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c-span radio and podcasts. c-span now available on the apple store and google play. download it for free today. c-span now your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. "washington journal" continues. continues. host: we are back now with washington journal. alec sheppard is our guest. we will talk about campaign 2020 four and other views. welcome to the program. guest: good morning. host: good morning let's talk about campaign 2024 how are things going in light of president trump legal problems and president biden low popularity ratings. guest: things could change but nothing has changed so far. as candidates come into the race, we will probably see another drop and we have not seen the basic -- change.

joe biden remains a popular choice, but no republican candidate has been able to really hit at donald trump's lead. it seems like we are in a holding pattern. that may change regarding on whether or not donald trump shows up. i make it pessimistic that we get a competitive republican primary. you may not see the dynamic between the trump and biden rates which they are head-to-head with about 14% right now. we may not see that ñ early part of next year. that could change in our editorial meetings. people get mad at me about my pessimism about his race altering at all but what we see right now is the same thing over and over again. 50% republican want donald trump and the rest is split between an array of candidate.

>> i would like to -- host: i would like to remind viewers if they want to call in or make a comment our lines are divided by party affiliation. democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. and you wrote a article called this is 2024 best chance to take trump down. and what is your recommendation to the public field to narrow that gap and to either catch up or overtake the former president? guest: the republican candidates are caught in a trap where broadly speaking the republican electorate leaves innocence that donald trump is a legitimate president and there were an array of problems none of which were true about the way the

election was run. at the same time they believe that this brought prosecution against him and it was motivating. when you have republicans who believe joe biden was the legitimate president or that he lost the election, there is a concern about his growing list of legal problem's and right now it is usually ron desantis or tim scott. and the issue we have is coming out and saying that donald trump lost -- that usually results in a firestorm for the former president. you end up getting -- a target on your back. at the same time, you will not end up convincing anyone. this is the only way they can get ahead. when you look at the end of last year after the midterm elections when there is a clear dynamic of

candidate that donald trump endorsed that are badly -- a wide sense from republicans and among republican voters that it is time to move on, polling showed that they want someone who is not joe biden or donald trump to run. so i think they are facing a problem that they need to go and convince voters that donald trump is an electoral liability. -- for independent voters who see the polling so far, they see this. they are not doing it and they are worried about the impact that will follow. -- uc a slow-moving thing where chris christie has been one candidate that has come out and gone aggressively against the former president. others are waiting for the shou chew drop.

-- i've covered donald trump's entire political career at this point. everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop. nothing will happen unless republicans start to go after his clear electoral will -- electoral liabilities. host: is that your view if you were advising the candidates? in 2016 did attack donald trump and it still did not work. what do you recommend? guest: it was late in the election not until march or april. and that is the same as marco rubio and trump back and forth on a tuesday. and that was a little late at that point. and you look at trump's greatest decisions here and his greatest liability was after the 2022 midterm elections.

this is where you get into a problem. everyone thinks they can draft off of donald trump. but that is a crater -- i think to some extent, maybe i am playing into it but this may be a widespread smoke filling of the room where only trump and republicans and conservative elite got together and had a plan and acted in a concerted manner against him that you would see movement here. what we see now is a strange dynamic for the primary election or somebody wins a slight majority of the vote. and they have a candidate by more than 30 points not being attacked. and then i think it comes from a place of fear. the only candidates are the ones like chris christie who have nothing to lose. we are at a point where whether or not donald trump is there.

and we need to try to convince voters that you are a viable alternative was not just trump but other candidates as well. host: i want to touch on the new hampshire rally with the former president talking about his mounting legal issues. here it is. >> how can my corrupt political opponent, cricket joe biden put me on an election campaign that i am winning by a lot but forcing me nevertheless to spend time and money away from the campaign trail to fight bogus made up accusations. i am sorry, i will not be able to go to iowa today or new hampshire because i am sitting in a courtroom listening to bull shit because his attorney charged me with something. terrible. [applause]

host: what do you make of that? the continued strong support and even more support that donald trump gets from his legal problems? guest: he is skilled at using himself for a med afford. that is what you see -- a metaphor and that is what you see here. that he is being unfairly targeted ad supporters who are also facing down the problems of the liberal establishment and so on. one of the things i think is interesting, he used to talk more about issues that more directly affect other people in -- and he used to talk a lot more about the economy in particular and also immigration. we are not seeing the same level of focus on actual issues at this point. we are seeing this kind of -- it

is like the end of lenny bruce's career where you get along stretch of reading from his own legal cases on the campaign trail. i am skeptical of the viability of the long-term electoral candidate especially -- he should go back and win those that he lost in 2020. it has been a powerful case and i think he is making it. it is not accurate. merrick garland who is the attorney general is extremely reluctant to investigate donald trump. that was necessitated by trump's own presidential announcement. he has made this into the effective argument. and he's putting time into the idea that he will come in and clean house. that is part of the electoral in

2016 but what was not as important that this exists and now it must be taken down and be replaced with someone that is important to him. there's a lot of doubt about trump's early 2025 ambitions and yet it remains a strong argument. and that sets the tone for the rest of the field. even when republican candidates expressed concerned about the indictment that donald trump is facing. they go out of their way to say they are politically motivated by prosecution, but they are -- what they are not saying is that these are liabilities for a potential candidate. they even say as chris christie has, that it is not just that trump is being taken out of the campaign trail, but in many cases it is a document case in particular and these are

liabilities of trump's presidency as well. things they brought on -- he brought on himself like failing to return documents. host: there was a new york times siena poll that came out last week that said biden failed to win the majority from nonwhite voters who have not graduated from college. what is the root cause there? what is going on? guest: it's one of the interesting questions going into a 2024 election. maybe there is a widespread frustration. that biden did not fulfill the president -- promise as president and part about was the promise of returning the country to pre-covid levels. it is also the frustration that it has to do with inflation and that the biden economic agenda did not work as well as promise and i think many noncollege voters feel less -- by the

country itself and they do not feel like joe biden has done enough to express support or work hard enough to bring programs and other policies. it is still a large question and i think it gets to one of the most interesting questions as we head into the election. can joe biden bring the turnout we saw in the 2020 record turnout? with trump you made the support among independents and swing voters. trump has shown time and time again or in the last two elections that he can bring voters out to vote for him that others cannot. they do not show up in the midterm elections but they do vote for him. he brings out the traditional democrat voters, biden. and it seems like a handful with arizona and georgia, but black voters in particular will be

important for winning those states. host: let's look at remarks made by president biden on wednesday about his agenda and biden makes. >> the financial times and wall street journal have started to call my plan bidenomics and initially i do not think it has a great deal of respect. with all respect toward them, our plan is working. it is working. the economy has grown. it grew faster in the last quarter than anyone expected. we traded over 13 million brand-new drops -- created over 13 million brand-new jobs since i took office. 90,000 new jobs right here in new mexico. 800,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide. 800,000. where is it written that america cannot lead the world again in

manufacturing? we are going to do just that. -- these are facts, it is not a hyperbole, we created more jobs in two years than any president in american history has in a four-year term. unemployment is below 4%. the longest stretch in 50 years in american history. not only have we covered -- recovered all the jobs we lost in the pandemic, we have more jobs than we had before the pandemic. host: what you think about that, as far as the improving economic numbers. and biden's approval rating on the economy does not seem to be moving. guest: yeah this is one of a more interesting questions in the -- in the post via economy is stupid area. we see an attachment to economic numbers that tends to be almost

be -- democrats are more likely to view it positively when a republican is president. and we think we will see the core argument that biden makes in 2024 that he is a steward for the economy. he and fellow democrats have managed the economy better been republicans and that it is growing. the numbers remain good although there are warning signs -- that wages are outpacing inflation again. and the unemployment rate is low. and that the recession has dominated the last 18 months or so and it has dissipated. and you see a similar argument in 2016 where obama started after the great recession saying i am the right person to do that.

and what democrats run into is a problem with a lot of voters hearing that and they say that is not right for me. they may be outpacing inflation, but not for a long time. and the policies pushed by joe biden and a number of state usually led by democrats -- other means like the special election referendum it does not always resignation. i think the core message is not an emotional appeal and in some ways it is a problem where voters here it and they say you are saying this is good right now but it is not so good for me. but with that approval rating and biden's struggles that point to other areas. for instance, personally getting out of afghanistan the kind of thing that you could make the electoral argument that the problem is the disastrous

pullout is where this dip started. similar with the war in you -- in ukraine. and that support has pushed into this decline in recent months. what do you see is the biden makes message is what is left. that is what the biden people say over and over again. host: let's take our first caller from virginia, republican, james. good morning. caller: good morning. inflation, 11%, 9%, -- i did not know about you, i did not get a $.44 pay raise over the past years. the second thing is, biden is just lost. if you want to talk about the insurrection, 2019 and 2020 we had -- they say this corruption

is called harassment. those are there word. and when you look at this, january 6 i am sitting here thinking what was trump going to do? [indiscernible] he is taking over the government and we are going to listen to him. all for the state. this is bogus. this is nothing but political. nothing. you get the eight challengers to trump that all say the exact same thing to trump. everything. would you rather buy a real -- or fake [indiscernible] ? guest: on the last point i feel like a broken record. the candidates are not differentiating themselves. i think they are afraid for the

most part. -- one thing biden will run into over and over again is wage growth is starting to outpace inflation. that started six weeks ago. they may have credit card debt in the u.s. right now in part because of inflation. i think that is some cognitive dissonance that biden and the democrats are going to have to deal with. they have not found a way to square that circle and no democratic candidate has that has run on this good for the economy message. host: those go to jerry in new jersey. democrat good morning. caller: good morning. a couple questions i have for you i think mansion now is coming out and he looks like he is going to run against biden on the independent ticket. i do not know how that's going

to go or how it will help biden. i believe one of the reasons democrats are running scared is that there will be investigation about biden. and even though the media does not want to talk about it, it is coming out and it's going to be bad. i think biden is going down the. and i think this is happening. i think there -- i am concerned because a lot of time they overstep. they put so much effort out there are truck to come to biden and people are getting it. so, yeah, it is not working full. host: alright let's get a response. guest: i think with mansion concerns i don't think anyone in the biden camp is sweating it. and i would say also part of what he is trying to do is he a concerned about reelection. the governor right now is quite popular.

they mention in their report earlier this week that they see people running talking about positioning themselves for west virginia voters is not because of biden lacking. on hunter biden in particular i think these will be liabilities for the administration which is a big problem. they have not found a way to talk about it. and that these are influent schemes here to some extent or there is a sense that hunter biden was going around and telling people he had access to the president. there is no evidence to anything like what republicans are saying, but it does look bad. it looks bad given the extent of what they talk about -- the things donald trump children were doing during the administration. and they kind of hand wiggle out of the concerns thanks to the part that they have over

exaggerated with their political witnesses and what they have said. at the same time, what we see here is it seems sleazy and a lot of voters see it that way. given the fact that the biden administration the president in particular have not found out a way to talk about these things. host: republican, ohio. good morning, ads. caller: the trippy -- the clip you just showed, i was 30 years in the military, where is the faxed -- fact checker in this administration? you watch reports leading economist of the world, everything he says about the jobs -- for jobs 90% came back after covid was lifted. that is 90% of the jobs he counted.

the few jobs he did not come back with his administration are right now the biden and the democrats. you add them up. this is the thing, no fact checker, that is a blatant lie. 100%. the guy lies about everything. go back 35 years how about when he plagiarized all of his speeches when he ran for president. this guy cannot run the -- tell the truth for nothing. trump is pounding him every day and everyone in the country knows that the country was great for four years straight. the military was strong that now everything is a complete disaster. my neighbors are democrats and i get along with them well -- they complain about everything in our country going on for two years straight. and i am listening to them. then they start playing with trump and the republicans and i am lightweight a minute our

borders are deflated. look at these hypocrites, they have -- they want 15 billion of our money to bail them out? host: ok that is a lot there. it you talked about the border in let's start with the economy and jobs numbers. guest: jobs numbers are difficult to talk about because of the global pandemic at the very end of the administration. i think they have papered over some of that when they talk about the unemployment rate jumping way up. however, when you look at the underlying numbers, they look pretty good. they've been pretty good for the last year or so especially when you compare them to the worst predictions that were being made by economists who were convinced we would be heading into a recession until 2-3 months ago. we do run into the same problem that i was talking about earlier where if you go around saying the economy is great they say

the economy is not great for me. those people are right to say that because we see an increase in quality. not just incrementally but exponentially for decades now. and the biden administration has not been able to reverse 40 years of problems there. -- the answer is quite complicated but i think the city is being overrun by immigrants or migrants in particular is not true. host: we got this post where one says as long as women feel threatened by abortion ban and losing their rights over their bodies, republicans are in trouble. how big of an issue do you think that will be? guest: i think it is become one of the most important issues in american politics.

voters will come out and support referendums and fight back against referendums with abortion. but there have been efforts by the states that make it harder. and republicans want to make it so they can enshrined the strict abortion bands in six weeks or total. those have all gotten shot down. i think these things may get slightly exaggerated you have a ohio election on tuesday which was obviously a huge win for pro-choice supporters. others rejected the effort against change. and they raise the threshold to 50%. when you look at where people are voting, it is interesting right there in the rust belt close to pennsylvania, they went or for donald trump in 2016.

those really came out rejecting this referendum. however, i think what we are seeing is voters are still more inclined to vote in support of abortion right and shoot down these kind of efforts to make it harder to alter efforts that are taken by a republican state. we saw this with ohio area and this is with sherrod brown having a better chance of holding onto his seat in 2024. i am not so sure. we have not seen in -- democrat voters voting for democratic candidates. we are not entirely seeing a strong shift. i would let -- i would not look at the data and say that 55% of ohio has said that when -- they will back sherrod brown or joe biden. there is the larger issue the democrats have a brand problem with voters and that may be

especially true in these states like ohio which was obviously the most important. now it is a red state. they are struggling to impact those now. but even with the ammunition of the appeal of roe v. wade. host: let's talk to jared, independent. wilmington, delaware. good morning. caller: good morning. i just wanted to speak first of all that the extent we are dealing with an uneducated part, you look at the democrat -- demographics of the republican party, it is mostly uneducated people. middle-class working people. they have progress of the republican parties. what i wanted to say was i was reading over the trump indictment which i am sure few people have done. and in the first or second page it states that he was able to

live. my question is, we are going to allow politicians to lie and say it is ok. the first amendment tells us that political people can lie to us, how are we ever expecting our citizens to vote correctly or vote with knowledge and understanding of what is going on -- obviously media is out to make money but i do not get it. if people are flocking to donald trump, obviously there are crimes committed. so my question is do you, is it equitable for trump and biden to run against each other and biden to come out on top or do you think we are doing this political speech where everybody is lying and nobody is telling the truth. host: what do you think?

guest: with the indictment, one of the defenses trump's lawyers have offered is that essentially all politicians lie and manipulate the truth. and that donald trump was simply just doing that. it is worth noting as well he is not being charged with lying. essentially -- there are quite a bit of false statements included in the indictment but there is largely supporting evidence of what it involves. and they focus on these efforts that trump manipulated from the department of justice. i think what we see here is political culture where you very rarely face consequences for speaking falsely as trump did about the 2020 election. this is a culmination of that effort with trump's case. it is something that is terrifying when you think about the way american media and

democracy works. he created his own reality and everyone follows behind it. you see that with fellow republican candidates in the 2024 election, you see that with the republican party republicans and -- republican right-leaning media sources as well. and i think these prosecutions to some extent are an outgrowth of that. but at the same time, if you do for instance lie about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, the lies lead several thousand people gathering at the capitol and violently attacking police officers. i do think there need to be consequences for that and american democracy needs to have a guard rail on norms that we've had for so long of protecting the basic pillars and foundations of the country. our prosecutions the best way to do that?

i don't know. but when you have a system like this under attack, you need to find a way to hit back. one thing i would add that has concerned me more broadly is as the indictments pile up, some of them are stronger -- then the most recent one which revolved around the election lies being the strongest and most compelling. i'm not sure that voters will see these indictments as being separate. like the one in new york, that was filed first and may go to trial first. they are the result of the attorney general running and -- they reliable -- rely on novel legal strategies. it should -- one of the things that should concern democrats is people want to see some form of consequences of what happened after the 2020 election.

they will see this political one and the ones that are stronger legally speaking. as all being part of the same legal due to use a bad metaphor. and i think that happens more as we head into the 2024 election. host: one says in my opinion most of the republicans are running to be trump vp not running against him what do you think of that? guest: i think essentially that is the only conclusion to derive, i do not think -- maybe that is why nikki haley is running, but i do not think that is why most of them are -- i don't think they wake up and say every i hope to be trump's vice president and watching mike pence is political career he is a cautionary tale. but i think it is a decent way of explaining the dynamics where

everyone is being subservient to donald trump and as the color mentioned earlier, they sound like him. and a couple weeks ago there was a theory along long time ago that the best way to be trump was a city without trump and you could adopt his policy positions and sound like him and go after the cultural war issues, but if you had the same time showed that you were more effective and you could go and actually do these things, you would not get derailed all the time by storms at 3:00 in the morning and investigations. by impeachment and voters responded to that. what they wanted was a more effective trump. we are not seeing any evidence that that is what voters want. and trump is the real deal to a lot of voters. he can go out and show that he

is a fighter. ironically it is the fact that he is still erratic and consistent that proves his authenticity when someone like ron desantis has done damage by sounding inauthentic. soundbite driven. what we have not seen yet is being able to figure out how to counterbalance this type of narrative. i think everyone with what they are really waiting for which i do not think will happen is that trump's legal problems will be so great that they will be forced to drop out of the race. or that the bottom will fall out. i think one of the more interesting candidate headed into the primary campaign will be ted scott because he offers a contrast temperamentally. he is not trying to sound like donald trump. with the policy, he's been the same way every republican is. he is not so far off. i'm curious to see if that type

of dissident stars to resonate with republican voters. again, it is not that they are trying to run to be his vice president, it is that no one can differentiate themselves from him and no one is willing to attack. host: chris christie is very different from trump what you think of his chances and why he is not moving up in the polls? guest: he is not connecting with voters the poll numbers are low. this is a larger problem where the narrative is still that chris christie is semi-disgraced former governor of new jersey who also was a close ally and some would say confidant of donald trump and that is in the tail end of this administration. but i think this is not landing yet. that he is not necessarily the right person to deliver this. and he is seen as an avatar for republicans by a number of voters. what you need to see is someone

with more credibility. i am not entirely sure -- sure who that is in the race. pop caps -- perhaps ron desantis but we see that some voters are viewing him negatively as well. host: we have a republican caller next. good morning. caller: good morning -- when someone is wearing a man dress, -- i hate the people and i pray every morning that people, that no one get killed because i retired from the military quickly in this 30 years, he says he is voting to support trump. a 30 year retiree supported trump, but trump is the one that took 30 years from the military housing to build the ball. -- the wall.

and i must bring this out that trump was spewing all of the lies to judges, lawyers, he is calling them a racist. he is races, but if a black man says it is racist it is not. and as far as the incident down there in alabama, i don't know what happened. as long as that is going to be there, white people, a lot of white people have no good space. so black authority or black people. i will not be protected because of just an ordinary citizen. what i would propose -- then i need protection. i have to go into hiding. why would i want to vote for that guy? host: all right. ralph mentioned the border wall and trump's promise originally to build a wall.

has he been mentioning that? has he been talking about continuing to build the wall? guest: it has come up last but that is important because the trump campaign has been myopic in recent months and since he assumed the presidency. one thing i think voters responded to in 2015 and 2016 was this air of nonchalance about his candidacy. even though he was uttering comments about immigrants and -- in particular and a lot of people. but it was that error that he really did not care and he is not troubled by the normal pieties that affect other candidate like jeb bush or ted cruz. there is an allusion to his candidacy that the rallies could be quite scary. for a lot of people that were there they were fun because nobody cared about these.

he shouldn't even care about the political correctness or whatever you want to call it. but what you have seen over the last now almost eight years is that is slowly being stripped away. then he just talked about himself. he talked about his legal problems. his self -- himself. the immigration is still part of his campaign and it was the centerpiece and arguably the reason why he sort of took off in 2015. but it also points to another issue that republicans are having. i was talking about how joe biden has a shrinking campaign where he cannot really point to a lot of areas of success that register with people in legislation. a lot of people don't know about it. republicans have a similar issue in that they face a campaign against biden in the first two years of his presidency and there is inflation, crime and the crisis at the border.

what we have seen over the last year or so is all of the crises starting to dissipate. and this situation of the border makes it hard for biden adoption of the controversial trump arab program has calmed down considerably. inflation is getting closer to the 2% target that the fed would like. it is close to an acceptable target which i think is 3%. and crime that you see in cities like new york there are a bunch of democratic candidates that base their kate -- campaign around the perception of the rise in crime as much as the reality of it. and considerably, this is to some extent that trump is out here that he can always go out and point to areas that hold up this indictment and say they are trying to come after me because they want to get after you. but in terms of policy, we are not seeing a lot of policy

conversation on the right right now. that is the extent to which these criminals themselves think they have taken over. it reflects the fact that donald trump talks about the policy less than he did in 2016 and 2017. host: we are out of time. alec sheppard is a writer at the new york -- new republic. you can vi his work on new republic.com. up next joe member joy owed -- discusses his report on confirming this cd -- from forming the cdc and the lessons learned from the covid-19 pandemic. stay with us. ♪ announcer: this yearbook tv celebrates 25 years of books and authors. >> from the 22nd year in the --