WASHINGTON (AP) — President Biden ends his first year in the White House with a clear majority of Americans for the first time disapproving of his handling of the presidency in the face of an unrelenting pandemic and roaring inflation, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

More Americans disapprove than approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, 56% to 43%. As of now, just 28% of Americans say they want Biden to run for re-election in 2024, including only 48% of Democrats.

Asked on Wednesday at a wide-ranging news conference about his flagging popularity, Biden responded, “I don't believe the polls.”

It’s a stark reversal from early in Biden's presidency.

In July, 59% of Americans said they approved of Biden’s job performance in an AP-NORC poll. His approval rating dipped to 50% by late September in the aftermath of the chaotic and bloody U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan and amid surging coronavirus

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Holmes, who said he didn’t want to get into a dispute over the interview, vehemently denied any ill intent toward Trump or any coordination with McConnell. He declined to comment further beyond denying the speculation about McConnell’s involvement, laughing it off as “insane.”

A Republican operative scoffed at the notion that McConnell, who has said publicly that he would “absolutely” support Trump if he were to win the 2024 Republican nomination, is plotting to subvert his chances.

“I’m sure Josh Holmes would like you to believe that Mitch McConnell is behind the scenes, moving pieces against Trump,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist. “But I don’t think that’s it. I think that McConnell is wholly owned by Trump.”

McConnell’s Senate spokesman declined to comment, directing questions to John Ashbrook, who speaks for him on matters of electoral politics and is Holmes’ business partner. In a brief message, Ashbrook indicated that McConnell wouldn’t respond

It’s too soon in the omicron variant’s course to know whether it signifies the beginning of the end of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday.

Whether the highly transmissible yet purportedly milder strain of the novel coronavirus will dilute the more severe prevalent ones and take it over to become endemic is yet to be seen, Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist and the White House chief medical advisor, said.

“I would hope that that’s the case,” he told the World Economic Forum at a panel during its annual meeting, held virtually this year instead of in Davos. “But that would only be the case if we don’t get another variant that eludes the immune response of the prior variant.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to examine the federal response to COVID-19 and new emerging variants, in January on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Greg Nash/)

Moreover, milder symptoms don’t necessarily mean m