This is the political scene and I'm David Remnick.

The panic that has gripped Democrats during and after the first presidential debate

didn't come out of nowhere.

In fact, we did an episode on this program about President Biden's age and the concerns that voters were

expressing back in January of last year, 2023. But what we've been hearing from

the White House and nearly all Democratic leaders is some version of

this. Biden's in good shape, he has an impressive first term to run on, and if he wants to

run again, nobody's going to stop him.

But after his disastrous performance in the June debate,

the party is grappling with the consequences of that strategy.

Julian Castro was one of the first prominent Democrats to say

after the debate that Biden should bow out. Now Castro ran against Biden last time in

the presidential primary. He had served in President Obama's

cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. We spoke last week.

Secretary Castro welcome you recently wrote on X or Twitter about

President Biden that quote even before the, three and four registered voters,

and 55% of his own 2020 voters,

thought he was too old to be effective.

And you're not the only person to suggest that and as the week has gone on we've seen this real

tension in the Democratic Party and Nancy Pelosi has hinted hinted that maybe President Biden should reconsider running for a second

turn. What is going on inside the party?

Well inside the party there's just a tremendous amount of anxiety turmoil I think it's fair to say

...