Washington President Joe Biden on Monday marked Independence Day by sharing a message that looked to the country’s future.
“The Fourth of July is a sacred day in our country — it’s a time to celebrate the goodness of our nation, the only nation on Earth founded based on an idea: that all people are created equal,” Biden said in a tweet. “Make no mistake, our best days still lie ahead.”
The July 4 holiday comes amid a challenging time for the nation marked by deepening division, inflation and a recent set of polling showing that the vast majority of Americans across party lines are unhappy with the state of the US.
In an AP-NORC survey released last week, 85% of US adults say that things in the country are headed in the wrong direction, with just 14% believing things are going in the right direction. That’s a more pessimistic reading than in May, when 78% said things were headed the wrong way and 21% that things were generally moving in the right direction. And currently, both 92% of Republicans and 78% of Democrats are dissatisfied with the direction of the country — the highest number among Democrats since Biden took office last year.
Biden, who spent the morning at Camp David, was set to return to the White House later Monday.
The President is expected to deliver remarks commemorating the holiday at a celebration with military families on the South Lawn of the White House.
