Leaders share a similar problem

Members of their own parties believe time has come for Trudeau, Biden to step down

- SUSAN DELACOURT

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the G7 Summit in Italy last month. Discontent with Trudeau and Biden is rattling the very top of their respective political parties, Susan Delacourt writes.

Justin Trudeau announced on Monday that he’s headed for Washington next week. What will he and U.S. President Joe Biden be talking about, behind the scenes at the NATO summit?

Endurance might be one topic. It’s been a bad week for Trudeau and Biden — arguably their worst weeks — with increasingly open questions of whether either leader should be hanging on.

Their two situations are not exactly similar, but they speak to the pall hanging over progressive governments in Canada and the U.S. at the moment and how the discontent is rattling the very top of the Liberal party here and the Democrats south of the border.

For Trudeau, it was the Liberals’ loss in the Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection on June 24 that is being seen as a verdict on his leadership. For Biden, it was the incredibly weak performance in last Thursday night’s CNN debate with Donald Trump.

Now it’s not just their rivals saying they shouldn’t be the men to fight the next election, but people within their own party, too. That is a prime condition for political chaos: it’s rarely your enemies in politics who do you in; it’s your friends.