Democratic strategist warns changing presidential nominee 'is not cost-free'
Saher Khan

Three of President Biden’s top political advisers met with Senate Democrats behind closed doors to address concerns over his political future. Some lawmakers expressed skepticism before and after the meeting. Geoff Bennett spoke with Democratic strategist Philippe Reines for more analysis of Biden’s standing in the race.

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Geoff Bennett: For more analysis of President Biden’s upcoming press conference and his political standing, we’re joined now by Democratic strategist and former adviser to Hillary Clinton Philippe Reines.

Philippe, thanks so much for being here.

Philippe Reines, Former Clinton Adviser: Thank you.

Geoff Bennett: What, if anything, can President Biden do in this press conference tonight to quell concerns and end these calls for him to exit the race?

Philippe Reines: Honestly, I would say nothing because everyone is so dug in, that there’s confirmation bias.

And that if you want him to have to leave, you’re going to find plenty of things in what he says and how he says it and how he looks to walk away with that. Before the press conference even started, he accidentally called President Zelenskyy President Putin. So you have half of Washington already lighting up their phones.

Geoff Bennett: But he caught himself and made the correction.

Philippe Reines: He caught himself, yes. I don’t think it’s a big deal. I mean, the fact that he even knows world leaders, I mean, most Americans wouldn’t catch that, but this is how Washington, as you know, works.

The issue here is, why are we all sitting around with bated breath watching a press conference for a NATO Summit? If Joe Biden is going to salvage this, which he absolutely can, he’s got to go out and do his job without there being these huge moments in time that can blow up, because you know what? These huge moments in time aren’t going to save him.

They can only go bad. He needs to go out there on a regular basis, maybe just go to the hamburger store with Vice President Harris with the Ray-Bans on, have someone yell a question at him, or be in the Rose Garden and sign something.

It needs to be regular, not, OK, we’re doing this big interview with George Stephanopoulos, this big interview with Lester Holt, this big press conference. I could tell you right now, I have been to a ton of NATO and other kind of press conferences. Half of that room is foreign press.

They’re going to raise their hand and they’re going to ask something actually about NATO. And the American press is going to be livid, because that’s not why they’re there.

Geoff Bennett: As we mentioned, top campaign staffers met with Senate Democrats today to address their concerns. If you’re a Biden campaign adviser, what’s your best argument to some of these worried Democrats as to why Joe Biden should stay in the race?

Philippe Reines: I think it’s a couple of things.

First, listening to Jen O’Malley Dillon laying it out, that’s obviously the first place to start, that there are many ways to get there. I’m sure she did it in the room, but, obviously, you need to hear how. The how is what’s missing right now. Everyone is focused on the damage, not how to move on. We’re all mired in it.

I — what’s missing here is this notion that moving away from Joe Biden, which we should all remember is entirely his decision — the entire country can decide it shouldn’t be him and that doesn’t make a difference — that there is a cost to that. There are people who support Joe Biden who would be upset by that. OK.

It would rationally and logically be Kamala Harris, the vice president, his partner, to be the nominee. Now, there are lots of people playing fantasy football who then want to say, you know what, it should be Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom or maybe them together or maybe them reversed.

There’s a huge opportunity cost there, a huge risk. Every iteration you go out, you have to do the cost/benefit analysis. So, frankly, to some extent, the argument you’re making is, it is not cost-free to just suddenly uproot who the nominee is.

There’s an argument — first of all, he’s the only person that’s beaten Donald Trump. So maybe we just stick with the horse that we rode in on. But there’s also an argument that, if Joe Biden were to lose, which I don’t think is the fait accompli, but, if he were to lose, there would be less carnage. There’d be a lot of very upset people, yours included, that there would be less carnage than if it went through the process of some various cockamamie schemes that alienated multiple demographics and subsets of the party to end up in the same place,losing the White House.

That could linger for a long time.

Geoff Bennett: What do you think it means then that the Biden campaign, its data team, according to The New York Times, is poll-testing Kamala Harris against Donald Trump right now?