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00:00I'm not going anywhere. He said it before and he said it again at the US President Joe Biden as he's vowed again to stay in the presidential race saying he's confident that the average voter still wants him on the Democratic ticket.
00:12Biden even calling into a daytime television show to repeat his mantra as he urged anyone who wants him to step aside to challenge him when the Democratic National Convention meets in August.
00:24I'm getting so frustrated by the elites. Now I'm not talking about you guys, but about the elites in the party who they know so much more.
00:33If any of these guys don't think I should run against me, go and announce the president. Challenge me at the convention.
00:41The bottom line here is that we're not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere.
00:47Well, let's discuss all the latest then. International affairs commentator Doug Herbert is with me here on set. Good to have you with us.
00:53I'm not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. Well, I hope not. Not for the next five minutes anyway.
00:57Biden's campaign is scrambling, isn't it really, to calm the anxieties of Democrats and crucially as well and of donors.
01:05Yeah. And why is it doing that? Because you have a president who many in this party, even if they're not saying it at this point, seems to be locked in his own bubble, a self-delusional bubble, denial.
01:17Like I said, not explicitly stated. The narrative that is sort of taking hold more and more as each day goes by, Stuart, in the U.S., is one in which Joe Biden, a well-meaning president with a very impressive record of achievement in office over the past three and a half years,
01:34is seeing his campaign and his own role within it as the presumptive nominee starkly at odds in a very different way than many in his own party, not to mention the grassroots voters themselves.
01:48The Washington Post actually sort of called it Joe Biden against the world in an analysis piece. In his own perception, we heard it there. He's frustrated, indignant, angry.
01:59He doesn't understand why everyone keeps harping on day after day about his mental fitness, his mental acuity when he thinks everyone should be talking about one thing and one thing, only Donald Trump.
02:10I want to show you, though, something that sort of goes to the heart of this disconnect. It was in The Washington Post, one of their analyses, where they, meaning Democrats in his party and others, see polls predicting political calamity.
02:22He, Biden, sees a dead heat where they, the Democrats, see a rapidly aging man who should sit for cognitive tests. He sees no problem that can't be fixed with a display of energy and force where they see a 90 minute debate that showcased the state of his mental acuity.
02:38He sees it simply as a bad night as he vented off jet lag and a cold. So it really is this split split screen campaign. And what's making it worse, perhaps, is, you know, presidents in the U.S. always exist within a bubble, right?
02:52You have the president in their concentric rings of security, Secret Service, tight, you know, close advisers around them, their aides, so on and so forth.
03:03It's almost like for many Democrats looking on who see what a lot of millions of Americans saw in this debate, a president who a well-meaning president who was really patently struggling, clearly at pains, not just to throw a knockout punch, just to hold his own for 90 minutes.
03:20It's like the Truman Show in a way, in a way. Remember that show where every time the main character walks, walks anywhere, they set up this this sort of set, this village, a delusion of what he actually sees.
03:31And in a sense, Joe Biden, when he goes, it's true when he goes to rallies, he sees a lot of people cheering him on.
03:37He sees a lot of people, you know, that seem to be for four square behind him.
03:42He goes to churches, as he did over the weekend. He has very strong black constituency supporting him.
03:48The pastors, they're telling him, you're our man, you know, you know, we're here.
03:52God, God sent you. We're going to give you comfort here. So he sees that he hears that.
03:57So he's not lying in his view. He does have this support.
04:00What he's not seeing and hearing, and you only sort of see blips of it, are the dissenters, the people who have doubts because his aides really aren't saying that.
04:09And they're trying to double down in their own narrative there, Stuart, that we're looking towards Trump.
04:14We're looking for this election. I'm the only nominee. I'm the presumptive nominee. Let's move on.
04:20He does have staunch supporters, though, doesn't he, Doug? I mean, will they stick with him, though?
04:24There's the question, right? The Congressional Black Caucus for now is very much behind him.
04:28Like I said, he's got in very good receptions over the weekend in churches where he went to.
04:33One of the pastors, one of the people in one of those churches saying you have a 91 year old pastor sitting here as well.
04:40You know, you're a young whippersnapper, Mr. President, by comparison.
04:44So trying to pump him up, trying to show, you know, give him a little wind in his sails right now.
04:48And like I said, Biden's sitting there and and smiling through it all.
04:53Look, he is aware of this parallel narrative. But like I said, only in little blips.
05:00And he really sees his supporters perhaps as much more of a as much larger group than perhaps they are.
05:07There was a New York Times Siena College poll last week, very respected poll that came out,
05:13which showed that 74 percent of voters do not think that Biden or they think that he's too old to be effective as president for another four years.
05:22Fifty nine percent of those are Democrats. That shows really what this image problem is.
05:28His staunch supporters aren't that staunch, perhaps.
05:31And even the ones there are a lot who have been holding out. Right.
05:34The minority leader in the House, his name is Hakeem Jeffries.
05:37He's been canvassing opinion, hasn't been giving his own opinion yet.
05:41Very respected in the party. Another big party leader, Chuck Schumer, the majority leader in the Senate.
05:48He also has been holding out, hasn't come out explicitly saying Biden should step aside.
05:53But you just sort of can't help but ask, is it a matter of time before they do?
05:57And if they don't, what is going to keep them sort of hunkered in and buckled into this narrative that the campaign is trying to push?
06:04What about the other guy here, Doug? I'm talking about Donald Trump.
06:07I mean, we haven't heard much from him in the last week or so, have we?
06:10Part of that was deliberate. Donald Trump was, you know, probably deliberately and his advisers keeping a relatively,
06:15I said relatively because we're talking about Donald Trump, the ultimate entertainer and showman. Right.
06:20But keeping a relatively low profile, probably just letting Biden, as they would see it, go on self-destruct.
06:26Let him, you know, fumble over himself. But it's not that's going to change soon.
06:31You have a lot of Trump PACs, political action committees,
06:34ramping up in the next days and weeks to spend millions and millions of dollars on ad blitzes,
06:40attacking Joe Biden on various issues from immigration to crime to the border.
06:46They don't even have to go after his mental acuity. They'll let the Democrats do that.
06:50And you also have Trump about to he's going to be holding a rally this Tuesday, I believe, at a golf club in Florida.
06:57Over the weekend, he's going to be in Pennsylvania holding another rally.
07:01So he's not exactly just sitting there on the sidelines.
07:04He's very much out there and he is looking to capitalize as much as he can on what they see as Biden's self-destruct mode right now.
07:14And the internecine squabbling with it, as you will, within the Democratic Party.
07:19Basically, they're like, let the Democrats go at it. They're doing our job for us.