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White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for President Biden’s poor approval rating, which fell to a new low in a recent poll.
Asked about recent polls which showed Biden’s approval had taken a big hit, especially among independent voters, Psaki said “it’s a really tough time in our country.”
“We are still fighting COVID, and a lot of people thought we would get there, including us,” she continued. “And because of the rise of the delta variant, because even though it was a vaccine approved under Republican administration, even though we now have full FDA approval, and even though it is widely available nationwide, we still have… 20 percent of the country who have decided not to get the vaccine.
“There is no doubt that it has an impact. And of course, as the president said, the responsibility ends with him, ”Psaki said. “This is by far the biggest problem on the minds of the American people, and it impacts many problems.”
While an average of RealClearPolitics polls shows Biden’s approval rating to be 43% – down from 51% in early August – Psaki has defended the president by saying that as the pandemic has worsened prolonged, it had a ripple effect on the economy, labor market and supply chains that disillusioned many Americans.
In the last of Quinnipiac national survey, released Wednesday, 38% of those polled approved of Biden’s performance while 53 disapproved of it, a record for his presidency. Meanwhile, 60% of independents disapproved of Biden’s performance, according to the poll.
The new data dropped Biden’s average approval rating in several polls to 44.6%, according to A real clear policy.
Psaki’s response has apparently ignored several administration missteps in recent weeks, including a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, an unprecedented border crisis, rising inflation and growing concern over debt default.
In the Quinnipiac poll, Biden received low scores on the other side major policy areas including pandemic response, economy, oversight of the military as commander-in-chief, fiscal matters, foreign policy, immigration, and the border situation.
Respondents were also skeptical of the president, with just 49% saying they thought he cared about average Americans. Fifty percent said they thought Biden was dishonest, while 44% thought the opposite.
Additionally, 56% did not trust the president’s leadership skills and 55% did not believe the Biden administration was competent enough to run the government.
“Beaten on confidence, questioned on leadership and challenged on overall competence, President Biden is hammered from all sides as his approval rating continues to drop to a number not seen since the scrutiny of it. ‘Trump administration,’ Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said.
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