A reportedly frustrated and furious President Joe Biden feels that his aides are undermining him by rushing to re-explain his remarks, sources told NBC News.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates pushed back against this NBC report in a Tuesday morning statement to The Daily Wire, noting that NBC buried the White House’s denial that Biden is feeling frustrated 28 graphs into its story.
“As we’ve said before, no clarifications of the President’s remarks are ever issued without his direct approval,” Bates told The Daily Wire.
After the president said on March 26 in Poland that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” his aides quickly walked back his comments and insisted that Biden did not mean that Putin should be removed.
“Biden is frustrated. If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” a person close to the president told NBC, asserting that the president feels like everything is going wrong at once.
NBC (left) is reporting that Biden was unhappy about WH aides walking back his comment that Putin "cannot remain in power."https://t.co/NrFUViFqN6
WaPo (right) has reported that Biden himself "helped workshop and sign off on a statement" that came 37 minutes after his speech. pic.twitter.com/QHJ1mu2WTP
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) May 31, 2022
Biden has told his advisers that the “so-called clean-up campaign” conducted by his aides to smooth over his potentially contentious remarks or gaffes undermines both him and the “authenticity that fueled his rise,” NBC reported.
The president reportedly also worries that it fuels GOP claims that Biden is not the one in charge.
The White House originally denied the report in a statement to NBC: “We don’t say anything that the president doesn’t want us to say.”
I can't believe all of these things are just happening while Joe Biden is president. What an unfortunate run of bad luck. pic.twitter.com/TbmwxLKEXA
— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) May 31, 2022
The publication reported that the president has also complained to his aides that he is not getting enough credit from the media or from Americans about his attempts to help the economy, pointing to unemployment rates that have subsided to pre-pandemic levels.
He also is reportedly upset that Democrats do not defend him enough on television, according to NBC, and he cannot understand his plummeting approval rating.
“He’s now lower than Trump, and he’s really twisted about it,” a source told NBC.
As of Monday, poll tracker FiveThirtyEight found that Biden’s approval rating stood at 40.7%, with 54.1% of Americans expressing disapproval of Biden. That’s a decline since April when Biden’s approval was at 41.7% and his disapproval rating was at 52.3%.