America's Talking - Episode 55: Poll shows Democrats don't want Biden to run again in 2024

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

Join The Center Square's Executive Editor Dan McCaleb & D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper as they discuss: 'They are wrong:' Biden rebuffs ‘The Squad,’ praises Israel. Hispanic groups blast Jill Biden for taco ‘caricature’. Producer Price Index rises 11.3%, another worrying inflation marker (Combine with Consumer Price Index). Return of Congressional earmarks gets pushback as lawmakers blast $3 million for Brooklyn art museum. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the America in Focus podcast, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. America in Focus is a production of America's Talking Network. You can find all of the Center Square's great podcast at America's Talking.com. Joining me today, as he does every week, is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief of the Center Square. We're recording this on Friday, July 15th. More bad news on the inflation front this week, Casey, as two new government reports show the cost, just about everything can continue to rise. The monthly consumer price index report was

released Wednesday and the producer price index report was released Thursday. What's going on here, Casey? It may feel like a familiar story to a lot of our listeners, but a couple of really high inflation data markers came out. All the experts are very concerned about it. Biden is getting a a lot of pushback. I think we'll talk about it in that order going through to use your words are very high quality coverage coming out of the DC Bureau. So the consumer prices. Oh, yeah. Way to pat yourself on the back there, Casey. Hey, I'm just quoting my intrepid, long time veteran boss, Dan McKeel. So the consumer prices, consumer price index comes out monthly and the latest data which came out this week showed a 1.3% increase in June,

which is pretty high. And that led to, you know, helped contribute to a 9.1 spike over the previous 12 months, which is the largest in 41 years. It's, you know, you may think, oh, inflation's been high for months now. I've been hearing this story. But 9.1% is actually like higher than the high inflation numbers that you probably heard about a few weeks ago or a few months ago. So it's not only worse, but it's getting worse. And so that's a really troubling marker for people. A big reason that this and the producer prices, which we're going to talk about in a second, are higher is because of energy costs.

You know, it has not escaped anyone that gas prices hit record high in June. They surpassed $5 per gallon for a gallon of regular gasoline nationwide. Now it's dipped down since then. it's in the neighborhood of $4.60. But even that number is much higher than what we saw, you know, last year or even a couple of years ago. It's much higher. So while we have dips slightly from the record high a few weeks ago, we're still very elevated gas prices. The same is true for diesel gasoline, which also hit record highs in the month of June before dipping down slightly. So gas prices, diesel gas prices, overall, you know, high energy prices. We don't talk as much about things like natural gas,

but those are up as well. So all that has helped just, you know, to use the metal forage, to pour fuel on the fire of inflation, which is just made it rage even higher. Yeah, see, that's the kind of thing you get when you tune into this podcast. I know that's why you get up early to record it, but the numbers are getting worse. And I think I just want to emphasize that you may think this is like an old story

in the sense that inflation is bad, but 9.1% spike in consumer prices. is actually worse than what we've seen. So, you know, I talked to, you know, a lot of experts on this. And when one said this week that actually could easily see double-digit inflation by this fall, which would, you know, that would be really another really troubling sign. So the recent dips in gas prices, despite the recent, and as you said, gas is still extremely high, but it has dropped 30, 40,

cents since, about 30 cents, I guess, since the record high of more than $5 a gallon nationally. So the recent drop in gas prices, experts are saying that that's, that is not going to term inflation around. We're going to continue to see high prices on just about everything well into the fall. Yeah, Biden came out, you know, President Joe Biden came out after these high inflation numbers and said that this was, these numbers are outdated. And basically this is just because we. had this temporary spike in gas prices, which send inflation numbers up for the month of June,

and it's going to go away, which, you know, there's probably, oh, there is some truth of that, but overall, it doesn't seem like it's going to make the kind of difference as he's pointing to. It seems like these numbers, inflation day is going to stay high, double digits in the fall. And even though gas prices did dip down slightly, they're still much higher than they were this time last year. So it is, I think he's probably over emphasizing the point on gas prices. And I think it was 14, 15 months ago when President Biden said inflation was transitory. Every single month since then, prices have gone up month over month leading to this 41-year high inflation. So how can you believe Biden on inflation anyway?

Yeah. And he's also blamed it on Putin. You called it Putin's price hike. But as you said, the prices have been going up for over a year. and Russia's invasion of Ukraine has only been a few months. But at the same time, it's not totally untrue that Russia's invasion has raised prices. That's definitely true. They've raised food prices.

But it's kind of just disingenuous to say, oh, Russia's invasion and this, you know, random spike in gas prices or what's going on here. These problems are much deeper. They've been going on much longer. And so these kind of these defenses don't really hold a lot of water when you look into them. So we've talked about the consumer price index. You referenced the producer price index two separate reports. Tell us just briefly about the producer price index.

Yeah, so the producer price index also came out on this week. It showed a 1.1% increase last month, which is also high, and an 11.3% increase over the last 12 months, which is the largest increase. One of the largest increases they've had since they began recording producer price index. It's only outdone. by actually March of this year, which is 11.6%. So you may say, oh, it hasn't been a record in a couple months.

It's like, well, that's not a good thing. We've set two records in the last few months since this has been recorded. They also, you know, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which released this data, also pointed to energy prices. It said nearly 90% of the June increase can be traced to a 10% jump in prices for final demand energy. So a big percentage of this is traced to energy. but as we said, those energy prices aren't going down.

You know, again, going back to some of these experts and critics, you know, want to talk to Joe Griffith, an expert at the Heritage Foundation. He said that things are only going to get, things are only going to get worse one way or another. This is reading from the story, as Biden's economic policies are a double-edged sword. This is quite possibly the last month of lingering economic factors keeping inflation in the 8% range, which means the official CPI number could be, in the 10% range by the fall. Yeah, and so, you know, he said inflation could slow down if gas prices go down a lot.

But the problem with that is those prices are not dropping because of more supply, but because of a rising fear of recession. So to quote him, no matter which way you turn Biden's policies offer no relief. And so, you know, I've talked to Joel many times. This is actually a statement he sent out. But it's, it doesn't look good. And I think I, you know, didn't really do your request of doing this briefly. but I do just want to hear this home.

And on the recession thing, technically we've already entered into a recession very likely because we've had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth that looks like. So anyway, you slice it, it doesn't look good. Even Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, part of the Biden administration, came out and said inflation is unacceptably high. She was among the people last year who was saying it was going to be transitory. So was this about face? Well, she admitted it weeks ago that she was just wrong on inflation.

She just outright admitted it. And so that's not news. That about face has already happened. But she said this before meeting with G20 finance ministers, really the global platform in Indonesia. She's about to meet with all these world leaders. And she just publicly said that inflation is way too high. other nations are experiencing inflation, but yeah, to have the Treasury Secretary say this on the world stage is definitely pretty telling. Of course, we've talked about this a lot in the last few months.

It's a midterm election year. Control of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate is on the line, both controlled by Democrats. Of course, Biden is a Democrat. But people are starting to look ahead, too, to 2024, and whether or not the U.S. President Biden will seek re-election. You reported on a new poll this week where a majority of Democrats don't want the president to seek re-election.

Tell us about this. That's right. And I'd love to hear maybe a little analysis from you on Dan some of the reasons you think this is. But the poll you referenced is a New York Times CNN College poll that sparked a lot of controversy, got grabbed a lot of headlines. It was released on Monday.

And it showed that only 26% of Democratic voters that were surveyed. poll want Biden to be the party's nominee in 2024. So, you know, that, I mean, that is just very low for incumbent party members, incumbent presidents. They usually have pretty broad support. It's easier for incumbents to win reelection. And one thing that was really interesting is that 94% of Democrats under 30 say they wanted a different, they want a different candidate in 2024. So, you know, this kind of, the Obama coalition, which gets out all the young voters, and gets this big swell.

It doesn't look like that is in the cards for or in store for Biden in 2024 if he does run again. It also, you know, he's going to be well over 80 at that point, you know, which is, I think, worrisome for some people, especially given all the gaffs that he's had all the times where he seems to kind of lose his train of thought, which may sound funny to some people listen to this podcast, talking about, you know, people losing their train of thought and everything. but Biden is currently 79 years old. He's going to be well over 80 then. Overall, his approval rating in the poll dropped to 33%, which really is very low when compared to other presidents at the same time.

So young voters have almost totally abandoned him. Approval rating is 33%. And only 26% of his own party wants him to run again. So, Dan, you know, how did this happen? What do you think? I mean, I think we could probably, there's some big guesses we talked about inflation, but I think there's more too than that. Well, I guess here's my expert analysis on that, Casey.

I do have eyes. And your analysis on, you know, working in this field over 80 would probably be helpful, too, since that's relevant to Biden now. I do have eyes. I see. I do have ears. I can hear. I do fill up my gas tank. I do go grocery shopping.

I mean, let's face it. You mentioned his age. as people get older, they lose certain things. And Biden is clearly not at the top of his game right now. You see from these news conferences, you see when he's asked questions. You mentioned gaffs. It's day in and day out where he has these gas. And then you add inflation on top of it.

Americans' home finances is their top concern right now. and they can't afford these higher prices, whether it is gasoline or whether it is groceries or whether it is health care, things like that. It doesn't surprise me. Did you happen to see the video of California Governor Gavin Newsom snooping around the White House this week while Biden's overseas? Tell me about it. I did not see it. Yes, some TV reporters and cameras caught Gavin Newsom sneaking essentially. into the White House while President Biden is not there. He's, of course, he was in Israel this

week. He's in Saudi Arabia today, and I asked him what he was doing, and he didn't, he just sort of joked with cameras or whatever, but that's, he's been speculated as a potential, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2024, assuming Biden does not run. Now, Biden has said that he plans to run, but I don't necessarily buy that. So it was just an odd thing. That's really interesting. It could be the perfect metaphor, too, for what's happening now. Gavin Newsom, who's attacked Ron DeSantis publicly,

which also raised a lot of questions about whether he's probably going to run in 2024. But Gavin Newsom trying to sneak into the White House while Biden is unaware, you know, that could be the perfect metaphor. And people might say, well, if Biden isn't going to run again, why would he say he is? Like, that doesn't make sense. But what I would say to that is that as soon as people know that you're not running for reelection as president, you really enter kind of a lame duck phase where nobody's going to work with you. You don't have the clout to get anything done legislatively. And so, you know, we see this in the second term of presidents a lot.

The last two years, very little happens because they're not running for re-election. The opposing party knows they can just wait them out. And so even if Biden isn't going to run for re-election. It does serve him in a way to say that he is because he will push off that lame duck part of his of his term. Right. You mentioned California Governor Newsom attacking Ron DeSantis. He, of course, is the Republican governor of Florida. DeSantis, it's a lot of speculation that he is going to run for president on the Republican side, depending on what former president, Donald Trump does Newsom launched a campaign

Newsom is on the ballot this fall in California re-election for California governor but he launched a campaign ad in the state of Florida earlier this month attacking DeSantis so you have to wonder if Newsom is eyeing 2024

and thinks his opponent if he does if Gavin Newsom does run for president is thinking his opponent might be Ron DeSan That would be quite a showdown. Yeah, it would be. These things that I know a lot of consultants, a lot of PR consultants, and running are exactly the kind of ideas that highly paid PR consultants

tell you when you're thinking about running for president to Jenna Press. I mean, this is clearly, this seemed to me to be very obvious publicity stunts. The idea that Gavin Newsom would win the state, Ron DeSantis' home state of Florida if he didn't run for president. It seems highly unlikely. It seems much more engineered to get press, to generate buzz, which helps with things like fundraising for Newsom. It's also a way to test the waters.

Because what happens is as soon as you do something like this, and people start talking about you as a presidential candidate, all the analysts go on TV, everybody starts talking it through. You start getting vetted. And you can kind of get a feel for how people are responding to you, what kind of endorsements and fundraising you might be able to get. As soon as you run a campaign ad against DeSantis and go to the White House and everybody's talking about it, then you see what kind of donors start calling you up to want to get behind you to start supporting you.

You see which other senators or members of Congress say, hey, I want to help out. I want to be a part. And you kind of gauge interests within your own party, within the donor class, and within the media, or what a presidency run would look like for you. Right. We could probably spend an entire episode speculating about. 20-24 presidential campaign. Of course, my home state's governor, billionaire, J.B. Pritzker.

There's also speculation that he's considering a run, depending on what Joe Biden decides to do. J.B. Pritzker recently gave a very public speech in New Hampshire to Democrats in New Hampshire, which is one of the first states to vote in the primaries. So anyway, we still have 2022 midterm. to get through. Let's leave 2024 for down the road. You know,

we just spent a lot of time on it. We've got a couple more stories to talk about. Jill Biden, First Lady Jill Biden made some waves this week with her comments comparing Latinos, Hispanics to breakfast tacos. What's the fall out of that? Yeah, you know,

First ladies are kind of like breakfast tacos, Dan. And when it came to Jill Biden, the sweet, she was a very... That was not not. Dan, that was Casey. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. And this week, Jill Biden was a very spicy taco. So, First Lady, Jill Biden, she's done a lot of heat. We're kind of joking about it now. But she, you know, in a big public speech, in a way, it seemed like she was trying to pander or reach out.

I don't know. But she compared different types of Hispanics to different types of breakfast tacos, which did, you know, went over about as well as you would expect it did, expect it to. And so she immediately got a ton of pushback for this, a ton of controversy, all this stuff that, you know, I don't think the first lady can be canceled, but she took a lot of pushback. And I reached out to a lot of conservative group or a lot of conservative Hispanic groups, different Hispanic groups looked at what they were saying. And even, you know, what you might consider left-leaning groups were really condemning her for this. I talked to the state chair for the Republican National Hispanic Assembly. I'll just read the quote. It's in the story at the center square.com. but this is from Elizabeth Castro Gray.

She said, the first lady's comments yesterday comparing Hispanic people to tacos shows yet again Democrats low regard for our people. She reduced us to a caricature, a stereotype, misby, and demonstrated yet again why Hispanics are leaving the Democratic Party in huge numbers. We have little patience for a party that treats us as helpless victims who looks to us a little more than a reliable voting block. So I think that quote really summed up a lot of the different attacks you saw on Twitter, television though her the points in that quote really summed up so many of the points that are being

made against the first lady uh i think that you know we could kind of pile on and for good reason but um ultimately it seems like just kind of a gaff which the bi family is really familiar with the bigger more is referenced here which is the Hispanics leaving the democratic party in huge numbers which is probably an overstatement but we have seen us a kind of a surge of Republican support among Hispanics, which really contradicts kind of the traditional wisdom in Washington, D.C., the Beltway wisdom, the Hispanics vote Democrat. We've seen, you know, the first Mexican-born Congress member, she was elected and she's a Republican. And Maya Flores, she's been really, you know, getting a lot of press attention. And so, Dan, you know, I don't know

what you would add to this, but it is definitely a big gap, but it really highlights this bigger issue of how Hispanics relate to the Democratic Party, especially as they take some more aggressive shifts on social issues, which the Hispanics can be more socially conservative than a lot of white liberals. Right. And of course, the Latino-Hispanic voting bloc is going to be key to the midterm elections this year, two years from now the presidential election. You've reported on polls that does show

more Hispanics, more Hispanic voters sort of leaning to the Republican Party. Maybe not as pronounced as some people will make it, but it's interesting to see what happens there. But again, let's move on. As we mentioned, President Biden is in the Middle East this week, visited Israel. He sort of got into it a little bit with some members of his own odd. Real sentiments. Tell us the story. That's right.

The squad, you know, particularly Representative Ilhan Omar, she's been really leading this and also Rashida Slebe. They have been two of the most vocal voices that have been against Israel. They've specifically called Israel an apartheid state, which has, you know, started a lot of controversy. They've compared to, you know, the U.S. and Israel to, you know, Hamas, you know, to terrorist groups, the Taliban. in. And so it's just, actually that was Omar that made that comparison. But to, it's really caused a lot division in the Democratic Party because they made all these comments that are more young, progressive members of the party. It sparked a lot of controversy. And then, you know, Jerry Nadler of Democrat from New York led a letter really condemning that comparison. So that's like a great example of kind of the

division within the Democratic Party on this issue. For the most part, it seems like these are a few very loud voices that are anti-Israel, whereas the rest of the party is kind of in lockstep, support of Israel as an ally. But what made this kind of come to the forefront is Biden, you know, is on this Middle East trip. He was in Israel. He did an interview, a TV interview in Israel with N12 News. And they asked him specifically, hey, these Democrats in your party are saying all these things about us. They called us an apartheid state. They want an end for unconditional aid, basically what's going on here. And so that really put Biden in a place where he couldn't just say generally, we love Israel, he had to actually address the division within his own party.

And this is what he says. There are a few of them. I think they're wrong. I think they're making a mistake. Israel is a democracy. Israel is our ally. Israel is a friend. And I make no apologies.

He went on to talk about giving four billion, you know, several billion dollars to Israel for different things. And he finished saying there's no possibility, I think, of the Democratic Party or even a significant portion of the Republican Party walking away from Israel. So he flat out said, these members of the squad are wrong. I reached out to Omar's office and Talibis. They did not get back to me. I wanted to give them a chance to respond to this. But to see that, you know, the leader of the party, Biden directly contradict a couple of the most radical members of his own party on the world stage. It was just really interesting to see.

And at least for now, seems to have cemented the Democratic Party support for Israel, which at one point, maybe it was more of an open question well i'm going to cut you off there casey because you made me promise uh before we started recording this podcast to save time at the end oh man for this one story that you're apparently uh very excited about to talk about uh your story this week about the return of earmarks and pork type projects to federal spending So why don't you take some time, pat yourself on the back. Tell us about this story. Yes, clearly. I was happy about the story. Dan, you might be delighted to learn that the center square focuses on taxpayer issues in ways that taxpayer funds are being used with the taxpayer in mind. And so that's right in the middle of this story about the return of congressional earmarks.

Several earmarks were passed this year in the omnibus appropriations bill. actually $17.7 million in federal funding. They had been gone for like 12 years. You know, over a decade, there been no earmarks. And earmarks are where the federal government gives a certain amount of money to a specific project in someone's district. People kind of hated earmarks because it was a way of buying off votes. You know, it raised the cost of everything because to get everyone to vote for something,

you'd have to give everybody in the earmark. And the earmarks were spent on crazy things. And one that was really interesting here was, $3 million for a art gallery in Brooklyn. So the U.S. taxpayers in West Virginia and Arizona and Colorado and all around the country were taxed and their money sent to Brooklyn to build an earmark. And I just looked at some of the other, you know, some of the other galleries that were worthy of the Brooklyn art gallery paying for itself or at least getting donations for that didn't come from federal coffers.

You know, a woman's afterlife, gender transformation in ancient Egypt is one. Climate and crisis, environmental change, and the indigenous Americas is one, which actually sounds kind of interesting. And then this one, I thought it'd be really, you probably want to buy your plane ticket now for this one, Dan, but it's Jimmy DeSonna submission, which features a nude person wearing orange cones on their hands and feet. We spent, whether it's Brooklyn Art. Your money, yeah, Brooklyn Art Galleries or whatever it may be.

Casey, you might be too young to remember. This is my favorite, my favorite earmark story, the federal funding for the bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Yeah. Yeah. I did. Yeah, I saw the bridge. And I also saw Alaska or I saw Russia standing it on the shore there. So, yeah.

Well, thank you for bringing taxpayer perspective to your reporting out of Washington, D.C., Casey. but that's all the time we have this week. This has been the American Focus podcast for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McAulam. We'll talk to you next week.