White House Report Card: In the right place at the wrong time

This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden ready to party at tonight’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with Washington’s media elite, who are celebrating the liberals’ defeat of former President Donald Trump.

But our sober graders said there is little to cheer about.

Democratic pollster John Zogby highlighted the economic problems under Biden. He gave a “D” for the week and quoted rock ’n’ roll’s Dr. John in suggesting that Biden’s presidency came at the wrong time.

Conservative Jed Babbin dished another “F” and said that was too good for Biden’s disaster week, notable for the administration’s creation of an “Orwellian disinformation control board.”

John Zogby
Grade D

The week began and ended with bad economic news. While more people are employed, wages are up, and unemployment is at a 50-year low, America’s GDP actually contracted during the last quarter of 2021. This was compounded by an annualized inflation of 8.5%, which neutralized any wage gains that had been made.

Even worse, polls and published interviews reveal that public confidence is at a low as people in the United States are going further into debt, see themselves sliding, and have no sense that there is a way out. By the closing bells on Friday, all three major stock markets had tanked.

Biden’s approval rating is 42%. I am reminded of the words of the great Dr. John: “I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time.”

Jed Babbin
Grade F

After 16 months of his presidency, you’d think that Biden would have run out of things to screw up. But Biden had another one of those weeks, earning a grade 10 times lower than “F.”

From a decline in our economy to a horrific statement to teachers, from his new Orwellian disinformation control board to the National Sheriffs’ Association concern about the southern border, Biden & Co. have managed to impose significant disasters on us this week. Foreign leaders aren’t even bothering to take his phone calls.

Our national GDP declined by 1.4% last quarter. One more quarter of decline will make it an official recession. Nevertheless, Biden wants to keep spending and spending money we don’t have. Inflation continues, with used car prices up a reported 30%.

After stating that our southern border was secure, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas announced a new “Disinformation Governance Board” that will have unspecified powers to control free speech online. This new control group will undoubtedly be used to attempt to restrict the online speech of Biden’s political opponents whenever it can. Nina Jankowicz, the boss of the board, is known for her advocacy of Christopher Steele, the author of the phony Russia “dossier,” and a defense of Hunter Biden’s laptop in which she said it was a Trump campaign stunt. She will operate under the fiction that her group is defending homeland security.

The DHS chief’s statement on border security in defense of pandemic-related Title 42 protections drew fire from the National Sheriffs’ Association, which said in a letter to Senate leaders that “we simply have no border left in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, or Southern California.” They should know. They have responsibility for the border that Biden has abandoned. Biden’s revocation of the Title 42 protections is, so far, tied up in court. Any nation that doesn’t enforce its borders isn’t a nation.

French President Emmanuel Macron refused to take Biden’s congratulatory call when Macron won reelection. Biden reportedly was left to speak with Macron’s staff. On a similar note, Saudi Arabia’s leaders also refuse to take Biden’s calls. They’re furious about his obsession with renewing the Obama-era nuclear weapons deal with Iran. At this point, the Saudis are having their own negotiations with Iran from which we are excluded.

In his Wednesday remarks at the Teacher of the Year event, Biden said that when children are in the classroom, they’re the teachers’ children, not anyone else’s. It echoed the disaster line that lost Terry McAuliffe as he tried to run a second time to become the governor of Virginia.

If all that weren’t enough, Biden banned incandescent lightbulbs starting next year.

John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey 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