Can President Joe Biden survive his poor debate performance? | The Excerpt
On Monday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: A drumbeat of concern about President Joe Biden as the Democrats' nominee continues, following a disastrous performance in the first 2024 campaign debate. USA TODAY Chief Political Correspondent Phillip M. Bailey discusses how Black voters view the candidates. Hurricane Beryl intensifies into a Category 4 storm. USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise talks about what may be the summer of jellyfish.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Monday, July 1st, 2024. This is The Excerpt.
Today, can Joe Biden survive his poor debate performance? Plus, we discuss the role of Black voters in this election. And how worried should you be about jellyfish at the beach this summer?
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Can President Joe Biden survive the election? After a disastrous performance in the first debate of this year's race, many Democratic strategists, officeholders, donors, pundits, potential rivals, and longtime friends still aren't sure. A drumbeat of concern about Biden as the party's nominee began minutes after Thursday's debate showing a hoarse and sometimes stumbling Biden facing a bombastic Donald Trump throwing insults and untruths. Since then, efforts by Team Biden to shore up his support and move on have not quieted alarm about his prospects this fall and the damaging impact it could have on Democratic candidates down the ballot.
The weekend shows and headlines focused on the issue. Former Democratic National Chair Donna Brazile said on ABC's this week that she has fielded so many frantic calls from fellow Democrats that she considered dropping her phone into the Potomac. Though she said, "He also is a good man, a strong president, and Democrats still believe that this race is winnable."
Still a CBS News YouGov poll taken Friday and Saturday showed 72% of registered voters said Biden did not have the mental and cognitive health to serve as president. The same percentage said he shouldn't be running for president, including 36% of Democrats. And the New York Times editorial board Friday called on Biden to drop out of the race.
As for Biden's most ardent supporters and donors, his performance was excruciating. Betty Cotton of New York, who has donated thousands to Biden's reelection campaign and serves as a regional finance committee member said it was hard to watch. One former Obama administration official who served on Obama's reelection committee and has raised funds for Biden said they woke up to multiple text chains of current donors and former administration officials, both of Obama, Biden and Biden-Harris all freaking out.
Biden has insisted that he will continue his campaign, but there are complications if he doesn't. This year Biden had no serious primary challenger. That means almost all of the more than 4,600 delegates expected at the Democratic convention in Chicago in August are pledged to him. Though that commitment is not binding. It also means there is no ready alternative. Raising the possibility of a brutal floor fight. Vice President Kamala Harris would be a leading alternative, but her position as Biden's running mate gives her no special standing to claim the nomination.
There are also rising Democrats who might have run for the nomination this time if Biden had not. They include Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and JB Pritzker of Illinois. Worried Biden donors have floated some of those names in recent days as well. For more this week and beyond stay with usatoday.com and The Excerpt.
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Black voters could be the deciding factor in this presidential election. But both sides have made significant gaffes in their appeals. What does each candidate need to do to win them over? My colleague Sara Ganim sat down with USA TODAY chief political correspondent, Phillip M. Bailey, to discuss.
Sara Ganim:
Philip, thanks so much for being back on the show.
Phillip M. Bailey:
Hey, Sara, how are you?
Sara Ganim:
Okay, so let's jump right in. For a while, we've been hearing that Trump is doing better with Black voters. What do the numbers show?
Phillip M. Bailey:
Well, look, this is the important nuance to remember here. President Trump in our exclusive poll here at USA TODAY along with Suffolk University, looking exclusively at Black voters in Pennsylvania and in Michigan, two important swing states, shows that overwhelmingly African American voters are sticking with President Biden as their first and often their second choice. But here's why the nuance of this is so important.
Donald Trump doesn't have to win a majority of the Black vote or even a substantial portion. He just has to deprive Biden of enough votes to hurt him in key spots. That's because Sara, that Biden beat Trump by 92 to 7 margin among Black voters in 2020. So in order to maintain that same level of support, President Biden must get 13 new Black voters for every vote he loses to his Republican rival.
Here's what's interesting though. There is a substantial percentage of African American voters who are saying they're going to pull the lever for Donald Trump in these two swing states, particularly when we look at the gender divide. For example, in Pennsylvania, our poll shows that 6% of Black women are supporting Donald Trump compared to 16% of Black men, even better for Donald Trump in the state of Michigan. But we see that about 9% of Black women who responded to our poll said they will cast a ballot for Trump versus 22% of Black men who said the same.
Sara Ganim:
After the debate on Thursday, I heard a lot of chatter about Trump's language around Black issues, specifically when he referred to "Black jobs". What are your sources saying about his rhetoric and how that plays into this?
Phillip M. Bailey:
Well, look, I think if you're a mainstream Democrat who is always in the bag for Joe Biden, voted for him in 2020, voted for Barack Obama, voted for Hillary Clinton, you are going to take great offense to what Donald Trump said referring to as Black jobs. Many might say, "Well, he really meant to say Black people's jobs are the jobs that African Americans predominantly have."
But look, that long string of controversies and gaffes and racist comments by the former president anger African Americans. His numbers and popularity in the African American community, again overall are in the tank. But what's happening though is that there is a contingency, a segment of the African American population that's certainly more vocal in this election cycle that will say things like they're both racist. Voters will say to me, "Well, look, but Joe Biden was the one who pushed the 1994 crime bill when he was a US senator from Delaware." Joe Biden has since apologized for his role in that legislation, but still.
And one key player, I think a very important surrogate for the Trump campaign is former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and he said, "White people being racist is not a big issue for me. My life doesn't change because somebody white said something racist."
So I think what we're seeing here, Sara, is that when we talk about the African American voter that Donald Trump is going after, it's not just working class. It's not just African American men and urban centers. It's also this sort of rising pessimism among African Americans, particularly those who feel the economic anxiety, who feel trepidation or issue with illegal immigration. That's what Kwame Kilpatrick is talking about in Detroit, and that barbershop style delivery can be very effective for the former mayor to be articulating in that swing state.
Sara Ganim:
Yeah, so the economy is the concern, and that's what it boils down to. Character doesn't really matter?
Phillip M. Bailey:
I think for a segment of those voters, they will simply say, "Well, that equalizes it out." African American Republicans and conservatives, the statistics show do consider race, do consider their heritage to be important part of their thinking, but they are often much more individualistic. Again, I think these issues, how they play out to people and what issues matter to you most does determine who you vote for.
Sara Ganim:
Okay, last question. Just to put a pin on it, could this small number of Black voters who are changing their minds about Trump make enough of a difference to win him the election?
Phillip M. Bailey:
Absolutely. In these swing states, and considering how close this election is between these two men, between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the same way in which Donald Trump's conviction on those 34 felony counts in that Manhattan courtroom is upsetting up and making a lot of independent voters think twice about his character. A lot of voters I spoke to, young African American voters in particular who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 saying they're going to vote for Donald Trump in 2024, said, "I don't see any improvements in my neighborhoods. I'm not seeing the windfalls of this. I'm experiencing racism anyway." So at least back when Donald Trump was president, in their minds, they feel like, "Hey, I was doing better economically." So that nostalgia is certainly at play here. In a swing state like a Michigan or in a Pennsylvania or a Wisconsin, that absolutely can play a role.
Sara Ganim:
Philip Bailey is USA TODAY's chief political correspondent. Thank you so much, Philip.
Phillip M. Bailey:
See ya soon.
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Taylor Wilson:
Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 season intensified yesterday into a Category 4 storm with threatening winds as it moved toward the Caribbean. Tropical storm watches were posted for Dominica and southern coast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A tropical storm warning was also issued for Martinique and Trinidad.
As Beryl strengthens it's setting several records according to Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at Colorado State University, including that Beryl is now the earliest Category 4 hurricane on record. It's too soon to determine the path and strength of Beryl when the storm gets to the western half of the Caribbean later this week, and whether it could impact the US Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center expects Beryl to remain a hurricane as it reaches Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Friday. You can follow along with the latest on usatoday.com.
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With a scorching hot summer underway, many Americans are headed to the beach. But they'll need to be careful about jellyfish. Sara Ganim spoke with USA TODAY national correspondent, Elizabeth Weise for more.
Sara Ganim:
I'll start by saying thank you Elizabeth, for being with us.
Elizabeth Weise:
I'm happy to be here, and I have really bad news for you. I got to say, I did this story and by the time I'd finished talking to all the experts, I was like, "Dear heavens. I am never going in the ocean again."
Sara Ganim:
I mean, when I think of summer, I think of a lot of things. I don't think jellyfish is the first to come to mind, but you're saying that might be all we're talking about this summer. Tell me more.
Elizabeth Weise:
So here's the deal. The genesis of this story is that about 25 years ago, there was this kind of fear amongst scientists that because of climate change and pollution and ocean warming, basically all the fish would die and they'd just be full of jellyfish. It would just be jellyfish goo. So we're like, do they think that's in fact what's happening?
So the good news is it's not. But the bad news is that a lot of the really nasty jellyfish, they're moving into our territory. So we're used to seeing moon jellies, which are kind of little. They're pretty, and they sting a little tiny bit, but they're no big deal. But like box jellyfish, which are nasty, nasty and are painful stings are starting to show up. They're in Florida and they've been seen as far north as New Jersey.
Sara Ganim:
Oh. What's causing this?
Elizabeth Weise:
So it's a bunch of things. The oceans are warmer. So jellyfish that existed in certain places are able to exist in new places. In some areas it's because of overfishing, because basically once the fish are gone, the jellyfish don't have competition. And so they can take over an area where there used to be fish because fish eat jellyfish.
And then another thing is it's hardly enough agricultural runoff. So if you put too much fertilizer in your fields, which farmers do a lot, it sloughs off and ends up in waterways, it ends up in the ocean. You get blooms of algae, which leads to hypoxia, which is lower oxygen levels in the water. And it turns out that, and you're not supposed to say this, but sometimes marine biologists will say, "Yeah, jellyfish, they're the cockroaches of the sea. They'll survive anything. They don't need a lot of food. They don't need a lot of oxygen. Everything else can die off, and the jellyfish persist."
So all of those reasons, and as more people move to the coasts, we're building piers, we're building oil derricks, we're building wind turbines, we're building all this infrastructure out into the water, and it turns out jellyfish have two life portions. The medusa, which is the part we're used to, the tendrils that come at you and then get you, and then the polyps, which are basically the baby jellyfish, and they need something to stick to. And so you build a whole bunch more reefs and wharfs and stuff, and there's more places for the jellyfish to breed.
Sara Ganim:
I mean, I'm a coastal person. I grew up in Florida. I most certainly have memories of what jellyfish sting feels like. It feels like a sting, right? But beyond that, are there significant risks?
Elizabeth Weise:
So they all sting, but at different levels, and most of them, yeah, it's just annoying, but in a day it was gone. We are starting to see some jellyfish, like the box jellies, that actually it can be serious. I mean, people have died. It's pretty uncommon, and you have to have a really strong reaction, but they're like nastier. One of the scientists I spoke to said that, yeah, when she was doing work in Australia with jellyfish, and she said you had to wear basically a rash guard when there were really big blooms. She said it was not a good look, but-
Sara Ganim:
So is this going to be like the seaweed? Is it going to muck up the beach experience? Is it going to feel like the plague or a jellyfish apocalypse?
Elizabeth Weise:
Well, it's not the jellyfish apocalypse we were worried about 20 years ago. One good thing is they're seeing that some of the predatory fish are starting to realize, "Oh, here's this new food source." A balance is achieved, but it might take a little bit.
Sara Ganim:
What should those of us who frequent the beach in the summer do to better protect ourselves?
Elizabeth Weise:
If you see jellyfish, swim away from them. If you see them on the beach, do not pick them up. Do not scrape them off or use sand. Wash them off with seawater. Straight vinegar can deactivate the venom. And then if you do get stung, getting in hot water, like a hot tub can deactivate it. But it takes 30, 35 minutes. So I mean, mostly it's like a bad mosquito bite. It's just going to take a while until it feels better.
Sara Ganim:
Elizabeth Weise is a national correspondent for USA TODAY. Elizabeth, thank you so much.
Elizabeth Weise:
As always a pleasure.
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Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. Thanks to Sara Ganim for filling in for me these past few shows. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Can Joe Biden survive his poor debate performance? | The Excerpt