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Up Late With Sleepy Joe · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_01: You get to, with hindsight, just like assert that you would have made all those calls better.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I think she should try it.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: Be like,
0:08
SPEAKER_01: man,
0:08
SPEAKER_01: remember when I told you,
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Joe,
0:10
SPEAKER_01: like do the Afghanistan withdrawal in a way that leads to no casualties.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: And Joe was like, no, Kamala.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: I want some bloodshed.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: We got to make this as messy as possible for CNN.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: So my approval takes a hit.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: Hey, everyone, you're listening to a free preview of The Politics Podcast.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: The Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday night in Chicago,
0:35
SPEAKER_02: but Matt's in Maine,
0:37
SPEAKER_02: and I'm working from home in Washington,
0:39
SPEAKER_02: D.C.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: So we invited one of our favorite reporters, Dave Weigel, to ride shotgun with us for this episode.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: We'll talk to him about what the convention is like up close and how that differs
0:51
SPEAKER_02: from its portrayal in media,
0:53
SPEAKER_02: among other things.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: Then Matt and I will have a grudge match over whether Kamala Harris fixed economic sentiment.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: just by being cooler than Joe Biden.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: And if you want to hear the whole thing, you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Hey, everyone, welcome to the politics podcast.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm Brian Boitler.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm Matthew Iglesias.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: So the Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday night.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: And I'm
1:22
SPEAKER_02: kind of tired right now because Joe Biden didn't finish his keynote speech until I
1:27
SPEAKER_02: believe after midnight on East Coast time.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: So I'm a little grumpy about that.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: But apart from running late,
1:34
SPEAKER_02: we wanted to offer up a clear sense of how well things seem to be going,
1:40
SPEAKER_02: both as sort of like a lengthy infomercial for the Harris-Walls campaign and
1:44
SPEAKER_02: and as a longer-term investment in riling up party activists and generating earned media.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: And so to that end, we have a special guest this week.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty sure he's covered every major party convention for like 20 years now.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: So he knows a good convention from a bad one.
2:03
SPEAKER_02: Dave Weigel, welcome to Politics.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: It's good to be here.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: 16 years, I guess.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm not offended by that.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: For accuracy, I wasn't there for John Kerry reporting for duty.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: You weren't?
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you were like in England or grad school?
2:18
SPEAKER_00: I was watching on a TV somewhere in, I think, Northwestern.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: I was there for that one.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: I can tell you all about it.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: That was the blogger convention.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: You saw the Obama Red America, Blue America speech live, right?
2:30
SPEAKER_01: I saw Obama live.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: I saw, pardon for duty.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: I also saw Zell Miller and the spitballs in New York.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: 2004, my career was brand new.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: So I thought I would, I had to like do like real journalism back then.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: And I went to conventions.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: It was incredible.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: And you probably didn't just go to conventions,
2:48
SPEAKER_02: but you like watched every speech and blogged every speech.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: I was, I was taking notes.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: I was like, ooh, we've got a rising star delivering a keynote.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, man, there was a there was a there was a it was not the Democratic National Convention.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: It was like while the 2008 primary was unfolding.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we'll have to cut this because I'm going to be a little gratuitous and mean to a friend.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: But we were in that still in that youthful phase of like, basically blogging every candidate speech.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: And yeah.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, so Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all spoke.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: And Ezra wrote a piece about Barack Obama as the word made flesh or something like that.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: And my recollection is that right wing bloggers of the era made a lot of fun of him for that.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, it worked out OK for Obama.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we could leave it in because Ezra's doing just great.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: Ezra's doing well.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Obama's doing great.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like it worked out for all of them.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay, David, how's the convention?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how was your Monday?
3:46
SPEAKER_00: It's good.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: The point I was making about the blogger convention in 2004 is not totally irrelevant.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: It's that this year there's an influencer space, which I think got a little bit of mockery online.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: In person,
3:57
SPEAKER_00: it means that some of the usual media row seating has been gutted and replaced by a
4:02
SPEAKER_00: place for people to do TikToks.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: which it would be lame for me to complain about.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: But it did lead to me watching them kick the esteemed Charlie Pierce of Esquire out of a space.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: So like a very well cheekbone TikToker could come and sit in this area with free food,
4:16
SPEAKER_00: which we did not partake in.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: But it was to Democratic conventions are always messier in person.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: They're Republican conventions,
4:22
SPEAKER_00: mostly because there are twice as many Democratic delegates and just more
4:26
SPEAKER_00: celebrities who want to show up,
4:27
SPEAKER_00: et cetera,
4:27
SPEAKER_00: et cetera.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: And so there is some media whining about the conditions at this.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And no one is a bigger fan of media whining than the American reader of media.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: They love hearing about how things are not great for the media.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: But 2004 was the golden age,
4:44
SPEAKER_00: where if you had a blog,
4:46
SPEAKER_00: you got a lanyard,
4:48
SPEAKER_00: you got maybe a plug for your laptop.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not like that anymore anymore.
4:52
SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: So one thing is that if you're Democrats and you're,
4:56
SPEAKER_02: and you're basically trying to edge mainstream media out of your like mediating space,
5:02
SPEAKER_02: you're going to try to run your message through influencers and,
5:04
SPEAKER_02: and homegrown channels and not,
5:08
SPEAKER_02: not through mainstream news reporters.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: You should probably not kick Charlie Pierce out, right?
5:13
SPEAKER_02: You, you kick out some reporter who's been an asshole to you.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Um,
5:17
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: I would think, right?
5:19
SPEAKER_02: And Charlie's pretty positive on the Dems, is my recollection.
5:25
SPEAKER_02: But the second thing is- Generally speaking, yeah.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: I was kind of following along as I noticed reporters getting frustrated and
5:32
SPEAKER_02: tweeting about complaints and then you know before we started recording we're
5:35
SPEAKER_02: talking about this piece in your uh publication semaphore about how like the both
5:41
SPEAKER_02: the logistics and the decisions democrats made about uh media um like the layout uh
5:48
SPEAKER_02: were frustrating to the reporters on hand and i started to wonder like is this what
5:54
SPEAKER_02: it looks like when democrats have made
5:57
SPEAKER_02: some sort of communal decision to switch away from using mainstream media as the
6:04
SPEAKER_02: main throughput for their message.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: Because clearly, they have not built Fox News, but for Democrats, right?
6:10
SPEAKER_02: And they don't have a giant progressive media infrastructure the way we would think
6:14
SPEAKER_02: of it with TV stations or radio stations,
6:18
SPEAKER_02: ways to get mass message out.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: But they have tons of
6:23
SPEAKER_02: Influencer types with hundreds of thousands or a few million followers.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: And it seems to me like what they are saying with these decisions is we're done
6:33
SPEAKER_02: using you,
6:34
SPEAKER_02: New York Times,
6:35
SPEAKER_02: as our conduit to the people.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: And we are going to use these influencers who maybe were secretly paying or who are just like down to –
6:48
SPEAKER_02: air our message uncritically as a way to reach people is it like is there a
6:53
SPEAKER_02: profundity to it the way I'm interpreting it or was it just like we gotta throw
6:58
SPEAKER_02: this thing together and this is where the chips fell yeah
7:00
SPEAKER_00: I think generally that is true, specifically with with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: There are two Democrats who have not relied on the media buying into them as much
7:10
SPEAKER_00: as as other Democratic president,
7:12
SPEAKER_00: as much as Barack Obama.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: It is more like Bill Clinton's relationship with the media,
7:17
SPEAKER_00: except that he was a little more confident to just go out there and spar with
7:20
SPEAKER_00: reporters and
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden's contempt is very hard to find.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people have rediscovered their their appreciation for salty Joe
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Biden when he he walks out.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And for the five thousandth time, he's asked by a reporter just, you know, about the thing Trump said.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: And he claps back.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: He's not hiding anything.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: He just likes that.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: They've got the same problem as Trump.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: for four years,
7:44
SPEAKER_00: I guess now,
7:44
SPEAKER_00: where if they roll out a policy,
7:47
SPEAKER_00: the media covers it in a,
7:48
SPEAKER_00: how do we pay for that framework?
7:50
SPEAKER_00: And if Donald Trump,
7:52
SPEAKER_00: for example,
7:52
SPEAKER_00: says I'm going to end taxes on tips and social security benefits,
7:58
SPEAKER_00: I've not seen him get asked how you're going to pay for it.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: So they have, I think they've got a very politics with an X mindset that the media is just
8:07
SPEAKER_00: The refs have been worked and the media is much more critical of them and much more
8:11
SPEAKER_00: unforgiving of them than it is of Trump because it's just been beaten in submission
8:14
SPEAKER_00: by Trump.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: That is the sense I get as somebody who's covering it very closely and talking to them.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And many enjoy talking to the media and spark with the media.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: But you can tell they're getting the same questions again and again.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Like Josh Shapiro was asked yesterday for not the umpteenth time, but the twelfth time perhaps.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: If to respond to Donald Trump saying that Democrats are anti-Semites for not
8:35
SPEAKER_00: picking for Kamala,
8:36
SPEAKER_00: not picking for him as VP.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: And would he rather talk to a TikToker who's not going to ask that question that's
8:41
SPEAKER_00: been answered several times?
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Probably.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: It's against my interest to say he should talk to the TikToker.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: But I see what I see.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: I think it is there.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: I do think you have you're on to something.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
8:52
SPEAKER_02: I as a like a media critic,
8:54
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I shouldn't just leap to a generous interpretation of that.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: But like I.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: the way I think to read this disparity and how politics and campaign reporters
9:05
SPEAKER_02: cover the policy agendas of the two candidates is to like observe that Donald Trump
9:11
SPEAKER_02: has had,
9:11
SPEAKER_02: like has never been able to crack 50%.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: He's to the extent that he's had political success.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: It's, it's despite being unpopular.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: And so a question that surrounds him constantly is, is he ever going to do anything to,
9:25
SPEAKER_02: or is even capable of doing something that could shake that dynamic.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: And so when he rolls out a policy,
9:32
SPEAKER_02: whether it's no taxes on tips,
9:34
SPEAKER_02: or it's an iron dome for the United States,
9:37
SPEAKER_02: or it's like expel 15 million immigrants,
9:40
SPEAKER_02: it's the reporters covering politics.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: don't rush to the race to the question of like, how much is that going to cost?
9:47
SPEAKER_02: What are the logistics of that?
9:48
SPEAKER_02: How do you, how do you intend to make that work?
9:50
SPEAKER_02: It's our, is he out flanking Democrats?
9:53
SPEAKER_02: Is he,
9:53
SPEAKER_02: is this the thing that's going to,
9:54
SPEAKER_02: whereas like Democrats,
9:56
SPEAKER_02: since they are like steady as she goes 52%,
10:01
SPEAKER_02: um,
10:02
SPEAKER_02: and like associated with like,
10:06
SPEAKER_02: uh,
10:06
SPEAKER_02: steady handed governing,
10:07
SPEAKER_02: um,
10:09
SPEAKER_02: Kamala Harris releases a,
10:10
SPEAKER_02: uh,
10:12
SPEAKER_02: a few policies on housing and,
10:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's like all the wonks come out of the woodwork to be like,
10:19
SPEAKER_02: well,
10:19
SPEAKER_02: this seems like it's suboptimal policy.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see you've decided that you want to subsidize demand.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: How is that going to work, Vice President?
10:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, why won't you take questions from the media about your policy agenda?
10:29
SPEAKER_02: And like in practice, that is a disparity.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: And it's like two sets of rules.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: But I do think that there's a way to interpret it without like rushing to the conclusion that they're –
10:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
10:42
SPEAKER_02: like trying to help Donald Trump and hurt Kamala Harris is like a,
10:47
SPEAKER_02: it's like a statement of political preference.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the other thing is, right.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you always have asymmetries and audience interest in things, you know?
10:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
10:58
SPEAKER_01: I think there's like a lot more Democrats like want to read articles like about,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: I,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: like,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: I,
11:07
SPEAKER_01: I think it's true that,
11:09
SPEAKER_01: When Jake Hasby and Kang was like,
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Kamala Harris should take more questions to the media and explain her policies.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: And he's writing that from a left-wing perspective.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think he's wrong that there's an audience of people
11:29
SPEAKER_01: like centrist to leftist people who are almost certainly going to vote for Kamala Harris,
11:35
SPEAKER_01: but who are like curious what her answers to these various nitpicky questions are.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: Whereas I just feel like,
11:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:42
SPEAKER_01: it's like the constituency for Donald Trump doesn't care how he's going to pay for
11:48
SPEAKER_01: the no taxes on tip.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: You know,
11:51
SPEAKER_01: like if Fox ran that segment where they had like three different varieties of Republican,
11:58
SPEAKER_01: like on television,
12:00
SPEAKER_01: talking about where like one guy's like,
12:02
SPEAKER_01: this pledge was misguided.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: And then like two other guys are like, no, it's a good pledge, but I have different ideas.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, just like nobody would watch that.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, like it's not like that.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, Dave.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: No discussion that I'm aware of at all on Fox or on,
12:19
SPEAKER_00: pro-Trump media about whether it's a good idea.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: The history of the two taxes I mentioned is that in 1982,
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Reagan and Tip O'Neill had the greatest bipartisan moment in history that everyone
12:33
SPEAKER_00: in Washington prefers to.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: It was the time Washington worked.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: They agreed, we're both going to take a hit.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: We're going to agree to raise some unpopular taxes, increase the solvency of Social Security.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: And Trump is saying, I'm going to get rid of those taxes because it's popular to do so.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And the only commentary I've seen in the space we're discussing is what a great political concept.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: I remember seeing one on Fox where the discussion was,
12:56
SPEAKER_00: it feels like it's unfair for Democrats to say Trump is a threat to Social Security
12:59
SPEAKER_00: when he wants to cut this tax.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: And I agree.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: I thought,
13:02
SPEAKER_00: like,
13:02
SPEAKER_00: it's not really a hacky political point to say the tax exists to increase the
13:05
SPEAKER_00: solvency of Social Security.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I think Matt's written about the hat cap.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: But, yes, this is a good example of that, where there is not a how can Donald Trump pay for his plans?
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think he benefits from the overall take him seriously,
13:19
SPEAKER_00: not literally heuristic,
13:20
SPEAKER_00: which is stupid at this point because he was president and he did stuff.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: But he just he benefits more largely from just conservative media saying covering
13:29
SPEAKER_00: him is an interesting figure who's going to get in there and appoint people.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully this stuff outflanks Democrats and works.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: And yes, Democrats, the media, I think I already said the term ref working.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Kamala Harris gets in the race.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: There's very positive coverage of her.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: There's this Time magazine cover that Trump can't stop talking about,
13:46
SPEAKER_00: which is unusual because she didn't talk to them for it.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: I do think that is unusual.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Worth noting.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: usually time,
13:53
SPEAKER_00: that's part of,
13:54
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say quid pro quo,
13:55
SPEAKER_00: but usually they want you to sit down with the time.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: The implicit bargain, yeah.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: And there has been since then,
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, not a switch that was flipped, but more critical coverage of Harris.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: For example, high profile stories like where are her policies?
14:10
SPEAKER_00: She's thin on policy.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: She put out a speech, but several pundits criticized it.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the speech was it was a disaster.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: I went over general arts.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: I've seen that just I've seen follow up commentary of her prices speech that relied
14:22
SPEAKER_00: on some pundits saying this is irresponsible and some economists saying,
14:26
SPEAKER_00: saying, I don't know how she would do this immediately.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: And there just are not,
14:28
SPEAKER_00: like,
14:29
SPEAKER_00: if Trump says something and you call up Stephen Moore,
14:31
SPEAKER_00: he's not going to say,
14:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how he's going to pay for that.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: He'll say, this is really smart.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Trump should try to win the election.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: There just aren't kind of bean counter liberal economists who will say,
14:45
SPEAKER_00: if they have a problem,
14:46
SPEAKER_00: not say that they have a problem.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: Hang on, I just want to say one more thing about this.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: So, like, the hat gap is, like,
14:53
SPEAKER_02: predates our current era and is still something that's difficult,
14:57
SPEAKER_02: I think,
14:58
SPEAKER_02: for mainstream reporters to navigate.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: But like, I just want to bracket the conservative media because like you pointed to two things.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: One is that like a lot of campaign reporters are too innumerate to understand that
15:08
SPEAKER_02: cutting a tax that funds social security isn't good for social security.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: So like there's this policy illiteracy problem,
15:14
SPEAKER_02: which contributes to like,
15:18
SPEAKER_02: like general incomprehension about what the candidates are saying.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: But then there's just this like the impulse that when Harris says something about policy,
15:28
SPEAKER_02: you try to figure out whether it coheres logically.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: And when Trump proposes a policy, you try to figure out whether it's politically shrewd.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter who the audience for various media is.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: What the North Star should be is that they are competing over the same population of swing voters.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: So you owe the swing voters,
15:56
SPEAKER_02: whether they're reading your newspaper,
15:58
SPEAKER_02: watching your TV program or not,
16:01
SPEAKER_02: like a single standard by which to cover them so that you don't accidentally convey
16:07
SPEAKER_02: the impression that Kamala Harris,
16:09
SPEAKER_02: the more policy adroit of the two candidates,
16:12
SPEAKER_02: is offering flim flam and Donald Trump is offering all this cool stuff when really
16:17
SPEAKER_02: the truth is basically the opposite.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
16:19
SPEAKER_00: and a significant thing this week was that she said that she would like Biden and
16:24
SPEAKER_00: all his budgets would increase the corporate tax rate to 28%.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And so if there is a question to her about how she will pay for policies,
16:31
SPEAKER_00: the answer is I will raise taxes to pay for it.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: This is John Kerry, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, her.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: This is the answer to Hillary Clinton to an extent.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm a little bit stuck on this point.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: But I noticed that I just have not seen Trump get asked, how will you pay for these policies?
16:51
SPEAKER_00: He's even gotten I think he's gotten less leeway than usual on Project 2025 stuff,
16:57
SPEAKER_00: which is clearly annoying to him.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: He's usually able to just beast it out and the opposite happens.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: where by saying,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea what's going on with this thing created by my former staffers who
17:05
SPEAKER_00: expect to work for me,
17:07
SPEAKER_00: that he made it more famous.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: But he is used to an environment where he just can riff on things and not get credit.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: I wrote this before the convention that he keeps mentioning stuff that he didn't do
17:18
SPEAKER_00: as president and will do now.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: And there is no question in the Republican Party or even in interviews, like what changed?
17:24
SPEAKER_00: What changed from four years and you had Steve Mnuchin and Mick Mulvaney in your
17:28
SPEAKER_00: administration and you didn't want to,
17:29
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:31
SPEAKER_00: get rid of some regressive taxes too, where you do, it just doesn't get asked.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Like Trump does interviews with the interviews,
17:36
SPEAKER_00: even with the mainstream media,
17:37
SPEAKER_00: they're a little more,
17:38
SPEAKER_00: I think they,
17:39
SPEAKER_00: they've been good.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: There was one yesterday with CBS news where he's asked if he would enforce Comstock
17:44
SPEAKER_00: and he said he wouldn't,
17:45
SPEAKER_00: that's a good question,
17:45
SPEAKER_00: a good answer.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of his interactions are just with conservative media.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: They're like, you're really taking it to Kamala, say something bad about her for my viewers.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: And and Kamala, she has I think I think your show was covering this period.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: She had burst of really good attention.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And at this convention, you were I wouldn't say that I was peaking it.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: You are seeing it covered by reporters who want more meat and are not satisfied yet
18:08
SPEAKER_00: with with what they're saying.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: It is a I think it's being covered more skeptically than the RNC,
18:13
SPEAKER_00: which was I was also at setting the table.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: The RNC came right after Trump was shot at in Butler and shot in the ear.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: And if you were watching a lot of commentary at the time, it was this has changed things.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he's going to win the election.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Tucker Carlson saying he's going to win.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: And the coverage of the convention was how unified Republicans were about this
18:34
SPEAKER_00: thing that didn't really have a policy impact.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the history of Gerald Ford getting shot,
18:39
SPEAKER_00: it wasn't clear that it would change the election.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: But they had a better media environment coming into the convention than Harris does.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: I do think – what do I want to say?
18:48
SPEAKER_01: So I was watching the convention,
18:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:50
SPEAKER_01: mediated on MSNBC through the closest thing Democrats have to,
18:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:56
SPEAKER_01: a true blue propaganda organ.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: And I was actually struck by the coverage, at least on that network, of night one where they were...
19:11
SPEAKER_01: they were not breaking kayfabe at all.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: And it was just about what a wonderful thing Joe Biden had done by stepping aside
19:20
SPEAKER_01: for the good of the country and what a monumental patriotic act it was.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: And of course, that was the message at the convention programming.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: But it did strike me as a member of the audience as a little bit odd to see Chris
19:35
SPEAKER_01: Hayes and Jen Psaki and Rachel Maddow and Ari Melber and other people who
19:40
SPEAKER_01: presumably watched the same multi-week battle that we all saw.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: The name Nancy Pelosi did not escape their lips in the coverage of the whole evening.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: And it made me...
19:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
19:56
SPEAKER_01: I guess I wonder from the perspective like inside the room,
20:01
SPEAKER_01: Dave,
20:01
SPEAKER_01: like how clearly people are like excited about Harris as a nominee,
20:09
SPEAKER_01: right?
20:09
SPEAKER_01: Like Democrats feel a lot better about her as a standard bearer than they had felt
20:15
SPEAKER_01: a month ago about Biden.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: But it's like as on Monday, they brought out the old war horses.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean-
20:23
SPEAKER_01: biden jill hillary clinton um like you know is there like incredible genuine
20:30
SPEAKER_01: affection for those people or is it like we got to get through this and you know
20:35
SPEAKER_01: we're looking forward to better things later
20:38
SPEAKER_00: So there is this noble lie going on where Democrats don't want to talk too much
20:43
SPEAKER_00: about how they all wanted Biden to leave the ticket.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: That was with Jamie Harrison yesterday morning,
20:48
SPEAKER_00: and I was asking some questions about protesters,
20:51
SPEAKER_00: and other reporters were saying,
20:52
SPEAKER_01: isn't it— He was having some real ones on Twitter during the intervening weeks.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he should stop doing that, probably.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that was coming up because reporters writing about Biden speaking that night.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: And is this, is this bittersweet?
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Do you, you know, do you guys set up a convention for Biden and he's not having it?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: And Democrats have just agreed not to talk about that.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: It's like the lights,
21:13
SPEAKER_00: the lights went on at the orgy and everyone's like,
21:15
SPEAKER_00: we're never going to talk about this again.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: We just had embarrassingly had to shove Joe Biden out the race,
21:21
SPEAKER_00: but there is a sincerity in how happy they are about Harris.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And I do think, um,
21:26
SPEAKER_00: In the media bubble I travel in,
21:28
SPEAKER_00: the impression that the press has of Harris is driven through her running for 2019,
21:32
SPEAKER_00: her being a California politician who is ambitious,
21:36
SPEAKER_00: but kind of underperformed at some key moments.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And the impression of her among just rank and file politicians.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Banner waving Democrats is this is an impressive and if you're Barack Obama,
21:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to refer to him attractive woman who gives a great speech and it'd be
21:52
SPEAKER_00: cool if she was a female president.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to say that.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to say this is this is like this is.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: a unsophisticated take for them to have.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: They just really have liked Kamala Harris.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't reflected in polling the same way that there were lots of Democrats who
22:05
SPEAKER_00: loved Hillary Clinton and did for decades.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: And the coverage of 2016 was not meet the Hillary fans who love her.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: It was why have people fallen out of love with her?
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And so I do think in the press, there was an underrating of how much Harris was really liked.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And she wins in 2020 when Biden's very old.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Democrats did go through this process.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Would I be OK if Biden something happened and she took over?
22:27
SPEAKER_00: They kind of would.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: She got redefined as somebody who couldn't finish a sentence properly among Republicans.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: I think they're still kind of stuck on that in the way they talk about her.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: And so in the hallways and talking to Democrats, first of all, everyone has new swag.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: They all have Kamala gear.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Not nearly.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't handed out.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: There's different sort of the brat thing is a.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: the Charlie X, the ex brat reference.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: I see that on middle-aged men.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm a middle-aged man.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't have the pressure,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: but I'm seeing men with,
22:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:53
SPEAKER_00: who comb gray hair,
22:54
SPEAKER_00: wearing bright gear,
22:55
SPEAKER_00: having like first male president stuff.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And she also has been doing something interesting,
22:59
SPEAKER_00: which you saw a little bit,
23:00
SPEAKER_00: you saw in Hillary Clinton's speech at the convention,
23:02
SPEAKER_00: but you also saw in the,
23:05
SPEAKER_00: convention proximate events they were having all day where she doesn't say, be with me.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be the first female president.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be amazing.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: But her surrogates do, and Tim Walls does.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Tim Walls will say, just imagine waking up and realizing we elected a woman president.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: And people, I think of Whitmer,
23:23
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the power of saying Madam President.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And this is all very appealing to Democrats,
23:27
SPEAKER_00: but because they bricked 2016 so badly,
23:30
SPEAKER_00: the Harris campaign is not saying we need to lead with how the longhouse is coming in.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to have a woman president who's going to take over.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: She does not do this.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: She's running more careful campaigns.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: branding operation,
23:44
SPEAKER_00: which I think the coverage that reflecting that she's run a better campaign than
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Democrats thought is totally correct.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Like a month ago, the knock was that she would blow this and they had to choose somebody else.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And she has not made those mistakes.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: So other Democrats are filling in the messaging for her in ways that were definitely effective yesterday.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
23:59
SPEAKER_02: this is what Obama did,
24:00
SPEAKER_02: and it's something that has struck me about the first month of her campaign,
24:05
SPEAKER_02: is that unlike in 2020,
24:07
SPEAKER_02: or unlike Hillary Clinton in 2016,
24:08
SPEAKER_02: it's just like,
24:10
SPEAKER_02: let the history-making nature of this speak for itself,
24:12
SPEAKER_02: or let your surrogates do it,
24:13
SPEAKER_02: but you don't ever broach the topic.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: Or if asked about it, just pivot away as quickly as you can, because you do not want to...
24:22
SPEAKER_02: come up against people's, like, identity-inflected, you know, ick feelings or whatever, right?
24:31
SPEAKER_02: I think that the way she has turned around public opinion about herself
24:36
SPEAKER_02: So obviously she's like inverted the election and now she's winning,
24:39
SPEAKER_02: but like she was polling about Joe Biden level bad,
24:43
SPEAKER_02: maybe a little worse,
24:44
SPEAKER_02: maybe a little better for like a long time.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: And then suddenly it's like, she's basically break even.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: So that's like making up 10 to 15 points or something like that.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: It's crazy,
24:53
SPEAKER_02: but it also is a,
24:55
SPEAKER_02: like it's a testament to how public opinion like flows from elites on down where a
25:02
SPEAKER_02: lot of people were apparently just saying they didn't,
25:04
SPEAKER_02: had favorable views of her,
25:06
SPEAKER_02: didn't approve of her because they understood that the consensus was that she was
25:11
SPEAKER_02: in some sense a weak candidate.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: It didn't come from their personal feelings that they generated having watched her, right?
25:17
SPEAKER_02: They just were led to believe that she was not up to it.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: And then they see her at the top of the ticket and suddenly it's like, well-
25:26
SPEAKER_02: I changed my mind.
25:28
SPEAKER_02: And it's what makes me think she has maybe further to climb in polls from here.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: But to the broader question of how Democrats and then maybe friendly media are
25:43
SPEAKER_02: papering over how this all happened over Joe Biden's reluctance and through a
25:52
SPEAKER_02: really excruciating process.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: I feel like it's a little bit,
25:59
SPEAKER_02: it's a little ungenerous to be like,
26:01
SPEAKER_02: people are playing K-Fob when they talk about Joe Biden's heroic decision.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: Because obviously,
26:09
SPEAKER_02: when we're being morally vain about ourselves and imagining ourselves in really
26:13
SPEAKER_02: difficult circumstances,
26:14
SPEAKER_02: we want to imagine that we would just be the heroes the world needs and never think
26:20
SPEAKER_02: about our own interests or our own needs.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: what was being asked of him was pretty extraordinary.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: But like in hindsight,
26:34
SPEAKER_02: the fact that he got to the right place is what,
26:37
SPEAKER_02: it's like a healthy thing to celebrate beyond the propaganda value of it.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: Like if you have someone in your family who has a substance use disorder and it is
26:48
SPEAKER_02: causing trauma and chaos in your life,
26:51
SPEAKER_02: And you get everyone together and you convince them to go to therapy.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: And they do, and they get better.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: Like, you don't dwell on how big of an asshole they were when they were drunk, right?
27:04
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, so listen, listen, listen.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say, I don't mind at all that the first night of the convention was staged that way.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: I just,
27:12
SPEAKER_01: I was struck,
27:13
SPEAKER_01: and again,
27:13
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how other networks covered it,
27:15
SPEAKER_01: but just like,
27:16
SPEAKER_01: to me,
27:17
SPEAKER_01: if you were explaining to the viewers at home,
27:20
SPEAKER_01: like,
27:20
SPEAKER_01: what went on Monday night,
27:22
SPEAKER_01: I think you have to say,
27:23
SPEAKER_01: like,
27:24
SPEAKER_01: these people are laying it on a little bit thick in their encomiums to president Biden,
27:30
SPEAKER_01: not just because it's a democratic convention and he's a democratic administration,
27:34
SPEAKER_01: but like I saw a Jamie Harrison tweet where he described Biden as the most
27:38
SPEAKER_01: consequential president of American history.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: Respectfully, like this has not been like the Lincoln administration.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
27:47
SPEAKER_01: And that's not a slam on Biden.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: But it's like,
27:51
SPEAKER_01: If you want to understand, like, why would Harrison say that?
27:54
SPEAKER_01: It's not like, Jamie Harrison's an idiot.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: It's as you're saying, Ryan, right?
27:59
SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's hard to get people in positions of power to do things that are self-sacrificing.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: So when they do, people in their camp
28:13
SPEAKER_01: exaggerate a little bit, you know, your play for the history books, right?
28:18
SPEAKER_01: And like, that's fine.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: It's just that like, it is part of the context of the show.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: And,
28:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:26
SPEAKER_01: it's interesting because,
28:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:27
SPEAKER_01: conventions are a rare opportunity in the modern world to sort of get,
28:33
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:33
SPEAKER_01: get a lot of people to pay attention to something that you do in politics.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: And Democrats did need to essentially like,
28:40
SPEAKER_01: burn a lot of screen time,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: not on like their candidate Kamala Harris,
28:46
SPEAKER_01: but on their not candidate Joe Biden,
28:50
SPEAKER_01: which was like the right call,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: like he's the president,
28:53
SPEAKER_01: like he's stepped aside,
28:54
SPEAKER_01: like he's,
28:56
SPEAKER_01: you've got to like give the guy his due.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we're recording Tuesday morning and
29:01
SPEAKER_01: It'll be interesting to me to see what the,
29:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:04
SPEAKER_01: like what the turn is,
29:06
SPEAKER_01: what the shift in energy is.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: And I was surprised that they gave Hillary such a prominent speaking role because
29:12
SPEAKER_01: with like the dual imperatives to like salute Biden and to like run the Harris campaign.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: You then just have this third thing that you actually don't need to do,
29:27
SPEAKER_01: which is pay homage to Hillary as something.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: She's a well-regarded person in Democratic Party politics,
29:37
SPEAKER_01: but in the more undercard portion of the evening-
29:43
SPEAKER_01: I saw AOC.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: I saw that state senator from Michigan who people like, Mallory McMorrow.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: I saw even Brandon Johnson, whose ideas I think are terrible, is a crackerjack charismatic guy.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: When he went and spoke, I saw Josh Shapiro.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: I saw Gretchen Whitmer doing interviews on TV.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: Jasmine Crockett, the Texas house member, who I think not a lot of people know.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's a real firecracker.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: She's great, yeah.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
30:18
SPEAKER_01: it's like,
30:18
SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of up-and-coming talent who...
30:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like,
30:23
SPEAKER_01: why would people know about this kind of random backbench house member from Texas?
30:28
SPEAKER_01: But it's like, you give...
30:30
SPEAKER_01: jasmine crockett a platform and people see her and you're like oh what a great
30:35
SPEAKER_01: opportunity to like highlight and elevate appealing new characters in the party and
30:41
SPEAKER_01: then you're like uh remember when hillary clinton ran for president and it didn't
30:46
SPEAKER_01: work out like there was no we we couldn't we we didn't have al gore up there like
30:52
SPEAKER_02: This is a good way to get back to Dave Weigel's presence on site.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: Because watching from home,
31:00
SPEAKER_02: when Hillary...
31:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
31:02
SPEAKER_02: I knew from earlier in the day that she was going to speak and then I saw her speech.
31:05
SPEAKER_02: And through it all, I was kind of thinking, like, what's the calculation here?
31:08
SPEAKER_02: And my... I was torn between two ideas.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: One was that...
31:13
SPEAKER_02: While it doesn't make sense from the perspective of trying to persuade swing voters
31:19
SPEAKER_02: to vote for you or to peel support away from Donald Trump or whatever,
31:23
SPEAKER_02: there are a lot of Democrats who think that she was essentially cheated out of an
31:30
SPEAKER_02: election and they are angry about what happened in the country as a result of decisions,
31:35
SPEAKER_02: yes,
31:35
SPEAKER_02: she,
31:35
SPEAKER_02: but also many other people made.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: And she can sort of serve as a reminder to people not to make those mistakes again.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: And there's maybe some value in that.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: But then separately,
31:48
SPEAKER_02: apart from Hillary Clinton,
31:49
SPEAKER_02: there was lots of other people speaking who I was like,
31:53
SPEAKER_02: why are we watching this?
31:54
SPEAKER_02: Why is Kathy Hochul speaking?
31:55
SPEAKER_02: Why is Chris Coon speaking?
31:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know that he's from Delaware and Joe Biden's fond of him, but really, who cares?
32:02
SPEAKER_02: And so then I was thinking maybe the DNC was just like...
32:08
SPEAKER_02: we're not going to like confront anyone.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: We're not going to disappoint anyone.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna make any decisions.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: It's just like the original build back better plan.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: We're going to throw everything in there and make a hash of it.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Right.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: And I'm curious from your perspective up close, which is a better read.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: Like was there a real thinking behind these things?
32:29
SPEAKER_02: Or was it just like,
32:30
SPEAKER_02: we don't have,
32:32
SPEAKER_02: we're riding too high on good vibes and unity to tell anyone to take a seat.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, a couple of things on that.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: So first,
32:39
SPEAKER_00: the text,
32:40
SPEAKER_00: the Hillary speech,
32:41
SPEAKER_00: I thought was the most interesting of the night for some of the reasons you got into.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: She had one line about how progress is not inevitable.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: You know what that means.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: People were in that room in 2016 watching the glass ceiling collapse.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: image on the there's this I remember it because it was pretty good,
32:59
SPEAKER_00: pretty good idea of this slideshow of every president who has been male and then a
33:04
SPEAKER_00: picture of Hitler.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: And then when it got to the end, it was glass shattering.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Here she said, don't do that.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: That was relevant.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: And she also had this this short line about how we shouldn't go down conspiracy
33:15
SPEAKER_00: rabbit holes,
33:16
SPEAKER_00: which the larger context,
33:18
SPEAKER_00: a lot of the coverage part of what I'm writing about is is that
33:22
SPEAKER_00: There is a Facts of the Party furious about Gaza demanding the administration get a ceasefire,
33:27
SPEAKER_00: demanding more than that,
33:27
SPEAKER_00: like an arms embargo.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: And I thought she was doing a bit of a hint at that.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: But also, I was surrounded in the hall in kind of a nosebleed seat, but it's so crowded there were –
33:38
SPEAKER_00: some prominent democratic female politicians next to me and some less prominent female Democrats.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: And they were just like wiping away tears because they felt really sad about 2016.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: It was probably for some of them, the most traumatic political event that ever happened in their lives.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And in the room, it was important for those people to do that.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't know for the audience outside the United center that it was that important, but yeah,
34:01
SPEAKER_00: the Hillary speech as programming was, hey, let's stay united.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Let's remember how we can blow this.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: And just by me talking about this, literally playing the songs that I remember in 2016.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they played Fight Song.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: I was going to say,
34:16
SPEAKER_00: in 2016,
34:16
SPEAKER_00: I remember I was- Oh,
34:17
SPEAKER_00: man,
34:17
SPEAKER_02: but it really,
34:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
34:18
SPEAKER_02: it gave me,
34:19
SPEAKER_02: I had a traumatic response to that.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: I had a traumatic response anytime I hear that song.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: But also, I was just like, this is a good, like, if you're going to traumatize your audience-
34:29
SPEAKER_02: do it in this way where they're like,
34:30
SPEAKER_01: Brian,
34:30
SPEAKER_01: you played that song at a new year's Eve party in the year 2016.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: It's the most evil thing that's ever happened.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: I remember people's people stopping and turning and looking at what was going on.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: I think Matt,
34:45
SPEAKER_02: you actually like bailed on that party,
34:46
SPEAKER_02: but credit where it's due that genius,
34:50
SPEAKER_02: the cruelest idea,
34:51
SPEAKER_02: the,
34:51
SPEAKER_02: the,
34:52
SPEAKER_02: the,
34:53
SPEAKER_02: the biggest wet blanket on any party ever was,
34:55
SPEAKER_02: um,
34:56
SPEAKER_02: fearless healthcare reporter, Jeff Young.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: He grabbed,
34:59
SPEAKER_02: he grabbed the,
35:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:00
SPEAKER_02: the iPhone or whatever that was controlling the music and just like the worst Rick
35:06
SPEAKER_02: roll in the history of parties.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: To finish that anecdote, the reason he did that is he was joking because he was about to move.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: He wanted everyone to hate him and not miss him when he moved.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: And he realized the way to do that.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: was to show a bunch of people.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: Legend, what a king, what a king.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Was to play fight song in a room in 2016.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay,
35:22
SPEAKER_01: but so wait,
35:23
SPEAKER_01: so not to be too much of an obsessed hater about this,
35:27
SPEAKER_01: but what struck me like watching the Hillary speech and just thinking about it as
35:32
SPEAKER_01: content is that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris are both prominent Democrats,
35:41
SPEAKER_01: but there's actually almost no intersection between the two of them.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, so like, she wasn't
35:49
SPEAKER_01: It's not like Clinton was able to deliver like personal reminiscences of Kamala
35:56
SPEAKER_01: Harris or speak about things that she had done that,
36:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:01
SPEAKER_01: they didn't overlap at all in D.C.,
36:06
SPEAKER_01: right?
36:06
SPEAKER_01: Kamala Harris wasn't part of the Obama administration.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: She wasn't part of the Bill Clinton administration.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Hillary has been prominent in the politics of like three different states,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: but none of them are California.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: And Harris endorsed Obama in 2008, I believe.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: And so that was like, you know...
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Everybody who,
36:30
SPEAKER_01: and so it was close actually in spirit to like the Kathy Hochul speech,
36:36
SPEAKER_01: you know what I mean?
36:36
SPEAKER_01: Which was like, like, what is this?
36:38
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, she's the governor of New York, right?
36:41
SPEAKER_01: Like she's an important person in American politics, but it's like, what is the topic of this, right?
36:48
SPEAKER_02: Whereas like when- What is the value to Harris?
36:50
SPEAKER_02: I mean, is she gonna, is New York- No, no, I mean, exactly, exactly.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks to Hochul, it kind of isn't played.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, but so right.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: So it's like versus other things.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: So like, you know, we're recording on Tuesday.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: Barack Obama is going to speak on Tuesday.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: Bill Clinton is going to speak on Wednesday.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: Those are people who can say,
37:07
SPEAKER_01: like,
37:07
SPEAKER_01: I have been president and I am telling you that Kamala Harris has the qualities to
37:13
SPEAKER_01: do this.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: You can have people like Josh Shapiro, who's the governor of a swing state.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: I heard him talk about how,
37:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
37:22
SPEAKER_01: Vice President Harris understands the struggles of people in whatever county.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: And,
37:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
37:28
SPEAKER_01: it's the kind of thing that like probably analytically isn't super true that Kamala
37:32
SPEAKER_01: Harris has detailed knowledge of living conditions in Western Pennsylvania.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: But like having the governor of Pennsylvania assert that she does has this like
37:40
SPEAKER_01: strong political logic to it.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: The Hillary thing...
37:44
SPEAKER_01: you know, it, it felt like one for the fans, um, you know, like, which is fine.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's like part of what you, part of what you do here.
37:50
SPEAKER_01: Um,
37:51
SPEAKER_01: but,
37:52
SPEAKER_01: but also just thinking about,
37:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
37:53
SPEAKER_01: these kinds of like precious moments and like,
37:55
SPEAKER_01: what are we,
37:57
SPEAKER_01: what is the constituency that that's supposed to bring in?
37:59
SPEAKER_01: Like what's the media narrative that it's supposed to drive?
38:03
SPEAKER_01: Um,
38:04
SPEAKER_00: I have a cynical idea,
38:05
SPEAKER_00: which I don't think is true,
38:06
SPEAKER_00: but would make sense if it was,
38:07
SPEAKER_00: which is that Donald Trump is not a normal voter.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump watches a lot of conservative media that covers,
38:13
SPEAKER_00: again,
38:14
SPEAKER_00: instead of will do his tax plans make sense,
38:17
SPEAKER_00: covers just outrage of the day.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: And I do think if Hillary is trying to get Donald Trump in the mind to attack her again,
38:24
SPEAKER_00: that would be good for Democrats because you have 77 days every day that Donald
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Trump burns talking about how it's unfair that Biden quit the race or that Hillary
38:32
SPEAKER_00: is a loser.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: And indeed,
38:33
SPEAKER_00: they coaxed the Trump campaign into responding to Hillary Clinton's convention
38:36
SPEAKER_00: speech just with a statement.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: But if you dispatched Hillary to like non-swing states and had her give anti-Trump
38:43
SPEAKER_00: speeches and had him attack her,
38:44
SPEAKER_00: it probably would be good for the party,
38:46
SPEAKER_00: the ticket.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: Not that I think that happened, but it would make a lot of sense.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: But she's like those decoys that they,
38:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:51
SPEAKER_01: in the submarine movies,
38:52
SPEAKER_01: you're trying to distract the torpedo.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: And you put this other stuff out there.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Which is often what you do if you've seen enough movies with like the old, I'm too old for this.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: It is amazing how Republicans are training fire on Biden and Hillary Clinton and Tim Walz.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: And they just seem to have forgotten that they're not running against any of those three people.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: Remarkably, they run against walls, but I know what you mean.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: He's at least on the ticket, but yes.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to criticize Kamala Harris as too liberal and out of touch.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: So here's like ultimately,
39:24
SPEAKER_02: I think,
39:25
SPEAKER_02: the main takeaway Matt and I and our listeners are interested in,
39:29
SPEAKER_02: and then you can maybe tack onto it any intel you have about what's coming today,
39:34
SPEAKER_02: tomorrow,
39:34
SPEAKER_02: and Thursday.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: But from the mediated point of view,
39:37
SPEAKER_02: from watching it on television,
39:39
SPEAKER_02: where the point of a convention is it's a four-day infomercial for your party,
39:45
SPEAKER_02: it seemed like it went well to me.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yes, it went long, but people who don't work in this business don't really care about that.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: They go to bed when they're ready to go to bed,
39:54
SPEAKER_02: and they're not like,
39:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm so angry that I haven't gotten a chance to see whoever speak yet.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: The speeches were well-crafted, generally well-delivered.
40:03
SPEAKER_02: by people who are charismatic.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: There was a great Raphael Warnock speech.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: There was like a pretty good Andy Beshear speech.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: AOC's speech was remarkably good.
40:12
SPEAKER_02: We talked about Jasmine Crockett already.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: And that's great.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: Like that's what I think, that's like mission one for Democrats.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: But-
40:22
SPEAKER_02: are we missing anything?
40:23
SPEAKER_02: Like,
40:23
SPEAKER_02: are you seeing anything on ground level that makes you think this is maybe a
40:27
SPEAKER_02: convention that they're going to have some regrets about?
40:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, or is it really just like going well and, and like whatever media gripes, uh,
40:35
SPEAKER_02: like you've overheard are sort of irrelevant.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: And then like, what, what should we expect Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday?
40:43
SPEAKER_02: Cause I know,
40:43
SPEAKER_02: I know Adam Kinzinger and a few other Republicans are going to speak like,
40:46
SPEAKER_02: are there more names like being floated as potential endorsers?
40:53
SPEAKER_02: Are there just, you know, what surprises can people expect if, if you have any Intel on that?
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Kinzer could have been a surprise.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: But one thing Democrats are doing,
41:03
SPEAKER_00: again,
41:04
SPEAKER_00: to annoy the press,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: even though who cares what we think,
41:09
SPEAKER_00: is they're taking their time and just announcing the speakers one trench in the
41:14
SPEAKER_00: morning and then another trench right when you're getting to the center.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: So if you're trying to pre-write, oh, what's going to happen?
41:19
SPEAKER_00: I think if you were paying close attention to refreshing your email,
41:23
SPEAKER_00: you knew that Raphael Warnock was going on last night.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: But if you checked your email Monday morning, you didn't know.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, so they, I can't report.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: And they unpredictably swapped out Grace Meng.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh,
41:35
SPEAKER_00: who unfortunately had,
41:36
SPEAKER_00: who had,
41:37
SPEAKER_00: and Debbie Wasserman Schultz,
41:38
SPEAKER_00: who,
41:38
SPEAKER_00: uh,
41:39
SPEAKER_00: which made,
41:40
SPEAKER_00: made Hochul look worse.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, because she, she, she could have had a less charismatic speaker on stage, but they denied her that.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh, anyway, no, I, so yeah, I don't know entirely.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: There are a bunch of talented democratic governors who, uh, were in the veep stakes, et cetera.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh,
41:56
SPEAKER_00: I do think just,
41:57
SPEAKER_00: again,
41:57
SPEAKER_00: in and of the media coverage,
42:00
SPEAKER_00: there is going to be more coverage of the divide on Gaza.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: If I can call the second to this,
42:05
SPEAKER_00: just there are around three dozen uncommitted delegates who are organizing around a
42:10
SPEAKER_00: ceasefire in Gaza,
42:11
SPEAKER_00: and there are more delegates who are Biden delegates but want to ceasefire.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: And this is fewer delegates, especially relative to the RNC, than Nikki Haley had, but there was not a...
42:20
SPEAKER_00: march to find Nikki Haley delegates and ask what they were doing.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: There is for uncommitted, and I've covered them, and it's a legitimate story.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: But I think when Josh Shapiro talks,
42:29
SPEAKER_00: there'll probably be another wave of Democrats remain divided on Gaza,
42:33
SPEAKER_00: even though Biden talked about it.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: But Sean Fain being Monday night was one theme they want to keep hitting and a
42:41
SPEAKER_00: theme they didn't think they did enough with in certainly 2020 of just Trump,
42:45
SPEAKER_00: not just going after Trump's character,
42:47
SPEAKER_00: but going after...
42:48
SPEAKER_00: His actual economic record, more of that.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: They're going to do more of that because they they did they did audit what happened in 16 and 20.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: And Kamala has done better in saying I have a populist agenda than Hillary did or than or than Biden did.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: But Biden,
43:04
SPEAKER_00: it was for there was always cynicism about they were covered because Biden had this
43:08
SPEAKER_00: deal with Bernie.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: The platform was done with his input.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: Bernie delegates fought over the platform in 2016.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: They don't have anything that normal Democratic delegates who like Joe Biden have a problem with.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: But I think they're going to just do more economic messaging because they also need to win that argument.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
43:26
SPEAKER_00: one thing that you I think both printed about is that polling has shown that people
43:30
SPEAKER_00: don't associate Harris with the with inflation as much as they associated Biden.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: And she has a little bit of a chance to reintroduce things.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: And there is interest.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: The irony of her giving that economic speech and getting a couple of bad reviews is
43:43
SPEAKER_00: that there is more interest in her renouncing literally anything.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: What is the policies she's going to say?
43:48
SPEAKER_00: So there's going to be more of that.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: I think there is going to be more personal introduction of Harris.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: It's unclear when her sister is going to speak, for example.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be Doug Emhoff talking about, I assume, their marriage and their life together.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Harris has not been colored in very well.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: It'd be funny if he's just talking about like entertainment law or whatever.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: That would be pretty funny.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: Just talking about like amazing.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: The affair he had on his first wife.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: After after parties.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: Which has not gotten a ton of attention,
44:13
SPEAKER_00: but this is,
44:13
SPEAKER_00: I think,
44:14
SPEAKER_00: the baseline that Trump lowered has made it much easier for all these guys.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: They're going to do more character production,
44:20
SPEAKER_00: more economic stuff,
44:21
SPEAKER_00: I think,
44:21
SPEAKER_00: because they know that the media,
44:22
SPEAKER_00: left to its own devices,
44:23
SPEAKER_00: is going to be,
44:24
SPEAKER_00: hey,
44:24
SPEAKER_00: you're an angry delegate who wants to cut off arms to Israel.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Can you talk into our camera for as long as possible?
44:30
SPEAKER_00: And they want to not have that be the story.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
44:32
SPEAKER_02: the epic dark Brandon move would be to get a ceasefire announced today or tomorrow
44:37
SPEAKER_02: or ahead of Thursday.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Blinken's working on it.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: It seems like regional actors are being uncooperative.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: I know.
44:44
SPEAKER_02: Like in theory, it could come together and that would be like the goat move.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: And then obviously I feel like
44:49
SPEAKER_02: the Harris would get, it wouldn't even be just a convention bounce.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: It would just be like that.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: Do you think that short of that,
44:57
SPEAKER_02: that like her trajectory has been up steady for a month is like,
45:02
SPEAKER_02: is there,
45:02
SPEAKER_02: is this going to keep her moving in that direction?
45:04
SPEAKER_02: Or do you feel like she's maxed out and this is just going to like propel her into
45:10
SPEAKER_02: the fall campaign with a real,
45:13
SPEAKER_02: but like not super enormous lead?
45:17
SPEAKER_00: They could blow the convention, but I think a good convention that shores up her – where is she weakest?
45:22
SPEAKER_00: She's weakest in immigration.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: She's weakest on the economy.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: On immigration, the party has given Democrats space to just run like 20 –
45:31
SPEAKER_00: 13 Democrats, basically, and say, we're going to close the border.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: Not close the, you know what I mean?
45:35
SPEAKER_00: They're saying we're going to deport asylum seekers.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: It's not 2016,
45:39
SPEAKER_00: 2020 mindset where if you talk about deportation,
45:41
SPEAKER_00: you're worried you're going to get booed.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
45:43
SPEAKER_00: People are going to boo them.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: They're going to vote for them anyway.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: So I think they're going to try to shore that stuff up.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: That will help a little bit.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: The pressure will be, I think, fairly beyond for her to do more unscripted
45:54
SPEAKER_00: I said unscripted interview should be unscripted.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Do more interviews.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: There should be a interview with Tim Walls.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: There really should.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: The tradition is that you pick your running mate and there's a convention and you
46:03
SPEAKER_00: sit down with Leslie Stahl or something and you talk about things.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: A Trump campaign have,
46:08
SPEAKER_00: I think,
46:09
SPEAKER_00: overdone the idea that Harris is dumb and can't talk and will blow herself up with answers.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: I've seen this where she'll give like a pretty normal answer that maybe is.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: a little too loquacious by 10%.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: And they'll say it was incoherent.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't understand it.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: But I think the next things will be what interviews does she do after the convention?
46:26
SPEAKER_00: And then in the debate, how good is she in the debate?
46:28
SPEAKER_00: I assume pretty good given her record.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: But the convention itself,
46:31
SPEAKER_00: I think they just,
46:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't,
46:33
SPEAKER_00: because she got rocketed into the national consciousness in the last month,
46:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there was as much juice to get out of that.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: And Trump had a great convention after he was shot at and it lowered his unfavorables.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: But that didn't really change much of the race because it,
46:48
SPEAKER_00: it's hard to separate the data, right?
46:50
SPEAKER_00: Biden was collapsing because people thought he was too old and Democrats were banning him.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: And also the Republicans had a good convention, but the line went up just a little bit.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: I think that's probably what would happen with Harris.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: But the chance to just like raise her favorable slightly and lower the disadvantage
47:07
SPEAKER_00: on immigration slightly.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: I think that would do a lot because she's currently, I mean, snap the snap poll.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: The election is held today.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: She probably does better.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: win in most scenarios given where given where she's leading building on that by two
47:19
SPEAKER_00: points and also making trump worried because he has not been losing in polls for
47:22
SPEAKER_00: years that would have that would have an impact yeah i love the uh harris gave some
47:29
SPEAKER_02: answer when she was talking about the duality of democracy where it's like very
47:33
SPEAKER_02: strong as a as a means of holding a society together but it's also very fragile
47:37
SPEAKER_02: because it has to be set on all sides by enemies
47:40
SPEAKER_02: And it was totally like boiler,
47:43
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:43
SPEAKER_02: it was good,
47:43
SPEAKER_02: but it was boilerplate,
47:44
SPEAKER_02: maybe like you said,
47:45
SPEAKER_02: 10% too loquacious.
47:47
SPEAKER_02: And not only were they like,
47:48
SPEAKER_02: this is incomprehensible,
47:49
SPEAKER_02: but they have intentionally,
47:50
SPEAKER_02: like they have announced our new plan is to like seed made up rumors that Harris is
47:58
SPEAKER_02: an alcoholic and like she must be drunk.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: And I am just amazed by the brazenness of it,
48:06
SPEAKER_02: but also they're doing this knowing that in four days they're going to have to do a
48:10
SPEAKER_02: hard pivot to like,
48:12
SPEAKER_02: Kamala Harris is a silver-tongued queen of sobriety,
48:15
SPEAKER_02: and she can crush Donald Trump at a debate unless Donald Trump really nails his performance.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: They're going to switch in this amazing way, and it's going to be just a marvel to behold.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: So,
48:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:29
SPEAKER_01: what I thought was interesting,
48:32
SPEAKER_01: because Biden did such a prominent speech,
48:36
SPEAKER_01: is that we really did get to see the side – because essentially Biden delivered the
48:41
SPEAKER_01: message that the Biden campaign had been running with,
48:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:46
SPEAKER_01: before the candidate swap.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: And the rest of the convention –
48:50
SPEAKER_01: was by Kamala Harris's message.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: And I wrote a piece that was about the extent to which Harris was just running on
48:59
SPEAKER_01: the same policy agenda as Biden,
49:03
SPEAKER_01: which I think is right.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: I think you're looking at 95% to 98% overlap.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: But there is a really stark tonal difference that he
49:14
SPEAKER_01: The Harris,
49:16
SPEAKER_01: the non-Joe Biden parts of the convention are much less apocalyptic in their
49:23
SPEAKER_01: characterization of Donald Trump than Joe Biden's speeches are.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: But they're also kind of meaner.
49:31
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
49:33
SPEAKER_01: They took a dig at him for cheating on his wife with a porn star.
49:39
SPEAKER_01: They referred to him as a sexual offender at several different times.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: They annoyed the hardcore criminal justice reform people by referring to him as a felon multiple times.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: There's a Vox article about how using felon as an insult
49:56
SPEAKER_01: you know, is like damaging to millions of Americans.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: And Akella Lacey also complained about it from The Intercept in a tweet where she,
50:06
SPEAKER_01: apparently what you're supposed to call them is justice-involved persons.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: And,
50:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:14
SPEAKER_01: it was interesting because it's the sort of like coconut pill Democrats are much
50:20
SPEAKER_01: more like rah-rah patriotic and much more kind of like harsh,
50:26
SPEAKER_01: but also dismissive about Trump rather than,
50:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:32
SPEAKER_01: this sort of like Churchillian,
50:34
SPEAKER_01: like,
50:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:35
SPEAKER_01: we must like gather the forces of light against us.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: And it's more...
50:41
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if it's better or not, but like, it's more fun.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
50:46
SPEAKER_01: people,
50:46
SPEAKER_01: Matt,
50:46
SPEAKER_01: do you remember when,
50:48
SPEAKER_02: do you remember when,
50:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
50:49
SPEAKER_02: obviously he didn't go on to win the race,
50:51
SPEAKER_02: but do you remember for that brief,
50:52
SPEAKER_02: like two week period back in 2016 when,
50:55
SPEAKER_02: uh,
50:55
SPEAKER_02: you know,
50:55
SPEAKER_02: a few conservative pundits were hoping that Marco Rubio would consolidate.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: Right.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: Right.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: And the hindsight consensus is that Rubio blew it by getting down into the mud with
51:09
SPEAKER_02: Trump and talking about – alluding to penis size and stuff like that.
51:13
SPEAKER_02: But I remember them being on the debate stage together when it was a battle of wits, right?
51:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:19
SPEAKER_02: Rubio was just sharper than Trump.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: And he had quick insults.
51:23
SPEAKER_02: And it was a benefit of somebody who had a more ordered mind and a little bit more youth.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like that's what we're seeing with Harris,
51:31
SPEAKER_02: where she's able to run this more...
51:34
SPEAKER_02: Just belittle the guy,
51:36
SPEAKER_02: take him down several pegs by not treating him as this fearsome foe,
51:41
SPEAKER_02: but as just like...
51:43
SPEAKER_02: this tiresome creature, right?
51:44
SPEAKER_02: Like to do that, you need to have a certain set of qualities.
51:48
SPEAKER_02: And I think Joe Biden did once have those qualities.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: It's just,
51:51
SPEAKER_02: he is not really well situated to run the like sneer at Donald Trump over various
51:58
SPEAKER_02: shortcomings because in many cases,
52:01
SPEAKER_02: he kind of embodies those same weaknesses.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: And now suddenly Democrats have a ticket that doesn't embody any of them.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: And so they can be kind of like,
52:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:12
SPEAKER_02: the out party,
52:13
SPEAKER_02: the opposite party version of Rubio in 2016,
52:16
SPEAKER_02: just like beating him in rat battles,
52:19
SPEAKER_02: basically.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: And like, it's not that they got some new rhetorical geniuses to like brief Harris on how to do this.
52:29
SPEAKER_02: It's just, it falls out of the fact that she is
52:33
SPEAKER_02: She is younger, she is schooled in that kind of culture, and not a one-trick pony like Donald Trump.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: But I just also think that,
52:46
SPEAKER_01: as you guys were saying,
52:48
SPEAKER_01: Harris has not really centered identity questions in her pitch for herself.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's clear that many rank-and-file Democrats...
53:00
SPEAKER_01: feel this deeply.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: That they are excited to vote for a Black woman.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: Which just opens their heart to a more positive set of
53:14
SPEAKER_01: arguments.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
53:16
SPEAKER_01: I just felt like a lot of Democrats just didn't...
53:21
SPEAKER_01: Almost felt ashamed that they had retreated to Biden as this safe electability play.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: And so then they wanted to be told that this was the last gasp of hope for American democracy.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: Whereas...
53:40
SPEAKER_01: The idea of Kamala Harris becoming president is exciting to the kinds of people who
53:45
SPEAKER_01: come to a Democratic convention,
53:48
SPEAKER_01: which means that,
53:49
SPEAKER_01: like,
53:49
SPEAKER_01: they will just accept a more,
53:51
SPEAKER_01: like,
53:52
SPEAKER_01: fun message from the candidate because,
53:56
SPEAKER_01: like,
53:56
SPEAKER_01: they think it would be fun to win instead of,
54:00
SPEAKER_01: like,
54:01
SPEAKER_01: somebody needs to,
54:02
SPEAKER_01: like...
54:04
SPEAKER_01: impress upon me the duty to embrace this guy.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, and I think you saw that with, like, Sean Fain's kind of, like, goofy shirt.
54:14
SPEAKER_01: You know,
54:15
SPEAKER_01: there was just,
54:15
SPEAKER_01: like,
54:15
SPEAKER_01: a more of a loose kind of presentation,
54:20
SPEAKER_01: not just,
54:21
SPEAKER_01: like,
54:21
SPEAKER_01: from the candidate,
54:23
SPEAKER_01: but from,
54:24
SPEAKER_01: like,
54:24
SPEAKER_01: everybody involved.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: Um,
54:26
SPEAKER_01: which,
54:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
54:27
SPEAKER_01: it's,
54:27
SPEAKER_01: it's the kind of thing where,
54:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
54:29
SPEAKER_01: of course,
54:29
SPEAKER_01: if you lose,
54:31
SPEAKER_01: um,
54:31
SPEAKER_01: you're gonna,
54:31
SPEAKER_01: you're gonna feel dumb,
54:33
SPEAKER_01: uh,
54:33
SPEAKER_01: that you didn't run a kind of like more,
54:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
54:36
SPEAKER_01: on the nose,
54:38
SPEAKER_01: um,
54:38
SPEAKER_01: exactly what is our criticism here kind of campaign.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, it's, it's nice to see people enjoying themselves.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to imagine a Biden convention,
54:48
SPEAKER_01: um,
54:50
SPEAKER_01: having like a lot of like,
54:52
SPEAKER_01: a lot of like smiles and yucks for,
54:54
SPEAKER_01: for the people in the room.
54:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, it would have been so bad.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: All right.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: We got to let Dave get back to the, what is it?
55:02
SPEAKER_02: What's the name of the arena?
55:04
SPEAKER_02: Wherever.
55:05
SPEAKER_00: United Center.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: United Center.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: Where the Bulls play.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: You should be hearing Alan Parsons' Project Serious every time I mention it.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: If you can play me out with that, I don't know what the rights issue is.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: Well,
55:16
SPEAKER_02: in any case,
55:17
SPEAKER_02: thanks for hanging out with us and shedding some light on what things look like
55:20
SPEAKER_02: from the inside.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: Sure thing.
55:22
SPEAKER_02: Good to be here.
55:23
SPEAKER_02: Cool.
55:23
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
55:24
SPEAKER_02: All right.
55:24
SPEAKER_02: Thanks again to Dave Weigel for spending some time with us this week.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: We're going to put a paywall here on the other side of it.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: Matt and I are going to argue about the effect Kamala Harris's candidacy has had on economic sentiment.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: If you want to hear that conversation,
55:39
SPEAKER_02: a continuation from last week's episode,
55:41
SPEAKER_02: you can go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.