Joe Biden ran for president on the proposition that he would defeat the coronavirus and end the pandemic, unlike Trump, who Biden thinks should have gone to jail.
“He waved the white flag,” Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview. “He walked away. He didn’t do a damn thing — think about it! And it’s almost criminal.”
If Trump’s response was “almost criminal,” Biden should get a life sentence. From the start of his presidency, he has overpromised and underperformed. Just before Christmas, Biden promised at-home COVID-19 tests for every American — but forgot to order the 500 million tests needed to make that a reality. (The administration now says the tests may be mailed out at the end of this week.)
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Most of the country has woken up to Biden’s incompetence. The president’s approval ratings are still sinking like a stone with no change in sight.
The president’s approval rating stands at just 33% and disapproval at 53% among Americans in a Quinnipiac University national poll conducted Jan. 7-10 and released Wednesday. Biden’s approval is down three points from Quinnipiac’s previous survey, which was conducted in November, with disapproval remaining unchanged.
An average of all the most recent national polls to measure the president’s standing conducted by the polling website FiveThirtyEight puts Biden at 42% approval and 52% disapproval.
According to the Quinnipiac poll, the president is deeply underwater on his handling of three top issues – the economy (34%), foreign policy (35%) and the coronavirus pandemic (39%).
Even Democrats are getting angry about Biden’s response to the omicron surge. Democrats are politicians first and have apparently really been hearing it from their constituents.
Democratic Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Tim Ryan of Ohio are urging President Biden to purchase and distribute domestically manufactured KN95 masks to any American household requesting them.
They would be paid for with previously allocated COVID-19 funds.
In a letter seen first by Axios, the pair writes the nation is at a “crossroads” in the fight against the coronavirus.
“We strongly encourage the administration to take the opportunity to prevent further loss of life … by leveraging the federal government’s substantial authority to prioritize American-made masks and PPE,” they write.
While the KN95 masks are an improvement over the cheap paper or cloth masks generally available, it’s becoming obvious that no mask currently made is more than partially effective against the omicron variant. Democrats’ proposal would be a gigantic waste of time and money.
We’re a year into the Biden presidency and the United States is still short of tests, especially the rapid tests that most western nations don’t seem to have any trouble acquiring. And Biden was complaining about Trump’s incompetence?
The lack of readily available rapid testing, particularly before the recent holidays, is also among the chief concerns detailed by aides and members. Another sore spot: changes in the CDC’s guidance.
Over 40 members of the House and Senate wrote a letter to the president Monday calling on the administration to expand COVID-19 rapid testing.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki conceded to reporters this week the administration was “not where we needed to be” in terms of testing supplies.
A White House official later cited the administration’s vaccination and COVID-relief efforts, adding: “We’re honest about the challenges we face and continue to address them with Congress, which is why we’re heartened by the praise we’ve received on announcements today, while continuing our work to manage a once-in-a-generation pandemic.”
Democrats — the president included — are thrashing about, looking for anything that would make the problem go away. It won’t, of course. COVID will be with us for a very long time and, instead of doing the things necessary to allow us to live with the coronavirus, like increasing the supply of rapid testing and developing treatments to deal with the disease, Biden is plodding along from one crisis to another, while the American people get angrier.
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