Biden touts success, faces tests in first 100 days

Joe Biden took office in the midst of national chaos. It was a period marked by a raging global virus and an economy in crisis, two weeks after a violent insurgent mob overran the U.S. Capitol.

His early days in the White House were overshadowed by the 2nd impeachment trial of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

But if the first days of the Biden White House didn’t dominate the national consciousness, it was at least in part by design.

"It just so happens that he became president when we needed a low key, understated president," said

Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

"He has no need to be center stage all the time," Sabato added. "This is exactly what Americans wanted when they voted for him. They wanted a change from Donald Trump."

Biden's style may be low-key. His agenda is anything but.

He signed a massive 1.9-trillion dollar COVID relief bill two months into office. Just last week, the administration marked 200 million vaccine shots into American arms.

"I'm usually hard grader, but I give Biden an "A," Sabato said, adding, "It's not that everything's gone perfectly. That never happens in any presidency. But you have to look at the big things controlling politics in Washington and then how a president is handling them. And there are two overarching, gigantic things the pandemic and the economy."

In his first 100 days, Biden convened a global climate summit,  rejoined the World Health Organization and Paris accord and worked to repair relations with allies.

He halted construction of the border wall and ended travel restrictions on people from a variety of Muslim-majority countries.

Biden's next big push: police reform. As well as a massive 2-trillion-dollar infrastructure package that he claims would not only update the nation's roads and bridges but reshape the economy as a whole.

"It's not a plan that tinkers around the edges. It's a once in a generation investment in America," Biden said of his plan earlier this month.

But landmines lie ahead for him with a divided Congress and a Republican party that largely believes his proposals are too big, too expensive and too liberal.

"It is a massive expansion of the government financed on the backs of the American taxpayers, with taxes that will hurt the economy and cost us jobs," said Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota on Biden's infrastructure plan.

The president also faces a number of looming and lasting crises that perplexed many of his predecessors.

A surge of mass shootings, migrants flooding the southern border, and international rivals - from Russia to China to North Korea - rattling their swords.

Sabato said Biden is well aware of the challenges posed by those nations, in particular. And that's why he took a tough stance early on, levying two rounds of sanctions against Moscow, for example, to send the message "that there's new leadership here."

For now, Biden is pushing forward with the support of a pretty stable public approval honeymoon.

According to the latest poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, some 60% of Americans approve so far of Biden's job performance.