Originally Published: 18 JUL 22 03:01 ET

By Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) -- President Joe Biden and his team were enthusiastic Saturday when they boarded Air Force One in Saudi Arabia, congratulating each other on what they viewed as a successful four-day swing through the Middle East.

The political environment Biden returned to in Washington appears far less inspiring. While he was gone, his polling hit a new low, inflation hit a new high and his domestic agenda suffered yet another blow, rendering it interminably stalled.

Even the results from his tour of Israel and Saudi Arabia may not be felt by Americans for months. More immediate was the condemnation of his fist-bump with the Saudi crown prince, whom he accused of orchestrating a dissident's murder.

Biden's aides say he often uses the return flight from abroad to discuss with exhausted staffers the domestic items that are next on his list. A week ago, that would likely have included renewed attempts to pass the sweeping social safety net and climate bill he's been pushing for more than a year.

With that effort on ice after yet another objection from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, Biden is left with a vanishing set of options for political wins in the months before November's midterm elections but a growing list of problems that continue to fuel voter anger.

"He had so many hopes and plans for things he wanted to do," first lady Jill Biden told Democratic donors on Nantucket this weekend while her husband was overseas. "But every time you turned around, he had to address the problems of the moment."

It is a sentiment shared widely