How Far Can Foreign Policy Take President Biden?
Hello Hackaroos,
Well, while the President’s domestic agenda is still limping along, he’s finally scoring some wins on the foreign policy front. But the big question: will voters care about any of it come November? That’s where we begin before some tidbits.
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WILL VOTERS CARE ABOUT “MR. FOREIGN POLICY” BIDEN”?
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on taking out the ISIS leader (Win McNamee / Getty Images News)
MURPHY: Wow, so President “Mr. Foreign Policy” Biden is blowing up top level terrorists and turning up the heat on noted Bear Wrestler and KGB alum of the year Vladimir Putin. I guess he’s finally found a 12-string guitar he can play well. Big foreign policy moments are very risky, but politically a huge opportunity to get a strong positive bump. It’s an old tradition, going back to Nixon to China. Gibbsie, how do you explain Biden’s potential opportunity here to get his strong leader mojo back?
GIBBS: I think part of that's because national security and foreign relations are almost entirely the purview of the President (even though there might be a committee in the Senate that says otherwise). And it has liberated a number of Presidents in the past who felt like otherwise the job was constraining in needing consensus.
MURPHY: That's true. He’s finally got an opportunity to make a few big moves that AOC and her cronies in the lefty House can't screw up! Upside: Biden looks strong and confident. Downside: like all foreign policy Big Moments, it'll either melt away, or it'll get really, really bad, which won't help Biden at all. (And let me make a strong note here that in the vital interest of peace in the region, let’s all hope this moment passes without armed conflict.) The fact remains that in the longer term domestic policy is still where most elections are decided. Biden's still got inflation. He still faces Build Back Better leaning heavily on the ropes with no real path forward at the moment. He has COVID, still in force but potentially waning (until another variant?) All while the big clock ticks away; his first State of the Union is coming up fast. (We already told him what he should do on that front.)
GIBBS: Or have Mitch McConnell screw up! To underscore what you said Murphy, I agree that the permanence of foreign policy doesn't tend to last long. I remember after the bin Laden raid, the conjecture from pundits was, this could change the trajectory of the 2012 election? The answer was always going to be no. And it became pretty clear quickly that the answer was no.
It's helpful to underscore that one of the things that Joe Biden needs and his approval ratings need are that sense of competently executing the functions of government, the notion of conveying that the set of problems he's trying to tackle isn't bigger than the person tackling them. This is different than all the commentators who said, “Oh, Donald Trump is Presidential now because he dropped a bomb.” That's not it.
MURPHY: Yup, very different. Biden’s domestic policy troubles with his own party have created a bad narrative of weakness. But a foreign policy crisis provides – politically at least – a big stage and a big moment where Biden can prove that, surprise, he totally can play in the majors and play well. And I think – as a domestic policy critic of the POTUS and of his political strategy – so far he is handling the Ukraine moment very well.
GIBBS: Yeah, the administration seems to be rattling Putin a bit by continually and purposefully leaking important developments around Ukraine. Everyone knows where this information is coming from: troop movements, troop buildups, false flag operations. Those can only come from one place. In today's news, it’s information on Putin staging a Wag the Dog moment (a great movie by the way). We’re using information warfare against the Master of Information Warfare, and I think that can't be dismissed. And so, I think the President’s Ukraine response has been strong thus far.
MURPHY: And much stronger, it should be noted, than Trump who was a mangy doormat for Putin. It is very refreshing that for the first time in five years, we have a US President who doesn't excitedly pant and kowtow to foreign dictators like a dizzy puppy, be they the overstuffed thug in North Korea, or this preening bullyboy in Moscow. Still there is more Biden can do on this and he should do it quickly. As readers of this august newsletter and listeners to our Hacks podcast know, I really think Biden needs to frame up the big picture here pronto and give a primetime address to the nation. Explain the situation and what our goals and plans are going forward. Embrace diplomacy, but lay out the plan if Putin does invade Ukraine. Make it clear we are not talking about direct conflict, but very punishing sanctions on Putin and his gang. Show NATO unity. In other words, be the anti-Trump; smart, strategic, well- informed and working in close concert with our allies.
My final point is Bidenland should remember that if they do well in this moment, and communicate it well from start to finish, it’ll be not only a strategic victory for the U.S. but a political victory for Biden, which will give him more badly needed strength and momentum to get something done in domestic politics. Nothing succeeds in politics like success.
GIBBS: Yeah, that's what it unlocks politically. In today’s political environment, it doesn't save you. It helps you become stronger in other important areas.
GET WELL SOON, SENATOR LUJÁN!
GIBBS: Maybe the biggest story politically this week wasn't about Ukraine or terrorists, but it was about a senator and it, finally, wasn't about Joe Manchin. Senator Ben Ray Luján’s stroke that's left him recovering in a hospital in New Mexico is huge. It makes a lot of the things that we talked about in the previous issue for Biden to try and get done before the State of the Union somewhere on the scale of exponentially harder to nearly impossible. Given the fact that Democrats now don't have a working majority in attendance making everything from the China competitiveness bill to stopgap government funding to, yes, nominations, a whole lot harder. We certainly hope Senator Luján gets well soon. A stroke of any severity is a scary thing to happen to anybody, particularly somebody as young as he is. It also just underscores again the fragility of a 50-50 Senate at a time in which the President's got a lot of things he needs to get done, preferably on the quicker side – all with an enormously large Supreme Court nomination looming just off center stage.
MURPHY: Yes, we all wish the Senator well and hope for a speedy and full recovery. Since I’m ancient, I do remember when Bob Dole was in a similar situation on a tight Senate vote and actually wheeled the recovering Senator Pete Wilson of California into the chamber to cast a key budget vote in 1985 after having surgery for a ruptured appendix. (Wilson, a tough marine, probably had to be wrestled into the gurney, but it got him there.) The D Senate majority is very fragile, and it's yet another reason for the Biden White House to make an election year change up: find big, simple domestic issues to fight over, rather than trying yet again to be measured by legislative success. Very few Presidents get anything done legislatively in a midterm election year. But Bidenland is still letting that be their big messaging yardstick and it’s a losing move. It's now about making campaign arguments to obtain more political power.
GIBBS: The good news for both Senator Luján and Democrats is his office says that they think the recovery period will be four to six weeks before he's back at work. So, we'll see. The Senate has worked through this type of illness before. Former Senators Mark Kirk of Illinois and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, both had a much, much longer recovery periods. Again, our best wishes for a speedy recovery!
TIDBITS
GIBBS: My tidbit is the new interview Senator Joe Manchin did with NBC News – declaring Build Back Better is "dead." I think we largely already knew that? We all remember having trackers in campaigns, Murphy, that follow the other candidates around with a recorder or a video camera hoping to pick up clues or gaffes. And it almost seems like there's a tracker on Joe Manchin filling out a spreadsheet of what he's for and what he's against when it comes to this legislation. Time will tell, though, as we’ve discussed, in an election year, time is not your friend. And remember, whatever you do, do not call this Build Back Better!
MURPHY: Yeah, well my advice to the White House is write down what he says and pass it in two weeks because Manchin decides is what can actually happen. Put a big bow on it and declare victory!
Spectrum New York One Reporter Zack Fink: The proposed new 10th District, currently held by Rep. Jerry Nadler, which extends from Manhattan’s West Side down into Borough Park in Brooklyn, and takes a pretty windy path to get there
GIBBS: One last thing, and we’ll dive more into this, but it looks like Democrats may have dodged a bit of a bullet in Congressional redistricting. I, and many others on the Democratic side feared that this process alone might give the GOP an 8-12 advantage, but as this process finishes up, it looks like anywhere from a wash to a slight Democratic advantage. Does that mean the Dems will hold the House? No, it does not. The political health of the President will do more to determine that in 2022. But, this is a nice boost for Dems. And, if you called the map in New York “gerrymandering,” I and others would have a hard time winning that argument.
MURPHY: I agree, a wash (thought that alone won’t save the Dem House majority.) That said, I’m still waiting for the angry – and often justified – editorial writers who regularly blow a gasket over GOP state redistricting tricks to take an equally caustic look at what the pencil bending Dem hacks have been up to in the NY redistricting. Time for the Dems to put their halos back in storage re: this one.
Have a great weekend! We’ll see you on Tuesday.
Murphy and Gibbs