(Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s approval rating dropped by 7 percentage points and hit its lowest level so far as the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed over the weekend in an upheaval that sent thousands of civilians and Afghan military allies fleeing for their safety, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The national opinion poll, conducted on Monday, found that 46% of American adults approved of Biden’s performance in office, the lowest recorded in weekly polls that started when Biden took office in January.
It is also down from the 53% who felt the same way in a similar Reuters/Ipsos poll that ran on Friday.
Biden’s popularity dropped as the Taliban entered the capital, Kabul, wiping away two decades of U.S. military presence that cost nearly 1 trillion taxpayer dollars and thousands of American lives.
However, a majority of both Republican and Democratic voters said the chaos was a sign that the United States should leave.
A separate Ipsos snap poll, also conducted on Monday, found that fewer than half of Americans liked the way Biden has steered the U.S. military and diplomatic effort in Afghanistan this year. The president, who just last month praised Afghan forces for being “as well-equipped as any in the world,” was rated worse than the other three presidents who presided over the United States’ longest war.
The United States and Western allies continued to evacuate diplomats and civilians on Tuesday, one day after Afghans crowded into Kabul airport in a desperate attempt to flee the Taliban regime.
Americans expressed a variety of opinions that may still be evolving as the Taliban completes its takeover of the country.
The Ipsos poll found that 75% of Americans supported the decision to send in additional troops to secure key facilities in Afghanistan until the withdrawal is complete, and about the same number supported the evacuation of Afghans who helped U.S. forces in the country.
Yet Americans appeared to be largely unsettled on what to think of the war, with majorities expressing somewhat contradictory views about what the U.S. military should have done.
Source: Reuters
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