JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It's been a pivotal week in national politics.
The presidential matchup is all but set, Joe Biden versus Donald Trump.
One is the current occupant of the White House.
The other is out on bail.
For that reason alone, this is going to be one of the strangest general elections in history.
It's also going to be one of the longest.
Tonight, we'll go in-depth on the matchup, next.
Good evening, and welcome to Washington Week.
Last night's State of the Union proved that Joe Biden, despite his advanced age, can still deliver an impassioned speech, but it's not yet clear that voters, many of whom think he's simply too old to run, will get on board.
Of course, it's not clear at all that Donald Trump, weighted down by something more consequential than age, namely 91 felony charges, will be able to convince all but his most loyal followers that he deserves to be president again.
Joining me tonight to discuss all this and more, Eugene Daniels, a White House correspondent for Politico and co-author of Politico's Playbook, Asma Khalid is a White House correspondent for NPR and a political contributor for ABC News, and Carlos Lozada is a columnist for The New York Times.
He is also the author of The Washington Book.
Thank you very much for being here.
Carlos, welcome.
Your first time on Washington Week?
Big time, it's a big time thing.
CARLOS LOZADA, Columnist, The New York Times: Big fan.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, first time caller.
We're very happy to have you here and congratulations on your book.
We'll talk about it in a minute.
I want to talk about the State of the Union.
Before we talk about it, I want you to just watch a brief excerpt from Joe Biden's performance last night.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. President: The issue facing our nation isn't how old we are, it's how old our ideas.
Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas.
But you can't lead America with ancient ideas.
It will only take us back.
You lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, Asma, I'm struck by this.
A lot of people were struck by the sheer level of energy that he was bringing.
Part of it was because we had been told by the Republicans that he's practically on his deathbed.
Part of it was because we've all noticed that sometimes his voice doesn't project in the way that it used to.
It was a very, very energetic, impassioned performance.
Give us your -- ASMA KHALID, White House Correspondent, NPR: That's true.
And, you know, certainly, there were some moments where he stumbled, but I would also say he was interrupted multiple times by different hecklers, and he had no qualms.
In fact, he seemed to enjoy these moments of sparring with Republicans, whether it was on taxes, Social Security, immigration.
But what I was really struck by is, if you compare this speech to his previous state of the unions, there was more of an undercurrent of unity, working together, big legislative achievements.
This was very different.
It was a campaign speech.
It was the kickoff of a general election campaign.
And it was a clear contrast from Republicans on everything, from abortion to immigration to the economy.
And to me, the most interesting part, I know it didn't get a lot of headlines, was actually the economy.
I think that this is a real vulnerability for President Biden.
When you look at poll after poll Republicans have, you know, somewhere between like 15 to even 20 percent of an advantage on the economy.
One pollster I talked to said, like Democratic pollster, said Democrats win the presidential when they breakeven on the economy.
And so Biden has work to do.
And I think you heard some of that last week.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
Eugene?
EUGENE DANIELS, White House Correspondent, Politico: Yes, I mean it felt like -- you're so right.
It felt like he was, one, a comedian doing those videos where they're like do crowd work, right, like you like really get excited playing with them and fighting and going back and forth, but also it felt like a president who had finally decided to run an election and be the president of the time we have now, not the time when he was a senator, when everyone was like nice to each other and you can disagree in front of the cameras but you work together behind the scenes.
Those days are gone.
He has accepted that.
And when I talked to Jeff Zients, the chief of staff, on Wednesday the day before, he kind of raised expectations, I thought.
I was a little worried for him, because he was like, I was like, it seems like a big speech, like, you know, we have, it's an election year, this is the biggest crowd he's going to get.
And he was like, yes, and he's going to do great.
And I was like, oh, okay.
Because, usually, they try to temper it down.
But because Republicans, for years, have been saying, basically, that this man has dementia, like when that's the bar, then anything above that is going to be much better.
And I think President Biden loves these kinds of interactions.
When you travel with him, as you have done as well, any kind of column response, whether good or bad, that is what he likes to do.
And he -- this was also for Democrats.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And he's better at it than people think.
EUGENE DANIELS: And, I mean, the Democrats have wanted to see this from him, not just like we want to see him have energy, they want to see a fight, right?
ASMA KHALID: Yes, I agree.
This was a speech more for Democrats.
I don't think it was a persuasion.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right, right.
Carlos, you're watching this.
You've been studying Biden, reading Biden for years.
What are the deeper themes that struck you?
CARLOS LOZADA: You know, people are saying that we saw, you know, Feisty Joe or Angry Joe or Rowdy Joe.
I saw History Joe.
You know, think about where he started the speech right at the beginning.
The first thing he puts us in, the 1940s, with FDR, you know, maybe not a smart move when we're worried about his age, but he puts the 1940s, FDR defending democracy with Europe at war and Hitler on the march, right?
Then immediately pivots to the Civil War, and we're with Lincoln, you know, protecting democracy and freedom at home.
That's in the first two minutes of the speech.
We've already gone through FDR and Lincoln.
Later on, we're with Reagan, you know, calling for Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the wall, right?
He was implicitly, explicitly putting our moment in comparison to those moments and kind of putting himself in that pantheon of presidents.
You know, he kept saying, history is watching us, right?
It sounded almost like Hamilton or something.
But he is comfortable in that zone.
And I think he thinks this election is similar in the sense that it's, you know, a big historical pivot moment.
He always talks about inflection points.
And so it's not just sort of beating Trump, he feels that he's, you know, defending American values and American freedoms against Trumpism.
EUGENE DANIELS: But he also made very clear what the topics of his in the center point of his re-election is going to be both democracy and Dobbs, right?
When you talk that first like five to ten minutes he talked about January 6th, he talked about and spent a lot of time talking about that insurrection, he talked about IVF and abortion without saying abortion.
I will say many abortion advocates were very upset for him with him not saying the word, abortion, actions.
And despite it being in the remarks that were sent out to us before his -- so it was in the speech at some point he didn't say, so they're very upset about that but Dobbs and democracy is what this election is about for this campaign.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
Asma, he didn't say the word, Trump, either.
He said, my predecessor.
ASMA KHALID: About a dozen times, he said, my predecessor.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, why is that?
ASMA KHALID: You know, I don't know.
That's an interesting question.
Why not?
I mean, I think part of this is just Joe Biden's style.
Like he's not one, especially in -- and he believes, and I think, the structure of these institutions and the decorum of this type of event, the State of the Union.
And so I don't think it's a venue or a place where he would do that.
But I do think it was an interesting characterization for him to choose not to go after Trump by name.
I think we will certainly see him go after Trump by name.
But in this particular venue, State of the Union, I think he believes that there still ought to be a level of kind of, yes, decorum.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.
But, Carlos, going back to your point, the reason that he thinks this is so historically significant is because he believes that Trump is anti-democratic, right?
And so that's the first and foremost thing on his mind.
Is that fair to say?
CARLOS LOZADA: If you look at the two videos with which he opened his two presidential campaigns, most recent presidential campaigns, 2020 and 2024, you know, it's all about protecting the soul of America.
That's an essay he wrote for The Atlantic as well.
And in the first instance -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Thank you for the plug.
CARLOS LOZADA: I'm here to serve.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: A selfless New York Times man over here.
CARLOS LOZADA: In the first instance it was about protecting the soul of America in the context of Charlottesville, right?
In the second, it was about protecting the soul of America in the context of January 6th.
You know, so this is -- thematically, this is absolutely one of the big themes.
And, you know, sometimes people tell him that it's not something he should be focused on, that it's too ethereal, what does that really mean, what's the soul of America stuff anyway, but it's something that he seems very devoted to.
ASMA KHALID: It's something he seems very devoted to, but I will say I still remain somewhat skeptical about how much it actually means something tangible to voters.
Because when you go out and you talk to voters, you hear about the economy, you hear about abortion.
Once in a while, you hear about democracy, but to your point, this administration, this White House believes very firmly that it is a winning message.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
Let me pivot to the Republican response to the -- and let's keep a straight face, please, because we're a very serious show here.
I want to pivot to the Republican response, Senator Katie Britt of Alabama.
Why don't you just listen to this one brief snippet.
SEN. KATIE BRITT (R-AL): This is the United States of America and it is past time in my opinion that we start acting like it.
President Biden's border policies are a disgrace.
This crisis is despicable and the truth is it is almost entirely preventable.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, yes, I mean, you know, the thing is, she is a pretty well-respected person, pretty well-respected in Alabama, politics.
You know, I guess people in Washington know that the first rule of Fight Club is never give the response to the State of the Union Address, right?
Nobody -- very seldom does somebody really perform well, but what was going on there?
EUGENE DANIELS: I mean, first of all, Katie Britt is a very talented politician, right?
When you talk to her on the Hill or you watch videos of her and interviews of her, she doesn't sound like that at all, right?
Like so that was part of the problem.
There was a clip that they sent out.
She sent out on her own Twitter/X.
And she's just like, hey, guys, I'm doing the State of the Union.
She doesn't sound like that.
And so, one, if you know what she sounds like, it sounds kind of extremely overwrought.
But then even if you don't, it's just kind of awkward, right?
She is by herself.
She -- which is kind of always how they're doing.
It's after the pomp and circumstance of the president of the United States.
But then there was -- the things she was saying was one thing, right?
I think Republicans were happy about that.
I heard from a lot of Republican women, they were upset about the kitchen aspect of it, of this woman being in the kitchen, but then it was the biting off of the words.
It was the kind of -- kind of the themes were all kind of all over the place.
And it just felt awkward to people.
And I think, you know, I don't know why people keep doing these.
I would never sign up if I was a politician to do the response to the State of the Union, because it has -- I don't think it's ever worked out.
I can't think of one where it's been, oh, this is the next step for this person in their trajectory.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Carlos, this reminded me of the American carnage speech, Donald Trump's inaugural speech.
It's American carnage but with a high-end backsplash.
It was kind of a very strange - - put this in some kind of context for us.
CARLOS LOZADA: It was a very jarring speech because the two sort of themes were the speech was meant to both terrify you and comfort you, right, at the same time.
And those kind of clash, right?
So, you know, the fear factor was pretty clear.
It's like, you know, Americans are being raped and murdered and your kids could be next, right?
I'm not exaggerating.
That's the tenor of this speech.
And it reminded me both of American carnage, which was Trump's inaugural speech, but also went back to his very first speech as a candidate in 2015 when, you know, he said Mexicans -- Mexico is not sending their best, they're sending rapists, right?
And this was sort of that, but like amped up even further.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: There was a lot of rape content in this.
CARLOS LOZADA: Yes, a lot of specificity.
ASMA KHALID: I think it was strange because she was chosen in many ways because of who she is, a millennial Republican mom who could be a symbolic counterpoint to, as she described, the dithering, you know, President Biden.
That is explicitly her words that she used, a dithering, diminished Biden.
And yet I think that she was not really emblematic of where a whole bunch of women of her age are.
I mean, there could have been an opportunity, I think, thread the needle a little bit more carefully and maybe the only moment she did that in was when she spoke about wanting to defend IVF.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
Asma, let me stay with you.
I want to pivot to the big subject of the week, which is that the clarity that we have now that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee, presumptive Republican nominee, going up against Joe Biden, the obvious Democratic nominee.
This is unusual on any number of grounds.
One reason it's unusual is because we haven't had two presidents run against each other since 1892.
That was when Grover Cleveland unseated Benjamin Harrison, who had defeated him four years earlier.
Benjamin Harrison, by the way, Indiana -- ASMA KHALID: From my great home state.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, the great home state of Asma Khalid.
We'll spend five or six minutes talking about the legacy of Benjamin Harrison on another show.
But that's one of the many aspects, the length of this campaign.
But I wanted you to focus on one very important question, which is how did Republicans come around to accepting Donald Trump as their candidate again?
But before you answer, just let's listen to Mitch McConnell from 2021 and then from this week.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.
No question about it.
In February of 2021, shortly after the attack on the Capitol, that I would support President Trump if he were the nominee of our party, and he obviously is going to be the nominee of our party.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, take us through this.
It seems improbable if you were around on January 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 2021 that we're here, but the Republicans have fully accepted this as a nomination.
ASMA KHALID: Yes, that's true.
I think there's a few reasons.
One is, I would argue, that they see there is an inevitability, and the Republican base of the party is with Donald Trump.
I mean, we're observing just this weekend is the RNC meeting in Houston, and in which Trump's handpicked people are not going to be leading the party.
This is very much Donald Trump's party, and I don't think they have a choice.
I think more interesting than even someone like Mitch McConnell is you're seeing someone like the governor of New Hampshire, Sununu has come out, right, to be supportive now of Donald Trump.
We were having an interesting debate in the newsroom the other day about whether or not you were going to see the folks who supported Nikki Haley come around to Donald Trump sooner or whether you'd have the folks who were uncommitted on Joe Biden come around sooner.
And I fell into the camp that I think Biden's going to have a tougher problem with his base.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, that's interesting.
Go ahead.
EUGENE DANIELS: I mean, I think, largely, it's also about power, right?
If you know Mitch McConnell and been covering Mitch McConnell, Mitch McConnell cares about really one thing.
That's that Senate, right?
He cares about that majority.
And so in his mind, getting behind Donald Trump is the fastest way to have a Senate majority, even though he's not going to be in charge of that Senate majority, to have that for Republicans going into the next Congress.
Now, we'll also say there was a fear among Republicans of this base, right?
It was inevitable because they also chose to, right?
We all remember when Kevin McCarthy went up to Mar-a-Lago after January 6th, kiss the ring, had that very awkward picture that they ended up taking and putting out.
That was it.
When I saw that, and I think a lot of reporters and folks watching saw that and said, oh, this is it, Trump is back.
Republicans are going to fall back in line.
Because once the leaders of the party started doing it, the folks folks within the party were like, well, I guess that's what we're going with because, you know, leaders are supposed to lead and not follow.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
So, Carlos, I want to talk a little bit about your methods.
I mean, this book, which is a fascinating book, your specialty is deep reading of Washington documents, Washington biographies, autobiographies, all manner of Washington non-fiction, and that's what this book is.
In your most recent column, you read for your readers 887 pages of a report called Mandate for Leadership.
It's a conservative blueprint for 2025.
Now that we're heading into the general election, it's a great time to ask you, and thank you for reading it, so we don't have to read 887 pages of I assume very dry prose -- CARLOS LOZADA: But very revealing prose.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Very revealing.
What did it reveal?
CARLOS LOZADA: Yes.
So, this is -- I should emphasize, it's not officially a Trump campaign document.
It's not been endorsed by the Trump campaign.
However, among its dozens of contributors, it has many, many former Trump administration officials and Trump has mentioned about 300 times in this book compared to once for Nikki Haley, for instance.
So, you can see the affinity there.
The purpose of this is to be ready to govern on day one.
It's an implicit admission that they really weren't ready to govern on day one the last time around.
There's a lot in it.
It breaks down the federal executive branch, like agency by agency, office by office.
But I think there's three kind of main themes.
One is flood the zone with political appointees, right?
Like people who will be loyal to the president, loyal to the agenda of the new administration, and both kind of oversee and push out the career civil servants.
Second, to politicize the Justice Department, right?
The one thing you see -- and I'm not like reading tea leaves here, it's very overt in the book.
They emphasize how, for instance, the White House Counsel's Office and the DOJ have to work as a team.
That's a quote.
How the FBI director should be as aligned with the president's agenda as any other agency head, those kinds of things.
Also, they just say that, look, remember, the DOJ is under the control and direction of the president, and therefore even litigation decisions have to be consistent with the president's agenda.
But the main message of this book is that for all the rhetoric about the need to dismantle the administrative stage, you know, downsize the government, that's not really what you see here.
They pay lip service to it, but they want to enlist it.
They want to harness it.
They want to take it out for a spin, see how fast it will go, you know?
And that, I think, is frankly, you know, why they have such detail in this document, not because it's going to tear it all down.
They want to redirect it.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
Asma, Eugene, do you think that Republicans on the Hill are aligned with this project in the way that obviously Trump loyalists are aligned?
EUGENE DANIELS: I mean, I think it depends on what chamber you're talking about first in the House, probably.
So, there's probably many more people in the House, Republican conference, who are in line with this document.
I think senators tend not to be as much, right?
These are people who, one, they don't have to run every two years.
They get six years, so they're a little bit more common -- tend to be a little bit more moderate.
There are some outliers, Hawley, Ted Cruz, those kinds of folks, Rand Paul.
But I think the thing that we saw during this primary, what we saw during the Trump years, is that Republicans will largely get in line.
And so if Trump is to become president again, and they are to use this 300-page document - - or this 800-something page document, excuse me, and use that as what they're going to do, I think, largely, they will just kind of get in line with those kinds of things.
There will be some folks who will talk out loud and be angry about it, but people like Mitt Romney are leaving the Senate.
And so there's going to be a lot more space for people who are much more politicized.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
Let me ask you, too, in the last minute that we have left, it's a very basic question.
But are you surprised we are where we are?
CARLOS LOZADA: I think that you can be shocked without being surprised, and I think that's where I fall.
Every day, what you see feels shocking, but when you watch the whole trajectory of American politics from 2015 onward, it almost seems inevitable.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Asma, last word to you.
ASMA KHALID: Yes, I think that's a beautiful way of putting it.
I don't think that it's particularly surprising.
I mean, look at Donald Trump, and I said this when I covered the 2016 campaign, that he tapped into a pre-existing condition in American society.
I think he was very effective at doing so, but I don't think what he did was create anything new.
He certainly capitalized on it.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But without Donald Trump, do you think we'd be where we are today with a plan on the part of the party, the Republican Party, to dismantle and remake a new -- ASMA KHALID: I don't think we'd be there without Donald Trump.
I mean, he certainly tapped into this sentiment that was brewing, but then he capitalized on it.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I want to continue this conversation, and we will continue this conversation because it's a long campaign ahead of us, but, unfortunately, we need to leave it there for right now.
I want to thank our panelists for joining us and for sharing their reporting.
I recommend highly Carlos Lozada's book.
It's a fascinating and revealing portrait of Washington, as Washington sometimes doesn't want to be seen.
For more on Donald Trump's financial challenges, please visit theatlantic.com.
And on PBS News Weekend tomorrow, with Trump's dominant win on Super Tuesday, we have a look at the future of the Republican Party.
I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.
Good night from Washington.
