Presidency of Joe Biden (Bonsai Timeline)

PRE-PRESIDENCY
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is an American politician and member of the Democratic party. He represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009, making him one of the longest-serving members of the Senate in American history. In 2008, Biden was chosen by fellow candidate and Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama as his running mate. Senator Obama went on to defeat Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, in the 2008 Presidential Elections, and as a result, Biden became the 47th Vice President of the United States of America, a job he held throughout President Obama's two terms from 2009 to 2017. In 2017, President Obama awarded Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction in 2017, America's highest civilian honour, for his contributions to the American government.

2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Following a devastating loss in 2016, with the Senate & House of Representatives going to the Republicans and the presidency to Donald Trump, the Democrats were as divided as they had been in a very long time. Biden joined the crowded field of Democrats vying for the nomination on the 25th of April 2019, running as a moderately progressive candidate emphasising on his prior Vice-Presidential experience from 2009 to 2017.

POLITICAL POSITIONS & CAMPAIGN PROMISES
Biden is pro-life and leans moderately left politically. Some of his presidential aims include:
 * a public health insurance option
 * a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants
 * decriminalization of recreational cannabis use
 * universal Pre-K education
 * tuition-free first two years of community college
 * passing of the Equality Act
 * codifying Roe Vs Wade into stature

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES PERFORMANCE
Despite initially being considered the easy frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, Biden fared poorly during the Iowa caucuses, coming in fourth place, behind Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren. This was followed by a fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primaries, behind Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren and Senator Amy Klobuchar. However, Biden managed to clinch a second-place finish behind Sanders in the Nevada primaries, as well as a landslide victory in the South Carolina primaries.

The South Carolina primaries victory reinvigorated the Biden campaign and the momentum carried through to the Super Tuesday primaries, which saw Biden receive the most number of delegates among all of the other candidates and regain his frontrunner status. Biden maintained his lead throughout the remaining primaries, and on April 8, when Sanders suspended his campaign, became the presumptive nominee. By June 2020, Biden had received the 1,991 delegates required for the Democratic nominations following the New York primaries. On the 25th of July 2020, Biden was officially named the Democratic nominee. He picked former Democratic primary rival Andrew Yang as his running mate.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Biden faced the tough challenge of uniting a party divided between moderates and progressives, as well as winning over swing voters whom had by and large gone Republican in the 2016 Presidential Elections, which was fought between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Incumbent President Donald Trump was easily re-nominated as the Democratic nominee, and he picked Vice President Mike Pence as his running mate. Trump was an anti-establishment candidate, staunchly conservative and with a large and passionate supporter base. Trump's signature achievements included the construction of a border wall between Mexico and the U.S., establishing foreign relations with North Korea and a tax reform. Trump had seen an average approval rating of 45%. Trump's approval ratings plummeted in July 2020, when the second wave of the 2019-2021 coronavirus pandemic hit the United States of America and the economy plunged into a recession. The Trump Administration handled the situation with laissez-fair economic regulation, tax cuts and strict protectionism- which ended up backfiring poorly and the economy nearly hit a depression. His approval ratings got as low as 36% in August.

Early polling had Biden leading, and the two were neck-in-neck in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Florida, Arizona and even the reliably Republican Texas. President Trump managed to outperform Biden in the presidential debates, but the Biden Administration launched a frenzied attack campaign against him and his various failures- such as the high unemployment levels, growing deficit and unpragmatic leading style.

RESULTS
The 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections took place on the 3rd of November 2020. Biden received 50% of the vote to

President Trump's 48%. The election saw Biden clinch 280 electoral votes, 22 more than President Trump's 258 and well above the 270 needed to secure the presidency. The Democrats, whom had won a majority in the Senate and maintained their majority in the House of Representatives, were overjoyed at their sizable victory. Biden passed the 270 electoral vote margin required to clinch the presidency at 4.20 p.m. on the 4th of November 2020. President Trump arrived at his campaign headquarters in New York City just half an hour later, thanking his supporters, but claiming that he was not ready to concede the election yet and that the closeness of the results demanded recounts in multiple states, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, which were won by Biden by margins of less than 20,000. Biden arrived at his campaign headquarters at 6.50 a.m., visibly overjoyed, thanking his supporters and congratulating his fellow Democrats on their victory.

TRUMP CONCESSION & BIDEN ACCEPTANCE
Despite initially bent on Michigan and Pennsylvania vote recounts, President Trump gave up his fight for re-election on the 11th of November 2020 due to the advice from his advisors. He conceded the election at 3.15 p.m., congratulating Biden, thanking his supporters and staff, and promising to continue devoting his remaining years to serving the American people in any capacity he could. The following day, Biden delivered his first speech as the 46th President-elect of the United States of America. At seventy-eight years old, he was the oldest person in American history to be elected President. Andrew Yang was elected the 49th Vice President of the United States of America.

OBAMAGATE SCANDAL
On the 20th of November 2020, a file containing President Biden's potential cabinet appointees leaked online on WikiLeaks. A scandal known as ObamaGate erupted when it was discovered that many soon to be sworn-in cabinet members were carryovers from the Obama Administration. This included John Kerry as Secretary of State, a role he held during President Obama's second term, from 2013 to 2017, along with many others. Biden served WikiLeaks with a lawsuit a week later, and the folder was retracted from the site.

TRANSITION PERIOD
President Biden and President Trump met a total of five times following Biden's election during the Trump/Pence-Biden/Yang transitionary period.

INAUGURATION
J oe Biden and Andrew Yang were inaugurated as the President and Vice President of the United States of America on the 19th of January 2021. Social distancing measures as a result of the 2019-2021 coronavirus pandemic were enforced, with all attendees having to wear masks and stand an arm's length apart from one another.

The event was attended to by former Presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, as well as former Vice Presidents Mike Pence, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, Dan Quayle and Walter Mondale. Also in attendance were soon-to-be confirmed members of the Biden Administration, various celebrities and other major political figures, including Hillary Clinton and Michael Dukakis.

Members of the Biden Administration were confirmed on the 3rd of February 2020.

CABINET MEMBERS

 * Vice President: Andrew Yang


 * Secretary of State: John Kerry
 * Secretary of the Treasury: Anne Finucane
 * Secretary of Defense: Beto O' Rourke
 * Attorney General: Susan Rice
 * Secretary of the Interior: Sally Jewell
 * Secretary of Agriculture: Tom Vilsack
 * Secretary of Commerce: Bill Fleck
 * Secretary of Labour: Richard Trumka
 * Secretary of Health & Human Services: Anthony FauciPete-buttigieg-mayor-south-bend-in.jpg
 * Secretary of Housing & Urban Development: Wayne Messam.
 * Secretary of Transportation: Anthony Foxx
 * Secretary of Energy: Ernest Moniz
 * Secretary of Education: John King Jr.
 * Secretary of Veteran's Affairs: Robert McDonald
 * Secretary of Homeland Security: Jeh Johnson
 * CEO of World Bank: Michael Bloomberg
 * UN Ambassador: Pete Buttigieg

SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS

 * Leondra Kruger
 * Kentaji Brown Jackson
 * Eric Holder

United Nation's Post-Coronavirus Transparency Act
In December 2021, the United Nations released an act that formulated the framework for inter-country relations during any major crisis, including pandemics. The Act was unanimously passed through Congress with little opposition and was the first Act to be signed by President Biden.