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a front row seat to democracy. continues. host: joining us now is andrew desiderio of punchbowl news. he serves as their senior congressional reporter, talking about members of congress, particularly democrats on capitol hill, and the president's re-election bid. good morning. guest: good morning. host: you write this morning why mr. biden is surviving and the first point you make is finding out who's against him and who isn't. where does that stand right now? guest: look, if hakeem jeffries, the house democratic leader, and chuck schumer, the senate democratic leader, were to go to president biden and say the jig is up, you have to step aside, they would need near unanimity. you don't have that right now. you have about a dozen democrats, including some house senior members, said the president should step aside and not be the democratic nominee anymore. you have zero senate democrats. they have walked up to the line

without quite crossing it but that's the dynamic we're dealing with right now. we're in the middle of the zone right here. what we wrote this morning, a lot of biden's defenders are making that worse, it's amplifying and validating the chief republican attack against president biden, which is that he's too old to serve as president. and sort of the idea that democrats are shooting themselves in the foot by amplifying the president's biggest vulnerability in this campaign. host: the president sending a letter to capitol hill, particularly to democrats. what's the tone of the letter and what impact is it having? guest: defiance, right? democrats read that letter and weren't necessarily surprised. nobody expected joe biden at this point to say that he's going to step aside or show any sort of hez tans at this point. the members i talked to wasn't surprised about this letter. it bass quite de -- it was quite defiant. the president verbally, he went on "morning joe" yesterday on msnbc and was similarly defiant.

and so he's really keeping this up and trying to maintain that he's staying in this race and not going anywhere. host: just a few lines from the president yesterday. i want to note that despite all speculation i am firmly committed to staying in this race, running in this race until the very end and beat donald trump. we have one job, trying to beat donald trump. how does that factor in? guest: democrats want to make this a contrast election, right? they don't want to talk about president biden's biggest vulnerability, even though they are the ones who are bringing this up in the light of the debate in which we saw president biden very much struggle with all those questions that he faced at the debate. you know, what i keep thinking back to is in 2016 when republicans were reacting to donald trump after the "access hollywood" tape came out. some were saying the same thing, that democrats are saying about biden right now, he's got to

step aside. we can't win with him as our nominee. except this time it's happening with democrats. and so we as reporter are used to covering that in some respect. especially the concerns from members of the house and senate who are vulnerable to believe that the presidential nominee could drag them down in their own elections. and right now it's just fascinating it's completely on the other side, now. it's happening with democrats which we are not used to. host: our guest is with us until 9:30. democrats democrats independents, 202-748-7002 and text us. you hinted at it. if you're a moderate on capitol hill, how is this impacting you? guest: look, it depends on your specific race, right? if you look at senators john tester and share odd brown. one from montana. one from ohio. they already needed to outrun president biden by double digits

in their states because president trump is going to win both of those states overwhelmingly. this makes it that much harder for them to win their races and, yes, they are going to be -- there are going to be split ticket voters on each of those states. especially senator tester from montana which is distinctive from the national democratic party brand. all it does is making their jobs a lot harder leading up to their races in november which is why you're seeing them be quite cautious and say, yes, we have concerns. voters in their states have legitimate concerns, but just focus on their own races. host: we saw several ranking members of committees speak out concerns about president biden. takano from california. morelli and nadler from new york. how is it to have a ranking member, especially higher up, make these comments? guest: these are people that

have been in office for decades in some cases. i think at this point because it's still a very small number of democrats who called on him to step aside, it doesn't mean as much. but, again, at a certain point, as we talked about before, there is this split and does this split widen or does this split get closer together? you know, i tend to think that when, you know, thought leaders in the caucuses, people like, you know, members of the congressional black caucus, for example, the congressional hispanic caucus, if they were to start coming out and saying that president biden should not be the nominee anymore, i think that would be a lot more significant because those are very powerful blocks, not just of the democratic base, but within the democratic caucuses in both chambers. and right now you're seeing that the c.b.c. and the c.h., they are sticking by the president which is one of the reasons why we wrote this morning why the president is surviving now. host: later on this week the president will give a solo press conference. he will have nato events leading up to that. i guess that's what people are

watching for as far as if the tide changes. maybe there are other factors. tell us about that. guest: one of the things i heard from democrats over this past week is the anticipation of the nato summit because they view it as an opportunity to president biden to demonstrate he's up for the job, to demonstrate he can consolidate the party support around him and just show he can serve another four years as president. he talked at the debate, the idea of expanding nato, supporting ukraine. those are things that unite democrats, and the president needs to unite democrats right now because democrats are obviously very divided over these questions. we have coming into today, obviously, house democrats and senate democrats are going to gather for the first time in large closed door settings for the first time since that debate debacle that the president had. so it's going to be a fascinating day and week shaping up. and, you know, democrats are really going to be looking to the nato summit for some -- for

some cues from the president and for some reassurances. host: when those conversations take place amongst those democrats, what's the control factor to make sure anything that is said within those circles doesn't come out to members of the press like you? guest: they can try but things come out. they're meeting offcampus. they're at the d.n.c. building and not letting members bring in their phones. and senate democrats are going to be meeting for their weekly caucus lunch around the day today. so we should get some -- some -- maybe some clarity, maybe some sense of, you know, where folks are after having these what they call family discussions about the president. host: will this take president's activity in congress this week or is there still congressional action planned despite of it? guest: there is a lot happening on the house and senate floor right now. on the senate floor, this was long planned before the debate, but democrats will hold another show vote on an abortion-related

bill. this is something they have been trying to do all summer to highlight that contrast with republicans on the abortion issue because they feel like it's not only something that unites democrats but that it's a winning issue for them electorally, pointing to conservative states that voted. when you hand it to voters, they voted to codify it. it's better timing, frankly. host: and in the house? guest: and in the house republicans are putting bills on the floor related to energy policy, you know, a lot of controversy early in the biden administration about these restrictions on gas stoves potentially, on certain refrigerators. this all goes back to energy environment policy. you know, things like that that will be messaging bills for republicans. host: let's hear from viewers. this is keith from florida, for andrew desiderio, punchbowl news. keith, hello.

caller: hello, good morning. thank you for being here for answering our questions and thank you for c-span. this president has did the least amount of press conferences and stuff and also, you know, with all the faults of president trump, he talked to the people every day in the line. he had press conferences. he did a lot of interviews. when is the white house press corps and the rest quit talking about strategies and who should run and everything else and start demanding a live press conference, at least an hour, without any risk of who's going to be questioning or any questions passed to the president like they did on the radio show? guest: yeah, it's a great question and that's what democrats have been calling for. they want the point to -- the president to go out there and make these unscripted, off-the-cuff performance, to make up for the debate. we're told that thursday will be a solo press conference.

a big boy press conference, as the white house press corps often refers to it as. look, the questions aren't going to be prescreened at all. he's going to probably stand up there for at least an hour. this is something that democrats are looking for the president to continue to do because, you know, i've heard from a number of democrats ever since the debate who feel like they've been lied to about the president in the sense that the white house has been shielding him from these types of settings, from these candid moments, the unscripted moments, these tough interviews with journalists, for example. and that that was one of the reasons why democrats were caught offguard what they've seen at the debate. this has been a question lingering for the president for a few years now for his entire presidency but a lot of democrats, what they told me, was they didn't realize it was this bad. and part of the reason why they didn't realize that is because they believe the white house has been shielding the president from those types of interactions with the public and with them in particular.

host: from katrina. katrina is from maryland. democrats' line. you're next up. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to make a comment. it's almost like democrats, like the -- your guest said, always shooting themselves in the foot. at this moment, they are not united. and when you're not united you're really going to fall. at this point, everything that trump has done, of course, the republicans have left him for good. they're never going to vote for him. but despite everything they are still standing by their man. at this point the democrats need to take a hard look of what do i do. it's really too late now, in my opinion, to get a new candidate, rally, get a campaign going and then start work. i don't know. it's better for the old man who

is in office now to lead another four years than bring trump back. that's the second thing. we have to look at what's on the other side. presidents don't rule by themselves. they have the whole administration for helping them and supporting them and coming up with with plans. it's not like the president gets up -- he has quite a lot of ideas. if he doesn't, well, we have the vice president. but anything at this point is better than trump. host: okay. thanks, caller. guest: that's a sentiment you hear from a lot of democratic voters, especially coalition members, for example. and you're seeing that president biden's defenders at this point, the point they're making, it's time to put up or shut up. because the longer this discussion goes on about president biden's viability in the race with donald trump the longer that democrats sort of drag out this conversation, [captioning performed by the