Conservative strategist Scott Jennings talks with NPR’s Andrew Limbong about what President Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race means for the GOP.
ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
We continue to cover the reaction and next steps for the Democratic Party and voters as President Joe Biden announced his decision to suspend his campaign for another term as president. Let’s jump into reaction from the Republican side with GOP strategist Scott Jennings. Scott, thank you so much for joining us.
SCOTT JENNINGS: Hey, thanks for having me.
LIMBONG: All right. So even though the pressure on President Biden to drop out has been mounting for some time, did the announcement come as any surprise to you?
JENNINGS: Yeah, I was somewhat surprised. I thought he was going to stick it out. And – because, you know, look, he’s been talking about democracy and the importance of votes, and he got millions of votes in the Democratic primary, and now it looks to Republicans like he’s been pushed out by a few Democratic party elites and some wealthy donors. And so I really did think he was going to stay. And obviously, now we’re in a strange new world where there really is no – there are no rules, and there is no process for one of our major political parties to pick its nominee.
LIMBONG: Former President Donald Trump’s response to this afternoon isn’t all that shocking. He said Joe Biden wasn’t fit to be president, leveled some of his typical name-calling too. But big picture, what does this mean for the Trump/Vance campaign?
JENNINGS: Well, I think the transition on messaging is quite easy. I mean, Harris is Biden. She’s his vice president, and she’s got a pretty low approval rating herself. And she’s been right there next to him as they have presided over inflation crisis, immigration problems and all the things that have driven their approval rating down low. And so I actually think, you know, it’s not a difficult thing to transition to. I also think that the Trump campaign had already effectively been arguing that a vote for Biden was a vote for Harris anyway, because nobody expected Biden to serve four years. So basically, that part’s easy. Where, I guess, on the flip side, it gets a little harder is she’s much, much younger than Donald Trump, and age had been a big part of the campaign. So now I’m sure Democrats are going to argue that, hey, we got the young ticket now, not the other way around.
LIMBONG: Yeah. There have been reports that the Trump campaign has been preparing its plan to, you know, politically attack the vice president for this scenario. What else can you tell us about that?
JENNINGS: Well, I think they are going to position her as someone that was very engaged in all of the decisions that the administration made that you don’t like. And also, I think they’re going to say that she was engaged in, you know, effectively the cover-up of just how bad Joe Biden’s condition was over the last 3 1/2 years, and she’s been out there saying he was sharp and he was fine and everything was OK. And now all of a sudden, we find out he doesn’t think he can continue any further. So I think it’s pretty much of two-pronged messaging attack.
I think what’s yet to be seen is whether legal challenges are going to be filed by the Republicans. I mean, can the Democrats even do this? Joe Biden won the nomination. He has the delegates. It’s not formalized yet, but millions of people are now effectively disenfranchised by this because you can’t – obviously, there’s no time to rerun the Democratic primary.
LIMBONG: Yeah, speaking of those legal challenges, how much do you think the Republicans are going to lean on that?
JENNINGS: I don’t know yet. I think it’s being fleshed out as we speak. And obviously, different states have different rules. And so, you know, I don’t think you can have one uniform, you know, national challenge. You’ll have to look at it jurisdiction by jurisdiction. But, you know, if the Republicans can be chaos agents here for the Democrats, I expect that they will do that, especially if they’ve got a strong legal leg to stand on.
LIMBONG: You know, the Southern U.S. border and immigration is likely one of the biggest issues that Republicans will continue to attack Vice President Harris’ record on. Where else do you see Harris and the party being kind of vulnerable here?
JENNINGS: I think on energy. You know, she has come out against fracking, all fracking. And so when you look at what states are important, Pennsylvania – you know, if Donald Trump wins Pennsylvania and Georgia, he’s going to win the presidency. And so if you think about it tactically like that, I think her record and her views on national energy policy are pretty extreme for a state like Pennsylvania. So that’s one area.
And No. 2, I think she is just generally more progressive. You know, Biden gave some lip service to being a moderate, to being a deal-maker, to being resistant to the extremes in his party. I don’t think you’re going to get that out of Harris, to be honest. And so I think the Trump people now think they’re running against someone who’s far more liberal and unabashedly so.
LIMBONG: Yeah. And also, well, when you said energy, I thought you were honestly going to go a different way with that, with, you know, her being younger and all that stuff. But that was Republican strategist Scott Jennings. Thanks a lot, Scott.
JENNINGS: Thanks. See you.
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