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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We'll start on politics and end on music and poetry today. Later, we'll have the poet and historian, Jennifer Michael Hecht, who has a new book called The Wonder Paradox. She's writing for people who don't really believe in religion, even in this month of Easter, Ramadan, and Passover. For the agnostics, atheists, and unaffiliated of the world, she matches many of our major holidays or life events with certain poems. We'll hear why this idea of rituals for non-believers, and invite some of your examples as well with Jennifer Michael Hecht later.

It's the return of The Citizens today. That's the musical theater group, The Citizens, who are the artists and residents at The Greene Space right now on Tuesday's show. As some of you heard, they promised to write a song based on one of the callers to the show that day, and today, they'll deliver it. That'll be around 11:30 after Jennifer Michael Hecht around 11 o'clock, but first this.

Old Beats Crazy. Old Beats Crazy. That's the title of the latest article by New York Magazine national correspondent, Gabe Debenedetti. It's his early framing of President Biden's reelection campaign, Old Beats Crazy. I have a feeling the comparison is with more than just Donald Trump. We'll talk to Gabe about Old Beats Crazy in a minute and find out, but just to set this up, Biden, who's 80, knows his age is an issue that gives people pause about him. It's very well-documented in many, many polls by now, even for people who like him. He addressed it at a news conference yesterday, his first since announcing his reelection campaign on Tuesday.

President Biden: With regard to age, I can't even say, I guess, how old I am. I can't even say the number. It doesn't register with me. The only thing I can say is that one of the things that people are going to find out, they're going to see a race, and they're going to judge whether or not I have or don't have it. I respect them taking a hard look at it. I'd take a hard look at it as well. I took a hard look at it before I decided to run, and I feel good. I feel excited about the prospects. I think we're on the verge of really turning the corner in a way we haven't in a long time.

Brian Lehrer: Joe Biden, yesterday. We'll play another clip of him about age coming up and compare him not just to Trump and other Republicans, but to the Democrats who are primarying him, fringy as they may be on any likelihood of winning, Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tomorrow, by the way, we'll look at the more robust Republican primary field.

With us now is Gabriel Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine and author of the book that came out last fall called The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Gabe, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Always great to be here, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: I don't know if you wrote the headline for the article Old Beats Crazy, but it's framed as a battle of negatives is how it strikes me. The thing that gives people pause about Biden versus the thing that gives people pause about Trump and other Republicans. I think many recent polls show that many Americans are feeling like that now, not so much "Who do I want more?" but "Who do I want less?" How much do you think people see it that way?

Gabriel Debenedetti: Sure. Oh, I think it's pretty clear that people have seen the last two and now three presidential elections that way. That's just the reality of our politics right now that's driven in many ways by negative partisanship but also, in this case, by a lot of negative feelings even within the parties. I am certainly not breaking any news here by saying that, in a lot of polling of Democrats, and Democratic primary voters, even, there's a lot of questioning about Joe Biden and about whether he should be running for a second term.

That is always, when those findings are published, backed up by some sort of feeling that Biden is too old, or there are concerns that he might be too old in a second term. He would, of course, turn 86 at the end of his second term, which is, he's already the oldest president.

The reality is, obviously, no one in Biden's camp would frame the election this way, but they do see it. They do see it this way, which is, if you are going to bake into the analysis about Joe Biden that, yes, he is quite old, yes, you can make an argument about his experience, you can make an argument about how he's seen it all and proven it and that you can just watch him, as he likes to say, but at the end of the day, their argument is, "Well, Donald Trump is old, too, but more importantly, he's crazy."

I'm being flippant about it, but you can't have Donald Trump, this destructive anti-democratic force come back. Joe Biden is the one who has proven he can beat him in the past, and he'll do it again. At the end of the day, if you're looking at it through the lens of these negatives, that's how they see it. They don't think it's that much more complicated than that.

Brian Lehrer: On the old-beats-crazy track, I saw a very encouraging poll number for Biden. We know he and Trump are both low on approval ratings, and most Americans want neither of them to run again. That's the one that usually breaks through into the headlines, but the Wall Street Journal poll out now finds, among people who do want neither of them to run, Biden would beat Trump easily by double digits.

That was a good way to ask the question, I thought. "For those of you who don't want either of them to run, well, if it came to it, which one would you vote for?" Again, Biden won by double digits, which probably is very encouraging for Biden if there is a rematch, no?

Gabriel Debenedetti: Yes, absolutely. I think, again, this has underpinned all of his own and the White House's analysis of this upcoming election. It does seem increasingly likely that we're going to have a rematch. Obviously, a lot can change over the next year plus. The truth is, when you sit down with Joe Biden, is my understanding, he says, "Okay, but at the end of the day, there's all these negative things that you can say about me, but at the end of the day, I beat Donald Trump in all this polling, I've beaten him before, and I'll beat him again."

That is, of course, a compelling argument for a lot of voters as this polling seems to bear out. He doesn't love the fact, and a lot of Democrats don't love the fact that he is not exactly a consensus choice if people are given the option of any Democrat out there, but of course, that's not the reality that they're dealing with. No other Democrat who is a mainstream option is going to be challenging Biden, at least for now, that's what it seems. He's the option that they've got, and people seem to be, for the most part, fairly happy with him.

We're talking about this all in terms of the reelect, but the truth is that his approval ratings track with where Barack Obama's were at this point in his first term, but also where Bill Clinton's were, and even where Ronald Reagan's were, and they all got reelected.

Brian Lehrer: Staying on the old-beats-crazy track, for the primary season, there are two announced Democratic primary challengers, Robert Kennedy Jr., who many Democrats think actually has gone crazy, and Marianne Willamson, not considered crazy like some think of RFK, but who is not well-known in politics. She did write the popular book A Course in Miracles, and she did run in the 2020 primaries as well. We had her on the show as a Democratic primary candidate in 2020. She eventually dropped out and supported Bernie Sanders. She is capturing some interest among young progressives, but nobody thinks either can win, so why are they running?

Gabriel Debenedetti: Well, nobody thinks that either can win, but this, I think-- I want to caution, before we get into too much analysis of this, that this really is different than any other kind of serious challenge that we've seen in the recent past. I remember coming on this program roughly eight years ago at this exact time to talk about this-- "Can't believe that this guy Bernie Sanders is going to challenge Hillary Clinton."

This is something totally different. These are not elected officials. Robert Kennedy Jr. obviously has very high name ID because of his last name. His name is well-known, but these are people who have embraced vaccine conspiracies. They tried to make arguments about corporate power and say that Joe Biden is a figure of the establishment. That message does sometimes break through a little bit, but the reality is that they're not really seen--

Brian Lehrer: Well, there is too much corporate power, and Joe Biden is, to a meaningful degree, a candidate of the establishment, right?

Gabriel Debenedetti: Absolutely, sure. He, of course, has been a senator and vice president and now president for an extremely long time. He is an establishment figure. There's no questioning that whatsoever, but the reality is that these are fringe figures who don't have large followings, who have shown little ability to win over real voters.

Biden is highly unlikely to engage with them in any real way. I don't think we're going to see debates unless something changes pretty dramatically. The polling does show that they pull away from him a little bit, but that is usually a reflection, when you dig a little bit deeper, of this general sentiment of, "Is this really our only option?" rather than actual enthusiasm about those two candidates.

Again, it's very, very, early, but the contours of this race do not look like they're likely to be shaped by these two challengers. They'll draw headlines here and there, and they may show up in New Hampshire because that's a primary that is unlikely to actually award delegates for a number of technical reasons that we don't necessarily need to go into. They may poll well in a state like that, but Biden probably won't show up there because that's not actually going to factor in as things currently stand to him getting the nomination. No one around him is actually all that worried right now.

Brian Lehrer: There's an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer this week with the headline How RFK Jr. and Marianne Williamsons' Unserious Primary Challenges Could Help Biden. I don't know if you saw that article, but the premise in part is that usually when there are primary challenges, even by people who aren't likely to win, Pat Buchanan, challenging George H. W. Bush in 1992, more seriously, Ted Kennedy challenging the incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980, that did hurt Carter. The point being that when an incumbent president gets a serious primary challenger when he's running for reelection, it can hurt the ultimate re-election campaign.

In this case, they're saying it's not only an afterthought, it might actually even help Biden that Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr. are primary him. Do you get that?

Gabriel Debenedetti: Sure. I think that it's not necessarily the consensus conventional wisdom right now, but there is an argument to be made. The arguments that they are making about corporate power, for example, are ones that Biden might be able to embrace lightly, at least. He certainly is capable of at times talking like an economic populist without really having to worry that they're going to catch on Ala, for example, Bernie Sanders in 2016 who of course give Hillary Clinton more than just a headache. There was an existential problem for her campaign there.

Biden doesn't really, as it currently stands, have to worry about losing this nomination to either of them. If they're going to talk a little bit more about some of these topics, fine. Biden's obviously not going to entertain a conversation about whether or not vaccines are safe, which is something that of course, Robert Kennedy Jr. is known for at this point.

Brian Lehrer: At this point, Robert Kennedy, Jr. even I saw one article where he was praising Tucker Carlson after Carlson got fired from Fox News the other day Carson, for having the courage to go against the government, pharmaceutical, industrial complex, or however Kennedy put it, something like that, and even throwing out the idea that maybe the reason Carson was fired was because of that, and because of something that got revealed or that he said about that recently, the pharmaceutical industry and its overwhelming power in government on failed vaccines. Of course, the vaccines work. There he is, running in a Democratic primary throwing light on Tucker Carlson.

Gabriel Debenedetti: There's no doubt that you can make an argument that there are Democrats who have legitimate complaints about corporate power, clearly. That's something fundamentally different from pedaling conspiracies about vaccines. Kennedy was known for a long time as a very well-established environmental activist.

Brian Lehrer: That's right.

Gabriel Debenedetti: People, really liberals really liked to hear from him what he was known for. Recent history has been littered with cases of people who have the last name, Kennedy, running for some sort of office and doing better than you might expect simply because of that name. He is, in fact, a member of the family. That is Bobby Kennedy's son, but the truth is that other members of his family have gone on record and saying this doesn't represent us. He's far from where the Democratic Party is at this point. I don't want to give this too much here because in some ways, it is a vaccine conspiracy that he is pedaling as one of the things that he is known for, for the most part.

Again, the Biden people in the mainstream of the Democratic Party simply don't see this as a real challenge or as a challenge to be too concerned about because it is the fundamental underpinnings of his candidacy appear to be fairly out of step with what actual Democrats are voting for and liked at this point.

Brian Lehrer: To the extent that either of the challengers gets any national publicity, it could even make Biden look safer to independent swing voters come November next year. The fact that he shrugged off or he was more establishment than these people coming from the relative fringes who might be considered further left or further out there. If people are being told by the Republicans that the Democrats are too far left, one thing people might have in their minds if independent swing voters is, "Well look who ran against Joe Biden. He's center-left."

Gabriel Debenedetti: Yes, absolutely. This also has to do with the way that Biden has been able to win for the most part since he started running as a candidate in 2019. Remember, he didn't do very well for quite a long time, but ultimately the pitch that won him the primary when things really winnowed in 2020, and that he has managed to be successful in that general election, and then as president is, I am the mainstream option here. I'm the normal guy. You won't have to wake up every morning and worry about what I tweeted. He wasn't the one who said this in the Democratic primaries, it was Michael Bennett, but he clearly embraced the message that, "When I'm president, you don't have to think about me every day."

The whole argument is essentially-- this is normal steady leadership and when you're able to make a display of shrugging off fringy opponents in a primary, it may in fact, absolutely get you toward the case that you're trying to make, that he's trying to make and has been successful in making that he is the one who is going to be able to shrug off or be dispatch Trumpism. He's done it in the past, at least electorally. As he says, he still needs to finish that job.

Brian Lehrer: If you're just joining us, we're talking about these early days of the presidential campaign for 2024. Now that Joe Biden officially announced on Tuesday that he's running for re-election, talking a little bit about the Democratic primary field as we've been more about Biden versus whatever Republican it may be next year.

Tomorrow we'll do part two of this on the Republican side, which will much more be about the primary field with a number of pretty well-established politicians getting into that race.

We can take your calls on Biden. A few things that you might want to address. Are you enthusiastic about him running? If you are very anti-Trump or anti-Republican, we know you're going to vote, but if you're a little more ambivalent if you voted in 2020, do you think you're going to show up again in 2024? It's one of the things I wonder about. It was huge turnout in 2020.

If people don't want Biden and don't want Trump, and it's the two of them again, I wonder if turnout is going to be much lower and who that will benefit. Do you think you're even going to turn out in 2024 no matter who you're for in that matchup or if there's some other Republican? If you are a Marianne Williamson supporter or RFK Jr. supporter, you can in too. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692 with Gabe Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine, an author of the book that came out last fall called The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama. His new article in New York Magazine is called Old Beats Crazy.

Biden's main response to the age question has been, you think I'm too old? Just watch me. As we already cited, he came out on fire in the State of the Union address, remember that? With the fast pace and the announcement video, his campaign dropped on Tuesday. He was also trying to keep it upbeat, keep it hot in yesterday's news conference, first one since announcing. Here's one more clip of Biden from the news conference in which he goes further than just watch me. This begins with him addressing age, and then he takes it somewhere else.

Joe Biden: With regard to age and pulling data, I noticed the pulling data I keep hearing about is that I'm between 42 and 46% favorable rating, et cetera. Everybody running for reelection in this time has been in the same position. There's nothing new about that. We're making it sound like Biden's really underwater, number one.

Number two, when the same polling data asked what they think what job I've done, it gets overwhelmingly positive results from 58% thinking and everything from the Chips Act and all the things we've done. Like I said, we've created 12 million new jobs. We've created 800,000 manufacturing jobs. We have economic growth moving. We're in a situation where the climate, we've invested more money and more help in dealing with the climate crisis than any nation in the world and so things are moving. The reason I'm running again is there's a job to finish.

Brian Lehrer: Biden, from yesterday's news conference. We're with Gabe Debenedetti from New York Magazine. Gabe, he's going to make a case for reelection around accomplishments and try to focus people on those, in addition to saying the Republicans are crazy in anti-democracy. Do you think we're in for economic growth versus, oh no, there's still high inflation on Biden's watch, centerpiece of the campaigns next year?

Gabriel Debenedetti: I don't know if it's going to be a centerpiece, honestly. It's definitely something that is going to be underpinning a lot of how voters actually feel about this. Biden has been pretty clear that he does want to run on these accomplishments. He feels good about, like he said, the Chips Act, but also he was talking about that with Asian leaders, but also the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. He thinks that he's got a lot to run on.

You have heard from some mainstream Republicans a counterargument to this, which is, do you really think that you're better off economically than you were four years ago? It's the standard line of argument against incumbent presidents.

Biden or people close to him, at least, their case is essentially, well, when he took office, we were in the depths of the pandemic. 80,000 Americans died the month that he took office. Look at where we are now. They feel pretty good about that case that they can make.

The thing is that so often recently, Trump or people surrounding Trump have really dictated the terms of debate very frequently. That's not the most disciplined world in terms of economic messaging. It's not as if Biden really is preparing to have a straight conversation about economic growth during his era, which again, has been pretty good, but as you said, inflation is a real issue for voters. The way that he has framed it, or his team has started to frame it, is in terms of freedoms.

I mean, I was talking to some people around him, and they made the case that essentially they have found people really respond when they say yes, the economy has grown, yes inflation is still a problem. Our central concern here is protecting the freedoms that these crazy Republicans are trying to go after.

Economic issues are, of course, very front and center for people, but it's not just kitchen table matters as they're usually talked about in presidential elections because there are some more fundamental problems here. The right to abortion was completely a massive- an issue that completely changed the 2022 midterms because of Republican advances or attacks on abortion rights.

That's clearly something that the Biden or Democrats, pro-Biden Democrats are going to continue to be talking about. Are they just going to be talking about the economy? Seems highly unlikely.

Brian Lehrer: Donald in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Donald.

Donald: Oh, hi Brian. I wanted to mention that from my point of view, Biden is underrated as a president. I think his organizational abilities with regard to NATO and defending Ukraine have been extraordinary. He may sound older than most candidates, but that doesn't bother me so much. He's not Trump too, nor is he any other Republican that we see right now. I think he deserves a second term, quite frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. How about Michael in Manhattan? You're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi, Brian. Good morning. My concern is about, and I'd like to know if there's any inside information on his choice to stay with Kamala Harris. To me, that's the weak link. I'm going to definitely vote for Biden. I think as the previous caller said, he's done a great job. I'm going to hold my breath and cross my fingers. I just don't see her as presidential.

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] Why don't you see her as presidential? Why do you think she's a weak link, which implies you think a lot of other people don't see her as presidential?

Michael: Well, there've been a couple of op-eds in The Times recently. I think Thomas, was it Thomas Friedman, somebody who wrote about that? I just don't think she has the experience. I didn't think she was a strong candidate during the primaries and the last election, the debate. The administration is trying very hard to get her out front. They gave her the abortion issues to work on and several other, and they're sending her on international ventures.

I personally just don't see her as a presidential candidate. If Biden something goes happen, and I would make that a consideration under normal circumstances. Now given the Republican field, I have no doubt that I would even consider anyone other than Biden in a [unintelligible 00:24:06].

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you very much. Well, of course, on the experience question, she's been US Senator from California State, Attorney General in California, and now Vice President of the United States for four years by the time the election comes around.

Gabe, do you see, politically speaking as just as a political analyst, Kamala Harris being either a plus, a minus, or just not a factor in Biden's reelection campaign?

Gabriel Debenedetti: Yes. There are a few things here. First, you're absolutely right. The experience question goes out of the way once you've been vice president for four years. To the other point, this is a question that I get sometimes as someone who's spent a lot of time around the White House, people around it, the Vice President. They get really frustrated with this question because they think, and I think they're right, it just is not based in political reality.

If you look at, for example, that recent op-ed that the caller was referring to by Thomas Friedman, yes, there are a lot of concerns that people have about Kamala Harris politically, but to me, they tend to sound very vague. The reality here is that, as Friedman himself and every other columnist who writes about this, does admit two things are true.

One, it's essentially unprecedented that anyone would ever make a decision on the top of the ticket on a presidential election based on who the vice president is. That just doesn't happen. Number two, Harris's numbers were pretty bad for a while. Right now, they're basically tracking exactly the same as Biden's, her approval rating, how people view her. The idea that she's some major liability just isn't born out in the numbers.

The other thing here is, she did run a bad campaign for the presidency in the primaries in 2020. Who else did, of course, was Joe Biden in 2008 before Barack Obama picked him. That's certainly how he sees it. He says, why should we believe that is a disqualifying factor here?

The other reality is that she remains very popular among some voters who are absolutely central to Biden's appeal, to Biden's political coalition. She is especially popular among some women voters, certainly among many Black voters. The administration does find that she is useful on a lot of political matters, even if there have been some obvious stumbling blocks in the first term.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Nick in Mountain Lakes in Jersey, who maybe is interested in RFK Jr. Nick, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Nick: Hey, Brian. How are you guys today? I actually just stumbled into the whole RFK thing a couple of days ago. I've been reading quite a bit about him. I understand the hesitation with the vaccine talk, and I think that he's certainly toned that down, but I think he has a lot of other really good, interesting ideas for the direction of our country. I think people should go and check out his website and read about what he's talking about.

I, of course, am against a Trump presidency. I'm not loving the idea of a Biden presidency, a second term with the oldest president in our history. I think that just getting back to what you guys were just talking about, it does matter who the vice president is when you have an 86-year-old president or an 85-year-old president. That's what I'll say about RFK and what's going on.

Brian Lehrer: What is it that jumped out about RFK Jr's policies on anything that interested you? You want to give an example?

Nick: Yes. Let me think about that just for a second. I think he talked a lot about moving away from corporate interest in our government, these big power censorships, just control from the elite, which I know again, does sound a little conspiracy theorist and all that good stuff. I really think there's a lot there and I look forward to hearing more from him, and hopefully people are open-minded, and maybe Joe will go and debate him eventually if he rises in the polls.

Brian Lehrer: Nick, thank you for your call. I appreciate it. On the Kamala Harris, I wonder how hard the Republican candidate, whoever it turns out to be, and the party, and the unofficial outside the party, dark money campaign advertisers and all of that stuff are going to use racism and sexism and try to frame things where maybe they have deniability on that.

Gabe, I'm sure you agree they don't even care about deniability anymore. They're using such obvious racist images the way they went after Alvin Bragg, other things. Look at what happened with the two young Black lawmakers in Tennessee. Something's happening with a transwoman now who's in the legislature in Montana. I mean, there's very little shyness relative to recent decades about literally going after people's identities to build a white male, whatever you want to call it, passion and/or grievance politics and build turnout on that. I'm cringing in advance at how they might go after Black South Asian woman, Kamala Harris, this year.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Sure. There's no doubt that they'll do that. They did that in 2020 when she was the vice presidential nominee, and they'll do it again.

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] Right, but now because age is an issue for Biden in a way that it wasn't four years ago, they'll probably get explicit about saying, look who's one stroke away from becoming president of the United States?

Gabriel Debenedetti: There's nothing to say about that other than yes, of course, they'll do that. Of course, Biden and Harris are well aware that they will do that, and presumably, they'll try and call it out wherever they see it. Where this often runs into the rocks is that's not an argument for replacing Kamala Harris on the ticket because the Republicans are going to be racist and sexist about her. Like you said, I think everyone on the Democratic side understands that the argument will be Joe Biden is too old to do this job, and she will be taking over afterwards.

I do think that you're likely to see a lot more talk about the vice president than you usually do in a reelection campaign for that simple reason. There's very little evidence that actually works as a political issue, especially when it's so obviously couched in these racist terms.

In a Republican primary maybe she will work as a target. In the general election so far there's no evidence whatsoever that voters actually like to hear things like that.

Brian Lehrer: Jerome in the Bronx with skepticism on Biden. You're on WNYC. Hi, Jerome.

Jerome: Hi. Good morning. On page 15 of today's New York Times, they have a fact check of what the comments Biden made yesterday. I'll just read his comment and then they're- not their whole comment for example--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, give us one good one that you think might matter.

Jerome: I noticed the polling data I keep hearing about is between 42 and 46% favorable ratings, but everybody running for reelections this time has been in the same position. This is exaggerated somewhere down here.

Brian Lehrer: All right, Trump having trouble getting to the point, and we're going to run at a time in the segment soon. Not to deny the fact that The Times has a fact-check article about things Biden said in his news conference yesterday, that particular one you addressed it before Gabe, about where many of our reelected presidents have been at this point in their first terms, right?

Gabriel Debenedetti: Yes, that's right. I think it speaks to a larger reality that not only have a lot of presidents who do get reelected, been at this point in their first terms, been around this point in terms of low rating, but a lot of politicians just are at this point in the 40s rather than the 50s. This has been true for the last 10 years or so. Very, very rare for a politician to actually have positive approval writing in the national arena.

It's also true though, of course, that Donald Trump had a similar approval rating at this point in his tenure as president. Just because you have an approval rating like this doesn't mean you get reelected so much as it means you're not necessarily not going to get reelected. This is the partisan reality that we live in here. Almost all Republicans disapprove of Biden, almost all Democrats approve of Biden, and some people say, "Huh, not so sure about that."

Brian Lehrer: What about turnout? Of course, the Republicans don't have a nominee yet. The Democrats have a presumed nominee. Is either side worried about turnout? Remember what we saw in 2016 was a certain amount of turnout than what we saw in 2020 after four years of Trump in the White House was an explosion of turnout. People can forget Trump got even more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. That's not the big lie. That's the part that's considered the truth. He got more votes than he did in 2016, but Biden got a lot more votes than him, which goes to just how much more turnout there was in 2020.

If it's Biden versus Trump, and people are unenthusiastic about both, do you think turnout is an issue that threatens one more than the other?

Gabriel Debenedetti: Yes. Well, before we get into too many details on this, I want to caution what, 19 months out for the election. A lot is going to change between now and then, and turnout is definitely dependent on what happens in the months before the election.

In terms of the broader question of enthusiasm, I think all you need to do is look at the pattern since 2016. It's absolutely true that when Donald Trump is on the ballot, Republicans have a pretty big turnout. It's also true that when Trump is on the ballot, Democrats have a massive turnout and Democratic turnout has not really ebbed and flowed that much. It's been consistently high since that era.

That's not to say that Democrats feel necessarily extremely confident that they're going to overperform in this upcoming election in terms of turnout. The winds have been shifting in their favor. Just look at how Democrats, yes, they lost the house in 2022, but they very widely overperformed in other races. That, to a lot of people, is a potence of the way that things might be shifting in terms of democratic fury continuing with Trumpism, but also anger with the direction that a lot of Republican leadership has taken the country.

Again, I bring up the abortion issue because it is often misunderstood or underrepresented as a fundamental shift in terms of how a lot of people think about voting right now.

Brian Lehrer: Clearly. Maybe one of the things that we'll see next year eventually is democracy and abortion rights from Biden versus threats to your kids from drag story hour, and see which narrative draws out more voters. Is that the culture war that we're in for? I think we saw democracy and certainly abortion rights beat anti-LGBTQ, beat it in 2022 for the most part. The Republicans won congressional seats around New York City, around the city's suburbs based on crime. Is it a culture war of abortion rights versus anti-LGBTQ scare tactics?

Gabriel Debenedetti: That's certainly one possible vector for the culture war to follow over in the next year or two. The reality though is that that messaging was driven by a lot of Republicans, but it wasn't driven primarily by Trump who, if he is the nominee, will be driving the message no matter what.

What does Trump talk about these days? He still talks about the 2020 election. He still talks about the 2016 election, that's the reality is if he just talks about how an election was stolen. We of course know that it wasn't. That's not the culture war that we're expecting necessarily that you're talking about, but that's, I think, just as likely to be a central topic for him if he's the nominee as anything else.

Brian Lehrer: Gabe Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine, author of the book that came out last fall called The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and of the new article in New York Magazine called Old Beats Crazy. Gabe, as always, thanks a lot.

Gabriel Debenedetti: Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Tomorrow, we'll do part two of this and assess the Republican primary field. Who are these candidates running against Trump? Could any of them win? Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come today.

 

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