Chris Crucial: Biden (finally) finds a good answer on age questions 👴

PLUS: Haley goes OFF on Trump

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1. Biden finds a message: For months, even as polling continued to show considerable — and sustained — concern among the electorate for Joe Biden’s advanced age, the president seem unable to find a message to answer those doubters.

“Watch me,” he would occasionally urge. But, the problem there was that anyone with two eyes who DID watch him would see a man slower — in his movements and his speech — than even three years ago when he was sworn in as president.

Fast forward to Monday night — and Biden’s appearance on the “Late Show with Seth Meyers.” Asked about his age — and how it factored into the campaign — Biden responded this way:

“You gotta take a look at the other guy. He’s about as old as I am, but he can’t remember his wife’s name. … It's about how old your ideas are. Look, I mean, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade. He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that are — 50, 60 years, they’ve been solid American positions.”

Where the hell has THAT answer been for the last, uh, year?

Here’s why Biden’s response to Meyers is so effective:

1. He reminds people that while he is old (81!) so is Donald Trump (77!)

2. Biden turns the age issue from purely a numerical comparison to one about policies. Biden — no matter how old he is — has policies that want to move the country forward into a better future. Trump has policies that want to move the country backward to a darker time for many Americans.

This is exactly the way Biden needs to begin to address the age issue. It is not going to go away (no matter what the Biden team tells him) so what you need to do is turn it — pivot from it being a major weakness to it being a strength (or at least not such a big negative).

It’s not about how old I am, Biden needs to say over and over again. It’s about whether my policies represent the future or the past. That’s the “age” debate we need to be having!

Now, to be clear, I don’t think that message alone solves Biden’s age problem. I have said before — and continue to believe — that he needs to get out in the country and campaign.

That is, of course, a risk. He could fall or forget words or do something else that reminds people of the doubts they have about someone his age serving as president again.

But, I think it’s a risk the campaign has to take. People need to see that Biden isn’t the doddering old man that Trump (and the Hur Report) paints him as. And the only way to do that is to get him on the campaign trail and hope he delivers.

All that said, finding a message to push back on age questions is a major step forward for this White House — assuming he (and they) stick to it.

2. Haley goes off: In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Nikki Haley had her harshest words yet for Donald Trump — calling his candidacy “suicide for our country.”

She also suggested that Trump was running as a “survival mode to pay his legal fees and get out of some sort of legal peril.”

Haley has gradually ramped up her criticism of Trump since her loss in the New Hampshire primary last month. It has not changed her political fortunes much, however.

Haley lost her home state of South Carolina by 20 points on Saturday and is likely headed to a similar defeat in Michigan today. A week from today, 15 states (and American Samoa) will vote, and Haley is expected to lose every one. Presumably, she will end her candidacy after that happens.

What comes after that remains an utter mystery to me. Endorsing Trump — after saying that nominating him amounts to political suicide — would be, um, awkward. (That said, I don’t rule it out!)

Her rhetoric — and Trump’s responses to her rhetoric — suggest she has no interest in (and would not be offered) the vice presidency.

Despite No Labels expressing interest in her as a third party candidate, Haley has also scoffed at that possibility.

One other option: Haley is purposely positioning herself as the told-you-so candidate in 2028. Meaning that if Trump loses in November, Haley can tell Republican voters that she warned them that he couldn’t win and they nominated him anyway. Sort of a buyer’s remorse play.

Maybe?

3. In defense of horse race journalism: A while back, I wrote a piece defending political coverage pejoratively referred to as “horse race journalism” — i.e. journalism focused on polls, money and strategy as opposed to policy.

Celeste Headlee, who hosts Slate’s “Hear Me Out” podcast, vehemently disagrees with my take. So she asked me to come on her pod and we hashed out our differences (and even found some agreement!) like two adults.

It was, in a word, refreshing.

You can listen to the full episode here.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“The defendants have not identified anyone who has engaged in a remotely similar suite of willful and deceitful criminal conduct and not been prosecuted. Nor could they.” — Special counsel Jack Smith’s office makes clear that what Donald Trump did with classified documents is far worse than what Joe Biden did with them.

ONE GOOD CHART

Remember when streaming was going to save the entertainment and media industries? Now, not so much — as evidenced by this chart via Sara Fisher at Axios.

SONG(S) OF THE DAY

I ❤️ NPR’s “Tiny Desk” concerts. (It is my dream to attend one in person!) I also love the band Alvvays, whose 2022 record “Blue Rev” was one of my favorites that year. So, what could be better than Alvvays doing a “Tiny Desk” concert? Answer: Nothing!