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>> "washington journal" continues. host: joe simonson joins us and has been following the ins and outs of campaign 2020, and in a recent piece focusing on joe biden you posed this question about who is actually leaving the democratic party. he wrote "what if biden is the passenger in not the driver?" explain. guest: as i laid out the democratic party's governing coalition which is who is actually running the country in 2021 and, as well as who are democratic voters. as i write, this is one of the most incoherent coalitions in modern american political memory. i think that sets him up well to win in november. if you see who makes up and who

is the coalition, it is largely black americans who vote the highest rate of any group in this country, higher than whites, and college educated. suburban voters as well as those with a postgrad degree. these are overwhelmingly, particularly those of a post at -- postgrad degree, vote democrats. these two groups have completely separate policy ,oals, separate interests culturally they could not be more different. and, like i said that is good if you want to win an election, but in terms of what is the agenda the democratic party, we get a lot of stuff thrown out. republicans like saying it is the party of aoc. democrats like to say that we are the party of these women elected to congress in 20 in suburban districts, and a lot of

more moderate members of congress. and so, these two groups, i just do not see a lot of room for agreement aside from basic things like undoing some trump policies or gop policies and repealing tax cuts. these are small things. we have a presidential candidate joe biden and a party pledging for health care reform. what is health care reform according to aoc? it is something very different memberd to a democratic of congress who represents philadelphia suburbs. challenges that joe biden will face if he wins in november. and, it is something that i am not sure -- i do not see -- think we see more of a disconnect between what a presidential candidate is saying and the priorities of members of congress in his own party. host: biden and the left is the

name of the peace and you can find it at washingtonexaminer.com. you can join the conversation this morning. phone lines as usual. if you support the biden/harris ticket,1. -- trump/pence, 202-748-8001. 202-748-8002 if you are undecided. i want to talk about the illustration. it is a picture of joe biden catching a tiger by its tail. aren't all non-incompetence -- nonincumbents trying to hold together a coalition at this point? guest: i think the hillary clinton example is not a bad one. obviously, we know that hillary is at least partially, her inability to hold together that

coalition was partially somewhat was sponsored for the loss in 2016. she certainly struggled with that. in terms of trump, trump i would say did one of two things. one trump was the nominee, he was theed -- when trump nominee, he reoriented the party. what we are seeing with joe biden, he is having to adjust to the party that he is on the top of the ticket. in 2016, at least, accused trump of being beholden to republican interests or establishment interests or saying anything that he did not fairly believe, or change dramatically in a matter of months his position on something in order to satisfy a coalition of voters within his party.

joe biden is doing something differently where he is simultaneously this moderate, i ran in the primary as a moderate, that i am also promising you the most progressive administration since fdr. it is possible that being a moderate in today's democratic party is another fdr presidency. i do not think that is the case, but that is the only way you can square that, in which case the party has moved so far to the left that it does not moderate -- matter if you are moderate. i think that is what the kind of means, or what it is trying to convey, he has the nomination, he has caught the tiger, but can he actually govern what does it actually look like? how does he satisfy these disparate groups in the democratic party. host: the phone lines are lit up for you. we will start with illinois on the line for those who support

president trump. go ahead. .aller: good morning i was just thinking. , he did not trump say that the pandemic was not real. january on thein pandemic. if biden would have been in office, we would not have stopped people coming in from china, and we would have had twice as many people dead as we everybody says trump is hitler this, and that. there is only one person running

that i watched in the 70's that stood up for the kkk against martin luthert king jr. tried to get done, uniting blacks and whites, and that one person was joe biden, ,tanding up with senator byrd and everyone said, well as shallow -- michelle obama said that trump is putting kids engages at the border. see just -- she just forgot to say that the cages that my husband built for the same reason. bring up a lot of issues there. go ahead. guest: one thing i will comment on is the question about joe biden's pandemic response. i think joe biden's campaign

denies it but it's unquestionable that early on in the pandemic when donald trump announced the china travel ban, joe biden responded saying we can't beat this virus with xenophobia. later, they were wishy-washy but they agreed with the president's decision in that particular issue. i think that signifies -- i don't know this for a fact, but i'm not sure joe biden sincerely believes shutting off travel when there's a global pandemic is xenophobic, but he felt the urge to signal to his contrasts that, to himself with the trump administration's response. microcosm ofis a

some challenges he will face uncovering. if people say you need to shut down your border, if you have saying if anything looks xenophobic don't do, i think it leads to the tensions in his party and things he will have to work out. don't later, he can say disagree, but that takes months. we really need to make decisions at the time. chula vista, is in california on the line for those that support joe biden. caller: i think with this administration, this president, it comes down to a very basic level. i think everybody that watches television knows he is a chronic liar. i don't trust anything he says. we see it over and over. it's on video, and each time i'm

hopeful people can see the light , that this is a man who is a narcissist and cares about himself and not the united states. but i believed, in a two-party system where there are arguments, debates, and you tried to convince the other side. i feel democracy is failing us. i can't leave a president is using all of his executive powers to the point where it is abusive and we see he is going around the congress, belittling congress -- host: carmen, let me ask you this, you can focus on joe biden for a second, as we are talking about the competing coalitions within the democratic already. do you think joe biden will be able to -- democratic party. do you think joe biden will be

able to navigate that? do you think he's being pulled to one side or the other? what do you think of his leadership for the democratic party as he has become the nominee. caller: i think he is in the middle. i think not everybody is happy. , consider myself a progressive and i wish he would endorse one pay for health system, but i think you will bring it together enough to win the election, but i think that is the way democracy works. we meet halfway, and i think he will rule and govern for himself. this president -- host: got your point, carmen. why not let him jump in. guest: i completely concede and i said earlier in the segment that joe biden could be the best candidate the democrats have to win the election, and when you

talk to democrat voters, when i talk to democrat voters in iowa, new hampshire, during the , people think this is a guy that could win. i think that's a viable strategy , but it doesn't get to the governing question. i think democrats are so frustrated with this president, so frustrated with where they see the direction of the country , this caller was talking mud democracy was failing, abuses from the white house going on, that they are willing to put anyone against him that can win, or at least the person they think has the best shot of winning. what happens after? i think that is something democrats are not considering. when you talk about who will be covering -- governing, joe biden

and the white house and democrats in congress, congress has so many factions inside of it that i'm not sure voters know what they are getting, democratic voters, republican voters, it is anyone's guess. that's what i find so fascinating, even the voters. host: let you chat with another democratic voter. this is houston, texas. go ahead. another supporter of joe biden. caller: i do support him. he was with president obama and went together. trump has put that together with me. trump has really told his country of art -- tore his country apart. had done died. there are so many people that he

kept from talking and fired. we need to bring the country back together again -- we need someone to bring the country back together again. sometimes the democrats get mad with the democrats like president obama did with violence with him. he can't just go with that party, he's got to do it for the whole country. that in theld say short term, the coronavirus pandemic presents biden with any -- with an opportunity to and rhetorically reach out to voters in this kind of bipartisan fashion where we have a common enemy, not politics, it is science, this president has

failed in his response. so here is my plan to beat the virus and get people back to work. there's not a ton of politics there, aside from maybe the lobbying that biden is at the president. i think the existence of the coronavirus, that being the top one to two concerns for voters in november, pushes that whole what does a joe biden presidency look like maybe out six months, takese of joe biden office, that's the first thing across his desk. it won't be things like trump did, like a travel ban -- a van him --dividual modular individual muslim countries, not totally re-holding immigration system, it will be dealing with the coronavirus. i think questions about what a

joe biden presidency will look like are pushed off but need to be addressed. host: francisco has a question on twitter, do you believe joe biden will see the presidency to kamala harris if she wins? guest: no. this is a -- i don't think this is an unfair question , and i'm sincerely, people on the right ask about joe biden's mental capacity and age more than anything, but this is also something joe biden has wanted since the 1980's. we know he has ran for president several times. there's no indication from the amount of time i spent around him, covering him, that he is doing this all for show. i do think that, again, the despite the ticket,

fact that harris is not bernie sanders, but i think they represent two totally different factions of the party. you have joe biden, whose chief appeal is to noncollege educated whites, blue-collar voters, which is why all of his events are in pennsylvania, virtually all of them. and then you have kamala harris who is supposed to be the multiethnic america who has a more progressive voting record than joe biden. these are expected -- these two are expected to work together. i think it will be interesting to see what that will look like in a white house. it is not uncommon for presidents and vice presidents to disagree on things, to feud. they certainly did not get along wealth each other in the primary. i don't he will be ceding control to her.

if he wins in november, he will be vindicated in his decades long struggle to win the presidency, but i do think, again, to the pieces of my essay and something i spent a long time thinking and asking people about, it is indicative of the struggles of the democratic party. these people couldn't be more harris andkamala joe biden. host: this next caller is undecided. caller: i was going to ask you, obama and biden were running the show. [inaudible] and what did we get for it? we don't have roads or nothing else.

all of a sudden, he's talking about millions and millions of jobs the government will create, but people are so brainwashed we wenty forget bankrupt. they don't know what that means i guess. it means we have no money. biden can't do nothing. host: joe simonson. guest: sure. said, joe biden's chief concern when he takes office withyear would be dealing the fallout from the coronavirus. the constraints the caller know,ned, you historically high deaths, s&p

500 will be the highest since world war ii, spending is the highest gdp since world war ii. plenty of economists think the time to spend is now because interest rates are far lower than people previously thought. on the other hand, it is true joe biden's platform is the most progressive in american politics i think. these calling for trillions of dollars in new spending, nonpartisan think tanks and organizations. i've looked at his spending programs and there are $2 trillion to $3 trillion gap in terms of where he wants to raise revenue and spend more money. i expect republicans to fall back. it will be a debt hawk if joe biden wins. ofwill be a problem in terms

governing. you promise constituents all these things, calling for the greatest expansion of welfare since fdr, and you have to pay for it. you have to pay for it by raising taxes, and hopefully you are not raising on people that voted for you to give programs to other people who voted for you. i think these tensions are going to point out in the joe biden presidency. host: remind us what the biden/sanders unity task force was. guest: absolutely. of 2016, theeat democratic party, joe biden's sought outgressively advice from bernie sanders for progressive members of the house whataoc to kind of draft does the democratic party stand for. that is the language they -- language, they

believe x, they believe y. people want talk about this, but one of joe biden's most progressive initiatives he's that he doesn't talk about on the trail much, housing would be a federal guarantee to every american. we would basically create a new entitlement that provides housing to everyone. it would be a dramatic expansion of government welfare, and that was certainly influenced by aigne andnders' camp staffers. it has had a real impact on joe biden's platform. he isn't campaigning on everything in his platform, he is campaigning on trump on his response to the coronavirus, unity, on the race rise we see in american cities -- riots we see in american cities, but

there is no doubt in bernie sanders and aoc staffers met with the biden campaign, they got real victories there. host: back in california, this is janice in chula vista. good morning. morning.ood thank out everybody in chula vista does not think like carmen first of all. that iy, i wanted to say don't understand why people cannot see through the facade with this republican -- i listened to your last segment with the republicans against trump, which was pure garbage. if you are a republican or another trumper, there is a big difference. the only thing i can see that trump has been so wrong and has not follow the usual mandate of bush or is good old jeb

the other professional one inians who have 2016, we would not have this uprising, because it would have been business as usual. they would have still been selling us out under the table and doing their political jargon , lying upfront and going behind -- making and lying bills behind closed doors against the american people. so here comes trump, who not only does what he says, says what he means, but means what he says and has kept his promises. he has turned the political world upside down simply because he has kept his word. host: joe simonson, do you want to jump in? guest: sure. i will say i do express sympathy with i think voter frustration at these republicans against trump group -- the republicans

against trump group. the republicany party is not as defined, the republican party is trump. it doesn't sound like you are a republican anymore, and that is fine. i think trump is what republicans are now. i think trumpism is how the republican party is defined. it would be like saying i am a democrat against joe biden. i don't think anyone would take that seriously, i don't think anyone will except those people. i think you just say you are against joe biden. if you are against trump, you don't need to put a prefix in front of it. you are just against trump and that's ok. host: this is marianna in new york on the line -- maria on the line for those who support joe biden. caller: good morning. it's the blacks, hispanics, and minorities, young people, and suburban women don't go out and vote for biden, they deserve

everything they get on trump. suburban women who are afraid now, will be afraid if trump is elected because you and your daughters will be back into kitchens, suburban housewives, which is where trump wants to put you. seniors will no longer have their social security's eventually, medicaid will be gone, and this is what i feel. thank you. host: maria in new york. joe simonson, going through some of the coalitions we started this conversation talking about. guest: absolutely. if you go through the list of people she mentioned, and we went on this earlier, but it was minorities, suburban women, women generally, she talked about people 65 plus and social security. those people vote in extremely high numbers. i think the caller is right to say if you feel this strongly about the president, you should

go to the polls. nothing wrong with that, but i can't think -- if you were to tell me all of these people have the same political mission, i would probably be a little surprised. the kind of democratic turnout machine in philadelphia voters there, black voters there were arected, political class, expected to believe that people voting in inner-city philadelphia have the same interests as a woman who is a stay-at-home mom in suburban detroit or milwaukee. that they want the same things for this country, that they care about the same things. they don't, and that is fine. right now, they are unified in removing the president, but that woman in suburban detroit i have voted for mitt romney in 2012.

she might have voted for obama, too, but the party significantly moved to the left from obama. these people can help you get elected. there's no doubt there. i'm not saying there is some or massive, strategic mistake in this democratic coalition in winning elections. won in 2018,018-- slated to win in 2020, and that is not the problem. when people say go out and vote yourump will do x, y, z for -- to you, you ask what joe biden is going to do for you. i think that is the question democrats will be forced to reckon with it biden wins. host: this is lower on the line for those who support president trump. the line for those who support president trump. caller: i believe -- it is not

so much what he says, because sometimes i don't like what he says. dieser, i do like what he and his policies. i think he has accomplished more as president than any president in my lifetime. i've at most every person i vote for them. i don't just willy-nilly vote for them. i want to know the policies and what they stand. i know the pros and cons of each person before i vote for them, just like the pros and cons of trump before i voted for him the first time, which i did. biden, the more i read the more i don't like. i don't like his policies or track record. kamala harris, i don't like her policies and what she has done an office, as well as what she has done with senator -- what she has done with her time as senator. i have voted in the past for people like progressives, and i

would be willing to be voting for that person as well, but i want to clear out, as trump it, the swamp. host: how do you think president trump has done in "draining the swamp?" caller: i'm slightly on the fence with that, because i believe he has done something to drain the swamp. changing his cabinet when he doesn't think they agree with his decisions, something like that, where i know the other size criticizes the news media. however, i believe he could have done better. i think he should have stopped hiring from the swamp. i think they should have definitely went outside, because during the campaign trail, he said there were many intelligent people outside of washington, d.c., outside of the swamp, and

i was hoping he would hire more outside people. host: joe simonson? guest: i think that's an important observation from that caller. i think, should trump lose in november, the story of his presidency will begin and end at two he brought in to his administration. the hiring in that white house, the frustration for democrats, but also for members of his days . it calls for disruption within the white house. this is probably the most, in terms of individuals, paranoid, backstabbing white house we have there hasse i think been a huge breakdown in the hiring process there. it's not surprising to me to hear from trump callers -- trump voters to call in and say one of the biggest disappointments is

the draining of the swamp. i don't think the president necessarily agreed with everyone that works in his white house, policies, what the agenda of the white house is, the messaging is coming from people who are not necessarily trump, who i think have radically different visions for the white house and president. a veryink that's important observation. i think that is absolutely true and i can understand her frustration. it's frustration held by a lot of voters and supporters from trump. host: a couple minutes left of joe simonson this morning, washington examiner political reporter. if you're interested in his takes, you can find him on twitter and washington examiner. try to get in linda, who has been waiting in st. petersburg, florida, on the line who support joe biden. caller: hi.

what i'm looking to bring back .s integrity and honesty doingrump talks about things right away about the pandemic, he closed the borders and did nothing. if you think about it, they only -- the only place he helped out was new york city. [inaudible] and the only reason he did that is because he was afraid the stock market was going to close down. he didn't send that ship to south florida, though. host: that's linda in florida. joe simonson, i will give you the final minute or two as we wrap up. guest: sure. i guess i won't entirely agree with the premise of comments.

i think at the time president ship, new a naval york was expecting a massive hospitalsin terms of being overcapacity for coronavirus, so florida, i understand there was a lot of concern, a lot of hype in the media that florida was going to peoplenext new york, and were really worried about resources down there. that just did not happen. new york was certainly a unique case, the tri-state area being responsible for disproportionate amount of deaths. i don't think anybody knows why. i'm from that area and it is sad to me, heartbreaking. florida, ippened in don't think anyone, any experts,

and he scientists, any hospital administrators, doctors said they needed the u.s. comfort down there. being said, there is no question that the presidents -- president's coronavirus response is struggling right now. do i think all the covers that he is getting his fair? of course not. do i think this white house had a coherent strategy to deal with the coronavirus? no, and particularly what is going on with trump, and i will leave it here, with the coronavirus, he is no longer defining the terms of the policy debates around the coronavirus. he is being defined by what democrats are doing and calling for. so democrats, they would need to continue lockdown or lockdowns happen and consider using them again. that's not an affirmative policy, and i think that's what

a lot of voters are seeing, that he is being very reactive, and i think that is hurting him and responsible for anger, for like the caller who just spoke. host: joe simonson is a political reporter with the washington examiner. check out his from the u.s.

ambassador to the u.n. >> i turned the floor to the distinguished representative of the united states to deliver an address by the head of state. >> on this 75th anniversary of the united nations, i have the awesome honor of introducing today someone who has taken to heart the core principles that

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