Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks joined PBS News Hour host Geoff Bennett on Friday for their weekly recap of the news, which naturally included President Joe Biden’s Thursday press conference. Capehart urged Democrats to stop “self-immolating” over Biden’s candidacy, while Brooks compared him to President Ronald Reagan.
Bennett noted that the press conference has not silenced the conversation among Democrats about whether or not Biden should step aside and simply asked, “Jonathan, how do you assess this current moment?”
Capehart simply didn’t understand why there are doubts about Biden, “Look, ever since that disastrous debate performance two weeks ago last night, Democrats have been tearing their hair out, self-immolating, and saying what they need to see from the president to make them assured that he is up to the task. He needs to show some life and some vigor. He does a rally in Raleigh the very next day.”
He then rattled off some other supposedly impressive things Biden has done, “He needs to sit down with the press and do an in-depth interview. He sits down with George Stephanopoulos a week ago tonight. He's sitting down with Lester Holt at NBC on Monday. He needs to be extemporaneous and do things like that. He goes to the AFL-CIO, speaks with them, microphone, no teleprompter. He did it again today in Michigan. He did it.”
Finally, he got to Thursday:
He needs to talk to the press. He needs to take questions from the press. He's been ignoring us — 59 minutes last night, he answered questions, particularly an impressive question from your colleague David Sanger at the New York Times, which I thought — I'm sure he didn't do this on purpose, but was devious in how it — in the question that he asked, a multipart, very complex foreign relations question that the president answered, to the point where the press conference got boring, because he got so deep in the weeds.
He then accused his fellow liberals of “living in some Aaron Sorkin fantasyland that everything will work itself out in the end with one really good speech, one really great candidate at the end of the hour. This is real life, and real life is scary.”
Bennett then turned to Brooks and wondered, “How do you view this? Should he stay in the race or is he on track to losing the White House, with Democrats potentially losing the House and the Senate?”
Brooks never explicitly answered the question. Instead, he began with Biden’s press conference, “it reminded me when I used to watch Reagan and when I'm back when I was a young Reaganite. And I would, like, watch the press conferences through closed — like my hands up, like, what's he going to say now? I hope it's not bad. I hope it's not bad.”
However:
When you looked at the judgments that he made about world history and historical events, in my view, Reagan's judgments were sound about the Soviet Union. And I felt that way with Biden. He's not what he was a year ago. He's certainly not what he was 10 years ago. I think the Biden we saw at the press is the Biden that is there, which is a little mentally slow, a little cumbersome in his articulation, but basically with sound judgments.
Brooks concluded by being less optimistic than Capehart, “He's got to show some way to win this thing. And that's getting harder and harder to see, when you have swing states, The Cook Report switching them, swing states, over to the Trump, when you see states that should not be swing states like Minnesota being switched over to swing states, when you have Democrats in New York State panicking, that's pretty bad.”
For him, “it's less about how he performs on any given day, but what's the plausible strategy to victory? And I just don't see that out of the Biden campaign right now.”
Biden’s acuity problems aside, the idea that his judgment about world events is Reagen-esque is not based on evidence.
Here is a transcript for the July 12 show:
PBS News Hour
7/12/2024
7:38 PM ET
GEOFF BENNETT: So, President Biden's press conference last night might have reassured some Democrats, but it has not come close to ending this ongoing conversation about whether or not he should withdraw from the race.
Jonathan, how do you assess this current moment?
JONATHAN CAPEHART: We don't have enough time for me to climb up on my soapbox and climb back down.
Look, ever since that disastrous debate performance two weeks ago last night, Democrats have been tearing their hair out, self-immolating, and saying what they need to see from the president to make them assured that he is up to the task. He needs to show some life and some vigor. He does a rally in Raleigh the very next day.
He needs to sit down with the press and do an in-depth interview. He sits down with George Stephanopoulos a week ago tonight. He's sitting down with Lester Holt at NBC on Monday. He needs to be extemporaneous and do things like that. He goes to the AFL-CIO, speaks with them, microphone, no teleprompter. He did it again today in Michigan. He did it.
He needs to talk to the press. He needs to take questions from the press. He's been ignoring us — 59 minutes last night, he answered questions, particularly an impressive question from your colleague David Sanger at the New York Times, which I thought — I'm sure he didn't do this on purpose, but was devious in how it — in the question that he asked, a multipart, very complex foreign relations question that the president answered, to the point where the press conference got boring, because he got so deep in the weeds.
I raise all of these things because people keep putting up these goalposts. He meets them, and then they move them again. Clearly, people are — they're not satisfied. They want someone else, as if they're living in some Aaron Sorkin fantasyland that everything will work itself out in the end with one really good speech, one really great candidate at the end of the hour.
This is real life, and real life is scary.
BENNETT: What about that, David, that these Democrats who are critical of President Biden are effectively seeing what they want to see? And how do you view this? Should he stay in the race or is he on track to losing the White House, with Democrats potentially losing the House and the Senate?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, you know, first of all, I look at the press conference. It was — it reminded me when I used to watch Reagan and when I'm back when I was a young Reaganite. And I would, like, watch the press conferences through closed — like my hands up, like, what's he going to say now? I hope it's not bad. I hope it's not bad.
But when you looked at the judgments that he made about world history and historical events, in my view, Reagan's judgments were sound about the Soviet Union. And I felt that way with Biden. He's not what he was a year ago. He's certainly not what he was 10 years ago. I think the Biden we saw at the press is the Biden that is there, which is a little mentally slow, a little cumbersome in his articulation, but basically with sound judgments.
Now, will this get him out of the woods? He's got to show some way to win this thing. And that's getting harder and harder to see, when you have swing states, The Cook Report switching them, swing states, over to the Trump, when you see states that should not be swing states like Minnesota being switched over to swing states, when you have Democrats in New York State panicking, that's pretty bad.
And so, to me, it's less about how he performs on any given day, but what's the plausible strategy to victory? And I just don't see that out of the Biden campaign right now.
