What a Second Biden Term Would Look Like

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2024

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Biden gave a raucous State of the Union speech last Thursday, offering his pitch for why he should be president for a second term. It’s the clearest picture we have yet of Biden’s campaign message for 2024. But while he listed off all kinds of proposals, it’s not as easy to parse what a second Biden term might actually look like. So I sat down with my editor Aaron Retica, who had a lot of questions for me about the speech itself and what Biden would be likely to accomplish if he got another four years in the job. We discuss how my argument for Biden to step aside holds up after he gave such a deft, high-energy performance; what a second Biden administration would likely do when it comes to abortion rights and foreign policy; the issues that didn’t receive much attention in the speech but would likely play a huge role in a second Biden term; the strongest 2024 campaign message that I’ve heard so far; and whether this is a Locke election or a Hobbes election — and what that means. Book Recommendations: Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century by John A. Farrell A Nation Without Borders by Steven Hahn The Field of Blood by Joanne B. Freeman Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. So we are talking on Friday morning. It's March 8th. It is the morning after Joe Biden's
0:28.0	state of the Union, which was a raucous enthusiastic affair.
0:32.5	And we thought we'd do a bigger picture episode
0:35.8	talking through a bit of State of the Union
0:38.6	and more broadly what the State of the Union
0:40.6	was beginning to preview, which is what
0:42.3	Joe Biden's second
0:43.1	term would look like what his pitch in 2024 for that second term will look like and
0:48.0	then what actually that second term will look like which I've also been doing a
0:50.8	fair amount of separate reporting on.
0:52.6	So I'm joined as I often am in these days
0:55.4	by my illustrious editor, Aaron Redica.
0:57.8	Aaron, thank you for being here.
0:59.2	You're welcome.
1:00.0	So where do you want to begin?
1:01.6	Well, the audience can't see it, but I have brought you a replica of a medieval hair shirt
1:08.9	to wear to mortify yourself after the State of the Union. You know why, but I'm going to ask
1:14.6	you about it anyway. Many people actually were tweeting away and talking about
1:19.0	how the Biden's performance during the State of the Union was essentially a refutation of your argument
1:24.4	from a few weeks ago that he should, in fact, step aside from the campaign.
1:30.4	So could you talk a little bit about how you felt watching it and what you think about that idea?
1:37.1	I mean the way I felt watching it was excited to see Joe Biden giving a really great state of the Union
	...

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