IT is sad this discussion has become so prominent AFTER the Democratic primaries, that the party leadership was too cowardly to bring it to the electorate, so now it seems they have handed the election to donald drumpf / trump and the neo-nazi fascist republican party. Here is the e mail I sent to the 1A Friday News Roundup regarding Pres Biden and VP Harris,
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Question marks continue to plague the candidacy of President Joe Biden. Prominent democrats began wondering whether the commander-in-chief is the best person to stand against former President Donald Trump in November following a poor debate performance.
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I'm Elliot Williams, a legal analyst from CNN, and this is the Friday news roundup on 1 a. Let's start with a question. What might Joe Biden and Donald Trump have in common common other than their ambition to win the presidency in November? Perhaps not too much. Only now neither candidate will tell you they trust the polls. During the primaries, Trump called them another scam. And last night, president Biden cast doubt on the polls too.
How accurate does anybody think the polls are these days?
Last Friday, Biden told George Stephanopoulos that he did not believe his approval rating. Then George Clooney told him he should. Our panel this week, we're joined by Benjie Sarlin, Washington bureau chief at Semaphore. Benjie, welcome. Thanks for having me. Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters. Jeff, as always, thanks for joining us. Great to be with you. And Anita Kumar, senior managing editor, Politico. Anita, always great to talk to you as well. Yeah. Great to be back. So let's start with the week's biggest story and a president whose political future still hangs in the balance.
I always have an inclination whether I was playing sports or doing politics,
just to keep going, not stop. I just gotta just pace myself a little more. And last night's news conference came days after more Democratic lawmakers went public with their concerns. Concerns that were also shared by a big Hollywood a list star and some words left hanging by the former speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi. Now I'd love to hear from all of our guests on this, but I'll note that, Jeff, you got the first question last night at the NATO press conference, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on everybody. How did the president do, and what impact do you think this will all have on these days, weeks, and months ahead? Jeff, you're up.
Alright. Well, it was certainly a high stakes press conference for president Biden, and it came after 3 days of what I think the White House saw is very successful diplomacy with NATO nations. But as I said in my question to him, the fate of his political career was sort of hanging over those 3 days and I asked him about that and I I asked him a question about whether he had doubts and and if he could talk about those doubts about Vice President Kamala Harris. And he, when he answered that question, made a flub and and referred to her as Vice President Trump without correcting himself and that was just kind of a rough start, I think, for him for that press conference. But he went on for about 50 minutes and tackled everything from politics to his health to some pretty wonky foreign policy issues, and I think the White House walked away pleased, feeling like he had at least made made some progress in quelling Democrats' fears. I spoke to a campaign official last night who said, they felt like he had bought himself some time. You know, buying time is not necessarily your top priority, I would think, as a presidential candidate, but it is sort of the reality of where Biden is right now that he needs time to quiet the Democratic revolt. And we'll see if that happens. He he certainly, delivered a performance that was a lot stronger than his debate was, and that in itself for him was a win. Same question. Anita,
let's say, grade the president, maybe not a to f, of course, but evaluate. How you think he did last night, and what does this mean for him looking looking ahead?
Yeah. I think you heard people say it was, solid, you know, steady. He he he did fine. And he did get into, as Jeff noted, some policy and really was able to talk about that, show that he knew what was going on and had a mastery of that. You know, he had some of those gaffes, the one from Jeff's question right at the top, but also, you know, trailed off, cleared his throat. People were really, really looking at every little thing he was doing, so the bar is really high. I mean, he has to meet this enormous high bar just because he's under the microscope. In the lot of people come out and and immediately say something. Now we're just a lot of people come out and and immediately say something. Now we're just seeing drips and drabs. You know, I just think that a lot of people had already made up their mind, and a lot of things are happening behind the scenes. So, you know, I know we'll get to this later. We mentioned Nancy Pelosi. I think you're you're gonna see some sort of Democratic elders in the party trying to figure out what to do, but I think he's already lost a number of people in his own party, and I'm not sure there's anything he could have done in that in that press conference to make that up. Now Jeff and Anita both referenced a moment in which the president
mixed up the names of Vladimir Putin and, Zelensky from Ukraine. Let's let's hear that moment. And now I wanna hand it over to the president
of Ukraine who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, president Putin. President Putin. He's gonna beat president Putin. President Zelensky.
So, Benjie, talk to us. Same thing. How'd the president do? I know we've talked a lot about gaps, but that seems to be where the discourse is around president Biden's performance right now.
Yeah. And there were reportedly gasps in the room when he said that. It wasn't ideal. But I think one of the big questions hovering over all this now that I think the other panelists here have alluded to a bit is how much are Democrats actually treating Biden's appearances as some kind of pass or fail test at this point. And one thing that's interesting is as soon as he spoke, 3 Democrats, starting immediately after he finished his press conference, started agitating for him to leave, came out calling for him to drop out. And one thing they were explicit about is, look, we don't care how he does in one speech. I wanna read you one quote from Jim Himes, who was the ranking democrat in the house intelligence committee, who called on Biden drop out, did TV. This was on MSNBC. He said, one of the really kind of sick aspects of this moment is that we are watching every speech, every rally, every debate and saying, how did he do today? That's just not the way to think about the presidency of the United States. So I think the big question here is how many people like him are going to take this message, which is the issue isn't one appearance. It's that we no longer are confident that, you know, Biden, who has good days and bad days, will not eventually hit a bad day again at the worst moment.
Interesting. Now we have a comment that came in, from one of our listeners, Rick, who says, during today's roundup, which we are in right now, I hope you'll mention that both The New York Times and The LA Times had opinion pieces stating Trump was unfit for presidential office. I've not seen that so far on NPR. Thank you for that, Rick. And I wanna stay, Anita, and I'll turn to you on this question of fitness for office. And president Biden was pressed at this news conference about whether he'd be willing to take a neurological test. Now my question to you is, number 1, how did he respond? And does such a test make sense if only to stop and being asked about it for the next few months or even the the recommendation of setting it testing Donald Trump too so that everybody's tested. But tell us about this idea of mental acuity and fitness and how it's looming over the whole race.
Yeah. I mean, he's been asked about this a lot and, of course, was asked about it at the press conference too. He said he's taken, you know, significant and intensive exams in the past. I think part of he's referring to, I think, part of his physical, that they, do a lot of different things for that, most recently in February. He said repeatedly that he'd take another one if his doctors recommended it, and, you know, his quote was, they say I'm in good shape, generally. That's what he said, but he also kind of talked about how no one's gonna ever be satisfied with whatever medical information he puts out there because people will doubt it and they'll always want more and that sort of thing. He's probably right about that. I mean, they he and president Trump have been asked a lot of, a lot of questions about their medical health, including their mental health. And, you know, I think both have sort of resisted doing more than than what they've already done. I do think that president Biden has showed us something about the medical, questions, but also just sort of his approach in the last couple weeks since the debate. I have been surprised to see him not going out of his way to do a bit more and be more aggressive. Yeah. He's been out there. He's doing some interviews. He did do the press conference for sure, and he hasn't done a solo press conference in months, so that was something. But, you know, if he wanted to, he could release more information. He could release a medical more medical information. He could call, you know, every member or many more members of Congress. It's actually been surprising to to me to see him a little bit defensive about it
knowing that his political future is on the line here. He could do all those things, and he has chosen not to. Now to your point, to Anita's point on this idea of the political future being on the line, some of that is determined by Democrats around the president. They have, to some extent, the ability to lean on him one way or another. And let's turn to what we've been hearing from other Democrats. Former speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi, you know, she raised some eyebrows on Wednesday when she sidestepped what was a pretty straightforward question.
Let's hear that. Does he have your support to be the head of the democratic ticket? As long as the president had the press it's up to the president to subside if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to to make that decision, because time is running short.
Benji, I wanna turn to you on this one. Why do you think there has been so much attention paid to how the former speaker answered that question?
When Pelosi answered that question, Democrats were stuck in kind of a holding pattern in Congress where there was some support for Biden, but it wasn't especially enthusiastic or organized. There was some opposition, but not really many public calls for him to drop out. There was just this large number of Democrats kind of in a muddle where they were saying, hinting he needs to go or make some kind of drastic change, but not quite ready to go that far. And the result was just, you know, gridlock. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the 2 leaders, weren't doing anything. Pelosi's someone who can act. She has the credibility to deliver a message that Biden, the party, will hear. And if she wants to, she can act as a leader to other members looking for someone to lead the opposition. So just signaling that this conversation is not over, that there's a real movement to get rid of Biden is is a big deal on its own. More to come from our panel. Benjie Sarlin from Semaphore, Anita Kumar from POLITICO, and Jeff Mason from Reuters. Coming up, a lot of attention on Democrats, but next week, Republicans in Milwaukee.
We're gonna look ahead to their agenda and hear what's changed and why, and, of course, we will have our Friday news quiz. I'm Elliot Williams, and this is 1
a.
It's a Friday news roundup. I'm Elliot Williams. At 1 a, we like to issue you a little challenge each week with our news quiz. Last time, we quoted NASA as being taken to court by a family in Florida. But did you know why? Theo in Florida did know The family alleges that their home was hit by debris from the International Space Station. So here's today's question. This week, the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission blocked a $4,000,000,000 merger, that would a deal that would likely impact something you'd find in every home. And last year, sales of that item fell by a 5th. Can you name that household item? Figure that out and win yourself some very nice premium one a swag. Leave your answer using the one a Vox Pop app or visit today's show page at the one a dot org. We're accepting entries through midnight on Sunday. Good luck. And we're back to our panel. We're rounding up the week's news with semaphores Benjie Sarlin. From Politico, Anita Kumar and Jeff Mason, who's the White House correspondent for Reuters. And, Jeff, back to you. Now all this talk about is it Biden, is it not Biden, really leads to the question of how the Democrats pick a nominee. And we'd love for you to help us understand what the rules say about how a Democratic candidate might be challenged at the convention. What happens to all these delegates he or she might have?
Sure. So the CliffsNotes version of this is when a president runs for office or runs for on the Democratic side, runs for reelection. He goes through the primary he or she goes through the primary process, which Biden did. Biden accrued thousands of delegates by winning all of the primary races across the United States and US territories. And now goes to the convention with those delegates pledged to him. However, there's a loophole in the Democratic rule book, which says delegates are pledged, but they're not bound. So they have the ability to go to the convention, or in Biden's case, to go to this virtual vote, ahead of time and vote their conscience, which means they could vote for someone else. And, in fact, the president was asked about this last night and, he said, yeah, they can vote their conscience if they want to, which is, pardon me, which is true. However, to vote their conscience, there needs to, which is to say, if they wanted to vote for someone other than Biden, if that's what their conscience dictated, there needs to be someone else. And that person would need to get at least 600 votes to be placed into nomination. And but that is that's what could happen is there could be a, what's called a brokered convention where other candidates step up if they are allowed if they get enough support from those delegates to challenge him. That seems really unlikely. What is more, perhaps, in the realm of possibility is if Biden were to step aside and vice president Harris didn't automatically get, which she wouldn't, all of those delegates, then there could be a real race at the convention, and that would be
pretty drum And it's interesting. You know, we have a comment from Craig in Virginia to this very point. I think the best solution would be for the Democratic party to declare vice president Harris our presidential candidate with president Biden as our vice presidential candidate. They'd have access to all the campaign donations made to Biden Harris, and their close working and personal relationship would be a benefit to both, and the nation as a whole. Now setting aside the question so thank you for that, Craig. Now, Jeff, staying on you for a second, setting aside the question of the wisdom of Joe Biden as vice president, What about this idea of Democrats coalescing around a candidate to avoid the kind of messy floor fight that you're talking about?
Sure. I'll I'll say 2 things to that. 1, in the in the early days of the sort of Democratic freak out over Biden's performance at the debate, you started to see people talking up vice president Harris. And in a way, and I think this is a little bit ironic given that she wasn't seen as having had a really good start to her vice presidency, the last two weeks have been really good for her. She she a lot of Democrats coalesced around Vice President Harris as someone who who could or should, take over for president Biden if he were to step aside. But to your question, Elliott, not everyone is there. A, the president is not so far stepping aside. B, if he did, everyone would look to see whether he would endorse her immediately. She would come with some significant advantages including the money that their campaign has raised, and name recognition from from being the vice president. But her polling over the last three and a half years hasn't been great, And there are certainly some in the Democratic party who would say, if we're going to replace our standard bearer, then it needs to be with somebody who can absolutely beat Donald Trump, and and they're not sure that she could. Now, Anita, one person who is weighing in on the prospect of Kamala Harris taking over is former president Donald Trump. Let's hear a clip from him speaking about the vice president. So I think that it will be her. I think they are
very concerned about the vote if it's not her. I've actually come to believe that's what they're going to do. I think she's an ineffective person.
So, Anita, there were some reporting from the New York Times that, Biden's campaign is quietly even testing the strength of, vice president Harris. Jeff touched on this a little bit in his comments in a head to head, matchup against Donald Trump. And I guess the question is, how prepared should the country be, you think, that if Biden does step aside, it'll ultimately be the vice president who the the party and, like, frankly, the country, to some extent, some voters rally behind?
Yeah. We did hear about that survey that they're doing, and I would tell you we don't actually know what that survey is about. So it could mean 2 things. Right? It could be the president's team gathering this information to present it to the president and say, president Biden, say, look. You aren't the strongest candidate. The vice president actually could be a strong candidate too. But it also could be the opposite. Right? They could be trying to show the world, hey. Look. She you know, president Biden still is the strongest candidate. So we actually don't know what that's being used for. And, you know, my colleagues who who also reported about the survey say they're they're doing it, but they're being very quiet about what the reasoning is. So we don't know. I'll you know, just going off of what Jeff said there, we really don't know. There's a lot of sort of Democrats in waiting. I don't think they were waiting for this moment, but waiting for the next time that they could run. A lot of governors, members of Congress, that are interested in running, you know, maybe the one of somebody in president Biden's cabinet, Pete Buttigieg, who ran before. But I think we've seen some of them, like Gretchen Whitmer, the the governor of Michigan, say, look. I'm not gonna run no this time around if president Biden gets out. So I don't really know. There's just a lot of people out there. That's why Kamala Harris is is the one everybody's kinda looking towards because she does have she would have the money. She does have more name recognition, but I'm not sure that she would get everybody. And so this is the dilemma here. Right? Exactly what do they do? And that's that's president Biden's, you know, really what he's saying right now is that he has the best chance there is to beat Donald Trump. And that's, that's what he's gonna continue to say. That's his argument. It seems that every Democratic voter has an opinion on this. We got a comment from Roxanne.
I am up so upset with Democrats telling Biden to step down. Who the heck is supposed to replace him at this late date? He's under a microscope right now. What about Trump's constant gaffes and stupidity? Joe is running, so I wish Dems would rally behind him. Thank you for that comment, Roxanne.
GUEST
Anita Kumar
senior managing editor, POLITICOJeff Mason
White House correspondent, ReutersBenjy Sarlin
Washington bureau chief, Semafor
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