Trump vs. Biden 2.1 with Stephanie Ruhle, Eliana Johnson and Mike Madrid
57:27 Share

On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org.com.

On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org slash bots. It's on! It's on!

Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. It's only June, but the earliest presidential debate in American history is almost here. And that means the presidential campaign season is officially upon us, whether we like it or not.

President Biden and former President Trump don't agree on much, but they did agree to kick the Commission on Presidential Debates to the curb and essentially put on their own debate. CNN will host the candidates in Atlanta, and Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate. There'll be no audience. The candidates' microphones will be muted when it's not their turn to speak, and RFK Jr. did not make the cut.

I wanted to dive into the narratives shaping the race, the poll numbers and key issues, and of course, the debate itself. So I've gathered a panel of experts that know politics inside and out. Eliana Johnson is the editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, one of the leading neoconservative news organizations. Before that, she was a White House correspondent for Politico, and she's a regular presence on cable news.

Mike Madrid is a veteran Republican political strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project. He is the author also of a new book about Latino voters titled The Latino Century, and Stephanie Ruhle anchors The 11th Hour on MSNBC. She's a former managing editor and anchor at Bloomberg Television who pivoted to journalism after a successful career on Wall Street where she founded the corporate investment bank Women's Network.

Our question for this episode comes from Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Obama and host of the podcast Pod Save America. It is on.

All right. Welcome, everybody. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Great to be here. Okay. All right. Describe the current state of the race right now as we head into the first of two debates. Eliana, you first, then Mike, and then Stephanie. Okay.

Well, it's a very close race, but I think we've seen a slight uptick in poll numbers for President Joe Biden. We've had a couple of polls, including the most recent Fox News poll that showed a shift in independent voters in President Biden's direction that I think benefits him going into this debate and indicates that the conviction of President Donald Trump did, in fact, hurt him among that cohort.

Mike? Yeah, I think this is a sign that we're actually following a very predictable trajectory in a race like this to have just before the conventions the consolidation of both parties' bases.

is very normal. It's very predictable. And I think a lot of the people that were not worried about some of the early polling saying this is going to fall into range is precisely what's happening. I expect you'll see further consolidation through the summer. And I think the fundamentals of this race have always benefited Biden and they continue to look that way. All right, Stephanie.

I think the debate is important because we are living in a moment of all sorts of misinformation and news deserts, right? You know, it wasn't long ago that President Biden, you know, was branded by the right as, you know, feeble, too old, incoherent. We're dealing with the last few weeks, all sorts of cheap fakes of incoherence.

edited videos of the current president, which aren't actually— Yes, we've seen other ones with him here, trying to make him look more doddering. And I think it's really important that the two of them are standing on that debate stage, you know, sort of shoulder to shoulder. And maybe the American people will actually see these two people explaining their platforms, which is what the American voter deserves.

So we'll get into the debate specifics in a bit, but let's talk about the factors shaping the election. As you guys mentioned, Biden's poll numbers have improved a bit recently. And as you said, Eliana, the latest Fox News poll has Biden slightly ahead, got Donald Trump very upset, as he's wont to do. But Biden's lead is smaller than Fox Poll's March of Error, very tight. And Trump is ahead in every battleground state, according to Real Clear Politics polling averages. Meanwhile, according to FiveThirtyEight, the race is basically dead even. So how much

emphasis do you place on public polling? And what's your main takeaways from the poll so far, Mike, Stephanie, and then Eliana? Well, all public polling should be looked at as just purely directional. Anything that you're looking at for the horse race, it's not telling you anything. The campaigns don't look at it like that. Political professionals don't look at it like that. I think for people looking at public polling, what you're looking for is which direction is it moving and where people have a ceiling and or a floor.

Donald Trump has demonstrated a very hard ceiling sitting at around a 46, 47 percent range. And Biden is starting to move up.

So, again, most of this is weaknesses in Biden's coalition that were very predictably, you know, we anticipated would be shoring up and they are beginning to now. I think they will continue to as the conventions proceed. And as we go through sort of the parade of debates and vice presidential picks and all the pageantry involved with this stuff, it's following, again, I think a very predictable range. Yeah.

So the nothing new under the sun, Stephanie? I think it's less about polling and it's more, you're right, people aren't changing their votes. I don't think at this point. It's about are people inspired? Are they uninspired or are they scared? Right. Are people motivated enough with excitement for a candidate, fear of what one of the candidates could potentially do to actually get out there and vote? Nobody's changing their opinions at this point. I don't think.

Right. Eliana? Well, there are a lot of people who haven't really tuned into this race and haven't made up their opinions. There were Trump-Biden voters, and those are the voters that these people are going to be, that the two campaigns are going to be battling over. Mike is right. It tells us directionality and trends. Of course, this isn't a national election. It's really going to be decided in six battleground states. So the campaigns are paying closer attention to the battleground polls where Trump has had a lead, even if he's slipping in the national polls.

But

The trend does show Biden gaining on Trump over the past month with independent voters and Trump hanging on to these narrow leads in the all-important battleground states. So you trust them? You don't trust the polling? I mean, how do you each feel? Are you like, eh? They can tell you these trends that, OK, we can see Trump was persistently ahead in the national polls for the past six months or so up until the past month, right?

What does it mean? My only takeaway is that on the margins, the conviction appears to have hurt him. How important is it? Probably not that important. There's a long time until the election. I don't put all too much stock in that. But, Cara, it's the conviction, but it's also Donald Trump barely ever even talks about policy. Right.

Right. So when you talk about how people feel, lots of people say, I don't feel great about the economy or I don't know what Joe Biden has done for me. Maybe I'm not that happy with Joe Biden. That's the vibe session thing. Yes. But as we're getting closer to the election, not only was Donald Trump just convicted, he's yet to articulate a clear policy driven platform. So I think there's all sorts of people who are wondering what exactly am I?

I'm voting for if I go with Trump. So with the polls, he's been very unspecific on women's reproductive rights, for example. So when Trump beat his poll numbers in 2016, a lot of pollsters said it was because they weighed their samples improperly. Essentially, they overcounted respondents with college degrees. So in 2020, a lot of them adjusted how they weighed their samples. And Trump still beat his poll numbers.

I just, I'm curious, Mike, when you see the underestimating of Trump's support, is there, do you think it's underestimated now in Eliana? Do you think that?

No, I think what's happening is there's been a realignment that's been happening of both parties' coalitions that is reflected in vote choice and not in partisan breakdown. Let me explain that a little bit. College-educated voters are moving very rapidly towards the Democratic Party. Non-college-educated people are moving towards the Republican Party equally as quickly.

So what happens is, by the way, partisan registration is not changing. These people are not leaving their parties. And this is not uncommon in the early stages of a political realignment. The Southern strategy, for example, took 25 years before people actually changed their party registration. They were just Southern Democrats who voted for the Republican. In three of the last four elections, college-educated white women have been voting for Democrats.

In three of the last four elections, U.S.-born Hispanic men have been voting for Republicans. They're not changing party registration. So when you wait, when you wait, W-E-I-G-H-T, a poll with those partisan breakdowns, but those shifts are happening, there's no way you can assess how that's going to affect the outcome of the survey instrument that you're using.

Aliana, what do you think of that? Well, Trump is tricky, I think, because of the realignment that Mike mentioned in that it used to be Democrats that got the low propensity voters. And so Republicans were always favored in midterms and in special elections. Now it's Republicans. But this is, again, Trump's party. And so it's hard to measure when Trump is not on the ballot.

And I don't think we'll quite know. How do you capture that in polls? You know, I'm not a pollster. I'm not really sure. But I don't think we're really going to know until Election Day. But to what you mentioned, Cara, about these voters who are gettable for Democrats because of Dobbs, you can be sure that the Biden campaign is thinking about this.

that. And the Biden campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, said in a recent interview with Puck News, there's a whole new cohort that has come in since 2020 who were not available to us then, who we saw vote in 2022. They're the same people who in primary after primary on the Republican side protested Donald Trump. So you can bet their laser focus on getting Republican voters on the abortion issue who they want to bring back into the Democratic fold because of that.

OK, but Cara, you know what's amazing to me on this subject? I'm just gonna say Jen O'Malley Dillon was a 2020 campaign manager. Go ahead, Stephanie. It's amazing to me the little to no effort Donald Trump is putting forth to win Nikki Haley voters. Right. We sit here talking about the veep stakes and who could Donald Trump pick. You know, it would be the lowest hanging fruit.

to choose Nikki Haley, right? People like me were shocked when Nikki Haley came out and endorsed him. We thought maybe at very best she'd be quiet. He went after her. He insulted her. He humiliated her. She then came out and was like, yep, and I'm still going to vote for him. And you guys mentioned it before. In states like Maryland, Trump's

Two months after she dropped out of the race, she's still getting 20 percent of the votes. And yes, there were never Trumpers in there, but not all of them. Even if he pulled a slim group of them, wouldn't he want to do that? Instead, we're dancing around talking about Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy. To me, that shows somebody who's putting their ego and their need for ultimate loyalty from their VP pick above Trump.

strategy to win this race. I can't imagine picking Nikki Hale, but go ahead. I was going to say, Stephanie's absolutely right. Sorry, what'd you say? Let's have it get louder for people in the back. She was absolutely right. There has been no outreach to this Republican vote, or at least the institutional folks specifically. I've been on probably a dozen phone calls with these people saying, where are the marching orders? How do we help? How do we help? We're not hearing anything.

And to Ileana's point, there's also a problem with the Biden campaign's over-reliance on the belief that they can get more blood out of the turnip of that demographic, which is the college-educated white woman,

There aren't that many more left to be had when, and this is really, really important, you're losing people of color from your base. And that's what's making me very nervous, is they can get more women. I think they can marginally, but they are hemorrhaging Black and brown men right now. And there are far more of those now to be lost than what they can get out of Republican precincts.

Can I just add one note on this? Sure. I would caution Democrats against overconfidence on this front in that Donald Trump has not made his vice presidential selection yet. Look, I don't think he's going to choose Nikki Haley. And I think he probably has sensible reasons for not choosing Nikki Haley. But...

Let's wait and see if he makes a choice who is likely to draw in more independent voters or if he doesn't.

If he loses this election, he's probably going to jail. So I would assume even if you think the guy is a megalomaniacal, self-interested lunatic, he still needs to make the right choice. Right. He's not going to pick someone crazy. But let's talk about what Mike was saying. That's an excellent point about key demographics. Pundits often like to pick a group and make the focus of the pre-election analysis and that 1996 suburban moms are going to be the key. In 2004, it was security moms and NASCAR dads.

It's performative, but it's shorthand to a real thing. Campaigns do target specific groups. Mike, talk about what demographics would be key to this election, and then Eliana, then Stephanie. Yeah, the key demographic is going to be U.S.-born Hispanic men. They've been moving away from the Democratic Party for the last 10 years.

And the Democrats really didn't realize it until 2020 when they lost 8% in that cycle. But remember, Hillary Clinton lost from Obama's numbers. Trump has picked up in two presidential cycles and at least one of the midterms in 2022 they held steady. That's a trend line that the Democrats are not taking seriously. And there are not, again, I'm absolutely convinced. There's more of them. There's more of them. And they're growing. There's

4 million new Latino voters that have come online since four years ago. We're not making more, you know, 35, 40-year-old white college-educated Republican women.

We're not. We're not making more of those, not many more. And so the math is giving me some angst because I think O'Malley and the Biden campaign is right to be leaning in there, but they're ceding, they're giving up this voter unnecessarily and taking a risk that I think is just a very big tactical mistake.

So, Eliana, do you think they're giving up on this or they they never had a chance with this voter? I think Biden's policies and certain places he's leaning in to things is a sort of signal that he's giving up on the normies. And that's who Trump is going for.

The Israel-Gaza war is a good example where he hasn't really picked a lane on policy. Environmental regulations are another place where he's leaned in hard and gone into green initiatives and hasn't, you know, he's I think he's losing the normal folk that Donald Trump is picking up. And what Trump needs to do is not scare these people away by talking about stolen elections and January 6th. He needs to welcome them back.

We'll be back in a minute. Hey, Karis Fisher listeners. Sue Bird here. I'm Megan Rapinoe. Women's sports are reaching new heights these days, and there's so much to talk about. So Megan and I are launching a podcast where we're going to deep dive into all things sports, and then some. We're calling it A Touch More.

That'll be a fun episode.

Whether it's breaking down the biggest games or discussing the latest headlines, we'll be bringing a touch more insight into the world of sports and beyond. Follow A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Wednesday.

What is up, people of the internet? I'm Marques Brownlee, aka MKBHD, and I just wanted to quickly tell you about my podcast, Waveform. So after making tech reviews on YouTube for over a decade, I've had the chance to check out some real groundbreaking tech and some real dud products. And so on Waveform, along with my co-hosts, Andrew Manganielli and David Amell, we capture our immediate reactions to new technology that's coming out every week, from smartphones to EVs, and even AI finding its way into everything. We've got you covered.

And you also get a bit of a sneak peek into what it's like working at a YouTube channel closing in on 20 million subscribers. So if you want to stay up to date with the latest tech and Internet news and culture and all sorts of stuff like that, you can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen. See you over there. Mike, your book, The Latino Century, it came out last week. You talk about even though you did your best to ring the alarm, Trump ended up winning a third of the Latino vote in 2020, despite being pretty openly conservative.

racist towards Latinos. I mean, not pretty, very. So Democrats, they need to run big margins with Latinos to win. What is holding them back? Because that's something like jobs and economy is something that appeals to this, all groups. Yeah, that's a great question. And that question is going to determine who the next president of the United States is going to be.

The one word you don't hear in this economy really much is affordability. That's where the real problem is, is you can talk about the S&P, you can talk about the Dow, you can talk about GDP growth. Affordability. Stock market. Yeah. This is not everybody. No, no. I mean, they need to do a little bit more Bill Clinton feeling your pain with these voters to at least start engaging them again.

And for the first time, I'm starting to hear, you know, Latino Democrats saying, OK, this is happening like, OK, we can get them back. There's finally an acknowledgement. But I mean, guys, we're five months out of this race. Like, you better get your head in the game and start talking about the affordability solutions.

because when interest rates have tripled, not Biden's fault, but they've tripled, when currency has been devalued by 20%, not Biden's fault necessarily, working class people have been hitting the gut on affordability. It's real. But Cara, it's more than that. When you think about Latino voters, you shouldn't just think of them of that worker. The fastest growing group

of small business owners and entrepreneurs in the United States are Latinos. And if you speak to small business owners, they are strangled by regulation, right? We sit here and talk about like, yes, we want to afford, you know, more benefits to our employees, which is great. We want to make sure what, you know, what's,

stores are charging are affordable. And the Biden administration often just talks about business as big business, but small businesses often get hit with the same regulation as big business, but they can't survive. And that's a group that needs to be spoken to. Yeah, it's an entrepreneurial class. And also the, go ahead. Well, on the subject of affordability, we're coming up on the July 4th

And if you guys will recall, a couple of years ago on July 4th, the Biden administration's big communications initiative was to tell everybody that their hot dogs were five cents cheaper when we're suffering, you know, record inflation. And I think, you know, their strategy has been to tell people that what they're feeling in their pocketbook does not exist. And the reality is that the voters who are leaving the party were

when you poll voters, they cite inflation, immigration as some of their top issues. And I found that if you listen closely to what the Biden campaign is saying, it is often to dismiss those concerns or to play them down. Can I push back for a moment? Sure.

This goes back to the vibe session because the people who are the most outspoken about being unhappy about the economy are some of the wealthiest people. And while the stock market isn't the economy, obviously the stock market is breaking records. And if we want to talk about July 4th holiday, this summer we're expecting record travel. We're expecting record air travel.

Record amount of people on the road. And one of the reasons your hotel costs so much money is because they're selling out because people are traveling. And so there is this disconnect that, yes, when a pollster calls, people are like, I don't feel good. I don't like that my entree is costing $25, but we're still going out to eat in that restaurant. The only thing is, I think, with the stock market, if you got NVIDIA, you're great. Otherwise, you're flat, as you know.

Like, that's the thing is everybody's not benefiting. And the stock market is not the real world. It's true. And it doesn't count for, you know, the cost of gas and the cost of groceries that I think people feel on a daily basis. Yeah, I think they're denying their feelings. But we're not seeing people change their behavior yet, right? No, but you can still be mad about it. Agreed. But when you actually start to see businesses lower their prices, and it's starting to happen now, right? But people are still out there paying up.

We're not lowering the amount of times we're going to the movies and we're going to concerts. You can still be angry about it. So according to polls, let's move to young people trending away from Biden. Trump recently did an interview with Logan Paul, that fine figure. But young bros love him. Then again, out of all the age groups, young people usually have the lowest voter participation rates. Eliana, how relevant will young voters be? I'm always like...

They always seem to be the same thing. Like we make a big deal of it. And then who counts are older voters, women voters, black women voters in particular. How do you look at young voters in this election? I'm similarly skeptical of younger voters. But look, it's been a real weak spot for Republicans in the Republican Party historically, you

So I laud President Trump for going out and trying to communicate with younger people. And when we look at Biden's strengths in the polls, he's polling quite strongly among older people. And so I think it is something the Trump campaign needs to be doing. They should be trying to speak to all people about issues of concern. So, you know, good for them, even if it's a low return proposition.

Logan Paul is hugely popular. I'd love for someone to tell him to do like the Venn diagram of Logan Paul listeners versus how many are actually registered to vote. I don't know why nobody's figured this out, but the Latino demographic is the youth demographic. It's the same. It's just the overlap is like enormous. We talk about them like they're separate. They're not.

And the fact that they're either displaced or they're shifting in other directions is something that I think the whole narrative of this election cycle is peculiarly missing. Let me say one quick thing. Donald Trump, you know, the plus that he brings is he does have a unique ability to bring these lower information, lower propensity voters to the polls.

The problem is the same tactics and vulgarity that he uses to bring them to the polls are what turns off college-educated women at the top of the Republican ladder. It's why in 2020, Republicans were the beneficiaries of the highest turnout election in history. House Republicans picked up seats in the highest turnout in history, and Donald Trump lost the presidential election. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, which was interesting. But we don't have time to break down every demo. But I should point out that Trump also appears to be doing better with women and black voters than he did in 2020. But the disengaged voter is what you just talked about. And people who pay less attention to politics are more likely to vote for Trump than voters who do not pay attention. So how do you persuade people that aren't interested or is it a waste of time?

It's not a waste of time, but you've just got to go where they are, right? Like, I'm obviously not the first person to tell you that all politics is local, but those candidates need to get their campaigns and they need to be at local events, speaking to people and explaining to them, here's what our platform is, here's what we are doing for you, right? Think about in the last year and a half, all the times we talked about on television, student debt being forgiven.

There are scores of people out there who might be eligible for that, and they don't actually know the details or the fact that hearing aids were then available over the counter. You didn't need a prescription. Whether it's the current president or the former president, they need to get to the people and explain their platforms, and especially for the Biden administration, given the amount of misinformation out there in the news deserts.

So let's get to the actual issues we've discussed. The big one seems to be the economy, specifically inflation. Year over year, inflation is a bit over 3%, but cumulative inflation during Biden's presidency is almost 20%. Given that reality, how should Biden message on inflation? Mike, why don't you take this one? Well, again, I think what he's going to have to do is acknowledge that it's problematic.

and not try to explain it away and say, here's where we're at. Like I said, Bill Clinton did this masterfully. You acknowledge people's pain. You acknowledge where it's at. No one's going to hold it against you any more than they already have about blaming you, right or wrongly. But they don't care about what happened in the past. Voters care about what the solution is going to be. You present a better solution, and you're going to get more yield from that voter. Now, here's the thing that's important. You don't need to win all of those voters back.

You just can't lose that voter group by 25, 30 points like he is. If you narrow that gap, you're going to be in a much stronger position, and that should be the goal. Eliana?

Just to go back to the African-American voter real quickly, that's a huge problem for Biden. If you go back to the coalition that Barack Obama built, this was obviously a hugely important part of that coalition for him. And Trump does not have to win African-American voters. He will not win African-American voters. He just needs to lose by less.

And to the extent that they stay home or they are disengaged, that is a huge problem for Biden. In terms of speaking about the economy, Biden needs to acknowledge the reality and not try to tell people that inflation doesn't exist or that it's transitory or that it's going away quickly. And I think he needs to tell people that, yes, prices are up.

here's our solution. Here's what we're going to do. You know who's not going to solve it? That guy standing right over there. He is not the solution to your problems. We're on top of it. We're handling it and so on. Okay, so Cara, I'm going to jump in and just say, I think the Biden administration is doing that.

Right. Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, over a year ago corrected herself and said, I was wrong saying that inflation was transitory. It's much stickier than we thought. I think that we are pushing a false narrative around this idea of like the Biden administration needs to start communicating about inflation. They are. It's not necessarily having an impact, but.

The president has been on the road since before Trump's trial, literally town after town talking about the things he is doing. He can't lower interest rates. That is beyond his control. They are doing a lot of things. It still has people really upset. Greedflation is real, right? The fact that we've seen...

Target, Kohl's, that all of these fast food restaurants realize, oh, maybe we should lower our prices. The fact that they were able to lower prices like that is evidence that it wasn't just supply chain. It wasn't labor costs. It's that they were able to raise their prices and raise their prices, and the demand was still there. I think the Biden administration is communicating it, but I think

Ileana's last point is the great one, which he has to make at the debate on Thursday night. Yes, the economy is difficult. Inflation is a problem. But what is the man next to me offering you? Because massive tariffs, getting rid of income tax and just lowering the corporate tax rate ain't going to make your life more affordable. There's also a bit of a memory dump happening, but disengaged voters, I'm not sure, are listening to Janet Yellen. But I'm going to

Move on to immigration. Trump says he will launch, quote, the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. His campaign spokeswoman says they will, quote, marshal every federal and state power necessary to do it. They're talking about a militarized mass deportations, which is a lot more aggressive than building a wall. Mike, first, it seems to be the kind of message that might turn off independents and swing voters.

But it might help turn out disengaged voters because people are worried across the country around immigration policies. So is that a good strategy to say we're going to deport everybody? I mean, I think the more specific you get, I think it becomes problematic. But look, this is this actually enjoys majority support amongst most key demographics.

And it's been highly effective for Republicans over the years is you're scaring these voters back into the Republican tent. And it works. I don't know that it works this time because, again, the more specific and gory with the details they get and they can't help themselves, that's when you start to lose people. Right, the migrant USC fight. Yeah, exactly. You turn into this horrible dehumanizing spectacle. I mean, yeah, that turns independents off. You talked generically about a deportation effort

voters are going to like that. Independent voters are going to like that. White women are going to like that. Ileana? I agree with that. I think Trump won campaigning on immigration and on aggressive immigration rhetoric in 2016. It was the first thing he talked about in 2015 when he descended the golden escalator. And the situation has gotten worse under Joe Biden. And

I think when you talk about a memory dump, people look back fondly on Trump's record on immigration, actually, and would much prefer going back to the era of Trump. The New York Times, I believe, I may get this wrong, and it may have been the Wall Street Journal, had a

prominent piece over the weekend about immigrants arriving in the suburbs and what do suburban towns do? And the focal point of it was a suburban town in Utah overwhelmed by Venezuelan migrants and their struggles with it. That is not good for Joe Biden. Think about, Cara, when Greg Abbott pulled the move of busing migrants or flying them to different states and everybody was outraged and everybody was offended and potentially it was illegal. Right.

From a political strategy standpoint, I don't know if it was a bad move for him, right? Because it really plays right into the coastal elites saying, like, we're a nation of immigrants. How dare states like Arizona and Texas be unhappy about immigrants?

And whether it was disgusting or offensive that Greg Abbott did it, he was making a point that from a political perspective may have worked for him. So Biden recently announced a border crackdown on one hand. On the other hand, a new program will give a half a million immigrants who entered the country illegally a pathway to citizenship.

Mike, do you think the timing and strategy of these moves is enough? Can he say, should he at the debate, for example, say, you know what, I'm doing something if the Republicans would help me. I tried to pass a bill and they wouldn't let me. What is the move here for Biden? I mean, I think it is a little bit too late, but at least he did it. And he's got he has something that no Democrat has had in the past 30 years with this, which is a specific policy on border security within which to stake his claim on. That's what's so important. That's what Democrats have always

always been afraid to do and Biden did it probably out of desperation but it doesn't matter and that's that the one thing he should not do is blame Trump and I'll tell you why Donald this is Donald Trump's strongest issue he

This is where he beats Biden the biggest and the best. So to blame Trump is an absolutely huge tactical mistake. He needs to own the specifics of the issue and then let Trump and the Republicans respond to him. That's how you close that gap. You're never going to be stronger on the border than Trump. But again, it's a game of margins. You don't get that by blaming him. You don't get that by blaming the Republicans, although it's true. You get that by owning the policy solution.

Eliana? I don't think that the pairing of the two policies is going to cut it for Biden to the extent that I don't believe the administration is going to be tough with the enforcement of the policies and actually stem the number of migrants that are coming across. That's what's causing the voter reaction is that they're actually dealing with migrants who are then coming into public schools, requiring English as a second language resources and so on. Beyond that, the other Biden policy that, um,

granted legalization to those who are married to American citizens. I'm

I'm not sure how that's going to go over. I think among the people who have the strongest reaction to legalization proposals are actually people who came into the country legally, immigrants. And I do think that President Biden risks a backlash among Latinos who are fleeing the Democratic Party, who came here and went through the paces. And I say this, my mother being one of them.

So let's get to the biggest issue for Biden, which is the abortion issue, is counting on abortion to turn out voters. This is interesting. Almost one in five voters in the battlegrounds think Biden is more responsible for ending women's right to abortion than Trump. I don't know how that's possible. And do you think it's a motivator? And there's lots of issues, IVF, contraception, et cetera. I think that the voter who believe, the one in five voter who believes that Biden is responsible for limiting women's reproductive rights is

I think that voter is never, ever voting for Joe Biden. I think that voter is completely susceptible, hook, line, and sinker to misinformation. So I think trying to convert that voter is a colossal waste of President Biden's time.

It is not a waste of his time to focus on informing voters, helping them understand what's at risk. I also think that the Biden administration is dependent on that, right? Think about the big red wave that we expected in the last midterms. Think about

all of those young voters that before the Dobbs decision were uninspired by President Biden, said he is not doing anything for me, you know, nothing's happening. And then when the Dobbs decision happened, they motivated, they organized, they voted, and the Biden administration is counting on them

yet again. Yeah, well, I think the reason they're saying so is they're disengaged and they're saying it happened on Biden's watch, even though it wasn't his thing. It happened on his watch. And listen, he's not a dictator. He doesn't have ultimate control. I think they're low information voters. But Aliana, how do you, does this play? This is a good topic for Biden, correct?

It's absolutely a good topic for Biden. His campaign knows it. So they're clearly looking at where is the issue on the ballot in November? You know, it's ironic because this is something that the right built towards and campaigned for for three decades and that they got in Dobbs. But it is proven politically catastrophic. And we've seen political candidates not know how to talk about it, including Trump. And it will be quite interesting to see how he moves

how he talks about it in the debate. And he does have an opportunity, I think, to develop a message around abortion. He needs one to be consistent with it and to be a party leader, which he's resisted doing, and to model how should other candidates be talking about this issue around the country. But his core base at this point is white evangelical Christians.

And so what could his message be on abortion that satisfies them and also attracts any other voter? You know, it's interesting. He tapped Mike Pence in 2016 because he really believed he needed to shore up that part of the party base.

Those folks are with him now. He's not considering an evangelical Christian type for outreach to that portion of the party. And I think there are a lot of options in front of President Trump to message on this where he could say, look.

I'm for a 15 week ban, a 16 week ban, a 20 week ban. I'm not for national legislation or I'm for national legislation on this. You know, but there are ways he could talk about this that are consistent with the majority American position on this that I think.

would allow him to set an example for the rest of Republicans, Republican lawmakers in the country. But aren't those going to wait? Yes, they would piss off evangelicals who are going to go and vote for whom? Trump. That's correct. So let's talk. Let's move to age, Mike. Not that you're old or anything like that, but it's unavoidable issue. And they're both old, according to a market law school poll last month. Almost eight out of 10 voters think Biden is told to be president. Only about five out of 10 said Trump is too old.

Trump's had more than his fair share of senior moments, including recently. I talked to some of those people at that CEO roundtable, and I think they were shocked by mostly the wandering and the meandering. They hadn't seen it up close. But still, the agency was so much worse for Biden. What can he do about it? I've heard a lot of pundits kind of say that he needs to kind of own it, lean into it, do kind of the Reagan joke with it. No. I disagree. I don't think this is a defining or definitive issue at all.

I really don't. I think this is all inside baseball. And the reason why is because as we get closer to this election, the reason why both candidates base is consolidating is not because they like or believe in their candidate on policies and issues. It's because they're scared to death and horrified that the opponent might win.

So if Donald Trump were to be in jail and running in an orange jumpsuit, he's not going to lose any of his base. Why do we think it's going to be any different with Democrats? Because they're guys old, stodgy and shuffling and maybe mumbling a little bit. It's not. He's not. No one's going to lose any votes based off of these these these.

exterior dynamics. The opponent is what is defining this race. It's why they're having trouble consolidating on both sides. But ultimately, as we get closer, when they realize, God, I've got two bad choices, but one is really, really bad, that's when these voters will come. Right. So it's about negative partisanship. It's all negative partisanship. Eliana, how do

you look at the age issue? People certainly talk about it. I absolutely don't think Biden should be leaning into his age. I don't really think he's capable. We got into this a little bit on CNN. I don't think he's capable of leaning into it, making light of it and using it to his advantage. And the only way that he can use it to his advantage is by standing on a debate stage and delivering a boffo performance. And we're

And we will know whether he did that successfully on Friday morning, which he did in the State of the Union. Everyone was like, oh, he's not weekend at Bernie's. Look at that. So which was a mistake on the Republicans part. Kara, Thursday night is the night for Joe Biden. If he wants to close this gap, right, the whatever you just said, the eight out of 10 people in the Marquette poll who are uncomfortable with his age, but the five out of 10, only five of them who are uncomfortable with Trump's. In my opinion, Joe Biden's got to show up.

and say, you're right, I am old, but the person standing next to me is a convicted felon. The person standing next to me cozies up to dictators like Kim Jong-un, like Vladimir Putin. With the person standing next to me, you could lose your health care. We could see our jobs at risk. We could see our leadership on the world stage exist. This is Joe Biden's opportunity to actually get on the stage and find his Irish fury and punch Trump. And if he doesn't,

We're just going to see more and more videos of him shuffling and doddering. And the right is going to use it over and over and over. It's a very I think it's a risky situation for Trump that they keep talking about how old and confused Biden is. When if you actually look at what President Trump has been saying in the last two weeks with his fear of shark bites and electric boats, that's far more concerning. Well, look, going into the debate.

The Trump campaign has set the bar low because they've been saying this guy is senile. And the Biden campaign has said Trump's a dictator. He's a lunatic. He's dangerous. And so Thursday offers an opportunity for both candidates to explode the caricatures of them that have been put out by the other side. And to the extent that either candidate can successfully do that, i.e. that Joe Biden looks vibrant and Donald Trump can look sober and sane, they will have succeeded. Mike, do you think these videos matter?

Or not, because they're all over the place for both of them, right, in some way. They do not. They do not matter. And neither does the debate performance. I hate to be the wet blanket on this. No debate has ever changed the trajectory of a presidential campaign. You can argue 1960, Nixon, Kennedy, I'll give you that. Let's say it's true that's 60 years ago. That's not the way the voters are tuning into this. That's not what they're looking for. Donald Trump lost the debate against Hillary Clinton.

OK, it didn't change the trajectory of that race, didn't change the trajectory of the race the last time. He's going to go out. He's going to try to make this a spectacle because he can't do anything other than that. He can't help himself. Will it remind voters? Sure, it will. But so will the next five months of the presidential campaign. Right. So the last thing in that.

Then I want to go ahead. I think Ileana makes a great point that this is an opportunity for Donald Trump to appear sane and sober. But my question is going to be, then what words is he going to say?

because we haven't heard him put forth any ideas or any policies that are sane and sober. So, you know, I welcome that, like, yes, this is his chance to do it. I just don't know what those words are going to be. And you were just mentioning those videos that keep going around and something that I find absolutely revolting

When a low information voter sees those videos and is like, well, he is doddering or he doesn't know, fine, I'll take it. When you see the most highest information of voter, one of the most successful people in business, a guy like Bill Ackman,

Right. Start tweeting out the video of Joe Biden in France. Dr. Jill Biden, you know, get your husband off the campaign trail. He can't even find his seat. It's so sickening to me that we've got titans of industry pushing nonsense lies. Let these two guys get on the stage. Tell us their policies and then American can decide who the hell they want to vote for. OK, but come on. I mean, this is another this is another issue in which the Biden campaign it's on.

It's akin to inflation where they're trying to tell voters, you're not seeing what you're seeing. You're not feeling what you're feeling when they say, oh, we can't keep up with Biden. He's so sprightly. Whatever the merits of the videos are, voters are seeing the president on a daily basis with their own eyes and they can see. You know, I just watched the full 2020, the two debates, um,

Biden really has deteriorated. You know, I am a conservative, but I don't know. I'll leave it to you guys and your listeners. I don't think I'm a crazy right wing lunatic. And the guy looks really old and doddering at times to me. So I do think to the extent that Democrats say like this is terrible, the people are pointing this out like that is dangerous because he he looks really old and confused at times. No, Ileana, I.

I agree with you 100%. My point is, use the actual real examples of when Joe Biden looks old and doddering and lost. You have them. But when high information people are pushing the lies, we deserve better. That's my point. And there's a lot of the real examples. And Trump, the same way. I mean, the guy is an untrained missile. Like, I don't think his campaign knows what he's going to go out and do on Thursday. And they're prepared to go clean up after Trump.

But Trump's different. I mean, people don't look at him and say, oh, my gosh, he's so crotchety and old. They think, oh, my gosh, we don't know what's going to come out of his mouth. And Trump has a showmanship and charisma that Biden doesn't really. We'll be back in a minute.

So, Mike, let's get into the debate since you think it doesn't matter. So the earliest is the earliest debate in American history. The candidates have ditched the Commission on Presidential Debates and basically set their own debate with CNN and ABC. So you don't think it's important at all.

Is that correct in my characterizing? Yeah, I think they're— Except for entertainment value. I don't think they're consequential in the trajectory of the race. I don't know if I would say they're important or not, but debates do not change people's minds. You may see a one- or two-point—you know, somebody falls or drools on themselves or whatever. Yeah, you might see a two-point pop one way or the other, but that's going to correct within a week.

If that. Remember, the conventions are coming up. No one's going to remember this debate unless something spectacular happens. But after the conventions, no one's going to remember this debate, which is why, by the way, they wanted to do it. Both campaigns were reaching such high-level negatives of both of these candidates that the candidate that has the most airtime is probably going to lose in the stretch of this campaign.

That's why they're doing it. That's why they're front-loading him. So the debate is happening on Biden's terms. His campaign wanted the first debate in June. They wanted to do it without an audience. They did not want RFK Jr. on stage. They got all three demands met. Technically, RFK Jr. could have qualified for the debate. The qualification rules and early date made it virtually impossible for him.

I think he and Nicole were going to a pre-show for Burning Man, so that's why they couldn't make it. Okay. All right. Okay. There we go. It seems like the Trump campaign is at least somewhat wary of RFK Jr. Should he have been there? Eliana, I'm giving you this one.

I don't know. I mean, it's a TV show. I think it would have been good TV to have him there, but I don't really have any principled view of this. I'm happy to see Trump and Biden duke it out on the debate stage. I really don't feel strongly. All right. So every episode we get an expert question. This one is from Jon Favreau, former Obama speechwriter and podcaster at Crooked Media. Let's hear it. In the event that Jake Tapper or Dana Bash are listening to this podcast, I'm going to

What is one question each of you would ask Donald Trump and Joe Biden at the debate if you only had one question for each of them? Thanks, guys. Stephanie, you start. One question for each and make it tight. Donald Trump, is Joe Biden the current legitimate president? All right, for Biden. Why should America vote for you? Eliana? I like that question for Trump. I think that's good. For Biden, it would be, let me think here. I could change my Biden.

You were supposed to be a bridge president. Why are you running again? Oh, there's another good one. We'll come back to you. Come back. Come back to me, Biden. Let me think. All right, Mike, you're next. I think Biden, I would ask, do you think that working class people are better off now than they were four years ago?

And I think for Trump, I would ask Trump something about his—this is probably a personal bugaboo—ask him something about his faith, something that sets him apart from his base, like, clearly. Not because we'll have him—and again, I've got my own biases here about this whole thing. Mike, he has a great answer. Of course I believe in God. I have my own Bible. You can buy it for $69.99. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah.

And I think for Biden, it would be your campaign talked a lot. You and your you and your administration in your campaign talked about Bidenomics. You don't anymore. Why not?

Good one. Okay, so we're getting to the end. I'd love to assume they'll both get asked about the conviction, which led to record fundraising for Trump that erased Biden's cash advantage. After initially shying away from saying too much about the case, the Biden camp has leaned into calling Trump a convicted felon. They're spending $50 million on adlets. It includes highlighting the conviction. If you were advising Biden, would you say do this? It ultimately sinks in. Now, Eliana seems to think it has had a bigger effect recently.

But there's a lot of money going here. Now, Biden is spending it on a huge ground game, turnout operation. Trump's campaign said they're running a leaner operation that's more focused on micro-targeting and has fewer boots on the ground. And, of course, there's those legal costs. What strategy makes more sense? Mike? That's a great question because it's never really a money problem. I've never seen a presidential campaign having money problems. There will always be the resources there. It's how you spend it.

I'm not sure that micro-targeting for a Republican makes a lot of sense in an era when your coalition has realigned and you need bigger turnout. So I think that's a huge tactical mistake on Trump's part.

Biden, I think, needs to lean into it. It is doing damage. It is hurting with that small sliver of independence and that fight for, you know, women who want to leave the Republican Party, who are very uncomfortable being there. The number one response for why Republicans are bailing on Trump is the January 6th stuff and then the big lie. So lean into both of those and wrap it up with the 34 convictions. And I think you got a pretty damn good hammer.

Okay, another topic that probably will be asked, there'll be a question about Gaza and Israel. Biden's support for Israel has become a liability for among young people and Arab Americans, but progressive support for Palestine and Biden's public pressure on Netanyahu might also be hurting Biden with Jewish voters.

Trump has his own set of issues. If you were advising Biden, and we know that wouldn't happen, but if you were generally trying to help him win, how would you tell him to answer the Gaza question in a debate? I can assure you that won't happen. I think the Biden administration has made a mistake trying to straddle this issue. And it hasn't gotten him much in that he's got protesters disrupting his events. They are likely to disrupt the convention in Chicago. And

I actually don't think that voters in Dearborn are going to be all that important in this election. I think the Biden campaign is overweighting that. I think there's much more. You talk about Jewish voters, but I don't think it's that. I think there's broad Christian support for Israel and its mission here in the election. And I would tell him to pick a lane and be more clear on America's strong support for Israel. You're going to see Trump do that. And I think it will pay dividends for him.

So, Mike, I want to talk about one more shift. And I know Stephanie will have an opinion about this, but a lot of the tech world has turned on Biden, used to be a big supporters of Democrats. There's a lot. There's actually two teams forming. There's the Mark Cuban, Melinda Gates, Mackenzie Bezos, Sheryl Sandberg's apparently given quietly, Reid Hoffman's. And then you have the Elon Musk's, the...

We'll just... The Elon Musk and his backup dancers. We'll just call them that. They're not... None of them are big enough for you to even utter their names. That's why I'm not doing it. So talk about that. Does that matter that this group of people who are leading the country in money, do you think it matters at all, this shift, the loudmouths, mostly Elon Musk's loudmouths? I don't. I don't think that there's... We could talk about the resource side of it, which, again, I'm not a very big believer that that

You know, the money is going to be there on both sides. But in the same way that Hollywood isn't moving the needle, these guys aren't moving the needle. They're viewed very similarly. They're not real people. They're celebrities. They're not day-to-day people. Their realities are different. I'm sure there's a handful of fanboys and fangirls that are going to be like, oh, yeah, this is going on, but it's marginal. No. Ileana, do you think it matters? Because that's the new celebrity in a lot of ways, right?

I think at the margins, culturally, it does matter in that Elon Musk has a following among young people. And it makes it more culturally acceptable for young people to be on the right. Cool guy, right? Yeah, I do think on the very margins it matters. But on the whole, I do agree with Mike and Stephanie that...

Is it a large-scale trend? No, it probably doesn't matter what these folks are doing. It's interesting. With both my kids, they loved Elon and now they don't, which is interesting. And they loved him like crazy. So it's interesting. It goes both ways. It cuts many ways. I think loud mouthery is a problem no matter what you do. But

Being a business celebrity has helped these guys in a huge way, right? You've got guys like Bill Ackman out there raising enormous amounts of permanent capital off of this. They realize that they can cash in on it, and they have. Yeah, and politics is cheap and easy because politicians are cheap to buy. And now, think about backing Trump.

They now have, if he wins, a direct line into the White House because he's a transactional guy and there's a good chance they can get whatever they want from him. Maybe they can't. Maybe he'll turn on them, but they know they won't get what they want from Biden. All right. My last question for all of you. Democracy is the most important issue on the ballot for many people, although it's one of these amorphous things. They feel pretty vague and nebulous compared to the price of milk or rent.

It feels very apocalyptic in many terms. The relentless message from Trump that it's all over if Biden's wing, I think Doug Burgum just called Biden a dictator. That's the right wing media. The country's being invaded by foreigners on the left wing. Democracy is over. We're part of an autocracy under Trump.

Do you think this big D democracy thing on both sides is a top of mind of this is what voters are going to vote for? Stephanie, I'll start with you and then Mike and then Eliana. Listen, in many, many ways it should be because without a functioning democracy, we have nothing. I just don't know if that's going to translate to the masses, especially the amount of voters and the voters in the states where it counts.

I think the whole fight over democracy just tells us that both sides view this as an existential threat, that these campaigns are zero sum. Most polling shows that it is Republicans who believe democracy is a threat more than Democrats, which I know scares a lot of people in these different bubbles.

but it's usually because they have a different version of democracy. They're just saying, well, I want America to be my way, and the end of democracy means the end of the America that I know. Both sides are saying that. Eliana, finish us up. I think the Biden campaign's theory of the case is that voters in 2020...

cast a moral vote against Trump, that they did believe he had subverted democracy and they preferred the more normal candidate. And I don't really think that's right. I don't think this is moving the needle for people. I think people cast ballots in 2020 because there was a pandemic and

Trump didn't handle it all that great. And I think they're likely to cast ballot ballots in 2024. And I'm talking about the independent voters who are going to decide this election on different issues that are top of mind, not democracy. January 6th, Trump's claims about the election, but inflation and immigration and abortion. All right. I really appreciate it from all of you. Very thoughtful. Great, great thoughts. And thank you so much.

On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro Rossell, Kateri Yochum, Jolie Myers, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Kaylin Lynch, and Kate Furby. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda. And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following this show, you get to skip this debate and watch the new season of Bridgerton, which is much more enjoyable.

If not, you have to be the one who picks up whichever one of these candidates falls and breaks their hip. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.