President Donald Trump’s whirlwind first week back in office has seen him move decisively to lock down the southern border, implement mass deportations, wrap up Middle Eastern conflicts, and deliver aid to storm-ravaged parts of the U.S., leaving many to ask why now-former President Joe Biden didn’t make the same moves months ago.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly blamed Trump for torching a bipartisan immigration bill and insisted that the commander-in-chief could not move to secure the border without support from Congress. Trump rebutted that the president had broad executive authority on the matter and didn’t require any new legislation. 

Biden also drew flak for his response to Hurricane Helene, which devastated western North Carolina and saw thousands of people lose their homes. The perceived sluggish and allegedly politicized handling of the disaster in light of the region’s Republican tilt fueled outrage among the residents and outside observers alike.

In the Levant, moreover, the last days of the Biden presidency saw Israel and Hamas reach a ceasefire agreement to end the more-than-year-long conflict in the Gaza Strip, but only after then-President-elect Trump dispatched his own envoys to push the deal over the finish line. Most of the agreement’s terms fell within a previously-negotiated framework.

The rapid, post-election turnaround on these keynote issues has many conservatives insisting that Biden had merely opted not to address the issues and that leaving them unresolved had simply been deliberate.

Closing the border

Since launching his 2016 campaign, Trump has focused on illegal immigration and vowed to crack down at the border, including by building a wall. The Biden administration saw more than 10 million people enter the U.S. illegally, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures.

In 2024, Democrats worked with Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., to negotiate an immigration reform package that would have established an illegal crossings threshold for the Department of Homeland Security to implement stringent border controls. Republicans asserted that the bill essentially condoned a predetermined amount of illegal immigration and did little of substance.

Lankford received widespread criticism over his perceived negotiating failure and Trump urged Republicans to sink the bill, which they did. Its failure led Democrats to blame Trump repeatedly for the border influx and insist he had undermined a credible solution to permit him to run on fixing the problem.

Amid debate on the bill, which occurred three years into the four-year term, Biden himself said it would “give me as president, the emergency authority to shut down the border until it could get back under control… If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.” At the time, Republican lawmakers dissented, arguing that Biden already had the authority to address the issue.

“Anyone who says Biden needs new laws to stop the migrant crisis is a liar. The law RIGHT NOW says if the President finds that the entry of any aliens would be detrimental to the U.S. he can “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens,” then-Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said at the time.

The bill did not pass, however, and Trump has moved to seal the border without so-called “emergency authority.” Footage from Trump’s first day in office showed border officials blocking ports of entry and declaring that anyone attempting to enter the U.S. would face arrest. He also deactivated the CBP One app, which Biden’s DHS had used to process illegal entrants.

On Sunday alone, moreover, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported 956 arrests of illegal aliens, including many violent offenders. The agency had arrested 1,300 by Thursday, according to NewsNation.

“The Biden admin knew exactly who these criminal illegal aliens were and where they lived. ICE was not allowed to make the arrests until President Trump entered office,” posted Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, in response to a video showing the arrest of a criminal illegal alien from Haiti.

Storm relief for western North Carolina

Hurricane Helene proved devastating to western North Carolina in the leadup to the presidential election. The mountainous region rarely faces storms of that degree and was ill-prepared to handle the large-scale flooding that washed away entire towns, such as Chimney Rock.

The death toll cleared 200 in early October, making it the deadliest storm to hit the mainland United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. High-profile figures such as Elon Musk took aim at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), contending it was blocking aid to the storm victims.

Biden visited the Carolinas on the heels of a Trump trip to northwestern Georgia the same week and authorized the deployment of 1,000 troops to aid in the recovery effort. Nonetheless, Biden faced blowback over his perceived failure of leadership, especially from now-Vice President JD Vance, who criticized the slow deployment of the 82nd Airborne to the region. 

“The 82nd Airborne is an hour away from western North Carolina, and it took six days to get them there,” he said in Greensboro while on campaign. “That doesn’t happen without a failure of leadership, but we gotta get to the bottom of exactly what that failure of leadership looked like.”

Trump speedily deployed additional forces to the region to bolster rebuilding efforts and visited the area during his first week in office. Monday saw residents observe a large presence of federal troops working to rebuild key infrastructure and provide relief.

“Absolutely massive cleanup effort is underway in western North Carolina today!” posted Matt Van Swol, a resident of the area who has documented the recovery efforts on social media. “The Army Corps of Engineers are everywhere!”

“Why didn’t Joe Biden do this 4 months ago?” he asked.

Gaza ceasefire

Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement just days ahead of Trump taking office. The conflict had raged in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023, in the wake of a Hamas raid on Israel that saw it seize roughly 250 hostages and kill more than 1,200 civilians.

The terms of the agreement included the return of hostages to Israeli custody in exchange for the release of Palestinians. Those exchanges would occur in stages and are ongoing. Israel, moreover, will gradually withdraw from the strip. The deal itself drew blowback from the Israeli right for leaving Hamas in power, though it reflects the military reality that Hamas was not fully defeated in the conflict.

The basic framework of the agreement had been arranged under the Biden administration months prior, though the previous White House had largely failed to convince both parties to finalize it. Only after Trump deployed his own special envoy, Steve Witkoff, did negotiations begin to bear fruit. Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, the Minister of State at Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, largely credited the Trump team’s messaging and Witkoff’s efforts in concluding the agreement. Qatar had hosted the negotiations.

“Steve Witkoff in particular has been actively engaged in the discussions to get a deal over the line,” he said. “He has been in Doha, working closely with our team to close the gaps between the two sides in the final few days. There truly is no better way for an incoming administration to handle this situation.”

The Biden team attempted to take credit for the ceasefire deal, but did broadly acknowledge that the Trump team’s personnel had helped in clinching the agreement. Pundits and politicians alike, however, took particular note of Trump’s warning of “hell to pay” if the hostages in Hamas custody were not released by his return to office. That statement, several contended, proved the decisive element in delivering the deal.

House Speaker Mike Johnson celebrated the deal, but said it came “in spite of the White House, not because of it.”

Many Arab Americans backed Trump amid frustration with the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict. Though Trump delivered on the ceasefire, some see it as evidence that Biden could have secured a deal much sooner.

“I’m just even more angry because Trump, who is not even in office, did a little arm-twisting, and the ceasefire agreement was done right away,” one Arab American voter told Al-Jazeera this month. “This could have happened sooner. It’s so sad, all those extra lives lost.”

Reprinted with permission from Just The News by Ben Whedon.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.