Biden would include a path to citizenship that could see millions of illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens in just eight years.
Vice President Kamala Harris told Univision last week that the immigration bill would be "first order of business" and will be about "creating a pathway for people to earn citizenship." She said that pathway would be eight years long.
The Washington Post reported Monday that the bill, to be unveiled on Inauguration Day, would put illegal immigrants into protected status and a five-year pathway to a green card. If they meet certain conditions, such as payment of taxes and a background check, they could then be put on a three-year pathway to citizenship. Some estimates put the population of illegal immigrants at around 12 million as of 2015, other estimates are higher.
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A pathway to citizenship -- not just legal status -- for illegal immigrants has been a top agenda item for liberals and immigration activists for decades and now -- with Democratic control of the White House, House and Senate -- that goal could be in sight.
Rove also addressed the economy on Wednesday, noting that President Biden will be successful on that front if he is able to curb the coronavirus pandemic.
“If he does well on COVID, the economy is going to snap back,” Rove said. “We’re going to see some real growth there.”
Rove also pointed out that Biden’s proposed tax increases “is not going to be good for the economy.”
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“It’s going to tax capital. It’s going to tax jobs. It’s going to tax incomes,” he noted. “All of those things are going to have adverse reactions.”
“The question is going to be: Do the Republicans in the Senate keep him [Biden] from passing the really bad aspects of his economic plan and save him from himself? And that’s a big question,” Rove added.
Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.