It’s not just one debacle: Eight months in, Joe Biden’s presidency is collapsing on every front.
Joblessness has been rising for weeks, inflation remains high, his own border chief is warning of a record-breaking migrant surge in October, and the president’s planned private-sector vaccine mandate is still MIA.
Biden put all his (limited) energy into legislation to transform the nation into Bernie Sanders’ dream welfare state — and that scheme’s imploding too, as Democrats descend into infighting.
Biden promised a return to normalcy; instead, the country’s in chaos — with little hope our clueless leader can turn anything around any time soon.
Initial jobless claims have risen three straight weeks in a row, the feds announced Thursday. First filings rose to 362,000 last week, up from 351,000 the week before, per Labor Department data. It was another surprise for economists, who’d expected much rosier news.
When the feds announced the economy had added just 235,000 jobs last month, Biden claimed there’s “no question” the Delta variant was responsible. But now joblessness is rising as COVID cases are falling. Experts estimate the fourth wave peaked Sept. 13; new daily cases fell 20 percent in the last week.
And the border crisis is set to grow. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week asked his senior officials if they’re prepared for a possible 350,000 to 400,000 border crossers in October, two sources told NBC News. That would be nearly double July’s two-decade high of 210,000 migrants. So much for Biden’s claim months ago that the surge is just “seasonal.”
Mayorkas fears the larger wave will come if courts insist on narrowing the use of Title 42, which allows blocking migrants due to the pandemic. But the Bidenites already ignored it to let in thousands in a single September week after tens of thousands of Haitian migrants flooded Del Rio, Texas; it deported a very small minority. And Panama’s foreign minister, Erika Mouynes, warns that up to 60,000 more migrants, many Haitian, are on their way through her country to ours.
Meanwhile, the administration can’t even forward its own stated COVID policies. Biden made a big show three weeks ago of saying he’d force companies with 100 or more employees to institute a vax mandate via an Occupational Safety and Health Administration order. Business owners desperately want to know the details so they can plan.
But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki still won’t offer any timeline for the order’s release, saying simply, “Hopefully, we’ll know more in the coming weeks.” Did the White House only start the process after Biden announced it?
The only challenge this administration seems able to handle is keeping the president from facing reporters’ questions.