At one point Biden’s approval rating as president was at about 60%….but he seems to have hit a high mark and is steadily losing his support…..

Two new polls show President Biden’s approval rating declining as COVID surges and bad news related to Afghanistan abounds:

• NBC News: The poll found Biden’s approval rating hit 49%, the first time it has dipped below 50%, and his disapproval rating hit 48%. In April, NBC’s polling had him at 53% approval. However, between April and August his approval rating among Democrats only slipped from 90% to 88%.
• CBS News: The poll also found Biden’s approval rating has hit a low point, though it has approval and disapproval evenly matched at 50% each. In July, approval was 58% and disapproval 42%; in March, those numbers were 62% and 38%, respectively.

• RealClearPolitics’ poll average currently has Biden’s approval rating at 48.2%, while FiveThirtyEight’s average has him sitting at 49.4%. Some specific findings from NBC and CBS:

Afghanistan: 44% of CBS respondents think the US withdrawal went “very badly,” and another 30% think it went “somewhat badly.” While 63% agree with the idea of removing US troops from the country, just 47% are on board with how Biden handled it. Nearly 60% say the US is not doing enough to help Afghans who want to leave Afghanistan, and 60% fear an increase in the terrorism threat to the US due to the Taliban takeover.

COVID: Among NBC respondents, 53% approve with Biden’s handling of the pandemic, 16 points lower than April’s numbers. Just 37% think the worst is over, while 42% believe it’s still to come.

Economy: Forty-seven percent of NBC respondents approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, and only 24% described the current state of the economy as good. While 44% said they were mostly hopeful about the future of the US, 54% described themselves as mostly pessimistic.

This week will be a tough week for Biden…..

Joe Biden faced the biggest crisis of his presidency so far after the collapse of Afghanistan’s government and military—and this week is unlikely to be any easier. Top administration officials will face tough questions about Afghanistan in congressional hearings, and a standoff has developed among House Democrats over major parts of his legislative agenda, the Hill reports. Democratic leaders are hoping for quick approval this week from House Democrats for a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint passed in a party-line vote in the Senate, but nine caucus members are threatening to oppose it unless the House first approves the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that passed the Senate with bipartisan support, reports the AP.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can’t afford to lose more than three votes—but meeting the demands of the centrist group may be impossible, since almost 100 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus say they will withhold their votes on the infrastructure bill until both the budget blueprint and the final $3.5 trillion package, which will include progressive priorities like fighting climate change and expanding Medicare, have cleared Congress, the Washington Post reports. Caucus member Rep. Ro Khanna describes the moderates’ opposition as a ” slap in the face of Joe Biden”

Pelosi warned House Democrats over the weekend that any “delay to passing the budget resolution threatens the timetable for delivering the historic progress and the transformative vision that Democrats share.” The White House said Biden supports Pelosi’s strategy. House Republicans, meanwhile, are accusing Pelosi of holding the bipartisan infrastructure bill “hostage,” though it’s not clear how many of them intend to vote for it, Politico reports. “The Democrats are tied up in a pretzel over this, with both wings of their party duking it out over how to move forward,” says GOP Rep. Jim Banks.

It will be telling to see how the spin doctors try to change the conversation to avoid a total meltdown.

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