Biden’s B12 Shot? (with Peter Baker)

Hello. Everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I’m Sarah Longwell, Publisher of The Bulwark. And this week, we’re talking about the State of the Union and Joe Biden’s twenty twenty four reelection prospects. Now, I got in some Internet trouble a couple of weeks ago for saying on Pod Save America that I think Joe Biden was likely lose to a Republican presidential candidate, not named Donald Trump.

And it is just my basic observation about somebody who was in their early eighties running against somebody who is in their forties, fifties, or sixties. Even when Ronald Reagan ran for reelection and much was made about his age, He was only seventy three. Now, in focused groups of both Republicans and Democrats, concerns about Joe Biden’s age is a constant refrain. And according to a recent associated press poll, a majority of Democrats don’t want Biden to run again in twenty twenty four. And yet and yet, Old Joe came out swinging in his state of the union this week, and despite a little rhetorical mush, he did some real time negotiating with Republicans and came out on top.

So how did this energetic performance land with swing voters? Well, you’re about to find out. My guest today spends a lot of time around the Biden White House. Peter Baker, Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, and also the co author of the divider, Trump in the White House, twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one, and the second person who is a part of a husband and wife team who have appeared on this podcast. The other one is the Vindamins who have had both of them, but now I have had Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, an impressive team Peter.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you. Sorry, you’re stuck with the worst

half today. You know, I’ll take whichever half I can get for this. This is great. I’m I’m so glad you’re here. And because one of the things that I was so struck by in the Joe Biden speech is I think because we don’t actually see that much of Biden.

Yeah. Especially

the way Trump is, like, always in our faces. Like, Biden is just he’s not out there all the time, and sometimes that can allow people to, like, input upon him a presentation that might not be you know, you just see, like, clips of him stumbling over things or whatever, but you see him all the time there as the White House correspondent. Is what we saw the other night in the state of the union. Is that the Biden you see all the time? Or was that, like, Joe Biden with, like, a big b twelve shot?

Well,

he was definitely on his game. Oh, no. I mean, not in the first few minutes. I mean, let’s let’s not judge him too much on a curve. The first few minutes He seemed to be racing through the speech, he mangled some words, demoted, Chuck Schumer, to minority, leaking her.

In fact, there was kind of a, oh gosh, are we watching a car wreck quality to the first few minutes, is it gonna turn out that he can’t really make it through? And he actually then seemed to rally. And I think partly because he gets into the back and forth with heckling Republicans that actually energized in a little bit. But broadly speaking, I think you’re right. He’s not in our face a lot, and that’s intentional.

They don’t want him out there too public. They’re trying to make a contrast with Trump. I mean, I remember a pollster at one point interview somebody I think in North Carolina early in the Biden presidency and voters. And the thing I like most about Biden is I don’t have to spend my day thinking about Biden. Totally.

And that’s a conscious effort by the White House. Now, if you talk about questions of age and energy and wherewithal, you know, look, I think what you see on TV is what we see too. Just He’s slower than he was. Eighty, I think everybody is. And I think that that’s an issue he’s gonna have to deal with.

I don’t have any evidence in doing a lot of reporting that it has affected his decision making. Right? Nobody has yet to me cited a decision he made as present that he might have made differently had he been ten years younger. But there’s no question he doesn’t have the same energy level. There’s no question his presentation is often not as energetic as was when he was, you know, even just vice president a few years ago.

Right. Noted. But I guess that like like, if you do a Republican focused group, it’s not that they think Joe Biden slowed down. It’s not that they think he’s missing a step here or there. Like, they think he is full on dementia and that, you know, he’s being controlled by the left wing of the party.

And so there’s a whole dementia, Twitter. I just went went scrolling through dementia, Twitter after the speech. And and Dimension Twitter didn’t have a lot to say about that performance. Yeah. You know, like like, he I felt like he did a lot to sort of quiet, maybe some of the, like, pondered class on the I don’t know.

I think he’s too old to do this, or do you think Look, this is just gonna be omnipresent. There’s no way for him to sort of take this concern off the table because if that number is just going up.

If I were the Biden White House, you know, you could see why they might wanna send a Bouquet of Flowers to Marjorie Taylor Green because obviously it gave him the foil in which he could engage in a back and forth in which he did look pretty good. Right? Not spray, but he engaged and he seemed able to handle it. In fact, he had the best position. Europe there on the podium, there down in the audience.

Europe and still in command and he didn’t lose command of it, which is important thing in politics. He seemed to be the guy in charge. So I think I think you’re right. I quieted it maybe, I would say, but briefly and not for a long I mean, the problem for president Biden is that the biggest political liability he has is when he cannot do anything about he cannot make himself younger. Right?

And so none of us dies, of course. And that will always be a a liability and an issue for him that he will have to address. And to me though, the issue isn’t even how is he now. Okay? You can make the case that eighty, he’s doing pretty good, especially if you notice mother eighty year olds who aren’t.

And what he would say is, look at my record. Look what I’ve done at a seventy eight to eighty. I’ve gotten this past and that past and this is getting better and that’s getting better. That would be his argument. The bigger issue that it’s harder for him to deal with is the fact of what he will be like in six years.

Because that’s what you’re asking the country. You’re asking the country to accept that he can be at the top of his game or at least close enough to his top of the game until he’s eighty six years old or last day of his presidency. And I was wondering if you have an eighty six year old senator or congressman who may not be fully where they once were. You know, they roll out in the floor. They take a vote.

The world is gonna end. But we’re having a nuclear edge conflict right now with Russia. And that’s a different thing for commander in chief. So that’s a concern he’s gonna have to address. And again, as you point out, it’s not with Republicans because he’s not gonna get their votes anyways with democrats.

Yeah. And, like, when I got in trouble on Pod Save for saying what I said, the space amount analysis after listening to tons and tons of groups, of Democrats — Yeah. — and swing voters who they’ll say, but, like, you know, at the end of his term, he’ll be closer to ninety than eighty. Like, you can’t have that. And so that’s been really my fear.

It’s just the optics of it’s not Trump. You put him up against a forty six year old Rhonda Santos even if he is, like, glowering and just talking about how kids are using litter boxes and schools and you need to fire all the gay teachers. Like, what everything you could still see how those optics are really bad for somebody who’s eighty two years old. Then voters are just gonna be like, I don’t know, man. I mean,

especially if you have a stumble. Right? And then it’s gonna be interpreted wildly magnified. And and, of course, the the trick is that Biden is been a gas machine by his own words. He called himself, I think, the ultimate gas machine wants.

He’s been like that since he was in his forties or whatever. But the trick is that if you make gaps now, if you stumble now, it will be attributed to age, whether it is age or not. Against Trump is gonna be fine. I think people who don’t like Trump or really don’t like Trump, but they’re not gonna suddenly return to him necessarily because of Biden’s age. There may be other reasons they do.

But what’s striking about Trump and age is if you go back and watch some of his interviews back when he was in his forties or fifties. He had a much broader vocabulary. He was actually much more articulate in a way he’s not now. Like, now he’s just keeps relying on the same words over and over again. Right?

Strong strongly. You compare where he was then and now. You you see some diminishment. But the difference between him and Biden is he does it so loudly. Yeah.

You know, he’s so bombastic and so energized in his speech that seem more vigorous, right, than Biden does. Yeah.

Although, I just gotta say, we haven’t seen Trump in a while. Yes. Like, we’ve not, like, really seen him. He’s out there trucing and calling into shows, but he is not doing a lot of public appearances. And when he does, you know, it’s like he sits down with Sean Hannity or someone’s gonna treat him with kid clubs and tons of makeup and everything.

But like, I I have real questions about his diminished stamina as well. But I don’t for Glenn Youngkin, Rhonda Santos, Nikki Haley, Brian Kemp. Right. I think those optics would be would be tough. But and yet, I gotta say I was surprised both myself and watching the speech and then listening to these voters talk about the speech I don’t know.

I I I mean, I I wanna I wanna get into it. But before I do, I wanna give to both you, Peter, for your ratification and also for those of you listening who maybe haven’t listened to the last two seasons of this show or a lot of them about swing voters. I wanna give you a quick crash course on how these swing voters talk. So at the start of every group that we do with swing voters, we ask voters walk us through why they voted for Donald Trump in twenty sixteen and why they switched to Biden in twenty twenty because that’s how we’re sort of defining swing voters. So in what you’re about to hear, this group of swing voters sounded exactly like every group of swing voters we do who answers the question, why did you vote for Trump in sixteen and switched to Biden in twenty twenty?

Let’s listen. I

was looking for something new. I was hesitant with Hillary because I’m not gonna lie. I was very hesitant with everything, with the Benghazi situation, everything that was on the table. And from what I gathered, I and I even promoted a Sedona trust would have been a valuable asset to the country because of the business mind he has. Great.

If he has fed up a lot, excuse me, my French. When Biden came up, I was like, okay. That’s it. I can’t do this again. No.

No. No. No. Uh-uh. I’m switching over teams.

I voted for Trump initially because he felt like someone different. I thought he was gonna be really honest. It seemed like he was always gonna say out loud to us is the people, what was really going on. And that kinda changed towards the end, and it got it extremely dramatic to where I’ve never seen politics swing so far one way or another

with

families as well as the pandemic combined with everything. And so, again, I just wanted to change, and so I voted for Biden. He just seemed really mild and voted for

Trump. Just because, like, everyone else was saying, we needed to, you know, drain the swamp. Just some new blood in there because I thought that the politicians were too disconnected from their constituents. I have a special need child. So whenever he mocked the the reporter, right, half of his chest.

That was kind of a a real turn off for me. And then with just the Twitter, you know, the constant tweet alerts that he that he would put out. He was an embarrassment after four years of Trump. I mean, they could have put anybody up here. I mean, I’m off with, you know, Google Y’all’s and Chick fil outs.

I would have voted for

that. So that’s very typical for voters who sort of like took a flyer on Trump the first time, took a chance on him, and then decided they did not want to take a chance on a second term. But these wing orders are often pretty grumpy about Biden as well. I would say going into the last election or the midterms, we just did swing voter group after swing voter group. And they were super down on Biden.

They’re worried about the economy. They’re worried about inflation. They wanted to vote for Republicans. They just didn’t wanna vote for the Republicans that the Republicans were putting up. They didn’t wanna vote for Blake Masters or Doug Mastiano.

If you’ve given them sort of a normie Republican, they might have gone for that. But this group, this group, and we screened for the swing voter group, five people who watched the state of the union. And I don’t know, Peter, were you surprised by how a probate in this group was?

I was struck by that. Not one of them had any second thoughts about having voted for Biden in twenty twenty. Not one of them. It was even open to the idea of thinking about Trump again. They were all completely through with them.

There was nothing that convinced them to vote for Trump. They could be convinced to vote against Biden. Right? For reasons you just said, I mean, some people are still talking about inflation. They’re obviously concerned about that.

They’re concerned about issues like immigration or what have you. And they’re concerned about his age, but they do not regret their vote for Biden over Trump and they to a person, I think, if I remember your group correctly, when asked if it was a rematch in twenty twenty four, they all shot their hands up for Biden, not one of them. Was interested in changing their minds about that. And most of them, by the way, you know, were still buying over DeSantis or some of the others too. Now what is it they’d like about Biden?

It’s instructive. Right? It’s about his personality. It’s about who he is. Their idea of who he is.

It wasn’t about policy. Although a few of them brought up this or that, Most of them they’re saying he just seems like a guy that you would like to spend time with. One of them said, I I like the pictures of him going down the hall with Obama when he was vice president. Like if I saw him in the hall, he would ask me how I’m doing, and Trump would tell me I was a sloth. And I mean, their sense of him as a person, and one of them I think was particularly talking settled by his stutter.

That made him very human, relatable. So that’s always been Joe Biden’s superpower in politics, of course, is that he is you know, he’s uncle Joe. Right? Everybody knows somebody like him or feels like they know somebody like him and their family. And for all his flaws and he had many and they all identified some of them, at least they believe that he cares about them and that he wants to do the right thing or wants to help them out.

Yeah. Alright. I wanna play some reactions to buy the State of the Union. I’ll note upfront that we asked our group to give the speech a grade. Two gave it an a, one gave it a c, and then six gave it a b, which I will tell you from our focus groups, Bs, high marks, And so you’ll hear some nitpicks, but but actually quite positive reviews.

Let’s listen.

I deeply appreciated the clip that is now, you know, documented the national audience of the full like, GOP standing up and arguing that they support Social Security and Medicare. Like, that was like a a very masterfully done I mean, he showed his if somebody else mentioned that, like, he he showed that the fact that he has been in this a long time and he is extremely experienced. So it was obvious, but, I mean, last night, it was clear, like, Master Politzic or Negotiator. That’s what really was a

highlight for me. Sound like a personably is. You can tell that he gets along with other constituents in the room or with even with the ones that he don’t. He still has that poor. Well, let’s talk this way.

Let’s angry talk, and we’ll get something done. If we can’t reasonable talk. So I I like that, but he’s threw out a lot of keywords, buzzwords, but he didn’t touch in-depth on any one topic as much as I would like. I appreciated how he brought in the family of Tyree. I appreciated the Bridge Steelworkers.

I like how he’s touching on top folks that are really important to different parts of the state. I think he’s doing a good job and trying to get people to work together, especially the two parties. So I’m not the person who is voted democrat all day’s years, but I tell you, it really makes the thing

twice. Where he was coming from in his entire speech is, I’m here with you. We’re all together. And I’m I’m going to protect you. I’m thinking of you.

You’re of the utmost importance to me. He

really didn’t talk much about the the balloon going over the the US. Like, I I thought that was gonna be brought up. I mean, and not to say anything, you know, negative about him because I know, you know, eighty years old, and he’s a good guy and, you know, that stuttering problem. And her name rolls up really easy to pronounced, but the Ukrainian ambassador, he was trying to get it out. Do you know who you are?

I thought it was very, like, uplifting he wants us to be better, and you can feel that. Like, he wants to work with his counterparts. He wants to make the country better. And the four years previously nothing got accomplished. So he’s trying so hard to convey that he’s for the people.

As he said, he’s a president for everyone, those who voted for him and who didn’t

vote for him. You could just feel that from him. I mean, I don’t know. I’ve been listening to a lot of voters over the last five years And I, just about any president, would wish for people to take away from a speech what these voters took away. Like, that one guy was, like, he didn’t talk about the balloon.

Like, that was the guy who gave him a seat. Also didn’t think he taught enough about police reform. So he had, like, his specific things. But when you say things like, I think he’s doing a good job. He’s trying to get people to work together.

I think he’s there for the people. He’s gonna protect you. I’m thinking of you. I mean, that’s what voters want. Right?

They want somebody who cares about people like me. And I feel like like that really came through. And Peter, you wrote before the speech in the last seventy five years, only Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump had had worse approval ratings at this point in their presidencies than Biden currently has. You also said that Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, all started their rebounds to reelection with a good state of the union address. So was this that?

Was this the kind of speech that could start the Biden rebound?

It could. I mean, you know, you don’t wanna go too far on any single speech. You know, fewer people watch this than they stayed at the union in the last thirty years except for Biden’s two years ago. So, you know, your audience is limited and it’s harder to make a breakthrough today than it was in Reagan’s time. Reagan had an audience that would have been twice as large as this one with a smaller population.

We don’t have everybody sit down. Must see TV anymore. Right? So in that sense, there’s limited possibility for them. But I think, yeah, if if we see that he does rebound, that does one on three election and wins.

It may be that people look at this moment as a place where he’d be able to build on that. Now, the difference course between Reagan at his midterm, Clinton and Obama at their midterms is that they all came out of it somewhat smack upside the head. Right? You know, for Bush and two zero six, he called it a thumping. Obama called it a shlacking.

Shlacking. Right.

Clinton was just down the dumpster for months. He was just a hang dog. And the hell felt like they had been rejected by voters, which they had been. Biden didn’t come out of last November feeling that way. And whether he should or not, I mean, they did lose the house, but obviously not by the numbers that they expected.

They kept the Senate and you can gain to see So they came out of there at least with the narrative whether we had justified or not that they did okay and that that was even kind of a victory against expectation So he didn’t come into the state of the unit feeling a need to pivot. And he didn’t pivot. He said, look, I’m all for bipartisanship. As long as you do what I want. My partnership means you support my priorities.

He didn’t give any inch to the Republicans who are now in charge of the house. And I think that was a strategy on their part because they don’t feel like he needs to to switch gears that as the economy gets better, as inflation comes down, that his numbers will eventually start to come up again, at least as long as they’re in relation to Trump. Howard Bauchner:

Yeah, well, in relation to Trump and then also there were Republicans provided him some interesting contrast during that speech. And in fact, this group had some pretty choice words for how Republicans conducted themselves during the speech. Listen to that.

I was really hoping somebody showed the door to maturity tenor green. Like she was the worst. I couldn’t take her on skin. I was like, please, please ask her to leave. Because she was the worst full.

I agree with that completely. Like, it just goes to show, like, as

a mother, I see this generation and how the kids treat teachers and authority in general. And when they do that, what kind of kids are they raising? Like, that’s what I think of, like, you’re the problem. Because even if you don’t like the president, I was always taught to respect the office. And so it was just so disrespectful for her standing up there, liar, liar.

I mean, you know, it’s just what what does that prove? They should have showed her the door. So Margaret

Taylor Green absolutely horrible.

George Santos as well too.

At the end of the day, Mitt Romney comes out of his mouth and says to him You don’t belong here. You don’t need to go here. And George Santos is you you could basically see he’s being being defiant. No. Wait a minute.

This is a senior leader in your party. First and foremost, respect.

There’s no respect in that party at all. That party is going through a massive shift, and it looks like you can just tell by how last night played out. They

have no decorum. It’s just a free for all. It’s literally a free for all.

I guess, here’s the thing. With the Republicans, behaving as they are. To your point, they’re coming out of these midterms and I would say just from an expectations game. They crushed it, the democrats. I mean, I think the Republicans went way too far, you know, with their red wave certainty.

And as a result, their majority looks it looks like a loss. Like, that’s how it feels. So Biden’s bouncing out of a great midterm. He gives this good speech. The Republicans are providing this insane contrast.

Yeah. If Joe Biden was seventy three years old, I think he would crash reelection. Against a lot of people. Part of the reason that people are gonna obsess about his age, and I think a lot of voters Democratic voters who were not obsessed by his age are gonna get really annoyed about how much we talk about it. But it’s because that is that’s his Achilles heel in a scenario where, like, otherwise, he is doing pretty good because, like and I’d I’d like you to react sort of to this idea of the Republican contrast.

You know, McCarthy’s trying to shush people, but they’re yelling, And Joe Biden maybe has the best case scenario where, yes, he’s the Republicans own the house, but now they’re providing that contrast that voters get to be like, god, I didn’t like Donald Trump. I don’t like this chumpy version of the party, and I hate this. Like, isn’t that what’s allowing Democrats to over perform? So isn’t that maybe helped Joe Biden?

Absolutely. No question about it. And that’s how Clinton and Obama both bounced back to win reelection two years after they take that fracking in those two midterms. And I think this is exactly where the White House wanted. When they drafted the speech, they identified two places in the speech where they thought Republicans might echo five.

And they told them here are your two places where you might expect that. Guess what? The republic is it exactly that and exactly those two parts of the speech. Giving them exactly what they wanted. And I was struck that your group I was so interested in this.

Your group, I think, strikes me as politically engaged but not politically obsessed. Right? They don’t they’re not reading playbook in the morning. They’re not paying attention to to the ins and outs the way, you know, obsessive people like you and me might but they know Marjorie Taylor Green’s name. Right?

They know who she is. They don’t know, by the way, the chairman of the appropriations committee or armed services can make people who are really in theory important on Capitol Hill. The name they know or the personality they have seen is Margery Taylor Green. She has made herself a face of the Republican party to the party’s detriment. Right?

Because you you see that reaction to her. And that’s striking me. That’s Biden’s biggest advantage going into this next two years is in fact the notion that this Republican majority in the house will come across as over the top, you know, just just performative and and radical and rude and what have

you. Yeah. You know, there’s a lot of like Joe Biden ran from his basement in twenty. And I’m not sure that that contrast if he ran from his basement again and he kinda kept the age thing on the DL a little bit, these guys will be clown themselves left and right. And say, like, listen to all these sprinklers.

They do not see themselves in the same coalition with Margaritailing Green. Like, base voters? Sure. But the swing voters do not. Okay.

So I will say that if you listen to these voters reactions to speech and their visceral reaction to the Republican Party, they’re all set to vote for Biden again. But when we asked our group, two people wanted Biden to run again. Two people wanted him not to run, and the rest were undecided kind of somewhere in between. Let’s listen to some of the concerns about Biden running again, and I think

you’re gonna hear some obvious themes that we’ve already touched on? I mean, as far as the speech goes last night, I could tell that, you know, he wasn’t really reading from it. He remembered a lot of he seemed very coherent, but the nervous moments. And, I mean, I have a grandfather that lives to ninety eight years old, and

I’m

working at nursing home, and I recognize clarity of mind. It I don’t even I don’t even think it’s a speech impediment. I think that he just disappears from when he’s speaking sometimes. And that scares me. And a little bit because it just shows that maybe all the people around him really are running things a little bit more if

we have someone that is lacking that kind of thing. It’s not because I don’t want a Democrat in there again. It’s not because I don’t like Biden. I think we need a younger, more, vivacious, person in there.

I think I I want him to run, but he’s gonna need a stronger MVP support. Me, I don’t want him to run with I would say there’s a lacklustre to be there because then he’s going to do. So might as well have a better precedent candidate from that website. So I think there’s a lot to be done by Democrats in the next two years. I do want him to run, but I think he’s gonna need a lot of support from his VP candidate.

So all that one person in the group thought Biden’s age was a concern, but you brought this up before when we ask people to choose between Biden and Trump and Biden’s scientists, like, Biden got a clean sweep from this group. And so even though age is the most obvious roadblock, I guess the other things that he could have that that are coming down the piker, and you must be covering this are, like, the two years of investigations into Hunter, we asked them about the documents. That’s we don’t have sound from the documents thing, but everybody was just, like, throwing up their hands. Like, well, clearly, the whole documents thing is ridiculous, and we don’t really know how to evaluate that. Maybe one person did say, you know, it depends on what’s in there.

We don’t really know yet. But do you think that Republican investigations, which way do you think that’s gonna go? Is that gonna bounce towards or chipping away at Biden’s viability? Or is that going to again, highlight Republicans caring about things that most voters don’t care about? Yeah.

It’s a great question. I don’t know that we know the answer. We should be careful about predicting. But I think you’re right. Look, it is Fox News, chum, it is Red Meat for the base.

They’re gonna love it. Energizes them, which seems to be the goal. Does it convince people on your group, that group, the the swing voters that something bad has happened? I mean, I guess it partly depends on what they turn up. The problem for the Republicans is they look so to these kind of voters, they look like they’re just partisans out to make a a partisan a show of it.

And if you’re a Republican who’s doing investigation, you might have some interest in actually trying to do it in a way that doesn’t come across that way and and be taken more seriously. We’ll see if any of them actually came up on that. Having said that, I was struck by one of the things there. A couple of your focus groupers said one reason they didn’t like Hillary Clinton, they just didn’t like her. They cited Benghazi.

Mhmm. And that’s suggests that sometimes these things kinda get through to people, just got through that something bad happened with Benghazi that was Hillary Clinton’s fault. And that that tarnish her in their eyes. So that’s always a danger for Biden. It may not be that something is substantively proven to be genuinely wrong, but just the preponderance of the the conversation though it changes their image of him.

Yeah. Were you surprised by how much this group dislike to Santa? Very

much. Not not surprised by that.

Not very

strong highlights. Yeah. Again, Santa is a base candidate at this point. And that may be enough to get the nomination. But he would have a very big challenge in the general election to change his image because he he’s not likable.

To these swing voters. Now your point though is he is younger and that’s gonna be a huge advantage if it’s a descent as Biden race. There’s gonna be a lot of people who pick him just because they see him as a new generation guy even if they’re not thrilled with his politics. But I haven’t seen enough of him to know my sense from people who do know him is that he, you know, he’s not exactly mister magnetism for the middle of the road folks. Right?

And we actually see if he has the agility to pivot if he were actually to get the nomination. Yeah.

I mean, one of the downsides to having really high name recognition among Republican voters. This is a pretty high name recognition among swing voters and Democratic voters who sort

of don’t

like what they’re seeing. So it’s gonna be harder for him to pivot out of this later to run as kind of a general and as concerned as I am about the optics, I was struck by this group how much they were just absolutely not for DeSantis. I will say though, that this group and I think it’s because we screen for people who are gonna watch the state of the union. And I think that led us to maybe a a coach, more providing of a swing voter group. So I well, one of two things is happening.

Either the speech itself made them feel more provident in that moment or they are a scotch more probied and then your average swing voting group because they’re the kinds of people who wanted to tune in to hear by and give an hour long speech. A

lot of swing voters weren’t

watching that. That’s right. I think that’s right. And I wanna tell you that what we heard last fall from swing voters of how Biden was way more critical And so just to not be all, like, happy talk. I wanna play some Trump Biden voters from the vault that we heard between August and October of twenty twenty two.

Who were literally talking about going back to Trump. Let’s listen.

Well,

if it’s between Biden or Trump, let’s get Trump back to make things better again. You

can put a lot of pros and cons, but the inflation, the prices, everything that’s going on with us, we didn’t have those issues with Trump. Not made these words, and he went back and corrected it. This president is just making the words. He’s just like, okay, deal with it. And I hate it.

It affects everyone. I just thought the country was in a better place. It seemed like we’re scrutinized now. Like, everything, like, I watched certain news and they said we’re gonna be, like, in trouble with our taxes. We’re gonna be in trouble with everything.

And I just felt better when Trump was in office I just I have to vote for him. And my family is gonna be mad at me, but I don’t care.

I hope to god, we don’t have Trumpers Biden in twenty twenty before. But if that happens, I’m probably gonna vote for Trump because I’ll take a lot of the crap that Trump does, but I know I’m gonna get a strong economy, you know, and I’m gonna get someone at least as as passionate.

You know, it sort of brings up for me. You know, voters are like a lagging indicator on how the economy’s doing. Right now, like, there can be a lot of news stories about how the jobs are doing really well, the great jobs reports, core inflations coming down, the market, bouncing back some but, like, voters still will talk about the cost of bread and eggs and housing. And like until they are feeling it, they will not feel like this economy is working for them. And they will do this thing where they’re like, it was just better under Trump.

And so I’m gonna go back to Trump. So here’s my question to you, as somebody hanging around the White House, I I get the sense that part of the reason Biden’s gonna run again is because he thinks Trump will still be the nominee. Do you think they, like, want the rematch with Trump? Like, that’s not something anybody would say out loud. Oh,

they buy They do. They definitely don’t get. They definitely want very match. No question about it. That’s definitely their approach to this is it’s gonna be a rematch.

Biden is the Trump killer. He did it before. He can do it again. And I don’t think they’re sure that he can be another candidate or not because they haven’t really got enough data to work from on that. But they do think that he can beat Trump now.

Interestingly, the argument that has been selling with Democrats about why Biden should run again is that, which is that he’s the guy who can save us quote quote from Trump. But that Washington Post poll, interestingly, I think, is a danger sign for him. That Washington Post poll showed Trump leading a match up forty eight, forty five. Now let’s that was margin of error. Let’s just say that was an outlier.

But the idea that Trump is even competitive in in one of these polls and because polls are always wrong on election day anyway, questions whether or not Biden really, you know, has such an extraordinary advantage over Trump that that he should be the only choice for the Democrat nomination. There there is now another poll since then I forgot it. You’ll know it. That showed Trump down by six or seven to Biden, which would, I think, be more what the White House would expect. But he has to be able to keep up that idea that only Biden or at least Biden is the most likely to beat Trump in order to keep the Democrats behind him.

Well, it brings up one additional wrinkle that is flagged very often in the focus groups. And so you already heard in one of the clips earlier, there’s a guy he was very concerned. He didn’t name Komal Harris, but he just said he needs a stronger VP. And so you and two of your times colleagues are out with a story about Harris this week. Sounds like Terrence’s team gave you all names to talk to for supportive quotes, but it turns out that privately they weren’t so confident, and we’ll put the story in the show notes, but that’s a tough place to be.

And I gotta say, I’m gonna play it for you. The focus groups have been really tough on Paris. Let’s listen. There’s

this, like, press interview or anything and somebody was asking her, you know, can she support giving support to Ukraine? And she just, like, smiled, giggled, and laughed. I mean, that that is a war torn country, and you’re just you’re just laughing. He’s kind of invisible. Like, we

don’t really even I think there’s potential, but I think that he maybe picked her just because she was a minority woman.

Do we want to elect a president and then have him die in office? And if he runs in with with Harris again and then he dies in office — Mhmm. — then, you know, She’s at present right

now.

If it is Harris Trump, who’s I know. You guys Who is going? Harris? Who is going Trump?

Can we move? Not to sound like some of these other people want Trump gets elected. I’m leaving. I mean, just gone by the way Trump ended. I I would go with Harris, but this is the last four of two evils.

Okay. So in the head to head, that was the moderator saying, like, who’s going Harris? Who’s going Trump? And so eight out of nine people did say they would choose Harris over Trump if there was a match up, and one person said they would abstain. But, like, they had to think about it for a really, really long time.

And so this question of age isn’t just about Biden. Right? Like, it’s, like, it’s uncouth to talk about it. But like actuarial tables being what they are, who the vice president is becomes extraordinarily important in this conversation. And to have a vice president who’s is unpopular.

She’s not gonna tell you, we in the focus groups, and I’m not just talking Republicans, I’m not gonna swing voters for sure, and then also a lot of Democrats that’s she is not popular with owners right now.

Yep. No. And it’s really very striking. And what your your listeners here can’t see is that when your your focus groupers were asked how many hours with the faces they made, the faces they made were just demonstrative. Right?

Like, oh my god, castor oil. You’ve just made me eat something horrific. You just fed me sardines, you know? They were not. Reacting in a in a positive way to her at all.

And this is what we try to capture in that article is that she’d had such a problem establishing yourself and rising the occasional porting to fellow Democrats that they don’t have faith in her. They don’t have faith that she would be a, you know, a successful nominee if you were not to run for some reason. B, She wouldn’t be a liability to take it. If he does, for the very reason you said Republicans are gonna make obvious attack on him, which is if you vote for Biden in twenty four, you’re really voting for Harris. Because implicitly there’s a good chance he might not make it to two thousand twenty nine and therefore she would become present.

So she has this challenge now at the very least not being seen as a liability for him on that ticket even if she’s not, you know, an asset.

You know, just dig in on Harris with me for a second. Because I guess one of the things that that the focus groups say all the time, and I I have internalized this as well. It’s like, you just don’t see her that Like, even watching the State of the Union, I was struck by, like, oh, look, there she is. You know, she looks great, but they always talk about they say, she’s invisible. I never see her.

I don’t hear her. And the democrats who are much more you know, they talk obviously much more favorably about like her possibilities. They’re like, I was really excited about Harris. I really wanted to see what she was about, but I just feel like I don’t see her at all. Like, what is going on there?

Is she being intentionally kept out of you? Is she keeping herself out of you? Like, what is the problem? Well, first

of all, being vice president sucks. Okay? Let’s start with that. I mean, he’s really the worst job in Washington. You know, Thomas Marshall, who was Woodbrough Wilson’s vice president once said that there were two brothers.

One of them went out to sea and the other became vice president. Neither was ever heard from again. It’s just a terrible job. And it was terrible for George, h w Bush, and Al Gore, and and so on and so forth. So start with that.

Second, add on the burden of being a first. Right? Being the first African American vice president, the first woman vice president, the first Asian American vice president, and the burdens and the expectations that come with that, you cannot screw up And there’s a double standard. I’m sure in a lot of different ways that there’s probably unfair to her. It certainly feels unfair to her, I know.

Having said all that, it is reality. You’re not gonna change the job and you’re not gonna change who you are. So therefore, you have to deal with that and make it as success as you can and she hasn’t been able to do that. Now, her allies or her most sympathetic people would say Biden hasn’t helped her, hasn’t given her jobs that would give her much of residents with the public. She has seemed to crack through a little bit with her passionate defensive abortion rights that has, you know, energized a democratic base a little bit.

They do like her voice on that. So look for her to do a little bit more of that. She now looks at this next two years that opportunity where she may be able to do more because she won’t be quite as tethered to the senate. She’s actually cast more time breaking votes in any vice president since John Calhoun. Because of the fifty fifty tie.

And now that it’s not a fifty fifty tie, maybe fifty forty nine and a half. I don’t know where count, Chris, in some of these days. But it’s not a fifty-fifty tie. And so she’s telling herself, get me out there. I wanna be out in the road at least three times a week to be more visible.

But you can’t be too visible because your vice president, if you show up the president, that doesn’t work for you either. So it’s kind of a kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. But she hasn’t made the motion, but a lot of democrats you know, we don’t quote any rep, I’ll look in the story. All the the disappointed people in the story are Democrats, including someone else, put her on the ticket and feel like she hasn’t risen to the occasion.

Yeah. But you just made a point I’d never thought of before, which is that if the White House is consciously keeping Biden, low profile, which I heard you say in the beginning and I didn’t wanna, like, push back exactly because you’re not it’s not your calculation. But there’s a little something a little bit convenient about being like, no, no, no, our strategy is to keep him super low profile because Trump was always in your face when actually there you know there’s part of it that’s like — Yes. Molly’s eighty. And, you know, he needs a nap and, like, you know, there’s only so much you can run him around.

But, like, I guess, I’ve always had this thing, like, well, what’s the White House too. Like, are they telling her? Like, no don’t make a lot of public appearances. But if there’s just sort of a rule, which makes total sense or like a norm, that the vice president cannot be much more visible than the president, and the president is just being kept not super visible on purpose for a variety of reasons, that that significantly diminishes just her ability to be out there talking to people.

Right. Fewer opportunities because, yes, you don’t wanna outshine. You never wanna outshine your president if your vice president or seem to do that. And you’re right. He does keep a low profile.

So it’s kind of a tough situation in that regard for but having said that, I mean, you don’t wanna let her off the hook too much either. I mean, you know, she has struggled to find her voice. In a way that has captivated people. She struggled to keep a staff. You can tell things a staff come and go.

That’s usually a sign of a of a problem at a politician’s office. And remember when she ran for president, she didn’t get to the Iowa caucus. Right? So she she ran a campaign that didn’t go very well. And so all of that’s on her.

And So on the one hand, she has factors that are beyond her control that aren’t fair. But on the other hand, you have to live with that. If she’s got an opportunity now, but we’ll see if she can take advantage of it. So

I saw an Atlantic headline that I liked. It was called Biden’s Catch twenty four. And I’m gonna admit, I just only read the headline. I didn’t read the rest of the article. But what I would assume his Catch-twenty four is, is that He’s very old.

So he needs a vice president that people have a lot of confidence in. He doesn’t have that right now, but he also can’t swap out — No. — comma hairs. Right? Like, you like, there’s I think a lot of us who sort of game out these political decisions or like, well, you could just do that.

That would solve this problem and but she’d have to sort of make that decision herself. Right? Yeah.

I you can’t do that. I mean, you’ll look she decided she wanted to leave and it was genuinely her decision or at least appear to be her decision, that would be one thing. But you cannot appear to be dumping her. From the ticket for couple of reasons. One, just historically hasn’t worked since FDR did it.

Right? The only time this happened since FDR was in Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, moderate to liberal Republican in favor of Bob Bill because he was trying to fend off the the concerns on the right as represented by Ronald Reagan at the time. Didn’t work for him. I think I think that every other president since then has thought about it or at least their staff has thought about it. Should they get rid of Biden in two thousand twelve?

Should they get rid of Cheney in two thousand four? It’s come up. But most of the time, they they conclude that it would be more damaging than it would be helpful. That it would first of all, call into question your judgment in in the very first decision you made as a presidential candidate. Right?

Who to pick is your number two? And second of all, you would offend people without necessarily gaining thing. So here, you literally would be potentially defending the most important constituents in your party for what gain. And it’s not really clear who would get you more than you would lose at least in terms of enthusiasm and energy and and goodwill. That’s a real trick.

I think that’s probably what they mean by the catch twenty two. That

was the catch twenty four. But and actually, and I have no idea if that’s what the article’s about. It’s just a title. That I thought encapsulated my theory of what Biden’s sort of facing here in terms of some pretty complicated dynamics because I gotta say as somebody who then I’ll just say this kind of as we wrap up here, I guess I’ve been the reason I said, what I said on bad save America is that I’ve been kinda like and I just really think there’s a timing issue here and that Joe Biden’s been a great president and he should go out on a high. You know, Michelle Goldberg had a call about this that I was quoted in, just talking about the focus groups.

But I I mostly agreed with it, this idea that he he could step down and he could Also, if it wasn’t, Kamala, he could signal toward a different successor. And and he could do some work in advance of that to help that person get elevated in their profile, etcetera. I don’t know. I don’t know what all the mechanisms would be. But, like, all I know is that would have to be fast.

It would have to be soon, and that if you sit around a wait to ensure that Donald Trump isn’t a nominee, like, that’s too late in the time line.

Yeah. And

so, like, that’s the other sort of catch twenty four is that by the time you know whether or not it’s Trump, it’s too late to do anything about it other than Biden to run it. So I guess I’d nominally been on this idea of like, dude, just gotta get out and gotta try to tap somebody else. But, you know, that’s not super straightforward. And super easy because Kamala Harris, I don’t think, ends up being the person. Like, you still have that problem to deal with.

And you’re then running a primary Like, and the one big advantage you have for the incumbent is that you’re gonna let the other guys tear each other apart while you stand there and look presidential and that’s a big thing they give up. And I don’t think it’s fair to ask you as a reporter what you think you should do. But what’s your what analysis should he do? Or is it there just you gotta

run? That’s it. Yeah. I thought there was a chance a while back that he might choose the I’m stepping down statesman like kind of approach. He he got a high because he did do better than expected.

The midterm, it wouldn’t be like he was being driven from office. He did say he was going to be a bridge to a new generation when he ran and the implicit message in two thousand twenty was I’m gonna run for one term and then bring along a new generation of leadership. That’s not a bridge he’s ready across. Clearly, I think that He said that we thought that might be his calculation. That seemed to be wrong.

There is no indication not even a hint or a whisper among anybody close to him that he would consider anything other than running again. If you think about it, I suppose that makes sense. You spend your entire life, your eighty year old life, trying to be president of the United States, and then you’re gonna suddenly step aside because people tell you you’re too old and screw that. I’ve been trying to get here my whole life. I got stuff to do.

That’s I think where your head is really at. And I’ve got, of course, the Trump challenge, it gives them a justification, and the fact that there is no obvious successor, it gives them a justification. But here’s the other trick. So, yeah, I think you’re right. If they wanna groom somebody else, they’re getting laid in the game here, because they don’t have somebody who’s an obvious other candidate.

But what happens if he does, of course, run free election as we think he’s going to. But something happens next year. What accounting happens in the summer or fall of twenty twenty four where suddenly he decides he can’t make the race. Some you know, and again, I’m not trying to be disrespectful. But the reality is that eighty and what will be eighty one next year, things happen fast at that age that you don’t expect.

And therefore, what is the party going to do? How do they prepare for that possibly they have to at least think about that and what their contingency plan is. And I haven’t heard anything about that yet.

Well, it doesn’t even have to be it doesn’t have to get, like, fadely sick. Oh, no. But He could just, like, need a big surgery or if you just think about how Hillary Clinton the conspiracy theory about her her being sort of sick in some way and like that time she had pneumonia and like like, if you were in an election cycle and you are running against even, let’s say, Trump, but, like, very much possibly somebody younger, and like you start needing a bunch of help. Yeah, you need a bunch of procedures or something like that. That is catastrophic in a campaign environment.

Well, I really appreciate you working all this through with me because it is it is not straightforward. It is not straightforward and yet it feels like we also know the answer. Like, there’s just not really you can game out some of these things, but it looks like it just looks like we’re doing the thing. We’re gonna do the thing. It

looks like we’re doing the thing.

Peter Baker. Thank you for coming on the Focus Group podcast. Thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group, go over to iTunes and give us a rating, and we will be back next week with more focus groups. See you guys.