Dan Litman joins us now from Politico. Dan, your thoughts about Joe Biden and the media suddenly realizing he's got problems? Yeah, I think it's a long time coming and the conservative media is kind of taking a victory lap because they say, hey, if you look at all these gaps he's had over the years, that the signs were there, but that it was all crystallized with this debate performance. And remember, this was a debate that Biden wanted.
I know. He wanted it very early because he is losing the swing states, he's losing nationally, and he has been since basically the start of this campaign. And so he wanted to kind of change the narrative and make some momentum, and it backfired on him. So Dan, there's a couple of things going on right now. This afternoon, some key senators are meeting, especially those in tough fights like Montana, in Pennsylvania, and in Michigan. They're going to be meeting behind closed doors to find out what their options are because Joe Biden is obviously not stepping away. And right now, the House Caucus is meeting behind closed doors to decide where they're going.
Nine members, six publicly, the most high ranking one that I know of is Adam Smith, said that Joe Biden should step aside. And then the question is, what would be next? Kamala Harris is likely, I don't know how you step past her. They're talking about having a blitz primary where everyone pitches their wares. James Carville comes, I have an idea, have Bill Clinton and Barack Obama preside over the top nominees, let them fight it out in some type of reality show situation where they pick a candidate and they sprint to the finish against Donald Trump.
Seems implausible. Your thoughts about what's going to be different at the end of today as opposed to yesterday? So we're going to try to we're going to wait to see if there's any more Democrats who come out publicly. The issue is, if only if there's only a trickle by the end of this week, then Biden is probably going to be safe.
You know, it really has to be a mass of Democrats. And they're all kind of having to hold their hands and jump into the deep end because think of it in terms of if you're a Democrat who wants access to the administration and the White House, if Biden, for whatever reason, wins reelection, then your political career could be imperiled because the White House is not going to do you any favors if you took a shot at the king and missed. And so, you know, there's still dozens of congressmen who are still stepping behind Biden and have not called on him to leave. And they're all going to be watching this press conference on Thursday to see if he makes any stumbles and if he can appear strong enough. But the issue is most Americans were watching the debate last week and a half ago.
They're not watching the NATO summit and how Biden does. So they're kind of, you know, if there's another debate, maybe he has another chance to reset expectations. But the thing is, as you know, it isn't Barack Obama having a bad debate or George W. Bush losing to John Kerry in the first debate. It was the failings, the befuddlement, the confusion. So, I mean, that's what threw people. Not that you lost the debate.
That's like going out in a game and, you know, and being a Super Bowl champion losing to the worst team of the league. You had a bad day. But you wonder if he's incapable. And we see behind closed doors European leaders, diplomats, New York magazine story about people looking him in the eye and say he's 40 percent not there, not being able to go meet with world leaders because he's too tired.
And then you watched all the press corps, Dana, you must have flipped out watching some of this scrum yesterday. Listen to this cut seven. Well, I can tell you this. Just going back to Parkinson's for a little bit. So to give you some answers here, has the president been treated for Parkinson's? No. Is he being treated for Parkinson's? No, he's not. Is he taking medication for Parkinson's? No.
So those are the things that I can give you full blown answers on. But I'm not going to I'm not going to confirm a specialist, any specialist that comes to comes to the White House. He signed the public log book. It's a Parkinson's specialist that is Kevin Connors. Evidently, his Joe Biden's doctor was there present as well.
So if you come eight straight weeks, you have eight visits to the White House. And then when you do an interview with George Stephanopoulos, you'll hold a pen in your hand and some people say you do that when you have tremors and then you leave your press secretary out there to say he doesn't have Parkinson's. This is you had you have probably had seven separate reporters ask the same question.
And they're now angry, Dan. Have you ever said anything like it? Not since the Trump administration, when combative press briefings. Yeah. Every day. Yeah.
Every day they stopped holding them. But the issue is both policy wise and also political. If you're the White House and the campaign talking about whether your candidate has Parkinson's, then the conversation and the focus of the campaign is not on Donald Trump and not on the opponent. It's not on his policy plans. It's not on the calls for tariffs that might tank the economy that economists say. It's not on whether he, you know, you know, has promised to be dictator on day one that, you know, even though he said he was joking, of course. But none of that matters when you're talking about the president's health. You can't really talk about, you know, but you can't really hear Biden talk about all of the bills he's passed, all the laws he's passed and, you know, record low unemployment. That's not being talked about right now.
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That's 800-2040-239. Right. I mean, there's issues there, too, with the infrastructure deal.
What's been done? There's been eight terminals. You want to make this electric cars, but something like only 70% of these terminals work, period. And then you find out that electric cars are falling off a cliff and you don't want to mine with your new green deal.
You want to go get it from other countries. You can't even dive into an issue and debate it back and forth because people just say, is the president failing? So I want to bring you to some other things. I feel bad for this. Andrea Lawful Sanders. So she gets a call that the president of the United States, she's a black radio host, and wants to get in touch with the black audience that he's losing. Not entirely, but Mitt Romney at 8% of the black vote. This president, this President Trump might have as much as 25% of the votes, so he's got to work on them. And this woman answers this question when asked about the interview she did with the president.
Cut 13. Were those questions given to you by the White House or did you have for the campaign or did you have to submit questions ahead of this interview? The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved them. Okay, so the White House sent the questions to you ahead of the interview? Yes. Okay.
I got several questions, eight of them, and the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved. She got fired. So for the White House to think they can manipulate like that, I just, I have no idea who this woman is.
I just watched her on television and I'm saying to myself, now she can't do anything about it. Now she gets fired because the president demands a script. The president calls into Morning Joe and was flipping through papers. We don't know what papers they were, but I think it's kind of odd to call into a show and have to refer to papers. And we hear they're shuffling back and forth.
What's your reaction to some of this carnage on his rehab tour? Yeah, well, the White House is, or the campaign has not, has said that it's not going to be sending questions anymore to radio hosts. This seems like political malpractice that it's not like they're going to ask them about section, you know, 35B of the inflation reduction act. This is, you know, the radio host should not have done the interview. You know, even though it's great to get a presidential interview, but if I was given a interview with any politician and when I do, I never ask for, Hey, what questions should I ask? So it's like, you know, that is, there are consequences, but the, the campaign, you know, they were taking a risk when they were sending those questions, because I guess they just assume that person would not answer truthfully or not go on CNN to be asked about the source of these questions. And this came, this comes right after, or right around the time of the Stephanopoulos interview.
And so that is just, you know, I had scratching behavior by everyone involved. But I just feel, you know, all of a sudden you're Andrea Lawful Sanders, you're at a radio station and you get a call from the White House and they say, would you like to speak to the president? Says yes. And here are the eight questions.
Okay, great. You don't even realize probably you almost, this is a, this is a career defining moment you brought to the national spotlight. I just feel bad for a person like that. Of course, instinctively, you should say no, but I mean, I just feel now all of a sudden she's out of a job. By Saturday, she's out of a job.
And I must say, I know nothing about her. I'm just sitting there going, oh my goodness, how many more bodies are going to be in his wake? The, no, it's, it's, it's really sad that that happened. And, you know, Biden has just not been very accessible. So he's doing, you know, in, he's doing a press conference on Thursday, but he has not really done many press conferences. And so people can hate Trump, love Trump, but at least we got to know what was on his mind almost too much when he was tweeting and his staff were saying, what, what is he doing? Why is he firing cabinet members via, you know, the, the White House lawn?
And so it was just, you know, almost too much access. Not the whole job is not to be talking to the media, but there is a balance to be struck. And the White House aides were insulating Biden to the extent that a lot of people did not know that he was less with it, publicly, you know, in perception-wise. Dan Libman doing the reporting with Politico. So Dan, you think if the president gets to the end of the week and he still has a job, he keeps it.
Am I correct? He keeps the nominee. You know, it's not, there's not, Congress is going to be out of session next week with the Republican convention. I think that he has to get through Friday without more Democrats, but a majority of the Senate, Senate Democrats don't want him to run for reelection, but they are too scared to say that publicly just yet.
That may change. But as of now, he had a really good day yesterday in terms of keeping people on his side. So David Axelrod reports this real quick. He says, Trump's not talking much about Biden's bad debate. Trump's campaign is not blitzing ads about it.
Lara Trump last week would be an affront to democracy if Biden were not the nominee. Question, why do you think they're uncharacteristically holding fire? I know the answer and Axelrod knows the answer. It's because they want Biden, right?
Final thought? They do. They do much better with Biden than any other candidate, and they are smart political operations.
So they are keeping their mouth shut. Dan, it's going to be an exciting week. I look forward to reading, reading what you, what you report. Dan Libman, Politico. Thank you. Thanks, Brian.
