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Vance Vance Revolution · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor. We're recording this on Wednesday night in
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: beautiful Milwaukee, site of the Republican National Convention. We're going
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to be leaving soon for Charlie Kirk's after party in
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the name of unity. I didn't get invited to that one.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It's unity. You didn't get invited.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: We're all Ben Shapiro's plus four.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: But before we go, we're going to talk about J.D.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Vance's big speech and the rest of the highlights from
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: night three of the RNC. We also found out today
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: that the DNC blinked in the standoff over whether to
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: rush a virtual roll call vote to officially nominate Joe Biden.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who was supposed to be campaigning in Nevada today until
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: he tested positive for COVID. Poor guy can't catch a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: single break. Also, all kinds of reporting about Pelosi, Schumer.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: They're all showing him bad polls. They're all showing him
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: bad polls. All the... Yeah, so we'll see. We're going
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to talk about that later. But first, we just watched J.D.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Vance's speech here in a hotel room together, which is
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: now how we watch all political performances we'd like to forget. Yeah.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: That's what we do. We go to a hotel, watch a.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: This is now the second worst time I've had in
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: a hotel with you boys recently. And I don't want
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: to talk about the worst.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So....
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: There's also Biden's speech.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: So Vance's speech was about 45 minutes. Felt like an hour. Yeah,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it felt like an hour. It felt longer. There was
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of his bio. There was a lot of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: economic populism. There was a lot of Trump worship. But
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: not necessarily in that order. Not really in any order.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: But we do have some highlights. The first one is
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: he started off the speech talking about Trump and the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I want all.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: Americans to go and watch the video of a would-be
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: assassin coming a quarter of an inch from taking his life.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Consider this. the lies they told you about.
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump, and then look at that photo of him, defiant,
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: fist in the air, when Donald Trump rose to his
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: feet in that Pennsylvania field, all of America stood with him.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to play that one because it really
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: made me mad that he is still, we talked yesterday
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: about his tweet after the assassination attempt where he basically
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: blamed Joe Biden's rhetoric for the assassination attempt. This was,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: think about all the lies they told about Trump, and
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: now think about him putting his fist in the air
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: after the assassin's bullet. He and other speakers have done this.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of, they tried to kill him
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: this week. They, when we're finding out more about the shooter,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the FBI found his phone. In the phone, he was
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: searching for Biden events, Trump events, date of the DNC,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: date of Trump rallies. It seems- Other officials. Other officials.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: It's Merrick Garland. It does seem so far like this
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: is a kid who hated politicians and was clearly disturbed.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And yet this whole Republican convention, and then again with J.D. Vance,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: there is this, they want to connect it somehow to Trump.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: That just really pissed me off. I don't know what
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: you guys think.
• 3:23
  Speaker 6: Well, he said his whole line, J.D. 's line was,
• 3:26
  Speaker 6: Trump called for national unity right after an assassin tried
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: to take his life. And okay, sure, but you pointed
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: the finger. And you were saying things on Twitter that
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: were essentially incitements saying that Joe Biden's rhetoric is the
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: reason Donald Trump got shot with no information, no evidence,
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: just because I assume probably because you're a right wing
• 3:49
  Speaker 6: hack and you desperately wanted to get named the vice
• 3:52
  Speaker 6: presidential nominee and you knew that kind of outrageous attack
• 3:55
  Speaker 6: dog shit would get you noticed by the Trump team. Yeah.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Well, so then. after he did a couple minutes of
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Trump worship at the top, and then he finally got
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to his bio and sort of his message of, you know,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: he's trying out this sort of the MAGA version of
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: economic populism. Let's listen.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: We need a leader who's not in the pocket of
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: big business, but answers to the working man, union and
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: non-union alike. A leader who won't sell out to multinational corporations,
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: but will stand up for American companies and American industry.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: The people who govern this country have failed and failed again.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: where a working class boy born far from the halls
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: of power can stand on this stage as the next
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: vice president of the United States of America.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: All right. So Lovett, what'd you think of the speech?
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: So I think a sign of a bad speech is
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: you're not sure it's over till he just stops talking
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: that I.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Really had absolutely.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Cause it was, it was a couple of different endings,
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: a couple of different endings. It, it, really circles back.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: He hits the bio a lot in the speech, but
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: not in a way that's particularly effective because the speech
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: was so poorly structured. It starts with a whole section
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: of just pledging fealty to Trump and all that is
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: good about Trump. Then he gets into his bio, which was,
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: I think, probably the strongest part of the speech, which
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: is walking through his bio while talking about all the
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: different policy positions Biden has taken that he views as
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: being wrong?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did this riff where he said, you know,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: when I was in fourth grade, Biden supported NAFTA and NAFTA,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of jobs left. where I'm from
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and all across the Midwest. When I was in high school,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal or voted for it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: When I was in college, he supported the war in Iraq.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: The war in Iraq, you know, so then there was
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: jobs sent overseas, kids sent overseas to die. And then
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, basically that Biden was wrong on
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: all these issues. Trump was right on all these issues,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: even back then.
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: So I think that was like, if you were to
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: take one section of the speech, I feel like that
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: was like probably the part that I thought was the strongest.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: And I bet what we'll hear on the stump too,
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: it felt like the start of a stump speech. But
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: The problem is it was in the middle of a
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: meandering and hard to follow speech with a lot of lines,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of rhetoric, a lot of long pauses for
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: applause that I felt like didn't really land, like none
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: of it really landed that hard. Even the bio, I
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: felt like this is, he has an incredibly compelling story.
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: He's on the ticket because of that story. You would
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: think you would start with that story and use it
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: to kind of frame the entire speech, but it felt
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: really cobbled together, which was a relief.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: That's my feeling about it.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: It was strategic idiocy. The speech was terrible. No one
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: knows anything about J.D.
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: Vance.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I know he had a best-selling book, but not that
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: many people read it.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: You know who knows about that? Elite podcasters.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. He had a movie that was made of
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: his book. Almost no one watched it. And this is
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: his one chance. There'll probably be about 12 to 15
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: million people watching this tonight. The clips will be seen
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: by more people. You stand up there and introduce yourself
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: to the nation. The VP generally doesn't matter that much,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: but it's going to matter more in a campaign where
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the candidate is 78 years old. And so this was
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: his chance to do it. He failed miserably at what
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: should have been absolutely up. The only reason he's on
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: this stage is he has a compelling personal story and
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: tells it well. And he did not do that. His
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: story is mixed up into a bunch of different places.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: There's no coherence to it. And you have to credential
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: yourself with your story before you make all the attacks.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: I think the high school, middle school Joe Biden thing,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: it's a clever way to get at Joe Biden's age.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: and separate him from working class voters. But you have
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: to tell your story first. But he was confused because
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: they were so enamored with the fourth grade high school
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: college line that they made it the story instead of
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: telling the actual story. It was terrible. And I am
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: shocked it was so terrible. We were at dinner before this,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: and I was like, this is going to be a
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: great speech.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were all very worried about the speech.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: We should have been the easiest thing in the world
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: for him to do because his delivery was fine. Some
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: people have a good story, but they can't tell it.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: His delivery was totally fine.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: It was the speech. It was fine. He gave a...
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I wrote this note down. He wrote a book. He's
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: been on the book circuit tour. He's probably had a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: speaker's bureau before he was in Congress and did the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: speaking tour. He sounds like someone who's just been talking
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: to too many crowds of.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: CEOs, other people, random organizations about his book. Like he
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: didn't actually have the cadence that you need in a
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: convention hall. He didn't, and like he was waiting for
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the applause.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: Waiting for the applause kills me.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: It never built, they don't build anything because they just
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: let the applause die down and then start up again.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: Like when Obama delivers his version of this speech, which
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: was obviously famously far better, he's like rising through these
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: moments and- like building to something.
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: That was a big point in speech prep in 2004
• 8:41
  Speaker 6: was you have to ride the applause.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Don't stop.
• 8:44
  Speaker 6: Talk over it because it might sound loud in the hall,
• 8:47
  Speaker 6: but at home, they will be able to hear you.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: This time, it was the reverse.
• 8:51
  Speaker 6: You almost couldn't hear the applause at home, but JD
• 8:53
  Speaker 6: was pausing and sort of awkwardly waving to everybody and
• 8:56
  Speaker 6: it just didn't work. And yeah, the bio has to
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: be your anchor that explains who you are and informs
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: your belief and gives you credibility and he just didn't
• 9:03
  Speaker 6: do it. There were also just like, it jumped all
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: over the place. There was a point where He did
• 9:08
  Speaker 6: this very corny thing where he talked about his three
• 9:11
  Speaker 6: kids back home. And if you're watching, daddy says, put
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: your butts in bed. And then he immediately did a
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: hard pivot to fentanyl overdoses.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: Well, I guess that's probably why it's a good time
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: to turn the TV off. I was like, how did
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: we get here? Now it's like such a cliche, even
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: in like Emmy award speeches, like, all right, mommy won.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: Now go to bed. Daddy says, go to bed. Like,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: how are you like saying it out loud?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: This is an incredible feat process wise. It, One guess
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: as to what might have happened is the speechwriters wrote
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a speech that they needed to have for whoever the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: nominee was. And then once they found out it was J.D. Vance,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: then you insert J.D. 's story into the Trump messaging speech.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: And then the assassination attempt happens. So then you add
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that topper in. So now you've got an assassination attempt
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: topper into your bodyguard. into the Trump worship. Classic structure.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: By the way, this was my prediction for the Trump speech.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: This was that there would just be larded up toppers,
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: which is so far happening.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: But just substance-wise too, I think it's interesting that all
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of the issues that the Republican Party and Donald Trump
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: have vulnerabilities on in this election... abortion, election denial, sort
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: of all kinds of extremism, with the exception of immigration,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: which is sort of core to Donald Trump's political philosophy,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: weird word to say, Donald Trump's like politics, and JD
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Vance's as well. And sort of this trying to present
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: themselves as economic populace, even though they want to give
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: tax cuts to rich people and deregulate everything. Those were
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: like the two main issues, none of the other issues
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: that really, like, trip up Republicans. You heard in this
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: speech as much tonight.
• 10:50
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: It's always the, when they get to the, the, the
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: working class politics, it's all just vibes, right? It's just working. They're,
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: they're doing working class vibes. They're talking about immigration. They
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: don't mention the corporate tax cut.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: They don't rule in class.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: They mentioned the ruling class, but there's no, never actually
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: policies on that.
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: This is a real liberal elite comment or thing to notice,
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: but I can't wait. It's a, it's just always striking
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: to me that a speech that can begin with a
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: long intro about an assassination attempt, Ends up at a
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: place where you're bragging about your grandmother having 19 loaded
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: guns in the house. And no one kind of sees
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: the weirdness there, the disconnect between maybe our gun fetish
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: in this country is.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Part of the problem, not a thing we're proud of.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you what my reaction to that was, which
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: is also like my recollection of the book is it's
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: a lot about how this kind of grievance and sense
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: of being under threat is a way of avoiding facing
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: up to the real problems.
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: He's very hard on his community.
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: It's not understanding.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: It's super harsh.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: And that's why that book became a liberal darling, because
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: it was actually like kind of being honest about the
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: ways these places were supposed to be responsible for what
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: had happened.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So we have had now a full... day or two
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: to digest all the J.D. Vance takes our eyeballs could handle.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: One notable subplot is that the Republican National Security Establishment
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: isn't too happy with Vance's isolationist views, especially on Ukraine.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: That did not come up tonight. I don't believe he
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: talked about Ukraine tonight.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: He made a reference to the big tent on national
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: security issues.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: And America first, a lot of America first.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Right, but sort of yada yada'd over Ukraine.
• 12:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, he lied about Donald Trump opposing the
• 12:34
  Speaker 6: war in Iraq, even though last month in an interview
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: with Ross Douthat, in the new york times jd vance
• 12:40
  Speaker 6: admitted that actually in 2003 trump said something that said
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: he said he supported the invasion of iraq so jd
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: again a month ago said he knew trump was full
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: of shit on that front and then tonight gave.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Him credit for it and apparently big some big republican
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: donors aren't too thrilled with his protectionist views so they
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: probably like that democrats are also pushing around videos of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: vance saying he wants a national abortion ban he said
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: that in 2022 there was also a clip of him
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: on tucker carlson where he said that we're were being
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: ruled by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: miserable with their own lives.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I remember when that happened.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I remember that clip.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: He's really has this like, he's had this like real
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: hard edge over the last couple of years, unlike Tucker
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and some other speeches that you're like, anything else stand
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: out to you guys since Vance was announced that has
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: made you either think he'll be, he'll be valuable to
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the Trump campaign in this way, or, oh, actually he's
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: going to be, this is a real vulnerability now that
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Democrats can exploit. Dan, what do you think?
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: I think that the whole discourse is probably overstated. I mean,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: the vice president generally doesn't matter very much. Now, you
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: can absolutely fuck it up like John McCain did with
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Sarah Palin. But then it's not really about the vice president.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: It's about what the vice presidential choice says about the
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: person who made the choice. You know, the idea that
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: they're going to park him in. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: he's going to be some sort of Rust Belt ambassador
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: for Trump.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: And he said all the states.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: He kept saying them over and over again.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: He said all the blue oil states tonight, yeah, a
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: couple times.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I'm sure he'll go to those states a lot because
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: those are the states that if Trump wins one of
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: those states, the election is probably over. But there's nothing
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: in Vance's record, his performance in Ohio, his policy positions
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: that suggest that he has some sort of secret sauce
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: that is going to help him with those voters. His populism,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: economic populism, and there's been all these annoying think pieces
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: about how he and Josh Hawley and these cadre of
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Republican eggheads are coming together to try to create this
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: policy framework around America-first populism, all it is is tariffs
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: and mass deportations. And he does this performative bullshit where
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: he's like, he said this in the Ross interview, where
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: he's like, I'm more aligned with the Bernie bros than
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: some people in my own party, but that doesn't mean anything.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: And he says a nice thing about Lena Kahn once,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: and that seemed to be seen to be that he's
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: some transformative figure in the Republican Party. He's not.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And the reason.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: that it all doesn't really matter, is his policy positions
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: do not matter. Donald Trump's do. And at the convention
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: on Tuesday night, Steve Scalise, the Republican whip, stood up,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: or the Republican leader, I guess, stood up and said,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: in the first hundred days, we are going to make
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: the Trump tax cuts permanent.
• 15:06
  Speaker 8: Right?
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Like, that is the Trump fans agenda, is tax cuts
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: for the rich.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the sort of populism of the tax policy is
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: hating universal child care more than you hate.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: A child tax credit.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: But trying to stop both.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Before we move on from J.D. Vance, it was reported
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: that J.D. Vance reached out to Vice President Kamala Harris.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: They had this cordial phone call. And then the Trump
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: campaign put out a response to setting the date for
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the vice presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Kamala Harris.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And their statement was, We don't know who the Democrat
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: nominee for vice president is going to be, so we
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: can't lock in a date before their convention. To do
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate. Points
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: for trolling.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're having fun.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Points for trolling.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: They're also scared shitless. There might be a change.
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: Can I just flag one other thing that jumped out
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: at me about J.D.? I think he's so new on
• 16:03
  Speaker 6: the stage that people are trying to figure out whether
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: he's sincere or was the hillbilly elegy J.D. Vance the
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: real one or is today the real one? This anecdote
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: jumped out at me from a New York Times profile
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: of him. So they talked to a person named Sarah Nelson,
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: who's a former classmate of J.D. Vance's, who's transgender and
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: was once close friends with both J.D.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And his wife.
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: And Sophia Nelson recalled that JD delivered home-baked treats when
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: Sophia Nelson had top surgery. And then they stopped talking
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: in 2021 when he started embracing these vicious laws. There's
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: an Arkansas bill opposing transgender.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Care for minors.
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: So it's clear that a few years ago, before he
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: was in politics, JD Vance saw the humanity in people first.
• 16:46
  Speaker 6: And he didn't care if you were transgender or not.
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: He'd go to your house and bring you brownies or something.
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: And now he is more than happy to be vicious
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: and nasty and harm people who are his friends if
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: it gets him on the ticket.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: He is a man driven by visible, palpable ambition and
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: nothing else.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Work for him tonight.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's funny.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: It's also why it's like that guy, maybe that, you know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: you would never know seeing that guy on stage that
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: he has that incredibly compelling story because he is ambitious
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: and he did become what he needed to become to
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: get there. And he looks much more like a tech
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: guy in a vest at this point, doing an impression
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: of a politician. And it speaks to actually his credit
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: and how smart he is and how far he came.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: But Doesn't make him that much of a threat.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: It's also why he did so poorly in the Rust
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Belt parts of Ohio against Tim Ryan. People can smell
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: that bullshit from a million miles away.
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: The only time I laughed out loud tonight at all
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: was during Usha Vance's speech, which was fine.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: She's J.D.
• 17:37
  Speaker 6: Vance's wife. She seemed a little nervous. It was sweet,
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: but it wasn't great. But she said he had one
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: overriding ambition to be a husband and a father. And
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: I literally broke out laughing because clearly he's the most
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: ambitious person. Some other ambition. 39-year-old vice presidential nominee.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: A few of their notable speakers from tonight, Don Jr.,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: his fiance, Kim Guilfoyle, soon to be obscure again, Governor
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Doug Burgum, got passed over. Former Trump aide, Peter Navarro,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: who got out of prison today after serving four months
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: for refusing a subpoena from the January 6th committee. Apparently
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: brought the house down.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Brought the house down. Many people said it was the
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: most applause at the convention since Trump walked in the
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: room on Monday night.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Love it, love it.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: Is this just still because fucking, what's his name, Kushner
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: Googled trade.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And came up with this book?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: That guy goes, anyway, sorry, what were you going to say?
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that was. It was a, they
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: love a convict, you know?
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: And then there was convictions.
• 18:27
  Speaker 6: There you go.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: There you go. There was also a video that they
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: played of gold star families who had lost loved ones
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: It was the families of service members who were killed
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: at Abbey gate in those final days of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: And there was a six and a half minute pre-taped
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: video of where they talked to, you know, moms, wives,
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: you know, sister brothers of the families, talked about, you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: who these service members were. And then they also talked about,
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: you know, they showed footage of President Biden at the
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: dignified transfer ceremony at Dover, looking at his watch. They
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: talked about how things didn't go well in the conversation
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: with Biden and the families. And then they said in
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: this video that.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Do you want to play a clip? Should we play
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: this clip? Yeah, why don't we play the clip?
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: The administration, the White House, our president has never once
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: mentioned their names, not one of them.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Honestly, I don't feel like Joe Biden cared.
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: He just had no empathy for us at all.
• 19:30
  Speaker 8: I do think incompetence played a huge factor in what happened.
• 19:38
  Speaker 8: Bad decision, bad leadership, and it all starts at the top.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden should not be leading this country.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: There was no point in making that hard deadline August 31st.
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: It was 100%.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: A political stunt.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: He let my son down. He let the 13 down.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: He let the 45 wounded down. He let those 174
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: civilians down.
• 20:01
  Speaker 8: He let our country down.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: And then what it hurts the most is that.
• 20:05
  Speaker 8: They could be here.
• 20:07
  Speaker 6: And then after that, the parents of the fallen came
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: on stage and they read the names one by one.
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: And it was, I thought, an incredibly powerful, well-done, and
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: brutal political hit.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Biden did reach out to all those families, right? Well,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: he met.
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: With them at Dover during the transfer of their remains
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: back home. But I think, you know, this was that
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: really tough scene that Jen Psaki actually writes about in
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: her book where, I mean, he tried to talk to
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: them about his loss and losing his son. And I
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: think that helps them connect with some of the families,
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: but others were offended by it and it didn't go well.
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: And I don't know, like, I'm not sure anyone can
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: say anything that would make you feel better in that
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: moment if you just lost a loved one.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: But yeah. So then there was Don Jr. He went
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: up to speak. He then introduced his daughter, Kai Trump,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: who's much better than him.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: By far.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: She did more to humanize Donald Trump, her grandfather than
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: anyone I had heard. And then Don Jr. unfortunately got
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: back on stage after she was done and continued speaking.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Here's some of his speech.
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: Who's running things? Does anyone really know?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Is it Jill? Is it Hunter?
• 21:26
  Speaker 7: Barack Obama? Maybe it's the ghost of corn pop. Remember
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: Build Back Better? Instead, we got broke bumbling Biden.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: What a good mistake.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: The corn pop thing is a real deep cut.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, you have to be the
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: biggest junkie, left or right.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: That's 2019, right?
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: It's also.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It's a deep cut for political junkies.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: It's also logical nonsense. It's not a good... What does
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: it mean? Oh, maybe it's corn pop. This old story
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: he tells. It doesn't make sense on its own terms.
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, a guy he argued with when he was a
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: lifeguard in the 50s.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Like remember Build Back Better? No, no one remembers Build
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Back Better. That's the problem, actually. We now call it
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the IRA and no one knows what that stands for either. Yeah,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and nobody knows it happened and nobody will never know.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Have you heard about the chipset?
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And then next year, it'll all be turned into
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: highway funding anyway. But John Jr.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: Always has the energy of just like a coked out, drunk,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: terrible customer at a restaurant calling a waitress sweetie. You know,
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: like that's just sort of like his whole vibe forever.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: Just the life of doing that. Yeah.
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, Donald Trump's granddaughter, Don Jr. 's daughter,
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: 17-year-old girl, talked about him as a grandfather, calling her
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: when she's at school, talked about the golf game, like
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: all the humanizing stuff you'd expect from a family member.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And then they bring out his son and he.
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: Just does this red meat screed that was, you know,
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: probably should have been left on rumble.com.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Or wherever he usually does his podcast. Yeah.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Where does he speak from? His voice, it's all up here.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: He speaks up high.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: It's up high.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: It's front of the throat.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: It's hard.
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: Lines like, Teddy Roosevelt's man in the arena has a name,
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: and it's Donald Trump.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I know, I did a lot. I mean, every convention
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of both parties is just fucking chock full of way
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: too many cliches. But the last couple of days have
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: been really, do you know our best days are yet
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to come? Have you heard that?
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: It's also like, maybe when they went through and did
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: their unity pass on all these speeches, they took out
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: all the good lines.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: That could be too.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: I bet the division lines were probably the toughest stuff.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Ron Johnson's got to get his old speech back.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back. All right, let's talk
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: about the upcoming Democratic convention and Joe Biden, whose streak
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of luck continued today when he tested positive for COVID
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: right in between campaign events in Las Vegas. White House
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: said he's got mild symptoms, no fever, will be isolating
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: at home in Delaware. Hope he gets better soon. President's
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: also dealing with more bad political news. Just before we
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: recorded this, ABC reported that Chuck Schumer told Biden in
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: a meeting on Saturday that, quote, it would be better
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: for the country if he ended his reelection bid. We
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: then learned this morning that Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries encouraged
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the DNC to move back the date of the virtual
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: roll call to nominate Biden. This is what we were
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: talking about last episode. In response, the Rules Committee put
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: out a letter today saying that the voting won't start
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: now until August 1st. So that by some time, though
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: not a lot for the rapidly growing group of congressional
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Democrats who have publicly called on Biden to step down
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: from the ticket. That faction officially grew by one big
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: name today as Adam Schiff, who we talked about yesterday
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: as well, said publicly what he was reported to have
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: said in private. In his statement to the LA Times,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Schiff praised Biden as a great president, but said, quote,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump in November and called for him to pass
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the torch. This all comes as a new Associated Press
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: poll shows that two-thirds of all Democratic voters now want
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden to withdraw. And a new Blue Labs analytics
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: poll shows basically every other potential Democratic candidate running ahead
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: of Biden in the swing states. Where to begin? Where
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: to begin? Let's start with the Schumer news. Dan, you
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: think it's as big as it seems?
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a very big deal because there
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: have been rumors for a long time that there's a
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: bunch of senators who privately want Biden to step aside. Remember,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: it was like two weeks ago, it feels like a
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: hundred years ago when Mark Warner was organizing a meeting
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: that then got canceled. We only, as of right now,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: have two senators who've come out. Well, I guess one
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: senator and one senator to be Schiff and then Peter
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Welch of Vermont. This could lead to more. Schumer and
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Biden met privately on Saturday, right before the assassination attempt
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: on Trump. So we never really got any readout on
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: what happened in that conversation. We now know that Schumer
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: was more direct than I think.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: A though, is I'm thinking the timeline now. Schumer and
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Biden meet on Saturday. Biden does the Lester Holt interview Monday,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: in which he was no less defiant publicly about staying in.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Now I'm rethinking it. Did I miss anything? Love it.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: I think there's two ways to see it.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: One is, as we talked about in the last pod,
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden has to be defiant until the very moment
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: he's not.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: There's no other option.
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: I think it is interesting.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: There's this dynamic.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: It's People really want Joe Biden to make the decision.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: And there's an understanding that Joe Biden is a proud
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: person and so that he won't be pushed. And so
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: they're trying to pull him. You know, there was reporting
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: that a lot more people were about to come forward
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: calling on Biden to step aside.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: And then the assassination attempt happened.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: It was just interesting that Schumer has this meeting.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: Biden is defiant on Monday.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: And now we're getting the leak. It does seem like
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: people are starting to come to grips with the fact
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: that it's going to take more pushing from.
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think the initial strategy was to try to
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: have these conversations privately and politely. And now people are
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: going public with demands, not requests. I did see that
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: Jeff Zeleny, a great reporter at CNN, just reported that
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: President Biden is now more receptive to the push for
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: him to leave the ticket. He's gone from saying Kamala
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: Harris can't win. to asking if Kamala Harris can win.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: So it does seem like senior democratic sources saying this to,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to Zeleny.
• 27:25
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: It's in private conversations. He's getting, he's being, he's sounding
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a little more receptive, even though he's not publicly. The
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: other possibility here is that Schumer had this conversation with
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Biden and Biden was not so receptive. And Schumer thought
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: that maybe there'd be some movement on this and there
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: hasn't been. And then maybe, that's when it leaked to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: John and Carl. Now, officially Schumer's office put out a
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: statement that was sort of a non-denial that was like,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: unless the source is Chuck Schumer or Joe Biden themselves,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: this is just idle speculation. It's like, okay, well, could be.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: What a strange way to introduce a new thought.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: And they also said that the leader Schumer conveyed the
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what that was clarifying. Yeah. And we
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: know that bit most of the caucus at this point.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was reporting in the caucus meeting that
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman asked everyone, okay, who's actually on board with Biden?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: And only four senators raised their hands. Uh, that was
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: from last week.
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: So when it was JD Vance and a mustache, it
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: was also Menendez was still there at the time.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: So where was he on this?
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 28:30
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Well, it depends on who makes me a better offer.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: So you got Schumer and Jeffries were both pushing the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: DNC to push back the roll call vote. Nancy Pelosi
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: is working behind the scenes to try to get Joe
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Biden to step aside. So it does now seem that
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the entire leadership of the Democratic Party is working on this.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: And what has ever given us less hope than the
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: entire leadership of the Democratic Party.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Working on something?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it can mean that they are
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: working on a, to create a path for Biden to
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: step down. It could also mean that no matter what happens,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: the best move for the party is to handle this
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: virtual roll call in the most transparent, fair-minded way. Because
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: even if Schumer, you get a different report, Schumer didn't
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: make that case to Biden, it's still in his interest
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: to handle the virtual roll call better because it's going
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: to lead to a massive uproar in the party. If
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: you were to go with the plan, the DNC was
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: pushing quite aggressively just 24 hours ago.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about that. So we talked about
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: this last night, and it seemed like it could be
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: as early as next week that they were going to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: start this thing. Now they're saying no voting can start
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: until August 1st and they do want to wrap it
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: up by August 7th, which is the sort of fake-ish
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: deadline in Ohio, the old deadline in Ohio that we're
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: still going with. If Biden does step aside, it doesn't
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: seem like there's much time for any kind of mini
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: primary open convention. Certainly there's enough time at that point
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: if Biden does just endorse Kamala Harris and the party
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: unites behind Kamala Harris, then we're off to the races.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: They can do the virtual roll call. She would have
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to pick a running mate rather quickly. Beyond that, it
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like there's a lot of time if they're
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: going to start voting in August. Would they just maybe
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: punt the whole virtual roll call altogether in that scenario?
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: I think you would either punt it altogether or you
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: would move it back. Based on everything you read, And
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: everything the Republicans in Ohio say, and I recognize we're
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: taking that with a grain of salt, the odds that
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: somehow they go back and change the rules so that
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Biden or some Democratic nominee cannot be on the ballot
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: in Ohio seems quite low. And it doesn't seem like
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: that risk is not so high that you would short
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: circuit a process to pick our new nominee. So you
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: can move it back. If you look at the deadlines
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: of the other states that we talked about, like California
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: and Washington, you can move it back a couple of
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: weeks and either wrap it up right at the beginning
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: of the convention, or you could wrap it up at
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: the convention and take on, like, there's no good option, right?
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Do you want to have a good process to pick
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: your best nominee? Or do you want to manage the
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: legal risks that come from low likelihood of success lawsuits
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: preventing ballot access? You probably want to side with a
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: longer process that helps you pick a better nominee with
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: actual voting in the convention.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's talk about some of these... the polling
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: that Biden and others woke up to this morning. So
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: this is from Blue Labs. And what they did is
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: they interviewed 15,000 voters across seven battleground states to test
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: different options for the Democratic nominee. That's quite a bit.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Top line, alternative Democratic candidates run ahead of President Biden
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: by an average of three points across the battleground states.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Nearly every tested Democrat performs better than the president. This
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: includes Vice President Harris. who runs better than the president,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: but behind the average alternative. The top testing alternative candidates,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: aside from Harris and Biden, in alphabetical order, are Mark Kelly,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: senator from Arizona, Wes Moore, governor of Maryland, Josh Shapiro,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: governor of Pennsylvania, and Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan. And
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: of course, we mentioned that AP poll that shows now
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: two-thirds of all Democratic voters want Joe Biden to step aside,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: including every major demographic group. So what do you guys
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: think about that blue lab polling?
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Look, I think it is, everybody is sort of looking
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: for polling to validate more confidence in this really uncertain moment.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: I think it is reassuring if you want to make
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: a change that there's polling that shows even before a
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: campaign has begun that these candidates start in a stronger position.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: I just think you have to take it with a
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: grain of salt. You go into it, yes, because you
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: are concerned about the swing state polling. You're concerned about
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: the polling you're seeing about Biden, not just that the
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: top line had to head numbers, but the extreme concern
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: people have about his age. But you go into it
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: not because you think these other candidates are already polling better,
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: but because you believe if you make this change, then
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: you have a candidate. And that candidate can do the
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: politics you need to do to ultimately overcome the disadvantages
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: that Biden had.
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: You know, all these alternative Democratic candidates are running ahead
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: of President Biden. That includes Vice President Harris. So she'll
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: like that. Not great for the vice president is voters
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: are looking for a fresh face, according to this polling.
• 33:10
  Speaker 6: And those closely tied to the current administration perform relatively
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: worse than other candidates. So that's interesting and notable and
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: also probably tells you something about how Republicans would message
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: a Harris candidacy. They would tie her to Joe Biden, obviously,
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: and some of the challenges recently. Also interesting, some of
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: the gains for these candidates are coming from winning undecideds
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: and those who are supporting third parties. but they are
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: also pulling votes from Donald Trump. And you keep your
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: base as well. So, you know, listen, there's a lot
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: of data out there right now that say on balance,
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: it has been generally worse for Joe Biden than Donald Trump.
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: There's a couple of polls that have him tied or
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: up a little bit. So it's noisy out there. But,
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: you know, this polling from Blue Lab suggests that some
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: alternatives could fare well in November.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, we have been obviously pretty vocal about
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: why we think Biden stepping aside would give us a
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: better chance of defeating Donald Trump. But we should be
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: honest that none of the options in front of us
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: are really great options right now. Because there's just so
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: much uncertainty. And like you said, you cannot have the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: polling be the only determining factor in this decision. And
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I'm sure if Joe Biden makes the decision to step aside,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: it's not going to be just based on the polling.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: And I think there are obviously risks that come with
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: a Kamala Harris nomination. A lot of those risks, I believe,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: are probably tied to the fact that she is part
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: of the current administration and there is this anti-incumbency vibe
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: in the United States and all over the world right now.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Can she overcome it? I think so.
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: And racism and misogyny and all sorts of other occurrences.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I do think, personally, she gives us a better chance
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: than Joe Biden does at this point. And then you think, well,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: what about these very popular governor's And it's a fresh start.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: But getting to the point of an open convention, figuring
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: out which of those candidates is going to be, and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: then making sure the candidate that we ultimately choose can
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: withstand the national spotlight. There's no sure things here, but
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: we're in a tough spot. And it's about what do
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you think is the riskiest move and what's the least
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: risky move.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: All those candidates, other than Kamala Harris right now, are
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: basically generic Democrats. Right, with a slight bio description, right?
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Generic Democrat who's a governor of a Midwestern state or
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: generic Democrat who's a senator who is also an astronaut.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And once they become the nominee, they will be defined.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: They have to define themselves and the Republicans will be
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: racing to define them. So these numbers are very, they're interesting.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: They're not particularly instructive about what a race would actually
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: look like. And I think this is the point I
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: make is there's no candidate here who guarantees a Democratic victory,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: not a one. There's no path that guarantees it. This
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: is still a pretty Republican political environment. There's an anti-incumbent environment.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: We are the incumbent party. People are angry about the economy.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: They're angry about inflation. We are the incumbent party. And
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: so whether that candidate is Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: one of these other people mentioned, they're still going to
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: have to navigate those headwinds. And there's downside risk too,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: that any of these candidates could do worse than Joe
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Biden is doing. I believe that they all have a
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: lower floor, but a higher ceiling than Biden, because we
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: know that The voters are screaming for someone other than
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Biden or Trump. And if we give them someone who
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: passes some set of tests for that, you could have
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: a good victory. But it's not a guarantee. It's just
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: a question of what risks you want to take.
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I mean, I think the concern about Biden,
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: where that's coming from, is that every candidate has vulnerabilities
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: and you have to fight back against them. But I
• 36:36
  Speaker 6: think the vulnerability of a large subset of the electorate
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: thinking you are too old is an unfixable problem because,
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: you know, once they have that belief, they know no
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: one gets younger.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: And I do think that's why the Schiff statement, the
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: Schumer statement, it's important because it creates pressure. But I
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: also think it just underscores that that fundamental reality of
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: what we're discussing is not changing. The other thing is
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: the fact that some of these Democrats are pulling Trump voters,
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: I think underscores on the other side of what Dan's
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: saying is Donald Trump is a weak candidate. You know,
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: as part of this polling that said two thirds of
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: Democrats want Joe Biden to no longer be the nominee.
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: A lot of Americans don't think Trump should be the nominee.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: These are both weak candidates. And voters have been saying
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: for a year, not the elites, the voters have been
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: saying this for a long time, that they want a
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: different option. Democrats have been saying for a long time
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: that they thought Joe Biden was too old. It was
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: the everybody else hoping they could get to the end
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: of this process without having to face that reality.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: But the debate changed that.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: And I think the fact that there are people out
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: there saying, I'm right now a Trump voter, but I'm
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: open to an alternative.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: I think just I think in that poll, it is
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: 27% of Republicans would prefer that Trump be replaced as
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: the nominee. And if we were in a normal election cycle,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: that would be a huge, gigantic number for someone who
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: is at their convention, who won their primary easily, and
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: one in four members of their party want someone else
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: to be the nominee. That is like a flashing red light, siren,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: weak candidate. But just because of the situation we're in,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: everyone's just throwing that number. I'm like, look how strong
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Trump is. Only a quarter of his voters hate him.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: The, the, the idea too is like, well, you know, the,
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: all these Republicans want, want, want Trump to step aside and, and, and,
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: and no one's clamoring for that luck. You know, obviously
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump is an incredible threat to the country, but
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: politically they might be better off with somebody who wasn't
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: carrying all this baggage. Nikki Haley would, might've been a
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: stronger candidate than Donald Trump could ever have hoped to be.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: We'll never know.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: And we'll never, we'll never know.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Okay. One quick note before we go check out the
• 38:32
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• 38:35
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• 38:58
  Speaker 1: We will be back tomorrow night with the grand finale.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Trump's 90-minute-plus speech at the RNC. and everything else that
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: happens tomorrow. What else could happen? The news. The news.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: And by the way, you know, gender reveals aren't something
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: that can happen with a cake for a baby. They're
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: what happens when a California teacher keeps a secret from
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: your parents.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: How's that? Have a good night, everyone. I bet they'll
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