华盛顿——阿富汗政府的崩溃，三角洲变异导致的新冠肺炎病例激增，毁灭性的天气事件，令人失望的就业报告。接下来呢?
经历了一连串的危机后，总统乔·拜登希望在一个无情的夏天翻开新的一页，并在今年秋天围绕他的核心经济议程重新调整他的总统任期。
但最近一连串的麻烦发人深省地提醒人们，办公室的重量不可预测，而且有新的证据表明，总统们很少有机会一次只关注一场危机。拜登不屈不挠的夏天让他的白宫陷入紧急状态，也让他自己的民调数字暴跌。
“总统职位不是偏执狂的工作，”总统历史学家迈克尔·贝施洛斯说。“你必须一天24小时一心多用。”
这从未像2021年夏天这样真实，它始于白宫宣布国家从美国独立冠状病毒以及在大规模基础设施一揽子计划上挑战两党合作的可能性。然后，新冠肺炎卷土重来，阿富汗撤军陷入混乱，招聘放缓。
拜登现在希望在劳动节之后重新规划全国对话，以实现他的两个国内目标，即通过一项两党基础设施法案和推动一项仅由民主党人参与的社会安全扩大计划。
白宫官员急于将拜登的公开日程转向对他的议程很重要的问题，他们认为这些问题是美国人民的头等大事。
白宫新闻秘书珍·普萨基(Jen Psaki)表示:“我认为，你可以期待总统在未来几周就一系列美国人民最关心的问题进行沟通。
“当然，你可以期待从他那里听到更多关于他的“重建得更好”议程、COVID以及他对控制病毒的承诺的信息，与父母和那些有孩子重返校园的人交谈。”
在混乱的阿富汗撤离过程中，白宫在解释拜登撤军决定的后果以及从该国撤离美国人和盟友的努力方面发挥了核心作用。现在，官员们想让国务院和其他机构带头努力帮助被困的美国人和支持撤离者，而拜登则转向其他话题。
这在一定程度上反映了白宫内部一种不言而喻的信念，即尽管阿富汗局势混乱，但公众支持他的决定，到中期选举时，这种信念将从记忆中消失选举南
相反，白宫正在为立法冲刺做准备，以通过超过4万亿美元的国内资金，这将构成拜登希望在2022年竞选前主要立法前景恶化之前的第一任期遗产的大部分。
周五，在对8月份令人失望的就业报告的评论中，拜登试图回到他国内议程的公共推销员角色，并声称自己是中产阶级的战士。
拜登说:“对于那些不希望事情发生变化的大公司，我的信息是:是时候让工薪家庭——建设这个国家的人——减税了。他再次呼吁提高企业税率，以支付免费社区大学、带薪探亲假和扩大儿童税收抵免。
拜登在谈到企业利益时说:“我将与他们较量。
尽管拜登可能想翻过这一页，但助手们注意到，危机并没有在他身上结束。
拜登计划本周就遏制三角洲变异病毒和保护学校儿童免受新冠肺炎侵害的新举措发表讲话。他的政府继续面临批评，因为他决定在所有美国公民和盟友撤离之前从阿富汗撤军。
内布拉斯加州的共和党参议员本·萨斯说:“拜登总统非常想谈论阿富汗以外的任何事情，但是那些躲避塔利班、伊斯兰国和哈卡尼网络的美国人根本不在乎新闻周期、长周末和投票——他们想退出。”。周五，他呼吁拜登入主白宫，公开说明仍滞留在阿富汗的美国人及其盟友的人数。
拜登还将很快应对政府新冠肺炎保护计划的两个支柱结束后的影响:联邦暂停驱逐令最近到期，从周一开始，估计有890万人将失去所有失业救济金。
总统还在努力应对飓风“伊达”带来的严重后果，飓风袭击了海湾国家，随后淹没了东北部地区。在上周访问路易斯安那州后，他将在周二亲眼看看纽约和新泽西的一些损失。
他已经在试图将飓风造成的破坏转化为他一直在推动的基础设施支出的新论点，告诉路易斯安那州的地方官员，“在我看来，我们可以为我们的选民节省很多钱和痛苦——如果我们重建的时候，我们以更好的方式重建。”
据白宫官员称，尽管其他问题占据了头条新闻，但拜登和他的团队一直与众议院议长南希·佩洛西(D-Calif)和参议院少数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(R-Ky)保持定期对话。，关于总统的立法议程。他的立法团队与国会议员、他们的幕僚长和助手就基础设施法案和一揽子支出方案进行了130多次通话和会议，他的政府与立法人员就起草和解法案举行了90多次会议。
针对民主党众议员乔·曼钦(Joe Manchin)对大约3.5万亿美元社会支出计划的价格标签提出的担忧，白宫办公厅主任罗恩·克莱恩(Ron Klain)周日告诉美国有线电视新闻网(CNN)，他确信民主党在这项立法上“非常有说服力”。
官员们说，内阁官员也与议员们进行了接触，并在拜登留在华盛顿期间前往80个国会选区，在全国范围内宣传这一议程。
贝施洛斯说，考虑到他在国家政治方面50年的经验，拜登可能比他的一些前任更擅长超越危机，保持他的立法议程在正轨上。
贝施洛斯在接受美联社采访时表示:“如果有谁在这种时候有比例感、距离感和透视感，他确实有。“对于一个在国家生活中待的时间更短、刚开始担任总统的人来说，你总是被一些事情惊呆。”
After unrelenting summer, Biden looks to get agenda on track
WASHINGTON -- The collapse of the Afghan government, a surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the delta variant, devastating weather events, a disappointing jobs report. What next?
After a torrent of crises, PresidentJoe Bidenis hoping to turn the page on an unrelenting summer and refocus his presidency this fall around his core economic agenda.
But the recent cascade of troubles is a sobering reminder of the unpredictable weight of the office and fresh evidence that presidents rarely have the luxury of focusing on just one crisis at a time. Biden's unyielding summer knocked his White House onto emergency footing and sent his own poll numbers tumbling.
“The presidency is not a job for a monomaniac,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss. “You have to be multitasking 24 hours a day.”
Never has that been more true than summer 2021, which began with the White House proclamation of the nation’s “independence” from thecoronavirusand defying-the-odds bipartisanship on a massive infrastructure package. Then COVID-19 came roaring back, the Afghanistan pullout devolved into chaos and hiring slowed.
Biden now hopes for a post-Labor Day reframing of the national conversation toward his twin domestic goals of passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill and pushing through a Democrats-only expansion of the social safety ne t.
White House officials are eager to shift Biden’s public calendar toward issues that are important to his agenda and that they believe are top of mind for the American people.
“I think you can expect the president to be communicating over the coming weeks on a range of issues that are front and center on the minds of the American people,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
“Certainly you can expect to hear from him more on his Build Back Better agenda, on COVID and his commitment to getting the virus under control, to speak to parents and those who have kids going back to school."
During the chaotic Afghanistan evacuation, the White House was central in explaining the consequences of Biden’s withdrawal decision and the effort to evacuate Americans and allies from the country. Now, officials want to put the State Department and other agencies out front on the efforts to assist stranded Americans and support evacuees, while Biden moves on to other topics.
It’s in part a reflection of an unspoken belief inside the White House that for all the scenes of chaos in Afghanistan, the public backs his decision and it will fade from memory by the midtermelections.
Instead, the White House is gearing up for a legislative sprint to pass more than $4 trillion in domestic funding that will make up much of what Biden hopes will be his first-term legacy before the prospects of major lawmaking seize up in advance of the 2022 races.
On Friday, in remarks on August's disappointing jobs report, Biden tried to return to the role of public salesman for his domestic agenda and claim the mantle of warrior for the middle class.
“For those big corporations that don’t want things to change, my message is this: It’s time for working families — the folks who built this country — to have their taxes cut,” Biden said. He renewed his calls for raising corporate rates to pay for free community college, paid family leave and an expansion of the child tax credit.
“I’m going to take them on,” Biden said of corporate interests.
While Biden may want to turn the page, though, aides are mindful that the crises are not done with him.
Biden is planning to speak this week on new efforts to contain the delta variant and protect kids in schools from COVID-19. And his administration continues to face criticism for his decision to pull American troops from Afghanistan before all U.S. citizens and allies could get out.
“President Biden desperately wants to talk about anything but Afghanistan, but Americans who are hiding from the Taliban, ISIS, and the Haqqani network don’t give a damn about news cycles, long weekends, and polling — they want out,” said Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. He called on the Biden White House on Friday to provide a public accounting of the number of Americans and their allies still stuck inside Afghanistan.
Biden also will soon be grappling with fallout from the windup of two anchors of the government’s COVID-19 protection package: The federal moratorium on evictions recently expired, and starting Monday, an estimated 8.9 million people will lose all unemployment benefits.
The president also is still contending with the sweeping aftereffects of Hurricane Ida, which battered the Gulf states and then swamped the Northeast. After visiting Louisiana last week, he'll get a firsthand look at some of the damage in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday.
Already, he is trying to turn the destruction wrought by the hurricane into a fresh argument for the infrastructure spending he's been pushing all along, telling local officials in Louisiana, “It seems to me we can save a whole lot of money and a whole lot of pain for our constituents — if when we build back, we build it back in a better way.”
According to White House officials, even as other issues dominated headlines, Biden and his team have maintained regular conversations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., about the president’s legislative agenda. His legislative team held more than 130 calls and meetings with members of Congress, their chiefs of staff and aides on the infrastructure bill and spending package, and his administration has held over 90 meetings with legislative staff on crafting the reconciliation bill.
Responding to concerns raised by pivotal Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., over the price tag on the roughly $3.5 trillion social spending package, White House chief of staff Ron Klain told CNN on Sunday that he was convinced that the Democrat was “very persuadable” on the legislation.
Cabinet officials have also been engaged with lawmakers, officials said, and traveled to 80 congressional districts to promote the agenda across the country while Biden was kept in Washington.
Biden, said Beschloss, may have a leg up on some of his predecessors at moving beyond the crises to keep his legislative agenda on track, given his 50 years of experience in national politics.
“If there’s anyone who has a sense of proportion and distance and perspective at a time like this, he does,” Beschloss told The Associated Press. “For someone who’s been in national life much more briefly and was new to the presidency, you’re being stunned by things all the time.”
