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Should I bring my full Long Island accent for the rest of the podcast? Because I can't. If island doesn't start with a G, you're not doing it right. Okay, perfect. Thank you. It's Long Island. G-I-S-L-A-N-D. I would posit, Galen, there'd be actually two Gs. It's like Long Guy Land is how we say it, at least on the North Shore. Long Island. Yes. You're a local. You're a native. It's like Anthony Scaramucci. I'm talking to him right now.
Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. Folks, when it rains, it pours, and we are currently in a news rainstorm. So here's some of what's been going on. Last week, a federal appeals court denied former President Trump's claims of presidential immunity for actions he took to try to remain in office after losing in 2020.
The Supreme Court also heard oral arguments on the question of whether states can kick Trump off the ballot based on the 14th Amendment's ban on holding office for those who have engaged in insurrection. A special counsel exonerated President Biden in his own classified documents investigation, but characterized him as a, quote, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. That prompted Biden to defend himself in a press conference where he referred to President el-Sisi of Egypt as the president of Mexico.
Things also got chaotic in Congress. A Republican attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas failed by one vote. The bipartisan border security deal fell apart, and it's unclear where the foreign aid piece of those negotiations stands.
All of that as the U.S. continued its airstrikes in retaliation for American troops killed in Jordan. There were also key candidate announcements last week, most notably Republican former governor of Maryland Larry Hogan is running for an open Senate seat, and that's going to expand the Senate battleground map this fall.
We're going to try to get to as much as possible today, starting with the most high profile special election of the season, the race to replace George Santos in New York's third congressional district. Remember that guy, George Santos? Here with me to kick things off is politics reporter Leah Escarna. Welcome to the podcast. Hi, Galen. Also here with us is ABC national politics reporter Brittany Shepard. Welcome back to the pod.
I'm happy to be here. And we are very excited to have you here to cover your own home district, New York's 3rd. On top of that, you have been in the district over the past week or so doing coverage. How are things going there? Well, let me try a little bit of the home accent while I talk about New York's 3rd National District. Lay it on, lay it on. Okay, I'm laying it on thick. So it's
New York start is mostly all of Long Island's Nassau County. We want to get that pronunciation right, Nassau, and parts of eastern Queens. How it's going is it's actually pretty exciting. I saw more campaign posters and lawn signs here on Long Island that I did both in
Iowa and New Hampshire combined. I know, Gil, and you were with me. Yeah, I was there with you in Iowa and New Hampshire. I saw like the only place you saw lawn signs was outside of the debate where somebody, some campaign staffer had clearly just put like 200 Ron DeSantis signs all in a row, but not on actual lawns.
No, there wasn't even a hat at the rodeo, right? And my drive from the train station, the LIRR station, just to my house, 10 minutes, there were dueling lawn signs. You could tell folks they really care for an off-cycle special election, which you would not think that the voters of this part of New York would be so engaged. And it's really interesting because I think that there was a presumption, New York, Democrat, that's the end of it. But
This district is filled with suburban commuters traveling into Manhattan or parts of Brooklyn and Queens every single day. And they're pretty decently well off.
Certainly impacted from that flight to the burbs that you heard about if you were living in New York during COVID. Where are all the suburbanites going to go? Where are all the well-meaning New Yorkers going to move because New York is so crazy? You know, New York's third is one of those places that's really close and it's really rich. The median household income here is over $120,000.
Just to give you a sense of that cash, the strip mall in the district close to where I grew up as an Hermes, Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Chanel, Prada. And that's just on like the quote unquote inexpensive side of that strip mall. When there's crime alerts, it's like, oh, the Prada and the London Jewelers and the Rolex store I've been broken into again.
This is the area the Great Gatsby is about. East Egg and West Egg are in New York's third congressional district. I don't know how they'd be voting, but like that's just the sense of the vibe. So what you're saying is when in the reports on George Santos's behavior,
suggested that he had spent campaign funds on an Hermes scarf, he may well have just been supporting his own local economy. Oh, exactly. These are mom and pop local businesses here. To be more serious, though, it is a mix, right? It's a mix of blue collar, middle class and a high concentration of upper middle class educated voters, right? More than folks in the average of the country. And I think that's really impacting why folks might be caring more now than they would any other time.
Okay, so just to lay out some of the details here, the options are former Democratic Representative Tom Swasey, who's already served three terms in the House, and he defeated Santos when Santos first ran in the district in 2020. Of course, he's on the Democratic side. On the Republican side is political newcomer Mazie Pillip. She's an Ethiopian-born Israeli military vet serving in the Nassau County Legislature.
Both of these candidates were handpicked by the local party as there was no primary race. And the lean of the district is a couple points more Democratic. But from what I understand, it's pretty close, the race itself. And it's centered on an issue that is currently a strength for Republicans, which is immigration. Leah, you wrote the preview for 538 on the special election in the third district. What's the lay of the land as far as polling is concerned?
So the public polling that we've seen shows a pretty tight race. I think the consensus is that Swazi has a narrow advantage. The question is whether he's maintained that narrow advantage. It's a short term rental, as somebody I spoke to put it, because New York will have new lines drawn by November. Right.
The politics of Long Island, I think, are hard to kind of categorize. I think that's part of the reason why this special election is so, especially for like reporters covering the presidential race right now. It's like, this is a fascinating district. Like this is like, it can go either way. It's a close race.
Biden carried this district in 2020, but Lee Zeldin carried this district in 2022 in the governor's race. And that same year in the Senate race, which actually wasn't very competitive, the Republican candidate facing Chuck Schumer still won the third congressional district, even though this is a district that Hillary Clinton easily carried. But while there's been this kind of like Democratic lean campaign,
In federal races, there's also kind of a local Republican DNA. In the New York Senate for years, like there were nine Republicans from Long Island, the Long Island Nine, who basically formed together and had a Republican kind of voting bloc.
So there are like signs. It's not fully blue, even though the metrics that we would normally use to look at congressional races, like which presidential candidate carried districts, tend to be more Democratic. I think Republicans, actually, they see it as a huge maintenance disadvantage.
District, like Elise Stefanik and GOP Chairman Ronna McDaniel are going to be in the district Monday night. They wouldn't be spending that kind of money. They wouldn't be putting Ronna McDaniel right now in front of cameras where it's a very politically tricky time for Ronna. I'll put that lightly, right? Being called to step down, rumors that she has been meeting with Trump, you know, perhaps leaving the RNC after South Carolina elections.
Putting her in that national spotlight, they didn't think that the amount of money that the Rs are putting in, the amount of time and the boots on the ground wouldn't provide healthy dividends for them on election night. I just don't think they would be putting themselves in that vulnerable position. Right. And the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, also campaigned in person, I believe. Yes.
It's funny because it's like, let's say the lines stayed the same in November, which I don't think is widely expected. But like this under these lines would be a competitive race again in November, no matter who wins this one. So it's like putting in all of this effort and messaging for nine months, 10 months,
And I guess, you know, that's a significant period of time. But well, especially given Republicans current majority in the House. Right. Like they would have impeached Alejandro Mayorkas last week if George Santos was still in the House. And he wants to remind you of that, by the way. Yes. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Pilip could have easily been the vote. So you both have laid out that this is a pretty politically mixed district.
On the federal level, blue. On the local level, somewhat Republican. What are the current issues that are motivating? I mentioned immigration. Is that kind of what this race is all about? Are there other things going on here? Crime and I think migration, how they all kind of coalesced into one perfect storm that the Republicans are using to, I think, hammer home if you're Republican fear. And if you're Democrat, you might say they're trying to weaponize it. I mean, voters are moved by emotion, by things that they see and feel.
A lot of New Yorkers, especially approximate to New York City, are worried about crime. You just can't escape it in conversations. I went to get a bagel one morning at my local bagel shop, and it was all in the local news. You heard the folks who were waiting in line talk about it. There was this recent crime in New York last week where a group of migrants allegedly beat up a New York City police officer.
It is wall-to-wall coverage. It's all my parents wanted to talk about. Talk radio, I think, is really important for us to just mention briefly. It's very conservative in New York, and it's basically what a lot of people are listening to. And they're taking calls from voters who are talking about what they believe is the threat of migrants. Whether it's placed in fact or not is, I think, up for discussion. But fear is a very powerful motivator.
And I think a lot of people are worried about what are the quote unquote migrants going to do? They're being sent here from Florida, being sent here from Texas. They're causing crime. If you watch Fox, you see they have that camera, right? That's folks on the border like 24-7. They don't want the crisis next door to become the crisis at home.
This messaging on crime and immigration, I think it's a conversation about who is the more kind of common sense candidate, I think, in a lot of ways. Tom Swasey, he's presenting himself as, you know, I'm the one who will work with Republicans. I'm the one who will pass legislation. I'm not going to go too far left or too far right. Whereas
Mozzie, the Republican nominee, is basically accusing him of working with the squad and Biden. And so I think crime is the vessel, the vehicle through which they're having this conversation that we've seen happen in a bunch of other districts and races across the country. And that's part of why I think.
think we're seeing so much investment here is because it's a really interesting way to test these messages before November. It's an interesting way to see, you know, can you take a candidate like Tom Swasey in a district like this, a suburban district, and
paint him or characterize him to voters as somebody who is going to go too far left, who when it comes to crime, is not going to do the common sense thing that would keep communities safe.
It's like a soft launch of the strategy of the suburbs, right? Like, Galen and Leah, we've heard so much cycle of like, what's going to happen? It's the battle of the suburbs. Has Trump won the suburbs back because they cost him the election? It's like such stakes, right? So they're kind of like soft launching and slow rolling what could work. Like, I spoke to Swazi last week and he said, Brittany, I didn't run. They picked me.
Not because I want to do it, because I'm the only candidate who can win, because my messaging is quite moderate. But he told me he thinks whatever happens next week, this race is a huge warning sign for his party.
If they can't win a race like this, that ought to have been handed to them, right? With all of the crap about Santos, frankly, right? How the local Republican Party's own reputation has been completely slashed because of what happened with Santos. And as a district that is not a fan of Trump by any means, I think Biden won by nine or ten points here in Nassau, right? If you can't win something like that easily...
With someone like Swazi, then the entire national party better have, you know, all of their warning signs up. One of the questions I've heard from strategists is, is this a Biden eight district? You know, he carried it by eight points. Or is this a Zeldin 12 district? Because Zeldin carried it by 12 points. And I kind of hate that argument because obviously governors' races are different from federal races. But, like, how much has this district changed in the last decade?
three and a half years. Because if we're using it as kind of a proxy for suburban America across the country, I mean, first off, we'll get a sense of whether or not that's an apt comparison when we start seeing some results.
But even if it's just a bellwether for Long Island, that's three congressional seats that could make or break Republicans' majority in November. So because the majority goes through New York and goes to California, I know we keep saying that, but it's true. Because of that, even though New
New York's third district has a very specific culture because it's on Long Island. It still is going to tell us about a few Long Island races that are some of the most important races in the country.
And I should also say, to the extent that this is something of a preview for the battle of the suburbs, we've been talking about the increasing salience of immigration and the border. And in a recent poll from Hicks 11 of New York's third, immigration took the number one spot, not just amongst Republicans, across the district, immigration, folks who said it was the most important issue, 26%, the economy, 22%, and crime, 15%.
So we're going to see, you know, Democrats are right now making their play in Congress, which we're about to talk about later in the show, that they can be a bit more hawkish on the border and they can try to pin it on Republicans not wanting to sort of come to the table and pass something that's bipartisan.
We will see, as you said, to the extent that this works, at least in New York's third on Tuesday night. I should also say we're going to be live blogging it throughout the evening. We're also going to have a late night pod. Brittany's going to be back for that. So more to come. So am I. Leah is going to be as well. Sorry, I like, I just, I just, I knew that you were going to be there, you know. Stop deliver over here. Anyway, we're going to move on and talk about the presidential race. But for now, Brittany, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me.
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There's a poll that came out from YouGov last summer that really stuck with me. They asked whether Biden or Trump are fit for a second term in office. 55% said no for Biden and 53% said no for Trump. But what's more interesting is that they asked the majorities who said no why they felt that way. The leading reasons for Biden were that he's incompetent, quote, incompetent, and too old.
The leading reasons for Trump were that he's, quote, dangerous and corrupt. Few people said that Biden was dangerous or that Trump was too old.
And subsequent polls have backed up these findings about how Americans perceive these two candidates. And if last week didn't exemplify this dynamic, I don't know what does, frankly. For the first half of the week, Trump's team was in court, continuing to deal with the fallout from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. For the second half of the week, the focus was on Biden's age-related fitness for office, sparked by the descriptions in the special counsel report that I mentioned at the top.
Joining us to discuss all of this is senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich. Nathaniel, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Galen. Thanks for having me back. After the incident. After the incident? What was the incident? I'm sorry. I just, I don't know why I said thanks for having me back as if like you weren't gonna have me back. So...
I made a stupid joke. What's Nathaniel doing here? Yeah, let's talk. This incident is just going to have to remain a mystery, even to me. But now that we're here, I'm going to ask you to dive into one of the most sensitive subjects in politics today. Sounds great. So...
Biden is 81. Trump is 77. And when you talk about Biden's age, you hear all the time from Biden supporters like, oh, you know, Trump is only four years younger. Why is the press harping on this when Trump is old, too? But in reality, Americans do view these two candidates very differently. What goes into that? We can have a couple of different conversations here. And I think
The reality is that like it or not, Americans do perceive them differently. They do have greater concerns about Biden's age than they do about Trump's age. This is a poll from the Associated Press in Newark from last August. So before all this happened, 77 percent of adults said that they thought that Biden was too old to effectively serve another four year term as president. And 51 percent said the same thing for Trump. So like the concerns are there for Trump, although obviously there are probably just a lot of Democrats in that sample in that 51 percent.
But the reality is that this is a bigger issue for Biden and he is going to have to deal with it. Now, in terms of the other question, which is kind of why is this the case? I think that is kind of a thornier question. There is a lot of debate about whether that is because the media pays more attention to Biden's kind of age related issues.
issues than than Trump's or whether it's actually because it seems to be worse for Biden than for Trump. I do think like for the record that like when you see Trump out there at his rallies, he does seem to have more energy.
He appears before voters more often, for example. He does also have these kind of strange gaffes sometimes, like the Nancy Pelosi, Nikki Haley mix-up in New Hampshire. But I think that was covered. And, like, frankly, with Trump, there's a lot of other stuff to cover, particularly his legal challenges and all the kind of authoritarian statements that he makes. And I think that those are probably also very newsworthy. And there's just kind of only so many hours in the day.
I kind of like want a, I don't know what kind of science we would need. This might be like psychology, maybe psychiatry, maybe something else. But like there obviously is like if you just see the two of them speak, there is something about Biden that appears older. And I mean, I'm actually curious if anyone like listening disagrees with that. And if so, why? But I think with Trump, it's like we haven't seen a huge shift.
change with him. Like he's always like messed stuff up and his voice, I think has stayed pretty much the same. His like presence has been the same. His like kind of flubs have been, I think they're from the beginning. Biden, what's actually funny is that she, he was actually known for making a bunch of flubs, you know, like it's vice presidency and before that. But I do think that like you can see a change in the way that he speaks.
If you hear a recording of him now versus what we even recognized from him during his vice presidency, it's just different. The same way, like, my voice is probably different from, like, maybe not the same way, but my voice is probably different from how it was 10 years ago, too. But not really the same. But I'm just saying, voices change. I just think that, like...
It's a change. It's a change. And with Trump, I'm sure he will get to that point where he experiences that change, but he has not yet. Yeah. I mean, this is, again, thorny, but the reality is, I mean, first of all, Trump is four years younger than Biden. And four years ago, when Biden was running for president, his age-related concerns were lessened. Now, I don't know if that's the whole issue is four years. In fact, it's
quite obviously not. It's also that people age at different rates. Like, every single registered voter in America knows what it's like to age and know that people age differently. And just to
To back myself up here, I also went and looked at several different scientific journals that have extensive research on all of your body systems age at different rates. I'm not a scientist, so we don't really need to get any further into that. But like this idea that like the media has lost its mind because it's not covering Trump's age in the same way that it's covering Biden's age, I think is ridiculous.
misguided and maybe unfair to the media, people are reacting to what they're witnessing with their own eyes. People aren't just thinking that like Biden is old because the media covers when Biden behaves in a way that's old and doesn't cover in a way when Trump behaves like he's old. I mean, that just doesn't make any sense to me.
Right. And I think like there are certainly areas like specific instances that you can say this was specifically was badly covered. But I think overall, I do think it has been fine. I think Thursday's events, that special counsel report like that was pretty damning and like that was big news and like deserve to be covered as such. Like, obviously, I think a lot of Democrats have been making the comparison to like Hillary Clinton's emails. But like, I think that having a
president who can't remember key dates is probably a bigger deal than the emails and should be covered like more than that. But also like you go back to like the Trump, Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi thing again, like that did get coverage. But it was also coming at a time when there was a lot of other stuff going on in the middle of the New Hampshire primary and stuff like that. And like it was part of that and was competing for time with that.
We're going to come back to Trump's trials later this year. Those will dominate the headlines at that point, which they did back last summer. Trump's indictments got a lot more coverage than the age thing did on Thursday, despite what people, the impression people might come away with on Twitter. So, yeah. In some ways, I feel like even the discussion that we're having is arguing with, like,
the Democrats who were doing the media criticism on Thursday and Friday, which like is not the majority of Americans. I think the majority of Americans clock the difference. Don't think it's particularly weird to acknowledge it. And I'll even say I was at that rally where Donald Trump referred to Nancy Pelosi as Nikki Haley multiple times.
The reality is for a long time, over an hour, he was out on stage energetically, forcefully defending his record and pitching his presidency, which is something that, I mean, Biden did on Thursday after the report came out.
People could witness for themselves how they thought of that performance. And one of the headlines coming out of it was that he confused the president of Egypt, El-Sisi, for the president of Mexico. You know, one of the challenges is if Biden wants to change perceptions on age, which, you know, I think it's a question how much you can do that. What he has to do is get in front of the American public and nimbly and forcefully defend his record and pitch a second term. And we don't see a lot of that happening.
Push back a tiny bit, because I think the argument that Joe Biden appears older than Trump and that that is concerning to voters, like I think that is that's true.
I do think that like there's some ageism probably happening here. Like I don't think we can completely dismiss that. I mean, just because, you know, somebody comes out and shows that they're energetic on stage doesn't mean that that their mental acuity is keeping up with their physical well-being. It's like there is a lot of like.
There are a lot of uncomfortable questions and we have these kinds of questions when we see debates to like up and down the ballot with like how much does performance and the way that you speak and the way you articulate yourself, how much of that reveals like your judgment as a political leader? It is something that's.
Obviously become like much more of an issue since presidential debates and since TV and since the 1960s and the JFK Nixon debate. But like there is a certain level of performance that we are emphasizing here that is beyond just like, oh, is he too old to do the job?
Some elements of the discourse after Thursday reminded me of kind of everything we went through with like John Fetterman in the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate race, when, of course, after he was incapacitated, he kind of was struggling to basically relearn how to talk. And there was a lot of controversy about whether he was up to the job if he was going to be elected. And there were questions about whether it was a legitimate choice.
criticism to say, oh, he's not up to the job versus, oh, is this ableism? And I think that the questions of ageism are definitely valid. I think we have to also submit it to evidence
Members of Congress, even Republicans, have said, like, you know, I have like sat down and like talk to the president, negotiate with the president. And he seems like totally lucid to me. We saw Bibi Netanyahu actually just the other day come out and say that, you know, he has found Biden to be, you know, like quite sharp still. So I think there is obviously we have to bear in mind that like the perceptions that we are seeing aren't necessarily the same.
As you mentioned, mental acuity. And I think like for actually like the Egypt, Mexico thing was was a good example. I think that was not the biggest piece of news to come out of Thursday, because I think from the context of the answer, it was clear that like he was giving an overall answer about the the Gaza situation and that he was referring to Egypt because I think Joe Biden knows that Mexico does border Gaza.
I just keep coming back to the core part of the discussion is what Americans perceive, because that's what's going to be important to the election, which is kind of what we are handicapping here. Like we're not we're not here to pronounce judgment on whether Biden is fit to be president. We're here to talk about whether it's going to affect the election. Yeah, I mean, I think the reality is that the presidency of the United States has a ton of responsibility and is also very symbolic and culturally significant. And so, yeah,
people vote for candidates based on all kinds of ways that they perceive them. And if people perceive somebody to be significantly past their prime, I mean,
Is that ageism? Sure. But is that also based on people's own sort of aspirations for what the leader of America looks like and how they act and how they behave? I mean, I think these are all kind of tied up in maybe an uncomfortable way, but just the reality of how Americans perceive the person that they want leading them. Now, let's be really, really clear. There are lots of ways that Americans perceive Trump as the kind of person that they also don't want leading them. To the point of the poll that I started with, it's dangerous and corrupt.
And so maybe we should move on to that portion of this conversation as well. But Leah, you look like you want to jump in here. Well, yeah. And actually, I'm going to help segue to that part of the conversation if you let me. Not that you wouldn't let me. That wasn't a passive aggressive thing. That was just me saying I'd like to. That's cool with everyone here. So I think where the risk is, is.
Because age is Americans' top concern when it comes to Biden, kind of equating that with Americans' top concern when it comes to Trump. Like this might be very much their top concern, but like how much is that actually going to move the electorate? And for that, we have a poll.
Was it the NBC poll that you are already citing? OK, so there's a question in it that asks respondents, does each statement give you major concerns, moderate concerns, minor concerns or no real concerns about that candidate? When they're told at 81 years old, Joe Biden not having the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.
62% said that was a major concern and 76% total said it's of concern. There was also 14% said it's moderate.
When asked if Donald Trump facing four different criminal and civil trials for alleged wrongdoing, including multiple felony charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election, whether that was a concern, 51% said major concern, 10% said moderate concern. So about 61%. So I think those are the kinds of numbers that like are going to help us figure out like –
And I guess those numbers do indicate that voters are really concerned about Joe Biden's age and that they're kind of equating it. They are like there's no doubt about that. But I also don't think those are like they're not putting those issues directly head to head. And I think that this is something that when Democrats on Twitter complain about
coverage of Biden's age. I think basically what their argument boils down to is like democracy is on the line in the 2024 election. You guys shouldn't be talking about Biden's age. You should be talking about Trump's anti-democratic tendencies, which obviously like you can do both. But I don't think I wouldn't assume that from this poll that like Americans are
overall are going to prioritize Biden's age as an issue over Trump's legal issues or something like that. So if you dive into the crosstabs, our favorite activity, 54% of Democrats say they have major or moderate concerns about Biden's fitness because of his age.
only 27% of Republicans say they have major or moderate concerns because of Trump's legal issues. And I think this fits into a longstanding pattern of Democrats being less like kind of like loyal and less like partisan cheerleading than Republicans. And so like, I don't think those Democrats who are responding that way in the poll are going to vote against Biden because of their age. They can say, yeah, I'm concerned about it, but like, I'm still going to vote for
for him. I don't necessarily think when it comes down to it. And also, like, this is being taken at a specific point in time. There's a lot of time left until the election, and we're going to go through multiple news cycles about Trump's legal issues. So...
Yeah, we actually had a show on the podcast somewhat recently where we talked about this phenomenon in polling where Republicans cheer louder and boo harder. And this may just be a structural disadvantage for Democrats in polling if Democrats are more liable to signify displeasure with their own party and their own party's politicians. But I actually I think it's worth saying here that what are Americans concerned about when they say they're concerned with Biden's age?
I don't think that what they're saying is they're worried about life expectancy per se. And we've actually talked about the Social Security actuarial tables, I think, on this podcast before. But for an average 81-year-old male in America today, you're expected to live seven and a quarter more years. Of course, Biden is not average. He has access to the best health care in the world. But I don't think that's really the concern. I think that it's of a piece with this concern about
competence and effectiveness, which the NBC poll also gets at, which suggests that Trump has a 16 point advantage over Biden when it comes to who you think will be more competent or effective. In 2020, Biden had a nine point advantage over Trump. And I think what is going through folks' minds when they respond to this question are things that they feel like have gotten out of control under Biden's presidency, which is
Inflation, the border, foreign wars. And so I think people are piecing together this trend of it doesn't seem like things are being well managed with this guy seems kind of out of it.
I think that's what people are saying that they're concerned about, that do you have the tenacity or whatever it may be to deal with the issues that are plaguing America? Because I think if we did not have a crisis at the border, if we hadn't experienced inflation that outpaced, you know, decades, then
and weren't experiencing these wars globally, for example, I think that people wouldn't have such an issue maybe with his sort of effectiveness or competence related to age because people would feel like things are very much under control. Is that, I mean, I know that's like maybe a little bit of a hot take, but is that fair?
That sounds right to me. I'm not sure I have data to back it up. So definitely verging into Pundit territory here. But yeah, I feel like if his approval rating were at 55 percent or even 51 percent or whatever, and there was general satisfaction with the country,
Things like his gaffes would be covered at the way that his gaffes were when he was vice president and like it wasn't super consequential. Obviously, we have 538 believe in polls. You know, I'll take all the polling data we can get. But like, I do kind of feel like at the end of the day, what would be most useful is just a poll really zooming in on like undecided voters or maybe more to the point, like people who are the double haters who hate to dislike both of them because like they're the ones who are going to decide the election for polling.
For pollsters who are out there, I want to see a really good high quality poll, like just of the double haters, maybe a couple of focus groups. And I think that would be really fascinating. Well, guys, we actually have polling at least on part of this equation, which is that pollsters have been asking Americans questions.
how their perceptions or likelihood of supporting Trump would change if he is convicted in these criminal cases. At least in the New York Times-Santa College poll, we saw that it swung the overall vote by five points, which went from a Biden trailing Trump to a Biden lead. Speaking of just specifically the battleground states, there was a morning consult poll that suggested a majority of voters in the battleground states wouldn't vote for Trump if he's convicted.
But I think maybe what's important to say here is that, you know, you're saying that age is baked in and many of these people may well still vote for Biden because they prefer him ultimately to Trump, even if they think he's too old for a second term.
Now, I guess age-related things can change over the coming nine months, but I think what we're really going to see a lot of volatility or variability around is actually Trump's cases. You know, are they heard before November? Is he actually convicted? I mean, if he's convicted of a felony...
Again, are we actually talking about a candidate being incarcerated? I think likely we're not talking about a candidate being incarcerated by Election Day, but we don't know. So for better or for worse, there might not be all that much Biden can do to change perceptions about his age. Like I said before, it would involve just sort of going out in front of the American public and showing them, presenting himself in a way that changed perceptions, I think, in large part. There are ways to change perceptions about, well, I don't know, the degree to which
Trump is corrupt and dangerous and it's going to come down to the trials, I think, is part of it. Yeah. And I don't even know. I mean, that polling that you mentioned, Galen, like that says, you know, the results of Trump's convictions could move voters five points. Like, I
I don't know. Depends on what the conviction is and depends on Trump's response to it and whether, you know, voters think that it's fair or not. You're hitting a really important point, which is that the numbers are
as we kind of progress through this cycle and get updates on Trump's different cases are probably going to be more interesting than changes that we see with Joe Biden's age, because I assume it will remain a big issue. That said, I don't know if he has like an incident.
I mean, so some folks in analyzing the events of last week have started talking about Biden's vulnerability as the actual nominee and whether the Democratic Party might be well served by him stepping aside. I think this veers into West Wing fanfic, and we've already gotten a little pundity here. Do we want to indulge that or do we want to save that for another day? Go on. More details. What would indulging that look like?
I think there are folks in the Democratic Party who think that Biden should consider stepping aside. There's like the real galaxy brain folks who think that means Gavin Newsom becoming the nominee. And then I think there's maybe the more realistic folks who say, OK, if Biden stepped aside, Kamala Harris would run as the Democratic nominee in 2024. But I don't even know. That may even also be galaxy brain. Maybe the idea of Biden stepping aside altogether is to West Wing fanfic for a rigorous pod like ours.
It is. Biden is not going to step aside. I think probably most people know this. No Democratic elite, other than Dean Phillips, I guess, has gone after him for what happened on Thursday to say that he's too old. Everybody's closing ranks around him. Like, the party cohesion is just so, so strong right now. Like, the only person who can make this decision is...
Joe Biden. I don't think anybody... Well, right, that's the world in which this would happen. I don't think it's people, like, really mounting a last-minute primary campaign or whatever. It would just... It's a world in which two to three months down the line, the polling hasn't changed. He's still losing, you know, the popular vote in head-to-head polling between him and Trump, let alone battleground states, which currently...
the early polling shows him losing by a point or two when it comes to the national vote and by more like three or four points when it comes to the battleground states. If that doesn't change at all, is there, I mean, I don't think necessarily the pressure will even become public, but like, is it levy behind the scenes? And maybe he considers something, something, something. Ultimately, it would turn into an endorsement of Kamala Harris. Like, I mean, that's the West Wing fanfic situation. I don't know how much I buy it. You obviously don't think it will happen.
I think everyone would probably be advised to not think it will happen, not make bets on that happening. But I have been burned in primary coverage before. I'm going to keep an open mind. I will say that when...
Kamala Harris came out and defended Biden. It was a reminder of kind of her 2020 debate performance, which was super strong and kind of a reminder of how strong of a campaigner she can be, even though we've seen her have missteps and kind of more policy focused like speeches throughout her vice presidency.
I guess you can't like she's the vice president. So, you know, you can't rule out the vice president. That's what the vice president is there for is to take over in case the president can't do his job. I just feel like the the dynamic of this election is so dependent upon these two men facing each other. Like if Trump were not the nominee, like,
Biden's candidacy would be like, I'd have to like just do a complete reset of my brain on like how, what his appeal is, what his message is, like who his supporters are.
With Biden, I think you'd probably see Democrats continuing to run on like a similar message as Biden. I think it would be like a little bit less, less of like a sea change. But like, I can't kind of get over how much like it's not just the Republican nominee and the Democratic nominee. It's like these two things.
staples of American politics who everybody knows. Like everybody knows who these two guys are. That is what's creating the entire dynamic we're discussing here.
Yeah. And I think that uncertainty is part of it too, right? Is that like parties are very conservative institutions. And I don't mean that kind of in an ideological way. I mean that in terms of like risk averse. You can never forecast what a single person will do, right? You know, maybe he, maybe, you know, Galen's scenario does come true and he wakes up one day and says, you know, it's better for everybody if I just step aside. That decision would be a lot easier if they had more certainty, like that, like Kamala Harris could beat
Donald Trump. But the reality is in the polls right now, Kamala Harris's margins are even worse than Biden's. And I think there's legitimate debate about whether that is just because like she's not as well known and she would kind of well, depending, I guess, on what happens, she wouldn't be running as the incumbent. And so like there is like it'd be more like a normal election cycle where like you have the incumbent president and then there's a new challenger who like the country kind of gets to know and things like that. And maybe they have an opportunity to gain or whatever. But like, obviously, there is a lot of
even intra-party dissatisfaction with kamala harris not not a ton of faith in her i would say among a lot of democratic insiders questions about her electability being a black woman so i think that it would be different if there were somebody who was like if barack obama were or michelle obama were
the vice president or whatever. And they could just, Dems could just switch to a proven winner or somebody who was like super popular like that. But that just doesn't exist. And I think that that uncertainty is going to hold Biden back. Okay, one more thing. So if Kamala Harris did run as the challenger and Trump ran as the incumbent, that would be completely bizarro world because he would be voting for the incumbent would be the vote for change, which would be like,
Like that would just, it would be a lot. Second, I think like we just don't know what a Kamala Harris presidential general election campaign could look like. I know there are a lot of doubts within the Democratic Party. I don't know. I don't know what that would actually look like in practice, especially because we have seen how she can be a really strong campaigner. And, you know, sometimes the internal Democratic Party like chatter is its own thing. Well,
Well, we've also seen her be a weak campaigner. Lest we forget she didn't make it to Iowa. Yeah. I think it's a scenario in which, I mean, it's truly a scenario in which the Democratic Party feels like and Joe Biden feels like it's worth a Hail Mary. Right, exactly. The polls have gotten so bad or whatever that they might as well try something different. There's never going to be a moment where they're assured that if Biden steps aside for Kamala Harris, that it would win them the election. It would be a high risk scenario.
potential high reward situation. That Hail Mary scenario probably never comes to pass because like we're so polarized, like the election is going to be close. The polls are going to be close. Like Joe Biden already beat Donald Trump once. And so like, I don't think there's going to be a scenario in which our model says that, you know, Donald Trump has a 90 percent chance of winning. All right. Well, with that, let's move on and talk about Congress, in particular, the implosion of the border deal and what happens next.
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Last Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked the bipartisan border security bill meant to address the border crisis and provide aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Republicans have given a number of reasons for why they weren't up for this bill.
that it doesn't go far enough in restricting the border, that Biden can act unilaterally to shut down the border without this bill, and that giving Democrats a win on the border in an election year is a no-go. So joining us now to talk about what happened is Rachel Bade, author of Politico Playbook. Welcome back to the podcast, Rachel. Hey there. Happy to be back.
Great to have you. So, Rachel, we talked about this a couple weeks ago when the text had not yet come out, but Republicans were already sort of souring on the prospect of passing this. What exactly happened once the text came out, and where do things go from here? Yeah.
It's funny because a lot of Republicans who were skeptical of this bill, even before this legislation came out, said, look, we can't vote on this right away in the Senate. We're going to need weeks to digest what's in the bill. And yet, like five minutes after the bill dropped, those same members were coming out and saying this was a huge failure on the part of Republican leadership and that the deal wasn't good enough.
So, I mean, look, the pile on, as you had mentioned from like the MAGA crowd, it started even before we knew it was in the legislation. It certainly continued right after that. I think Donald Trump Jr. was tweeting like within a few minutes of the bill going out. Behind the scenes, Mitch McConnell, who was a fan of this bill and sort of shepherded James Light for the chief negotiator for Republicans on this deal, said,
He was encouraging his members to support this. But by the time the bill came out, it took so long and there was such a spin campaign by the right that McConnell had no shot of getting his members. And he didn't even get members of his leadership team who are always with him and always on his side. So big failure on their part.
So what happens next? Is this just that's it? Nothing's happening on the border. Time to move on. Yeah, it's I mean, it's crazy because, you know, Republicans sank this deal. And then there was this plan C, which was actually plan A, which was to move Ukraine aid, Israel aid and Taiwan aid without a border deal. This was originally what the White House wanted to do, by the way. And it was Republicans who said, no, no, no, no, no. We have to deal with the border first.
Now that the border deal has died, lawmakers in the Senate have moved forward with this supplemental vote that will pass this week. It will pass this week with no border agreement. And yet at the same time, we're hearing from Republicans like Lindsey Graham, some folks in the House who are saying, we can't vote for this because there's no border security measures in here. And it's like, what? Total whiplash because they killed the bipartisan border deal themselves. So I do think that the foreign assistance packages work.
It's going to go through the Senate, as I mentioned. There's a question about whether anything will happen to it in the House. But as for the border piece, I just don't see it happening. I mean, if Republicans like Speaker Johnson were coming back and saying, look, I don't like this bill because I want to improve X, Y and Z provision, then you maybe have a conversation with the White House where you can negotiate a different deal or give the right for their concessions. But Republicans right now who don't want this deal to go through because Trump
clearly doesn't want this deal to go through either. They're not even coming back with a counter. And that's really telling in and of itself. So I don't think this is going to go anywhere. I think we should be watching the administration for executive action on this front. That's at least what I'm going to be doing.
I want to get to that piece in a second, but let's talk about the polls. So according to a recent poll from Blueprint, they're polling on immigration as something we've talked about before. 58% of Americans, all voters, support this deal. 22% oppose it. And the breakdown by partisanship is 64% of Democrats support it, 53% of independents, and 53% of Republicans. So
So Leah and Nathaniel is rejecting this bipartisan agreement, now a political liability for Republicans?
We have to talk about salience here, right? Like, sure, they are on the less popular side of the issue. But like, how many people are actually paying attention to this in Congress? This is the issue is that these are the machinations that are happening in D.C. and people aren't following this blow by blow. People may not have even heard about the fact that there was a bipartisan border deal. That's the big picture in which most people are
are operating. I was actually looking to see Galen. I don't know if you know, is there did the blueprint poll ask like how close attention are you paying to this deal? Because I think that would be telling. Yes, I think that if Democrats had
an unlimited amount of money and could personally tell every voter in the country that Republicans were against this deal, then that would hurt Republicans. But that just isn't realistic. So they did ask this question, and 52 percent of voters said they had heard about bipartisan negotiations on the border deal. Now, maybe you don't believe that. And this was 56 percent of Democrats, 44 percent of independents, 51 percent of Republicans. I
I don't know. Is this a good or bad use of polling? No. Well, so that's if you like heard about is like the lowest possible threshold, right? So you're saying half of people haven't heard about it at all.
And then presumably the number of people who are following it closely enough to know that Republicans are the ones that tanked it are even fewer. So, yeah, I just don't think that this is going to really matter. Like for a long, long time, like Republicans have been seen as owning the issue of immigration. They are the ones that voters trust on on that issue because they're kind of the tough guy party. And I don't think that's going to change because of this one bill that only half of people heard about.
I also just think in general, pulling on one piece of legislation is usually not a good predictor of actual general election results. First off, there are going to be a million things that happen between now and November. And I do not expect that this immigration bill to be toward the top. Of course, like I think it still has
Yeah.
campaigns. So, you know, there is a way in which it has an effect, but I don't think it's a direct effect. It's not like I don't like this legislation, therefore I don't like Joe Biden or I like this legislation, therefore I like Joe Biden. I've been talking to a bunch of Democrats about this, and I totally agree with you guys that this is a long shot for them to turn the tables and try to act
Like, you know, they're the good guys on the border and Republicans are weak on the border. That's definitely an uphill climb. But, you know, a lot of Dems are telling me that they're hoping that this could just even slightly neutralize how toxic the border matter is for the party. I mean, if you look at polling for you guys would know this better than me for Joe Biden, like he consistently doesn't own the polls. You can use polls, too. But, you know, when it comes to the things he's like,
ranks the worst in. Like, border is always up there, right? I do think there's also something else that Democrats have here that I have never seen them be so fortunate to have in the past, and that is there are Republicans on record, on camera, blasting their own colleagues for blowing this up and basically allowing the border to continue to be in chaos and these border towns to continue being overwhelmed because Donald Trump wants
wants that issue in 2024. The fact that this is not just Democrats being like, oh, no, Republicans walked away from the deal. This is like James Lankford, who was a conservative Oklahoma senator who negotiated this deal and a bunch of other members, again, on record, on camera, that Democrats are already talking about clipping these, you know, little bits of audio and video and using them in campaign ads. And these images and the sound by Republicans, I think, will really help them.
Yeah, Rachel, I think that's a really good point. Both the combination of what you're saying about campaign ads and Nathaniel, what you said about salience, which is that, yes,
A lot of Americans, even if they've heard about this, are not keyed into the back and forth here. But, you know, folks who are unhappy about what happened with this deal or who just want to elect Democrats in general now sort of have their work cut out for them to try to convince Americans that this matters. And we've already seen some of that. Here's one ad. I want to play it from the Lincoln Project about this deal in particular and their attempt to turn the tables on the border. So let's hear it. And then I have some questions.
Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has ordered Republicans to block the toughest immigration bill in decades. For all their tough talk, their solution is to do nothing. Because Donald Trump needs chaos to win. You'd rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it. If he wins, he'll do nothing. Just like last time. His wall? A joke.
Donald Trump doesn't care if your family's safety or the lives of law enforcement officers are in the balance. He's on the side of the cartels, coyotes, and child traffickers. There's only one candidate who will do something about our border, and it was never Donald Trump.
So we've said that by dint of this bipartisan bill failing, that's not going to be what turns the tables here. Do you think messages like this will actually work? When I was watching this campaign ad, my question was like,
Again, where are the Republicans on camera blaming their own party here? I think that the message in this ad is much harder for voters to swallow because it goes completely against their, you know, sentiment, the sentiment out there that Democrats are weak on the border and Republicans are strong on the border. I think in one Democratic operative, I talked to you about, you know, how they want to do this during the next campaign cycle said they're going to try to frame this as
as a continuation of something voters also already acknowledge, which is that Republicans in the House are constantly in chaos and constantly chasing their tails. They're divided between following Trump and doing what is right, and they're not doing the work of the American people. That is something that if you message it that way and say, look, the border is just the latest example of this, that it might have a better ability to resonate with voters because it feeds into something they already believe.
It's contributing to a narrative that they're hoping will help them in the general election, basically. Like, Trump is the chaos agent. Here's exhibit A, B, C, and D. And I think we'll probably see other examples of that. We'll see other examples, and some might actually have a bigger impact on November than what we're seeing now. Like, something else might happen that's chaotic. But I think it all feeds this same narrative, which is potentially helpful for Democrats.
Yeah, I mean, the question that I have when watching this ad is like, what do Americans think about the idea that Biden can just act unilaterally?
Because if folks are paying attention to border security, they know that when Trump was in office, a lot of what he did at the border was done by executive action, basically declaring an emergency, shutting the border down. Remain in Mexico was also initiated by Trump. And so, I mean, voters, I think, would naturally be asking like, OK, Biden, if this
if this is such a problem, why don't you just go and do those things? Why don't you institute remain in Mexico? Why don't you declare an emergency at the border? Because frankly, the levels are historically high, basically unprecedentedly high. If you think this is such a big deal, take care of it. I think that's also in some ways what you're hearing from members of Congress as well, which I imagine for Republicans part just neutralizes whatever is in this ad.
It probably neutralizes it for some people and doesn't neutralize it for others. You know, like it's like Nathaniel said, Democrats, I don't think I don't think we're seeing a world in which Democrats are going to win on immigration. The polling there has been pretty stable with Republicans having an advantage. But can Democrats lose the issue by less? And importantly, and this kind of goes into what we were just talking about in New York's third special election. Does this help Democrats?
down-ballot candidates make more localized cases about their separation from the party or about their party identity not being quite as toxic. Yeah, I think to Rachel's point, individual ads...
in, you know, maybe like swing districts near the border or something like that, featuring the Republican candidate be like, we can't do this because of Trump or whatever like that. I could see being effective in a specific way. But in terms of like Biden specifically, I just think most voters aren't thinking sophisticatedly enough about like, well, Biden is like governing with divided government and needs to like strike deals and like, you know, the filibuster and yada, yada, yada. Well, but the point is that he doesn't have to on the border.
Right, exactly. The simple calculus is they're like Biden president. This is his country, his border that he is presiding over. If things are bad with it, he is the one to blame. Like the only way out is through this issue won't get better for Biden unless the immigration issue improves.
I mean, to that point, you mentioned unilateral action, Rachel, before. What is the Biden administration considering doing? Yeah, there's been some reporting that there's definitely talk behind the scenes about what they can do. Realistically, you know, he can't do everything that this bipartisan Porter deal was supposed to do. Like, he can't
As far as I know, you know, increase money down there, raise the standard for, you know, asylum, make it so that migrants who are going through the asylum process are basically processed in six months instead of 10 years. There was also a big change for Republicans in this bill, a big win for Republicans ending what they call catch and release procedures.
where migrants are, you know, claim asylum, they're released into the country, and then they sort of disappear and join the masses of 12 million, you know, undocumented immigrants who are living in this country. But like, biologically,
Biden, yeah, sure, he could shut down the border. He could try to do, you know, another Title 42 the way Trump did. And I mean, if the polling continues to hold on this, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we see him do something along those lines. I mean, I think with Biden and the campaign, the calculation is that, yes, they're going to piss off the base if they allow for a lot of these border changes to happen.
But the belief is that the base will come around because who else are they going to support? You know, Donald Trump in the end. So, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. I don't have any fresh reporting I can share about where they're going to go with this. But I don't think it's the end of the story when it comes to the administration taking action. All right. Well, we will see what happens next. For now, thank you so much, Rachel, Leah and Nathaniel. Thanks. Thanks, Galen. Thanks.
My name is Galen Drew. Tony Chow is in the control room. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Chertavian, and our intern is Jayla Everett. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.
