The New Yorker Radio Hour - Julián Castro on the Biden Problem, and What the Democratic Party Got Wrong

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

The panic that gripped Democrats during and after President Biden’s performance in the June debate against Donald Trump didn’t come out of nowhere. In January of last year, the Radio Hour produced an episode about President Biden’s age, and the concerns that voters were already expressing. But no nationally prominent Democratic politician was willing to challenge Biden in the primaries. After the debate, Julián Castro was one of the first prominent Democrats to say that Biden should withdraw from the race, and he went on to tell MSNBC’s Alex Wagner that potential Democratic rivals and even staffers “got the message” that their careers would be “blackballed” if they challenged him. Castro—who came up as the mayor of San Antonio, and then served as President Obama’s Secretary for Housing and Urban Development—ran against Biden in the Presidential primary for the 2020 election. He talks with David Remnick about how we got here, and what the Democratic Party should have done differently. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The panic that has gripped Democrats during and after the first presidential debate didn't come out of nowhere. In fact, we did an episode on this program about President Biden's age and the concerns that voters were expressing back in January of last year, 2023. But what we've been hearing from the White House and nearly all Democratic leaders is some version of this. Biden's in good shape. He has an impressive first term to run on. And if he wants to run again, nobody's going to stop him. But after his disastrous performance in the June debate, the party is grappling with the consequences of that strategy. Julian Castro was one of the first prominent Democrats to say after the debate that Biden should bow out.

Now, Castro ran against Biden last time in the presidential primary. He had served in President Obama's cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. We spoke last week. Secretary Castro, welcome. You recently wrote on X or Twitter about President Biden that, quote, even before the debate, three and four registered voters and 55 percent of his own 2020 voters thought he was too old to be effective. And you're not the only person to suggest that. And as the week has gone on, we've seen this real tension in the Democratic Party.

Nancy Pelosi has hinted, hinted that maybe President Biden should reconsider running for a second term. What is going on inside the party? Well, inside the party, there's just a tremendous amount of anxiety, turmoil. I think it's fair to say calculation about people's. own political fortunes. Obviously, those folks that are running in swing districts, you see that a good number of the Democrats that have either called for the president to withdraw or have expressed deep concern come from one of these so-called frontline districts. And that's because they are thinking about their own political future in November. The point of my putting that out

there on X was that the president had said a couple of days ago that, you know, this was the elites, that the elites were trying to get him out of this race. And actually, nothing could be further from the truth. The elites were the ones, if we want to call them that, in the party, that actually took the longest to come around to this position. It's why there was no primary debate. There was really not much of a Democratic primary at all, because Joe Biden has had the support. of the party infrastructure of the elites of the party. It's regular voters that for quite a while now, in polling and focus grouping and in everyday life,

you know, just talking to folks at the grocery store, I remember running into folks at Barnes & Noble not too long ago that expressed this idea that, hey, what's going on here? That the president, we're not sure that, you know, that he can make it or that he should be running. running right now, that had already permeated. Like, it had already been recognized by regular everyday voters a long time ago. Well, you and I spoke in 2019 when you were running against Joe Biden in the primary. And during one of the primary debates, you and Biden were wrestling over

health care. And eventually you said, are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? Now, as I recall, a lot of people thought that was a disrespectful moment on your part. Thinking back on that exchange now in the light of the debate with Trump, I wonder what you make of the criticism you'd received in 2019. And were you hinting at something? Well, I understand that criticism, you had a young guy. I was 44 or 45 at the time talking to somebody who is an elder statesman in the party had served as vice president. It comes off as disrespectful. And at the time, I was not saying, hey, I think you're in decline because you can't forget that. It was a reaction. in a back and forth, he and I were going back and forth,

and it was a reaction to say, hey, didn't you just say something different? I do think, you know, if we go back and look at that moment and others, what you see is a greater and greater frequency of those kinds of moments and others like it and then ultimately at the debate where, you know, kind of the bottom fell out. Now, we should acknowledge that listeners will hear our conversation

a few days from now and some things might happen. But scroll back to June 28th, the day after the debate, and you were on MSNBC with Alex Wagner, and you said this. The Democratic establishment basically cut off anybody that thought about running against Joe Biden, cut off the potential for debate so that the public could have other options in front of them. Vendors or consultants that thought about perhaps working for another candidate,

they got the message that, look, your career is going to be blackballed. Now, blackballed is a pretty strong word. What does it look like in the rearview mirror? What happened inside the party? What were the mechanisms so that really Joe Biden ran all but unopposed? I did say at the time that I thought they were making a mistake in not, for instance, having any primary debates. When they said early on, we're not going to have any primary debates, they were sending a strong signal

to any potential candidate, any consultants that might think about working for another candidate, any vendors, email vendors, you know, fundraisers, anybody that might think about another campaign, hey, this deal is over. And that effectively cut off any kind of exit ramp. Yeah, but here, the answer to that is we've had experience where people sometimes run against an incumbent. So Ted Kennedy ran against Jimmy Carter. was a disaster not only for Ted Kennedy, who ultimately lost and didn't seem to be able to summon a reason for being a candidate, but it arguably hurt Jimmy Carter, the fact that they had this contentious race. Isn't that the motive? Well, look, the party is still haunted by the 1980

Democratic primary. And so potential candidates get the message of, hey, you don't want to be Ted Kennedy. You know, if the guy goes on and loses in November, you don't want to be the one that they turn around and point a finger at and blame for derailing the Democratic candidate. The issue here, though, and now we're dealing with this in spades, is the political liability of Joe Biden is qualitatively different from anything that Jimmy Carter came into November with. That is the age issue. That only gets worse. It doesn't get better. Some people had been comparing this race, for instance, last year to Bill Clinton. in 1995 and saying, well, he was down in the polls in 1995, and Barack Obama in 2011 was down to

Mitt Romney in the polls at this point in the 2012 contest. And I said at the time, like, I don't think it's the same. I don't think you can compare those political liabilities that are about an issue or a feeling toward the president, something that's happening in that day, a failure in Congress, or whatever it is, versus the age issue. where people, regular voters, every time they're seeing the person on television, every time they're hearing the person, they're thinking, gosh, it's just something doesn't seem right here. Is he able to do the job? That is qualitatively different. Did things get markedly worse and everybody pretended it wasn't happening or they covered it

up? Or did it get markedly worse on national television during the debate with Donald Trump? was there a conspiracy of silence beforehand? I have a very hard time believing that that was the first or only time that he had that kind of challenge in a setting. And over the last couple of weeks, what we've seen is some reporting from people that were at private fundraisers or other events who were expressed a concern. But the difference was that it probably was more pointed on that debate night,

And it was in front of 51 million viewers that night, not like a private fundraiser where, you know, 30 people are in some somebody's house, high-end donors. And, yeah, they might have a certain impression, but that's not the same as 51 million people watching. I think if you live long enough, you have the experience with your parents and grandparents and then eventually yourself, where the younger generation has to speak sometimes some hard. hard truths to an older generation. I know in my family I had two disabled parents and eventually had to do things like take away car keys and tell my father he could really, professionally, this was going to be a disaster and people could get hurt as a dentist. And it's a very, very difficult human thing. But there the stakes are somebody getting in a car accident, which is bad enough or harming some individual in a dental chair. Here, it's an office with

the nuclear codes, with untold responsibilities globally, nationally, and yet the decision is in his hands. I mean, what is the thinking, do you think, in the White House that keeps him in the chair, that nobody else could possibly beat him? You know, David, I've been, I've thought about that a lot these last two weeks. What is it that they're clinging to? I find it harder and harder to believe if they're seen any of the overwhelming data that everybody else has seen, that they believe he, first of all, that he's in a good spot to beat Donald Trump. Donald Trump didn't lead in any of the polling in 2020. He was way behind by this point. That's right, way consistently behind. And now, just today, one of the polling averages, he, that the Cook political report put out, I think,

he's three points down to Donald Trump. In the battleground states, He's also now consistently behind Donald Trump, something that he was not. He was ahead 2020. So I find it hard to believe that he really believes that he's doing well. And then secondly, that he's the only one that can beat Donald Trump. And I think I'm right because four years ago, he was the one that brought up. I want to be a bridge to the next generation. Now, if you felt this powerfully all along, why didn't you?

you run? Well, you know, I guess I, like a lot of other people, read the tea leaves and could see that if you had a party that was not going to have debates and very hard to beat an incumbent, you still have that narrative of the 1980 race between Kennedy and Carter and who wants to be the Ted Kennedy in that scenario that gets blamed if something. goes wrong in November. We've heard Nancy Pelosi in the most subtle way possible went on morning television and hinted that perhaps Joe Biden ought to think it through a little bit more. Other senators and Congress people have, but it's quite a small number so far.

How does this play out in your view, or does it just stay the same? What's happened is this pressure was building after the debate, and it came to a head at the beginning of the week, then he sent a letter to Congress saying, hey, I'm staying in, I'm not going anywhere. He met with the CBC and called, I think, just over- Congressional Black Caucus that lined up behind him. That's right. And made phone calls apparently to about two dozen congressional members in addition to that. But it's really interesting what senators and what representatives are saying now, and several of them have said this specifically, almost word for word, oh, I believe that he's going to make the best

decision that's in the best interest of the country. Essentially, not taking his no for an answer, not taking his no of stepping out for an answer. But it's possible you're reading too much into it, and in a big chaotic party, there are a few voices hinting, but, you know, Alexander Ocasio-Cortez lined up right behind him. people much more to the center of the party lined up right behind him after these meetings early in the week. It's possible, but the reason that I think people are getting more and more nervous is because more and more the polling is coming out. And as the polling has come out, it started to get worse and worse.

Just as one example, there was a couple of different Wisconsin polls over the last two days that had him down, I think six points, seven points. the real clear polling average has him falling, other battleground states, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada. The Cook Political Report just switched Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia from toss up to lean Republican. Now, if he were to lose those states, then he has to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. So it doesn't look good. and Democrats are beginning to worry more and more, now I'm talking about Capitol Hill, that not only will we lose the presidential race,

but that we're going to lose the Senate. And when people start thinking about their own future now, hey, I'm going to lose my race, then it's something different. That's when they get serious. Are you suggesting that politicians are self-interested? I say that with the confidence and insight of somebody that's a recovering politician.

In Casabweig. So what about this argument? Okay, that's fine. What you're saying has an element of truth. But what's your alternate scenario and how does it happen and what makes you so sure that person is going to be a better candidate against Donald Trump in November? Well, there's some polling on this that's gone on in the last week or so that seems to show that Vice President Harris, as well as a group of others, governors, senators and so forth, would actually be. do at least about as well or some of them better than Joe Biden. And that's already. That's without the name ID for most of them, you know, without spending a dime on a campaign for most of them.

And I think that's especially true for Vice President Harris, that she can take the credit for the great things the administration has done and there are a lot of them, but then also actually prosecute the case, make the case and I think excite the base in a way that Joe Biden in 2024 just can't do. And you're making the argument that Vice President Harris would be a better bet both as potential to win in the fall and as a presidential candidate than any of the other names we've heard, whether it's Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro and the long list. I think that she would be a strong bet. I do think probably you have to have some sort of process involved. There are arguments right now about would it be better basically to hand it over to Vice President Harris or for there to be some process.

Jim Clyburn originally said, for instance, that he would support some kind of mini-primary. I think ideally if you have a process to it. But this is part of what's freaking people out. On the one hand, Jim Clyburn lines up behind President Biden, and then he's talking about a mini-primary or debates or form. arms, you know, what's a boy to believe? No, I mean, look, there's no denying that going through that would be messy compared to the road that we're on.

But when you realize that the road we're on is a road to a loss, I think all of the evidence is pointing in that direction. And with the stakes so high, with Trump as an authoritarian, with Project 2025 out there, and him having the experience of four years and knowing how to get these things done, this time, bad things for the country, I think you have to conclude that it's worth the risk. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and I'm speaking with Julian Castro. We'll continue in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and I'll continue my conversation with Julian Castro. Castro came into politics in Texas. He was the mayor of San Antonio. And President Obama appointed him

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He ran in the very crowded Democratic primary that you might remember from the 2020 election, and that was against Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and others. We spoke about President Biden's candidacy for a second term in the very confused state of the presidential race. You're currently the CEO of the Latino Community Foundation, and one of the goals of that organization is civic engagement. An estimated 36 million Latinos are eligible to vote this year, almost 4 million more than less presidential. And these numbers are the from the Pew Research Center, I believe. That's a big jump.

What sort of work are you doing to increase the turnout? And no less important, how do you see that vote going? Yeah, you know, we're dedicated to unleashing the civic and economic power of Latinos. I mean, this is a group that now is about a fifth of the country, 40% of California, 40% of Texas growing quickly. And in the battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, as a fifth to a quarter of the vote. So we're helping to make sure that they're well informed about the issues, about the candidates, and then also mobilized to actually go vote. It's 501C3

work. And so it's not party-based. It's not candidate-based. It's really about helping to ensure that people have good information in a world that is increasingly about misinformation and disinformation, and then people are motivated to get out and vote. And not only in that presidential race, but also, for instance, in California, you have five congressional races that are very competitive and could determine who controls Congress. Whatever happens, we want the Hispanic community to have its voice at the ballot box and make a difference in those elections. Now, the Hispanic community is not one thing. It is a diverse community, but we've seen an overall shift toward Trump, a certain percentage.

Break that down for us and tell us something about the dynamics. I mean, it's true. You hear this one word about the Latino community after every election, which is it's not a monolith. If I had like a dollar for every time I hear that. It's not a monolith and, oh, you know, we used to know about the Cubans in Florida. All of that is true. All of it is true.

But break it down much more. Yeah, but generally in the battleground states of every country. Arizona and Nevada, for instance, those are heavily Mexican-American communities. So it's interesting that the center of gravity of where the battleground states are and within the Latino community, where the action is, so to speak, has kind of moved from the Cuban-American community there in South Florida, when Florida was the ultimate swing state, to these Mexican-American communities that center around places like Maricopa County, the Phoenix area, and Pima County down in Tucson, as well as Clark County there in Nevada, which is Las Vegas.

And that traditionally largely has been a democratic-leaning constituency, and was still true in 2020, true in 2022, and looks like that that'll be true in 2024. But you're right, in different parts of the country, particularly among, I think, Cuban Americans, Venezuelan Americans, and even Mexican Americans in places like Texas, my home state. Republicans have had more success. Why? Is that for economic reasons? I think it's a number of things.

I mean, for instance, I'll take Texas, South Texas, right? It's a border, a lot of these places are border communities. They see the migration issues front and center, and those communities oftentimes have not been given enough support as we've seen that influx. So, you know, they're leaving with it. Secondly, these are more oftentimes rural or small. small town communities. They're not the big cities. And I think you've seen more of that shift in those

places. In Texas, for instance, you're talking about a state also that is not heavily unionized. And so you often don't have the kind of organizing in these communities. So they're just a multitude of different, I think, factors here. And then for some people, you know, I mean, Trump is, as much as I hate his politics and don't think much of him personally. I mean, he's a charismatic guy. And some people, you know, across the board, whether they're white, whether they're Latino, whatever they are, have been attracted to that. So, yeah, it's a multitude of things. Now, the elephant in the room is that many people feel that Vice President Harris herself would not be the strongest candidate in the world. Her approval ratings are not through the roof, to say

the least. What is that all about? Why does she get so much criticism in your view? You know, in my estimation, she really was not given the opportunity over these last three and a half years to fully get out there and to create her own identity with the public. She was asked to take on these what can seem like intractable issues. Immigration, for instance, was one of them. I mean, that's been the thornyest issue for Democrats. And so in many ways, I don't think she was set up for success by the Biden folks to be. begin with. Why not? You know, I can't pretend to know. As you know, I mean, the relationship between president and vice president is always interesting and different each time. Interesting being a

word for fraught and miserable. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's every relationship you read about president and vice president, that's the case. But what we've seen in the last two weeks since the debate is really, Vice President Harris has taken the lead in trying to salvage the ticket. She's the one that's been out there doing the interviews, doing the sit downs, doing the rallies, making the case on reproductive rights, on Project 2025, on a number of other issues. I think that she's actually truly demonstrated in these last two weeks how strong a candidate she could be. Do she have weaknesses that you can see? Well, of course. I mean, I think that any of the candidates that we're talking about would. What are hers? The questions would surround, okay, Joe Biden was elected

by Democrats out of that primary in 2020 because people thought that, you know, he could appeal to that white working class voter in Stanton, Pennsylvania, where he was from, or in Michigan, or Wisconsin. We don't know because Vice President Harris didn't get to run in a general election, right? But what I do know is from watching her firsthand that she is very dynamic, that she can get a crowd going, that she has her own record as a trailblazer. And I think that she could actually put together that Obama coalition,

especially in this short-term run where it's like a jolt to the race. Everybody's going to be paying attention. Does she have Obama's skills? Does anybody? I know I don't. I mean, look, you know, I mean, Barack Obama was a once-in-a-lifetime talent.

I mean, I think that's... Just as a pure... On this dumb political talent. Like, yeah, compare my, you know, keynote speech at DNC to his. Like, it's like, this is a lot better. Like, he's just super talented. You know, we can't expect everybody to replicate that. Jill Biden doesn't have that kind of talent.

You know what I mean? I think that's fair to say. Now, Donald Trump has, for him, he's been restrained in the last couple of weeks. He's following, by his standards, the old political rules, when your opponent is in the midst of a disaster. shut up and stand by and let it happen. How do you think he would run against a Kamala Harris? What would that campaign look like?

I think he would do a lot of the things that we've seen him do over the years, but I actually agree with those who say that I think they would overplay their hand in terms of the racism and the biases that exist in the Republican Party. And I actually think that it would end up backfiring and sending a good number of voters in the Democrats' direction, a good number of people

of different backgrounds, but including, you know, a good number of white voters who say, hey, that's not me. Look, I believe that that's a lot of that is an underlying feature of Trump and the Republican Party. But if someone like Kamala Harris or a similar candidate were actually the nominee, I think that it would be more explicit, so much so that it would drive people faster away from Trump and his party. I mean, look what he did with Barack Obama and his birth certificate. Yeah. I want to end with what I think is a really important point, is what a Trump presidency would mean in 20, 24, 25. What are the stakes here? The guy wants to be an autocrat. January 6 was a preview of that, and Project 2025 is a blueprint for the kind of administration.

that he wants, you know, whether it's no more reproductive rights at all or rounding up 11 million immigrants, the kind of cruelty that we saw with family separation during his first term, Donald Trump wants to be a king. It gets scarier because we have a Supreme Court that is normalizing MAGA-ism now and dumping decades and generations' worth of precedent, some of our most fundamental precedent, whether it's Roe or Chevron or any number of other things. And then you add in these cowardly other politicians there on the Republican side

that often are in the House of Representatives or in the Senate. There is no check and there is no balance. It's all Donald Trump. That's the stakes. Secretary Castro, thank you so much. Thank you. I spoke with Julian Castro of Texas last week. You can find all the New Yorker's coverage

of the 2024 presidential race at New Yorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's the program for today. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Alicia Zuckerman.

With guidance from Emily Boteen, and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deccat. And we had additional help from Ursula Summer. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.