Latest / Pod Save America / “It’s Joe Time.”

Transcript

“It’s Joe Time.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, the gang's all here to share our
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: thoughts about the entire Democratic National Convention. including the big
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: speech that Joe Biden delivered last night accepting the party's
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: presidential nomination. We'll also preview the airing of petty grievances
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and nutball conspiracies to take place at next week's Republican
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: National Convention. One quick note before we dive in. Over
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a year ago, during a very crowded primary, we all
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: predicted Joe Biden would win. No, we asked you to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: support our Unify or Die Fund for the eventual Democratic nominee.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And thanks to your donations, Crooked Media and Swing Left
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: were able to send the Biden campaign over $ 1 million
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: this week to help them train organizers, run some ads,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and get out the vote. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Helping the campaign reach more voters is one of the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: most important things that we can do for the outcome
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: we want to see. If you are looking for more
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: ways to get involved, we have some other funds. We
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: have opportunities to organize, to volunteer. So check out VoteSaveAmerica.com.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: All right, guys. Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. formally accepted the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Democratic nomination for president last night in a speech that
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: by most accounts was the finest performance of his political career.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: His 24-minute address, the shortest in modern history, was delivered
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to a largely empty room from a podium in his
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Biden used the speech to lay
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: out an alternative vision of how he would lead the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: country through what he called four major crises, the pandemic,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the recession, racial justice, and climate change. He also presented
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: himself as the anti-Trump in how he would govern a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: divided nation. Here are some clips.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: on the best of us, not the worst. I'll be
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: an ally of the light, not the darkness. It's time
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: for us, for we the people, to come together and
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: make no mistake. United we can and will overcome this
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: season of darkness in America. But while I'll be a
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: Democratic candidate, I will be an American president. I'll work
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: hard for those who didn't support me, as hard for
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: them as I did for those who did vote for me.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: That's the job of a president, to represent all of us,
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: not just our base or our party. This is not
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: a partisan moment. This must be an American moment. It's
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: a moment that calls for hope and light and love,
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: hope for our future, light to see our way forward,
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: and love for one another.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Guys, reaction to the speech? Tommy?
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Well, look, the Lord of the Light doesn't have the
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: strongest base outside of Westeros. So, you know, we'll see
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: how that one plays. Sorry. A few thoughts. Like one,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Republicans and some people on the left helped Joe Biden
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: enormously by setting the expectations at him being able to
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: leave his basement because he was in cognitive decline. So
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I just want to remind those people that they are morons.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: On top of that, Joe Biden delivered the hell out
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: of that speech. And it was especially powerful when he
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: got to the coronavirus section. He said that Donald Trump
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: had failed in his basic duty to protect us. And
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: it's hard to argue with that. So, you know, I
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: think he did an incredibly good job. The recent polling
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: makes it seem like the whole election is about the coronavirus.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I think he did a good job explaining that failure
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: and his plan to do it better. He spoke directly
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: to the loss. It was a good job. Joe Biden
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: did a great job.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Love it. You've written some of these before. 24 minutes.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: That's the thing that stuck out to me. How about
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: a 24-minute speech?
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: It was amazing.
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: We had talked about this.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I don't even remember.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: We've done so much content. I don't even remember when
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: we talked about it.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: For Campaign Speechwriters React. Campaign Speechwriters React. The competitor to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Campaign Experts React.
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, we're trying to compete with YouTube star.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: Dan is coming to us live from his house that
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: Eric Garcetti is trying to turn the power off of.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: That's how much of an internet sensation Dan has become.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: It's just him just doing TikToks.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Uh, but, uh, uh, yeah, it was 24.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: It was short.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: It was to the point I came away from the,
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: the entire convention feeling incredibly pumped, incredibly excited. I think, uh,
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: the low expectations weren't just set for the media. I
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: think if we're all being honest, we set them for
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: ourselves and, uh, Joe Biden in the speech and in
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: the speeches that led up to it, I think, showed me,
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: reminded everybody what his strengths are as a candidate. And
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: I think it put us in an incredibly strong position
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: going into the Republican convention and to the weeks after.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Dan, from a political perspective, what do you think Joe
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Biden sought to accomplish with that speech? And what do
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you think the campaign did accomplish with that?
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: I think this speech is actually the culmination of a
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: strategy that he's had since the virus hit that we
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: probably don't talk about enough, which is Joe Biden is
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: running what is essentially a Rose Garden campaign.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: As the challenger.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: He is filling the void that Trump has left as
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: President of the United States. As our friend David Axelrod tweeted,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: this was more of a presidential address than a nomination speech.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: He talked about bringing the country together and mobilizing behind
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: defeating this virus. He talked about healing the wounds within
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: the country from having lost 170,000 of our fellow citizens
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: in five months. Like the sort of things that normal
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: presidents do and Donald Trump is incapable of doing, Joe
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Biden did that. And he's basically playing the role of
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: president that Donald Trump won't do. And I think that
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: really stood out in his work frame. If you look
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: at all of the images of Biden, the speeches he's giving,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: and some of this is obviously related to the restrictions
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: related to the coronavirus, but he's always in front of flags.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: It's all very serious. It all feels very presidential. And
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: I think this speech came at the end of that.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: He had two tasks. One was to fill in the
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: gaps in knowledge about him as a person. And the
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: second task was filling the gaps in knowledge about his policy.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: And that's what he sought to do last night. And
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: I think the two are intricately tied together and it's
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: necessary to do both. And I think he and his
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: campaign should feel very, very good that he did exactly
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: what he needed to do on that stage last night.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I really liked that it was simple, It was direct.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: There is a tendency in convention speeches to check every
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: box on every issue, go off on a lot of tangents.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: He did not. I like that he framed it around
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: for crises. He was very clear on what he would
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: do about the pandemic, on what he would do around
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the economy. His economic message was sufficiently populist. I think
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: aside from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, he was maybe
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the only one major speaker at the convention to talk
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: about the economy in sort of a serious way, in
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: an economically populist way. So I think that was very effective. Look,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: they should all be 24-minute speeches. I think part of
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the reason it was so good, and it's not going
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: to be talked about as much because people don't think
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: about this, but Barack Obama's speech was 40 minutes in 2008.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton's was 56 minutes in 2016.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Which is just like, there are no attention spans for
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: speeches like that. Now, look, all of the speeches were
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: shorter at this convention because there was no crowd. And
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: we can talk about that a little bit later. But like,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I do think that the shortness of the speech helped
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: him focus it and helped the sort of simplicity and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: directness of the message. I don't think he like, he
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: reached like a few rhetorical heights here and there. But
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: mostly it was, it was a message to a country
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: that had been, that is scared by this pandemic. that
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: sees a president who does not care about them, and
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: his message was, I do care about you, and here
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: is my plan to fix it, and I will be different.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And sometimes the election might just not be more complicated
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: than that.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: I think also no audience helps because it's more of
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: a conversation. There's no shitty, zippy lines designed for terrible applause, right? Like,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Con Don is about to be gone is something we
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: probably heard during the primary. That may be literal. I
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: also thought that his comments about patriotism were important because
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: there is a lot that is wrong America, but people
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: still don't want to feel bad about it. And he
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: painted a picture of what a better, improved America could
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: look like, which I think all politicians should do. I
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: also came to this week knowing a lot about Biden's
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: story and the tragedy he'd endured, but I was still
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed at times by the volume of it. And I
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: don't say that in a critical way at all. I
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: just didn't expect them to center the family loss as
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: much as they did, because I just can't imagine how
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: hard it is to relive that constantly. But I guess
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: to understand Joe Biden is to understand that loss and
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: that tragedy. And so it was really beautiful the way,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: you know, they have the tribute to Bo and they
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: really directly talked about like all that he's endured.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's, I think it is the, it is
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the primary way in which I think Joe Biden views
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: the world is through the prism of the tragedies he
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: has faced and how he's overcome them. I mean, his
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: political career began with a tragedy. His wife and daughter
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: died in that car accident. accident in between getting elected
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: to the Senate and arriving in the Senate. As he
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: talked about in that video, he almost didn't go to
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: the Senate so he could stay home with Beau and Hunter.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: He probably, as he has talked about, would be retired
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: right now if Beau had not passed away and propelled
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: him into one last chapter to do this for Beau.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: All of that, which I thought Dr. Biden did an
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: incredible job in her speech, Ties together with why Joe
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Biden is the right person in this moment to heal
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: a nation in desperate need of healing.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Her line, how do you make a nation? nation
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: whole the same way you make a broken family whole,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: is basically sums up the entire convention message and why
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is the right person for the time. Like,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I think we may have, you know, I think we've
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: talked about it before, but The pandemic has really made
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden the right man for the moment in a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: way that might not have been true before. And now
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: that those you can really see why through this convention,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: why he is the right person to lead us through
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: this dark time. I just want to read a few
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: reactions to the speech. Quote, it was an enormously effective speech.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Chris Wallace, Fox News. Joe Biden just hit a home
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: run in the bottom of the ninth, his best. Dana Perino,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Fox News. It was a very good speech. Karl Rove,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Fox News. Why do you guys think Biden's speech worked
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: for all these Fox News goons?
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: It sort of fits with what we said, I think.
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: when we were sort of anticipating what this convention would
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: look like, it was what we talked about earlier, which
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: is that it was a speech sort of grounded in empathy,
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: in larger philosophical principles. There was a, you know, a
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: strong policy section. But for the most part, it was
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: trying to tell a story about the kind of leadership
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: we need right now. And it was a very Biden
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: speech in that, you know, he went back to his
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: old favorites, his Seamus Heaney and his sort of kind of,
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: I think, kind of his classics that are very much,
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: you know, America is a great country and we're better
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: than this. And I saw a few conservatives saying things like,
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: excuse me, how is this a country that has systemic
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: injustice and yet is also filled with decent people who
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: want to build a better world? And I just want
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: to be like, you're so close. You're so close to
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: answer the question. All you have to do is stop
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: thinking you've found a logic hole and just answer the question.
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: And just to the point that John and Dan were
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: making about about Biden being the right person for this moment.
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: I think one of the criticisms of Biden throughout, I think,
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: the primaries, something that I would level is that, you know, oh,
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: is he kind of able to adjust? Is he going
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: to kind of reflect the moment that we're in? But
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: I think we saw in the convention the strength of
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: having somebody who hasn't been particularly buffeted by the news
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: cycle and who knows who he is and knows the
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: kind of speech he wants to present, the kind of
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: person he wants to be. Because to John's point, I
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: really think it does, you know, it does speak to
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: the moment that we're in.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Man, that list. That list, John, is just such a
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: brutal group of people, though.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: It's great.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I loved the clothes. Who else am I going to
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: trot out? Sorry.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: To your point, Levitt, though, it also takes discipline to
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: have a convention speech like that where you go back
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and play some of your greatest hits. Some of those
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: were lines that Biden has used before because pundits and
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: reporters who have paid attention to your speech as closely,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: we'll say, Oh, he's already used that line. But 90%
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: of the people watching that speech from home have never
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: heard any of those lines. And they worked for Joe
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Biden throughout the primary and the general election. So he
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: should say them again, right? That's just, and it requires
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: discipline to do that. But the Biden campaign usually has
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: that kind of discipline. At least they've showed it so far. Um,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: there was Dave Weigel tweeted, um, from the Washington Post,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: that there were zero mentions of Donald Trump's name in
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Biden's speech compared with the 22 times Hillary Clinton mentioned
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: his name in 2016 during her convention speech. Tommy, this
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: sort of goes to your point earlier about how there
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: weren't a lot of like canned applause lines, which is,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of Trump zingers, which, and to be fair,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: it's not just like Hillary Clinton that did that in 2016,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: like Democrats have been doing that throughout 2016, all the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: way through 2020. What did you think of his decision
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: to sort of not mention Trump by name?
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question because it was
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: clearly a decision, right? I mean, everyone knows who he's
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: talking about when he says this president has completely screwed
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: up the coronavirus response. But I suspect they did it
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: because they think these attacks just land a little bit
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: softer when you aren't naming Trump by name. And as
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: much as us progressives, pundits, like we enjoy political combat,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: we want to see Trump get slapped around a little
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: bit rhetorically, I do think you are often more convincing
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: to swing voters with a lighter touch. The coronavirus is
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: probably the best example. If you walk into a focus
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: group of swing voters and say, Trump has blood on
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: his hands, he's responsible for 170,000 deaths, I think they think,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: you know, they give you the Heisman and they say,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: relax a little bit. If you say Trump didn't create
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: the virus, but he's responsible for mismanaging the response, everyone
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: agrees with that. And I think it's a more effective message. Yeah.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, I think the worst Trump is
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the less you have to point that out. Yeah. It's
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: really the whole, you know, like the fact that we
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: have 170,000 Americans dead from a pandemic that the president
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: hasn't been able to control, like all, and Joe Biden
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: did this at the beginning of the speech. He said,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: all I have, I'm not going to go into a
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of rhetoric about Donald Trump, like about the president.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: All I have to do is just tell you the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: statistics of where the country is right now. And I
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: think it does land a lot harder. Um, I do
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: want to talk about, like, Trump's reaction to the speech.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: He tweeted, in 47 years, Joe did none of the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: things of which he now speaks. He will never change.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Just words. Which I thought it was really funny that
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Benji Sarlin from NBC tweeted, quick pivot from this geezer
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: can't string two sentences together to trust not his honeyed words,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: sweet as they may seem.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Did he really say of which he now speaks?
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, cool. I mean, Dan, what do you think of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: that new message? Because I, you know, I do think
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: that Joe Biden's been around in Washington for a while
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and hasn't changed anything, is probably more potent for Trump
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: than he's a senile old geezer who can't string a
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: sentence together. But I don't know. I mean, he's invested
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: a lot in that first message.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he, I mean, there's still always been this dissonance
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: between what Trump tweets or says at a press conference
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: when he's angry and what the actual strategy of his
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: campaign is.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Like, he.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: The ads his campaign is running right now are about
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden being a typical Democrat who will raise your
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: taxes and be soft on immigration and has been in
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Washington for nearly a half century. That is a much
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: better message from Trump. I'm not saying it doesn't necessarily work.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: But if there's anything we've learned over the last few
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: months is that Donald Trump is incapable of convincing anyone
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: that Joe Biden is an antifa super soldier. And Joe
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Biden's speech demonstrates the fatal flaw in a strategy that
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: depends on Joe Biden not being able to deliver speeches
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: well because he just delivered one well. And so I
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: think it can work for Trump. It does, and we
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: may talk about this later, but there has been this
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: debate about why did the convention spend so much time
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: talking about Joe Biden the person and maybe not as
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: much as people may say about either Donald Trump or
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden's policy plans. It's because voters, particularly skeptical, periodic,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: or non-voters, Their default position is that nothing is going
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: to change if I get involved. And that is particularly
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: true for someone who is very vulnerable to being painted
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: as a typical politician because he's been a member of
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: the political establishment for so long. And so in order
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: to get their vote, you have to, before you can
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: ever convince them about the merits of your policy proposals,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: you have to convince them that you are a person
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: who will deliver on your word, who will follow through
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: on the things you promised. And that is what all
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: of the Joe Biden is a good person who will
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: help people, who understands tragedy. That's what all of that
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: is about. the personal characteristics and values are a predicate
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: for any of the policy plans to have any impact.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: And it demonstrates to me that Joe Biden's campaign has
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: learned some of the very fundamental lessons from 2016, where
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: the Clinton campaign felt they could not convince people about
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: anything new about Hillary Clinton. And so they focus on
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump and to a lesser extent on her plans
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: without selling people the idea that she would do what
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: she said she.
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: I also think that 2016, Donald Trump is in many
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: ways an abstraction. He is a looming threat that we're
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: trying to convince people is real. And so I am
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: less critical of the decision at the time to try
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: to figure out how to paint a story about Donald Trump.
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: And also one of the lessons from 2016 is when
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: the country at the time was focused on Trump's flaws,
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: focused on the Access Hollywood tape, focused on the chaos,
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: focused on the racism, his numbers did take a dip.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: It did work.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: It was that people had a short memory. And by
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: the time we get to the Comey letter and the
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: focus returns to Hillary Clinton, the effect of that seemed
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: to wane. And so I wonder even if you can
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: imagine a concerted kind of focus on Donald Trump might
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: have an impact at some point. It's certainly not now
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: at the convention. It might be later on. But right now,
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: this is an opportunity for people who already know enough
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: about Donald Trump to decide whether or not they're willing
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: to go along with this.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: In the Washington Post-ABC poll, 56% of Biden's voters are
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: voting for Biden mostly because they oppose Trump. And 74%
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: of Trump voters are voting for Trump, mostly because they
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: support Trump. And I think Biden wants to get those
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: numbers a little more in balance in his side. And
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: that's what this convention is about. Selling people on Joe
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: Biden is a bigger strategic objective than selling people on
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: why Trump is bad.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I think the biggest difference between 2016 and now concerning
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Trump is, in 2016, there was a group of people
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: who voted for Donald Trump knowing that he was a
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: cruel asshole. because they thought, well, he's a cruel asshole,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: but he might shake up things in Washington and fix
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: shit and make my life better. Now, Donald Trump's cruelty
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and him being an asshole is making their lives immeasurably
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: worse because it is preventing him from addressing the biggest
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: challenge in our lives, which is the pandemic and the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: recession and this call for racial justice and climate change
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and any number of issues. And so now his faulty
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: character traits are leading to consequences that are devastating for people.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Back in 2016, they thought that the faulty character traits
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: were just something that they had to live with for
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: some guy who's going to shake things up.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: He's still in polling represents change in Biden represents more
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: of the status quo. He's still seen by a lot
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: of people as someone who will shake it up. Now,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: the context is incredibly different, the reasons you point out,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: but that's why he wants to get back to Joe
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Biden is a typical liberal politician and he represents change.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Whether you can do that in the middle of a
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: pandemic you're fucking up is a, I think that's a
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: tall order, but that's probably the safest place for Trump
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: to be.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Dan, I totally disagree. I think he should go back
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: to attacking the host of Morning Joe in deeply, deeply
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: personal criminal terms. That would be my path.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, he missed a huge opportunity with the primetime
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: slot for the Morning Joe Roundtable participant, John Meacham, last night.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: We'll get to you later, Meacham. I'm just kidding.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the rest of the final night of
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the convention. The two-hour show was emceed by Julie Louis-Dreyfus
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and featured remarks from Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Tammy Baldwin,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Tammy Duckworth, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, and other Democratic candidates
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: who ran against Biden in the primary. The night also
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: featured segments with Biden's children and grandchildren and a moving
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: tribute to Biden's late son, Beau. But one of the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: most powerful moments of the week came when a 13-year-old
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: from New Hampshire named Braden Harrington spoke about how Joe
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Biden helped him overcome his stutter. Here's a clip.
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: We all want the world to feel better. We need
• 21:13
  Speaker 6: the world to feel better. I'm just a regular kid.
• 21:18
  Speaker 6: And in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: me more confident about something that's bothered me my whole life.
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: Joe Biden cared. Imagine what he could do for all
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: of us. Kids like me are counting on you to
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: elect someone we can all look up to. Someone who cares.
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: Someone who will make our country and the world feel better.
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: We're counting on you to elect Joe Biden.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Was anyone not crying during that video?
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah. Look, I mean, you start in an
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: emotional place because it's just inspiring to see a kid
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: brave enough to do that. This does tell you everything
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: you need to know about Joe Biden. In the middle
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: of a presidential campaign, he takes time to read poetry
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: to a kid and teaches them how to mark up
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: words to pronounce them more easily. The story is, it's heartwarming.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: It's moving. It's also not remotely surprising to anyone who
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: has worked around Joe Biden because there are literally countless
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: stories like this of him just going out of his
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: way to quietly help people, to call a person he
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: met in the West Wing basement who was getting a tour,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: who lost a family member, calls them on their cell
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: phone a month later just because that's the kind of
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: guy he is. We heard it from the rabbi in
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Delaware who was touched by Biden's kindness. There was the
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Amtrak story. There's no political upside to any of this.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: It's just who he is. And I do think that
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: a lot of people who watch that probably agree with
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Braden when he said, you know, we need the world
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: to feel better. The flip side will be Trump, right,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: who proudly has stormtroopers, brutalized protesters because he thinks there's
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: a political upside to that. So it's a contrast.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, there will be people who say I
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: have seen them on Twitter. That's great that he's a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: nice guy, but shouldn't we be electing people based on
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: their policy positions and their ideology and what they're going
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to do? And if they don't go far enough, you know,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: if you don't support Medicare for all, does it really
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: matter if you're kind and decent to people? What do
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you think about that, Lovett?
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: I was– it's funny that I didn't even– without even
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: anticipating your question, I'll tell you that like, not as
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: a sort of pundit, but just as like a citizen myself,
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: as somebody observing this convention, I am somebody that approaches
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: politics a lot that way, right? I don't care that
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: much about the sentimental aspects You know, my my my
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: cynical instinct is I absolutely believe when you see that
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: video of Joe Biden talking to Braden long ago and
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: you absolutely do see somebody who sees it and really
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: wants to help and really wants to convey it, really
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: wants to kind of let that kid know that he
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: can help. It feels incredibly sincere. It's also part of
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: his political brand, right, that he is the kind of
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: person that does this kind of thing. And there is,
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: to me, political upside to being to making part of
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: who you are as a politician, someone who cares and
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: gets involved with people in their lives. But that said,
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: one of my lessons to me about politics over the
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: last six months is absent the empathy, the basic human
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: empathy of a leader, you actually come to see why
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: it is so valuable, why some of the artifice of
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: what a president can do, some of the leadership, the
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: kind of intangible kind of ineffable aspects of what we
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: look for in an American president, derided by Twitter, derided
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: by cynical people like me, has value in an emergency,
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: not just because it makes people feel better, but because
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: it gets them to do things for each other, gets
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: them to wear masks, gets them to take stay-at-home orders seriously,
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: gets them to look out for one another in a palpable, real,
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: tangible way, gets people to treat each other better rather
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: than racing golf carts at each other in the middle
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: of the villages outside of Orlando, right? Like we have
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: seen over six months why empathy actually has real substantive
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: value in a president. The other piece of this, too,
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: is nothing about this convention, nothing about John Kasich speaking
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: at this convention, nothing about Mike Bloomberg trying out soundbites
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: has moved Joe Biden's policy platform to the right. The
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: policy platform is what it was at the beginning.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: It is what it was at the end.
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: He has shifted to the left based on where the
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: consensus of the Democratic Party has moved.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think character has consequences in politics, particularly when
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: it's the character of the person with the most power
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and the biggest bully pulpit in the country.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: An empathetic, decent person isn't necessarily a good president, but
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: you can't have a president who's not an empathetic, decent person.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. So what did you guys
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: think of the final night? You know, the final night
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and really the entire convention did a fantastic job testifying
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to Biden's character. and his broad coalition. We started to
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: talk about this earlier, but like, do we think enough
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: was done throughout the whole week to highlight Joe Biden's
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: vision and his plans, particularly his economic plans, knowing that,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: you know, every poll we've looked at, the one place
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: that Trump is still hanging on is people think he's
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: either as good as Joe Biden at managing the economy
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: or potentially better in some polls.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, I, I guess I'm looking for something different.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: When there's polling in the next couple of days, I
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: want to see if Joe Biden's personal approval rating went up.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I want to see if enthusiasm to vote for him
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: went up as opposed to what Dan was talking about earlier,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: which is enthusiasm to vote against Trump. Do people in
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: focus groups seem generally more aware of his bio and
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: his character and his story? I get that people on
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Twitter want policy. I think that people in voting booths
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: want humanity and the whole fucking stupid trope, someone you
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: want to have a beer with thing. And so I
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: think in that sense, the way they were able to
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: tell his story through a bunch more taped videos than
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: just speeches was incredibly effective. And that's what I'll be
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: looking for in the numbers.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: I came away thinking that that was an incredibly successful convention.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: And I think they did an incredible job adjusting to
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: the format. They turned it into an asset, a Herculean task.
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: It could have been a disaster.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: It wasn't.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: It was not just not a disaster.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: It turned the lack of a crowd.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: Into an opportunity for the seriousness of the moment to
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: speak to people, to kind of be a gathering place
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: at a time of mourning where we've never had that.
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: We haven't had that for six months yet. because we
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: have a, you know, a monster in the White House.
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to interrogate my own feelings to say like,
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: all right, what do I think was missing? What like, yes,
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: I'm in the tank. Like, what did I feel like
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: maybe we could have seen more of, you know, by
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: the end of the fourth night, I felt like we
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: were over torqued on some of these Republican voices and
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: these moderate voices kind of, there's a little bit of,
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: I think Democrats are sometimes afraid to be their own validators.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Like I, you're right.
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: I get having Kasich. I don't know if I need
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: Kasich to John Meacham, Cindy McCain, Mike Bloomberg. There was
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: a lot of Colin Powell. So I wonder about that.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: I wonder if there was enough for the kind of
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: young progressives who are more skeptical of Joe Biden. Those
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: are the questions I have. I don't offer it as criticism.
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: I don't feel as though I know the answer because
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: I think we need to see how it shakes out.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think?
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think the main takeaway is they
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: did an amazing job. Joe Biden delivering it. All the
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: speeches were great. The logistics of pulling this off and
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: putting together a compelling show, I think this is actually
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: the most effective convention in modern American history when it
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: comes to persuasion because the people watching on television actually
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: got to see the videos and to see some of
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: the stuff that would typically be on the undercard. It
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: would not have shown up on television. And so they
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: get a huge kudos.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Did they do enough? We'll find out in November. I
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: don't know, right?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Like I, like if I'm looking for things to be
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: concerned about, I am less concerned about the absence of
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: policy because I think the first, as I said before,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: I think the first task is selling voters that Joe
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Biden will actually deliver on the things he's promising before
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: you talk about the things he's promising. I also think
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: those are things that can and must be communicated in
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: paid communications targeted to voters who probably didn't tune in
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: last night. Um, Where I have concern is the same
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: one Lovett has, which is I am totally fine with
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Republicans like John Kasich, as much as I don't particularly
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: adore him, being there in order to help make the
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: case to Republicans who are thinking about possibly voting for Biden.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: I think that we need that. That is the only
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: path the 270s to have that. But there's the other
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: side of that coin, which is Joe Biden is currently,
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: at least prior to this convention, underperforming Hillary Clinton's numbers
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: with Latino voters, particularly young Latino voters. He's right at
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton's numbers with African-American voters, underperforming Obama's numbers, particularly
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: among young African-American voters, and that is a set of
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: voters that we are very likely going to need, not
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: just in this election, but we certainly need in the
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: long-term future of this party. And if I'm looking for
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: something to worry about, it is the balance between young progressive,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: particularly young progressive of color, and older white moderate Republicans.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had two little criticisms. I agree with that.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: That keynote montage had a lot of amazing, exciting young voices.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I do think it would have been great to break
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: that up and give those people more time. The other
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: thing is, I think it was a real mistake to
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: not have any Muslim speakers at the convention. Every Muslim
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: in this country has been treated with suspicion since 9-11,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: and it's unfair. And I don't think it's enough to
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: be like, hey, we're the party that doesn't have a
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Muslim ban. I think you need to actively demonstrate that
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: inclusiveness by having them there. overall, I can't say enough
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: about this convention in terms of what they pulled off
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: in this situation.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I think that Joe Biden did a good job in
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: his speech carrying the economic message, which maybe wasn't carried
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: as much throughout the week by other speakers, but the
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: most important person to do that is Joe Biden. And
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I also think, I don't know that voters go into
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the booth and start casting their ballots based on a
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: checklist of policies, but more like a feeling that Joe
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Biden cares about me and will fight for me on
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: a number of issues that I care about, right? And
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: so I do think that Joe Biden conveyed in his
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: speech and the convention conveyed that at a time of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: great challenge in the middle of a pandemic and a recession,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: this is the guy who cares about you and the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: other person on the ballot does not. And that's the
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: ultimate choice, you know? And again, like you said, Dan,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: I think the campaign will probably run many ads with
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: a lot more specifics about Joe Biden's economic plans. I
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: think Bernie Sanders did a fantastic job of listing some
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of the policies that Joe Biden would pursue. And I
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: hope they do that more between now and November.
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: I also think, too, like it is absolutely true that
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: they sort of stripped out the kind of Trump zingers
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: in part because there was no audience. But the speeches
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: from Bernie Sanders, speeches from Barack Obama, speech from Michelle Obama,
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: there weren't zingers in those speeches. There weren't classic political hits,
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: but they were speeches about just how high the stakes were,
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: how dangerous Donald Trump is. That that kind of put
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: that sort of we've so we've moved so far beyond
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: he's a reality show, you know, his tweets. It was
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: really kind of Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama making
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: a kind of plea to people that like this is
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: the stakes are total.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: And I do think you didn't have to have Joe
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: Biden make that argument because I think it was made
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: so successfully over the course of the convention.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, the best positive arguments for any candidate are
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: implicit contrast arguments against their opponent. And that's what the
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: entire thing was about Joe Biden being decent, Joe Biden
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: being someone who wants to unite the country, reach out
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: to programs. That's all about who Donald Trump is not.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: And that was, even if you don't mention his name
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: in the speech, that was abundantly clear to voters.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Just want to quickly talk about the entire week in
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: terms of format. Obviously, we had a convention without crowds.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: And if not in a physical convention hall. There were
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: four hosts, multiple locations, pre-recorded videos mixed with live speeches.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: And one of the week's highlights was the usually boring
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: roll call where each state officially nominates the winning and
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: runner-up candidates. This year, we got a virtual tour of
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the United States and its territories. Here's a clip.
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: Rhode Island, the ocean state, where our restaurant and fishing
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: industry have been decimated by this pandemic, are lucky to
• 33:10
  Speaker 7: have a governor, Gina Raimondo, whose program lets our fishermen
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: sell their catches directly to the public, and our state appetizer, calamari,
• 33:21
  Speaker 7: is available in all 50 states. The calamari comeback state
• 33:25
  Speaker 7: of Rhode Island casts one vote for Bernie Sanders and
• 33:28
  Speaker 7: 34 votes for the next president, Joe Biden.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: The calamari comeback state, Rhode Island.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Calamari rules.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: The unsung hero of the app community. Nobody's mad when
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: it gets to the table. Nobody's mad.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Never, never.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: It's like, it's the one thing, like, and it doesn't
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: travel well. So I haven't had calamari since the pandemic started.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, I haven't had calamari either. Hmm.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: What did you guys think of the format? What worked
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: in your opinion? What didn't work? What should we keep
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: for the future? What should we bring back once the
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: pandemic is over?
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think the question about like, okay, will
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: conventions fundamentally change now because we all saw this one
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: and how effective it could be and how much shorter
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: it could be is interesting. I think the challenge is
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of this is going to be up to
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: the networks because at some point they're going to balk
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: at just turning their airwaves over to totally newsless pre-taped
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: propaganda videos, which I'm not criticizing them, but that's what
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: they were, right? I also think that the party will
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: find value in gathering people in one place. You speechwriters,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: I think, would agree that we're all addicted to big
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: venues and big applause and people like that. It feels
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: like there's momentum. So the tape stuff was so powerful,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: but I'm wondering how you can keep that in a
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: post-pandemic world where there is a space where people are
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: physically gathering.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I'm with you, Tommy. I'm a little short on the
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: predictions of like, we'll never go back again to the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: old times. I think that because of the seriousness of
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: this moment, a lot of these speeches worked incredibly well
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: with no crowd, which is a very, very hard thing
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: to pull off. I think Joe Biden's speech pulled it
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: off particularly well, and that was very, very hard for
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: him to do. But I think in the future, like, Look,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: we definitely don't need 15 speeches from politicians in a
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: convention hall that just drag on all night. We do
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: not need that. The big speeches, I think you do
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: need them in front of a big crowd that's going
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: to be cheering. And I think it will help those
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: speeches in the future. I really do. But I love
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: like I would do a tour around the United States
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: again for the roll call vote. I would do a
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: lot of these. pre-recorded videos in lieu of some boring speeches,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: for sure. I think there's elements to keep, but I
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: do think once this thing is, once this pandemic's over,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: it'll be nice to gather again.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: What do you guys, Dan?
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: I'm a little torn on this because there are some
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: larger problems with how the conventions are set up. Because
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: they are so expensive and you have to raise all
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: of the money before you have an actual nominee, it
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: ends up being a whole bunch of corporate money and
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: it's really not awesome. And it often ends up losing
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: money for the cities that host it. You can see
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: some upsides to why you want to sort of get
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: rid of that. There's definite, like one of the losses
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: here is if we had had, like, this is something
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: that I think our campaign in 08 really led with,
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: which is we used our convention in Denver to As
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: a massive organizing tool to flip that state. Colorado prior
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: to that was a pretty red state that we lost
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: for a number of elections in a row. And that's
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: why Obama had his nomination speech in a giant football
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: stadium instead of in front of a bunch of delegates,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: because you could get a bunch of volunteers in there
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: and get them to knock doors and do all these
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: other things. And I like, you know, that the Biden
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: campaign gentlemanly deal in their campaign managers, when people help
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: lead the effort to do that for us in 08.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: that she and Ben Wickler would have maximized that Milwaukee
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: opportunity to build their organization. So you're definitely losing some
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: of that. I did think, like Tommy did, there's no
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: way the networks are ever going to let, give their
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: airtime over to Tracee Ellis Ross to say, the Biden
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: campaign needs money.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Text 30.
• 37:17
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: But live events are the only things that drive real
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: ratings on linear television And so they probably will want that. It's,
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: it's award shows, sports and political conventions and debates. And
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: so maybe they will like just run our propaganda, uh,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: in future years because they'll need, they need, they'll need
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: the ratings.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: We sure will. Yeah.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: If they won't, yeah.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: If they won't, we, we shall, we'll be here.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: But, uh, yeah, I look, I think what actually happens
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: is kind of like in a sense, like sort of trivial, like,
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: of course, we're going to take the best elements of
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: the taped versions and the at-home version and mix it
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: in with a big live event. I think one of
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: the other pieces of this is it's not just the format.
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: It's that the realities of not being in one place
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: and not having a big convention hall required figuring out
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: how to concentrate the entire convention into two hours every night.
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: And it meant that they squeezed in far more speakers,
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: far more people, right? Look, I agree that we should
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: have heard.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I would keep the two hours a night for sure.
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: Yes. Well, I think one of the reasons I think
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: that like even like the networks felt obliged to take
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: so much of it as opposed to in previous years
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: where they might have taken one big hour and then
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: had pundits in a circle being like, they're talking back there,
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: but about what? Who can say?
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: It's because, and it doesn't matter. More Van Jones.
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: Look, do I miss the CNN grill?
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Of course I do. Of course I do.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's talk about next week's shit show. The
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Republican national convention was originally supposed to be held in
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, then Florida. Now it's a Trump speech at
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: the white house with a mix of pre-taped and live
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: events with the president reportedly pushing to make as much
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: of it live as possible because we are told he's
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: a great showman, a producer at heart. Um, We don't
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: have a full schedule of speakers yet, but the Trump
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: campaign did confirm that the theme will be honoring the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: great American story and that Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Joni
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Ernst and Kristi Noem will be speaking. There are also
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: reports that Jared Kushner may speak. Indicted former Trump aide
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Steve Bannon, who was arrested at sea this week by
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the Postal Service, is still part of the program. And
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Republicans have also invited the Missouri couple who pointed guns
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: at Black Lives Matter protesters and the Covington Catholic High
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: School student who went viral for harassing indigenous protester Nathan
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Phillips last year and then sued CNN for it. Sounds fun.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: What kind of vibe are we getting for the type
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: of overall message we'll hear next?
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: Look, I think the gun couple is exactly the message
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: they're trying to send, which is if you're rich and
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: white and afraid, anything you do is justified.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Honoring the great American story. That's it. That's the theme.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the theme seems to be I just
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: bet it's the most fiercely negative. You're all going to die.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Fear porn like culture wars. suburban moms are morphing into,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: you know, Jan Tifa. I mean, there is no version
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: of the Republican National Convention where you talk to a
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: bunch of adorable grandkids who then humanize Donald Trump. His
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: whole family hates him. He's a terrible person. He's a
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: narcissist and capable of empathy. So it seems pretty obvious
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: that we'll be lacking that element. I mean, it is
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: kind of funny to see like Mitch McConnell is saying
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: he can't make it, which is so funny in a
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Zoom conversation. convention world.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I can't make it.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: I'm busy. You're the Senate majority leader.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: We've all tried that, Mitch. It doesn't work. It doesn't work.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Hard to turn down invites.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: I think Mitch McConnell didn't get an invite because Mitch
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: McConnell is the least popular politician in almost the entire country.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: And so I don't think Donald Trump wanted him there. Also,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: he's not a dynamic speaker.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: That is true. No.
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: I disagree with all of you. I'm excited to see
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: what these dipshits come up with.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Me too. It's going to be interesting.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: We'll get to hate watch it, so that'll be fun.
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: I just love the idea of like, it's like a
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: sweet video with music and it's Eric Trump, like Hunter
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: Biden being like, and I'll never forget when my father
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: introduced me to Melania. He said, it's going to be
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: your mom if it signs.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: So- I do want to try to take it seriously.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: We should. This is too much.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: No, because who knows? It could be great. We don't
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: want to set expectations too low like they did to us.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: CNN reports that early drafts of Trump's acceptance speech closely
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: resemble his first convention speech in 2016, where he declared
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: that he alone can fix things, and his July 4th
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: speech where he promised law and order... in front of
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Mount Rushmore there. Kellyanne Conway said it would also be
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: a progress report on his first term. They reportedly liked
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the idea of finding real people to deliver these messages.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: We talked about sort of the Missouri couple, but they also,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you're going to have Alice Johnson, whose sentence he commuted, right?
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Like he's done some criminal justice pardons, not just of
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: fucking Joe Arpaio and his gang of goons, but of
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: like actual Americans he's pardoned. I think they have a
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: woman whose husband is a police officer who was killed
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: when he made a call during the racial justice protest,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter protest. So I do think they're going
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: to they're trying to convey a sense of like this.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: You know, I think one of the Trump people said
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the inner cities are dangerous now and it's going to
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: spread to the suburbs soon. If you have, you know,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris as as, you know, in the way.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: What do we think about the efficacy?
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Look, no one should underestimate the power of just vicious
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: negative politics, but a progress report on how the first
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: term is going, we're going to do that. Things are
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: pretty bad, man. Really bad. It's a rough progress report.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, after watching this for a few months, I'm
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: pretty sure we're more dialed into the Trump campaign strategy
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: than Kellyanne Conway. You're just constantly commenting from an entirely
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: different universe than everything else that's happening.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: I will say, I think it's worth remembering too, like
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: the Republican convention in 2016 was a mess. It was
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: a dark, negative, kind of ugly affair with a bunch
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: of goober speakers. And Donald Trump is president. So I do,
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: you know, I approach this expecting it to be a
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: complete mess with a lot of, you know, fear mongering
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: and lies and deception and grievance politics. I think the
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: question is only like, you know, how little will it
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: help Trump and how little will it matter, I guess.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, trying to put myself in the shoes
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: of a voter who cast a ballot for Trump in
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: 2016 and is disappointed with him, but thinking about doing
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: it again, or just thinking about doing it for the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: first time, I guess you would probably be wondering, okay,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the guy's sort of been an asshole. This pandemic is
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: out of control. The economy's, you know, not doing well either. Like,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I guess I would be asking like, what is he
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: going to do for me? How is he going to
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: turn things around? And the question is like, do we
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: think the Trump campaign or Donald Trump are capable of
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: presenting a a agenda for the second term, a vision?
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Are they going to be able to talk about the pandemic?
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, Dan, if you were planning this convention, what
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: should they actually do? What message should scare us that
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: they would potentially base the convention on?
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: That Joe Biden is a typical Democrat member of the
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: political establishment for the last half a century. What you
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: have to do is Joe Biden is massively overperforming right
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: now with people who have rarely, if ever, voted for
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: a Democrat in their life because they think Joe Biden
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: is different than the Democrats that they see on Fox News.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: They think he's different than Bernie Sanders or AOC or
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: anyone else based on the caricature of those individuals. They
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: associate him with Barack Obama, who has an 18% favorable
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: rating among Trump 2016 voters. You want to make him
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: seem like the type of Democrat that these people have
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: been voting against their entire life. If Trump In a
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: different world with a different Trump, you would talk about COVID,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: talk about your response, talk about your plans going forward,
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: talk about progress on the vaccine. He is incapable, I imagine,
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: of doing that. He cannot acknowledge the reality of what's happening.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: So what among technically achievable strategies does Trump have? It's
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: to define Joe Biden and define him in a negative way.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: Because when you look at the polling, he has been
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: unable to make Joe Biden someone that base Republican, even
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: base Republican voters hate. And he's got to turn him
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: into something that sort of stabilizes this election. Because I
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: don't think Like Trump just has to get the election
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: close enough to steal, right? And I mean steal through
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: the post office. I mean steal through voter suppression. I
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: mean steal through the inherent Republican advantage in the electoral college.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: And he's not that many points away from that. And
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: so just laying a little wood in a coherent, believable
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: way about Joe Biden could bring this election into the
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: theft zone.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, more of the same radical change. Yes, that's
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: the problem, right?
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: That is the absolute, that's why that tweet in front
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: of Biden, obviously Trump was insane yelling about Obama wiretapping
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: him and not endorsing Biden. That is unhinged. The Joe
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: Biden 47 years in Washington, Donald Trump did not compose
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: that because he obviously has never used the term of
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: which he speaks. That's not a turn of phrase commented
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. So that is planned. So I think you're
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: going to hear a lot of, What has Joe Biden
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: achieved in 50 years in Washington?
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: I do think it's the flip side of, Dan, what
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: you said earlier, that in many ways, Biden is running
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: and showing what a traditional president would do and kind
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: of in many ways, like embracing the trappings of an incumbent.
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: And Donald Trump's goal throughout this campaign is to be
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: a challenger, right? That COVID is a reset. It happened
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: to him. Now we're kind of at a baseline. You know,
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: who do you trust to get the economy back? Who
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: do you trust to deliver change? Who do you trust
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: to get things back to how they were before? And,
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: you know, it requires a great deal of misinformation and
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: propaganda to get there, but he has that at his back.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: We should bleep what Dan said and then release the
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: unedited audio in a week or so. We do too
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: much performance criticism, but I am trying to imagine him
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: doing A like low energy speech off the prompter in
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: the Rose Garden, like maybe to a smaller- He's bringing
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: a crowd.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: He's bringing a crowd.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got to bring a crowd. He's going to
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: bring a crowd, but I like, I don't know. Those
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: tend to just be weird, like sniffling messes. But again,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: like that's probably caring too much about the performance.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I agree, Tommy. I think it's even with a crowd,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: a crowd outside, for a crowd outside to sound really
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: good and energetic, you need like 10,000 people.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe they'll pipe in noise like the NBA.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: At least a thousand.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: I guess you've never seen me at the improv.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: You have a crowd of a couple hundred people. You
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: have a crowd of a couple hundred people on the lawn.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that's going to give him what
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: he needs and he's going to sound like the danger
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: for Trump is that Fourth of July speech when he
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: reads a Stephen Miller speech. You know, and it sounds
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: like a fucking hostage statement. And Trump just doesn't sound good.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Like Trump sounds much crazier when he's off the cuff,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: but he at least sounds more Trump. When he reads
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: those prepared speeches, he sounds fucking terrible because Stephen Miller
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: is not just a horrible racist. He's a bad writer.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: Hey, expectation setting. He's had a they had a week.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: They had a week to.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Look at this. I'm worried that he's going to like
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I think that Donald Trump's going to have a bunch
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: of doctors talking about how the vaccine and the treatments
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: are right around the corner. And if and if Joe
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Biden comes and raises your taxes and. you know, calls
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Antifa to the White House, like all of this is
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: going to go away. And we're so close to the cure.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: And we're so close to the economy being turned around.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: And Joe Biden's the only person standing between us and
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: a cure and a better economy.
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: I think that's exactly right. I think it's what do
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: you want America to look like once we've defeated the virus?
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: And by the way, inside of this vial is what
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: Putin gave me. And I'm going to take it right now.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: That's it. That's a surprise.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Look, I think, yeah, good luck selling that you, Trump,
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: are the key to curing the coronavirus. I'm not sure
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of evidence to substantiate that claim. I
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: expect a lot of raw racism from this.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: I think that's unfair, Tommy. He has done more to
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: bring us to herd immunity than anyone else.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Sorry, you're right. You're right, Dan.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: You're right.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, no, that's the slogan.
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: That's all the time we have for today, guys. Great convention.
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: Great job, people.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I'm pumped.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to go. And everyone, if you haven't yet,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: by the way, go to Vote Save America. Adopt a state.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: This weekend, we're going to be texting voters, calling voters,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: going to do all kinds of organizing this weekend. So
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: sign up and adopt a state first. You go to votesaveamerica.com
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: slash adopt. We've got 70-something days, so let's make everyone count. Bye, everyone.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: Bye, guys.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: See you.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: every week.