Clip: Biden takes executive action to protect abortion rights

Alcindor : This week started with yet another high-profile mass shooting. In Highland Park, Illinois, a man shot seven people to death at a July 4 parade. And according to the Gun Violence Archive, over the holiday weekend, there were at least 11 mass shootings. That comes as the challenges facing the nation continue to mount. There’s a debate over gun laws, abortion politics, and historic inflation.

And this week, President Biden faced a rash of bad headlines, with Democrats questioning whether he is meeting the moment.

As an example, following the parade shooting, critics pointed to the president’s response as not forceful enough in contrast to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s open frustration.

Biden : We got a lot more work to do. We’ve got to get this under control.

Pritzker : If you’re angry today, I’m here to tell you be angry. I’m furious that yet more innocent lives were taken by gun violence.

Alcindor : Meanwhile, Republicans continue to focus on mental health issues rather than access to guns.

Joining me tonight to discuss this –

Sen, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) : I think yesterday’s shooting is an example of what the problem is. The problem is mental health, and these young men who seem to be inspired to commit these atrocities.

Alcindor : Joining me to discuss this and more, Michael Shear, White House correspondent for “The New York Times”, Jeff Zeleny, chief national affairs correspondent for CNN. And joining me here in studio, Laura Barron-Lopez, White House correspondent for “The PBS NewsHour”, and Josh Dawsey, political enterprise and investigations reporter for “The Washington Post”.

So, Laura, thank you for being here. Congratulations on the new gig.

Laura Barron-Lopez, White House Correspondent, PBS NewsHour : Thank you.

Alcindor : This was, of course, a surreal start to the week. I can’t even imagine people went to a July 4 parade and ended up running for their lives. Of course, though, the politics on this continue to be challenging. What do you hear from the White House and lawmakers about the shooting at other shootings that have happened recently that might lead to a renewed effort for even more gun legislation?

Barron-Lopez : It is difficult to see anything the president is calling for in addition to what was passed, you know, which was more expanded background checks, red flag laws. But what the president has called for are an assault weapons ban, you know, as well a ban on high-capacity magazines.

Those things don’t really have any Republican support in Congress. So, that’s why a lot of activists and Democrats in his own party are pushing them to do more executive actions.

Now, right now, the White House is very focused on getting there nominee to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agency confirmed. That’s their top priority right now. That’s where they are putting their focus.

So, it’s really -- I don’t see the White House doing any more executive actions anytime soon.

Alcindor : And that’s, of course, a sort of stark reality given what’s going on.

Michael, I want to come to you because you did a deep dive, a really deep dive into Democrats wanting to see more fight out of President Biden. I wonder, can you talk about the main concerns when you talked to Democrats and allies of the president about what they want to see from President Biden and how the White House is navigating all of this?

Michael Shear, White House Correspondent, The New York Times : Yeah, thanks for having me on, Yamiche.

I think when you talk to Democrats, complaints divide into two broad categories. One is actual policy, more policy engagement. They want the president to do more to confront inflation, guns, the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And they have a lot of suggestions, none of which -- and this is the source of the frustration, that the administration is taking them up on.

So, for example, on Roe v. Wade, there are suggestions for them to allow abortions to be done on federal land. The administration says that’s not practical. There are some problems with that.

The other broad category, though, is a performative piece, right? Part of the presidency is just seeming engaged and being in the moment that the rest of the country is in. I think this week was a sort of example of how the president to a lot of Democrats seemed really out of touch.

You know, you have all of these big issues hitting the country at once. And the president was in Cleveland talking about pension plans and he spent much of the time this week, you know, conferring the metal of honor and Medal of Freedom on a whole bunch of very well deserving people.

But to a lot of Democrats, I think it felt like his heart is not in confronting some of these big issues.

Alcindor : There are so many big issues. And you -- I want to stick with you, Michael, because you wrote in this piece, and I want to read it, other Democratic politicians are jumping into what they see as a void of leadership. That line really caught my eye. So, I wonder who is really jumping in to sort of fill that void that they see, and why they are standing out in the way that President Biden isn’t?

Shear : Well, the two examples I think given the piece, were J.B. Pritzker, who you mentioned, the governor of Illinois who I think just caught a lot of attention among the run-of-the-mill Democrats and activists for his passion and his rising to the moment, in terms of his anger after the shooting in Highland Park.

The other is Gavin Newsom in California, the governor who I think raised some eyebrows by not necessarily campaigning and running ads in California, but rather Florida, directly challenging Ron DeSantis.

There are a lot of Democrats who say, gee, you know, why isn’t our president doing that? Why isn’t our president taking the fight to the governors of Florida, of Texas, of some of these Republican states? You know, why isn’t President Biden more aggressive in that way? And the fact that he’s not is an opening for other folks.

Alcindor : And, Jeff, another headline that caught my eye, or another story that caught my eye, is out of “Politico”, they say Biden isn’t running out of ideas, Dems fear, he’s running out of time.

What is your sense talking to the different sources you are talking to about the pressure President Biden is facing when the midterms are just four months away? And how does that sort of connect with what other presidents before him have had to deal with?

Jeff Zeleny, CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent : Well, the summer before a midterm election is always an uncomfortable position in the White House. President Biden certainly joins the ranks of many presidents who are likely to lose seats in their own party in midterm elections. President Biden has been there to see this firsthand when he was vice president. The summer before President Obama’s midterm election drubbing in 2010, it was a difficult time.

But the difference I think for President Biden is one of himself. He is not traveling nearly as much as other presidents. He’s not front-and-center as much as some other presidents. Part of it is his age. Part of it is the sheer fact of who he is as a politician.

He was not elected to go after the governor of Florida. He was not elected to necessarily be the loudest voice in the room. So, now, of course, some Democrats, the frustration is boiling over.

But as he said the other week, I’m the president who you have. I mean, he is the president in the moment here. So, there is nothing he can perhaps do to satisfy all of the anxieties and frustrations.

But there’s more he likely could do. He’s frustrated, I’m told. He has said many times, he told me at the beginning of the year in a press conference that he planned to leave Washington more, he planned to be out in the country more.

Well, that just hasn’t happened all that much. He did travel to Cleveland this week, but it was his first domestic trip in quite some time.

Presidents are busy. His schedule is busy with foreign trips, et cetera. So, the reality of what he can do, he’s never likely to meet the moment of some other progressives. But I’m not sure that we want our president necessarily to be going after individual governors.

And, of course, Governor Pritzker was fired up because it happened in his own state. We have seen passion from President Biden. What I think some other leaders are really looking for is more of a direction, more than just this optimistic speech he sometimes gives. It’s really taking things by the reins. That is what he really has not done.

So, you know, the challenge is getting through the summer and into the midterm elections. He is in a tough spot.

Alcindor : Definitely a tough spot.

Zeleny : Presidents have been in tough spot before him. We will see if he digs himself out of it.

Alcindor : Definitely a tough spot.

And, Josh, what Jeff is talking about is the frustration boiling over. I read something I think if you asked the Biden campaign whether it would be true in the future, they would, of course, say no. But in several polls, Joe Biden’s approval rating is lower than the former president, Donald Trump. It’s a stark thing given that the fact that we covered Trump together.

I wonder what you see is the significance of that, given that President Biden is trying to put up a fight? I was in Cleveland hearing him talk to union workers. But also President Trump still has his grip on the Republican Party.

Josh Dawsey, Political Enterprise and Investigations Reporter, The Washington Post : He does, and he would be the nominee if it was an election for the 2024 nomination tomorrow. And he’s, by a lot of accounts, thinking about announcing soon to be the nominee, or try to be the nominee for the Republican Party.

I think for former President Biden, you have a lot of confluence of factors that are really quite challenging. I mean, as long as inflation is quite high, as long as gas prices are five dollars a gallon, as long as there is this type of concern, and it is hard to put a finger on it.

I mean, I talked to Democratic strategists and others about it. But people just kind of feel unsettled, whether it’s COVID, whether it’s the economy, whether it’s just a sense things are not heading in the right direction. I mean, there’s always kind of the barometer in politics is do people think things are heading in the right direction or the wrong direction, and you can somewhat link to whether someone is reelected or not.

And here, there’s a lot of the country thinking things happening in the wrong direction. If you have his numbers, you have a Republican Party that’s chomping at the bit to try and defeat him and think they have a quite good chance to do it.

Alcindor : And talking about things being unsettled, President Biden signed an executive order aimed at protecting access to abortion and medication at emergency contraception. But the reality is, there is no action the president can take to restore the nationwide right to an abortion in the wake of the Supreme Courts ruling.

Laura, so I want to, of course, come to you, because you’ve been doing a lot of great reporting on this. How much is this executive order? What does the impact the White House think it might have?

Barron-Lopez : So, this executive action is essentially steps that President Biden directed all these agencies to do right after the decision came down. This is just a formalization of that.

And, so, ultimately, I was talking to a lawyer about it today who said it is an enforcement of laws to try to direct agencies to protect people who may try to travel, doctors and patients who may try to travel to get an abortion, to enforce privacy for health data. But it is a lot of using the current laws on the books.

And what the Democrats want to see the president do is go bigger and be more creative. So, a lot of executive actions they want are clearly not part of what happened today. They are looking for him to use Medicaid to fund travel for abortions, not the actual procedure, because under law, the government can fund the procedure. And also to expand through the FDA more access to medication abortion, taking away final restrictions on pharmacies.

The president may be really cautious about all that, simply because of the legal challenges that are likely to come.

Alcindor : And, Michael, what’s your sense of how Democrats or sort of seeing what President Biden talks about the bright spots here? Because Laura is talking about sort of what he’s trying to do with limitations. There was, of course, President Biden, as you mentioned, going to Cleveland, wanting to talk about the economy, wanting to talk about some of the good things that are happening.

There are a jobs report today that they wanted to take a victory lap on. But knowledge that Americans, as Josh said, just are feeling unsettled and not really that great about where things are.

Shear : Yeah, exactly right, Yamiche. I mean, they sort of are stuck. Today was a good example. Today was a good example. As you said, the jobs report was strong enough that under normal circumstances, the White House would be yelling it from the rooftops.

But the problem is they are very afraid if the president was overly optimistic, if the White House is seen as somehow ignoring peoples pain, and he would come across as detached from the way people are experiencing the economy. And, you know, ultimately, the way people vote is not based on some statistic or a percentage the president can point to on a chart, but it is how they feel on how their lives are going and how they feel about their pocketbooks and the resources to do the thing for themselves and their families that they want to do.

And as I think Josh said, like, you know, the polls suggest people are not feeling great about those kinds of things. The president risks a lot if he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that. But the flipside is by acknowledgment all of the pain, you can sometimes can sound like a Debbie downer and not be touting your own success either. So, it’s a real -- its a real problem for the administration, especially in this election year.