The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Biden Calls Bibi; New Poll

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

In a call Thursday to Israel's prime minister, President Biden told Benjamin Netanyahu the U.S. needed to see more humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza and protections to civilians on the ground or else the U.S. would reconsider its policies toward Israel. The call comes as Biden faces criticism from some Democrats for his handling of the war. Plus, new data from the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll, and Can't Let It Go. This podcast: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Jeongyoon Han & Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Miranda in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I've just finished taking my very first United States medical licensing exam. This podcast was recorded at 12.15 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, April 5th, 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll still be crossing my fingers that I passed.

Okay, here's the show. Hey, best of luck. Good luck. Pass that test. And thanks for your work in the medical field. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Let's start today with the latest developments with the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas and how the Biden administration's position is shifting. Tam, President Biden spoke with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, and by all accounts, it was a pretty tense conversation. What did Biden ask for? This call was scheduled because of the attack on seven aid workers from the group World Central Kitchen. They were killed in an attack on their convoy by the Israeli military, which the Israeli military now says was a mistake and a violation

of protocol. So the call included calling for a ceasefire, calling for Netanyahu to allow his negotiators to actually have the leeway to negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas and to tell Netanyahu that if he doesn't do more, if Israel doesn't do more to avoid civilian casualties and to get aid to civilians, that the U.S. may well have to change its posture towards Israel. A big issue here, an ongoing concern, has been humanitarian aid, getting food and other types of aid into Gaza to help civilians there. How much has the Biden administration changed its posture there? So they've been asking for aid to get in, pleading with Israel for aid to get in. The

difference now is that Biden essentially said that the U.S. could change its position on military aid to Israel for its war in Gaza if Israel didn't announce new specific and concrete measures to get food to starving Palestinians, to reduce civilian bloodshed, and to protect aid workers like those World Central Kitchen aid workers. Here is national security spokesman John Kirby. What we want to see are some real changes on the Israeli side. And, you know, if we don't see changes from their side, there'll have to be changes from our side. And there were some changes announced late last night. Israel said that it would be opening a new port on the Mediterranean.

It would be opening up a land crossing to allow more aid to get in and would increase the flow of aid from Jordan directly into Gaza. The White House response to that was, thanks. We'll keep watching because it's not just what you announce. It's also your actions. And and they are going to be watching to see how many trucks get in. And on that note, Domenico, more than 40,000 Democratic voters cast protest votes in Wisconsin this week, which of course is a swing state when we get to the general election. Those voters are very unhappy with how Biden has been handling this conflict, and voters in Wisconsin and other states have been pushing for a change in policy from the White House.

Could Biden's conversation with Netanyahu and his instruction that Netanyahu has to do more or risk losing U.S. aid, could that move the needle among these skeptical Democrats? I don't know. I think it's tough because we've seen this movement sort of pop up in other states that are key to Biden winning reelection, Minnesota, Michigan, you said Wisconsin, you know, those are states with large Arab American and Muslim populations. And they want the White House to quote unquote, get the message. They want an immediate and permanent ceasefire. I'm not sure that Biden is going to call for a permanent ceasefire. Of course, the White House didn't stand in the way of a UN resolution to call for a ceasefire. We've certainly heard Biden's rhetoric change over the last few months in saying that Israel has gone too far in their targeting. They want them to be more careful. But I don't know that that's going to satisfy a lot of the progressive base, especially younger voters who just don't like that the United States is supplying aid to a country that they feel is killing innocent civilians.

And when you say aid, we're talking about weapons. Weapons. Yeah. And a lot of the weapons that are going there now are weapons that have been under contracts that have happened for years. Even if the United States cut off aid now or didn't pass new funding, there still would be a supply that's going to Israel no matter what. And of course, the United States is the largest backer. I do think that there's a question on whether or not Biden overestimated his personal relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and thinking that if you kept him close, that he could influence his behavior. And clearly, that has not been the case. And domestically, it's a huge, huge problem for Biden, because we've seen in the polling numbers, including in our poll this week, 61% of voters 18 to 29 disapprove of the job Biden's doing overall. And this is part of that, certainly. So we talked a second ago about how big of a shift this is for Biden. I want to kind of talk

about the other side of that coin. How much of these changes are due to the Biden camp being worried about this disillusionment, especially with younger voters and voters of color? How much are those political considerations prompting the White House to do something different when it comes to Israel? And how much might this shift be just a result of the tragic killing of the seven aid workers we were just talking about? You know, I mean, every reelection campaign looks at the polling numbers and wants to do what it can to keep the base intact. But, you know, this is an issue that I think goes beyond domestic politics completely. I think that there's an understanding

of the problem that they have with this. But Biden's been engaged in foreign policy for a very long time, and he has very strongly held beliefs on how to talk about these things. His shift has mostly come because of the 30,000 death toll and, of course, what happened this week. What the killing of the World Central Kitchen volunteers did that really was like a last straw is not only were more aid workers killed, 200 already have been over the course of this conflict, but that caused both World Central Kitchen and other aid groups to pause operations, to question whether they should continue operating in Gaza, whether they could continue to help people. And given these near famine conditions, that combination of things was a real breaking point for the White House.

One thing I will note, and I don't know what to make of this is that thus far we have heard from President Biden through statements, through written statements. He hasn't come out and given a big speech about this. Most of this has been in private conversations and then written statements and then, you know, spokesman John is truly outraged, if he really wants to own this shift in policy, at some point, people probably need to see it coming out of his mouth. OK, let's switch gears for a moment and talk about another pressure point for Biden's reelection campaign, this time one that's disappearing. The group No Labels, which was trying to find an independent ticket to run against Biden and Trump this cycle, announced on Thursday they're giving up. Domenico, what happened there? They couldn't find someone to run. I mean, they reached out to a couple dozen people and they couldn't find anyone who would be willing to do this. No Labels had raised and spent millions of dollars on this effort. They got on the ballot in 19 states and couldn't

find somebody to take up their mantle. I think the biggest problem with a group like No Labels is that there is no magic middle in this country, as we've talked about, and they could not come up with a policy platform that you could get this group to really agree on. And that's really, this fundamentally comes down to issues. What do people want out of their leader? What is the vision that they seek? You know, and I think that it also speaks to how entrenched obviously the two party system is and how difficult it is for a third party to really coalesce because there's been such a long stretch of Democrats and Republicans knowing what they stand for. And there are very few voters who,

you know, don't want to see, for example, Trump win reelection, who are suddenly going to jump on a third party bandwagon. You know, I think that's part of the problem that the Biden campaign is facing with somebody like RFK Jr. or Cornel West or Jill Stein. But I think that the Biden campaign would see this as a huge win for them, a big sigh of relief. And now the targeting is going to be on RFK Jr. Okay, let's take a quick break. And when we're back, let's look at the latest NPR PBS NewsHour Marist poll. And we're back. It's time now to dive into the latest NPR PBS NewsHour Marist poll.

And let's start with the big picture, Domenico. What are voters saying about how they are thinking about this Biden versus Trump 2.0 matchup that we've been talking about for so long? Well, you know, most people don't like either candidate, right? I mean, we've heard this repeatedly over and over again. They slightly have a higher unfavorable rating of Trump than they do Biden. And overall, Biden has a two-point lead, which is a statistical tie because it's within the margin of error. Even when you introduce Robert F. Kennedy, Cornel West, Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, Cornel West is an independent candidate. Biden still maintains a two-point lead. And it's really interesting,

though, what's going on under the hood, looking at how some of these voter groups have moved. Yeah. What are you seeing? Well, the biggest thing I kind of was looking at here is that college educated white voters and older voters seem to be shifting left as opposed to young voters, Latinos and independents who are either shifting right or sort of withholding their vote at this point. Younger voters, for example, some 50% of them could change their mind. About a third said that they probably know who they're going to vote for. Another 17%, almost one in five, said that they have not made up their mind yet, which is a potential opportunity for Biden. But right now, younger voters, like we said earlier, really have a high disapproval rating of Biden, 61%. It's a really difficult problem for him. If you look at college-educated white voters,

though, Biden won them by only three points in 2020. He's leading them by 24 points in this poll. That's way outside the margin of error. So really kind of interesting to see what's happening there. Let's talk about what might be happening there, which is they really don't like Trump. College educated white voters have shown again and again that they have issues with Trump. The abortion issue, I think, is something that is motivating to college educated white voters, especially women. It's also a motivating issue for many voters of color. So things have changed, in fact, since 2020. Yeah, they have, which is interesting, right? Because everybody says, oh, you know, Biden, Trump, it's the same old thing.

Everybody's got their mind made up. It's actually not the case when you're looking at some of this. And this is a demographic change that we've seen is this political volatility has kind of continued since 2015, 2016 on this educational line in particular, where we've seen more non-college educated whites more in favor of Trump. Actually, and that's a group that we've seen Trump's margin go down a little bit in this. So really, a lot of Trump's hopes here have to do with a potential third party candidates that siphon off votes, but also young voters staying upset with Biden, maybe not going to the polls, as opposed to potentially winning him over. And what's happening with non-white voters, in particular, is a huge thing. Biden had won them by 35 points. He's only up by 11 in this poll. So

big switches, big changes in a couple different directions by race and education. The thing you said that caught my ear the most, Domenico, is this idea of older voters moving to the left, because that's not what you normally think of. Can we say, is this a product of simply the sort of dissatisfaction of some younger voters with Biden? Or is there something actually happening here with older voters that are actually seeing a shift themselves? Yeah, no, it's not just the younger voters, because we split all that out. And the over 45 votes, Trump, for example, won by three points in 2020, and Biden's up by six with them in our poll. The older the voter groups are, boomers, silent slash greatest generation,

they are voting or saying that they'll vote for Biden, which is a big shift compared to what we had seen in previous traditional Republican, you know, with traditional Republican candidates. And that's one reason why the Nikki Haley folks had said that they think that they would be better against Biden because they give that more traditional platform as compared to Trump. I think that there's a lot of worries on foreign policy where those older voters prefer the stance that the sort of traditional Republican Party had had that Biden more aligns with than Trump does in many respects as far as moral leadership around the world and some degree of intervention to have American leadership and be involved in a lot of places.

I mean, we've seen a real shuffling of the party positions on things. Certainly, we've seen a dramatic shift in with Trump as the standard bearer, what Republican positions are, especially on foreign policy. And I think we're also seeing a shift in who the base is. And the Biden campaign has been very straightforward about the fact that they realize they have a challenge with traditional, let's say, Obama base voters, Black and Latino voters, young people. Those are a voting demographic that in the past you would have said, oh, those are Democratic voters. Now the Biden campaign sees them as persuasion targets. They also see college educated white people who were traditionally Republicans as persuasion targets. I want to

split out something, though, when we talk about nonwhite voters, that a lot of what we're seeing when you see the decline for Biden is really with Latino voters. Now, we didn't specify Latino voters in the head to head because the margin of error is so high that you really can't take a lot of analysis from that. But when we look at the favorability ratings, black voters have a 69 percent favorable rating of Biden. They have a 67 percent approval rating of Biden. That's really, really high compared to 66% unfavorable rating of Trump, far different with Latino voters and far different with younger voters. And look, what we found over the past year when we put together what we call merge data, put together all of the data from all of our polls, there's a huge gap between older black voters and younger

black voters. So really, we're seeing a huge deal with age. That's the biggest problem for Biden right now. All right, we're going to take one more break. And when we get back, can't let it go. And we're back. And it's time for Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just cannot stop thinking about politics or otherwise. Mine is politics and otherwise. And I'm going to start. So this week, Larry David of the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is of course winding down, got a letter from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. And Raffensperger, who of course was very high profile after the incident surrounding the 2020 election and former President Trump's efforts to overturn

the election, Raffensperger, I guess, caught wind of a storyline in Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David gets arrested for violating Georgia's election laws. And you guys remember these election laws were very controversial because they limit what people can do to sort of help people who are waiting in line to vote, right? Oh, I've seen it. You've seen it? Do you want to describe it to him? Yeah. Okay. So essentially, he goes to return glasses to his roommate's aunt who is standing in line to vote. He goes to give her the glasses. And then she's like, Oh, I've been here so long standing in line. I'm thirsty. And he's like, Oh, hey, I've got a bottle of water out in the car. He gets her a bottle of water and then he's immediately arrested. And then he

becomes this like hero for resisting the laws when in reality, Larry David is never a hero. Well, until he isn't in that episode, by the way. The funniest part of that episode might be the very end if you stayed for it, because there is a Fulton County mugshot that's put up of Larry David looking very much like not unlike a Trump mugshot in Fulton County. It seemed like Larry David's attempt to look like Donald Trump. I could see exactly where this episode was going as soon as I saw her in line to vote. And I was like, oh, gosh, here we go. Yep. Well, yeah, he looked a little tinted, a little orangish in the photo and very serious. They also, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, also obtained a copy of the letter that Raffensperger wrote to Larry David. And I won't read from all of it, but I think the line that jumped out at me was, we apologize if you didn't receive celebrity treatment at the local jail.

I'm afraid they've gotten used to bigger stars. It was tongue firmly planted in cheek. Very much so. Firmly planted. Domenico, you're up. Well, what I can't let go of is what I think something a lot of people can't let go of, and that is the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament and Caitlin Clark of Iowa in particular, but really the game that was played between Iowa and LSU, which I happen to tune into because I watch all of these games because I'm just like obsessed with it. And then I find out later that

the game itself, a lot of other people were tuning into, which I got a little bit of a sign of because a family member who never watches college basketball texted about how he didn't like the game or something. And I was like, wait, he's actually watching this. I was like, okay, it was a great game. And it got 12.3 million people to watch, which by the way, is the most for any women's college basketball game ever. The most for any men's or women's college basketball game on ESPN ever by more than double. It was more than the 2023 World Series for those games. And for four out of the five NBA Finals games from last year, more than the Masters and only five college football games in 2023 got higher ratings. So

really quite something and a huge shift from what we've seen in past years. Yeah. I mean, we watched it at our house too, and it was fun to watch. I mean, when Caitlin Clark is shooting three-pointers from almost half court, it's like, as a son of a coach, I'm going, that's a terrible shot. Oh, it went in. Great shot. And she did it nine times. It's great to see women's sports getting more attention. And I'm always a fan of Iowa getting attention. So that is true. You know, one of the things that's interesting about the storyline for the next game, which is actually coming up tonight at 930,

I was playing UConn, the perennial powerhouse, and Caitlin Clark said that she had always wanted to be recruited by UConn, and they did not. They never recruited her. And it looks like she's going to have another motivator for tonight. Dan, what have you got? What can't you let go? NPR is back on SNL. Saturday Night Live first made fun of NPR many years ago with a you have to go watch it segment. I don't think we can say it.

Nope. Even on, well, podcasts maybe we could. The sweaty segment. The sweaty. But we got back, man. And the Tiny Desk concert, which possibly is the thing we are most famous for at this point, was replicated on SNL on set. They did an amazing job. And Rami Youssef, the comedian, was the lead singer of a band that was getting their big break with this tiny desk concert. And one funny part was, you know, the tiny desk is acoustic. So they had this woman who normally plays the cello, but she was playing a shaker made out of a milk carton. And then Bowen Yang busts in and he's like,

I'm working and you guys are being really loud. And he didn't think the desk was too tiny. Oh, come on, Elliot. It's a tiny desk. This is our biggest thing. Yeah, biggest thing so far. Speaking of big, I'm brave enough to say it. That desk is not tiny.

Never was. Just feels small because there's so much crap on it. And there is a lot of stuff on that desk. It's not tiny. No, it's not. I think that's where we have to leave it for today. That is all for this week. Our executive producer is Mithoni Mutturi.

Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Jung Yoon Han, Casey Morrell, and Kelly Wessinger. Special thanks to Krishna Dev Kalimer and Ben Swayze. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.