AMNA NAWAZ: As protests of the war inGaza spread to more college campuses across the country, the impact on the 2024presidential race could be growing too, just one of the stories to discusswith our Politics Monday team. That is Amy Walter of The Cook PoliticalReport With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR. Great to see you both. And let's begin with those protests. (CROSSTALK) AMNA NAWAZ: Obviously, we have beenseeing them spread across college campuses. We saw them outside the WhiteHouse Correspondents Dinner this weekend.
We're seeing them in countries around theworld too, in Egypt and Jordan and France and Australia. It's not necessarily justyoung voters in America among Democrats or young voters of color. There's some concernexpressed in a recent New York Times piece by Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan that some ofhis older and mostly white constituents there in Wisconsin have been increasingly askingabout Biden's approach to the war in Gaza. So, Amy, walk us through this. I mean,can President Biden meet their concerns? And should he be more concerned aboutthis growing campus and other protests? AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Right. So I do think that the moreattention that is being paid to,.
First let's start with college campuses… AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.AMY WALTER: … and, as you pointed out, is now going everywhere, is alsoa little bit of a Rorschach test. If you are a progressive person, if you'rea more liberal-leaning person, you see those protests and you think, oh, OK, these are peoplestanding up for the rights of the oppressed, and this is a war that is now taking the livesof innocent people, and we have to protest that. If you're a conservative, you look at itand say, this is chaos. This is — there's disorder everywhere. These schools need to crackdown on these encampments. And so I don't know, though, if that more broadly means that thisissue itself is a more salient voting issue.
And that's the real — that's sort ofthe real question here, in the sense of, is it something that is uniting liberals andconservatives over the approach to these issues, yes, or how maybe the framework in whichthey see this issue? They are united on that. What it actually means for howthey vote. So, for example, the most recent CNN poll found that among peoplewho say they are supporting Joe Biden right now, 44 percent of them disagree or dislikethe way he's handling the situation. AMNA NAWAZ: What does your reporting show, Tam? TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Well, theBiden White House and the Biden campaign are in something of a bind, because there'snot a lot of wiggle room on policy.
These protests have not pushed Biden tochange his policy really in any way. He is continuing — he had a call with BenjaminNetanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, yesterday, where he continued to apply pressureto Netanyahu to help resolve some of the very serious humanitarian challenges in Gaza, to openup new humanitarian aid routes and otherwise. He's putting as much pressure as he can. He'sbeen talking to various world leaders trying to get a cease-fire. Short of the cease-firehappening and the hostages being released, there's not a lot of wiggle room for Biden.He's pretty stuck. And he's Joe Biden. And he does not appear to have any desire to movetoward the more progressive wing of his party, particularly because there are realdivisions about these protests and.
Whether they're effective and also whetherthe rhetoric of the protesters has moved too far to the left, to the point ofantisemitism, that will cause backlash. AMNA NAWAZ: In the meantime, here is whatthe matchup looks like between President Biden and former President Trump. This is amoment in time captured in a poll from CNN. Right now, you have Mr. Trump leading President Biden 49-43. And Republicans continueto line up behind Mr. Trump, right? TAMARA KEITH: Yes.AMNA NAWAZ: You have former challenger Ron DeSantis who met with him at hisFlorida estate over the weekend. His former Attorney General Bill Barr,who has testified to Trump's efforts to.
Overturn legitimate election,had this to say this weekend: WILLIAM BARR, Former U.S. Attorney General:If faced with a choice between two people, neither of which I think should be president, Ifeel it's my duty to pick the person who I think would do the least damage to the country. AndI think Trump would do less damage than Biden. AMNA NAWAZ: That follows New Hampshire GovernorChris Sununu, who once told Judy Woodruff on this set that voting for Trump is like –quote — “throwing gasoline on a firework.” Here's what he had to sayin a recent exchange on ABC. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC “Th is Week” Anchor: Yousupport him for president even if he's convicted in classified documents. You support him forpresident even though you believe he contributed.
To an insurrection. You support him for presidenteven though you believe he's lying about the last election. You support him for presidenteven if he's convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answerto that is yes, correct? GOV. CHRIS SUNUNU (R-NH): Yes,me and 51 percent of America. AMNA NAWAZ: Tam, other than Liz Cheney, there's really no part of the partythat isn't behind him right now. TAMARA KEITH: Is that right? Well, NikkiHaley hasn't actually said anything. She hasn't yet endorsed Trump. Ron DeSantis endorsedTrump as soon as he dropped out of the race. And I do think it is interesting to continueto watch Nikki Haley voters and what happens.
With them. But we have been saying all along thatRepublicans, especially professional Republicans who want to continue to be professionalRepublicans, they're going to fall in line. The question is whether some of these voterswho maybe didn't vote for Trump in 2020, whether there's any chance at all he couldbring them back. And that seems somewhat less likely. The Biden campaign is putting realmoney and certainly targeted advertising behind sending ads in — digital ads intocommunities where Nikki Haley did surprisingly well in primariesweeks after she had dropped out. And they're using tape of former President Trumpsaying, ah, Nikki Haley voters, I don't need them. AMNA NAWAZ: Can they be persuaded,those four were Nikki Haley voters?.
AMY WALTER: What we don't know is howmany of them are already Biden 2020 voters. Where she did best are in some ofthe places where Biden also did the best. But it comes down to this issue and whatthese polls are also showing, Amna, which is, voters don't necessarily like Donald Trump anymorethan they did back in 2020, but they feel a lot better about his presidency than they did in2020. Or, actually, let me put it this way. They feel a lot better about his handling of prettymuch every issue than they do about Joe Biden. That wasn't true back in 2020. So there issomething of this nostalgia for the presidency, even though not necessarily for the person. AMNA NAWAZ: In the meantime, we know that his.
Hush money trial in New Yorkwill pick back up tomorrow. And it's worth pointing out we now have numbersfrom the FEC filings from Save America PAC, which is his primary fund-raising and politicalspending arms since he left office. They show this. In March alone, this pack spent nearly$3.6 million Mr. Trump's legal fees alone. That is roughly the same amount that they spent onhis presidential campaign in the month of March. Tam, how do you look at those numbers right now? Looks like his supporters are happyto continue to pay those legal fees? TAMARA KEITH: His fund-raising has notbeen as brisk as I think his campaign would like or his PAC would like. Andthey are working to turn that around.
But in the meantime, yes, a lot of moneyis going to legal fees. Additionally, he's just not doing a lot of events. Now, I know he's in court three to four days aweek, but even when he's not been in court, he hasn't been having events. That is changingthis week. Wednesday, he has some rallies. But he just, since Super Tuesday, has not beencampaigning in a way that you would expect from someone who's turning towards the generalelection. And that also goes to television ads, where the Biden campaign is just vastlyoutspending Trump. Now, what they say, what the Trump campaign says is, he earns media.He just gets it. He doesn't have to pay for it. AMNA NAWAZ: He does get a lot of attention, right?.
AMY WALTER: He does. And this is where — this is what Biden isactually hoping, is that the media attention on the trial helps Biden, in that it remindsthose voters who may have some nostalgia for, well, the economy was better back in 2020, orI wasn't as worried about the border in 2020, that they go, oh, right, these are thethings that I didn't like about Donald Trump. If that focus continues while he's on trial,to the degree that it is not televised, I think, is a problem for theBiden campaign in that strategy, right, because they — he's — as we saw inthose polls, he's running behind right now. If you are the Biden campaign, you need to makethis a referendum on Trump more than anything..
And the only way you do that is if there's awhole lot of attention the person who's not the president of the United States. And that'svery hard to get that level of attention when you're not the president, unless you're a formerpresident and happen to be in criminal court. AMNA NAWAZ: Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, alwaysgood to see you both. Thank you so much. AMY WALTER: Thank you.TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.
