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giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> francesca chambers at her table this morning. she is the white house correspondent for usa today. she will talk about the presidents'reelection strategies. first, the wildfires. what has been the criticism of his handling of that? he came under fire for saying no comment about the wildfires while he was at the beach relaxing. he was under pressure to go visit and every president residue this issue. how soon do you go? you don't want to get in the way of search-and-rescue. you want to go and do what the president did which is meet with survivors and their families and hear from them. he stressed his own personal struggle with grief, the death of his wife and child come and

tried to connect with them. one think he did his he met with every person. he stayed for 70 minutes after his remarks to meet with every person who wanted to meet with him. host: let's talk about his overall numbers and how he is faring heading into his reelection. this is the real clear politics average on the president's approval rating. 41% approve, 64% disapprove. was the headline for heading into the election season? caller: americans -- guest: americans feel like the economy is not where they wanted to be on a personal level. they don't feel that the inflation is decreasing. there is a disconnect between the president's economic message and the employment rate and how americans are feeling. no matter how anytime sickos out

and says he is not declaring victory on the economy, polling is showing us that does not how voters feel about it. you have seen his campaign target and economic message, not just his economic record, but taking on former president donald trump, the gop front-runner. host: leading up to the first republican primary debate tomorrow night and milwaukee, fox news has that debate, president biden's reelection campaign is expected to spend $25 million in ads. we want to show our viewers one of them. [video clip] >> it was the worst pandemic in 100 years, the worst economic crisis since the great depression. america fought back. today, unemployment is at record lows, our economy leading the world. joe biden past historic lows to rebuild the country, but he knows it is the american people who are the heroes of this story. pres. biden: america is back.

we have shown each other and the world there is no quitting in america. >> in small towns and big cities, we are coming back stronger than ever. manufacturing jobs are coming home. high-speed computer chips are getting made right here. america is leading the world and a clean energy. there are some who say america is feeling, not joe biden. he believes our best days are ahead because he believes in them american people. pres. biden: those who bet against america are learning how wrong they are. it is never good to bet against america. i am joe biden and i approve this message. host: what are the themes of president biden's reelection campaign? guest: you heard it there on the pandemic and the economy. they are running a strategy of having the president be the president of the united states and hope voters will rally around that message. the ads they bought they are running in key battleground

states in nevada, arizona, and michigan. there is a new ad that targets voters specifically in wisconsin. he has a union worker in there, a construction worker, a female as well, trying to reach out to female voters ahead of the debate in wisconsin. the campaign does not want to leave that territory unseated. the biden campaign also has officials in the state that will be doing their conferences today . host: how are republicans responding? guest: biden's economic message is something that will be on the debate stage tomorrow night. tomorrow is the big night. it is something republicans will hit on. the now infamous governor desantis memo will be a target.

his campaign has been trying to prepare for that by getting their rebuttal out there. host: is the republicans' message on the economy resonating? how hard of a cell is this for the biden administration? guest: we will have to see in the general election, but if you look at polling against former president donald trump, he leads by two points. that is within the margin of error and several polls have him tied. democrats said to me if you look at the last couple of weeks, this has been consistent where he has been tighter within the margin of error against the former president, even as trump has faced legal challenges and indictments. host: we are talking about president biden's reelection strategy. we want to hear from you.

republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. text us to join the conversation, include your first name, city, and state to 202-748-8003. we read a couple of times this morning an iowa poll with likely caucus-goers on the republican side choosing the former president by 23 points, 23 points more than the second-leading candidate which is ron desantis. is president biden running as if he is running against the former president? guest: to a certain extent, yes. in his own campaign responses, they are talking about donald trump specifically. they don't want to go anywhere near the indictments. they are the messaging on the economy, but also the way they

are going to talk about democracy issues, about abortion rights rather than the legal challenges the former president of the united states faces. that is not to say they are not discussing ron desantis, who is in second in many of those polls. as president kamala harris went directly against governor desantis. she went to florida twice to talk about the florida educational curriculum and challenge him on what it says about slavery. host: what role is the vice president playing in this campaign? guest: they have her out of there and say she will continue to do this. young people is one area, president biden is struggling, but also with black voters. that is any area where democrats tell me this president childress could be decided on the margins, even just a little pilaf from

black voters could be detrimental to the president in some of these key battleground states. she talked about abortion rights in the midterm election, another issue they think would be helpful in the general election and the vice president will continue campaigning on. host: let's hear from wanda in chattanooga, tennessee, democratic caller. do you plan to vote for the president for reelection? caller: yes. host: tell us why. caller: when it comes to matters here and abroad -- bismarck trump-where the, including a global conversation on how we can rebuild america. it looks like everybody is saying the same thing. we need to come together and rebuild for our children. host: i want to mention not only

domestic issues but for policy, she finds him or trustworthy. his foreign-policy part of the campaign strategy for this white house? guest: president biden says it will be a major part of his strategy. we saw him on friday at camp david posting his first world summit. it is the first summit hosted since 2015 there. another example of the president and the white house at his campaign trying to put him in situations where they show him leading the country as part of the campaign strategy. host: why is that? what do they think that portrays versus other possible candidates? guest: some of it is about not punching down at challengers to the president of the united states. as we were discussing, they don't know who the republican

nominee is going to be. it is almost a two track strategy where the campaign itself will be rebutting these gop candidates and the attacks that might have on president biden at his record while the president focuses on domestic and foreign issues. host: kathy in wisconsin. caller: i have a question and a comment. my question for the guest would be, what is their opinion on the article five mention of states? we really need -- anybody listening needs to look this up. host: can you help us out? what is this? caller: it is article five convention of states passed in 19 converses, i think the guest would be familiar with it. host: we are talking about something else. how does it relate?

we will move on to laura in spokane, washington. caller: good morning. the problem is that it is not working. with all of the discovery of the criminality and treasonous acts being done by this biden and his administration, it is being covered. that is what bothers us. host: give us examples. what treasonous acts? caller: keeping the border open and allowing the cartels to use those people as human trafficking and children for sex trafficking and organ harvesting and cooperating with the cartels. these deals with china he has been working on and all of this stuff. host: we will take border security because that was our conversation this morning. your message to federal and

state lawmakers on immigration policy. we read polls showing president biden has no numbers on his handling of immigration, even hispanic voters think he is not tough enough on immigration. is this a problem that the white house sees and are they going to be talking about border security? guest: border security is difficult for the white house for reasons you were stating. you have people who think he is not tough enough and then you have democrats who think you should ease up in some of these areas. as president harris -- vice president harris, he cast her with dealing with the root causes of migration. he will see them talk about it. for republicans, it is a huge issue and the president will have to address it. host: just in indianapolis --

jeff in indianapolis, democratic caller. caller: president biden should highlight his achievements on the economy because i think the best place we can be is coming out of a global pandemic. it caused a lot of disruption in the worldwide economy and president biden has gone the economy almost back to where was. you cannot say the economy is bad when you have a 3.6% unemployment rate. most people are working and there are plenty of jobs available. host: let's take that point. caller: it sounds like the biden kennedy -- the biden campaign has gotten through to one of their voters. but debbie has to convince independents and republicans who voted for him in 2020 but

considering not putting for him in 2024. as we were talking about in those battleground states, we will take wisconsin as an example, blue-collar workers. he is in a situation where if he does not win over the color workers, the ones who are swing voters, that is a potential for him to not just lose wisconsin but the entire blue wall he won but hillary clinton did not. host: here is steve, "since prochaska covered the campaign in 2016 and the biden campaign in 2020, could she share which was easier to cover and why? does she expect the former president to be the gop nominee next year." guest: last campaign, there was a pandemic taking place so it is hard to compare. even if there is a matchup

between biden and trump, it is hard to know what that will look like. there was not as much campaigning as in 2016 when i covered hillary clinton and senator bernie sanders. we were on the road a lot. we will have to see during this general election what that looks like. there could be a situation where you have multiple campaign events in one day in the final stretch. host: the republicans have made the president's age an issue. how does the president respond? what is their strategy to address those concerns? guest: the president has started to make jokes about his age as a way to lighten the mood about it , but he is the oldest president the united states has ever had. he is now 80. former president trump, he is 77, just a few years younger than president biden. the biden campaign has a spot or

two that by saying what he often says, watch what he has done, look at the things the administration has done already. host: we are talking about president biden's reelection campaign. we want to know your concerts your questions and your concerns. plenty of time to take more calls. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. andy co., -- independents, 202-748-8002. mike in north carolina, good morning. caller: francesca, i have seen you on different programs and i know you are a biden surrogate. everyone is going in heat on these trump indictment's. if you are truly independent journalist, why don't you cover about david weiss?

garland appointed him to hunter biden. how come nobody has brought up on the other networks that he worked with joe biden's son, be au, on a number of things and he works in the justice department was appointed special counsel. you are supposed to get some videos out of that. host: let's take the hunter biden investigation and the impact of it on the president's reelection strategy. guest: republicans continue to investigate not just the president's son, but whether or not president biden was involved in his business dealings, the white house counsel business office says he was not involved. the president has set the same thing. at the same time, there has been

a lot of scrutiny on president biden over the fact that hunter's former business partner testified that the president -- and that the then vice president of the u.s. was put on speakerphone roughly 20 times when he was in the presence of business partners of hunter biden. it is important to point out that it was usually about the weather, mundane things. the president has been trying to stay far away from this, not wanting to comment on special counsel appointed in his son's case. host: at the white house briefing, how often are these things asked? guest: right now we have not had many white house press briefings which speaks to the president's strategy which has been to stay away from washington while not

only this was taking place, but also while the trump indictments are taking place because there is an intense interest in both of these issues and they have said that the department of justice is independent, he is not going to intervene in either of these cases. regardless of what the question is about these things, they are usually answering it that way. host: francesca chambers, you can follow her reporting at usatoday.com, on twitter -- not twitter, x. john in crystal lake, illinois. you are next. caller: i want to give a quick comment on what i think president biden's strategy is good to be this time around and similar to a strategy he used when he got elected. i call it the bottleneck strategy.

around super tuesday, all of the moderates like buttigieg and amy klobuchar dropped out. it put the moderates into voting for joe biden. this time he is doing the same think by sentencing people like marianne williamson. it bottlenecks everyone again into supporting joe biden. that is kind of what he does. he does not have a platform to run on that is satisfactory for progressives. that is what i think joe biden is going to do. host: are you still there? caller: yeah. host: d put marianne williamson and cornell west in the same category of challengers as the last time around, people -- and others -- pete buttigieg and others?

caller: they are to the left of pete buttigieg. they are the same can of corporate democrats that biden is. look where buttigieg is now. host: are corporate's happy with the president? guest: if you look at a poll that dug into who is supporting the president, in that matchup, he would win most democratic voters. there is more mobility there. even among democratic primary voters, 45% would like to see somebody else besides joe biden beatty nominee -- be the nominee. nobody else is stepping up. when his campaign launched, he was able to lock down the support of anyone such as gavin newsom or jb pritzker, sitting governors who could have challenged him.

democrats would have seen them as someone who could beat him. host: in the same poll, do they ask if the president is the candidate, do you still vote for him? guest: yes. if you're looking at the numbers between rk and marianne williamson, he does have the majority of voters. you look at that and go back to a general election strategy, we were discussing how he would fare against donald trump. he would do better in recent polling against ron desantis. we have not seen with the polling would look like against other republicans. host: elaine in florida, good morning. caller: good morning. i am an independent but i am straddling the fence. i was a democrat -- i was

republican. right now, i don't see a platform for the republicans. that is my question, how would they unify the country. how would they bring -- what will they give us if trump is elected? what would he do for the country? i hear everything there against, against biden and immigration and inclusion, all of these things. but what are they for? since you cover both sides, maybe you could give us clarity. host: francesca chambers. guest: with the exception of donald trump who want to be on the debate stage tomorrow, we have learned more about the positions and issues from other republicans who are running in the race. donald trump again, we know he won't be debating. the rnc announced the lineup, there will be eight candidates on the stage, including mike

pence, the former vice president, nikki haley, as well as ron desantis. they will all be on the stage but donald trump will not be. host: justin chambers, usa today's white house correspondent -- francesca chambers, usa today's white house