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Transcript

“Kamala!” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: Woo!
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: She's back!
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Here's the question. Let's just get this out of the
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: way before we get to the housekeeping. Is this an
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: episode of Pod Save America on which Alyssa is a
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: guest host, or is this an episode of That's the Ticket?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I'm just a guest on That's the Ticket right now.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, good. I wanted to establish that early on, just
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: for the power dynamics.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: My favorite Pod Save America miniseries since Tommy's Iowa series.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Smart, smart, smart.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: So... There's been two of them on today's pod. I
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: talked to our friend Latasha Brown of Black Voters Matter
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: about the history Kamala Harris has made as the Democratic
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Party's vice presidential nominee. Before that, Alyssa, Dan and I
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: will talk about Joe Biden's decision to put Kamala on
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the ticket, the rollout over the last few days and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: how Trump has responded. But first, we've got a few
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: quick housekeeping notes. Check out this week's pod. Save the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: world where Tommy and Ben talk about Kamala's foreign policy views.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: foreign election interference, and the massive explosion in Lebanon with
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Washington Post Beirut Bureau Chief Liz Sly. Also, if you
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: haven't checked out Ben Rhodes' new pod, Missing America, highly
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: suggest you take a listen. It's rocketing up the iTunes charts.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I think it was number five in news and politics yesterday.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: The first episode is out now and it was all
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: about Trumpism. So listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and wherever you listen to pods. It's fantastic. Take a listen. Finally,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: The Democratic National Convention is next week, and we at
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media have some big plans. We're not going to Milwaukee.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: That's not one of the plans. We will be streaming
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the convention live every night on crooked.com slash convention. We're
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: going to bring back our group threads like we used
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to have during the debates to cover the speeches at
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the convention. We'll have three episodes of Pod Save America
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: next week, Monday, Thursday, and a bonus on Friday. And
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the big one, we'll be doing a live one-hour Pod
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Save America pre-show to kick off the final night of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the convention on Thursday, starting at 5 p.m., 8 p.m.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Eastern.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Tune in at cricket.com slash convention. It's going to be fun.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: That was a good reminder that I should A, check
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: my schedule and B, read my emails because I got
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: a lot of news in that.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah. That's great. We're going to need you next week.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Also, do I get honorary inclusion in the group thread
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: this time?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Fuck yes, you do.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much. I've learned how to use things, okay?
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I got tutored on Slack.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: My view on the group thread is more the merrier because,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just boring listening to us four fuckers
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: just go on about these speeches.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: I completely agree.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. No.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: No, I just want to be included. I'm so lonely
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: up here.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited. Great. No, you're on. You're in. All right.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the news. I got my two That's
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the Ticket co-hosts with me to talk about Joe Biden's
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: selection of California Senator Kamala Harris, the first woman of color,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: black woman and Asian-American woman to run on a major
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: party ticket. She's also the first graduate of a historically
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: black college and university and the first Democrat from California.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to run on a major party ticket. Biden announced the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: pick via text on Tuesday, and the two running mates
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: held a joint event in Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday. Let's
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: listen to a clip from their remarks.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: As a child of immigrants, she knows personally how immigrant
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: families enrich our country, as well as the challenges of
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: what it means to grow up black and Indian American
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: in the United States of America. Her story is America's story.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: Different from mine and many particulars, but also not so
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: different in the essentials. She's worked hard. She's never backed
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: down from a challenge. And she has earned each and
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: every of the accolades and achievements that she has gained,
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: many of them often in the face of obstacles that
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: others put in her way, but never quit. And this morning,
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: all across the nation, little girls woke up, especially little
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: black and brown girls who so often feel overlooked and
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: undervalued in their communities. But today, today, just maybe they're
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: seeing themselves for the first time in a new way
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: as the stuff of president and vice presidents.
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: And, you know, my mother and father, they came from
• 4:52
  Speaker 6: opposite sides of the world to arrive in America, one
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: from India and the other from Jamaica. in search of
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: a world-class education. But what brought them together was the
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: civil rights movement of the 1960s. And that's how they met,
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: as students in the streets of Oakland, marching and shouting
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: for this thing called justice in a struggle that continues today.
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: And I was part of it. My parents would bring
• 5:21
  Speaker 6: me to protests, strapped tightly in my stroller. And my mother, Shamala,
• 5:28
  Speaker 6: raised my sister Maya and me to believe that it
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: was up to us and every generation of Americans to
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: keep on marching. She'd tell us, don't sit around and
• 5:40
  Speaker 6: complain about things, do something. So I did something.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: I devoted my.
• 5:47
  Speaker 6: Life to making real the words carved in the United
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: States Supreme Court, equal justice under law. And 30 years ago,
• 5:57
  Speaker 6: I stood before a judge for the first time, breathed deep,
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: and uttered the phrase that would truly guide my career
• 6:07
  Speaker 6: and the rest of my career. Kamala Harris for the people.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, tell us exactly when and how you found out
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: about the pick and what was your immediate reaction?
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: I found out about the pick on CNN. And I mean,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: I think the two... To put it in the words
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: of Elizabeth Warren, let's fucking go. Like, it was great.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: It's exciting. You know, it's great.
• 6:34
  Speaker 7: It's wonderful. It's a woman.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Dan, it's a woman. Dan, what did you think? What
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: was your initial reaction?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I found out about it in the Crooked Media Slack channel,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: which is where I discovered it. There you go.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: That's where you find all your breaking news.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Yes. Look, I agree with Alyssa.
• 6:53
  Speaker 7: I think.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: When something is expected, it's easy to, in the run-up
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: to it, not fully recognize how exciting it can be.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: If you had asked anyone a year ago and you
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: were to say, Joe Biden is going to be the
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Democratic nominee, who is his vice president going to be?
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I would say most people in politics probably would have
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: guessed Kamala Harris. But the theoretical is very different than
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: the actual. And it was incredibly exciting when the news
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: came out. The excitement of people all across the country
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: in the party was palpable. Just even talking to people
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: in my life who were not engaged in politics full-time
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: like us, they were very, very excited about it. I
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: am as pumped up about this election as I have
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: been in many, many months.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I was surprised by how much it meant to me.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I think you guys... will probably agree one of the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: downsides of being a political junkies like us is that
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: sometimes you're so caught up in the daily bullshit that
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you can miss the larger significance of certain moments. And
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I was, I was thinking back to that night that
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama made history as the first black candidate to
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: win the Iowa caucuses and how one of the people
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: celebrating in the office when they called the race was
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: then San Francisco district attorney, Kamala Harris, who had been
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: out knocking on doors for him. A decade later, Donald
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Trump wins, in part because of a racial backlash to
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: the election of Barack Obama. And now, to beat him,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, the older white guy Obama selected as his
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: running mate, turns around and chooses Kamala, whose parents, like Obama's,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: came from opposite sides of the world to be the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: first black woman to run on a major party ticket.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: And it sort of reminded me of what our old
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: boss said Um, I think shortly after Trump won, which
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: is that history doesn't always move in a straight line,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: but it moves. Um, and I don't know, it was a,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: it's a big deal. It's a big deal.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: And I thought the video was charming of Joe Biden
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: calling Kamala. Oh my God. You know, sometimes that's not
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: done well. It can seem very inauthentic and hokey. I
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: loved it. She's like, I'm sorry to keep you waiting.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: She looked like a normal person. I'm wearing my Kamala
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: shirt because I think this is what she was wearing
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: in her video. I thought it was great. And you
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: know what else? Really, this is so nerd. This is
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: music nerd of me. But I was like, fucking Bob
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Marley is up in heaven smiling right now. A person
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: of Jamaican descent is the vice president of the United States.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: So anyway, Bob Marley.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that. That's awesome.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Not everyone thinks of Bob Marley.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: You do. Dan, why do you think in the end
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that Joe Biden chose her?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I think he... believed. I've always believed that Joe Biden
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: was looking for his Joe Biden in this process. And
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: by that, I mean someone that he could have a
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: real relationship of trust with. Because I really believe that
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: you can make political cases for all of the people
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: who are on that shortlist. And certainly, the political case
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: for Kamala Harris is incredibly strong. She's a very, very
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: talented campaigner, which I think we'll talk about. But he
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: came to the conclusion, and I think very much influenced
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: by Beau's relationship with Senator Harris, He believed that they
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: could have the same relationship of trust that he had
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: with Barack Obama. And that was going to be key
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: to a governing partnership.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, the New York Times wrote that Kamala was, quote,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: seen throughout the vice presidential search as among the safest
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: choices available to Mr.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: Biden.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I thought that was a sentiment that was echoed throughout
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of the coverage in Punditry. What did you
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: think about that? Was she the safe choice?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Fucking ask any black woman in America if they agree
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: with that statement. Like first of all, picking a woman,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: this was something that we talked about a lot on
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: That's the Ticket. At no point has putting a woman
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: on the ticket, like that ticket's not won.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: So there is no way that any of this is
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: like a safe choice. Now it was never the vice
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: presidential female's fault because except this time, last two times
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: women were added when the candidate was way, way behind.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: So no, this was not a safe choice. That's just,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: it's fucking crazy to say that. This was like, this
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: was an inspired choice. It was a good choice. And
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: it was not, I can't imagine that any woman who
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: heard the news the other day was like, fucking low
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: hanging fruit. Like, that's just not what happened.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, reading those stories in preparation for this podcast
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: from all the various papers that, you know, it was
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: all couch, right? It was like safe but exciting choice.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Biden goes the safe route. And like what has happened
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: in American politics, not just in our– the last four
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: has been our history that suggests that the safe thing
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: to do is to put a woman of color on
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: the ticket. And it really feels like the punditry confused
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: expected and safe.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: That's what I was going to ask. Do you think
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: she was the obvious choice?
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, she– at any point in time, if you
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: had asked anyone to place their life on the line
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: to pick who Joe Biden would pick, you would pick
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris because she passes every single test. She has
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: all of the readiness and experience you need to do
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: the job, tremendously talented campaigner. You know that there is
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: a foundation of a relationship between her and Joe Biden
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: because of her relationship with Beau. And so– The whole
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: way the coverage played out speaks to how the press
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: overvalues surprise, right? It's exciting if they haven't thought about it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: But what they forget is they live in the same
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Twitter echo chamber bubble that we do, where many people
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: were quite surprised by this choice because they recognized in
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: the long history of America, there has never been a
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: black woman on a major party ticket. So it is
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: exciting and it is unexpected because it goes against the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: history of this country.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it was a safe choice. I
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: felt personally for maybe the last three, four weeks that
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: it was either going to be Kamala Harris or Susan Rice.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I thought since the protests following
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: George Floyd's murder, I began to strongly believe that the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign would select a woman of color for the
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: ticket because I do think we're in a moment of
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: racial reckoning. And I think- that the Biden campaign and
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden himself has proved himself to be someone who
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: is willing to listen and grow and make sure that
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the campaign he's running is reflective of the party that
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: he now leads and the country that he wants to lead.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Even if he himself and his own identity is not
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: quite reflective of that party, he has been very open
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to that. And so I thought since the protest that
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: he would ultimately select a woman of color. And I
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: think because we are in a moment where the next
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: president will inherit a worst recession than Obama did, the
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: greatest public health crisis in a century, and the fact
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that Joe Biden is 78 years old, he was going
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to select someone who had extensive governing and political and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: legislative experience. And Kamala Harris has all of those things.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And I think Susan also has tremendous governing experience as well.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I think in the end, another part of the calculation was,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: has this person been vetted and tested on the national
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: scene in the midst of a brutal political campaign? And
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Kamala had because of the primary. And probably that in
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the end is what weighed against Susan, in my view.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: I just have to say, because we all know on
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: That's the Ticket, I predicted he'd pick Susan. And Pfeiffer
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: predicted Kamala. So I want to say, yay, Pfeiffer. But
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: same thing. I kind of thought that because it did
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: seem for so long like Kamala was the obvious choice,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: that because, and I say this, let me finish my
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: sentence before you disagree with me. It feels like it
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: took such a long time And I know it's because
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: we're not doing campaign events. There's nothing else to look at.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: This timing is very historical for when he announced her,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: but because there was nothing else to think about and
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: you have to wonder like how much else was there
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: going on. It seemed like this was their singular focus.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: So because they weren't announcing right away, I thought maybe
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: there was, I thought maybe Susan had like, you know,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: eclipsed Kamala, but I was wrong. So I just want
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: to say that I was wrong.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I'm going to agree with you. Because it was longer, right? Historically,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: as we talked about on That's the Ticket, the VP
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: announcement generally comes about seven to 10 days before the convention.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: And in recent years, in almost every occasion except Paul
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Ryan in 2012, it's come about essentially this exact timing,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: which is right before the weekend before the convention. But
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: what was different this time is the convention was later
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: and Joe Biden got the nomination much earlier. So in
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: addition to the absolute monotonous life that we have stuck
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: in our homes, the actual period of time was much longer.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: And so it felt more painful and, you know, and
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: led to, you know, some dynamics that a lot of
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: people very rightfully called out as being pretty toxic about
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: how a lot of these women and women of color
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: were being pitted against each other in media and by,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of political people on all sides.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there were, I will say there were moments over
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks where I thought it definitely
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: could be Susan. Partly because Joe Biden so values personal
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: relationships and he is close to Susan and is not
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: as close to Kamala, though certainly close to her as well. But,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you know, our old boss says this all the time
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: and has had this sort of, at least in reports
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: through the process, that when he was selecting a running
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: mate or when you select a running mate, it is
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: very important to select someone who has been through the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: ringer of a political campaign. And look, you know, I've
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: seen some people be like, well, Kamala didn't do as
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: well in the primary or this or that or she like.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: She went through some incredibly tough campaigns in California where
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: being in a Democratic primary in California is very rough.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And you have to be a very fucking good campaigner
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to get through Democratic primaries in the state of California.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: And Kamala Harris succeeded at doing that multiple times. And
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: then she went through a presidential campaign and came out
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: of that campaign, even though she didn't make it, incredibly
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: well-liked by most of the Democratic Party and most of
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the country. And that's like, that's no small feat. Um,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: so what specifically does Kamala Harris bring to the ticket? Alyssa?
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: I think she's very comfortable on social media.
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: No, this is the thing.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: This is the thing because how are people communicating right now?
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: So one, it's obviously not the biggest thing, but I've
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: just noticed it in the past couple of days. Like
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: she's She's great. She can communicate in ways that you
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: guys would advocate in the White House for how do
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: you communicate to all the people who aren't on Twitter
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: and who don't want to watch cable news. I think
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: that she is a great person that they will be
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: able to engage. Also, she is like one of the
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: greatest things to do is go back in time and
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: watch her grill, Bill Barr, and especially Brett Kavanaugh, and
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: know that that so many Republicans will face that fate now.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Like the idea of Kamala sort of prosecuting the case,
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: I think against the Trump administration, like she said in
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: her announcement speech, I just think that she is a
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: wonderful speaker. She's a great speaker. She's a great debater.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, she's one of the people in the primaries.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: If you sort of, if I had to break down
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: who came to the debate, all 500 of them, with
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: a plan and like executed on that plan, it would
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: probably be she and Amy Klobuchar. Those were the two
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: people who I thought always came not to play. So
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: I just think that she's, and she's, you know, for
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: the first, I think that we talk so much about
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: how people don't vote for a VP. And I do
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: think that in this case, people are going to be very,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: very motivated to vote early, vote by mail, vote period
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: because of her.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Alyssa, can I ask you a question?
• 19:27
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: In Biden's announcement of her, he talked about how tough
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: she was, what a fighter she was. And I recognize
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: that the fighting language is how she described herself. It
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: was a big argument of herself in the primary. What
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: was your reaction to that? Like, it just feel like
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: we still live in this world where, you know, in
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: order to succeed as a woman in politics, you have
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: to pass this, you know, toughness threshold that, you know,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know whether it exists with voters or not,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: but it was just the language struck me.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: So here's interesting. So his speech coupled with Kamala's speech
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: was the perfect circle, right? It encapsulated everything. He talked
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: about how tough she was. She talked about her bio
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: and how she's Mamala and all that stuff. So I
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: think that if you wanted to paint a complete picture
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: of Kamala, it happened at the event. His speech on
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: its own, if he had said it without her giving
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: her remarks after it, I think it might have been
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: a little like, really? You know, like we got to
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: be so fucking tough all the time. And I think
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: that this was a better representation of her as a
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: whole person, the two speeches put together.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: That's interesting.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: My test on this is always, like, could you imagine
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: it being said about a male politician? I think fighter
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: is said about male politicians. Tough is not. It's just
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: like you don't hear people calling male politicians tough. You
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: just don't hear that.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: Because you assume they're tough.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Because there's an assumption built in.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Dan, what else do you think that she brings to
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the ticket?
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I think Alyssa hits on what is a very important one,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: which is she is a very good campaigner in the
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: age of the internet. She has a real palpable authenticity
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: about her that was like a great asset of hers
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: in the primary. She was always great on late night
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: talk shows or Other formats, like when she was on
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club and things like that, I think she
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: was always– she's just very good. And there's like a
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: balance between her and Biden. And I think the best
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: tickets are ones where when they're together, it sort of
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: creates a– it improves both of them, right? And I
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: think that happened with Obama and Biden. And you could
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: see that with Kamala Harris and Biden yesterday, even though
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: they– by together, I mean six feet apart wearing masks,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: which is such is our life. But, you know, the
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: moment that I just, like, I think sort of sent
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: chills down my spine and I thought embodied a lot
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: of what makes Kamala Harris such a endearing and compelling
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: politician and person was, you know, here it is, the
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: biggest moment of her life. She is a, you know,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: she's making history. And when Joe Biden says, let me
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: introduce the next vice president of the United States, you
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: can see her literally react with joy to it. Like
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: she sort of like shrugged her shoulders in excitement and
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: it was just very authentic. And Like that is a
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: huge part of what I think she will bring to
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: this ticket. And it's so much more important in a
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: situation where you are campaigning on the internet over Zoom
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is, instead of being actually in person,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: where Joe Biden is a phenomenal campaigner in person. You know,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: less so in sort of the digital space, but I
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: think Kamala can fill some of those gaps.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: You know what else just is also in terms of
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: her authenticity is just really interesting. I think that for
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: however many years we've been talking about this, that the
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: media has decided what women want to see, you know,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: that like a woman should be tough, but she should
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: also make a pie and like she should have coiffed
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: hair and like good suit. And the thing about Kamala
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: is that like one of the greatest things that you
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: can one of the greatest stories is that she called
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Cory Booker on his birthday, Senator Cory Booker on his birthday,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: but she decided that he needed to learn how to
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: make lentils. He told her that he was making lentils.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: So she made him go to FaceTime and she had
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: rollers in her hair and she's just like explaining him
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: how to fucking get it done. That's like what women
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: relate to. And I feel like she represents that in
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: a way that it took us this long to get
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: comfortable with.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, one of the all-time great internet moments is
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: her teaching Mark Warner.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: So good. So good.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, I totally agree with all that. I
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: think three things, you know, her brilliance, which is evidenced
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: every time she's been on the Judiciary Committee, besting all
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: of her colleagues in questioning whatever witness is up. I
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: think her charisma. I think she's you know, the best
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: speaker on a Democratic Party major ticket since Barack Obama.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Anyone else I can remember? And she and the charisma
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: is both something we see in public. And for those
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: of us who have met her privately, it's the same. Like,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: you know, all the candidates came to the office. And
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I think like hanging out with Elizabeth Warren and Kamala
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Harris were like two of the great joys that I
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: had with all of those candidates. They're just They're just
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: really fun and warm and just great people to hang
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: out with and funny too. Kamala's very funny.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: We saw that in person. Remember, she was the guest
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: at the second ever Positive America live show in San Francisco.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: It was only like four or five months after she
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: got to the Senate. And I mean, she brought the
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: house down. I mean, it was a house full of
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: very inebriated San Franciscans, but she brought it down. And
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: one other thing about what Kamala brings to the ticket
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: that I should have brought up earlier is Kamala is
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: a gamer. When the game is on the line, she delivers.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: In every one of those debates, like the expectations for
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: her going in to the Kavanaugh hearing, and she just
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: came and brought it. In the debates when her campaign
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: was on the line, she had her best performances. And
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: so when the pressure is greatest, she has delivered in
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: really big ways. And that's something you absolutely need in
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: the candidate part of a vice presidential campaign. candidacy, like
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the debate, the convention speech, she's got these huge moments.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: And if she can continue that pattern of delivering, that's huge.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I also think the last point on this is, you know,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden has talked about his candidacy as sort of
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a bridge to the future of the party. And she
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: represents the future of the Democratic Party and sort of
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the future of where the demographics are shifting in the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: country itself. Ron Brownstein always talks about, and we talked
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: about this in the wilderness a lot, the coalition of
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: restoration as sort of the Republican coalition and the Democratic
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: party represents the coalition of transformation. You know, 30% of
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: our voters in the Democratic party are non-college educated white voters, right?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: 30% are college educated white voters and 40% are voters
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: of color. And, you know, we, despite the fact that
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: we have Joe Biden on the top of the ticket,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: we now have A 55-year-old black woman, immigrant story, comes
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: from San Francisco, comes from California, who is representing the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: future of the party. And I do think that is
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: incredibly important as we head into this election and as,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: you know, if Democrats are going to win, it's going
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to be because they rack up these margins in increasingly
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: diverse suburbs circling these major cities. Um, so let's talk
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: about the reaction to Kamala's selection, which was overwhelmingly positive.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Just about every elected Democrat from all wings of the
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: party praised the pick as well as activists and organizers
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: who'd criticized Harris in the past. Of course, there has
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: been some criticism from progressives that Kamala is too moderate
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: or cautious, particularly her record on criminal justice from when
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: she was San Francisco's DA and California attorney general. Um, Alyssa,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: what do you make of that criticism?
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Uh, what I think is as our as our colleague
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: Dennis McDonough used to say, new broom sweeps clean. Let's
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: get on with it, progressives. Let's, like, you guys know,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: I got a Bernie bumper sticker on my car. I
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: got an EW sticker on my car, and I'm waiting
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: for my Biden-Harris sticker for my car. But come the
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: fuck on. Like, Jesus Christ, the president of the United
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: States is dismantling the United States Postal Service. And we
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: all know, too, that we have to get them elected.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: But we were in the White House when people who
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: supported Barack Obama protested outside because they were holding his
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: feet to the fire on promises he made and changes
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: that they wanted to see. So like, let's just get
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: elected and then like, let's go ahead and protest or
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: do whatever you want to do. But like, let's just
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: keep our eye on the ball here.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Dan?
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: You know, you know, I agree with everything Alyssa said there.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: I think it's hard to When you are disappointed about something,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: it is hard to be told, don't be disappointed about
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: it or you're wrong to be unhappy about it. And
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: so I don't really know what the right thing to
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: say is to some of those people other than to
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: encourage them to look at. the movement that Biden has
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: made on a whole host of issues. He's really the
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: first candidate that I can ever think of who wins
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: a primary and moves left as opposed to, you know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: the standard way of thinking about it is you move,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: you go left in the primary and to the center
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: in the general. And Biden has, you know, he's made real,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: real fundamental substantive shifts on issues like climate and student
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: debt and taxes and other issues. And that should be seen,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: I think, as a sign that even if this is
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: not the vice presidential pick you would have chosen, that
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: the progressive wing, the progressive activists are going to have
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to have a real influence on the agenda
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: in a Biden-Harris administration? Yeah.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I interviewed Kamala when she came to Crooked,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: and I pushed her on a lot of her past
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: policies and record when she was DA and AG. I
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: talked to her about her truancy policies, and she said,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: if I was to do it over again, I wouldn't
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: have done the same thing. I think we have to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: understand that public officials, elected officials are products of the
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: time that they're from, that they're in. As a DA
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: in 2004, she refused to seek the death penalty for
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a man who killed a police officer. She was attacked
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: by police officers and police officer associations. She was attacked
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: for it by Dianne Feinstein. She almost lost her race
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: for attorney general because of that. And that's sort of
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: in your mind when you're trying to run for office
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: back then. I think I mean, it was hilarious to
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: me that she is being called in all this coverage
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: a moderate, like Joe Biden has found a fellow moderate
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: or centrist. She supports something extremely close to Medicare for all,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: which Bernie Sanders acknowledged in his statement supporting her. She's
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: for the Green New Deal. She has one of the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: most liberal records in the U.S. Senate. If you want
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to call Kamala Harris's record in the Senate and her
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: policies that she's supporting now, centrist or moderate, great. If
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: that's where the Overton window has moved, then congratulations to
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: all the progressive activists because you have fucking moved the
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: shit out of that window that is supporting the Green
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: New Deal. And basically, Medicare for All is now moderate
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and centrist. Fantastic. I'll take it.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I also would encourage people to read and look at
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: what some of the activists on criminal justice matters have
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: said about this. And they've talked about how, you know,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: while they have very real concerns about her record when
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: she was attorney general or in the city of San Francisco,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: that she has made movement on some or maybe even
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of those issues in recent years. And so, like,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: you know, I think those are the, for people who,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: if your concern is what her record was in the past,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: there are some people who are real subject matter experts
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: in that stuff who are talking about how it intersects
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: with her policy positions now. And I just want to
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: encourage people to look at what a lot of those
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: activists have had to say on Twitter and elsewhere.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Well, and I would say to everyone, too, like and
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: don't take her word for it and Joe Biden's word
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: for it now. If you're still disappointed, like hold their
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: feet to the fire. If they're elected and they start
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: backtracking and they and, you know, they do something you
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: don't like on criminal justice reform or they don't go
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: far enough, then then fight it. Fight it hard. But
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: that's you know, that's I think that's the best way forward.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: So I do want to talk briefly about the other
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: candidates who made the shortlist and went through the very
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: intense vetting process today. We talked about Susan Rice, Congresswoman
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Karen Bass, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Tammy Duckworth. Alyssa, what, if anything, do you think this
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: process has done for these women?
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: You know, I think everybody, all of the women minus
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren, whose profile is I think was quite high
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: before this process. I think that the process was done
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: respectfully and these women have bigger platforms now that they
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: can use going forward for their states, for their districts,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: and to run for even higher office. So I think
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: it's all good.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Dan?
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Can I say something about our friend Susan Rice for
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: a second? Sure. Now, as everyone knows, we have been
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: friends and colleagues of Susan's for a very long time.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: And as someone who was known to work with her,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: the idea for the vice president was quite exciting to
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: us because she would do a fucking great job at it.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: She is about as qualified to do that job as
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: anyone in the world. But it was painful as someone
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: who likes and cares about her to watch this process
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: play itself out. And nothing pissed me off more. than
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: the never Trumpers who were trying to shore up their
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: conservative credentials by saying, look, I'll vote for Joe Biden
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: if he picks Susan Rice, because here's what I have
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: to say. Your argument against Susan Rice is based on
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: a right wing fucking conspiracy theory about Benghazi.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: And if you think that many of them acknowledge that
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: many of them acknowledge is a conspiracy theory and then
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: go on to say, I know it's bullshit, but it's
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: out there. So I'm just going to say it's bad
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: for her anyway.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: If you are so proudly this evolved Republican who is
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: against Trump, but you don't have the fucking guts to
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: stand up to Benghazi trutherism, then your party is doomed
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: to repeat itself. Then you have missed every fucking lesson
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: about it. It is just absolute disgusting way in order
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: to ensure that even if you're against Trump, you can
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: still get invited to the weekly standard Christmas party. Bingo.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Here's my dream. Here's my dream. I let myself think
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: just for a moment that perhaps Joe Biden would announce
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris as vice president and then out would walk
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Susan Rice and he would say, this is going to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: be my secretary of state. And then out would walk
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren and he would say, and this is going
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to be my secretary of treasury.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: That was just- I feel great about all those.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe it still will.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: I'm very opposed to the cabinet before the election idea.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:19
  Speaker 8: No, I know.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I guess there might be some.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Eye on the ball.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Eye on the ball.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Before Twitter tells me there are... I know. I know
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: there are legal issues, perhaps. But I still think he
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: would be wise to select Susan as... Look, I also
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: just want to scoop Pod Save the World on this.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: You know they're going to start Susan for Secretary of State.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be great that we got to it first here?
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm having shirts made on Etsy.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Is that weird?
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Susan for State.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Susan for Sec State.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: Or.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Ann Warren at Treasury, wielding tremendous power at the Treasury Department.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Just making Wall Street fucking lose their shit.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Never Trumper heads exploding left and right. I was for
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Biden until he decided to put someone in place to
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: fix the economy my party broke.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Make a supportive ad about that one, Lincoln Project. Warranted Treasury.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Let's see. You want in?
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: Do that.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: That's our price of admission. Alyssa, I want to talk
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to you about the rollout because you are the expert
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: on all things rollouts. You've been involved in many of these.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: So on the announcement side, the campaign was able to
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: break its own news via text to its supporters on Tuesday.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: On Wednesday morning, you spoke about this. Harris's team posted
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: a video of Biden asking Harris to be his running
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: mate over Zoom. I assume it was Zoom. And then
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday, there was the joint event in Wilmington with
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: two speeches, plenty of masks, no crowd. What did you
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: think of how this all went down? What did you
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: think of the rollout?
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: So I need to say I never got my text message,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: even though I signed up, which I was sad about.
• 35:56
  Speaker 7: I didn't either. I know.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: I was like, wait, I wasn't supposed to find out
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: on CNN. So here is what I'd like to say.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: You guys remember when we got to the White House
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: and a lot of old school political people who had
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: been the last Democrats in office– would criticize us often
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: on TV for saying that we weren't being creative enough,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: that we weren't taking Barack Obama to the Grand Canyon
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: to sign legislation and all this stuff. And the problem was,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: is that they had not lived in a post 9-11
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: world and 9-11 changed everything. So I feel like for
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: people who were talking about yesterday, you have to remember
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: that none of us understand what it is to go
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: through this right now. So while I would have loved
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: to see something super picture-esque, just like a real Time
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: magazine cover. I thought they did a very good job.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: You know, they both, they gave their speeches. Presumably nobody
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: got sick. I mean, you know, it's like when you
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: look at what the options are, I mean, Trump did
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: his rallies and people have died. So I think that
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: in the era of COVID, they did a really, a
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: really good job. And the perfect was not the enemy
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: of the good. And we got what we needed, which
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: was to see them together.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, what did you think of the lack of any
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: crowd whatsoever, the lack of any applause during the speeches?
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: My view was fine for that event, which was middle
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: of the day, most of the clips are going to
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: run on the news at night, and so it's not
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: like a lot of people sat through, except us junkies,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: sat through the whole both speeches. I'm a little concerned
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: about the convention speeches, if we have a week of
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: convention speeches like that. And I think... They might be
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: planning something with sound, but I'm not sure.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: So I thought about this yesterday. One, I actually thought
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: Kamala was exceptional at delivering a very emotive speech without
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: a crowd. I thought that that was like a real
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: plus for her. For Joe Biden, I would say that
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: the shorter is the better when it comes to a
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: world without crowds where you don't get any feedback because
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: he was not as good. And I'm not being mean,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: but I mean, Kamala was exceptional at it. So I
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: think that going forward, I would probably just Zoom as
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: much as you possibly can because the in-person events, while
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: they demonstrate what can be done in a time of
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: social distancing and wearing masks and everything and they're modeling
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: really good behavior, it's not that compelling. So I think
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: unless there's something really compelling about doing a live event,
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: that Zoom's probably just fine.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think?
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I agree with Alyssa that the rollout wouldn't as well
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: as could possibly be hoped for in this environment. What
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: I think says a lot about their process is, although
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: you guys did not get the text message, I did
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: get it. I got it after I learned the news,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: but the Biden campaign announced it. That's a pretty amazing thing.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: In 2008, we were not the ones to announce Joe Biden.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: John King from CNN broke it before we were able
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: to even hit send on our texts. And so, If
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: you are the ones who make the actual announcement of
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: your vice presidential pick before a reporter figures it out,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: that's a sign of a very successful and well-run process.
• 39:17
  Speaker 7: Yes, that's very true.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: I 100% agree on the applause as it relates to
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: the convention. And I'm sure they are already working on this.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: But both the NBA and Major League Baseball have figured
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: out some ways to make this seem less weird on television,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: because you can hear applause in empty arenas. And the
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: NBA also has a very cool thing where they're having
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: fans zoom in. So when you're watching it on TV,
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: you can see sort of like a digital wall of people.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: And so there are some opportunities for that. It's not perfect,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: don't get me wrong. I do think in the context
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: of this event, there is something that is worthwhile, even
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: if you're not getting enthusiasm, but the whole thing where
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: they come in with masks, they wear masks, there are
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: the spots where they stand apart. In addition to it
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: being the right thing to do, it is also a
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: reminder of the situation that Donald Trump put us in
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: and how irresponsible he is being about it. And I
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: think When you look at all the polling around coronavirus,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I think there is value in showing that we take
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: this seriously and are doing it in the right way.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: And in that sense, the lack of applause can be
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: a feature, not a bug, because it once again highlights
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: that Donald Trump has so royally screwed this up that
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: you were doing these political events, which would otherwise be
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: these raucous rallies, in these ways that are very understandable
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: to Americans who are stuck in their home. Yeah.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: I do agree with Alyssa that I thought I think
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Biden has been, he's done a few of these events
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: without applause, and he does a pretty good job in
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: what I think is a very tough circumstance, delivering a
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: speech with no crowd, delivering it. But I thought that
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Kamala was excelled at delivering a speech to no applause.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: And I thought her speech itself was excellent. It was excellent, yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: One of her best speeches. So let's talk about the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: reaction from Donald Trump, who... Welcome to Kamala Harris to
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the Race with a combination of grace and shrewdness. Here's
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: a clip.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: She did very, very poorly in the primaries, as you know.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: She was expected to do well. And she was, she
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: ended up at right around 2% and spent a lot
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: of money. She had a lot of things happening. And
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: so I was a little surprised that he picked her.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: I've been watching her for a long time and I
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: was a little surprised. She was extraordinarily nasty to Kavanaugh,
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: Judge Kavanaugh then, now Justice Kavanaugh. She was nasty to
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: a level that was just a horrible thing the way
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: she was, the way she treated now Justice Kavanaugh. And
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: I won't forget that soon. So she did very poorly
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: in the primaries and now she's chosen. So let's see
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: how that.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: All works out.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: So we're used to Trump's freewheeling style. But we've also
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: seen a completely incoherent reaction from his campaign, the Republican Party,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the right-wing media. They're selling Kamala as a cop t-shirts
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: and also calling her anti-police. Republican Senator Josh Hawley called
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: her a darling of Wall Street, while the RNC chair
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: said she's a radical socialist. Katrina Pearson of the Trump
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: campaign put out a rambling statement with a bunch of lies.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with these people? Why can't they settle on
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: a line of attack here, Dan?
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Because they're stupid. I mean, it's just like, we should
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: just be very clear.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: They had time. They had so much time to prepare.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, this is not like we were caught
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: off guard when John McCain picked Sarah Palin in 2008
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: because she was on no one short list. And Kamala
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Harris has been the leading contender for this position since
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: the day Joe Biden became nominee. How they're unprepared for
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: it is so it's both mind boggling in one sense.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: It makes complete sense. When you look at how the
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: rest of the campaign runs. And I think part of
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: it is that trolling is not a coherent political strategy.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: And so you're just constantly looking to get some sort
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: of reaction without any regard for a coherent message. And so, yeah,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: will people retweet the Kamala is a cop t-shirts? Absolutely.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Will that give something for Tucker Carlson to yell about?
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Will we also try to do the other thing and
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: pretend like she and Joe Biden are Antifa super soldiers? Yes,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: we'll do that. Will we default to just dumb racism
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: because we're dumb racists? Yes, we'll do that. But that's
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: not how political campaigns work. And they have the same
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: problem with Joe Biden that they have with Kamala Harris,
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: which is they can't figure out one coherent, specific narrative,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: which Donald Trump, for all of his idiocy and flaws,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: actually had in 2016 when he was running against Hillary Clinton.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he at least landed there. Alyssa, Trump's calling Kamala
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: a nasty, mad woman. Tucker Carlson is purposely mispronouncing her name.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: We've got a few white right-wing whack jobs who are
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: floating conspiracy that she's not American. We've got the return
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: of birtherism here.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Trump campaign officials, not like some fucking weird Reddit person.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Whatever her name is, some fake lawyer that's his lawyer.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Jenna Ellis.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Jenna Ellis, yeah. She said she's not American. Alyssa, how
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: should the Biden-Harris campaign, and the rest of us for
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: that matter, handle this? the racism and sexism, some overt
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: like this, some less so, some more subtle, that will
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: obviously accompany this pick and already is accompanying this pick.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: First of all, he is no longer Tucker Carlson. He's
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: Tooker Carlson until he learns how to pronounce her name.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: That's a rule on hysteria. That's not acceptable. Look, this
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: is their game. This is all they have. Like Trump's,
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: I have to say, I was disappointed in Trump. I
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: thought he was going to do better out the gate. Instead,
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: he was some basic bitch, had nothing good to offer,
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: nothing colorful. Like I thought he would have had some
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: good attacks, but like slow Joe and phony Kamala, like
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: do better. And I think that this is their playbook.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: This is what they know to do. Since Donald Trump
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: was the OG birther back in the day, this is,
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: this is it. And it's just, you know, I really,
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: I really do think, I know that everybody goes back
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: and forth on like how you're supposed to reach out
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: to voters. I just really think that Democrats shouldn't do
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: the shows of racists on Fox News. Like there are
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: some people who maybe aren't, but I mean, I just,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: everyone's got to stop. They have to be put in
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: a box because fuck that.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Fuck Tuker.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: Fuck Tuker. And Sean Hannity. It's Tuker Carlson, Sean Hannity,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: and Judge Pyro.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: So let's end by talking about what's next for Kamala.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: We got 82 days until the election. She's got a
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: convention speech next week. She's got a debate with Mike
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Pence in October. Dan, how important are those moments to
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: the overall campaign? What can she do to succeed? And
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: what does she have to watch out for?
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Well, we talk all the time about how Joe Biden
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: is relatively undefined to large segments of the voters who
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: are going to decide this election. And that is exponentially
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: more true for Kamala Harris. So the speech on Wednesday
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: night will be her last best opportunity, at least before
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: the debate, to define herself and tell her story to
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: the American people. I imagine that speech is going to
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: get a tremendous number of eyeballs, in part because people
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: cannot leave their homes in most states. So I think
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: it's a huge, huge, huge opportunity for her. The debate
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: is something we should talk about, which is it has
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: become sort of a favorite Twitter messaging strategy of Democrats
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: to raise expectations through the roof for Kamala Harris and
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: the debate. And I think it's much more complex than that.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: And so I think we should probably have that conversation
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: at some point.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, what do you think?
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: No, I think that's true. I mean, my first text was,
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: I couldn't wait to watch the debate. So I'm very
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: much at fault on that one.
• 47:06
  Speaker 7: But it's true. I mean, that's fine.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, that's fine for you to text someone in private.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: No, no, I tweeted it.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I tweeted it.
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: It was my initial reaction. I know it's so much
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: more than that. But we can tell by when Mike
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Pence was asked the question and had to answer and
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: nearly pooed his pants that he too was concerned about it.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: He did nearly poo his pants right on Tucker's show,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: or I think it was Sian's show. It was Sian.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: When he was asked that question about the debate. So, no, look,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: I get it. I totally understand it as the natural reaction.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, when you have seen her on the Judiciary Committee,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: in the Senate, grilling witnesses, you think, this is a
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: person who's going to kick ass. She's just, she's great.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: She's a good debater. She's excellent at set pieces. But
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: I do think, you know, there's obviously the silly expectation
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: game that everyone plays in the press where you say
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: that your candidate is terrible at debates and the other
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: candidate is amazing, right? Like that's, that's what you do.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: But I think Mike Pence, I would not, I would
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: not be surprised if Mike Pence walked into that debate
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and was very gracious to her when the debate started
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: and said something about her history-making candidacy, right? And then
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: sort of tore into her about, you know, the liberal
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: policies of Biden and Harris and all that kind of stuff.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Like he is not, he has, but the only thing
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: you can say about Mike Pence is he has slightly
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: more discipline than Donald Trump. And he will have handlers
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and consultants who tell him like, you have to be
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: very careful about debating Kamala Harris, and this is what
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: you will need to do. And he will probably execute
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: on some of that. And so I just think that
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: is something for people to be aware of as we
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: think about that.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure that Donald Trump is whispering in Mike
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Pence's ear that unless he fucking gets COVID back under control,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: he may not make it to the debate.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that is right about Pence. And
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: I think people should go back and watch Pence's debate
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: performance against Tim Kaine, where he was declared the winner
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: of You have to go back and watch it because
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: no one remembers that it ever happened, but it did.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: And what Pence did was Tim Kaine, I think, was
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: overcoached going into that debate that he had to be
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: an attack dog. And it was not a position that
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: was particularly comfortable for Tim Kaine. And Pence did not
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: take the bait. And that was seen by the figure
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: skating judges that decide these things as a victory. My
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: concern about the debate is not necessarily Pence's performance or
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris's performance. I have great confidence in Kamala Harris's performance.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: It is how it will be covered with a Black
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: woman doing those things. And we know this from, you know,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: you were involved with Barack Obama's debate preps. There are
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: certain tactics and moves that are treated one way when
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: done by a white man that indifferent when done by
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: a black man and doubly so.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Can't be angry. Can't be angry if you're a black person.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Like some of the great moments in debate history, like
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: if Barack Obama had done the, I know Jack Kennedy,
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: he was a friend of mine, you know Jack Kennedy,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: would have been treated very differently than if Floyd Benson
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: did it, right? If the, you know, the where's the
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: beef line from Ronald Reagan be treated very differently if
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton had done it in 2016 or Kamala Harris
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: were to do it right now. And so I think
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: we know from within the context of a Democratic debate
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: that the way women and candidates of color were covered
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: was very problematic. So that's going to be quadruply so
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: in a general election debate. And I think she will
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: do incredibly well. I think it is incumbent upon everyone
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: to try to recognize the additional hurdles that the political
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: conversation will put in the place of um, a black
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: woman in that position and find the, and I don't
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: have the right answers for this necessarily, but find ways
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: to push back on that language and those tropes. And
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: that's those stereotypes.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: No, I remember feeling very frustrated, uh, on behalf of
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Obama during a debate prep session. I think it was
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: when he was preparing to debate Romney, when he was
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: told to like, be more passionate, be more, you know,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: show that you're, that you care that you're into this
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: and get angry, you know, and, He was reluctant to
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: do that because as a black man, he believed that
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: he couldn't show that kind of anger without a bunch
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: of fucking racists out there sort of on Tugger Carlson's
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: show saying that, you know, making stereotypes about this and
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: saying that he fits some stereotype. So no, it's something
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: that she has to navigate both as a woman and
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: a woman of color, which is very tough. But I'm
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: still excited for the debate, Alyssa.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I want to see it too.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, it's like just the one thing to
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: look forward to that we know is going to happen
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: between now and Election Day, which I also think is
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: why people gravitated towards it. It's like people aren't necessarily
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: excited for the speech because they don't understand what's going
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: to happen. We know kind of what could happen at
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: the debate. I say defending myself as maybe the first
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: person who actually tweeted the thing about the debate.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, like to be like, yes, even though
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: I said all the things, I'm still looking forward to it.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: This has been a dark few years in America. And
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: some of the rare moments of joy have been Kamala
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: Harris destroying Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions, Brett Kavanaugh. Like those
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: have been moments of light in a dark time. And
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: so it is very understandable to be looking forward to
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: it with Mike Pence, who is terrible.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Terrible. Boo. All right. Well, that's that. When we come back,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: I will be joined by organizer and a co-founder of
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: the Black Voters Matter Fund, friend of the pod, Latasha Brown.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: I'm now joined by organizer and a co-founder of the
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Black Voters Matter Fund, friend of the pod, LaTosha Brown. LaTosha,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: thanks for coming back on the show.
• 53:15
  Speaker 7: Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: So you've been part of a coalition pushing Joe Biden
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: to select a black woman as his running mate for months.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: How did you find out that it would be Kamala
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Harris and what was your initial reaction when the announcement
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: was made?
• 53:29
  Speaker 8: So I was actually, honestly, in my bathroom trying on
• 53:33
  Speaker 8: new makeup.
• 53:34
  Speaker 7: I know that's like I really was.
• 53:36
  Speaker 8: I was in my bathroom and I heard, and my
• 53:41
  Speaker 8: phone kept blowing up. And then I got this call
• 53:44
  Speaker 8: and it was like, we won. And I was like,
• 53:46
  Speaker 8: what does that mean? I don't know what that means, right?
• 53:49
  Speaker 8: And then I could hear my TV in my bedroom.
• 53:52
  Speaker 8: I could hear my TV said that he was selected.
• 53:55
  Speaker 8: It was like he selected Kamala Harris.
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: I was like, what? And so it was interesting.
• 53:58
  Speaker 8: At first, I got the call. I hung up and
• 54:01
  Speaker 8: I was like, oh, that's great. I was real calm
• 54:02
  Speaker 8: about it. And maybe in a matter of minutes, I
• 54:06
  Speaker 8: started crying. Like I did not anticipate on having that
• 54:11
  Speaker 8: kind of reaction. And I started crying and I and
• 54:15
  Speaker 8: I could only think about. At that moment, my grandmother,
• 54:19
  Speaker 8: and it's so interesting because while my grandmother was a voter,
• 54:21
  Speaker 8: she wasn't particularly like an activist. But I know this
• 54:26
  Speaker 8: is a woman, and I share her story because she,
• 54:30
  Speaker 8: both of my grandmothers, one of my grandmothers was born
• 54:34
  Speaker 8: and grew up and grew a family in Mississippi, in Macomb, Mississippi,
• 54:37
  Speaker 8: was extremely active. Racist community, lived outside of Macomb and Summit, Mississippi.
• 54:43
  Speaker 8: And then my other grandmother grew up in Alabama, was
• 54:46
  Speaker 8: born in Alabama, and both of them were disenfranchised. That
• 54:50
  Speaker 8: their families, that they themselves. And so it dawned on
• 54:54
  Speaker 8: me that I was the first woman in my family. Like,
• 55:00
  Speaker 8: here we are in 2020. I am the first woman
• 55:02
  Speaker 8: who was born where I had the right to vote,
• 55:05
  Speaker 8: that it was like I was enfranchised, right?
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: And.
• 55:09
  Speaker 8: You know, I think it just stuck with me. It
• 55:12
  Speaker 8: really just kind of, it just took me a.
• 55:15
  Speaker 7: Certain kind of way.
• 55:15
  Speaker 8: And so while I was excited about Kamala, I was
• 55:18
  Speaker 8: actually excited that we had, that there was a response
• 55:24
  Speaker 8: to what our request was made by Vice President Joe Biden.
• 55:28
  Speaker 7: More importantly, I felt such an overwhelming.
• 55:34
  Speaker 8: Sense of gratefulness to all the women who who had
• 55:37
  Speaker 8: been disenfranchised, who have been marginalized, who have been overlooked,
• 55:42
  Speaker 8: yet they still persisted that this moment was their moment,
• 55:46
  Speaker 8: that this moment wasn't the Democratic Party's moment, this moment
• 55:49
  Speaker 8: just wasn't the candidate's moment, but this was our collective moment.
• 55:52
  Speaker 8: And so I think I'm still working through that. I'm
• 55:56
  Speaker 8: feeling every emotion that you can feel I've felt in
• 55:59
  Speaker 8: the course of this past week.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: I bet.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, before we talk about what his selection means
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: for the campaign- I just wanted to ask, and, you know,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: you've talked about what it meant sort of in a
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: historical sense, but, you know, what does this mean to
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: you personally as a Black woman?
• 56:15
  Speaker 7: You know, just as a.
• 56:16
  Speaker 8: Black woman, I think it is disheartening that we are
• 56:19
  Speaker 8: always on the front.
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: I am working, John, with other women. Like, we are grinding.
• 56:25
  Speaker 8: So we're grinding on and on. Like, every year, year
• 56:28
  Speaker 8: in and year out, we grind because we know that
• 56:31
  Speaker 8: democracy is at stake. And we know that our families
• 56:35
  Speaker 8: are at stake. We know that America is in this
• 56:37
  Speaker 8: this precarious moment. And so, you know, in light of that,
• 56:42
  Speaker 8: to really be able. But year after year to see
• 56:45
  Speaker 8: black women get stepped over for congressional seats, to see
• 56:49
  Speaker 8: black women who run.
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: For office, including myself, I've run for office.
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: You know, and and.
• 56:55
  Speaker 8: To literally not get the kind of support that we
• 56:58
  Speaker 8: would see from our white counterparts, but oftentimes from our
• 57:00
  Speaker 8: male counterparts, right? To see us grossly underrepresented when it
• 57:05
  Speaker 8: comes to positions of power, But then when it comes
• 57:08
  Speaker 8: to doing the work, you know who the majority of
• 57:10
  Speaker 8: people I see doing the work?
• 57:11
  Speaker 7: I see women.
• 57:12
  Speaker 8: And so I think what this means for me and
• 57:15
  Speaker 8: I think what it means for me as an activist,
• 57:18
  Speaker 8: as an organizer, as a woman who has dedicated a
• 57:22
  Speaker 8: significant amount of my life doing work on terms of
• 57:25
  Speaker 8: building democracy, any time that I see that there is
• 57:29
  Speaker 8: a new break, a ceiling break, It opens up the
• 57:32
  Speaker 8: just unlimited possibilities for those behind us. And so for me,
• 57:37
  Speaker 8: I think that it was a great move by Vice
• 57:40
  Speaker 8: President Joe Biden.
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: You know, I really want to commend him and I
• 57:43
  Speaker 7: want to.
• 57:43
  Speaker 8: Lift him up on making that choice because I think
• 57:46
  Speaker 8: it sends a certain kind of message. I think it
• 57:49
  Speaker 8: sends a message around being a transformative leader. That ultimately
• 57:54
  Speaker 8: we have to have the courage to really recognize what
• 57:57
  Speaker 8: people are saying and really be able to respond to that.
• 58:00
  Speaker 8: And so I think that he heard us. I think
• 58:02
  Speaker 8: he responded to us. You know, I think he made
• 58:04
  Speaker 8: the right choice. And I just want to lift that
• 58:07
  Speaker 8: up because oftentimes our leaders don't listen to us.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 58:10
  Speaker 8: And don't really take into account what we're asking. The
• 58:12
  Speaker 8: second thing, though, is I think that he made a
• 58:13
  Speaker 8: good power move that nobody's going to work on the
• 58:16
  Speaker 8: ground for him like black women.
• 58:18
  Speaker 7: We are going we are grinding.
• 58:20
  Speaker 8: We the moment here, the moment that he announced it,
• 58:23
  Speaker 8: I was like, OK, I think I'm gonna get a
• 58:24
  Speaker 8: thousand tomorrow.
• 58:26
  Speaker 7: You know, like that.
• 58:26
  Speaker 8: Ultimately, you know, he I think ultimately that decision is
• 58:31
  Speaker 8: you know, really kind of inspired those of us that
• 58:33
  Speaker 8: are doing this work on the ground that literally around
• 58:36
  Speaker 8: lets us know that there is something different that is happening,
• 58:40
  Speaker 8: that there are new possibilities and new ground.
• 58:43
  Speaker 7: I think that's the second thing. And the third thing
• 58:45
  Speaker 7: is I think.
• 58:46
  Speaker 8: America is, needs this right now. We need a ticket
• 58:51
  Speaker 8: that is more representative, more reflective of the totality of America,
• 58:56
  Speaker 8: that we have not seen ourselves not in the office
• 58:59
  Speaker 8: of president or vice president. They've all been white men
• 59:02
  Speaker 8: with the exception of Barack Obama, right, who is still,
• 59:06
  Speaker 8: you know, a man. And when you look at the majority,
• 59:08
  Speaker 8: being that the majority of the country are 53% women,
• 59:12
  Speaker 8: women have not been in any of those positions, although
• 59:15
  Speaker 8: we're the majority.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: So over at FiveThirtyEight, the journalist Perry Bacon looked at
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: the data and wrote that while it's not crazy to
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: The idea that, you know, Harris might boost the ticket
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: with black voters. He thinks the stronger case is that
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: she won't have much of an effect on black turnout.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 59:32
  Speaker 7: I disagree with that.
• 59:33
  Speaker 8: I disagree with that because I and I and I
• 59:35
  Speaker 8: also think that that inherent in that, too, we have
• 59:38
  Speaker 8: to unpack that because I think sometimes there's a racist
• 59:41
  Speaker 8: context around thinking that black people can only pull black voters.
• 59:46
  Speaker 8: You know, at the end of the day, I think
• 59:47
  Speaker 8: what Obama showed is that he was able to pull
• 59:51
  Speaker 8: a broad based, multiracial, multigenerational generation. coalition that supported him.
• 59:56
  Speaker 8: If we look at the Black Lives Matter for folks
• 59:58
  Speaker 8: who had all this criticism about Black Lives Matter saying, oh,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 8: that was divisive. The truth of the matter is that
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 8: movement gave birth to uprisings in all 50 states in
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 8: this country. The most diverse, multiracial, multigenerational, multicultural movement that
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 8: we've ever seen in this country. That because they are
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 8: leading from a place of truth, from their authentic voices,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 8: that we recognize that when you break open oppression.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 7: For some of us, it opens it for all of us.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 8: So I actually think that not only she's going to
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 8: energize and bring some Black voters together, to the ticket.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: But I also think that she is going to energize women.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 8: I also think that she's going to energize immigrants coming
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 8: that she has that, that her mother was an immigrant
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 8: and her parents were immigrants. I also think that she
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 8: is going to energize the Asian community that is often
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 8: also looked over as well. And I think that she's
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 8: going to energize smart people, smart, that literally want something
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 8: different and know that democracy is at stake. So I
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 8: don't relegate her that the only voters that she can
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 8: pull are Black voters. I certainly believe that there would
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 8: be a particular kind of level of excitement that I
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 8: myself personally feel and others that I'm talking to. But
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 8: I also think that oftentimes women and Black candidates are
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 8: able to build these multicultural coalitions that can make the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 8: difference in an election cycle.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: What do you think, if you were to advise them,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris need to do going forward
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: to further energize voters to turn out this fall?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 7: You know, I think a couple of things.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 8: The first thing is I think that we need to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 8: center the conversation of the election, not necessarily around the candidates.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 7: I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 8: Do think that part of what has happened is that
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 8: we have created almost like this You know, in some ways,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 8: I think like the savior syndrome that we're going to
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 8: find the absolute perfect candidate, you know, and the perfect
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 8: candidate is going to save us and take us on
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 8: to glory when that doesn't exist.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 7: Let's just be honest. It doesn't exist. And I think
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 7: part of that has actually led to the erosion of democracy.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 8: Where people don't see themselves empowered in the process because
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 8: it's all centered around the candidate. I think what we
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 8: have to do is actually center this around people's power,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 8: that ultimately this is about us protecting democracy, that ultimately
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 8: that this is actually bigger than just the candidates. This
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 8: is even bigger than Trump, that ultimately this is really
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 8: about saving the soul of America and that all of
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 8: us have a responsibility in that. And so I think
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 8: that the message should not just be around taking Trump down.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 8: I think the message has to be around one centering
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 8: that we are recentering and repositioning people in this country
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 8: so that the value of this country is actually her people.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 8: The second thing is, I think we've got to center
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 8: on a message of the possibilities that not less like the,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 8: like you can't stop at, we got to beat Trump, right?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 8: Because it's not like we were in utopia before Trump
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 8: was in office, right? I think that what excites people is,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 8: And I think that what folks are looking for, particularly
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 8: young people that I'm talking to, they're looking for something
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 8: very different, right? And so I often say, what is
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 8: your radical reimagining of America? That we actually have to
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 8: push that there is a vision to go beyond where
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 8: we've been to address with some of the damage that
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 8: has happened.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 7: But to actually take things forward. I think the other
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 7: two points that I.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 8: Would make is, One, we are in a we cannot
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 8: continue to step over race. And it is not enough
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 8: that there's just a there's a black woman that is
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 8: on the ticket. I think I certainly I think representation matters.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 8: But we've got to we've got to lean in and
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 8: deal with structural racism in this country.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 7: And every aspect of it.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 8: And so I think that the campaign should not shy
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 8: away from that, right? Even though we know Trump is
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 8: doing the white racist nationalist rally cry, right?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 7: I think it is more of us. And I mean,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: when I mean us, I mean there are more people of.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 8: Goodwill who want to see America that we all imagine
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 8: that is inclusive, that is just, and is democratic. And
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 8: so I think they need to lean into that and
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 8: speak to the challenges and to speak to the need
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 8: for us to deal with uproot structural racism. And then
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 8: the fourth thing that I think is really important is
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 8: that we have got to really be able to not
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 8: just step over what is happening with COVID-19. And we've
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 8: got to deal with issues of poverty and working class folks.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 8: that oftentimes when these conversations get on the national level,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 8: what you hear is you hear a lot of conversation
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 8: about protecting and saving the middle class.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 7: And while I support that and find myself.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 8: As one person among them, Among that group that ultimately
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 8: we have to recognize that all of us make America right.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 8: All of us deserve to really be able to get
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 8: the opportunities that the purpose of most of us that
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 8: were that are now attach ourselves better black or white
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 8: or Asian in the middle class that many of our
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 8: families were not in the middle class, but there were programs.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 8: from the New Deal on that actually focused on how
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 8: to lift poor people that created the middle class. And
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 8: somehow we've forgotten that. And so I think we still
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 8: need that kind of level of conversation too, that this
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 8: conversation just doesn't get stuck in the middle class and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 8: the upper class, but that we actually have a message
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 8: specifically for the working poor and poor people who have
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 8: not benefited from the wealth of this country.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: So you spend most of your time On the ground
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: talking to voters. As you know, because you've graciously participated
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: in our Vote Save America trainings, we have thousands of
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: organizers who will be talking to voters over the next
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: few months.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 7: Which, John, I just want to tell you is amazing.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 7: I just, I hate to cut you off.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: You were amazing.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 8: I'm like, y'all got 17,000 people on here organizing.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 7: I'm like, this is like organizers goldmine. This is like,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 7: I'm not going to organize a heaven. But anyway.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: Well, you were the biggest hit of all the trainings.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: People were going crazy. So you really pumped everyone up.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: What's your advice to organizers when they encounter voters, particularly
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: maybe young voters or voters who haven't been involved in
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: the process a lot or maybe haven't voted in a
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: few elections who say, I don't know that Joe Biden
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: is progressive enough or I have a problem with Kamala
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: Harris's record as a prosecutor and they're just not sure.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: What's your message to those voters?
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 7: To listen. And I'm serious. To listen.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 8: That oftentimes what I have found is that we're so
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 8: busy trying to evangelize people that we're not hearing them.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 8: That oftentimes when people come up to us, we tell
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 8: folks that we don't meet people that's apathetic. I've never
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 8: met a person that just didn't care about anything.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 7: I didn't.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 8: I've met people who are frustrated with the process, don't
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 8: see themselves in the process, don't feel recognized, valued or
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 8: listened to. And so part of what we do when
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 8: people say that, when we run across a voter, a person,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 8: they say, well, I don't want to vote because I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 8: don't think that it matters. And we actually acknowledge them. Well,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 8: why do you feel that way?
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 8: And they start to tell us and we ask, well,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 8: what do you care about? We don't start talking about
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 8: voting or, well, you need to vote because X, Y, Z.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 7: What do you care about?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 8: And then once you engage in that conversation and they
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 8: start sharing what they care about, then you can start
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 8: helping them to make the connection of how voting could
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 8: possibly be one of the tools to actually impact that
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 8: what they care about. And so it becomes a conversation
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 8: that's really being informed and. that it centers them, what
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 8: they desire, what they need, and it comes from, and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 8: they know that you are listening to them. And so
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 8: even in the process when they say, well, I voted
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 8: and I haven't seen any change, I don't argue.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 7: I was like, you know what? I feel that way too.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 7: There's oftentimes I feel that way. You're right. You're not crazy.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 8: Like I affirm you that yes, not only have I
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 8: felt that way, but I've seen that.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 7: But I don't want it to continue to be that way.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 8: And so this is what I do to actually make
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 8: it change. And so I think that part of what
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 8: we have to do, if we want to see a
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 8: robust democracy, we have to have the orientation and shift
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 8: the paradigm of how we're engaging people in the conversation.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 8: We engage people in the conversation like the only thing
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 8: that matters and the only time they matter is if
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 8: they participate in this system. The truth of the matter
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 8: is we should start with the conversation is that you
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 8: matter regardless. You matter because God created you that you
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 8: are a living human being and you have value. And
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 8: to the extent that we see that and recognize and
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 8: hear that, let's talk about what it is that your
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 8: vision is for your life.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 7: What is it that you want to see?
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: And then we back into voting could possibly be a
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 8: tool that can actually help you. If someone says, well,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 8: I'm tired of police and I don't want to see
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 8: police brutality, do you know how a police chief is elected,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 8: is in power? And then we talk through the process. Oftentimes,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 8: nine times out of ten, I always tell people I've
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 8: never lost a voter. I'm just like, at the end
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 8: of the day, right, but I've also never forced an
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 8: untrue and a false frame on people. That when people
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: are saying they don't trust the system, I understand because
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 8: there are times that I don't trust the system either.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 8: That when people are saying that they feel like there
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 8: are things that don't matter when they vote, I felt
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 8: like that. And if we're all honest, we've all felt
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 8: that way. So we have to actually help people have
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 8: an authentic conversation for people to really understand that we
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 8: recognize the limitations of voting, but we also recognize its power.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: So Donald Trump this morning openly admitted that he's sabotaging
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: the mail in order to stop us from voting. And
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: I saw a lot of folks on Twitter, people were
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: coming to me and saying, I'm terrified. I'm feeling pretty
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: helpless and powerless right now. What's the use of all
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: this hard work if he's just going to cheat? And
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: how do we fight this? He's going to steal the election.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: What's your advice to these people who you know, watch
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump doing this kind of stuff and are just
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: terrified about what's going to happen in November.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 8: Well, the first thing I did right was the day
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 8: I started to fight.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: Keep your eyes on the prize and hold on, hold on.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 7: I just wanted to start with that because at the
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 7: end of the day, I love it that you.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 8: Have to really get centered around keeping your eyes on
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 8: the prize. That Black people in this country, we have
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 8: never been given the time or the space to be tired.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 8: That we have fought for our very existence from the
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 8: time that we were brought over here in slave ships.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 8: That there are folks in my family that literally are
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 8: living right now that were sharecroppers picking cotton, yet they
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 8: still persisted. That ultimately, if this nation is going to change,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 8: we've got to change it. And this is a moment,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 8: we have to know what moment we're in. And so
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 8: I understand when they're saying they're tired. Lord knows I understand.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 8: Do you think I want to talk about racism? Imagine
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 8: I'm tired of talking about racism. Imagine how I feel
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 8: about dealing with it.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 7: I don't, right?
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 8: And so at the end of the day, like, But
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 8: I have no choice because ultimately I believe that I
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 8: can co-create the kind of environment, the kind of nation
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 8: that we deserve.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 7: And that's what I have to tap into.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 8: When my body is tired, I have to tap into
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 8: that spirit that led to like those folks singing, those
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 8: people like John, Representative John Lewis and C.T.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: Vivian, Amelia Boynton on that.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 8: Bridge that did not have government. You talk about Trump.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 8: Trump is one thing. These are people that didn't have
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 8: government on their side, that were actually beaten in front
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 8: of us and marginalized.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 7: And for the most part, racism, that was the flavor
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 7: of the day, openly.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 8: And so my point is, we don't have the privilege—
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 8: to say that I am tired and I don't work. That, yes,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 8: we will acknowledge that this is a pretty tough time.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 8: But the only thing that I can say, and I
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 8: often use this example, is that, you know, the way
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 8: that diamonds are made, John? Diamonds are made, all a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 8: diamond is is a piece of coal. It is a
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 8: piece of coal that under extreme pressure over a period
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 8: of time became a diamond. And how do we know
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 8: a diamond between the cold? A diamond creates clarity. The
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 8: value of a diamond increases with the amount of clarity
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 8: that it has.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 7: And so what I am saying is in.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 8: This moment of extreme pressure, what we need to be
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 8: focused on is getting clarity.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 7: We got to get clear.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 8: We got to get clarity around why we've got to
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 8: eliminate sexism and racism and homophobia and all those forms
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 8: of oppression that keep us from being our greatest selves.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 8: We have to literally find a way to do this
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 8: a more excellent way. that we are actually centering the
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 8: value of human life over every single system. And to
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 8: the extent that systems are not honoring that, those systems
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 8: must be replaced, reformed, or abolished.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 7: And I got that from the U.S. Constitution.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: Latasha Brown, you are incredible. You are incredible. Please come
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: back like every week and give us.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 7: A pep talk here.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: I think we'll all do a lot better. Thank you
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: so much for joining. Thank you for all the work
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: you're doing. You were fantastic. I appreciate your time.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, thanks for joining us today.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 7: That was fun.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you both for having me today.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: You're welcome.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: On this final episode. If that's the ticket.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: Maybe we can have you on again before the election, John.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: That would be lovely.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: I'm available.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: Talk to everyone.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 7: Bye.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: every week.