Doubts About Biden, Fears About Trump

is already underway. Former South Carolina Governor NICKI Haley has announced she's running for the Republican nomination, which makes two candidates now, including of course Donald Trump, and it's just a matter of time before others are expected to join them. At the top of that list, Ron De Santis, the Florida governor On the Democratic side. Meanwhile, lots of handwringing about whether Joe Biden, who's eighty years old, is up to the rigors of another campaign, as is all out

of this is just political noise. So I asked my Bloomberg colleagues Flavia Krabs, Jackson, Joshua Green, and Jordan Fabian to tell us what we should be paying attention to and what we can ignore. Josh, it's still the dead winter and here we are already talking about politics. Is crowding into the conversation again, isn't it a bit early? It is? But I feel like this is the week that race really kind of launched in earnest, even though

it didn't happen officially. You had on the Democratic side, and you had Joe Biden giving the State of the Union speech last week, trolling Republicans in a way that the White House got very excited about. That kind of excited Democratic voters. I mean, but it's being proposed by some of you, folks. The idea is that we're not going to be We're not going to be moved into being threatened to default on the dead if we don't respond, folks.

And there's no question at this point, you know, barring some sort of health calamity, but that Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee. In no realistic challenger is going to emerge. He's been playing footstee a little bit about whether he's going to run, But do you think that that's just theater. I cannot find anybody in Washington that thinks that Biden is not going to run and

be the Democratic nominee. Now on the other side, on the Republican side, I think things also kicked off this week because you know, you had Donald Trump stepping it up going after the guy who looks to be his main challenger, Florida Governor Ron to Santus, and you can tell that Trump is kind of getting into game shape because he called to Sanders meatball Ron, which is a new nickname. So you can tell that he's getting serious about Mexican I gotta say, I don't know, I disagree

with you. That really, meatball Run. I don't even know what that means. It just conjures up an ethos of like this kind of stubby, squat guy that doesn't have a lot of charisma. And you had a lot of donors focusing on to Santas. You had sant Us at a press conference sort of obliquely taking on Trump, saying, you know, I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden. That's how I spend my time. I don't spend my time trying

to smear other Republicans. Of course, you have uh, Nicki Haley now formally entering the race. I don't put up with bullys, and when you kick back, it hurts them more if you're wearing heels. I'm Nicki Haley and I'm running for presidently, which gives us a second official candidate other than Trump, and so things finally feel like they're

getting started. The big question being, of course, will Trump dominate the race like he did back in or will he get some real challenges this time from other Republican hopels. So why don't we start with Donald Trump? Jordan's that question about whether Republicans want Trump or whether they want someone like De Santis or Nicki Haley is a really big open question. You have some of the top donors

in the party saying we're looking elsewhere. Certainly, the donor energy and the energy among whatever is left of the traditional Republican establishment seems to be coalescing behind some sort

of not Trump option. But frankly, I'm seeing a lot of parallels between what's happening now and what happened early in the twenty sixteen campaign, when you have a lot of Republican challengers kind of playing footsie with Trump, and that's left Trump a lot of latitude to lash out of people calling Ron De Santis meet ball Ron, for example,

things like that. And I am waiting to see if one of these Republican challengers, Frankly, Ron de Santis, who has most of the donor momentum behind him, is he gonna start going after Donald Trump directly? Like no one has been able or willing to do that in an effective way. And that's gonna need to happen if they stand a chance of success. Because Donald Trump's still, for all of his faults, for all of the distance he's fallen, still has the biggest base of any of those candidates

on a national level. No matter what it seems like, He's going to have like thirty of people behind him. And the challenge for those other candidates is building a coalition that can defeat him, Flavia, if Trump winds up in a primary situation where he's against the Santis, he's against Nicki Haley, There's a couple other candidates also, I'm getting in the race, and we have another situation, like Jordan was saying, where you have a lot of podiums

up there during primary season. Does that help Trump or does it hurt him to have so many other options to be weighed against? You know, I think I think Jordan made an interesting parallel with two thousand sixteen. I mean, at some point someone is just going to have to man up, a woman up and take this guy on and everyone seems absolutely too terrified to do so. And I find myself oddly excited about the Nicki Haley prospect. I mean, she is super smart. She looks great, which

I think is actually pretty important. No one wants to sort of say that directly, but you know, she's appealing in a way. She's a woman, and I don't think she's afraid of Trump, and it would be curious to me to see how he will attack her. I think he's gonna have to do that very very carefully. One thing that impressed me about and you know everyone nice Beata says it honestly, like she's got no money behind her. She's she's going to get one percent. But you know

something about the fact that she's coming out first. You have all these people like Mike Compare, all these sort of Mike pens. You know, they're all sort of treading very carefully around him. You know, she's she's actually going up and doing that. And when she was ambassador to the end, she was incredibly effective, and she was a cold stone assassin. I mean she was essentially doing Secretary

of State job for Rex to listen. So I think she's got an edge that people you know, perhaps are not going to pick up on or not picking up

right now. And she also has the experience in South Carolina as a governor, So I mean, I'm just sort of curious why many people dismissive of whether she has a chance, because I don't I think she could be a wild called Josh, last time you were on this program, you're talking about a big story you wrote about the Santis, and you said that he had found sort of a secret to taking on Trump, which was to create a portfolio of issues that were about him and not about Trump,

so they didn't always have to be measuring himself against Trump. Seek normalcy, not philosophical lunacy. We will not allow reality, facts and truth to become optional. We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes. You die. But in that conversation you also said the big test for him is the day he has to go toe to toe with Trump and take him on. It seems like that day is approaching now. Trump is trying to

force it. How does he do that well? I think, actually, for to sin Us, that day is still pretty far off. You know, there was a question before the midterm elections, would Trump take off in the polls and kind of force challengers to get in and go after him right away. And of course Republicans, especially Trump endorsed Republicans, did very badly in the midterms, and so that took all the pressure off to Santas to have to kind of get

in the race. And the people I talked to in Florida now say they don't expect him to get in until May or maybe even June, which is really really late for Republican primary race. So he's kind of forestalled that day of reckoning where he has to get up on the stage look at Trump and kind of, you know, get beaten down as meat ball iron or you know, the governor who wants to slash Social Security and Medicare. Trump's people have kind of foreshadowed that they're going to

make that fight against him. So yes, at some point he is going to have to face down the dragon across the debate stage, but it doesn't seem like that day is coming anytime sooner. In the meantime, to Santis has gone on and followed that playbook that I wrote about in Business Week, his big kind of cultural grievance that he seized onto hilariously was whether or not Democrats

would ban natural gas stoves. That this sort of flared up thanks to a Bloomberg article that was published in January where the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission said, you know, uh, they give off bad him Asians, maybe we'll ban them, and Republicans sor of en mask got very upset about it. De Santis introduced a natural gas stove tax break in his new budget that he rolled out to make sure that he had kind of a piece of this issue that gets Republicans all fired up.

So he seems to be, you know, rolling along is the clear alternative to Trump. But unless you know, he faces him and sort of stands up to the bully, I still don't see a path to him becoming nominee. This is the thing about wrong the sounds. Is he going to travel outside of Florida. I mean that's one of the things that we all keep hearing and picking up on that you know, yes, he's got an ironclad on Florida, but the second you put him outside, people

are going to be like, who is this person? I mean, he's incredibly prickly. I mean, you know, not to make some horrible balloon analogy, but I'm gonna make it the balloon that is wrong. The scantists might burst the second he steps outside of his own state. I totally agree with those points. And another point I'll make is he's not really run in too tough of a race like the governor's race. His reaction race was like a total pushover. He ran in a any comfortable Republican seat when he

ran for the House. Taking on Donald Trump in a national primary, it's a totally different ball game, and he's just not, in my view, battle tested in that way, and he's gonna need to show I think that he is at some point. The other point, just building on Jordan's point, the toughest race I think he's had on the Republican side has been that the Republican primary when

he was running for governor, who wasn't the favorite. The difference in that race was he had Donald Trump's endorsement and that vaulted him to the nomination and eventually to the governorship. Is one thing we know this time around is that Ron de Santez is not going to have Donald Trump's endorsement. Well, Jordan, one thing that Trump isn't going to have that we alluded to earlier is a

lot of the big money. In sixteen, he got a lot of small donations, but he also had money from the big people, like the Cokes, like the Club for Growth, and those places are now openly looking elsewhere. Does he have enough money this time, even if, as you say, he pulls along, say thirty to forty scent of Republicans sentiment, it's a great point west and right now, I say no. Our colleagues of Bloomberg had a great story about how his fundraising total for the first part of the race

here has been really lackluster. And as you pointed out, he also doesn't have the big donors behind him, so he's not getting small dollars, he's not getting big dollars. Will he self fund He was really reluctant to do that in sen I don't know what his finances look like right now. I don't imagine they're as good as they were at that point in time, So he is facing I would imagine a bit of a cash crunch.

But at the same time, look, if he gets in the race and really shows that he has the energy and is looking like the front runner, you might see more small dollar no nations come in. Maybe some of those big donors who are saying, now I'm not on board, decide to change your mind and switch horses in the

middle of the race. Love, do you think that Trump's legal problems, which there are many, and he's battling them on a lot of fronts, and the fact that he seems just unable to get out of the past, Like every time you say hello him, he tells you that he won the election as like a problem. I'm going to answer that question as an Italian. He is like Sylvia b Lsconi, never gotten the way of Sylvia Belsconi,

all the problems that he had. And I actually don't think voters care about Trump's legal problems, and I think everyone's slightly confused by them. There's so many of them. When we come back our esteem panels predictions for in order to make America graded glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. Al Right, so I'll ask an unfair question. Does Donald Trump battle his way to the end end wind up the Republican nominee.

I'll start with you, Josh. I want to dodge that question by saying that I think it depends on the size of the field and who ultimately gets into the race. I mean, as I think Jordan said, Donald Trump is always going to have thirty of the party, and if it comes down to one run race between Trump and De Santis, then no, I don't think Trump does become

the nominee. But if you've got a field that includes you know, Nicki Haley and she sticks around, and Mike Pompeo and he sticks around, and Mike Pence and he sticks around, and maybe a couple other governors to you know, maybe you get some out of left field, you know, Larry Hogan or Chris Noon, a moderate Republican governors, former governors of Maryland and New Hampshire, you know, and that

splits the anti Trump vote. Then you can have a replay of what happened in sixteen when Trump was never, at least not early on, the preferred candidate of Republican voters, but got enough of a plurality that he wind up winning the nomination. I'm gonna be boring and agree with Josh. I think he had a great anaces there to Republicans.

Fatal flaw in sixteen was not coalescing around an anti Trump candidate, and if they don't kill less around a main rival to Trump, I could see him winning if they all throw their energy and most importantly donor money and organization behind a single candidate. Trump has been significantly to the extent that I think that he won't win. Do you think that that's true? If he winds up getting indicted for winn or another things, I do think

that will matter on the margins. There's definitely a component of Republican primary voters who are tired of Trump and his drama and his tweets, and that would certainly weigh heavily or more heavily among those sorts of people. But you know, again, if it's Trump versus Ron de Santis, then yeah, I think that that tilts the balance even

more towards De Santis. But if the big field and everybody spread out and the ni Trump vote doesn't coalesce to any particular non Trump Canada, then I don't think it will hurt him that much. And just one more thing on that, I think an indictment would matter a lot more in a general election that it wanted in

a Republican primary. Republican voters have shown pretty consistently they don't really care or actually think that these criminal investigations of Trump actually make them support him more So I don't think that's so much of an issue. Well, I'm going to disagree with the two gentlemen, and I'm going to say that Rond the Scantis is going to stitch this up and someone like Nicki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, and Tim Scott, Senator of South Carolina, one

of those could be the VEEP. And I think a lot of the race, as it amplifies, is really going to be about running for that number two spot. And if you've got someone like run, the sentis unless he sort of messes up as we've discussed outside of his own state, and you've got a diversity ticket in the shape of you know, either Nicky Haley or Tim Scott, I think you've got something that conservative voters are really going to go for and they will be able to

turn the leaf on Donald Trump. What about this idea that you know, Trump doesn't get the nomination or he's not doing well, so he takes his ball and goes home and forms an independent party. What is the scenario there? It's a real danger for Republicans. If Trump decides to run as a third party candidate, there might be some

legal obstacles for him. There are these things called sore loser laws, and a lot of states that if he's decides to run in the Republican field doesn't win the nomination, he might be barred or have a tough time getting on the ballot as an independent candidate in Some states have those and some don't. Right, That's right, So some states have them, some states don't. So I'm just throwing out a hypothetical number here. But let's say he gets on the ballot in twenty states. That still poses the

problem for Republicans. If those states happen to be states and are swing states, are gonna really count toward the electoral College vote. But even putting all that legal mishmash aside, just having Donald Trump on the sideline storing care neades at the Republican nominee is gonna be a tough thing for him. A lot of voters might just decide I'm not for this guy, you know, rodes Santist Nicky Haley. Whoever it is, Donald Trump's on the ballot, I'm staying

home and that's a big problem for Republicans. Okay, so we've talked all about the future of Donald Trump run to santists, Nicky Haley and others for the Republican side. What about Joe Biden Jordan's you cover the Biden White House. You had said that you think that he is absolutely going to be the nominee, and yet there are a lot of Democrats who worry that he is not as fleet of foot as he needs to be in order to go up against Rond de Sandus or even Donald Trump.

That's right, West, I think two things can be true. Josh said something earlier that I have found also in my reporting, I have not talked to a single person in the White House or in Biden's orbit that thinks he's not going to run. They're all on board with him running, and so that's gonna happen, and it's gonna happen soon. That being said, that doesn't mean that he's gonna have the easiest time getting the voters really energized again about voting for him, even though he's not running

in a competitive primary. There are a lot of doubts, as you talked about West about you know, his age, also people aren't seeing really his accomplishments. They don't think that he's really done a lot for them, even though he did rack up a lot of legislative accomplishments in his first two years in office. So the main task for Joe Biden, which is gonna be difficult for an eight year old man, is going to be getting people

excited to vote for him again. And also that's going to be even more difficult if he's not facing Donald Trump. And so that's gonna be the thing that I think his political team is going to have their eyes on going forward to the next few months. Flavia Jordan's Josh, please don't go anywhere. We'll keep talking after the break. Look,

I'm a great respect or fate. I would be completely thoroughly honest with the American people if I thought there was any health problem, anything that would keep me from being able to do the job. And uh, and so well we'll see. Uh. But you know, I just I think people have to just watch me, Flavia. One thing that happened in as a result of the pandemic was that Biden wasn't out and about as much. Some people

said that was liability. Now looking back, maybe it actually turned out to be an advantage because Biden sometimes is a bit stumbly when he's speaking. There seemed to be some concerns that handling the grueling travel and speech schedule of a presidential race could be a problem. I mean, and it is. And one sort of feels also kind of bad talking about it because you know, on the surface of it, he's just been a very successful president.

He's accomplished quite a bit. So why are we all sort of talking about his age because it is this enormous elephant in the room that you just can't get away from. Yeah. Our producer Moe Barrow here in Washington asked voters if they think Biden's age is a big deal or not. Here's what they had to say. I voted for Biden when he was running for president. I probably will vote for him again. Yes, So I know folks make a big deal about his age, But I think with age comes wisdom, um, and the policies I

think are splitting us in the right direction. So I'd like to see him continue uh this effort for the next four years. If Biden was to win uh in, I think we'll be in the same predicaments we are in today. So I'm not a Republican, so I don't want anyone on that side to win. But it's quite in the best choice. I don't really know. I'm perfectly fine with it. I think he's doing a great job so far. I'll say that. You know, Democrats are renowned

for their handwringing. If Democrats weren't anxious about his age, they'd find something else to worry about. But especially in a general election, you know, as many people are voting against the nominee that they don't like, as opposed to for the nominee that represents their party. And we saw that in the poll numbers, a majority of Democrats were casting a vote against Donald Trump, not for Joe Biden.

So at the end of the day, you know, Democrats could nominate Ham Sandwich and he'd still get you fifty maybe of the vote if the guy that the Ham Sandwich was running against with named Donald Trump. And I don't think that that's gonna change regardless of who the Democratic nominee is or what his flaws are, you know, barring some really serious setback. I did want it build off one thing flav said, this is on the age question.

Biden loves to say in response to the age question, watch me, and what I've seen is when his staff kind of keep him buttoned up reading off a teleprompter, he sounds and looks really stumbly. I think it's very hard for him to speak off a teleprompter. I think it's hard for anybody to speak off a teleprompter. He has a stutter as as well, established probably making it even more difficult for him. But when he gets off the cuff, he has more life and energy to him.

Look at what happened during the State of the Union when Republicans started yelling at him about his accusations on their plans on Medicare and Social Security. He got really engaged and that was back and forth. I think he ended up winning. The Republicans look very small, and so while there's this nervous energy about him getting back on the trail and how much he's going to be able to do, He's shown that he can thrive in that situation.

I think the question is, will you have the stamina to keep it up for a full campaign all the way until so? Do you think that it's a mistake that his staff treats him with such care that they really should loosen up and just let him. You know,

they'll let Joe b Joe, I do. I think that was a big part of his appeal in twenty is that you had running against Donald Trump a politician who also wasn't afraid to go off the cuff, but in a way that was a little safer and a little less you know, non PC aggressive crazy, and they in the White House have really not allowed him the opportunity to do that. As much that being said, it does

come with risks. They're afraid of him making a gaff and we've seen him do that in Poland he said, uh, this is of Vondery Muputin, should no longer be the leader of Russia. That was something they had to clean up. But do most American voters disagree with that. No. A lot of times when he makes gaffs, he says things that you know, you're average American would believe, but politicians aren't allowed to say, and that I think it's an asset for a politician in this era. That's a great point.

I think that we saw in with Trump and then again in twenty that the bar for what reporters perceived to be a race altering gaff is much much, much, much higher um than we imagine in the past. If you go back to the nineteen eighties nineteen nineties, George H. W.

Bush was looking at his watch during a debate. Was a story that dominated the press for for days, for weeks, whatever, because it looked like he was bored and just kind of wanted it exactly and was you know, couldn't be bothered to show up for this town hall debate and pay attention. But then, you know, you fast forward to sixteen and look at something like Trump and the Access

Hollywood tape. One would expect that that would be a career ender for anybody, and yet you know, it lasted to three four days with Trump and then it was on to something else and he was managed to get himself elected. I was just going to jump in actually and just say that I don't think the age thing around Joe Biden would be such a big deal if

people were more excited about who his VEEP was. You know, the idea is like, Okay, should something terrible happen, you know, we've got Kamala Harris, who everyone loves, and you know

we're in good hands. No one is excited about her not voters, And I think it's worth sort of having to think about why that is, because on the cards, she is supremely well prepared, but she hasn't been able to sort of some how energize voters in a way that perhaps would would ease people's minds and to sort of raises questions which you know, I'm often asked about. It's like, what is the bench? You know, where is

the talent? Like if you look at Republican field, you've got someone like around the standards, but there are a bunch of them. Uh, And there's a perception that, you know, has this party kind of does it not have that young talent. So I'm just sort of curious whether that's actually a fair assessment or whether, you know, people just don't want to kind of step up and show themselves. It's interesting. I think when a party is in power, the bench necessarily with us because there's a limit on

how far people can go. We saw this during the Obama administration. You know the bench. I remember in twenty sixteen everyone was talking about how short Democratic bench was. We also heard this going back to two thousand and eight. After the Bush White House, they had to Dredge up John McCain to run against Barack Obama. So I think all parties in power have. The problem here is that

you have these lingering doubts about Joe Biden. And to Flower's point about people would feel safer if there was someone waiting in the wings, waiting to take over, someone younger and of a new generation, people would feel a lot better about that. And so that problem is just getting highlighted more now because of the circumstances that we're in.

And there's also a structural problem. I think when you're the president and your party is in power, I mean, there's no clean and easy way to swap out Kamala Harris for any of the other Democrats. And if this were a wide open primary, actually do think Democrats would have a pretty decent bench. You'd have Pete Buddha judge.

You'd have potentially governors like Roy Cooper and North Carolina Westmore, you know, my new governor and in Maryland, and all sorts of younger names who have been waiting in the wings, including people in Congress. Ro'canna I think wants to kind of take on the mantle of Bernie Sanders and run when he gets a chance. But of course none of these people can do that if Joe Biden is going to run again, in which everybody in the party thinks

that he is. So the problem that I hear from a lot of Democrats who are worried about Kamala Harris's lack of strong appeal is that there's they're really trapped with it. There's nothing they can do to sort of swap her out, and so the best thing to do is just kind of move on and try and focus on it. You don't see any circumstance under which Biden would go with a different vice president this time. None the deed him alive. I mean, it would be how

would you do it? And doubly so, no Democrat would ever try to make the argument that the Democrats need a new voice and run against the sitting president. I don't think you're going to have a reprise of ninety where Ted Kennedy primary as sitting president and Jimmy Carter. All of the top tier names like Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, Illinois Governor GV. Pritzker, who people talk about are as being ready to run now are saying they're not doing that as long as Joe Biden's in

the race. So you're a little wishy wash end whether the Republican nominee will be Trump, decentis or someone else. But you all seem to think that Biden is the Democratic nominee. Is Joe Biden re elected president? In Fly to You? Yes? Um, I know that's a very short answer, and I think it's just maybe just the sequel of You, and it's not as thrilling a film. But I think the same dynamics are going to be in play. I still think it's going to be incredibly close, and I

think he will prevail. But I'm making a very important assumption here. I'm sort of assuming that it's going to try if Trump is his rival, that will happen. If it is run the scientist, I think it gets far more complicated, but I think he would still prevail. I also say, yes, I agree with all the reasons Flavia said, and also just historically in American politics, it's very hard

to unseat an incumbent president. For Donald Trump, it took a pandemic and you know, race riots, and also himself getting infected with the virus to kind of stamp out his chance of the second term. A lot of people believe that, you know, if you're running Trump in February, in that election, he probably wins the second term too, despite all the controversies and craziness of his first term. So that's just something to think about as Joe Biden launches his re election effort here with a lot of

doubts swirling around him. Yeah, I think if Trump is a Republican nominee, then Biden gets reelected fairly easier. I's anybody else, especially as a younger, more kind of generationally appealing ticket, maybe a De Santis and a hail Or, a Tim Scott and a Hailer or somebody like that, then I think the job gets much much harder, because we do have lots of poll numbers showing that people are uncomfortable about Biden's age and they're not happy with

the direction of the economy. Historically, that's been the recipe for a one term president. So I think if there is a viable, non extreme alternative or repellan ticket that it's perceived to be non trumping a little bit more normal, that Biden really might end up being a one term president. Josh Flavia Jordan's thanks for being here, great fun. Thank you, thanks, thanks, thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio.

For more shows from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take and the producer of this episode is Vicky Burgolina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Additional production support from Moe Barrow. Raphael m Seely is our engineer. Original music was composed by Leo Sidrin. I'm Westcasova.

We're taking Monday off for the US holiday, will be back on Tuesday with another Big Take. Have a great weekend.