hello and welcome to inside politics. i m john king in watershington. we are two weeks out and tonight a one-night only event in a pivotal senate race, john fetterman versus mehmet oz on the debate stage sgl. plus, progressives push president biden to push russia to end the ukraine war. and diary excerpt. a broken promise from a supreme court justice. a new book digs into the life of senator ted kennedy. up first, the midterms. we count your votes two weeks from today. already upwards of 9 million ballots cast across 40 states. big debates tonight remind us the consequences are enormous and many of the key races are remarkably close. 36 governors races. always important but all the more so because of the new politics of abortion rights. all 435 house seats up. republicans now confident they will seize the speaker s gavel from nancy pelosi. and 35 senate contests including a race that s absolutely crucial. john fetterman and mehmet oz square off. it is their one and only
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which, of course, is hanging over everyone s thoughts, also a dangerous time to be a journalist, for journalists in ukraine and around the world. and those types of themes are also important at a dinner like this. i can tell you, it s not an easy room. i have addressed the room, other parents have addressed the room. it will be a challenge for president biden but i think he enjoys letting his hair down, as it were, and i think he will try to have fun tonight in addition to getting out a serious message at the same time. are you trying to say not the best senses of humor in that room at all times? is that possibly no, no. people have a accsense of humor. it s hard to get the room quiet. that s true. that s true. i think everyone will be quiet for president biden. and april, some of the most successful moments at the dinners come when the president can poke fun at himself like
suppression. i mean, it s really trying to articulate both with the vision of the democratic administration and also what the substance is. they passed a pandemic bill. they ve done extraordinary, successful legislation, but at the same time, voting rights sort of has been the can that was kicked down the road in the last seven or eight months. in the president s defense, calling out senator manchin or senator sinema strategically doesn t make a lot of accsense. this isn t a president who is so popular in west virginia and arizona, that calling them out would somehow be a political liability for them. i teach at the johnson school, where johnson was master of the senate and was a president who could convince and sort of wield power to get voting rights legislation and civil rights legislation. we re long past those days.