When Prime Minister Yair Lapid greets US President Joe Biden on the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport on Wednesday, it will be an interim premier who very well may not be in office in another five months, meeting with a president whose own political future is looking increasingly uncertain.
In other words, this will not be a tête-à-tête between two leaders at the height of their political strength with a strong mandate and few immediate electoral concerns.
Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, according to the most recent polls, is trailing Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud significantly and would find it highly difficult right now to put together a government after November’s elections.
Likewise, Biden is at perhaps the lowest point in his presidency in terms of public support.
According to the New York Times/Siena College poll this week, Biden’s approval rating is a measly 33%, lower than Donald Trump was at an equivalent point in his presidency. According to an average of five polls on the polling website FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s approval rating over the last week was 38.6%, the lowest at this point in a presidency since Harry Truman.
