Front Burner - Joe Biden drops out. Now what?

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

After a disastrous debate performance in June, the chorus of questions and doubts have been steadily building — is Joe Biden really the man to beat Donald Trump in this Fall's American presidential election? Biden himself has finally answered: no, he's not. On Sunday, he announced he wouldn't be seeking re-election in November, and nominated his vice-president Kamala Harris in his stead.What's next for the Democrats, and what does it mean for an already chaotic election? Washington Post political reporter Patrick Svitek breaks it all down.For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jimmy Poisson. So for weeks now, Joe Biden has stubbornly insisted he was the man to beat Trump in November, while voters, donors, pundits, colleagues and friends believe the exact opposite. That Biden was, in fact, a liability who is marching towards a devastating loss. Well, as I'm sure you have heard, that changed yesterday.

Biden is out and a new wave of political chaos is breaking. Patrick Svitek is a reporter with The Washington Post who's been covering the Democrats, and he is here with me now. Hey, Patrick, how's it going? Hi there. Thanks for having me. We really, really appreciate you doing this and on such a busy day for you as well. I want to start by talking about the lead up to this, particularly the last week, it seemed publicly, at least at the beginning of last week, that Biden had really dug in. And would you agree with that? And talk to me a little bit about what was going on. Yeah, I mean, the public posture of both the president and his campaign aides, really up until this weekend, or even the past 24 hours was that he was staying in the race and that he wasn't even considering dropping out or just reconsidering his decision to stay in the race.

Who do you listen to on deeply personal issues like the decisions whether to stay in the race or not? Me. Are you 100 percent undoubtedly running for reelection? One thousand percent. You have heard from the president directly time and again. He is in this race to win and he is our nominee and he's going to be our president for a second term. So that was the public posture, you know, for days on end after his widely criticized debate performance in June that set off all this concern inside the Democratic Party and culminated in his decision to not seek reelection now.

side of the Democratic Party and culminated in his decision to not seek reelection now. Take me through what you think are the most critical things that happened over the last few weeks, but particularly the last week, to get to this decision today, to drop out of the race. What do you think the most important things were? Look, I think that it was becoming increasingly clear that he was losing the confidence of some of his party's top leaders, especially in Congress. The top leaders in Congress had not explicitly come out and said they no longer supported him. But in recent days, there was a lot of leaks and just various reporting that suggested that leaders in Congress were still

not satisfied at his ability to recover from that debate and run a strong campaign in the wake of it. And at the same time, you saw more and more rank and file members of Congress, I think nearly three dozen in the House, and then a few more in the Senate come out and ask him publicly for him to step aside. And Representative Adam Schiff, he is one of the most high profile Democrats to publicly call on President Biden to step aside. In a statement sent to us, I just want to read to you exactly what he said. He said, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch and in doing so secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump

in the upcoming election. And so I think that's where at least publicly, and probably privately too, most of the pressure was coming from, was from Congress. We have a very closely divided House. We have a very closely divided Senate. And so those congressional leaders were no doubt thinking about how his continued campaign for president would affect the down ballot races that they are, you know, overseeing in their respective chambers. Right. You're talking about essentially the reporting that came out last week that Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, that Hakeem Jeffries in the House, Nancy Pelosi, all basically had told Biden that they didn't think that he could win and that he should step aside. This was a one-on-one meeting, just the Senate leader and the president, and that Chuck Schumer forcefully made the case that it would be better for Biden, better for the Democratic Party, and better for the country if he were to bow out of the race.

Pelosi warned Biden that staying in the race could prevent Democrats from winning the House in November. The Washington Post is reporting that Barack Obama, who remains hugely influential within the party, has told allies that his former vice president needs to seriously consider his candidacy. Yeah, I don't want to overgeneralize the reporting, but I think you're generally correct there that, yeah, there was increased reporting that in private conversations, some of those leaders, at least some of those leaders you mentioned, were really raising doubts about the viability of his campaign going forward. There's also been talk about money, right? And just how did that play into this, if you think it was a big, big factor in his decision, ultimately? Yeah, I think that it was a factor. You know, one of the main reasons that candidates end their campaigns is because they've run out of money. They don't have the money to execute the plan that they've sketched out for winning whatever office they're seeking.

And there has been reporting in recent weeks that fundraising has dried up for the Biden campaign. And so that, no doubt, had to play a role in this. And it also came at a time where even before the debate, the Trump campaign was starting to erase the Biden campaign's long-held cash-on-hand advantage. And so there's almost, from the fundraising perspective, two different layers to that story. There is, yes, the decline, the reported decline in fundraising after the debate, but also the trajectory that the Biden campaign was already on in becoming overtaken by the Trump campaign with their cash advantage. Biden said in his statement that he released Sunday that he would address the

country more this week. And do we know anything more about that now? And why do you think he chose to not do it on Sunday? Like, why wait to address the nation himself rather than just release a statement? So we don't know yet the details on his additional remarks on this decision, where, when, and how those remarks are going to be delivered. He has been self-isolating at home in Delaware due to having a testing positive for COVID. So that may be one reason why you only saw a written statement from him today and not a statement delivered on camera or a pre-recorded statement. But, you know, he previously had a number of events on his calendar for this week. And it'll be interesting to see if he sticks with them and if he chooses

one of those events as the venue to deliver these further remarks on his decision. But right now, you know, as of this hour, me speaking to you, we don't have those additional details yet. Right. And I just want to timestamp this conversation because it's going to come out tomorrow morning. So you and I are talking at six around 6pm on Sunday night. I want to talk with you now about what happens now, right? So immediately after he released that written statement on social media, he separately endorsed Kamala Harris. And what do you think Biden's thinking was on that? I think it made a lot of sense. I think it was widely expected that if he were to drop out of this race, that he would immediately endorse his vice president, Kamala Harris, and that if he did anything but that, it would be viewed as a slight to her.

Because when you pick a vice president, you are effectively endorsing them to serve in a presidential capacity if you're unable to. And I think you can extend that thinking to, you know, serve as the Democratic presidential nominee if you're unable to. So I think that was widely expected. The big question now is how quickly can Kamala Harris coalesce support inside the Democratic Party? You know, I'll just say, I think there's been a lot of encouraging signs for her in the first few hours, at least the first few hours since Biden's announcement. You've seen dozens of members of Congress come out and say that they're behind her. You haven't seen that many prominent Democrats, you know, come out and say, well, I want to have a process where people can run against

her and we can have all, you know, a big open conversation. So I think the initial reaction to Biden's endorsement of her has been positive for her chances going forward. Explain to me the process, like just because he endorsed her and because Democrats or many Democrats right now are coalescing around her, that doesn't mean that she's like automatically the nominee, right? Just explain it to me. Yeah, that's correct. That is correct. But at this point, there's still a lot of uncertainty about how the mechanics of all of this will work. All we really know is what was planned before today, which is that the Democratic National Convention is scheduled for August 19th through the 22nd in Chicago. That is where traditionally the presidential nominee is formally

nominated by the party. Due to some state-level legal issues that came up earlier in this election cycle, the DNC decided to move ahead with holding a, quote, virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden ahead of the in-person convention, probably sometime in the first week of August. So those were the prior plans. Now, it's unclear how those plans are going to change, if at all. I mean, obviously not going to nominate Biden anymore, but it's a little unclear how that timeline could change leading up to the convention now that we have Kamala Harris as the Biden endorsed Democratic presidential nominee. So there's still, I think, a lot to learn there. There was a very general statement put out by the Democratic National Committee chair, Jamie Harrison, on Sunday right after Biden's announcement. And all he really said is, you know,

he made a promise to have a, you know, orderly and transparent nomination process going forward. And he promised to share more information in a short amount of time, unspecified amount of time. So this is really, and I think in that statement, he acknowledged this was really uncharted territory for the Democrats, at least in modern history. So everyone is, again, even if Kamala Harris looks like the front runner here to replace Biden on the ticket, everyone is still waiting to see what exactly is going to be the party process that could formalize her as the party's new nominee. Just to be clear, right now, if somebody else wanted to seek the nomination, could they just put their hand up and be like, I know that Biden didn't endorse me and I know

that all these other Democrats want Kamala, but I'd like to throw my hat in the ring as well. In theory, could they? Yeah, correct. Right now, I mean, any prominent Democrat, you know, anybody could raise their hand and publicly say, I want to run for president now that President Biden is no longer running. They could, you know. There's nothing stopping them from submitting paperwork to the Federal Election Commission to start raising money for that campaign. But at the end of the day, to be the Democratic presidential nominee, you have to be formally nominated by the party. And the party controls its rules. And we just don't know what those rules are quite yet.

But to your point, yes, anybody right now can publicly come out and say, I want to run against Kamala Harris. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you.

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crowned? Yeah, that's a great question. I think, at least inside the Democratic Party, I think there's general satisfaction with the idea of effectively swapping Biden out for her as a Democratic presidential nominee. I think there's been ample public polling showing that Democrats did have reservations about Biden as their nominee, and that they would be amenable to having Kamala Harris as the nominee instead. I think the open question is how that plays with the broader electorate, even if, obviously, the people who are going to decide this election in November is a much broader group than just the Democratic Party. And so I'd be very curious to see in the coming days what impression this news has made with those undecided voters, those independent

voters. But among Democrats, I think public opinion polling has pointed to the idea that they've been kind of ready to accept this if it were to happen. Right. That they, I would imagine, are maybe exhausted and want some sort of order. I can see that argument. I can also see the argument that a truly open convention in a few weeks where all viable candidates actually had a shot at the job could reinvigorate voters. You can see how both options have their ups and downs, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I talked to one delegate before this news came out on Friday, and he said at the time, I'm supporting President Biden. If he drops out, I'm supporting Vice President Harris. But more than anything else, I just want

this to be over. And I want us to move forward to have this question of who our nominee is settled and move forward because the clock is ticking. I mean, we are deep into the election calendar, all things considered here. And so I do think among the Democratic base, I don't know how much of an appetite there is for a long drawnout process where multiple Democrats, potential Democratic nominees, are debating and contrasting with one another in public view. I think a lot of Democratic rank-and-file voters are just ready to move past this chapter and have some closure to this moment that they've been in. have some closure to this, you know, this moment that they've been in. I will just say as an aside, as a Canadian, it's always funny to me to listen to Americans talk about being deep in an election cycle, because we look at it and we're like, oh, 100 days till an election.

That sounds pretty good. That sounds like a lot of time. But you campaign, it's so much longer. The tale is so much longer. One thing that I did want to ask you about is that I heard the Republicans, but specifically Republican House Leader Mike Johnson, talking about how Republicans could bring court challenges if Biden dropped out. It would be wrong, and I think unlawful in accordance to some of these states' rules, for a handful of people to go in a back room and switch it out because they don't like the candidate any longer. That's not how this is supposed to work. So I think they would run into some legal impediments in at least a few... What is he talking about? And could this actually be a problem? Well, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't necessarily speak to the

credibility of those legal threats. But yes, it is true that some Republican leaders have been saying that they are going to be ready to legally scrutinize this swap out of nominees if it were to happen. I think as with any legal threat, especially in politics, you have to actually wait and see if it's followed through upon before you can really assess the credibility and validity of it. it's followed through upon before you can really assess the credibility and validity of it. You know, so I'm not quite ready to declare that a major storyline going forward. You know, the Republican response is going to be more about, I think, the talking point that if, you know, if Biden's not fit enough to run for reelection, he should just resign his office. That's something that I think you're going to hear more from them. House Speaker Mike Johnson is already asking Joe Biden to resign as president immediately. And then you're, of course,

going to hear plenty of attacks on Vice President Harris if she is the nominee that basically present her as, you know, Biden 2.0. And, you know, I think Republicans are especially eager to criticize her over border, Mexican border security, because that was one of the issues in her foreign policy portfolio. The Biden administration had tasked her with looking into the root causes of migration, which is, of course, related to security at the Mexican border. So they're eager to go, but I do think the response is going to be more about just the rhetoric against her than any legal challenges. But we'll see. she's there, right, that she's just the vice president and it's easier to go with her. What does she have going for her that might serve her well going up against Trump and his now running

mate, J.D. Vance? I think the number one thing she has going for her is that she has been actively campaigning for, you know, as part of the Biden-Harris ticket. She's been actively campaigning for months. You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda that deprives whole groups of Americans of basic freedoms, opportunity, and dignity. She understands the opponent, Trump, and she has been actively messaging against him for months. She has relationships in the battleground states through all that campaigning. So, you know, I mean, it's certainly going to be an adjustment. But, you know, she, again, has already been, you know,

playing a key role on the Democratic side of this ticket. So I think she has that going for her in this moment. One thing I was thinking about is considering Trump's CP pick, J.D. Vance, as I mentioned, has such a conservative position on abortion. Do you think this will be like an opportunity for her to really prosecute that case? Because we know it's actually not such a winning issue for the Republicans. And it played such a big role in your last midterm elections. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is an issue that she's already been focused on. She's been prioritizing in her campaign appearances, you know, on behalf of

the Biden reelection campaign, which obviously ended today, but she's already been focused on that issue. You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are intent on taking reproductive freedoms from the people of America and the women of America, trying to ban abortion nationwide as they do and restrict access to IVF and contraception as their plan calls for. And so that's going to be something I expect to hear a lot more from her about, especially in contrast with Vance, who, as you pointed out, has said things in the past about abortion that are farther to the right than where former President Trump is as of this moment. There's obviously, you know, both of them have shifted their positions on that. Do you think that you're going to see her take an active role in making the case against the Trump fans ticket when it

comes to abortion rights? I want to end this conversation today by coming back to President Biden. And look, there's kind of two versions of Biden that are being talked about at this moment or that have been talked about over the last several weeks. One is a hero. The other is a stubborn and selfish at times president. And can you flesh that out for me? Well, I think that because he decided to make the decision when he made the decision, I think that largely the party is going to publicly embrace him as a hero who put the country's interests ahead of his own interests. But I do think that we were at an inflection point in this timeline where if he had continued to hold out past this weekend, if we got another

week into the future and he was still refusing to step aside, that I do think you would have seen party leaders start coming out against him more publicly, and it wouldn't have been as graceful as an exit. And so I do think in choosing to get out when he did, he did avoid, I think, more open recriminations among his fellow Democrats. And in choosing to get out when he did, he ensured that it's a relatively graceful exit where everyone is praising him for his courage in making this tough decision. I get that response now.

I was wondering, though, and I'm not sure this is a totally fair question to throw at you because it's kind of, it's got a bit of a crystal ball vibe, but like, do you think there is a version of this story where history doesn't actually end up remembering him as a hero who put his country first, especially if the Democrats lose in November. And I say this because, you know, the concerns over his age, they didn't just pop up after the debate, right? They've been going on for years. Yeah, I mean, you know, that is a great question. And I honestly don't know exactly what the legacy will be. As you pointed out, you know, we still have to actually get through the November election. And whether the next Democratic nominee, whether it's Kamala Harris or someone else, whether they win that election or not, will probably be part of how his legacy is remembered just because he set Democrats up for this moment and this challenge by insisting on running for reelection up until this point.

So I do think it's a little unclear and time will tell on what his legacy is in light of all this. But I do think, again, given the timing of his decision, he made the decision at a time that at least in terms of the public statements from Democrats allows it to look like it's a graceful exit and something that he should be lauded for inside the party. Okay. Patrick, thank you so much for this. Okay. Patrick, thank you so much for this. It was great. And I've never seen a week in politics like the one that we just witnessed. So thank you so much for making the time. Absolutely. Thanks so much.

All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Thank you.