The Great Democratic Party Freakout of 2024

Jane Mayer
I don't know about you guys, but I can not get down a street without people asking me what is happening with Biden and with the democratic ticket. I mean, it is like all this town is talking about.

Susan Glasser
You know, the problem is, is that if you believe anybody knows what's actually happening, you know, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. I have literally had, like, extremely veteran political operatives, both Democrat and Republican, tell me with 100% certainty that Joe Biden is leaving the race and with 100% certainty that this is all a game of, quote, fantasy football.

Evan Osnos
This is one of those rare political stories that jumps the kind of blood brain barrier between junkies and people with actual lives. Like, I've been struck by the fact that I'm kind of hearing from friends who I haven't been in touch with in years who are sort of saying, me too, what's going on?

Jane Mayer
I'm getting notes from college friends that I haven't heard from in ages.

Susan Glasser
I sat and watched Biden's interview with George Stephanopoulos with my, my two nephews, ages seven and ten, and watching them try to process this is a reminder, you know, of what's on the line, man. And that seven year old had some pretty cogent political analysis.

Jane Mayer
Of course, in your family, they were.

Susan Glasser
Look, the problem is that Biden is too old. And, you know, he gave an interview, but I'm not sure it really helps him, which, come to think of it, it's just as good as anything else.

Jane Mayer
A pundit is born.

Welcome to the political scene, a weekly discussion about the big questions in american politics. I'm Jane Mayer, and I am joined by my colleagues Susan Glasser and Evan Osnos. Hey, Susan. Hey there.

Susan Glasser
So great to be with you.

Jane Mayer
Hi, Evan.

Evan Osnos
Hi, guys.

Jane Mayer
Well, this week in Washington, after world leaders converged for the NATO summit, President Biden tried to inspire confidence in his leadership.

Evan Osnos
The consideration is that I think I'm the most qualified person to run for president.

I beat him once and I will beat him again.

Jane Mayer
Biden insists he's staying in the race, but for the past week, democratic leaders seem to have developed selective hearing about the matter.

Susan Glasser
Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. Robert.

Jane Mayer
This is a critical time in the presidential election. Republicans are about to officially nominate Donald Trump, a convicted felon who has promised to be a dictator on day one. And so the question is, is Biden up to the task of beating Donald Trump? And if not, will Democrats do anything about it. So let's get into it, Susan. Let's start with President Biden's press conference Thursday night. This was seen as something he really had to nail in order to have any hope of getting fellow Democrats off his back. What were the stakes here, and did.

Susan Glasser
He do it well, you know, welcome to week three of the great democratic freakouthe of 2024. Week three, by the way, starting as week two started with this question very much unresolved, I would say that the press conference did not end the matter. It didn't suggest that there's a clear path forward for Democrats whose qualms have now been articulated in very public form. There's a growing number of congressional Democrats who are on the record as expressing concerns, and there's an even a much larger number, of course, who've not gone public with their concerns.

Trust us. Look at our texts, look at our emails, look at our conversations. These people are deep and freak out both about the question that you framed, Jaime, which is, can Biden beat Trump? But also is Biden up to the job of doing president for the next four years? A lot of the conversation about last night's press conference was a performance critique. You know, was he able to stand up there for nearly an hour and answer questions?

To be honest, I think he's really being graded on a curve at this point. There are many, many Americans who are huge supporters of President Biden. He's done an awful lot. But that's a very separate question from the question of, can he communicate effectively with the american people? Can he prosecute a case against Donald Trump? Can he make a coherent case for himself for another four years? And I think the answer to those questions is either a no or a not really. And that puts democrats right back in the middle of this very painful dilemma about what to do.

Jane Mayer
Evan, you're an expert on China policy. And it seemed like the question that he expounded on most successfully maybe, was a question from David Sanger at the New York Times about US China relations. And I wondered, what did you make of that? Was it graded on a curve, as Susan says, or was it really impressive?

Evan Osnos
You know, there were these moments in that press conference where you say, okay, this is where Biden is clearly happiest, talking about foreign policy, getting into the kind of esoteric subtleties of different foreign leaders in different moments in foreign policy history. And he handled some of those issues with command when he talked about Russia or he talked about Ukraine. The problem, of course, is that he has chosen a path of kind of permanent peril here in this campaign, because every moment is now viewed through the lens of, is this going to demonstrate fitness or unfitness? And I think that's an example of the way in which he is now on this tightrope that will stay the way it is until the moment at which either Democrats say, we can't take it anymore, we have to move and organize against him, or they say the moment has passed, the window for change is finished, and now we need to somehow regenerate unity and enthusiasm around the idea of backing him. And the ticking of the clock is the central metaphor, metaphor of this moment. And Biden and his advisors on some level seem to believe that it's to their advantage to sort of run out the clock. And his critics clearly feel that they have to move faster or they're gonna be left scrambling to try to either boost him or come up with an alternative at the last minute.

Jane Mayer
I agree that regardless of how he handled various substantive answers, the problem is the meta narrative, which seems to be centered on will Biden faces plant or wont he? And so long as thats the narrative, the narrative is not on Donald Trump and the threat to democracy that he poses. And so its a kind of a no win situation.

Susan Glasser
I totally agree with both of you. And its not a narrative problem. Bidens problem is actually a chronic condition now for him and for his campaign. Every time he appears in public between now and the election, or now and deciding to step aside, theres the baited breath like, will he screw up or wont he screw up? Here's the obvious fact of his diminishment, that this is Joe Biden, but visibly aged, visibly reduced from what he was before, even when he ran for president four years ago. It's not a narrative problem, right? It's an age problem. And is it a legitimate question for voters? The voters are saying, yes, it's not a debate problem. Even the debate has caused this freak out among, you know, the Democratic Party and the commentariat. But the truth is that three quarters of Americans were believing that Biden was too old to have another term as president a year ago. And what we've seen from the Biden White House, from his campaign, is this effort over the last couple of weeks to insist once again that this is just some kind of, I believe his campaign chair, Jen O'Malley Dylan, called it overblown media narratives. This is actually a story that the media is covering about the Democratic Party's own freakout. And the reason they're freaked out is because they can't do anything about Biden's age. In fact, he will continue to age. That's the inelectable part of this process. Maybe that's what's hitting home for people about this press conference last night.

Evan Osnos
But I also think there's an element here that, and you guys, I'm sure, are getting this, too, that there is a very passionate element of the democratic base that does feel, and quite deeply that Biden is being, in effect, kind of driven out here. Bye, elites. And that is part of why you hear him picking up that language, drawing this distinction between the pundits, between the New York Times and, quote, unquote, the people. And this is an old piece of political technology, that people have been doing this for a long time. But I can see how people out in the world are saying to themselves, I'm hearing from people about this, that why is it that after a primary process that we're talking about chucking it on the basis not of a statutory or structural process, but on the basis of a perceived consensus in Washington, and combine that with the polls, leading people to say, well, we need to have a do over. I think that's why there is this energy at the middle of this.

Susan Glasser
They're deploying this political technology, as you put it. And by the way, I'm laughing because that's literally how, in Russia, how Putin and his Kremlinologists actually refer to themselves as political technologists. They're deploying political technology. But it is not a factual basis to say that this is some elite or small concern that somehow is being blown out of proportion. Absorb the fact for a moment that three quarters of the american people, that is millions and millions of Americans who are Democrats, who voted for Joe Biden have been concerned before the debate, during the debate and after the debate. Those numbers have been remarkably consistent. Three quarters of the american people are concerned about Biden's age and his capacity and fitness for office. That is the ultimate legitimate issue in a campaign. And the fact that they are distorting that issue, pretending that millions of Americans don't have that concern and that it's merely, you know, a sort of a snarky issue raised by a small handful of out of touch elites that is deeply cynical. It is insulting to millions of Americans who, regardless of Donald Trump's manifest unfitness for office, are also allowed to have serious questions about whether Joe Biden is up to four more years in the White House. It's not the press's worry. It's the voters worry. It's democratic voters and independent voters, the people who made Joe Biden president in the first place. I remain convinced that there's a solid, durable majority in this country that doesn't want Donald Trump to be president.

The reason Biden isn't stomping all over Trump right now is because of this concern about his age.

Jane Mayer
And of course, we all saw the debate with our own eyes, and it wasn't a manufactured concern. It was an absolutely alarming performance he put on that raised questions in pretty much anybody who watched it. At the same time, I find it baffling almost that the poll numbers after the debate don't show that the bottom fell out for him. I mean, it could be that maybe the electorate is already factored in age as a liability that he has and is more or less backing him anyway. Is the risk they'll take over the risk of Trump?

Evan Osnos
Well, I would be curious to know, Susan, you've thought a lot about this. Explain what's going on with, in particular, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and AOC, for instance, and other progressives who have been backing Biden so far, and that could change. What do you think's going on there?

Susan Glasser
It's notable that leaders of the black caucus, in particular the South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn, they view themselves as having played the key role in bringing Biden to power in 2020. Remember that big, crowded democratic primary field? It was really Clyburn delivering South Carolina to Biden. That was the crucial moment that consolidated the party behind him. And so there's a concern about jettisoning him there, number one. Number two, I think there's a worry that's sometimes articulated and sometimes not that well. If they do knock off Biden, will they then bypass Kamala Harris, the first vice president who is a woman of color, and wanting to make sure that kind of seniority and regular order are followed? Because seniority has been the political friend for black Democrats in particular over the decades when they really were very smartly using this principle of seniority to obtain power on Capitol Hill that they wouldn't otherwise have. That's been a great part of the legacy and of the history of the congressional Black Caucus. And I think you have to understand that cultural principle when you look at how much they are standing behind Biden. And there's also just the culture of, hey, listen, you know, we're not going to jettison our seniors and our old folks just because of some bad performances. You know, when this is a man who's had our back, there was a.

Jane Mayer
Tweet that I kind of liked from someone saying, maybe none of you have had your parents refer to you by their dog's name, meaning, you know, we have elders in our family who scramble names all the time. And what about you guys? But I also, I saw somebody who was, I think, the deputy chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and she was very interesting in saying that a lot of the working class voters in the party look at Joe Biden and by the idea that he's came out of the working class kind of himself, you know, this grant and Joe kind of thing, and they feel he understands what ordinary people have to put up with in the way of economic pressures in a way that other possible democratic replacements might not.

Evan Osnos
Van Jones made the point yesterday that basically he said, look, in the black community, we're used to having our leaders get knocked down and attacked. And so there is a way in which people respond slightly differently when somebody is off balance. But I think there's something interesting, too, and this is an element that underlies this conversation, which is that I think that this seismic change that we're talking about at the top of the ticket is being metabolized really fast in the world of people who write about it and participate and work in politics. It takes more time, time for people who are living lives and going to other jobs to digest this and make sense of it and decide that it feels right to them. So in some ways, I think the challenge for the Democratic Party, if they make a change, is being able to make a persuasive and really affirmative case for why this is happening and that it hasn't been done essentially off the books, because otherwise they will have a legitimacy problem going forward at a moment when they really need people to be enthusiastic.

Jane Mayer
The political scene from the New Yorker will be right back.

Susan Glasser
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Jane Mayer
What is the democratic leadership doing at this point? I saw Nancy Pelosi saying to a reporter after she had just said she needs to leave this decision with Joe Biden. A reporter said, well, what are you saying, that he should then step aside? And she said, do I not speak in English? And the truth is, she does not speak in English. She speaks in riddles. She's basically saying, he should make the decision, but we don't like the decision he made. And so what is the leadership doing.

Susan Glasser
At this point, Jane? The collective action problem that follows from the legitimacy problem, which is to say, whose job is it to do something right now? And Nancy Pelosi, his very carefully worded, enigmatic comments are because nobody wants to be in the position of going to Joe Biden and confronting him with the unrest. And I thought that was an amazing moment, actually, at the Thursday night press conference, again and again and again, he sort of asked different versions of this question. And at the end, he finally says, well, would I step aside if I knew that I was losing, if somebody showed me data? Well, nobody showed me anything like that. There are either two possibilities in response to that question, either of which is problematic, but in a different way. Number one, which is that he doesn't have people around him who are willing to show him unpleasant truths and to confront him with the data that is fueling a lot of the private unrest by democratic lawmakers. The other possibility is that he's in denial, that he's seen the information and he doesn't believe it. There's some argument, I think, for the denial theory of the case, by the way, because Biden even said explicitly in this press conference, well, you know, does anybody really believe the polls these days? And I don't know, Evan. I mean, you understand the psychology of Joe Biden better than I do.

What is going on, do you think, in his head, is he trying to plant a question in the american republican electorates? Mine don't believe the polls. I mean, there's a sort of a Trumpian echo here, but maybe that's just the echo not of Donald Trump, but of any politician who is under this kind of withering assault.

Evan Osnos
It's really fascinating, actually. I remember when he talks about the polls now, it is almost identical to the way that he and his advisors were talking about it over the winter when I was interviewing them to write a profile of Biden. And I remember at the time they were making this argument about not believing the polls, some of whom had been pollsters, by the way, that had been their profession. And they're saying, you know, look, the advent of the cell phone has made it unreliable after the fact. I remember talking to James Carville and he said, you know, I was fascinated to see them say that they don't believe the polls. Do you think they really don't believe them, or are they putting on a kind of act? And I said, no, I gotta be honest. I don't think that they believe them. And then, sure enough, here we are now, all these months later, and they really are explaining their decision making right now, resting on the idea that polling itself is unreliable. And I think that it's not a bluff. It is a way in which they are assembling the information around them to fortify the case that they are making.

Jane Mayer
Okay, so if the polls are unreliable, the elites, meaning the big fundraisers who actually interact with Biden, are to be dismissed, and the press is to be dismissed. Who's left to actually be listened to in this particular question of Biden's fitness for office, all you're left with, basically, is Biden and his inner circle.

Evan Osnos
That's right, Jane. Yeah.

Jane Mayer
I mean, he's basically eliminating anybody who might have a counter opinion on this. And I gotta say, one of the things that bothered me in his press conference was his dismissal and belittlement of the lawmakers who have come out questioning his ability to go forward or actually even demanding that he withdraw from the race. The one senator that has really been out front on asking that he withdraw is Peter Welch from Vermont. And basically what Biden argued was, oh, these are just self interested lawmakers who are jittery about their own re elections. Well, Peter Welch is not up for reelection. Hes an older senator. He may never run for reelection as far as I know. I think in his case, and the same with Michael Bennett, their concern is nothing about themselves. It's about the country, and it's about the moral questions having to do with what are we doing to the next generation and to the future of the planet. They see the peril of Trump. It's not personal to Biden. They feel bad about Biden, but they're talking about something bigger.

Susan Glasser
Yeah. You know, Jane, I think that's a very important point. You know, looking at the kind of typology. Right. What are the different camps that have emerged as this debate has played out? And I agree with you that there's actually a category of person that's spoken out who is the opposite of the vulnerable, frontline democratic member. There are a few of those, but it is more the people who have some standing in the party or willing to risk it or more independent minded. You know, I'm thinking about somebody like Adam Smith, who's the top Democrat in the House on the armed services committee. He also is not a vulnerable member in any way. He's been very, very forthright about this in the same way that those two senators are that you mentioned. And by the way, and so many senators I know of personally who have the exact same concerns, who have yet to speak out publicly. Again, not vulnerable senators, but ones who are thinking about the future of the party, the future of the country, because theres these two parallel debates. Theres the, is he the most electable? And then theres the question of, should he be the president? Is he fit to run the country for the next four years?

Bucket of the dissenters. There's also, I think, very importantly, this key node of dissent that has emerged around what you might call the Obamas, you know, on the pod save America franchise. David Axelrod, who was the key political strategist for Obama, also the Clintonians, James Carville, a lot of other veterans whom I've talked to over the months of the Clinton administration, the political hands who they may not be as public as Carville, but absolutely share his concerns. Both Carville and Axelrod are publicly on the record as saying that Biden is risking a landslide for Donald Trump. Not just a Trump victory, but a landslide that could imperil the partys fortunes in both the House and the Senate, not just in this election cycle, but going forward in the future. So thats another camp.

And then I think there are battleground states type Democrats who are looking at this from a purely numbers sense. Right? Like, okay, well, if we have to win the election in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, let's be ruthless about this. Is it winnable in those three states? Am I missing any camps, Evan?

Evan Osnos
No, I think you're right. And I would add, you know, in addition to Adam Smith, Jim Himes, who is the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, joined the call for him to step aside. One of the things that's going on is that, but you do see members of Congress publicly or sort of semi publicly trying to find where they sit on this. Just to give you one interesting example, I remember after the state of the union, if you watched that long period of time after Biden was kind of walking through the chamber, one of the first people we ran into was Gerald Nadler, the congressman from Manhattan, who said to him, well, nobody's going to talk about cognitive decline now, mister president. And they had this kind of chatty moment. And then after the debate, Jerrold Nadler came out in a party caucus meeting in which he was reported to have said the president's gotta leave the race. But then a couple days later, he changed again and said, actually, he's the presumptive nominee and we have to back him. I expect that there may be yet more to come in the Nadler trajectory. But I just think that that's a, I'm not saying that that's cynical, that it's not sincere. I think that, you know, part of the job of being an elected official is to try to figure out both what do you think and also what do your voters think?

Jane Mayer
What are the logistics of his stepping aside if he did? I mean, is there a, well, this.

Susan Glasser
Is where the fantasy football aspect of it comes into play. Biden practically laughed out loud in that press conference when he was asked if his delegates, you know, were going to rebel against him at the convention. I think hes right about that if it comes to it, you know, a floor fight and hes still in. Hes going to win that floor fight. This is a Biden convention. These are Biden delegates. As long as its before the convention, as long as the timing works out. If they need to replace Biden as a nominee and he has agreed to it, theyll find a mechanism to do so. Obviously, that becomes a lot more complicated, a lot more problematic when it comes to ballot access and the like. If for some reason Biden had to withdraw or became incapacitated or something changed after the convention. So I think that either way, we're probably not looking at a floor fight here that's of real significance. Either Biden decides before the convention, you know, that he's gonna withdraw or not. And that actually is my question to both of you guys. I know we're kind of circling around the issue just in the same way, you know, the political class has the last couple of, couple weeks, I want to push us, and I include us myself in this because I don't know, here we are in our third week of this.

How does this end in general Petraeus famous comment about the Iraq war. How does this end? Do we actually think there's anything at this point that could convince Joe Biden to drop out?

Jane Mayer
I don't think it's going to just be these numbers that are sort of ambiguous. It would take some really unambiguous next episode like that debate. If that happens again, I think there would be action to find another candidate. Short of that or short of some kind of diagnosis of a serious condition that the president has, I feel the air is leaking out of the effort to remove him, but that's just my feeling today. And, you know, you can't predict the future. All we can do is figure out what's happening right now. What about you guys?

Evan Osnos
It is so interesting, Jane, because exactly, as you say, it really does feel like it swings wildly from day to day because it may be and rumors around town or if you guys are picking up the same thing, that there may be many more members of Congress who are going to come out in similar fashion and call for him to step aside. And maybe that does change the calculus. I mean, Jane, you set a threshold a moment ago that is pretty high, actually, which would be a debate level debacle again or some sort of medical diagnosis. But short of that, I mean, the other scenario that strikes me as conceivable is if, as Biden said in this press conference, if his advisors come to him and say, you will not win this election, then that will change the calculation.

My sense is from his psychology, from his life, that the relevant analogy is 1987 in a presidential race that he did not want to leave when he had a plagiarism scandal. And it was finally his principal advisor came to him and said, the only way you make the sharks go away is by getting out of this race. And he got out of the race. And if you watch that press conference at the time, he was reluctant, but he got out. And I think that is the political animal piece of Joe Biden. But right now it is contending with all of these other motives.

Susan Glasser
Yeah, the sharks are circling. And that's the other group, by the way, that we didn't mention in our sort of typology of the Biden dissenters. Right now, there are some. For right now, we only know a little bit about them. There are some voices inside the building, if not in the inner, innermost circle. The New York Times, NBC News, both reporting on Thursday examples of Biden's own campaign advisors, Biden's own aides, who are questioning his continued viability as a candidate. It's interesting that you mentioned Biden dropping out of that 1988 presidential race. As you were talking, I was remembering an example from the biography that we did of Jim Baker. And, you know, he ran five national presidential campaigns, three of them for his very close friend George Hw Bush. And in the first campaign in 1980, the republican presidential primaries, Bush emerged as a strong second place to Ronald Reagan. But there was no way that he could beat him. And it was Baker, ultimately, who orchestrated Bush getting out of the race. In some ways, Bush was not ready to do that. There was some real friction between the two of them. It's always hard to run a campaign for your best friend. And Baker justified it after the fact, basically jamming up his friend. And he said, well, he wouldn't have gotten the vice presidency from Reagan if he had continued to fight on. And I knew this was the moment, but it's just really hard for a politician to overcome that barrier, which is where the strength of the advisors around that politician becomes so important.

Jane Mayer
Who is the Jim Baker around President Biden? Is there one?

Evan Osnos
In 1987, it was Ted Kaufman, who was his senior advisor at the time. And Ted Kaufman remains in his orbit today. If you talk to people who've been friends with Joe Biden for decades, they will tell you that Ted Kaufman sits at that intersection between family and politics.

Jane Mayer
I mean, and family is very much on the stay in side. And I gather that even in 1987, Biden's sons were arguing that he should stay in. Cause they were afraid he wouldn't be himself if he dropped out because he's a fighter. And now, of course, the surviving son, Hunter, is somehow emerging in the inner circle in a way that I didn't think he was in there before like that.

Susan Glasser
I think there's been more visceral anger that I've heard from people about these reports about, you know, Hunter Biden. You know, why is the president of the United States turning for advice to a convicted criminal, a former cocaine addict? I mean, it just, the optics of it are disastrous. And I've heard so many democrats express this almost like incandescent rage over that.

Evan Osnos
I'll give you one other example from the history that is relevant, which is 2015, which was when Biden was deciding whether to get into the presidential race. And it was Mike Donilon, who remains a senior advisor with him today, who had been advocating for him to run. But it was when he changed his mind and said to Biden, I don't think you should do this. That essentially then that's when the dam broke in the very small inner circle. So the through line here is the person who can change his mind is the person who has previously, previously demonstrated a total loyal commitment to Biden's ambitions. And so you have to find that person. If you're somebody who's trying to persuade him to get out, it's not going to come from the outside. It has to come from somebody who he trusts.

Jane Mayer
Okay, guys. All right, well, listen, we'll be right back in a minute. Let's just take one quick look before we go at what's happening with the Republicans. Meanwhile, if you've been enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice. And while you're there, don't forget to hit the follow button so that you never miss an episode. Thanks so much for listening.

Susan Glasser
Politics has never been stranger or more online, which is why the politics team at Wired is making a new show, Wired Politics lab. It's all about how to navigate the endless stream of news and information and what to look out for. Each week on the show, we'll dig into far right platforms, AI chat bots, influencer campaigns, and so much more. Wired Politics Lab launches Thursday, April 11. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Jane Mayer
So, Susan, you're going to be at the republican convention this coming week. Is this like, the best news that could ever have happened to Donald Trump to see this kind of disarray among the Democrats?

Susan Glasser
Well, the sound of silence from Mar a Lago tells you a lot about the advantage that Republicans think of this. The oldest saying in politics, right, is when your enemy is shooting themselves in the face, like, don't get in the way of the bullet. You know, this has been an incredible moment of democratic infighting, and Trump has been largely, although not entirely, avoiding, wading into the middle of it. Of course, he could not resist in the middle of that press conference when Joe Biden, as if he was like, you know, it was a gaffe designed for Donald Trump's fever dreams, right?

Evan Osnos
I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, but I think she was not qualified to be president.

Susan Glasser
To confuse Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to say Vice President Trump. I literally, I don't know about you guys, but I was watching that. I just, like, I couldn't even believe that he said it. It took me a few minutes. I had to check it immediately to make sure that my own lying ears were correct. Right? And of course, the republican attack machine is immediately weaponizing these gaffes by Biden. They're out there Trump is, you know, sending truth socials, you know, mocking Biden. Good job, Joe.

You know, there was the vice President Trump thing. There was the president Putin for President Zelensky. Anybody can confuse names, but there, there's an entire machinery designed to turn this into, you know, these Biden gaffes to turn them into nuclear fuel for the republican attack machine. And so the entire campaign of Donald Trump is built around attacking sleepy Joe Biden. And I thought that was a really interesting piece by my former colleague Tim Alberta in the Atlantic making this point. The New York Times Jonathan Swan has made some of these points as well, that Trump and his people seem to want Joe Biden to stay on the ticket at this point because their entire campaign is built around attacking him. And Trump is very convinced that if Biden stays in the race, he's on the way to what would be a historic victory. The first former president in more than a century, and only the second in american history to come back to office after having been defeated. It would be a remarkable turnaround, obviously, for Donald Trump. So my question that I've been wondering about is, to what extent is the republican convention happening now? Does that maybe stop this democratic rebellion in its tracks? Does it give it more fuel? Is it actually gonna be good for Democrats to hear Trump and the Republicans fulminating, you know, in a very kind of extremist, hardcore way that might turn off a lot of on the fence voters?

Evan Osnos
Susan, I think that framing is exactly right. There is a way in which this will be a bit of a firebreak in the process of how this idea of Biden getting out moves through the democratic caucus, because next week will be this very eloquent reminder of why Democrats are terrified of a Trump presidency. But I don't think we know yet if that arrests the slide. And I think chances are, for the reasons we've been talking about on this show, I don't think it does. What do you think, Jen?

Jane Mayer
I tend to think that when Trump gets the attention and is in the spotlight, it's good for the Democrats. Right. I think that that's the problem with this whole narrative about, and this whole focus on whether Biden is up to this role, is that it's keeping the spotlight on Biden's infirmities. And anytime that you actually take a close look at Trump, I don't believe there's a MAGA majority in this country. And I think he attracts people off as much as he attracts his own base. Also, I have to say, you know, these stories that I've been reading. I mean, I think Jonathan Swan's a great reporter, and I'm sure this is what the Trump camp is saying, you know, that, oh, we were so worried that we might get someone else because we really want to go after Biden. But I have no doubt that they would tear anybody else apart. Just as well the people who are running the Trump campaign, particularly Chris La Civita, who was infamous for running the swift boat campaign against John Kerry, which was just a pack of lies and vicious smears, they're capable of doing that to anyone.

Susan Glasser
Amy Jane, those are excellent points, and I think you're exactly right. You know, they've certainly anticipated going after Kamala Harris. If anything, Biden's troubles in this campaign sort of left Harris a little bit less in the spotlight than I thought she would be in this campaign. You know, this sort of Nikki Haley. A vote for Biden is a vote for Harris theme that emerged early on. I think the only reason they haven't been emphasizing that more is because Biden has struggled more than anyone, including the Republicans, anticipated to consolidate his base. So they haven't had the need to go after Harris. But to the point about Donald Trump being probably the very best campaigner for the democratic ticket you could imagine, long thought that would be the case. And that's part of the tragedy of Biden's struggles in this election. This week is an amazing example of what should have been a really strong week for the Democrats. The NATO summit. This is the 75th anniversary of NATO. It was a chance for Biden to show not only his foreign policy bona fides, but also for Biden to showcase something that's been at the core of who he is and what his foreign policy has been about, which is working with allies, working to shore up this alliance that's a crucial cornerstone of our security.

His support for Ukraine has been fast and unyielding. His clarity around the threats posed by a revisionist Russia under Vladimir Putin and posed by an aggressive and assertive China and Xi Jinping. He's been very clear eyed on that. You know, the insider detail is that the actual anniversary of NATO was in the spring. And a year ago, the Biden White House made a decision. Well, we would like to host the summit in honor of it. But they're the ones who chose to have this timing in July of the election year, one week before the republican convention. Why did they do that? Because they thought this is a chance to make a contrast with Donald Trump, who at every turn has criticized America's allies, shown a preference for America's autocratic adversary, adversaries who has publicly undermined NATO. Donald Trump has been very clear that although America is a founding member of NATO, he has no intention of honoring the duty that we've signed up for of collective defense. And basically, that's giving Putin a green light. So that could have been the theme of this week. But instead, of course, it's not.

Evan Osnos
You know, Susan, I think you're absolutely right that there is a way in which watching Biden at that NATO press conference and over that summit, you see in there what he's talking about when he says, as he did at the press conference, I'm staying in this because I want to finish the job I started. What he means is he's clearly of the belief that the thing this administration should be remembered for is the response that it had. This is what he hopes, of course, that his line in history will be the response that they had to the russian invasion of Ukraine. And it reminds me of another interesting moment in history when you had another president in 1944, Franklin Roosevelt. His body was failing him, and yet he believed that he had to cement his achievements. He had to protect his legacy. He had to try to make the world safe for democracy. And in some ways, he was in this struggle against time itself because he said, I will run for a fourth term, even though his time in politics was slipping away. And it's in many ways an informative episode that helps me understand what Biden's thinking now.

Susan Glasser
And, you know, to that point, though, sadly, it's a tragic episode, too, Evan, because, of course, FDR only made it a few months into his fourth term and never got to see the end of the war that he, you know, arguably shortened his life in order to prosecute. And, of course, then the constitution was changed so that we did have the possibility to have presidents who serve four terms anymore.

Jane Mayer
This is true. But FDR is remembered for his amazing leadership during that war. And people don't focus on his infirmities or the sad ending.

Susan Glasser
But we don't know, of course, in the end, how the war in Ukraine ends. And I think that's the tragedy, again, of the moment that we do have a pretty strong sense that if Donald Trump is elected, Ukraine will not have the support from the United States that has fueled its remarkable and really extraordinary resistance to invasion by its far wealthier and more populous neighbor, Russia. And the outcome of the war looks very, very uncertain indeed if Donald Trump is the president.

Evan Osnos
I think thats why, in some ways, the lesson of this is that presidents are remembered as much for how they leave office as how they gain it.

Jane Mayer
Thanks so much, Susan. Thanks so much, Evan. Great to be with you.

Evan Osnos
Always a pleasure. Thanks, guys.

Susan Glasser
What a lot to talk about.

How are we going to make it through the year?

Jane Mayer
This has been the political scene. From the New Yorker, I'm Jane Mayer. We had research assistance today from Alex Delia.

Our producer is Julia Nutter, and our editor is Gianna Palmer, mixing by Mike Kuchman. Steven Valentino is our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is conde Nast's head of global audio. Our theme music is by Allison Leighton Brown.

Thanks for listening.

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The Great Democratic Party Freakout of 2024

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1: Opening Discussion

2: Biden's Public Appearances and Statements

3: The Impact on Voter Sentiment

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