Fox News White House reporter Ed Henry claimed Thursday that the Obama administration doesn’t yet understand how far they’ve fallen in the eyes of the American people in recent weeks, noting that the public’s lack of confidence after a flood of foreign policy failures and the VA scandal mean the president is soon due for a “wakeup call.”
Henry appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor” Thursday night to discuss the White House response to the deepening crisis in Iraq. “Do you believe — based on your reporting and your watching of the White House staff — that the administration understands how much trouble they are in with the American people?” O’Reilly asked.
“I don’t think that they do,” Henry replied, “and I don’t think they realize how much of a defining moment the Syria debate that you mentioned in the talking points, how defining of a moment that was for the president within his time in office. Because going right up to that line and then pulling back did send signals around the world.”
“And so now that is very much in play in this debate,” the White House correspondent continued. “Because this is not just about Iraq.”
Henry explained that President Obama’s ignorance of public opinion can’t last forever. “The thing that might be the wakeup call, though, for the administration, is this NBC News/WSJ poll from yesterday that said a majority of the American people say they do not think the president can lead in the rest of his term,” he noted.
“I mean, that’s not Republicans saying it,” Henry said. “That’s not his critics like John Boehner, who today on the Hill said, ‘the wheels are coming off.’ Well that’s obviously a partisan statement.”
“But when you have a nonpartisan poll like that in the Wall Street Journal saying, ‘wait a second, a majority of the public doesn’t think he can lead,’ that is not just because of — this is about domestic issues as well,” Henry concluded. “The VA scandal, a whole pile of things. But that is going to have to be a wakeup call.”