The NPR Politics Podcast - Voters Question Biden's Mental Fitness For Second Term

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

The latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll shows more than six in 10 Americans are concerned about President Biden's mental fitness, but his approval rating has increased four points from last month's survey. The poll also explored attitudes toward the debt ceiling, and to issues surrounding gun control. We dig into the numbers, and make sense of them. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. 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

Hello, this is Penny, Nora, and Daniel. We are recording this during Super Typhoon Maui on Guam. The time is 1.20 p.m. on Wednesday, May 24th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Hopefully ensuring the power coming back on. Okay, here's the show. Stay safe there in Guam. We need to hear from Penny and Nora and Daniel again.

Yeah, let us know. Just remember, you can always listen to the radio when the power goes out. You know, get those batteries. Guam has a public radio station. Oh. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And President Biden's approval rating is up, according to the latest NPR-PBS NewsHour Marist poll. But a majority of Americans say they're worried about his mental fitness. Biden, of course, is the oldest person to hold the office, and he'd be 82 at the time of his possible second inauguration. Domenico, you're our poll guy. So break down Biden's standing right now for us. Yeah, it's interesting because his approval rating is up to 45 percent.

It was 41 percent last month. You know, it's fairly middling, but that's not bad for, you know, our kind of hyper polarized. 45 sounds pretty good in the modern era. Exactly. You know, so that's Trump, I think, was rarely at that point, to be honest with you. Well, when we asked about mental fitness and whether you thought President Biden was mentally fit to be president, to do the job, to carry out the job as president, 63 percent said that it was a real concern and not something that was just kind of a strategy from the other side. And we've seen tons of attacks from Republicans and conservatives along these lines. And with a significant portion of the population, it is sticking. And though this also includes almost four in 10 Democrats who have some concerns as well.

Let's talk about Democrats for a second, because part of this is important, because it's not like the party's out there super hungry for some alternative. You know, they don't want Pete Buttigieg. They don't want Kamala Harris. They're sort of happy with Biden, even as many of them question his ability to serve. That's the thing. You know, you see it in focus groups. You listen to – we talk to voters and they'll say, is this the best we have between Biden and Trump?

And why do we have to have people that are so old? Because both would be older than the oldest president to ever be sworn in previously, which was Ronald Reagan in his second term when he was only 73, which seems pretty young now comparatively. So they always ask that question. But then when you look at the alternative, and we've asked, we've polled about Vice President Kamala Harris, we've polled about Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. And, you know, Biden still fares better with the general public and even among Democrats better liked. in this context of this criticism about Joe Biden, to also make the point that it has been a near constant line of attack against him from his political opponents, from former President

Trump, from Republicans in Congress, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, from right-wing media. There's memes about Biden and his age. It seems to have had an effect in shaping public opinion about the president. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt about that. I mean, he gets asked about it a lot. He was asked about it, you know, just this spring at a recent press conference. You know, he's asked about it last year. Often he's asked about it. Every time we ask the White House about these questions, you know, they get pretty defensive about it. You know, it is a concern of theirs. They like to say that they point to his kind of vigorous schedule and the accomplishments that he's made, all the bipartisan legislation that was passed. They talk about how he sparred with Republicans at the State of the

Union address. But they know that it's a vulnerability and they're trying to do everything they can to kind of counter that. It's also interesting to me that I see how the White House gets irritated when reporters ask about it. But in public, the president seems to be often attempting to acknowledge it by making jokes about it. Yeah, I think that's really, you know, really been the case most recently after, you know, announcing his run for reelection. And, you know, I think it's another just acknowledgement that he knows this is an issue and it's going to continue to be an issue. I mean, basically, he's, you know, joking about it. I mean, he kind of is taking this new tact. For example, at the White House

Correspondents Dinner, you know, just a few weeks ago, he took several jabs at himself at his age. He talked about Rupert Murdoch of Fox News, and he questioned how anyone would think that he wouldn't like Rupert Murdoch. You know, how could that be possible when Rupert Murdoch made him look like Harry Styles? You know, he said, you know, you may call me old. I call it being seasoned. You say I'm ancient. I say I'm wise. You know, so he's trying to inject some humor into all this. I mean, he old. He would be in, I think he would crack 80 if he were elected to a second term. Did the poll ask about how they see his mental fitness for the job? We did. And for Trump, his mental fitness is not just about his age, but for his temperament, his persistent lies, and a host of other things. A slim majority, 51%, said that they too think that there are real concerns about Trump's mental fitness, but clearly that's a dozen points lower than for President Biden.

And when you look at a couple factors here, the bases, right, you know, you have 36% of Democrats saying that they have real concerns about Biden's mental fitness to be president. Only 21 percent of Republicans saying that about Trump, so much more likely to rally around him. But independence is where this is really key and where the White House certainly is targeting to feel like that this is there, who's going to determine who wins the election. Sixty-nine percent of independents said that they have real concerns about Biden's mental fitness as compared to 48 percent for Trump. But, you know, it's not necessarily going to just come down to this question of mental fitness. There are a whole other lot of factors here. And the White House is banking, frankly, on Trump being their best alternative to help him across the finish line

because of just how toxic Trump is with independence on a slew of other things. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about the poll when we get back. And we're back. And today is the one year anniversary of the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 kids and two teachers. And our polling, Domenico, suggests that more people want to see action on gun violence than they have in past years. Yeah, you know, we asked that. We asked whether people thought it was more important to control gun violence as opposed to protect gun rights. And 60 percent said that they think it's

more important to control gun violence. That's the highest in the 10 years that Marist has been asking this question. And we've seen a real shift, particularly among Democrats over those last 10 years when we've seen a spate of mass shootings. Democrats back in 2013, about 74 percent said that they think it's more important to control gun violence. Now it's up to 88%. You also did see some movement among Republicans, though. They're up about nine points on this question, even though about two-thirds of them still say that they side with protecting gun rights. I was reading through the poll, and one of the things that struck me was maybe there is a greater

majority for doing something about gun violence, but there's no majority for any one idea on how to fix it. And many Americans don't think anything at all will work. Right. And that's where it's really important to sort of drill down. And obviously, the big question is around banning assault style weapons and semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 rifle. And there's just no consensus here. That was Democrats' top choice for what they think would reduce gun violence. 44% of Democrats said that. But only 1 in 10 Republicans were in favor of banning the AR-15 or thought that it would make a difference in reducing gun violence. And that was the widest difference that we saw for any of

these other issues. Republicans know, Republicans thought that screening for mental illness for all gun buyers was their top pick, followed by arming teachers in schools, which we know Democrats and gun control advocates are very much against. I mean, you put all those things together, though. You're talking about banning semi-automatic assault weapons, mental health screenings, red flag laws, allowing teachers to carry guns. But one out of five Americans say they don't think any of that would have an impact. That was pretty bleak to me. When you take all of those things, which, you know, there are measures of whether or not people think that those would have an impact or not.

And you have 20 percent or so of people saying they just don't think anything is going to work in this country. Franco, it just seems to also highlight very clearly why gun policy remains such an intractable issue in Washington. Everyone agrees it's a problem, but no one agrees on how to fix it. And in divided government, the bar for doing something is even higher. Yeah, they certainly don't. And, you know, and I think it also speaks to why there's such little will to make necessary changes in Washington and Congress, you know, and that's what's necessary for any of those kind of changes to happen. I will note, though, that, you know, Biden continues to insist that he's determined to ban assault weapons in high capacity magazines. Considering how well Democrats did in the midterms, Biden does seem more emboldened to talk about this and to talk about it in stronger language. And it also comes after passage last summer of a bipartisan bill on gun laws. I think

there's a big question whether they can do more. History certainly indicates that not much anytime soon, but it really does look like Biden is at least embracing the narrative that he's going to be pushing hard for it in the run-up to the to the reelection. And politically, you know, this poll really does reveal why that might be. And that's because when you ask about whether it's more important to control violence or protect gun rights, who does that appeal to most? Women, women, especially college educated white women, women who live in the suburbs. And that, we know, is a key demographic group that Biden needs to help him win re-election. One of the things I'm interested to watch about the 2024 presidential race is where gun issues fit in the national debate, if they do at all, because I was struck by, in the 2022 midterms,

how little guns were discussed in competitive races and in competitive campaigns. I'm not saying it wasn't discussed at all. But certainly in past elections, Democrats in particular have tried to make it more of an issue. And it was sort of a sleeper issue in the midterms. And maybe that could be true again about 2024. But especially in the states, you know, this small group of swing states where it could be an issue places like Arizona, Georgia, it'll be interesting to see how they campaign on it. What's fascinating also about this is when you talk about some of these states is that about 41% of people said that they have been affected by gun violence. Either they or someone they know has been threatened with a gun or shot. That's a stunning statistic.

Yeah. I mean, it's pretty fascinating. That is 20 points lower, though, than those who said that they or someone they know has had an abortion, when you remember when we did that polling, which could tell you some reason why the abortion rights issue was as salient as it was in the last midterm, you know, as opposed to the division we're seeing over guns. But one thing really kind of jumped out at me here. When you look at states that have more lax gun laws, they're more likely to have been affected by gun violence. And that is something that I think a lot of Democrats and gun control advocates are going to use to say, you know, this is why it's important

to have more gun restrictions. Domenico, the poll also looked at the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations. Not particularly surprising that it seems to be a bit of a partisan split on who would be to blame if they don't get a deal. Yep, definitely a partisan split there on who would get the blame. No one gets the lion's share, but there's plenty of blame to go around. One thing that jumped out to me, though, is that by nine points, independents say that they would blame Biden more than Republicans, which may give you an indication as to why the White House, after months of saying it wouldn't negotiate, is doing so now on an almost daily basis. Well, that makes sense, though, I would think, Franco, because the economy,

generally speaking, people look to the president to be the steward of the economy. Yeah. I mean, no question about it. I mean, Biden, of course, is arguing over and over again that it's Congress's responsibility to raise the debt limit. But he is the president, and whether he likes it or not, it is his economy. And again, we can't repeat this enough, he is running for re-election in 2024, and a lot of his success will be determined on how well the economy is doing. So there's a lot at stake. This is a very high-stakes negotiation, but it's high stakes because the threat of default is real. But if Washington is able to cut a bipartisan deal and a default is headed off and it's smoothed down, it's hard for me to see the debt ceiling and this negotiation playing a critical role a year and a half from now unless we go into crisis territory.

I think that's fair, too. But, I mean, let's remember back in 2011, they did not even hit the debt ceiling. They're just a few days away and they did not default, butumbles considerably, if Main Street feels it as well, then that's going to have ripple effects into voting too. All right, that's it for us today. But we should note that tonight, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to make it official and enter the 2024 presidential race. And we'll be back in your feeds tomorrow to talk about that. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.