Will Biden Drop Out?

This episode explores the aftermath of a poor debate performance by President Joe Biden, examining whether he should continue his campaign or step aside.

1. Growing concerns within the Democratic Party about Biden's ability to serve effectively if re-elected.
2. Discussions about potentially urging Biden to step aside are occurring both publicly and privately among Democrats.
3. Despite the debate's poor performance, Biden demonstrated resilience in subsequent appearances.
4. The episode captures a critical moment of introspection for the Democratic Party regarding electoral strategy and leadership.
5. The broader political landscape, including Supreme Court decisions and international tensions, adds complexity to the election's stakes.

1: Debate Reactions

The episode begins with an analysis of Biden's debate performance, highlighting concerns over his ability to continue as commander in chief. Brad Milke: "Is this guy going to be okay as commander in chief for another four years?"

2: Party Reactions

Discussions among Democrats about Biden's future in the race, contrasting public support with private doubts. Mary Alice Parks: "There are still really serious conversations happening across the party about what should happen and how to move forward."

3: Supreme Court Decisions

Coverage of significant Supreme Court rulings that could impact governance and policy-making. Kate Shaw: "The court has announced that it, and it alone is going to decide what statutory terms mean."

4: International Tensions

Insight into the escalating conflicts in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and Hezbollah. Matt Guttman: "Hezbollah has fired over 5000 rockets, anti-tank missiles and explosive UAVs from Lebanon at Israeli families."

• Stay informed on political and judicial developments to understand their implications for governance.
• Engage in political discussions to foster a well-rounded perspective on potential leadership changes.
• Consider the broader impact of leadership decisions on international relations and domestic policies.
• Support or advocate for transparency and accountability in political campaigning and debate preparations.
• Reflect on the importance of resilience and adaptability in leadership, especially in challenging times.

In the aftermath of a shaky debate performance, Democrats consider pressuring President Biden to exit the race. The Supreme Court prepares to hand down its final decisions of its term. And Israel inches closer to a second war in the Middle East.

People

Joe Biden, Brad Milke, Mary Alice Parks, Kate Shaw, Matt Guttman

Companies

ABC News

Books

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Guest Name(s):

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None

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Brad Milke
It'S Monday, July 1, and it's alarm bell time. We start here.

Following a shaky debate performance, some Democrats are privately begging for President Biden to.

Mary Alice Parks
Exit the race, pushing senators to have frank conversations with the president about bowing out.

Brad Milke
He spent this weekend with his family. We'll talk about the conversations behind closed doors. The Supreme Court is ready to issue its final decisions today, but legal experts are already in shock.

Kate Shaw
The court has announced that it, and it alone is going to decide what statutory terms mean.

Brad Milke
We'll catch you up on what some are calling the biggest ruling of the year. And israeli officials call this the tipping point.

Matt Guttman
Have all the equipment necessary to stop the kind of massive barrage that Hezbollah is capable of.

Brad Milke
Why? A failure to secure a ceasefire in Gaza could open up a second war somewhere else.

From ABC News, this is start here. I'm Brad Milke.

If you were watching the presidential debate on CNN last week, you are watching a political earthquake in real time.

President Biden
Look if we finally beat Medicare.

Brad Milke
Thank you, President Biden. President Trump. Within minutes of seeing a struggling President Biden on stage, democratic officials were expressing concern like, forget appearances. Forget how he looks on a camera. Is this guy going to be okay as commander in chief for another four years?

Kate Shaw
They think Bidens candidacy is dead and that Trump is going to win the White House.

Brad Milke
Another Democrat said, I wish this performance had been during the democratic primary.

Kate Shaw
If it were, we would have had a different nominee.

Brad Milke
Our partners at FiveThirtyEight actually conducted a real time poll along with Ipsos, measuring voters reactions. What was interesting to me is most people did not think former President Donald Trump did very well. They described him as average at best. They just thought President Biden did way, way worse. Now, those same respondents said it didn't really change their perception of the race. But if you stuck around to watch more, you might have noticed that Biden did gain some steam as this debate went on.

President Biden
The only person on this stage is a convicted felon is the man I'm looking at right now.

Brad Milke
Afterwards, when he visited a watch party in Atlanta, he actually seemed more conversational.

President Biden
I can't think of one thing he said that was true.

Brad Milke
And by Friday, at a North Carolina rally, this all felt like night and day.

President Biden
I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to.

But I know what I do know.

I know how to tell the truth.

Brad Milke
He was interrupted by applause from people still very enthusiastically supporting him. But how many undecided voters have been watching these moments? How much damage has already been done? Well, throughout the weekend, intense conversations were taking place about whether President Biden should remain the democratic nominee. Some of these conversations were taking place in private. Others were right out in the open. So let's start the day with ABC's White House correspondent Mary Alice Parks. Mary Alice, there's a difference between pundits and columnists saying like this, this was real bad. And hearing that from lawmakers or party officials or people close to the president. What has been the reaction, at least in public?

Mary Alice Parks
Yeah, there's also a major difference between what's happening in public and what's happening in private.

Publicly, we have seen those close to the president come out and offer a really full throated defense.

Brad Milke
Only one candidate on that stage has the endorsement of his own vice president.

Mary Alice Parks
Saying that he is the only one that has the delegates pledge to him, that has the money raised that he is the nominee.

Brad Milke
The stakes of this race couldn't be higher. And the only Democrat who's ever beaten Donald Trump is Joe Biden.

Mary Alice Parks
And they have said that they aren't seeing data internally. They claim they have, that the debate, you know, moved the needle in some catastrophic way.

Matt Guttman
We can say two things simultaneously. He had a bad night, but he also is a good man, a strong president. And Democrats still believe that this race is winnable. That's why they're sticking with Joe Biden.

Mary Alice Parks
I will say there are other elected officials who even publicly aren't toeing that kind of a line. I mean, I was really struck by the comments from Congressman Jamie Raskin on MSNBC. He said out loud that there is a world where Biden is not the nominee, is not at the top of the ticket.

Matt Guttman
The question now is, you know, can we recover from the hit that we took during that debate? And there's real soul searching going on. But ultimately, President Biden is going to have to make that call.

Mary Alice Parks
What we have heard and learned in our reporting behind closed doors, that there are still really serious conversations happening across the party about what should happen and how to move forward. I will tell you that one long time DNC leader told me outright that he has been pushing senators to have frank conversations with the president about ballot. You know, this longtime DNC party leader told me that he just did not see a viable path forward, not only sort of politically, but that there was just too much concern in the country. I mean, you have to remember, Brad, we're talking about sort of several levels of concern here, concern about whether he can win, whether they can, Democrats can rally the support not only that they had before, but that they need, I mean, they need to not only keep Democrats intact, but they were hoping to and need to win over moderates, win over independents, win over conservatives who potentially don't want to vote for Trump.

But more than that, real genuine concern about whether he can do the job. And I think that that shouldn't be lost in this conversation. I mean, this is the commander in chief, right?

Brad Milke
I was going to say, like, and we're talking about an 81 year old right now. What happens when we're talking about an 85 or an 86 year old, right?

Mary Ellis? I feel like one of the big questions from regular Democrats sort of up and down the totem pole in Washington seemed to be, wait, how did this get so much worse than I expected? Because if dude had a cold that was keeping him from speaking clearly, that would be one thing. This guy seemed like he was having trouble keeping track of sentences. Why didn't we hear about that ahead of time? I mean, was there an answer for those people?

Mary Alice Parks
No. And I will tell you that a lot of Democrats are frustrated by the messaging and furious at the campaign over the strategy here, the debate prep. I have talked to a number of Democrats that have said things to me like, heads should roll in that campaign.

The idea that he was over prepped, I've heard, or that he was given. Why was he fed numbers? You're not going to win a debate against Trump with numbers. Why in the world did they agree to this format? But also, like you said, a lot of concern that even top Democrats felt like they had never seen the president struggle that much.

President Biden
I know I'm not a young man.

State the obvious.

Mary Alice Parks
I will say a lot of those same people texted me the next day when he had his rally in North Carolina.

President Biden
I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up.

Mary Alice Parks
He was so energetic. He rallied that crowd. That crowd was with him. And the voters on the ground there told us that they felt that. There are times that I wish there are different options for young voters to choose from who better reflect our generation and our generational changes. However, I think President Biden's policies have been progressive, which is what I'm looking for. And he went on to do several fundraisers Friday. I talked to one source who was at one of the closed door fundraisers in New York who commented to me that the president did get several standing ovations from donors who were there and ready to have his back.

So the Democratic Party is big. We are talking about thousands of people that are involved at the state party level, the DNC level, that are involved with congressional offices. A lot of opinions floating out around there, but a lot of anxiety.

Brad Milke
Well, and that's the thing, Mary Ellis, is I also feel like there were calls from some Democrats over the weekend to, like, tell the Democratic National Committee, hey, you got to kick Joe Biden off the ticket.

I don't know how that would work. Is that a real possibility?

Mary Alice Parks
I guess, right? It's not. And I think that a lot of Democrats did start to change their tune because reality set in that there is nothing to do at this stage unless the president himself were to step aside.

Brad Milke
You're not going to overturn primary results, you're saying.

Mary Alice Parks
Right. There's actually, there's not a way to do it. They would have to fundamentally change the rules. There would be lawsuits. I mean, it wouldn't work. But so at the end of the day, so many Democrats reminding me that the reality is this is up to President Biden. It is a personal decision. He is with his family at Camp David. That's how he finished out the weekend. Yes. A trip that had been long planned, but, but you can only imagine the kind of conversations that they are having.

Brad Milke
Wow. And people on the outside probably leaning on anyone who's close to the president right now to say what they think he should hear regardless of what that is. All right. Mary Alice Parks, our White House correspondent, thank you so much.

Mary Alice Parks
Yeah, thanks, Bradley.

Brad Milke
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It's official. Today is the final day of the Supreme Court's term. The justices will be handing down all of their remaining decisions this morning, which means we should also get a ruling on the biggest outstanding case on their docket, the question of whether former presidents are immune from any criminal prosecution. Any version of immunity would have huge implications, of course. But on Friday, there were other groundbreaking rulings, including what some legal experts say is the most jaw dropping ruling of the year. This is a big day at the Supreme Court as well. The Chevron doctrine has been overturned, and this is something that will be a remarkable turn of events. This was House speaker Mike Johnson trumpeting this ruling for most of the court's conservatives. So with that, let's go to ABC Supreme Court contributor Kate Shaw. Kate, this is something known as, as Chevron deference. It's literally named after a case involving the Chevron oil company. What happened on Friday, Brad, what happened.

Kate Shaw
On Friday is that the court overruled the 40 year old Chevron case, and it's huge news that it did that I don't think Americans are gonna think about the overruling of Chevron in the same way that people thought about the overruling of Roe versus Wade. And the two overrulings are certainly different in lots of respects, but this is an incredibly dramatic move because the Chevron case has for decades governed the way courts review things done by agencies. And most of what government does is done by agencies. So under Chevron, when agencies interpreted statutes, they decided what a word like employee meant. Like, does that include part time employees? Does that include seasonal employees? An agency has to answer questions like this all the time. And under Chevron, if an agency answers a question like that and it gives a reasonable answer, the court has to defer to what the agency has done. And overruling chevron means, courts are going to be the one answering questions about what laws mean.

Brad Milke
Like, the law laws are sometimes pretty ambiguous with, like, the terms and everything. So in this case, you get the agency the benefit of the doubt.

Kate Shaw
Until now, that's exactly what Chevron has been understood to mean. And yes, until now. So what the court has now said is we're not giving agencies the benefit of the doubt. It's actually not agency's job to decide what statutes mean. Courts are the ones who are supposed to construe statutes, and we're going to decide for ourselves what a word like employee means. What a word like feasible means, right? You're supposed to keep levels of a particular toxin, you know, as low as feasible. Well, that's not something that is necessarily going to be obvious, like what a statute like that means. And again, under chevron, agencies were the ones who brought their expertise to bear in deciding how to interpret terms in statutes, which, again, are often ambiguous. And under this new decision, loper bright, the court has announced that it and it alone is going to decide what statutory terms mean.

Brad Milke
Wow. Okay. Because you had written a New York Times op ed over the weekend saying, like, I don't think americans understand how big this is about to be in the coming years. So this is helpful. The other big case that just from Friday, like, there are several cases here, including one on January 6, defendants, we know former President Trump has talked about pardoning people, how he thought people were locked up unfairly. The supreme court, what are they agreeing with him, essentially?

Kate Shaw
Well, the defendant in this case, Joseph Fisher, was one of the people charged for his conduct on January 6 that involved entering the Capitol unlawfully. And there were actually a bunch of charges brought against him. But one of the charges was under a statute that prohibits essentially impeding or obstructing an official proceeding. So it's a broad statute. So Fisher and hundreds of other people involved in January 6, including, notably Donald Trump, were charged under this statute. And the theory was if you disrupted in lots of different ways the counting of electoral votes for Joe Biden, that was a violation of this statute. But what the Supreme Court held on Friday was that the statute actually didn't cover this conduct because the statute requires the obstruction or impediment of the government proceeding to involve the destruction of evidence like documents and not just the interruption of a proceeding. And if that sounds kind of weird, I think it is. The statute itself doesn't refer to documents, at least the part of the statute that Fisher was charged under. But there's a different part of the statute that does refer to documents. And what the Supreme Court majority said was, well, that earlier part of the statute has to inform this later part of the statute. And that means wiping away at least one of the charges against Joseph Fisher. And it also may throw into question two of the four charges against Donald Trump in the January 6 case.

Brad Milke
And it's so interesting to hear you talk about like, well, the statute says this and the statute's kind of general about that. Well, I wish we had an agency that could figure any of this out, but we don't anymore.

Kate Shaw
There actually had long been open questions about whether and how Chevron applied with respect to criminal statutes. So that was sort of a separate issue. But the point is exactly right. There are so many statutes and so many cases just this term involving courts really struggling to decide what a statute means. And here you had a 6th justice majority decide that the statute didn't cover this conduct. And actually a dissent written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of the court's conservatives, saying, yes, the statute did cover this conduct. So you can see how reasonable minds, even on the Supreme Court, can disagree about what statutes mean. I think that tells us pretty clearly statutes aren't always obvious in terms of their best reading. And that was the whole point of chevron. There isn't always a clear or even always just one answer to what a statute means. Somebody's going to have to decide how to implement a statute. And among the choices, agencies staffed by experts who really know the subject matter and also accountable to political appointees. Right at the top of every federal agency sits somebody appointed by the president who is popularly elected.

Those parties are better situated to answer these kinds of questions than nine unelected justices. And yet that's not the answer the justices gave us.

Brad Milke
Right? The justices themselves are always saying, like, I'm not an expert in this, I'm not an expert on that. Well, that might very well be the position they find themselves in or taking advantage of if they want to. Kate Shaw, thank you so much.

Kate Shaw
Thank you, Brad.

Brad Milke
Right now, talks between Hamas and Israel have utterly stalled when it comes to a potential ceasefire. This weekend, the US reportedly proposed new language to bridge that gap, but still no breakthrough yet. And heres the every day that passes when theres no deal in Gaza, we get one day closer to another potential war between Israel and its other nemesis, Hezbollah. That group, which is based just to Israels north in Lebanon, has been intensifying their rocket strikes on Israel. But you get the feeling that if Gaza just got ironed out, everyone involved could take a breath. That is just one of the many issues making the current state of play so complicated. So let's try to uncomplicate it real quick with ABC's Matt Guttman. He's working his sources in Israel. He's in Tel Aviv now. Matt, can you explain this to me? I always need to explain like I'm a fifth grader. When we say Gaza, we're talking Hamas. When we say Lebanon, we're talking largely about Hezbollah. Right. So at this moment, how likely could a second war be between Israel and.

Matt Guttman
Those guys at this point? According to the israeli officials they spoke to today, they say they were at a tipping point. It's a hair's breadth away from a regional war, although there are efforts afoot to try to stop it. And both Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to the basic parameters of this deal that's been brokered by the us envoy to the region. But they can't do it because Hezbollah can't agree to this deal until there's a ceasefire in Gaza. And we have to remember, Brad, Hezbollah is this very powerful iranian backed militia that mostly or controls a lot of Lebanon. And they are vastly more powerful than Hamas. They have tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. They have many tens of thousands of fighters who are veteran and trained and have fought in Syria in that civil war. They are a fighting force to contend with, arguably one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle east after Israel.

Brad Milke
Hezbollah has fired over 5000 rockets, anti tank missiles and explosive uav's from Lebanon at israeli families.

Matt Guttman
And that's why neither Israel nor Hezbollah want it, because everything from infrastructure to military installations to civilian targets would be destroyed. It would be very, very bad.

Brad Milke
Hezbollah's increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation, one that could have devastating consequences for Lebanon and the entire region.

Matt Guttman
The prediction from these officials yesterday was that there would be many thousands killed in Lebanon and many killed in Israel. As well. They don't have all the equipment necessary to stop the kind of massive barrage that Hezbollah is capable of.

Brad Milke
Wait, so. But you said that Hezbollah doesn't want a war with Israel. Israel clearly doesn't want a second war with Hezbollah right now. Okay, so why, why would they be seeming to inch closer and closer to war?

Matt Guttman
Because Hamas and Gaza is the key.

Hezbollah entered this war on October 8 as a response to Hamas attack on Israel in terms of solidarity. Right. So they join the thing and they start firing rockets and drones and all sorts of missiles and anti tank missiles at Israel across the border.

But it's progressed. That war has gotten a little bit more intense, that sort of war of attrition.

Hezbollah and Israel on Israel's northern border, Lebanon southern border. And now it's intensified to the point where they seem that they can't climb down this tree, even though both of them want to, even though this US backed agreement, both sides have agreed to the general parameters. But until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, the trigger that started all of this, Hezbollah says, well, we can't stop. You guys figure out Gaza and Hamas and there's a ceasefire there, then we can enter this ceasefire. But before that happens, there's nothing we can do. And what makes this a catch 22 is that Hamas sees Israel's weakness. It sees that it's bogged down in this conflict with Hezbollah. And so it's making Hamas not want to enter into the ceasefire because they see, well, Israel is weakened because of it. So we want this to continue. So, no, we're going to drag our feet.

Brad Milke
Like, why? Why would I give anything up right now if my opponent's about to enter perhaps a second war? Like, we could get more concessions if we wanted.

Matt Guttman
Exactly. And a debilitating war, and everybody knows it. So it's in Hamas's interest to delay a potential ceasefire, Israel and Hezbollah's interest to try to get into it. But the key is Hamas and the Gaza ceasefire. And what's so interesting is that the hands of two very powerful entities in the Middle East, Israel and Hezbollah, are tied by Hamas, which you would think would be pretty beaten up after nearly nine months of war, but it still holds the keys.

Brad Milke
Hey, and by the way, Hamas and Hezbollah both clearly get a lot of their money and their power from Iran, right? Like, where does Iran fit in all this?

Matt Guttman
Iran has said that if Israel attacks Hezbollah and it's a major invasion or an offensive inside Lebanon, that it would enter the fray and that would also be devastating.

Now there would be some cover from the US, and the US is sending another aircraft carrier to the region. But General CQ bound, the chairman of Joint chiefs, has said that the US is not going to be able to protect Israel from a lot of the rockets because of the trajectory that Hezbollah fires. So this could be a very, very devastating war. I know we keep repeating it, but this is something that nobody wants. But now there's this inexorable momentum towards this war and they can't seem to stop.

Brad Milke
It. Just so bizarre that you've told us, like, there's essentially handshake deals out there between countries like Israel and Lebanon, like, on how, here's our potential peace deal, and yet none of that happens if this war in Gaza continues. All right, Matt Guttman, thank you so much.

Matt Guttman
Thanks, Fred.

Brad Milke
Ok, one more quick break. When we come back, what sounds more like summer than a slip and slide? I'm a slip and slide that stinks to high heaven. One last thing is next.

And one last thing families in various harbors might be familiar with the tale of St Peter, the patron saint of fisherman. You pray to him to send your loved one back from the sea, safe and sound. Well, safe is not the first word that comes to mind when you see footage of this. Well, so you got a guy who's going on a greasy pole. He takes the rice to the. Oh, man. Hits the water. These were scenes from Gloucester, Massachusetts, which held its annual St Peter's Fiesta this weekend on the waterfront there. And this year, like every year, they held what's known as the greasy pole contest.

Every June, they bring out a wooden telephone pole about 40ft long and stick it horizontally off a platform near the beach. One by one, residents will try to walk or run all the way to the end of complicating matters, though, is this is the greasy pole, and it's not just sprayed with soap or something.

Kate Shaw
There's Crisco, there's lard, there's bacon.

Brad Milke
Residents actually come by and slather anything slippery they can find on the thing. That includes oil, the insides of banana peels and fish guts. Sometimes you mercifully just fall into the water. Many other people hit the pole with various parts of their body on the way down. Would St Peter have it any other way? All the doctors in Gloucester are going to be busy for the next two weeks because there's going to be sore backs. And to hear locals describe this event is to understand how even in this globally connected world we live in, local traditions are still the stuff of legend.

This is Tyler Parisi, whose family has been competing here for decades. Anyone who's out there right now, they.

Mary Alice Parks
Could choose to get a $30,000 raise at work or win this. And I bet they're choosing to win this.

Brad Milke
He says he still remembers getting a good way down the pole a few years ago, and that he's been trying, painfully, to match that mark ever since. He didn't make it to the end. This year, though, that honor went to a young man named Max Allen, who was literally hoisted on neighbors shoulders and paraded through the streets when he grabbed the flag at the end of the greasy pole.

Sometimes I feel like neighborhood events like this should be mandatory attendance, right? Because how mad can you get at your neighbors when you've seen them boink themselves on a pole covered in fish guts? How do you not wave at the guy on the street who lifted you on his shoulders there just last year? And if you're the family of a fisherman taking part in festivities and prayers, your own dignity is never too high a price to pay for someone's safe return.

I feel like anyone who grew up watching America's funniest home videos can appreciate a good slip and fall. Cause you're giggling, but you're also cringing at the same time. Like, wait, that looks like it really hurt. Like, why did they volunteer this for the whole whole world to see? Same concept in Gloucester, Massachusetts, apparently. More on all these stories@abcnews.com or the ABC News app. I'm Brad Milke. See you tomorrow.