Dems Debate Biden, Poll Favors VP, Beryl Targets Jamaica
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Voters 50 and over have the power to decide elections. So candidates who want to win need to talk about the issues they care about. Learn more from our latest polling in Pennsylvania at aarp.org slash PA polling. Overnight, Duncan's pumpkin spice coffee has sent folks into a cozy craze. I'm Lauren LaTulip reporting live from home in my hand-knit turtleneck that my nana made me. Mmm, cinnamony. The home with Duncan is where you want to be.

It's Wednesday, July 3rd, right now on CNN This Morning. Calls on President Biden to bow out from Democrats as President Biden's team digs in to have him stay in the race. Plus, a new CNN poll showing Democrats may have a better chance of holding onto the White House with the VP at the top of the ticket. Then there's this also, Hurricane Beryl tearing through the Caribbean, now targeting Jamaica. And... I love him very much, so it's...

It's painful. Ivanka Trump breaking her silence on her father's criminal conviction. Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There's an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country. That was President Biden in 2020. He went back on that promise when he decided to run again in 2024, but

Might he be about to make good on it now? This morning, on the sixth day after that disastrous debate, President Biden's dam of support in the Democratic Party has sprung so many leaks that it is at risk of failure. And with it, so is Biden's future at the top of the Democratic ticket. We have to be honest with ourselves that it wasn't just a horrible night. They have to take a clear-eyed view of what happened as a result of the debate and

Can they move on or do they have to reevaluate? The fact that no one said it, I think, was holding back. And now it seems like the dam's breaking. I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a

a condition. I salute President Biden. I just feel that it's time for him to step aside if we were to be able to protect what he allowed us to gain in 2020. He delivered us from Trump then, he could be delivering us to Trump this year.

Wow. The behind-the-scenes panic starting to spill out into the open. Overnight, The Washington Post reporting this, quote, Former President Barack Obama has privately told allies who have reached out to him that President Biden's already tough path to re-election grew more challenging after his shaky debate performance on Thursday. That's a far harsher assessment, they report, than Obama has offered in public.

This as President Biden tries to explain it all away, telling supporters at a fundraiser, quote, I decided to travel around the world a couple of times shortly before the debate, and then I almost fell asleep on stage. So that was apparently a joke. It didn't quite land, according to reporters in the room. The laughter was, shall we say, minimal. And it's worth noting that Biden did have nearly two weeks at home before the CNN debate.

And then there's this. This morning, the New York Times reporting President Biden has, quote, increasingly appeared confused or listless or would lose the thread of conversations. The Times also reports this about Biden's debate prep, quote, it never started before 11 a.m. And Mr. Biden was given time for an afternoon nap.

President Biden has now announced that he'll sit down with ABC's George Stephanopoulos for a taped interview on Friday. And today, several governors are flying to Washington to meet with Biden in person as he tries to reassure them that he is up to the job. Among them, California's Gavin Newsom and Illinois' J.B. Pritzker, both named as possible contenders to replace Biden at the top of the ticket, even if they currently support him. Joe Biden is going to be our nominee.

unless he decides otherwise. And so I think that there's a healthy conversation that will happen with the president. Joe Biden is our nominee, and ultimately that decision on continuing or not will fall to him and his family. The governors just want a direct and candid conversation with the president. We want to make sure he's doing okay.

All right, our panel's here. Let's bring in CNN senior political analyst Mark Preston, Alex Thompson, national political reporter for Axios, the former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield, and Matt Gorman, who is former senior advisor to the Tim Scott presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Kate, you are in the hot seat this morning. Welcome. I appreciate you being here. Of course.

We have seen all of this kind of reporting pile out. I want to dig into some of the things that Alex has reported in the last 24 hours as well. And I know he has new reporting. But first, I just want you to kind of bring us inside the conversations Democrats are having right now, because it does feel like we're in a different place today than we were on Monday. There does seem to be this groundswell, this

sense that a boulder is rolling down the hill at President Biden. What's your sense of where things stand now and what are the variables affecting the president's decision? Yeah, well, look, I think we should level set a little bit, which is to say, if you look at the scope of polling that's come out since the debate, the bottom has actually not fallen out from under Joe Biden.

I would not argue the status quo is great for him either. I mean, you see him consistently within one or two points in swing states that he needs to win. So, you know, I'm not arguing that the landscape looks terrific for him right now, but it is also true that the bottom has not fallen out since the debate. So I think that should be the point of discussion. You know, that should be where we start this discussion.

in part because swapping out the nominee is not a light task. It is not something that would be easy. The person who takes that mantle is then going to be in the firing line and is going to see their numbers start to drop as they necessarily become the focus. So I think we should

disabuse ourselves of the idea that there is like a magic fix here. You know, that being said, I think the conversations that are happening right now reflect genuine concern. They reflect respect for the president, respect for what Joe Biden's accomplished and the fact that nobody wants to see him struggle and or see him diminished.

You know, I think what Democrats are doing is looking at how can we get to a place where we can best defeat Donald Trump, who we believe represents an existential threat to our country and to our democracy. And I think the task that Biden has now is

He has got to be out there aggressively trying to assuage these concerns. People need to see him. They need to see him being his best self. I believe he's capable of that. But I do think he needs to be out there doing it, and he needs to be bringing the narrative back to Trump. He's got to move the focus off of him, get it back to Trump, the fact that you have somebody who's been convicted of 34 felonies, who's running for president of the United States, somebody who has stated that he will not accept the results of this election. That's where the conversation needs to be because that's the real threat here.

Alex, can you just kind of update us on where your latest reporting is? Because, I mean, look, I take all of Kate's points, but the reality is that the more we learn about the state of affairs inside the White House and with the president right now, the worse it seems to get. Yeah, well, and maybe if Kate was still in the White House and taking...

And taking their advice made things to be better because the fact of the matter is that this is a White House in crisis at this point, not just because of where things sit with the polls and what happened with the debate, but because of morale inside. And part of that is because Joe Biden has not been out there. The fact is, since the debate, he has only done one rally in North Carolina. He didn't any leave of its own.

photoshoot with the family on Sunday behind closed doors. He did a very brief set of remarks and then took no questions. He has not sat in front of one reporter since that debate. And he's waiting until Friday and it seems to send the message that he can't do it. Or that...

I don't know. I have no idea. But some people inside the White House are taking- It's making people I'm talking to wonder about it. Yes, exactly. And again, this goes to the morale question, which is people inside the White House, inside the campaign are like, what's going on? Because they had not seen that side of Joe Biden that they saw in the debate. I think it's important as we're talking about Joe Biden's future and the future of the country,

I think we should make clear to everyone who's watching, whether you're Republican or Democrat, this is a man who has given his life to public service, right? And we are playing this out like it's a basketball game, including myself. We're trying to game this out politically.

This is a situation where it's sad. It's sad to see somebody who's given so much to the country that has got the respect from Democrats and Republicans that this could be his way out, that this may be the way that he leaves. The ungraciousness, and it just shows you where we are in politics right now. It's just, it's brutal, it tears people apart, and then again,

Sometimes people just don't know when to walk away and when to leave. And I do wonder if that's one of these situations with the president. I've had someone text me, a Democratic source this morning, who said that flattery is going to be the key if Democrats want

the president to step down well deserved flattery by the way they they say in their view for a legacy of public service that is very long I'm Mack or when I was talking last hour to presidential historian I'm who talked a little bit about the other times when there have been sitting presidents who have decided not to run for reelection Truman and of course I Lyndon Johnson I and he underscored that in each case

it was the man himself who came to the decision by himself. And he said over the objections often of family members and others, where do you kind of see this heading in kind of keeping to Mark Preston's

sharp and smart way of thinking about this in a sweeping historical perspective, even as, of course, the questions loom just months away. I kind of hearken back to, in some ways, when candidates want to end a presidential campaign that aren't the nominee, right? There's a human side of this. And the way I think of it is imagine going 60 miles per hour down the highway, then immediately shifting in neutral. It's jarring. There is a human side of this that I think we often undercut.

And when a lot of candidates who live in a bubble, to say nothing of the president of the United States, just candidates running for president or office, live in such a bubble, when that bubble is rapidly pierced, it is jarring, and it takes time for them to kind of sort out. And I think this being said, yesterday, when we look back on this, when all is said and done, no matter what, yesterday was such a pivot point. There was a window, a four- or five-day window, where, as Alex is right, it could have been, could have went on TV, news conference, some new visual, at

to say nothing of the fact reaching out to Pelosi, Clyburn, Schumer, Jeffries, which I'm shocked that didn't happen. And now that didn't happen and the dam might not be breaking, but it's damn close to breaking. And yesterday was such a pivotal point in that. Kate, I, I,

I mean, look, I think that that's, I think there's some truth to that. I think that the first four or five days after the debate, I do think there have been missed opportunities. I do. I think the fact that we are still essentially solely focused on this now, what, six days after the debate,

that's not great for biden and he has had opportunities to come out and try to change the narrative and reassure people who are concerned but also to the point i think earlier i think even more critically push the narrative back to trump i mean that's the other you know the overarching message objective of this campaign is to make this a referendum on the guy who was i would argue a disastrous president for four years and remind people of what the stakes are here so

The fact that that has not happened more aggressively, I think, is also what is driving concern. It's less about the state of the race, although yes, there is absolutely concern about that amongst Democrats because, again, if you look at the swing state polling,

You know, you have to have eyes, right? But I do think that the fact that there has not been a more aggressive push over the last few days is also what is turning people up. The one thing I will say, though, is that that means if the president does engage, get out there, if people feel like they see him and can say, okay, you know what, that wasn't a great night, but it was one night, and now I've seen him out there, I think he has the opportunity to change the narrative, but I think

He's got to do it. Well, and I'll sort of agree with both of you guys, where basically every single day that we go forward, there are going to be more cracks in the dam. And we just don't know when the dam will break. Well, and to that point, and I've been hearing rumblings of this. Reuters is reporting that 25 Democratic members of the House preparing to call for Biden to step aside if he seems shaky in the coming days. And I was talking to one person who also seen a lot of the internal House Democratic polling that shows that

the president is running way behind house democratic nominees and they're starting to really worry that they could lose the house in a potential landslide that would have a far-reaching ramifications and of course I'm you know let's let's just just leave you as we got it we gotta take a quick break before resume at this conversation but we are you know at a very potentially distinct at turning point in in history a flashback to the the last time we saw something like this happen happen I do not believe

that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office. I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What are some of the social service agencies that have supported you and your family growing up? That's Dr. Robert Waldinger. He's a psychiatrist, a professor, and a Zen master. What kind of relationships actually help us maintain happiness? And what should we do in those moments where we have setbacks and things that don't work out? Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Joe Biden is our nominee. We beat Trump once and we're going to beat him again, period. Are you ready to lead the country if necessary? I am proud to be Joe Biden's running mate.

I am proud to be Joe Biden's running mate, she says. That's the message from Vice President Kamala Harris as President Biden grapples with his place atop the Democratic ticket. In a new CNN poll, a theoretical matchup between the Vice President and former President Trump shows Harris trailing by two points, but within the margin of error. It's actually closer than the current margin between Biden and Trump in that same poll. Look at that. For some in the party, those numbers are close enough, and they are calling to make the change to Harris right now.

I just think that Kamala is the person. It's the cleanest way. She's a seasoned campaigner now, three and a half years of experience. And so I think people would be very, very excited and I think she'd be good for down ballot races and energize our base. So to me it's pretty straightforward, but the fact that no one said it, I think was holding back and now it seems like the dam's breaking.

so mark preston uh the other thing that stuck out to me on this question was jim clyburn who uh is if there's anyone and i mean kate you can jump in on this too if there is anyone that could go to the president and actually weigh on the president's mind if they were to say hey you need to jump out of this it would be jim clyburn he was very straightforward with our dana bash over the weekend and saying he supports biden but then yesterday he did another interview and he acknowledged

He was willing to entertain the idea that he'll support someone else if Biden steps down. Listen to that. I will support her if he were to step aside. This father should not in any way do anything to work around Ms. Harris. How big a deal is that? That's a huge deal. He just planted the flag. He basically said, hey, guess what, Gretchen Whitmer? Guess what, Gavin Newsom? Guess what, Josh Shapiro? Guess what, whomever?

If Joe Biden steps aside, Kamala Harris is going to be the nominee. And to your point, he has so much gravitas in the party. He might be one of the few elder leaders now that are still in Congress that actually can get the younger people to do something. And they will, the younger people, meaning younger Democrats, and they actually trust him. He could be a kingmaker. He was a kingmaker in the sense that he helped Joe Biden win reelection, right? Excuse me, defeat Donald Trump.

I just think that what he did for Kamala Harris yesterday, as we talked about yesterday being a notable day, that's going to be a notable moment. Alex, what is your reporting around how much Harris's strength or lack thereof is playing into the Biden decision making? Well, I think there are definitely a lot of people in the Biden world that have sort of justified the fact that they are running for reelection because of Kamala Harris's weaknesses.

And that's started from the very, very beginning, basically saying that she is not as popular as Joe Biden. She has not been for a long time now. She has had incredible amounts of staff turnover, the likes of which that Joe Biden does not have. She's also not been very comfortable really with any portfolio items that are in any way controversial.

right? Like she's basically retreated to stuff that is very safe. And all those three things have also, uh, have led a lot of the Biden team to be like, well, we can't let her be the nominee because if we step aside, she's almost likely to be the nominee and she can't do it or she's not ready. I am. I believe it was Chris Whipple's book, um, that said, uh,

that quoted Joe Biden as saying that she's not quite ready for prime time or something along those lines. And, but,

You know, who knows now? Because there are deeper questions right now about whether or not even Joe Biden can do the job a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, four years from now, or even right now. And those are much deeper than the political questions. But also remember, they are on the ticket together. And the Biden team absolutely views her as an enormous asset as they're moving into the thick of this general election campaign. So I don't, you know...

The way that they think about her is as added value as somebody who can go into communities that sometimes Joe Biden doesn't connect with as directly. They definitely view her as a political asset. And as we're gaming out all these hypotheticals, remember, they are on the ticket together right now. And that's the way that the White House, the campaign, is thinking about their most immediate next steps is with her as a partner,

in this re-election effort. - Sure, and to your, picking up on your point about what is happening right now in this moment, there is this column that we can dig into from Tom Friedman after this next break, basically asking whether Joe Biden is the man you want answering the phone at 3:00 a.m. if the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians attack us. That's kind of where we are in this conversation right now. All right, coming up next.

A family getting ready for an RV road trip when it bursts into flames. We're just gonna, you know, take this little detour. It's one of five things you have to see this morning. All right, 27 minutes past the hour, we are going to take a politics breather and show you five things that you have to see this morning. There's a monster storm pounding the Caribbean, packing maximum sustained winds of 145 miles an hour. New video shows the trail of destruction Hurricane Beryl left behind on St. Vincent's Union Island.

Jamaica now preparing for a direct hit from the category four storm. And there's this, look at this. This is all that's left of an RV after it burst into flames in a Massachusetts neighborhood. Three men from the same family, a grandfather, dad and son were injured in the explosion, the cause of the fire under investigation.

13,000 residents north of Sacramento ordered to evacuate overnight as a wildfire burns in Northern California. Officials say the Thompson fire has charred more than 2,000 acres and that it is 0% contained. Illegal fireworks setting off a three-acre grass fire in San Francisco's McLaren Park late Sunday night. The fire was contained within 30 minutes. There was no damage to nearby homes and no one was hurt.

There's a bear on the loose in the suburbs of Los Angeles. There she is, just hanging out in a tree. She has been eluding traps set by the Department of Fish and Wildlife since Monday. Officials are hoping that she finds her way back to the forest on her own. Very cute. All right, coming up next here, new reporting on the frequency of President Biden's cognitive lapses.

What I've been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare. Moments like that from last week's CNN debate showed millions of Americans what close Biden allies have been working to brush aside for months.

The president's age and mental fitness does seem to, in fact, be a hindrance in his campaign against Donald Trump, a significant one. And now new reporting from The New York Times indicates these moments are not just one-offs, as so many people are trying to insist, but are, quote,

growing more frequent, more pronounced and more worrisome, generating concerns among advisers and allies alike. Joining me now is one of the reporters on that story, New York Times White House correspondent Zolan Kano-Young. Zolan, good morning to you. This headline is Biden's lapses are said to be increasingly common and worrisome. Several current and former officials and others who encountered him behind closed doors noticed he has increasingly appeared confused or listless.

or would lose the thread of conversations. This does seem to be part of, certainly Democrats I'm talking to are angry that this is not something that people were willing to acknowledge to them until now. What else have you learned and what are you reporting here?

Sure. And thanks for having me on. You know, you opened by by describing the debate performance. And I think for many of us who cover the White House and really for Americans and voters across the country, the question became how much of this is unique, a one off or has something like this been happening more frequently? And while we don't know if it's to the extent of what we saw on the debate stage, our reporting does show

that these sort of lapses, these moments where the president can appear listless or confused, that that is happening more frequently, according to those that see him behind closed doors, both advisors domestically. But also, we wanted to know, for the officials that are working with President Biden, are they noticing this? So look, he is blaming this on the circus of travel that he had. We could start there. We could go to the trip in Europe

where we talked to European officials who said that they were struck by sort of the decline, particularly physically, by the president. At one point, we also reported that

the Italian leader, Giorgio Maloney, as well as other European leaders, when entering a space with the president, would sort of slow down in case he needed time to crowd around him. We talked to a U.S. official, a former U.S. official, who said that the President Biden now, compared to the person that they were working for, that they are not sure if that they would put him in a room with a foreign adversary like Vladimir Putin.

We talked to a European official who just said flatly no at that point. And we did see through talking to officials that, again, these little blips, you know, fumbling over a leader's name or your own cabinet secretary's name or stumbling over the wording of the correct amount of Ukraine funding.

that that is catching people by alarm. We do know that after one of his first trips, after traveling across the Atlantic, he came back to Camp David and based off of our reporting, cut his planned debate days by two, so two fewer days, started working after 11 a.m. and included a nap as well, indicating that some of that exhaustion was taking effect.

So you're seeing the president at this time blame this, you know, on travel. And, you know, I think the reporting also shows that just throughout the officials that we talked to, sort of two Bidens emerge here. You know, the White House president

brought out many officials that said that he's still sharp and that in cases of national emergencies, national security emergencies, that he can still talk directly to a leader. We include an example with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But at the same time, this other Biden is also emerging, one that seems to fumble over his words and have more frequent conversations

sort of occurrences where he does appear confused. And it's starting to have a ripple effect and catch the attention not only of European allies, but also Democrats within the United States. Certainly, many of whom read The New York Times. Zolan Kenoyung, very grateful to have you on the show this morning. Thank you very much for that. And, you know, to this question of, you know,

you know, whether the president is capable of dealing with these things in the moment right now, something that the right has been focused on. But Tom Friedman today in a column in the New York Times, and this is significant in no small part,

Kate, you can kind of lend some texture here, but my understanding is President Biden reads Tom Friedman. They've known each other for many years. Friedman writes this, quote, at this moment of incredible importance for America and the Democratic Party, I would urge President Biden, his family, and his party's leadership to ask the same question. What does your worst enemy, Donald Trump, want you to do now?

then do the opposite. Trump is salivating at the prospect of Biden staying in the presidential race so he can pummel him from now until election day with 50-second television and radio ads, not to mention memes on social media of Biden's incoherent responses in last week's debate. Each ad asking, is this the man you want answering the phone at 3 a.m. if the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians attack us? It is a significant question, Kate.

OK, but as an American, do you know who I don't want answering the phone at 3:00 AM or who I don't want in the room with Vladimir Putin making decisions? Donald Trump. But isn't this the issue? The issue is that can he beat Donald Trump or not? Who has said that Russia should do whatever the hell it wants with our allies? I take the point, but-- But I'm just saying, let's have a conversation that's about what's at stake here. And we have somebody running for president who has said Russia can do whatever it wants to our NATO allies if he becomes president. But isn't the question whether Biden's capable of beating Trump?

That being said, I think this narrative is, this is no question, this is a challenging narrative because this is what this does for the campaign is requires them and the White House is requires them to prove a negative, right? It requires them to say, you know, no, behind closed doors, he's strong, he's tough. That's a tough place to be. I will say as somebody who worked for Joe Biden for a long time, now granted, I haven't been in the White House since March of 2023. So, but in my time working for him,

There were criticisms like this. People were questioning his age. Is he sharp in meetings? I mean, we saw this. Republicans tried to make this a line of attack during the debt ceiling fight when I was there. And he was sharp. He was on top of things. He was driving decisions. He was driving discussions. He was tough in prep.

you know i mean i think there are there is a lot of evidence that he is uh has continued to do an effective job as president i mean i think you see it in the results i am not arguing that this is not a challenging and vulnerable line of attack and something that the biden campaign and joe biden and the biden white house are going to have to slog through but i will tell you as somebody who worked in this white house very closely with joe biden he was on top of it

and he's somebody who is always going to make the best decision in the interest of the United States of America. And you cannot say that about Donald Trump. - Well, and I think the question is from March of 2023, which was a year ago, what has happened in the time since? - Look, Biden certainly wants to make this about democracy. And as a Republican, I feel pretty confident saying, okay, well look, if Democrats truly believe that the fate of democracy is hinging on this election,

then Democrats need to not just say it, but then act. Why is democracy, in your words, hinging on an 81-year-old who works from 10 to 4 and who, if you read that New York Times article, it's really troubling because not only take...

Take out the fact that he has to serve for the next four years. He's still president for seven months. And the fact if something happens, he can't get in a room with Vladimir Putin today, that's a troubling thought. Let me just ask this question. So we basically have written them off. I mean, if you're going to watch TV, we're basically like, when's it going to happen? What are the odds? Like, what days are going to happen? That's where all the commentary is going right now. My question is, why are we here?

Joe Biden plays the character of, I'm this tough guy from Scranton. And by the way, I think he is. Why wasn't he out there? Everyone's saying, oh, he's going to do this interview. And guess what? Next week, he's going to do a press conference at NATO. How about he just walks out and says,

Let's get down to brass tacks. Let's just put this all on the table. Instead of being totally surrounded in, you know, being protected, being coddled. And that news, what we haven't talked about was that White House briefing yesterday. That was a disaster. I just watched it. I was like, it was like malaise. It was malaise. And he was proven to have done it already. Because if you remember when the Her report dropped, they called that press conference within what, three hours, two hours? Yeah.

Look, and also too, let's remember, we act in, I'm saying this kind of, we act as if these interviews and press conferences, there's not a massive downside. If he comes out and isn't anywhere as sharp as he should be, then those cries are only gonna get louder. There is also massive downside in some of these things which we're also not talking about. - Yeah, absolutely. - Good class work.

If Joe Biden has one more even close to a senior moment of something in any of these interviews, whether it's George Stephanopoulos or when he's in Wisconsin this Friday, I think that we've talked about the dam breaking. There are cracks right now. It's going to, water is going to rush through. All right. Coming up next, former presidential advisor Mark McKinnon is here. We're going to talk to him about his take on the state of Joe Biden's presidency.

If you'd have told me, Adam Kinzinger, three years ago that you're going to be endorsing a Democrat for president in three years, I probably wouldn't have believed you. Look, I'm voting for Joe Biden because I want to beat Donald Trump. Just when it seemed that many former Republicans were ready to embrace Joe Biden in order to prevent a second Trump term, there was the debate. And for many Never Trumpers, the president's worrisome performance throws that all into the question. And now some of those crucial voters telling CNN's Al Reeve they feel lost and politically homeless.

To be talked to from the Democratic Party, kind of like just get behind the candidate was very frustrating and angering. This is not about the Democrat or the Republican Party. They both put up candidates that are not electable for very different reasons. If Joe Biden stays on the ticket and Donald Trump is still on the ticket, I'm fast tracking moving to Costa Rica.

Joining me now is Mark McKinnon. He is former advisor to George W. Bush and John McCain and the creator of Paramount's The Circus. Mark, it's always wonderful to see you. You predicted that this was going to be, it could be the most consequential debate in American political history. I just want to kind of give you props for that because apparently it's what we're seeing. I'd like to know where you think big picture this sits right now as both a political but also a historic moment for President Biden.

Well, it obviously was hugely consequential. I thought it was a high risk strategy, but one worth taking. But, you know, people tuned in to see if the president looked 80 and he looked 90. Our mutual friend, Paul Begala, and I, the very first candidate we worked for was a guy named Lloyd Doggett 40 years ago.

And I will just tell you that if you ask me which member of Congress of Democrats might be the first to to to suggest that Biden shouldn't run, I would put I would have put Doggett at the end of that list. I was shocked that Lloyd Doggett came out. He is a dyed in the wool party guy, very thoughtful guy. And for him to come out and say, listen, I live in the district represented by LBJ. I know he had a hard decision to make. So does the president. He's got to do it.

Listen, Kate's doing a great job. I'm glad I don't have her job right now of trying to defend the president, but it's indefensible. The fact is that he was behind going into the debate. He's worse off now, and we know it's not going to get better. Every single moment it's going to be scrutinized, and the fact is when you're 81 years old, you're going to have these moments. We know now from reporting that he's had these moments that we hadn't heard about, so it's only going to get worse. So

I think it's just very fundamentally obvious that if you care about our democracy and you're worried about Donald Trump winning, we need somebody else running. So Mark, I want to show you something, a couple of things from governors that we have seen over the course of the six days since this all unfolded. Let's start with Gavin Newsom, who is one of the governors invited to the White House today. This was what he had to say in the spin room right after the debate. Watch. I would never turn my back on President Biden.

never turn my back on President Biden. I don't know a Democrat in my party that would do so, especially after tonight. We have his back. We run not the 90-yard dash. We are all in. We're going to double down in the next few months. We're going to win this election.

so i suppose nothing else to say in that moment except for that but then let's look at what uh governor pritzker of illinois someone else who's in this contender for president conversation and andy beshear governor of kentucky have said in the last 24 36 24 hours it sounds a lot different watch joe biden is going to be our nominee

unless he decides otherwise. And so I think that there's a healthy conversation that will happen with the president. - Joe Biden is our nominee and ultimately that decision on continuing or not will fall to him and his family. The governors just want a direct and candid conversation with the president. We wanna make sure he's doing okay. - We want to make sure he's doing okay. I mean, what do you hear in those comments? What do you expect today?

Well, I've heard it constantly throughout the last few days. I've done a lot of television on this topic, and I've been on with a lot of people like Kate and people who work for Biden or

you know, are staunch Democrats and defenders of the president. And you could feel the ice thaw in real time. I mean, they went from no way that the sort of Newsom, you know, position to, well, let's just wait and see. Let's see what the polls say. I mean, the body language is really changing, obviously, because I think everybody knows what the situation is here. They want us to look. They want to be they want to be good soldiers. But at the end of the day, they know that their general's in bad shape and he can't lead the troops.

So where do you think Biden goes from here? I mean, they're planning this interview on Friday, a press conference next week.

Listen, I think the smartest thing I've heard from any Democrat is Jamie Raskin, because what Democrats have to do is paint a picture of something other than humiliation and defeat for Biden. And Raskin said, listen, we're going to have this convention. We're going to lionize the guy. We're going to give him a gold watch. We're going to all hail Joe Biden. The Democrats need to paint a picture of what this is going to look like for Joe Biden. And he can have a substantial role and he can be the hero of the story. You know, he doesn't have to anoint anybody, but he can say, listen, we're Democrats. Go at it.

I love you. We've done a great job. I think our administration has done great and we've set it up for you. Go get them. So I think that's the perfect thing. But, you know, the reality for most Americans is they understand that in America you can't be 66 and be a park ranger. I wish I could because I want to arrange your hat like that. But I'm too old.

I would love to see you here with a Ranger hat on. Mark, you've been in rooms with these guys a lot in your career. What's going to make the difference, if anything, for Joe Biden's personal decision? He's the only one that can make it.

This is the hardest thing. This is really, really hard, Casey, because this is what I used to just call going into the propellers with George W. Bush and Karen Hughes. You may remember. Yeah, it was so tough. I was like, Karen, you go, you go. So I don't want to be the guy that's all Biden. I don't want to go into the propellers because, you know, what happens goes in the propellers. You get chopped up, man. And I and I, you know, I know that Biden can be pretty fierce himself. So it's a really unpleasant job for whoever's got to do it.

All right, Mark McKinnon, very grateful to have you this morning. Come back soon. Thank you. But the person that's got to do that is Jill, by the way, obviously. Yeah, that makes absolute, absolute sense. All right. Thank you. So I want to I want to get to this now. Mark Preston alluded to it earlier. The White House fended off tough questions about President Biden's fitness at the briefing yesterday. And it was at times it was tough to watch. Is anyone in the White House hiding?

information about the president's health or his ability to do the job day to day? Absolutely not. As it relates to his medical records, we have been transparent. We have released thorough reports from his medical team every year since he's been in office. That is something that we have been pretty consistent about. Have we been transparent though, Alex Thompson? I think a big part of this story is how people feel like the White House hasn't been candid.

Absolutely. I mean, as someone, you know, we've talked about this before, as someone that's reported on his age for the last three and a half years, as a reporter, I feel, especially in retrospect, after watching the debate, I have been met by gaslighting, a lot of deflecting at times, not even telling the truth about the president's schedule. Now, we've all been talking about this whole thing about the president from 10 to 4. I mean, I reported that a year ago.

But no one really paid much attention to it. And the fact is that, and this is also what is added to the turmoil inside this White House, because there is incredible frustration, especially among the people that really love Joe Biden, that have been with him for a long time, that if people within the inner circle knew that he had some of these moments, that knew that there was even a 5% chance

that what happened on Thursday night was going to happen. And they let him go on that stage and humiliate himself in front of the entire world. And they let him do it anyway.

There is tremendous anger and sadness among the people that have worked for Joe Biden, believe in his legacy, that they let him go out there and do it anyway. But can I just say, but that point is actually exactly why I believe that that Thursday night was an aberration. Now, we'll see. We'll see what happens. But.

The people I worked for Joe Biden for a long time, I worked closely with all of the people who are closely around him. They care about him. They love him. They would not have let him go out if they believed that that was what was going to happen. So I actually I take the sort of inverse of the argument you're making to reinforce the idea that, you know,

You know, it was a historically bad night. It was an epically bad night. But the people around him would not have put him forward to do that if they felt that that's what was going to happen. But do you believe it was really the first time that that had ever happened? I do. I genuinely I know I realize that's, you know, again, I base this on my own experience. Granted, I left over a year ago, so I'm not, you know, but.

You know, I never saw that version of Joe Biden. And I just don't believe that the people around him who make these help make these decisions with him would have put him in that situation if they thought there was a chance that was going to happen. Mark Preston. You know, we've written his obituary and this is political obituary. I mean, again, this is the commentary. Let's talk about how he can survive. Now, where I'm from, Gorman's from, you don't go to a fistfight without being able to

to really want to knock the person's head off. Joe Biden did not show up at that debate to try to knock Donald Trump's head off. He went into that debate and talked about policy issues. This is not 1970, this is not 1980 or 1990. We are in 2024 right now. Donald Trump has redefined how we play politics

And if Joe Biden wants to survive this, Joe Biden's got to go out there and street fight is what he needs to do. Well, I mean, and isn't that a big part of it, Matt Gorman, though? That like, I mean, they've painted this as an existential moment for the country. And that makes the stakes of Joe Biden having a night like he did that much higher. Absolutely. Again, when everything is the democracy lies in, you know, this night or this race, then you're right. Then there's no room for error.

And, you know, I think I'll go back to what Kate said earlier in the program. This is not a West Wing episode, right? This will not go as cleanly as I think collectively we all think it will. Right. And so let's think about this. So if he has an OK Stephanopoulos interview and an OK press conference, then Trump will announce his VP. And does this kind of get washed away a little bit? It

We'll see. But I think, you know, the transition from Biden to Kamala, if it happens, it's not going to be some seamless thing. Yeah, no, it's a very it's a very, very good point. And we are, of course, in an incredibly consequential moment that reminds us of history. So I want to say thank you to the panel. And I just want to leave you with one of the historical moments where we faced we had a president facing something like this.

Whoever the Democrats nominate for president this year, he will have this record to run upon. I shall not be a candidate for re-election. I have served my country long and I think efficiently and honestly. I shall not accept a re-nomination. I do not feel that it is my duty to spend another four years in the White House.

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