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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, power and prejudices.

This year, 2024, is an election year in America, a presidential election year. And so we will be doing two podcasts a week, rather than our usual one,

because we want to and because we know you can't get enough Americano in your life. I am delighted

to be joined today by John Ellis, who is the founder and editor of news items, which is an excellent

daily newsletter that I recommend to all Americano listeners.

John, I think we should start by talking about Joe Biden. You've written that Biden's position

is no longer tenable. When did you reach that conclusion? A while ago, probably a year ago, there was polling last fall,

which the question was asked to the registered voters of the United States. Do you think

President Biden can serve effectively as president in a second term.

And the results were somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters,

and in one case, 80% said no.

And it struck me that if 80% think that you're not up to the job,

then you're probably not going to be reelected.

Yes.

And was this broken down by Democrats?

Was there a...

Yeah, the Democrats were of sort of a majority.

I mean, Republicans were obviously 95%.

Independence were high, more than 50%. and Democrats were at 50% 46, 40, you know, 52.

...