Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is Jeffrey Anderson. He's the president of the American Main Street Initiative, which is a think tank that focuses on issues that are important to everyday Americans.

He served as director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice

from 2017 to 2021, is writing on various domestic policy issues, appears regularly in

City Journal, and he's appeared in many other outlets as well, including The Telegraph,

Claremont Review of Books,

the Federalist, and the American Conservative. Today, we're going to discuss some of his

recent pieces for City Journal. So we're going to look at the presidential debate, pot policy,

and the national crime rate. So, Jeff, thanks very much for coming on.

Thank you, Brian. It's my pleasure.

So, yeah, let's start with this debate that everybody's talking about between President Biden and Donald Trump, as I think has been widely recognized, the president, who's now 81, spoke

haltingly, incoherently.

At times, he was caught looking a bit confused, staring off into the distance.

In fact, his performance was so troubling that several major outlets that have supported the Biden campaign quite a bit,

including the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly,

and a number of prominent officials have asked him to end his campaign and to drop out of the race.

So let me just start with that question. What, in your view, is the likelihood that a different candidate could conceivably be the Democratic Party's nominee in this race against

Donald Trump. Well, I think it really comes down to, to President Biden's decision. And so I think

the likelihood of there being a swap out for a different candidate is probably not great,

because I don't see a lot of signs that President Biden is looking to bow out.

He has essentially all the delegates at the Democratic Convention are pledged to him.

And so I don't think there's any real sign out there that at this point, the Democratic Party is looking, or any one person is looking to challenge him and try to make it an open convention.

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