Front Burner - Where does Joe Biden go from here?

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

On Friday, in an exclusive interview with ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos, U.S. president Joe Biden insisted that only the “Lord Almighty” could get him to quit. But as calls for him to step down grow following a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, how long can he hold on — and what might it do to the Democratic party?CBC Washington correspondent Paul Hunter joins us to talk about what’s next for Biden, and if there is any way for his party to stanch the bleeding.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 Jamie Poisson. If you are told reliably from your allies, from your friends and supporters in the Democratic Party, in the House and the Senate, that they're concerned you're going to lose the House and the Senate if you stay in, what will you do? I'm not going to answer that question. It's not going to happen.

So that is President Joe Biden in an exclusive interview Friday with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. And he's talking about what it would take for him to drop out of the race. He went on to say that only the, quote quote Lord Almighty could get him to quit. In other words, it sounds like basically nothing would convince him. So as the defiant president doubles down, my colleague, CBC Washington correspondent Paul Hunter is here. What could happen from here? All right, let's get started. Paul, hey, great to have you. Hey, Jamie, good to be here.

So let's start with the Stephanopoulos interview, which the campaign put in motion to essentially try to quell concerns, right? And so how do you think the president came across in that interview, particularly in comparison to how he came across in the debate with Donald Trump that happened just over a week ago now? I think the kindest thing that can be said about Biden's performance in the interview is that there was no giant flub. He didn't completely lose his train of thought as he did at the debate. There was no implosion or meltdown by Joe Biden, but that's kind of damning with faint praise, isn't it? Because the larger picture regarding the interview with Stephanopoulos is terrible, especially given the stakes that after that disastrous debate, he effectively had one chance to fix things, to sit down with a big time anchor and say, here's me, I'm strong, I'm able to think on my feet,

I've got my wits about me 100%. And I think it's fair to say he didn't do that. He didn't right the ship. He didn't erase a single memory from the debate. He came across as stubborn. But it seemed like you were having trouble from the first question in, even before he spoke. Well, I just had a bad night.

Unwilling to see the facts that are playing to everyone else in the country, unable to read the room. And the room is all of America, right? And I think most would agree that you can't unsee what we saw on debate night. And yet in that interview, Biden did nothing to suggest anyone should even try to see him through some other prism. Harsh, maybe, but it is what it is. What did you make of his explanation for why he did so poorly on debate night, essentially, that it was just a bad night, that he was tired and jet lagged, that he had a cold? Yeah, you know, he had it changed a lot, didn't it, over the few days after.

He had a cold, he was tired, he was over-prepared, he had a bad night. Was this a bad episode or the sign of a more serious condition? It was a bad episode. No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn't listen to my instincts

in terms of preparing. Because I was exhausted. I didn't listen to my instincts in terms of preparing. Because I was sick, I was feeling terrible. Matter of fact, the docs with me, I asked them, they did a COVID test because they were trying to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see whether or not I had some infection, you know, a virus. I didn't. I just had a really bad cold. You know, does anyone think any of those would carry water with voters? So if you have a cold, you can't think straight and you're the president or if you're tired, if you're the most powerful person in the world, are any of those, you know, air quotes

here, excuses, okay? You know, there's some talk that he was just joking when he said it, but a couple of days after the debate, he met with Democratic governors in person at the White House and others virtually in the same meeting and evidently told them he, A, needs more sleep and B, shouldn't be scheduling events past 8 p.m. Really, Mr. President? I mean, I don't think any U.S. voter who goes back to that age old question, who do you want answering the phone in the White House when the phone rings at 3 a.m. because of a crisis somewhere? Will any voter accept that you have a cold or that you're too tired? You know, so, I mean, it's no wonder Republican pundits have been having a field day on that. Yeah. I mean, a lot of jobs don't stop at 8 p.m., but

definitely the job of president of the United States does not stop at 8 p.m. So since the debate, there has been all this reporting that there is not now a lot of discussion internally in the Democratic Party over how to get Biden to drop out here so Democrats can begin this process of picking a new ticket. in just a moment, but when Stephanopoulos confronted Biden with some of this, with this idea that there are lots of Democrats that do not want him to run, he was very defiant and dismissive of that. Not only people say, I should leave the country. But if they do? Well, it's like, we're not going to do that. You sure?

Yeah, sure. We're not going to do that. You sure? Yeah, sure. Look, I mean, if the Lord Almighty came out and said, Joe, get out of the race, I'd get out of the race. The Lord Almighty's not coming down. What did you make of all of that? You know, I've covered politics for a long time.

No politician on earth is going to say, yeah, you're right. I'm done. You have to brave face it up right until the last second. So there's that, right? And again, because everything Biden now says or does is seen through the prism of debate night and his mental acuity, he comes across as separated from reality when he's like that. And that just feeds the fire, denying poll numbers that have been steadily in favor of Donald Trump and worsening for Biden. I mean, can you blame voters who might think, what planet are you on, Joe? I mean, I don't even know what to say about that.

He can't be oblivious to it. And yet he insists otherwise. Who, if anyone, is he listening to? What's Jill Biden telling him privately? What are his trusted colleagues telling him privately? What are his trusted colleagues telling him privately? What is he allowing himself to hear and think? He keeps talking about the past, right? That he beat Trump. Instead of talking about the present, this crisis right now, and for Democrats, it is a crisis, or the future, the presidency that he wants to win again. And

the problem is that this is the present. He's failing and he's losing support. And the future, as Biden himself has framed it, the future puts U.S. democracy at stake. This is the election that may determine the survival of this country. And yet he seems content to keep blinders on regarding his role in any of the storm that's swirling around him. You talked about polling and how he was pushing back on Stephanopoulos when it came to polling as well. So after the debate, the picture is even more grim than it was before. Right. So three separate polls by CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, all put Biden six points behind Trump. Analysts have pointed out that there's really no historic precedent for a president to have approval ratings as low as Biden's then go on to win reelection. But, you know, Biden did talk about how he doesn't, you know,

believe all of the polls. And I just like, does he have any point here? I remember them telling me the same thing in 2020. I can't win the poll show. I can't win. The red wave was coming before the vote. I said, that's not going to happen. We're going to win.

We did better in an off year than almost any incumbent president ever has done. You know, just to give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment, the U.S. does operate on very slim margins. You know, I think polls are a funny, funny thing, aren't they? But I think the consensus is at this point, from a polling perspective, that this is Trump's to lose. from a polling perspective, that this is Trump's to lose. To me, there's not any one poll that stands out, but rather it's the consistency of multiple polls that put Trump ahead of Biden at this stage in the contest, and that there's not really been any movement in favor of Joe Biden. This is the nightmare scenario for Democrats playing out with every poll that emerges, right? I mean, look, anyone who follows U.S. politics knows they're really only,

and you hinted at this, there's only a handful of states on which most elections turn, the so-called battleground states, right? Most people say there are six of them. Some say seven. The six are Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Some now toss North Carolina into that list. It doesn't really matter because my point is that Trump is leading in every single one of them. Yes, in some cases within the margin of error, which may be what gives Biden reason to say some of the things that he says, but Trump is leading in all of them. And it's July already. Take a step back, Jamie, and more broadly speaking, and then, you know, compare the big picture numbers with four years ago, as you noted,

right? Four years ago, Biden comfortably ahead in big picture polls. Now he's significantly behind and it's July already, right? None of these are positive for Biden. And yeah, who believes polls anymore? The polls had Clinton winning in 2016, but the wind is blowing the wrong way for Joe Biden. The fourth polls had Clinton winning in 2016, but the wind is blowing the wrong way for Joe Biden. Yeah. I think coming into 2020, he was up 10. And now, as I mentioned, he's back six. So there's a big swing here.

Massive. I also wanted to talk to you about another moment in that interview that a lot of people are talking about. It really stood out to me. It was towards the end. really stood out to me. It was towards the end. And Stephanopoulos asks Biden how he would feel if he stays in the race and Trump is elected and everything that Biden has predicted comes to pass about, you know, how dangerous this moment is. And Biden says, I feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest jobs I know I can do. That's what this is about. What has been some of the reaction to that comment? I think the main takeaway to that comment is that, again,

Biden seems blind to the stakes that he himself is framing this as. So that's okay as long as you tried hard, right? And by the way, trying hard in this instance means looking in that mirror and saying, you are not the guy. Right. And likewise for those around him, those he trusts, like I've been saying, right. It's that conversation that we all have to eventually have with our parents, right. Come the time you got to take the car keys away from dad.

You got to say, dad, you're too old. Give them to me. Super hard conversation to have in any family. This is like that, but with immeasurably higher stakes. Joe, you have to give up, right? And he needs to listen and he needs to believe it or nothing's going to change. At the end of the day, it's his call, right? And if that's the way it goes, if he doesn't do that, as so many Democrats now increasingly

believe, Trump wins. 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.

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There has been this fire hose of reporting about what is happening behind the scenes and comments that have even been made in public. And just what has flagged to you the most? What have you found the most significant over the last week? To me, the fact that anyone is now saying this stuff out loud is remarkable for a sitting president, a president who has brought the country out of the COVID crisis, brought unemployment down to record lows. Someone who has, let's be honest, a pretty good track record in the job as president, but is now deemed incapable of continuing. And people he has known for decades are raising questions. This is that dad, give me the car keys thing again.

It's awkward and uncomfortable, but clearly Biden's friends, it's necessary. Every day, another lawmaker now steps forward to say Joe's got to go. Every day, another lawmaker now steps forward to say Joe's got to go. Congresswoman Angie Craig from Minnesota saying, I do not believe that the president can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump. Mr. President, please look at what's happened. Recognize that the reality out there may not be the same thing you're hearing from the circle of your closest friends and family. And consider putting our country first.

We want to know what their plan is to win this election and turn these numbers around. If they don't have a plan, then I think we have to move in a different direction. It's like talking to a loved one about such a tough situation. How do you tell that person he can't do this anymore? Scary thing politically to say that, right? If you're the lawmaker, because what if Biden wins, right? And you're the guy who said he's got to go. That's the end of your political career. So for anyone to be saying these things now is huge and indicative of the degree of concern that Democrats have. Nancy Pelosi, right? Former Speaker of the House. I think it's a legitimate question to say,

is this an episode or is this a condition? David Axelrod, former senior advisor to Barack Obama, now pundit on CNN. His psyche is that he can beat anybody and any long odds. What he can't beat is father time. And that's really the concern here. Hakeem Jeffries, senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, meeting with other lawmakers this week to talk about all of this. Mark Warner, Democratic senator from Virginia, another key state, trying to corral fellow senators to go to the White House for a heart-to-heart with Biden.

It's all swirling around Joe Biden now, and it's like he's, again, he's not seeing it. I mean, and here's the other thing for Joe Biden that's in play, his legacy, right? He was the Trump whisperer in 2020. That unto itself would have made for a fine political epitaph. Joe Biden, Trump slayer, savior of America. Now, at least in the view of Democrats, he risks it being Joe Biden, the president who stayed too long. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned David Axelrod, you know, his piece was really forceful, you know, and his argument was essentially that if Biden doesn't step down, his age, not Trump's, quote, moral and ethical void, would dominate the rest of the campaign. And Axelrod made that argument that this would sully Biden's legacy. And that pains him, I would say. That pained Axelrod to say that. But he is just saying what he believes and what countless other Democrats and Americans broadly believe.

I want to talk about the money for a moment because, you know, I think we all know that money plays a very, very big role in American politics. And many wealthy Democratic donors are now trying to kind of take matters into their own hands. The lifeblood to a campaign in politics, the lifeblood is money. I talked to a bunch of big donors and they're moving all their money to Congress and the Senate. I mean, I cannot believe we're in this situation. Some I read are trying to raise as much as like $100 million to support a replacement candidate. Major donors are going public.

Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix, telling the New York Times that the president needs to step aside to, quote, allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,

end quote. Abigail Disney says she will no longer donate. She's the granddaughter of Disney's co-founder. In a statement to CNBC, Disney said in part, quote,

if Biden does not step down, the Democrats will lose. Of that, I am absolutely certain. Others are threatening to withhold contributions, and not only to Biden, but to the Democratic Party more widely. And so how big of a deal is this? Well, look, you said it, Jamie. I mean, money is almost everything in U.S. politics.

Joe Biden has a so-called war chest for advertising spending this fall, but so does Donald Trump. And if the faucets are turned off now for Biden, that is majorly bad news for Biden if he's the nominee and Democrats. Even after the debate, there was reporting of a donor meeting in the Hamptons with Biden in person in one of the mansions in the Hamptons in which super wealthy Democrats came out to see Biden and they were evidently gobsmacked by how feeble he seemed. Yeah. So some donors, profile donors now threatening to stop the money is a huge deal. I mean, look at it this way. Down in the polls, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are saying you got to go. Headlines almost everywhere are saying the same thing. Leaked stories about people making plans for a Kamala Harris presidency already. And now these donors chiming in. We keep saying the same thing again and again, but that's what it is, right?

It's the forest of naysayers, and Biden is the tree. We keep coming back to the same thing. It's up to Biden to listen and to act. As monumental a decision that it is to make to not run again. In the end, it's Biden's and Biden's alone. But pressure grows from all directions. Donors, lawmakers, all of them. Pressure grows daily. When we're talking about that growing pressure, you know, last week, not to say that

people weren't kind of in the mix, but it was like a holiday week, right? And it was the 4th of July. And so a lot of lawmakers are coming back to work tomorrow or today. Sorry, we're talking on Sunday. And, you know, do you think that this is really going to start to ratchet up now? Like, how significant could the coming days be here? Crucial. You're right to point out that lawmakers are coming back to Capitol Hill. All of a sudden, this is the only story in the country. This is the only political story in America. It is the only question that all these lawmakers are going to be asked on Capitol Hill, and they'll have to say something. Either they dodge it, which looks bad, or they express an opinion, and it just has the feeling of the drip, drip, drip turning into Niagara Falls, right? Because it's so late in the game. We're not two years away from the election. We're 120, 30 days away is all. And everybody knows the stakes of this election. And if they don't do something now, it will be too late. It may already be too late, but the view is that if we don't do something now, so therefore, who's going to stand up and say this has to happen? Who's going to add? And this is the time and the place to do that on Capitol Hill this coming next few days. And Biden knows that as well. He's also got the NATO summit coming up this week, and he's got the giant press conference in which he can demonstrate for good or for bad once again, whether he's got the mental acuity. can demonstrate for good or for bad once again, whether he's got the mental acuity. Like we've gone beyond talking about Trump at this point, largely, right?

Nobody's talking about Trump, the felon. Nobody's talking about any of these sort of negatives on Trump, right? It's only about Biden. Yeah. I want to come back to Trump in just a moment. But, you know, you're right. I think that kind of proves Axelrod's point that like this is it. This is all anybody's going to talk about unless he drops out. As we wait and watch for what's going to happen, One thing I did want to talk to you about

is something that I've been thinking a lot about this week, which is that, you know, my sense immediately after the debate was that there was this kind of sadness amongst, you know, Democrats, democratically aligned pundits, that this president was, like, declining so much and that this would be part of his legacy and that what we saw during that debate with our own eyes was sad. You know, I'm thinking of Van Jones on CNN right after the debate.

I actually thought he was going to burst into tears. I'll give you the analysis. You know, you kind of have the old man versus the con man. I can walk you through how I'm supposed to see it and say it, but I just want to speak from my heart. I love that guy. That's a good man. He loves his country. He's doing the best that he can. But he had a test to meet tonight to restore confidence of the country and of the base. And he failed to do that. You mentioned how difficult it must have been for David Axelrod to make that argument,

this kind of stuff. But it does seem to me like at least some of that sadness has shifted towards anger, anger that people feel like there has been some sort of cover-up. And I wonder if you would agree with that and just kind of flesh it out for me. I think there's evidence in the public domain to support that. There was a report in the Wall Street Journal not long ago that really slammed Biden hard on the age thing. Lots of, you know, what's he like behind the scenes kind of stuff that really painted a terrible picture. And then the White House immediately after that article came out, pushed back hard. And those of us out here in the wild, you know, might've thought, well,

I guess the journal was wrong. And then came debate night and then came the Stephanopoulos interview. And it's like, well, wait a minute, were we all duped? Because this seems to be what Joe Biden is really like, and it's not good, right? I mean, so much now gets made about whether he's talking on teleprompter or not. And we've seen him with and without teleprompter in recent days. So which is the real Joe Biden? I think most see it, you know, as the unscripted on teleprompter version as days. So which is the real Joe Biden? I think most see it as the unscripted, un-teleprompted version as the real Joe. And that's not the Joe the White House has been describing. So is that a cover-up? I don't know. But it's certainly the way things have played out. And again, to the first part of the question, at the end of the day, it's just sad.

Yeah. There's this one piece that I read over the weekend, Olivia Nuzzi. She's the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine. And she essentially published this long piece similarly to the Wall Street Journal talking about how people have like quietly been questioning Biden's ability for months. You know, she gives examples of Biden family friends who said that they were kind of shocked to find the president didn't remember their names, for example. They were kind of shocked to find the president didn't remember their names, for example. And she has this quote where she talks about how, you know, these are Democrats who were of a similar social strata. They lived and socialized in Washington, New York and Los Angeles. They did not want to come forward with their stories.

They did not want to blow a whistle. I don't that just kind of gave me it's given me quite a bit of pause. It's so visceral, isn't it? And you can picture those people thinking those thoughts. And in a sense, that's what happened. That's the effect of the debate and the interview with Stephanopoulos. It has given permission for people who've been thinking those, who've been daring to think those, who've been quietly thinking those things to now say out loud, this is real, and it's not good, and something has to change, or else the November vote is effectively tomorrow. let's end this conversation by talking about trump um just one question about trump um he has been as you as you mentioned very quiet though not completely quiet i have to say there was that like i say quote unquote leaked video i i put air quotes around it because it is really uh unclear

to me if it was leaked or just you know know, filmed and released by his own campaign. Yeah. And it is him sitting in a golf cart. What did I do with the debate the other night? Oh, yeah. He kicked that old broken down pile of crap. Yeah. It's a bad guy. He just quit. You know, he's quitting the race. Is that right?

Yeah. He called Kamala, who, you know, a lot of people are saying is the front runner to replace Biden. She's so bad. She's replace Biden. She's so bad. She's so pathetic. It's so mean. But generally, he's been pretty quiet. And so what do you really think he wants to see happen here? Yeah. And you know what else?

I think another takeaway from debate night, by the way, is that Trump kind of came across as a rational guy, as a normal kind of politician. And in contrast to what was happening across the stage. Yeah, I guess if you're grading on a curve. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, you know, there was reporting here the other day

that suggested he, you know, and again on debate night, that he was as surprised as anyone else with what he was seeing with Biden's performance. And I mean, even the look on his face during the big stumble that Biden made, he kind of did the double take along with the rest of us. Like, are you OK, Joe? Yeah, he's been remarkably quiet the past few days, indeed, as if content to let the

headlines do the job for him. The implosion on the Democrat side is only good news for Donald Trump. He now faces either a weakened competitor in Joe Biden or an untested one in likely Kamala Harris. I think at the end of the day, Trump will frame this election campaign as a choice between strength and weakness, be his competitor Biden or Harris. Everything we've been talking about has been a gift to Donald Trump, Jamie. Yes, if Kamala Harris ends up the nominee, she may pull in people of color, fabled suburban women around Philadelphia and beyond, young people. And yeah, that could be trouble for Trump, who, by the way, already has attack ads on Kamala Harris.

for Trump, who, by the way, already has attack ads on Kamala Harris, or he faces feeble Joe Biden, who, by the way, Biden himself said last week he'd debate Trump again. And I imagine Donald Trump can hardly wait. Oh, I can also imagine that he would love to do that. Paul, thank you so much for this. What an election season this is turning out to be, Jamie. Is it ever. OK, thank you so much for this. What an election season this is turning out to be, Jamie. Is it ever? Okay.

Thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.