Hello there, I'm Kristen Welker. I just stepped off the set of Meet the Press where I interviewed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, House Assistant Majority Leader Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who's, of course, a GOP candidate. We led the broadcast with the dysfunction on full display in Washington, with Congress careening toward a potential shutdown, shocking new corruption charges against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. All this as President Biden prepares to head to Michigan on Tuesday to speak with striking auto workers, announcing his trip after former President Trump announced his to the same place, but getting there a day before Mr.
Trump. And as a brand new NBC News poll shows a record high disapproval of President Biden's job performance. Team Biden probably has good reason to be rethinking its strategy. To get the latest reporting on all of this, I'm sitting here with one of my dearest friends, NBC News chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander, who's also co-anchor of Weekend Today and, of course, my longtime partner in crime on the White House beat.
Peter, we're usually together on Saturdays. Well, I mean, two weeks into the show, how does it feel? It feels great. If it today felt great.
It was great. We had, first of all, the panel was so dynamic in part thanks to you. Well, you had smart guests, Chris Christie, Pete Buttigieg, two of the better TV talkers around for sure. I think so.
And we just had great newsy conversations with each of our guests. Congressman Clyburn fresh off the Congressional Black Caucus dinner. So he could talk about what it was like being there in person to hear President Biden speak. Chris Christie brought the fire at the top of the show and Pete Buttigieg obviously talked about a range of issues, everything from the UAW standoff to, of course, what's happening at the border.
Yeah, he's calling on Republicans in his words to come to their senses right now as it relates to the potential for a shutdown. I mean, this is a big week in politics and you were on top of all of it. Yeah. How was it to be on the panel?
Did you enjoy it? It was good. It was good. You know, we so I mean, full transparency to those people listening right now.
Kristen and I talked between 17 and 25 times a day. So the panel was just a continuation of that conversation. It was an extension of our ongoing conversation. I don't know if you're going to sandbag me with some like question, like deep in the weeds.
But I would never. I would not do that. So a couple of things just as you're talking about, you said the poll, we hit on the poll here. Obviously, this poll is not good news for the for the Biden folks, right?
Like three in four Americans say the president's age is an issue right now. That's a real concern. Right. But, you know, in conversations with top Democratic officials this week, anybody who's at home, who's a Democrat thinking, oh, you know, is it too late?
The ship has sailed. Right. Like the Democrats believed this ship has sailed. And by the way, they say, oh, the president's old.
Yeah. Like, tell me something I don't know. Right. So they're trying to find the best way to embrace it.
He's joking increasingly about how he's either 800 years old or 200 years old or whatever. But I think fundamentally, the real challenge, you know, for the president right now is he's sort of like an old school politician. He's like a data guy. He gives speeches.
Right. And he's got it. And I think they in my conversations recognize, like his points of difference are one, his age. They're trying to use that as a leadership sort of, you know, when democracy is at stake, when the historic pandemic hit, you want the guy who has been there, done that.
Right. So so I recognize the effort there. But on top of that, they want to try to amplify the sort of authenticity of who Joe Biden is right now, which I think he struggled to communicate. He'll have a chance at the UAW picket line there.
But when you see him in the Oval and you watch these events like I do and he's reading note cards, it doesn't feel like the authentic Joe you're used to seeing. Yeah, he's I think his allies think he is strongest when he's out there pressing the flesh. And I think you hit on something that's so interesting, Peter, which is that he is very much a traditional politician. The White House is viewing this race through a traditional lens.
We will start campaigning officially once the GOP primary is over. But if you're looking at these poll numbers and this kind of speaks to some of your reporting that you had earlier, they may ramp up earlier than they were planning to. And I think we're starting to see that because he's giving that big democracy speech this week. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of I think we're starting to see that ramping up in a way, because as I said, it's the end of the fundraising quarter.
Right. So he's trying to build a big war chest of money. They need a billion dollars to run against Donald Trump. They anticipate here.
So it's in those fundraising speeches behind closed doors and the like where he starts to say sharper things about Trump, like MAGA Republicans and Trump are trying to destroy democracy and the like. He sort of, as I was told by some aides, the speech he gave at Broadway last week, a big fundraiser in New York when he was there for the U.N. was sort of the template. They think you'll see going forward here.
But, you know, I mean, the president fundamentally, the one thing he needs to do is he needs to just energize people. And that's a hard thing to do. They're running against Republican feel that's energized. They have a primary.
But this is not a guy who energizes folks. That's not his point of difference right now. And so where are they going to find that energy? That's one of the things that stood out to me so much about our poll.
The fact that his support is dipping so significantly amongst the Biden coalition, African-American voters, young voters, Latino voters. And I was talking about that with Congressman Clyburn. I said, are you concerned they're going to stay home? How do you make sure they don't?
He, of course, was one of the people who helped to build the Biden coalition. Well, without him, it wouldn't be here. That's right. That's right.
And so but I and he's obviously on board. He's not going anywhere. But can they get that energy back when it feels like the electorate is more divided? We're not dealing with the same threat of covid, which obviously made twenty twenty so unique.
And it's a challenge. I think that energy factor, the energizing his base. You know, I mean, you're definitely right. The one thing that should strike people when you look at a national poll and mind you, we did it.
So no one's poo pooing a poll here, but it is a national poll. Right. So basically, what you leave with is it's a close one. Yeah, no doubt.
This is a divided country. Right. But at the end of the day, remember, Joe Biden won in 2020 by four points nationally almost. Right.
So that means if you're even nationally right now, you're probably losing in those key states. His name, seven of them, including the Pennsylvania's, Wisconsin's, you know, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan. Right. So that's that's a concern.
This thing's going to be tight. Democrats do think and I think they look at 2020, the midterms is a good example of where they have this confidence. Right. Anybody, you know, as well as I, you talk to Biden folks, they say they've been underestimating our guy forever.
And they look at twenty twenty when everybody thought the midterm twenty twenty two. Everyone thought the midterms were going to be just a wipeout. Right. And actually, they held the Senate and did a whole lot better than any of us anticipated they would do in the House.
Right. And the key issues that drove that, as they would say, are democracy, which they think still concerns people and abortion rights is a huge one. But on top of that, they say, among other things, that, you know, now they have the economy at their back. They admittedly acknowledge that there is a lag in the way that those improving numbers we see on the economy from the chips act and infrastructure are affected or affect people.
Right. But they say that over the course of the year, they think that's going to happen. What's so funny about that, Peter, is when I talk to Republicans, even though there's all these concerns about the economy, a number of them actually say to me, we actually think by the time people go to the polls, they're going to be feeling better. But I want to talk to you about something we didn't get to discuss on the panel, which is also an issue for Democrats.
This bombshell indictment, Senator Bob Menendez facing these charges along with his wife. Did you see this indictment? I mean, this is a lot. It's visual.
It's like something you can imagine. Right. That's one of the things that makes it so compelling. You have a long list of Democrats saying, OK, time to step down.
Congressman Clyburn wouldn't go that far. What do you say? Does President Biden go that far? What do you think we'll hear from him?
Well, I doubt he does. And the conversations I've had, I mean, I think I can guess this without having had these conversations. The White House is going to steer clear of this. Right.
Like the