>> the 2024 presidential race takes shape. >> we created more jobs in two years and any other presidential term in american history. >> president biden delta's economic agenda. >> still, offering no clues about his expected announcement of a reelection bid. plus, >> this feels like maga country. >> rublican events offer a preview of the parties divide. >> woke left states are failing d freedom focused states are succeeding. >> contenders for the gop nomination sharpen messages and gear up for 2024 next. >> this is washington week. corporate funding is provided by.

the corporation for public broadcasting, and, by contribution to your pbs station fr viewers like you. thank you. >> good evening a welcome to washington week. i am just bennett. political jockeying of candidates vying to win the 2020 for presidential election began in earnest this week as president biden and high-profile republicans made moves aimed at defining their campaign

messages. president biden with house and senate democrats hoping to rally the party as he weighs when to announce his likely reelection bid. on wednesday he touted the economic impact of their legislative victories. >> the deficit. it is fiscally responsible. but, we have more to do. >> for republicans two high-profile gop events this week highlight the parties current divide playing out amongst the announced a expected candidates for the 2024 presidential nominee. the conservative political action conference cpac is underway in maryland now featuring several republicans tied to former president trump including his son don jr.. >> we need a president that is not owned by other people. right? there is a reason that the billionaire class, even the billionaire conservative news class, wants someone other than

donald trump. >> the former president is set to deliver the keynote speech saturday evening. in florida three miles away from the former president's mar-a-lago home, the club for growth is hosting a small, exclusive, gop retreat he was not invited to attend. donald trump's top rival governor ron desantis was a featured speaker. other notable possible presidential candidates choosing the club for growth over cpac include former vice president mike pence and south carolina senator tim scott. joining us to talk about this and more are the chief washington correspondent for the new york times and here at the table, the white house reporter for the associated press. and, national political reporter for the washington post. welcome one and all. there has been a lot of jockeying this past week among the presidential hopefuls for 2024. we will talk about the republicans in a bit. let's start with occupies the ol office,he has not yet announceds

reelection bid. it is widely expected. the president is famously deliberative. what is he waiting for? dr. jill biden told the associated press it's already to go. what is happening behind the scenes? >> whenever you talk to white house aides, biden's advisors, they point to the timeline former president barack obama laid out in 2011. that is, he reached his -- launched his reelection campaign in april. they had april 2023 is when biden would formulate launches reelection bid. april is the start of a fundraising quarter. they can have three months of raising money, good for the momentum of a campaign. jill biden told my colleague basically all that is left is a time and place. and how you will announce it. it looks like, barring some major turn of events, he is preparing for a reelection bid. i think it looks like he is taking his time because of we

see so much action on the republican side to gearing up. he will have major concerns to overcome. obviously, he will face nominal democratic primary challenges. you see his approval rating remains stubbornly low despite the democratic party's relative success in the midterms and his administration's legislative accompshments. that kind of standing among voters is something he will have to address. you will have to go sell his accomplishments more. that was a big part of his message to house and senate democrats this week. >> how does the biden team feel about his standing, his approval rating now stands at 44% according to real clear politics. yet, the dnc adopted his preferred primary calendar. this white house is focused on implementing his historic legislative agenda. they like to use that phrase a lot. but polling shows a lack of enthusiasm among democrats.

not because of his job approval, but because of his age. >> i think that is right. the dnc has gone almost as far as they can to canceling the primary. they said there will not be debates. they have given no window for challengers to come forward. right now, if you talk to bidens advisors they will tell you, yeah, the poll numbers are real. we see those poll numbers. but, those phone numbers are without a republican opponent. what we know about the last few cycles is once you get a republican opponent democrats tend to get pretty enthusiastic. i think there is some hope that rather ugly republican primary process is, where we are headed, will lead independent voters that are now 40% approving of bidens job performance, to start thinking, well, maybe the boring old guy is not so bad after all. as they always say, it is a choice between two candidates.

that is what they are depending on. i think the way to think about this is there is no biden campaign yet. we will probably get that in april. but, biden has a campaign he is running now. what we have seen over the last few weeks, the trip to europe, the speaking events here, the state of the union, that is biden traveli delivering political messages over and over again showing he can do a stump speech. we never saw this in 2020 because of covid. he was not out there on the trail. he will be out there. it will not be as rigorous as we are used to in some other cycles. but they are trying to show him alive, moving, you know, hammering the old democratic talking points. because, honestly, that is the way to deal with the age issue. they have to show him on camera performing on a daily basis. in overtime, that will begin to work away at this. >> like during the state of the union address where he was negotiating with republicans in real time. carl, with the issue that arose this past week viewed through

the lens of the 2020 for race, president biden saying he will support this republican back to bill that would reverse washington d.c.'s criminal justice reforms. that is a move that angered some members of his own party. but, it allows the president to avoid republican criticism that he had other democrats are soft on crime. >> yes. i think if you wanted an indicati that jill biden is running, this was a really good one. he was confronted with a problem they really did not expect. republicans on the hill have glommed onto this pretty arcane thing called -- that my colleagues there know about -- called a resolution of disapproval. they kind of boxed in the democrats on this new criminal code in d.c. where there has been, you know, a big swing of carjackings and homicides. but at the same time, this new code would lower some penalties for this. biden came out originally and said, hey, i am against this.

but, he never said he would veto it. the pressure was mounting on democrats to approve it. they are worried about their own 2024 prospects. and, so, biden shows up at the luncheon with senate democrats thursday and says out-of-the-box that he is going to sign it and let it become law. he left some democrats hanging. you are hearing some anger from the district of columbia which likes its autonomy. you are hearing anger from democrats that went and voted for this sinking president biden would back them. i think jill biden looked at this and said, i do not want to be soft on crime. we know that joe biden had a compensated history. he had a big 1994 crime bill that came back to bite him in the 2020 presidential. where he had -- he actually called it a mistake, i think, at one point, that 1994 bill. then, he had to take this position this week. so, joe is running.

we all know it. i want to agree with my colleagues there too. that, what you will hear from the democrats is a lot of hey, look what we did. they want to talk about the historic run of legislation they had with the inflation reduction act, infrastructure, chuck schumer calls this his implementation agenda. you will see joe biden at groundbreaking's around the country. they do not think that people are getting the message of what democrats accomplished. they really want to pound that home. i think you will hear a lot about that over the next 1.5 years. >> is that what you are hearing from your post at the white house? how are democrats responding to the way this bill was handled? the president says he supports d.c.'s ability to self govern, but he has issues with some provisions in the crime bill. >> right. at the also important dynamic to remember is we are talking about 2024, not just for joe biden, but democratic senators. the 2024 map for senate democrats is as brutal of a map as we have seen as -- in

sometime. you have senators like jon tester, joe manchin, such sharon brad fighting for reelection in states that a reliably red. west virginia, montana, ohio. i think that instead of vetoing the bill, and, putting the red state senators that democrats need to keep their majority, but, joe biden decided to help them out. that's another dynamic to remember here. house democrats were furious. my sourc tell me house leadership was under the impression, whether they were exclusively told by the white house or not, is a point of contention, that joe biden would actually veto the legislation when it came. the fact this happened yesterday, they were informed as this was basically happening when house democrats were at their retreat in baltimore and certainly blindsided. this is not what they expected from the white house. it is remarkable too. i don't want to get to process -- too processy, but the one

thing the biden white house is good at is legislative affairs. joe biden was a senator for 36 years. to see this kind of miscommunication with the white house and its allies on the hill is a very unusual ciumstance. >> let's talk about republicans. there were these two dueling high-profile gatherings of republicans. we have cpac featuring former president donald trump and club for growth featuring florida governor ron desantis. really, showcasing the deepening divide within the gop. michael cpac has largely been remade in the image of donald trump. he was the headliner this year along with several other republicans that have pushed election conspiracies and election lies, other french characters that were there. but, you have reported tha donald trump's campaign really has the strategy to boost his standing among delegates heading into the nominating convention next summer. >> yes. i think we are entering a very

different cycle than what we were used to the last three times for republicans. normally at this point, when you do not have a reelect you are saying it is a wide-open field and nobody knows what will happen. it will all be crazy. you have real giant power centers now in the republican party had a pretty small field relatively. it's not 20 people running for president. it is maybe eight, maybe nine, maybe seven. we are not sure yet. within that, donald trump looms in or mostly. not only does he have cpac basically under his control, this usedo be a forum for all conservatives to come fight with each other. he has a think tank out there. it is basically working just fo him. with a whole policy staff giving him his ideas. then, you have these riv groups of donors. the club for group -- growth it's one of them. the coke network has one. other smaller ones try to operate more quietly. these are very wealthy people generally that put a lot of money in elections. for the most part ey have decided they do not want trump to be the nominee again.

there try to figure out how to make that happen. donald trump is not invited to their parties either. you have these giant power centers jockeying for control. the two big names are obviously ron desantis and donald trump. and, then, you have five or six of these other candidates trying to find their place. at the table. when they are still in the child seats. they are not getting the same attention as everye else. >> karl, i hear you laughing. how do you see the undercurrents here? club for growth pumped $2 million into rhonda ted -- ron desantis posco minute oreo reelection bid. they are -- ron desantis's gubernatorial reelection bid. they are clely looking for someone other than trump. >> this will be one of the more fascinating primary seasons on that site in my experience. trump still holds considerable sway. how do they break that gripped? you see especially among

republicans in the house, there istill this strong allegiance to trump. i think you are seeing some of these other people tipped out out a little bit. nikki haley, obviously, the former south carolina governor way more than tiptoeing out. i think other republicans are waiting to see how she fares. then in the senate, you have a different dynamic. there is, among the leadership, a big search for somebody besides donald trump. they like their colleague, many of them, tim scott. will he become a real candidate or is he mainly running for vice president? then, cpac. you know, everybody avoided it this year. there were a lot of reasons for that. you do not see -- did not see the leadership, the members of congress that would usually go out there. we have biden playing the waiting game for whatever he is doing. democrats are happy when they watch what is going on with the republican right. they want them to totally bloody

each other and make it easier for joe biden. i think there is pretty good potential for that. isn't that donald trump's him oak? that he will take on the people that take him on? and, he will make life rough for them. it will just be a real slugfest. probably, it will be pretty ugly at the end of it. >> there is an interesting 12 punch trump is playing here. you are right. he will make this a bar brawl by the end of it. right now want to see him doing is very small events, policy focused defense. whoever thought donald trump would be doing policy focused defense? he is coming out with new proposals for sort of obscure ideas, bonuses for having children. incentives for building new cities. he is trying to reestablish himself as a veteran politician. which is very offbrand for him, in a way. as a someone that could come in and do this again, that has

ideas, that knows how to do the presidency. then, we get later in the season, once we go to the debate stage and the ads start going from of the old brawling, name-calling trump. it will be very interesting. i think a lot of people, a lot of opponents of trump in the republican party are sort of white knuckled now. wondering whether their chosen candidates can take those punches. because, we have not seen ron desantis ever throw a punch. we have not seen nikki haley go toe to toe with him or tim scott. mike pence has had his rounds but has arguably not done very well at least was republican primary voters. 9 >> governor desantis has not been tested on the national stage but it appears he is gearing up for it because according to some reporting from cnn, he spoke for 40 minutes at the club for growth retreat this while he did not talk about the 2024 raisi talked about the culture war. he said "i am going on offense. some republicans setback like

potted plants and let the media defined the terms of the debate. they let the left defined the terms of the debate because they are not making anything happen. i said, that is not what we are doing. there are democrats that say ron desantis is a demagogue. there are republicans that bristle at his use of executive power to bully, they say, private companies. dissent is here is saying i am going all in. >> -- desantis here is saying i am going all in. >> a really interesting dynamic desantis brings to the debate is how much he is leaning into culture wars. he clearly sees that as his lane in the republican party. that can seize those brenda voters without having that brand of trump with him. the debate emerging, especially when the republican presidential field is as still in formation as it is, is desantis's approach

towards corporations, towards big business. you saw his standoff with disney come to the fore this week revoking the special tax status disney has had in florida. we have always thought of the republican party as a classic pro-business chamber of commerce limited government. his sentence is throwing that out of the window. it will be fascinating to see if republican primary voters in this day and age respond to that. >> what about that, carl? have republicans learned the lesson of the 2022 midterms? that going back to the well of the culture war does not always deliver in the way they want it literally? >> yes, especially when you consider what happened with abortion. there is a make -- big split among republicans still among the establishment republicans, mitch mcconnell, still a big business type republican. he supported the chips bill. they want to foster business.

you have a new more populist brand of republican fighting for the little guy. we hate big business. that is why some of the big business money is being diffused throughout this. you know, about desantis, one thing i find interesting is he is also running against us. the media is a major opponent to ron desantis he is really limiting his media access. i know it is kind of inside baseball. but, can you run a national political campaign without engaging with the media on the level that at least we would expect from a candidate? i think that will be interesting to play out. maybe, he will prove it can be done. >> he is also redefining what it means to be a conservative. alike, it is not just limited government. government was not the solution. ronald reagan said government was the problem. right now ron desantis is traveling the country. he just wrote a book that says government is the solution.

government is how you go after higher education. it's how you go after rope corporations big tech. he passed a law in florida that requires all social media companies to keep accounts for anyone a candidate in that state. that is a remarkable thing for a conservative to do. to tell a private company you have to put on someone spouting whatever they are spouting on your private service. i think it is a discussion conservatives have not really had. rank-and-file conservatives have not really had it among themselves. it has been in the air a while since trump came along. we are walking into a fascinating time. >> to your point, it would have been political malpractice for a governor to attack the marquee business in his or her state the way ron desantis went after disney. it appears he read the landscape correctly. because, he emerged from that with a higher approval rating and won reelection. >> he did not just attacked the

business. he attacked the business proposing his policy. it was like the crime disney committed in florida with -- was opposing and education bill he supported that had nothing to do with this. it was not even a debate over corporate subsidies or something like tha >> along those lines, consider the source, but i believe ron desantis recounted in his book coming out this week that he talked about how the leader of disney came to him and told him how much pressure he was under because of these policies. again, that is ron desantis's recounting of that discussion. it really does show him as strong against this so-called woke corporation. >> we have a lot to cover in the weeks and months to come. michael, carl, thank you. that is washington we can i. thank you to the panel for joining us and share your reporting. thank you to you for watching. tune in to pbs news weekend for the latesefforts to safeguard the 99% of the world's oceans currently without legal protection.

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