This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden still struggling to win more funding for Ukraine, sinking in public approval polls and unable to win a ceasefire in Gaza.
But as pollster John Zogby noted in his weekly review, at least he isn’t former President Donald Trump who has to come up with $350 million while he appeals a New York business fraud case.
Today is the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Biden plans to participate in a G7 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, it’s unclear what he can promise since he has been unable to win congressional support for more funding for Ukraine.
Biden’s approval rating fell further this week. Gallup blamed disapproval of his handling of Ukraine, immigration, and the Middle East. The outfit glumly reported, “Americans’ approval of President Joe Biden’s job performance has edged down three percentage points to 38%, just one point shy of his all-time low and well below the 50% threshold that has typically led to reelection for incumbents.”
It added, “Looking ahead to November, history suggests that Biden has significant work to do to improve his approval rating among independents as well as Democrats if he is to win a second term.”
Zogby, in grading Biden a “B” for the week, cited improvement in hiring. Conservative analyst Jed Babbin graded the week an “F,” and, like Gallup, highlighted the administration’s failures.
Jed Babbin
Grade: F
Ok, so according to President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump is out to destroy democracy, and everyone should be held to the same standard of obeying the law. Of course, that’s a one-way street for Biden & Co.
Biden, after canceling another billion dollars in student loans to buy votes, this week regaled a California campaign audience with how Republicans tried to stop him and sued him. Even the Supreme Court ruled against him. But he still said he would erase the loans of 153,000 borrowers despite lacking the authority to do it.
That’s not half of what happened this week, but it was a start that can’t be ignored.
Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said there was a huge national security threat that Biden should declassify so people can debate what should be done. White House Spokesman John Kirby said the threat was Russia’s development of nuclear-armed satellites capable of destroying U.S. satellites. So what’s Biden doing about it? Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
On the Israel-Hamas war, Biden is seeking the help of the United Nations to win a ceasefire. That is precisely the wrong thing to do because it would leave Hamas terrorists in control of the Gaza Strip.
And Fox reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials believe Biden’s open border policy has allowed some 7.3 million illegal aliens to enter the U.S. The northern border is also open, with a 240% increase in illegals coming in.
There’s a great scene near the beginning of the movie 1776 in which John Adams, despairing of Congress and its inaction, sings about liberty. He begins, “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?” The same could be sung of the White House, but at this point, it would be a dirge.
John Zogby
Grade: B
I would call this another pretty good week for President Joe Biden.
Unemployment filings were down to their lowest in years, even though that has not resulted in any uptick in his job approval. Four polls out this week show him at about 40%, not great.
It does not hurt at all that a panel of 154 history and political science scholars rate him as the 14th greatest president. It also doesn’t hurt that they ranked his likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, 45th — the lowest, worse than the traditional bottom of the heap like Buchanan, Fillmore, and Pierce. Their descendants should send thank you notes to both the scholars and to Trump. Okay, so maybe academics are a little biased, but 14 is good, and 45 is bad.
Biden issued sanctions against Russian leaders as a result of the death of dissident Alexei Navalny, and maybe there is some movement on a limited ceasefire/hostage release deal in Gaza.
But the real boost for Biden comes from his opponent who must come up with nearly a half billion dollars in fines, interest, and lawyers’ fees as either outright payments or escrow while he files appeals in his New York business fraud case. In an unbelievably tawdry exhibition, Trump reduced himself to medicine-wagon salesmanship of his new brand of sneakers. It may give pause to some Americans to vote for someone who may actually be found guilty of felonies before Election Day. It is a whole other thing to have to consider a man standing naked wearing only a barrel and gold sneakers. Come to think of it, compared with that, Biden had an even better week.
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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 X @jedbabbin
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Their firm polls for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies