On Monday, Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president, capping a return from his own dark period after losing to Biden in 2020, hobbled by two impeachments and shadowed by the COVID-19 crisis.
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And this time, many agree, he will enter the White House as the most powerful new leader in the modern presidency.
For our final Biden and first Trump report card, Democratic pollster John Zogby and conservative analyst Jed Babbin sized up Biden for a final grade, and it wasn’t good.
Biden ended his term with a historically low approval rating, and many in the nation were eager for him to go.
Trump entered with his highest approval rating, and new polls say he is poised to become one of the modern greats.
John Zogby
Biden grade: C-minus
Trump grade: A
I began doing these weekly presidential report cards with Paul Bedard exactly 16 years ago. While I can say that I have my own worldview and ideological leanings, I have tried to call the shots as I see them. I base each grade less on whether I agree or not with the policy — even though that does creep in from time to time — but on the confluence of the sitting president’s goals, policy impact, and public opinion.
As President Joe Biden leaves office, I believe that historians will be kinder to him than the public is today. Eventually, his administration will be viewed as moving the ball forward on infrastructure, mitigating the impact of COVID-19 and economic disaster and climate change. He will be remembered for misleading the public on his mental acuity, for enabling genocide in Gaza, for a terrible military exit from Afghanistan, and for inflation.
But like Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, he will receive higher marks over time. I have seen Dwight Eisenhower move from number 20 in the rankings to five or six.
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But now it is about President-elect Donald Trump, who enters office with a clearer picture of his intentions and goals, a slate of nominees that not only fulfill his aspirations but also appear to be in line for ratification, and (for now) a slight modification in his demeanor.
He also benefits from a solid majority in the Senate, a slight majority in the House, and an Amen choir in the Supreme Court. For Trump, it doesn’t get better than this. And frankly, it probably never will.
Jed Babbin
Biden grade: F
Trump grade: B+
As usual, the pollsters were wrong, and the Trump-Harris race wasn’t close. We go into a new year with a sense of relief that we are going to survive the next four years, which we might not have had if Vice President Kamala Harris won.
President Joe Biden and his veep are henceforth banished from the White House and they leave with a bang and a whimper. The bang is in the form of more outrageous spending, student loan forgiveness, more pardons and commutations of the sentences of undeserving prisoners and much more since Election Day. The whimper was in Biden’s two farewell speeches. Those featured so many lies and distortions they can’t all be recounted here. They ranged from bragging about the debacle he created in quitting Afghanistan to claiming credit — where none is due — for the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. The credit for that deal goes to Trump, who had threatened all hell would break loose if the hostages weren’t released by Inauguration Day. That message was heard loud and clear in Gaza and Iran.
Biden has been our worst president ever, which history will confirm for all the actions he has taken and those he left undone. Now we’re back to the Trump era, and a sense of relief is felt across the nation. It’s not a case of “happy days are here again,” but one of assurance that the enormous mistakes of the past four years are behind us. Trump will make other mistakes but his will be founded on the intention of strengthening America.
President-elect Donald Trump has his hands full domestically and internationally. He needs to secure the borders, remake and strengthen U.S. alliances that have faltered under Biden, and get wokeness and DEI out of government and military. Some Cabinet picks have been good, such as Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, to excellent, including Sen. Marco Rubio at State, John Ratcliffe at CIA, and Pam Bondi for attorney general, to not good, including former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, [D-HI]. The Senate will likely confirm most or all of them by early February.
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Trump reportedly plans to sign about 100 executive orders in his first days back. One of them should revoke every Biden order.
Trump will have less than two years to do what he needs to do because the next election cycle will be underway by then. Whatever happens, the next four years will be a wild ride.
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies.
Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on X @jedbabbin.
