NBC News reports that infighting, much of it attributed to Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s decision to keep Joe Biden out of the public eye, is undermining the White House after the President’s approval rating plunged to 33 percent.
“Biden has strayed from his core brand as a pragmatic, empathetic politician who won the Democratic nomination as a moderate willing to compromise,” NBC News reported. As the nucleus of office politics, Klain is said to be responsible for “grumbling,” “personal score-settling and constraints… on Biden’s ability to reach out.”
Asked at Wednesday’s press conference about what his 2022 reset would entail, Biden blamed COVID and not Klain for his detachment from being able “to go out and do the things that I’ve always been able to do pretty well — connect with people.”
Biden confidants told NBC News that “Klain knows Biden ‘can be influenced by his old friends,’ and that ‘frankly, he should be, because there’s a lot of experience there.’” The report also accused Klain of giving “outsize credence to cable news and social media” and supported the claim with evidence of incessant tweeting and retweeting to pacify the media.
Klain’s strategy of keeping Biden away from his friends and the electorate comes as polling showed a whopping 49 percent of Americans believe Biden is not mentally fit to be president.