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Com, he writes this it is not too early to talk about the president ial battlefield because the underlying political dynamics do not often a shift dramatically in the months or year before the election. What is the underlying political dynamic of the president ial race right now . We have an incumbent democratic President Joe Biden with middling Approval Ratings seeking a second term, now officially having announced his reelection campaign. We have a divided Congress Facing a series of very important challenges over the next couple of weeks and certainly over the next 18 months. We have a former president in donald trump who is trying to come back into office having announced his bid for president even before the 2022 midterms. We know one side of the equation in president biden. We have a good idea the other side of the equation in donald trump. We know what the economy looks like. We know the historical trends associated with a president ial reelection bids over the last couple of decades. We have a pretty good idea of where things start out. We saw bidens rollout of his reelection this is the Biden Campaign ad that was put out this week. Too many people have been left behind and treated like they are invisible. Folks, my economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Its about making things here america again. Its about making the dignity of work. It is about time we are doing it. Joe biden is determined to reward hard work. That is why he passed historic laws that rebuild our roads and bridges, invest in our factories, and bring back american manufacturing. Over 12 million jobs have been created and joe biden is building an economy that leaves no city, no town, no american behind. We are investing in places and people that have been forgotten. They have been invisible. We have not forgotten. We are building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out or know what is going to be left behind. Joe biden, a president for all americans. I am joe biden and i approve this message. That was president bidens rollout added this week. How do you read that rolled out and the media reaction to the rollout this week . He does a couple of interesting things. In that ad, hell eons into the economy. This has been a major criticism of the Republican Party against biden and the democrats over the last two years. We saw the midterm environment being dominated by questions about cost of living and inflation. For biden to come out of the gate on offense on the economy signals that he is really interested in taking this issue head on as he approaches his reelection bid. He is not ceding any of that ground to whoever his opponent is. I think the other add touched more on the culture war issues. He went on offense on questions about book banning on the january 6th attack on the capital, things like that. It was an aggressive launch. It was, i would imagine, a response to a lot of the criticism that has been out there of the president about the lack of high profile nature of his administration. I think his white house has heard that. Even just by announcing their bid, they were put into rest a lot of the speculation about whether he would indeed run again, right . Hes the oldest person ever to serve as president. He would be 86 at the end of his second term. As long as he has been elected, there has been this persistent conversation undertone about, will he seek another term . Will he be a bridge candidate like he said during the election . What this launch did was say no, he is in it for another term . Its biden harris and all of the marketing. They want to put an end to all of that kind of stuff. The president ial race, one part of our focus in this 45 minutes with jacob rubashkin, it might be a little bit longer if you dont mind sticking around you can call in to talk about it. The other part of our conversation this morning is on the senate battlefield in 2024, the main senate races that will decide control of the Upper Chamber of that building behind me. Also, a new ad this week. 550 days away from election day, republicans, the National RepublicanSenatorial Committee targeting West Virginia democrat joe manchin. Here is that add. Joe manchin wrote bidens green energy bill, putting West Virginia jobs at risk and bragged about it. Do you regret voting for that massive spending bill . No, not at all. As far as the inflation reduction act, it will be the most transformative bill weve ever had. Then, his poll numbers tanked, so manchin is changing his tune. I would vote to repeal my own bill. Manchin stood with biden, not West Virginias. Tell joe manchin we wont forget. An ad from the National RepublicanSenatorial Committee targeting senator joe manchin, democrat of West Virginia. How important is this seat or every seat this cycle . When the chamber is evenly divided, every seat is very important. Democrats are sitting there with 50 seats. Republicans have 49 seats. Independent similar Kyrsten Sinema holds the final seat. She does not caucus with either party. Every single seat for republicans it is one seat closer to getting the majority back. These West Virginia see is probably the most important one. If they cant win this one, its unlikely they will win back the majority. West virginia is such a republican state. We see them really focusing on the state, really trying to get manchin to not even run to begin with. They recruited the popular incumbent governor to run against him. They are already starting to run tv ads against him. They are really signaling that this seat is their number one priority. It is their number one opportunity to help take back the senate next year. You make it very easy to try to get a sense of every race and every election. It is inside elections. Com where viewers can go. I want to show different aspects of the senate ratings. It is the battleground states. You can see the new battleground democratic seats here. There are eight seats in this election. If you go down to the battleground republican seats, there are no seats listed in the republican category. This is a campaign where democrats are very much going to be on the defensive. Thats exactly right. Democrats have had three good cycles when it comes to this class of senators, right . Starting in 2006, really even starting in 2000 which we dont consider a great year for democrats because they actually picked up seats in the senate. Starting in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018, all were good cycles for senate democrats, broadly speaking. What you ended up with was two thirds of the seats up for election the cycle being held by democrats. They are going to be playing a lot more defense than offense. Given the change in the Political Landscape over the last couple of years, its especially bad for them. They are defending quite a few seats in states that donald trump won in 2016 or 2020. The best way for determining how a state is going to vote for senate is how they vote for president. They are defending these seats in republican states like West Virginia, montana, ohio, and battleground states like michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania. They have very few pick up opportunities. The very to they have our texas and florida. They are the best democrat on the meager map. We just saw a republican senator in florida win reelection by 16 points, a republican governor in florida win reelection by 20 points. Texas is not a democratic state. Its not a state friendly to democrats. The fact that those are the best places that democrats have to look is really speaking to how difficult this cycle is for them when looking at offensive opportunities. Jacob rubashkin, happy to talk about any state you want. We could talk about house races as well. We can test his knowledge there. We are 550 days out from election day 2024. The phone lines again are open. Those are our standard political lines. This is jerry in new jersey, line for democrats. Good morning. Good morning. I have a couple of questions for you. Do you think that the press is going to be honest and fair and hold joe biden to questions. Im not talking about advanced questions that they write out for him and all. Im talking about questions that they give him. He has to answer on his own. Do you think they are going to have debates . Im really curious. Joe biden says no debates. Do you think they will debate . The other question is, i dont believe joe biden is really going to run. I think the question is coming out about his finances and his family. I think it is going to take him out. I think the democrats are going to have to get him out. As a democrat, what would you like to see if not joe biden . Actually, there is no democrat. Im not keen on any of them. They are all so radical. Who would you like to see iran . Who would you like to see when . [laughter] youre guess is as good as mine right now. Its really up for grabs. This is a republican side, hutchinson and haley and all of them. I dont believe they are running to be president. I think they are running to be Vice President eventually. Thats jerry in new jersey. The press and biden debate does biden make it for the next 550 days . Yeah, look, i think that barring any sort of major unforeseen issue biden will be the nominee for the democratic party. Incumbent president s dont lose their primaries when they are seeking reelection except in the one case that comes to mind, creating the modern primary era in 1968. I think that barring any sort of major unforeseen change biden will be the nominee. He is clearly intending to run. Hes putting together his campaign. It was made official. On that front, i think that is the outcome there. On the question of debates, i think this question oh primary debates look, it is a traditional thing for democrats or republicans when they are incumbent president s to entertain primary debates, right . Donald trump had several challenges in 2020, former Massachusetts Governor bill weld. Barack obama did not do primary debates in 2012. Bush didnt two primary debates in 2014. This is something that is not unexpected for biden. No, im not going to debate Marion Williamson or robert f. Kennedy junior, candidates that dont really have any shot of winning the nomination. I dont think we will see any sort of primary debates on the democratic side. I think it is an interesting question as to what the debates will look like for republicans. Front runner donald trump has made it clear that he is considering skipping the first or second primary debate there. If he doesnt get any blow back or suffer any repercussions for doing that, i think it is reasonable to expect that he might skip all of the primary debates. If he is the nominee, i think there is an open question as to whether he does the general election debates either. Debates are very much a topic of conversation. We got about 19 minutes into the segment before donald trump came up for the first time. On that topic, what is your read of ron desantis and his ability to contend against donald trump and what he is thinking right now in terms of actually getting into this race . Look, i think desantis is still in a position to be the primary challenger to trump in the republican primary. He is polling in a tear of his own. He has bad financial advantages with his left over funds from his gubernatorial run, about 70 million there. That does put him in a different position than your mike pence, nikki haley, its a hutchinson, and other potential president ial candidates. However, he is clearly not going in the right direction. There was a moment where he was rivaling trump in early voting states in National Polling. Over the last three months, we have seen a real precipitous decline. He has dropped to about 20 . What was it . Did the disney matter . Look, i think that there are any number of answers as to why desantis has struggled. I think the primary one is that he is not a candidate for president. Hes not running for president. Trump is running for president. Hes doing the things he needs to do to run. He is courting the endorsements. He gave desantis a real black eye by getting all of those members of the florida delegation to endorse him over there not just their own governor, their own popular governor who just won a landslide victory. He is setting up delegate operations in early states. Desantis, for whatever reason, has decided that he is really going to cede all campaigning to super pac until he officially announces his campaign over the summer. I think what we are seeing is that when you have one candidate who is out there on the trail doing the work and one candidate who is not punching back, trying to keep more to themselves, you are going to see a mismatch. That is showing up in the polling. We are getting to the point where we were talking about questions of inevitability. Is trump the inevitable nominee . Thats not a good place for desantis to be. It can snowball very quickly. All of a sudden, you start to argue rick perry in 2016 . Are you scott walker in 2016 . You are not the guy whos going to win the nomination but the guy who flames out early. This is tony in arizona, an independent. Good morning. Thanks very much. You both are great. Two quick questions, is this inevitable that two incumbents run that is going to be trump against biden . The second thing, if the election were held today, i know its not, we would win that . Thank you. Who wins today . [laughter] if the election is held today, its very, very close. That is what the National Poll and suggests depending on who you look at. You will either see a tight race or biden with a very narrow edge. I think the battleground polling in states like georgia and michigan and wisconsin, arizona would suggest that biden maybe has the slightest advantage. The reality is that these are two very unpopular political figures. Joe biden remains unpopular. Trump remains unpopular among the electorate. When you have that situation, you are probably a going to get a close result. As john has been saying, we have 550 days. Have i said it too much . No, its good. Its good to have the reminder. We are still quite a ways away. There is quite a bit of campaign left to happen, all the campaign left to happen. I think from now, it will be close. I think it will be close throughout. To your question about inevitability, look, i dont think anything is inevitable in politics. You have seen far crazier things happen. Think about where we were in may of 2019 versus where we were sitting by ourselves in isolation. Remind us where we were. We were all hanging out together. We were not wearing masks. We were not talking about vaccines. It was a very different world. You could fly internationally. As opposed to 2020 when we were all in our pause. Things can change very quickly. Look, i think that trump is clearly the favorite to win the nomination. Biden is clearly the favorite to be the democratic nominee. Despite so much of the country saying, well, i dont really know how i feel about a biden sharp rematch, it looks like the most likely outcome at this point. We were just talking about republicans in florida. Lets go to a republican in florida, pensacola, dennis. Good morning. Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Yeah, i just want to know what the guest thinks about the reasoning why they are trying to all the cover ups and scandals and all of that. All of the attacks would be endless. I mean, i like desantis. He is our governor. I am not a big fan of Donald Trumps his demeanor. I am all for his policies. I am all about making America Great again. Can i dont know why the media is trying to turn that into a such a derogatory statement. We cant be a great power if we cant be great again. We have been in decline for years. Obama started all of that. Im not races at all but they try to paint the Republican Party as racist. That is just not something that is true. Was there a time in 2016 to 2020 that america felt like was great again . Satan again . Im sorry, say that again . Was there a time from 2016 to 2020 when you felt like america was great again . Absolutely, absolutely. We were on top of the world. Everyone was afraid of us. Donald trump, he did not show his cards. Hes a business guy. I get that. You cant show your cards. You cant solve everybodys problems. We are creating more problems for ourselves talking about other peoples problems. We are not helping the american people. We are basically going into decline. This country has become a joke from a political standpoint. That was his original question to you, the media and joe biden. I think there are things about their about biden, they will come out at the moment. Theres innuendo that various members of the Republican Party and congress have been talking about lately. Weve been hearing for a very long time since republicans took back control of the house of representatives and to control of the Oversight Committee that there was going to be this investigation into biden, into his family, into the financial dealings. If there are things theyre, they will come out. There does not seem to be anything more than any window and speculation. Look, i think that we have seen in the media report critically on biden and democrats before, on the withdrawal from afghanistan, on issues about inflation. I think