Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isger joined by Steve Hayes and

Jonah Goldberg, but we have a special guest today. Alex Thompson National

Political Correspondent Axios, Thanks for joining us.

Great to be here. So let's start with the run up to the press conference that President Biden held at NATO this week.

Alex, what was the mood from the White House,

from Democrats on the Hill,

before the press conference?

Well, within the White House and the Biden campaign, there's really a split.

The higher up in the org chart you go, really, the more there is this attitude of,

there is just a, this is a freak out that there's a bunker mentality that this is just the

latest of people doubting Joe Biden and him you know getting back up and is going to recover and persevere.

Then, you know, throughout the White House, it's really split. There are people that are demoralized.

There are some people that, you know there are some people that you know especially

the ones that didn't see Biden on a day-to-day basis a feeling of disillusionment feeling

that maybe senior staff were you know obscuring or not telling the truth about any

limitations that he had and then you know if you're on a campaign and you just

moved to Wilmington Delaware you're you know if you're on a campaign and you just moved to Wilmington

Delaware you're you know pretty low morale checking your lease seeing what

the out causes are if you just moved to Wilmington Delaware for any reason you're

probably pretty low and then you know Democrats in Congress Delaware for any reason you're probably a little more.

And then, you know, Democrats in Congress, you know,

despite only probably, I don't know what the count is now,

...