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Was Biden's "Big Boy Presser" Enough? · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the calls for Joe Biden to step
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: aside now seem to be coming from inside the House.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: The Biden campaign is trying to convince Democrats that he
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: still has a plausible path to victory with a new
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: memo and a visit by senior campaign officials to Capitol Hill.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: And Donald Trump's VP pick could come at any moment,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and he can't shut up about his potential running mates.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: But first, Dan, we are recording this right after President
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Biden wrapped up his much-anticipated post-NATO press conference.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: His big boy press conference, as they say.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: His big boy press conference, as it was called. It
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: was taken live by all the networks and it went
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: for about 50 minutes. It was quite late. It started
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: at 7.30. It was supposed to start at 6.30. Here's
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: some of what we heard from Biden. What concerns do
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you have about Vice President Harris's ability to beat Donald
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Trump if she were at the top of the ticket?
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: vice president that I think she was not qualified to
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: be president. So let's start there. The consideration is that
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: I think I'm the most qualified person to run for president.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: I beat him once, and I will beat him again.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: You mixed up Presidents Zelensky and Putin earlier today. And
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: you now have sort of your key allies, including the
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: British Prime Minister, the President of France, the German Chancellor,
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: having to step in and make excuses for you on that.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Officials here are saying off the record that your decline
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: has become noticeable. Hasn't this now, frankly, become damaging for
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: America's standing in the world? Thank you.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Did you see any damage to our standing in my
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: leading this conference? Have you seen a more successful conference?
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: What do you think? And the Putin piece, I was
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: talking about Putin, and I said, and now, at the
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: very end, I said, here, I mean, Putin, I said, no,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Zelensky.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: There's been reporting that you've acknowledged that you need to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: go to bed earlier and you're evening around 8.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: That's not true. Look, what I said was, instead of
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: my every day starting at 7 and going to bed
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: at midnight, it'd be smarter for me to pace myself
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: a little more.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: You earlier explained confidence in your vice president. Yes.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: If your team came back and showed you data that
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: she would fare better against former President Donald Trump, would
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: you reconsider your decision to stay in the race?
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: No, unless they came back and said, there's no way
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: you can win.
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: Me.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: No one's saying that.
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: No poll says that.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: All right, we got the whispery voice. So you're saying
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: there's a chance. Dan, what'd you think?
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: It's a tough question, John, because in some ways it
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: felt over in the first four minutes when he misspoke
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: and referred to Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. Like
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: that rocket around the internet, I'm positive that will be
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: what the vast majority of people who engage with his
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: press conference at all see. The rest of the press
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: conference was... Good in the sense that it looked very
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: different than debate. It was by far his best, most engaged,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: unscripted performance since the debate. He answered the foreign policy
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: questions with real substance. He seemed to relish his conversation
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: with David Sanger, the foreign policy correspondent for The New
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: York Times. Just enjoyed talking about his engagement with China
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and Russia. But if you're judging it in terms of
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: did he deliver a message against Trump or even an
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: effective one for himself, He did okay on his economic message.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: And up until the very end on Trump, it was
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: really sort of message-free, right? It was all performance, not message.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: So it's tough. Obviously, like you said, the Vice President
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Trump gaffe, the earlier when he called Zelensky Putin, right?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Not good. People are going to see that, whatever. Those actually,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: that does not bother me as much as he still
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a a message that is going to persuade
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: people who are on the fence you know like he
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't like he just couldn't frame the choice in the
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: election like he's very knowledgeable about foreign policy issues like
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: you don't you you watch that press conference and you're
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: like you know what this guy he he can do
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the job right now and he like clearly is deeply
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: involved in these meetings he's like remembering conversations with leaders
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: so it's like you know i think that the pendulum
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: swung too far in the direction of like, oh, is
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the guy, you know, has he lost a step? Is
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: he forgetful? I really don't think that is, that's not
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: what worries me. What worries me is that we don't
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: have a presidential candidate who can communicate clearly and prosecute
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the case against Donald Trump clearly in a way that
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: is going to make undecided voters, who are the feel
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: comfortable with him, you know? And I just, I don't
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: think now it's a press conference. It's a press conference
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: on foreign policy, right? So you got to give him that, like,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: it's hard to just pivot to your economic message when
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: you're talking about foreign policy and being asked about foreign policy.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: But I do think that some of the same issues
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: he had in the Stephanopoulos interview, which is when he's
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: asked questions about his age or his health or his
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: presidency or his campaign, he immediately becomes defensive. He immediately
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: goes to his record. He immediately talks about, you know,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the critics said I couldn't do this. And let me
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: tell you about what the Nobel laureate said and this.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: And it's just it is not I don't think that's
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: going to work very well with voters. But I don't know. Maybe,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're an average voter, maybe you tuned
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: in and you saw him talking and going on about
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. And you're like, yeah, I feel good.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know, I agree with you that the.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Vice President Trump, the Putin-Zelensky thing, is not a big
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: deal in the sense that it does not tell me
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: anything or give me any concerns about his cognitive ability.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Right. Me personally, for sure.
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: But it is a political problem because every time he
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: makes a misstatement, it rockets across the internet and therefore
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: validates people's largest concern about him. And that feels, prior
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: to the debate, that felt somewhat unfair. But in a
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: post-debate world, that's where we're in, where every time the
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: guy goes out and speaks... And he has been known
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: because of his stutter, because he talks a lot, to
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: make misstatements, right? That is something that's been true. That
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: was true 15 years ago. It was true in his
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: 1988 race. And in some ways, it's really endearing. It
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: makes him seem like a normal person. But now there's
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: a new context to it that just adds political weight
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: to every single one. People are going to fly spec
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: every single thing he does. And that is a political problem.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: And it just is going forward.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just... It was just really tough to follow. Like,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I saw a lot of people on Twitter being like,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: this is great. This guy should have shown up at
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the debate. Like, I don't actually think that guy should
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: have shown up at the debate. I think he would
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: have done better than he did at the debate if
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: that guy had shown up. But I still don't think
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: he would have prosecuted the case effectively. There was a
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: lot of non sequiturs, half thoughts trailed off here and there. Like,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just a stutter thing, right? Like, that I
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: don't hold against him at all. But it's just he–
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and he's just in such a defensive– crouch, right? Which
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I understand, but also like, I don't know. It gave
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: me confidence that he can be president right now. It
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: did not give me any more confidence that he can
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: beat Donald Trump.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I think that's fair. If that guy had shown up
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: at the debate, he would have at least tied or
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: beaten Trump on points. Would that have mattered? You know,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: how persuasive that had been to the people, the 50
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: million people who watched, who are currently undecided? I don't know.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: But it was so much, it was exponentially better in
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: the debate. I think that's a fact. Was it great?
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to say that, but it was much better.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I think it's tough now. We're just all grading them
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: on a curve. You can tell even the reporters in
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the room, and especially some of the foreign reporters, Donald
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Trump is a threat to democracy here and all over
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the world, and you can feel it. You can feel
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the tension with even some of the foreign reporters and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: everyone else. People want Joe Biden to succeed. A lot
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: of people want Joe Biden to succeed, and that's why
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it's so tough to watch that because you're like, come on, man,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: get it out, get it out. It's just hard for
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: him to do.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: It's just we're grading him on. There are two tests
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: in each of these events. One is, does he have
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: the capacity to be president? Is he pushing it against
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: what we've read in a lot of his reports about
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: what he can and can't do, the version of him
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: that showed up at the debate, the version of him
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: that you guys talked about seeing at that fundraiser? There
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: is another version, and that version showed up today. And
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: then there's the question of, is he a good communicator
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: with that stamina and capacity and communications chops to be
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: able to come back from a somewhat significant deficit in
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: this race. And those questions are different, right? They are
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: different and they do, and they will interact with some,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: but I'm sure we'll get to it in a second,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: how people feel about what they should say on the ticket.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I don't think on the second question, I
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: don't think he did anything tonight to allay those concerns.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: But what do you think about the political impact of tonight?
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Because it does seem like his team is clearly happy
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: with it. His strongest supporters online are like people owe
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden the apology because this is so amazing. But
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: then even a lot of reporters sort of had the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: take that we did, which is he really demonstrated a
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: command of foreign policy details and his record and what's
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: going on in the world. So what do you think
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the sort of the political impact might be?
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I think there's, we're really talking about small board politics, right?
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: This is about the elected officials and influential people, donors
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: and influential people in the party who may or may
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: not call for him to get out of the race
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: to put additional pressure on him. And I think he
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: probably bought himself a little bit of time with that group.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Some of these people love Joe Biden. This is a
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: very political fraught decision. It comes with great risk to
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: take the bolder choice here politically for a lot of
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: these people, not the ones who are in frontline districts
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: who think Biden's going to bring them down, but everyone
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: else in the party, is to undertake a risky change.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: And they don't want to do that. And I think
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: he gave some people permission to hold back. Now, We'll
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: see what happens when Hakeem Jeffries talks to more of
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: his frontline members. We'll see what happens when Senator Schumer
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: talks to more of his members who are very worried
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: about losing the Senate. But I do think if he
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: had had a bad night, right, something like not debate bad,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: but ABC interview bad, I think he would have seen
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: a flood tomorrow. I'm not sure we'll see a flood tomorrow.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: And he cleverly has an interview scheduled for Monday. So
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: he might buy himself some time or, you know. Everyone
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: in politics pulls off the band-aid as slowly as humanly possible.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: And so you can see this giving them some reason
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: to slow down.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: We did see one member of Congress, Chairman of the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes from Connecticut, calling him to
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: step down after this press conference. It seems like his
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: statement was written before the press conference. There was some
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: news before the press conference that a number of House
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: members were like had their statements ready and took call
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: on him to drop out and they were ready to
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: release those statements no matter how the press conference went,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: which should tell you something.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Do you think that Jim Hines, his press secretary, did
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: a scheduled send and then went to a kickball match?
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I hope so. I hope so. All right, let's talk
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: about where things are at the moment then. So in
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the hours before the press conference, we had about six
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: more members of Congress call on Biden to suspend his campaign,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: now seven with Jim Hines. That makes 18 House Democrats,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: one senator. And then there's a few dozen others who've
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: openly doubted his ability to win or said they're close
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: or some sort of statement that seems like they're going
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to get to calling on him to drop out, but
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: are not sure yet. Notice also scooped that many members
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of the Congressional Black Caucus are saying privately that they
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: want Biden to step down. There was news that the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: UAW is concerned that Joe Biden can't beat Trump. in
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that they're thinking about next steps. He was asked about
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: that at the press conference as well. And he said, well,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: they just endorsed me. Did you know that? And yes,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: but he clearly was not apprised of that news. There's
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: also a lot of speculation about what senior Democratic leaders
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: like Nancy Pelosi and Obama are saying and doing behind
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the scenes. There was a CNN story right before we
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: started recording that Pelosi and Obama have talked about this
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and that both of them have been acting more as
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a sounding board, not just for Joe Biden, but for
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: worried members of the party. That, of course, has been
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: getting some angry pushback from the Biden folks, particularly with
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the Obama stuff. We're going to talk about that. But
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the biggest news of the day came from the New
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: York Times reporting that, quote, longtime aides and advisors to
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Biden have become convinced that he will ultimately have to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: step aside and they're trying to figure out how to
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: craft a message that he'll listen to. Good luck with that.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: The Times had a second scoop that the Biden campaign
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: is now in the field with a poll testing Kamala
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Harris against Trump. Apparently, that's the first time they've done so.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: And NBC News had a big story of its own,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: which quoted three people involved in the Biden reelect campaign
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: saying the president can't win. One Biden advisor said he
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: needs to drop out. He will never recover from this. Yikes. Dan,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: what do you make of the Times and NBC stories?
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: What do you think the state of play is right now?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I think the state of play is that smart people
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: in the Biden operation are looking at this and seeing
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: where it's going and that there are really two paths
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: right now. Because I think even with today's press conference,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: we should just come to the reality that there's kind
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: of nothing Joe Biden can do to fully address the
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: age issue. And truly both with that group of people
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: within the party and the broader public. And I'm not
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: saying he can't win despite that, but that is just
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a fact. There's not a performance in his bag that
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: is going to reach people and unring the bell of
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: the debate, right? Like that just cannot be undone. And
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: so I think to some advisors looking at this are
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: saying there are two paths. He steps aside and helps
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: maybe get someone to defeat Trump and preserve his legacy,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: or he continues on what feels like a suicide mission
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: where most of the party runs away from him for
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: the next four months. Donors start sending all of their
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: money to the House and the Senate. The energy in
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: the party is not around trying to elect Biden, which
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: many believe is a lost cause. I'm not saying it is,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: but to take back the House and keep the Senate,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: create a bulwark against the Trump presidency where, you know,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: think about this. He wants to go to Pennsylvania, Michigan,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: and Wisconsin, right? That is what they see as their path.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Three of the most important Senate races are there. You
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: have Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Alyssa
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Slotkin in Michigan. What are they going to do? They're
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: going to be running away from him the entire campaign
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: unless there's a dramatic change in events. And that is
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: just– it is uncomfortable. It is a death march, a painful, diminishing,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: undignified death march to a Trump presidency– And I think
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: there are people who really care about Biden who are
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: beginning to think about how we can get him to
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: avoid that outcome, because at least that's how it felt
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: this morning, that that's where we were headed.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Assuming that Times report about the poll is true, do
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: you think they're doing it, testing Kamala Harris against Trump,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign? Because They think it will bolster the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: case for him staying in or because they suspect she's
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: running ahead of Biden. And this could be something to
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: help Biden reconsider, which is basically what that reporter asked
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: at the very end there.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I would like to believe that it is responsible people
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: trying to explore all options here. I am worried, however,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: that since the gist of most of the Biden high
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: command thus far has been to survive at all costs,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: that there's nothing that some of them at least would
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: like more than a poll that shows we're doing worse
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: than Biden, that they can go send people. Because according
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: to that Times story, they have been using that in
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: discussions with donors and members of Congress and others, which is, Yeah,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Biden may be in trouble, but if Biden leaves, you're
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: getting Kamala, and Kamala is definitely losing. And if they
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: had a piece of data to prove that, I worry
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: that some of them at least would use it. I
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: don't think all of them, because I think some of
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: these advisors who we just referenced are trying to find
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the right path here. And in trying to understand the
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: right path, you do want to know what Kamala Harris's
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: prospects against Trump would be.
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And they do seem to be, it seems like their
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: strategy is saying, one, if it's not Biden, it has
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: to be Kamala. There is no process where there's an
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: open primary or convention or some other way for another
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: potential candidate to win. And then two, Kamala can't win.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And some Biden advisors are saying that to reporters. They're
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: pushing that around, some of them, as a way to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: sort of stop the groundswell of Democrats wanting Biden to
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: drop out. What do you make of the drip, drip,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: drip of members coming out against Biden? It's like a
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: very weird, every couple hours there's another statement. Do you
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: think they think they're influencing Biden to drop out, that
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: it's part of that effort? Or is it about their
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: own races? Or is it about both?
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I think it's both, right? For some members who are
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: either coming out in support of Biden or against Biden
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: who are in safe districts. It doesn't matter. What they
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: say about it's not going to affect their chance of
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: winning re-election and Biden's not going to bring them down
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: in their district. So it's a very safe and probably
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: honest decision. For some of these members in competitive districts,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: they feel they are getting their polls back and their
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: polls are bad and they are bad. And this is
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: the exact time, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of this week is
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: when you would get a poll back that you put
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: in the field on the Sunday after 4th of July weekend.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: And they are seeing it and they are looking for dissonance.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: And I do think, look, we don't talk to everyone
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: in the party, but we talk to a lot of
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: people in the party. And there is an overwhelming consensus
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: among the vast majority of people in the party who
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: work on elections that Joe Biden's chances of winning are
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: quite long and that he is likely to bring down
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: the House and the Senate with him. And they would
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: very much like him to withdraw. Those people may be right.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: They may be wrong. But that is how people feel.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: And there has been this huge chasm between what people
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: are saying publicly and what they believe privately. And they
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: keep waiting for someone else to go ahead to do
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: it because no one wants to be the one who
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: does it. But that is sort of where we are.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: And as more people do it, it's like the water
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: is warm in this pool. Hop in.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I just want to like, because I'm sure that people
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: who are following this story or listening to us or
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: just watching it unfold on Twitter and on their screens
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and on television, you know, don't quite understand this because
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: so many of these conversations are are private but it's
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: not just like a majority of people we're talking to
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: in the party it's not like an overwhelming majority i
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: have not had one person that i've talked to and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: we we have both talked to so many people of
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: like people different ideological backgrounds men women black latino gays
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: like literally a everyone we've ever worked with in democratic politics.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I haven't had one person say to me, he should
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: definitely stay in what it like, come on, this is crazy.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Like he's the best shot that we have. No one
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: has said that. No one has said that. And you
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: can tell with some of these, and a lot of
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: people are like, Hey, Thanks for what, you know, I'm
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: glad you guys are speaking up because we, you know,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of us can't. And for good reason. A
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: lot of these people have contracts. They're working. It's their jobs, right?
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Like they can't speak up. Like I totally get that.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I had one person who's connected with the campaign, like
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: reach out to me and I was like, oh, I'm
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: going to get in trouble. And then they're like, the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: polls are really bad. We got to get more of
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: these bad polls out on television. Because maybe that's the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: only way that Biden might reconsider because I don't think
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: he's getting the right information from his senior advisors and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: he needs to see that some of the polls are
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: really bad. Like that's what we're hearing. So just so
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: people know.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And the other thing we're hearing is just like, I mean,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: these are rumors, but you hear them from everyone, which,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: and I think it's sort of borne out by some
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: of how Biden's approached this, is he's not talking to
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: people who think he should drop out.
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Yes. You're not allowed to bring him bad information right now.
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: He did not go to the House or the Senate caucus.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: He has not brought the House and the Senate down
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to meet with them, which is a huge flag. Because
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: if there was one thing that Joe Biden, we know,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: loves to do, it's talk to members of Congress. Pick
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: up a phone. He'd call them. He'd have them down.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: That is his superpower. And he has not done that.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: He is not seeing the polls, right? He's clearly seeing
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: different polls. Um, And he doesn't seem to believe polls anyway,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: as he said in this press conference today. And so
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: that is sort of the situation that we are in.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: But we've been in the staring match for two weeks,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: and we're still in this staring match where ultimately it's
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: up to Joe Biden.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the timing here. So we have
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the Republican convention next week. A lot of media attention
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: will turn to that. It starts on Monday. Like you said,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Biden does have a sit-down interview Monday night with Lester Holt.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: And then we've got the Republican convention. We've got Trump
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: will name his VP candidate then, if not before then, right?
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Like we could have it Friday, we can have it Monday, Tuesday.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: And then after the Republican convention, then we're getting pretty
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: close to when the DNC wants to schedule this virtual
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: roll call vote so that Joe Biden can get on
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the ballot in Ohio, which seems like even though they
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: scheduled that before the debate, it does seem like convenient
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: for them that they can officially nominate him well before
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the August convention so that they can finally close this
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: conversation once and for all. Do you think that Joe
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Biden can just run out the clock here?
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I do think he can run out the clock. Absent
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: a mass public revolt from elected Democrats, including the leaders
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: of the House and the Senate, no one can force
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: him to do this. There is no mechanism to do it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, under all scenarios to winning. If he needs to
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: be proven that he can't win, which is what he
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: said in the press conference, that is a test that
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: cannot be met.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: People are going to say it's unlikely you can win.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: People can say, can bring data to him to say,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it looks like from the data that Kamala Harris has
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a better chance to win or Gretchen Whitmer or whoever else,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Josh Shapiro, they can show him all that data. but
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: no one's going to show him data that says you
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: can't win. Cause he can't. Right. Cause he like, of
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: course it's possible for him to win. Of course.
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, anything's anything's possible. And so I like, we'll
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: see what happens. I, in the press conference, he did
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: make a slight pivot where he, in the previous interviews,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: he said, this conversation is over the very pugnacious. I
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: think pretty arrogant letter that they sent to Congress that
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: addressed no concerns. That was like, this is over. Shut up.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Get on board.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: He did.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Imply here. And it is, you know, it's hard to
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: know like what is, what is really sending a signal
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: and what's just an answer, but that he believed he
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: still had more concerns to a switch.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: And so it seemed like maybe that process was, and
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: he got asked to follow up that Scripps reporter at
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: the end asked great questions, I would say.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Really great question.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: And one of them was, does that mean the conversation
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: is not over? And he didn't really answer it, but
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: it was not as, he did not sound as definitive
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: as he had before. So I don't know whether that's
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: a shift in his mentality or just a shift in
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: his public attitude about it. Because many people have pointed out,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, you guys talk about this a lot on
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Tuesday's pod, that that sort of attitude was turning off
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: members of Congress. It was making the problem worse because
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: it was angering them in how it was approaching. And
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: so maybe he's, I don't know whether he's changed his
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: attitude or he's changed his language around it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So Joe Scarborough said this morning on Joe Biden's favorite
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: television show, Morning Joe, that the Biden campaign told him,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that they think our old boss, Barack Obama, is orchestrating
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the push to get Biden to drop out. He also
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: said Joe Biden is, quote, deeply resentful of his treatment
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: under the Obama staff. And the New York Times wrote
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: that Mr. Biden's advisors think that David Axelrod and the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America bros are, quote, operatives who worked for
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: a cerebral cool guy president and never understood the world
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: according to the scrappy kid from Scranton. Care to respond,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: my fellow elitist pod bro?
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: I would say I have tried to maintain a very
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: even temper through this process. I have not been fighting
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: people on Twitter. I have stopped looking.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been the best of all of us.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Or the worst, one of the two.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But I've been the most.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Offline of us, at least in terms of my public...
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: So I've tried to do that because I find this
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: situation very personally uncomfortable because we know all the people
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: who work on those campaigns. They are friends of ours.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: We are still.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Staffers at heart. I still, to this day, and I
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: always check in my head, I always think, how is
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying? It doesn't change what I say, but
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I think about it. Was what I'm going to say
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: make the job of the people who used to have
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: my jobs harder? To anger them, upset them the way
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: people did that to me. But that New York Times
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: piece just pissed me off to no end because the
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: idea that we are doing this that we are raising
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: questions about whether Joe Biden can win purely out of
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: personal animus is so fucking infuriating because I love Joe Biden.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I grew up in Delaware. My first political experience in
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: my life was meeting Joe Biden in second grade at
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: a fair, right? Because I'm a fucking nerd. When I
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: was 12, I followed his primary campaign because I thought
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: it was really cool that someone from my state that
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I had met could be president of the United States.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: When I went to college in Washington, you know what
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: first thing I did? Go intern for Joe Biden, right?
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: It's always been incredibly decent, and good to me. Called
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: me when I got my first job in the White House.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Visited me when I got promoted once. Just great to
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: my family. Love the guy. And it's just the way
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: that the idea that this is somehow some personal attack
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: on Joe Biden because he didn't go to an Ivy
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: League school or I don't understand Scranton or we don't
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: understand Scranton is just so infuriating. It's infuriating personally, but
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: it's more infuriating because it explains why they have fucked
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: up the response to this debate so bad. Because it's
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: not about Joe Biden. It is not. Everything is now
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: about Joe Biden. It's people are.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: Mad at him.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: They don't get him.
• 27:06
  Speaker 7: Me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: And it's about this election, which Joe Biden himself has
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: said is the most important election of our time, the
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: democracy at stake. And we can have a good faith
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: disagreement without doing this. And then just as a Pod
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Save America, David Axelrod, George Clooney, and the most popular
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: figure in the Democratic Party at a time when you
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: are struggling with black voters is fucking insane.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: And again, and I don't know who's doing it in
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the White House. And I believe firmly that it's not
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the people that we know and are friends with. Not
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: just because they wouldn't do that to us, but because
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I think they're smarter than this. Because this is just
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: really stupid shit. And the reason we're bringing it up
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times is we know reporters are
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: reaching out to us, that the Biden White House is
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: just pushing around stuff on us. I had multiple calls
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: from reporters today saying that two White House sources told
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: them that I wrote George Clooney's op-ed. That's the rumor
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: out there that a bunch of outlets were ready to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: go with until they finally reached out for me. They
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: think that I was writing George Clooney's op-ed.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was a very well-written op-ed, so it's
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: kind of a compliment.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I probably should have just taken credit for it. But
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like, guys, just don't. But my thing is, do
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: whatever you want to us.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: It's fine.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Like, you have bigger fucking fish to fry.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: That's the point.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Like, this is not... What are you... Like, why are
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: you spending time on us for? Go fucking just beat
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Or, like, help your candidate be on message
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and deliver a message. It's also like, oh, we're all cerebral, blah, blah, blah.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: If he was the scrappy kid from Scranton, I'd be
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: fucking thrilled. We've been advocating that for a couple years now.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Every time he does Scranton versus... Park Ave. And he
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: talks about like, you know, fighting for middle class folks
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and working class folks. I love that Joe Biden. The
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden I don't love is talking about fucking NATO
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Domestic NATO.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And just like doing, doing like the ethereal democracy stuff.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: That's all like, you know, rhetoric and nothing else. Or
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: he's just always talking about foreign policy. Like I want
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: him to talk about middle class stuff. He's good at that.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: That's who he is. The idea that like they're doing
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: this fucking Trump grievance bullshit. That like everyone's counting Joe
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Biden now, but it's just so silly. It's so silly.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: It's just, and it's so counterproductive.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: They're so focused on remaining the nominee that they've lost
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the thread that the goal here is to be reelected president.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: They're just mad. And I get it. I'd be mad too.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would hate us.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I'd be very mad at us too. I'd be very
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: mad at us too. I would try to prevent myself
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: from doing something politically counterproductive for the campaign and the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: candidate through my anger. Like I might TP.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Our house, right. Or put a flaming bag of dog
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: shit on your front step, but I wouldn't make it
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: a core part of our message to the New York times.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I don't think, I don't think taking on
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: podcasters and elites as to morning Joe again, again, the,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the elites on their side are okay.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Two quick things before we go to break. Exciting announcement.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Next week, we'll have five straight episodes of Pod Save America.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: That's a new episode every day, Tuesday through Saturday. We'll
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: be doing a rap show for every night of the
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Republican convention. Fun. Posting overnight. And then on Friday the 19th,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: we will be live in Madison, Wisconsin, for the Democracy
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: or Else tour with our pal Ben Wickler, chairman of
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Head to crooked.com slash events to
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: grab tickets now. Also, in case you haven't listened yet,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Killing Justice from Crooked Media and The Branch follows the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: reporting and legal fallout from the death of a prominent
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Indian judge. Host Ravi Gupta, our old friend and colleague,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: examines the conflicting evidence to answer how one man's death
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: has become a magnet for the increasingly polarized politics in
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: India and what this means for the future of the
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: world's largest democracy. You can binge all eight episodes now
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: on Apple or Spotify. For ad-free episodes, you can join
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Friends of the Pod at crooked.com slash friends. Okay, when
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: we come back, We're going to talk about the Biden
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: campaign's strategy to weather the storm and the latest with
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Trump's VP search. Let's give the Biden campaign its due
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: here and talk about their case that the president can
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: still win. On Thursday morning, the campaign circulated a memo
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: laying out Biden's path to victory. So they also sent
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: three of Biden's closest advisors, Jen O'Malley Dillon, campaign manager,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Steve Reschetti and Mike Donilon, two of Biden's longest serving aides,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: to Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Democrats. Must have
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: been a fun meeting for them. And former Biden chief
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of staff Ron Klain sat down for an interview with
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Greg Sargent on his New Republic podcast. So in the memo,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the campaign acknowledges, quote, real movement in their polling, including
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: some movement from undecided voters to Trump. But they say
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: most of the movement was driven by historically Democratic constituencies
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: moving to undecided. They argue in the memo that Biden
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: can get those voters back, that they still have a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: path to 70, though they're pretty much focused on Pennsylvania,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Wisconsin. They said the Sunbelt states are not
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: out of reach, but they still they think that the
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: blue wall is the path now. And they also say
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: there's no indication from the data that any other candidate
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: would do better than Biden against Trump. And they maintain
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: that the battlegrounds remain, quote, margin of error races, though
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: they didn't cite any specific data. This also came up
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: in Ron Klain's interview with Greg Sargent. Let's listen.
• 32:28
  Speaker 7: Look, I think the data would be if we were
• 32:29
  Speaker 7: ahead and we aren't. I don't think this is something
• 32:32
  Speaker 7: about like, oh, I'm going to show you a bunch
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: of numbers and the numbers are going to tell you
• 32:34
  Speaker 7: I'm right. I'll say the piece of data that is
• 32:37
  Speaker 7: on the president's side is he cares about people like me,
• 32:40
  Speaker 7: shares my values, all those things. He's doing very well
• 32:42
  Speaker 7: in those metrics. I think that really matters in the end.
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: I think we live in an era where kind of
• 32:46
  Speaker 7: identity politics, character politics. I think, though, Ron, what people
• 32:51
  Speaker 7: want to hear is something a little more like this.
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: We know we're down. We know we're struggling in particular
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: with these voter groups.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: And here's how we're going to get them back. Can
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: you give us something more like that?
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: I think that we need to win the voters who
• 33:04
  Speaker 7: have doubts about both candidates. And what I'd say is,
• 33:07
  Speaker 7: in that respect, Trump is more like the incumbent, where
• 33:10
  Speaker 7: if you're at this stage in the game and you're
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: not a Trump voter... We have doubts about voting, but
• 33:14
  Speaker 7: I think if you're not a Trump voter, you're going
• 33:16
  Speaker 7: to come home to Joe Biden.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: So we don't know exactly what Jen and Steve and
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Mike said to the Democratic senators today, but Punchbowl reported
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: that things got, quote, heated in the room with senators
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: saying they're, quote, being put in an untenable position defending
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: something that so many of their constituents felt was obvious.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Dick Blumenthal, senator from Connecticut, was the only one to
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: give a readout. The rest of them said they weren't
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: supposed to talk. Blumenthal said in part, some of my
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: concerns have been allayed, some have been deepened. And he
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: also said, quote, I need to see more data and
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: analytics that show a path to victory. So I know
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: you did a whole polo coaster on Biden's polling that
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: just dropped because I listened this morning. What do you
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: make of the campaign's argument about the state of the
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: race and why they can still win it?
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I think the memo was very telling because they admit
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: that they are behind. They admit that they have lost
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: voters to Trump. And When you say the races in
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: the battleground states and the three you need are in
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: margin of error, it means you're behind within the margin
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: of error. Because if they were winning, they would say it.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Of course, yeah.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: And I think that's just important because so much of
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: the conversation about what Joe Biden should do has to
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: be based on a shared fundamental understanding of the state
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: of the race. And for the first 10 days or
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: so of this long conversation we've been a part of,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: there have been the people saying that the race is
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: still a toss-up, the race is still a toss-up. This
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: is the Biden campaign telling you that while they believe
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: they have a path to victory, they are behind and
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: that they have most likely an incredibly narrow path to
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: get to 270. They may think they can still get there,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: but they are behind in every single battleground state. And
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: that is what these senators are seeing. And I think
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: the Biden campaign polls, and they could very well be
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: more correct, but they are better than in these battleground
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: states than a lot of the internal polls we're seeing.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: We have heard about polls with Biden down 10 Pennsylvania, right?
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: There's a public poll that has Biden down six in Wisconsin.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: These would be outside of the margin of error, unless
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: it's a very small sample. And so, yeah, they're in
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: a tough spot. Can they get there? What I think
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: the memo in Ron's interview is lacking, and I'm going
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: to get back to Ron in a second, but is
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: a path of how Biden actually does the persuasion, right? Like, yes,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: these are the voters you need. Yes, many of them
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: are double-haters. They don't like Trump, but they also don't
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: like Biden. Historically, and this is a historical election, but historically,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the undecided voters tend to break against the incumbent. I
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: don't know that I buy that this time necessarily because
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Biden and Trump have 100% name ID and they're kind
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: of both incumbents.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Two incumbents.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Two incumbents. But to Ron's point, if you weren't for
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Trump before, but if you weren't for Biden before, right?
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: If you hadn't decided to vote against Trump already, what's
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: going to make you do it?
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And also, if you weren't for Trump before, it doesn't
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: really fit with everything we've heard in focus groups of voters.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: We have heard focus groups of Trump-Biden voters, they voted
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, who say,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I think I'm going to go back to Trump. I
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: think if you were never for Trump, it would be
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: hard to imagine you being for Trump for the first time,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: though I'm sure there's still some of those voters. But
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: there was a good chunk of Trump-Biden voters in 2020.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: And- I think from all the focus groups and all
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: the polls, Biden's having some real trouble with those voters.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I think the other thing that was telling in that
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: memo is, so they acknowledge that they're behind. They acknowledge
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: that some of the voters have moved from undecided to Trump.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And then some traditional Democratic constituencies have moved from Biden
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: to undecided, right? And they think they can get those back.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: So let's say, so those are probably younger voters, Latino voters,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: probably some younger younger Black men, right? These are some
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: of the constituencies that they've been having trouble with. Even
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: if they have a plan to consolidate those voters, as
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: they say is possible, give them that they can do this.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: They're still behind, and they have still lost some of
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: those voters to Trump post-debate. And so, like a lot
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: of the memo was talking about how to get those
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: traditional Democratic constituencies back, but even if you get them back,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I think you still have a couple points to make up.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: It kind of depends on what you believe the voter
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: universe to be. If you think it is going to
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: be a lower turnout election, then you may not need
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: to do that. Then you can get there. This is
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: why the likely voter screen matters so much in these polls.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: How tight is that screen? The tighter it gets, we
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: know the better it is for Biden. But it's also
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: the other way to think about this is people don't
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: have to vote. They're not required to. So moving to undecided,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: even if they're never going to Trump, the other option
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: is not vote. A Biden voter who doesn't vote is
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: a net gain of one for Trump. And so that's
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: still a loss for Biden.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And so- Who is ahead.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Right, right. It is, but Trump was ahead before. Trump
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: was ahead by more now. Impressions of Biden in the
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: public polling are worse before. Like in that New York
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Times-Siena poll that came out after the debate, percentage of
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: voters who thought he would, and I think it's always
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: smart the way the New York Times asks the question,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: too old to be an effective president has gone up
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: five points to 74% of voters think that. And so
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: he's just in a very, very tough position. And if
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: we're being just, Biden says something in the press conference
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: about how some, I think he said like four or
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: five incumbent presidents had had numbers worse than his at
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: this point in the campaign.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what he was talking about.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, someone gave him that piece of information, I assume.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I'd be curious to know what it is. To my knowledge, there's.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Not- Could be in modern times.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean- I mean, I- The polling's only been
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: around for so long. If you go through the president,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: it's kind of hard to see what it is. But
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: in my mind, I cannot think of a incumbent president
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: in modern times who'd ever come back from being behind
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: at this point in the race.
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, the incumbent presidents that had approval ratings around Biden,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: approval ratings are Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, who
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: went on to lose both of them.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: And both of their approval ratings were higher than Biden's.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: That's a little bit of an apple star just because
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: of polarization.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Right. But so let's get back to your point about like,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: so what would Biden have to do? How does Biden
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: turn it around, right? Because if these impressions of Biden
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: are worse than they were before the debate, if Trump
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: is ahead, the campaign has spent all of June running
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars of ads in the swing states,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: largely unchallenged by Trump. They've outspent Trump through most of June.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: That will not happen for the next couple of months.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: It's worse than that. They've outspent him since January. Trump
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: has spent almost no money on air.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: So their spending advantage on ads will disappear soon, and
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: they might actually be outspent by the Trump campaign. And
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: that has not moved the needle. We have talked a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: million times about the central challenge of this campaign is
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: getting voters' attention. And Now that this first debate happened,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: certainly got people's attention, not in a great way. Now
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: they have the Democratic convention, which as we said before,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: is watched largely by partisans or people who have decided already.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: So I, and then Biden mentioned something about it the next,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: at the press conference tonight, he mentioned something about, oh,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: at the next debate. And I'm like, I don't, you know,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has already said, I don't want to put
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Joe through that again. which is, of course, that's what
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: you would do if you were Donald Trump. That is
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: the smarter play for him. So I don't understand like
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: how Biden is. I'm just trying to see a path
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: for him to go change people's impressions of him in
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: the next several months.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: You're going to have to get really lucky, right? Like
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: the plan here is hold on, make some improvements, have
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden pitch a perfect game the rest of the way,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: and have Trump implode in some way, shape, or form.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Plus some good economic news, right? You're going to theoretically
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: get a rate cut in September, as Biden pointed out.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Inflation actually came down. Prices came down for the first
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: time since the pandemic. But yeah, it's very, very hard
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: to see how you do that. These impressions have been
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: locked in. One thing I would say is, it's sort
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: of funny because yesterday when it seemed like Biden had
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: this thing locked up as the nominee, I was like.
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: You know what?
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try to be constructive. I'm going to
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: write a whole message box about what the path is for.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Because I think Democrats, we're in a death spiral right
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: now with Biden in the race, which is Democrats said,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: convince us that you've got what it takes to win
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: and you can stay in the race. But then he
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: didn't convince them and he stayed in the race anyway.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: And so now he's in the race and the Democrats
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: are running away from him. So it's like this death spiral.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: So I decided to write a message box about how
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: should we get out of this death spiral? What should
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Biden do? And then I woke up this morning and
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: then George Clooney had an op-ed and it all fell apart.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: But one of the points I think we have to
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: recognize is- That I spent a lot of time on. Yeah,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: that you worked. I mean, give me a fucking heads up, buddy.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: It's like anyone who fucking knows me knows I can't
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: write anything longer than a fucking tweet.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: John, John, you wrote a book. It just came out
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: last month.
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: I did.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I did. I needed three other people to do that.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: One of the things is he's never going to solve
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: the itch problem. It's an unsolvable problem. And nothing has
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: solved it. It's been the same this whole time. They
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: spent all this money on ads. He had this great
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: state of the union. He's managed national crises. He's got
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of attention like Ukraine and Gaza, especially Gaza
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: has turned out to be a huge political problem. And
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: it's never changed. It's just gotten worse over time. And
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: you can't convince people that you shouldn't be concerned about
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: an 82-year-old signing up for four more years. So I
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: think what you're going to have to do, and with
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: the one that you probably can't do, This is a
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: suboptimal approach. I want to be very clear about that.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no. We're trying to be constructive and make
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the best case because if he stays in, we're all
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: making it, right? We're all going to have to try
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: our hardest.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: He's going to have to run a Rose Garden campaign
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: of sorts, right? This idea that he should go out
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: and campaign 17 times a day and do these huge
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: press conferences and restart the straight talk express like he's
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: John McCain, that's a disaster because that's a test he
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: will fail.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: He can't do that.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: He cannot do that.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: And the more he works on these like in North
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Carolina and Wisconsin, he can do these like energetic rally
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: prompter speeches where he's better on prompter than he is
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: just sort of taking questions and sitting down for interviews.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: But I don't know how well those get covered.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't know how those how like low info voters,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: who is the exact people that he needs to consolidate,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: are going to like catch those events.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: And to do, if you're going to undertake that strategy,
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: there are a couple things you have to do. One,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Biden and his team are going to have to be
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: much smarter about getting attention. Like they have shied away
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: a lot of times for sort of, they've gotten better
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: in recent months about like seeking out conflict. That's how
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: like seeking out that debate.
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: Oops.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: But it's like, like you're not- But this.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Is the problem is like, they have a lot of creative,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: smart ideas about how to get attention, but all those
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: ideas require Joe Biden and they don't want to use
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden because they are worried that What happened at
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: the debate will happen again. This has been their problem.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: The whole time.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: So that's one.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: I think two is Kamala Harris has to be everywhere.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Right? They have resisted putting her out there, I think
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: for some ego reasons there. I think she, like the
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: traditional VP candidate is off-Broadway, right? They're in the secondary markets.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: They're not doing the big interviews. Kamala Harris should be
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: everywhere because even though the VP happens on the margins,
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: like in terms of how people think about it, People
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: are going to think very seriously about what role Kamala
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Harris is going to play over the next four years
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: after Joe Biden's reelected. And she's the best messenger on
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: the ticket by a factor of one million.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: And especially recently, she's been great. Like her events, if
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: you've caught clips of her events, they're fantastic.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: And what is she best at talking about? Abortion, democracy,
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: the rule of law with a convicted felon on the
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: other side, and the Supreme Court. Like the issues that
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: do that. And then the other thing just... and I'll
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: leave some of it for the message box I'll write
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: one day when this conversation is over, but is admit
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: you're behind. Become the underdog. The campaign, I think this
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: is Biden, not the campaign, refuses to admit that. Because
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: what you want people to do is you want to
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: focus like a laser on the idea that Donald Trump
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: could be president of the United States. And that even
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: if you don't like Biden, even if he's too old,
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: you got these two choices and the other one is
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: fucking scary. And so you have to put that in
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: people's mind. But if you keep saying, I'm going to win,
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: I'm going to win, It's a toss-up race. You need
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: people who don't love you, don't think you should be
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: president to vote for you because they're so fucking scared
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: of the other guy. And until you center in their
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: mind that he could win, you're going to fail at
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: that task.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Listen to the experts. The experts say that my economic
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: plan is the best. Listen to the experts. Not experts.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: 16 Nobel Prize winning economists.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You can do it. You know what he should be.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: He should be the scrappy kid from Scranton. And I
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: realize that's a very cerebral thing to say, but I
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: think that's his best bet. All right. Speaking of the
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: convention coming up, as we were preparing to record this podcast,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: we got word that the RNC adopted a new rule
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: that says Trump can announce his running mate at the
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: last absolute minute, basically up to an hour before the
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: delegates officially vote. So we may have to wait a
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: bit longer, but who knows when he's going to announce that.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: On Wednesday, Trump went on Brian Kilmeade's Fox News radio
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: show to talk about the leading contender's In depth, let's listen.
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: On your vice president candidate, word is that you won't
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: pick J.D. Vance because of his facial hair. Is that true?
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: No, I've never heard that one.
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: Number two, Doug Burgum, the thing that hurts.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: Right, he's a handsome man. Doug Burgum, on abortion in
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: North Dakota, he signed something legislation handed him. Does that
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: hurt him?
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: It's an issue.
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: And lastly, Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio being from Florida, would
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: that stop you from picking him?
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: No, but it does make it more complicated. You know,
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: you do that and it makes it more complicated. There
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: are people that don't have that complication. Now it's fairly
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: easily fixed, but you have to do something with delegates
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: or there has to be a resignation, you know, et cetera,
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: et cetera.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Care to do any tea leaf reading from Mr. Trump's comments?
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, the best part of that by far is
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: when Brian Kilmeade says that J.D. Vance is a handsome
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: man and then Trump rejects the notion and says, ah,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: he's a nice guy.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: What?
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Like he'll accept the beard.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: That might have just killed J.D. Vance's chances right there.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: He'll accept the idea that he is, that his beard
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: is okay, but he will not accept the idea that
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: he might be handsome, which he's not in Trump's defense.
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: So.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: No, no, that is true. That is true.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: So really like, listen to this. It seems like Doug Burgum,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: who I have always had as the leading contender, is
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: a no-go. If you spend as much time and energy
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: as Republicans doing, trying to lie about your abortion record
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: with this absurd stuff in the platform, it seems like
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: a weird choice to then pick someone who signed one
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: of the most oppressive abortion bans in the country. And
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: so the Marco Rubio thing doesn't sound like he's picking them.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: But then if you, as I know you did, there
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: was this incredible story by Tim Alberta in The Atlantic
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: where he had an ungodly amount of access to Chris
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: LaCivita and Susie Wiles, the Trump campaign honchos. And they
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: just really unburdened themselves in a way that really should
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: motivate all of us to defeat Donald Trump because that
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: will be a fun fucking read. afterwards because they are
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: cocky as hell about how Trump's going to easily win.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: They're very cocky. Yeah, I alternated between terrified and also like,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: this is pretty cocky.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think terrified is the right approach, but these
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: people are also huge narcissists. But if you read that
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: and what their targets are and how they're thinking about
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: this election, based on that alone, it seems like that
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: they would lean towards someone like Marco Rubio because they
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: seem to be going for the kill shot. Their targets
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: are young black men And so if Marco Rubio is
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: truly there, that would do it. Now, Don Jr. Gave
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: an interview somewhere that I heard, excerpted on Hacks on Tap,
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: where he basically came out against Marco Rubio because he
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: thought he was an establishment figure that would be undermining
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Trump and would basically be like working back channels with
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: the rhinos to try to undermine the MAGA agenda.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: We also learned from Axios today that Don Jr. will
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: now be speaking at the convention right before the VP
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: nominee and that his favorite is JD Vance. JD Vance
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: is like the MAGA favorite, right? Like true MAGA. He's
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: going to be the next one to lead the movement.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: He is a more articulate spokesperson for like the MAGA ideology,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: if you will, than certainly than Donald Trump. Anyone's more
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: articulate spokesman for anything than Donald Trump. But I thought
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: that Bergen would be like the safer pick. The abortion
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: thing is interesting. I thought he would be the safer
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: pick just because it's like guy who won't overshadow Trump He,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: you know, like the Wall Street Journal editorial board is
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: fine with them. Some of the Republicans that you were worried,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: probably the Haley Republicans are fine with Doug Burgum. He's rich.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: He could cut a check. Now that Donald Trump and
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: his campaign think they are headed for a landslide, which
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: they do, according to that Tim Alberta piece. The piece,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: by the way, is called Joe Biden is a gift.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: They said they say that Joe Biden is a gift
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and they're like worried that he will drop out of
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the race because they have organized their entire campaign around
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: beating him and think that they can do so soundly.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Now that they think that they are heading for a
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: big win, you could see them want to... Maybe we'll
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: take a chance on the VP and we'll pick J.D.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Vance and, you know, and we'll make it an all-MAGA
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: ticket or all-super-MAGA ticket, ultra-MAGA, whatever you want to call it,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: and we'll go with who Don Jr. and the crew like.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: I could see that. Yeah, I just.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I don't... J.D. Vance brings nothing to me politically. Absolutely nothing.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: I think he's the worst choice politically of all that group,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: other than I imagine he would probably... survive a debate.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I think the MAGA faithful like him too.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he doesn't need that, right? He needed Pence
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: as validation of the evangelicals. He does not need J.D.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Vance to validate him with MAGA voters.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: The smarter choice would be Rubio. You're right. It would
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: be the smarter choice, but I don't know if they'll...
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: They're feeling good right now.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: It's right. Are they going to be risk adverse because
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: they're up or are they going to put the.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Are they going to really... Yeah.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Push it.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Well, we shall see. Could happen any
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: moment now. That's our show for today. Next week's the
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Republican Convention. Again, we're going to be taping the show
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: every night. Get ready, Dan.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: It's going to be fun. I will be live. We
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: will be live together every single night.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: Not live.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: We will be in person together every single night.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness. And then we'll be flying to beautiful Milwaukee
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: and Madison. It's going to be great. Everyone have a
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: great weekend, and we will talk to you next week.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
• 52:01
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  Speaker 1: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 52:26
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• 52:36
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