We begin with the announcement today by President Biden that he is running for a second term at the end of which he would be 86. We examine the concern among some Democrats that it might be difficult to get young voters to the polls who are not inspired by the party’s gerontocracy with too many elderly politicians in top positions like Senator Feinstein and discuss what kind of bench of contenders the Democrats have that will have to sit it out for the next four years. Joining us is Jonathan Alter, an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. He is a former senior editor and columnist for Newsweek and is the author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, both New York Times bestsellers. His latest books are The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies and His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life and he runs the Substack newsletter Old Goats.
Then we get an insider’s look at the dynamics in the Biden Oval Office and assess his relationship with Vice President Kamala Harris who is coming into the spotlight more and more having made earlier stumbles but now appears closer than ever to Biden who she might succeed in the presidency should anything happen to him. Joining us is Chris Whipple, a multiple Peabody and Emmy Award–winning producer at CBS’s 60 Minutes and ABC’s Primetime. He is the author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency and The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shaped History and the Future. His latest book is The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.
Then finally, with revelations that Governor DeSantis’s Surgeon General who is an anti-vaxxer and a supporter of hydroxychloroquine has doctored data to lie about the dangers of Covid vaccines on young men, we speak with Ryan Cooper, Managing Editor at The American Prospect. He is the Cohost of the Left Anchor podcast as well as the author of the new book, How are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics and we discuss his latest article at The American Prospect, “Republicans’ War on Their Own Public Health: Tens of thousands of conservatives died because they believed anti-vaccine lies. Now the GOP is bringing back measles and polio.”