Political Brief: Debate recap, French election, Supreme Court decisions + a special podcast episode on the debate!

Dear Friends,

Whew, what a week it has been! We thought it was a good opportunity to record our first-ever, Substack-only podcast episode.

As you’ll remember, we brought our long-running weekly podcast to an end last month, and The Morning Five is now an official offering of the Center for Christianity and Public Life.

What we’ve decided is that we’ll still do sporadic episodes just for the small community that subscribes to this Substack. This podcast, like this substack, is unaffiliated with any organization, and is just another way for us to continue to serve and be in conversation with this long-standing community of friends and leaders. We look forward to sharing our most honest and open thoughts, ideas and reactions on faith, culture and politics—especially 2024—on this exclusive, intimate, sporadic and informal podcast available only to subscribers.

This is Wear We Are,

Melissa & Michael

The 10 things you should know this week:

1. The fallout from Thursday’s debate is on every front page and every 24-hour news channel at this point. If you haven’t gotten a chance, the full debate is below.

   We will not attempt to provide a summary of the debate here, though you can listen to our new special podcast episode to hear our reactions. Needless to say, the coverage and aftermath of the debate has been focused almost entirely on President Biden’s (under)performance which has raised new concerns about his age. Biden spoke with a raspy, faltering voice. He had moments of incoherence and lapses which President Trump capitalized on, while Biden was mostly unable to hold Trump’s feet to the fire. This overshadowed an extraordinary barrage of false claims from Trump, as well as a number of incendiary comments which, in different circumstances, would have been the talk of the debate. I, Michael, was especially disturbed by his use of “Palestinian” as a slur against Biden. Politifact has an overview of the various claims in the debate, along with its assessment of the veracity of those claims.

   Thursday’s debate prompted immediate speculation regarding whether President Biden would and should continue in this campaign. Some media outlets have called for Biden to leave the race, including The New York Times editorial board. (Axios) New reporting has come out regarding Biden’s fitness, including new reporting from the Wall Street Journal concerning the President’s recent G7 meetings. Several Democratic allies of the administration are defending Biden — e.g. Rep. Jim Clyburn, Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Sen. John Fetterman. (AP) Aides are calling his performance a “blip.” (NYT) Donors are waiting to see more polling before making any major moves. (Axios) The Biden campaign says it raised $33 million in the wake of the debate. (The Hill) And Politico reports how VP Kamala Harris is handling the post-debate atmosphere:

   …she and her team realized her response would be even more closely scrutinized, according to three aides granted anonymity to describe private discussions — and she quickly made clear to her staff that they shouldn’t try to sugarcoat how badly her running mate had performed…Harris told her advisers her role was simple, the aides said: project confidence as quickly and clearly as possible as a leader of the party, while preserving credibility by recognizing how weak the debate had been…Harris’ other two objectives were to zero in on attacking Trump, the aide said, and, perhaps more importantly, move the conversation away from the debate and toward Biden’s record.