This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden ending a week highlighted by the Israel-Palestine clash, continued concerns about jobs, and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware payment offset by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decision to lift most mask requirements.
Democratic grader and pollster John Zogby noted the problems Biden is facing in the Middle East and the economy, but he said Biden’s polling positives are holding in large part because voters still like his COVID-19 response.
Conservative grader Jed Babbin said the week would have been a loss had it not been for improvements in the virus fight.
But is it a good week when the best thing about it is tied to the coronavirus?
Jed Babbin
Grade: D+
Biden’s administration actually achieved something this week, getting Uber and Lyft ride services into action to help people get vaccinated. But this was heavily overshadowed by the terrorist gang Hamas’s attacks on Israel, the Colonial Pipeline ransom payment, and a woke Army recruiting video.
Biden clearly doesn’t understand that you always get more of what you subsidize. Unemployment is increasing because people can make more money from unemployment benefits than many can make working. Similarly, by resuming payments to the Palestinians, Biden has subsidized (indirectly) the latest round of terror attacks against Israel. While anti-Israel screamers such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar accuse Israel of terrorism for responding to Hamas’s rocket attacks, the best Biden could manage is to praise Israel for not overreacting to the attacks.
The Colonial Pipeline company’s major East Coast pipeline was shut down by a ransomware attack by “DarkSide,” a bunch of Eastern European gangsters who may or may not be doing Russia’s dirty work. The attack cut off gasoline and jet fuel supplies to the East Coast for several days. Colonial paid the gangsters about $5 million in ransom to get their pipeline going again. Biden, entirely passive, wouldn’t answer whether he knew of the ransom payment. Nevertheless, the ransom payment opens up all major U.S. infrastructure (the electrical grid, airlines, and everything else) to ransomware attacks. Biden is either clueless (again) or he’s just ducking responsibility (still).
After the CIA woke recruitment video came out, it was hard to beat. But the Army did with its own cartoon video about a female soldier with “two mommies” who chose the Army as a career. It’s too bizarre to recount further. Biden is apparently happy about the “wokening” of our intelligence and military. He shouldn’t be.
The best thing that the Biden team did was to negotiate the agreements under which Uber and Lyft will offer free rides for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. It’s one of the few things Biden has done so far that’s entirely praiseworthy (at least until it somehow falls apart).
John Zogby
Grade: B-
There has been a lot going on this past week. Inflation is rising at a 4.2% clip, a pace we have not seen in many years. This follows a poor jobs report at the end of last week.
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Nonetheless, Biden maintains a 54% approval rating with only 41% disapproving, 64% approve of the way he is handling the COVID-19 crisis, and 53% approve of his handling the economy. At the same time, he has a front-row seat viewing the opposition party betting all of its chips on the man he beat in 2020.
We can’t tell how this will all play out in 2022 or 2024, but this week, the president is above the fray.
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
