Has Joe Biden Lost the 3 AM Phone Call Issue?

For decades in American presidential campaigns, foreign policy matters have generally been relegated to the political sidelines in favor of hot-button domestic issues like the economy, immigration, and culture war concerns. Although domestic problems still rank high on the minds of voters this election cycle, for the first time in two decades, world affairs are taking a front seat in the 2024 campaign.

The data proves it: a recent poll commissioned by the Associated Press shows that nearly 4 out of 10 Americans say foreign policy is a top issue in 2024, roughly double the number from 2022—indicating that voters are once again turning their attention to the world stage.

The average citizen’s concern is well warranted.

Just this week, the United States suddenly undertook military action in Yemen, where Biden had delisted the Houthis as a terrorist group and has now been forced to relist them. There is also the entirely new development of Iran attacking Pakistan and Pakistan retaliating, while Iran sponsors attacks on U.S. servicemembers. War continues to rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, and there is danger looming on many other fronts, from the Iranian bomb to mounting Chinese aggression and North Korean missiles.

In short, it appears Joe Biden has already lost the all-important “3 a.m. phone call” issue less than 10 months before Election Day, and very likely isn’t getting it back.

The “3 a.m. phone call” alludes to Hillary Clinton’s famous 2008 campaign advertisement urging Americans to vote for the candidate best equipped to handle international emergencies arising from a hypothetical 3 a.m. phone call.  The term has been used ever since to highlight candidates’ perceived strengths on foreign policy issues.

“It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” the ad’s narrator states. “But there’s a phone in the White House, and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call.”

Biden’s personal weakness on the world stage has been apparent since he took office, but the signs of dysfunction, chaos, and ineptitude extend well beyond just him—and have been the cause of declining trust among the American people in their government’s ability to keep them safe.

For his entire presidency, Biden has been surrounded and enabled by an equally dysfunctional national security team consisting of figures such as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (who was recently secretly hospitalized without informing anyone at the White House)—each of whom has played a role in triggering a crisis of confidence in U.S. leadership as well as jeopardizing key international alliances.

All of this feeds into the decades-old narrative that the Democrat Party is weak on national security issues. While posturing as the “grownups” or “adults in the room” who know how to handle foreign policy matters, Democrat administrations seem determined to empower the enemies of peace, freedom, and stability in the name of “dialogue” and soft power.

The left’s long record of national security disarray and foreign policy disasters is undeniable.

During the Carter years it was the famous “New Boy Network,” a group of liberal foreign policy types who were proteges of left-wing Vice President Walter Mondale and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who triggered the Soviet aggressiveness. Clinton’s tenure was marred by National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who was caught stuffing documents into his socks to hide the administration’s neglect of the Al Qaeda threat that ultimately resulted in the September 11, 2001 attacks. And of course there was the Obama administration’s empowerment of Russia that led to its invasion of Crimea and involvement in Syria – not to mention Obama’s troubling statement to outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” to deal with hot-button issues such as missile defense after the 2012 election.

Most recently in the Biden administration, of course, is Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict in the Middle East stemming from Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack on Israel. Following the attacks, Biden’s approval rating has plummeted to the lowest levels of his presidency, with only 33 percent of voters approving of his foreign policy and a strong majority of voters disapproving of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

Even more troubling for Biden are his own party’s differing views on the conflict.

As Austin Sarat observed in The Hill, Biden’s public support for Israel’s right to defend itself “is costing him support from members of the liberal wing of the Democrat Party and elsewhere.” Yet, Sarat continues, “if he is less supportive of Israel, or even tempers his commitments by pointing out the need to safeguard the lives of Palestinian people, he could lose large segments of America’s Jewish population and other political moderates.”

But Biden’s handling of the war in the Middle East is far from the only foreign policy blunder costing him with voters.

For many Americans, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine reflected yet another consequence of failed Biden policies—particularly in diplomacy and energy. Just as Russia invaded Crimea under the Obama administration, Joe Biden’s weakness invited Putin to invade Ukraine.

In August 2021, the U.S. suffered what was arguably the greatest military humiliation in American history with Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. 13 American servicemembers died, and billions of dollars of American military equipment fell into the hands of the Taliban.

But despite calling his administration’s botched withdrawal an “extraordinary success,” Biden failed for months to give any airtime to the crisis or to acknowledge the Americans who tragically lost their lives as a result of the withdrawal.

Given that many Americans perceive the Afghanistan disaster to have been the moment the Biden presidency began to truly collapse (his poll numbers first started trending downward at this point) and nearly every bad actor across the globe began to feel empowered, Biden’s failure to even acknowledge the crisis demonstrates that he is severely disconnected from the issues Americans care most about—and is utterly unequipped to deal with them.

Meanwhile, Iranian Navy and military proxies have continued to seize and attack commercial ships—further casting doubt on the Biden administration’s competence in foreign affairs.

At the same time, every branch of the military is struggling to reach its recruiting goals, with some predicting a more than 40 percent shortfall in enlistees after the Biden administration aggressively pushed woke politics into the U.S. Armed Forces. Under Biden, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” programs, pronoun seminars, and books promoting Critical Race Theory have all found a place in the U.S. military.

Given these escalating international conflicts and the growing perception that Biden is incapable of dealing with them, it has become obvious why American voters—even those who dislike Donald Trump and generally support Democrats—are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the reality that Biden is the man in charge of answering the proverbial 3 a.m. phone call.

Despite the obvious extent to which Biden fits this pattern, however, he has the advantage of a corporate media that is virtually campaigning on his behalf. Just as they lied about the Russian collusion hoax, covered up the Hunter Biden laptop story, and promoted false information pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, the whole media apparatus appears to be working overtime to cover up the “3 a.m. phone call” issue.

But the question remains: as Election Day nears, will the media be able to successfully prevent the issue from arising as to who is going to be the Commander-in-Chief to answer the inevitable 3 am phone call?

The last time a presidential election was centered on foreign policy was two decades ago, when George W. Bush won a second term in the wake of the September 11 attacks and mounting military conflict in the Middle East. Two decades prior to that, Ronald Reagan cruised to a reelection victory thanks in large part to his handling of the Cold War.

As threats from foreign adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea continue to escalate, 2024 is on track to be the first foreign policy-centered election in 20 years.

If this dynamic continues to hold, Joe Biden’s reelection campaign could very well be doomed before it even truly begins.

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.