The NPR Politics Podcast - These Voters Fret Biden's Age, Just Not Enough To Pick Trump

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

A focus group of swing voters showed worry about President Biden's age — he'd be 82 at the start of a second term — but the voters said they'd still vote for him over Donald Trump. A 2020 rematch, though, isn't a given: other Republicans like Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, and Mike Pence are likely to face Trump in the next year's primary contests.This episode: politics reporter Deepa Shivaram, White House correspondent Scott Detrow, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and Iowa Public Radio lead political reporter Clay Masters.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Margaret. And I'm Ami. And we are at a charging station during our drive from DC to Denver in an electric vehicle. The last time we road tripped together was after college graduation 10 years ago, when taking an EV across the country still felt like a thing of the future. This podcast was recorded at 12.04pm on Friday, February 17th, 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, enjoy the show. I've never done a road trip in an EV. That sounds pretty cool. Well, good news for you. The Biden administration is working hard to fill in that EV charging landscape. It's happening soon. The future is now. Yeah, really? I don't think I've actually even ever driven an electric vehicle. Well, more and more Americans are every day, Domenico.

That's what I hear. Your chance is coming soon. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover politics. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. So President Biden has yet to formally announce his re-election campaign, but he's just wrapped up a tour of sorts around the country following his State of the Union address,

and it kind of looked like campaign season. Through the American Rescue Plan, we're funding workforce development programs, including $128 million here in Wisconsin, so American workers prepare to compete in the economy we're building. This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America. And Domenico, what's kind of remarkable about all of this is that Biden isn't a particularly popular president right now if you're looking at his approval ratings. But at the same time, he's managed to

get a lot done legislatively, even with those close margins in Congress. How do we square those two things? What do you make of his standings right now? Obviously, his approval numbers haven't been great. But I think we're in this sort of age of hyper polarization, where, you know, a Democrat or Republican, no matter who they are, is going to get a pretty significant percentage of the vote in a presidential election. And it really is about a comparison between who Biden would be running against. And we certainly know there's a huge potential Republican field on the other side of things. So it's sort of two things happening at the same time. You've got one side of this where people think he's doing how they think he's doing his job. But then another side of it is the campaigning, which we haven't even

gotten to yet. I think one of the main things that you need to think about with how Biden and his team are kind of viewing the world is they are such big believers in the fact that that Biden is not going to be elected or not elected in a vacuum. They feel like when things get boiled down to a binary choice, that is often very good for Joe Biden, especially in this political environment of Donald Trump and Trumpism being so prevalent in the Republican Party. You know, like we're going to talk about issues with voters having concerns about his age. We could talk about his overall approval ratings. Neither of those are great when you look at the trends, but they feel like when it becomes a choice, it evens out, and they point to the midterms as, more often than not, Joe Biden is ahead when it becomes a binary choice. Dominico, I mean, when you look at the numbers, we're talking about Democratic voters specifically

here. What do they make of the president? Well, there's a couple things here because Democrats have actually increased in their approval of how they think the president's doing his job. He's had a string of legislative accomplishments. We've seen some of the intensity numbers go up, those people saying that they strongly approve of the job Biden is doing. At the same time, there is sort of this consensus among Democratic voters that they overall would prefer somebody else to run in 2024, but they don't know who that would be. So they're okay with Biden being that nominee, if that's the case, because a lot of Democratic strategists, frankly, who I talk to, they're concerned about Biden running, but they're also concerned about Biden not running because the bench just isn't great and the other potential Democrats don't really poll test that well. And Scott, we hear this concern all the time.

I feel like it gets brought up in the briefing room like once a week. Voters have kind of expressed this concerns about Biden's age. He is the oldest president to hold office. What have you been hearing from folks you've been talking to? Yeah, I've been working on a story this week. Biden's age feels like more top of mind at the moment because, first of all, like you said, he is so clearly signaling he's going to run for reelection. If he runs for a second term and wins at the end of that second term, he would be 86 years old. And the second thing is that Biden just got his physical this week. And actually, it was a pretty good physical, especially for somebody his age. He's in very good

health. He is physically active. An expert on aging, particularly presidential aging that I spoke to for the story, said that the biggest thing that jumped out to him about this latest physical is that there were hardly any changes from previous years. There's nothing declining. There's nothing going in a bad direction. And he said that makes him think that Joe Biden is in really good, stable health for somebody of his age. And he says, I feel no reason to think that, you know, just because he would be four years older, that voters should leap to assumptions. But poll after poll after poll shows this is a concern. And I talked to Sarah Longwell, who's a Republican pollster who does a lot of focus groups. She does focus groups, particularly with swing voters,

people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, shifted their vote to Joe Biden in 2020. And I listened in to part of a focus group that she did right after the State of the Union. And she said, this is typical. This is a group that by and large likes Joe Biden. They thought the speech was good. But without being asked, they just bring up the fact they feel like he's too old and they feel like they don't want him to run again. but his age is getting really up there. I agree with David. Do we want to elect a president and then have him die in office? And then even if he runs with Harris again and then he dies in office, and then she's our president now.

Give that man a break. Yeah, give that man a break, I feel like really sums up a lot. Because a lot of it is coming from voters who, again, like Joe Biden, they just have some concerns. To Domenico's earlier point, like the bench isn't exactly very deep. There are definitely some other concerns there as well. But how is the White House responding to this? What does Biden's team say? about a little bit before that when it comes down to a choice, they feel like voters will set those concerns aside and back him after all. And first of all, there's no democratic alternative. There's no clear choice that these people are saying, I'd rather have so-and-so. And second of all, and I think this focus group particularly got to this point at the beginning, who wants Joe Biden

to run again? Three of the nine people raised their hands at the end. Okay. So if it's Joe Biden against Donald Trump, who votes for Joe Biden? Nine of the nine raised their hands. So the Biden White House feels like these people will come on board if he's the nominee. And the second point is something that Biden office says himself. I talked to Kate Bedingfield, the communications director, and she said the test of whether the president is capable of being president is watching the president be president. So they feel like just Joe Biden being out there day in, day out helps their case. I mean, there's days when you can argue that's the case. The State of the Union, I thought, was like a pretty strong speech from Biden, particularly that back and forth with House Republicans. There's other days where he,

you know, has a lot of stumbles in a speech. He, of course, has dealt with the speech impediment his entire life or just frankly looks like somebody who has a very hard job and is 80 years old, which is what he is right now. I think it speaks to the fact of the kind of campaign they're likely to run, pick their spots for Biden to be able to look the best he possibly can. And he was able to do voters, the kind of people who he was able to win over in 2020 and hopes to win again in 2024. Yeah, and you can also tell that Biden himself, you know, that's a line we often hear from him is, is watch me, right? He says that all the time.

And even yesterday, after his physical, he gets off Marine One and is jogging back into the White House. So you definitely see that show of force, if you will, from the president himself sometimes. Which was risky because it was pouring rain. I was not able to run on grass yesterday. I don't even think I would go jogging in the rain. That is not a great move. All right, Scott, don't go far. We will come talk to you in a bit. And when we get back, we'll talk the Republican field. And we're back with a friend of the pod, Clay Masters of Iowa Public Radio. Hey, Clay. Hey, Deepa. Okay, so it's that time again, at least two major Republicans have

declared they're running for president. For a strong America, for a proud America, I am running for president of the United States of America. In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States. And that's former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, and of course, former President Donald Trump. And Clay, you've been on the ground in Iowa, seeing some of these candidates talking to voters. Who are some of the other big names that we should be keeping tabs on? Well, a lot of last year in 2022, you were seeing some come to Iowa. They're doing that kind of

dance that candidates do where even if they're not running for president officially, they're making trips to Iowa, getting in front of voters, talking to donors, honing those stump speeches. And we saw a little bit of that last year, but it was very quiet after the midterm election was done. Former President Donald Trump, of course, announced that he's running. And finally, we're starting to see what journalists here in Iowa usually see this time of the year. It feels really early, but this is when you start seeing candidates that might have presidential stars in their eyes show up. So this last week, former Vice President Mike Pence was here. We're going to see Nikki Haley

on Monday make a couple of trips to Iowa. And then South Carolina Senator Tim Scott also has trips planned for Wednesday around Iowa. And that's what you can kind of expect. This is kind of the traditional game plan that comes forward in Iowa. And, of course, Republicans are sticking with that early calendar as Democrats are devising a new plan for starting off their presidential race. Iowa Democrats obviously had that very high-profile flop that botched Iowa caucus, the longest week of our lives, that happened in the last cycle, and that basically made them change up the calendar

and put South Carolina first instead. But Republicans here are keeping their first contest in Iowa. It's a state that's been trending more and more red, right, Clay? That's right. So this state that voted twice for Barack Obama then turned around and voted for Donald Trump twice. This state also in the last midterm election, the last Democrat in Congress from Iowa was replaced by a Republican. And there were two longtime state office holders who were defeated as well. So the Republicans that are coming to the state are coming to a very friendly Republican state. And there's a lot of people who will be

participating in the caucuses that are going to be trying to make up their mind throughout the year. Okay, so like you mentioned, if the state is trending more red, then it means that Republicans are sort of in more comfortable territory here. So, Domenico, what kinds of messages are GOP candidates focusing on? Well, I think some of the things that Republicans are going to be talking about and have obviously already done that in the midterms and as they're heading out on the campaign trail, you know, talking about the economy, inflation, still trying to peg that to President Biden, you know, immigration. Republicans have certainly moved more so to hardline stances on immigration. Crime is going to be a big piece of this as well. And also gender. It's a major cultural touchstone

that a lot of Republicans have told me, and I've seen in some polling that they've been circulating amongst themselves, about how they feel that talking about gender, kids, and the kinds of pronouns that they use, school districts and their acceptance of that, they feel like that kind of thing is a wedge cultural issue that they can pick at Democrats on because Democrats, they feel, haven't really figured out a message on it. And that's a good point that Domenico brings up. I mean, that's why Mike Pence made this trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There was a local school district where some parents have sued, Linmar Community School District, over a policy adopted last year

allowing students there to use a gender-affirming name or pronouns without including their parents. So Pence was there the day that that was moving through the federal appeals court in Minnesota where they were hearing arguments, and he was there saying that, you know, this isn't bad policy. In his words, this is crazy. Across the country, parents' rights are being trampled by a politically correct nanny state that's ruining our schools and telling parents they have no role in their child's education. So I am here to say on behalf of families in Iowa and on behalf of conservative organizations who are fighting this in court today, we are going to

defend parents' rights and the children of Iowa and America. You know, look, this is one of those issues that Republicans have been talking about for quite a while in Republican circles, and it's something that they're road testing not just to use in the Republican primary but is going to become an issue that they feel is really a strong cultural wedge issue that favors them in a general election. We'll see how that goes. the Republicans that are coming to the state are trying to look for ways to talk about these kinds of issues to separate themselves and stand out from former President Donald Trump, who is still a fairly popular figure within the Republican Party. And it's interesting also, you guys, like when you talk about the Republican field from 2016, you remember how crowded it was. And that kind of helped Trump in a way sort of stand out, kind of rise to the top. Is that something that you think could happen again? That's something that's already been

brought up already, the idea that if this Republican field in 2024 gets crowded, the same thing could happen. Yeah, we're again talking about the potential for a ceiling for Donald Trump. We've seen his favorability ratings start to decline among Republicans, especially Republican-leaning independents, who are starting to kind of look elsewhere. It's why you heard Nikki Haley talk about generational change leading into age, for example, because Trump is 76 years old. It's also a dig at Biden, of course. But there are half a dozen to a dozen potential Republican candidates or more in this field. And clearly, Trump has a significant chunk of the Republican base that

aligns with him. I would say a co-frontrunner, if he gets in, is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Whether his bubble can maintain that buzz is yet to be seen. Obviously, there's been other Republican governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who had his star rise and then fall. And we saw that throughout the 2016 primary race against Trump. So this is shaping up to be a real fight with a lot of different candidates. And these candidates who have their own pollsters clearly see Trump as vulnerable, especially after the 2022 midterm elections where a lot of his candidates lost. And to Domenico's point, I mean, the people that I've been talking to at some of these rallies, they've been saying, you know, we like the former president.

We think he did good things in their eyes. But, you know, I talked to one guy who said that there are a lot of people he knows that just think that there is too much drama and it's time to move on. Another woman said that she liked Nikki Haley. She was interested to see who other candidates might appear and could be worth supporting. And I should note also, too, that leaders here, the elected officials in Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds, I talked to former Governor Terry Branstad, who was Trump's U.S. ambassador to China. They have said that it's very important that they don't endorse somebody early, that they let these candidates come here. And they're concerned, especially with the Democrats wanting

to be done with Iowa. They want to make sure that 2024 goes well for the Republican caucuses so that they can, you know, hang on to it moving forward because it's a good party building thing for both Republicans and Democrats historically here in the state. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, we're going to leave it there. Clay Masters, thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome. Thanks. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go. This is the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we

just can't stop talking about, politics or otherwise. Scott Detrow is back with us. Hey, Scott. Hello, I'm back, and I truly cannot let something go this week, which is always exciting. Oh, we love that. I can't wait to hear it. But I'm going to start. My clique is actually kind of political this week, which is a departure for me. I usually do something silly like fat bears. But this week, Nikki Haley, who is an Indian American woman, announced she was running for president in 2024. And there's been this

conversation that's been ongoing, I mean, for a while now, ever since Nikki Haley's been in politics. And it's not typically a new conversation, but there are folks who are all up in arms about something Nikki Haley said in her speech, which was talking about how America is not a racist country. And if you look at the Twitter sphere, people were saying like, oh, if Nikki Haley doesn't think America is racist, then why did she change her name to Nikki? And the thing that I can't let go of is that Nikki is her name. It's her middle name. It's literally on her birth certificate. Nikki is also like a pet name in Punjabi.

It means little one. And so I just think this is a conversation that, you know, we've had with someone like Bobby Jindal, someone like Kamala Harris, and we're having it again with Nikki Haley. And I just, my click is that, you know, there's a lot of things to criticize about people who are running for office, but their names and the way they pronounce their names, maybe not at the top of the list for me. I think we can inject like a healthy dose of nuance into this conversation. And or Google for 22 seconds before you fire off your hot take, perhaps. Yeah, exactly. That's always a good point. And I do think this is going to become a broader

conversation. And this is part of why having more diverse candidates on the national stage is a good thing thing because it gets the country to be able to open up and talk about the kinds of things that they probably wouldn't talk about or know about if they were just cloistered to their own, you know, various ethnic groups. I mean, Deepa, we both covered the Kamala Harris campaign, and I feel like there were dozens of points where one, she would say something in particular or something about her life would come out, and there would be like just kind of a real time conversation among reporters realizing that they were kind of like, you know, oversimplifying something or not quite understanding the concept just because Kamala Harris has a background that up until very recently, people did not end up in the national stage with. No, not at all. And I think to your point earlier, Domenico, about diversity of candidates, I think it also underscores the importance of a diverse press corps, right? And the people who are covering these campaigns should also be able to bring

that to the table as they kind of report this out all over the country. Yeah, I mean, all that was underscored by the fact that the Harris campaign even had to put out an ad explaining how to pronounce her name. Okay, Domenico, what can you not let go of this week? I can't let go of love. Well, let's look at it this way. There was apparently a couple that got engaged in DC. Not really that shocking. It got put into Playbook, the Politico newsletter, which happens. These were two legislative-minded policy people in DC. So fine. But someone raised where they got engaged, and that was at Dan's Cafe. This is a bar in Adams Morgan, a neighborhood in DC that's pretty popular with younger people here and college kids, which I was not familiar with. And it's probably because

it's apparently a haven for people who don't want love. It's very much a singles bar and very much a dive. And people started to question, really? This is where these people got engaged? There was a parody account of Dan's Cafe that went out and said, we are aware of an alleged recent incident involving an engagement at our establishment. We're deeply sorry and we'll do our best to ensure it does not happen again. They promised to reduce bathroom and floor cleanings, leave champagne uncorked for a significant amount of time. And, you know, so make sure that our degenerate customers will once again feel at home in our bar. Found that

kind of interesting. I don't know if you guys have been to this bar or not. I have not. Yeah, I was going to say, Domenico, what are your plans tonight? Because we're taking you to Dance Cafe. You've got to experience this. It has been many years since I went there, but I have frequented this establishment a long time ago. So in trying to learn about what this bar was like, I went on TripAdvisor, which is

always pretty good for this kind of thing. And this is great. This person said, it's definition of a hole in the wall, reminiscent of a college frat house basement, dimly lit, packed with people, sticky floor, with pool tables and chairs covered with massive tarps to keep everything from being drenched in alcohol. This person then said that they were sick with the flu for nearly three weeks after that. So I think this place is kind of gross. Although this person also gave it three out of five stars still.

Yeah. We'll take you, but we'll put you in a hazmat suit before we go. Yeah, I'll take the hazmat suit. Yeah, yeah. That sounds gross. All right, Scott, what about you? I feel like sometimes with Can't Let It Go, there's a thing that's kind of funny, and there's a thing that I truly have brought up to every single person I've talked to,

like shaking people in the street, like, have you heard about this? And that is this. Deepa, you and I both covered different angles of the wonderful UFO storyline. We were both in the press room for wild moments. You were there last week when they said, we can confirm we shot down an unidentified flying object over Alaska. And that was quite the moment, wasn't it? It was.

Well, yesterday, as we talked about in the podcast, President Biden came out and said, perhaps some of these objects that were shot down over the last weekend were benign. Perhaps they were not much threats at all. Shortly after that, our White House editor, Roberta Rampton, put into our Slack channel an article from Aviation Week written by Steve Trimble, and I am just going to read the headline and read the first few paragraphs for you, okay? Headline, Hobby Club's Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down by the U.S. Air Force. Oh, my God. A small, globetrotting balloon declared missing in action by an Illinois-based hobbyist club on February 15th has emerged as a candidate to explain one of the three mystery objects shot down by four heat-seeking missiles launched by the U.S. Air Force fighters since February 10th.

The club, the Northern Illinois Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade, or NIBBB for short, is not pointing fingers yet. But the circumstantial evidence is at least intriguing. The club's silver-coated party-style picot balloon reported its last position on February 10th at 38,910 feet off the west coast of Alaska. Oh my god. You probably can't see my eyes rolling in the back of my head, or maybe you can. But I'm calling this week the Great American Balloon Freakout, because this was clearly an overreaction by the White House and President Biden to Republican criticism that he wasn't strong enough, had to shoot this balloon out of the air, they got the Chinese spy balloon, and then they're shooting everything else out of the air with, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rockets. I have a serious point, and then I have a not serious point.

Go for it. Which would you like first? Both. So on the serious front, it kind of felt like almost like a farcical version of like the war on terror in a one-week span of like something happened, America freaked out, suddenly, you know, amateur kid weather balloons are being shot out of the sky

by multi-million dollar jets. But let's have a moment of silence. And again, this is not confirmed. This is just a balloon that happened to be flying at the exact same frequency in this exact same location on the exact same day. And almost the exact same altitude. They said 40,000 feet. So perhaps I truly in an hour, I am thrilled to ask about this at the briefing. But K9YO, let's have a moment of silence, launched October 10th, 2022. It had made six trips around the globe before it was possibly shot out of the sky by an F-22. Oh my God. All right. That is a wrap for us today. Our executive producer is Mathoni Mathuri. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers on the podcast are Elena Moore and Casey Morrell.

Research and fact-checking by our intern, Devin Speak. Thanks to Krishna Dev Kalamer, Brandon Carter, and Lexi Schipittel. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover politics. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House and missing balloons. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

Have you seen a story in Aviation Week that an Illinois hobby club feels like their balloon might have been a candidate for the balloon shop? I have actually met a person for it. Any response to that? Because it's a very particular location in the last set of data that they got? Yeah, we just can't confirm those reports or what the remains of that balloon might actually end up being.