President Joe Biden’s first planned public event since dropping out of the 2024 presidential race last month marked a cause close to his heart: announcing a major financial award from the cancer cure policy arm he created after the death of his son Beau Biden.
The “Cancer Moonshot” program, founded while Biden was vice president and bolstered with billions in new funding since 2022, aims to provide cutting-edge research to halve the number of cancer deaths in the coming decades.
On Tuesday (13), Biden highlighted $150 million in new research awards to eight organizations, including $23 million to Tulane University, which was the setting for the announcement.
“We are mobilizing the entire country’s effort to cut cancer deaths in the United States in half in 20, 25 years and increase support for patients and their families. I am confident in our ability to do this. I know we can, but it’s not just about the people — it’s about what’s possible,” Biden said Tuesday.
As the president concludes his single term, the White House — including Vice President Kamala Harris — is working to disburse as much funding as current programs allow, with uncertainty about November and beyond. The focus is on freeing up funds through Biden’s signature for infrastructure, semiconductors and clean energy legislation.
Officials expect Harris to lean into laws that have sent trillions of dollars into the economy, especially areas where she played a personal role, as she crafts her own economic platform, which is expected to be released later this week.
Kamala Harris, they note, has championed funding for lead pipes and high-speed internet — and personally authored the clean-source school bus legislation that ended up in the infrastructure bill.
While Biden has passed the baton to Harris on the campaign trail, he is focusing the tail end of his five-decade career in public service on causes more personal to him.
Cancer research is of “immense importance” to the president, an aide said, as his senior team works to build on his work over the past three and a half years and cement his legacy.

ARPA-H, the research organization launched in conjunction with the Cancer Moonshot, has received $4 billion from Congress and raised $400 million in cancer-related awards for outside entities since it launched in 2022 — a sizable budget for a single policy, but a drop in the bucket compared with the trillions of dollars in new government spending the Biden administration has introduced.
Between now and January, Biden plans to prioritize distributing tens of billions in funding for his legislation, traveling abroad to shore up alliances and making policy statements, including using executive authority whenever possible, aides say.
While the remaining months will see Biden with much more downtime than when he was campaigning for himself, he still plans to campaign for Harris in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where her administration has appeal to older and suburban voters.
In an interview with CBS News that aired over the weekend, the president said he promised Beau Biden he would remain committed to service, a promise he says he intends to keep.
“‘Dad, you have to make me a promise,’” the president recalled his son saying shortly before his death from brain cancer at age 46. “‘When I’m gone, you will stay engaged. Give me your word.’ And I did.”
List of policies
For years, Biden has said that bolstering the cancer initiative was part of his so-called “unity agenda,” a list of policies — including higher penalties for fentanyl trafficking and legislation regulating artificial intelligence — that he believed could gain bipartisan support.
And during his Oval Office address discussing his exit 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 during a highly charged election year, with any congressional activity other than government funding expected to be suspended, such announcements may be symbolic at best.
In late July, Biden released a proposal for term limits and a binding ethics code for Supreme Court justices and called for a constitutional amendment removing immunity for crimes committed while serving as president — a set of proposals in the works since before he left the race.
White House officials acknowledge that executing on such proposals is a daunting task, but suggested the president still wants to “get a head start” on the issues he sees as most critical.
Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, has directed Cabinet agencies and executive branch officials to pursue new policy ideas in four main categories: implementing existing legislation, reducing costs, protecting personal freedoms and strengthening America’s place in the world.
The United States has renewed its urgency to reach a ceasefire and hostage settlement in the Middle East, calling for a summit to negotiate final details that is expected to take place this week. Biden is due to travel to Brazil for the G-20 summit in late November, where he will face questions about possible engagement with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.
The White House will also seek to increase its diplomatic engagement with India, an ally that has become a critical partner for the US in countering China’s aggression in the region.
“We want to create a more prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific and world,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “That will continue to be our focus as we move forward,” she said.
Waiting for implementation
Domestically, the White House remains focused primarily on getting money out the door and getting to work on Biden’s legislative measures. In all, about $563 billion has been allocated to projects funded by the infrastructure, semiconductor and clean energy bills — roughly a third of the total funding the government is expected to provide over several years.
Senior administration officials told the CNN that Zients and Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian, who is leading the administration’s efforts to implement the laws, are in touch several times a week to monitor progress and funding.
Regardless of what happens in November, the White House believes these investments should be relatively future-proof, citing recent calls from a handful of Republican lawmakers that the money not be rescinded in future budget negotiations.
“As these investments come to the streets and bring jobs to local economies, they don’t want to see them disappear,” Quillian told CNN .
Much of the government’s more than $1 trillion in financing and credits is scheduled to be released annually, which resets with the fiscal year, with 80 percent of the money available under the Inflation Reduction and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Acts having been provided.
The Commerce Department expects to award the $39 billion in grants from the Creating Incentives for Semiconductor Manufacturing and Science (CHIPS) Act by the end of the year, with tens of billions of dollars in funding for ancillary activities to follow after that.
And the Treasury Department has allowed businesses and individuals to apply for nearly all tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.
“We are moving as quickly as we can” to put the policies into practice, a senior administration official told CNN .
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said his agency has delivered about $12 billion in funding but has not yet sent all of the money allocated to the Agriculture Department.
“There’s no pressure. You want to make sure you’re investing these resources wisely,” Vilsack said when asked about the desire to disburse the funding before Biden’s term ends. If a future Congress or administration decided to rescind the unspent money, he said, that would be “a mistake.”
A torrent of new capital will be unlocked on Oct. 1 when the government’s fiscal year restarts, increasing the urgency of getting that money out to qualified agencies and local officials in the final weeks before the election.
*With information from Samantha Waldenberg, from CNN.
Source: CNN Brasil

Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.