Biden dismisses recession concerns, House GOP investigations, more | America Decides

foreign [Music] every time the radical left Democrats marks his Communists and fascists indict me I consider it a badge a great great beautiful badge of honor and courage the question is is he the strongest to win the election I don't know that answer but can somebody can anybody beat by anybody can beat by can Biden beat other people yes Biden can't beat them hello everyone I'm

Major Garrett in Washington welcome to America decides President Biden touted his administration's economic policies during a speech today in Chicago he framed his agenda as a break from Republicans approach to Economic Policy this pitch comes as the president is quite evidently ramping up his re-election campaign one problem recent CBS News polling finds a majority of Americans think the condition of the economy is bad much worse

than the president described today in Chicago for more on this at O'Keefe and Robert Costa join us now and as you well know CBS news's senior White House and political correspondent Robert is CBS news's Chief election and campaign correspondent Ed I want to start with you we heard in the open of the show the president before he got to Chicago confidently saying there is not going

to be a recession that seemed to me to be among the most important things the president said not just about the economy now but where he thinks it's heading perhaps more importantly where it's headed because that tape will be used against him in the court of public opinion in the coming months should there suddenly be a recession but this White House remains confident that one is

going to be avoided at least in the coming months and continues to believe that the American people uh are going to come to understand why it is that they think the economy is doing so well as all of the big legislation he's passed in the last two years starts to be implemented as the money starts to get spent as the airports start to get rebuilt as

the construction projects to fix climate change issues are done uh it's just that it hasn't quite sunk in yet with the American public they like to point out that sure on the question of who's is he handling the economy well he's mired in the 30s but when you talk about other more specific economic agenda items that have been implemented or are being implemented or he's pushing

for they pull well individually with the American public so it's now on them to sort of get it into the bloodstream and and the mindset of Americans that in fact it is the president and his registration that's implementing these things remember these numbers are bad as we look at them here but we're looking at a record low unemployment rate right now uh economic growth even though

it may not be you know as big as it was right after the pandemic for example or pre-pandemic it is growing inflation while still up above the two percent that the FED would like is coming off of the highs that we were seeing at various points late last year and early this year so they're like you know they got to get out there now and sell

this understanding that the economy is going to be issue number one going into next year right and I want to look at another part of our polling data about how assessments of the president's handling of the economy break down by party and I want to focus in on the 69 percent disapproval among Independents of course there's a partisan breakdown Republicans 89 are dissatisfied 67 percent of

Democrats approved that's what we would expect the thing that really fascinates me is 69 of Independence and you know the White House knows they've got to move that number and as you also know Ed in politics the Mantra is don't tell show and that's what the White House has got to focus on and the problem is the frustration they have is that they can't quite show

it just yet because not all the shovels are in the ground right not all the highways have been rebuilt except for that one in Philadelphia that fell apart a few weeks ago because it just so happens to be in like the swing zip code in the Swing City in the swing state that also happens to be a place the president knows well uh you know and

all and all the other money that's going out now for Broadband expansion he was talking about on Monday you're not going to feel that you're not going to see it you're not going to know somebody working on that project or who suddenly has Wi-Fi they didn't before for another year or two potentially and by then politically at least it might be too late and so they

got to get out there and talk about this as much as he can but look for them to find examples of the showing not the telling in the coming months they're going to need them uh if they're going to close that Gap especially as you point out there with Independence Robert Costa you talked to a lot of Republicans you're a bit out on the campaign Trail

in addition to continuing to monitor the many legal issues encircling former president Trump and we'll get to those in a second when you talk to Republicans how do they feel about the coming economic debate with Biden in reelection they feel pretty good about what it would be like in a general election but it's hard to predict how the economy is going to be a year from

now at this point there's a tension a bit between those on the in the Republican Party who want to advocate for wholesale change to long-term federal spending and those who do not Trump infamously or famously depending on where you stand in the Republican Party said he didn't want to tackle Medicare and Social Security in the same way former house Speaker Paul Ryan did when he was

in power and you see now former vice president Mike Pence he's arguing that on the economic front and fiscal front America needs to tackle these issues to maybe calibrate and recalibrate the age of retirement how these programs programs are allocated with federal dollars how they're spending and how how big they are as Federal institutions uh and Trump is saying we don't want to touch them and

so that's really I think more on a fiscal front than an economic front the argument they're still generally this kind of reaganite growth oriented rhetoric inside the GOP Republican primary race right now and that's not changing it's the fiscal area that's the real divide and I know Robert you spend a lot of time going over what Trump's legal team is doing but also what the former

president says about various legal matters and yesterday's it struck me in New Hampshire and in flying back to uh Florida he gave in one day three different answers about what happened in Bedminster New Jersey which is not a Charged part of the Federal indictment but it goes to his questioning or the questions been raised about how seriously he takes the handling of sensitive or classified information

once he said there's no document then he said there were documents but there weren't classified and then the other time he said it was bravado to the degree that you can assess how all these different answers from the former president either help or hurt the defense he and his team are going to have to ultimately Mount well speaking of his team it's evident talking to allies

a former president Trump that his team doesn't have much control over their client he is speaking about an ongoing case where he could face a trial in the coming months as he runs for president and he's deciding to speak out in a convoluted Winding Way about his intent and what he did and so much of this case is about whether Trump had Criminal Intent to illegally

hold records that were classified to obstruct an investigation and by giving all these answers in news media interviews he's providing fodder for prosecutors to scour these statements and to potentially include them in a trial because just because you say something that's not under oath doesn't mean it can't be introduced as evidence indeed indeed Ed real quickly from the White House when you saw the president before

he boarded Marine one for Chicago you noticed something about him tell our audience what you noticed and what the White House is in is confirmed yeah I don't know if we have an image of this but our colleagues Gabrielle Lake and Willie Inman were out there this morning when he went to Marine one and took a few questions and they and other reporters couldn't help but

notice that there were these almost like strap marks right here on his cheeks and we went back you can see it there ever so slightly we went back and looked and there had been similar markings on Monday when he did an event here at the White House so clearly he'd been wearing something we asked the White House what's up here and we've been reminded that back

in 2008 when he was picked as Barack Obama's running mate he disclosed that he'd been treated for sleep apnea this is something that affects about 30 million Americans uh common sleep disorder that basically can affect your breathing at night it can cause you even to wake up if you stop breathing but you can use a mechanism called a CPAP that you put over your mouth to

continue giving you oxygen no matter what you just have to wear it really tight this is what I've been told I'm no doctor I'm no user of such a device but this is what I've been told so that's what that marking was in essence they confirmed he's been using one over the last few weeks this is a common thing for somebody who has it the sleep

apnea had been revealed in his records back in 2008 there was nothing about it in his most recent medical report uh other than to point out that he'd had some sinus surgery back in the day to deal with congestion he like many others including this reporter maybe you guys takes a Claritin or an Allegra during allergy season and nasal spray to deal with some of that

stuff a common thing of course all of this against the backdrop of voter concern well documented not us the voters concerned about his age and whether he'll be fit to serve but they were very quick to disclose that when it was pretty clear something was up based on the markings on his face and just to be clear this is not a medical complication or issue it's

just a treatment for a very common issue that many Americans have precisely and it's why presidents are subject to such great scrutiny because they are after all one of the most photographed people in the world no doubt about that Ed O'Keefe at the White House Robert Costa here in the studio thanks so very much as we mentioned President Biden is on the road this week raising

money in part before his next fundraising deadline arrives this Friday but when we come back the role his running mate vice president Kamal Harris is playing in that process and the re-election campaign you're streaming America decides welcome back to America decides as President Biden's re-election campaign continues what role will vice president Harris play in 2024 joining us now is Ashley Etienne Ashley is the CBS News

political contributor and former communications director for vice president Harris and speaker Pelosi Ashley Politico reported today that the Biden reelection campaign wants to do a quote Harris reset and give voters another look at the vice president how do you react to that well I mean here's the thing I mean folks are quoting polls all over the place about how she's faring faring worse than any other

vice president I think it's an it's not a fair comparison first she's broken the mold as the first woman first woman of color in the job but secondly this is the first time the political opposition has invested in tearing down and attacking the vice president United States so it's definitely a concern of the White House and they should be very concerned about it but I wouldn't

over invest in the polling I think the key though is to figure out strategically how you're utilizing her right now it's hyper focused on issues I really believe they should focus on constituencies that she actually energizes there's a recent CBS poll that saw and found that she's at 60 plus percent with young voters and 70 plus percent with liberals so my argument would be don't hyper

focus on one particular issue utilize her to drive out those two key constituencies that are going to make the difference in the next election and really help Shore up uh Joe Biden's negatives with those key constituencies and when the president's campaign uses a word like reset do you consider that at the margins an insult as if the vice president has to do something better than she

did before or is it a tacit admission by the president's re-election campaign that the White House may not have used her to the maximum benefit no I think it's in a mission that the polls aren't uh she's not polling very well and that there's some work that needs to be done there and I I completely agree with that but I think here's the thing is they've

got to retool the Playbook we can't use the old political playbook in the old model where you over invest in the president and ignore the vice president now is the time to really invest in uh in the vice president and lifting up her profile and what I mean by that is I think the larger Democratic apparatus as well as the White House needs to put some

resources behind elevating the vice president's work what does that look like that can be ads micro targeted to these key constituencies it could also include more talking talking more about what the vice president's doing from the podium every day if that's possible even bringing the vice president to the podium but here's the other thing major that I find very interesting you know as you mentioned I

work for speaker Pelosi and she makes this point all the time that women in politics have to have a counter punch and with the GOP and all their candidates coming after the Vice President I think that is the real question how is she going going to address these attacks head on you've seen where Joe Biden has has reframed his age as a positive by referring to

it as experience so the question is how is she going to really address these attacks head on she has to to do that but I think the key though is is to really start investing some resources and promoting what the vice president is doing going around traditional media really going directly to these key voters and letting them know um unfiltered from the media what she's actually

doing on issues that they care about and I think that's going to make a market difference as you've made General reference to the polls let's drill down them on a little bit of CBS News poll 42 percent of Democrats told us at the moment they're not in favor of the president seeking re-election and the top reason for them 45 percent said they don't want him to

run re-election for re-election because they doubt whether he could finish a second term does that kind of sentiment within the Democratic Party by its very nature meaning it exists and it exists in prominent unignorable numbers mean that part of this reset or part of this reintroduction is voters viewing vice president Kamal Harris as a possible successor in a second term for the Biden presidency if there

is one is that part of the reframing that has to occur well I think we should just take a step back and really look at the numbers as you said let's take a deep dive 56 of Democrats support the president running again I think that matters the president's also polling higher than Donald Trump consistently polling that higher than his opposition the lead opposition on the Republican

side so that actually matters I think that they're less concerned about the polling as it relates to the president but more concerned about um really positioning the vice president as an asset to the president you know I worked for the vice president and that was what we started to do from day one which is to position her as an asset to the president now I think

they have to figure out what's the Playbook how do we invest more resources and really conveying that message that she actually is an asset to the president and to the whole of the party and in that conversation about whether or not the vice president is or isn't an asset NBC poll I will summarize it briefly 32 percent had a positive net positive for the vice president

49 net negative that's a 17 point net negative the lowest for any sitting vice president in the history of that NBC polling those are bad numbers and I know you know this Ashley one of the hardest things in politics is for serious people to take bad numbers seriously it's counterintuitive if you don't want to do it you don't want to believe it because it's hurt it's

hurtful does the vice president believe these bad numbers and do she does she believe they accurately reflect her current standing well I mean I would just say you know I've been in in Democratic policy for 20 years and I I had never found a poll to be hurtful major so so I just sort of would challenge that I I understand it's data it's data but you've

got to believe it even when it's bad or especially when it's bad here I mean here's the thing it's you know there's also internal polling that's probably um uh runs counter to what the public polling is but but the reality is is you know the the I think the beauty of the Biden um uh approach to politics is to really keep your head down and block

out all the noise all these polls especially this early on is just a bunch of noise I think the question is is he's kept his head down focused on the work as well as the vice president she's going all over the country talking about an issue that's very important to women Reproductive Rights but I think the question is how do you expand what she's talking about

how do you broaden what she's talking about and appeal to more people I think abortion is an important issue but it's only one among many that she can talk about again if you strategically utilize her to drive out liberals and drive out young voters that positions her to talk about guns her leadership on guns climate women's economic issues a whole host of issues that matter to

the American public that would make her an even greater asset to the president but also position her to tell a fuller story about the impact that the president has had on on our lives Ashley very quickly Before I Let You Go How concerned is the Biden reelection campaign about Robert F Kennedy Jr uh uh from what I'm hearing internally not at all concerned about it I

think that you know the question is is how do you leverage the rest of the democratic apparatus to really Define who uh who he is and really educate voters on who he is and what he actually believes in which is counter-intuitive to what Democrats really want in a candidate so I think that's the question is really is how do you really educate um the voters on

who he actually is I think the president and the vice president of course in the party aren't going to really give it much air and much attention but there there are people within the party in the apparatus who will focus on defining who he actually is and I think once that actually happens the number his numbers will drop actually at Tien thank you so much thank

you for those of you watching really closely and you know who you are my hair looks different now than it did in that interview you just watched actually it's the same hair it's just a bit shorter now no there wasn't an intervention but a stylist was involved no one was harmed in the process so moving on after Kevin McCarthy questioned if Donald Trump is or will

be the Republicans best choice in 2024 we will ask what effect that will have on the speaker's ability to lead Republicans on the hill and is ongoing sometime tumultuous relationship with a former president that's next you're streaming America decides the question is is he the strongest to win the election I don't know that answer but can somebody can anybody be by anybody can beat Biden can

Biden beat other people yes Biden can't beat them welcome back to America decides there is more reaction tonight that's putting it mildly to house Speaker Kevin McCarthy's equivocal comments about whether or not Donald Trump the former president is the Republican's best choice in 2024. former house Speaker Paul Ryan also a republican went on CNBC Wednesday morning and was asked his thoughts so I I don't have

that job anymore so I'm very clear with look it's a disaster if we nominate Trump you know I think that I've been saying this for a long time but Liz is Right which is he could win I think we lose with him I think we're much more likely to lose we haven't won anything with him since he first won in 16. speaker Ryan was referring to

Liz Cheney who made remarks about the former president saying he could win the Republican nomination for more on all this CBS News Congressional correspondent Scott McFarland joins us now Scott the big question is it's clearly a riff the former president's campaign is not happy about any equivocation from speaker McCarthy about the political potency of trump in any venue at any time at any hour of any

day McCarthy's tried to walk it back is this a teeny moment or a possibly bigger moment he's really flooding The Zone isn't he Kevin McCarthy's just saying more rather than saying you know I I withdraw those remarks let me say something different now he's told another interviewer that that Trump is now stronger than he was in 2016 kind of balancing out his equivocation from earlier here's

the bottom line when he returns to Washington after next week's recess Kevin McCarthy is returning to a narrow Republican majority with some Ardent Trump supporters in that faction of House Freedom caucus members and he has got to flood the zone or allow them to flood the Zone with impeachment expungement resolutions to support Trump impeachment resolutions against members of the Biden Administration to try to counterbalance and

efforts to continue to criticize if not villainize those who've gone after president Trump in the past including Adam Schiff at remarks in Ohio today with other House Republicans listen to what the house Speaker had to say about Adam Schiff our message to the committee is this is not a place for partisanship this is a place to make sure America is safe for the future look at

what our adversaries are doing look where the investment needs to be made there was Mistakes by the past leader of that committee watch that committee Miss from Afghanistan another they were more focused on partisan political Maneuvers and you've got to understand coming in as chairman after that time after what Adam Schiff has broken that committee was a really difficult task but look at what's transpired from

there really priming the pump with some of his freedom caucus members there he speaks again tomorrow in Columbiana County Ohio a Bastion of trump supporters let's see if he goes in another step and says more about the former president Scott there's an assumption I'm not sure if it's well grounded in reality that if former president Trump were to flip some switch he could jeopardize the standing

of speaker McCarthy is that really true feels like the Breakaway caucus of House Freedom caucus members those who didn't come over and vote for Kevin McCarthy at all to be speaker those who were most strident in their opposition to that debt ceiling compromise have the capacity to Galvanize others but not a critical mass not by the dozens not people outside the freedom caucus it's unclear how

they could use their leverage to oust Kevin McCarthy even if Donald Trump said to do so we haven't seen evidence of that yet but we can tell major they are arrestive they have Trump on their minds and they have been unequivocal about that so you talked about impeachment either expungement or impeaching people in the abide Administration is there any governing that's going to go on in

the month of July that we should keep an eye on the house will pass resolutions they will pass bills that may stand no chance in the U.S Senate but they will do some legislating they just won't do any law making nothing seems to be coming down the pike that senators and house members will easily agree upon they will move to try more impeachments Marjorie Taylor green

told us that she's going to move on Merrick Garland who by the way will appear September 20th before the house Judiciary Committee to answer their questions they're going to try to move on the U.S attorney in the District of Columbia the homeland security secretary the FBI director ultimately on President Biden it's a matter of when not if they'll try whether it gets to a vote on

the house floor that's a little less clear also they have to pass Appropriations bills and as I see in my email certain Progressive groups are saying there are writers on those Appropriations bills that could come up the works and make the prospect of a government shutdown at least something worth keeping an eye on more like likely than not at this point the prospect of a government

shut down the House and Senate are speaking two different languages when it comes to spending bills the house wants to cut it back to 2022 levels Senators want a more robustly fun things look for this over the next 48 hours major I'm told look for Democrats to make an issue over FAA funding the FAA administrator warned during an Appropriations hearing a couple months ago there was

going to be this type of Chaos in the skies this week or some week in the future because of staffing issues and funding issues for the Democrats to make that an issue as they fight for funding bills over the next few weeks funding that must be appropriated therefore approved by Congress Scott McFarland as always we thank you well that does it for today you can stream

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