Beltway Briefing Podcast
Troubled Presidency?
January 16, 2022
After a year of promising to lower temperatures, seek unity and demonstrate competent leadership, President Biden has struggled. Unable to bridge the wide gap between moderates and progressives in his own party, he is ending the first year in office with arguably the worst week of his presidency: inflation hit a 40-year high; the Supreme Court blocked the centerpiece of his push to get more people vaccinated; he failed to win passage for both voting rights and his Build Back Better legislation, signature priorities of his first year; and talks with the Russians, aimed at avoiding war in Ukraine, broke off with no apparent progress. Many Democrats are calling for a reset, as they nervously look ahead to the November elections. With his poll numbers falling and his agenda stalled, how does president Biden prepare for Year 2 of his presidency? On the eve of the first anniversary of his swearing-in, Public Strategies’ Howard Schweitzer, Mark Alderman, Patrick Martin, and Kaitlyn Martin discuss the challenges Biden is facing and ponder whether he has a strategy for a course correction.
