Alabama's Morning News with JT
Rory O'Neil wants to know if the Biden campaign has seen the worst yet
The Decono Music and Spirits Festival returns to Centennial Park Saturday, August 3rd from 2 to 10 p.m. And it's free! Live music from the Warren Treaty! Chris Daniels and the Kings is Callie and More. Enjoy a spirits competition. Kidzone and fireworks presented by Oxy and the City of Decono. Admission and parking are free. The Decono Music and Spirits Festival brought to you by Breckenridge Brewery and City of Decono. Go to thecityofdecono.com for more information. So yesterday, President Joe Biden, he spoke at NATO and, uh, well, he still had some problems when he was even when he was on prompter. He seemed like when he was bestowing the Medal of Freedom on a recipient that he started to read the instructions on the prompter to tell him what to do next. Let's decide for yourself. Here's what it sounds like. I am pleased to award you the highest civilian honor the United States can bestow a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Ask a medal. I think he's going to say, ask the medal. Go, Jerry, come forward. Ask the Medal of Freedom winner to come forward and he stopped himself there. So he's still having some problems on prompter. We're joined now by Rory O'Neill, as we are every morning. And Rory, I know everyone was really excited about the President being able to take questions from the press yesterday. That was touted. That was going to be a big deal. Did you happen to see the President take questions from the press yesterday? That's tomorrow. The news conference is tomorrow. That's what we're all waiting for. So the speech last night was to mark the 75th anniversary of NATO. Tonight there's going to be a dinner at the White House with all the world dignitaries, or the NATO dignitaries. And then tomorrow is the solo press conference by the President. So we're all waiting for that one. So that's the one everyone's holding their breath to see what happens. Do we think that it's going to be a situation where it'll be orchestrated and they will have given the questions to him and the members of the press? Is it probably going to be very open and he's going to kind of go with the flow? Well, he's going to have a look at what they've done more in more recent years. I think it started with George W. Bush was that they go off a list of reporters to ask the question. So rather than have the San Donaldson kind of shouting and standing up and shouting, Mr. President, Mr. President, they just go to OK. Associated Press, go ahead. OK. ABC News, go ahead. That kind of a thing. And you know, later on we'll be speaking with your colleague John Decker. You know, he gets to spend time in that room shouting the questions or I guess getting on the list, which is kind of cool. But do we expect him to have a better performance or I guess it's kind of up in the air? Well, that's what we're all waiting to see. You know, because the criticism has been that he's, oh, the President is OK with a teleprompter. But after we saw it with the debate, when he has to be on the fly, things can, the wheels can come off. That's why that interview with George Stephanopoulos at ABC last Friday, you know, they thought was so important. Turns out the interview was OK, not great. It was fine. But they're really hoping to see now that if this is going to be much more aggressive style, you know, sit down one on one in a school library is one setting. But literally on your feet being asked questions by the press corps, something else. And how are other Democrats because right after the debate, there was a lot of people calling for him to stop running. But now it seems like some Democrats have backed off and now we're more in a situation where there are two camps, some who say he needs to step aside. And others who say they're riding with Biden. Is there been any shift recently? Yeah, it's still no high profile. People have really come forward to say that they want Biden to step aside. It seems that they've calmed the fears of a lot of the big donor class and, you know, they actually brought in quite a bit of money after the debate. So the Biden team, I think, has been pretty successful, if not too slow at trying to calm all these concerns. But I think the issue has changed. It went from, does Joe Biden have the ability to do the job? Now it's a question of what is Joe Biden's electability? Because these members of Congress, all 435 in the House, are up for reelection this November. And the Democratic ones are concerned that Joe Biden may be a drag on the ticket for them. Because a lot of times the president has long coattails and they're able to bring in other members of the party. But it could have a negative effect if, like you said, he drags them down. And then all of a sudden they get swept out of office with him just because he's not able to get it. And we're seeing, in many places, we're seeing the local member of Congress now out poll Biden on the ticket. And normally the president of your party would poll higher than the local member of Congress. So yeah, things are a bit topsy-turvy, but the Democrats or the Biden team will keep telling you it's a long time between now and the election day. But a lot of Democrats are very concerned that the poll numbers are all moving in the wrong direction. We saw the Cook political report yesterday moved six of the swing states. They have different grades, but they all shifted to the right more towards Trump. So it's a concern for a lot of Democrats. And I guess we will anxiously watch and see what happens as the thing continues to play out. Warrie O'Neill, thanks so much for joining us. The Decono Music and Spirits Festival returns to Centennial Park Saturday, August 3rd from 2 to 10 p.m. And it's free! Live music from The War and Treaty! Chris Daniels and the Kings is Cally and More. Enjoy a spirits competition. Kidzone and fireworks presented by Oxy and the City of Decono. Admission and parking are free. The Decono Music and Spirits Festival brought to you by Breckenridge Brewery and City of Decono. City of Dacono, go to thecityofdacono.com for more information.