It has to be fought for every time,” Biden said then. “There’s no such thing as a guaranteed democracy. Doing so was crucial toward trying to rebuild public confidence after a Trump presidency that only stoked distrust in Washington.īiden, in an interview with Brené Brown in October, said he was particularly struck by Alter’s description of how perilous the nation’s democratic experiment was as Roosevelt prepared to take office. While recent presidents had bristled at the 100-day timeline, Biden’s team would embrace it - setting goals for vaccinations and reopening schools that in retrospect seemed unambitious, but were hardly guaranteed at first. While FDR’s first inaugural is best known for his declaration that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” another line became a mantra for Biden’s team: “This nation is asking for action, and action now.” But other FDR analogies were employed as the planning ramped up, even the notion of the inauguration as a “D-Day” when planning would turn to execution. “He had the same approach, that he wanted to demonstrate quick, vigorous action that would have an impact.” “It was very important for Biden to do things early on that delivered direct benefits to voters, especially people that were struggling,” said Mark Gitenstein, a longtime Biden adviser who helped guide the transition from its earliest days and also closely studied the Roosevelt model. Long a student of history, and of a favorite poem that proposes “hope and history rhyme,” Biden was particularly focused on how Roosevelt tailored his response to the economic crisis of the Great Depression with an eye toward an even bigger threat to the nation. ![]() Just as Biden emerged as the Democratic Party’s likely nominee, a nation he had already cast as being engaged in a battle for its soul was faced with an additional reckoning: the pandemic and its economic fallout.Īnd so, even as he ramped up campaigning in the general election, Biden was carving out time to study his would-be predecessor, reading or rereading titles like Jean Edward Smith’s “FDR” and Jonathan Alter’s study of Roosevelt's first 100 days, “The Defining Moment.” ![]() The nation’s 46th president turned to the example of its 32nd at a key moment in the 2020 campaign, close advisers told NBC News. But the Democratic president who has most shaped his first 100 days in office is the one who first popularized that benchmark for judging an administration’s success: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His service as Barack Obama’s vice president ultimately helped propel him to the White House. Kennedy growing up, endorsed Jimmy Carter as a young senator, and scored some of his most significant legislative accomplishments working with Bill Clinton.
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