White House Report Card: Biden starts ‘quiet quitting’

This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden pretty much hidden away, allowing Vice President Kamala Harris to soak up the public’s and media’s attention as he begins his “quiet quitting” phase.

As usual, he is at his Delaware beach resort for the weekend, and there are no events planned.

We saw him in CBS News clips from an interview he sat down for that was notable for his suggestion that the post-election period could become messy if former President Donald Trump doesn’t win. He also showed up for a White House celebration of the 2023 World Series-winning Texas Rangers and said at one point, “All right, what am I doing now?”

Harris, meanwhile, picked liberal Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. The duo hit the campaign trail and were greeted by large crowds and enthusiastic supporters — including an adoring press corps eager to overlook her policy failures and his radical policies.

Conservative grader Jed Babbin gave the week an “F,” citing the continued border crisis that let in 99 terrorists. Democratic pollster John Zogby graded the week a “B,” noting a better jobs report and stock market recovery.

Jed Babbin

Grade: F

This week was witness to another awful performance by the Biden-Harris team with terrorists coming across the border, $239 million being sent to the Taliban, and the stock market’s reaction only days after President Joe Biden proclaimed that he’d “cured” the economy.

The biggest laugh of the week came when Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Biden was so consequential that his mug ought to be on Mount Rushmore with former Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson. She said this after saying that she hadn’t led the opposition campaign that got Joe to end his reelection campaign.

U.S. stock markets (and others globally) crashed two days after Biden proclaimed that he’d cured the economy, going down more than 2,000 points. How much more of a Bidenonmics “cure” can the world stand?

A new SIGAR report — the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction — said that the State Department didn’t manage its funding grants well, and $239 million in “counterterrorism” funds were sent to the Taliban, who are, of course, terrorists. And nobody is going to get fired for that screw-up.

And we’re told now that 99 on the terrorist watch list got into the U.S. More terrorists and other criminals are surely among the two million “gotaways” — those who evaded the Border Patrol altogether — who have entered the country under the Biden-Harris administration.

We’re left wondering how the media can so frequently label former President Donald Trump and his supporters as “radicals” when Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are doing everything possible to prove themselves to be real radicals. And now we have “Tampon Tim” Walz, the progressive governor from Minnesota on the Harris ticket to watch.

John Zogby

Grade: B

First-time applications for unemployment were down and the stock markets appear to have stabilized after their meltdown over the last week.

Hezbollah is poised for a major attack on Israel, independent of anything its sponsor wants. There is a lot of anxiety in the region, and once again, the U.S. is in a position with battleships, caches of arms, and advisers to serve as deterrence to fend off a major attack. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grudgingly agreed to go back to negotiations for a ceasefire, but no one believes him. It is a mess waiting to get worse.

Mostly out of sight, President Joe Biden has been insulated from the daily routine of bashing about his age and mental acuity. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris named a running mate and has pulled ahead in most polls, including some in several critical battleground states. She is in the middle of a honeymoon which can be expected to last through the end of the Democratic National Convention. The race is now enjoined, and former President Donald Trump looks to be off his game while his vice presidential selection, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), seems to never miss an opportunity to annoy broad swathes of voters. A decent week for the White House.

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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 X @jedbabbin.

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. Their firm polls for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies.