Your USA friends must be absolutely furious with Trump, then, cyclingmad, for not doing those things while in office (as he still is).
I'd guess they're also angry with Trump for the events of the last week sucking resources from these issues, and with Republicans who've delayed business with entirely spurious objections.
Fortunately Biden is making plans to get on with dealing with Covid and with other business, despite having to deal with the Trumpists' political shenanigans.
Trump has picked one of the worst imaginably times in the US's recent history to throw a tantrum and try to me-rail all attention and activity onto him. And he has, of course, chosen a tactic which means he has to be dealt with, rather than ignored smashing his toys in a corner, because he's tried to set fire to the actual process of democracy in the US, the process of orderly transfer of power. He is trying overthrow the democratic will of the people, and to rip up the concept of a "government of laws, not of men."
This is at least as important as individual lives – which is why the US has on occasion been to war and shed lives to defend it.
So crushing the Trumpies' attempt to install him as King, and doing so definitively without leaving openings for future attempts, is vital.
It's a mark of Trump's utter disregard for the lives and rights of American citizens that he pushed ahead with his putsch even during the pandemic.
Your friends have every right to be mad about it.