First Lady Jill Biden surprised the Teacher of the Year on CBS's morning show today. Missy Testerman of Tennessee was being interviewed about her honor and Jill Biden horned in on the action. 

In case you have forgotten, Jill is a teacher at a community college in Virginia. She wanted to pat herself on the back about her teaching career. Jill is like her husband - they turn everything into something about themselves. So, the First Lady overshadowed the Teacher of the Year. 

The chyron on the screen read that Jill "dropped by" to surprise the honoree. What? Was she just in the neighborhood in New York City and had some free time on her hands? It's all so stupid. 

During the interview, one of the hosts dared to ask Jill about the polling that shows Joe Biden behind in all the battleground states. She jumped on him and denied it. 

Any reason Biden himself can't do a live, sit-down interview? It has been 279 days since his last one, when he wandered off the set as the cameras were still rolling. https://t.co/r2t3rjGKlO

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 3, 2024

"He's even or doing better." Really? Some polling shows him tied in Wisconsin but all the other states show that Trump is ahead. She may hope that voters will suddenly wake up and see Biden's presidency in a more favorable light but that hasn't happened. Most experts think there is no way that Biden can turn things around in the economy or other areas before the November election. 

The Wall Street Journal poll that was released today was referred to by the host. The headline was hard to miss, right there on the front page. Trump leads in six out of the seven battleground states.

Donald Trump is leading President Biden in six of the seven most competitive states in the 2024 election, propelled by broad voter dissatisfaction with the national economy and deep doubts about Biden’s capabilities and job performance, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds.

The poll of the election’s main battlegrounds shows Trump holding leads of between 2 and 8 percentage points in six states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina—on a test ballot that includes third-party and independent candidates. Trump holds similar leads when voters are asked to choose only between him and Biden.

The one outlier is Wisconsin, where Biden leads by 3 points on the multiple-candidate ballot, and where the two candidates are tied in a head-to-head matchup.

Sorry, Jill. Them's the breaks. 

Those seven states determined the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Joe Biden's poll numbers have been terrible for months. Jill can gaslight all she wants but Americans know how they feel about their lives during the Biden administration. There is a Carteresque malaise that is a sharp contrast to the years of the Trump administration when the economy was booming, tax cuts helped all levels of income, and there was no inflation. All boats were lifted, and all demographics were doing well. Americans are looking back to the pre-pandemic days of the previous administration and they look pretty darn good right now. 

Add to the malaise and the desire for a strong economy the fact that Biden looks unwell. He is physically feeble, wearing special sneakers and using the short stairs on Air Force One, as well as his inability to speak well has taken a toll on voters. He does not project strength or competence. The Hur report was particularly devastating. Biden is not mentally competent to be president. 

Yet, Jill and others around him persist. They are unwilling to give up their positions of power and are committing elder abuse. It is long past time for them to insist that Joe Biden finish out his term as best as he can and then go back to Delaware and retire. Let him wrestle with folding chairs and sit on the beach. It is the compassionate thing to do for their loved one. There does not seem to be any compassion in the Biden family, though. So, he's running for re-election. 

Biden's advisers are on television claiming that he's rising in the polls and people will come around to voting for him in November. 

On the question of whether or not the country is going in the right direction, the answer is a strong no. The right direction is 25%, and the wrong direction is 68%. 7% had no opinion. The same was true in individual battleground state breakdowns. The country is going in the wrong direction. 

No amount of happy talk will change anything unless a noticeable change occurs. 

One thing Jill did while she hogged the spotlight away from the teacher was to announce she would turn the annual celebration of teachers at the White House into a state dinner for them. 

“When you come to the White House, we ae going to have a state dinner for the teachers,” Biden said on the set of “CBS Mornings.” “You’ll have to pick your dress. So it’s the first time ever.”

Testerman said that would be “absolutely amazing.”

“I'm incredibly touched,” she told Biden. "I know how devoted you are to teaching, continuing to teach, even when you’re the first lady of the United States, first one ever to do that, and I know that we share the joy that there is to be found in education.”

Black-tie state dinners are usually held to recognize heads of state or governments of close allies. The Biden administration hasn't done much of that. With time potentially running out for them, two state dinners are scheduled soon. One is on April 10 for Japan and one is on May 23 for Kenya. Former First Lady Michelle Obama hosted several state dinners for children.