President Joe Biden is reportedly “skewed” because his plummeting approval ratings fall below those of his rival Donald Trump, whom some scholars have already viewed as one of the worst commanders-in-chief in United States history.
The president has been plagued by low poll numbers since the end of the chaotic evacuation of the American military from Afghanistan in August 2021. The percentage of the population supporting him has fallen just below that supporting his Republican opponent of 2020, according to a poll aggregator.
Another tracker, Civiqs, shows Biden with an approval rating below 50 percent in every US state except Hawaii, where polls show him 52 percent approval.
“He’s lower than Trump now, and he’s really twisted,” someone close to the government told NBC News.
The president is backed by 40.7 percent of Americans on Tuesday, while 41.6 percent of voters backed Trump at this point in his tenure, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of several recent polls.
The number is now below that of any of its predecessors since the end of World War II. Trump’s rating has long been an exception to this standard.
Biden’s disapproval score on his 496th day in office, the most recent data, was also slightly higher than Trump’s. An average of 54.1 percent of Americans now expressed dissatisfaction with Biden, compared to 52.9 percent who disapproved of the Republican leader.
Historians ranked Trump 44th out of 47 presidents in a C-SPAN poll released last June. He ranks just below William Henry Harrison, who died about a month into his tenure.
And although he declared late last year, “I don’t look at the polls,” one person mentioned in NBC’s Tuesday report claimed Biden does get weekly briefings on where he stands on “key demographics” — and another said he did was reportedly stunned to fall behind with a suburban woman who was crucial to his 2020 win.
A White House official dismissed Biden’s irritation at the polls, instead claiming that “he’s pushing to make a tougher case for everything we’ve accomplished so far.”
It’s also confused the president’s allies — even South Carolina Whip Rep. James Clyburn, whose endorsement helped the president win his 2020 feature race, acknowledged the president’s struggles.
“I don’t know what is required here,” Clyburn is quoted as saying. “But I know the poll numbers have stayed where they are for far too long.”
Civiqs polling data shows Biden’s approval rating over water in just three states – Hawaii, Massachusetts and Vermont.
President Joe Biden’s approval rating is below 50 percent in every state except Hawaii
In the latter two, however, the President still fails to secure a 50 percent majority. Its approval rating in Massachusetts is 45 to 42 percent disapproval, while its margins in Vermont are 47 to 36 percentage points.
Within the blue strongholds of California and New York, Biden’s approval rating falls three and four points below his disapproval, respectively.
It is lowest in Wyoming, where the president votes 18 percent, followed by 19 percent in West Virginia — whose Democratic Senator Joe Manchin blocked several key progressive items on Biden’s legislative agenda.
His approval rating is in the low 20s in Tennessee, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Kentucky, and Alabama.
Biden’s displeasure is lowest in Vermont, where just 36 percent said they were dissatisfied with him. It is highest in Wyoming at 76 percent rejection.
Biden is also reportedly “frustrated” with the way his White House is being run less than two years into his tenure, with the commander-in-chief appearing to be fed up with the constant “purge campaign” his aides have launched for his off-the-cuff comments.
Biden is reportedly “skewed” because his approval rating is now dipping lower than Donald Trump’s
The president was also only briefed this month on the current baby food shortages, though economists claim it has long been building to the point of crisis, according to a comprehensive new report from NBC News published on Tuesday.
It’s the recent supply crisis that Republicans and other Biden critics blew him away for not acting faster.
It also suggests that the Biden administration is headed for another personnel shakeup, with Chief of Staff Ron Klain — known for vocally defending his boss on Twitter — likely to leave after November’s midterm elections.
Biden’s quest for an effective midterm strategy to help Democrats maintain their razor-thin control of Congress is also reportedly gaining urgency, even as the president continues to grow unpopular in the polls.
“He shares the view that we haven’t landed on a successful midterm message … and he’s putting a lot of pressure on people to find out what that is,” an unnamed White House aide told NBC.
One author writing a book on the current administration, Chris Whipple, acknowledged that Biden had come into office with “arguably the most daunting challenges since Franklin D. Roosevelt,” only to be hit by a perfect crisis storm from Ukraine to to become inflation through the supply chain to baby food.’
It comes as his approval rating of 40.7 is now lower than Donald Trump’s at this point in his tenure — by about 1 percent
But Tuesday’s report still paints a picture of a commander in chief who apparently thought his decades of Senate experience had given him an advantage, only to have to deal with back-to-back PR crises.
The president also reportedly complained to aides about the amount of negative coverage he received and the lack of Democrats on television defending him.
But he has also complained about the way aides were treating his public statements, the report claims, particularly fictitious statements that grabbed the headlines and forced them to backtrack.
He reportedly believes repeated corrections are eroding his reputation. Notable is a recent case in which an impassioned Biden, after meeting Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.”
Senior government officials right down to Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately jumped to say the president was not calling for regime change in Russia.
“Furious that his remarks were deemed unreliable, Biden argued that he was speaking sincerely and reminded his staff that he is the one who is president,” NBC’s report said.
The president was also reportedly upset that he was only informed about the baby formula shortage this month – despite economists having previously warned of the looming threat
His staff, too, could soon face another shock following the departure of press secretary Jen Psaki, with chief of staff Ron Klain reportedly set to leave after the November election
A White House official told the outlet, “We don’t say anything that the President doesn’t want us to say.”
And Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates also chimed in Tuesday morning, noting on Twitter that “no comments will be made on POTUS remarks without his express consent.”
But among the biggest changes Biden could face next is the search for a new chief of staff – with Klain’s reportedly planned departure window coming weeks after press secretary Jen Psaki quit her role and joined left-wing network MSNBC.
A person quoted in the report claims to have heard Klain discuss the exit, but senior White House communications adviser Remi Yamamoto said on record: “As Ron has said publicly, he has not set a timeframe, and this is not a discussion about it on everyone’s lips here.”
Possible successors could be Biden confidante Anita Dunn, White House adviser Steve Ricchetti or domestic policy director Susan Rice.
Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who lost his re-election bid to Republican Glenn Youngkin last year, reportedly spoke to the White House about a senior role in the government after his defeat last fall.
