White House Report Card: Biden losing on 2024, debt, public opinion

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This week’s White House report card finds President Joe Biden behind the eight ball on, well, everything.

On his report card, Democratic pollster John Zogby listed the negatives. Biden is down in the polls, lacks support for his reelection, is focused on second-rate issues, and is maybe the first Democratic president to be losing the public debate over raising the debt ceiling.

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And Biden either doesn’t care or is unaware of his situation, shuffling out of town for another weekend holiday even though his treasury secretary said the nation could face default on June 5.

In grading Biden a very low D+, Zogby wrote, “He doesn’t seem to be able to control his own narrative.”

Conservative analyst Jed Babbin graded the president’s week a D-minus, and noted Biden’s lackluster G-7 summit performance, continued inflation, and the Supreme Court smackdown of the EPA’s overreach on private lands.

“It was another one of those YGBSM weeks for President Biden,” said Babbin.

John Zogby
Grade: D+

It was just not a good week for President Joe Biden.

His approval polling average is in the lower 40s. Depending on which poll you trust, he is anywhere from 42% approval to 48% approval. But his matchups with either former President Donald Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis show him on the wrong side of a dead heat. This is not where he needs to be, but he doesn’t seem to be able to control his own narrative.

And still, a majority of voters do not want him to seek reelection and most continue to think he is too old for the job. He has a solid record of accomplishment, but his message is crowded out by his critics.

For example, in the past debt battles, Republican threats of a government default on U.S. debts have backfired on them. But in the current fight over cutting spending to increase the debt ceiling, it looks like the issue is hurting Biden.

What’s more, neither party is in the driver’s seat when it comes to public opinion. They are like planets revolving around different suns — Democrats focused on abortion, guns, and the environment, while Republicans are on inflation, the public’s funk, and “wokeness.” This is not the conversation a president wants at this stage.

Jed Babbin
Grade: D-

It was another one of those YGBSM weeks for President Joe Biden. His performance at the G7 summit in Japan was marred by mental slips; he lost a very big battle in the Supreme Court, and the debt ceiling wrangle has reached the crisis stage with only a few days left to make a deal.

At the G-7 meeting, Biden’s performance was altogether dismal. His remarks were almost incomprehensible, aside from his saying that he’d had extensive talks with South Korean “President Loon.” The gent’s name is Yoon Suk Yeol. Biden’s mental state is fading continuously.

The debt ceiling debate has gone from urgent to crisis stage. Last week, Biden injected the new idea of tax hikes into the argument, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rejected. Biden is still insisting on little or no cuts in spending, which will not get approval by the House Republicans. Biden is risking a first-ever default on America’s debts which would cause, almost immediately, an economic crisis. He’s also hinting at using his power under the Fourteenth Amendment, which doesn’t exist.

The Fourteenth Amendment says, ‘The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” Unless Congress passes a bill authorizing a debt ceiling increase, Biden has zero power to do anything about it. He could bring about a Constitutional crisis by trying to increase the debt ceiling himself.

Meanwhile, though inflation abated to almost Trumpian lows in March, it was back again in April, going up to at least 4.4% despite increases in interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve. More interest hikes may be coming, and families are continuing to suffer wage erosion because of inflation. Biden’s reckless overspending is the cause — not one of the causes, but the cause — of inflation.

The Supreme Court handed Biden a huge loss this week, overturning the “waters of the United States” rule that EPA tried to burden the economy with. The rule would have imposed enormous restrictions on everything from the Great Lakes to drainage ditches, and it was clearly beyond EPA’s authority to impose. Now the White House is screeching about the “MAGA Supreme Court,” even though the vote was 9-0.

And let’s not forget that the Pentagon made an accounting error of $3 billion in counting how much aid Biden has given Ukraine. Biden has changed his mind about giving Ukraine combat aircraft, which has been its most obvious need since Russia invaded in February 2022. Biden has always said that giving Ukraine combat aircraft would escalate the war. Now that’s apparently not the case. If he’d given the aircraft to Ukraine last year, Ukrainian pilots might have won the war by now. At best, the Ukrainians won’t receive F-16s until late this year, and their pilots won’t be trained on them for about six months after that.

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John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His weekly podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on Twitter @ZogbyStrategies

Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin

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