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I'm Kristen Welker. I just stepped off the meet-the-press set where I interviewed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. We had a whirlwind of news to cover this week. Israel expanded its ground operation in Gaza, that announcement on Saturday.
The House of Representatives finally elected a speaker in Congressman Mike Johnson. And of course, the community in Lewiston, Maine is still reeling after a gunman found dead on Friday night, left 18 people dead and wounded 13, a rampage that marked the deadliest mass shooting in the US this year. And with all these crises at the same time, you'd be forgiven for not picking up on two key political moments. Late in the week, Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips made official his primary challenge of President Biden.
And former Vice President Mike Pence formally dropped out of the race to be the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2024. We have a lot to unpack, so let's get to it. I'm sitting here with Stephen Hayes, CEO and editor of the Dispatch. He was a part of our panel today.
Welcome to Postgame. Thanks for listening, great to be with you. It is great to have you back. So let's talk about the first big story where we began the show this week, which is basically Israel expanding its ground invasion.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has been very careful about his language. He's not calling this a full-scale invasion. But what are the implications, both in terms of Israel and Gaza, and for the Biden administration, which is watching this very closely, obviously? Yeah, I mean, the implications, I think, on domestic politics in Israel, for Netanyahu are huge and are crucial.
He has come under withering scrutiny and criticism for the vulnerability that he has perceived to have left Israelis with, that left them open to this kind of an attack. And even people who have been favorable to Benjamin Netanyahu in the past, have been critics lately. So part of what I think his response needs to be is this sort of, we will not let Hamas exist anymore. And you've heard that in some of his rhetoric.
It makes that kind of rhetoric, makes it difficult for the Biden administration to, as Joe Biden is trying to find the balance between, I think, his instincts, which are naturally pro-Israel, you saw the statements that he made very early, very strong. But weighing that against some progressives in his party, who are much more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and want him to find this balance, reports are that the Biden administration has privately urged the Israelis to avoid this full-scale ground invasion. I don't know that we're likely to see that, but I think that explains to your question directly, some of what we're hearing and not hearing from Benjamin Netanyahu. Yeah, it's such a good point.
And it gets to part of the conversation that I had with Congressman Jayapal about the fact that you have some progressives across this country. Some, for example, in Michigan, we had teams out there talking to some voters there in the Muslim and Arab communities who said that they felt abandoned by President Biden, that that's a critical state, that he risks losing support among a really important constituency. For him, Congressman Jayapal had very strong words that he needs to heed what they are saying. He needs to take it very seriously.
And it kind of underscores how complicated this moment. Yeah, it was interesting. I thought your interview with her was interesting on a number of different levels. But one of the things she said, which struck me, didn't quite capture the range of views on the Democratic leftists.
She said, nobody has any love for Hamas. And I think one of the striking things that we've seen over the past few weeks is, sadly and surprisingly to me, you do have some people who are actually pro Hamas. I mean, you have these rallies where people are using Hamas's language and, you know, in some cases, language that goes back to the Holocaust. So there is a very wide range.
I don't think, I wouldn't expect Joe Biden to write a commentate those, but the pro Hamas crowd in the Democratic Party. But I do think it's a tricky path as she laid out in her interview for him to avoid losing this. It was a Gallup poll this week that showed that his approval rating had dropped to 37, which some people have attributed to a loss of support among Democratic Jewish voters, puts him in some peril. I think if you look at his early response, that's where I would expect him to be.
We've heard from people close to Joe Biden that he sort of instinctively believes that he needs to speak out forcefully against these kinds of attacks. And that's what he's done. But this will be a tricky thing for him to manage. Well, it will.
And the other thing that he's managing now that I asked Congressman Jayapal about is the fact that he now has a primary challenger in Congressman Dean Phillips. How serious is this? Congressman Jayapal was very solidified and supportive of President Biden and said she didn't effectively see a rationale for Congressman Phillips' campaign. But historically speaking, having a primary challenger can chip away at support around the edges in a general election.
Absolutely. I mean, one of the things that was interesting that I think came out in your interview with her, he made it a point when he won the Democratic nomination to reach out to progressives, like Congressman Jayapal, specifically Congressman, Congressman Jayapal, and Elizabeth Warren and others on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to shore them up going into a general election. He put him a lot of work. I think that's paying off for him now in the comments that you heard from her at this moment, in this campaign.
That's a great point. Almost as if he knew that he had to make sure that was on way for him. Absolutely. He spent a lot of time shoring up the Democratic left, going into the general election.
You know, this is 2020. So I think he's seeing some of that payoff and people are rallying to him. Even if they have questions, she made very clear that she had some serious differences and was concerned about his approach to Israel. Dean Phillips came to see these interesting.
They're all sorts of logistical hurdles. There are timing hurdles. Can he get on ballots? Does he care to get on ballots?
What is this really about? And I think if you look at some of those questions, this doesn't seem to be an existential problem for the Biden White House, the Biden campaign. On the other hand, as we talked about on the panel, anytime you have 74% of registered voters, six in 10 Democrats saying, either I'm concerned about President Biden's age or in a six in 10 Democrats case, I would like a challenger to the incumbent Democratic president. That is an amazing level of vulnerability.
And you layer on top of that specific numbers on things like the economy, is overall approval rating. I do think he's in some peril. And the more that we see this kind of underlying volatility in all of our politics, little things like this that in the past, we might have been inclined to shrug off or think, aren't a big deal, have the potential to become a big deal. That's the idea.
I think you hit the nail on the head that we don't yet know the impact, but we know it could ultimately have an impact. Meanwhile, over on the Republican side, former vice president Mike Pence announced he was dropping out. It wasn't a surprise necessarily, Stephen, that he decided to drop out. But the timing of it, well, I don't think anyone knew that he was going to do it last night.
What is the significance for the Republican race? Is there a significance? He was obviously pulling in the single digits. Yeah, I mean, he had, I think, from the beginning, maybe the most difficult path of any of the challengers to Donald Trump, right?
I mean, it was the Trump-Pence administration. He stood by Donald Trump's side for four years. He was an advocate for the Trump policies, and he even defended Donald Trump on character issues that I think Mike Pence, frankly, personally quite uncomfortable. When he launched his campaign, he made it pretty clear that he was willing to take on Donald Trump, and he used his own actions on January 6th saying, President Trump asked me to do something unconstitutional.
I wasn't going to do it. It was super interesting. And we talked about this on Meet the Press now, sort of in several panels, was to watch Pence then move his campaign to basically a cause, which was anti-populist, anti-populist. This new Republican party that's driven by ad hoc policy decisions, appeals to populism, sometimes base appeals to populism isn't the Republican party that Mike Pence grew up with.
He's a Reagan conservative, and he leaned into that quite a bit. Obviously, it didn't work out. There's an argument to make that that's an anachronistic campaign play to make, because this Republican party is enthusiastic about populism and is enthusiastic about Donald Trump. Speaking of which, the other thing that we are watching this week in the Republican party is that they finally elected a House Speaker, the newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson.
He has the support of former President Trump. In fact, he's viewed as being the architect of the effort to overturn the 2020 election. In the House, he's deeply conservative when it comes to a number of issues, from abortion to guns. I know you've been talking to a lot of folks on Capitol Hill.
What are they saying to you about this moment and about their level of optimism that he will be able to navigate? He's incredibly tricky things that they are facing from the government shutdown to the aid request from President Biden. Yeah, I would say the overwhelming half a dozen plus specific House members from each of the different factions. I would say the overwhelming sentiment is relief.
They're just glad to be done with all the drama. Most of them didn't want it, even though some of them supported the Matt Gates motion to vacate that started the whole thing. I think they're in a position where they want to give Mike Johnson room to maneuver. They're some of the people I think you might have expected to vote against short-term government funding or continuing resolution in the past.
I've privately told him, I'm with you on this. Let me make my arguments. I'm going to have to do some things in the meantime, but when it comes down to it, I'm going to be with you on this because I want to make your job easier to do. And I think he comes with the advantage of not having a lot of the baggage that Kevin McCarthy had.
Kevin McCarthy had won the goodwill of lots of rank and file house members because he does so much fundraising and in some cases had helped put them in office. But he also had made so many promises that he couldn't keep. And the broader trust issues that he had. You remember he was recorded saying that he was going to ask Donald Trump to resign, and then he denied that he said it.
And then the reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns produced the tape. It was very clear Kevin McCarthy had just lied. And that adds up, the more that you see of those things that adds up, and I think people didn't trust Kevin McCarthy in a way that they are willing to give Johnson some time. It's so interesting because do you think that the fact that he's less well-known actually played in his favor?
I mean, he was the first nominee to step forward, and he was the only one who was able to garner the votes? Yes, that's exactly right. He had been a member of leadership. He'd been a lower member of leadership, but he hadn't, he is not a show horse.
He's been a work horse. He doesn't have much legislation to his name. He doesn't have as much baggage as well, right? He's not even looking to contrast him with Jim Jordan, who wanted to become speaker, was pushed by Kevin McCarthy, and ultimately failed.
Jim Jordan is an aggressive personality. He spends a ton of time on Fox News. And I think people say this guy's more interested in being on Fox News than he is in legislating. And he isn't leading the Republican conference with Johnson.
The folks I've talked to have said, we expect that he's going to actually run the conference. This is what he's going to try to do. And the fact that he and Steve Scalise both come from Louisiana, they're both close. They have a history together.
They think that Scalise can help really move the agenda and actually pull some of the levers that will help get things done while Johnson can play a maybe a lower profile role than a speaker traditionally does and try to just keep this odd collection of different factions together to get through the next year. It's going to be fascinating to watch him as speaker and to watch him grow into this role. What are you going to be watching for just finally this week in the wake of such a really busy week that we're coming off of? Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the real questions is how do you get this funding?
How do you get this funding done? And talking to Republicans on the Hill primarily, the, you know, I think there is a willingness with Senate Republicans to give some deference to the news speaker and to say, let us help you, let us help you figure this out for you. And you can imagine a scenario where some House Republicans who are reluctant to give sort of a blank check. That's the way they phrase it for more Ukraine spending are going to be asking with one voice, the White House and Senate Republicans who are more strong in favor of providing this funding to Ukraine.
They want to be saying to President Biden, can you give us a plan, articulate a plan, articulate a strategy and tell us when this, tell us what our goal here is. And they talk to a couple of people who are in favor of more Ukraine funding, House conservatives. They're in favor of more Ukraine funding. And they want to provide it.
They want to vote for it. But they say, we want to see a plan too. It's not unreasonable to ask the president to give an Oval Office speech, to lay this out, to talk about what our objectives are, because we need to be able to go back and talk to our constituents about this. I think you're likely to see a concerted push, Mike Garcia, represented from California, put together a document that lays some of this out.
I think you're, I wouldn't be surprised to see House Republicans rally around that in the debate about Ukraine, which is going to be at the heart of this, this funding battle. Well, and it's going to be fascinating to watch because, of course, that has been the challenge for President Zelensky, for President Biden and for all of those who do believe that age should continue to make that case to help people understand what is the strategy moving forward. Stephen Hayes, thank you so much. Great to talk to you for having me.