Juan Williams: Biden needs to brag

How can that be?

By every objective measure, Biden has the better record. Trump’s average Gallup approval rating during his tenure was the lowest of any president in the history of modern polling.

The answer to this political puzzle is that Biden spent a year intent on healing the ugly political division created by Trump. Biden’s cure is to be the opposite of Trump — self-effacing, empathic, decent.

Mr. President, it is time to drop the nice guy act. Start bellowing and boasting.

Yes, start acting like Trump.

Skip the lying. And please don’t provoke racial division for political benefit.

But start hammering home your accomplishments.

Remember, candidate Trump said that, with him as president, people would “get tired of winning.”

Well, that proved to be an empty boast. But Biden can back up the big talk.

Let’s review:

The number one issue for voters is the pandemic. How has Biden done?

The statistics are clear: Under Biden, almost 74 percent of adult Americans are fully vaccinated against coronavirus. Almost 87 percent of adults have had at least one dose of the vaccine. And 41 percent of fully vaccinated adults have taken a booster.

The envious Trump likes to take credit for pushing drug companies developing the vaccine. But he had no plan for fast distribution. Less than one percent of the U.S. population was vaccinated when Biden took the oath of office.

Biden’s speed in getting people vaccinated has paid off. The vaccinated have less illness and are far less likely to be hospitalized.

Biden got the vaccine into arms despite efforts by some Republicans in Congress to undercut him. They politicized vaccinations. They demonized people for wearing masks.

They continue to attack public health experts as if it is possible to issue an unchanging set of advice in the middle of a fast-changing storm of disease. 

The GOP’s barrage of disinformation, accompanied by right-wing, quack conspiracy theories, has added to public fatigue after two years of dealing with the virus. People of every political type are tired and grumpy. And that was before the omicron variant caused another surge in infections.

That’s why it is important for Biden to say loudly that America is beating COVID. He has the evidence. He can point out that there is no second lockdown.

His steady hand in dealing with a once-in-a generation threat to public health has schools open again. And he kept the American economy as the best in the world.

Let’s talk more about the economy.

The economy is booming in ways that Trump could have only dreamed about achieving.

When the final data is in, the nation’s gross domestic product in 2021 is expected to have seen the biggest one-year jump since 1984. If such a thing had happened under Trump, he would have been touting himself as the greatest economic president in history.

The December unemployment rate was 3.9 percent. It was 6.7 percent in December of 2020. In Biden’s first year, the U.S….