Weekly Report Card: Biden ‘Just not connecting’

This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden facing another 2024 Democratic challenger in part because he just doesn’t click with voters.

Newly minted presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) said he is running because he doesn’t believe the elderly president can beat former President Donald Trump. Others add that Biden, spending another weekend hidden away in Delaware, has failed to sell “Bidenomics,” has sent conflicting messages about U.S. support of Israel and is out of touch with voters.

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“Biden is just not connecting,” said Democratic pollster John Zogby who graded the president’s week a “D.” Fellow grader and conservative analyst Jed Babbin gave it an “F,” and questioned if the White House staff even tells the boss how bad he’s doing.

John Zogby
Grade: D

President Joe Biden is just not connecting.

The GDP is rising at an annualized 4.9% pace. That is more than respectable and economists attribute it to consumer spending. Unemployment remains close to a 70-year low. Over 13 million new jobs have been created since Biden took office. His opponent has more criminal charges against him that, as we used to say as kids, “than Carters has little liver pills.”

Republicans finally elected a speaker of the House and he appears to be from a different planet. No need to worry because he may not even get to warm his new seat.

The president is getting closer and closer to full on engagement in a Middle East war and not many folks want that.

As of today he has a new Democratic primary challenger — four-term Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips who says that Biden has accomplished a lot but 2024 is about the future. I remember another Minnesotan who challenged an embattled president in New Hampshire and knocked him out of the election in 1968. Have to wonder if a 54-year-old has the right message. Whether or not he does, Biden is stuck with a 40% approval rate and is losing in polls to former President and currently indicted Donald Trump.

Jed Babbin
Grade: F

It was a horrible week for President Joe Biden. From him saying that he didn’t demand that Israel delay its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to the new record set for illegal immigrants coming into the country, we are driven to wonder whether Biden’s staff even bothers to tell him what’s really going on.

Until this weekend, Israel responded to enormous American pressure — coming from all and sundry, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — to delay its ground incursion into Gaza. They had delayed for two weeks or more. Biden says he didn’t pressure the Israelis but his minions obviously did.

Biden is still advocating a “two-state solution” to the Palestinian issue. The fact that the Hamas attack against Israel makes that a joke doesn’t resonate with Old Joe. He’s too busy vacationing in his Delaware mansion to worry about the dozen or more Americans who have been taken hostage by Hamas.

Biden let the sanctions against Iran’s missile program lapse this week, probably still hoping for a new nuclear weapons deal with the ayatollahs. That’s amazingly dumb, but no dumber than his warning to Hamas about the $100 million in “humanitarian aid” he’s sending into Gaza. Biden warned Hamas not to steal the aid shipments. Like that’s going to stop them from taking whatever they want.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Biden’s open borders have — in just FY 2023 — admitted 3.2 million more illegals into the U.S. About 730 terrorist suspects were caught, but there have been 1.5 million “gotaways” since Biden opened the border, people who have successfully evaded the Border Patrol and entered the country. That’s a major threat to our national security. The gotaways certainly include terrorists, spies and assorted criminals of all stripes.

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And Biden, not content to let people alone in any respect, is about to ban menthol cigarettes said to be enormously popular among minorities.

If there were a grade lower than “F,” Biden would have earned it tenfold this week.

John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster 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