Yahoo Finance

At least three more House Democrats calling on President Biden to end his reelection campaign following Thursday night's post NATO press conference, bringing the total number now to just around 17. Our next guest penned an op-ed in the Washington Post this week titled, The words about Joe Biden I never wanted to write. Here to discuss, want to bring in EJ Dion, Jr.. He's Brookings Institution Senior Fellow in Governance Studies. It's great to talk to you. So, so when, let's start with your op-ed, because I think it goes directly into the conversation that we were just having with our very own Rick Newman, you're saying it's hard to acknowledge that those who worried about President Biden's age may have been right all along. So, so here we are Friday morning, post NATO conference. I guess has your thought at all changed after we heard what President Biden had to say last night? Or is it still the same line of thinking?

I'm still on the same line of thinking. I think Rick was very right about many things, but a couple in particular. One is, it really was a tour de force on foreign policy, and it was the reason why many of us, I'm somebody who likes, admires President Biden, think he has been a very good president, and I believe that after not only that debate performance, but the fact that they let this go and did very little except a couple of rallies until the Stephanopoulos interview, which I thought was a mistake, that his, he cannot run a campaign in which Donald Trump, and not he, is absolutely at the center, because all of these questions about him are at the fore. I think, think about a couple of hypotheticals. One is, what if his folks had decided to do a news conference like this, two, three, four days after that debate? Had they been willing to move quickly and say, we've got a big problem here and identified it, perhaps we'd be thinking differently. But secondly, what are we talking about here? Unfortunately, from my point of view, unfortunately, we're talking about how did Biden do. Did he flub name a couple of names? We're judging him by that. If you hadn't had that debate, you hadn't had that performance, you hadn't had the questions about him, we'd be talking about how deep his understanding is of foreign policy, and by the way, we'd also be talking about the fact that we seem to have hit almost the Goldilocks point on this economy. The economic news this week is really good. And some of that is Joe Biden and some of that is Biden's support for Chairman Powell's policies, but we've come out of what could have been a horrible period into a good economy, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about the age issue. We're talking about those mistakes Biden made, and so I think what happened yesterday is that the Democrats were left, somebody said this to Politico, a Democratic consultant, Democrats are kind of in Purgatory right now because a whole lot of them still admire President Biden, appreciate what he did, but they have come to the conclusion that there is no way that the age issue can simply disappear and they can wage the campaign they think they need to run, which is about the dangers that President Trump poses, a President Trump would pose to the country. And so I think this may slow down the process, which itself is a problem for the Democrats, because they don't have a lot of time to get this settled. Every day we're talking about this, we're not talking about either the successes of the Biden years or the dangers that Trump poses.

EJ, with regard to that, you have CEOs commenting in their earnings this morning talking about the geopolitical situation, Jamie Diamond saying, It remains complex, potentially the most dangerous since World War II. Coming off of a NATO summit like this, does Biden's performance assuage any of the concerns from some of those top donors that have stepped away or at least paused some of their contributions?

Well, I think the, I think today, actually, between now and the end of the day is going to be telling, because first, you're going to see how many more members of Congress come out and say, We love Joe Biden, but we think he should drop out. For the, for the donors, it's hard to say. I think the donors who have made their decision are not going to change on the basis of one news conference, because they're going to say, Will every Biden event going forward be another test where we're sitting on the edges of our chairs to try to see what Biden is going to do? But did he do very well, especially when he was talking about foreign policy? Yeah, he did. It's something Biden can take pride in. I think there are a couple of little changes that may have happened. First, Biden was just ever so slightly more open to at least the remote possibility that he might step aside. He said very strong, good things about Kamala Harris, even if he got her name wrong initially, and he said, he didn't just say, there's no way I'm out, he said, Well, if I, if I weren't the strongest candidate, maybe this could be justified. He opened the door at least a crack. I think that's tactically smart on his part, because I think the hard push everybody aside approach clearly wasn't working as all those members of Congress came out. And I think the other thing is, one of the fears that if you are supportive of Biden, including if you think he needs to get out of the race is, well, if he leaves the race, will people try to force him out of the presidency? I think he made an excellent case yesterday for why it makes perfect sense for Biden to say, I'm not running, but to stay in the White House until January 20th, 2025. And so for the people on the side who sadly think that Biden has to get out, I think that is one advantage of what happened yesterday.

So EJ, two quick questions here. One, given your extensive knowledge and, and, and the history and everything that you have seen in the past, how do you see this playing out? Or what is your best guess just in terms of the conversations that you're having right now in DC? And then two, how hard would it be for the Democrats to start from scratch at this point this late in the election cycle?

Well, it's unprecedented, and I've heard from a lot of people and have heard about a lot of other people who think that it's not sustainable for Biden anymore after that debate, and I, I do think, you know, there were reports that dozens of Democrats were expected to come out today and say he's got to go. I think Nancy Pelosi has clearly signaled her doubts. I think you're hearing a slightly different tone from Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House, who's a very careful, cautious person, and so I, I think it's very hard. I mean, I do not pretend to know how this will turn out, because this is, as you suggest, unprecedented. And I think the other thing is, the problem Biden has, I think, is if he makes any other serious mistakes, maybe flubbing a couple of names is not enough, and people do that, I've done that. But I think that, you know, I think any other major mistake he makes is a real problem. How hard is it to do? It's not easy. But I think the question is, is a switch more dangerous, or could it energize the campaign? Someone wrote recently about New Zealand where the person who became Prime Minister, Ardern, jumped in a race for the Labor Party down there two months before the election, because the party looked like it was going to lose, and she won that election and became a very successful prime minister. I think that a switch is risky, but it has some high potential for generating new energy.

Right.