This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden in a bad spot.
COVID-19 is on the rise partly because he failed on his vaccine goal, inflation is on the rise in part due to his spending, the border remains a mess, and his Rasmussen Reports average approval rating is the lowest yet.
Conservative grader Jed Babbin gave Biden a D-, citing the problems the president and the nation are facing. Democratic pollster John Zogby, however, graded a B-, though he too highlighted the hurdles facing the White House.
Jed Babbin
Grade D-
We’re now more than six months into Biden’s presidency. In that time, the media have so consistently turned a blind eye to the crises he’s delivered to America that those emergencies (the border, #Bidenflation, and more) that Biden has created are his own “new normal.”
The “got aways,” the illegal immigrants (drug smugglers, the previously-deported and other criminals) who evade capture by the Border Patrol, number about 1,100 per day. Think about this: An American citizen visiting another country can’t return to the United States without getting a negative COVID-19 test result less than 72 hours before the return flight. There is no testing requirement for illegal immigrants who are entering the U.S. at the rate of about 180,000 a month (plus the more than 30,000 got aways per month). Biden is reportedly spending more than $2 billion to terminate the Trump-era contracts for building the border wall.
Voter give #Biden worse marks on his handling of #crime and #lawenforcement issues – just 15% say he’s doing an excellent job, 19% rate him good on his handling of crime, with 14% saying he’s doing a fair job and 48% rating him poor… https://t.co/lmKU3F2nUh pic.twitter.com/vNLUdzZBTX
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) July 29, 2021
Biden attempted a little cyber-saber rattling by saying that if we end up in a big shooting war, it might result from a cyberattack on us. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (from where the most serious cyberattacks emanate) shrugged off his warning and kept on with their attacks. In the same week, China, in a hot meeting with the deputy secretary of state, drew its own red lines that it demands Biden not cross.
There’s still about $1 trillion in unspent COVID-19 relief funding, but the president and congressional Democrats want another $5+ trillion in spending, along with another $1 trillion in infrastructure spending. As I wrote last week, “Bidenflation” is defined as price increases caused by wild government overspending the prescribed cure for which is more government spending. It’s now at an annual rate of over 5% and increasing. Due to accelerating #Bidenflation and the weak jobless reports, the economy is starting to show signs of slowing down.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended universal mask requirements for schools. More state and local government shutdowns, coming in the next few weeks, will quickly return us to zero or negative GDP growth.
Biden issued a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for most federal workers and on-site contractors, the alternative being indoor mask requirements and frequent testing. He and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin want to do the same for the military, but the law apparently prevents that until the vaccines are finally approved by the Food and Drug Administration. (So far, the vaccines have only been approved for emergency use.)
To top it all off, Secretary of State Tony Blinken praised China’s “outreach” efforts to help the Taliban. YGBSM.
John Zogby
Grade B-
The delta variant of the coronavirus tops the agenda this week.
New cases of COVID-19, mainly the result of the variant and among the nonvaccinated, are up 35% over last week and up 144% over the past two weeks. Medical centers and hospitals are filling up, and things look like they did in 2020.
At the same time, the culture war continues over the role of the federal and states (and cities) in mandating vaccinations and mask-wearing.
The culture war was also on display as the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 opened, hearing from U.S. Capitol Police officers assigned to guard Congress that day.
Biden’s approval rate is barely over 50%, but three new polls have him under 50%. On a positive note, the GDP grew at a 6.5% pace during the last quarter, and there is some movement on the hard infrastructure bill.
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
