What the hell was that voting rights speech Biden gave? And why is the White House so out of touch with American priorities?
In what was billed as the start to a major reset for 2022, Joe Biden gave an almost incredibly offensive speech on voting rights last week in Atlanta, Georgia. “Offensive” because he likened those who opposed lifting the filibuster and passing a sweeping new federalization of American elections as racists, traitors and… well, is there worse? “Incredible” for a number of reasons: The first, he was talking about his own party (Manchin and Sinema), second, there is no poll — NO POLL — that suggests Americans believe this is their most important priority this year.
Inflation? Crime? Immigration? Supply chain? Jobs? Covid? Russia? China? Indeed. The only mystery is why this is a mystery to the White House. Innumerable D pundits, liberal leaning papers, friends and members of the President’s own party have told the White House they’re in a terrible place, poised to lose the House, possibly the Senate, and without doubt, the all-important “narrative.”
Marc and I were eager to understand What the Hell is Going On? (see how I did that?) and asked National Journal columnist and all around journalistic political guru Josh Kraushaar to help us figure it out on the podcast. What he says won’t cheer you up; it might not even surprise you. But it will help you understand there’s little hope Biden is going to right the ship anytime soon….And if you watched that troubling press conference, you saw that live…
HIGHLIGHTS
Josh: Well, look, from my conversations with folks at the White House or connected to the White House, there's a consistent pattern that I've heard over the last year really, which is that the progressive voices have the upper hand in the Biden administration and the Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, is sort of the quarterback or the head coach perhaps. And he's put up a lot of losses. When you're head coach and you have that many L's to your record you're usually on the hot seat.
Dany: So, yeah, okay, I get it, Ron Klain is the progressive quarterback and he's losing, but wasn't Joe Biden meant to be the moderate voice in this administration? Is he president?
Josh: It's a good question. Look, the funny thing, the question I've asked since the beginning of this administration is, how does a president who ran to the middle in the primaries get further and further to the left as the time goes on? … I mean, politics 101, in the 15 or so years I've been covering politics, usually candidates who run in the primaries pander to the base and then they move gradually to the middle as they face the general election voters. And usually they govern towards the middle and at the very least they adjust to where the politics are at any specific moment. Biden has done the exact opposite.
Josh: … once the Democrats won those two Senate seats in Georgia in January of the last year, the notion that Biden could be this transformative historical president, against all political reality …their expectations got out of whack. And I think that moment led Biden to think he could do things that still were not that politically realistic. And I think that may have led to some of the strategic missteps that took place in the administration's first year.
Marc: But he was not elected to be a transformative president. He was elected to unite the country. I mean, there's the failure of priorities here. I think there's a political Morning Consult poll that asked, what should Congress focus on, reform the electoral college, expand voting access, or expand federal oversight? And the winner was none of the above. Right? This is not what Americans are focused on.
Josh: The bad news for the White House is that there's only a limited set of tools he has to contain inflation in the run up to the midterms and to raise the confidence that we're getting out of the pandemic. A lot of that is out of his control. I think the biggest mistake that Biden made, or one of the biggest mistakes at least, was going all full partisan in his first big legislative push to get that $1.9 trillion emergency COVID spending through. He could have done half of that and gotten some Republicans on board. And to quote Biden's own campaign message, he could have built back better. He could have started small, built some goodwill, and then, actually maybe got some bipartisan accomplishments done from that. Instead, you talked to Larry Summers, talked to a lot of prominent economists, they're now acknowledging that that overstimulation, that that infusion into the economy probably worsened our inflation situation.
Josh: So, he can't get out of that now. He's kind of stuck with the economy that he helped perpetuate. I think on the COVID front, what he could be doing is talking... He could be doing what Trump didn't do. Like when Trump had those daily briefings in 2020, where he was front and center and not letting the Faucis and the public health folks take center stage, I think the Biden administration could do a much better job with communicating, frankly. Get our way out of the pandemic, trying to allay the fears of a lot of folks, both with his base and across the country. You have this weird dynamic where a lot of the country has, frankly, gotten back to normal, even with Omicron across the country. But a lot of his base is afraid to get out there, and open schools, and get back to normal.
Dany: And what about the elections?
Josh: So, the majority is important. I think I agree with the consensus that it's very likely that Republicans get the five or six seats needed to take back the majority. But the margin is really important for Republicans. Not just because it suggests how big of a political wave it's going to be, but just for the governing success of … the Republican party as well, just going forward in the future.
Marc: And how about the Senate?
Josh: Yeah. The overall environment is very good. And I think it's fair to say that Republicans probably have better than 50-50 odds to get that one seat necessary to win back to the majority. But as Mitch McConnell himself acknowledged a few weeks ago, he's worried about some of these candidates in these big Senate races, Herschel Walker. In Georgia, you've got this Ohio Senate field that's looking pretty underwhelming, even though that is a pretty red state these days. Pennsylvania is a big... I think things are getting a little better for Republicans in Pennsylvania, but it's still a very wide-open field between a celebrity doctor, Dr. Oz, and hedge fund co-manager in David McCormick. So, Republicans really need to have candidates in the Glenn Youngkin mold, or at least those that don't really pander to the worst extremes of the party, to be successful in these big races
TRANSCRIPT
WTH is going on one year after Biden's inauguration? National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar on President Biden’s angry voting rights push and why the White House has lost touch with American priorities
Episode #134 | January 19, 2022 | Danielle Pletka, Marc Thiessen, and Josh Kraushaar
Danielle Pletka: Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka.
Marc Thiessen: And I'm Marc Thiessen.
Danielle Pletka: Welcome to our podcast, “What the Hell Is Going On?” Marc, what the hell is going on?
Marc Thiessen: Well, a lot of people are asking that question right now, Dany. And the reasoning-
Danielle Pletka: Best name ever for a podcast.
Marc Thiessen: And the reason is, they're always asking that question, and particularly this week because we got a 40 year high in inflation, the supply chain crisis, Omicron going crazy, school shutting down all this stuff. And Joe Biden and the White House are focused on the hot button issue of electoral reform and what they call pushing back the assault on voting rights. There was a Politico morning consult poll that asked voters, what should Congress be focused on most? One, reforming the Electoral College, two, expanding voting access, or three, expanding federal oversight over the states on voting. And the winner was none of the above, which I think sums it up pretty much. This is not what the American people think the President should be focused on right now.
Danielle Pletka: Right. So this is an elite-normal people divide. Right?
Marc Thiessen: Yes.
Danielle Pletka: Normal people are freaked out, correctly I think, when they go to the Safeway or the Giant—those are our stores—or Kroger or wherever it is you go, and you can't get milk. You can't get eggs.
Marc Thiessen: No, this is not an exaggeration. We were at the local Trader Joe's in our area, and the entire case where they have all the fresh foods and the vegetables and the meats and all that, empty. It was like a Soviet grocery store.
Danielle Pletka: And CVS is the same, right. And for most Americans who don't remember the glorious '70s, this is something we've really never seen before. So, it is no surprise. Let me put it this way; I think we've gone through the litany of why the notion that there is an unprecedented assault on democracy only by Republicans is not true and-
Marc Thiessen: You can go back and listen to our episode with Brian Kemp.
Danielle Pletka: Governor of Georgia. But we've talked to a lot of people about this. We talked to Ruy Teixeira, who is at the Center for American Progress, certainly no Republican, who also actually had a great piece, we'll link it, talking about why these are not real issues right now. But even if you think this is a pressing issue, the fact that people can't find the bread and the milk and the eggs to put on their table, and secondarily, when they find them, can't afford them, is really a big issue. People have lost real wages in the last year. I thought the Democratic Party was the party of the people. But really, it isn't.
Marc Thiessen: And on top of that, not only are they focused on the wrong thing, but they're doing it in such a hyperbolic and offensive way.
Danielle Pletka: Tell people who weren't paying as close attention as we do about Biden's inaugural 2022, "I'm going to start the year off on a new foot," speech that he gave last week in Georgia.
Marc Thiessen: So Biden literally goes to Georgia, and he compares people who oppose this electoral reform to George Wallace, Bull Connor, the Alabama police chief who was using fire hoses and dogs to attack civil rights protestors, to Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy. So basically, "If you oppose me, you're in league with racists and traitors." Not only that, he explicitly called them enemies of America. He said, "I will defend the right to vote our democracy against all enemies foreign, and yes, domestic." For everyone in the media who their heads exploded when Donald Trump said the media is the enemy of the people, which I criticized at the time, it was ridiculous to say that half of the American public who didn't vote with him and which doesn't support his election reforms are domestic enemies of the United States of America-
Danielle Pletka: Not even deplorable.
Marc Thiessen: Not even deplorable.
Danielle Pletka: Enemies and traitors.
Marc Thiessen: Enemies and traitors and racists and segregationists. And what I found fascinating was that while yes, the Republicans are opposed to this bill, Mitch McConnell isn't killing this bill. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are killing this bill. Are they segregationist and racist, and traitors to the United States of America? How does those words come out of the President's mouth? I ran the White House speechwriting shop. And one of the things that people don't realize is that this wasn't a word salad that he normally delivers off impromptu. These were actually carefully chosen, written words in prepared remarks. A prepared, essential speech, when it's prepared remarks, goes through what's called the White House staffing process, which means it has to go through all of this senior staff in the White House, and they have to review it and edit it.
Marc Thiessen: It goes to the cabinet secretaries. In a case like a speech about voting, it would go to the attorney general, who would personally review it. Did no one go to the President and say, "Are you sure you want to say that?" Either no one did that, in which case it is the consensus of the Democratic establishment embodied in the Biden White House that this is one acceptable rhetoric and also true, or somebody did raise this, and there's a record of it, by the way, because you have to send in written comments on the speeches, and they said, "Yeah, that's okay. We thought about your objections, and no, we're comfortable calling all these people racists and segregationist and Confederates."
Danielle Pletka: So what I liked last week in your piece, when you wrote about this... And again, let's not talk so much about politics. Let's just talk about process. Let's talk about being in touch with the reality of a diversity of opinions within your own party. And then what you said to me was, "Well, it was as if in 2007, when everything was going to hell in a handbasket in Iraq, if George W. Bush had said, "Let's double down." And the analogy I gave you was, it is as if the White House turned to George W. Bush as things were going terribly in Iraq and the American people were losing all confidence in their commander in chief, and he said, "You know what? Now is the right time to invade Iran."
Danielle Pletka: Because that is what Biden did, and to say that his speech landed with a clunk is perhaps a little bit too generous to him. The headlines were absolutely devastating. But I think this is part of the problem that we're seeing, which is that there is this elite school zone in Washington and in New York and in San Francisco that has obsessed the leadership of the Democratic Party. And normal people, if they're not worried about inflation, are worried about a crime rate unseen in decades.
Marc Thiessen: Let me give you some statistics on what is the lived reality of the American people as they're listening to these words? Inflation reached a 40 year high, and we have a labor shortage with 10 million unfilled jobs in this country. Biden signed a $1.9 trillion Democrats-only COVID relief bill in March, yet Omicron arrives, and we have a shortage of tests and treatments. Schools are closing again. And as we pointed out the other day on the podcast, number of emergency room visits by adolescent girls is up 51%. The country's-
Danielle Pletka: That's for mental health.
Marc Thiessen: For mental health, emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts, sorry. The country's experienced the worst crime wave in years. Twelve major cities broke their annual homicide records in 2021. We're experiencing the worst border crisis in US history, and there's a surge of fentanyl coming across the border, which means we have had a doubling of overdose deaths in the country. And on top of that, and in the wake of the extraordinary success of his Afghan withdrawal, which everyone in the country knows was a debacle, Vladimir Putin is massing troops on the border of Ukraine, and we could very well in the next few weeks have a major land war in Europe. And then Biden promised to unite the country, and he just compared his opponents to segregationists. The number of things that are happening in this country that people are concerned about this is not only the bottom of most people's lists but also to do it in such a way that just is a slap in the face of the reason why people elected him to unite the country. It's remarkable.
Danielle Pletka: Well, I would just point out, Marc, that you also left out what's going on with China. For the first time, while we have the Olympics starting in a country that's running, to the knowledge of the world, concentration camps, we also had the first time that Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in his big New Year's address, which is often a big signal to his plans, mention the importance of reunifying Taiwan with the Chinese mainland. So yeah, things are going great, Joe.
Danielle Pletka: I think we should definitely, definitely talk about what a pig and a racist Kyrsten Sinema is. Right, that's a good plan. So we wanted to get to the bottom of this, try and understand a little bit more about some of the politics behind why Joe Biden is making what I think most of us believe are some pretty serious mistakes. And even though both Marc and I are not big Biden supporters, I think we all want the president of the United States, no matter who he is, to be a huge success. This is a flaming dumpster fire of a presidency, and rivaling Donald Trump for low approval ratings, which is-
Marc Thiessen: Exceeding.
Danielle Pletka: Stunning.
Marc Thiessen: Exceeding.
Danielle Pletka: So how-
Marc Thiessen: 33% approval. 33%!
Danielle Pletka: Oh Marc, that's an outlier. Please. Please, don't you listen to Jen Psaki?
Marc Thiessen: Okay. So yeah, I'm sorry. So again, stats. He started the presidency 55.5% approval. He's now down on the RealClearPolitics average to 41.7%. That is the fastest collapse in presidential approval in modern history.
Danielle Pletka: Right. And those are both Republican and Democrat polls in the RCP average, so we're not even talking about a solid impartial number there. I suspect his numbers are a lot worse. But we wanted to talk a little bit about what the hell is going on, why this is happening, why there seems to be this unbelievable disconnect between what Marc called, in Meghan Markle-like form, America's lived reality.
Marc Thiessen: Markle?
Danielle Pletka: I know, that was pretty cold, sorry. And the apparently lived unreality of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and its denizen. So we invited Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal. He's their Senior National Political Columnist. He writes their weekly column there. He's been around DC forever and is, I think, a very well-regarded and really sound political analyst. He was the Managing Editor for Politics at National Journal, and he was the Executive Editor and Editor in Chief of the Hotline. We're lucky to get him.
Marc Thiessen: Here's our interview. Josh, welcome to the podcast…
Yep, we’re out of space. Find the rest of the transcript here….