Clip: How protests against Israel and war in Gaza could hurt Biden in November

Jeffrey Goldberg: Speaker Johnson, so it's the same subject. But another thing that Speaker Johnson did in the last couple of weeks is visit Columbia University, hostile territory for Speaker Johnson. If you want to watch this for one second, you'll see what I mean.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): Anti-Israel encampments are popping up at universities all across this country. The madness has to stop.

I am here today, joining my colleagues, and calling on President Shafik to resign if she cannot immediately bring order to this chaos.

Jeffrey Goldberg: David, what is the speaker trying to accomplish at Columbia?

David Drucker: Well, number one, this is an issue that Republicans are up in arms about. I mean, just Republican voters are watching what's going on on college campuses across the country. And it's no longer just Ivy League campuses. It's all over the country. And they're upset about it. They want to see Republicans act.

Secondly, it's a win because we were talking about this earlier, when you have all the right enemies these days, that's just a political win. So, he's getting booed and booed by all the right people.

But I'd say this, too. There are a lot of Democratic Congressmen that are super upset about this, that have traveled to the Ivy Leagues to show solidarity for the Jewish students that feel threatened, that are threatened, because of these encampments.

And so what Johnson is doing, number one, bolsters his standing within the Republican conference. They want to see action, but it doesn't hurt him with up the broad number of Democrats and does not hurt him or his relationship with House Minority Leader Jeffries. And so it's just good politics, but also to the extent that Americans and voters are looking at this and they don't like what they see, I know some do, but to the extent that many don't. And they want to see the federal government active. It shows that he's leading.

And I think one of the biggest developments to come out of the past couple of weeks with Johnson is that he led. He showed a minority in his conference that he wasn't going to be twisted around. And now they see him active, and that tends to reflect well on you.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Mara, was this was this visit to Colombia where -- I mean, it's sort of extraordinary.

Mara Liasson: I call this the B roll.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, this speaker of the House going to a university to call for the resignation of its president. It's sort of like below his pay grade in a lot of ways.

Mara Liasson: Yes. But it's to generate B roll. And these -- you'll see this --

Jeffrey Goldberg: And by B roll, you mean like, oh, he has all the right enemies is what David was talking about?

Mara Liasson: Yes. But what I mean by B roll is this is going to be B roll in ads.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Mara Liasson: You know, when you're going to see in the fall are -- this is the Republicans equivalent of the George Floyd, I mean, protests. You know, they want to show the campuses are in chaos because part of making Biden look weak is to say he can't do anything about the chaos in the world, the chaos on campus. And you're going to see these pictures.

David Drucker: But I just want to add that, that Republicans pull these stunts all the time and people look at them and they say, this is a stunt, but this is actually a situation where many people across the political spectrum, people that will never vote for Republicans, believe this is a problem and don't necessarily see this as a stunt.

Jeffrey Goldberg: People like stunts sometimes. I want to hear Laura on this, yes.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Yes. I mean, I guess, yes, it's true that there are some across the political spectrum that would be happy with what Speaker Johnson did, but I am kind of questioning what voters actually he thinks he might be winning over. Does this rally the base? Yes. Does this win over young voters? No. Does it win over -- you know, polls have shown that a majority of Americans actually think that Israel has gone too far in their actions against Gaza. And so that's why you've seen President Biden start to shift his rhetoric over the course of the last few months.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That is true, but I want to mention this poll, a very interesting poll from the Institute of Politics at Harvard. It shows that the Israel-Palestine issue -- this is a poll of 18 to 29-year-old voters. Despite what we're seeing on some campuses, it's not ranking high in their list of interest.

If you look at the list, these voters are more interested and more preoccupied with gun violence and protecting democracy and reproductive rights, abortion issue, education, immigration, jobs, all these come out ahead. So, the question is, are we -- part of me wonders if we're paying so much attention to Columbia because half the journalists in America went to Columbia, right? And it's easy access, easy access to the media in midtown, but, yes.

Peter Baker: There was another poll this week and it was a poll of House Democrats. And they voted five to one for. And then the Senate, only three Democrats, I believe, voted against the overall package. And that means that, yes, they're visible pictures, it's very combustible, it's a remarkably volatile moment on campuses. But among the elected Democrats, they are five to one in favor of unconditioned aid for Israel.

Now, that package also include $9 billion of humanitarian aid for Gaza. So, a lot of Democrats who might be concerned with how far Israel is going can say, look, I voted for that because I want the money to get the humanitarian aid. But in any case, it's interesting that the division among Democrats on Israel was not nearly as deep as one might have thought it would be.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Laura Barron-Lopez: And just on young voters, I was just in Michigan and I spoke to a group of young voters across the spectrum. And so watch NewsHour next week because we'll have that on our air. But, you know, yes, there was one voter who Biden has clearly lost. She voted for him in 2020. She goes to Michigan State University. She says she's not going to vote for him again because of Gaza.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Who's she going to vote for?

Laura Barron-Lopez: She may not vote or she may just protest vote. She's not going to vote for Donald Trump.

And then there are the other young voters who say that, yes, they are concerned about Gaza and Israel and Hamas, but that their main issues are, to that poll that you showed, Jeff, are abortion, it's democracy, it's economy, it's a range of other issues, which I think might be getting lost a bit in D.C. because of what's what we're seeing play out across college campuses.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. David, you also were traversing Michigan recently.

David Drucker: We waved.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, you waved. And I'm wondering what you found in terms of the relative importance of this issue compared to other issues.

David Drucker: It was really interesting. In conversations I had with Democrats and Republicans, insiders working to elect their respective nominees, the first issues they would mention to me were bread and butter issues. For Republicans, it was inflation and immigration and the problems we're having at the southern border with the gaming of the asylum process.

Democrats were talking about abortion rights, reproductive rights and issues like democracy and the concerns about Trump. And then I would say, oh, and what about president's policies vis-a-vis Israel and the war in Gaza. Oh, yes, and then they would get into that and talk about that. But they didn't necessarily see those issues as deciding.

Now, I will say that Republicans look at the problem that the president is having with, having with Arab-American voters in Michigan. And they believe that a serious depletion of votes from his coalition could cost Biden the state, ultimately. But they don't think that the president is at any risk of losing the Jewish vote, no matter how much his rhetoric were to shift on Israel.

And what I heard from Arab-Americans was, well, his rhetoric may have shifted, but his policy certainly has not. And they noticed that. And so, ultimately, I think the president has to make a decision about exactly what kind of campaign he wants to run.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Quickly for the both of you, is Michigan the toughest swing state right now for Biden?

Laura Barron-Lopez: I believe it is.

David Drucker: Hands down.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Yes.

David Drucker: I mean, other than the Sunbelt states.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Wait, do we have a total consensus around the table?

Mara Liasson: Of the blue wall, yes. But Arizona and Georgia.

David Drucker: Although, ironically, there are problems in the Sunbelt. But the blue wall states --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Wait. Peter?

Peter Baker: He needs to win Michigan to win. But it was interesting that there -- I was in Michigan as well. And her --

Jeffrey Goldberg: What going on in Michigan this week? Is there a meeting that nobody invited me to? Yes. No, it's like I missed something.

Peter Baker: What I was told was, of the hundred thousand Democrats who voted uncommitted in that primary as a protest or what have you against Biden, Democrats, they are worried about a half of them won't come back to him.

Now, they're not going to go to Trump. You're right. They're not going to go to Trump. Do they stay home or do they vote for --

Mara Liasson: That's the same thing as a vote for Trump as far as the Biden campaign is concerned.

Peter Baker: Of course. But having said that, there was a poll this week that said, of the swing states, Trump was leading in all of them except for Michigan, the only place Biden was ahead by two points. So, it's early to say.

And the other thing is, in terms of the war, you know, it depends on what happens with Rafah. Right now, there's actually not a lot of war going on compared to where it was. If this were to somehow cycle down, if they got a deal, that's a big if, you know, by September, when people are voting, it's possible people are looking at other issues as more acute at the moment.

Jeffrey Goldberg: There's a lot of energy in Israel now. There was a new video of an Israeli hostage who people thought might have not been healthy but is there. He lost an arm, but that's caused another kind of round of, we got to get a deal, which obviously militates against --

Peter Baker: And the Biden administration made clear this week that they think it's Hamas, not Israel right now that is blocking that deal. That's an important statement for them to make. But still people want to see this over, and the question is, can they make it happen.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Let us leave Michigan, if you can bear it, and come back to New York just to talk about the trial, the first week of testimony in the first trial ever, criminal trial of an American ex-president. Mara, what did we learn so far?

Mara Liasson: Well, we learned that the prosecution has a very elaborate story to tell, and they're telling it about how all these people helped Trump.

Jeffrey Goldberg: There's a lot of spit on that ball.

Mara Liasson: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: When you say, elaborate, you mean hard to sell?

Mara Liasson: Well, I think it's complicated, but the job for the prosecution is not just to explain what catch and kill is, which is where you pay somebody to not go to the press and tell their story, but also how those things were illegal or supported an illegal scheme. And that's what they have to do.

And the judge doesn't seem to be very happy with the Trump lawyers or with Trump himself. He keeps on violating the gag order. But overall, this case has been considered the weakest one, and I still think it is. We have a long way to go.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Well, one thing that's striking about the case to me is just how much, when you talk to prosecutors and other legal experts, that Trump is being treated differently than any other defendant that would be in a similar case, which is that the amount of gag orders he's facing, the amount of reprimands from the judge for attacking, you know, prosecutors for attacking family members of the judge, all of that, you know, a similar defendant would probably already be in a cell, in jail, and Trump isn't at all.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Peter, we'll end it on this question. Do you think that this might actually be the only Trump trial we see before November? Obviously, there's Supreme Court issues that we're watching. But is this it?

Peter Baker: I think as we end the week, that's what it looks like. This is the one trial we're going to have completed by Election Day. And the Supreme Court's deliberations this week were very interesting, very important. We can talk about that. But the core takeaway from that is it's likely to continue to drag out before -- long before the election. We won't see a trial on that one until next year.

Mara Liasson: Look, Trump's tactic is delay, and on that one, he's succeeding. His strategy is also to undermine faith in the justice system, and I think he's probably making some headway there.

But, look, Democrats have a deus ex machina problem around Trump. They think that Robert Mueller was going to save them. Now they think, you know, Jack Smith will save them. Prosecutors and judges are not going to determine Trump's fate. Voters will.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And voters know Trump.

Mara Liasson: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And voters are deciding based on what they know already. No, it's a very good point. It's been a great conversation. Thank you very much. Unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now.