GOP Strategist Wishes Biden Was More 'Honest' In Oval Office Speech: 'He Should've Squared With Us'
Adam Goodman, partner at Ballard Partners, joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss President Joe Biden's Oval Office address just days after he dropped out of the 2024 race, and Vice President Kamala Harris as the likely Democratic nominee.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi everybody, I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News.
00:06Joining me now is Adam Goodman, partner at Ballard Partners.
00:09Adam, thank you so much for coming on.
00:11Gosh, I wanted to be with you a couple days ago,
00:14and now a couple days have passed and the world has changed all over again.
00:18I know, and think about where the world was the last time you and I spoke.
00:22We spoke right before the first presidential debate,
00:26and wow, has everything changed since then.
00:29Since President Biden's disastrous debate performance, he dropped out of the race.
00:34Vice President Kamala Harris is now the likely Democratic nominee,
00:38and in between there, former President Trump survived an assassination attempt.
00:42So, a lot of unprecedented historic events thrown at us in just a few weeks,
00:47but let's break down the most recent one first.
00:50President Biden last night addressed the nation.
00:53A few days after, he decided to step down.
00:56What did you think of his speech?
00:58Well, I think it was kind of predictable. It was very political.
01:01It went on for a little over 10 minutes.
01:03It was good to see the president up and at him again, frankly.
01:07I think all Americans are cheering for him on that front.
01:11There was no new ground.
01:13In fact, I thought what we were all looking for wasn't provided.
01:17We were looking for what the rationale was, Mr. President,
01:20for you not seeking a second term, but still serving as president.
01:25And all he got to in 10, nearly 11 minutes of this address
01:29was passing the torch on to a younger generation.
01:33Well, about a week ago, Brittany, you were asking the president,
01:38was he ready to hand the torch to anyone else?
01:41The answer was no.
01:43They were holding hard and steadfast to him marshaling through this entire campaign.
01:49So I think that was very weak and unsatisfying for a lot of Americans
01:55as an excuse for why he's not seeking a second term.
02:00So maybe there was that letdown.
02:02He was the normal Biden.
02:04You had a couple of stumbles and a couple of moments where you were saying,
02:08oh, my gosh, just get through this sentence.
02:10But generally, I think it looked good visually,
02:15which is important, I think, for the country.
02:17Obviously, he pledged himself to doing unfinished business for the rest of his term.
02:23And then he tries best to pass the torch to Kamala.
02:26So I give it a C, maybe, in terms of what it could have been,
02:32maybe what it should have been.
02:34But, of course, that's now being supplanted by the campaign.
02:38What do you think should it have been?
02:41Because it seems from reporting, from what he said,
02:45from the debate on up until last week, hey, I'm still going to be running.
02:50I'm running.
02:51I dispel any of that reporting that I'm even thinking about stepping down.
02:55He drops that statement really out of nowhere on Twitter on Sunday afternoon,
03:01sending everyone into a scramble.
03:03He doesn't address his health.
03:05He doesn't address any mental acuity concerns.
03:08What do you think he should have said?
03:10I think he should have been more direct and honest.
03:13Maybe 50 years into public service, it's a harder thing for you to do,
03:17to square with the American people.
03:19All he had to say, Brittany, was, look, I gave it my all.
03:22I thought I still had enough in the tank to not only go another four years as president,
03:28but to get through this campaign, he just should have squared with us.
03:32And he didn't.
03:33And he said nothing, of course, about his health.
03:35And there have been rampant rumors, certainly in Washington and not limited here,
03:40about whether or not there's something more serious going on.
03:43Well, I guess that's been going on for a while, those rumors,
03:45but especially in the last week.
03:47I mean, I was hearing that, my gosh,
03:49he might be sharing something much grimmer about his own personal health, et cetera,
03:55which would have been a whole nother kind of a takeaway from last night.
03:59None of that was shared at all.
04:02It's like, hey, I'm fine, but I'm just not good enough to run in this campaign,
04:07and I'm passing the torch to the new generation.
04:09In that regard, I think Americans who are looking for an average Joe kind of presentation
04:16from Joe Biden were left underwhelmed.
04:19So now the likely Democratic nominee is Vice President Kamala Harris.
04:25She's seen historic fundraising numbers since Joe Biden dropped out just a few days ago.
04:31She's seen this excitement from Democrats that we haven't seen in Biden's re-election campaign.
04:36She's getting Gen Z support on social media.
04:40What do you think of her as the likely nominee?
04:43Well, the first couple of days, everyone talks about it's the honeymoon,
04:46and that's a good way to describe it.
04:49Coming out of the box, I think there was great relief, Brittany,
04:53that among Democrats in particular, that Joe Biden had thrown in the towel.
04:57Incredible relief.
04:59And compared to what they were facing with the president,
05:02anyone, including Kamala, was a breath of fresh air.
05:05So she's getting the benefit of that.
05:08What was a little surprising was that Democrats so quickly coalesced
05:13because there was all this call, as you were reading and hearing Brittany write about,
05:17we've got to have a process.
05:19That was Nancy Pelosi.
05:20That was Barack Obama.
05:22We've got to go through a process to get to the nominee.
05:24We're just not going to make it a coronation.
05:26It became a coronation in like 72 hours because I think the bottom line calculus was,
05:32look, we have little calendar to play with.
05:35All sorts of risks are involved in bringing this into a complete scrum among Democrats
05:41for the nomination, and I think wiser heads prevailed and said,
05:45good or bad, for better or worse, it's going to have to be Kamala.
05:49And to your point, this does seem to be like a honeymoon phase,
05:53but let's dive into the numbers a bit and the facts,
05:56and let's start with four years ago when she ran for president in 2020.
06:00She dropped out before Iowa even began.
06:03So not a single primary vote was cast for her in that election,
06:07and now we're looking at her approval ratings as vice president compared to President Biden.
06:12They often trailed his.
06:14So politically speaking, do you think she's a better candidate than President Biden?
06:19She's a better candidate for some reasons, and the jury's out on others.
06:24The reason she's better is she's younger.
06:26She'll be more energetic.
06:28She'll be able to travel the country and go orange storm,
06:33not just the target states but everywhere.
06:36So those are all pluses.
06:38But when you talk about what happened in Iowa back when,
06:41remember there was that first debate, Democratic debate, she did very, very well in.
06:45Suddenly Kamala looked like she could be a shooting star.
06:49I mean, she came from nowhere to almost everywhere in that field.
06:52Then they had the second debate.
06:54What happened in the second debate, as you may recall,
06:57she was the target of fire from Amy Klobuchar and Tulsi and others on that stage,
07:04and she withered.
07:05She did not do well handling criticism,
07:08and she went and fell like a leaden rock back into anonymity.
07:14That is ahead.
07:16And think about this, all the events that are unplanned.
07:21One or two that are seemingly planned and was just all but confirmed the other day,
07:26it looks like there's going to be a Fox News debate in mid-September, September 17th.
07:31Circle that date between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump,
07:35and Trump has already said, bring it on, right?
07:40Because it's before Fox, you have to assume at least it's going to be, in his mind at least,
07:46a more neutral, fairer venue.
07:49But the last time that Kamala Harris had to confront somebody toe-to-toe,
07:55where you know there's going to be a lot of critiques and criticism thrown both ways,
08:00she didn't fare well, and despite all the energy and all the enthusiasm Democrats feel for her
08:05over President Biden being the candidate, that's where I think the rubber meets the road.
08:10Maybe she'll surprise us.
08:12Maybe she'll overwhelm us versus what she did before Iowa in that fateful year for her.
08:18But I think that is a critical watershed moment in the presidential election to come.
08:24It's really funny because before when we were talking about debates,
08:28when I've had various guests on, everyone says, you know, debates don't really matter until they do matter.
08:34President Biden, I mean, that was the kickoff to the end of his campaign.
08:39So how important is this debate?
08:42Let's say it is with Fox on September 17th because let's say she doesn't perform well.
08:47She can say, hey, it's Fox News.
08:51She could, but the problem, she gets a second first impression.
08:55She gets an opportunity to present herself all over again to the American public this time
09:02through the real prism of being the presidential nominee.
09:06So she can reset all sorts of expectations, perceptional numbers, et cetera,
09:12if she again does better than expected.
09:15I think she reaffirms some of the concerns people had about her if she does not, but she's got to do it.
09:22And I think, frankly, it's important for the country that they see these two leaders who are bred from incredibly different cloth,
09:31right, up against each other to see what the real difference is in terms of leadership,
09:36not just style, but leadership agenda, where they want to take the country,
09:41which gets into the bottom line of this campaign.
09:45It's one side wanting this to be a referendum on Donald Trump still.
09:50The other side wants this to be a referendum on what's happening in America today.
09:55Generally, when you have a square off like that, if you look at political history, it favors the challenger.
10:00In this case, it favors Donald Trump.
10:02All the major issues set for, say, reproductive choice come his way.
10:08The southern border, foreign affairs, the economy, pocketbook economics, all big in favor of Donald Trump.
10:17At the end of the day, Kamala Harris has to figure out a way to explain what is in ways that people feel OK with,
10:26to be able to allow Americans to realistically appraise her and assess her as a possible next president of the United States.
10:36It seems like as President Biden's number two,
10:39she is inheriting the problems that Biden faced on the campaign trail since the age of the border.
10:46I mean, she's been called borders. Are you in charge of the border? This falls on you.
10:50She's been getting flack about inflation and the economy.
10:54How does she distance herself from President Biden and the administration with just a few months left?
11:00Does she have enough runway?
11:02She she can't distance herself from that administration.
11:05I mean, first of all, President Biden gave her a bear hug, you know, going into this race.
11:11So there's no way that she would want to do that.
11:14In fact, they can't do that. But here's what you're going to hear.
11:17In some fashion, it's going to be San Francisco, San Francisco, Kamala.
11:22They're going to she's going to be tied to San Francisco, California.
11:25You know, all the concerns, Brittany, we heard that if Gavin Newsom had emerged, say, as the nominee,
11:31the hit would be, well, do you want the rest of America to be run like California?
11:36That would have been the referendum on him.
11:39Imagine Kamala being tied to San Francisco, which among major,
11:45which among America's biggest cities is in great disrepair on all sorts of fronts.
11:51You're going to hear that very, very soon.
11:53And that's another part of you might say her record and her background
11:58that are going to be coming under assault over the course of the coming weeks.
12:03As we've talked about before, this is an election that comes down to those battleground states.
12:08And Emerson College polling released a new poll.
12:11Heads had matchup between Trump and Harris in some battleground states.
12:15And I'll read you the numbers in Arizona.
12:17Trump's up five in Georgia.
12:19Trump's up by two. Michigan, Trump's up by one. Pennsylvania, Trump's up by two.
12:24And Wisconsin, there's a tie. What do you think about these numbers?
12:30They're significant in the in some to some extent.
12:33First of all, you and I've talked about this before. This is an international election.
12:37And I'm asking pollsters how much on the popular vote could President Trump lose by and still win?
12:43I think he could almost lose fifty one forty nine roughly and win the presidency.
12:48So it's all about the electoral votes and where they are and the swing states.
12:52Those numbers are all suggesting even with Harris's entry into the race in the honeymoon,
12:56she's on she still trails. She still has to make up ground.
13:00And I think her biggest opportunities are going to be in the south.
13:04I think she her candidacy might be more appealing in Georgia.
13:07It might help take care of a situation that suddenly emerged in Virginia.
13:11Last poll had Trump up by four in a state Democrats have basically written into their column.
13:17North Carolina, again, a huge percentages of African-American vote, both North Carolina and Georgia.
13:23But I think she's going to have a tougher time, frankly, in the Midwest.
13:27I think that with Vance coming on to the ticket, in particular with Donald Trump, I think the media completely missed this.
13:35They said, well, gosh, is he too young? Is he too MAGA? Is he too?
13:39He is the personification of the, you know, up in the bootstraps kid who had everything against them.
13:46And a lot of people relate to that. He comes from western Pennsylvania, Ohio.
13:51Those people in those regions in the middle independence are going to like him and like his story and his grit.
13:58So I don't and I don't see Kamala naturally appealing to swing voters in the Midwest.
14:04So I think she picks up a little bit in the south. She loses more than that, I believe, in the Midwest.
14:09And unless she chooses someone like Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona, I think there is both Arizona and Nevada may be out of reach.
14:18So how important then do you think her VP pick is?
14:22Because historically, as many people have talked about, VP pick doesn't really help.
14:27It can only hurt. Doesn't really matter. But this obviously is unprecedented.
14:32She just has a few months left. So her picks, her top contenders are apparently all people, middle aged men from these types of blue or swing states, rather.
14:45So how important is this pick? Great question. I add one qualifier, middle aged white men.
14:51I mean, she. Yes. And what she really and they're not the Democrats aren't taking advice from me.
14:57But my two cents to them would be she needs solidity. She needs a ticket made who's solid.
15:04And the three names getting mentioned the most these these days are Cooper from North Carolina, former governor Bashir,
15:11the governor of Kentucky and Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona.
15:15Bashir, I think, is is is got a future.
15:19But Kentucky is a red and it's staying red. And I don't see what his appeal is in bringing in a state.
15:25Cooper could certainly help in North Carolina. Mark Kelly, Senator Kelly could really help her compete in Arizona potentially.
15:34That's significant. There's one state that maybe she said said is on a trajectory to lose that she could compete in.
15:41It could be Arizona. And Kelly is a former astronaut, combat Navy pilot.
15:46He's got a great resume and background. His wife was in Congress for many years, was almost taken out like the president, Trump, by an assassin's bullet.
15:54So that, I think, could maybe help her.
15:57But overall, both the geography of this campaign and even the demographics of this campaign have changed over the last couple of days.
16:06I want to talk about how Republicans changed their message now that Biden's not on the top of the ticket,
16:12because last week we saw the RNC speeches railing against President Biden.
16:16Here's how former years of Trump are better than Biden. Now it's not Biden.
16:20So he's out of the equation. And we see almost a Republican Party caught flat footed in this announcement, in this rollout of Kamala Harris.
16:29Donald Trump is giving Kamala Harris some nicknames. I don't know how well they're sticking.
16:33Lying Kamala, laughing Kamala. Does their message change now that she is the likely nominee?
16:41Well, you know how in the Republican convention, following on the heels of Butler, Pennsylvania,
16:46it was a time where Democrats should just, I said to my friends, just sit back, do nothing.
16:53You can't beat the headlines and what Republicans are maybe controlling for a week.
16:58The same thing for Republicans when Kamala Harris suddenly emerged last weekend.
17:03Give them a couple of days. Right. So this whole thing about they don't know what to do.
17:07That's not right. They know exactly what to do, but they figure, OK, she's going to get a couple of days.
17:12The new kid in town, the spotlights on her, et cetera.
17:15But the race itself is coming down to the same race it was against Joe Biden,
17:21which is a referendum on what is happening in America and to America, some would say today.
17:28That doesn't change with Kamala Harris. It's the same record.
17:31It's the same two that brought us, you know, lack of control and chaos on the southern border.
17:37Pocketbook economics out of control, record inflation and a lack of adequate response to existential threats abroad.
17:45All of those have been on the watch of Biden and Harris.
17:49And so Republicans know when they go back to that hallowed ground and that's what it is in politics,
17:55they'll be in very solid ground as they move towards the finish line.
17:59So within the past few weeks, as we've been saying ad nauseum, we have seen so many historical events just in three weeks.
18:08But are you saying the fundamentals of this election remain the same?
18:12Well, yes and no. The specifics change a little bit in terms of geography, which we talked about.
18:18Demography also. I think that Kamala Harris should have more appeal to voters, younger voters under 30.
18:25I think she may have less appeal, frankly, to voters over 60.
18:29I don't know if that's a wash or not, but that's that's a changing demographic between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
18:35And the geographies you've talked about that also changes.
18:38But the fundamental square off in this election, a referendum on a former president,
18:44a referendum on how people feel about what's happening in America today is the same ballgame.
18:50I think it's going to lead to the same result.
18:54So then what are you watching out for between now and the convention, now in the debate and ultimately now in November?
19:03You know, we're now sitting here at the last part of July.
19:07I'm thinking, gosh, you know, we have 100 days. There'll be two or three things that may happen.
19:12And then we have an election. I'm thinking we're going to have two dozen things happen right between now and the election.
19:20I do know that as we talk about that debate, if it if it is locked and loaded, that Fox debate, September 17th, big moment.
19:28And then you have, you know, President Biden is trying very, very much trying to bring in a peace formula in the Mideast.
19:36So there are other events that the presidency might impact that could help Kamala Harris.
19:43Or conversely, if there is more eruption on the southern border, that could hurt.
19:49Well, Adam, a lot to look ahead to. And as situations crop up seemingly every day, I hope you come back on soon.
19:57Join me. Discuss them. Adam Goodman, thank you so much. Great to be with you.