So what is the specific path to victory that the
campaign sees that the president sees because the polls show
the American people don't see it?
Yeah. Chris, thank you so much for having me.
Look, the path to victory is the same path that
we've been following the entire time.
It's first and foremost through the blue wall,
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, where we are pulling neck and neck
with Donald Trump.
And then it's also through the Sunbelt states,
North Carolina, of course, and also Arizona,
Nevada, those are the states that we're focused on.
That's where we have an infrastructure.
Chris, I think I came on your show about a
month ago and talked about some of the infrastructure that
we've laid in the states.
We have over 200 field offices in battleground states.
We have over 500 staff and counting in these states.
And the bottom line is,
Chris, we've been building the infrastructure early on,
far before Donald Trump has built any infrastructure,
which basically doesn't have any.
So that when we are going through challenging times,
when the polls do tighten,
we have the infrastructure and the the the structure in
place on this campaign to move us forward,
to get us through these tough times and to make
sure that we have the ability to communicate voters directly
where they are.
Well, at least the national polls are,
are dead even at least some of the most recent
ones.
So, so they can't get any tighter right than dead
even.
And Congressman Jim Himes was the first member of Congress
to call for Joe Biden to step away from the
race after the less last night's solo press conference,
saying not only does he believe Biden can't win,
but he also says he thinks if Biden stays in
the race,
they'll lose the House and Senate.
Here's what he said.
I've done a lot of
political campaigns, Alex, and the one attribute of almost every
single losing campaign,
and I've seen hundreds of them,
is that right up until the moment that the numbers
are in and you've lost,
you believe that you will win.
And
then when NBC talked to nine members in tough races,
only one said, clearly they want Joe Biden to campaign
for them.
Are your internal polls showing something different than
a lot of these folks think?
Yeah, Chris, our internal polls are showing that this race
is very,
very tight. I mean, after the debate,
which President Biden made it very clear was certainly far
from being his best night,
we actually saw some independents move toward us.
We are still seeing this race largely unchanged over the
last two weeks.
And a number of polls have come out,
I think 10 so far that shows this race within
the margin of error.
So it's been largely unchanged.
But look, a couple of things,
Chris, I want to take a step back and make
it very clear
President Biden respects the thoughts and and and opinions of
members of Congress.
He understands where they're coming from.
He understands where their anxiety is.
Their anxiety is the same anxiety that we have,
which is we cannot let Donald Trump set one foot
back in that White House.
There's too much at stake
2025 that agenda that has Trump's fingerprints all over it
makes it very clear that he would do things like
department the get
rid of
the Department of Education. You know,
essentially gut government so that government cannot function the way
it has for the American people,
even stifle woman's reproductive rights
further if he became president.
So we are all united in making sure that Donald
Trump does not set foot
back in that White House.
And you know, Chris, you might remember also from the
press conference last night,
one of the final things that President Biden said is,
look, he basically said, if members need to run against
me,
that's fine. And I, you know,
Chris is somebody who worked at the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee about 20 years ago.
I understand when members in tough districts,
in those frontline districts have to run against Washington leadership.
We get that. President Biden certainly gets that.
But he also understands that he is the best president
to take on Donald Trump.
He is the best candidate.
He beat him in 2020.
He's going to beat him in
2024. We always knew, Chris,
this was going to be a close race.
We are living in a very divided country.
It was close in 2016.
Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton lost. It was close in 2020.
Fortunately, President Biden win, won,
and we believe that he's going to win again in
2024. So polls are one measure,
right? And everybody's watching them very closely,
both the public ones and internal polls that you guys
have.
The other is money. And the president said last night,
we're doing well fundraising. That's his quote.
We're doing well. Now. The New York Times is reporting
we don't have this independently at NBC.
But the Times reports that major Democratic donors have told
the largest pro Biden super PAC,
Future Forward, that roughly $90,000,000 in pledge donations is now
on hold if President Biden stays at the top of
the ticket.
Can the campaign take that kind of hit when,
as you point out, the polls show a deadlocked race?
And this is going to go
very, very, very tough from now until November.
Yeah. Look, first of all,
Chris, we've had a very strong fundraising cycle so far.
We outraised Donald Trump in June.
We have I think over two
$240 million cash on hand is what we last announced.
So we have the infrastructure,
we've laid the infrastructure as I mentioned earlier in some
of the background states.
We have the $90 million,
Adrian, that's a huge hit.
First, can you confirm that for us or deny it?
Well, that's that's coming from from the Super PAC side.
So we know we don't,
we're not affiliated with the Super PAC.
We can't comment on that.
I can't comment on that because I don't have first
hand knowledge there.
I can also to tell you that there are a
lot of donors who have been quoted in the press
in the last few days who are saying I'm sticking
with the president, I'm giving money.
We've seen grassroots roots donations come in
relatively strong over the past few few weeks.
So, and we, by the way,
also had our best fundraising hour after the debate,
the debate a couple weeks ago.
So the bottom line is we will have the resources
we need to win this campaign.
We have the infrastructure. I know it keeps saying infrastructure,
but it's important to emphasize that the groundwork,
the infrastructure in the states,
you have to do that now in order to have
a strong footage going into October.
Donald Trump is not doing that.
He's made it very clear.
His campaigns made it very clear they're doing it differently.
That's not going to work.
So we've laid that infrastructure.
We have the team in place.
I'm sitting here in Wilmington,
DE, Chris, with hundreds of other
employees on the campaign. We've got a lot of folks
here who are fighting every single day for President Joe
Biden.
And we know that we are doing what we need
to do and we are confident that we will continue
to be able to do what we need to do
in order to win this campaign.
Well, Speaking of campaign staff,
the president talked about you guys last night.
Let me play that.
I just got to just pace myself a little more,
pace myself in the next debate.
I'm not going to be traveling in this fifteen time
zones
a week before
anyway. That's what it was about.
That's what it's about. And by the way,
even with that, I love my staff,
but they add things, add things all the time.
Very end. I'm catching hell from my wife.
There are a few write ups I saw that said
Joe Biden just threw his campaign staff under the bus.
But look, are you guys making adjustments given what happened
at the last debate,
given that you've got, what,
60 days till the next debate?
And assuming he is still in the race,
it's going to be
incredibly consequential.
Yeah, Chris, first of all,
I was, I'm laughing because I was sitting in a
war room with probably about 40 other staff last night.
And we all laughed when he said that because,
you know, we, we are,
we have packed his schedule because he's,
you know, he's the president of the United States and
he's trying to run.
He's running for reelection. So
he's exactly right, though. I mean,
I work for a number of candidates.
Hillary Clinton, of course, in 2016,
you know, we had to sort of,
you know, cut it down a little bit too,
because we were running her ragged because the time is
so important when you're a candidate.
So he's exactly right. We thought it was kind of
funny.
But look, at the end of the day,
we have the organization. We have the surrogates.
I always say we've got to run like The Avengers.
We have so many surrogates out on the campaign trail.
The presidents in Detroit today,
Tavia Spencer, who's a huge social justice war warrior,
has been a long time Democratic supporter,
is is in Detroit with him.
We've got a number of Labor
leaders there. You know, we've got members of Congress,
just folks who are out on the campaign trail,
a lot of people in Detroit.
With the president today, it's important that we also use
the other voices of the party to lift up his
record,
talk about his accomplishments, use his record to demonstrate what
he'll do in a second term.
And and that's what we're going to keep doing.
And he does need to get the rest.
I need to get my rest.
And you know, we're going to go out there and
win this thing.