Recent poll finds Biden in big trouble against Trump. Hamas war is one reason.

I enjoy watching Meet the Press on Sunday. But today's episode disturbed me when results of a new NBC poll were presented by Steve Kornacki. 

For one thing, Biden trails Trump nationally by five points, with his poll numbers steadily declining.

Also, Trump is seen as more competent than Biden on most policy issues. It's astounding that Biden only has a two point lead over Trump on protecting democracy.

A NBC News story about the poll describes the bad news for Biden.

Despite a growing economy and little opposition for his party’s nomination, President Joe Biden confronts a dissatisfied electorate and a challenging political climate nine months before he faces re-election, according to a new national NBC News poll.

Biden trails GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump on major policy and personal comparisons, including by more than 20 points on which candidate would better handle the economy. And Biden’s deficit versus Trump on handling immigration and the border is greater than 30 points.

The poll also shows Trump holding a 16-point advantage over Biden on being competent and effective, a reversal from 2020, when Biden was ahead of Trump on this quality by 9 points before defeating him in that election.

And Biden’s approval rating has declined to the lowest level of his presidency in NBC News polling — to 37% — while fewer than 3 in 10 voters approve of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

All together, these numbers explain why the poll shows Trump leading Biden by 5 points among registered voters in a hypothetical 2024 general-election matchup, 47% to 42%. While the result is within the poll’s margin of error, the last year of polling shows a clear shift.

Sure, the election is about nine months away. There's plenty of time for Biden to shore up his support by attacking Trump more aggressively and speaking more forcefully about how well the country is doing economically, even though inflation is still higher than what's desirable.

But some things are unlikely to change, chief among them Biden's distressingly strong support for how Israel has been conducting its war against Hamas. Biden has been letting Israel's right-wing prime minister, Netanyahu, do whatever he wants with the weapons supplied by the United States.

As a result, about 27,000 people in Gaza have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 of last year, most of them women and children. Most people in Gaza have been forced out of their homes. A majority of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed by Israel. Not enough humanitarian aid is being allowed to enter Gaza by Israel. Netanyahu's right-wing ministers have called for Israeli settlers to take over Gaza with the current Palestinian residents to be expelled. Netanyahu himself has ruled out a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue and says Israel always will control Gaza.

All that is horrendous. Yet the Biden administration is merely urging Netanyahu to be more careful about killing civilians and hopes he will will change his mind about a two-state solution. I can't stand this weakness from Biden, and I'm a strong supporter of his reelection.

Problem is, lots of others who voted for Biden in 2020 will either sit out the November election, or vote for a third-party candidate, because of Biden's decision, so far at least, to give Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing cronies pretty much a blank check when it comes to a more humane and responsible  approach to the Hamas war and Palestinian statehood.

As a Politico story says, the Democratic base is critical of Biden's unwavering support for Israel, which helps explain why the NBC poll found that Biden is tied with Trump among voters 18-34 at 42% support for each man.

Biden aides have clearly absorbed the blowback they got from even friendly Democratic lawmakers for making no mention of Palestinian suffering in official statements they issued marking 100 days since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Indeed, it’s hard to overstate how contemptuous even staunchly pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers have become of Netanyahu.

One House Democrat told me of a dinner last month with about eight other colleagues, a cross-section of the caucus ideologically and generationally. “It was unanimous that this Israel-Gaza war needed to end now and that Biden needed to stand up to Bibi,” this lawmaker told me, before offering his own view.

“This is a disaster politically,” said this House Democrat, who rarely criticizes Israel. “The base is really pissed — and it’s not just the leftists. I have never seen such a depth of anguish as I’ve seen over this Gaza issue. Bibi is toxic among many Democratic voters and Biden must distance himself from him — yesterday.”

Jumping off the page: A recent YouGov poll found 50 percent of self-described Biden voters called Israel’s attacks on Gaza “a genocide.”

Part of the president’s challenge, particularly with younger Democrats deriving their news almost entirely from social media, is they don’t hear of Biden pushing Netanyahu behind the scenes.

“You create political challenges for yourself when your public and private messaging aren’t aligned,” said Tommy Vietor, a former Obama White House aide who now co-hosts Pod Save America and praised Biden for his efforts to free hostages and establish a cease-fire. “People don’t see Joe Biden chewing out Bibi on the phone.”

Biden should cut off further military aid to Israel until Netanyahu and his government agree to: be much more precise in targeting Hamas fighters instead of killing so many innocent people in Gaza; guarantee that Israel won't control Gaza after the war is over; allow much more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza; and commit to engaging in negotiations for a two-state solution to the broader Palestinian problem.

If Biden doesn't stand up to Netanyahu, he's going to continue to lose support among those who voted for him in 2020 because he was better than Trump.

That approach might work again in 2024, but Biden needs to realize that he's president now, and should start acting like one instead of allowing Netanyahu free rein to indulge his extreme right-wing approach to the Hamas war and Palestinian rights.