Comment dit-on ‘false hope’ en français?

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In 2016, the shocking success of the “Brexit” referendum was seen as a signal of the potency of populism, a harbinger of DONALD TRUMP’s U.S. election victory months later.

And so on Sunday, as soon as it was clear that voters in France had rejected the far-right National Rally party in the final round of parliamentary elections, President JOE BIDEN and his allies were eager to draw parallels between his dire political situation and the French results.

“France rejected extremism,” Biden said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. “Democrats will reject it here as well.”

Hours later on a private call with top donors, the president again pointed to the French election in arguing that his own campaign remains viable. “One of the things that’s happening around the world is the extreme right, the extreme MAGA conservatives of France, the Le Pen party and others, they’re getting killed,” Biden said, according to a person familiar with the call. “They’re getting kicked because people are going, ‘Whoa, we’re not going there.’”

However tenuous the connection between the French and American elections, the president’s argument makes sense in this current context. Given that Biden and his campaign are still going to great lengths to try and mitigate a broader Democratic revolt against his candidacy, it’s no wonder that aides would point to literally anything suggesting that the president’s political position is stronger than many think.

“There were a lot of people eager to write an obituary for the Democratic Party and Joe Biden’s chances in November” after the European Union parliamentary elections last month, said DAVID McGONIGAL with National Security Action, a Biden-aligned PAC focused on foreign affairs. “But we’ve seen time and time again, those coalitions on the center and the left are stronger than people give them credit for, and that’s especially the case when they’re confronted with an alternative like Marine Le Pen or Donald Trump. People, when faced with these alternatives, will turn out and strategically vote.”

It’s definitely true that when push came to shove, the French electorate — after propelling MARINE LE PEN’s far-right party to first place finishes in June’s EU parliamentary election and again weeks later in the snap French parliamentary election French President EMMANUEL MACRON called in response — turned back the far right in its effort to lead the country’s government. The RN’s third-place finish came as a surprise, especially given polling showing it was ahead, and occurred largely because politicians on the left banded together in opposition.

But the left’s success was enabled, in large part, by an electoral system that requires a first- and second-round of voting back-to-back.

“The systems are too different to make a direct comparison,” said RACHEL RIZZO, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. “The French system allows for a protest vote and then an actual policy vote, something the U.S. system doesn’t. So, a French voter ostensibly has two chances. U.S. voters only have one.”

Essentially, France offers voters the opportunity for a do-over that the U.S. system does not.

“I don’t think the results in France are necessarily cause for optimism for Biden specifically,” Rizzo said. “But, they might be cause for optimism in terms of voters’ appetites to actually welcome in far-right governments.”

This isn’t the first time Biden aides have claimed a correlation between Biden and Macron and their respective politics. In 2022 when Macron won reelection, then-White House chief of staff RON KLAIN posted what he called “an interesting observation” on what was still known as Twitter: “President Macron appears to have secured a double-digit victory over Le Pen, at a time when his approval rating is 36%. Hmmm….” Klain tweeted.

At that moment — Democrats would retain control of the Senate and lose the House by a smaller-than-expected margin later that year — Biden’s approval rating was down to 40 percent. It sits at 36 percent currently following his dismal debate performance 11 days ago.

Biden may end up proving Klain and the other “hoptimists” right. But at the moment, the U.S. election is centered on the matter of his age amid growing doubts that he can do the job for another four years — a dynamic that was not a factor in France.

Beyond that, Macron’s own weakness, which spurred him to blow up his own fragile centrist coalition, now leaves him facing the prospect of assembling a new governing coalition that could wind up being weaker and even more divided.

While some Biden political aides held up the French results as a positive, analysts were far more circumspect. A weaker unity government in Paris, the Eurasia Group’s IAN BREMMER wrote on Monday in his weekly email to clients, “will impact the next European Commission’s ambitions to boost defense and security cooperation, improve European competitiveness, and pursue enlargement — particularly with a view toward anchoring Ukraine in the bloc.”

Summing up the situation, Bremmer concluded: “Deadlock and chaos in Paris is set to become a major strategic impediment for Europe. Le Pen’s far right has been kept at bay for now. But it’s not pretty.”

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POTUS PUZZLER

Which president served as the student manager for his college’s baseball and football teams?

(Answer at bottom.)

The Oval

WHILE DEMS DITHER, POTUS GOES ALL IN: At the outset of a week that may determine his political future, Biden flooded the zone in an effort to head off any broader Democratic revolt against his candidacy. It started with a letter to Hill Democrats on Monday declaring emphatically that he is staying in the race: “I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,” Biden wrote.

The president also called in to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where he vented about the ongoing intra-party debate over his viability, our ISABELLA RAMÍREZ and MYAH WARD report. “I’m getting so frustrated by ... the elites in the party, ‘Oh, they know so much more.’ Any of these guys that don’t think I should run, run against me. Announce for president, challenge me at the convention,” Biden told co-hosts JOE SCARBOROUGH and MIKA BRZEZINSKI.

The duo listed off all the Democrats calling on him to ride into the sunset — a rapidly expanding number that includes former BARACK OBAMA senior adviser DAVID AXELROD. Upon hearing his name, Biden had an audible reaction — “Oh, you’re kidding,” Biden said in response to Axe wanting him to step aside. “I don’t care what those big names think. They were wrong in 2020. They were wrong in 2022.”

And he wasn’t done. Around lunchtime, the president joined a campaign call with top donors to reiterate his stance, pointing again to his having earned the nomination in a primary process (after his aides succeeded in changing the early state calendar to ensure no one credible would challenge him). Tonight, he’ll meet virtually with Congressional Black Caucus leaders, who’ve been some of his most forceful defenders amid the chaos.

The repeated public assertions about staying in the race, not exactly a sign of strength, risk alienating some Democrats worried about his growing frailty and still on the fence about his campaign. But it could also succeed amid a collective action issue across the party, which has yet to arrive at any sort of consensus about what, if anything, to do. While Rep. ADAM SMITH (D-Wash.) Monday became the latest lawmaker to call publicly on Biden to withdraw, a few dozen Democratic elected officials clarified their desire for the president to remain atop the ticket.

OH, RIGHT. THE NATO SUMMIT! The president is eager to highlight his work to strengthen NATO during the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit, which begins in Washington on Tuesday. Biden and other world leaders will unveil new commitments to Ukraine — the question of its future NATO membership remains a sticky one — and tout how 23 of NATO’s 32 member nations have now hit the benchmark agreed to a decade ago: spending at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense.

But as our ALEXANDER WARD, EMILIO CASALICCHIO, BARBARA MOENS and Eli report, Biden’s political woes are top of mind for leaders and diplomats who’d much prefer a second Biden term to the return of Trump but are “expressing acute concern” about his age, health and ability to win the election. “It doesn’t take a genius to see that the president is old,” said one official from a European NATO country. “We’re not sure that, even if he wins, he can survive four years more.”

ANOTHER QUESTION, ANOTHER NON-ANSWER: Things got heated at Monday’s press briefing, as multiple White House reporters clashed with KARINE JEAN-PIERRE over her opacity on the question of Biden’s last medical exam, on why the the administration withheld information about a Parkinson’s specialist’s visits to the White House, and on whether the president had been treated for the disease. CBS News’ ED O’KEEFE got particularly testy. “It’s a very basic, direct question. Did the doctor come to the White House ... at least once, in regards to the president specifically?” O’Keefe asked. “That much you should be able to answer at this point.”

“Ed, please, a little respect here,” Jean-Pierre responded, before sidestepping the core of the question. She argued that the White House could not disclose the name of the specialist from the podium, which lit a flame under Ed. “It’s public information,” he interjected. “You allow this to fester longer Karine, unless the White House just answers the question.”

“I am not going to divulge someone’s name,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how hard you push me, it doesn’t matter how angry you get with me from here. I’m not going to do that. It’s inappropriate.”

WHY SO MAD? THE PHILLIES ARE IN FIRST! The reporters traveling with JILL BIDEN for a slate of campaign events on Monday were trying really, really hard to get the first lady to chime in on the fate of her husband’s reelection bid.

As she touched down in Wilmington, North Carolina, the first lady ignored shouted questions about what her message is to Democrats urging the president to drop out. When she arrived later in Tampa, Florida, she once again did not acknowledge the same shouted question. Nor did she when walking into Kaya Coffee Roasters to have a hibiscus berry tea with the Tampa mayor.

But by the time she was on her way out the door of the cafe, she had some thoughts for the group.

“Why are you screaming at me? You know me,” she said, stopping to smile at the pool. “Don’t scream at me. Just let me talk.”

She still didn’t answer the question.

SO YOU’RE NOT INTO THE WHOLE BREVITY THING? The authors of a lengthy WaPo piece cataloging Biden’s crisis response did not take kindly to Axios founder JIM VANDEHEI offering a one-paragraph newsletter summary of it and telling readers: “Saved ya 2,550 words, 9 ½ mins!” Reporter MICHAEL SCHERER re-posted VandeHei’s blurb by mocking Axios’ format.

“GO DEEPER: Read and judge ‘smart brevity’ yourself,” he wrote with a link to the Post’s story. JOSH DAWSEY, another reporter on the story’s byline, also posted Scherer’s tweet and added, “Is being smart mocking others’ work and calling it brevity?”

Now we aren’t self-help experts, but just a quick reminder that if you feel a constant need to beat your chest or dump on your competition, you’re not communicating the thing you think you are.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by NYT’s JIM TANKERSLEY, who writes that America’s “left behind” counties — those which were influential manufacturing towns but struggled at the beginning of this century — have recently staged a comeback. These counties added jobs five times faster in the first three years of the Biden administration than they did in the first three under the Trump administration, Tankersley writes.

“This is the kind of thing that we couldn’t have even dreamed about five or six years ago,” said JOHN LETTIERI, the president of the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank that studies economic distress in the U.S.

Communications director BEN LABOLT and deputy communications director JENNIFER MOLINA shared the piece on X.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by The Atlantic’s GRAEME WOOD, who poses a far-fetched, fresh scenario for the president. Here’s how he starts it: “Senility is part of the human condition, but dignity is usually a choice. I pity Joe Biden for having to make what may be the most humiliating decision in presidential history. The questions Are you senile yet? Are you sure? have no dignified answer — which is why Biden should consider an option midway between resignation and denial, and persist in a way that is not, to my knowledge, being considered.”

Wood lays out one of the many dilemmas the president faces: to release or not release the delegates he’s compiled for his nomination. Releasing them would invite speculation that he is unfit to serve the rest of his presidency. Failing to release them, Wood writes, would feel much like him holding the party hostage.

“The dignity-preserving option is to release the delegates and run in an open convention,” Wood argues, before adding his prediction if his proposed path is taken: “I predict he will lose it, and badly … Dignity is a choice, but not a choice that remains available forever.”

THE BUREAUCRATS

BUILDING BACK TOGETHER...STILL EXISTS?! The advocacy and lobbying group that serves as a policy arm to tout the Biden administration’s accomplishments is expanding its leadership team as the president attempts to fend off calls for him to drop out, The Hill’s RAFAEL BERNAL reports. Building Back Together announced five new hires Monday, including former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Hispanic media director JAVIER GAMBOA as deputy executive director.

The group is also hiring PAYDON MILLER as director of strategic initiatives, BLAKE GOODMAN as communications director, ASHLEY ALVAREZ as its political director and ANDREA LOZANO as digital content manager.

Agenda Setting

KEEPING IT VAGUE: The Republican National Committee released its 2024 GOP platform on Monday, mimicking the former president’s rhetoric and keeping to his stance on issues such as opposing a federal abortion ban, AP’s THOMAS BEAUMONT and CHRISTINE FERNANDO report. The scaled-down, 16-page document, which provides limited specifics on many Republican priorities, is an effort by the Trump campaign to avoid giving Democrats more ammo.

The document features 20 issues (all in caps and lacking detail), including immigration, the economy, taxes and crime, but avoids any mention of abortion in the subject titles. Among the notable priorities: STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION; CUT FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ANY SCHOOL PUSHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY; KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS.

GRIND DON’T STOP: CIA director BILL BURNS and top Middle East adviser to Biden BRETT McGURK met with senior Israeli and Egyptian security officials in Cairo on Monday to discuss the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, Axios’ BARAK RAVID reports. The group is also discussing efforts to secure the Egypt-Gaza border and a reopening of the Rafah crossing point, two key issues that need solving ahead of a possible deal between Israel and Hamas.

What We're Reading

Biden’s Survival Plan: Decry ‘Elite’ Critics, Appeal to His Base (POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin)

Joe Biden, in the Goodest Bunker Ever (NYT’s Maureen Dowd)

The world wasn’t ready for Trump in 2016. It’s not making that mistake this time. (POLITICO’s Paul McLeary, Christopher Schiltz, Stefanie Bolzen, Jacopo Barigazzi and Philipp Fritz)

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

While at Stanford, HERBERT HOOVER was the manager for the Cardinal’s baseball and football teams. In fact, he was the manager during the first Big Game — a classic college football rivalry between Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. The future president printed 10,000 tickets for the 15,000-seat Haight Street baseball stadium in San Francisco.

But when the team captains entered the field and the referee asked for the football, he realized there was one small problem. No one had remembered to bring the ball.

A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it!

Edited by Steve Shepard and Rishika Dugyala.