[News]Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Biden’s trip to Europe and presidential campaign politics

[FRIDAY THE 13]

NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter join Geoff Bennett to discuss the latest political news, including President Biden's trip to Europe and presidential campaign developments.

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So, President Biden is once again trying to make the case that America is back and that America is a trusted partner and that this alliance that Putin's invasion of Ukraine made stronger is holding tight.

And obviously, as we have just heard in this conversation, there's discussion of Sweden being allowed to join NATO. That — it appears there has been a breakthrough on that. President Biden had a call with President Erdogan of Turkey on the flight over.

So what's at stake is sort of the shape and size of the alliance, but also, domestically, the perception of the war in Ukraine and the U.S. ro

that.

That's right.

I think a lot of it, though, still is — the dividing line really is, do you identify more as a Republican, do you identify more as a Democrat, rather than intraparty fights. There are some bubbling. As we know, on the presidential side, you have Republicans like Donald Trump, like Ron DeSantis being less supportive of more aid to Ukraine, versus what I would call more of the old-school Republicans, defense hawks like Mike Pence or Nikki Haley.

But, fundamentally, what we saw at the very beginning, when the invasion happened, support among Democrats and Republicans for the U.S. doing more was equal. It took about six months for partisanship to really take hold.

But I think — I think that — and this is really what's remarkable — if you think back to what could be a unifier for Americans in this time of depolarization, an invasion of a sovereign country by Vladimir Putin would probably be one of those unifying voices — unifying events.

And it truly was,until it became about Biden, and then it became much less about Putin, and much more about, do you really support this president?

I wouldn't say that it's necessarily yielding results. The views of the economy are polarized, just like views on everything else, which is to say that Republicans say the economy is terrible, because Joe Biden is president of the United States.

So, the same Republicans thought the economy was incredible under Donald Trump. And the reality is that, aside from the big pandemic period, the economy is — the Biden economy has basically recovered to where Trump was pre-pandemic.

But there is this divide, this pulling apart, where Americans say that their personal economy is pretty great. Like, they feel good about how they're doing. They feel optimistic about their future. How is the U.S. economy doing? Terrible.

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I was talking for a piece I wrote the other week with a Democratic strategist, who said something similar, which is: I don't trust any of this data, whether it's consumer confidence, or do you approve or disapprove, to tell us how people really feel about the economy.

Asking people about the economy, you're asking them, as you point out, about a lot of other things. At the same time, there's — there is no doubt that inflation still is taking something of a bite out of people's wallets. And that's a lot of what this frustration is. We're not quite yet back to a place where the Fed feels comfortable enough to say, OK, we have got gotten inflation under control.

I also think there's a bit of a messenger problem. The other poll number that you will see next to do, how well do you think President Biden's doing on the economy or other issues is, what do you think about his mental, physical fitness? What do you think about his age?

And there's a lot of concern about that across the board. Obviously, more Republicans feel that way than Democrats. But, as a messenger, being able to sell also means people have to see you as being, like, a credible person doing that.

And I think those two things, you can't necessarily separate worries about his age with worries about how well he's handling the economy and will handle the economy if he's reelected.

 

 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/tamara-keith-and-amy-walter-on-bidens-trip-to-europe-and-presidential-campaign-politics