This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden unable to talk Russian President Vladimir Putin down from a war on Ukraine and talk up the public’s spirit and confidence in his leadership.
On the Russia front, his scolding and depressing Friday statement did not seem to have any impact on Putin. Neither did Vice President Kamala Harris’s address to a security conference in Munich, spoken slowly for impact.
The president’s polling average flattened to 41%, and he traveled to Ohio to push his dead Build Back Better spending plan. And it was pure confusionville over mask recommendations, with Democrats scrambling to abandon mandates and the administration continuing to push their usage.
Democratic pollster John Zogby graded a C-, called the week bad, and even suggested that Biden reach for the Bible.
Conservative national security analyst Jed Babbin graded a D-, citing a sky-high “Misery Index” rating and a new report that said the administration bumbled the Afghanistan withdrawal worse than thought.
John Zogby
Grade C-
Not good, not good at all for Biden.
While there was some encouraging news about retail sales jumping 3.8%, almost double what experts were expecting, and industrial production ahead 2.1%, polls report that people are filled with more anxiety about the economy. This week’s stock market was a further sign of concern.
A theory now floating around argues that inflation concerns are mainly hype. To anyone who agrees with that, some advice from this aging pollster: Please fill your car gas tank, then go buy some groceries.
There are now apparently as many as 190,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, and published reports suggest an imminent attack. There have been some incidents, including one very close to a kindergarten. There are two questions that are troubling about this: What is Putin doing? Does Putin himself know what he is doing?
The public mood is sour. The country is getting meaner. And even the Olympics offered no source of relief. Maybe Biden can find comfort in the Book of Job, where the long-suffering protagonist goes on to attain wealth and lives another 140 years. But not this week.
Jed Babbin
Grade D-
It was a week that featured a recurring nightmare for Biden: Afghanistan.
It came in the form of the Army’s report of its investigation into the deaths of 13 U.S. service members (11 Marines, one Navy corpsman, and an Army special operator) in August. Those troops were killed by a terrorist bombing during the debacle Biden caused when he decided to withdraw our troops suddenly from Afghanistan.
The Army’s report makes clear what we already knew about the confusion and lack of timely decisions in the White House that caused the debacle.
Biden said he rejected the report, as if that would make it go away. If he runs again in 2024, he’ll be hearing a lot about it from his GOP opponent.
Meanwhile, the “Misery Index,” the sum of the inflation rate and the unemployment rate, hit 11.5% in January, the highest in a decade. It will continue going up this month.
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Poll and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His weekly podcast with son and partner 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
