Kamala Harris claims poor Biden polling would improve if more Americans knew about admin’s ‘historic accomplishments’
WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris thinks the Biden administration’s historically bad approval ratings would improve if more people knew about its “historic accomplishments,” she told Katie Couric this week.
The sit-down on the former “Today” show and “CBS Evening News” anchor’s “Next Question” iHeartPodcast took place one day before the release of a new Gallup poll showing Biden with an average approval rating of 39.8% during his third year in office.
Only Jimmy Carter, who averaged a 37.4% approval rating during 1979, fared worse in the poll over a similar span before going on to lose 44 states to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.
Asked by Couric for an explanation, Harris claimed that “we have a lot of accomplishments, and I think what the American people want most in their leaders is that we actually get things done, and we have done it.
“We haven’t taken adequate credit for it, frankly, and we’ve got to do a better job of getting the word out about what we have accomplished and who did it,” added the veep, who later reiterated that “it is incumbent on us to let people know who brung it to them, frankly.”
Those accomplishments, Harris claimed in a rambling soliloquy, included piecemeal student loan debt forgiveness and capping the cost of insulin for seniors at $35 a month.
“We have historic accomplishments in terms of the economy, what we’ve done to move forward,” she said. “It’s science, technology and investment in the American workforce, growing the American workforce, rising wages, bringing down prices. Historic work has happened, no question.”
No mention was made by Harris of inflation remaining stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target — coming in at 3.4% for the 12 months ending in December — while real average earnings have yet to keep pace.
Biden’s approval ratings have been underwater since the disastrous withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, according to Gallup, and have been further weighed down by discontent with the economy, global crises including wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and record levels of illegal immigration.
On the last issue, Couric tried to throw Harris a lifeline, telling her that she was “not in charge of the border,” despite being tapped by Biden in March 2021 to handle the “root causes” of mass migration.
“There’s no question our immigration system is broken and it needs to be fixed. And as with any problem, leaders will participate — true leaders — in the solution,” Harris responded. “So I’m going take you back to about three years ago, I think the day after our inauguration, when Joe Biden came in as president and me as vice president. The first bill that we offered was a bill to fix the immigration system.”
After Couric pointed out that Democrats had control of both chambers of Congress at the time, Harris ignored her interviewer and plowed ahead: “And Congress did not take it up. This is, first of all, not a new issue. But sadly, it has become so deeply partisan and the subject of political gamesmanship, when in fact the solutions are at hand. And we offered a solution early on and invited bipartisan work to fix this.
“In fact, we have right now a proposal for $14 billion so that we can put more resources to address this very situation. And we are trying to compel, in particular, some of the Republicans in Congress to participate in the solution. But sadly, we want to fix it and they want to run on it. They want a political issue to run on in November.”
Other presidents to rate below 50% approval over their third full year in office include Richard Nixon, Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, according to Gallup. Of those four, only Trump was not re-elected.
Meanwhile, George H.W. Bush, who averaged 69.5% approval between January 1991 and January 1992, was defeated in his re-election attempt by Clinton.