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Fear and Unity in Milwaukee · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vizor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the Republican convention wraps up its second night.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: with a parade of former Trump critics and opponents bending
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the knee to their MAGA god. Trump tries to get
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. 's endorsement with some anti-vax pandering in a
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: leaked video of the two men chatting. The Trump campaign
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: now thinks they can put states like New Jersey and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Maine in play, and the effort to convince Joe Biden
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to step aside appears to be coming back to life
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: in response to the DNC's plan to officially nominate the
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: president as early as next week. But let's start with
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: day two at the Republican convention, where the theme was
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: making people afraid of immigrants and making former Trump opponents
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: compete to see who could get their head the farthest
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: up his ass. We'll let you be the judge. Here's
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: some of what was said by Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz and Nikki Haley.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: My fellow Republicans.
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: Let's send Joe Biden back to his basement and let's
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: send Donald Trump back to the White House.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: If you want to make America great again, vote Trump.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: God bless Donald J.
• 1:29
  Speaker 6: Trump.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: All right, under the heading of we watch the convention
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: so you don't have to, did you guys see or
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: hear anything notable from the stage tonight? Tommy, let's start
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with you.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: Jim Justice, the governor of West Virginia, brought his dog out.
• 1:48
  Speaker 6: Really?
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Baby dog Justice.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Interesting that he brought the dog out the night after
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Kristi Noem spoke.
• 1:53
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: You're the first person to make that joke today.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to fucking... It's a Dan slam!
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: It's a Dan slam!
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to produce the show. I didn't even know.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know that was a fucking joke.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: John, it was a good joke.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: I was also reminded that Vivek Ramaswamy is a person
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: who exists and he has a repellent personality that came
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: out today.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Jim Justice has the kind of.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: We're going all in on the Jim Justice speech analysis, huh?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: It was the most interesting by far. CNN went crazy
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: for the dog.
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: Yes, everything else was pretty boring on stage. He has
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: the kind of demeanor of the villain in a Matlock episode.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: That's relatable.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Somewhere Joe Biden gets a finger on the cultural pulse.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I just want to say, I think ideology, partisanship aside,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the speeches.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: So bad.
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: Boring.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: It's very boring.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So bad.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Paint by numbers.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It's just like, I don't know, can people give a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: good speech anymore?
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: No.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It's all recycled lines, all cliches, all shit that you've
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: heard before.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Not like the music back in our day. They knew
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: what rock and roll was back then.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Even like George W. Bush could give a good speech
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: back in the day. Nikki Haley came like maybe the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: closest to giving an okay speech.
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: Eh.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Eh, eh is right.
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: You guys are out of the office. Dan and I
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: watched Carrie Lake. She did a much more muted version
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: of herself. Everything was a little toned down. You know,
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: the previewing that it would be less crazy, this convention,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: than the last one has been true so far.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Her rhetoric is now sepia-toned, is what I would say.
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, her rhetoric has been, they're shooting the rhetoric through
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the gauze.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, they did have placards that were saying like
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Biden border bloodbath and, uh.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: They're, you know, they used to turn weekend at Bernie's presidency.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Well, that's, I'm talking about like, you know, sort of violence, right?
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Like they also, uh, they talked about Ted Cruz did
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: a whole thing that basically said Democrats purposely released undocumented
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: immigrants who went on to commit rape and murder because
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: they wanted their votes. So he, they're all, they all
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: did the replacement theory. That's, you know, so that that
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: stuff was not very toned down.
• 4:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: And then and also just like the it just at
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: least Stefanik getting up there and talking about the the
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: Biden crime wave. And it's like, you know, we all
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: know that crime has been going down since it peaked
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: in 2020.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: But but you wouldn't know it by watching it. But
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: it almost seems like beside the point.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was interesting that Donald Trump was in
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: the arena again to watch.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Of course he was.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Just sitting up there like someone who want to be
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Roman Empire just watching his former. Yeah.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: He wanted to thumbs down Ron DeSantis so hard.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: He enjoys nothing more than watching people just discredit themselves
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: for him.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Nikki Haley finished speaking and he stood up and
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: he said, give it up for Birdbrain! Give it up
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: for Birdbrain, everyone! He loves it.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It's sort of, it is a conflict.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Tiny D!
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Let's hear it for Tiny D!
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: It's a conflict, right, because he enjoys people supplicating themselves
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: before him, but he is also quite bored because he
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: has to pay attention, so that was a struggle.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: The most interesting moments were offstage.
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: One was Matt Gaetz harassing Kevin McCarthy, and then a
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: bystander harassing Matt Gaetz and calling him an asshole. And
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: then Matt Gaetz turns and faces that guy and goes, I.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Don't even know who you are. And that guy's like,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I don't care if you know I am, you're an asshole.
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: And Matt Gaetz just walks away with his, sort of
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: defeated by it, which I loved.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Good hit.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: And then Rudy Giuliani got into a fight with a
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: row of folding chairs and lost.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: You see this? He kind of just careened over a
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: set of folding chairs and.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: They're for the grace of God.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Well, that's, sure. And, but, but- I felt bad for you.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: You see it.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Did you?
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: It wasn't just that he fell over. It was how
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: long it took them to get him back up. And
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: ever since he told someone at Mar-a-Lago, and it was
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: overheard by Page Six, that he feels as though he's
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: trapped in a living nightmare, I feel bad for him.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, join the club, Rudy. Let's talk about Nikki
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Haley's speech. So first of all, she got cheers. No
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: boos for Nikki Haley. She started off by saying, Donald
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Trump has my strong endorsement, period. which, you know, she
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: had obviously said before that she was voting for him.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: It was not a full-throated endorsement before. So now she
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: has decided to just leave it all behind. She's back.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: She's back. She said, you don't have to agree with
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. We
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: must expand our party. Certainly the only speaker so far
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: at the convention that has said anything like that. Will
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: anyone care? Will any swing voters tune in and hear that?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: What do you think, Dan?
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think they will tune in. I don't
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: think they care. And Nikki Haley speaking at this convention
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: is not Hillary Clinton speaking at the 2008 convention is
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: not Bernie Sanders speaking at the 2016 convention. Nikki Haley
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: is nothing more than a basically generic vessel for anti-Trump Republicans.
• 6:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: They don't care about Nikki Haley. They don't have Nikki
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Haley signs in their yard. They don't have Nikki Haley
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: bumper stickers. Many of them can't pick her out of
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: a lineup. Many of them voted, didn't even know she
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: had dropped out of the race when they voted for her.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: A lot of them voted after she dropped out.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: It was just a protest vote.
• 6:58
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: The whole, the narrative, like what will happen with the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley voters? Like they'll probably vote for Joe Biden
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: again like they did in 2020. We hope. Right, yeah, yeah,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: that's the best case.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: They're still a persuasion target, but their affiliation with Nikki
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Haley tells you nothing about them.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Right, it's not like she has a hold on a
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: section of the party like a Bernie Sanders did, like
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a Hillary Clinton did in 08, yeah.
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: I think that goes to why the speeches feel so ineffective.
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: More broadly, even that statement, like he has my strong endorsement, period,
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: as if she's saying that in defiance of some uh,
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: media campaign to say that she hasn't endorsed it. Well,
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: she hasn't right. She, she had it actually endorsed him.
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: It wasn't open question as to whether she would, she
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: did dodge it for a long time. And there's a
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: way in which both her and, and DeSantis and Ted Cruz,
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: they're performing this version of themselves that is just so
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: completely phony. And it leads to them with these kind
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: of grandiose overwritten speeches that all feel pretty empty because none,
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: because none of them are, none of them are saying
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: what they really think they're, they're, they're putting on a
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: show for, uh, For Jabba.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all I.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: Could think when I saw Ron DeSantis come out was
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: he might.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Be the biggest loser of the J.D.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: Vance pick in terms of people getting leapfrogged for next up.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: To be president. Well, and his speech is just, like,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: he just, he is not cut out for this. He's
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: not cut out for the big stage. Like, a bunch
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of lines, you can tell that, like, some consultants or
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: advisors or speechwriters wrote him, like, you know, he did
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: our enemy's, don't consign their designs to between 10 a.m.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: and 4 p.m., right? America can't afford four more years
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: of a weekend at Bernie's presidency, right? But he's like,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: his voice, still with the voice, too fast, too annoying,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: too yelly. He's yelling the whole time. He's a little sweaty.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: He's just not.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have it.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: The one thing I thought watching this convention is they
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: are so lucky that they have Donald Trump because so far,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: there's not one other Republican that's taken the stage that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I'm worried about that person. That person
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: has gravitas. Like they just, it just, no one has it.
• 9:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: In fairness, we left right as Eric Schmidt started speaking.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Here to for unknown Senator from Missouri.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Not the Google guy. Who was like, who was like,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: my presence on this stage is unlikely. I'm a tall
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: white guy from Missouri. What are you talking about?
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: This spot has been held for you.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: It's the likeliest presence of anyone. All right, so another
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: group getting speaking slots today were the Republican Senate candidates
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: and key races. We've talked a lot about Democratic Senate
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: candidates and how they're all polling ahead of Biden, but
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: it also seems like the Republican Senate candidates in these
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: swing states are polling behind Trump. Dan, what do you
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: think's going on there?
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: In most cases, they are polling behind Trump because they
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: are thoroughly unknown.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Right. Eric Hovde, is that how you say his last name?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: Wisconsin, San Brown, and Nevada. David McCormick, a little more
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: well-known because he at least had run their Republican primary,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: but they're just.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: He lost once already, so he's... They don't.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Have any real name ID. And so there are a
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: couple of different ways to look at these races, right?
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: You have a handful of incumbent Democrats like Sherrod Brown,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: John Tester, Tammy Baldwin, Bob Casey, who have independent, strong brands,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: and they are running well ahead of Biden. Their coalitions
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: look much like a traditional Democratic coalition. They don't have
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Biden's same struggles with young voters or independent voters. or
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: black voters or Latino voters, whatever else. They look like
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: a 2020 Democrat. Then you have Jackie Rosen in Nevada
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: and Alyssa Slotkin, who is running for an open seat
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: in Michigan, who are basically running as generic Democrats, right?
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Jackie Rosen, not well-known. They are still pulling ahead of
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: their Republican candidates, but they are pulling at about Biden's level, right?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Their top line number is in the low 40s. There
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: is a poll out today, which has one poll that
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: has Slotkin up in the high 40s, but that's the
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: first one we've seen like that. And then you have
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: the Arizona Senate race, which is unique because Ruben Gago,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: who's not super well-known, but he is running against Carrie Lake,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: who is incredibly well-known and incredibly unpopular. And so she's
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: sort of functioning as the incumbent and anti-incumbent race there.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: And so there's a bunch of different things happening there.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: There's reasons in some of those incumbent races to have
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: hope for Democrats, no matter what happens at the top
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: of the ticket. Where you have a lesser known Democrat,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: that's where there could be drag if Biden doesn't perform
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: strongly in those states.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: And you would imagine that once the Trump campaign Republicans
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: really start spending money in some of these Senate races
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: on TV, that like, at least Trump's number in these
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: states is achievable for a lot of these Republican Senate
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: candidates who aren't like a Carrie Lake, right, who is
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: well known and crazy. But some of these were just,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you know, the Republicans did a decent job getting the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I won't. They're still pretty crazy. And they're still pretty extreme,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of these Republican Senate candidates. But they didn't
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: do a 2022. They're more generic than they have been
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: in the past.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: And it's worth remembering that in the states that are
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: swing states in the presidential, Joe Biden has been on
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: TV fairly heavily and Donald Trump has not.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: So tonight's theme was making America safe once again. We're
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: doing once. We haven't talked about this yet. Everything is
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: making America wealthy once again, making America safe once again,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: making America great once again. I think you don't need
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the once.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: You could have gone make America great again, again.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: They tried that.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Well, they tried that. It felt, it was tough.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: That was the 20, that was that.
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: No, what was 2020?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I think that.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Make America. Keep America Great.
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: Oh, yes.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: He did roll out Make America Great again.
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: CAGA.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: CAGA.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I sure went.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: CAGA. Keep America Great Again, but Chelsea.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: No, it was just CAG, right?
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: Just CAG.
• 12:25
  Speaker 6: CAG, right.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So, tonight's theme featured a bunch of, quote, everyday Americans
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: talking about things like immigration and crime. It, you know,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: got really dark and awful. How persuasive do you guys
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: think that was for voters beyond the MAGA base? Ted
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Cruz took a lot of this, right? He kept doing
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: every damn day, and then he would tell another story
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: of someone who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: Tommy? Well, I think grisly crime stories are a feature
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: of most Donald Trump events. I'm not totally sure how
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: effective they were tonight. It's worth noting, just for context,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, in November of 2023, there was some polling
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: on this, I think from Gallup, that found 77% of
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: Americans said they believe there was more crime in the U.S.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: than a year ago, including 55% who said the same
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: about their local area. So it was a national issue
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: in their mind and a local issue. Now, again, since 2002,
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: that annual poll has found that a majority of Americans
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: think crime is on the rise every year, even when
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: it's falling, usually sort of in the 60% level or not.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: So it's not clear to me how much of a
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: vote driver crime will be this year as opposed to
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: every year. It may be that we Americans just always
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: think crime is a problem and on the rise. In reality,
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: violent crime has decreased year over year, but those statistics
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: aren't as lurid as the stories you were hearing out
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: of someone like Ted Cruz. So I just, I don't
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: know how salient the issue is compared to a year
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: ago or two years ago when crime really spiked.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, the rubric that Donald Trump wants in this
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: race is strong versus weak. And that only works if
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: people are scared. It's the famous Bill Clinton line about
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: you would rather have someone who's strong and wrong than
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: right and weak. And that works when people are scared
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: and insecure and afraid. So you have to gin up fear.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: It's basically the entire reason that Fox News exists is
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: to scare the living shit out of people that a terrorist,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: an immigrant, some other person is going to come to
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: your community and your family is at risk so that
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: you will then put aside other things you may care
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: about like higher minimum wage. more fair tax system, access
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: to abortion in order to vote for the candidate you
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: think of multiple criminal convictions to vote for the candidate
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: that you think will keep you safe.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Fear and unity. That's the, those are the themes.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: That's actually basically, but it is, it's like unity is
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: that is fascism. Like that's how it works.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: It's a unity for us. And then be afraid of
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the people who aren't like us. And to your point,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: minimum wage abortion, those issues haven't really made an appearance yet.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: You don't hear about those a lot at this convention.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: So they have done, I mean, it, it, Boiling it
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: down to just strong versus weak, it also reveals like there's,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: do you hear anyone talking about like policy, what Donald
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Trump's going to do, what to do about the immigration,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: broken immigration system, what to do about inflation last night? No,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: it's just like Donald Trump is strong. He will get
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: in there and things will be better.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: We heard some build the wall chants.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there was some talk of mass deportations, right?
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but not a lot of solutions from this crowd.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I would just say watching this for two days now,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: I want to apologize to myself for that, but this
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: is a party that desperately wants to win.
• 15:32
  Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: They are on script. The union thinks mostly bullshit, but
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: they have tempered the crazy from a 15 to a 7.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: I don't think I've heard a single thing about the
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: 2020 election in any of these speeches.
• 15:44
  Speaker 7: Me either.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: They know that is a massive vulnerability for Trump, and
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: they are not talking about it. They want to win.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump wants to win and stay out of jail,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: and that sort of discipline... is throughout the speaker line
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: appears boring and lame. As many speeches are, they are
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: not doing damage to the effort to electronic.
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Like I, I don't know necessarily that they're moving voters
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to their side, but you're right that they're not doing
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: any damage because to the extent that they're saying crazy stuff,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: which they all are in their speeches, it's, it's all
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: language and rhetoric that we've heard before from them. It's
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: not anything new and extreme or new and right. Like
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: it's all sort of warmed over crazy.
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: They feel like they're winning and it's, and that is,
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: and that's pretty unifying. Nothing brings a team together. like
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: a feeling like they're winning. There've been a bunch of
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: reporting from different places about reporters being surprised by just
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: the feeling of being on the ground in Milwaukee, that
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: they expected a kind of darker, scarier version of Republican politics.
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: But after the assassination attempt, given how poorly Joe Biden
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: is performing and the fact that the polls look so
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: good for him in these swing states, it's a joyous affair.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: They're having a fucking blast.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll be the judge of that because we'll be
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: there tomorrow.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we will.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back. He claimed that the campaign might
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: even make a play for Maine. Fabrizio also reportedly bragged
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that the campaign is this competitive without having done much
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: in the way of TV ads, which is true. And
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: he said, quote, get ready. They're coming. How much of this, Dan,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: do you attribute to Trump world cockiness and how much
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: of it do you think is real?
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: It's not Trump world cockiness. There is a strain of
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: thought in Republican politics that goes back to Lee Atwater,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: which is you should always look like you're winning. It's
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: a wisdom of crowds approach to politics. It's why Bush
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: sent Cheney to Hawaii in 2004, to make it look
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: like you're winning. You're always on offense.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: I do remember that, and also claimed New Jersey was
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: in play.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Republicans claim New Jersey was in play in every election.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it is here or not, but
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: it's worth remembering that Phil Murphy barely beat a heretofore
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: unknown truck driver, I think, new to politics in the
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: 2021 gubernatorial race. I don't want to like depress people
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: or scare people, but what Tony Fabrizio was saying about
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: New Mexico, Maine, Virginia is showing up in private polls
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: that Democrats are passing around everywhere.
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: We haven't talked about Martin Heinrich, who's the Democratic Senator
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: from New Mexico and people associated with their, they're worried.
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: About his race because Joe Biden's polling so poorly there.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Well, you look at all the polls. We can debate
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: the size of the margin in all of these, but
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: there is a consistent theme, which is that Biden struggles
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: with a certain number of groups. Black and Latinos, primarily
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: men and younger men, Republican-leading independents, the Trump-Biden voters, and
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: young voters. And the states that we're talking about here
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: are ones that over-index on a lot of those groups.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: It's why Virginia is in play, even though the reason
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: that it turned Democratic for Barack Obama in 2008 became
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: a safe democratic state. The years after that are the
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: same reason that Joe Biden is struggling with it because
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: of the demographic change in that state, which used to
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: benefit Democrats and is now hurting us if Biden continues
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: to struggle with those groups.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Do you think Democrats will have to spend money to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: defend some of these states like New Mexico, Minnesota?
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, if we do, it's a huge deal. That's
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: what folks need to understand is there's not unlimited money
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: out there. You're budgeting. You're budgeting for really expensive Ad
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: spends in a lot of big major cities. And all
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: of a sudden, if you're putting ads on air in Washington,
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: DC or the twin cities, like that is going to
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: impact everything else you do.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: You can't, right. I may be the only person who remembers. this,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: but in 2012, when we were running for re-election, we
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: knew we were going to be massively outspent by the
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: right because it was the first pro-Citizens United presidential campaign,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: and the right had raised hundreds of millions of dollars
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: into super PACs. We did not have that apparatus. So
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: we knew the Republicans would outspend the Democratic side. And
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: so- Plouffe and Axelrod and others made the decision that
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: we were not going to run ads in Pennsylvania, Michigan,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: and Wisconsin. Because if we, because we had to get
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: to 270, we had to get Ohio and Virginia. And
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: there's no way, the states are correlated. And so if
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: you are losing Pennsylvania, you're not winning Ohio. And so
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: in order to husband our resources so that we could
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: compete in these states, including Florida, which was a big,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: important state for us, We said we were not going
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: to spend money in those states. And we did not
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: do that other than one brief period of time when
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: we had to go up in either Michigan or Wisconsin
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: at the very end briefly. And so if you're in
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: the Biden land, you can't afford to be in all
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: those states. So you're going to have to spend.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: All your money on the blue wall states. And the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: second district in Nebraska.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: If you were losing Maine or Virginia or New Mexico,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: you're winning nowhere.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Look, ads don't just fall out of a coconut tree.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: They exist everywhere. In the context of all that came before.
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: But no, if we are talking about spending money in
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: those places, we are talking about Senate candidates and House
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: candidates who are running away from Joe Biden and trying
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: to save themselves. We were talking about Joe Biden after
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: having spent tens of million dollars in ads that haven't
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: seemed to change the dynamic in this race, suddenly facing
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: an influence of Trump money, tens if not hundreds of
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: millions of dollars in money from Trump's backers. There's been
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: story after story in the past couple of days of
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: all of these people from Elon Musk on down deciding
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: they're going to pour money into this race. So, you know,
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: if we're talking about the Biden campaign and whether or
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: not they should be spending in Virginia, we're talking about
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: senators everywhere desperately trying to save themselves and running away
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: from the Democratic ticket and saying how they will be
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: a check on Trump.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Like that's the world we'll be living in in the fall.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: And these things sometimes change over the summer, right? A
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: lot of these states that are traditionally Democratic or Republican
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: revert back to the mean as Democrats. more people to
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: do the race, right? In that undecided pool. So we
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: may be just like Trump may certainly outperform his 2020
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: numbers in all of these states and Biden might still
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: win all of them and likely probably will.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Just to be clear, I'm describing a scenario. I'm not
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: claiming it as what's happening.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: So Trump's apparently feeling confident enough that he took a
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: crack at getting RFK Jr. to endorse him. The two
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: reportedly met in Milwaukee on Monday. Trump also called Kennedy
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: on Sunday and Kennedy took the call on speakerphone while
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: his in-house videographer according to Kennedy, was rolling for something else.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: You can hear Trump saying on the call that the
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: bullet going past his ear sounded like, quote, the world's
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: largest mosquito, that he had a nice call with Biden,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: where the president asked him how he managed to duck
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: out of the way. Trump also asked for Kennedy's endorsement
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and then told Kennedy how much he agrees with him
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: on childhood vaccines. Let's listen.
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: I said, I want to do small doses, small doses.
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: When you feed a baby, Bobby, uh, vaccination that is
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: like 38 different vaccines and it looks like it's meant
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: for a horse not a you know 10 pound or
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: 20 pound baby and do you ever see the size
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: of it right here it's this massive and then you
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: see the baby all of a sudden starting to change
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: radically i've seen it too many times and then you
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: hear that it doesn't have an impact right but you
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: and i talked about that a long time ago and.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Is trump like a pediatrician Yeah, I didn't know that.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: He's seen it all the time. He watches them get
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the vaccines, then he watches the babies change.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: You know babies, 10 pounds, 20 pounds. Look, I've seen babies.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: By the hog's head dealing with this kind of problem.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: Metric tons of baby experiencing these kinds of problems.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: So RFK Jr. 's son posted and then deleted the
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: video with an apology. The Biden campaign put out a
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: statement saying the video is proof that Trump can't be
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: trusted to protect Americans' health care. Kennedy reportedly declined to
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: drop out and endorsed Trump, at least for now. Trump
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: was talking in that same video about, like, maybe there's
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a big job you can do. He's trying to give
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: him a job, get an endorsement. He's trying to do
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: something here. Let's start with Trump's anti-vax pandering, which he's
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: also been doing in his stump speech. It's not like
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: we needed a secretly recorded video. He's out there saying,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not giving... A penny to any state that has
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: where schools have any kind of mandates, not just mask mandates,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: but vaccine mandates or anything.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Have you interpreted that to not mean COVID vaccine, but
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: for all all vaccines?
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: He said it repeatedly.
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: He has said it repeatedly. He will no vaccine mandates
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: of any kind. Half the half funding for education. Get
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: rid of the Department of Education.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: That is his position.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: He is not characterized as COVID, and I don't think
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: we should do any work for him.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: If he ever sat down... No, no, I know.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: I'm mad at the situation.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Well, if he ever sat down for an interview with
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a reporter that was not like a right-wing reporter, maybe
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: they would ask him that. Perhaps if he had debated
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: someone who could have brought that up at the debate,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: we could have learned it there, too. But yeah, no,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: he has tried to skate over this by just making
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: it seem like it's COVID vaccines for people like that,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: but also nodding to and pandering to the anti-vax crowd,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: which is what he did here on this call with
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: rfk dangerous obviously also kind of dumb in a general
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: election although i don't know what do you guys think
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: to just be out there doing vaccine being against all
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: kinds of like childhood vaccine.
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: Well first of all just my reaction is like whenever
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: you hear trump in context where he doesn't think he's
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: being recorded or it's for public consumption he's just like
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: i gotta call that fucking rfk guy what is he
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: like oh yeah he's crazy about the vaccine so i'll
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: just tell him the vaccine thing See if that works.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe try to get him a job. Just very transactional,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: very simple.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Back to that speech where he was like, oh, see,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I just talk about tax cuts and no one's clapping.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And then I talk about this trend stuff and you're
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: all you're all clapping and applauding. That used to never
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: be like that a couple of years ago.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I guess I'll keep saying it.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It's just like is the most. Yeah, it's like pure cynicism.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: We're losing to a Skinner box. He is actually more
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of a politician. than any politician.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Else in the market.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I have a big outsider. No, it's like, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: you just tell any single fucking person exactly what they
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: want to hear and then you do not deliver in
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: any way, shape, or form.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: That's like, that is Trump to his core.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: I think that anti-childhood vaccine stuff is like a marker
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: of extremism for a lot of voters and so it's
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: good to do. It's also just funny like what it's
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: like to work on a campaign is like the Biden
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: folks have to put out the statement when they want
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: to just say it's like, That shit's weird.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: Well, I do think like I think like I think
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: the reason Project 2025 took off is that it plays
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: into something we don't often get to play into. There
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: is a secret recording of Donald Trump colluding with one
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: of his opponents to try to defeat the Democrats and
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: to take away childhood vaccines from schools. Like, I feel
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: like we're not making enough of the secret leaks caught image.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: It looks bad. It looks sinister.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, at the end of the day, I think
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: the Trump campaign views all of the third party candidates
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: as tools to help them. They're trying to get Cornel
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: West on the ballot in various states. They are clearly
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: colluding with RFK's campaign and having him continue to run
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: because it helps them. I think a top person on
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: RFK's campaign essentially said as much in another leaked video
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: a few weeks back, which is basically like, we're all
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: in this to defeat Joe Biden.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Now, Robert F.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: Kennedy Jr. is a narcissist with a massive ego that
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: wants to promote exactly these insane anti-vaccine views that we
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: are now discussing. So win-win for him to stick around
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: and do Trump's bidding until the time when they deem
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: him no longer useful and maybe he drops out. But
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: clearly he's angling for some sort of elevation of the
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: issues he cares about, some job for himself. I mean,
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: this is working for him.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: How much do you guys think a Kennedy endorsement of
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Trump would matter, change the race?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I think it would matter.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: I actually do. Like the Joe Rogans of the world
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: will not have Donald Trump on the show, but he
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: will have RFK Jr. And he believes and trusts Robert F.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Kennedy.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: RFK going on that show and endorsing Trump would be
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: a big deal in my opinion.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, Kennedy's, he had
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: been at his highest 15% in the polling average a
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: few months ago. He's down 8% now. That'll probably continue
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: to go down. But I mean, that's four times the
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: margin right now.
• 28:00
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: And there's probably some of his voters that don't like
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but if, you know, they're parking their votes
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: for Kennedy. And if he, if he thinks he's telling
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: them it's okay to be for Trump, you know, he's
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: obviously Trump's not gonna get all those people because they've
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: already decided they don't like Trump, but get some, you
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: only need a little, you know, and he's already ahead.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: So I think loose kooks go to Trump, but like,
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: I also just, the political space Donald Trump has because
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: of the support among Republicans that he has, like it
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: is inconceivable to us that, that Joe Biden would call
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: and he shouldn't call RFK to get his endorsement that
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: Like it is such an assumption that Donald Trump can
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: say whatever he wants, appeal to whoever he wants. Like that,
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: that like freedom to move is an advantage he has.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: And it just, I don't know, just sucks.
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Lying is an advantage in politics for sure.
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: But also lying and the fealty he has of his
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: base that just trust him no matter what he says
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: or does.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Just quickly before we go to break, like we said,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: we're going to be in Milwaukee Wednesday and Thursday. And
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: then on Friday, July 19th, we're hopping over to Madison.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: For a live show at the Orpheum Theater with co-host
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Aaron Haynes and guest Ben Wickler. And on Saturday the 20th,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Love It or Leave It will also be in Madison,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: joined by special guests Thomas Lennon, Victoria Vincent, former Lieutenant
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Governor Mandela Barnes, and State Representative Francesca Hong at the
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Barrymore Theater.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have four days of dairy and then
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I'll fly myself home.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Glad I'm not on that plane. Glad I'm not on
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: that plane.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Safer than a Boeing. And more reliable.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: Speaking of loose nukes.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Head to Kruger.com slash events to grab tickets now. When
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: we come back, we'll be talking about the Biden campaign
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: and why the DNC is planning a virtual roll call
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: ahead of the convention. Okay, last night we talked about
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: whether the effort to replace Biden was dying out. Pretty
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: clear after today that it has not. The Times reported
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: this morning that Congressman Adam Schiff, the Democratic nominee for
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Senate in California, just told donors at a fundraiser in
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: New York over the weekend, quote, I think if he
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: is our nominee, I think we lose. And we may
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: take back the House. That's according to someone who saw
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: a transcript of the event. He also told the crowd
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that the Biden team isn't listening to opposing views right now.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: An anonymous House Democrat also told Axios, quote, the replace
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Biden movement is back. One member talking about this on
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the record is Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who Tommy
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: interviewed on Pod Save the World today. Here's what he said.
• 30:37
  Speaker 7: Very early Sunday morning, the first phone call I got
• 30:40
  Speaker 7: was from a colleague who agrees with me, as the
• 30:43
  Speaker 7: majority of Democrats in Congress do, but, like most, hasn't
• 30:47
  Speaker 7: come out and said it publicly. And he just said,
• 30:50
  Speaker 7: what do we do? It's even more urgent now. I mean,
• 30:53
  Speaker 7: Trump is going to ride this assassination attempt right into
• 30:56
  Speaker 7: the White House, The only chance we have is a
• 30:59
  Speaker 7: change at the top of the ticket.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what did Seth say about what his colleagues are
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: saying in private? And does he think more will come
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: out or?
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I asked him, I think the question
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: that we've all had, which was, it felt like there
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: was growing momentum in Congress from Democrats calling on Biden
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: to drop out. And I asked him if that momentum
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: had stalled out after Saturday. And he said, actually, no,
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: in private, concerns have only increased. People are even more
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: worried that Trump is going to ride this scary assassination
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: attempt to victory and use it for political advantage, and
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: that people are talking about it even more. They're just
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: not all together right now. I think they're all home.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: So this is happening on text. So I do think
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: these efforts that we'll talk about in a minute to
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: potentially move up the nomination vote have pissed off a
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: lot of people. There might be some more, you know,
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: momentum might be picking back up in terms of people
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: coming out publicly to call on Biden to drop out.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: But Seth's message to them was like, what's the point
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: of being in politics? If you're not going to say
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: what you think, you know what I mean? Like what,
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: how can you possibly say your concern now and sit
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: on your hands and then wake up after election day
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: and live with yourself?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Well, so let's talk about the development that also restarted
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: this conversation. which is the DNC's continued push to hold
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: a virtual roll call vote on the nomination, apparently as
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: early as next week. This is not a new plan exactly.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: And it originally had to do with making sure the
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Democratic ticket appears on the ballot in states like Ohio
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: that have deadlines in early August before the Democratic convention.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: All of this is because the Democratic convention is quite
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: late this year. And some of these deadlines are in
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: early August and obviously the Democratic conventions in late August.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: But even though Ohio just passed a law, Republican legislature,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Republican governor, to give Democrats more time to get on
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: the ballot after their convention, the DNC is still moving
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: forward with the virtual roll call vote, which is leading
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: some Democrats in Congress to believe that it's all about
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: nominating Biden as quickly as possible in an effort to
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: end the conversation about him stepping aside. Congressman Jared Huffman,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: one of the members who's been vocal about the challenges
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: that Biden presents, is now circulating a letter for other
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Democrats to sign that asked the DNC to call off
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: the roll call vote. We don't know how many members
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: have signed on, but we do know that several frontline members,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: including Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, Mike Levin of California, Pat
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Ryan of New York, plan to sign it. Huffman told
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: The Times the DNC forcing the roll call would be, quote,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: a power play of the highest order. Former DNC chairs
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Donna Brazile, Howard Dean, and Terry McAuliffe sent their own
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: letter today in favor of the DNC's virtual roll call vote.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: They don't mention Biden, but argue that this is the
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: best way to ensure the Democratic ticket is on the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: ballot in every state. Dan, who's right?
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Both, sort of, and no one. I mean, prior to
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: the debate, the plan the DNC was putting in place
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: makes sense. Even if Ohio has changed the law, you
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: want to be extra careful because it's not just Ohio.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: States like California and Washington have their ballot access certification
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: deadlines at the outset of the Democratic convention.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: 20th, 22nd, 23rd, or some of those states.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: And there is a turnaround time between when Biden is
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: actually nominated and you get all the signatures, notarized, et cetera,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: and filed appropriately. What has happened in previous years is
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: you basically send a pledge to that you're going to
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: send the real stuff and they will swap them out
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: when you send the real stuff, like almost an IOU
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: for notarized signatures. That's been fine. People are very worried
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: that in this new world of insane MAGA election interference,
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: they're going to try to deny Democrats ballot access. So
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: in a world where Biden's obviously going to be the nominee,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: this is all pro forma, just do it early, get
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: it done.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: And not even because the concerns are like, it's better
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: to be safe than sorry. Why would you even risk it?
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Belt and suspenders, right? And the timing makes sense too,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: because it is a relatively complicated process to get all
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: these people. You have to get a majority of the
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: delegates to vote. Their votes have to be certified in
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: some way, shape, or form. That takes time. So they're
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: going to give themselves- Several thousand people. It's almost 3,000 people.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: They gave themselves time to do it. They put that
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: plan in place. Debate happened. Debate about the debate happened.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: And now they're proceeding with the plan as if they were.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: And they're in this position that is very challenging because
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: if you change the plan- you're acknowledging the legitimacy and
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: possibility that there could actually be a change at the
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: top of the tech, which is very hard for the DNC,
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: which is run by Joe Biden to do. But if
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: you go with the old plan, you further inflame the
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: division within the party that has come since the debate.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: And so we are sort of- Which is why you
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: get these talking points from DNC chair, Jamie Harrison and
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: others that sound so bullshitty because they're only, what he
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: has decided is, well, I'm going to blame the Republicans
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: in Ohio and say that like, you know, even though
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: they passed a law to say that Democrats could be
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: on the ticket, we're going to make people believe that
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: maybe they'll change their mind and pass another law, you know, like,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't really pass the smell test. Now, it's
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: true that Republicans in the Ohio legislature are not the
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: only problem here. There could be random conservative groups that
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: file suit. A number of legal scholars were like, well,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: I don't, that doesn't, that wouldn't carry, really carry any water, but,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: you know, immunity, they're letting the president do whatever they want.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: So like, yeah, people are, People are a little worried
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: about that. But the other option here is to have
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the virtual roll call vote as close to the deadlines
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: as possible and not starting next week.
• 36:37
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: Well, the thing that I have trouble wrapping my head
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: around is, okay, so doing this next week feels like
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: the worst possible option because it– tries to silence a
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: debate that isn't done in a way that will be as.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And whether it's intentional or not, that's what it does.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: That's what it does. And it will be... I'm just
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: looking at this Republican convention and the energy and enthusiasm
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: we're seeing and imagining the kind of enervated slog that
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: would be a Democratic convention in which this debate was
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: silenced by procedure. I think it's not a very optimistic experience.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: But If you, it's just a horrible- Anyway, I'll see
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: you guys in Chicago.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: It's just, it's what it is. I'm like, we're fucking around.
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: It's horrible. But so then it's like, okay, the virtual
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: roll call has to be later so there can be
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: space for there to be this debate and the possibility
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: of another nominee. But it seems hard to imagine that
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: actually taking place until the convention actually begins, right? It's like,
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: it's just hard to wrap your head around how you
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: can actually, like Joe Biden himself, whether aware or unaware
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: of what the actual plan was, said, if you think
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: I shouldn't be the nominee, challenge me at the convention.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: The convention is the place where everyone's, in everyone's mind,
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: broker convention, that this is where it would play out.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: If the lawyers are saying that that's dangerous, it leaves
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: everybody in a very confusing position.
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: But when Biden said that, that was not a- That
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: was rhetorical bullshit.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: No, no, I know it was rhetorical.
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: I'm just, I'm telling the listeners. That was rhetorical bullshit.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: The thing that I do think complicates this conversation is
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: I'm looking at a story in NBC News right now
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: that's talking about the debate over whether Biden should drop out,
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: And here's a couple lines from it. By the end
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: of last week, the president and his team had settled
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: on a strategy forward. The five people familiar with the
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: internal discussion said that strategy is described by multiple Biden
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: aides and allies is to run out the clock.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: No shit.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: And if you reduce the amount of clock outstanding, of course,
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: people are going to act like, OK, you're trying to
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: rig the system.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: It's just this continues to be part of the problem
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: coming from some of the people advising Joe Biden right
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: now is they seem to be so committed to being
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: the nominee that they want to sacrifice being reelected president
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: to do so. Because let's say Joe Biden had been challenged.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: It had a real primary. This is the exact moment
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: when you're doing what the Republicans are doing, which is
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: you're trying to unify the party. You're bringing your opponents
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: in the party into your coalition. It's when Hillary Clinton
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: and Bernie Sanders got together, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, right?
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: That is how it happens. But because Joe Biden was
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: not officially challenged, even though 50% and sometimes more percent
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: of Democrats wanted a different nominee or didn't want him
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: to run, and then he did well in these very
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: low turnout, non-competitive primaries against Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: he and his team have been operating under the illusion
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: of party unity. Because there had been unity before the debate,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: at least publicly, from all the elites in the party,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: all the elected officials, all the pundits, everyone else, but
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: the electorate was not there. And so... the process here,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: if Joe Biden is going to be the nominee, is
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: not just to run out the clock, it's to unify
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: the party behind him so as the nominee he can win.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: And this is counterproductive to that.
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. And it sounds as of
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: now that they're going forward with it. I could see
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: them saying like, yeah, maybe we'll, we'll push the final
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: date of the voting to like, but like either way
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: we are running out of time.
• 39:53
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: And Joe Biden's strategy of running out the clock is it's, it's,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: it's going to be effective.
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: And I think the only thing like people have made
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: their voices heard, we certainly have, uh, according to every poll,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the voters have Democrats have at least, at least half
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: of Democrats in just about every poll registered Democrats have
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: want him to step aside. A majority of black voters,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: a majority of Latino voters, majority of women voters, majority
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: of young voters. That is not broken through. Some members
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: of Congress have gone through. I think the last play
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: here is back to your conversation with Seth Moulton, that
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: like if a bunch of House Democrats and Senate Democrats
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: either go to Joe Biden or publicly talk about this
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: or Pelosi, who there's a lot of reports has been
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes wanting him to step aside. Pelosi goes
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: to him like there's one more play here, right, of
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: people that Joe Biden has known for a long time
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: and respected senators to. He's a he was a former senator.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Go to him and make one last plea. And then
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: if he says no, then he says no. And we're
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: that's it. Everyone did what they could. But I do
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: think for those representatives who want this, you got to say.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: In the meantime, you got to do it now.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: And I do now.
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: And by the way, in the meantime, I like I
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: think everyone making clear that the DNC moving forward with
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: a roll call vote this quickly is would be a
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: fucking disaster. I can't imagine something that will alienate more
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: people that are the people that are very nervous about
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden, but are also the people that will donate
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: and knock on doors. They are part of the 14
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: million that voted for Joe Biden because there wasn't an alternative.
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: And by the way, would be proud to support him
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: if he were the nominee who would feel so silenced
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: and pushed aside by the decision to move ahead with
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: a roll call vote this quickly. It's just as terrible
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: a decision as I could imagine.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it would feel sneaky. All of this
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: is why another member of Congress I was talking to
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: yesterday said that's why they feel like they have basically
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: from the day after the Republican convention ends till like
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Monday or Tuesday to get a bunch of people to
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: come out publicly and say, you know, you have to
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: step aside. Because I think members of Congress feel like
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: they try, I mean, Seth said this to me too,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: they try to privately get a message to him after
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: the debate that they thought there needed to be a
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: change and that was ineffective. So that's why all these
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: members are going public.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Try to get a message through George Stephanopoulos, through Lester Holt,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: through all those great reporters who ask questions during the NATO.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: They're complex.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: They took Morning Joe off the air.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: They silenced Joe. There's smoke signals. There's poles. They silenced Mika.
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: We have to do like a kind of, to get
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: through the inability to get, we have to drop flyers
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: over the White House.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Like we're trying to reach people.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Like the North Koreans.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris has been walking by him drinking from a coconut.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we're going to end this. This
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: is a high note or not. But one thing we
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: noticed- Chris LaCivita, Donald Trump's senior advisor, told everyone that
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: for his speech on Thursday night to buckle up because
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: it's going to be at least an hour and a half.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: An hour and a half.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about why this is. And here's why.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to be an hour and a half.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Because what we're going to get.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: English and Spanish.
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: Because I think what we're going to get is the
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: post-assassination attempt unity topper. Like I think they're just bolting,
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: we're getting a bolted on top and bottom and then
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: the red meat division draft.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: What I say back together, the peachy, the peachy store up.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I do.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: I do think it's going to be, we got, there's
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: no torn up speech. Donald Trump does not start from
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: page one. He's not that kind of a worker. So
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: I think we get a new, a new top and
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: a new bottom and the same fucking American carnage right
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: there in the middle.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: That's my, that's my prediction.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to predict something. A 90 minute speech is terrible.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: How much time do they have with the networks? Two hours?
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: Five days after Donald Trump was shot in the ear.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: He could speak for 17 hours.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: He could go full Castro. He could be there all night. Gaddafi,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that shit. Yeah, for sure.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: They got to get to, you know, modern family ruins.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: That's the last gasp of the.
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: Plus, there's got to leave time for him to read
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: the get well soon card from Melania.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Not speaking.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Again, in any other time, I'd be like, wait, what?
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Not speaking.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: 90 minutes.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Don't give... Here's a tip. 90-minute speeches, don't do it.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: 60-minute speech, don't need it.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Anything past 17 is... Yeah, it's not ideal.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Honestly, 20 minutes. 20 minutes is your... That's your outer perimeter.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, in 1988, Bill Clinton got destroyed for giving
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: a 33-minute speech.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: He had a 7-minute slot, though. 17-minute slot.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: 17-minute slot.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Anyway, that's our show for tonight. We'll talk to you
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: from Milwaukee tomorrow night.
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: We hope.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we hope. We'll see you there. Bye.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 44:39
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• 44:42
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• 44:45
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• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
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