Full Episode: Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 3/29/24

Jeffrey Goldberg: This week, Joe Biden raised $26 million at a Radio City Music Hall event that featured former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is selling God Bless the USA Bibles for $59.99 a pop, presumably part of an effort to pay his legal bills, which are becoming biblical in scale. Despite the disparities in fundraising, Biden and Trump are closely matched in the polls. And tonight, we'll look at their competitive advantages and disadvantages and a lot more, next. Good evening, and welcome to WASHINGTON WEEK Easter Weekend Edition. It's appropriate that we'll talk tonight about the Bible, as well as the dispositively powerful force money plays in politics. Maybe we'll call this the Render unto Caesar episode of WASHINGTON WEEK, or maybe not. We'll just have to see. Whatever the case, we have a lot to cover. And joining me to discuss the campaign and its many permutations are Adam Harris and Mark Leibovich, who are my colleagues at The Atlantic, Nia Malika Henderson is a senior political analyst for CNN and a political and policy columnist at Bloomberg Opinion, and Jeff Mason is a White House correspondent for Reuters. Welcome all of you. Thank you for being here. Mark, I want to start with you. You wrote about Joe Lieberman, who died this week. And I wanted to ask you about Lieberman and his role in politics. But I also want to talk about what I'm thinking of as the demise of the centrists, in a way. Lieberman is part of a group of politicians, many senators, who really kind of no longer exist. Joe Manchin, Mitt Romney are people who are still in the Senate but are leaving. And what I'm talking about are conservative Democrats and what we would once call moderate Republicans. Lieberman really was a symbol of an era that is long gone in politics.

Mark Leibovich, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Absolutely, both in politics, but also in style. I mean, he had a real warm personality and was actually kind of a throwback to a much less angry vintage of politics. Joe Lieberman was an extremely generous and decent, but also very stubborn and infuriating to many people person. I mean, he was not terribly popular in the Democratic Party. He didn't even get his party's nomination when he ran for re-election in 2006, and he ran as an independent. So, yes, he had a lot of enemies, and yet there was nothing besieged about him, which is a contrast as much of what you see today in politics.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, right, right. It's just a -- it's an issue. I mean, are there any people like Lieberman left? Can you think of anyone offhand, Nia?

Nia-Malika Henderson, Senior Political Analyst, CNN: Listen, it's hard to think of anyone who is that model of politics now. And then you kind of think about one of the things you want to do with No Labels and the third party, and the fate of that right now is essentially that there's nobody who wants to be, you know, the person who's going to run on the No Labels party. There is such partisanship. And, listen, I mean, it's based on policy, right? And part of, I think, the impulse over these last years, particularly in Trump's version of the Republican Party, you know, that party is much more radical, much meaner, and this kind of politics of combat and personal destruction are really rules of the day, particularly, I think, on the Republican side. And so you've had some of that kind of seep over, I think, into politics more generally.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Speaking of polarization and anger, I want to talk about Ronna McDaniel and the revolt of the anchors. That's what I'm calling it. Nobody else is calling it that. Yes, the revolt of -- a movie that you wouldn't go see, actually, but the revolt of the anchors. And, you know, we saw this incident where she was hired, and then fired by NBC, the former RNC chair. Why did -- Jeff, why did Ronna McDaniel find herself such the object of derision among journalists?

Jeff Mason, White House Correspondent, Reuters: Well, I think it was not certainly that she's a Republican, and not even necessarily because she has ties to Trump, but because she had such direct and specific involvement in trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Jeff Mason: That is certainly what the anchors at MSNBC objected to, and why people were saying that they were so flummoxed by that hire.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Adam, this is a person who literally tried to convince canvassers to not certify the results in the Michigan race, for instance. And so the question is, and this is sort of a -- I don't want to turn this into a journalism ethics seminar, but this is -- where is the line? I mean, a lot of people hire ex-politicos of various stripes to do commentary on politics, but is this -- was this just a kind of an almost allergic reaction on the part of journalism?

Adam Harris, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Yes. I mean, we spent the last four years effectively saying that we shouldn't try to normalize the events of January 6th, that we shouldn't try to normalize the behavior of fundamentally trying to overturn an election. And I think there was this thought that, by making this hire, this is mainstreaming a person who had a significant role in the events of that day. And to do that would be to sort of abdicate our responsibility and fundamental responsibility to democracy and the truth.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Mark, you're the anthropologist of Washington D.C.'s mores.

Mark Leibovich: Mores.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Mores, mores. Was this an effort by NBC or was this an indication that NBC itself thought that Trump is the likely winner, and therefore they're trying to make their peace with the new politics or the new old politics?

Mark Leibovich: It could be. I mean, full disclosure, I'm a political contributor to MSNBC, but I have nothing to do with this.

Jeffrey Goldberg: You were here the whole time.

Mark Leibovich: I was here the whole time, yes, but, no. I do think that this -- I mean, it was a clumsy effort, certainly, but I do think it is an effort to try to figure out a way or figure out a kind of person who has some kind of viability. Obviously, Ronna McDaniel is not that kind of person, but I do think that if there is a line, yes, January 6, election denialism. And if you recall back at the time, there were a lot of sponsors, there were a lot of fundraisers, we're not touching these people. There were a lot of people within the Republican Party saying, this is, you know, what happened, we just want to run as far away from it as possible. Many of them have run back, right? And I think this was an example of journalism kind of locking arms, or at least the reporters or the -- you know, the actual journalists at MSNBC and NBC saying, look, we are not going to be part of this rehabilitation, and we don't want any part of it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, right. Let me -- here's a line, let me pivot to the Bible, and we're going to have a little bit of Bible study right now, and specifically we're going to be talking about the Trump Bible. I want you all to watch -- well, it's self-explanatory. Just watch Donald Trump.

Donald Trump (R), Former U.S. President, Presidential Candidate:  All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It's my favorite book. I'm proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is this --

Nia-Malika Henderson: Cringe? Absolutely. I mean, listen, I grew up in a very, very religious --

Jeffrey Goldberg: I wasn't going at cringe, but, I mean, yes.

Nia-Malika Henderson: Yes. I mean, listen, I grew up in a very, very religious household. My father was a Baptist minister. So, that's how I received that, the idea of hawking a Bible for, listen, I mean, we know what this is about. It's for -- he's in dire straits in terms of these cases and the 91 indictments. So, I imagine selling the word of God is going to be used to fund some of those legal entanglements that he finds himself in. But, listen, this goes to his core constituency, right? These are white evangelical Christians. He is in partnership with Lee Greenwood, who has a fantastic song. And, listen, I'm sure folks will want to buy the Bible. I think it's $59 or something like that. So, he knows what his core constituency is. He knows that he can go to them time and time again. I think he's compared himself to Jesus. And in some ways, he is seen as a kind of messianic figure among those folks. I remember talking early on to Ben Carson about his appeal to evangelicals and people of faith. And I was like, it seems at odds, right, with people of faith, given his background, given his behavior. And he told me, listen, it takes all kinds to advance the kingdom of God. And, listen, I think we have seen that time and time again that he's just very popular among white evangelicals. And to the extent that he has a chance, it's because of this core group in American politics.

Jeff Mason: It is a fascinating contrast, though, in terms of religion, just between the two candidates. You have one candidate who goes to church every week, who is not seen by the right as being a good enough Christian. And then you have somebody on the right who's talking Bibles, who struggles to talk about what his favorite Bible verse is. And there's somebody --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, Donald Trump doesn't go to church.

Jeff Mason: Well, I was just going to say, I covered him for four years in the White House, and he's certainly not a regular churchgoer. I mean, he went to church maybe a handful of times in the four years that he was there. So, that's not a part of his DNA, but it is a part of his political base, and it's one that has resonated greatly over the last several years for him.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, is this more about just another fundraising effort? You know, he was selling sneakers last week. Or is this a way of buttressing his reputation among evangelicals, like, look, I'm the candidate of the Bible?

Adam Harris: Yes, I think it's both, right? $60 is not a cheap amount to pay for a Bible, or if you go to Barnes and Noble, you can get one for $15.99, right? But what he is doing is not only for the evangelicals who are regular churchgoers, but for the ones who claim evangelical status, don't go to church, aren't necessarily religious, but like the symbol of it all. Like they like what Donald Trump stands for, a version of America that they stand for. And so by, you know, selling a Bible, that is, oh, we want our America to stand for this version of, you know, this day long gone, right?

Jeffrey Goldberg: But it's tacky. It's very, very tacky.

Mark Liebovich: Okay. So, this is, again, part of Donald Trump's appeal. His supporters out there see what they perceive to be secular, blue state citizens looking down on them, considering what Donald Trump is doing to be tacky, whether it is or isn't. I mean, part of it is just the division of our politics, just enemy of the enemy is -- whatever, I always mix that up. But I think it's just do not lose sight of who people feel that is their opposition and trying to sort of troll them.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes. But to go to Jeff's point, I mean, the five of us around this table, to varying degrees, are religious or observant people, and we take the Bible very seriously. And how is it that Joe Biden, the churchgoer, doesn't get -- first of all, Joe Biden would not do this, presumably, sell a Bible on YouTube or wherever it's being sold. But I just don't understand how people sometimes don't see through the surface of this.

Mark Liebovich: Yes. I mean, look, we can't -- I mean, there is -- this sort of also goes to the division and also just how we can't even begin to enter the world of the other side. I think that's true in both directions, I mean, that it's not just division, it's just the kind of -- we just -- there's just no access point at all, right? And I mean, just think about things like so completely divide our society. I mean, this is another one. And, again, this doesn't look like it's costing him any support at all in the evangelical community.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, right, right. Let's go to the finances, and, Jeff, you have been traveling all week with Joe Biden. He's -- you just got here, actually, from endless flying around the country with Joe Biden. He's doing very well in the fundraising. And it's a superficial contrast, but $26 million and Radio City Music Hall with Presidents Obama and Clinton versus selling sneakers and the Bible. Is Trump in trouble on the fundraising compared to Joe Biden?

Jeff Mason: Well, he's certainly struggling compared to Joe Biden when it comes to fundraising, and it is a measure of your campaign's health. And I think that sign of fundraising strength was something that Obama wanted to help Biden with and Clinton wanted to help Biden with. But, in general, the Biden campaign wanted to say, we have enthusiasm and look, here it is in the numbers. And President Biden is saying a lot in some of his fundraisers now that he's seeing a turn in polling. He walks out and says, I feel the enthusiasm, and this is Exhibit A. The enthusiasm is manifesting and having a pretty strong set of numbers.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It's a little bit too early to talk about a turn in polling, no?

Jeff Mason: Well, I mean, it's post-State of the Union, right? So, the State of the Union -- I think the campaign will probably go back and look at his fiery State of the Union Address as being a turning point. And we'll see how long that lasts.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Fiery as a relative concept.

Jeff Mason: Yes, but robust, right? I mean, he came out swinging, and it came after a period of time when he had been taking a lot of hits for his age. The special counsel report came out, and he, I think, tried to put some of that to bed with that speech. And he's seeing, at least the way they describe it, an enthusiasm sort of upturn as a result.

Nia-Malika Henderson: And listen, Bloomberg had some polling on this, and it does bear out this fact that there is a bit of momentum in some of these swing states, particularly Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He was behind by a few points in February. The March polls post-State of the Union do show a bit of a narrowing. He's ahead. You know, it's margin of error and sort of tied, essentially. But there is a bit of momentum. And folks who saw that speech use the words like fiery three, and energetic to describe it. And then they also said that they were much more likely to have seen over the last week's positive stories about Joe Biden. So, that helps. And I do think, you know, to the extent that this will be a turning point, the State of the Union kind of would kick it off. And listen, they're doing -- they're traveling all around the country, right, to these swing states. They've got $30 million in ads blasting, you know, these swing state voters that are going to be so crucial. So, you do see an uptick.And you also see sort of a new kind of swagger, I think, with Joe Biden kind of taking it to Donald Trump and mocking him in so many ways, and the clips that they released from -- yes, they're running ads. And so there is, I think, a bit of a shift in terms of their momentum.

Mark Leibovich: I would also say, I mean, two things. One, just the passage of time. I mean, the fact that the primaries are almost over effectively. I mean, the nominees have been chosen. I think people are now not starting to pay attention so closely but actually acknowledge that this is what's going to happen? I think a lot of the unenthusiasm for Biden a few months ago was centered on the fact of disbelief, like is this actually happening. It's happening. And also, let's be honest, I mean, Biden has performed quite well in the primaries. And the Democratic primaries, if you look at the numeric difference, there was some talk that Dean Phillips was going to get 25 30 percent of the vote, you know, he was in --

Jeffrey Goldberg: You remember Dean Phillips?

Mark Leibovich: I do, right.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Wow.

Mark Leibovich: I mean, yes, he did get out, right?

Jeffrey Goldberg: I had no idea.

Mark Leibovich: And he did drop out. But, no. So, I mean -- and he's performed well and Trump is actually, I mean, has shown some vulnerability given how Nikki Haley has endured even after she got out of the race.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, let's stay on this for a minute because it really is -- we just heard the words, swagger, fiery, and robust in relationship to Joe Biden. Four weeks ago, we would not have heard this. Are the Republicans suffering here because they told us for the preceding months that Joe Biden actually is a dementia patient? I mean, their argument was that he is reduced not only physically but mentally. And then he comes out at the State of the Union and is peppy.

Jason Mason: And in addition to that State of the Union, there was also the transcript of the interview with the special counsel, which turned out not to be as damning in terms of his memory as the report suggested that it was. And so I think there's that and there's the perhaps false advertising that you're referring to by some Republicans that is just not entirely bearing out. That doesn't mean age isn't still going to be a weakness for President Biden. I mean, it was interesting last night in New York, he surrounded himself by his two Democratic predecessors and he's older than both of them. That's an unusual tableau. And yet they were making a very firm argument for why their 81-year-old successor should have a second term.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, right. So, you've been following him all week on the trail. Give us your firsthand impressions of his energy level, cogency, enthusiasm.

Jeff Mason: Enthusiasm, very high, energy, very high, cogency, pretty good. I mean, he's -- the truth is Joe Biden has good days and bad days. We all do, right? But his -- at his fundraisers, he's trying out some new lines. One of the recent ones that I was at, one of his aides came up to me and a couple other traveling reporters right before he started speaking and said, pay attention. He's got a new riff tonight. And his new riff, ladies and gentlemen, at the table was to talk about President Trump saying, are you better off than you were four years ago? And Biden says, I'm glad you asked that, man, and then starts going into a comparison of how things are now compared to March of 2020, when COVID was in full swing and hospitals were struggling and the economy was cratering. So, that was the new riff, but it is sort of a sign that they're pumping up his campaign speeches. And he seems energetic and he seems enthused.

Jeffrey Goldberg: New sneakers, new riff. Adam, one area where he seems to be challenged is in an enthusiasm gap with black and Hispanic voters. We see different polls. But the polls are all pointing to a challenge, especially with black male voters, Hispanic male voters. There's some numbers that show that as many as 25 percent of black voters are at least Trump-curious, Hispanic, the number is higher. How serious this is -- you've been studying this. How serious this is a challenge for Joe Biden?

Adam Harris: Yes, I think it's a very real challenge. I think that we do have to complicate some of those poll numbers a little bit, because if you look at some of the crosstabs, you'll see for black voters, right, you'll see where black men are saying that they're almost certain to vote at a rate that's somewhere 8 percent, 9 percent higher than black women, which is almost never the case, right? You never see black male voters turn out more than black women. Similarly, you know, if you think about where black voter turnout is, there's a concern that folks aren't going to turn out as highly because of 2022 and black voter turnout in 2022. But we saw when Trump was on the ballot in 2020, voter levels were about the same as they were in 2012. So, that's for black voters. For Hispanic voters, it will be a little bit more difficult, and that sort of piece of the pie is a little bit more complicated, considering South Texas, South Florida votes a little bit differently than, say, some of the Maricopa County in Arizona, right? But I think that what the Biden administration has been doing, you know, for the last several months now, they have this sort of large groundswell of funding, they're starting to go into those markets a little bit heavier now. They're going to Michigan really hard. They're going into Georgia really hard, trying to, you know, increase some of that youth turnout. A lot of this is the youth turnout, where you'll see some of those large gaps. I guess the last point there is, when you look at the likely voters from polls, in Georgia, The Times ran a poll that said somewhere around 76 to 78 percent of those voters would support Biden in a general election. But if you look at the people who voted on primary day, 96 percent of the black voters who were there on primary day were voting for Biden, and none of those same folks who were polled were voting for Trump on primary day. And so I think we have to consider the likelihood of when people kind of have that reality of, oh, we're in November, this is Election Day, these are our two options, you know, that may look a little bit different.

Jeffrey Goldberg: One of the many reasons to have Adam on the show is he reads the crosstabs.

Nia-Malika Henderson: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Nia, let's stay on this subject as we wrap up. To Trump's credit, no Republican candidate since the early 60s has polled this well with black and Hispanic voters. Obviously we're early in the -- what's your explanation for what we're seeing?

Nia-Malika Henderson: It's hard to know. I mean, I feel like we're here every cycle. I remember in 2022, being on a lot of panels, talking about African-American voters. And I think the numbers were something like, oh, Republicans could get, you know, 22, 25 percent. It didn't end up happening. I do think some of this is a wish casting. I mean, when you hear Kellyanne Conway on Fox News talking about all the black men and Latino men who are going to vote for Donald Trump, it hasn't borne out yet in actual when people go to the polls yet. There is, I do think, a slight shift, right? And some of this is, in some ways, just a reversion back to where African-American voters and Latino voters were prior to Obama, right? There was a huge shift in black and brown voters to Obama. There had been, obviously, a tradition of black and brown voters voting for Republicans prior to that, for Bush, for instance, even Nixon. And so I think we're seeing some of that just sort of right-sizing of the electorate. But, listen, they are concerned, I think, RFK Jr., he's in the race now with a vice presidential choice, and that could be an issue, because, at least so far, he is drawing some attention from young voters and African-American voters as well.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Mark, in the minute we have left, RFK Jr., who does he hurt?

Mark Liebovich: The Biden people seem to be more scared of him than the Trump people are. The fact is, we don't know. I mean, it's a real wild card, partly because of the anti-vaxxer vote is a pretty hardcore part of the Republican base. There's also part of the Democratic base that is very suspicious of vaccines. The Kennedy name, the association with liberalism, that's obviously dangerous for Biden, and they're putting a lot of resources into going after him specifically.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, he is a continuing issue? He's going to be a continuing issue?

Mark Liebovich: Oh, I think so. And, you know, a significant one given that his numbers sometimes top 20 percent in some of these polls.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, we'll be talking about him more. We'll be talking about all these things on our show. But, unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now. And I want to thank our panelists for joining us and for sharing their reporting. Please be sure to visit theatlantic.com to read Mark Leibovich, this very Mark Leibovich, on the passing of Joe Lieberman. It's a very good piece. And before we go, we want to note a sad anniversary. Today marks the one year of captivity for Evan Gershkovich, our colleague at The Wall Street Journal, who has been falsely accused by Russian authorities of being a spy. Evan committed no crimes because practicing journalism is not a crime. In keeping with the religious theme of this evening, on this Sabbath and just a month before the Passover holiday, a holiday that celebrates liberation, we earnestly hope for Evan's release, and we are, of course, holding a seat at this table for him. He's a great reporter, and we look forward to the day when we can all hear his voice once again. I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Good night from Washington.