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Transcript

Trump Is So Beatable · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor. Greetings once again from Milwaukee, where the
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: only two political stories that matter right now are about
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, the convicted felon who just survived an assassination
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: attempt to officially accept the Republican nomination for the third
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: time in a row, and Joe Biden, the hugely successful
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: president who will reportedly decide in the next few days
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: whether he still plans to accept the Democratic nomination, even
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: though most of the party's senior leaders are now urging
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the 81-year-old incumbent to pass the torch. Let's start with Trump.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: who just finished a record-breaking 96-minute nomination speech. He broke
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: his own record. The second longest speech was his speech
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: in 2016. The third longest was his speech in 2020.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: But boy, he blew those records out of the water
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: with a 96-minute speech that lasted into the next day.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Technically a five-day convention. Congratulations, sir. Thanks to the speech.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: So it started with a very long, detailed speech. story
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: about the assassination attempt. Hard to describe here. You'll have
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: to watch it for yourself, but we do have a clip.
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: The ears are the bloodiest part. If something happens with
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: the ears, they bleed more than any other part of
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: the body. For whatever reason, the doctors told me that.
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: They said, why is there so much blood? He said,
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: it's the ears. They bleed more.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: It is the ears. That was not part of the
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: prepared remarks.
• 1:42
  Speaker 6: I want you all to know that this was something
• 1:46
  Speaker 6: that I could relate to. because I had my ears
• 1:49
  Speaker 6: pinned back when I was 13, because they used to
• 1:51
  Speaker 6: stick out. And then I had a blood clot on
• 1:53
  Speaker 6: my ear, and I had to do surgery without anesthesia
• 1:56
  Speaker 6: on my left ear, and it bled a lot.
• 1:59
  Speaker 7: Man.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Wow, what a personal anecdote. Sorry about that.
• 2:02
  Speaker 8: Trump started his speech with the story of his bleeding ear,
• 2:04
  Speaker 8: and you started this podcast with the story of his
• 2:06
  Speaker 8: bleeding ear.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I'm the Trump of this podcast. We've always, on some level,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: known that to be true. You said it. You said it.
• 2:11
  Speaker 9: I don't want to sound glib, but it's really late,
• 2:13
  Speaker 9: and we've been drinking. It's very hard to make a
• 2:17
  Speaker 9: speech about narrowly avoiding getting assassinated boring, but he managed
• 2:22
  Speaker 9: to do it somehow. A friend of ours described it
• 2:24
  Speaker 9: as if a second grader were telling a story about
• 2:28
  Speaker 9: a horrifying incident.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: As I was listening to it, I'm like, it's really,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: he's somehow making, even though it's obviously a story about
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: the assassination attempt on him. Like I went into the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: speech thinking that's going to be a really, even for Trump,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: that's going to be a moving moment telling the story.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: And he somehow made it even more narcissistic than like
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: you would imagine. Like at one point he was like
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: in the crowd and there were all these shots and
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the crowd didn't leave. And you know why the crowd
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: didn't leave? Because they were worried about me. They were
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: worried about me. It's like the Secret Service had guns
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and told them not to leave. That's why they didn't leave, man.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And before the shooting... I started the speech and I
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: was speaking so powerfully, so strongly, and it was such
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a big crowd and there were so many stats and
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the stats were about immigration and all the good things
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: we did. It was just, it was that, even that part,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: which people probably say was the good part of the speech,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: why did we get to the other speech, was a
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: little weird.
• 3:18
  Speaker 8: But you just delivered that with way more emotion than
• 3:20
  Speaker 8: he did. He told that story as if I was
• 3:23
  Speaker 8: telling a story to my three-year-old to get him to
• 3:25
  Speaker 8: fall asleep in bed.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: It is that same cadence. So weird. It was bizarre.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: It was uninteresting.
• 3:31
  Speaker 8: And we actually learned truly nothing from his story that
• 3:34
  Speaker 8: was not available on video.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was.
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: Well, I just think it's, you know, uh, stories saying
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: that he's had some sort of spiritual awakening, notwithstanding, um,
• 3:44
  Speaker 6: the man has no interior life and that did not change.
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: And so he drew no lessons from it. He learned
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: nothing about violence in America, the danger posed by guns,
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: the rhetoric in our country.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: At least nothing that we heard in this speech. Nothing
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: that we heard in this speech. Perhaps there's something floating
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: around in there. I don't want to assign motivation to
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the man, but nothing we heard tonight.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: I'm only going by what I heard.
• 4:02
  Speaker 6: I will say, I think we're pretty jaded, and also
• 4:06
  Speaker 6: we were following the story very closely. I do think
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: that was one of the most interesting things we've ever heard.
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: It was ultimately the most boring version, but I It
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: was the most interesting part of an otherwise very, very
• 4:19
  Speaker 6: boring image.
• 4:20
  Speaker 9: What happened to him is like... What happened is interesting,
• 4:22
  Speaker 9: but show don't tell. The image of you avoiding the bullet,
• 4:27
  Speaker 9: getting cut, punching your fist is on the screen. You
• 4:30
  Speaker 9: don't have to describe how you clenched your fist and punched.
• 4:32
  Speaker 8: In mind-numbing detail that you described that picture that was
• 4:35
  Speaker 8: in seven versions arrayed around his head on the big screen.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: On the Minecraft big boards. So he tells that story, right?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And you think, okay, that's... And then he ends it by...
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: walking over to hug the uniform of the man who
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: was killed, the firefighter who was killed in the shooting.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And then we're like, so then we're like 30 minutes
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: into the speech and then he starts acknowledgements. Then he
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: starts narrating what happened throughout the night. He's talking about
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Dana White who introduced him. He's talking about Hulk Hogan.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: He's talking about Kid Rock. And so he does all
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: this thing. And then we get into what we were
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: promised is going to be a unifying speech where His
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: aides were also pushing that he was not going to
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: mention the name Joe Biden at all, and that it
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: was going to be unifying and different. It was a
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: new Trump because he's now spiritual, because he survived this.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And here is just a sample of what we heard
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: for the rest of the speech.
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: And we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement,
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: which is what's been happening in our country lately at
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: a level that nobody has ever seen before. In that spirit,
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: the Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: and labeling their political opponent as an enemy of democracy.
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: Especially since that is not true. In fact, I am
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: the one saving democracy for the people of our country.
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: Every week, they get another subpoena from the Democrats, crazy
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: Nancy Pelosi, the whole thing, just.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Boom, boom, boom.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: of the United States, think of it, the 10 worst,
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: added them up, they will not have done the damage
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: that Biden has done. Only going to use the term once, Biden.
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: I'm not going to use the name anymore, just one time.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: We don't have fierce people. We have people that are
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: a lot less than fierce, except when it comes to
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: cheating on elections, and a couple of other things. Then
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: they're fierce. Then they're fierce.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: I am trying to buy your vote. I'll be honest
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 6:49
  Speaker 6: That was actually, I would say, him saying to Wisconsin,
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: I want to buy your vote, was actually one of
• 6:52
  Speaker 6: the more charming parts of the speech. He finishes the
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: assassination topper, does a pay-on to unity, then does acknowledgements
• 6:59
  Speaker 6: for about 15 minutes. Melania, good to see you. I
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: hope you had a great summer. Spends a long time
• 7:05
  Speaker 6: on Dana White's travel logistics. A surprising amount of time
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: on Dana White's.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Went somewhere with his wife. Dana White said it publicly.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: It was Italy.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. Yeah, he wouldn't say it was Italy.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: He wouldn't say why. You might think that we're going
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: on about this. He went on for a couple minutes
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: at least about just Dana White and his travel plans.
• 7:22
  Speaker 6: Eventually acknowledges all the members of his family and then
• 7:25
  Speaker 6: gets to J.D.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Vance.
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: So we get a couple shots of Usha looking absolutely
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: fucking miserable. Like Usha, I think, could pull up a
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: chair and be the fifth host of this show.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: And then he just went into his stump.
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: So it really was an assassination attempt topper into not
• 7:42
  Speaker 6: even that much of a revised version of his stump speech.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: So here's a, you know, I try to write questions
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: ahead of time for this podcast for you guys. Here's
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: a hilarious question now that I'm reading it. What do
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: you think was the goal of the speech? What audience
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: was the Trump campaign trying to reach and what message
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: were they trying to drive home?
• 7:59
  Speaker 7: Not a clue.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: Not a clue. Yeah, Dan.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: I really thought there was going to be a plan.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Me too.
• 8:04
  Speaker 8: I mean, there has been all this talk and some
• 8:06
  Speaker 8: of it warranted about how much better this version of
• 8:09
  Speaker 8: the Trump campaign has been and how much, and I
• 8:12
  Speaker 8: swear I'm doing this on a curve, but how much
• 8:15
  Speaker 8: more disciplined Trump has been throughout this. He doesn't want
• 8:17
  Speaker 8: to go to prison, right? And it's either he wins or...
• 8:19
  Speaker 8: He doesn't go to prison or he loses and goes
• 8:21
  Speaker 8: to prison. And so he has been more focused than
• 8:23
  Speaker 8: in previous efforts. But this speech was fucking insane. Just
• 8:28
  Speaker 8: like the content is insane. It makes no logical sense.
• 8:31
  Speaker 8: But the convention speech itself is the easiest layup in
• 8:35
  Speaker 8: American politics. All the networks agree. We're just going to
• 8:38
  Speaker 8: let you speak for an hour directly to tens of
• 8:41
  Speaker 8: millions of Americans. Just say whatever you want. Deliver your message.
• 8:45
  Speaker 8: Here is free propaganda. And he took that and he
• 8:48
  Speaker 8: just could not do it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: It made no sense. He had no message. He was
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: all over the map. Most people went to bed.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: The convention, the people who produced the convention actually did
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: do a good job of just spewing propaganda. The rest
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: of the convention was incredibly disciplined. They made even the most,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: the craziest of MAGA freaks kind of tow some sort
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: of line. There was no discussion of the 2020 election
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: throughout four slash five days of this convention now.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: Did all of this.
• 9:16
  Speaker 8: And then Donald Trump gets up there in his moment
• 9:19
  Speaker 8: and thinks he's at, I don't, a rally somewhere.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: In like, it was like a, it was like a
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: long rotary clubs.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: It was great.
• 9:25
  Speaker 8: It was, it was, he was honestly doing like open
• 9:29
  Speaker 8: mic night at Mar-a-Lago.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: It was insane.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: It was, it was a, it was heartening actually.
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: And it was a reminder that this, like we, I
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: know we've been in a very hard debate about fears
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: that Democrats have about losing, but this is a reminder
• 9:42
  Speaker 6: about beatable.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: This guy is, And what.
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: I thought while watching his speech is, fortunately for us,
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: you can run the most disciplined campaign and disciplined convention
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: in the world, but it doesn't matter if your candidate
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: is one of the most undisciplined figures to ever grace
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: American public life.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: That is their weakness.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: He is their weakness.
• 10:03
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. I think.
• 10:07
  Speaker 9: People like us who are sickos who watch the full
• 10:10
  Speaker 9: speech are like, what was that? People in the hall
• 10:12
  Speaker 9: are probably wondering. Tim Alberta, a great reporter at The Atlantic,
• 10:16
  Speaker 9: was tweeting that even the diehards in the front row
• 10:18
  Speaker 9: were looking at their phones, wondering when it was going
• 10:19
  Speaker 9: to be over.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: I think most people turned it off.
• 10:22
  Speaker 9: And the takeaways from the week will be Trump is tough,
• 10:26
  Speaker 9: he's a survivor, and he will sacrifice everything for you,
• 10:29
  Speaker 9: his flock. It's always been this narrative that this rich man,
• 10:32
  Speaker 9: he gave up fame and fortune for money and he
• 10:35
  Speaker 9: didn't need the aggravation. And that was obviously bullshit because
• 10:38
  Speaker 9: Trump's a narcissist and he only wants attention and politics
• 10:42
  Speaker 9: has been his vehicle for attention for many years. But
• 10:44
  Speaker 9: now the assassination attempt is the ultimate example for them
• 10:47
  Speaker 9: of him sacrificing for you, the voter. And some of
• 10:52
  Speaker 9: the voters hear that and think there was literally divine providence.
• 10:56
  Speaker 9: There's a lot of like, this was a gift from
• 10:57
  Speaker 9: God talk throughout the four days. And then other people
• 11:00
  Speaker 9: just think he's a badass and the core image is
• 11:02
  Speaker 9: going to be that photo. So You know, I think
• 11:05
  Speaker 9: the takeaways will be like strength.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: They wanted it to be unity. I don't know that
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: they succeeded there, but, you know. Yeah, I think the
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: most generous analysis of what happened tonight would be undecided voters.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Like if the whole this is his flock thing, that's
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: not going to work with anyone who's not already voting
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: for Donald Trump.
• 11:26
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: But if you're an undecided voter, you probably turned off
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: the speech 20 or 30 minutes in if you made
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: it that long. Maybe you thought that the assassination attempt
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: story that he told was, you know, moving, charming, whatever.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: But I do think that for him, and I started
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: thinking about this today because he definitely feels so confident
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: that he is winning. I mean, he just, this whole
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: convention when he was sitting there, he just exudes this
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: confidence that he hasn't had in a while that like,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I am winning this race. And when he is winning
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: and he's doing well, he gets lazy, you know, and
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: he gets like, oh, I don't have to try that hard.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: And I can just, and he gets self-indulgent. This was
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: like a self-indulgent speech. Like I can now do my stump,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: say whatever I want. I don't really have to try.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: I'm beating this guy. I'm going to win. So he
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: just did whatever he want. You can tell when his
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: like backs up against the wall. and he's in court
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: and he's doing this, he's like, he's doing his fighting thing. He, he,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: this is where his vulnerability now is he thinks he's ahead.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: And which means I do think he's, he's the Trump
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: that we saw tonight was beatable.
• 12:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: The, the, I do think he's like running on a
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: post in his mind that the, the, all the talk
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: from inside the campaign and the spin that, you know,
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: he's had this, he's, he's different.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: It's going to be more subdued.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: It's serene. It's unity.
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: He's not going to say the word Biden during the speech. My, my,
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: expectation was like, that's a pretty, that's smart to me, right?
• 12:49
  Speaker 6: It seemed to acknowledge that what we have talked about
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: a lot, right? That the die is cast on Donald Trump.
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: The country knows Donald Trump. The reason he's up right
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: now is because they have deep concerns about Joe Biden.
• 12:59
  Speaker 6: But maybe Trump would take the assassination attempt as an
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: opportunity to reset with the American people and present a
• 13:05
  Speaker 6: slightly different version with this as a hinge point that
• 13:08
  Speaker 6: could lead people to say, oh, like this is the
• 13:10
  Speaker 6: narrative of this election. He decided to run a different
• 13:13
  Speaker 6: kind of race and be a different kind of candidate.
• 13:16
  Speaker 6: and he just could not do it. Crazy Nancy, Democrats
• 13:20
  Speaker 6: destroying the country, election 2020 stolen, the media's lying to you,
• 13:23
  Speaker 6: China virus, evasion, mass deportations. He couldn't stop himself from
• 13:27
  Speaker 6: doing all the things that repel the kind of people
• 13:30
  Speaker 6: he needs if Democrats can launch a better campaign.
• 13:35
  Speaker 8: They had two goals with this convention, right? What he
• 13:39
  Speaker 8: said really wasn't gonna matter that much. It was would
• 13:41
  Speaker 8: he seem more normal, right? The whole point of the convention,
• 13:43
  Speaker 8: all the humanizing stories, Dana White reading the text that
• 13:47
  Speaker 8: Trump sent him, the granddaughter, all those things was about
• 13:50
  Speaker 8: making Trump seem more normal, make him acceptable to more voters.
• 13:54
  Speaker 8: And I think cleverly he took, have really pushed this
• 13:56
  Speaker 8: idea that the assassination attempt changed Trump because people don't
• 14:01
  Speaker 8: like Trump, right? They are looking for like, they don't
• 14:04
  Speaker 8: like either of the candidates right now. They're looking for
• 14:06
  Speaker 8: somewhere to go. And the idea that Trump is different,
• 14:08
  Speaker 8: like the Biden folks have a different theory that losing
• 14:10
  Speaker 8: the election changed Trump and made him even crazier.
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 14:13
  Speaker 8: And so they're trying to take the opposite of that,
• 14:15
  Speaker 8: which is the shooting made Trump a more serious and
• 14:17
  Speaker 8: more serene person. And that was the point of starting
• 14:20
  Speaker 8: the speech with that story, which I will say he
• 14:23
  Speaker 8: did pledge he would only tell once, and I would
• 14:24
  Speaker 8: bet $ 5 he tells at the rally in Michigan on
• 14:27
  Speaker 8: Saturday with J.D. Vance.
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: 100%.
• 14:29
  Speaker 8: But then he went, and as soon as he said that,
• 14:32
  Speaker 8: he just went right to Trump, right? When we were
• 14:34
  Speaker 8: watching the coverage beforehand, David Axelrod was on, and he
• 14:38
  Speaker 8: mentioned a voter in a focus group who said, Having
• 14:41
  Speaker 8: Trump as president for four years felt like having a
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: neighbor who always had his leaf blower going, and he
• 14:45
  Speaker 8: hated that. And this was leaf blower Trump, right? He's
• 14:48
  Speaker 8: just loud, wouldn't shut up, didn't make a lot of sense,
• 14:52
  Speaker 8: talking about himself.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I will say, if you're the Trump team and you're
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: looking at this and being like, let's try to find
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the win here, they're probably worried that he would come
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: off seeming scary and threatening, right? And he didn't necessarily
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: seem as scary and threatening as he has been in
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: the past. He seemed boring, incoherent, and sort of weird,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: which maybe they'll take that over the scary threatening. And
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: maybe people who tune in are like, yeah, he didn't
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: seem like he's going to come get us all. You know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: like he seemed a little. He took half his annex
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: too many.
• 15:26
  Speaker 6: I'll tell you, I'll just say it, which is that
• 15:28
  Speaker 6: what I thought is I don't know if when you
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: get shot in the ear, if you get a full
• 15:32
  Speaker 6: weeks of Tylenol plus codeine. Like that was my question.
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: And I'm just going to leave that question out there.
• 15:38
  Speaker 8: Just to bring people behind the scenes here, for 96 minutes,
• 15:42
  Speaker 8: Lovett was debating whether to tweet that.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: After some careful consideration, he decided to just say it.
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: But it's also, it's like all the love talk, the
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: meandering acknowledgments. Yes, it's very Trump, but if there is
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: a new and serene Trump, I do think it came
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: in a little bottle.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: That's just, I'm just gonna, that's my, I don't know.
• 16:01
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Before we move on.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Also, it wasn't a bullet.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: No, I'm kidding.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I don't believe that. That's, that's blue and on stuff.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: That's not. Before we move on, other primetime speakers, not
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: anyone worth mentioning. Eric Trump was sort of angry. Kid
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Rock sounded kind of crazy. Dana White was there. Tucker
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Carlson was actually.
• 16:30
  Speaker 9: Oh, Tucker Carlson was early on and was sort of.
• 16:32
  Speaker 9: He told a personal story that I think really worked
• 16:35
  Speaker 9: in the room. I don't know about people back home, but.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: It works in the room. Yeah, Tucker Carlson is the
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: one where I was like, I thought that J.D. Vance
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: would be that kind of scary. And J.D. Vance's speech sucked.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, Tucker Carlson's the one.
• 16:45
  Speaker 9: By the way, Trump, I think, detailed Dana White's travel
• 16:47
  Speaker 9: woes before getting to J.D.
• 16:49
  Speaker 6: Vance.
• 16:49
  Speaker 7: J.D.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Vance came like 15 minutes later.
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: But then there was also Hulk Hogan who sounded like this.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: So all you criminals, all you lowlifes, all you scumbags, all.
• 17:03
  Speaker 7: You drug dealers, and all you crooked politicians need to
• 17:07
  Speaker 7: answer one question, brother. What you gonna do when Donald
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: Trump and all the Trump-o-maniacs run wild on you, brother?
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: Well, Mitt Romney will run from them, and Mike Pence
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: will try to escape before he'd be hung, and Nancy
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: Pelosi will call the vice president, and there'll be a
• 17:28
  Speaker 6: long-term investigation. Can I just tell you, even just hearing
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: that clip, because now we're hearing it a second time,
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: it really does light up the kid in me who
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: saw Hulk Hogan after American Gladiators.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, where they're at.
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: No Holds Barred was a movie I was too young
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: to see when it was on television, and we got
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: to get Stone Cold Steve Austin. He said he was
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: in favor of gay marriage in 2014.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: I think it's an opening.
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: The Undertaker also donated to Trump. I was Googling this
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: during the event. And the Ultimate Warrior is fucking dead.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: The Iron Sheik was attacking him.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Iron Sheik we got, but I mean.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: That is something like a consultant would say in a
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Democratic campaign meeting after this convention. What's a rice bucket challenge? Oh,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: you don't want Stone Cold? You don't want Stone Cold? Okay,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: so you're going to say no. I was Googling during
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: the convention.
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: You don't want Stone Cold Steve Austin at the Democratic Convention?
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: You just want Lin-Manuel Miranda? You want the cast of
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: fucking Sufts?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: I want fucking Stone Cold Steve Austin. That was my joke. Yeah,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: it was literally Tommy's sweet fucking absolute joke theft.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: I took it to theft. I took it to Sufts.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Dan, do you have something smart to say?
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: Oh, please.
• 18:30
  Speaker 7: Oh, please.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Like Obama once said, I am my best joke writer.
• 18:35
  Speaker 9: Hulk Hogan will be what is on every social media
• 18:37
  Speaker 9: platform tomorrow, though.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: He ripped his shirt.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: It was so cool.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: Fuck.
• 18:43
  Speaker 9: And for the people who are pointing out some of
• 18:45
  Speaker 9: the terrible things Hulk Hogan has done in his.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Life, yes, he would very... He used the N-word. It
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: was very public. It was awful. The Gawker trial came out.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: It was a night for angry divorce debts, 100%.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: I think most people probably will. You tweeted this. We're
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: all trapped in the 80s. All right. Well, I was
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: going to say, let's take a step back and talk
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: about the convention as a whole now that it's over. Dan,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: you kind of talked about this already, but The overall
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: strategy message of the convention seemed to be, hey, Trump
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: is not as scary as you think. He's a changed man.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: He's nicer than you think. Don't be afraid. You don't
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: want another term of Joe Biden, but you're worried because
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: you think Trump's kind of scary and weird and we're
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: going to soften him up. Did I miss anything? No,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. And we're not going to talk
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: about abortion at all because we know it's super unpopular
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: for us.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, this was a convention of a party that
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: really wanted to win. This party.
• 19:39
  Speaker 8: is the party that passed all these abortion bans. They
• 19:41
  Speaker 8: have spent their entire lives trying to repeal Roe and
• 19:45
  Speaker 8: then to pass these sort of bans. And they went
• 19:48
  Speaker 8: four days without ever.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: Talking about it.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: And Donald Trump never mentioned it.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: And there was no fight about it.
• 19:52
  Speaker 8: In a normal convention, there would have been a platform
• 19:55
  Speaker 8: fight about it.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: There would have been speakers who would have... No one.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: No one did it.
• 20:00
  Speaker 8: The other sort of takeaway for me from this is
• 20:02
  Speaker 8: that this is now Donald Trump's party. Even the last time,
• 20:06
  Speaker 8: even in 2020, there wasn't an actual convention, but If
• 20:09
  Speaker 8: we think back to the Trump presidency, most of these
• 20:11
  Speaker 8: yahoos were trying to just simply survive the Trump years
• 20:13
  Speaker 8: without getting indicted and then just wait for the next
• 20:16
  Speaker 8: person to come. But now they are all true believers.
• 20:19
  Speaker 8: Every top to bottom. The only non-true believer is Mitch McConnell.
• 20:22
  Speaker 8: He stood up for one second and got booed.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:25
  Speaker 8: And everyone else that whatever Trump believes, they believe whatever
• 20:28
  Speaker 8: Trump wants, they want.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: And it is.
• 20:30
  Speaker 8: And that is scary because win or lose this election.
• 20:33
  Speaker 8: One of our two parties is now a mega extremist party.
• 20:36
  Speaker 8: going forward and that's going to make it really hard
• 20:38
  Speaker 8: to govern in a two party system.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: That's what I, when I saw it's, you know, that like,
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: it's not a betrayal to turn on your friends and
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: say you love big brother. Like the actual betrayal is
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: having big brother in your heart. And you feel like
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: at this convention, even the Republicans that once gritted their
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: teeth and said they were for Trump, you can feel
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: them having persuaded themselves to believe that this is actually
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: the way. It's not just that the old guard has
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: been cast aside, though a lot of them have, it's
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: that they didn't just relent in their words, they have
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: adopted Trumpism.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: They believe it now.
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: J.D.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: Vance is the perfect example of that.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Did the convention give you guys any new ideas about
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: how Democrats should run against Trump in these next few months?
• 21:22
  Speaker 8: The convention did not. Trump's speech did. It is a
• 21:25
  Speaker 8: reminder that we want people to see Donald Trump. And
• 21:28
  Speaker 8: they really haven't seen Donald Trump at all in this campaign,
• 21:30
  Speaker 8: particularly over the last three weeks as the focus has been,
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: understandably so, on President Biden. And conventions are not news
• 21:39
  Speaker 8: per se. It's a show that gets put on. And
• 21:43
  Speaker 8: there's been a real conversation, a very important conversation that
• 21:45
  Speaker 8: could lead to a historic decision that we'll get to
• 21:47
  Speaker 8: with President Biden. But Donald Trump is incredibly vulnerable. just
• 21:52
  Speaker 8: absolutely beatable. He is a bad candidate. Voters do not
• 21:58
  Speaker 8: want to vote for him.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: They do not like him, right?
• 22:00
  Speaker 8: And it's just, like, when I sort of think about
• 22:02
  Speaker 8: what the Republicans are trying to do, it's sort of
• 22:03
  Speaker 8: like reverse permission structure, right? Normally, you want to be
• 22:07
  Speaker 8: for something, and you're just trying to give people permission
• 22:09
  Speaker 8: to do what they want to do. Here, they don't
• 22:11
  Speaker 8: vote for either of these guys, right? So you've got
• 22:13
  Speaker 8: to give them permission to not vote for that person.
• 22:15
  Speaker 8: And there's a lot of room, a lot of ammunition
• 22:18
  Speaker 8: that Trump gave us in that speech to accomplish that task.
• 22:21
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I also think we got to make sure we
• 22:22
  Speaker 9: get under Donald Trump's skin so we don't get the
• 22:25
  Speaker 9: barred out chill version and we get like the really angry, ranting,
• 22:29
  Speaker 9: raving person that everyone hates. Also, we need to make
• 22:31
  Speaker 9: sure we're highlighting the freaky religious guy who spoke after
• 22:37
  Speaker 9: Hulk Hogan, who wants to control your life and your
• 22:39
  Speaker 9: contraception use and IVF and make like the younger males
• 22:44
  Speaker 9: that they're going after worry about that guy being on
• 22:47
  Speaker 9: the Trump train and not think about Hulk Hogan ripping
• 22:49
  Speaker 9: his shirt off And like the manly man, you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 9: kind of cool version of Trump who they think has
• 22:55
  Speaker 9: emerged since the assassination attempt.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, they... What you got from this convention
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: is they do not want to talk about abortion. They
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: do not want to talk about any of the policies
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: and proposals in Project 2025. They don't want to talk
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: about their tax cuts for the rich, with the exception of,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: as you mentioned last night, Steve Scalise. They just don't
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: want to talk about any of these things that aren't popular.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Or the election. And we need a campaign candidate who
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: can prosecute the case and make sure that everyone is
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: hearing about this all the time.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: I also....
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: There were moments in this convention where... You have someone
• 23:27
  Speaker 6: staying up there being like, Donald Trump shall be a
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: champion for our values and the blood and spirit of
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: this country shall reign supreme. We will have a country
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: again that is the first in all the land. And like,
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: I can just picture like a, you know, even a
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: George W. Bush calling something, saying like, this is some
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: weird shit or Barack Obama kind of making a funny joke. Like,
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: hey guys, your job is to pave roads and send
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: out the social security checks. Can we tone it down
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: a notch? Like what the fuck are you going to
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: do when you're in office? There was no policy agenda.
• 23:54
  Speaker 6: There's no details. It was a rambling, meandering set of grievances, attacks, lies, bullshit,
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: and all the rest. And just the incredible power that
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: just new and normal would have. I'm just here. I
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: want to do these 10 things. I don't care about
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: all this other stuff. It would be so powerful.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: So that brings us to the drama surrounding the Democratic
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: nominee for president, which is really overshadowed the Republican convention
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: this week. Uh, here's the latest from the New York
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: times quote, several people close to president Biden said on
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Thursday that they believe he has begun to accept the
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: idea that he may not be able to win in
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: November and may have to drop out of the race though.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: He has not yet made up his mind. So, uh,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: the time story matches all the other reporting as well
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: as everything we're hearing. Two senior House Democrats told CBS
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: they expect Biden to make his decision within three to
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: five days. Of course, he's still recovering from COVID at
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: his home in Delaware. But even since we recorded last night,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: there's been a flood of bad polls and leaks about
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: how most senior Democrats now believe that Biden should step aside.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Congressional leaders, party leaders, House and Senate Democrats, John Tester
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: of Montana became the second senator, put out a statement
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: tonight saying that Biden should step aside. Strategists, donors... And
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: of course, as the polls show now, at least half,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: if not more, of Democratic voters. We should note, though,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: that the White House and the Biden campaign continue to
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: deny on the record that the president's considering stepping aside.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Those denials gut. More intense, I would say, as the
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: day went on. Tonight, a source close to Biden talked
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: to Bob Costa at CBS and said that they're furious
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: that while the president's trying to recover, a pressure campaign
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: keeps picking up speed. So a little hard to tell.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: There was also sources close to Biden that talked to
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: The New York Times and The Washington Post and NBC News.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: So it's sort of hard to figure out what's going on.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: But it did feel like today, even since we recorded
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: last night, was a bit different. There was speculation earlier
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: this week that the combination of the assassination attempt on
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Trump and the convention would freeze or even end the
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: effort to persuade Biden to step aside. I certainly thought
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: that might happen. What do you guys think changed? And
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: what do you make of all the leaks from the
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: last few days, especially today?
• 26:10
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think it was what Seth Moulton told
• 26:12
  Speaker 9: me earlier this week, which that people who are worried
• 26:15
  Speaker 9: about Biden's candidacy became even more worried after the assassination attempt.
• 26:20
  Speaker 9: and felt more urgency to move quickly. And then on
• 26:22
  Speaker 9: top of that, it seems clear that a bunch of
• 26:25
  Speaker 9: polling came back. Like I think Jon Tester coming out
• 26:28
  Speaker 9: and being the second U.S. Senator to call for a
• 26:30
  Speaker 9: change at the top of the ticket tells you a
• 26:32
  Speaker 9: lot because he's one of the most vulnerable senators up
• 26:34
  Speaker 9: this cycle. I mean, it probably tells you where the
• 26:36
  Speaker 9: polling is in Montana. And so, you know, I think
• 26:40
  Speaker 9: what has happened is, or at least what we're reading,
• 26:42
  Speaker 9: is that people like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are
• 26:44
  Speaker 9: making an argument that this is bigger than Biden, bigger
• 26:47
  Speaker 9: than the White House. This could be Democrats getting wiped
• 26:49
  Speaker 9: out in Congress as well. And that is kind of
• 26:52
  Speaker 9: motivating the extra push.
• 26:53
  Speaker 8: I think what happened is a lot of people try
• 26:55
  Speaker 8: to do this privately. We know that Hakeem Jeffries talked
• 26:58
  Speaker 8: to Biden on Friday night. Schumer talked to him on Saturday,
• 27:00
  Speaker 8: just hours before the assassination attempt. At some point in
• 27:03
  Speaker 8: that same period, Nancy Pelosi spoke to him at least once.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: They tried to do it privately.
• 27:06
  Speaker 8: A bunch of House Democrats did Zoom calls with the president.
• 27:10
  Speaker 8: No one felt that they made any ground there. And
• 27:13
  Speaker 8: they started going public. I think they feel The leaders
• 27:16
  Speaker 8: particularly feel a tremendous amount of pressure from their members
• 27:18
  Speaker 8: to try to get a better result because their members
• 27:20
  Speaker 8: are scared shitless. They're all going to lose their seats
• 27:22
  Speaker 8: over this and we will lose our chance to take
• 27:24
  Speaker 8: the House back and definitely lose the Senate. And so
• 27:26
  Speaker 8: when the private route did not work and Biden seemed,
• 27:29
  Speaker 8: according to all reports, totally unopened to any sort of
• 27:32
  Speaker 8: conversation about it, they started to go more public, to
• 27:34
  Speaker 8: put more public pressure on them. And the truth is,
• 27:37
  Speaker 8: we are now in reporting silly season. Like these two
• 27:39
  Speaker 8: House Democrats who are like three to five days, that's
• 27:42
  Speaker 8: their guess based on like the calendar.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: That's not.
• 27:46
  Speaker 8: There are, by all reports, five people talking to Biden
• 27:49
  Speaker 8: right now, and I don't think any of those people
• 27:51
  Speaker 8: are telling reporters that Biden is changing his mind. They're
• 27:53
  Speaker 8: the people who are on background telling the reporters he's
• 27:56
  Speaker 8: not changing his mind. The political environment has shifted dramatically
• 28:00
  Speaker 8: since we last podcasted about this, but we just have
• 28:02
  Speaker 8: no actual insight into whether the president's mindset has actually changed.
• 28:06
  Speaker 8: I think some of the people in the outer circle,
• 28:08
  Speaker 8: not the inner inner circle, the outer circle, have come
• 28:11
  Speaker 8: to the conclusion that Biden should step aside and eventually
• 28:15
  Speaker 8: we'll have to step aside, but we don't know whether
• 28:17
  Speaker 8: that has actually gotten to the president himself.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: And we, we recorded last night as we do every night.
• 28:23
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And while we were recording or right after there was
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: that story that, that Nancy Pelosi, I think the New
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: York times are in this story. And then CNN ran
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: a version of the story as well, that Nancy Pelosi
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: got on the phone with Biden. And then when Biden
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: started saying, Oh, well there's Paul, show me winning. And
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: she was like, get Mike Donnellan on the phone. Mike
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Donnellan is Biden's closest communications messaging advisor and And she
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: was like, show me the polls. Show me the polls.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Because there's concern among Democrats that, you know, Biden and
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Donilon and other people keep saying that there's these polls
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: showing that he's winning and that they don't really exist.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't know what happened after that moment either.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: The story sort of ends there.
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: Yeah, just imagine Biden trying to conference in Mike Donilon
• 29:05
  Speaker 8: from his beach house in Roebuck.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: But also Nancy Pelosi. just the best of what she does.
• 29:11
  Speaker 8: Like everyone else, when the president of the United States
• 29:13
  Speaker 8: says there are polls, they're like, okay, there must be polls.
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: She was like, no, get your guy on the phone,
• 29:18
  Speaker 8: calls the bluff, get your guy on the phone and
• 29:20
  Speaker 8: show me the polls.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Cause I mean, but that's what like, everyone's like, I
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: wonder it's, you know, it's some strange bedfellows in the,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: in the group of people who are worried about Biden
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: staying in versus the people who think he should stay in.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: And it's like really all the people from left to
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: center to center left to wherever else, where you fall
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: on the spectrum, the people who are concerned about Biden are,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: people who have been on campaigns, who are currently in office,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: who are in competitive districts, who have had to run
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: tough races, who've had to persuade voters, who have knocked
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: on doors to talk to undecided voters. Like these are
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: the people that are most worried about that because they
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: are not like ensconced in a bubble on Twitter or
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: in the White House or wherever it may be. hearing
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: from people who are obviously going to vote for Biden
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: no matter what, like us, right? But when you actually
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: go talk to the voters that you need to win,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: everyone who is talking to these voters, polling these voters,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: sitting in focus groups with these voters, they're so worried
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: about this. And they've been worried about this for a
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: long time.
• 30:14
  Speaker 8: I think that there is a lot of the people
• 30:17
  Speaker 8: who are making the argument against a switch are doing
• 30:19
  Speaker 8: it in denial of polling reality. They say all the
• 30:22
  Speaker 8: polls are rigged. It's margin of error, all of that,
• 30:24
  Speaker 8: without any evidence of proving that. I think that there
• 30:27
  Speaker 8: is a good faith argument to be made, and some
• 30:30
  Speaker 8: people are making it, that the risk of a switch
• 30:34
  Speaker 8: is greater than the risk of sticking with Biden.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: And I have come to not agree with that, but
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I think it is completely fair.
• 30:43
  Speaker 8: Because no one knows what's going to happen. We just
• 30:46
  Speaker 8: do not know. And unfortunately, you have to make the
• 30:48
  Speaker 8: decision now. It has to happen in the next couple
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: of weeks. It ultimately has to happen, really, in the next...
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: 72 to 96 hours to maximize the opportunity to have
• 30:59
  Speaker 8: the upside that may be available in a second candidate.
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: But it's a total unknown.
• 31:03
  Speaker 8: So you can have the opposite opinion in good faith,
• 31:05
  Speaker 8: but it has to be based on the data in
• 31:07
  Speaker 8: a realistic assessment of where the race is.
• 31:09
  Speaker 6: And I also do think that, like, we are now
• 31:13
  Speaker 6: at the point where so many people have come out
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: against Joe Biden being nominee, wanting him to step aside,
• 31:21
  Speaker 6: that it is hard to imagine a that leads to
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: like a Joe Biden sent off, like even if everybody
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: comes together and says they're gonna do everything they can,
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: like we are now at the point where huge swaths
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: of elected Democrats have called for Joe Biden to step aside.
• 31:36
  Speaker 6: Like I think that the idea originally that the damage
• 31:41
  Speaker 6: was not from the debate, but from the response to
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: the debate, I think was not justifiable, but it is
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: hard to argue now that what is happening is not
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: doing ongoing and irreparable damage to Joe Biden, because the
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: people stepping forward believe he cannot win. And so that
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: what must happen is people coming forward and saying, we
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: have to make a switch.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: I mostly agree with that.
• 31:58
  Speaker 8: I think it's not clear in public opinion yet that
• 32:02
  Speaker 8: ultimately people, the number of Democrats who think Joe Biden
• 32:05
  Speaker 8: is too old has gone up, but it was really
• 32:07
  Speaker 8: high before and it's only gone up a few points.
• 32:08
  Speaker 8: I think it's like five points in the New York
• 32:10
  Speaker 8: Times poll. But what is, the point you're making is
• 32:12
  Speaker 8: very important, which is how do you imagine the campaign
• 32:14
  Speaker 8: going forward after this, right? What does the convention look like?
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: How does he raise money, right? There are reports that
• 32:20
  Speaker 8: Fundraising has been cut in half since then. People who
• 32:25
  Speaker 8: are not giving, bundlers who are not raising money, they're
• 32:28
  Speaker 8: focusing on House and Senate candidates instead. What happens when
• 32:31
  Speaker 8: he goes to Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, all the battleground
• 32:35
  Speaker 8: states that also have Senate and House candidates?
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: Are they going to simply avoid being with the president
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: for the next four months?
• 32:40
  Speaker 8: It's just, it is an, were the president to continue,
• 32:43
  Speaker 8: and it's certainly his choice and he could do that,
• 32:46
  Speaker 8: it is just a death march to the end, an
• 32:49
  Speaker 8: undignified march terribly damaging death march because the party will
• 32:53
  Speaker 8: be running away from him.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: And look, this is awful and sad and shitty for Biden,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: his family, his staff, the entire party. Like, no one
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: is happy about this. No one wanted to be spending
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: the summer arguing about this while we are currently losing
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: to Donald Trump, but we are losing to Donald Trump.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: And I think the RNC crystallized that reality for Democrats.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And like, no one thinks, to your point, Dan, that like,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Biden stepping aside will guarantee a win against Trump at all. But,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: you know, a growing number of people, including Democratic voters,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: a majority of Democratic voters believe that it will give
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: us a better chance against Trump. And like you said,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: like if he doesn't, it's up to him. If he stays,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: then like we can I can still make an honest
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: argument for Joe Biden. Like Donald Trump is a presents
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: a threat to democracy from his the plans that he proposed,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: from the things that he said. from the party that
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: he now runs, like absolutely we'd be better off.
• 33:50
  Speaker 8: And if that's where we're like 96 hours from now,
• 33:52
  Speaker 8: that's where we are. And everyone said, that's it. Joe
• 33:54
  Speaker 8: Biden's it.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: We've all agreed. Then I'll give money that day. We'll
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: go knock doors the day after that. Like we will
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: be 100% in for that.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm maxed out, Dan, so I can't do that.
• 34:02
  Speaker 9: But just for the general, I could do the victory fund.
• 34:06
  Speaker 9: But just so people know, like the data behind these anxieties,
• 34:10
  Speaker 9: the Wall Street Journal reported today that a research firm
• 34:14
  Speaker 9: called Blue Rose Research found President Biden and losing in
• 34:17
  Speaker 9: all the swing states behind or even in New Hampshire, Minnesota,
• 34:22
  Speaker 9: New Mexico, Virginia, and Maine and leading by only 2.9%
• 34:26
  Speaker 9: in New Jersey.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: So that is like panic button numbers. Not good people.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Not good.
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: I also just like watching Donald Trump deliver this meandering
• 34:36
  Speaker 6: and terrible address.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: It is a, it is absolutely mad. It made me furious.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: We should beat this guy.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: We should fucking beat this guy.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: It's embarrassing if we lose to this guy. And that
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: is pretty good.
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: And one thing he said in his speech, which was
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: some version of- Build the wall. Was some version of,
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: we should be excited about the future, right?
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a good line, actually. I noticed that too.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: He did. I want you to be.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: Excited about the future. I don't know how you could
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: have missed.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: It in the 96 minutes.
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: And we have spent weeks arguing about how or why
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: we are most likely to lose. We have also, I think,
• 35:11
  Speaker 6: even when we were hopeful that Joe Biden- was the
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: one who could defeat Donald Trump despite concerns about his age.
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: We're constantly watching Joe Biden in these settings, hoping for
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: the best version of them, hoping that he would, you know,
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: holding our breath a little bit. And watching this tonight,
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: watching this fucking terrible, ridiculous, fucking dumb speech, just imagining
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: what it would be like to have a candidate who
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: could fucking make the argument in a way that wasn't
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: just good enough. That wasn't just like to get us
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: over the finish line, but to actually fuck this guy up,
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: you know, beat him.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Beat him.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Lower the temperature.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Rhetorically. Let's say Biden does step aside. One possibility for
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: that candidate. that probably the most likely possibility is that
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris becomes the Democratic nominee, either because Biden explicitly
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: endorses her or because party leaders rally around her and
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: no one else jumps in the race or both. The
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Trump campaign and Republicans have clearly been preparing for this possibility.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Just listen to how many times they mentioned the vice
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: president during this week's convention.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: Our border czar, Kamala Harris. That means so bad.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: And we have enough bad. We need some good. We
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: need goodness.
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: Democrats led by border czar Kamala Harris.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: Have allowed millions of illegal migrants to invade our country.
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: President Trump did the job that Kamala won't and Joe
• 36:48
  Speaker 7: Biden simply can't.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: If we have four more years of Biden or a
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: single day of Harris, our country will be badly worse off.
• 37:00
  Speaker 9: Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington for longer
• 37:03
  Speaker 9: than I've been alive.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: 39 years old.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: Kamala Harris is not much further behind.
• 37:10
  Speaker 8: Perhaps the greatest blame lies with his own vice president,
• 37:13
  Speaker 8: Kamala Harris.
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: She has not been truthful with us.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: She has lied to us.
• 37:20
  Speaker 8: She has put party above country, and she is as
• 37:24
  Speaker 8: unfit in character as Joe Biden is in body and mind.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Love to get her name wrong. Just a bunch of loons.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: I'm not even going to talk about who. Maybe you
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: recognize them, maybe you didn't. It's unclear if the vice
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: president is also preparing for the possibility that she may
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: become the nominee, but she certainly sounded like one during
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: an event in North Carolina today. Let's listen.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: In recent days, they've been trying to portray themselves as
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: a party of unity. But here's the thing. Here's the thing.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: If you claim to stand for unity... you need to
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: do more than just use the word. You cannot claim
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: that deprives whole groups of Americans of basic freedoms, opportunity,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and dignity. You cannot claim you stand for unity if
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: you are intent on taking reproductive freedoms from the people
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of America and the women of America. You cannot claim
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: to be for unity if you try to overturn a
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: free and fair election.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Dan, what are the reasons Kamala Harris is most likely
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: to be the nominee if Biden steps down?
• 38:39
  Speaker 8: Well, she's the vice president to the stepping down president. She,
• 38:43
  Speaker 8: in the polls that we've seen, and these should be
• 38:45
  Speaker 8: taken with a grain of salt, she is by far
• 38:48
  Speaker 8: the first choice of Democratic primary voters. Now, the Democratic
• 38:52
  Speaker 8: primaries don't have to say it'd be delegates, but that
• 38:53
  Speaker 8: would be matter to them. Logistically, Kamala Harris would be
• 38:58
  Speaker 8: able to, most campaign finance lawyers believe, simply take over
• 39:02
  Speaker 8: the existing Biden campaign operation, including the $ 91 million they
• 39:06
  Speaker 8: had in the bank as of the last period. So
• 39:08
  Speaker 8: that solves a lot. It's also unclear to me that
• 39:11
  Speaker 8: anyone would challenge her, whether Biden endorses her or not,
• 39:14
  Speaker 8: would step in there. And it may be just the
• 39:17
  Speaker 8: party is exhausted by the drama of the last few
• 39:21
  Speaker 8: weeks and is looking for What would be the most
• 39:24
  Speaker 8: likely outcome anyway? Even if you have some sort of
• 39:26
  Speaker 8: process that we've talked about in the past, Harris would
• 39:29
  Speaker 8: be a favorite guard.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: Into that.
• 39:30
  Speaker 8: And so you could see just a coalescing around her right.
• 39:33
  Speaker 8: So we can get the general election going now. We
• 39:34
  Speaker 8: only have about a hundred days left. And so if
• 39:36
  Speaker 8: we spend a few weeks fighting amongst ourselves, you could
• 39:39
  Speaker 8: see people thinking, let's just get our nominee right this second.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: And what are some of the reasons she may not
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: become the nominee? Tommy? Thank you for that question. Um, UNITY,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: you got to let them know.
• 39:51
  Speaker 9: I think she could get tagged with questions about Biden's
• 39:56
  Speaker 9: mental acuity. And the Republican line on this is that
• 40:00
  Speaker 9: there's been a cover up, right? So she could get
• 40:02
  Speaker 9: pulled into that debate. She could get tagged with immigration
• 40:05
  Speaker 9: policy or Afghanistan or other vulnerabilities. Delegates are political animals.
• 40:11
  Speaker 9: They're not normal voters. They're people like us. They could
• 40:14
  Speaker 9: have concerns about her political vulnerabilities and ability to win.
• 40:18
  Speaker 9: they could be worried about misogyny or racism being a
• 40:20
  Speaker 9: factor in this election and hurting her candidacy. So I
• 40:25
  Speaker 9: think that she is clearly the front runner. And also,
• 40:28
  Speaker 9: you know, a lot of politicians might look at the
• 40:30
  Speaker 9: political landscape right now and think Trump looks pretty tough.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to throw my hat in now. Let's
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: let Kamala Harris take this one. And if she loses,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I'll run in 2028.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 40:40
  Speaker 9: I mean, that's kind of the like consultancy version or
• 40:44
  Speaker 9: advice you might hear.
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: I guess there's a scenario that Seems unlikely from all
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: the reporting, but who knows where if Biden steps aside
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: and doesn't explicitly endorse Kamala Harris and then again, it's
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: all up to other potential Democratic candidates to jump in.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: If then they jump in, he hasn't explicitly endorsed her.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: And then there is some sort of. mini primary open
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: process before the convention. And then the delegates start seeing
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: polls and somehow they're performing better against Trump than Kamala Harris.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: You could see a scenario where she doesn't. Donald Trump
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: is coming to silence this podcast. You can hear the
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: sirens in the background. Like you could maybe see that
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: as a scenario, but I think the reason everyone says
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: that she's most likely is for everything that Dan was saying,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: which is that would take some doing for a bunch of,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: it takes like a Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro or
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: a Raphael Warnock or a Wes Moore Mark Kelly, JB
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Pritzker to say, you know what, Gavin Newsom, I'm going
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: to look at this race and I'm going to jump
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: in even though Kamala Harris is in the race and
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Biden either endorsed her or said really nice things about her.
• 41:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 41:48
  Speaker 6: I think that like the closer we get to the convention,
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: the more it wouldn't feel like an open race and
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: more like Kamala versus as the incumbent being challenged and
• 41:59
  Speaker 6: somebody who has to make a decision to challenge her.
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: And these are all the same people who decided they
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: didn't want to challenge Biden. There's a conservative, there's a
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: cautiousness among this group of the vaunted Democratic bench that
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: I find difficult to imagine being willing to do that,
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: but who knows?
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: But I do think, Tommy, to your point, the way
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: the race would change if it's Kamala Harris versus Trump
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: is they will try to tag her with the unpopularity
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Biden had, not just due to his age, but incumbency, right?
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: So some of Biden's unpopularity, a lot of it is
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: probably due to his age, but some of it is due,
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: fairly or not, and we would say not, to perceptions
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: of how he's managed the economy, right? Persistent inflation, or
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: how he's managed immigration. And so they would try to
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: connect her with incumbency in a way that other candidates
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: probably would not have to deal with. They can't do
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: she's old and weak anymore. So they will do radical
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: leftist from San Francisco, right? They'll do all that. You know,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: they'll try to, you know, accuse her of participating in
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: a coverup over Biden's age issues.
• 43:03
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I think the benefits though, the way the race changes
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: in her favor and the Democrats favor is she gets
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: to make this race now about the past versus the
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: future time to turn the page. Trump's entire campaign strategy
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: from that Tim Alberta piece in the Atlantic was about
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: strength versus weakness. And, Joe Biden's age wasn't just about
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: him being old. It was about him being weak and frail.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: And if they can't run that campaign against Kamala Harris
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: and they have to do the she's a radical leftist campaign,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: it's just not as strong as an argument for them.
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: I also, it's like, you know, we have been hammering
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: this for months about the need for Joe Biden to
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: make this race about the future. And just, I just
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: don't believe Kamala Harris will fall into the trap that
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: we've seen Joe Biden be falling into. She will make
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: this race about the future. She will be able to
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: pivot when asked a question. Like, she will do the
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: things that need to be done to do the politics
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: we need our candidate to do.
• 43:55
  Speaker 8: I mean, just listen to her in the clip we
• 43:57
  Speaker 8: just played, right? Imagine that in three states a day,
• 44:01
  Speaker 8: five days a week, right? A full-bore campaign. One that
• 44:05
  Speaker 8: we know Joe Biden was not going to be able
• 44:06
  Speaker 8: to run, but we also know Donald Trump can't run
• 44:07
  Speaker 8: that campaign, right? And the concerns about Donald Trump's age,
• 44:12
  Speaker 8: pale in comparison to the concerns about Biden's age, but
• 44:13
  Speaker 8: they're still huge, right? And now all of a sudden
• 44:16
  Speaker 8: you have Kamala Harris, who's 59, right? Now Donald Trump
• 44:19
  Speaker 8: is the candidate who's too old, right? who can't relate
• 44:22
  Speaker 8: to people. It really shifts it.
• 44:23
  Speaker 9: And he is a VP candidate who only has a
• 44:26
  Speaker 9: year and a half worth of political experience.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: And no one is talking about it.
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: J.D.
• 44:29
  Speaker 9: Vance, like, is 39 years old and has been in
• 44:33
  Speaker 9: the Senate since, what, 2023.
• 44:35
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: It's insane. A vice president older than me and a
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: president younger than my parents.
• 44:39
  Speaker 9: And, like, to your Dan's point, like, if Biden remains president,
• 44:44
  Speaker 9: there will be a push, I think, to get Biden
• 44:45
  Speaker 9: to step down, but I think that's stupid.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: He should stay.
• 44:49
  Speaker 9: But Joe Biden remains president. Kamala Harris, like the VP
• 44:51
  Speaker 9: doesn't really have a day job. You can just hit
• 44:53
  Speaker 9: the road and campaign full time. She's not breaking any
• 44:55
  Speaker 9: ties in the Senate.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Here's the other big difference too, because I could see
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: people who want Biden to stay in could say, well, Biden,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: when he's on prompter at those events, like we said, his,
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: his speech in Michigan was quite good. Like he can
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: do that for the rest of the time. Yeah, perhaps,
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: but the big difference is, with the new candidates, I
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: really don't think we're getting another debate with Joe, if
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden stays in the race. Like Trump has already said,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: I don't want to put him through that again. Maybe
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: he'll get so cocky and confident that he'll agree to it.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: And maybe Joe Biden will.
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: Okay. I know.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: No, I know.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: I'm now playing the devil's advocate for the, for the
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Biden side. But we're, I think everyone should, it's very
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: unlikely we'll get another debate. If, if Kamala Harris is
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: the nominee or another Democrat, I think it's going to
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: be hard for Donald Trump to dodge another debate. I
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: really do. And that gives her or whoever the nominee
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: is a huge opportunity to speak to 50 million, if
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: not more, Americans in a debate setting. And I think
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: that's a big advantage, too.
• 45:55
  Speaker 8: Because we've had two geriatric candidates running against each other
• 46:00
  Speaker 8: for a couple years now, we've lost the thread of
• 46:02
  Speaker 8: what a normal campaign looks like.
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: When you're running for president, you wake up in the morning.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: And she can do interviews. Right.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: This is my point, right?
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: What are you talking about?
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: And John, you know what? I'd like a candidate who
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: can do interviews.
• 46:15
  Speaker 8: But think about this. We've all been on the road
• 46:17
  Speaker 8: with a presidential candidate. You wake up in the morning.
• 46:19
  Speaker 8: You do drive time radio in battleground markets across the country, right?
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: Then you get up.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: You go to a first rally. Then you go to
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: another site. You go to the rally.
• 46:29
  Speaker 8: Then you sit for an hour and do satellite local
• 46:31
  Speaker 8: television interviews.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: That's good stuff.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: Right? Then you do another one.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: And you get really mad at your staff for scheduling hours.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: You do, but that's what you have to do.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: And then you wrap in the car.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: You do a third rally.
• 46:42
  Speaker 8: You were doing fundraising calls in the car, on the plane.
• 46:46
  Speaker 8: Like there's a cadence to this that Donald Trump cannot
• 46:49
  Speaker 8: keep up with, but we know Kamala Harris or any
• 46:52
  Speaker 8: other Democrat could do that. And it would put Trump
• 46:55
  Speaker 8: on the defensive, which he has not been on. And
• 46:57
  Speaker 8: also just him, all Trump has to say about Biden
• 47:00
  Speaker 8: is criticize what Biden has done, which you would do
• 47:02
  Speaker 8: against any incumbent. and attack his age, something that 70
• 47:05
  Speaker 8: to 75% of Americans agree with. What happens when it's
• 47:08
  Speaker 8: someone else, right? It's a woman, a woman of color,
• 47:12
  Speaker 8: how he reacts. Trump reacts in ways that turns off
• 47:16
  Speaker 8: swing voters. We have to take advantage of those opportunities
• 47:19
  Speaker 8: if he gives them to us, but those opportunities will
• 47:21
  Speaker 8: be there in a way they are not in a
• 47:22
  Speaker 8: race with Biden.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: But also, and Biden is rightly proud of his many
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: legislative accomplishments as president. She can run on the popular
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: accomplishments because she's part of that administration. But she also
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: wasn't like she can have some kind of distance, whereas
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: she is the future and she is younger and she
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: was the vice president. So she doesn't have to own everything.
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: Again, fairly or unfairly. And I'm sure the Biden folks
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: would say unfairly. But like she gets to be her
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: own person and she gets to be the face of
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: the party and and and run a future oriented campaign.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: There's just a lot of to.
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: Stand up there with a popular governor or popular senator
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: behind in front of a big sign that says the
• 47:59
  Speaker 6: future on it.
• 48:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Just pick a VP.
• 48:02
  Speaker 9: She could pick Gretchen Whitmer or Governor Shapiro.
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: And I think about going into that convention and the
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: way in which people will rally behind this ticket.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: It would be incredible.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: What if she picked Mike Pence to be her VP?
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: That's also a possibility. Or Hulk Hogan. Okay, we've talked enough.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: We're done.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: It's past midnight. You could have said that three years ago.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: We're now on.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: The second day of this pod.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: Let's close with this.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: We don't know what comes next, Biden, anyone else, but
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: winning in November after the shit we saw this week,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: and especially tonight, is more important than ever, not just
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: at the top of the ticket, but all the way down.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: That's why we have Vote Save America's Anxiety Relief Program.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: You can set up a recurring monthly donation. You can
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: help down-ballot candidates in grassroots groups. VSA, Vote Save America,
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: does the research, and each month they direct your dollars
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: to the grassroots organizations and candidates that need it most.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Then at the end of the month, they'll tell you
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: where your money went. Go to VoteSafeAmerica.com to get started.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: This message has been paid for by VoteSafe America. You
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: can learn more at VoteSafeAmerica.com. And this ad has not
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: Oof. Nice.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: All right. And most importantly, we will see you tomorrow night,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Friday night.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: Tell us stop.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: So much content.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: Are we CNN?
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: It's 12.04 a.m.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: We will see you tonight, Friday night in Madison. God
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: damn it. And that show will post in the feed
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: on Saturday morning. Talk to you very soon. If you
• 49:29
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• 49:35
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• 49:40
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  Speaker 2: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Reid
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer,
• 50:04
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• 50:07
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• 50:10
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• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Tolles, Kiril Pellaviv,
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: and Molly Lobel. If you nerd out about all things science,
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  Speaker 2: I'm excited to tell you about Radiolab, a podcast from WNYC.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Hosted by Lulu Miller and Lateef Nasser, Radiolab's goal with
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: each episode is to make you think, how did I
• 50:41
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  Speaker 2: Radiolab's rigorous curiosity gets you the answers so you can
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