President Joe Biden is under scrutiny for failing to adapt to falling COVID-19 cases as Democratic governors around the country relax their pandemic restrictions.
Biden being at odds with other high-ranking Democrats puts him in an awkward position before the 2022 midterm elections, essentially a referendum on the party’s COVID-19 strategy, but it is not the first time he has clashed with his colleagues.
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Biden’s deference to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after pledging to be led by science and data, has tied him to the federal agency’s recommendations, according to former Republican operative John Pitney.
“CDC can provide guidance, but the authority to impose or remove mask mandates belongs to state and local governments,” Pitney, who has studied autism’s politicization, told the Washington Examiner.
For former CDC spokesman Glen Nowak, the current COVID-19 situation underscores “the many disconnects because different levels have different priorities.” Ideally, Biden should establish the “big-picture” emphasis, whether health, economic, or social, based on CDC advice, he said.
The White House was needled on the dynamic this week. Press secretary Jen Psaki expressed Biden’s support for the CDC’s indoor mask guidelines in areas of “high” or “substantial” COVID-19 spread. She similarly downplayed complaints that the split is exacerbating confusion, sharing that aides had spoken with governors about the federal framework’s importance.
“Our responsibility … is to abide by what the president committed to on the campaign, which is to listen to scientists, listen to data,” she told reporters. “That doesn’t move at the speed of politics — it moves at the speed of data.”
“I don’t think the federal experts on health and medical advice should be irrelevant to Americans at a time where we’re still facing a pandemic,” she added.
Biden being out of sync with Democrat governors, even a growing number of members of Congress, reflects newfound cautiousness after he set unrealistic expectations last year about how COVID-19 shots would return the public to a semblance of normal. Instead, the president’s “summer of freedom” was followed by his warning of “a winter of severe illness and death” for the unvaccinated.
Months later, the White House has accepted that the “new normal” will incorporate pandemic mitigation tactics — though tentatively.
“We certainly don’t see this moment now as the new normal,” Psaki said this week. “We want to get to a point where we are not — where COVID is not disrupting our daily lives.”
For Nowak, Biden could have “undoubtedly” invested in testing as well before the omicron variant created nationwide shortages before the holidays. But the president is in a place where “you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” particularly because of the virus’s unpredictability, according to the University of Georgia Center for Health and Risk Communication director.
“One of the things with public health measures is that they’re not terribly helpful if most people don’t do them,” he said. “On the other hand, if you don’t take those steps and then the virus takes a turn and causes more severe illness to more people, you’re going to be criticized for being slow.”
“The challenge for elected officials and politicians is that they’re trying to figure out not only what’s the best thing to do to protect public health, but they’re also trying to figure out how popular would that recommendation be with my constituency,” Nowak added. “What will that do in terms of my chances of getting reelected?”
The pandemic is not the only example of Biden being caught flat-footed in a response. Other instances include inflation and crime.
“There is no Harry Potter wand” Biden can use to address inflation, now at a 40-year record of 7.5%, according to Pitney. The Claremont McKenna College politics professor cited Richard Nixon’s unsuccessful and Ronald Reagan’s painful attempts to de-escalate rising consumer prices.
But Biden’s problem stems from his delay in recognizing inflation as a concern, he and his aides seeming out of touch when they described the phenomenon as “transitory.”
The White House contends that Biden’s hands are tied, too, with respect to crime as Republicans amplify recent violent offense spikes in 14 Democratic-run cities.
Republicans’ crime argument is premised on Democrats clamoring for lawmakers to “defund the police.” And it appears to be resonating because Biden traveled to New York last week to promote his anti-crime agenda despite him and his aides blaming the pandemic for some of the increases.
Pitney conceded that it was difficult for Biden to curb crime, again referring to Nixon, who pledged to appoint a new attorney general when he was elected during a crime wave in 1968.
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“Crime kept going up, and Attorney General John Mitchell ended up going to prison,” he said.
