A Biden administration move that would complicate Donald Trump's agenda on issues involving transgender athletes and student debt cancellation is drawing fresh scrutiny from incoming White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
President Joe Biden is pulling back on efforts he’s undertaken to provide protections for transgender student-athletes and to erase student loan debt for more than 38 Americans, The Associated Press reported. That includes the White House scrapping unfinished rules across multiple agencies if they cannot be finalized in enough time before Trump enters the White House, the publication added.
It is the first step to prevent Trump – and his incoming administration – from rewriting the rules to achieve the president-elect’s own vastly different agenda, according to the AP.
But the idea that Biden isn't simplifying matters as his political opponent prepares to undo the Democrat’s key achievements didn’t sit well with Leavitt, who came out swinging against Biden on social media.
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“President Trump will not be deterred by the Biden Admin’s dirty tricks,” Leavitt proclaimed Friday. “He will use every lever of power to reverse the damage Joe Biden has done to our country and deliver on his promises, including keeping men out of women’s sports.”
She complained that the White House was “adding more red tape and making it more difficult for him to govern.”
But administrations backing away from federal rules that are not yet finalized isn’t unusual, Kate Shaw, a former Obama White House official told the AP.
“It’s more typical, she said, for the federal government to race to finalize regulations during a transition period, but that can be difficult when there’s a time crunch,” the report states.
“If you haven’t started it early enough, you’re not going to be able to wrap it up,” Shaw said.
While the move doesn’t prevent Trump from pursuing his own regulations on the same issues once in office, it would require Trump “to start from scratch in a process that can take months or even years,” the AP noted.
