Robert Wiener is a former White House Director of Public Affairs, and a former Chief of Press Relations. He is also a good friend of Joe Biden's just to put that on the record. Good evening to you, Robert.
Carol, it's great to be back with you. And I've always enjoyed talking with you. I just want to open by saying our best to the King and the Princess, our sympathies and best wishes are for them.
Well, it's good to hear that from you, Robert. Thank you very much. I'm sure many listeners will share that view. Let me ask you first of all Joe Biden. He's facing this election campaign. But, immediately, he is dealing with the threat to shipping in the Red Sea. We've had those military strikes, we heard from Jake Sullivan, this move as well to classify the Houthi rebels as a terrorist organization. What do you make of the way that Joe Biden is dealing with this?
Well, it's certainly a way that Donald Trump wouldn't understand how to do. Joe Biden knows the world. He was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He helped negotiate foreign policy with President Obama and helped in the in the capture of Bin Laden. And so we have full faith in President Biden, not somebody who operates by the seat of his pants. Your parliament was certainly correct in trying to ban Trump from coming to London. He has made such a fool of himself Carol, such a fool of himself in these court cases. Finally, the media is coming around to recognizing that all he's trying to do is delay, delay, delay, delay and embarrass embarass vindication and retribution. That is not what the American people want. And everybody I have to tell my Democratic friends. Stop panicking over the election when Trump is running around because it's Republican primary. So there's, of course, a lot of precedent and attention to him.
And then also our Bob, I should say those polls suggesting that he has a significant lead over Joe Biden, particularly in some of those key states, he's going to have to win.
Well, if he's depends on your poll. Some have Biden three up some have an eight down and it all depends on—but let me just say that this is so premature, so premature. Biden has not even gotten yet to talk to me about the election talking about the recession that he stopped talking about. The legislation that he got through that is helping people in terms of student loans in terms of health care, 20 million new people, and the economic indicators terror, which everybody's frantic over because inflation. Inflation is dropping and economic indicators now have gained 15 points for Biden. They are a lagging indicator, as you know. So when poor Trump runs around on the courthouse steps, he does not have the last word. This is a really important point. The judges have the last word, the verdict, the jurors have the last word and when those rulings come in and judges excoriate Trump and the final statement is how you abused this woman and abuse her reputation destroyed her in the case of the E. Jean Carroll case, in the case of Florida. That's the headlines
At the moment, Robert, there is no indication that any of that is actually harming Donald Trump's prospects. Can I just bring you back?
That's not true. That's not me. May I correct you. I have to correct you.
Believe he won the Iowa Caucus by a significant amount, and he appears to be on course to get the Republican nomination.
31% of voters, Republicans in the Iowa caucus 31%, three out of 10 Republicans said they are less likely to see as fit for office if he's convicted. So what you're saying is not true. That the—and don't forget, he only got 50%. He was a former incumbent Republican President. And he only got half of the votes. Everybody else was against him. So this is a myth, a total misread of what the Democrats can do.
It was a pretty convincing victory. And Robert, let me ask you a bit more about these foreign policy challenges. Because
Ok
clearly, when Joe Biden took over in the White House, he wanted to bring US troops home, he did the controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Yeah, that was a screw up.
We've now got this crisis in the Red Sea with the Houthi rebels hitting shipping. We've had the strikes that were very much led by the US with UK support. We've had this announcement today that the Houthis are being prescribed as a terrorist organization. But the immediate response from the Houthis is to hit another vessel. Is there a concern that in the United States that the US is being dragged back into a Middle East conflict, particularly when we know that the Houthis are backed by Iran.
This is a very serious concern. And the every fringe Arab group, from Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to Hamas, wants to extend and expand and lengthen the war. And kids are anti war. I was anti war, Joe Biden was anti war back in the 70s, when I first met Joe. And and that we know, is a serious concern. And Biden is doing everything he can to get Israel to reduce the way that they massively go after the, the territory and to and to set in motion a peace and the that what has to happen, and we all know it is there has to be an Arab conglomerate that runs Gaza. And if we can set that up, then we can finally end this thing and have it work. But right now, it's a terrible situation, very complicated, because what Hamas did on October 7, with torture and rape, and then cutting body parts off women and dangling around and showing them to the kids, and all of that horrible stuff that they did, where as Israel is trying to defend itself from those kinds of parachuted attacks coming down. And then and then capturing all those hostages. What are they supposed to do? What is it? Nobody has a good answer to that, by the way.
We do know also. You talked about that anti war sentiment? We do.
Yes.
also know that. President Biden's continuing support for Israel has not been welcomed by many younger voters.
Right.
It seems as though Joe Biden is losing the support of some younger voters. And clearly his attitude to this war between Israel and Hamas is not going to change. Do you think that his handling
Well hold on a minute, you don't know.
of the war in Iraq in the war in Gaza? And indeed now the strikes on the Houthi rebels, do you think that is going to affect his standing particularly amongst younger voters?
Well, it does, it is. And it wants if the situation is solved. Of course, Putin is thriving on the fact that the situation is not solved. He loves chaos, as does Iran, as do all the Arab groups love the chaos and the extension of the war. So this is a very complicated situation that Joe Biden, no one is better than Joe Biden at mobilizing the world look what he did in Ukraine. But no one is better than Joe Biden at building a foreign policy coalition. And so that has to happen. You're 100%, right about that Carol. That's a danger politically with the kids. This is a very serious situation. And I know that I was the youth vote director, by the way for the Democratic National Committee, with the first youth vote in 1972. That's where I met Joe Biden was doing a youth vote for him in Delaware. And then he had me come over to his house and we made friends. So I'm well aware of the impact of anti war. We had the highest youth vote turnout ever in 1972. So this has to be solved.
And to bring us back to the race there in the United States, the other issue, of course, which has been raised by many of those who are concerned about another Joe Biden, about the prospect of another Joe Biden presidency. It is his age. I mean, do you think that there are now legitimate concerns about whether whether he's really up for another five years in office?
I consider that funny. And the reason is, first of all, he's only three years older than Trump. But second of all,
But he does, he has appeared a bit uncertain at certain times, he's made some mistakes about people who were in the audience. He has some times appeared uncertain about what he should be saying and so on.
And Trump hasn't called the wrong cities? Of course, he has both people are human. But Joe Biden has for the entirety of his career been known as somebody who talks too much, babbles and gaffes. And those gaffes, the few of them, a couple every month, don't compare to Trump's 30,000 lies at the Washington Post documented in which he does to this day, about the election, about who caused the riots, about you know, pick your pickier about foreign emoluments that he takes and the reason and justifying all those lies that Trump does, and his narcissistic horrible personality where he's vindictive, and tears every one apart, instead of trying to build people up. That's gonna get Trump. And I think it's finally coming around as I said, Carol, there's a 15% jack up now on support for the economy. The economic indicators are lagging despite the fact that Biden blocked a recession. He blocked the recession, and then in And everybody said it was gonna be a recession. And the fact that democracy is an issue that overrides everything and Biden is the one who decided to make that the issue. Because if you don't protect your democracy, you don't get choice. You don't get health care. You get everything that Republicans trying to do to build up deregulation.
Well, if somebody was somebody who was close to Joe Biden and talks to him, let me ask you about the prospect of debates with Donald Trump.
For sure
Do you think Joe Biden is going to have those head to head debates with Donald Trump later this year?
100%. Yes. And of course he will. Joe Biden doesn't check it out. And by the way, anybody who thinks Joe Biden can't handle himself, look at what he did in the State of the Union this past year, looking at what he did with the national press discussion, look at what he did in the democracy speech. He has what it takes a gives a powerful speech. And he has he negotiated the Republicans into a box committee them not to cut Social Security when he last spoke to them in the floor of the Congress. So people continually undersell Joe Biden. And as I've told my Democratic friends, given the lagging indicators, living given the support for democracy, given the court cases and the judge's rulings that are going to come down and the jury verdicts, the best is yet to be.
Robert Weiner, former White House Director of Public Affairs former Chief of Press Relations, really good to speak to you thanks so much.
You too, Carol. That's terrific. Let's do it again.
