--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, July 22nd. I'm Shamita Basu, and I am so glad to be back here with you. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: big things are happening so let's get right to it we start with the historic announcement by president joe biden that he is officially dropping out of the 2024 race in a letter posted to social media,
--:-- Shamita Basu: Biden wrote, quote, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's an abrupt turn for the president who had been insisting that he would stay in the race even after mounting criticism following his debate performance.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He also endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place as the Democratic presidential nominee.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Joining me now to talk about what this means for Democrats and really for all voters this November is my colleague Gideon Resnick.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Hey, Shamita. Welcome back to a slow Newsweek.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So let's start by talking through what happens now. What is the process now for Harris or really for anyone else to become the Democratic nominee?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Shamita, this is the first time an incumbent president has ever dropped out of the race this close to an election. The last time we saw this happen was in 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson decided not to seek reelection then.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Johnson announced that decision in March, so very early into the campaign.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So really, we are in unprecedented territory here.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And you're 100% right. Just because Biden says he is supporting his vice president, Harris, that does not mean that she is for sure the presidential nominee.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's Biden's delegates that are going to decide. They don't automatically transfer to her.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So there are about 4,000 delegates, the vast majority were prepared to nominate the joined Biden-Harris ticket at the Democratic National Convention scheduled to begin August 19th.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So the strong belief at the moment is that many of those people, the vast majority, would continue to support Harris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in fact, already, a petition to formally enter her name for consideration to be the presidential nominee began circulating among delegates almost immediately after Biden's announcement yesterday.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Also, The Washington Post reported that Harris spent most of Sunday afternoon calling congressional Democrats to ask for their support as she launches this presidential campaign for herself.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Talk to me about the money piece of this. The Biden campaign has over $90 million cash on hand at the end of June.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, Shamita, I've read some conflicting reports about whether that money can now transfer as easily as many people might think from Biden to Harris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So do you know anything about whether this might face legal challenges?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, it's interesting. So I saw that a commissioner at the Federal Election Commission told The New York Times the money can be transferred to Harris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It seems like, in this person's opinion, it's a pretty easy process.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Already, the Biden for President campaign committee refiled its paperwork to rename itself Harris for President.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But to your question, we should note some Republican lawyers have already started to raise objections here.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Should that money end up getting blocked by a judge in the future or if there is a different presidential nominee Politico notes that technically the money could be transferred to the DNC
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the rules around how it can be used mean it wouldn't be the most direct way to support the new presidential nominee.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Democratic fundraisers say more than $45 million in new donations came through in the hours after Biden endorsed Harris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Okay, so that's the money piece for Harris. But like we said, she's not the official nominee yet.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Others could still jump in, though one big potential contender, California Governor Gavin Newsom, is now backing Harris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But what happens if another Democrat throws their hat into the ring?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: First things first is they would have to move really fast here because when Biden was still on the ticket, there was this plan to hold a virtual vote before the convention even started that would make him the nominee at that point.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So if the DNC goes forward with that plan and we don't quite know exactly if they're going to adjust it, the party is behind Harris.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And then we're not going to see some sort of open convention with lots of candidates and speeches and things of that nature.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If people do decide to challenge Harris in the coming days, then we could see something like that.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, there have been some arguments for an open process so that the candidate perceived as the strongest to take on Trump would be chosen, a kind of trial by fire type situation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But then again, you hear a lot of other Democrats who are really pushing back on the idea of an open convention.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They say overlooking Harris, a woman who would be the first black and South Asian woman to be a major party nominee, someone who has already been vetted, would be a really big mistake.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So we're seeing tons of Democratic lawmakers already coming out to endorse her candidacy, seeming to end that conversation before it really gets started.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Gideon, there are 106 days left until the election. This is truly a stunning turn of events.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's just so little time left in this election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Do we know anything more about the final hours that led Biden to make this decision?
--:-- Shamita Basu: We do know that for weeks now, since that debate you mentioned, there has just been mounting pressure from Democrats who looked at polling and heard concerns from voters about Biden's age.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Politico tallied it up and counted 36 Democrats in Congress who had publicly called for Biden to drop out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We also saw reporting about major party figures telling him directly that he was not only on course at the moment to lose the presidential election, but also to imperil Democrats' control of Congress.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As for the last couple of days, we're still getting more details, but the New York Times reports that Biden was working with two of his closest aides over the weekend on that statement, part of which you read, and that he ultimately published on Sunday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Biden reportedly only told Harris and a few other key staffers Sunday morning.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In fact, the Times says the world found out about this at about 1.46 p.m.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Biden's staff only found out about it at about 1.45 p.m.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Wow, that's incredible.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I mean, this all came to a head so quickly.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It is worth just taking a moment to think about and reflect on Biden's lifelong career in politics.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Absolutely.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And, you know, politics aside, reflect on the fact that Biden has been a public servant for more than 50 years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Wall Street Journal calls it one of the longest and most consequential careers in modern American politics.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Biden started his career in Washington as the youngest sitting senator at the time
--:-- Shamita Basu: He will exit as the country oldest president
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And we hearing so many Democratic lawmakers praise him in the past few hours hailing him as a kind of American patriot for making this choice to exit the presidential race
--:-- Shamita Basu: They also know that he is the person who kept Trump from serving a second term in 2020.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And if his choice to exit this race in 2024 creates an opening for another candidate to step in and do the same, I think for many that will define Biden's legacy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gideon Resnick, thanks for your time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's kind of hard to believe, but this is going to be the first presidential election without a Biden, Clinton or Bush on the ticket since 1976.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that's a challenge for the Trump campaign.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So much of its strategy up until this point has been focused on beating the incumbent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This campaign was not organized to beat a generic Democrat, but rather how it had been built from day one and really optimized from the bottom up to run a very specific race against a very specific opponent in Joe Biden, the president.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Tim Alberta, a staff writer at The Atlantic who's been embedded with the Trump campaign for the past few months.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I spoke with him last week before Biden's announcement about the Trump campaign strategy and their confidence that they could and would beat Biden in November.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I just can't remember ever being around a presidential campaign, including the Obama campaigns, where the people were so confident in what they were doing and so certain that they were going to win all these months out from Election Day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And when you try to understand the cause of that confidence, it rarely came back to Donald Trump himself.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It had much more to do with Joe Biden, with who they were running against.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That strategy, the one developed when Biden was the candidate, was all about painting Biden as weak and Trump as strong.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, Alberta says, the blueprint is being torn up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: What will replace it is unclear, though we're already starting to get some early signs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On social media, Trump complained about having spent money to fight Biden, only to have him drop out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And he argued that Biden's exit means he should be able to change the terms of the next presidential debate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Alberta spoke to Republicans after Biden's announcement about new difficulties they'll face.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's quite a turn of events after the triumphant convention.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If Trump loses, Alberta says, that scene might go down in history as a campaign that peaked too early.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One new worry is that a new Democratic VP nominee could put more swing states in play, especially if it's someone like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro or Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump's campaign did prepare for potential alternatives to Biden, including Kamala Harris, and we've heard Trump mention her on the campaign trail.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday before Biden dropped out, Trump referred to Harris as crazy and nuts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He also made fun of her laugh and mispronounced her first name.
--:-- Shamita Basu: USA Today reports that Trump and allies discussed focusing on Harris's years as vice president and California attorney general.
--:-- Shamita Basu: During the Biden administration, she dealt with immigration.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post spoke with some Trump advisers who plan to tie her to the problems at our southern border.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And one GOP strategist who was an advisor to the previous Trump campaigns told The Post that the change at the top of the ticket is, quote, immaterial.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Republicans can simply transfer their anger for Joe Biden to his vice president who they see as complicit in every decision he made
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some other common Republican lines of attack could still work like criticizing earlier inflation during Biden term
--:-- Shamita Basu: But one of the Trump campaign's favorite weapons is now useless.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Attacks on Biden's mental fitness and age don't work with Harris, who's 59.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After all, with Biden out, 78-year-old Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in American history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, here are some other stories being featured in the Apple News app to help you understand this historic moment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Los Angeles Times pulls together its extensive reporting on Vice President Kamala Harris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Times has followed her career and all of its firsts for two decades.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Harris was the first woman elected as San Francisco's DA.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She was California's first woman attorney general, where her tough-on-crime stance has haunted her political career since.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She was the first person of color to be elected to the U.S. Senate from California.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She is the first Black, South Asian, and woman vice president.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now she's trying to pull off the biggest first of them all, the first woman of color to win the White House.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The L.A. Times looked back at how her family inspired her to go into government.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It profiled her grandfather, an Indian civil servant who worked in Zambia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We've also pulled together a few stories for you that go inside Biden's decision to drop out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Reporters at The Washington Post spoke to more than a dozen Democratic insiders about what exactly happened behind closed doors.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Most of their sources were granted anonymity to share private details.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Post's reporting speaks to how many of Biden's aides were totally blindsided by the timing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some were angry that they kept working through the weekend for a campaign that effectively ended around lunchtime Sunday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Politico has another deeply reported account.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It includes the important role played by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She maneuvered to get Democrats to push Biden to end his campaign.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As one party insider put it, Pelosi saw that it could be done, quote, the easy way or the hard way.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She gave them three weeks of the easy way.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It was about to be the hard way.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that Wall Street Journal article about Biden's career that Gideon mentioned earlier is full of details worth mentioning.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When Biden was first elected to the Senate, just weeks later, his wife and young daughter died in a car accident.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Rather than move his young sons to Washington, Biden commuted daily from home in Wilmington, Delaware.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He was a huge fan of Amtrak, logging more than two million miles.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His hometown even named a station after him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And as president, one of his biggest achievements, the bipartisan infrastructure law, brought him full circle.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It made major investments into roads, bridges, and his beloved railways.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find those stories and much more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the news app right now, we've got a narrated article from The New Yorker coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It looks at how Trump plans to transform America if he wins.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, this story came out before Biden's exit, but it is still worth checking out for insight into sweeping policy changes planned by Trump and conservative allies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
