President Biden dared Americans to stop electing Republicans if the government careens into shutdown next weekend.

‘Funding the government is one of the most basic, fundamental responsibilities of the Congress and if Republicans in the House don’t start doing their job, we should stop electing them,’ Biden said in remarks at the White House. 

The government will run out of money on September 30 if the House and Senate do not agree on spending legislation to send to the president’s desk.  

The president pointed to the debt ceiling deal he made with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which set funding caps for fiscal year 2024.

But the deal roiled some House conservatives who demanded McCarthy write up 12 separate spending bills at caps lower than those agreed to in the debt ceiling legislation. 

‘Now, a small group of extreme House Republicans, they don’t want to live up to that deal and everyone in America could be faced with paying a price for that,’ he said. ‘We made a deal. We shook hands. We said this is what we’re going to do and now they’re reneging on the deal, which is not much of a surprise these days.’ 

Democrats have launched an all-out campaign to lay blame on Republicans for a government shutdown. 

Earlier the Biden campaign accused House Republicans of ‘gleefully letting Donald Trump function as their chief political strategist at the expense of American families.’

Five days before a government shutdown, it’s not clear the House is any closer to passing a spending deal than it was last week. 

Last week Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warned shutdowns ‘have always been a loser for Republicans politically’ and that they’ve ‘never produced a policy change.’

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is expected to take yet another gamble with a rule vote that would advance four separate spending bills on Tuesday, though it’s far from clear the rule would pass. 

The speaker would need to flip five Republican holdouts who voted ‘no’ on a rule vote for the defense spending bill last week, a rule vote that failed twice in 48 hours. 

The rule vote that tees up debate on spending bills typically passes with support from almost everyone in the majority party. But the House GOP has struggled to push through a rule vote three times this year. 

The rule vote for the military, the Department of Homeland Security, State and agriculture on Tuesday night will take the temperature for how the rest of the week could play out for House Republicans.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has already said she is a ‘hard no’ on the rule because it includes ‘blood money’ for Ukraine.

McCarthy had said he would strip $300 million to train Ukrainian soldiers from the defense spending bill and hold a separate vote on it on Friday. But he did an about-face and decided to leave the money in their as he realized it would be too difficult to strip that and the Ukraine funding in the bill for State Department funding.  

The other GOP ‘no’ votes include Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.) and Dan Bishop (N.C.) and it’s not clear if any of them have changed their mind this week. 

Even if they are able to begin debate on the bills, it’s far from clear they could actually pass them.  

And if all 12 appropriations bills were passed by the House, a daunting feat in itself, the government would still shut down because the Senate would never take up and pass those bills by Saturday night. 

Meanwhile, McCarthy is pushing forward with a Republican-only continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the government open and give his conference more time to push through spending bills. 

The Senate, meanwhile, is prepping a bill that could advance a Democrat-led CR  and put pressure on McCarthy to put it on the floor. 

And House moderates have begun to prep their own bipartisan CR plans and look at ways to advance them without the blessing of leadership. Some moderate Republicans have said they would join with Democrats on a discharge petition, meaning they could force a CR vote on the floor if five Republicans and all Democrats agree to it. 

McCarthy has urged his colleagues to fight against a shutdown, even as some seem open to closing the government to get what they want. Trump urged Republicans on Truth Social Sunday: ‘UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN!’ 

‘You have to keep the government open. I mean, if people want to close the government — only makes them weaker,’ McCarthy said. 

‘Why would they want to stop paying the troops or stop paying the border agents or the Coast Guard? I don’t understand how that makes you stronger. I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.’ 

Millions of Americans are unknowingly being exposed to toxic smoke from vapes and cigarettes on a regular basis, a study suggests.

Researchers at the University of Florida testing the blood of 13,000 people found evidence of nicotine exposure in 51 percent of participants.

Of this group, a whopping 67.6 percent had insisted they were not breathing in smoke from vapes or cigarettes.

The findings suggest 56million Americans — or nearly one in five adults — are unwittingly taking in this smoke.

The team warned there was ‘no safe level’ of this smoke to breathe in, saying it raises the risk of heart and lung problems and cancer. Separate research suggests it could even cause smaller testicles.

Vaping has taken off in the US with more than nine million Americans now using the devices, with popularity surging to as many as one in four high schoolers.

Cigarette smoking also remains reasonably common with 28million Americans lighting up regularly, mostly in the Midwest and South. The habit has virtually disappeared in some areas, however, such as Manhattan.

Smoke from cigarettes and vapes may linger in the air for hours after it is released in indoor and poorly ventilated areas, risking others breathing it in.

Dr Ruixuan Wang, a public health expert who led the study, warned: ‘There is no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure, and long-term exposure can increase the risk of many chronic conditions.

‘[These include] coronary heart disease, respiratory disease and cancers.’

She added: ‘We want people to be aware of their exposure so they can take protective actions.’

For the study, researchers analyzed data from the US National Health Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted between 2013 and 2020.

This survey is carried out annually by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help assess the health of the nation.

For their study, the researchers looked at a nationally-representative sample of survey data on Americans reporting second-hand smoking — breathing in fumes from smokers and vapers. 

They also looked at data from blood tests for cotinine, which is a byproduct of nicotine made by the body after someone breathes in smoke. It can linger in the blood for days.

Researchers found that, overall, 34.6 percent of participants under-reported their exposure to nicotine.

They also found that the levels of cotinine in the blood of people reporting second-hand smoke exposure was higher than among those who were not reporting this. 

Dr Jennifer LeLaurin, a biomedical expert and senior author of the study, added: ‘It could be the case that for low-level exposure, maybe you don’t notice it. 

‘You’re in a public setting, and maybe you’re not even aware someone is using tobacco around you. Maybe it’s so minor you forgot.

‘There’s also the possibility that some of the respondents were aware of some secondhand smoke exposure but chose not to report it due to the stigma.’

It comes after a study in mice suggested that exposure to smoke from vapes makes your testicles smaller and lowers your sperm count.

In research on male rats, experts from Turkey tested what effect exposure to smoke from e-cigarettes and normal cigarettes had on the rodents’ sexual health.

They measured how much sperm the animals could make, what their testicles looked like under a microscope and markers of stress in the blood and genitals.

The authors wrote: ‘It should be considered that although [e-cigarette] liquid has been introduced as harmless in smoking cessation studies, it could increase oxidative stress and cause morphological changes in the testicle.’ 

But regular cigarettes – which have long been tied to male infertility – were even worse in terms of lowering sperm count and disrupting sexual function. 

Millions of high-earning Americans to lose popular 401(K) tax deduction – here’s what it means for YOU

• Workers aged over 50 making catch-up contributions to their 401(K)s will only be able to funnel them into a Roth account from next year
• It means they will be taxed upfront – rather than when they withdraw the money
• READ MORE: Is a Roth 401(K) REALLY a good idea? Finance guru issues warning

By Helena Kelly Consumer Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 11:49 EDT, 17 July 2023 | Updated: 08:33 EDT, 2 August 2023

United States Congressman and former NFL star Burgess Owens is voicing his support for Donald Trump‘s campaign and slamming President Joe Biden as ‘the last segregationist in American politics.’

Owens, an African-American Republican from Utah’s fourth district, specifically credited Trump for helping black business owners during his lone term in office.

‘Donald Trump delivered record-breaking growth to all communities,’ Owens, a former Jets and Raiders defensive back, said in a statement. ‘As a child born in the segregated south, I witnessed Donald Trump help the black community more than any president in my lifetime. Record growth for black business owners, then to answer this, the Democrats nominated the last segregationist in American politics, Joe Biden.’

Owens, 72, supported Trump in 2016 and 2020, when the former Jets and Raiders defensive back was first elected to the House of Representatives.

‘Biden declared to the world if you don’t support him, ‘you ain’t black,’ well, once again, I don’t support him,’ Owens continued. ‘I’m proud to support Donald Trump in 2024, and I pray he gets the opportunity to finish the record growth he started. We need his boldness to reverse the damage Joe Biden has done before it’s too late.’

Trump has regularly pointed to job numbers for African Americans during his term to support his status as a job creator.

‘We reignited America’s job creation and achieved record-low unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women — almost everyone,’ Trump has said.

Job creation actually slowed in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, to about 2 million, compared with nearly 2.5 million in 2016, Obama’s last year in office.

Of course, then came the COVID-19 pandemic that cost the US economy 10 million jobs, making Trump the first president since Herbert Hoover to oversee a net loss in that area. And the job losses have fallen disproportionately on Black Americans, Hispanics and women, according to a 2022 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 

Before the coronavirus, nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs were added under Trump, somewhat better than the nearly 400,000 gained during Obama’s second term. Still, even before the pandemic, the US had 4.3 million fewer factory jobs than it did in 2001, the year China joined the World Trade Organization and a flood of cheaper imports from that country entered the US.

The country did have the most jobs on record before the pandemic, but some experts chalk that up to a growing population.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer looked at Trump’s economic growth record. Growth under Trump averaged 2.48 percent annually before the pandemic, topping the 2.41 percent gains achieved during Obama’s second term. By contrast, the economic expansion that began in 1982 during Reagan’s presidency averaged 4.2 percent a year.

A University of Miami standout before the school’s glory years of the 1980s, Owens was picked 14th overall by the Jets in the 1973 NFL Draft.

He would go on to win Super Bowl XV as a member of the Los Angeles Raiders before retiring in 1982.

It was during that final season that he and his wife became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which led him to move to the religion’s cultural mecca of Utah.

In addition to getting active in charitable organizations, Owens also became a regular guest contributor on Fox News and parlayed that notoriety to a successful congressional campaign in 2020 – the same year he spoke at the Republican National Convention.

Currently Owens sits on the Education and Labor as well as the Judiciary committees.

Owens previously highlighted former President Donald Trump’s ability to shine light on true American values, and focus on what matters most. He told the Daily Caller in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, that ‘what our country is all about, what our conservatism is all about, what our American way is all about, is Head, Heart, Hands and Home. Head being education, Heart being God, Hands being industry and the free market, and Home being family.’

Owens is the second Utah lawmaker to endorse Trump’s 2024 campaign in August. Mayor Trent Staggs of Riverton, Utah, who is running to unseat Sen. Mitt Romney, announced his endorsement for Trump on Aug. 3 while decrying President Joe Biden’s record in office.

Owens, played 10 seasons in the NFL with both the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders.

Americans by wide margins say President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, violated a law against peddling foreign influence, a DailyMail.com poll shows, amid swirling allegations about the first family’s business dealings.

Fully 63 percent of voters say the president breached the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which obliges people to declare foreign interests, when he served as vice president and his son worked with the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma.

Another 29 percent said they did not believe Biden, a Democrat, had broken the rules, and 8 percent were not sure. Republican voters overwhelmingly said Biden had committed wrongdoing, as did 38 percent of Democrats.

The results follow the claims from Hunter’s former friend business partner, Devon Archer, about how the first son raked in huge sums by selling his ties to father Joe, in a bombshell congressional testimony and interviews earlier this month.

Biden, who was then vice president in the Obama administration, was present in-person during dinner meetings and sat in on at least 20 phone calls with foreign associates, Archer told the House Oversight Committee.

After the testimony, committee chairman James Comer, a Republican, said Archer’s revelations marked a ‘huge step toward implicating Joe Biden’ in violating FARA by assisting Hunter’s dealings with Burisma, where he served on the board.

Biden this week insisted he ‘never talked business’ with Hunter or his associates.

Our DailyMail.com/TIPP poll survey of 542 US adults earlier this month focussed only on people who followed Archer’s testimony.

Those respondents were even more persuaded of wrongdoing by the president’s son.

Fully 69 percent said Hunter had broken FARA rules by representing a Chinese energy company without registering as a foreign agent.

Another 18 percent said the younger Biden had not violated FARA, and 13 percent were not sure. 

Republicans overwhelmingly found fault with Hunter, as did nearly half of Democrats.

Comer on Thursday raised the stakes on the Bidens again, saying his committee will subpoena members of the family to testify about their business dealings.

‘This was always gonna end with the Bidens coming in front of the committee. We are going to subpoena the family,’ Comer told Fox Business.

‘We know that this is going to end up in court when we subpoena the Bidens.’

Speaker Kevin McCarthy has floated the idea of launching an impeachment inquiry to give greater weight to congressional subpoena power of the Biden investigations.

In his testimony and interviews, Archer did not claim to have ever heard Joe Biden discussing business but said Hunter would use his father as a flex.

Hearing the voice of the vice president on speed dial was enough to sell the ‘brand’ to foreign executives, he said.

‘I can definitively say at particular dinners or meetings, he knew there were business associates,’ Archer told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson last week in an interview following his testimony.

‘I don’t know if it was an orchestrated call-in or not. It certainly was powerful, though, because, you know, if you’re sitting with a foreign businessperson, and you hear the vice president’s voice, that’s prize enough,’ Archer went on.

‘Sometimes it was the call was coming in and the speaker would go on,’ Archer said, detailing the conversations.

‘You understand DC, right? So the power to have that access in that conversation – it’s not in a scheduled conference call and that’s a part of your family. That’s like the pinnacle of power in DC.’

Comer claims to have found records detailing over $20 million in payments to the Biden family and their partners from foreign business leaders around the time Joe was vice president.

Weeks ago Hunter Biden’s plea deal for tax and gun crimes blew up when a judge informed him he would not be shielded from future charges, specifically mentioning a violation of FARA, or failing to register as a foreign agent.

FARA was enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda. 

It requires foreign lobbyists to register with the Justice Department. Prosecutors brought a handful of FARA cases in the postwar era, but stepped up cases in 2019 to counter rising Russian interference.

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan shared ‘smoking gun’ documents he says proves that Facebook took down content on social media at the direction of the Biden White House.

Jordan shared the string of documents ahead of a scheduled committee markup hearing during which Republicans were expected to take action to move forward a contempt of Congress charge against Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

‘These documents, AND OTHERS that were just produced to the Committee, prove that the Biden Admin abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans, preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance,’ Jordan tweeted Thursday.

He said that Facebook only produced the documents after the committee announced its intention to hold Zuckerberg in contempt.

The documents ‘PROVE that government pressure was directly responsible for censorship on Facebook,’ the chairman continued.

Jordan said that he would suspend the markup on Zuckerberg’s contempt charge based on Facebook’s ‘newfound commitment to fully cooperate’ with the Republican investigation.

But that only stands ‘for now.’

‘To be clear, contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL,’ he threatened.

Jordan subpoenaed executives from Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft back in February soon after Republicans took control of the committee over any ‘collusion’ with the federal government to suppress free speech. 

The subpoenas demanded internal communications between the company and the federal government over content moderation, deletion, or ‘suppression’ of content and related documents. 

The thread of documents shared by the chairman began with an email from April 2021 to Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

It stated: ‘We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House’ to remove posts. 

An additional April 2021 email from Facebook’s president for global affairs Nick Clegg to his team said that senior adviser to Biden Andy Slavitt was ‘outraged . . . that [Facebook] did not remove’ a particular post.’

The post had to do with the COVID-19 vaccines that the White House wanted labeled as ‘misinformation’ and removed off the social media platfrom. 

Clegg responded to the White House saying that removing that content would ‘represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US.’

According to additional emails, Facebook sought to ‘repair’ its relationship with the Biden administration.

‘Given what is at stake here, it would also be a good idea if we could regroup and take stock of where we are in our relations with the [White House], and our internal methods too,’ Clegg wrote in another email.

Another key instance stuck out to Jordan – when the social media company demoted a video post by Tucker Carlson in response to White House demands.

‘Facebook was ready to tell the White House that it had demoted a video posted by Tucker Carlson by 50% in response to the White House’s demands, even though the post didn’t violate any policies,’ he wrote on Twitter Thursday.

The chairman said Biden’s surgeon general was also in on the censorship push, especially monitoring content put out by the ‘disinformation dozen’ that were allegedly spreading ‘misinformation’ about COVID.

Jordan wrote Zuckerberg last week to re-up his demands for the documents – this time mentioning Meta’s new platform Threads, which is a direct competitor to Elon Musk’s Twitter, which has brought back suspended accounts by conservatives and former President Donald Trump, and is now rebranding itself as ‘X.’

‘In light of Meta’s introduction of a new social media platform, ‘Threads,’ we write to inform you that it is the Committee’s view that the subpoena of February 15 covers material to date relating to Threads,’ Jordan wrote.

‘Since the Committee’s subpoena to Meta, we have obtained additional evidence that the federal government has coerced or colluded with technology, social media, and other companies to moderate content online. These examples reinforce the Committee’s serious concerns about whether the Executive Branch is engaging in censorship by proxy—using surrogates to censor, suppress, or discourage speech in a manner that the government is unable to do itself.’

Jordan claimed Twitter has faced ‘political persecution from the Biden Administration following Musk’s commitment to free speech,’ a charge the administration denies. 

The move is largely symbolic, although a contempt of Congress citation can be referred to full house, where a vote can refer it to prosecutors, which could bring fines and jail time. 

A staggering new survey has found that a majority of Americans polled don’t want President Joe Biden to run for office again in 2024. 

And the poll also spelled trouble for Donald Trump, finding that a majority of voters didn’t think the former president should run for reelection too.

The poll, carried out by Yahoo! News and the market research company YouGov, found that a shocking 64 per cent of Americans answered ‘No’ to the question, ‘Should President Biden run for president again in 2024?’

A measly 21 per cent answered ‘Yes’ to the question, and 15 per cent said they were unsure about whether the 79-year-old Biden should run again in 2024.

Trump’s numbers were only slightly better with 55 per cent of voters polled saying that the 76-year-old should not run in 2024. 

Meanwhile, 31 per cent said that the former President should run, and 14 per cent said they remained unsure.

The poll found that if an election were carried out between the two presidents today, Trump would narrowly win with 42 per cent of voters over Biden’s 39 per cent.

Data from Democrat and Republican voters showed that Biden and Trump do maintain the support of their respective parties – Trump moreso than his rival.

A total of 43 per cent of Democrats said Biden should run again in 2024, with 36 per cent saying he shouldn’t, and 21 per cent unsure. 

Two fifths of those who said Biden shouldn’t run again in two years voted for him in 2020.  

Of voters who were against a 2024 Biden run, 66 per cent were white, 49 per cent were black, and 65 per cent were hispanic. 

Trump’s command over his party was considerably stronger compared to Biden’s. 

A 58 per cent majority of Republicans said that Trump should run again in 2024, while just 25 per cent were against a rerun. 17 per cent remained undecided. 

Only 21 per cent of Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020 said that he should not run again in 2024.

Voters who did not want to see a 2024 Trump ticket were 50 per cent white, 75 per cent black, and 58 per cent Hispanic. 

The poll called on 1,541 US adults between June 10 and 13 – just as inflation in the US under Biden’s administration has hit the highest levels in over 40 years, and as the US House Committee held publicly broadcast hearings investigating President Trump’s culpability in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US capital. 

Thirty six per cent of voters polled who were in favor of a 2024 Biden bid watched January 6 hearings live, and 24 per cent watched news coverage. 

Meanwhile, 73 per cent who said no to a 2024 Trump ticket watched the January 6 hearings live, and 59 per cent followed news coverage.

If Biden and Trump ran against each other in 2024, they would be the oldest lineup of candidates in US history – a record they already set in 2020. 

Biden would be 81 in November, 2024 – and just days away from 82 – and Trump would be 77. 

Millions of Americans are at risk of a stroke if they exercise too hard, a study suggests.

Researchers found people with carotid artery stenosis, estimated to affect five percent of the country, are at risk of suffering sudden clots in the brain from simple activities like a brisk walk, swimming or even Zumba.

During strenuous exercise, plaque in major arteries can become dislodged and travel to the brain where it blocks a blood vessel — causing a stroke.

It suggests that as many as 16.5million Americans may want to refrain from going all-out while they work out.

Carotid artery stenosis is a condition where plaques build up in the carotid arteries, narrowing the space that blood travels through.

These arteries run through the neck and are responsible for getting blood, containing vital nutrients and oxygen, to the brain and parts of the face.

Sudden rises in blood pressure, such as those during exercises, can cause plaques to be dislodged – which could trigger a stroke.

The number of Americans with carotid artery stenosis has surged over the last two decades, figures suggest.

In the early 2000s, it was estimated that about two million Americans had the condition. But now the Cleveland Clinic says about five percent of all adults have the condition — or 16.5million people.

Being overweight or obese is a major risk factor for the condition, scientists say. A sedentary lifestyle, diabetes or smoking also raises someone’s risk.

In the study, published this week in the journal Physics of Fluids, scientists built a computer simulation of one of the carotid arteries.

They simulated three carotid arteries: A healthy one, one with a ‘mild’ 30 percent blockage and one with a ‘severe’ 50 percent blockage.

Each was then put through an exercise-induced heart rate of 140 beats per minute (bpm), which can be achieved with brisk walking, cycling and Zumba among other activities for obese people.

They were also simulated under conditions of a resting heart rate of 67 and a moderate exercise rate of 100bpm.

Scientists found that the healthy and mildly blocked carotid arteries had their health boosted by exercise.

But for those with a severe blockage, the results were described as ‘concerning’.

The model showed stress on the area which raised the risk of the stenosis rupturing and part of the plaque being released into the bloodstream.

This could then travel into the brain and become lodged in a blood vessel inside the organ, blocking the oxygen supply and causing a stroke. 

Dr Somnath Roy, a mechanical engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur outside Kolkata and lead author in the study, said: ‘Intense exercise shows adverse effects on patients with moderate or higher stenosis levels.

‘It substantially increases the shear stress at the stenosis zone, which may cause the stenosis to rupture.

‘This ruptured plaque may then flow to the brain and its blood supply, causing ischemic stroke.’

The scientists added in the paper: ‘While stressful exercises may be beneficial for improving the cardiac performance of healthy individuals, the same may bring in extremely adverse consequences at elevated heart rates on account of extensive physical activities for patients having extensive arterial blockages.’

Previous studies, including an analysis of stroke patients from 2010, have found that the risk of a stroke rises by at least two-fold following exercise. 

A meta-analysis of 13,000 strokes in 2021 in Europe also showed that acute anger, emotional upset and heavy physical exertion was associated with a higher risk of stroke.

The authors noted that all of these boosted heart rate, raising the risk of a plaque becoming dislodged and causing a stroke. 

Dr Andrew Smyth, an epidemiologist at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and leader of this study, told TODAY: ‘We believe that these trigger events may increase the heart rate increase blood pressure and lead to hormonal changes that alter blood flows in vascular beds such as the brain, which may increase the risk of stroke.

‘That being said, not every episode of anger or emotional upset or heavy physical exertion leads to a stroke. 

‘Similarly, not every individual who has a high burden of cardiovascular risk factors will have a stroke.’ 

Limitations of the latest study included that it was a model and may not accurately reflect how events would unfold in real life.

The experts warned that the model may also have overpredicted the speed the blood moved at elevated heart rates, affecting the results.

Americans think Republican-led House will have a POSITIVE impact on the federal budget – but are divided on whether they have more confidence in the GOP Congress or the Biden White House

• Americans believe that the federal budget will be most positively impacted by a Republican-led House of Representatives 
• A new CNN/SSRS poll released Monday found that 43 percent of respondents said the federal budget would be positively effected 
• Respondents were split almost evenly when asked if they had more confidence in a GOP Congress or the Biden White House  

By Nikki Schwab, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Published: 18:48 EDT, 12 December 2022 | Updated: 20:19 EDT, 12 December 2022

More than 70 percent of Americans do not want Joe Biden to stand for re-election in 2024, according to yet another dire poll for the president.

Biden’s approval rating also dropped to a low of 38 percent at a time when the president is facing a potentially damaging verdict from voters in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

Biden, 79, would find it almost impossible to implement his legislative agenda if Republicans take control of Congress in the elections.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that a massive 71 percent of Americans do not believe Biden should not run for a second term amid high inflation rates and soaring gas prices.

For those who believe Biden should not stand for re-election, 30 percent said it was because he was too old – he will be 81 at the 2024 election – while 45 percent said he was ‘a bad president’.

Most of those polled said that they had concerns about whether Biden was mentally fit to serve, with 60 percent saying they had doubts about his mental fitness.

The poll also found that whilst Biden was the favorite amongst Democrat voters in a Democratic presidential primary, only 30 percent would vote for him.

‘President Biden may want to run again but the voters say ‘no’ to the idea of a second term, panning the job he is doing as president,’ Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS–Harris Poll survey, told The Hill.

‘Only 30 percent of Democrats would even vote for him in a Democratic presidential primary,’ Penn added.

Meanwhile, 61 percent of those polled said that they think former President Donald Trump should not run for reelection. 

The poll found that 36 percent said Trump should not run because he is erratic, 33 percent said he would divide America and 30 per cent said he was responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. 

A majority of those polled meanwhile said they would consider a moderate independent presidential candidate in 2024, with 60 percent saying that they could support a third person if Biden and Trump ended up securing their parties’ nominations. 

Biden’s presidency has been characterized by a series of miscalculations and unforeseen challenges.  

The Covid-19 pandemic’s resurgence was swiftly followed last summer by the debacle of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, when the Taliban seized control of the country faster than the administration expected as the U.S.-backed regime collapsed. Then, negotiations over Biden’s broader domestic agenda stalled, only to collapse altogether in December.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February caused a worldwide spike in gas prices, exacerbating inflation that reached a 40-year high. Another blow came last month, when the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion under Roe v. Wade and curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Suddenly a reactive president, Biden has been left trying to reclaim the initiative at every step, often with mixed results. The coronavirus is less of a threat than before and infections are far less likely to lead to death, but Congress is refusing to supply more money to deal with the pandemic.

Biden signed new gun restrictions into law after massacres in New York and Texas, and he’s leading a reinvestment in European security as the war in Ukraine enters its fifth month. But he has limited tools at his disposal to deal with other challenges, such as rising costs and eroding access to abortion.

‘People are grouchy,’ said Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian.

Douglas Brinkley, another historian, said Biden suffered from a case of presidential hubris after a largely successful run in his first five months in office, which included an overseas trip to meet with allies excited about welcoming a friendly face back to the international scene. He compared Biden’s Fourth of July speech last year to President George W. Bush’s infamous ‘Mission Accomplished’ moment during the second Iraq War.

‘He was trying to deliver good news but it didn’t pan out for him,’ Brinkley said. ‘Suddenly, Biden lost a lot of goodwill.’

White House officials reject the comparison, noting that Biden warned about the ‘powerful’ delta variant in his 2021 speech. Chris Meagher, a spokesman, said deaths from the virus are at a record low now, reducing disruptions in workplaces and classrooms.

‘Fighting inflation and lowering prices is the president’s number one economic priority, and he’s laser focused on doing everything he can to make sure the economy is working for the American people,’ he said. 

‘And we’re in a strong position to transition from our historic jobs recovery to stable and steady growth. Because of the work we’ve done to bring the pandemic under control, COVID is not the disruptive factor it has been for so long.’