Empower Wisconsin | Feb. 23,  2022

President Joe Biden’s handling of Russia’s aggressive stance in Ukraine is even less popular with Americans than he is.

According to a new Gallup poll, just 36 percent of Americans approve of the Democrat’s response, while 55 percent disapprove.

The survey was conducted between Feb. 1-17, before Biden announced the United States will levy sanctions on Russia after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukrainian territories, insisting it was a “peacekeeping” action.

“He directly attacked Ukraine’s right to exist,” Biden said Tuesday.

The Gallup poll finds Biden’s overall approval rating is at 41 percent, basically stuck where it has been for months.

A poll late last month from Convention of States Action found Americans are extremely hesitant when it comes to U.S. military action in Ukraine. The survey, conducted by nationally renown pollster The Trafalgar Group, showed only 15 percent of American voters believe U.S. troops should be sent in if Russia invades Ukraine.

That moment has arrived, with the Biden administration using the phrase Russian invasion for the first time.

…(W)hile voters clearly sympathize with Ukraine and support assisting them through diplomacy and other means, there is no support for U.S. military intervention should a conflict arise with Russia. The Biden Administration should take note,” said Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action.

On Tuesday, members of Wisconsin’s Republican congressional delegation blasted Biden for his weak foreign policy decisions that have led to tyrants like Putin testing the United States.

“For America and the world to be safe, America must be strong. Everything that President Biden has done since taking office has weakened America,” said U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Oshkosh).

Johnson pointed to one of Biden’s first executive orders upon taking office, canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, as well as the administration’s waiving sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline (a key Russian natural gas pipeline) and the “dangerous and embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Allouez) described the Biden administration’s initial sanctions as “weak and tepid,” particularly after such sanctions were sold as key to checking Putin’s aggression.

“And what conclusion is he left to derive when this is just a slap on the wrist he faces after an invasion, other than, ‘well, I can expand my effort, and I’ll get a tepid response from the West’?” Gallagher said on The Story with Martha MacCallum on Fox News. “So this White House has been caught flat-footed from the start, they have contributed to the crisis with their disastrous energy policy. And we’re running out of time and running out of options, and these sanctions are simply not going to get the job done.”