JUDY WOODRUFF: It is shaping up
to be a busy week in politics,
as Washington and the nation
gear up for midterm races.
Amna Nawaz has more.
AMNA NAWAZ: Right, Judy.
Republican candidates are
garnering key endorsements this
week as the primary election
season ramps up.
Meanwhile, President Biden
will tout his climate
accomplishments this week
in honor of Earth Day, a move
that some hope could boost
his slumping poll numbers.
To help us break all of
this down, I'm joined by our
Politics Monday duo. That
is Amy Walter of The Cook
Political Report With Amy
Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.
Welcome back. Good
to see you both.
AMY WALTER, The Cook
Political Report: Thank you.
AMNA NAWAZ: Let's dive
right in, shall we?
Tam, President Biden's
been talking about what
his administration has
been doing on the climate
front. We know it's a
huge priority for them.
But he is up against a
tightening energy market. And
he's trying to act on that.
Just on Friday, they
announced they're going
to start resuming oil
and gas leases on federal lands.
He took a lot of criticism on
that from environmental groups.
Is this the president
going back on his pledge?
TAMARA KEITH, National
Public Radio: The White
House would argue that
they are constrained by
court rulings and other
things that are basically
out of their hands,
that this is certainly not the
way the president would like to
be moving forward on this issue.
But this is not the only
way that they are running up
into challenges. They also
want to -- had a big
environmental agenda that
was part of the Build Back
Better legislation that has
completely stalled out. And they
faced other court challenges
in their efforts to do this
through regulatory means.
Now, the White House tried to
get out ahead of all of this,
held a call today with
reporters, where they insisted,
no, we really -- there
are many paths to meet our
goals for climate emissions,
and we will get there, they say.
AMNA NAWAZ: They say they're
still going to hit them.
TAMARA KEITH: They say
they're still going to hit
them. They're insistent.
But it almost seems
like the insistence is
stronger than the path.
AMNA NAWAZ: Well,
here's the thing on the
message, though, Amy.
If you are if you're a voter who
backed Biden because you wanted
someone who was going to act
on climate crisis, but you
really don't like paying more
for gas every day because
of the war in Ukraine
and the tightening energy
market, are you OK with
this? Do you excuse this?
AMY WALTER: So there's a
famous political thing that you
campaign in poetry and
you govern in prose.
The other way to say it
now is, you campaign in
poetry, you govern in
reality. And the reality is,
gas is super expensive.
And it's not just impacting
you as you go and fill up your
own gas tank, but it's affecting
the prices of everything, right?
Anything that needs to be
transported or any trip
you take on an airplane
is impacted by this.
AMNA NAWAZ: Right.
AMY WALTER: So it goes to a
broader inflation message.
And it's not just -- if you're
talking about environmental
goals the president
would like to hit, it's not
just things like leasing
that he's gone back on. But
he was at an event, was it
last week, in Iowa, saying
this blended ethanol...
AMNA NAWAZ: Right.
AMY WALTER: ... which has
higher pollution in --
especially in the summer months,
that's going to be OK,
we're going to get a waiver
for that. It should lower
gas prices a little bit.
Releasing more gas from the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The
reality is, back in 2020, being
able to do an energy policy that
took us away from fossil fuels
made a whole lot more sense.
AMNA NAWAZ: Yes. So here
is where we are right
now with -- in terms
of his support. When you will
look at a key demographic,
in particular younger voters,
for whom climate is a very
important issue, if you take a
look at that graphic, no group,
no group has soured more
on President Biden in
his time in office than
Gen Z and millennials,
60 percent approval back in
January of 21. That's down to
40 percent as of March of 2022.
AMY WALTER: Yes. AMNA
NAWAZ: It's a 20-point drop.
Is it just the economy?
What's driving it?
AMY WALTER: It's
a host of things.
So, I sit in a lot of focus
groups with these voters. And
one woman summed it up pretty
well at the beginning of the
month. She said, what got
me out to vote in 2020, I had to
-- everything that was Trump, I
was against. It's hard to get
me motivated when Trump's
not there. Also, there are
a lot of other problems
I'm worried about.
Almost everybody in that
group talked about inflation,
talked about their worries
on just everything from, is
COVID going to come back, to
what's going on in Ukraine.
AMNA NAWAZ: Right. AMY
WALTER: So there's a
sense of anxiousness
and worry about what's coming
next that is impacting them.
I think the other thing
that's important to appreciate
about this group of voters,
especially when we compare
them to, say, the voters
that were with Barack Obama,
a lot of those then younger
voters were inspired to
vote because of Obama.
AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.
AMY WALTER: These were voters
who were inspired to vote
because of Donald Trump, right?
AMNA NAWAZ: Right.
AMY WALTER: And that is a very
different -- trying to bring
them back into the fold is
much difficult -- more
difficult for different...
AMNA NAWAZ: These were
all questions, by the way,
you mentioned that we also have,
like, is COVID coming back?
(CROSSTALK)
AMY WALTER: Right.
AMNA NAWAZ: Tam, what is the
White House saying about this?
TAMARA KEITH: Well, they
in part are saying that
there isn't an alternative
right now, that there
isn't an opponent
for the president or for
Democrats necessarily to compare
themselves to at this moment.
That will change. And they are
arguing that ,even if we haven't
achieved our goals, they say,
their policy aims at least are
more aligned with these voters
than what they -- what
the White House sees as
Republican policy aims.
We shall see about that,
whether that's enough to
motivate midterm voters,
because midterm voters
are notoriously fickle and
unmotivated, except for
the ones that are super
motivated, which tend to be
the hardcore partisans and
tend to be older voters.
AMY WALTER: And they tend
to be older, right? Young
voters tend not to turn out...
(CROSSTALK)
AMNA NAWAZ: We shall see is
the key phrase from there.
But speaking of Republicans,
I do want to get both
of your takes on a new
slate of endorsements we
saw from former President Trump,
have a lot of people scratching
their heads. He's jumping into
what I would call some messy
Republican primaries, among
them, backing folks like
David Perdue, of course,
former Georgia senator
now running for governor,
Dr. Oz running for a seat in
the Senate from Pennsylvania,
Adam Laxalt, who's running for
a Senate seat in Nevada, and
J.D. Vance, who is also running
for a Senate seat in Ohio.
Tam, what do you make when
you look at this list?
TAMARA KEITH: Yes, I mean,
these are candidates who are not
clearly winning their primaries
by any stretch. These are, in
some cases, candidates that
the Republican establishment
definitely would not get
on board with because they
don't know that they're
necessarily winners.
These are also people
who are very aligned
with Trump and Trumpism
and his lie that he won the
election. And that has value and
currency to him. He also likes
people who have a certain
celebrity feel, which
is how you get Dr. Oz
and, to a lesser extent,
J.D. Vance, even though he once
opposed Trump, he now supports
him. And that is good enough,
because it's all about Trump,
Trump, Trump, loyalty, loyalty,
loyalty, or whatever his
definition of loyalty is,
which is accepting the lie.
AMNA NAWAZ: To be clear, he
doesn't have to endorse anyone.
(CROSSTALK) AMNA NAWAZ:
He's choosing to do this.
AMY WALTER: He's
choosing to do this.
He would like to be in the
conversation. He's not in the
conversation now. He's no longer
the president of the United
States. One thing that I think
is very important to appreciate,
though, especially in
places like Ohio, but
even in Pennsylvania,
all of the Republican
candidates are touting their
support for Donald Trump or how
aligned they are with Trump.
I took a look. Of all the ads
that have been run since the
beginning of the year until now,
$24 million of
Republican aligned ads,
so either candidates
or groups that support
Republican candidates, have
mentioned Donald Trump in their
advertising in a positive way,
so candidates saying, I'm
the pro-Trump conservative,
or we're going to build Trump's
wall, or I'm going to do as
Donald Trump would do, XYZ.
AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.
AMY WALTER: No matter who wins
these primaries in these states,
they are going to be
supportive of Donald Trump.
We are not talking
about an anti-Trump
wing vs. the pro-Trump
wing in these primaries.
What we're going to
look for is, does his
primary give enough juice
in a crowded primary to
put somebody over the top?
That's what the president,
the former president,
certainly wants to see,
right? I endorsed you,
you went from bottom of
the polls to the top.
But it does not tell us a
lot about what the -- how
these folks will be aligned
ideologically or temperamentally
once they get into Congress.
(CROSSTALK)
TAMARA KEITH: But if
they don't win, it risks
his political currency.
AMNA NAWAZ: Yes. There is
also that. There is also that.
I have a feeling we will be
talking about this some more.
AMY WALTER: Couple more times.
AMNA NAWAZ: Yes. Amy
Walter, Tamara Keith,
good to see you guys.