This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden spending another weekend out of Washington, where his domestic and foreign policies have been weathering political storms.
He won an early fight on his infrastructure bill, but the Democrats are already warring on the follow-up $3.5 trillion spend-a-thon. Afghanistan is spiraling out of control. And inflation is roaring.
Our graders were in agreement that it was one of Biden’s worst weeks. Democratic pollster John Zogby graded a D, calling it a “horrible week.” Conservative Jed Babbin dished an F and mocked Biden’s praise for disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
John Zogby
Grade: D
There is no way to spin this into a good week for Biden. Actually, it has been a horrible week.
Despite impressive progress on the hard infrastructure bill, he now faces hostile progressives, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Nothing is inevitable despite solid bipartisan support in the Senate on the first bill.
At the same time, the president and Democrats were handed another defeat on voting rights.
Despite the numbers of new unemployment claims going down, following last week’s good new jobs report, consumer confidence is the lowest it has been in a decade as inflation continues to rear its ugly head.
Finally, the Taliban are close to taking control of Kabul, knocking down a growing number of regional capitals. This march has accelerated with the final pullout of U.S. forces from that God-forsaken country. Biden was in an impossible position with solid majorities of Americans opposed to keeping military forces there, an unsteady and weak government in Kabul, and the Afghan military’s loss of will to fight. The Taliban’s return to power has been inevitable, and they are reported to be continuing their punishment of civilians and destructive behavior toward women. Regardless of the merit or lack of merit to the president’s withdrawal policy, this very sad story has a terrible ending, and it is on his watch.
Jed Babbin
Grade: F
It was another dumpster fire of a week for Biden and his team with his praise for disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Afghanistan debacle and — OK, I can’t sum up this disaster in one good lead sentence, so let’s just get to it.
First, Cuomo was accused, after an exhaustive investigation, of sexually harassing at least 11 women in violation of state and federal law. Biden congratulated him for having done a “hell of a job” when Cuomo resigned rather than face inevitable impeachment.
Biden’s mismanaged withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan has turned into a disaster. On July 8, Biden said it was highly unlikely that the Taliban would quickly reconquer the country. Earlier this week, the White House said that the Afghanistan National Security Force had everything it needed to fight the Taliban. Except, of course, the will to fight. In the face of the Taliban’s blitzkrieg, Afghan forces folded like the late-season Chicago Cubs. The intelligence guys said that the Kabul government could fall in 90 days. At this rate, it could fall in two weeks. Biden asked the Taliban not to attack our embassy and sent an emergency deployment of about 3,000 troops into Afghanistan to help evacuate U.S. civilians and Afghans who had helped us.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, over 210,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States in July, the highest number in 21 years. With few exceptions (mostly Cubans who are banned because they might turn into Republicans), all are released into the U.S. Forty percent of those caught and released in Laredo, Texas, are COVID-infected. This remains the No. 1 public health crisis in America.
#Bidenflation continues at an annual rate of about 5.4%, which means that it has already wiped out gains in real wages (about 2.2% over the past year). Biden asked OPEC to increase production to help reduce the price of gasoline. Maybe he should have thought of that before killing the Keystone pipeline.
And, of course, congressional Democrats are about to pass another $1+ trillion in federal spending, which they insist has to be followed by another $3.5 trillion in pursuit of the progressives’ “Green New Deal,” tax increases, and other really, really bad ideas. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she won’t pass one without the other. Either would fuel inflation to higher levels, but both would combine to forestall economic recovery from the pandemic.
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
