The Decibel - How Biden’s exit fits into American political history

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

After weeks of pressure, speculation and open questions from political leaders about his age and health, U.S. President Joe Biden has dropped his re-election campaign ahead of the 2024 election. Biden’s decision now clears the way for a younger candidate to pursue the Democratic Party’s nomination, to run against Donald Trump.Globe contributor and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Shribman joins the podcast to explain this historic moment in American politics, and the crucial days ahead for the Democrats, as they seek to rally behind a new presidential candidate.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

At 1.46 Eastern on Sunday, the U.S. election dramatically changed. President Joe Biden published a letter on social media that contained this line. While it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus president, Kamala Harris, to be the party's presidential pick. Donald Trump reacted swiftly on social media, criticizing Biden and his record. While this is all happening, we wanted to take a step back and examine this historic moment for American democracy. So today, Globe contributor David Shribman is our guest. He's won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of U.S. politics, and he'll discuss where this moment fits into American history, why Biden is leaving the race, and what the Democratic Party's next steps are

ahead of their national convention in August. I'm Manika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. David, thank you so much for being here today. Oh, I'm delighted to do this. So you're joining me on Sunday evening, pretty much, we're recording this just a few hours after the announcement from Joe Biden. Yes, that's right. David, what was the first thing you thought about when you heard the news that Biden was withdrawing from the U.S. presidential race?

Well, to be honest, the first thing I thought about was I had just written a piece about what his options were going to be, and I had to throw that piece out. 1,100 words gone to waste. It's a moment of great import, of historic significance, and that this was a moment, really a moment that required a lot of thought. We haven't had anything like this happen in our history with great consequences, consequences that go beyond the apparent endorsement or the real endorsement of Kamala Harris and the fact that we'll have now a Harris-Trump race.

But it also changes the character of our politics right now. It brings to the fore a black woman as the leader of the Democratic Party. It changes the trajectory of the campaign. I'm going to go on and on here. It also changes the nature of news has been almost overwhelming. June 27th, we had the debate in which Biden's apparent lack of mental acuity was on display for the whole country and the whole world. Making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare. Followed by the reaction to that, followed by the shooting of Donald Trump, followed by his appearance with a little white bandage on his ear and his triumphal

acceptance of the Republican presidential nomination. So tonight, with faith and devotion, I proudly accept your nomination for president of the United States. And his re-emergence as a kind of a symbol of courage, resilience, and to the eyes of his own supporters, almost a divine favor. Followed by more lobbying of the 46th president, Biden, to leave the race. And finally his, well, two more things. His actual withdrawal and then his selection of Ms. Harris. And you, David, you mentioned the debate. So let me ask you about that, because after the debate between Biden and Trump, which was on June 27th, you wrote a column where you said it was too late to bail on Biden, that there just wasn't enough time to install a new Democratic candidate.

So I guess in light of that, what do you make of this situation now? Well, first of all, one of the things I make of it is a political columnist like me should never make comments like that, because now I look like a near idiot. Second of all, it may be too late, but it might be just in time. So we'll have to see. It's awfully late. There has never been a change like this in a nomination involving an incumbent president before. The closest example is 1856, even I wasn't around for that one, when President Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was denied on the 15th ballot of the Democratic National Convention of Renomination. This is even later. And so in the four weeks between now and the Democratic Convention, Kamala Harris has to consolidate her support, which I think won't be very difficult. She has to create a new campaign. She'll probably graft hers onto the Biden campaign apparatus. That won't

be that hard. She has to choose a vice president nominee. That won't be that easy. Although as a vice president herself, she knows what that job is like. Has to prepare for her convention, which opens, I think, on the 19th of August. Has to prepare for about a month later, a debate with Donald Trump. And then, of course, the nine or 10 week sprint to the election after Labor Day. So there's a lot for her to do. Yeah, there's a lot that needs to be done. And that's why people like me thought it was too late back then to change. And I want to ask you a little bit more about Harris as we go along. Because, you know, we're just over 100 days away from the election.

There's not a ton of time here to kind of regroup. But let's just stick with the moment for a second here, David. I guess, what do you think were some of the factors that really led to Biden's decision that led to this moment on Sunday of Biden stepping down? Of all the things led to his decision, first of all, the apparent recognition that his own faculties had been compromised. Joe Biden entered presidential politics in 1987 as the young guy, the symbol of youth, kind of a Kennedy-esque figure for the 1980s, who was the youthful figure of idealism, passion, and vision, and he no longer was that. He still had idealism, to be sure, but he no longer was young, and he no longer had the ease of speech and of thought that he had in 1987.

Then there was all the pressure that was brought to bear on him from leading Democrats, including and especially Nancy Pelosi, who was the Speaker of the House and herself is 84 years old, who bore down upon him and said, we're about to lose this election. If you don't get out, we're about to lose the Senate, which we now control, she says, and we're about to lose any chance of taking back the House. So the combination of those things on the total rat-tat-tat happened every day, day after day, of different people saying he must get out. It was in part disrespectful of the president and in part extremely effective. And it turned out that the effectiveness was far more important than the disrespect. My guess is, I know Biden pretty well. I feel it's a sense of relief. He had a mission.

He fulfilled it. That mission was defeating Trump in 2020, prevailing after the big insurrection on the Capitol, and being a very, very good president from the point of view of his own party. He can declare victory and go on. He can be a figure who sacrificed selflessness. He set a new generation of politicians on their road, and he affirmed the party's dedication to diversity by endorsing a black woman. That's not a bad day for him. David, you touched on this a little bit as you're just speaking there, because this decision comes after months of infighting between Democrats, right?

People within the party kind of fighting amongst themselves. I guess I wonder, is it rare to see so much public party disunity like this? Well, many, many years ago, about a century ago, Will Rogers, who was an American comedian, said, I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat. And I think that that was brought to bear here a little bit. But you're right. This is an unusual situation of people assailing their own president. We've seen presidents be challenged in their own party for renomination. The last one, of course, was Jimmy Carter in 1980 when Senator Ted Kennedy ran against him, but Carter prevailed. We also saw it in 1976 when Governor Reagan of California tried to deny the nomination of Gerald Ford in the bicentennial year. But it is fairly rare.

It's particularly poignant because of how beloved Joe Biden is in the Democratic Party. He's been chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, two of the three most important committees in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, two of the three most important committees in the Senate. He's run for president now four times. He was vice president for eight years. He led President Obama to endorse the notion of gay marriage. He was way ahead of Obama on that. So he's a beloved figure, and it broke many of these people's hearts to have to break Joe Biden's heart. I'm glad you brought up history, because I think we should look at a little bit more of the historical context here. Is there any other election in the U.S. that compares to the upheaval that we've seen in this year's campaign so far?

Anything that comes to mind, David? Yes, three of them come to mind. 1968, when Lyndon Johnson did what Biden did, which is to withdraw, he withdrew on March 31st. A week or so later, Martin Luther King was killed. Six or seven weeks after that, Bobby Kennedy was killed. Then the Democrats had a tumultuous convention where there was rioting in the streets of Chicago. They nominated Hubert Humphrey, who lost, nearly won, but lost Nixon. The other two would be 1912, when William Howard Taft was running for re-election against Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, who had been president of Princeton University,

and against Teddy Roosevelt, who had been president before Taft and who had set up Taft as his protege. A lot had come out then. And there was a fourth candidate, Eugene V. Debs, who was a socialist, who got a million votes. That was a lot of time. But I think the new plus ultra of all this was the 1860 election, when there were four candidates. You will not have heard of any of the other three, but you surely will have heard of Abraham Lincoln. And it was Lincoln's election in November of 1860 that prompted the secession of South Carolina and 10 other states. And that brought us to a civil war.

But to be clear, David, nothing exactly like this has happened before, right? Where a sitting president drops his nomination bid so late in the game. No, no, nothing this late in the game like this. No. But this is also an era, I must say, where all of the velocity of news and developments is accelerated. And so we're used to constant change. And maybe she can pull this off. Don't know for sure, but maybe. We'll be right back. Okay, David, let's look ahead now. The Democratic National Convention starts on August 19th, next month.

So what happens now? Well, first she has to choose a vice presidential running mate. And you're talking about Kamala Harris here, who Biden has endorsed now as well. Right. There are six or seven governors who could be that, a couple of senators who could do that. So there are many factors here. But the fact that there is a small, discrete number of battleground states does put a focus on whether her choice can help them, the Democrats in Michigan, in Arizona, in Pennsylvania. And so that's a factor. Then there's a question of balance. Presidential candidates like to balance out their ticket. Usually they'll have a small state and a large state, or a southerner and a northerner,

or a Protestant and a Catholic, or a male and a female. Now it's entirely possible that she'll choose another female and they'll all win the team. That would be something that would catch America's attention and perhaps win. The factor they all throw in this is, I want somebody who can be president if that should happen. Now, they always say that, but what they really want is someone who can help win the election. So this is interesting because, yes, Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris,

but she's not officially the nominee yet. David, it sounds like you don't think anyone else will run against her? Well, I talked to a senator today who said that he had canvassed all the people who were likely to run against her, and they all said they wouldn't do that. First of all, why run against her in a year in which there are a good chance the Democrats will lose, number one. Number two, if she runs and is defeated, 2028 is open to all of them. 2024 is the only year, really the only year for Kamala Harris. And so I think that's part of the calculation.

Okay. So a VP pick sounds like it's the next step for Harris here. But what about the party more broadly, David? What are the big hurdles ahead for the Democrats? Well, the big hurdles ahead of the Democrats is they're running against a guy who has been proclaimed an instrument of God by his own party, who likely believes that, who had a bravura convention and whose party is totally united behind have on, I guess, Trump's campaign? So Biden stepping down, Harris now being the potential nominee. How are the Republicans going to react to this? Well, they plan on running against an 81-year-old with compromised mental acuity. That's gone now. So they're going to run against the perceived unpopularity of Vice President Harris about her lack of experience at the highest levels of American government. They are going to pillory her as a liberal, out of sync with American values. They're going to say she hates America. They'll say she wants abortion up to the last day of the ninth month of pregnancy. And this will be a vicious campaign. And I would say to any Americans listening to this, hide your children. It won't be something illuminating to watch.

Do we know, is there polling that shows us Harris-Trump, that kind of matchup, how voting would go? Do we know how popular she would be standing up against next to Trump? There is some suggestion that though she runs behind Trump, she is a slightly thought until around noon today is gone. It's over. We're starting a tabula rasa here, a brand new world. And so we don't know how good a campaign should be. We don't know if lacerating comments from Trump will hurt Kamala Harris or will they make people think that he's out of control. And so there's all these unknowns and the unknowns accumulate as we look ahead. So what do you think, I guess, that the Democrats are thinking about here?

Like how if you've kind of laid out the arguments the Republicans might make against Harris, how should Democrats, I guess, go about rebutting those and selling Harris as their presidential pick? Well, first of all, they don't have much of a choice. So they're going to have to put as much a rosy evaluation on her as possible. They're going to say that she was an excellent prosecutor in California. They'll say that she has enormous experience, four years in the vice presidency, a couple of years in the Senate. And she was attorney general of California, which is not an insignificant thing. They'll say she represents America much more than the nearly all-white, rural-oriented constituency of Donald Trump. They will say that she will be able to bring, and this is a harder

sell, working blue-collar Democrats back into the Democratic circle. So she has a lot of assets. I don't mean to say that they're unabashedly enthusiastic about Kamala Harris being their nominee, but she's the gal they brought to the party and they're going to dance with her. David, just to end here, when we look at this decision of Biden to step down, what does this mean for America broadly? Like, is this a good thing for American who believe that women deserve a better chance to show their ability in politics and other spheres. And so it's a great moment for what many people believe is the American creed of opportunity and chance and possibility.

So that's a pretty good moment. David, thank you so much for taking the time today to speak with me. Oh, I'm glad to do so. It's an honor to be asked. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wells. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin, and Michal Stein. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.