Pod Save America - Democrats Debate Biden's Future

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

President Biden’s campaign fights to contain fallout from the disastrous debate, as Democrats begin to go public with concerns. Jon, Tommy, and Dan discuss the polling and the media-frenzy, what Biden should be doing, and how all this drama could impact down-ballot races. The Supreme Court’s stunning round of right-wing decisions deals damage to American institutions, and further raises the stakes of this election. Steve Bannon goes to prison. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. It has been a rough couple of shifts in the democracy minds as the Supreme Court issues ruling after ruling, slashing at the basic workings of our institutions, our ability to regulate pollution, punish corruption, and hold presidents accountable to the law. Democrats continue to debate Joe Biden's fitness to be our representative in the fight to protect democracy this fall. I am recording this from home because I got COVID on the road. John's on vacation. Lucky him. I'm here with Dan and Tommy. It is two o'clock Pacific

on Tuesday. We're timestamping it because this debate seems to be moving pretty quickly. A lot of churn since we last talked about this in Boston. We're going to get to as much of it as we can, but the gist is, as of now, the Biden campaign is projecting confidence that Biden will remain the nominee. They put out a one-minute ad that's basically just a cut-down version of the speech we talked about in Boston.

The campaign is also pointing out that they pulled in $127 million in June, including $38 million in the days after the debate. In a memo on Monday, the campaign shared internal polling to claim that Biden wasn't hurt by the debate, though in a call with donors later, the campaign also said they were seeing an impact in the polling because of the debate. At first, the dynamic had been one in which elected Democrats were bravely offering anonymous hand-wringing and then on-the-record displays of support. But by Tuesday, that was shifting. Representative Lloyd Doggett from Austin became the first sitting Democrat to call on Biden

to withdraw from the race. Former Congressman Tim Ryan said it should be Harris at the top of the ticket. We've also heard concerns about Biden's ability from Democrats, including Sheldon Whitehouse and Nancy Pelosi. Well, I think people want to make sure that this is a campaign that's ready to go and win, that the president and his team are being candid with us about his condition, that this was a real anomaly and not just the way he is these days. And, you know, they've got a plan to win. Now, again, I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? And so when people ask that question, it's completely legitimate of both candidates. Representative James Clyburn, who has been a steadfast Biden ally, said on MSNBC that he would support Vice President Harris if Biden stepped

aside. This party should not in any way do anything to work around Ms. Harris. We should do everything we can to bolster her, whether it's in second place or at the top of the ticket. He was, for the record, very clear that he still supports a Biden-Harris ticket. According to The Washington Post, Joe Manchin had planned to break with Biden over the weekend, but was talked down by party leaders, even though he's not in the party anymore. Let's take this in pieces. First, let's talk about the impact of the debate. Dan, at first, the polling on the one hand seemed to show that the debate confirmed voters' biggest concern about Biden, and in a dramatic way, over two-thirds questioning his fitness and acuity. But on the other hand, there, A, wasn't much of an impact on the overall

head-to-head, and B, Biden still performed as well, or I should say as poorly as other Democrats. That seemed to begin to shift in what was coming out today. Dan, what numbers have jumped out at you? Sure. You're right. In immediate aftermath, there was very clear evidence that undecided voters were very unhappy with Biden's performance. They were concerned by it, but it didn't move them to Trump. And so in some of these initial polls, especially these very quick snap online polls, showed little movement. The Biden campaign, as you mentioned, released a battleground states poll, which showed very little change. It's worth noting that in all of these polls, Biden was behind before the debate and behind after the debate. Over the last 36 hours, we've seen more polls.

There was a poll, a St. Anselm poll of New Hampshire, a state Biden won by seven points that showed him down two. There was a poll that had him down in Pennsylvania by four. And then CNN on Tuesday morning had a poll that showed Trump with a six-point lead, which was a dramatic increase from their most recent poll. All of these polls show increases in the already high number of Americans who are concerned about Biden's age. But the most impactful poll is a private poll from Open Labs, which is a democratic research outfit started by former alumni of the Obama 2012 campaign. They work with a lot of the most important super PACs and campaigns. This poll was making the rounds privately. It was a poll conducted over the weekend. And that poll showed a drop for Biden in the head-to-head. It showed him trailing in all of the battleground states, in some cases by large margins, including by seven

points in Pennsylvania, and with close races in states like New Hampshire, Virginia, Minnesota, and New Mexico. This was the first poll that was done by someone that everyone in the Democratic Party respects. And I had this poll sent to me by four political operatives this morning before Peter Hamby, our friend at Puck, actually published the poll. And I think that poll is the one that has shaken Democrats the most because it suggests that the bottom may be falling out. Now, the important caveat here is that polling is very noisy in the aftermath of a giant event, but you're starting to see the numbers that are causing those numbers are what are causing people to be more concerned publicly than they were 48 hours ago. Yeah, I mean, one thing that jumped out is that the swing state polls, the battleground polls may be showing more of an impact in part because those are states where voters are paying closer

attention. Tommy, what jumped out at you about any of the polls that have been coming out in the last couple of hours? Yeah, I mean, I found the open labs poll to be pretty concerning. I mean, basically Biden's vote share has dropped about two points in all the key states since the debate. I mean, Dan mentioned he went from down five to down seven in both Pennsylvania and Michigan, went from down two to down four in Wisconsin. Minnesota, Virginia being tied is very frightening. And then states that were, that we've been talked about as either reach states or where we got them in 2020, like North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona, he's down like 10 points. So I mean, that is a huge deficit. And then you've got about 70% of voters concerned about Biden's age on his ability to do the

job. 40% of Biden 2020 voters now think he should end his campaign. That is a huge shift from May when only 25% of voters thought he should step aside. So yeah, I mean, it's a pretty significant shift away from President Biden in these numbers. significant shift away from President Biden in these numbers. So let's talk about how Biden is dealing with the fallout. We know Biden met with family over the weekend at Camp David and that they expressed support for staying in the race. There was this deeply troubling reporting in The Times over the weekend said that Mr. Biden had been soliciting ideas from advisors about how to proceed and his staff had been discussing whether he should hold a news conference or sit for interviews to

defend himself and change the narrative. But nothing had been decided yet. One of the strongest voices employing Mr. Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son, Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice. Also, NBC reported today that Hunter had been joining meetings at the White House, which I did not know how to make sense of. We learned a few hours ago that Joe Biden is sitting down for an interview Friday with George Stephanopoulos that will begin airing that evening. Tommy, if you were asked what Biden

should do right now to put this post-debate frenzy to rest, would it be to take a couple days of R&R, maybe head to Madison, then sit down for an interview? Like, shouldn't Biden be out there every day? Yeah, I think, you know, there's a there's a quite a vacuum out there. I mean, just for context, at this point in the campaign in 2012, Obama was kicking off a two day bus tour across Ohio and Pennsylvania. And that was before, not after his disastrous debate performance, right? This is just right, normal campaigning. So I think if Biden wants to stay in this race, he needs to urgently reset the narrative in some way. That could be a big interview with 60 Minutes is an idea that's been floated, an hour-long press conference, a bunch of town hall meetings with voters. None of those things will fix the problem in and of

themselves, but it can begin a process of showing voters that the questions they had on Thursday night can be answered, that that was an aberration and not the norm. But at the moment, President Biden seems to be doing a couple rallies, a couple of fundraisers where he's speaking out for teleprompters. I don't think that's going to cut it. He also needs to be calling Democrats in Congress, calling governors who are really worried about the state of the race. It doesn't sound like he's doing that. And again, just to this family meeting over the weekend, like apparently there was a pre-planned trip to Camp David with the family. During that trip, they talked about the state of the race. That makes sense. You know, obviously, you know, you have to have a conversation

with the people closest to you at a time like this. But I do think it's important to say that like for candidates, deciding to run is a decision, because if you run for president, your whole family gets dragged into it, you know, against their will, basically, or you become part of the country in a race where he has said that the future of American democracy is at stake. So like, I just hope that he's getting blunt feedback on how things are going, what Thursday looked like from people who aren't, you know, kind of personally invested in his future. And generally like the people I feel for the most right now are his campaign staffers because they've been working their asses off for months, if not years, they've got no choice but to like soldier on in this moment. But like 99% of them are not with Joe Biden assessing the situation, offering advice for what to do next.

And so you're just kind of in this pending reality. So it's, it's tough, man. This is a tough one. Yeah. It's also like I saw, I think, Chris Coons talking to Jake Tapper and all these surrogates are going out there on Biden's behalf. And then Jake turns to Chris Coons and said, OK, then where is he? Right. Like, it's not just that he's failing to answer the concerns people have. He is lending credence to the concerns people have by not being out there because just by just inherent in the fact that this is even a debate at all tells us that there are concerns around Joe Biden

that putting him out there for an hour-long interview, putting him out there for a press conference, putting him out there in these unscripted environments are ones in which they're not sure if it's worth the risk. But if they felt confident that Joe Biden would be able to assuage these doubts, he would have been out there already. He should just be in front of the cameras for two hours. And when you put that question to a surrogate, even his best surrogates, they're really out there without much to say. So, Dan, were you surprised to find out that Joe Biden hasn't reached out to senior Democrats and senior Democrats have been trying to reach Joe Biden and have been unable to do it. Yeah, it's it's all very concerning, politically and otherwise, right? Like you would their tummy is right that what you would do in a normal world after a bad debate, like it's too

much to ask any candidate after a bad debate to do all the morning shows the next day, right? But you would have done, you know, a huge press conference, you would have done a bunch of interviews, at bare minimum, you would have sat there and said, debate was Thursday. That was bad. I'm going to do maybe Friday night. I'm going to do an interview. I'll get MSNBC to bring Rachel Maddow in, and we'll do that interview. You would do one high-profile thing right off the bat.

You would do a Sunday show that would record on Friday. You would flood the zone with evidence counter to what people saw in the debate. And there are a couple of theories as to why the Biden campaign has not done that. One is that they do not have confidence in him to do it. That is incredibly alarming, right? And that does fit with the approach they have taken to date with him, right? Whether you're not doing the Super Bowl interview or something, which I did not think was a big deal at the time, but is more telling in hindsight, right? He doesn't do a lot of interviews. He doesn't do a lot of press conferences. Sometimes that's the right strategy, but that's not the right strategy right now. And it is

the thing that I would like to see more reporting on what calls Biden has made or not made because there's nothing less like Joe Biden than not burning up the phones with congressional leaders to do something, right? That to me is very strange. I think the other thing here is I think the White House and the Biden campaign were knocked on their ass by this, understandably so, right? This is not what they expected that happened. Their worst nightmare unfolded before their eyes in front of 50 million people. This campaign that they have fought so hard to try to steer to victory was collapsing before them. And it seems like maybe Biden, he's spending time with his family, not advisors or whatever that is, but they have marshaled a very impressive staff level political outreach effort to donors,

to congressional leaders, all of that. But it's just, there doesn't seem to be a broader strategy here that includes the president to be engaged in that. And that, I think, is fueling some of these concerns, right? It's one thing for Nancy Pelosi to be very supportive of Joe Biden on Friday morning, but it's been 96 hours since then and she hasn't heard from him. That's going to raise some concerns when you put it in the context of the bad polling as well. It was not surprising to see Nancy Pelosi and Clyburn out there defending Joe Biden, trying to put it to rest. It was surprising to see with just in the matter of a few days to have Nancy Pelosi entertaining the debate, to have Clyburn entertaining what would happen if Joe Biden steps aside. You know, look, I feel like the story has, it's almost not even worth

talking about. But one criticism you've seen, and not just from the Biden campaign, but from some of Biden's biggest supporters online, is that this is a media-driven story, that the fallout from the debate has been far worse than the debate itself, that Democratic hand-wringing has done more damage than the actual 90 minutes itself. Dan, can you find a way to see any truth in that? What do you think? No, I don't. Look, 50 million people watched that debate. 80 million people if you count all the people online. Three times that if you're thinking about all the clips that have been bouncing around TikTok and Instagram. So the amount of, you know, like, oh, no, the 500,000 people who watch midday CNN, you know, that's a drop in the bucket.

Look, this debate is unhelpful for Biden, obviously. We are having a conversation about his greatest weakness that is happening loudly at the exact time when we need people to be focusing on Donald Trump. that is happening loudly at the exact time when we need people to be focusing on Donald Trump. Like they demanded, and we can talk about why they did this, but they demanded this debate on this timeline for the specific purpose of shifting this race from a referendum to a choice. And because of the president's performance, it has gone the exact opposite way. It's become even more of a referendum, not just on Joe Biden's record, but on Joe Biden's fitness. And that is the last thing they possibly wanted. So this is not a media-driven story. This is a real conversation. And if you talk to any voters, and I've talked to some people

who have been watching focus groups over the last few days, this is the conversation that voters are having. And they've actually been having it for two years now. It's just sort of the media is catching up to it. Yeah, just two quick things. One, our producer David just sent around an article where apparently Karine Jean-Pierre said that President Biden is going to meet with congressional leaders on Wednesday. So it sounds like, you know, these things are now starting to happen. I still think it's weird that it's taken this long, but it's just worth updating folks. Frustrating me a little bit with some of the spin you're seeing out of the Biden campaign, which is the suggestion that this is just a bunch of weak, you know, you know, squishy Beltway insiders, bedwetting or whatever the you know, the phrase might be about the campaign. I think it's actually the opposite. I think this is a problem that exists out in the world where you have 70 percent of

voters who already had concerns about President Biden's age and they saw a debate performance that exacerbated those concerns. So I get, you know, look, you can spin and push back and sort of like criticize the press and pundits. And, you know, there's, I guess, some value in that to kind of, you know, like getting everybody fired up internally, but I don't actually think it's solving the problem. getting everybody fired up internally, but I don't actually think it's solving the problem. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I also think it's opposite to a media-driven story in another way, in that I think one of the reasons it has come to such a head after the debate is that a lot of people who advocate for Joe Biden, I include myself in this, had concerns about Joe Biden's age and whether it would be a giant factor in his

reelection, felt like, well, he is the nominee. And while there may be concerns about his age in terms of how he can message, how he can campaign as a candidate, those are obviously far less important than the concerns we have about Donald Trump's fitness. And so we're going to go to battle for Joe Biden and we're going to put those concerns aside because there's not much we can do about them anymore. But the debate, I think, was such a turning point because it forced us to reckon with those concerns that we hadn't been voicing, either because we weren't honest with ourselves or because we didn't view it as having much value. So hearing that like, oh, this is people not being tough enough or not being willing to be loyal or not being, I don't know, good enough soldiers,

I think is unfair to the people that desperately want Joe Biden to succeed, right? Or up until this debate had been willing to believe that the risks posed by Joe Biden's age were less than the risks posed by seeking another path, finding another nominee, raising those concerns in the run-up to the convention. Look, as you say, this story is shifting very quickly, right? And what is true now may not be true six hours from now, a day from now, whatever else. But it is possible to have this conversation in this moment. And it still is true that the most likely scenario is Joe Biden's going to still be our nominee, right? No one can force him to leave.

It's up to him. He seems very committed to it. And when that happens, we are all going to stop having this conversation and we're going to put on our walking shoes and whatever else. We're going to go work our ass off for Joe Biden. That's the most important thing. Because some of the conversation is that by having this conversation, you're abandoning Joe Biden. We heard that a lot after our podcast the other day. Joe Biden would never abandon us. You guys abandoned Joe Biden. And no one's abandoning

Joe Biden. It's just a conversation in good faith between people who all agree on both sides that beating Donald Trump is the most important thing possible. Yeah, because we're a part of a political party, not a cult, which is what the Republicans are in. We talk about our problems and our differences, and we try to work them out, and then we proceed ahead. Right. It's like my loyalty to Joe Biden is 100% conditional. He is a representative of us and not the other way around. So Republicans have obviously been enjoying the fallout from this debate immensely. They're claiming down ballot candidates know Biden isn't up for the job and are protecting him anyways. There was this ad from David McCormick in the Pennsylvania Senate race.

He's challenging Senator Bob Casey. The worst debate I've ever seen in my entire life. No two ways about it. That was not a good debate for Joe Biden. Panic, panic. Panic. Just panic. It's pain. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. So what do we do about this? Everything we have to do is...

What would you have Joe Biden do to make the case that he's not an elderly, well-meaning gentleman? People are going to see it in the campaign. No question he's prepared to do this job today and would be where he reelected. One of my best buddies. One of my closest friends. One of my closest friends. Bobby Casey. I have a lot of confidence in his leadership.

I have a lot of confidence in his leadership. No question he's prepared to do this job today. So a tough ad confidence in his leadership. No question he's prepared to do this job today. So a tough ad about Bob Casey. You may have noticed that John makes a cameo in that ad. Playbook reports this morning that elected Dems across the country are doing what great leaders always do, waiting to see polls before potentially becoming more vocal. Dan, how much fallout do you think the debate could have in House and Senate and other down ballot races? I mean, it could have tremendous fallout. I mean, Senate Democrats are, particularly incumbent Senate Democrats, are outperforming Joe Biden by, in many cases, seven to 10 points. But what's really important

about that is in many of those cases, their top line number is not much higher than Biden's. It's that the people they are running against are less well-known, and those people are running behind Trump. So it's unlikely Bob Casey is going to win Pennsylvania by six points or eight points. These will end up being very close races. And if people are not turning out because they are disenchanted by Joe Biden, they're concerned about Joe Biden, that's going to affect Bob Casey. That's going to affect Jackie Rosen or Tammy Baldwin or any of those other candidates. And so, yeah, it's going to be very concerning. And this, the playbook report here, I think, is something that we talked about at our Boston show, which is ultimately Chuck Schumer wants to stay the majority leader and Hakeem Jeffries wants to be

speaker. And if and when it seems like Joe Biden staying in this race puts those things at existential risk, that's when they will begin to begin making moves or speaking more publicly or trying to have private conversations with Biden to urge them out. I think some of what we're seeing today is just if you do the pure math on timing, people are starting to get their polls back now. But then we're going to the thing that's weird is we have the 4th of July coming up, which people don't pull over. So we're going to have a little bit of a break and then come back with even more polling next week. Yeah, I love the ads. Like, it's actually pretty stupid.

Like, it's a it's quite a bank shot, right? Like, you're going to oh, you were going to vote for Bob Casey, but then you found out he endorsed Joe Biden, even though everyone knew Joe Biden was old. I think it's like, I don't know. I don't know who that ad is for exactly other than for. Yeah, I think it's a dumb message. And I think it's about being in the news cycle. I think it's more about maybe fundraising or just being in the conversation than it is about actually reaching anybody. But nevertheless, like just before we recorded this, we learned that Tammy Baldwin will not

be campaigning with Joe Biden when he's in Madison on Friday. Tommy, if you were advising a Democratic Senate candidate trying to drive your message over the next few days and are getting question after question about Joe Biden's debate performance, whether he should be the candidate, what would you be telling them to do? I mean, it kind of depends on your goal. If your goal is do no harm in way to beat, like I would formulate kind of a holding statement that describes reality as it is, but ducks the question like Joe Biden's been a great president. He did X, Y and Z. He's a nominee. I expect that will remain the case, but it's up to him.

I think the reason I would suggest that kind of answer is because the story is moving really fast, like we said, and you don't want to be the person who knifes Joe Biden first. But you also don't want to sound silly if things are are different in a week or two. first, but you also don't want to sound silly if things are different in a week or two. Of course, if your goal is different, if you view Biden as a political liability for some reason and you want to give him a push, you could do so there. But that's a big decision and a big step that I think is very likely to boomerang on candidates, which is why you don't see many elected officials doing it. I mean, I think Senate Democrats and House Democrats and everyone else would just chill the fuck out. Tammy Baldwin probably should have gone to that event. No one is going to begrudge her for being at a rally with Joe Biden in the beginning of July. Because one of two things is going to happen. Either Joe Biden is going to step aside,

which I want to stipulate again, it's a highly unlikely scenario, and no one's going to remember she was at that rally, or he's going to be the nominee and she's going to have to run with him. So it's just like, you're just creating this narrative that's just going to anger people on both sides by doing this. This is the most classic consultant advice to candidates in tough races. Just chill out. Here's one thing you shouldn't do. Jared Golden, who is the congressman running in the second district of Maine, which is a very Trumpy district, wrote an op-ed in the local paper saying that he wasn't surprised by the debate because he knew Donald Trump was always going to win and he's cool with that. What are the weirdest – what the fuck is that guy doing? It was really baffling.

Yeah, because he's a smart guy who is not like a Joe Manchin type punch the party in the face to win. Like he takes a bunch of, he has to take some hard votes and he just grew up the party on some like tough issues, but that was a crazy, crazy move. Now, Kevin, it's always get too cute with this stuff. And it's so stupid. I remember back in 2006, there was a guy named Tom Keene Jr. Who was running for Senate, I believe in New Jersey, Dick Cheney hosted a fundraiser for him. And so Keene figured out a way to leave late enough so that he arrived after Cheney had spoken and already left. And he thought that was going to somehow give him distance from a wildly unpopular vice president who seconds ago had been raising him money. It's like, no, like it does not pass the smell test. Yeah. Go to the event. Carry on as is. It's not going to hurt you. I don't get it.

Yeah, I don't get it either. I mean, I would be like, I think like finding something to say about this without going too hard in either direction is one thing. But there's no reason to avoid an event with President Biden, who you support and believe has been an excellent president. Right. Like that that continues to be the case regardless. OK, so what happens next? regardless. Okay, so what happens next? There is reporting from Bloomberg that the DNC is considering formally nominating Biden early as soon as the middle of this month, because that would put an end to speculation about whether or not Biden should be the nominee. So problem solved. I think that'll do it. I think that'll take care of it. Tommy, does that seem like a good idea to you? I think, I hope that they're knocking this idea down

and saying this is not going to happen. I think moving up the timeline for the nomination without addressing people's concerns about what's going on post-debate is the worst possible idea. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I think it would lead to a revolt from elected officials and party

leaders because what possible reason could there be for doing this? It just doesn't make any sense. I think this is conflated. I have heard people knocking this down. And that's why I think why we haven't seen a bunch of follows on it. I think it's conflating two things. The desire for the very strong desire from the Biden folks who get this debate behind us, and the fact that the DNC believes it needs to formally nominate Joe Biden before the first week in August when there is a ballot deadline in Ohio. Now, I've heard from some people who suggested that is a more even, you may not need to go this route to solve the ballot problem, but the virtual roll call of Biden was in the works to solve the Ohio ballot issue

long before the debate happened. But I think that was August 7th, Dan, right? And I think the virtual roll call issue for Ohio, I always heard that was like an early August. And they said they were going to do it in the last week of July was I think what was being talked about. Got it. So obviously a very sensitive aspect to this debate is that, so like for hyper engaged partisans like us, the focus has been on Joe Biden as a messenger, as a candidate, and what we'd like to see Biden do to address his ability to campaign, take the fight to Trump, make the best argument to persuade the country about the stakes in November. But polls show that what voters are concerned about is whether Biden can actually

do the job if he's reelected. Today, there was a very tough story in the Times basically looking at that question and worries from those around Biden that while he has maintained a schedule, including international travel and meetings that would exhaust a 25-year-old, several, this is a quote,

several current and former officials and others who encountered him behind closed doors noticed that he increasingly appears confused or listless or would lose the thread of conversations. The Times also reported that debate prep never started before 11 a.m. and Mr. Biden was given time for an afternoon nap each day. Axios reported that from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., that is when Biden is dependably engaged. Tommy, what was your reaction to that time story, especially the parts about his conversations with foreign leaders? I mean, I do think it's worth reading the story in full, because I think it paints a picture of a president who can be completely on top of things until late

in the night, like the evening when Iran launched that major missile attack on Israel, but then has moments that are concerning. For example, you know, there was a graph in there where the reporters said, quote, asked if one could imagine putting Mr. Biden in the same room with Vladimir Putin of Russia today, a former U.S. official would help prepare for the trip went silent for a while, then said, I just don't know. A former senior European official answered the same question by saying flatly no. So a lot of the story is about like kind of image and optics, but that graph advances the conversation from whether this is someone who has the stamina to run a campaign to raising questions about Biden's ability to do the job, period. And I think that's just a different thing. And again, I have no idea who these sources are.

They could be totally full of shit. They could be totally wrong. But it is all the more reason the Biden campaign needs to get out there and show and not tell that these concerns are wrong. Because I do think like the story is getting away from the campaign pretty quickly. It's again, not about like D.C. insiders being spineless or whatever. This is, you know, former staffers suggesting

that they have concerns about, you know, kind of like the basics of the job. And, you know, like we need President Biden out there, like pushing back hard. What we need is to have a debate about the stakes for the country in November between Donald Trump and the Democrats, between the Republicans and the Democrats.

That's what we need. This is a conversation that focuses completely on what is at stake. And if we can do that, we believe we can win. As long as we're debating whether or not Joe Biden is up to the task, we're not having the most important debate we need to have. Either Joe Biden can assuage those concerns or he can step aside. But right now, it's not only that he's not addressing the concerns that were raised in the debate, this has created a sort of storm, a frenzy that is making those concerns even worse day after day. What the debate proves, and I think, frankly, if we're being completely honest with ourselves, the idea that Joe Biden could run anything approximating a normal presidential campaign schedule while being president was always

fanciful. Trump's schedule also is incredibly light. That's a very important point. He is golfing a lot. He's hanging out, watching a lot of cable TV at his beach house. He's not like he's out there very much. He's spending a lot of time in court. He's not out there that often either. But the idea that Biden would do something like any, like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, were doing rallies, you know, several rallies a day. Obama did a 24-hour nonstop campaign that you would be able, you do all these interviews, like that does not seem to be in the cards. And that is concerning from the mere fact that Joe Biden is behind in a very tough race. And so his ability to change that dynamic depends on his ability to communicate. Now on the question of whether he can do the job, I think there's a couple of

things that are just worth pushing back on. He's obviously 81 years old. We've worked there. We know how fucking hard that job is. He's always going to do it different than someone who is, like Trump did not work particularly hard. 10 to 4 was also his time. He had to get Fox and Friends in and then be back in the residence by the time the 5 hit, right? So how he's doing the job is not necessarily different. But reporters have been trying to track down evidence that Joe Biden has some sort of cognitive decline for three and a half years. And it is notable that people are coming out of the woodwork now, right? I think that it's just people may be more, maybe they're more willing to talk. Maybe now all of a sudden that they saw the debate or trying or going to, are sort of trying to find out where the narrative is going so they can, so they can lead it there. And it's just the other thing that's just, I keep wrestling with is Joe Biden's advisors are incredibly smart. All this reporting shows he spends a ton of time with five or six of his advisors. We know all who all those people are. with five or six of his advisors. We know who all those people are. Those people sat in a room after seeing Joe Biden every single day and decided that the best, biggest move the campaign

should make would be to have a 90-minute debate with Donald Trump in June. So if he was really going through some of this rapid decline as he's showing up in these stories, why would these incredibly smart people want to have this debate? They sought it out aggressively. They could have waited until October. They could have hoped that the debate never happened. They could have, but it's pretty easy to come up with an excuse, maybe bad politics, but to come up with an excuse as to why he doesn't want to debate a liar like Donald Trump. But they wanted the debate.

And it's just, it's so hard to square these reports of what we're hearing with that strategic decision. I hear that too, Dan. And even just kind of raising the point I just made felt delicate to me. It's just, I think the consistent thing you see in a lot of reports in the last couple of weeks or since the debate is that things have changed rapidly in the last six months. I think that I've talked to people that worked for him early on in administration and no longer do. And they feel like, you know, he kind of looks and sounds a

little different. Clearly like the period that is being reported on in this time story includes some travel that would destroy anybody, right? You don't go to Europe and back to Los Angeles, to back to Europe, back to a debate, right? Like, so clearly, like the schedule was unmanageable for a 40 year old, let alone an 81 year old. But it is just like the one part of this story that didn't seem speculative. And it wasn't like the times, you know, looking at a video and sort of making determinations about Biden is talking to this advisor being like, hey, would you put him in a room with Putin right now? And this person said, I don't know. And I think that's sort of like where you get to the question of someone who worked for him at one point, suggesting that maybe they don't think he can fully do the job. And like, maybe that person was never senior or never close to him, doesn't know him now, didn't know him then. But it's just the kind of thing you see in print that's going to lead to a lot more questions and reporting and challenges. Yeah, I think the way you can kind of square the circle is that what we could be just seeing is something that is slow. And there's no quantum

difference between the Joe Biden of today and the Joe Biden of two years ago. It's just that all the problems that are manageable and maybe concerning, but ultimately not reflective of his ability to do the job have just gotten slowly and steadily worse. That we all knew from the day Joe Biden became president in 2020, that because of his age, his days might be shorter, that his meetings might be constrained to a shorter part of the day, that he might not be as articulate or energetic for an evening rally because of his age, but that wouldn't prevent him from being an excellent president. And by the way, you know, whether it's Kevin McCarthy saying behind the scenes that

Joe Biden was a fierce interlocutor behind when they were negotiating over the budget, or his ability to pass legislation, negotiate with Congress or deploy his team to negotiate with Congress. Like the fact that he was older and that his schedule was shorter didn't preclude him from doing a good job, but that at a certain point, those, that steady erosion of the amount of time that, that the steady slowing, like all of those things at a certain point can add up to be more than the sum of their parts. And that's how I think a group of advisors can sit with Joe Biden and say, the Joe Biden I know and see at his best could absolutely wipe the floor with Donald Trump, could be the Joe Biden we saw at the State of the Union, could assuage

those concerns. But unfortunately for them and for us and for the country, the Joe Biden that showed up at the debate was the one that reflects his age more than maybe it would have a few years ago. It's just, I think there's just a line here between a slowed down Joe Biden and cannot do the job, right? Like wouldn't put him in a room with Putin, right? And I think I am very much want to and willing to give Joe Biden and the people around him the benefit of the doubt that, yes, he's an 81-year-old. He is operating a different schedule than – and you have to make adjustments to that, right? Like as he walks down the small steps in Air Force One, you don't schedule a bunch of night events, right? It's also true that he works a lot harder than Donald Trump ever did, right? Those things are all true. Just the way the stories are being written now suggests like, it's like the inferences of this has been this broad

conspiracy of his family and a group of tight advisors, all of whom we know and are friends with and are true patriots, to like hide the fact that he has been in a mental decline state, that he cannot do the job. And I just, I will have to see like real evidence of that to believe that to be the case. And I think that that's just a very different thing. Now, what happens four years from now? Can an 86 year old be present? I don't care who that 86 year old is like that is like that is this is an incredibly hard job that ages you and the older you are, that aging happens at an exponential rate.

But I just want to like hit the brakes a little bit on these stories that are coming out right now in the middle of this feeding frenzy. Yeah, I hear that. And I hear you on the staffing part. And then frankly, the thing that's annoyed me the most in the last couple of days is the reporting where people are just pointing the finger at Biden's advisor, suggesting that like poor debate prep was the problem, et cetera, et cetera. Like I just fundamentally reject that. I think you can do debate prep. It can go well, it can go poorly, but at the end of the day, the candidate has to debate. And I think what we saw Thursday night could not solely be explained by debate prep, not even close. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

All right, so let's talk about the Supreme Court. As if the stakes didn't feel high enough, on Monday, the Supreme Court finally handed down its decision in Trump v. the United States, the long-awaited immunity decision. And even with our low expectations, this managed to be far worse than what was anticipated. Strict scrutiny just recorded a great bonus episode on this that I would encourage all of you to check out for actual legal analysis from actual lawyers. But, you know, we're sitting here. Biden gave an address on Monday to cry me opinion. Here's a clip of that. Now the American people have to do what the court should have been willing to do, but will not. The American people have to render a judgment about Donald Trump's behavior. The American

people must decide whether Donald Trump's assault on our democracy on January 6th makes him unfit for public office in the highest office in the land. The American people must decide if Trump's embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide they want to entrust the president once again, the presidency to Donald Trump. I know I will respect the limits of the presidential powers I have for three and a half years. But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law. Tommy, what did you think of Biden's response and why do you think he chose to go out there on this? So, I mean, I think the substance of the remarks was great. I mean, I think he's absolutely right that presidents have to respect the limits of their power and

that this immunity decision is monumental and damaging and could have horrible repercussions, which are extensively outlined in the strict scrutiny episode that you should all listen to. In some sense, I was a little surprised by the fact that he went out and made these remarks, in part because Biden has rightly been worried about appearing to thumb the scale on any of the federal prosecutions. But I think ultimately he decided that this is a ruling that doesn't just impact Donald Trump. It's one that changes the nature of the presidency forever. And he just had to be heard on it. So I think it was, you know, important to go out and kind of like lay down this marker. You know, there's sort of the broader context that it happened in. You know, I imagine that the White House wanted a clean

story on just this topic. So they didn't have him take questions. Not taking questions probably sort of feeds into this broader frenzy of debate about the debate itself that we can talk about. But like the remarks themselves, I thought were well done. Yeah, I thought so too. But like, I was watching, I was watching MSNBC. You know, things are dark when I've got the cable news going all the time. You know, that's, that's when I'm at a real low. But one by one, all these legal scholars were kind of commenting on what it meant that Joe Biden went out there. And then they got to Nicole Wallace, who obviously is a former White House aide. And she was just like, honestly, I was, I was putting this entirely in the context of the debate about his age. And, and that's what I was, I was doing too. And I was just sort of, I was like, oh, he's going to take

questions. He's going to use this to kind of take this as an opportunity to turn the page, interact with reporters, remind people of the stakes about the election. But instead, he went out to the microphones, gave five minutes, had a great spray tan going, and then turned around and walked back out. Dan, did you think he would take questions? Were you surprised that it was just a quick statement? I didn't think he would take questions. Now, you can debate whether he should. If you were just going through the communications director playbook for this, you would never take questions at a nationally televised address. This is your clean shot. You get to speak directly to a million people. And this opinion is right directly square the

middle of Joe Biden's message about the dangers of Donald Trump. I thought the statement was really good. I thought I was impressed by how aggressively he went after the court. Joe Biden takes judicial independence more seriously than any person on the planet and is so – he rarely comments on court cases. He rarely – we have not heard him commenting about corruption in the court and Justice Thomas and Justice Alita or any of that stuff. And so that he did this statement, he – once again, whichever White House lawyer is letting him walk so finely along the line of the Hatch Act to be able to talk about Donald Trump in this, great. That person is doing a great job and is an American hero. and it was an American hero. But the reason you wouldn't take questions in a normal world is,

the question's about his age, and you want the headline to be Joe Biden says, this Supreme Court hearing really makes Donald Trump a threat, or a greater threat, or Donald Trump will now have more powers and fewer checks and balances. And if you're watching on cable, you could hear the questions being shouted at him by the press. And those don't seem pleasant to take. Now, if you're not going to take questions that night, right, then the next morning, you got your clean hit. So what do you do in the next morning to scratch that other itch to show people? Are you doing a big interview? Are you on press cameras at the White House? Whatever that is. He had a statement today on Tuesday at an extreme weather event. But once again, no questions off a prompter. And so

you're going to have to break, you know, sort of break from the traditional playbook to do this. And so I think that was the right thing to do. I'm fine with them not taking questions, but they should have taken questions since the debate. They should be doing it now. They should be doing it tomorrow. They should, we shouldn't be waiting for a Friday interview with, well, obviously Thursday is the fourth. So maybe not the day that you're going to do, but there's like, you could use more urgency on that front. So, uh, Tommy, uh, the three liberal justices issued a scathing dissent in this immunity ruling, uh, any favorite moments? Yeah, there's some bangers in this, uh, in this dissent.

Uh, they talk about how the rule has no basis in law. They say it makes a mockery of the principle that no one is above the law. The dissent talks about some of the nightmarish hypotheticals that came up in oral arguments, like the president asking the military to take out a political opponent. Sotomayor wrote of that, even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted revocably. In every use of official power. The president is now a king above the law.

They called it nonsensical to suggest that prosecutors couldn't use Trump's official acts as evidence in a trial and that it ends with fear for our democracy. I dissent. And apparently they read them aloud in front of each other like like the world's smartest book report at the court. So this must be pretty intense. So, Dan, as a result of this, it looks like the D.C. trial wasn't going to start for a long time anyhow. But now it seems like what we'll get is maybe some kind of a mini trial, which seems like a kind of a resistance-y name for a hearing.

September already feels like a lifetime away. for a hearing. September already feels like a lifetime away, but how much juice do you think we can squeeze from a pre-trial Trump hearing in a courtroom with no cameras? I would say not a lot of juice. Basically, what this hearing has to be is they now have to, Judge Chuck can now has to decide which of Trump's acts were clearly official, which therefore he cannot be tried for, which likely includes the part of the indictment that deals with interference with the Justice Department, because what this ruling does do is it gets rid of the idea of an independent Justice Department. But all the other things, I mean, it's sort of amazing what the court did here, because basically there are three kinds of

acts. There are official acts, which you have absolute immunity from. There are quasi-official acts, which you have the presumption of immunity from. So now Jack Smith is going to do all these other things on the outside that they're going to have to prove that he is not immune, that they are not actually official. And then there are private acts for which you have no immunity. But so what ultimately by doing the presumption of immunity means that this court is going to get to decide on individual cases, whether the president is immune or not. I'm only just going to take a wild stab that they, that means they get to make the decision depending on who's president, right? Donald Trump, definitely immune Joe Biden, not immune at all. And so this is going to play, this is the kind of hearing we're going to have to have. There will be details in it. There will

be potentially witness testimony from someone like a Mike Pence. That will be a big deal. It'll be in September and more people are paying attention. They were paying attention earlier this spring during the, uh, the Manhattan trial. But. But I think one of the lessons of the Manhattan trial is without video, without live television coverage or videos that can circulate on social media, it's just, it's really hard to break through. But who is just reading the New York Times live blog off of it or waiting for the summary by phone from the MSNBC legal reporter during Chris Hayes. That's just not how you break through. And so, I mean, we should do everything we can to make it a big deal, but it's hard.

Such disrespect for an evidentiary hearing, Dan. I mean, I guess the question is whether they get anything new or if this is going to feel kind of warmed over from the blockbuster January 6th committee hearings that we all watched and then forgot about. Well, Mike Pence under oath, if that were to come to case, would be big. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. I also it's also who in September of 2024 is like, I'm not so sure about Donald Trump. This is this. This is finally the information I need to confirm that I'm not gonna vote for him.

Just hours after the opinion dropped, Trump used the outcome to go back to court in New York and argue that his 34 felony convictions should be overturned because of the ruling. Today, Judge Marchand pushed sentencing to September. Tommy, politically speaking, is this the best week Donald Trump has ever had? Could you imagine?

Has he had a better week in his political life than what has unfolded over the last seven days? You know, it's a really hard question. Winning the election was probably better. But like this is like this is a close second. This is about as many, you know, kind of unexpected gifts as you could get in a row. you know, kind of unexpected gifts as you could get in a row. Now, maybe you did expect this one from the Supreme Court because you did help pack the court full of people you handpicked. But yeah, he had a pretty good week here.

Dan, you want to take the counter on that? I mean, look, he's still going to be sentenced. He's not going to be sentenced in September. One of my big takeaways, both from the Supreme Court and then Judge Breshawn needing an entire summer to figure out whether the acts Donald Trump committed before he was elected president fall under the presidential immunity decision, makes me think that people in the broad league in the judiciary need to work faster and harder. I'm not sure why it's taking that long to do that. Nobody wants to work anymore. There's not a lot of lighter news out there. But before we go, here's something.

Steve Bannon went to prison. That's something. Not for particularly big or meaningful crime in the scheme of things, but he did go. Reporting on Monday to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, he told Time Magazine the other day he'd mostly be in the prison library,

not the weight room, because he'll need to follow the news. So don't expect Steve Bannon, in his own words, to be prison ripped. Tommy, were you expecting Steve Bannon to come out prison ripped? You know, I just, my hope for Steve is that he gets a little bit of Steve time. You know, he gives so much to the country. He gives so much to a worm pandemic listeners. He gives so much to Donald Trump that I just, I hope he gets some self-care. And whether that's through books or through, you know, physical fitness, I don't really care. I just, I just want Steve to think about Steve. Rudy Giuliani was also disbarred in New York today based on his role in

trying to undermine the 2020 election. So there's a bonus day. So while, while the news is bleak, it was a tough day to be a Trump slob, Dan. Look, I think we got to take the ones we can get them. We are moving up to the top of the pyramid here, right? We are trying, like, what's Bannon today, Giuliani tomorrow. We already got Peter Navarro. I think he's still in prison somewhere, right? I guess, right. I guess Peter Navarro is currently still in prison.

Who could be next, right? Let's just look. We got to end this thing on a high note. Rudy Giuliani not being able to practice law in New York. That seems fitting. Maybe he can go to jail next. Steve Bannon in prison. We've been calling for that for years now, right?

So let's not be dark. Yeah, it's all going to be all right. It's all going to be okay. Well, I guess that's as fine a place as any to leave it. Crooked is closed for July 4th. So we'll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I hope everybody enjoys 4th of July, a holiday that is famously about ending the age of kings.

And so maybe this will be the last one where we get to do that. So everybody, you know, I think enjoy it. And we'll see you after the break. Bye, everyone. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more.

Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft Thank you.