This week’s White House Report Card finds President Biden finally with a victory under his belt after the House approved the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill with only Democratic votes.
Democratic pollster and grader John Zogby gave a B for the week and noted that Biden may have been aided in the Senate by the parliamentarian’s decision to disallow attaching the $15 minimum wage to the coronavirus bill, making its passage there easier.
Jed Babbin, grading a D+, noted that Biden appears to have suffered a blow in failing so far to win senators’ approval of his budget pick, Neera Tanden, who has been slammed for some ugly and sneering tweets against Republicans.
And Biden continued to get a pass from the mostly friendly media, even after it was reported that he planned to charge every single media member entering the White House $170 for a required COVID-19 test. Imagine if former President Donald Trump did that. But under Biden, it’s just crickets from the press corps.
John Zogby
Grade B
It was a big victory for Biden after the House of Representatives passed his $1.94 trillion COVID-19 relief and stimulus package. Now, it goes to the Senate, where it looks like Vice President Kamala Harris will have to break another tie.
The Senate’s parliamentarian may have done Biden a favor by ruling the $15-per-hour minimum wage piece out of the bill. One, possibly two, Democratic votes would have been lost had it remained. For now, no Democratic defections seem likely.
It also looks like the Democrats can block a filibuster so the president could sign the largest stimulus package in history soon. At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others are reporting fewer new COVID-19 cases, fewer deaths, and significant gains in the number of people who have received vaccines. Good news also as Johnson & Johnson’s single vaccine has won approval and shows evidence of being effective against the virulent U.K. strain that is starting to spread.
On the other hand, I am not so sure why the United States had to bomb a Shiite enclave in Iraq. If it was muscle-flexing against Iran as we try to coax them back into the nuclear deal, I am afraid it only muddied the water.
But it was mainly a good week as the president traveled to weather-ravaged Texas while that state’s embattled Republican Sen. Ted Cruz showed off his tan in Orlando, Florida, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, proclaiming that Orlando is not as nice as Cancun, Mexico. Someone needs to talk to that one.
Jed Babbin
Grade D+
The best thing you can say about Biden’s political week is that it wasn’t as bad as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s. It would have been an OK week but for, well, just about everything.
The illegal immigration mess that Biden is making has lots of elements. A federal court blocked Biden’s order, effectively banning the deportation of illegal immigrants for his first 100 days. Biden is canceling Trump’s policy that required asylum-seekers in Mexico to stay there until their applications are reviewed, so hundreds are coming in every day. Remember the media feeding frenzy over Trump’s orders that sometimes separated children from their parents after they came to America illegally because of court-ordered limits on the detention of children? Under Biden, we have children in containers, rather than children in cages.
Biden revoked Trump’s order banning collective bargaining agreements among Defense Department employees. That may reach a lot farther than civilian employees. Please remember that about two years ago, the German army had to withdraw from a big NATO exercise because its troops were going to exceed the number of overtime hours allowed under their collective bargaining agreement.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced America would seek reelection to the U.N. Human Rights Council, an absurd collection of human rights abusers, including China, Cuba, Pakistan, and Russia, which amuses itself by bashing the U.S. and Israel.
Meanwhile, Biden’s nominee for the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, appears to be unconfirmable. It’s not a huge blow to the administration, but it is perhaps an omen. The Senate parliamentarian ruled against an inclusion of the minimum wage hike that Biden wants (to $15 per hour) in the COVID “stimulus” package. Theoretically, Harris could overrule the parliamentarian, but that would certainly bring about the defection of opponents such as West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin in the final vote.
Thirty House Democrats also wrote to Biden saying that he shouldn’t have total control of the “nuclear football” (the codes necessary to launch nuclear attacks) and should share that power with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Was that an expression of worry about Biden’s mental capacity?
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: @TheJohnZogby.
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.
