Dems Hope Health Care Can Bail Them Out in November

CLAY: People are running scared because they are looking even at CNN, which has Joe Biden with a 41% approval rating, 58% of people disapproving. And to put that into context for you, when Biden has lost CNN, that is not ideal. Here is the trajectory. In September, Joe Biden’s approval rating in a CNN poll was 52%; October, 50%; November, 48%. And now here as we are sitting in the beginning of February, he has fallen down to 41%.

It is a free-for-all falling situation for Joe Biden, and there’s really no strategy at play here. Biden while we were live in the air in the first couple hours addressed the current situation, the inflation numbers and more. What is his answer? His suggestion is, “Let’s spend more money!” Build Back Better still make sense, according to Joe Biden. It is a floundering failure of a Biden presidency. Here he was a little bit earlier trying to address all of these calamities.

BUCK: Do we understand this, everybody?

CLAY: Madness.

BUCK: It’s madness. First of all, inflation is really the most regressive of taxes, because —

CLAY: No doubt.

BUCK: — it eats away at the earnings and the buying power of those who are dependent upon wages and don’t have assets, aren’t piling money into the stock market, aren’t watching their home values, their home prices currently going up all over the place. So it’s hurting people, the decision to spend this money in this way and to spend even more money given what we’re seeing — and then also, the promise that it’s “paid for”? (laughs) That’s never true, right?

If they could just look at the history of what ends up happening and who ends up picking up the tab for these things, you’re going to have companies that will do less hiring. You’re going to have individuals that will do less investing and starting of business, and they’re talking about a massive tax raise that simply can’t be paid for, Clay, only by people making more than $400,000 a year.

But this is how they sell it. They push it through; no one actually reads the text of the bill. But I think that people are recognizing that he just doesn’t have the political capital right now to get this through. You mentioned Joe Manchin before. The Democrat Party is not in a position to get this Build Back Better done, and so it just turns into empty talking points and more class warfare rhetoric from a guy who pretends to be Scranton Joe on the choo-choo train all the time on Amtrak but as we know, lives in mansions, is worth, what, $15 million at least that we know of, never mind (crosstalk) millions with Hunter.

CLAY: That’s right. Look, Buck, I don’t even know what Biden does at this point. Illegitimacy kind of walk through the scenarios that he’s facing. Worst border crossings ever. Murder rates for police officers that are the highest in over 25 years. Murder rates in many big cities hitting all-time highs. Covid is right now massively more significant in terms of cases on this date than it was a year ago on the same date.

Deaths are higher with covid than they were a year ago on this same date. And Build Back Better, as we talked about earlier, Joe Manchin has basically said inflation is so bad, it’s at a 40-year high, that he’s not going to support any more governmental spending until we get our house in order. And so we’ve got this decision with the Supreme Court, which I think will distract for a little bit.

But I don’t think it’s gonna be some sort of fundamentally politically game-altering situation because it’s a Democrat-appointed Stephen Breyer getting replaced by a Democrat-appointed justice. He’s floundering in a way that we haven’t seen a president flounder in most of our lives.

BUCK: Yeah, whoever the pick is for President Biden is gonna get through basically. Republicans might push on some issues and do a little bit of grandstanding, a little bit of asking about judicial philosophy. But as I’ve said, it’s gonna get through. This candidate’s gonna get through with some Republican votes too. It’s not even gonna be a party-wide vote.

CLAY: I think that’s likely.

BUCK: It’s gonna be a number, I would say, four or five Republicans would go along about it. And so then the rest can vote against it knowing that it’s gonna sail through. Doesn’t really matter anyway. So I think that Biden is looking for something now. I do think the pivot to health care will be interesting ’cause Republicans… It’s never preaching to the choir when as a member of the conservative side of things you start talking about how we lack…

We’re lacking messages appeal or we’re not saying what needs to said. What is the GOP message on health care right now? What are they saying about it? Remember, we were gonna have repeal and replace; didn’t really get through under Trump. We got the skinny repeal version that didn’t even really even get through. We got rid of the individual mandate. But Democrats are gonna have to come up with something.

And health care costs are a place where they can pick up, I think, a bit of ground here. I think that’s… So I hope the GOP, I hope the RNC have something in the tank for this one, have something on the shelf because otherwise we’re gonna get caught unaware ’cause they need something, Clay. They’re gonna have to pull some kind of a move for Biden and the Democrats to avoid annihilation.

CLAY: Yeah, we talked about if you were advising the Biden administration as the midterms come closer, I think they’re hoping that the Supreme Court wipes out Roe v. Wade. I’ve predicted that I don’t think they will. I think they’ll allow the Mississippi bill to become law, which basically drops down abortion from 23 or 24 weeks, where it is now, to 15 weeks.

And if you actually look at the date, the number of abortions that are happening inside of that window are not very substantial. But it’s a big battleground. I don’t think they’ll allow Texas. But that, to me, is kind of a Hail Mary for the Democratic Party because they’re gonna go after suburban women and say, “Oh, you’re… The abortion issue!”

BUCK: But remember they tried the War on Women issue with Kavanaugh, and it actually backfired.

CLAY: Backfired.

BUCK: It actually probably cost Democrats control of the Senate in that cycle.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: There were a handful, a couple of Senate seats that likely went with the Republicans — stayed with or switched to Republican — because it was so ugly and so dishonest what they did to Kavanaugh. I remember, I mean, the polling inside of West Virginia for Senator Manchin during that. Something like 70% of West Virginians or 80% of West Virginians, for example.

That’s obviously why Manchin voted for confirmation. So I don’t think the Supreme Court’s gonna be their issue. I think that they’re hoping the media will carry a lot of water for them. Nobody thinks that January 6 is gonna do anything other than keep people who watch CNN and MSNBC entertained with their delusions of the coup that might come at any moment or the constant threat of white supremacy. There’s not a lot that they can point to that isn’t a disaster, and on the other side of the messaging as well, the border needs to… I think Joe Scarborough actually even… Clay, check this out.

CLAY: He’s even acknowledging it.

BUCK: Just because Joe Scarborough says it doesn’t mean it’s not true, everybody. I have to preface this. Just ’cause Scarborough says it, as loathsome as many of his ideas have been in recent years, doesn’t mean he’s wrong. He’s right on both of these issues. He’s trying to preach to Democrats. Listen.

BUCK: Now, he’s right, Clay, but part of this that’s left out that he won’t tell the MSNBC audience is that the Democrats can’t talk about those issues because the only logical fixes to those issues, they’ll completely counter what they’ve been pushing for years now.

CLAY: I think the Democratic house is on fire, and Republicans just have to avoid getting caught in the flames themselves, right? Because this is a referendum on the first two years of the Biden presidency. Midterms are always a referendum on the existing president, and so Democrats… Look, there’s nothing good that they can sell.

But Republicans have to avoid getting the fire spread to them, so then Democrats can argue, “Oh, the whole place is on fire and Democrats and Republicans are equally to blame,” because I do think that will be one of the other angles that Biden will probably try to address, because the overall congressional approval rating is even lower than his.

Now, the reality is, people tend to like their own congressman and hate everybody else, right? That’s kind of the way that polling in this situation results. But if you’re Biden and your numbers are at 41%, they may try to argue, “Well, this is a do-nothing Democratic Congress because of Republicans.” I don’t think that works. But again, “don’t light yourself on fire” is the strategy for Republicans at this point.