with uncertainty in the economy and raising inflation. don t forget, all of this is happening as coronavirus cases surgery to all time highs. here to talk about all of this now managing editor for axios ma gr greta margaret talev and david swirly. i m going to say hopeful new year instead of happy. all right. margaret, let s begin with you. what has to be the president s priority right now as we get this year started? i mean, fred, on a very basic level i can biden s biggest challenge and biggest priority is how to get accurate information to all americans. the economy obviously is the thing that most americans are worried about, combined with coronavirus, the two are inextricably intertwined at this moment, but for the president the truth is that the economy actually is growing and that
i think in the coming days and weeks we may she what messages the president is trying to tell both americans and russians and europe about what to expect, but a lot of that depends on vladimir putin. again, it s not central to the u.s. challenges or to what voters care about heading into the midterms. this is not lining up to be a foreign policy midterm election, but what putin does or doesn t do is going to set off a chain of reactions and it s going to put biden in a real moment of a leadership test. and then, david, back to the big domestic item for the president, we re talking about his build back better social spending program. senator joe manchin, you know, torpedoed the talks, but white house officials are hopeful that talks can be revived on a more limited bill, or perhaps even a set of bills. so what is most realistic? fred, if i could, i just wanted to say one thing about
there has been a pretty historic recovery so far, but it s bound up in these concerns about inflation and the supply chain, and in really negative media coverage for those voters, those american voters who primarily get their news from conservative outlets or from alternative media. getting accurate information to americans about the virus and the pandemic and how to protect themselves also was a real challenge for the president in this bifurcated moment that we re in as a society. that means it s going to be hard for him to get credit for what he s doing well on the economy and it may be hard for him to get the pandemic under control among the sectors who aren t listening to the same messaging that he s trying to deliver. david, do you agree? messaging is big. once upon a time people would rely on information coming from the white house to, you know, just set the record straight, but as margaret just spelled out
and give us insight on this interview and what s happening at mar-a-lago. i want to bring in chris cillizza, david swirly, and april ryan. hello to all of you. fascinating, don t you think? chris, what do you think? well, okay, first of all, mike sheer, former colleague of mine, wonderful guy, great reporter. that out of the way, donald trump okay. he says lots of things and you went through some of it, but let me make this point, this is evidence yet again that donald trump does not hate the media. donald trump loves the media. he saw reporters down there, spoke to them for 30 minutes, no staff. staff was unaware he was doing it. donald trump consumes more media, craves the attention of the media, craves the approval of the media more so than any modern president.
mentioned. no, again, to conflate that dossier, which the justice department has confirmed parts of and has not other parts. to say that that s the entire special counsel investigation is just misleading at best. yeah, why do you think he says, he could do what he wants with the justice department but because he wants to be treated fairly, he is staying out of it. why do you think, david, what s but then he hones in that he wants to be treated fairly. don, i think again throughout all this, the president likes to keep his options open. he wants to be seen as calm, cool and collected down there in florida. he can say, that at any time i can pull the plug on this. he can get rid of rob rosenstein and then get rid of mueller that. he has the power because the justice department ultimately reports through him. i also agree with chris that the president is sort of flooding the zone when it comes to democrats and russia, he says, john podesta s brother, fusion