This week’s White House Report Card is another split screen of partisan approval and disapproval for new moves by President Joe Biden, notably on the budget, guns, and Iran.
In the most significant event of the week, the president held a Rose Garden ceremony to announce his gun control plans, stating that his endgame was a new ban on AR-style weapons. He won applause from all anti-gun groups, but pro-Second Amendment advocates took note that the president said nothing about punishing criminals who use guns.
It was another week in which neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to see the border crisis after it had reached historic levels.
Conservative grader Jed Babbin gave an F, citing Biden’s push for higher taxes and spokeswoman Jen Psaki’s invitation to newsman Dan Rather after he credited her for handling press questions.
But Democratic pollster John Zogby graded a B and said that polls indicate the public is giving Biden an extended honeymoon. He also heralded Biden’s list of domestic plans that could make him “the most significant domestic president since Lyndon Johnson.”
Jed Babbin
Grade: F
The border crisis, the president’s orders on gun control, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s push for a minimum global corporate tax, and spokeswoman Jen Psaki’s invitation to Dan Rather to come back to the White House briefing room were the highlights of another miserable week.
If you have any questions about why the surge of illegal immigrants is entering the United States, look no further than the Biden administration. The U.S. Embassy in Peru reportedly advertised that people who go to the U.S. can get vaccinated for COVID-19. At least they had the decency to not advertise the tens of thousands of dollars the New York state government was prepared to pay the illegal immigrants. The media are doing everything they can to ignore the charges Texas Gov. Greg Abbott raised about the inhumane conditions at some of the places where the migrants are being temporarily held. Abbott said that sexual assault and inadequate food were among the worst of the problems.
Watching the back and forth between the White House press corps and the deft @PressSec Jen Psaki reminds me of when that was my daily beat. I miss it sometimes. Would be fun to find my way back to the briefing room again the future.
— Dan Rather (@DanRather) April 6, 2021
The hilarious part of the border crisis, if anything can be so labeled, was Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s statement that Biden may want to continue building former President Donald Trump’s famous border wall to fill the gaps. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? The racist, ineffective, medieval border wall that every Democrat opposed? Yep, that’s the one. For a brief moment, there was sanity within Team Biden.
Biden lost big when West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin reaffirmed that he won’t help sink the Senate filibuster rule. This has the effect of stopping Biden’s agenda cold, at least the parts of it that can’t be accomplished by executive order. That includes the gun control nonsense that Biden is peddling.
I may regret this, but you are welcome anytime! there is always a seat for @DanRather in the briefing room
— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) April 7, 2021
Yellen naturally supports Biden’s proposal to hike corporate taxes to 28%. She also wants to have other countries join the U.S. in taxing corporations’ foreign income at a minimum rate of 21%. Heavy-handed taxation at home, then, wouldn’t be escapable by shifting profitable operations overseas. What better way to strangle our economy and kill jobs?
The week wouldn’t have been complete without Psaki’s welcoming of Rather, the crown prince of fake news, back to the White House briefing room. She said she might come to regret it, but that’s doubtful.
John Zogby
Grade: B
It is a lot more like the old days with new presidents actually experiencing a honeymoon and being treated accordingly. Biden is mainly enjoying his approval numbers at around 55% and his disapproval numbers at around 40%. That means he is indeed winning some approval from some Republicans, and that is about as good as it gets these days.
But not congressional Republicans. Biden faces domestic crises with only his own party at his side. He has proposed a package totaling more than $2 trillion that includes stimulus, green energy, broadband, and infrastructure, and he has a shot at passing much of it. He is taking advantage of the majority goodwill and has the potential to be the most significant domestic president since Lyndon Johnson.
The huge numbers of immigrants piling up at the border with Mexico continue to dog him, and it does not help matters that his White House point-person on the issue just announced that she is leaving. The departure was preplanned, but the optics stink. The efforts to restore the Iran nuclear deal are underway, and while the U.S. is not physically present at the meetings, we are represented, and the ‘talks’ have begun. Progress and confusion continue on COVID-19, but there is progress.
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
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
