CNN
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President Joe Biden’s first planned public event since dropping out of the 2024 presidential race last month was marked by a cause close to his heart: the announcement of a major financial award from the political cancer cure arm he founded after the death of his son Beau Biden.
The Cancer Moonshot program, created during Biden’s tenure as vice president and receiving billions in new funding since 2022, is designed to conduct cutting-edge research to halve cancer deaths in the coming decades. On Tuesday, Biden highlighted $150 million in new research grants to eight organizations, including $23 million to Tulane University, that provided the backdrop for the announcement.
“We are mobilizing the entire country to halve cancer deaths in America by 20, 25 years and to strengthen support for patients and their families. I am confident we can do this. I know we can, but it’s not just about personal issues – it’s about what’s possible,” Biden said on Tuesday.
As the president’s term comes to a close, the White House – including Vice President Kamala Harris – is working to disburse as much funding as possible under current programs, even as uncertainty looms in November and beyond, with a focus on releasing funds through Biden’s groundbreaking infrastructure, semiconductor and clean energy legislation.
Officials expect Harris to draw on the legislation that pumped trillions of dollars into the economy as she craftes her own economic program, to be released later this week, particularly the areas she personally played a role in. Harris, they say, championed lead pipe funding and the expansion of high-speed internet — and personally authored the clean school bus legislation that eventually became part of the infrastructure bill.
Although Biden has passed the baton to Harris in the election campaign, he is focusing on his most personal concerns as he nears the twilight of his five-decade career in public service.
Cancer research is “immensely important” to the president, one aide said, as his leadership team works to amplify his work of the past three and a half years and cement his legacy. ARPA-H, the research facility created in conjunction with the Cancer Moonshot, has received $4 billion from Congress since its inception in 2022 and awarded $400 million in cancer-related grants to outside entities – a sizable budget for a single policy, but a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of dollars in new government spending the Biden administration has rolled out.
From now through January, Biden’s priority will be to spend tens of billions of dollars on pushing out new legislation he drafts, traveling abroad to strengthen alliances and making policy statements, including using his executive power where possible, aides say.
While Biden will have significantly more free time in the remaining months than he did during his own campaign, he still plans to campaign for Harris in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where his administration resonates with older suburban voters.
In an interview with CBS News that aired over the weekend, the president said he promised Beau Biden that he would remain committed to his service and that he intends to fulfill that promise.
“‘Dad, you have to promise me something,'” the president recalled his son saying shortly before his death from brain cancer at age 46. “‘When I leave, you stay committed. Give me your word. Give me your word.’ And that’s what I did.”
Biden has said for years that strengthening the cancer initiative was part of his so-called “unity agenda,” a list of measures – including increased penalties for fentanyl trafficking and laws regulating artificial intelligence – that he said could gain bipartisan support. And during his Oval Office address discussing his withdrawal from the race last month, Biden said the initiative – as well as gun, climate and Supreme Court reforms – would remain his focus this fall.
But in a highly explosive election year in which all congressional activities beyond funding the government are likely to be put on hold, such announcements could be symbolic at best.
Biden in late July unveiled a proposal for term limits and a mandatory ethics code for Supreme Court justices, and called for a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed while in office – a series of proposals that were already in the works before he stepped down as a candidate. White House officials acknowledge that implementing such proposals is a tall order, but have indicated that the president still wants to “take a firm stand” on the issues he sees as most critical.
Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, has directed his Cabinet and executive branch officials to come up with new policy ideas in four main categories: implementing existing laws, cutting costs, protecting personal freedoms and strengthening the United States’ position in the world.
The US has renewed the urgency to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Middle East and is calling for a summit to negotiate the final details, expected to take place this week. Biden is expected to travel to Brazil for the G-20 summit in late November, where he will face questions about possible contacts with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. And the White House will also seek to step up its diplomatic contacts with India, an ally that has become a key partner for the US in the fight against China’s aggression in the region.
“We want to create a more prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific and a more secure world,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “That will continue to be our focus as we move forward,” she said.
Domestically, the White House remains primarily focused on spending money and implementing Biden’s key legislative initiatives. In total, about $563 billion has been awarded for projects funded by the infrastructure, semiconductor and renewable energy bills – about a third of the total funding the administration is expected to provide over the course of several years.
Senior administration officials told CNN that Zients and Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian, who is leading the administration’s efforts to implement the legislation, are in contact several times a week to track progress and funding.
Regardless of what happens in November, the White House is confident that these investments are relatively future-proof, citing recent calls by some Republican lawmakers not to cut the funds in future budget negotiations.
“As these investments come out on the street and bring jobs into the local economy, they don’t want them to go away,” Quillian told CNN.
Much of the more than $1 trillion in government grants and loans is to be released annually, with disbursements beginning with the new fiscal year. 80 percent of the funds available under the Inflation Control Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have already been distributed.
The Commerce Department expects to distribute all of the $39 billion in grants from the CHIPS and Science Act by the end of the year, and then to distribute tens of billions of dollars more in ancillary grants. And the Treasury Department has made it possible for businesses and individuals to apply for almost all of the tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.
“We are moving as quickly as we can” to implement the measures, a senior administration official told CNN.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said his agency has allocated about $12 billion in grants, but all of the money allocated to the Agriculture Department has not yet been disbursed.
“There’s no pressure. You want to make sure you’re investing these funds wisely,” Vilsack said when asked about the desire to disburse the funds before Biden’s term ends. If a future Congress or administration were to withdraw unspent money, that would be “a mistake,” he said.
The fiscal year restart on October 1 will release a huge influx of capital, making it even more urgent to get this money to eligible agencies and local authorities in the final weeks before the election.
CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to clarify that ARPA-H received $4 billion in congressional funding.
CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg contributed to this report.
