Biden Efforts Not Resonating with Voters

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: President Biden has authorized an immediate U.S. response to the earthquake, deploying American teams to assist with the search and rescue efforts. And with the 2024 presidential campaign slowly kicking into gear, Biden is also expected to announce his candidacy in the coming weeks. Toluse Olorunnipa is the White House bureau chief for “The Washington Post” and he’s joining Hari Sreenivasan to evaluate Biden’s presidency as he delivers his first State of the Union under divided government.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Toluse Olorunnipa, thanks so much for joining us. First, this is kind of a big week for President Biden, besides the State of the Union. There are some poll numbers that “The Washington Post” and ABC News put out. 62 percent of Americans think that the president has not accomplished much in his first two years versus just 32 percent who think he pulled off a great deal. So, those are some bleak numbers for a president. What explains all of this?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF, THE WASHINGTON POST AND CO- AUTHOR, “HIS NAME IS GEORGE FLOYD: It’s failure to translate what the president has done, what the Congress has done over the past two years to the American people who are struggling with high prices, inflation, and not seeing the impact yet of some of these laws that were passed in the couple — last couple of few years. And it makes it very difficult for the president who wants to talk about his agenda, talk about the economic agenda, talk about the fact that we have millions of additional jobs since he was sworn into office. But people aren’t necessarily feeling that impact and that makes it very hard for the president to sell his message to the American people when they are struggling with high prices and uncertainty in the economy.

SREENIVASAN: Right. I mean, the White House keeps wanting to highlight the fact that we’ve got a, you know, $50 billion investment in domestic production. You’ve got moves on climate change, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal that passed. I mean, those are legit accomplishments, but as you are pointing out, like, the — there’s still a disconnect here between what people feel either in their own pocketbooks or in their own communities versus what should be a victory lap for the president.

OLORUNNIPA: That’s right. The president has said for much of the last year that his number one domestic priority was to bring prices down, and we haven’t quite seen prices coming down. I mean, we’ve seen inflation slow but prices are still high though. People are still paying quite a lot of money at the pump and at the grocery store. And, you know, for your average everyday American, they are struggling to make ends meet even though the economy and the labor market seemed to be pretty tight, and people seem to be working, and unemployment is at, you know, the lowest level we have seen in almost 50 years. And so, it is a bit of a disconnect for people looking at those numbers who would think, if you have such low unemployment, you have people working, that people would feel good. But generally, we are seeing people who are really uncertain about where the economy is going to go. Worried about how they’re going to make ends meet, and still dealing with inflation that has been with us for such a long time. And it makes it hard for Biden to be able to take the victory lap that a president might take when you have 3.4 percent unemployment and 12 million jobs in just two years.

SREENIVASAN: You know, I hate the sort of, horse race and prediction game about how the presidential election coming up. Right now, though, the — there is not a majority of Democrats, only about 37 percent of Democrats want President Biden to run again. I mean, we are now well past the midterms. This is definitely the time when the opposition party, the Republicans, there are people who are either about to announce or planning on running for the nomination. Where, you know, where is the president’s thinking in this as you report on the White House and the closest advisers to the president?

OLORUNNIPA: The president and the closest advisers to him say that he intends to run for re-election. He’s 80 years old. He would be the oldest person running for a second term, but he plans on running. He says, he has a strong record to defend, and there haven’t been very many challenges in terms of other Democrats willing to take him on. So even though he doesn’t have a very enthusiastic, energetic base of support of people who are just saying give us Joe Biden or bust, he does have the support of the leaders of his party who say that he’s done, you know, a pretty good job over the first two years, that’s he’s passed a lot of legislation, and that there is no one else in the party who had beaten Donald Trump before and has what it takes to potentially beat him again. So, he’s planning to run. We expect an announcement here in the next several weeks. He doesn’t feel any pressure because there aren’t any other Democrats challenging him for that position. But this poll shows that he doesn’t have that level of enthusiasm that you would expect from an incumbent president with a record like his in part because of his age, in part because people are not really pushed in terms of their support for him. You know, there are a lot of people who are tepid supporters of Joe Biden or at least willing to vote against the other side, as opposed to voting for President Biden. And so, right now, he seems to be in a position where he’s going to run for re-election, but he’s going to have to get more support and more enthusiasm behind him if he wants to win a second term.

SREENIVASAN: And what about the coming year and a half? At this point, he does not have a house that will savor the type of legislation that he supports. He obviously has a relationship with Mitch McConnell from his days as a senator even, but Kevin McCarthy not so much. You can already see a House taking a far more conservative turn in the types of legislation that they want to pass. And at least to make statements on where they sit ideologically.

OLORUNNIPA: Definitely. Over the next year, over the next two years, the president is going to be spending a lot of time talking about what happened in the past two years. Trying to implement legislation that he was able to pass under unified government. Implementing a lot of the bills that were passed last year, and not focusing so much on passing new bills, because the Republicans have said that they want to rein in the spending that took place over the first few years of Biden’s administration and frustrate his agenda. And so, he’s not looking to get much done in terms of passing bills through Congress. There are a couple of things they have to do. They have to raise the debt ceiling. They have to make sure the government remains funded and just, sort of, doing those basic functions of government are going to be enough of a battle for Biden that it’s not likely that he can — he’s going to be able to get much more of his agenda passed. So, the next couple of years will be really focused on implementing the agenda that he’s already passed and trying to get the American people to see the impact of the things that he’s done over the first two years in office. Because right now, according to this polling, the American people don’t quite give him credit yet for getting much done. And so, they want to change those numbers over the next year, the next year and a half, as he gears up for re-election.

SREENIVASAN: Let’s talk about some of the things that have been in the news recently, and how those might affect how President Biden, not just positions himself so — as the Democratic Party. And most recently we had this balloon incident with China and, you know, it immediately drew criticism from, kind of, the expected corners. Why did you wait so long? Why didn’t you take more aggressive action? Does this change what is arguably one of, if not, the most important and tenuous relationships for the United States which is with China?

OLORUNNIPA: It definitely remains to be seen how the U.S.-China relationship will be impacted by this event. Whether it will be just a blip or whether it will be a broader disruption. We have already seen the secretary of state, delay, postpone his trip to Beijing. And the president is under a high amount of pressure from Republicans and Congress who are saying that he mishandled the situation. That he didn’t speak clearly. That he hasn’t taken concrete action on this issue, and making sure that the United States is protected from aggressive moves by China. And so, the president is under pressure and that’s going to make it hard for this relationship to normalize because the president feels the political pressure of having to run and win a re-election when the opposition party is trying to make China and — taking a tough stance on China. A litmus test for his presidency. So, he’s in a very tough position. And I would expect to hear more from him in the coming weeks about how he is going to reset the relationship with China. What steps he’s going to take to protect the United States and make sure that not only is he preventing a strong united front to Beijing, but also that he’s presenting to the American people and presenting to the people who would vote to him — vote for him this image of a strong president. Of someone who’s going to defend the United States, who’s going to make sure that in this competition with China, that the U.S. comes out on top.

SREENIVASAN: Now, the other story that sometimes gets short shrift is the continuing war in Ukraine. And it seems like another tightrope that the president has to walk here because he’s got members of his own party disagreeing on how to proceed, not to mention the opposition. Are you sending aid? Are you sending enough aid? Is it getting there fast enough? How come you are not giving more money or more tanks, et cetera? Really — I mean, whatever decision — every decision that he does make gets, you know, kind of shot down from members of his own party as well as Republicans.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, this time last year, there was a lot more bipartisanship around the idea that the United States should step in to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression. Now that the year — now that the war is closing in on the one-year mark, there’s a lot more partisan split between the two parties about whether or not the United States has done too much. The tens of billions of dollars in aid and military aid and humanitarian aid that’s been sent to Ukraine. Republicans, in our latest poll, are not happy with that. There’s a large percentage of Republicans who say that the United States is doing too much. And you even have some Democrats who are saying that the United States is doing too little. So, the unity that we saw around this issue just a year ago has largely disappeared and that’s going to make it much harder for the president, especially as he is operating in a divided government, to bring all the parties together and make sure that the United States is presenting a united front when it comes to the war in Ukraine. Right now, there’s no unity in the Congress about what to do, about how far to go, and about how much money to spent in defending Ukraine — in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression.

SREENIVASAN: You know, speaking of things, there seemed to be more bipartisanship around — or at least, a national conversation around — after the murder of George Floyd. We had attempts by Congress to pass the George Floyd Act, which has not happened. And I know in the State of the Union, the family of Tyre Nichols are guests of the Bidens. And I wonder if there is any room that President Biden has to implement in a divided Congress any kind of significant structural reform.

OLORUNNIPA: It seems highly unlikely that Biden, the Democrats, the White House will be able to push through any legislation to reform or address policing in America. Not only because Republicans have said that they don’t want to do this, but also because there is a lack of trust between the two parties. They negotiated over this in 2021, and they tried to push this through in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, and things fell apart. The talks broke apart even as it appeared that they had the momentum behind them, they had the support of various groups that aren’t always in support of doing police reform, groups like the police unions seemed to be on board, but things fell apart. And we’re very far from that position now that more than a year had passed since those talks fell apart. And it doesn’t appear that the different sides are willing to come to the table and try to negotiate over those issues that were sticking points. So, I don’t think there will be a likelihood that new legislation gets passed to address policing in America. Biden will try to use the bully pulpit which he’ll try to use as executive authority. But when it comes to broad federal legislation to reform policing, it doesn’t appear that the cards are available to have both sides come to the table to work things out.

SREENIVASAN: Another big topic has been immigration. I mean, since his last State of the Union, the president has traveled to the border. He has made it easier for some immigrants to get into the country, the state department has been rolling out different programs depending on which country you are from. And at the same time, you also have the Biden administration oversee about 4 million border apprehensions. So, what is the approach that the administration says it’s going to be trying to take between now and I guess re-election season, to try to convince enough Democrats that this is the right way forward? I mean, if we are talking about such a divided Congress, it also seems like immigration reform is not going to be something that they agree on between now and ’24.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, this is another area where it does appear that legislation is unlikely, but it doesn’t mean that Biden and the White House will not be held accountable for what is happening at the southern border. And so, that’s one of the reasons you are seeing the president trying to use his executive authority, his authority as the president to try and work with some of these foreign allies in Central America and elsewhere to try to stem the flow of irregular migration across the southern border. He’s put in a number of different policies. He tried to stem the flow of migrants coming across, but it’s been very difficult for the White House. It’s an area where Republicans are seizing on this issue. They’re going to be holding a number of different hearings and calling — the president calling the White House to account, and really trying to seize the momentum on this issue to say to voters that Biden has not protected the southern border. Biden has not been a strong president when it comes to defending America’s borders. Making sure that immigration is normalized. And so, that is a vulnerability that he has. And that’s why he went to the border last month. That’s why he’s tried to spend some time talking about this issue and implementing new policies. But it doesn’t appear that he’s going to be able to get what he wants, which is legislation to not only legalized people who have been here for a long time, but also to put in new measures to make sure that the southern border is secure and the southern border is more — is operating at a more normal way. And so, until we get to that place, it seems like Biden is going to only have to be able to use his executive authority, and that really ties his hands and it makes it much more difficult to achieve the goal of it. Not only the Democrats have but a number of independents have as well which is to make sure that we are a humane system. That we are welcoming people in, that we are not building walls, but that we’re also making sure that the border is normalized and secure, and that people are coming across the appropriate way, the legal way, and the humane way as opposed to being smuggled across with all the dangers that come along with that.

SREENIVASAN: We spoke a little bit about this. Is there another generation of leadership that is ready to step in here should, for whatever reason, President Biden, say six months from now, you know what, I’m kind of done with this? You know, does it automatically fall to Vice President Harris to lead the party?

OLORUNNIPA: There are a number of young and ambitious leaders in the Democratic Party who are looking to see what the next moves might be. They have kept their powder dry on 2024 in part because Biden has proven himself to be pretty formidable leader when it comes to the midterm elections where, you know, he seemed like he was down and out. But his party was able to outperform expectations, outperforms historical norms. And so, because Democrats did so well in the midterms there are fewer people saying that Biden needs to step aside. That they need to represent a younger generation. And so, a lot of those Democrats, whether they’d be in governors’ offices or in Congress, a lot of them are looking at 20 28th as opposed to 2024.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

OLORUNNIPA: But if Biden were to say that he is not going to run again, I would not expect that the vice president, Kamala Harris, would be the heir apparent. There are a number of Democrats who have challenged her and said she hasn’t done a great job as vice president. That she has not risen to the occasion. And that she would be vulnerable as the leader of the party in 2024 and a number of Democrats, I think, would challenge her if she found herself leading the pack as we head into 2024 were. And so, that’s one of the other reasons that Biden is likely to run again. It’s because he knows that if he steps aside, there will be a free-for-all with a number of Democrats vying for that position. And that could be detrimental to the party’s hopes of holding on to the White House for four more years.

SREENIVASAN: Toluse Olorunnipa, Washington Post White House Bureau Chief. Thank you so much for joining us.

OLORUNNIPA: Thank you. Thank you for having me.