WASHINGTON – President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. Friday promised an accelerated response to a series of daunting and increasingly intense challenges as the economy showed further signs of weakness, the coronavirus the pandemic has killed more Americans than ever and Congress has weighed impeach President Trump a second time.

As Washington remained consumed by the fallout from the capture of the Capitol wednesday and Democrats have stepped up efforts to hold Mr Trump to account for his role in inciting the attack, Mr. Biden signaled that he intended to stay focused on jobs and the pandemic, declining to comment on whether the House should impeach Mr. Trump.

One day, the Ministry of Labor reported that the the economy lost 140,000 jobs in December, ending a seven-month streak of growth after the country plunged into recession in the spring, Mr Biden said there was “an urgent need to act now.”

He pledged to act quickly once he becomes president to push a Recovery plan through Congress to help those in need, small businesses, students, local governments and schools.

Mr. Biden and his associates have yet to complete the proposal or pay the full amount. Forecasters expect further job losses this month, a victim of the upsurge in the coronavirus pandemic and the imposition by national and local authorities of lockdowns and other restrictions on economic activity intended to slow the spread.

“The price to pay will be high,” Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Del.

“There is a need to spend the money now,” he said, apparently referring to all of his bundle of economic plans, including both immediate aid and a bigger bill including spending on money. ‘infrastructure. “The answer is yes, it will be in the trillions of dollars.”

The Biden team is also planning a wave of economic action that won’t require congressional approval. Mr Biden’s aides said on Friday that the president-elect would ask the Education Department to extend a hiatus on student loan payments originally issued under Mr Trump. On Friday, Biden called on Congress to take “quick action” to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $ 15 an hour.

He also pledged to step up efforts to slow the spread of the virus, which now kills 4,000 every day – more than those who perished during the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War, the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 or the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Mr. Biden’s team said the president-elect would be immediately provide more vaccines to states when he takes office, breaking strongly with Mr. Trump’s practice of withholding certain shots for second doses.

“People are really, really, really in a desperate state,” Biden said.

While he said the issue of impeaching Mr. Trump was up to Congress, he again attacked the president for his conduct in power even as he sought to position himself as focused on the issues of greatest concern to voters. : their health and economic security. .

“I thought for a long, long time that President Trump was unfit for the job,” Biden said. “I am focusing on the virus, the vaccine and economic growth. What Congress decides to do is up to them to decide.

“But,” he added quickly, “they’re going to have to hit the ground running.”

Along with the powers of the presidency he will assume on January 20 at noon, Mr Biden will assume the responsibility of guiding the country through a collision of crises more varied and intense than those faced by his recent predecessors. In addition to the pandemic and the faltering economy, they include racial tensions that demand reconciliation after smoldering for decades and a deep political divide that escalated into violence on Wednesday and shook the country’s assumptions about its tradition of transfers. peaceful power.

“It’s more important than his presidency. It will take a generation to work on all of this, ”said Rahm Emanuel, who was the former chief of staff to former President Barack Obama when he took office during the economic crisis more than a decade ago.

“He will take the first steps,” Emanuel said of Mr. Biden. “But you don’t face 20 years of change in a week or two. It is the work of a generation.

Mr Biden – who reiterated his pledge on Friday to work with Republicans to advance your agenda – now faces the real prospect that Mr. Trump could be tried for sedition in the Senate as he takes office.

This work begins in earnest in 12 days, and Mr Biden’s aides have said he expects lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to get to work quickly, even if the question of Mr. Trump dominates the conversation in Washington.

The steps President Nancy Pelosi took to impeach Mr. Trump a second time came after members of both parties grew angry at what many have called an insurgency by supporters of the president. On Friday, Mr. Biden called them “a bunch of thugs, insurgents, white supremacists, anti-Semites” who had “the active encouragement of a sitting US president.”

But Mr Biden seemed aware of the political risk of becoming the primary spokesperson for the punishment and impeachment of his predecessor, and the danger that a prolonged impeachment and trial would delay or derail his hopes of a swift passage from office. its biggest items on the agenda.

He said he may have openly supported impeachment had the Capitol bombings occurred while Mr. Trump was still six months in office. But he has repeatedly suggested that the best way to get rid of the current president is to wait for Mr Biden’s inauguration.

“The question is, what happens with 14 days left or 13 days left?” Mr Biden said, later adding that “My focus now is on our takeover, as president and vice-president, on the 20th, and on moving our agenda forward as quickly as possible.”

The president-elect said he believed the events at the Capitol Wednesday could serve as a time to bring people together, and he singled out Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Mitt Romney of Utah, both Republicans, as examples of political opponents who shared his anger at what had happened. pass.

“Many of them are as outraged and disappointed and embarrassed and mortified by the President’s conduct as I am,” Biden said.

But in the same breath, he pointed to the divisions that remain in Washington, attacking Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, for lead efforts to overturn the elections on behalf of Mr. Trump and for spreading misinformation to supporters of the president, which caused them to go into a frenzy.

He said he agreed with some Republicans who said “how shameful it is the way Ted Cruz and others are dealing with this, how much they are also responsible for what happened. “.

When asked if Mr Cruz should resign, Mr Biden said: ‘I think they should be beaten flat the next time they show up. I think the American public has a pretty good idea of ​​who they are. They are part of the big lie.

Mr Biden said he had to unveil his legislative program to deal with the coronavirus crisis and its economic consequences on Thursday, six days before his inauguration as 46th president.

Mr Biden’s economics team is developing proposals for a second stimulus bill and a broader economic package, including infrastructure spending and tax increases for the rich. Helpers and Main Democrats in Congress hope to speed up the process in Congress once Mr. Biden takes office.

“A devastating pandemic, an economic crisis, a country torn by political division and mistrust, severely damaged institutions and shattered global alliances,” said David Axelrod, who served as political advisor to Mr. Obama for his first two years. to the White House. . “He’s got his hands full. “

Mr Biden and his associates were particularly struck by two dismal numbers in Friday’s jobs report: the loss of nearly 500,000 jobs in December in the leisure and hospitality industry, and thousands of Jobs in public education – a warning sign that state budget cuts could further dampen the recovery in the coming months.

They are particularly focused on direct checks to individuals, a policy Mr Biden and Democratic Senate candidates have hammered home The second round of elections in Georgia which gave their party control of the chamber, and on efforts to fight the pandemic by accelerating testing for the virus and the deployment of vaccines.

The outlines of these proposals are starting to take shape. The stimulus package will include Mr Biden’s call for $ 1,400 in additional direct payments to adults and children eligible for $ 600 in payments approved as part of the lame duck stimulus package passed last month, bringing the benefit total to $ 2,000 per individual.

The challenge of leading his stimulus plans through a tightly divided Senate was exposed on Friday, when a moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia said direct payments of $ 2,000 should not be the top priority of legislation and that he would prefer checks to be targeted “to those who need it. “

The package will also include additional benefits for the nearly 11 million Americans who are still classified as unemployed by the Department of Labor, tenant assistance and assistance for small business owners, with a focus on owned businesses. by women and minorities. It will feature what Mr Biden promised, that would be tens of billions of dollars to help schools reopen safely, tens of billions to help state and local governments keep essential workers at work and “Billions of dollars to get vaccines from a vial into someone’s arm. . “

Senate leaders – such as Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, who will head the budget committee, and Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who will chair the finance committee – said in interviews this week that they were getting ready to work quickly. with Mr. Biden’s team to draft new economic bailout legislation.

Mr Sanders said he spoke to Mr Biden about proposals on Thursday and Mr Sanders’ staff were already working to flesh out the details.

“He will, I know, do all he can to deal with the economic and health crises facing our country,” Sanders said of Biden. “The crisis is extremely serious, and we must act as quickly as possible. “