BULLETIN: NEW INTERNAL SWING STATE POLLS, PELOSI COMMENTS, MAY MAKE BIDEN WITHDRAWAL INEVITABLE - 7.2.24

SERIES 2 EPISODE 205: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN:  I now believe the President is going to stand aside and Kamala Harris will replace him as the nominee, and I think there is as much as a 50-50 chance he will also resign his office before the election.

This is NOT based on sourced reporting or inside information but merely an accumulation of new developments during the course of Tuesday, and I take no pleasure in making any of these conclusions, and I haven't even thought long enough about them to be certain if I concur or am opposed to this outcome.But

After Nancy Pelosi's comments today about President Biden and how "I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? When people ask that question, it's completely legitimate" and how nothing she could have said would do less to tamp down speculation or debate, and especially after today's report of leaked internal swing state Democratic polling, I think - as my friend of half a century Will Bunch put it, "it feels like an energy shift in the force."

The polling is described in detail. The bottom line is that in the 72 hours after the debate, Democratic internal pollsters OpenLabs reported that the six swing states had become twelve swing states and Biden had lost about two points in both of them and was now trailing Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania by seven.

It's not sustainable. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This
is a countdown full of an podcast. I'm Keith Olderman.
Let me be clear on what I am about to say.
There is no inside information here, I have no sources.

(00:25):
I am not predicting this, and I am not advocating this,
and I am not happy about this, and I have
not even spent much time thinking about it whether or
not I agree with it. This is an assessment and
it has changed. I think the president is going to
stand aside and Kamala Harris will replace him as the
Democratic nominee. And I think there is a fifty to

(00:48):
fifty chance that he will further resign his office before
the election. Again, this is not a report, it's an assessment.
I also do not think any of this is imminent,
but it is based on two things, principally that have
happened during the day Tuesday comments by Nancy Pelosi which
read to me as a signal to President Biden to

(01:10):
act while it is still entirely in your own control.
And secondly, these internal Progressive polls leaked to Puck News
about the fall in mister Biden's support in the swing
states and more importantly, the new reality. They reflect that
there are now after the debate, as many as six

(01:33):
new swing states that were solidly in Biden's camp a
week ago. Today that New Hampshire is now Trump by three,
Virginia is Trump by one and a half, that the
President now has leads of half a point or less
in New Mexico, in Maine, in Minnesota, that Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia,

(01:58):
North Carolina, and the Nebraska second are all Trump by
four or more. And it's seven in Michigan and Pennsylvania
right now, that in the three days after the debate,
Joe Biden's support dropped by roughly two percentage points in
all twelve of these states I've just mentioned, and also

(02:18):
in Colorado and Minnesota. And what this internal polling done
for Democrats says is that if Joe Biden cannot recover
all of that, the Democrats are looking at an election
loss by at least one hundred electoral votes. Pucks Peter
Hamby says the polls are from open Labs, the progressive

(02:42):
nonprofit that does not survey for public consumption, but instead
for a variety of democratic organizations and is linked directly
to future forward a Biden campaign super pack. Open Labs
has also done a lot of work for the Democratic
Senatorial Committee. Hamby also caveats that their national picture barely

(03:02):
changed at all after the poll after the debate. But
if it is one thing that we learned in twenty sixteen,
after we learned it and forgot it in two thousand,
it is that the national polls don't matter a dam,
and that literally the swing state polls are truly parts
that are greater than the sum. Open Labs also reports
a seismic shift in a deep interior number in the polls.

(03:26):
In May, one quarter of Biden's twenty twenty voters surveyed
said he should drop out. Now open Labs reports the
number after the debate has ballooned to forty percent, forty
percent of those who supported Joe Biden in twenty twenty
telling them he should drop out. The company also surveyed

(03:47):
potential substitute candidates in the swing state the vice president,
Governor's Newsom and Wittner, and Secretary Buddhage Edge. And they
all Paul better than does Joe Biden against Trump. And
they all Paul better than Joe Biden does in all
of the swing states. There is also a c ann poll.
I'm not attaching nearly as much credibility to it as

(04:08):
I am to these open labs numbers, but it is confirmatory.
It says today, of all voters of all parties, three
quarters say the Democrats would have a better shot of
retaining the White House if somebody other than Biden runs.
Then there are the comments, and as I mentioned, principle
among them from Nancy Pelosi on MSNBC. I think it's

(04:30):
a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or
is this a condition? When people ask that question, it's
completely legitimate of both candidates. Pelosi went on to reveal
she has not spoken to the president, but quoting again,
it's not a question of not having an opportunity to
make our concerns known or have some questions answered. She

(04:53):
also says others are speaking, and their assessments conflict. Quote.
Some are alike, well, how can we subject the process
to what might be possible? Others are Joe is our guy.
We love him, we trust him. He has vision, knowledge, judgment, integrity.
I trust his judgment on quote. I don't think you

(05:14):
have to know Nancy Pelosi very well to know that
much of that sounds like code. I think it's a
legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is
this a condition? If there were anything she could say
that would do less to contain all of this, I
am hard pressed to guess what it could be. She

(05:34):
also talks about subjecting the nominating process to what might
be possible. And we have Jim Clyburn, one of Biden's
oldest and most loyal supporters, saying he quote will support
Kamala Harris if Biden steps aside. The Texas Congressman Lloyd
Doggett has explicitly today called for Biden to step aside.

(05:56):
Says that as the debate, instead of reassuring voters, the
president failed to effectively defend as many accomplishments and expose
Trump's many lies, and he should step away and to
add insult to last week's injury to democracy at his hands,
CNN Jake Tapper reported then partially retracted and changed a

(06:18):
story about a teleconference among Democratic governors Monday led by
Minnesota Tim Walls to discuss the ticket. He says, the
unnamed governors, we don't even know how many of them
there were were surprised to learn that the President had
spoken to none of them. Yet there now will be
some kind of meeting with the governors and the White House,

(06:40):
presumably with the President tomorrow and the last thrust of
history's dagger. Experts at the Campaign Legal Center are telling
the website The American Prospect that if Biden does withdraw,
then there is only one way for the new nominee
and the Democratic Party to smoothly spend all the money

(07:01):
that has been raised by the Biden for President campaign committee,
and as of May thirty one, that was two hundred
and twenty million dollars, another thirty three million raised since
the debate, probably much more in the coffers. The only
way that committee could seamlessly spend all that money without restrictions,
without firewalls, without labyrinths, spend it on the new candidate

(07:23):
is if the new candidate is Vice President Harris. As
to the other thing I suggested about Biden possibly actually
leaving office, that is a pure hunch on my part,
built out of several ideas, primarily the one that if
the President were to agree or be convinced that he
has to bow out of the ticket now that he

(07:45):
would also see the almost priceless value of immediately attaching
the title of the incumbent to Kamala Harris's name. Running
as the president instead of as the vice president, Kamala
Harris's support would necessarily rise by how much is entirely speculative?

(08:07):
How much does it need to be? Obviously I said
here in the latest full podcast on Tuesday morning. It
is also inarguable that if the president has to drop
out because he is not up to discharging the office
six months and eighteen days from now, he's probably not
up to discharging the office right now either. The argument

(08:31):
for not resigning but leaving the ticket is more ethereal
more philosophical. Could Joe Biden staying in office while withdrawing
from the ticket ennoble this process. Here is the man
giving up the most powerful position in the world, the
man who beat Trump, giving up the office he spent

(08:52):
his entire life trying to reach, and giving it up
solely to ensure that America beats Trump again. And here
standing beside him is the public servant, the vice president,
who he has selected and who he now endorses. Is

(09:13):
that worth her not being the incumbent in November again?
There is plenty of new material on the table to
sift through. Nothing has happened. I don't believe anything will
happen imminently. I'm just saying the vibe changed. My vibe changed.
I'll be back with the regular edition of the podcast

(09:34):
late Tuesday night early Wednesday morning to assess the new
material on the table and what could be new developments
in the rest of the day. And again my caveat,
this is an assessment. This is the kind of recalculation
you go through in your head as you judge anything
that has one hundred factors in it, or you look
at a patient or a job and say, I don't

(09:57):
think this is going to last much longer. There is
no source reporting behind what I am saying. I take
no pride whatsoever in saying any of it. I just
think that while it is my job here to express
opinions and try to influence events, as unlikely as that
really is, my primary purpose is to tell you what
is fact, what I have heard, and just as importantly,

(10:20):
what my assessment of all these facts and hearings is.
And my assessment is Joe Biden will leave the ticket,
presumably not imminently. Let me close with the perfect phrasing,
but exactly what I feel is going on today, and
it is from my friend for more than half a century,
from the days when I was the editor in chief
and he was my ace news reporter on our high

(10:42):
school newspaper, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer. It does feel,
Will says, like an energy shift in the force. This
has been a countdown bulletin podcast. I'm Keith Olrumantown with

(11:05):
Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.