Hi, this is Leaco from Boulder, Colorado. I'm getting ready to go for 46 mile trail run

to celebrate both my 46th birthday today and the inauguration of our 46th president.

This podcast was recorded at 2.34 p.m. on Thursday, January 21st.

Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Enjoy the show!

I mean, happy birthday to her, but a 46 mile run does not sound like my kind of celebration.

I am tired just thinking about that, thinking about half of that.

How long does that take?

Too long, Mara!

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Wanda Summers, I cover demographics and culture.

I'm Susan Davis, I cover Congress.

And I'm Mara Lias and National Political correspondent.

This is President Biden's first full day in office, and he's already signed a series of orders and directives

that are meant to target the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mara, what's in these packages? What are your big takeaways here?

The big takeaway is that the Biden administration is going to use the federal government much more aggressively

than the Trump administration did. The Trump administration pretty much left all things COVID to the states

and then they said that they would step in to help when necessary. Biden has signed an order to direct government agencies

to use the Defense Production Act. Trump did this too, but Biden's going to use it a lot more aggressively.

He wants to use it to address shortfalls in all sorts of things. Vaccines, masks, gowns, gloves, syringes.

And also, he's going to try to get 100 million doses of the vaccine, not just manufactured but distributed and into people's arms in 100 days.

And it's just worth stating, I think, that a number of the things that we saw the president roll out between today and yesterday

and that first sweep of executive orders, these are things that people had been calling on the Trump administration to do for some time that they did not do.

...