Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Democratic voters’ concerns over Biden’s bid for 2nd term

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• Amna Nawaz:

  As President Biden returns from a trip abroad, he's facing new political headwinds at home. Democratic voters are expressing concerns about his bid for a second term, and House Republicans are ramping up calls for an impeachment inquiry.

  Here to discuss is our Politics Monday team. That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

  Welcome to you both. Great to see you.

• Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

  Good to see you.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So we talk a lot about the Republican side of the 2024 race. We're going to focus on the Democratic side today, and specifically how voters are looking at that race.

  I know you both saw a couple of questions I want to put to you from a CNN poll last week. The first one asked Americans, does President Biden have the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president? Twenty-six percent said yes; 74 percent said no. Among Democrats on that question, they are split 50/50. Finally, when they ask people, who should Democrats nominate in 2024, 66 percent said someone other than Biden.

  Meantime, at the same time these polls are coming out, Mr. Biden was heading overseas for the G20 and the Biden campaign released this ad.

• Announcer:

  In the middle of a war zone, Joe Biden showed the world what America is made of. That's the quiet strength of a true leader who doesn't back down to a dictator.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Tam, when you talk to White House sources, supporters of Mr. Biden, what do they say about the polls and why that ad right now?

• Tamara Keith:

  They're pretty dismissive of the polls, the ones who are paid to work for President Biden.

  However, I did talk to David Axelrod, who's a former adviser to former President Obama. And it was for a story I was working on about an adaptation that the Biden White House has made, but they're not talking about, which is that, more frequently than not, President Biden is taking a shorter, more stable set of stairs in and out of Air Force One, instead of the taller ceremonial stairs that presidents traditionally take.

  So he has started, since he had a fall, taking these stairs more frequently, much more frequently. So I talked to David Axelrod for that story. And he said, if Joe Biden were 15 or 20 years younger, he would not have a worry at all about his reelection chances, because of his policy accomplishments and what he's done as president.

  But he's 80 years old. And so David Axelrod and many other Democrats you talk to have these concerns. I will say about that ad, that was an ad where it was officially about foreign policy.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Right.

• Tamara Keith:

  But that was like the political version of a Built Ford Tough ad.

  That was the White House message and the official line we're going to hear again and again is: Watch me. That's Biden's message: Watch me.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And you hear him say that again and again, right?

• Tamara Keith:

  Yes. And when he goes out and goes to a Pella (ph) dog yoga studio and does Pilates and rides his — rides a spin bike, he makes sure you know about it.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

  Yes.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Amy, who is that ad for? Who are they talking to right now?

• Amy Walter:

  Well, a lot of it is talking to Democrats, which this is the point in the campaign where you're the incumbent president. You're making sure you're shoring up your base, and especially a base, as you pointed out in this polling, where 50 percent of your own voters say that they think that your age is an issue and have worries about this.

  The other thing I thought was really telling in that poll was, who should Democrats nominate? Sixty-six percent said somebody other than Biden.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Amy Walter:

  But then when you ask the follow-up, like, OK, great, well, who would that be, nobody.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Right. Yes.

• Amy Walter:

  Nobody gets more than 3 or 3 percent in an open-ended question there, which goes to the challenge for anybody who thinks, well, maybe I should take on Joe Biden.

  There's not a — there's not somebody sitting and waiting in the wings that Democrats are super excited about. What they do know is what they see. And they see a man who's in his 80s, who walks slowly, who has the gait of somebody who's an older person, who in press conferences will sometimes go off-script.

  That's what they see. And you can't tell voters that they're not seeing what they see.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Speaking of what voters see, our Judy Woodruff, who's been reporting as part of her Crossroads project, sat down and observed a focus group of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania. Some of these same issues came up.

  So just take a listen to what some of those voters had to say. We will talk after this.

• Woman:

  How many of you are concerned about Joe Biden's age? Just you four? You're good, you think?

• Lisa, Pennsylvania Democrat:

  It's tough. And I'm not going to — I will bring Trump up again. Age-wise, they're up there. But even though he's a bully, he doesn't falter. He doesn't mumble. He doesn't falter. He doesn't fall off the steps. I mean, Biden does.

  So, for me, age is never a factor unless you physically can't do something or verbally can't get across what you want to say.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, to be clear there, she was making — drawing the difference between former President Trump, who she was referring to as a bully, and President Biden.

  But, Amy, what's your reaction to hearing that voter?

• Amy Walter:

  It's what we hear from pretty much any Democrat that you talk to, whether it's those — even those who privately donors and higher-ups in the party are saying the same thing, which is, we're very concerned about this.

  And I think, for so many of these voters, the next question is, OK, what will you do in November of 2024? Does that mean that you won't support Joe Biden? I sat in on a different set of Democratic voters earlier this summer who also were somewhat disaffected about Biden for different reasons, mostly his age. And they said, well, a second Biden term would probably be status quo. Not a lot is going to happen that is necessarily good, but nothing bad will happen.

  So, to them, it very much feels like, I don't really have a choice, because, if we don't have Biden, then we have Trump. And as long as Trump is in the picture, the existential threat is what is more important to them than Biden's age.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Tam, which leads to this question of the enthusiasm gap, right?

• Tamara Keith:

  Right.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Economy remains the biggest issue overall for most voters. But here's another clip I want to get your reaction to.

  Here's another clip from that focus group of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania.

• Woman:

  Raise your hand if you're glad Joe Biden's going to run in 2024.

  So, Ebony, why aren't you glad that Joe Biden is running again?

• Ebony, Pennsylvania Democrat:

  I feel like a lot of people who voted for Joe Biden, they felt like he was going to do a better job than Trump, and he really didn't do a better job.

  So, now it's kind of confusing, whereas, like, we already know what he has done now, so we don't know if he's going to do anything to support the country, because we really haven't seen a lot of change.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Tam, this goes to the point Amy was making, but there is a real lack of enthusiasm there. What does the White House say about that?

• Tamara Keith:

  What they say is that they need more time.

  They need — and I apologize. My voice is giving out. They need more time to tell the president's story, for his policies to take effect. As David Axelrod talked about when I was interviewing him, he said, look, the president has done all of these things. He's passed all of these bills, he's signed all of these bills.

  The challenge, though, is that many of them haven't taken effect, things like lowering prescription drug prices, allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. That is a huge accomplishment. And if it makes it through legal challenges, which are still outstanding, that would be a really big deal for a lot of people.

  That would happen in 2026. They have announced the drugs that they will negotiate on, but in terms of people actually feeling it, it's not there yet.

• Amy Walter:

  And same with infrastructure, the CHIPS act.

• Tamara Keith:

  Yes.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Amy Walter:

  Again, very popular, but people, when you ask them, what is their number one concern, it is cost of living.

  It's day-to-day costs of groceries and things like that. Obviously, inflation is still pinching a lot of voters. I think the other thing, you can't disconnect worries about his age and concerns about the economy. Why? Because people know that, for the next four years, if he's president of the United States, and they don't feel like he is going to have either the mental or the physical or the stamina to do that job, well, then what happens to the economy, right?

  So you can't separate the age question from the economy question, I don't think.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And, Amy, how do the Republican threats to ramp up this impeachment inquiry, how do they factor into all of that?

• Amy Walter:

  Well, I think they probably help Joe Biden, actually, because it rallies the base.

  More than anything else, we live in a world of negative partisanship, as we know. You may not love the person who's leading your team, but you definitely dislike the other team. So if they're attacking your person, you're going to rally around them. It'll also likely help to raise some money.

  And if you're one of the 18 Republicans — remember, the House is up for grabs too this year. If you're one of the 18 Republicans that sits in a Biden district, do you really want to go on record impeaching the person who won in your district, when you already are dealing with the difficulty it's likely to be if Trump is the nominee?

• Amna Nawaz:

  Tam, I will give you the last word here in the last 30 seconds.

• Tamara Keith:

  So, I interviewed Chris Christie, who's running for president on the Republican side. You can add him to the chorus of people that Amy is talking about who say the evidence isn't there yet for impeachment.

  And he says, sure, keep investigating, but calling an impeachment right now would be a mistake. And so, that said, I'm not sure that the president, the White House actually wants to endure the trauma that is impeachment and also the muddying that could occur about the high road and the contrast between Trump and Biden.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Tamara Keith and Amy Walter, thanks for breaking it all down with us. Always good to see you both.

• Amy Walter:

  Good to see you.

• Tamara Keith:

  Good to see you.

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