Biden news - live: Biden snaps at reporter asking if 100m vaccines is enough in ‘war’ on Covid

Joe Middleton,Joe Sommerlad and Alex Woodward
US President Joe Biden signs executive order on Covid-19 during his first minutes in the Oval Office (EPA-EFE)
US President Joe Biden signs executive order on Covid-19 during his first minutes in the Oval Office (EPA-EFE)

President Joe Biden has moved swiftly to undo the work of his predecessor Donald Trump by signing 17 executive orders on issues ranging from Covid-19 to immigration in his first day on the job.

Acting homeland security secretary David Pekoske has paused some deportations for 100 days while asylum policies are reviewed and the newly elected president rescinds the US withdrawal from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The president has also sent to congress a comprehensive immigration reform bill, which includes, among many other items, removing the term “alien” and replacing it with “noncitizen” in government documents.

Meanwhile he is administration is reportedly starting from “scratch" on a critically needed vaccine distribution plan after the Trump administration failed to meet its vaccination goals.

The now-former president is spending his first full day out of the White House at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Leaders around the world congratulated Mr Biden after his inauguration on Wednesday but the Kremlin has so far kept silent. That didn’t stop Russian state media portraying him as an absent-minded politician pre-occupied with minority rights or Aleksey Zhuralyev, a deputy for the ruling United Russia party, branding Mr Biden’s first speech as a “boring, old man’s” spiel.

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