Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago, I published an editorial in our weekend newsletter that
generated a lot of controversy and quite a bit of anger. Even it was called Joe Biden Should Call
Chris Christie courting young voters and the far left maybe a lost cause. Now I want to clarify my
position and respond to some of the criticisms I received. But first, let me give you an overview
of what I actually said and the point I was making in the article. Last month, Chris Christie
revealed Biden has not reached out to him since Christie dropped out of the Republican primary.
And I thought this was sort of surprising because Christie is the
avatar of the anti-Trump Republican. His entire candidacy was predicated on attacking Trump.
Speaker 5: The person I am talking about. Who is obsessed with the mirror. Who never admits
a mistake, who never admits a fault, and who always finds someone else and something
else to blame for whatever goes wrong, but finds every reason to take credit
for anything that goes right. Is Donald. Speaker 1: Trump. He was the only Republican
wannabe that was directly willing to just attack Trump head on. You had sycophants like Vivek
Ramaswamy and Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis, who always went out of their way to defend and praise
Trump even when they were supposed to be running against him. But Christie consistently called them
out and laid out a vision for a true post-Trump Republican Party, and was crystal clear about
the threat to democracy that Trump represented. Speaker 5: We've had these three acting as if
the race is between the four of us, the fifth guy who doesn't have the guts to show up and
stands here. He's the one who, as you just put it, his way ahead in the polls. And yet,
I've got these three guys who are all seemingly to compete, with, you know, Voldemort,
he or shall not be named. They don't want to talk about it. The fact is that when you go and you say
the truth about somebody who is a dictator, a bully who has taken shots at everybody, whether
they've given him great service or not over time, who dares to disagree with him, then I understand
why the these three are timid to say anything about it. Maybe it's because they have future
aspirations. Maybe those future aspirations are now, or maybe they're four years from now. But the
fact of the matter is, the truth needs to be told. Speaker 1: And it isn't just Chris Christie.
Jonathan Martin wrote for Politico that quote, I reached out to every Republican lawmaker
who has refused to commit to Trump in the general election. Senator Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Todd
Young, Bill Cassidy and Lisa murkowski all said the same. They've not heard from Biden. If this is
true, this is a problem. Chris Christie and Nikki Haley represent a piece of the electorate that
could be critically important for Joe Biden and for defeating Trump in 2024, which is disaffected
anti-Trump Republicans. Joe Biden shouldn't count on young people and the far left to vote for him.
I think most young voters who do vote ultimately will support Biden. But if what people are writing
to me is true that these voters are so furious. And according to Pew Research, from April of 24,
only 28% of voters 18 to 29 approve of Joe Biden's performance as president, 69% disapprove, 39%
strongly disapprove. If that's all true, if you are all right about that, then Joe Biden should be
figuring out how to grow the number of people who are going to vote for him. A recent CNN poll found
that 81% of voters, 18 to 34, disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling the war between Israel
and Hamas. This sentiment has been reflected in the high turnout of that uncommitted campaign,
which does represent a protest vote against Biden's support for Israel, even though the
issue of Israel, Gaza and foreign policy broadly ranks very low on the list of voting priorities,
even for young voters. This is still something I wouldn't ignore. But when an election will likely
come down to just a few hundred thousand votes in a handful of swing states electorally, no issue
or sign of potential trouble should be ignored. Also, in some polls, it doesn't rank quite as low,
like there's a recent Harvard Youth Poll, where it's listed as a priority among 37% of Democratic
voters. As I've said before, when it comes down to few votes. Any issue could make a difference. Now,
speaking of swing states, the numbers don't look awesome for Biden, especially considering he's
the incumbent. There's a New York Times Siena poll which finds Trump is leading in Arizona, Georgia,
Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In Michigan, Biden's leading by only one. At this point,
Biden is not going to fully appease the anti-war left without alienating people who already support
him. So from a strategic perspective, Biden should operate under the assumption that he
has lost some of that support. Now, I think in practice, he almost certainly has only lost a
slice of it. But still, Biden should focus efforts on making up for that deficit. Excite the centrist
liberals. Attract new support from anti-Trump Republicans. Now, here's where I got into some
trouble with some people. I want to be super clear. This doesn't mean Joe Biden should become a
conservative, nor that he is a right winger. What this means is Biden understands coalitions and he
understands the Electoral college, and he wants a plan to win and deny Trump four more years,
which would be disastrous. We've already seen this attitude kind of take root among some of the
Democratic Party's most prominent strategists and advisers. Hillary Clinton, who was named
a key figure in Biden's 2024 campaign strategy, said undecided voters who are upset with Biden's
handling of Gaza should, quote, get over yourself. Speaker 2: It's Biden versus Trump. We know that.
Speaker 1: Yes it is. Speaker 5: What do you what do you say to voters
who are upset that those are the two choices? Speaker 4: Get over yourself. Those are the
two choices. Yeah, I love it. Speaker 1: And she recently
dismissed the campus protesters as being people who, quote, don't know very much at
all about the history of the Middle East. Speaker 4: I have had many conversations,
as you have had with a lot of young people over the last many months now. And you're right,
they don't know very much at all about the history of the Middle East or frankly, about history.
Speaker 1: James Carville, who's a longtime Democratic consultant, was less ambiguous to you.
Speaker 4: You don't feel like the elections, in part in the media, are
not addressing the issues that I care about. Speaker 5: Get off your motherfucking ash
and go vote, because you should vote like your entire future. And the entire
future of this United States depends on it. Speaker 1: Because quite frankly, it does. I
don't think that these are necessarily the right tones, but the point here that they seem to be
making is they recognize some of that electorate may be lost. The majority of Bernie supporters
did vote Biden in 2020, but those who didn't vote Biden in 2020 likely fall under this umbrella of
the uncommitted voter. And then you've got your moderate Republicans who also have an uncommitted
vote of their own, which is Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley dropped out of the primary in March. And
yet a significant portion of Republicans are still showing up to vote for her. In Pennsylvania, Haley
won almost 17% of the vote. In Indiana, Haley won almost 22% of the vote. In Maryland, she got about
20% of the vote. Nebraska 18, West Virginia nine. Trump still overwhelmingly dominates,
and there's no question that Trump is the de facto leader of the Republican Party and will
almost certainly be the nominee. But the fact that such a large chunk of the Republican electorate
would even bother to go out and vote for Nikki Haley when her campaign was inactive for months,
still shows that there is a moderate Republican electorate that wants an alternative to Trump.
The obvious alternative electorally should be Joe Biden. We did a poll David Pakman show poll,
not scientific informal, which showed that Biden is more likely to win over anti-Trump
Republicans than he is to win over the anti, Israeli Gaza war Democrats. But Joe Biden is
less likely to be that alternative, as long as he is campaigning with people like Bernie and AOC,
who are seen as radical socialist by Republicans, wrongly by the way, wrongly seen that way. So,
again, to be crystal clear, my argument is not that Biden is actually more politically
aligned with Chris Christie and Mitt Romney than he is with Bernie and AOC. Biden is clearly more
aligned politically with Bernie and AOC, but the idea here is Biden probably has almost all he's
going to get in terms of votes from the AOC Bernie alliances, whereas there are votes to be gained,
especially in swing states, from getting some of these anti-Trump Republican endorsements on
policy. Biden's presidency has been the most progressive in decades. Understanding election
math doesn't change that reality. Biden needs to make anti-Trump Nikki Haley voters and supporters
of Republicans like Chris Christie and Mitt Romney comfortable enough to vote for him. And a great
way to do it would be getting people like Christie and Romney to vote for Biden and to publicly say
they are voting for Biden. Now, in addition to Christie and Haley, Joe Biden should also reach
out to other moderate Republicans Paul Ryan, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
maybe, and see is there anything he can do to win their public endorsement? If any of these
Republicans are willing to attend a rally with Biden, it may help with that swing state moderate
vote even more. Now, we know that voters who have reservations about voting for Trump and
who are concerned with protecting American democracy are gettable, and we've seen that
because we've interviewed some of them. There are many voters like Kyle and Nathan, who I spoke to,
who recognize Trump is an existential threat to democracy running as a safeguard against fascism.
May not be enough for Biden to comfortably win a second term, although in a sane world it should
be, and therefore Biden should pick up the phone and provide. I mean, is it a safe space of sorts
for Republicans like Chris Christie, Nikki Haley and others and their followers to be able to say,
hey, you know what, I am ready to put country over party and I am ready to deny Donald Trump
this presidency. And then if and when Biden wins, we go back to policy disagreements.
And they those Republicans work on getting a more sane nominee for 2028. This makes sense to do. It
doesn't jeopardize Biden's credentials as having one of the most progressive, presidential terms,
certainly in 100 years. I think Biden should do it. Let me know what you think in the comments.