Joe Biden says his administration has ‘outperformed’ in bruising first year

Joe Biden on Wednesday conceded that the unshakable threat of the Covid-19 pandemic had left many Americans demoralized, but insisted that his administration had "outperformed" expectations despite the myriad crises facing the nation during his first year in office.

Speaking to reporters in the East Room of the White House for his first solo news conference in months, the US president said he was confident Democrats could pass "big chunks" of his sprawling domestic policy bill currently stalled in the Senate before the 2022 midterm elections.

"It's been a year of challenges but it's also been a year of enormous progress," Biden said, outlining the administration's early successes: passing coronavirus relief aid that slashed child poverty rates and a bipartisan infrastructure law that will shower funding for major public works projects on every state in the nation.

Biden was also realistic about the difficult road ahead, as the extremely contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus overwhelms hospitals, inflation rises and his agenda languishes before a Congress controlled by Democrats.

"After almost two years of physical, emotional and psychological impact of this pandemic, for many of us, it's been too much to bear," he said. "Some people may call what's happening now 'the new normal'. I call it a job not yet finished. It will get better."

Grading his efforts to combat the pandemic, Biden insisted the US was better positioned now than when he took office, while acknowledging mistakes, such as not ordering more tests earlier. He vowed the US would not go back to the earliest days of the pandemic when lockdowns and school closures were widespread.

"I didn't overpromise," he said. "I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen."