President Joe Biden insists that he did not over-promise what he could get done in his first year in office.
Instead, he believes he overperformed expectations.
During his first press conference of 2022, the Associated Pressâ Zeke Miller noted, âInflation is up, your signature domestic legislation is stalled in Congress, in a few hours from now an effort in the Senate to deal with voting reform legislation is going to fail, COVID-19 is still taking the lives of 1,500 Americans every day, and the nationâs divisions are just as raw as they were a year ago.â
He asked, âDid you over-promise to the American public what you could achieve in your first year in office? And how do you plan to course-correct going forward?â
âWhy are you such an optimist?â Biden quipped.
He continued, âI didnât over-promise. I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen.â
âThe fact of the matter is weâre in a situation where we have made enormous progress. You mentioned the deaths from Covid, it was three times that not long ago. Itâs coming down. Everythingâs changing. Itâs getting better,â he added.
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His comments come as his nearly $2 trillion spending package, the Build Back Better Act, is stalled in the Senate after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced he would not vote for the bill.
Additionally, his push to enact voting rights legislation also appears likely stalled due to the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are pushing to make changes to the filibuster, which would require all 50 Democrats to vote for the move.
However, Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have voiced opposition to changing the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation with just 51 votes.
Additionally, the U.S. is recording an average of 756,752 new cases of COVID-19 per day. Critics of the president have seized on his 2020 campaign promise to âshut downâ the virus to blast his handling of the pandemic.