Will he pull it off?
After spending much of 2021 avoiding press conferences, President Joe Biden has entered 2022 with a lengthy press conference, suggesting the White House is attempting to rehabilitate the President’s image with this latest approach.
The East Room press conference on Wednesday (January 19) is indicative of the White House efforts to separate itself from the secluded impression it had created in 2021 and embrace being a less-cloistered outfit.
Biden spent plenty of the press conference answering reporters’ questions, though he was hesitant to extend the question-and-answer session due to supposed time constraints, despite hosting a press conference in August 2021.
But it became apparent that Biden and the White House, in general, were gearing up for this year’s midterm election as Biden had revealed during the press conference that he would be accompanying Democratic candidates campaign who had requested his presence.
This new edition of the President is unavoidable as polls show the President has become increasingly unpopular.
Recently, a Quinnipiac poll revealed –– to the shock of both Democrats and Republicans –– that Biden had achieved only a 33% approval rate among registered voters.
Biden seemed to acknowledge, to some extent, that he had seen the Quinnipiac poll, mentioning during the press conference that one poll polled him at 33%. Despite revealing earlier in the press conference to a reporter who asked how he intended to get Independents and Moderates who –– polls show –– had pulled back their support after his first year in the presidency, Biden answered, “I don’t believe the polls.”
Yet, polls show the President is sorely lacking. A poll conducted by Fox Business last month revealed inflation was the biggest economic problem voters face, with 47% of voters believing the President was making the situation worse and 22% saying Biden’s policies hadn’t helped inflation.
