2:00

most ardent supporters and donors, his

2:02

performance was excruciating. Betty Cotton of

2:04

New York, who has donated thousands

2:06

to Biden's reelection campaign and serves

2:08

as a regional finance committee member,

2:10

said it was hard to watch.

2:13

One former Obama administration official who

2:15

served on Obama's reelection committee and

2:18

has raised funds for Biden said

2:20

they woke up to multiple tax

2:22

chains of current donors and former

2:25

administration officials, both of Obama, Biden

2:27

and Biden-Harris, all freaking out. Biden

2:30

has insisted that he will continue his

2:32

campaign, but there are complications if he

2:35

doesn't. This year Biden had

2:37

no serious primary challenger. That means

2:39

almost all of the more than 4,600 delegates

2:41

expected at the Democratic convention in

2:43

Chicago in August are pledged to

2:45

him, though that commitment is not

2:47

binding. It also means there is

2:49

no ready alternative, raising the possibility

2:51

of a brutal floor fight. Vice

2:54

President Kamala Harris would be a leading

2:56

alternative, but her position as Biden's running

2:58

mate gives her no special standing to

3:00

claim the nomination. There are

3:02

also rising Democrats who might have run for the

3:04

nomination this time if Biden had not. They

3:07

include governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan,

3:09

Gavin Newsom of California, Josh Shapiro

3:11

of Pennsylvania, and J.D. Pritzker of

3:14

Illinois. Worried Biden donors have

3:16

floated some of those names in recent days

3:18

as well. For more this

3:20

week and beyond, stay with USA today.com

3:23

and the excerpt. Black

3:28

voters could be the deciding factor in

3:30

this presidential election, but both sides have

3:33

made significant gaps in their appeals. What

3:36

does each candidate need to do to win them over? My

3:38

colleague Sarah Gannum sat down with USA

3:41

Today chief political correspondent Philip M. Bailey

3:43

to discuss. Philip, thanks so

3:45

much for being back on the show. Hey,

3:47

Sarah, how are you? OK, so let's jump

3:49

right in. For a while, we've been hearing

3:52

that Trump is doing better with black voters.

3:55

What do the numbers show? Well, this

3:57

is the important nuance to remember here.

10:00

I'm happy to be here and I have really bad

10:02

news for you. I gotta say

10:04

I did this story and

10:06

by the time I'd finished talking to all

10:09

the experts I was like dear heavens I

10:11

am never going in the ocean again! I

10:13

mean when I think of summer I think

10:16

of a lot of things I don't think

10:18

jellyfish is the first to come to mind

10:20

but you're saying that might be all we're

10:22

talking about this summer? Tell me

10:25

more. So here's the deal the genesis of

10:27

the story is that about 25

10:30

years ago there was this kind of fear

10:34

amongst scientists that

10:36

because of climate change and pollution and

10:38

ocean warming basically all the fish would

10:41

die and they'd be just be full

10:43

of jellyfish it would just be jellyfish

10:45

goo so we're like

10:47

do they think that's in fact what's happening?

10:50

So the good news is it's not the

10:52

bad news is is that a lot

10:54

of the really nasty jellyfish they're

10:57

moving into our territory so

10:59

we're used to seeing moon jellies which

11:01

are kind of little they're pretty and

11:04

they sting a lot tiny bit but

11:06

they're no big deal but like box

11:08

jellyfish which are nasty nasty and are

11:10

painful stings are starting to show up

11:13

I mean they're in Florida and they've

11:15

been seen as far north as New

11:17

Jersey. Ooh

11:20

what's causing this? So

11:23

it's it's a bunch of things it's

11:25

the oceans are warmer so jellyfish that

11:27

existed in certain places are able to

11:29

exist in new places in

11:32

some areas it's because of overfishing

11:34

because basically once the fish

11:36

are gone the jellyfish don't

11:38

have competition and so they can kind

11:41

of take over an area where there

11:43

used to be fish because fish eat

11:45

jellyfish and then another

11:47

thing is it's every oddly enough

11:49

agricultural runoff so if you put

11:51

too much fertilizer in your fields

11:54

which farmers do a lot it

11:56

sloths off and ends up in waterways ends

11:58

up in the ocean you

12:00

get blooms of algae, which leads

12:03

to hypoxia, which is lower oxygen levels in

12:05

the water. And it turns out that, and

12:08

you're not supposed to say this, but like

12:10

sometimes marine biologists will say, yeah, jellyfish, they're

12:12

the cockroaches of the sea. They will survive

12:15

anything. They don't need a lot of food.

12:17

They don't need a lot of oxygen. Like

12:19

everything else can die off and

12:22

the jellyfish persist. So all of

12:24

those reasons, and as

12:26

more people move to the

12:28

coasts, we're building piers, we're

12:30

building oil derricks, we're building

12:32

wind turbines, we're building all

12:34

this infrastructure out into the

12:37

water. And it turns out jellyfish have two

12:40

life portions, the medusa, which is the

12:42

part we're used to, the tendrils that

12:44

come at you and then get you.

12:46

And then the polyps, which

12:48

are basically the baby jellyfish and they

12:50

need something to stick to. And

12:53

so like you build a whole bunch more reefs

12:55

and wharfs and stuff, and there's more places for

12:57

the jellyfish to breed. I

12:59

mean, I'm a coastal person. I grew up

13:01

in Florida. I most certainly have memories of

13:04

what jellyfish sting feels like.

13:06

It feels like a sting, right? But

13:08

beyond that, are there

13:10

significant risks? So

13:13

they all sting, but at different

13:15

levels. And most of them, yeah,

13:17

it's just annoying, but it was, by in a

13:19

day it was gone. We are

13:22

starting to see some jellyfish,

13:24

like the box jellies that

13:27

actually can be serious.

13:29

I mean, people have died. It's

13:31

pretty uncommon and you have to have a

13:33

really strong reaction, but they're

13:36

like nastier. One of the scientists I

13:38

spoke to said that, yeah, when she

13:41

was doing work in Australia with jellyfish and she

13:43

said, you had to wear basically

13:45

a rash guard when there were really

13:47

big blooms. She said it was not

13:49

a good look, but it's-

13:51

So is this gonna be like the

13:54

seaweed? Is it gonna muck up the beach

13:56

experience? Is it gonna feel like the plague

13:58

or a jellyfish apocalypse? Well,

14:00

it's not the jellyfish apocalypse we were

14:02

worried about 20 years ago. One good

14:04

thing is they're seeing that some

14:07

of the predatory fish are

14:09

starting to realize, oh, here's this new

14:11

food source. A balance is achieved, but

14:13

it might take a little bit. What

14:15

should those of us who frequent the

14:17

beach in the summer do to better

14:20

protect ourselves? If you see

14:22

jellyfish, swim away from them. If

14:24

you see them on the beach, do not pick them

14:26

up. Do not scrape them off

14:28

or use sand. Wash them

14:30

off with seawater. Straight vinegar

14:32

can deactivate the venom. And

14:35

then if you do get stung, getting in

14:37

hot water like a hot tub can deactivate

14:39

it, but it takes 30, 35 minutes. So

14:42

I mean, mostly it's like a bad mosquito

14:45

bite. It's just going to take a while

14:47

until it feels better. Elizabeth Wiese is a

14:49

national correspondent for USA Today. Elizabeth, thank you

14:51

so much. As always, a

14:53

pleasure. Thanks for listening

14:55

to The Exert. You can get the podcast wherever

14:57

you get your audio. And if you're on a

15:00

smart speaker, just ask for The Exert. Thanks

15:03

to Sarah Gannon for filling in for me

15:05

these past few shows. I'm Taylor Wilson, and

15:07

I'll be back tomorrow with more of The

15:09

Exert from USA Today. If

15:20

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15:22

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