Faced with plunging poll numbers, President Obama has tried four times in the last two weeks to reassure Americans of his strategy to counter the Islamic State, CBS reported Tuesday.
CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King noted that Obama’s approval rating is at 43 percent, "the lowest number in more than a year."
"60 percent disapprove of the way that he is handling the current situation with ISIS," she said.
In response to rising "anxiety about terrorism," CBS correspondent Margaret Brennan said that the White House is launching "a string of national security-related events designed to reassure Americans and rebut those critics who say that ISIS is winning."
In his latest speech, Brennan said, Obama "vowed to hit ISIS harder than ever." King noted that Obama’s "tough talk" is a response to criticism that his "strategy is soft."
"The president insisted his military campaign is working, and rattled off a list of bombs dropped, territory retaken, and ISIS leaders killed, one every two days according to U.S. estimates," Brennan said.
The speech "was the fourth attempt to reassure the public since the San Bernardino attack," she said. "But polls show it is not working."
CBS national security analyst Juan Zarate said that Obama’s attempts might be "too little, too late."
"Certainly from the White House perspective, it's a way of dealing with what is seen as a crisis of confidence in the president's leadership," he said.
This week, Obama will continue to reassure Americans of his leadership by "reach[ing] out to the Muslim-American community to push back against some of that GOP rhetoric," Brennan said. He will also "be visiting the National Counterterrorism Center."