More including the. Mexico along wh these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. And Emmy Awardwinning journalist and former executive spent 24 years at nbc to produce Network Political coverage longtime executive producer and managing editor news political programming. Currently she is executive director of the women in politicsti institute at American University t faculty member in e school helicopters. Shes been included in washingtons 50 most influentiae journalists and gq powerful people in washington. [applause] thank you all, its so nice not too far from my home town in orleans. [laughter] i feel like you are under oath now. An interesting discussion. No recollection of that. [laughter] we are here to talk about washington, we are obviously approaching your already consuming headlines across the country andnd become more so. The great panel today and i will start with an i introduction, te White House Correspondent for usa today and also covered the cut 2020 president ial race, thank you for being here, a writer for the washingtonin post who has spent years covering politics, people on the fringe, behind the scenes, in the bathrooms, on the hill, he brings this wild group of characters together and is terrific b group, Party Animals true believers trying to win in washington chair, we have Jonathan Martin who writes for politico after spending ten plus years of the New York Times and coauthor along with his colleague, the New York Times bestseller came out last year for americas and i should mention they are going to be copying 1215 so i hope you come up with that as well so your book, it isnt passing in many ways, right . Sometimes they arent necessarily as good. First of all, thank you for having me in mississippi, this Great Company and its fun to see the many friends in the audience. I think today in august of 2023, those of you likely to have a rematch of the 2020 election between trump and biden, ive covered politics long things to change and things its a done deal and we can take it for the next 14 months and the future outleti and they take place in the next year and some of them are known unknowns and others are unknown unknowns and most obviously they face 100 counts and for separate jurisdictions next year about is the biggest and it will shake the primary and the general. I think it is early days yet. They keep going and going and going. I think its taking a while and its hard to walk away from that. Obviously cup is the dominant front runner especially national surveys, a more competitive race but obviously hes strong because mainly it 16 and the party does not rally between the alternative and they will have that again. He doesnt need 50. 1, he just needs to rally. So let me ask you, how do you see it shaping i up . I spent like two years, a bunch of lunatics. [laughter] also a lot of positive people who knew it would happen by a certain date or legislation with past, its awful to watch in a way. So i will not be and never have and i wouldnt predict whats going to happen. A lot of people can get away with being wrong all the time but im filled with shame all the time and i dont need it anymore so i dont know whats going to happen if its true, trump might not get the majority, a lot of people are tired of him so he might get enough. Americans. They see themselves in ron and rons awkwardness on the trail but they also hate what they see so awkward. Yeah so you know people been paying attention to the desantis campaign. Theyve seen lots of clips of him not theyll see lots of clippings of him not knowing how to talk to children. Children drinking an icy him saying thate looks like a lot f sugar and him not really doing like whats your favorite flavor, you know. That kind of thing or somebody said whats your name and he said tim and he said okay. You want to be better at that if youre running for president but i saw themselves and a woman said she watches videos and cringing because she see herself and she told me a story about picking up her kid from camp other day and forgetting her id, and telling the counselor i can show you my scar from deliver rei if you want to see it and he was like no. She was like i was just joking like i i couldnt stop thinking about it. Enduring quality on the working note so people saw themselves but they also found him like so unlikable. So relating to somebody and liking somebody is not always same thing. And so its not actually a huge advantage to have awkward americans see themselves in him. But it was alv very funny story. [laughter] youve covered desantis what are your thoughts on how hes going to do this week . First of all i should say by, buy bens book is wonderful and it is proven right the hacks, its really its a sorry spectrum one that cant stop reading. And it also happens to be true. Your nations capitol. So yeah. Obviously, had a rough summer. Been sort of flurry of process storiess that no candidate for president wants all of them negative. About his organization i think that probably matters less to voters on the ground in iowa than folk who is kind of live and breathe politics. But its not helpful to the year before the president ial race socalled invisible primary, Media Coverage does matter, and it kind of has a title tidal way to it in the sensens that it sort of can lift and recede. Candidates, and sort of seen that over the years in both parties, obviously, hes been hurt by the coverage but coverage can shift and oftentimes coverage does shift and begins by having a strong debate. So stakes are significant. Hes got to show what sort of deered him in the first place to republican vote rs on the debate stage and in some ways its better him if truch is not there. Because while yeah the pressure is more intense because hes more or hes more of a a story. The opportunity i think is greater for him to have trump there because you dont have a distraction of trump being there, and he has got at least the chance to emerge in the coverage that night and the days after. As the biggest storyline. Now the risk is that its a bad storyline but at least he has the his hopee was there, every story that night and the days after would be whatever the great trump would have said. Cr so yeah ting goes least to offer the opportunity here. Let me bring you in because were togs about trump not being at the debate. Now, of course biden is not going to be at the debate you just recently wrote a piece for us airings today about biden yoo know hes going to be taking probably 99 of the incoming fire. What does the Biden Campaign do to try to counteract that early on . T well first of all thanks again for having me here. It is good to be in mississippi with such unseasonably cool weather outside [laughter] great to be here but biden is cooperating with the discussion of the democrats in april theres not been a big Campaign Rally theyve been satisfied in, you know, republicans duking it out. At o each other while they while Biden Campaign starts unmasking Large Campaign war chest they have 77 Million Dollars on hand but theyre going use this debate as a first pivot with the large tv ad blitz targeting, you know, the maga extreme republicans thats how theyll be framed to continue kind of a theme of the white house overr the last year and a half. A and so you also see the dispatching jamie and sedric former congressman from louisiana nearby who is a white house advisor. He will be dispatched to milwaukee so they are going to use, you know, a lot of themes that we see and fightings them among republicans. You know theyre going start pouncing on that. I still think were going to see a rather quiet biden operation until 2024. They just dont see the need right now that totally engage while republicans are still unsettled. And he doesnt seem to engage much even with the press he doesnt give any interviews doesnt see have many conferences very protected by the staff. Is it hard to cover candidate and president like that . It is hard and it is difficult. It is a very occur a sore subject among us reporters its been trump, in terms of accessible it was way more and talked to reporters as he was going up to marine lawn and theyre guarded with President Biden but he went on a two week stretch recently where he didnt engage with questions in the press and you can imagine when hunter biden stuff was resurfaced with the the appointment of a special council and earlier than that and plea deal fell apart but thatnd wasnt an issue thate wanted to talk about and also i dont theres still trying to figure out i think, how to touch the indictments of trump if hes the nominee. You know on one hand you can stay quiet about this and kind of stories you know, of themselves instead of training who trump is and if the president were to talk about it theyre going to republicans would use those say hey you see it is a had is them weaponizing the judiciary. You know but at the same time it is going to be such a dominating to which the effort that we have. This is top among them we dont know what were dealing with in terms of the course cases and trial dates and what the sentencing could be. So, yoube know, thats going toe something that the biden folks are going to have to figure out how to take on. theres three issues that biden has not figured out how to deal withto or that his staff ds not want to cool to terms with. One is the investigation into hunterer biden, the other is the age and how to address that. And if were being totally honest, you know, the third is his department of justice prosecuting the former president. Er they have not figured out how to address thoseos issue because theyre difficult to address and because biden is a how should i put this biden is a risky, risky asset when it comes to public performance. We have a line in our book thats a delicate way of putting. Cspan audience. [laughter] david axl roll i cant fully do in the voice but the biden staff have performance anxiety biden performed and they get anxious. [laughter] pretty good line. Because every time biden goes out there, they dont know what hes going to say necessarily. Hes at a fundraiser couple of months agoup and he calls he calls xi a dictator and next day theres a speakinglation among a lot of allies around world says whats biden up to here calling a new shift that american policy toward beijing no joe biden, joe biden talking at a a fundraiser and gt too loose but he got his staff you know thats a risky proposition when it comes to all three of those topics. I dont think they fully come to terms with how to address those. When you chronicle 2020 race it was during covid and so much ofof that campaign took place in the basement. Right . The gift for biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris was theyre both unsteady public performers especially off the cuff, and for the duration of the general election 2020 they have a ready made reason to not do a rope line to not do a press conference and a covid election but it is, obviously, a different story now. But as city president it is remarkable how little he does in terms of sitdown interviews and full address press conferences. Did only one sitdown with the associated pressing it is not since then so theres been, you know, vocational tv and most recent tv interview was with the weather challenge of all outcomes. So you know theyve been, you know, they dont think that as jonathan alluded to he can be a gas machine so they have limited those opportunities. You write about trouble two years of the Biden Administration where so many thoughtin that he sort of failed to make things normal again. You write about even a conversation that you have with jen psaki about whether he would even run again. Yeah. So the premise of this book basically is to look at the first two years in a post trump maybeyb pretrump again this there was this talk in washington that things could go back to normal. We have these four years where like every day question of to look at twitter and wonder if were going to have nuclear war with north korea and finally thix could be normal and and having covered washington as long as i have i can look around and say this is not normal here. Like this is not a way to go back to normal. I dont know if biden failed inning trying to make things normal or not i think that normal is t not a reality. And so ive spent time trying to figure out new normal and how things worked and i found like kind of a city that was very broken. People were still trying to figure out like what strategies made sense they were making big bets literally but also kind of figuratively on wherere things were. And trump influence was kind of everywhere. So you know, it is not its not a city that is trumps city. But it certainly reflects him still in a lot of way. Jonathon you mention the biden bridge. Theres discussions recently reported on in your column about kind of conversations that are still happening about whether somebody in the party will step up and challenge him. Yeah. The great the great reveal about modern Politics Today is that, a lot of senior officials in both parties are living are living a very different lives in public versus private. Imat not being salacious there but im saying is in public democrats salute joe biden say of course reelection heres our incumbent president hes donemba great job four more years and in saying ill decide about the election and im not tboipg to weigh in about former president trump. Okay in private let me tell you something a lot of democrats are pins and needles over the possibility of nominating him againe because of his age, unpopularity and uneasy about it and same democrats equally about answering next question that comes pup they say in public they dont want joe biden which is oh diewpght Vice President harris to be the nominee so they dont want those questions for the most part instead they punt and say oh im for the incumbent, next question. Its a easy way to escape the question and for republicans in private a lot of them desperately want to get somebody besides trump and that was before the indictment. Because they dont want to a risk lose the election and b risk inwithing and have trump perform more years so speaking of that frankly a cynical moment i think in american pleks in which the Leadership Class tbhoat parties says things strikingly different in privateer is versus public yes politicians have been politicians. But i think that right now we are in a notably cynical moment. You mention the jen psaki conversation in the whowtion and what she said too me at the time when she was press secretary at the tile was she was talking ab dinner that she had with her brotherinlaw who worked for obama and they were talking about biden and whether he would run again and she said she department have any reason to believe he wouldnt and not want him to but she you know she asked him like is there a plan does anyone have a plan in the Democratic Party in case he doesnt run is there a secret meeting happening in a basement somewhere . Where democrats are making a plan and the brothersinlaw response was should we be having that i too of meeting . Like should that secret meeting be happening here . With obama many politics any time you have a question assume american politics is more like than it is [laughter] but as to why that bridge never, ended up materializing biden i think inside heal truly believes hes the only one who can beat former trump so that i think thats a big thing he carries around and he sees unrest with the party and lack of the bench whatever you want to calll it and you know i think he didnt envision himself, you know, years ago being president to potentially 86 years old. But it is. Where he find himself at and its, you know theres no shortage of issue that could come up in the age with age issues over the next 15 months still yet a trip diploma handout air force couple of months ago. Its, you know, its something they have to confront hes been doing it lately with jokes saying hey ive been here 600 year that kind of thing and thats sort of literally calling out yeah pointed it out see if that works but thats, obviously, big question for people. As long as trump poses the threat to democrats, and is still the likely republican nominee, biden enjoys insulation around himself because theres almost this sort of discardinal rule that thousand shall not weaken President Biden while trump is still the likely republican nominee. Theres all of these democratic governors and who are superambitious and love to be president have to mention some names n theyre not going to challenge l biden as long as trp is in the wings because backlash of youre weakening our incumbent by running [inaudible conversations] that has impact for their political careers down the line. And in a 2028 congressman named dean phillips from minnesota ordered a couple of weeks ago taking meetings in new york and thinking about challenging biden himself butgi really what hes trying to do is hes trying to play the role of Gene Mccarthy in 1968 and sort of break the isosomebody else can get in the race and challenge biden. Hes now going on sunday shows last couple of weeks and basically urged democrats to challenge biden in the response is crickets. Because to betsys point the gavin newsom hello governor, jb, phil murphies, all of the senators, they dont want to imperial their feature prospects by challenging biden now and inviting him to bash lash that would come. They want to keep their tomorrow a bill clinton line environment in the system. You mentioned Vice President harris you write a lot about her selection in the book behind the scenes. If he had more confidence in her as a successor would that have made him apt to exit stage left . Theres no poangt to jerry point for serving potentially mid80s is that hey, who else is going to beat trump who else has experience of a world sthaij iag do and, obviously, strongest key he believes that. Youre right. Part of thehe reason why he subt themselves with thatce is becaue he didnt groom a formidable successor and there is profound doubt among democrats that she could step in and win a general election next year so a lot of that you know, in the book youre talking, you talk about her selection as really kind of being a shortterm for him to help hill in the shortterm to win that election. Ho but not as