By Paul Bedard, Washington Secrets Columnist. Media: Washington Examiner.
This week’s White House report card finds President Joe Biden at his Delaware beach house readying for a week in Europe, where he will meet with King Charles III, attend the NATO summit, and participate in the United States-Nordic Leaders Summit.
According to a GOP count, the latest trip to Delaware means Biden “has spent 352 days — 39.2% of his presidency — on vacation.”
And who wouldn’t after the week he had? There was more polling that showed the growing Democratic anxiousness over having Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris, running for reelection. The Atlantic featured an essay calling on Biden to step aside.
Then there was the cocaine clown show. The week ended with White House officials saying that they may never know who left a baggie of the drug near the Situation Room. Also, Hunter Biden’s woes hung over the president, who denied helping the first son in foreign business deals. A new Rasmussen Reports survey found that most voters don’t believe the president.
.@joebiden may deny being involved in his son's deals, but voters don't believe him. https://t.co/fIhCVq3ur4 pic.twitter.com/9H3SJyvI0o
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) July 6, 2023
Our conservative grader, Jed Babbin, dished an “F” for the week which he called “another big lie week.”
Democratic pollster John Zogby, however, saw some positives in grading a “B” for the week. He noted that while a soft number, jobs were up again, inflation has cooled, and Biden won the endorsement of the AFL-CIO, which gives him a new block to those trying to force him from the 2024 race.
Jed Babbin
Grade: F
This was another big lie week for President Joe Biden, who has done his best to conceal the stench of corruption that now pervades the White House. It’s the smell of a bribery scandal that has allegedly netted the Biden family millions of dollars since the time Biden became former President Barack Obama’s vice president.
The first big lie resulted from a State Department IG report that blamed the White House for a series of huge blunders in the president’s Afghanistan withdrawal debacle almost a year ago. Biden denied he made any mistakes and that the withdrawal was done nearly perfectly. The facts that Biden abandoned hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghan allies to the tender mercies of the Taliban, and about seven billion weapons, and that 13 soldiers’ lives were lost —-don’t seem to register. The guy has no grip on reality.
The second big lie Biden uttered was the often-repeated claim that he had cut $1.7 trillion from the national debt in his two years in office. That lie is so ridiculous that even The Washington Post said it ain’t true. In truth, Biden has added at least $1 trillion to the debt and is still spending recklessly.
A plastic bag of cocaine was found in the White House. Fingerprints should reveal who handled it last.
Biden suffered a couple of major losses in the courts. A Louisiana federal judge imposed major limits on how Biden’s federal government can pressure social media to censor free speech, calling what the Biden administration has done in the course of the COVID-19 crisis “Orwellian.” It was an overdue blow against government-imposed censorship that has been used to unconstitutionally stifle conservative voices in violation of the First Amendment.
Biden is setting himself up for another big court loss. He signed an executive order making it possible for federal agencies to issue rules faster by avoiding major rule-making procedures imposed by the Administrative Procedures Act. When will this guy learn that he can’t just violate the Constitution and congressionally enacted laws whenever he wants to?
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it was increasing to 1,450 per day the number of “appointments” available to purported asylum seekers.
And the testimony of two IRS whistleblowers claiming Hunter Biden made millions in shady deals with his dad is still reverberating around Washington. The stench of corruption emanating from the White House is like the smell of rotting fish at low tide.
John Zogby
Grade: B
The economic news was good this week. The economy created 209,000 jobs in June, lower than expected but real nonetheless. Unemployment dropped from 3.7% to 3.6%. And wages rose 4.4%. Inflation, which had been hovering around an annualized rate of 10%, is 3.8%.
The U.S. agreed to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, which supporters cheer but critics charge is a violation of international agreements signed by over 100 nations. Is the use of aggressive anti-personnel weapons fighting a defensive war, or will it merely fuel more rage and revenge?
President Joe Biden’s polling numbers just don’t move. He remains stuck at a 43% approval rating and continues to be locked in dead heats against leading Republicans who want his job. He received the powerful endorsement of the AFL-CIO, early to discourage any challengers, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to run a very high-profile stealth campaign.
Cocaine was found at the White House. There, I mentioned it.
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 Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His weekly podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on Twitter @ZogbyStrategies
Discussion about this post