OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News Outnumbered co-host Kayleigh McEnany sounded off this week over the “political optics” after recent indictments against former President Donald Trump.
During a segment on Outnumbered, McEnany and the other co-hosts discussed Trump being indicted recently by Special Counsel Jack Smith stemming from his investigation into the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building.
“If this indictment held, if a conviction was secured, what precedent, applying that retroactively, would have been set in those various circumstances? I think it is a troubling precedent indeed, But rounding this out, I think it’s important to look at what the American people see here when they look at Trump and Biden. I’m talking pure political optics. You look at President Trump, you see a guy with a 53.4 percent RealClearPolitics approval, or I should say that is what he is garnering among Republican voters at this point in time,” McEnany began.
“So, yes, that is true that for all intents and purposes, he looks like he is going on to be the nominee unless there is a big shakeup or polling change. So they see this individual who’s on his way there. They go back to last Wednesday, where you covered the Hunter situation, the plea deal breaks apart, there is this hidden phrase in the diversion agreement and the judge says this is not fair. Fast-forward to yesterday, Tuesday, and you see a second indictment against the former sitting president. You compare that to Biden,” she added.
McEnany continued: “This is his DoJ. And look, he says the DoJ’s independence. Let’s take him at his word. But optically, what you see is a president at the beach, a president going to dinner and a movie, a president at an Oppenheimer film, and when he walks out, the Politico Playbook says this: ‘Meanwhile, the only public statement from President Biden last night was in response to a shouted question from the pool. ‘It was compelling,’ he answered. The question was how he liked the movie ‘Oppenheimer.’’ So you see someone whose political opponent had been indicted as he enjoys dinner and a movie, and it is, at the end of the day, his Department of Justice piece.”
Co-host Emily Compagno jumped in and added: “That’s right. And the timeline, again, just to underscore, it’s so notable that every time the Hunter Biden situation, the corruption makes the headlines, an indictment seems to drop. June, July, August.”
This comes as Trump is performing well in the GOP presidential primary as well as polling in the general election.
A plurality of American voters believe that former President Donald Trump’s four years in office were “better than expected,” whereas less than one in seven think the same of President Joe Biden’s term in office.
Forty percent of respondents to a nationwide poll by NBC News on Friday said that they had anticipated a “better” presidency under Trump, the New York Post reported.
31% said it was “about as expected,” and 29% said it was “worse.”
Just 14% of respondents thought Biden’s presidency was “better than expected,” while 42% thought it was “worse.”
Per the poll, 44% more people said it was “about as expected.”
Only 29% of nationally registered voters said that Trump’s presidency was “better than expected,” 27% said it was “worse,” and 43% said it was “about as expected” halfway through his term in office, according to NBC News.
Party-wise, 52% of Democrats said the Biden administration “met expectations,” 30% said it was “better than they expected,” and 18% said it had been “worse” in Friday’s poll.
In contrast, 81% of Republican voters thought the Trump administration was “better than expected,” 6% thought it was “worse,” and 24% thought it was “about as expected.”
But when it came to independent voters, the Biden administration performed horribly; just 6% of them said the president’s term had been “better than they expected,” and a staggering 52% said it had been “worse.”
Of independent voters, 18% thought the Trump administration was “worse,” 43% thought it was “about as expected,” and 38% thought it was “better” than expected.
The poll also revealed that ahead of the 2024 presidential election, registered voters’ top concerns are the US border and the economy, with those who are critical of Biden pointing to worries about his age and mental capacity.
However, several Democrats expressed dissatisfaction to NBC News regarding the president’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict as well as some of his most notable legislative successes.
“Nothing has touched me when it comes to Biden at all that I can say, at least, ‘Yeah, there was a trickle-down,’” New Jersey Democrat Dionne Holt, who voted for Biden in 2020, told the outlet.
