No images? Click here 21 February 2024Biden takes on ‘Putin and his thugs’By Victoria Cooper, Research Editor President Biden is expected to soon announce new sanctions targeting Russia, following the death of imprisoned political opposition leader Alexei Navalny last week. The details of the new major package will be unveiled on Friday, coinciding with the eve of the anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine on 24 February two years ago. Responding to the news of Navalny’s sudden and suspicious death, Biden joined Western leaders in expressing “no doubt” over Putin’s responsibility and urged Congress to pass a new US$95 billion package of US aid for Ukraine and other US allies, which has stalled under House Republicans since passing the Senate on a bipartisan 70-29 vote last week. Meanwhile, frontrunning candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump, has remained quiet on Putin’s alleged culpability. To the ire of President Biden, on Monday Trump posted to Truth Social, “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our own Country” before linking Navalny’s death to his own political and legal woes. This only deepens concerns for the US-European allies who met at the Munich Security Conference on the weekend. Concerns about a potential second Trump term after the former president said Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” with NATO allies who don’t spend enough on their own defence and Russia making its first major gains in Ukraine in nine months permeated the event. NEWS WRAPUS blocks third UN ceasefire resolution
![]() “We don’t know exactly what happened, but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did" White House Remarks by President Biden | 16 February 2024 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Did you USSC?
BY THE NUMBERS Can Biden make himself seem great again?By Victoria Cooper, Research Editor Monday 19 February marked Presidents’ Day, a US federal holiday originally celebrating the birthday of the nation’s first president George Washington on 22 February 1732. Over time, the holiday has come to honour and reflect on each of the 46 of the US presidents and their contribution to the 247-year US democratic experiment. Coinciding with the commemorative day this year, US presidential historians released the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, which ranked each of the presidents according to their average ‘greatness’ score, as determined by 154 presidential specialists. President Lincoln came in first place with an average score of 93.87; 45th President Donald Trump (and 2024 presidential hopeful) came in last with an average score of 10.92; while President Biden averaged a score of 62.66, putting him in 14th place. Biden may have performed well among those presidential experts surveyed, but when America’s public is asked their opinion of their president, the current president’s supposed greatness seems to go unnoticed. Biden’s 2023 approval rating sat at 39 per cent, continuing a long-stretch of low approval ratings that have plagued the president since mid-2022 and sent him into the new year with the lowest third-year approval rating since President Carter in 1979 (a notably one term president, and according to the survey, the most ‘under-rated’ president). Meanwhile, at the third-year mark in his presidency in 2019, Donald Trump – Biden’s main rival to re-election – had an approval rating of 45 per cent. Incumbent job approval is often thought to be one of the best indicators of a re-election success, and those seeking re-election with an approval rating of around 50 per cent near election day tend to be re-elected. President Biden has a lot of ground to cover to convince the American people of his greatness and avoid the same fate as President Carter; lest the least ‘great’ president succeed to the Oval Office in his own re-election comeback. Manage your email preferences | Forward this email to a friend United States Studies Centre |