The 11 People Joe Biden Should Be Most Afraid Of

In late 2021, President Joe Biden's popularity hit "a new low," according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News. The analysis found that only 41% of U.S. adults approved of Biden's performance in office, while 53% disapproved. His approval ratings first slipped in August, when he was facing scrutiny over America's withdrawal from Afghanistan, but the president's handling of the economy seemed to be the biggest factor turning American voters against him. Around 70% of Americans said that they were pessimistic about the state of the economy thanks to skyrocketing inflation, which became a looming threat to the Democratic Party's hopes ahead of the midterm elections.

Biden was also forced to face repeated questions about his intention to run for president again in 2024, as The Washington Post reported. Amid plenty of speculation about his political rivals and the state of his health, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the president, who would turn 82 in November 2024, planned on campaigning for re-election. "Yes, that's his intention," she confirmed, per CNN. But Biden, who was formerly well-liked as Barack Obama's vice president, now faces threats from every corner — including his own party.

During the first year of Joe Biden's presidency, one West Virginian politician became an unexpected thorn in his side. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin publicly sided with Republicans against Biden over his climate policies and his proposed $1.75 trillion Build Back Better bill, which sought to expand the social safety net, slowing down policies that almost every other Democratic lawmaker backed.

"I'm open to supporting a final bill that helps move our country forward, but I am equally open to voting against a bill that hurts our country," Manchin explained, according to CNN. He also called on Biden to allow the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to be built, per The Hill, arguing that America should be able to rely on fossil fuels closer to home.

The senator might have other reasons for getting in Biden's way, however: political watchdog Accountable.US reported that he had received more than $1.5 million in donations "from corporate interests" who were against the Build Back Better bill. According to The Guardian, he's also raked in more money "from the oil and gas industry than any other senator," which may explain his opposition to Biden's climate policies. Due to his disagreements with the president and his fellow Democrats, Manchin has even considered leaving the Democratic party and "becoming an independent," per Reuters. 

The other senator whose opposition to Joe Biden's Build Back Better bill made headlines in 2021 was Kyrsten Sinema. The Arizona senator controversially voted against raising the minimum wage, per CNN, and tried to water down the bill's more progressive policies. According to Accountable.US, Sinema received nearly $1 million from opponents of the bill in 2021. She was also criticized for turning against plans to lower prescription drug prices while taking money from the pharmaceutical industry.

"I've been concerned at the push that happens in both parties, this push to have no disagreements. To only have unity or to only speak with one voice. And some will say, 'Oh, that is our strength,'" Sinema told Politico, explaining why she wasn't afraid to go against other Democrats. "Having some disagreement is normal. It is real, it is human. And it's an opportunity for us as mature beings to work through it."

In November, Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, announced that Democrats would try to reach an agreement with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema over the Build Back Better plan. "The House did a very strong bill," he declared, per CNN. "Everyone knows that Manchin and Sinema have their concerns, but we're going to try to negotiate with them and get a very strong, bold bill out of the Senate which will then go back to the House and pass." But in early December, Sinema wouldn't tell CNN whether she was prepared to back the bill when it came up for a vote. 

As of November 2021, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was one of the GOP's most popular potential presidential candidates for 2024, per Axios, and she planned on using her star power to help Republican candidates campaign and fundraise ahead of the 2022 midterms.  

Although Haley has flip-flopped on her loyalty to Trump, per Politico, which might have cost her some votes, her criticism of Biden has stayed consistent. She claimed that his "failed foreign policy" had the rest of the world "questioning his judgment" in an interview with Fox News and told the Christian Broadcast Network that his age was a problem. "Well, what I'll tell you is, rather than making this about a person, we seriously need to have a conversation that if you're gonna have anyone above a certain age in a position of power — whether it's the House, whether it's the Senate, whether it's vice president, whether it's president — you should have some sort of cognitive test," Haley insisted, hinting that Biden's mind might be impaired.

She also noted that there are a number of older politicians in power and said that age isn't the only concern that she and some voters have about the president. "It's not people hating Biden, it's Biden really showing the country that he's not totally in charge, and that makes everyone nervous," Haley posited. 

By late 2021, speculation had already begun about which Republicans might challenge Joe Biden during the 2024 presidential election. Governor Ron DeSantis had been a popular name since he emerged at the Conservative Political Action Conference as the second most popular speaker behind Trump, as The New York Times reported, and he had money pouring into his PAC from billionaire fans. According to Bloomberg, the Florida Republican had raised $55 million by September 2021, almost half of which came from outside Florida.

In 2021, DeSantis adopted a new tactic: opposing COVID-19 mandates around vaccination and face masks, which the Biden administration backed. "We are not in Florida going to allow any media-driven hysteria to do anything to infringe people's individual freedoms when it comes to any type of COVID variants," he told reporters, per Florida Politics.

Political strategist Rick Wilson told NPR that this was a strategic decision, explaining that DeSantis has an acute understanding of who his potential voters are. "He has a very keen sense of what the Fox audience wants to hear, and they want to hear vaccine skepticism. They want to hear that they're going to oppose allowing private companies to mandate vaccinations for their employees," Wilson stated.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most popular members of "The Squad," hasn't been shy about criticizing Joe Biden and his policies. In February 2021, the New York politician reacted to a report by The Washington Post about immigrant children being held in specially built facilities by tweeting, "This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay – no matter the administration or party." And she was determined to hold the president accountable over compromises made in the Build Back Better bill as well.

"There is an enormous amount of executive action that they're sitting on that I think is underutilized," Ocasio-Cortez told The New York Times in an interview. She expressed her desire to see Biden take a more aggressive stance on some of the issues that are important to her and her constituents, including climate change, student loans, and immigration, even if he had to do it without bipartisan support or the full backing of his party. The young politician also complained that it was frustrating to see her party "just hand the pen to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema."

"So why are we taking this as a legislative compromise, when the opportunity is so much greater, or when Biden could do this stuff with a stroke of a pen, and is just reminding us that he's choosing not to?" Ocasio-Cortez added.

In March 2021, Lachlan Murdoch admitted that as the CEO of Fox News, his goal was to oppose and criticize Joe Biden at every turn.

"The main beneficiary of the Trump administration from a ratings point of view was MSNBC ... and that's because they were the loyal opposition," Murdoch explained at a conference for Morgan Stanley investors, per NBC News. He went on to discuss how Fox News intended to cater to its Republican right-wing viewers by attacking the Democratic administration's decisions. "That's what our job is now with the Biden administration, and you'll see our ratings really improve from here."

In an interview with Insider, he also insisted that he would be in charge of the network and its political leanings for "decades" to come. "We believe where we are targeted, to the centre-right, is exactly where we should be targeted. We don't need to go further right. We don't believe America is further right," Murdoch explained, per the Financial Times. "And we are obviously not going to pivot left."

Senator Tim Scott emerged as a popular political figure after being chosen to deliver the Republican Party's official response to Joe Biden's Congress address in April 2021. As reported by The New York Times, he began by clarifying that Biden "seems like a good man," before launching into a series of criticisms of his administration. "Hear me clearly, America is not a racist country," the South Carolina politician stated, arguing against schools teaching children about race.

Scott also claimed that the president was planning to "pack the Supreme Court," despite Biden indicating otherwise: Per CNBC, the president's commission looking into Supreme Court reform actually ended up split. Scott then insisted that when it came to COVID-19, Trump was more responsible for reducing cases than Biden. "This administration inherited a tide that had already turned. The coronavirus is on the run," Scott told viewers, despite deaths reaching a daily average of over 3,000 per day during the Trump administration, according to the CDC.

His speech clearly captivated Republican voters. As Politico reported, thousands of supporters donated nearly $20 million toward Scott's re-election campaign over the course of 2021. So although he told The Post and Courier that he would "of course" support Donald Trump if he runs in 2024, the South Carolina Republican might be a threat himself as a political rival.

If Joe Biden does end up facing a Republican nominee in 2024, there's still a chance that he might be running against his 2020 rival, Donald Trump.

"Poll after poll clearly demonstrates that former President Donald Trump is still the 800-pound gorilla in the GOP and would be its 2024 nominee should he run," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio told Politico, reporting that the former president would now have a lead in the five swing states that Biden won in 2010: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and  Arizona. "This new data clearly shows that today the voters in these five key states would be happy to return Trump to the White House and send Biden packing."

Trump himself has hinted that another campaign might be in the cards, telling Fox Business in November 2021 that he was confident about his chances. "I think if I run, I'll get it," he bragged. "Look, I have a 94, 95 percent, even in the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), I had a 98 percent approval rating. So if I decide to run, I'll get it very easily." The former president also pointed out that other Republican presidential hopefuls have said that they will step aside if he does run, adding, "So I think that's good." 

Although Xi Jinping has spoken highly of Joe Biden, calling him an "old friend" during recent talks, according to Reuters, there are still tensions between the Chinese leader and the American president. Donald Trump made sure to bring this topic up during a Fox Business interview. 

As the BBC News reported, Chinese state-run media accused Biden of "playing with fire" over Taiwan and the issue of its independence. The news outlet Global Times apparently explained that Xi resented the "repeated attempts by the Taiwan authorities to look for US support for their independence agenda as well as the intention of some Americans to use Taiwan to contain China," indicating that Westerners should stay out of the conflict. "Such moves are extremely dangerous ... Whoever plays with fire will get burnt," Global Times warned.

According to a briefing by the White House, Biden raised the subject of Taiwan during a virtual meeting with Xi in November 2021, clarifying that the United States "strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait." He also mentioned "concerns about the PRC's practices in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, as well as human rights more broadly," insisting that American workers and industries had to be saved from the PRC's "unfair trade and economic practices."

Pete Buttigieg made a name for himself through his ambitious campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2020. The young up-and-coming Indiana politician has since been surrounded by rumors of a 2024 run, although he denies having any rivalry with fellow politicians, including Vice President Kamala Harris. "There's no room to get caught up in the parlor games, and I'm proud to be part of the Biden-Harris team," he insisted on NBC's Meet the Press, while adding that the administration was "laser-focused on getting the job done."

As Politico reported, Buttigieg's political action committee, Win the Era, was still calling for donations and arranging events as of November 2021, building on the hype of his 2020 campaign. West Wing insiders reportedly see the possibility of him being the Democratic nominee as "very open," despite him insisting that he's happy as the Transportation Secretary. "I'd say the other thing that I'm really enjoying about this job, although it's very demanding and obviously requiring a lot, is that this is the least I have had to think about campaigns and elections in about a decade and that's a very good thing," Buttigieg told Politico.

The tense relationship between America and Russia might threaten Joe Biden's presidency if Vladimir Putin decides to invade Ukraine. Biden has been criticized for his response to Putin's increasingly aggressive attitude towards the Ukrainian border, where increasing numbers of Russian troops were being posted in 2021. White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted that the administration was "deeply concerned about the heightened rhetoric about the reported military buildup on the border," adding that America was "always prepared for any action." The New York Post used the threat of military action to support its editorial board's opinion that "the world has become a more dangerous place since Joe Biden became president."

According to Reuters, Putin was possibly hoping to draw Biden's attention in order to hold another summit and discuss Russia's security. "Our recent warnings have had a certain effect: tensions have arisen there anyway," Putin told reporters, per The Moscow Times. "It is important for them to remain in this state for as long as possible, so it does not occur to them to stage some kind of conflict on our western borders ... we do not need a new conflict." Regardless of his intentions, any sign of tension from Russia could send Biden's approval ratings even further downhill.