Ex-Obama official suggests Biden should pack as much as he can into executive orders

Former President Barack Obama's chiefs of staff want President-elect Joe Biden to embrace his executive authority once he's in office, NPR reports.

Denis McDonough who served in the role during Obama's second term told NPR that President Trump "has demonstrated ... an enormous amount of leeway for the president to institute executive action on things like immigration and energy and climate policy" and "there's no reason" the president-elect "should not use the authority that's available to him."

Meanwhile, Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, argued Biden, despite his fondness for working across the aisle in Congress, should fit as much of his agenda as he can into his executive orders because "the fewer things you have to clog up the legislative pipeline with allows you to concentrate your political capital in that legislative front."

Should Biden heed this advice, which seems likely at least when it comes to certain issues, it would dash the already tenuous hopes of those who want the president-elect to initiate a scaling back of the office. Read more at NPR.

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