Jon Favreau

The government shutdown is the Democrats’ first big strategic bet of Trump’s term. Not everyone in the party agreed that shutting down the government was the right move or that health care was the right message. So why did they ultimately pick this fight? What are the risks? And what could Democrats learn here that might help shape their strategy for the midterms and beyond? Jon Favreau, a former Obama speechwriter and a current co-host of “Pod Save America,” joins me to discuss.

A recent AP-NORC poll found that just a quarter of voters, including only around half of Democrats, want to see Joe Biden run for president again. Many voters are concerned about his age in particular. That’s a problem for Biden, but it’s not as unusual as it might seem. In 1982, only 37 percent of voters wanted Ronald Reagan, another older president, to run again; he then won the 1984 election in a landslide. And Biden also has a lot going for him: a better-than-expected midterm performance, an impressive record of legislative achievement and a track record of defeating Donald Trump. What are Biden’s chances in 2024? How does he stack up against Republicans like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis? What has his campaign focused on so far, and what should they focus on over the next few years? Jon Favreau served as Barack Obama’s head speechwriter from 2005 to 2013, played a key role in both of Obama’s presidential campaigns and currently co-hosts the podcast “Pod Save America.” So I asked him on the show to talk through the cases for and against Biden in 2024. We cover the concerns over Biden’s age, the strength of Vice President Kamala Harris, the key takeaways from the 2022 midterms, the surprising effectiveness of Biden’s lay-low media strategy, why voters tend to trust Donald Trump’s management of the economy more than Biden’s, how Biden’s bipartisan credentials could help him in 2024 and much more. This episode contains explicit language.