sieve. you didn t see a lot of drama or palace intrigue. what you saw was surgical execution day after day after day. ron desantis taking a not so subtle jab at former president donald trump. the florida governor s book tour is bringing more attention to the 2024 gop presidential race even though he s not yet officially a candidate. also ahead, the latest on the kidnapping of four americans in mexico and why officials think the group was ambushed right after crossing the border. plus, we ll have expert analysis on the major fight happening right now in ukraine as both sides battle over the city of bakhmut. good morning and welcome to way too early on this tuesday, march 7th. i m jonathan lemire, and thanks for starting your day with us. we ll begin here as election deniers are claiming victory this morning after three more republican led states announced that they re pulling out of a national bipartisan program that helps protect against voter fraud. election official
bet david schwimmer gets stopped by my fans, too it s the hair. nothing worse than when people mistake you for a slob. that s your mess. look at it. look at it. it s hanging all over the wall. well, i m. you leave that alone. you touch one strand of that linguini and i will punch you. jesse: and democrats today are comparing apples to tangerines. after squeaky clean mike pence comes out of nowhere and says hey, guys, i have classified docs at my house, too. really, mike? we will joe up against the wall and you are muddying up the waters. binder was blowing up. media saying pence and biden, same thing. it appears that former vice president pence and president biden handled these scenarios pretty much the same as one another. we went through this with biden. he said he was surprised i think it s clear former vice president pence was surprised as well. you treat the situation the same. what everyone says is clear. based on what we know so far, pence and biden seem
have to wonder if voters resonate with that in the same way they did in 2020. first lady jill biden certain certainly said a number of times recently she expects him to run. we need to hear it from him. the budget will be released thursday, which has plans to decrease the deficit. since 2000, the debt skyrocketed to just under $6 trillion to roughly $31 trillion today. approximately 460% increase over the past 23 years. according to a report put together by the non-partisan congressional budget office, republicans and democrats bear equal blame for the country s debt increase over the last two administrations. akayla, white house has been pointing to this for a while, the budget announcement. the president will travel to philadelphia to do so on thursday.
one dynamic that s interesting, and a number of polls recently have shown, democrats, by and large, approve the job president biden has done, like him personally, grateful for his time in office and for defeating donald trump. so many of them say they don t want to see him run again, citing his age as the biggest factor. how is the white house going to deal with what could be a real enthusiasm problem? i think you re 100% right. i think biden is trying to build the same coalition that helped him get elected in 2020. the circumstances, of course, then were very different. they were facing a pandemic. they were coming out of black lives matter protests. we re seeing him sort of shadow campaigning now. he hasn t officially entered the race, but he is still traveling and making a pitch to voters. a line we ve been hearing him say a lot lately is finish the job. without saying it, he is implying that he wants another four years to sort of build on the policies that he s already made so fa
an expected bid. i think the white house is feeling very confident right now. i think the majority of democrats are sort of lining up behind biden and expressing their support for him. we have seen a few people sort of raise concerns about his age at 80 years old. others like joe manchin saying they want to see who else is jumping into the race before they ultimately endorse. it s still pretty early. biden has yet to officially announce, and there s a lot that could happen between now and then. that being said, biden still says he intends to run and seek re-election. i m sure they re feeling very confident at this point. like you mentioned, they re not really taking this challenge from marianne williamson very seriously. yeah. the timeline for the president s expected announcement seems to be slipping. aides suggested maybe after the state of the union, now maybe april, and some tell me it could go to may or june.