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Kamala Harris Starts Hot (feat. Pete Buttigieg) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Ali Velshi.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Vice President Kamala Harris hits the campaign
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: trail while J.D. Vance might not be so ready for primetime.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Then we're joined by Transportation Secretary and reported VP contender
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg to talk about the campaign, J.D. Vance, and
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: how Harris should respond to Republican attacks that we all
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: know are coming. And then Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to Congress that has my blood absolutely boiling. But first,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I should just say thank you, Ali Velshi. You are
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a truly excellent journalist. Everyone should catch everything you're doing
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: on MSNBC. And also, You filled in for me on
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Pod Save the World when I was on paternity leave,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and you kind of did a better job than I do.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, in hindsight, was that a polite thing
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: to do to a sleep-deprived father?
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, congratulations, and it was a pleasure. I
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: don't get nervous much for appearances of being on air
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: or being on podcasts, given how much I do. I've
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: been nervous two times in probably the last 15 years.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: The first one was going on Oprah, and the second
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: one was filling in for you. Uh, because everybody, everybody
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: listens to this and everybody was like, you know, I, I,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I get all my information. I get all my analysis from,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: from pod safe. So, uh, I was actually a tad nervous, um,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: but I'm glad you thought it worked well. I'm glad
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: to be back with you.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: It was truly great. And, uh, well, Oprah, what a flex. Damn.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Good for you.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: You know, the, I, the, the, my only like crazy
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Oprah story is in 2004. Uh, I was on Obama's
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: then Senate campaign and, uh, Obama did in Obama, Barack
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Obama and Michelle Obama did their first interview with Oprah
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Winfrey and Gail and my boss, uh, at the time,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I guess like didn't want to staff something on a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning at like 10 AM. So it was the Obamas, me, Oprah, Gail,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and just kind of like sitting in a room and like,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: how did I get here? That's something.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I know the feeling. I felt the same way when
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I was in the same room as Gail and Oprah. Yeah.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: They're, uh, they're quite talented.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about where we are in the campaign compared
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to where we were a week ago. Kamala Harris appears
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: to have clinched a majority of delegates and is all
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: but officially leading the ticket. The vibes are immaculate. Voter
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: registrations are surging. Politico reported this morning that Vote.org saw
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: its biggest day of the cycle so far with 38,500
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: new registrations, most of them people under 34 years old.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Everywhere you look online, people are sharing and remixing Kamala
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: content and memes. And while money isn't everything, it's something.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It's a lot. And the Harris campaign and allied groups
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: have raised more than $ 250 million since Sunday. And most importantly,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: out on the campaign trail, Kamala Harris is kicking ass
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: as a messenger. Here she is yesterday at a rally
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: in Milwaukee.
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: Before I was elected United States Senator, I was elected
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: Attorney General of the state of California, and I was
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: a courtroom prosecutor before then. And in those roles, I
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: for their own gain.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: So hear me when I say.
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: I know Donald Trump's type. This campaign is also about
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: two different visions. One, where we are focused on the future.
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: The other, focused on the past. We believe in a
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: future where every person has the opportunity not just to
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: get by, but to get ahead. Building up the middle
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: class will be a defining goal of my presidency.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So like a little goosebumps here. So, Ali, we knew
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: that if President Biden stepped down, the first few days
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: of this rollout would be critical for resetting the narrative.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: How do you think it's going so far?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I am I'm blown away by how it's going. I
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: have to tell you, because I, as a journalist, don't
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: often think these things will go as well as the
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: faithful do. I thought it'd be a little rockier than this.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I thought there would be a little bit more opposition.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I think it's kind of amazing how she sort of
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: stepped into this unity issue. The idea that I think
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Democrats were so hobbled by the fact that the Biden
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: question had become disuniting. Wherever you were on the spectrum
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: of whether Biden should stay or Biden should go, it
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: felt hopeless for Democrats. And she has walked into this
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: thing And she has said, all right, we're putting that
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: conversation aside. We're done with that conversation. Now we're deciding
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: what the message is to the American voter who was
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: either unenthusiastic, was feeling overwhelmed. I'm amazed. As you know
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: very well, it's very early days on one hand. On
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the other hand, we're talking about almost 100 days to
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: the election. It's really about 65 days before the first
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: ballots are cast.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Don't know Kamala Harris as well as they think they do.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: In other words, she didn't get that far in her
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: attempt to be the presidential candidate the last time around.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So it is her reintroduction to America. And she's got
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: an opportunity here that I wouldn't have even guessed on
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Sunday that she had.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, the cliche that you never have
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a second chance to make a first impression is a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: real thing. And it's a hell of a first impression.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I'm hearing from people in my life who are not
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: political at all about all the Kamala memes and stuff
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: they're seeing on TikTok. And they're not only interested, but
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: inspired by it. So I think the enthusiasm is real.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: If we're being honest, part of it is a sense
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of relief that Joe Biden is no longer the candidate.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be mean to him, but there is,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: you know, this kind of exhale that we're no longer
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: having a conversation about his age anymore. But in addition
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to that, there is genuine excitement for Kamala Harris. And
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: it's manifesting online in ways that I haven't seen since 2008.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And also on the ground, I mean, I talked to
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: my buddy, Ben Wickler, who runs the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: He says that, you know, younger staffers at WISDEMs are
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: telling him that they're hearing from friends who have never
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: voted before, but now they're going to because they feel
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: like this moment is historic. That was the word he used.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: The Milwaukee event that Harris did fit 3,500 people on
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: very short notice and could have been bigger. They had,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you know, lines down the block. The state party raised $ 350, 000
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: since Sunday. And the Harris campaign says that they've had 100,000
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: volunteer signups since Sunday. So that's real enthusiasm.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: And, you know, Ben, it might have been a few
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: days after Ben Wickler, had said that they were out
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: knocking on doors and everybody thought the debate performance was bad.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Virtually none of those Democrats who thought so said, and
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: so I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. What this
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: has done is caused that discussion to go by the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: wayside because for people in Wisconsin and Michigan, this is
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: going to be very, very important because there were Democrats
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: who went out and said, I'm dissatisfied with Joe Biden.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Some of them were further dissatisfied by the debate performance.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Now they've got a reason to come back. And, and
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: It didn't need to be a massive reason, but it's
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: a reason. And I think Kamala Harris has a remarkable
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: opportunity here, not just for the first impression, but to
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: shape what the discourse is going to be for the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: next 65 days and then 105 days or whatever it
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: is until the election.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: So given what you're watching and reading and the strategists
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you talked to, Do you feel like the underlying dynamics
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: of the race are different or the same? Do you
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: think we're going to be talking about different states being
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: in play? Possibly.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: But we were going to talk about different states being
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: in play anyway, because there are Democratic states, which didn't
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: go Democratic in prior elections, that were going to be
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: at risk with the dynamic that we have. So the
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: number of states that have expanded into the swing-ish category
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: was greater than most people think. Upward of 10 states
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: could be 13 states. So number one, if you can
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: just shrink the swingy states back down to six or seven,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: you're at least in the game. Number two, I thought
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: that clip you played of Kamala Harris was kind of amazing.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: It was Ronald Reagan-esque, right? She has decided, and this
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: is going to be a bit of a heavy lift
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: for Democrats, particularly for, or even for people like me
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: who say that this is an existential election about democracy.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: For the moment, she's embracing a slightly different message, that
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: there's a bright future for America. She's going to lean
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: onto the Biden economic track record, but generally talk about
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: the future. And that contrasts with Donald Trump's, generally speaking, bleak, restrictive,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: isolationist future. I think that might be a more creative thing.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: People like me are still going to go on and
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: warn people that if you don't vote in this election,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: your democracy could be at risk. She may go out
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: with a different message, and it might be refreshing and
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: it might be enticing to voters who are going to
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: sit on their hands.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I have to say, I think you hit on, honestly,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the most important thing, which is my frustration with the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign's message was that it was very much about,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: these are my accomplishments, allow me to list them to you.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And there was not enough forward-looking, here's what I'll do
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in the future vision. Now, that's a hard contrast to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: paint when you're an 81-year-old. I think with Kamala Harris,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: she looks different, she sounds different, she's far younger than
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And so it just, the message fits. But Yeah,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: that was another moment where I was like, oh, this
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: is just wonderful to hear.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: It also, look, we've heard it. You heard it from
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: your listeners. I've heard it from my viewers. People are exhausted.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: They are diminished. They feel overwhelmed. And the idea that
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: you can be useful. that you can be part of
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: a movement, that you can be part of something that
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: feels like the future, not a negative future where we
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: close off our borders and we call immigrants vermin and
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: we obsess about transgender kids. and we worry about how
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: many ways we can restrict abortion, an actual future that
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: talks about economic growth, the growth of our country, leadership
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: of the world, the saving of democracy, the reinstituting of
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: human rights norms around the world and being a leader
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: at that, that's exciting. That makes me feel like I
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: want to get out and do something as opposed to
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: just the endless onslaught of my freedoms.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a lesser of two evils conversation at all.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I agree with you fundamentally. I think like the campaign,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: General Malley Dillon had a memo out today. The blue
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: wall states are still key, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, but they're
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: going to be back to trying to expand the race
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: into North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, states that frankly were
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: just gone, according to the polling I saw. And I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: also think, you know, Harris, in some of the polling
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: about her versus Biden shows she gives us the chance
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to win back younger voters, Black and Latino voters. She
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: also clearly excites the base. And I think she has
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: proven to be the most effective messenger we have on
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: abortion rights and abortion access. And she can drive that hard.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: And that's the winningest thing that Democrats have at the moment.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Even if the Democrats could overcome the weird thing about
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: inflation and the economy, whereas the economy is doing one
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: thing and people seem to express that it's doing another,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: they feel another, that's a real piece of work for
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: the campaign. And I hope that that works better for
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris than it has for Joe Biden. But this
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: abortion issue still drives more voters out there, and it
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: will drive more voters to the polls in the end.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: So Democrats, look, you know that there are people who
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: argue that Democrats should be leaning into that and guns.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris is actually a leader on both of those areas.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: For the things that could cause people who weren't going
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: to vote to go out and vote, Those are two
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: of the major issues. Obviously, Israel and Gaza is another one,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: and we're yet to see how that unfolds. But I'm
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: actually more hopeful that she's able to motivate some of
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: the voters who weren't going to show up for Joe
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Biden on that issue.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to ask you about what space she
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: may or may not have on Gaza in a second.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: But the other interesting dynamic I'm noticing is Kamala Harris's
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: experience as a prosecutor and as attorney general of California
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: was sort of seen as a liability for her in
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the 2020 primary. because the country was in the midst
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: of this discussion about police brutality after the murder of
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: George Floyd. Now her law enforcement experience is a feature
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: front and center of Harris's stump speech. Do you think this,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: you know, the 2020, like Kamala is a cop narrative
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that you saw online is now mostly a political asset?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I do actually look, it's, there's a narrow space and
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: it is about police brutality and police violence. And that
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: has not been solved. in which being a prosecutor who's
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: tough on crime works against you. Similar thing occurred with
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, also a prosecutor, also known to
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: be tough on crime. Generally speaking, if you separate police
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: brutality and unfairness in the justice system with what you
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: could describe as law and order, meaning an orderly society,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: you can win on that front. And I think Kamala
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Harris has that chance now to set herself out. And
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: as she did in that clip that you played to say,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: I know what people like this are. Donald Trump's a lawbreaker.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's a cheat. Donald Trump is a fraudster. Donald
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Trump is dishonest. To be able to go down that road,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: which people were really hoping Biden 2024 could do like
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Biden 2020 could do or 2019 could do. Biden wasn't
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: able to do that this time around as effectively because
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: he was playing defense the whole time. Kamala Harris now
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: gets to play offense. And on that front, a prosecutor,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: the worst kind of person for Donald Trump, not just
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: a prosecutor, a woman who's a prosecutor, a non-white woman
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: who's a prosecutor, that's going to get under his skin.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: And when you get under his skin or J.D. Vance's skin,
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: as you know, because they're both awful thin skinned, they
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: react in ways that look pretty ugly.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they sure do. I saw the Trump campaign try
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to say that they're going to target ads towards younger
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: voters of color. That highlights Kamala's record as a prosecutor,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I guess, in an effort to depress the vote. That
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: seems way too cynical for me. And I think it's
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: also a misread of the actual data on what voters think.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: For example, the Griot did a poll in 2022 where
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: they asked black voters about whether spending on policing should increase,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: stay the same or decrease. About half of those voters
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: said spending on policing should be kept the same. Thirty
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: four percent said it should be increased and only 17
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: percent said it should be decreased. but an overwhelming majority
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: of black voters think that policing needs major reforms. And
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: that is basically Kamala Harris's message. She wants a bunch
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of reforms. She wants to end mass incarceration, but also
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: increase funding for community-based policing and training. So she's kind
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of in the sweet spot for a general election audience. Yeah.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: And the idea of funding police and reforming police, they're
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: not opposites, right? I think most people will agree that
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: One of the reasons why policing isn't where we'd like
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: it to be is because we don't allocate the resources
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: to training and the complexities that exist around policing that
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: we should. To defund the police was just some bad branding.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: That was a naive, silly bumper sticker. It was an
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: attempt from people to have a bumper sticker who, unfortunately,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: the real sentence would have been, too hard to encapsulate.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And that is we need to resource the police properly
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: for the actual challenges they face, de-emphasize their violent interactions
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: with the people. And many police forces have done this. Philadelphia,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: if a cop sees you and you don't have your
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: licensed stickers not valid, they will not pull you over anymore.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: You'll get something in the mail. They've just realized they
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: don't want their first interactions with people to be what
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: they are. There's a lot of space. And now that
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: we're a little farther away from George Floyd and that
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: rash of police deaths at the hands of police, although
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: there was one in Chicago just a few days ago.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: We may be able to have that discussion in a
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: more nuanced fashion. We are not looking for a world
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: without police and without policing. We just want a world
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: in which we have better policing, and that might actually
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: involve greater funding of police.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. We're also now seeing kind of another debate
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: about debating. Trump has said he is up for debating
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, even though he initially seemed like he might
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: be walking away from uh, the second scheduled debate, he
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: claims he might even do more than one debate. First
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of all, do you believe him? And, you know, given the,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the disaster we all lived through last month, do you
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: think it makes sense for, for Kamala Harris to squeeze
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: in a debate and all the prep that goes into the,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: in the very limited time we have left?
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I will say, I, I, you know, much more about
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: this stuff than I do, but I would argue, no. Um,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: I think debating Donald Trump is a mugs game. I'm
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: not sure it's worth it because he's such a he's
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: so performative and he's he's he's such a provocateur. And look,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris, we haven't seen her debate for a while.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: She was not top of her class in that she
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: landed one punch on on Joe Biden last time. And
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: it was it was a good one. But that was it.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure she should subject herself to it. On
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: the other hand, who's going to be more provocative than
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris to Donald Trump? If she's got the attack lines,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: you could cause him to go on the defensive. I'm
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: not sure it's worth it. I think Kamala Harris, here's
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: another point. I'm not sure Kamala Harris fundraising is worth it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: They're not having a fundraising problem. I think Kamala Harris
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: needs to get out there, do those high energy rallies,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: motivate the base. She has an interesting thing in that
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: she too has been prone to not gaffes, but sort
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: of saying things that are a little bit unusual and
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: she's a bit quirky. And the K-Hive, the internet has
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: decided they're going to take that and lean into it.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: She's not even getting in trouble for the quirkiness. They're
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: embracing it. She should just get out there and own
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: that stuff. These young, energetic people, the digital masses that
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: are behind her, I think that's where she should live.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I just don't know that these debates are worth it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: That last debate, Donald Trump lied, I don't know, 30,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: 50 times. Nobody talked about it because they were just
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: all focused on what Joe Biden was doing. So I'm
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: not sure debates get you that far right now. I
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: think she's got an opportunity. But, you know, smarter minds
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: than I am are involved in that.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, every comment Trump makes about a woman he
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't like is he calls her crazy, crazy Nancy Pelosi
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: called Kamala Harris crazy. He tried to, you know, go
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: after her laugh or call it a cackle. And the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Internet was like, no, she's not happy. She's smiling like, well,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: what's wrong with a little joy in our lives here?
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And I was just reminded that Fox News has proposed
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a Trump-Harris debate on September 17th. So that could be
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: a deadline. I mean, you know, it's interesting. I think
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I would argue if she's losing, she should debate. But
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: there will be a cost to that. Like you have
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to come off the trail for, you know, extended period
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of time. You got to do a bunch of prep.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Any prep she did on J.D. Vance is now worthless.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Hopefully she didn't do much. But, you know, as an underdog,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: you got to shake it up a bit. But we'll see.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, the polling in a week could tell a
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: different story.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of the things we've seen in initial polling,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: and there have only been a few and they're very
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: hard to, you know, they're not enough to do anything with,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: but a couple of things. One is the spread between
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: her and Donald Trump is similar to what it was
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: statistically with Biden, but everybody's a little more enthused. So
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: her voter is a little more enthused and the people
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: who don't like her are going to be a little
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: more enthused. So that might increase turnout, which is a
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: good thing for elections. But I think that the trick
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: for her is, not just swing voters in swing states,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: it's disaffected Democrats. She's not, she doesn't live on the
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: center left, and she was not historically seen as that person.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: She's largely been a moderate. The people we're talking about
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: as potential VP picks right now, are largely seen as
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: moderates who will appeal to older white men. So we
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: have to just think about that. What does that mean
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: in terms of energizing bases? What's the base? What's the
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: coalition right now? Are we going after undecided voters? Are
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: we going after people who are disaffected by Trump? Or
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: are we going after Democrats who were not going to
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: vote for Biden? Remember in the last election, 81 million
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: votes for Biden, about 81 million registered voters didn't vote.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: More people, almost as many people as voted for either
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: of the presidential candidates didn't vote. That, to me, is
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: a screaming opportunity for Kamala Harris.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Last thing on Kamala Harris before we move on
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to J.D.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: Vance.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: It's been fun watching right-wing voices try to cope with
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the last few days. Let's hear a clip from The
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro. trying to explain away the enthusiasm
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: for Kamala Harris.
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: What exactly do her qualifications look like other than, again,
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: the sort of intersectional magic of Kamala Harris and the
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: fact that Democrats have to manufacture enthusiasm for, I've never
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: seen this much manufactured enthusiasm for anyone outside of maybe
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: Taylor Swift's last album.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. Ali, do you think it's a good idea
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: to compare Kamala Harris to a woman who just grossed
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: a billion dollars on a concert?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, where's the insult there? Compare
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: me to Taylor Swift any day of the week. That's
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: wild that Ben Shapiro would even make that comparison because
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: if he thinks those two should be compared, then Kamala
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Harris has got some sunny days ahead of her. I
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: don't know what he means by manufactured stuff. I don't
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: really know what that means. I saw Joe Biden step
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: out on Sunday. And I wondered what that's going to
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: mean for the party and whether that's going to be
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: a brokered convention and disarray and a whole bunch of
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: people fighting for the job. And within days, this thing
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: just changed. That's not manufactured. That's the opposite of manufactured, actually.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: There's something organic about what has happened here, which surprises me.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: As somebody like you who watches us all the time,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I did not expect to be having this conversation with
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: you today about where we are. You want to call
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: that manufactured? Do so at your own peril. I will
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: tell you about manufactured. Ben Shapiro used to be an
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: interesting textured character. Then he went to Home Depot one
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: time and bought a piece of wood. And I don't
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: know what happened after that, but he lost. That was
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: the manufactured attempt to talk about something. I don't know
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: what supply chains or wood or I don't know what
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: it was, but that's manufactured. I think what he doesn't
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: recognize anymore is what non-manufactured looks like, what organic actually
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: looks like. And I am not the person who thinks
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: that Kamala Harris was always going to be the best
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: candidate for this. I will tell you something. There's some
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: kind of groundswell happening that I did not anticipate. I
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: don't know what it's about. I don't know how it
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: came to be, but it's really there. I don't know
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: how you would have manufactured that.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Ben is very good at manufacturing outrage,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: but not enthusiasm. I believe he also said that the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Barbie movie was going to tank at the box office.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: So another good call. Also, just real quick, the idea
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris isn't qualified is just it's laughable. She
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: was a prosecutor. She was attorney general of the biggest
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: state in the country. She was a United States Senator
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and then vice president for four years. I like, I,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: you don't get.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Presidential candidate in there too, which is saying something. I mean,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: there was a time when presidential candidate was a real thing.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a sort of a gumball machine thing. Like
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: it became in the Republican primary. So yeah, no, she's a,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: she's a real person. Uh, you can, if you're at
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: that level of arguing who's qualified for stuff, that might
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: be interesting. If the Republicans were running someone who was actually, uh,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: good at being president the last time around, but he,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: you know, people have to remember he lost his attempt
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: to win reelection in 2020. Yeah.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about someone who is, uh, manifestly unqualified,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: which is J.D.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Vance.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: So coming off J.D. 's convention speech, which frankly was
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: pretty flat, Vance is now out there full time as
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Trump's main surrogate. The reviews are not great. There seem
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: to be there's this like weird thing he does all
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the time where he pauses his speech to laugh at
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: something inaudible shouted by someone in the audience. And it's
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: just really not working. Let's hear a clip of that.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: It is the weirdest thing to me. Democrats say that
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: it is racist to believe, well, they say it's racist
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: to do anything. I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and one today. I'm sure they're going to call that
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: racist too, but it's good.
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: I love you guys.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Ali, am I being unfair here? Am I being like
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: a liberal Ben Shapiro right now and just coping in
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: my own way by selectively editing this guy to tell
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: a story about him that I want to hear? Or
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: what do you think of these early stumbles and advances?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: You know, is your assessment of him as a political animal?
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: This is the problem with people who people don't really
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: know all that well, right? They think they know them
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: because they've heard their name and won an election. But
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of people have not had a chance to
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: actually listen to J.D.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Vance.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: He's delivering on exactly what J.D. Vance actually is. He's
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: a very smart guy. There's no question. He's empirically smart.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: He's got he's got a life experience, a life story
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: that is remarkably compelling. But this is JD Vance. He's
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: an opportunist. He's a grifter. He may have a thinner
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: skin than Donald Trump, which is hard to imagine. This
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: is actually who he is. He's not actually that good.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: And if Kamala Harris takes an opportunity to pick a
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: vice presidential candidate, most of them that we seem to
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: be thinking about right now are the kind who I
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: would tune into that debate. That's a debate I think
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: we're having.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: J.D.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Vance, the vice presidential debate based on the people that
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris is vetting as a candidate. But that's who
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: he is. He's not nearly as substantial as you'd think
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: his life experience and his book and the movie made
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: about his book should be. His arguments are a little weak,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the Diet Mountain Dew stuff, the everything's racist. He also
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: made a comment the other day, which is very telling,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: and it's the point of the whole exercise, why you
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: want J.D. Vance. He implied, it's great coded language, Kamala
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Harris is not grateful to America.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Feels familiar as an Obama staffer.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Right, right. I mean, what have we learned? That being
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: critical of your country is a sign of love. Being
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: critical of your country is a sign of patriotism. And
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris should take this opportunity to embrace that, like
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: to bring Democrats, like Democrats, everybody should have a flag
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: in front of their house and flag pins and flag
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: hats and all this kind of stuff. This is nonsensical,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: not grateful to my country, right? I don't think you
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: should use that about Democrats. I don't think you should
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: use it about Republicans. But this is where a guy
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: like J.D. Vance will go with this stuff. You You
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: owe it to us to be grateful. You're ungrateful. If
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: you don't like the fact that there are too many
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: white men controlling the place, you're basically ungrateful. He's not
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: as sophisticated as I think people thought he might be.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they are trying to other her in ways that
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: make her seem, I don't know, not American in some sense.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: They're also calling her a DEI vice president of the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: national selection, which, again, is racist and sexist.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: And McCarthy told them not to do it. Like when
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy is telling you guys this is a bad
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: move for all the reasons you cited, for the things
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: she's actually been elected by voters in the largest state
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: in the country to do numerous times statewide, the position
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: she's actually held as a United States senator, as the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: vice president of the United States. If that's a DEI hire,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: then I don't understand what DEI is.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And also, listen, every vice presidential nominee has basically two
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: boxes you check. One, are you qualified to do the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: job as president? Yes. OK, what political benefit do you
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: provide to the ticket? So if you want to say
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: that Mike Pence is a DEI hire for evangelicals, go ahead,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: say it. But it's just it's an insufferable, sexist, racist
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: way to describe her and make her seem different than
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: every other VP ever.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I think that here's the thing. And again, this is
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: more your your territory than mine. I think ultimately that
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: helps because. It does fire her up. It does get
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: her to talk about who she actually is, which Americans
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: need to know. People are not intimately connected to people
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: who didn't win the nomination last time around. And frankly,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: in this country, becoming vice president doesn't actually make people
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: know you any better until the time that you run
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: for president. So this is her moment. And the thing
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: that you know that a lot of Americans don't know
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: is this is what campaigns are for. This is actually
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: what you do in a campaign. This is your opportunity
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: to let people find out who you are. And she's
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: got a lot of questions that she now knows needs
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: to be answered and she can answer those.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And so does J.D. And I think
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: one thing that liberals don't love to admit is that
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Trump can be very funny. He can be very charming.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: His rallies are fun for the people who go to them,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: their body. He tells stories. Often they make no sense,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: but people love it. I've seen zero indication that J.D.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Vance has a winning personality or could fire up a
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: MAGA crowd. I mean, there's no doubt he could get
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a room full of venture capitalists going or like, you know,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: some incel adjacent YouTubers. But despite his resume, I just
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I have not seen him yet connect with the MAGA base.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe it'll happen. Time will tell. But, you know, Trump
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: is sort of a singular figure in the party. And
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: you're starting to see some reporting that maybe his allies
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: are not happy with the pick.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of people, a lot of our
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: viewers who say, I don't know why you guys are
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: on about why this is a tight race. This is
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: before Biden stepped out. Biden's going to win. It's going
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: to be a democratic blowout. And I say to people,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I know this is terrible because it's two hours or
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: three hours. You'll never, ever get back, but you should
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: watch a Trump rally. And God forbid, if you're close
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: to one, I tended to understand the difference. Understand the
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: spiritual link between the attendee and the guy who would
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: like to be seen as a spiritual guy, as a
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Christ-like figure. Just try and understand that because it exists
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: in this weird way. So where Joe Biden would flub
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: because his words would fail him or whatever the case was,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump forgets what he's doing and he just carries
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: on about sharks and batteries and whether it's better to
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: die by electrocution or by shark bite. It's just his
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: coping mechanism, which, by the way, I think people like
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: us who are talking all the time also sometimes do.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: It's like, I forgot what I thought. I'll just tell
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: you about something else. That's what he does. It's nonsensical,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: but it is funny. Donald Trump told a story after
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I got shot with a rubber bullet in Minneapolis. Months later,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: he would tell the story at every rally about my
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: getting shot. Much more interesting than what actually happened.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: More compelling. I wish I were that guy in Minneapolis
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: who was in the middle of what Donald Trump said
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: had actually happened. He's much better. He's a really good storyteller.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: And it does compel people because what they don't do
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: is lean into his flaws. Where the Cahive is in
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: a funny, good way leaning into where Kamala Harris does
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: or says funny things, which she does a fair amount,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: they just ignore that he did that. Right. They won't
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: tell you that it went on this weird diatribe about
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: sharks and batteries. They'll just pretend that he's something else.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: And so that's another lesson for Kamala Harris. Lean into it.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Have some fun.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've enjoyed watching her on the stump, looking so
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: happy and wondering if she tried to maybe reduce the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: grin a little bit in case Joe Biden is watching,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: but mostly just celebrating it. Where did the rubber bullet
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: hit you?
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Just below my knee, which is really good because in
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: the knee, it would wreck your knee.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: It was like in my shin bone. which apparently is
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: not a bad place to get hit. But a lot
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: of people got attacked by police that night. And one
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: of them, a photojournalist who got hit in her eye,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: she's now in hospice. So people need to remember this
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: stuff is real. Our police should not be shooting unarmed
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: civilians who are not involved in violent activity with rubber bullets.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: No extra protection because we're journalists. We're not entitled to
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: more protection than every citizen in this country should have.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: But You know, that's some bad stuff. And that was
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: stoked by it. I don't know who shot me and
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know what was on their mind or what
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: they saw in their scope. But we were in a moment,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: if you'll recall, where Donald Trump himself was stoking this
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: idea of violence, both journalists and towards civilians who were
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: thought to be unruly. Those are dark moments in our
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: history that we could be headed back toward if we
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: make some bad choices in November.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Man, well, I'm sorry that happened to you. And I
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: also feel like the term rubber bullet is maybe a
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: little too euphemistic.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a rubber covered actual bullet.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: It's not going to bounce off you.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: It's going to bounce off the ground, not you.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaking of VP selections, I did want to get
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: your take on sort of the veep stakes on the
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Democratic side. Is there a short, short list in your
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: mind or anyone you think, you know, sort of becoming
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the smartest pick?
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: I think folks are coalescing around a few remarkably good
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: potential choices. The tricky one, of course, is Gretchen Whitmer
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: because she said she won't do it, but I'm curious
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: to see what goes on there because Michigan is the
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: swing state that is most winnable if all hands are
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: on deck. Gretchen Whitmer and her statewide team have demonstrated that,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: that they know how to win that state if all
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: hands are on deck. And for the moment, all hands
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: are not on deck in Michigan. So I'm curious about that.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I think Mark Kelly... is a very interesting choice if
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: you are prepared for the risk of losing a Senate seat.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Mark Kelly, as a military man, as an astronaut, as
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: a gun owner, as a person whose wife was shot
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: in the head, a member of Congress, he's eminently qualified
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and would be appealing to those people who are scared
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: of Democrats or scared of maybe even a Black South
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Asian president. I think Josh Shapiro is a really smart, person. Sure,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: it probably solidifies Pennsylvania, which he won by a lot.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, not that much distinction between the
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: two of them. They have similar backgrounds. So I don't
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: know what it necessarily gets you, but I think he's
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: very strong. I think the Roy Cooper conversation is very interesting.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: He's a lot older. He's 67 years old. But this
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: is a guy who not only has won in a
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: state that Democrats in North Carolina, Democrats can afford, it
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: would be really good for them to put into play.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: He also has done it through appeal to the same things.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: He has gone all out on abortion. He is really
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: seen as a leader on that. And I maintain that
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: abortion will be the number one issue that drives voters
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: this time around. So that combination intrigues me as well.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: I think she's got a lot of good choices.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do too. And I think there's kind of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: two categories. There's people who jump off the page just
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: in terms of resume, and that's a Mark Kelly. I mean,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: you say you're an astronaut, like that's end of the conversation,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people would say he
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily, he hasn't jumped off the page in interviews.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I would argue that Whitmer is probably more of a
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: combination of both. Like someone who's seen to be a
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: really good political athlete and has a great resume and
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: is from a good state. Shapiro, of course, Mayor Pete
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Buttigieg is another one who, you know, really has distinguished
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: himself as one of the best messengers in the Democratic
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Party period.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. There's a guy who cannot be shaken for a message.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: I mean that in a good way, as a guy
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: who interviews people. And I have, you know, the thing
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: about Mayor Secretary Pete is that he does come on.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: He comes on my show. He goes on Fox. He
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: will meet all comers. And so part of our job
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: is to shake him off his message, right? To hold
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: power to account. Because sometimes I've interviewed him when times
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: have been tough or he's overseeing a few things that
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: are really bad. And he engages all the time. He
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: engages all the time. And I think that's really important
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: in this space that we're in right now. He's a
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: great debater. He's got broad appeal. I didn't mention his
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: name because I know he's on the show today. He's
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: definitely an obvious and important contender.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's an interesting pick. And also, if you talk
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: to people who know him or work for him, they'll
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: say to you, like, just the key to a good
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: interview with Pete is don't bore him. You have to, like,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: piss him off a little bit or challenge him. And
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: he likes that better. And he makes it up. President
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Biden is giving an Oval Office address tonight about his
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: decision to step aside and what he'll do with the
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: remainder of this term. You and I won't have seen
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: it when this posts, so John and Dan will cover
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: it on Friday's show. But I just wanted to ask
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: you what you think about potential opportunities for President Biden
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: in this lame duck period, now that he is unburdened
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: by what has been and can just kind of not
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: worry about an election in the future. Do you have
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: a wish list?
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the first one we'll see tonight is that
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: not facing the pressure of ever having, um, of, of
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: saying something incorrectly or, or misspeaking, um, I think, I
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: hope helps him because I, I admire him. I think
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: he will go down as a great president. And I
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: would love to just hear that Joe Biden that so
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: many of us have heard so many times, which is
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: the free speaking, free thinking Joe Biden. I think it, um,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: will enable him. Ukraine has not been an issue for
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: him because generally speaking, other than a few isolationist, um,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: weirdos in Congress. It is still, generally speaking, a bipartisan thing,
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: despite the fact that Mike Johnson and instructions from Trump
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: has tried to stymie this. Israel-Gaza is a place that
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: he may be able to use this political moment to say,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I'm now not beholden to particular interests to move forward
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: and put pressure on all the parties more so than
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: he's been able to in the past. But I do
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: think that Joe Biden's not going to go quietly into
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: the dark. I think he's a potent and important force
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: in the Democratic Party and in the world for democracy.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: I think there's a big role for him in the
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: next few months.
• 37:07
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, I want to expand on the opportunities when
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: it comes to Israel-Gaza in a minute, but I agree
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: with you because I think Anyone who runs for president
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't just want to be president. They want to be
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: a great president. And you can hear that in the
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: way Joe Biden talks about his accomplishments. He thinks he's
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: done a lot and he wants credit for it. He
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: wants to build on that. I think the biggest space
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: he'll have is on foreign policy. Ben Rhodes and I
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: were talking about this today on this episode of Pod
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Save the World. I would love to see, Ben would
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: love to see if Joe Biden could cut some kind of,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you know, revised nuclear agreement with Iran. Now that there's
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: new leadership in Iran, they elected a more moderate president.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: You could go back to the Obama era Cuba policies,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: which admittedly were wildly unpopular in Florida. But Florida is
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: gone politically.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: But they're important for the world.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Let's do the right thing. Let's get rid of a
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: blockade that's been in place for 70 years. I'd love
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: to see Joe Biden really personally engage to end the
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: civil war in Sudan, which is the worst humanitarian disaster.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: That no one is talking about. It doesn't make it
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: onto anybody's newscast.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: You could go to countries like Poland where you're seeing
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: democratic leaders win elections and push back on these authoritarian
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: trends that we're seeing in other parts of the world,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: like put some wind in the sails of progressives in
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: other places. So those are very nerdy. Those are very
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: foreign policy focused.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Those world leaders respect him. People do respect him. They
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: worry very much about Donald Trump as a president. I
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: think they will respect Kamala Harris. And I think Kamala
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Harris has a great opportunity to do a lot of
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: right things on that front. But Joe Biden brought heft
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: and decades of experience to those issues where he didn't
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: have to read in. He can use that in his
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: final months of his presidency to do some of those things.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: You know, Cuba was an interesting thing that was unpopular.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: But people didn't understand the threat of an expansionist Russia
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: at the time. They hadn't realized. Like all of a sudden,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Cuba's really, really crucially important in a world.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Where- The Chinese are building spy bases on Cuba, right?
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Now this becomes strategically, obviously in your days in the administration,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: you guys understood that. You could see ahead. You could
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: see around those corners. The corners are here now. We're
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: around the corner. We know how this is going to
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: unfold if we do not use the necessary influence that
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: we need to. Getting out of the Iran deal was
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: the most boneheaded thing anybody's ever done. Because now we
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: have this war blazing in the Middle East, and we
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: can't pick up the phone and call Iran and say, guys, listen,
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: this is me and you. Let's just stop this right now.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: We don't have that ability. We use intermediaries.
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: BS.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Why do we have to do that? We had a deal.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know that we'll succeed in getting back into it,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: but that would definitely be something for Joe Biden to
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: put his back into.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: When we come back, you're going to hear my conversation
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: with Pete Buttigieg. We're talking with him in his personal
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: capacity as a surrogate for Vice President Harris on the
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: campaign trail. So stick around for that. And just flagging,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: we had a little bit of latency issues, a little
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: bit of audio issues, but I promise it's not that bad.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: But before that, we have another exciting Vote Save America update.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: We've now had over 27,000 people sign up for Vote
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Save America's 2024 volunteer program, organize or else, including 10,000
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: since Sunday. That is amazing. And these folks have already
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: reached out to over 1 million voters. This is a
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: historic moment in this election and, frankly, for this country.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: And we have the power to sway the outcome. But
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: we need your help to have a fighting chance in November.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Go to www.votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 and click sign up to
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: get started. This message has been paid for by Vote
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. And this
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: And once you've signed up to volunteer with Vote Save America,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: consider taking it a step further and doing some relational
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: organizing on behalf of Pod Save America. Look, here's my ask.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Share an episode with a couple friends, maybe five friends,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: like that friend who tuned out the Trump trials or
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: that lib curious uncle of yours. Maybe they'll share it
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: with a friend or two. Maybe you can, you know,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: give us a review on Apple. It helps people find
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: the show. It helps us get more people to vote
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Save America. And we'd really appreciate it. So whether you're
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: a super fan or you're just listening to this, you
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: can make fun of us on Twitter. We like that too.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: We want to know what you think. So leave us
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: a review and thank you again. Okay, when we come back,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg. My guest today serves in the Biden administration
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: as Secretary of Transportation, but he's here today in a
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: personal capacity to talk about hitting the campaign trail on
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: behalf of Vice President Harris and the Democratic Party. Welcome
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: to the show, Pete Buttigieg.
• 41:46
  Speaker 9: Thanks.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: It's great to see you. Thank you for doing the show.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: It has been a weird couple of weeks. We had
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the debate, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, President Biden
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: making this bold decision to step back, and now Vice
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: President Harris is the presumptive nominee. We've all been watching
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: this from the outside. You are very much on the inside.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: What has this last month been like for you?
• 42:05
  Speaker 8: You know, there's that saying there are decades when nothing
• 42:08
  Speaker 8: happens and there are weeks when decades happen. And that's
• 42:11
  Speaker 8: how it's felt. Just so much turbulence, so much upheaval
• 42:14
  Speaker 8: every day. You know, I think honestly, inside the spaces
• 42:18
  Speaker 8: I've been hasn't been that different from what it's like
• 42:20
  Speaker 8: for everyone else just as an American. A lot of uncertainty,
• 42:24
  Speaker 8: a lot of concern. But now we're in this moment
• 42:27
  Speaker 8: where there's a lot of hope. There's a lot of energy.
• 42:29
  Speaker 8: One of the things that's been amazing to me just
• 42:31
  Speaker 8: in the last couple of days is how people are
• 42:34
  Speaker 8: rallying around Kamala Harris with enthusiasm. And I think that
• 42:38
  Speaker 8: that shift in energy, that that shift in tone has
• 42:40
  Speaker 8: been really exciting coming out of everything that we've been through.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the vibes are good. You were on Bill Maher
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: show last week, and you you succinctly but brutally laid
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: out all the ways in which JD Vance is a fraud.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: As often happens with your interviews, the clips went viral,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: because a lot of Democrats watch them and think this
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: guy is one of the best messengers in the party.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and they want to see more of you on the
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: campaign trail, including potentially as Kamala Harris's vice presidential nominee.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I was wondering if that's something you would consider if
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: you've heard from the campaign about vetting at all and
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: whether you need to be vetted since you're currently in
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: the cabinet.
• 43:14
  Speaker 8: What I can say is I'm going to do everything
• 43:15
  Speaker 8: I can to help her win. And I don't know
• 43:17
  Speaker 8: exactly what shape that'll take, but I know that my job,
• 43:21
  Speaker 8: to the extent that I'm involved in politics outside of
• 43:23
  Speaker 8: my day job, is going to be to do everything
• 43:26
  Speaker 8: I can to convince Americans to support this ticket. And
• 43:29
  Speaker 8: I think Americans already support the values of this ticket.
• 43:32
  Speaker 8: They already agree with her and disagree with Donald Trump
• 43:34
  Speaker 8: on so many of the issues, especially in places like
• 43:37
  Speaker 8: the Midwest, where I come from and where J.D. Vance,
• 43:39
  Speaker 8: I think, was intended to try to speak to. So
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: who knows exactly what shape that takes, but I'm going
• 43:45
  Speaker 8: to do everything I can to help.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: So you're seeing reports that some Trump allies actually already
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: regret the J.D. Vance pick. There's clips going around from
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: his events where he just looks like an awkward goober
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: and he's kind of bad on the stump. What do
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you make of the guy?
• 43:58
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, it's, I think it is a regrettable pick.
• 44:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, you know, he's somebody who obviously has been
• 44:05
  Speaker 8: thrust into this, not a lot of experience in office
• 44:09
  Speaker 8: before that. Some people, you know, very early into a
• 44:11
  Speaker 8: Senate career proved to be immediately to be extraordinary national level,
• 44:16
  Speaker 8: next level leaders like Barack Obama, but most don't. And
• 44:21
  Speaker 8: I think we're seeing a little bit of that. But,
• 44:23
  Speaker 8: you know, more than just his style or his fluency
• 44:25
  Speaker 8: or his comfort on the stump, what I think is
• 44:27
  Speaker 8: really concerning about him is how out of line he
• 44:30
  Speaker 8: is with Americans. I think he was picked on this
• 44:32
  Speaker 8: theory that he's from Ohio, he has roots in Appalachia,
• 44:35
  Speaker 8: he has this biography that's going to connect him to
• 44:37
  Speaker 8: most Americans. But you look at his actual views, whether
• 44:40
  Speaker 8: it's the kind of faux nature of his populism, because
• 44:43
  Speaker 8: he's actually on board with tax cuts for the rich
• 44:45
  Speaker 8: and has a 0% rating for labor. And just the
• 44:48
  Speaker 8: more you look at it, the more out of touch
• 44:49
  Speaker 8: he is there. But also, you could not have found
• 44:53
  Speaker 8: a more anti-Ukraine person to pick to put on this ticket,
• 44:59
  Speaker 8: which puts them out of line with even a lot
• 45:00
  Speaker 8: of Republicans. And at a moment when the Trump campaign
• 45:04
  Speaker 8: is trying desperately to distance itself from its own policy blueprint,
• 45:09
  Speaker 8: which is Project 2025, I just learned that he literally
• 45:13
  Speaker 8: wrote the foreword to a forthcoming book that might as
• 45:17
  Speaker 8: well be entitled Project 2025, the book. It's by the
• 45:20
  Speaker 8: leader of the Heritage Foundation, it's really kind of a
• 45:23
  Speaker 8: popularized version of that policy manual, which is so wildly
• 45:27
  Speaker 8: unpopular that even President Trump is claiming he knows nothing
• 45:30
  Speaker 8: about it.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a DEI pick for self-aggrandizing biographers is
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: what I heard. I have a pitch for you that
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: falls in the category of easier said than done, but
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: bear with me. You have a very big, very important
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: job over at the Department of Transportation, but nothing is
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: more important than winning this election. Have you considered resigning
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: from DOT and just becoming a full-time surrogate for the campaign?
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: You live in Michigan. Wisconsin's a quick flight. We could
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: have you home for bedtime at night. What do you think?
• 46:00
  Speaker 8: Just like a lot of people who are involved in
• 46:02
  Speaker 8: politics are running for office themselves, I'm working to walk
• 46:05
  Speaker 8: and chew gum at the same time. Obviously, busy with
• 46:08
  Speaker 8: the day job, which I love, but also busy doing
• 46:11
  Speaker 8: what I can on the campaign and balancing the three
• 46:14
  Speaker 8: things that really matter, which is doing a good job
• 46:16
  Speaker 8: of work, doing a good job for the ticket and
• 46:19
  Speaker 8: trying to do a good job as a dad and
• 46:21
  Speaker 8: a spouse to Chaston, which, as you know, is the
• 46:24
  Speaker 8: most demanding thing of all.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: So I've not convinced you to quiet quit, duly noted.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: So as we said at the top, the vibes in
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party are excellent right now. But you and
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: I know that like a flood of attacks are coming
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: from the Trump campaign soon. A lot of political strategists
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I know look back at the debates in the 2020
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: primary and the way the party got pulled to the
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: left and worry that they were quite damaging on a
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: bunch of issues. And they gave Republicans fodder to attack
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Vice President Harris. Dave McCormick, who is a hedge fund
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: guy running for Senate in Pennsylvania, has an ad up
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: highlighting some of Vice President Harris's comments from that primary.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: They include banning fracking, getting rid of the filibuster, treating
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: illegal border crossings as a civil offense, abolishing ICE. The
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: list goes on, but I'll stop there. You were literally
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: in the middle of those debates, you know, on stage.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: How worried are you about Republican efforts to weaponize the
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: policy debates from 2020? And how does the Harris campaign
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: fight back?
• 47:19
  Speaker 8: Well, look, what the Republicans are doing is predictable and
• 47:22
  Speaker 8: it's unimaginative. It's what they always do for any Democrat
• 47:25
  Speaker 8: running against any Republican, which is to say the Democrats
• 47:28
  Speaker 8: too far left. I don't care if it's the most
• 47:29
  Speaker 8: conservative Democrat in history. That's what they'll say. And so
• 47:32
  Speaker 8: that's the first thing they're reaching for now is they
• 47:35
  Speaker 8: scramble to come up with some kind of angle. But
• 47:37
  Speaker 8: I think a couple of things are important to remember.
• 47:40
  Speaker 8: First of all, in that 2020 primary process, You know,
• 47:43
  Speaker 8: there was a lot of lanes. There was a lot
• 47:45
  Speaker 8: of sorting us all out on a spectrum, right, the
• 47:48
  Speaker 8: 20 of us who ran. There was very much a
• 47:51
  Speaker 8: left lane, and she was very much not in that lane.
• 47:55
  Speaker 8: You know, you had Bernie Sanders. You had, in a
• 47:57
  Speaker 8: different way, Senator Warren. But that is not the space
• 48:00
  Speaker 8: that she occupied. So even within the Democratic Party, it's
• 48:04
  Speaker 8: just not honest to say that she's from some kind
• 48:07
  Speaker 8: of fringe or even from one end. And of course,
• 48:09
  Speaker 8: she's served in this administration whose policy priorities have been
• 48:13
  Speaker 8: in line with the mainstream of the American people, unlike Republicans, right? She,
• 48:17
  Speaker 8: like most Americans, she's for protecting her right to choose.
• 48:20
  Speaker 8: Like most Americans, she thinks rich ought to pay the
• 48:22
  Speaker 8: fair share. Trump advances about the opposite. The other thing
• 48:25
  Speaker 8: I want to say, though, is I don't think that
• 48:27
  Speaker 8: attack is going to have a lot of potency, given
• 48:30
  Speaker 8: who it's coming from.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: In other words, Nobody's going.
• 48:33
  Speaker 8: To out-radical Donald Trump, right? You have to take it
• 48:37
  Speaker 8: led by a guy who talks about terminating the Constitution,
• 48:40
  Speaker 8: inspired political violence against the transfer of power in this country.
• 48:44
  Speaker 8: I just don't think it's credible. Even if you do
• 48:46
  Speaker 8: disagree with the top of our ticket on some particular
• 48:50
  Speaker 8: policy issue, at the end of the day, if this
• 48:53
  Speaker 8: election is going to be about who's more extreme, that
• 48:56
  Speaker 8: is really going to be a dynamic that counts against
• 48:59
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you there. The other attack that
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: we just know is coming is going to be on immigration.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: The Republicans are claiming that Vice President Harris was Biden's
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: border czar. That is not true. She had a job
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: where she was focused on the root causes of migration
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: in Central America, but they're going to lay the entire
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: situation at her feet. Immigration has been one of the
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: worst policies. issues for President Biden for a long time now.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: How do you think Vice President Harris can make a
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: break from the Biden administration's record on immigration and then
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: go on offense?
• 49:29
  Speaker 8: Well, you know, she's going to lay out her own vision,
• 49:31
  Speaker 8: her own policy, which may be similar in some ways
• 49:35
  Speaker 8: and may be distinguished in some ways from President Biden's.
• 49:38
  Speaker 8: But Look, I think everybody gets this is a tough issue.
• 49:41
  Speaker 8: And that's why they're trying to lie about her role.
• 49:44
  Speaker 8: The reality is that she did diplomacy with Central American
• 49:46
  Speaker 8: countries and good diplomacy at that. But I think the
• 49:50
  Speaker 8: more important thing, of course, is the fact that Trump
• 49:53
  Speaker 8: did nothing to deal with the decades long issue of
• 49:58
  Speaker 8: our immigration system being out of whack. And he went
• 50:02
  Speaker 8: out of his way to block a bipartisan compromise that
• 50:07
  Speaker 8: would have really helped. And I think we really need
• 50:09
  Speaker 8: to make sure there's some accountability for that. You know,
• 50:11
  Speaker 8: he did this not even as an elected official, as
• 50:13
  Speaker 8: an outside force when Republicans and Democrats negotiated an approach.
• 50:17
  Speaker 8: One that was, by the way, hard for a lot
• 50:20
  Speaker 8: of Democrats to come on board with, hard for the
• 50:22
  Speaker 8: Biden-Harris administration to embrace because it did concede a lot
• 50:25
  Speaker 8: of things to the conservative position. But that's how a
• 50:27
  Speaker 8: tough bipartisan compromise works.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: It was teed up.
• 50:30
  Speaker 8: It was ready to go. If you know anything about
• 50:31
  Speaker 8: Senator Lankford, this is not a bleeding heart liberal Republican.
• 50:35
  Speaker 8: only for Donald Trump to come in and kill it because, obviously,
• 50:40
  Speaker 8: he needs this to stay bad. He needs the chaos
• 50:44
  Speaker 8: to continue because he thrives on chaos.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Trump's campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, also told The Bulwark that
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: they plan to attack Vice President Harris for being, quote,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: part of the cover-up with Biden's fitness to serve. This
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: is something you're already hearing from a lot of Republicans.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Even some members of the mainstream media are suggesting there
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: was some sort of cover-up Do you think there was
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: an effort to keep President Biden out of the spotlight
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: to avoid concerns about his age? And if not, what's
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: the best way to fight that perception?
• 51:11
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I think we need to distinguish between the work
• 51:14
  Speaker 8: that President Biden has done and continues to do as
• 51:17
  Speaker 8: president and the idea of him campaigning, being out on
• 51:21
  Speaker 8: the trail and doing both of those things at the
• 51:23
  Speaker 8: same time. And he made a decision to fully concentrate
• 51:27
  Speaker 8: on the presidency. It's worth mentioning that he's really good
• 51:30
  Speaker 8: at being president. I know I'm proud to be associated
• 51:33
  Speaker 8: with that. She has a lot to be proud of
• 51:35
  Speaker 8: being part of that. And I think that's the best
• 51:39
  Speaker 8: and simplest response. It's just, you know, we're going to
• 51:41
  Speaker 8: hear from the president directly. And I think he's going
• 51:44
  Speaker 8: to continue to remind us of why he has been
• 51:48
  Speaker 8: one of the most effective presidents in modern times. That
• 51:52
  Speaker 8: didn't change when he decided he wasn't going to accept
• 51:55
  Speaker 8: the nomination and run for another term, if anything. I
• 52:00
  Speaker 8: think his selfless decision consolidates his standing as a great
• 52:05
  Speaker 8: American president with several months to go in this presidency
• 52:08
  Speaker 8: that I expect he will use to their fullest.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Final question. You and Chasten have two adorable two-year-old twins.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I have a 19-month-old and a two-month-old. So we're both
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: kind of, we're in it. Can we do a quick
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: dad lightning round here? Let's do it. Okay. Which is
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: a crazier block of time in your house? 6 a.m.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: to 8 a.m. or 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.? I.
• 52:30
  Speaker 8: Would definitely go with the dinner bath time block as
• 52:32
  Speaker 8: a rule, except somehow, against all odds, we are now
• 52:35
  Speaker 8: raising a morning person. Our son rocks up at like 5.30
• 52:38
  Speaker 8: in the morning, whenever there's first light. And if we
• 52:41
  Speaker 8: don't respond, he goes downstairs and brings up a guitar.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I got to make sure I hide all
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: guitars from my daughter because that sounds like a fun pen.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Are you guys fans of Miss Rachel? How are we
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: feeling about screen time?
• 52:53
  Speaker 8: I'm strongly pro-Miss Rachel. I'm told that I don't know
• 52:55
  Speaker 8: how much she earns, maybe millions per episode. She deserves
• 52:58
  Speaker 8: every penny.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Every penny. Every penny. I love Miss Rachel. Swings or slides?
• 53:05
  Speaker 8: The thing about swings is they stay in the swing,
• 53:08
  Speaker 8: at least like a little kiddo toddler swing, right? Whereas
• 53:11
  Speaker 8: the slide, they can go any number of directions, but
• 53:15
  Speaker 8: potentially off the side. I'm going to go swings, but
• 53:18
  Speaker 8: I can see it either way. How about you?
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: We're a swing family. in part because my wife bought
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: the shittiest possible version of a swing off of Amazon,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: and we assembled it, and we can basically put it
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: in the living room with a 19-month-old. She doesn't know
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the difference, so we're good. But yeah, so far, swings.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: You're right, though. We've had some injuries off of slides
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: at times because maybe Dad was looking at his phone.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: We won't get too deep on that one, but yeah,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: swings are safer. Pete, thank you so much for doing
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: the show. Great to talk with you, as always, and
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: thanks for all the work you're doing. See you on
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: the campaign trail. Same here.
• 53:50
  Speaker 8: Thanks for having me on.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: We're going to take another quick break. When we come back,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Ali and I are going to talk about Bibi Netanyahu's
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: address to Congress. So stick around for that. All right, Ali, finally,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu just gave an address to
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: a joint session of Congress at the invitation of Speaker Johnson.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: but also maybe grudgingly endorsed by Hakeem Jeffries and Senator
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer. So this was a bipartisan mistake that we
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: all just were forced to witness. A lot of Democrats
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: did not attend, including Vice President Harris, who as VP
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: is president of the Senate, but President Pro Tem, Patty
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Murray didn't go, Bernie Sanders didn't go, Tim Kaine, AOC.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: There's been reports of 80 to 100 members of Congress skipping.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: I saw Rashida Tlaib attended but had a sign up
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: calling him a war criminal, which was nice. Johnson said
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: ahead of time that there would be zero tolerance for
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: any interruptions. I don't think I saw any. I do
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: think they might have asked Representative Tlaib to put down
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: her sign eventually, so maybe that will count. But Netanyahu
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: laid out an unbelievably dark vision of the war in Gaza,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and much more. Here's some key bits.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: I want to thank President Biden for his tireless efforts
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: on behalf of the hostages and for his efforts to
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: the hostage families as well. And he came to Israel
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: to stand with us during our darkest hour, a visit
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: that will never be forgotten. Clarity begins by knowing the
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: difference between good and evil. Yet incredibly, many anti-Israel protesters
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: many choose to stand with evil. So these protesters burn
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: American flags even on the.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: 4th of July.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: And I wish to salute the fraternity brothers at the
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: University of North Carolina who protected the American flag. My friends,
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: if you remember one thing, one thing from the speech,
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: remember this, our enemies are your enemies. Our fight is
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: your fight and our victory will be your victory. But
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Let's just start with reactions to the speech.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: I think it's important to remember that speech is to
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: shore Benjamin Netanyahu up domestically in Israel. I think the
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: only person that mattered in an American audience for him
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: is Donald Trump. Benjamin Netanyahu, like Donald Trump, if he
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: does not continue to be the prime minister of Israel,
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: is going to be in a lot of legal hot water.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: He'll probably be in a lot of legal hot water anyway.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: So this has become existential for him. I think something
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: he said at the beginning of the speech really stood
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: out for me. He said, this is not a clash
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: of civilizations. This is a battle between civilization and barbarism.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: And this is a, you know, he did a really
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: good job, and this is why one can never write
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Benjamin Netanyahu off of making this seem not like a
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: war in which tens of thousands of civilians, children, women
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: have died and people have lost their homes. It's made
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: it seem like the 39,000, 40,000 people who are dead
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: are all Hamas soldiers and, and, You know, he's got
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: an argument when he talks about Hamas and their soldiers.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: He's got an argument about why that's a war. And
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: Hamas probably should have paid much more attention to that
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: prior to October 7th to say, what, can we keep
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: this as a military to military type of thing? But
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: Benjamin Netanyahu has glossed over all of that. He introduced
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: a hostage, a former hostage, which was amazing to see
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: her in freedom because Noah Argamani's face is somebody we
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: saw on October 7th being taken away. But he didn't
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: mention the fact that there are still hostages in there
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: is because he's not actually trying as hard as he
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: could be to get them out. There are deals on
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: the table that he's not agreeing to because when this ends,
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: he could end. It also ends for Hamas leaders, which
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: is why they're also not motivated because the protagonist of
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: this thing will all cease to exist in some fashion
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: if this war ends. But Benjamin Netanyahu at this point
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: is as much a protagonist and an antagonist. And there
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: was nothing about that in the speech. They were promising
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: some conversation about the day after. There was no day
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: after other than the fact that he said Israel does
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: not want to reoccupy Gaza. But there was no actual plan.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: So a disappointing speech, disappointing to see the number of
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Democrats who stood up for what was theater. Most of
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: the people who didn't attend were Democrats. Thomas Massey of
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Kentucky didn't attend. And he stated, he said, I don't
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: want to be a prop. uh, for, for a piece
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: of theater. That was a piece of theater.
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: They, and they were props for a piece of theater.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: You're right. I mean, you're right. BB's goal here was
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: to go back home and say, look, everybody, I can
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: still wrap these, you know, American politicians around my little finger.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. It's 70% of you in a recent
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: poll want me to go. I'm still the guy for
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: the job because, you know, our existence depends on support
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: from the Americans. And I'm the guy who can deliver that.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: I have to say, stepping back, like I expected that
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: speech to be bad because I, you know, was watched
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: the 2015 speech Netanyahu delivered to Congress where he just
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: attacked Obama. But I am shocked at how upsetting I
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: found watching that. It felt like I was watching a
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Bush era war on terror speech.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, it was a bingoistic cheerleading for war entirely bereft
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: of any regret for civilian Palestinian deaths, entirely bereft of
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: any understanding as to, you can for valid reason and
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: good reason think that Hamas is the worst thing in
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: the world for the Palestinians and for the world, but
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: no acknowledgement of, what do you think they're fighting for?
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: You think there's random folks out there with no reason
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: to be frustrated by years of what Gaza is? You know,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: maybe we're just disappointed because we expect there to be
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: nuance where there is no nuance. He actually said in
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: his speech that there is no context for stuff. It's
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: like there's always context. That's just a ridiculous thing to say.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: But the idea that he can go out there and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: make what sounded like a State of the Union speech
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: in which he just kept introducing guest after guest after
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: guest and get these standing ovations from American elected politicians,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: given that we are party to this war in which
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: lots of civilians are dying, is kind of remarkable. It's
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: kind of disappointing. And yeah, he pulled one over on
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: America again.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it was black versus white, good versus evil. Look,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: I have no time for Hamas. I think what happened
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: on October 7th was evil and indefensible in any attack
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: on a civilian can never be defended. I will never
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: support that in any context. But the venom in his voice,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the anger, the enemies in the speech, it was not
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: just Hamas. It included American protesters, American college students, college professors,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: college presidents.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: If you don't agree with what he's doing, you're actually
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: the enemy. But he went beyond that. He's not just
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: the enemy. You're an enemy of Israel. You're an enemy
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: of civilization. He actually painted it as either you're with
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: me or you're an enemy of civilization. It lacked all nuance.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: If you are the prime minister of Israel in this
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: fraught moment, there is such opportunity for leadership. And he
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: has Dodge that opportunity at every chance that he's been given.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: There are hostage families in America who are protesting saying,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: why is he here? Why is he even here? I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: don't understand what this is for. Why is he here?
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: We just need a deal. We just need our people released.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: That's all we need right now. You can deal with
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Hamas as you see fit because they can. The Israelis can.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: Mossad can take out. They know who all the Hamas
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: leaders are. They will take out every last one of them.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: And that's a fair fight. Civilian non-combatants are not a
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: fair fight. Israeli civilian non-combatants are not a fair fight.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: That should never have happened. Not one of them should
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: have died in this whole argument. He said at one point,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: when he talked about Donald Trump, the assassination attempt, he said,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: there is no place for violence in a, for political
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: violence in a democracy. That's a little rich coming from
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: Benjamin Netanyahu, but yeah. It is.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: It is. And I just want to say some things
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear him say. I did not hear him
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: take responsibility for the October 7th attacks. By the way, remember,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: he was Mr. Security. That was his promise to the
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: country is that he would keep them safe.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: The entire raison d'etre is that I'm the guy who's
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: going to keep you safe.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: This happened on his watch. He has not taken any responsibility.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: I heard excuses that absolved the IDF of any responsibility
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: for civilian casualties or for people starving to death in Gaza.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: I did not hear any sympathy for the thousands of
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: innocent people killed. Certainly the children are not combatants. Thousands
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: of children who have died in this war. I found
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: it incredibly upsetting. as you mentioned, to see him single
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: out the families of these hostages over and over again,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: when we know that in Israel, Netanyahu is believed to
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: be the biggest impediment to getting them home, because he
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: won't cut a ceasefire deal that his team will negotiate it,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: and then he'll walk away from it.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: The protests every day are led by hostage families. The
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: families of the hostages are the ones who are saying,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: there's a way to get people out. We've had these
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: deals on the table. It was May when Joe Biden said,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: we've got a deal ready to go. Turned out to
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: be premature. And it may never come to pass. I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: hope it does. But that's exactly right. I think we
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: all thinking people can agree. These hostages should not be there.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: They need to be released now. There's no question that
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: there needs to be a conversation about what happens afterwards.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: And it does seem like there's an infrastructure in a
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: deal for having that conversation. Ben and I have this
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: talk all the time. It's not hopeful. that it's all
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: going to work out, that we're going to solve this
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: problem suddenly, but we can't throw up our hands and
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: say we're not going to. And that jingoistic bumper sticker
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: speech that Netanyahu gave that was literally a good and evil,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: you're right, it was very much a war on terror
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: Bush-era speech, good versus evil. It's much more complicated than that.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: And for him to do that and for everybody to
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: get up and clap their hands and to see Democrats
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: clapping their hands for that stuff, there are certain things
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: that are always worth clapping your hands for, honoring people,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: a hostage, Noah Argamani.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: Absolutely 100% worth clapping for. But he was giving a
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: political speech for which Democrats were applauding. And I don't
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: understand that.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: And look, there might be people listening to this screaming
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: at their phones saying Hamas could end this war today
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: if they would just let the hostages go. And you
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: know what? You're right. Of course they could. But we
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: have to live in reality where Hamas is a terrorist group,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: but they're also a political actor. And Israel is a
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: political actor here. And they're trying to cut a deal,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: a ceasefire deal that includes a hostage release scenario. And
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu just won't get it over.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: The finish line- Israeli generals want that deal. Israeli civilians
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: want that deal. The Israeli military wants that deal. The
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: hostage families want that deal. There are Palestinians who are
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: desperate for this. There are Palestinians who think Hamas is
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: the worst thing that ever happened to them. It brought
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: terror on their homes. There are others who think Hamas
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: got me out of jail and a prisoner swapped for hostages.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: It's just complicated. And for Netanyahu to say that if
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: you don't agree with this, then you must be that,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: it's just not correct. You and I can both sit
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: here and say what happened on October 7th was terrible.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: I've spent time in Gaza. I've been able to save.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: Worst thing to happen to Gaza is Hamas. There's no
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: question about that. But you can hold, we're not squirrels.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: We can hold several thoughts at the same time that
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: everybody there is entitled to safety and prosperity and self-determination.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: And it's our work to help them get to that.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: What you heard in that speech today had nothing to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: do with safety for Palestinians, self-determination and peace. It was
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: just about an attack on what he called barbarism which
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: we're supposed to mean anything that he does in Gaza
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: is fine because it's all about fighting barbarism.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we can't ignore the broader context, which is
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: that the Knesset just voted against a two-state solution. So,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: you know, Bibi Netanyahu walked away from a two-state solution
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: long ago, but that is the broader political context here.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Long ago, in the 90s. Let's just be clear about
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: that because for some reason there's this impression in the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: West that he's been in favor of that, like Americans are,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: and the Palestinians haven't. The Palestinians and the Oslo Accord
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: signed on to a two-state solution. I mean, they've agreed
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: to that. They agreed that they would not have institutional violence.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: Hamas is a different operation. As we've learned, or I
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: hope we've learned, most people in Gaza didn't vote for Hamas.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: They're too young to have voted for them. They've not
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: had an election in a long time. And part of
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: the reason there hasn't been an election in the West Bank,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: because the Israelis and the Americans also didn't want one,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: because they know what would happen, that Hamas would also
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: have won in the West Bank. And then you'd have
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: Hamas in two places. which is why Netanyahu supported Hamas's
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: funding through Qatar. He was trying to keep everybody out
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: of balance, and it collapsed on him. But that story
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: doesn't get told. There was none of that. There was
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: an opportunity today for a meaningful speech. I don't think
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: you and I thought that was going to happen, but
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: it was yet more jingoistic than I think we both expected.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it truly was. So Biden and Netanyahu met at
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: the White House one-on-one, and tomorrow they're going to meet
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: with the families of the American hostages being held by Hamas. Look,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: it's obvious to me that Netanyahu is pulling for Trump
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: to win the election. They're going to meet, I think,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: on Friday. That said, Trump's relationship with Netanyahu is not great.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip from a Trump speech that he delivered
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: just after the October 7th attacks.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: You know, I did have a bad experience with Israel, though.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: When we took out Soleimani, it was us and Israel
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: working as a group.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: And we knew where he was. We knew how he
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: was coming in.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: We knew the plane. We knew everything. Israel was going
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: to do this with us, and it was being planned
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: and working on it for months. And now we had
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: everything all set to go. And the night before it happened,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: I got a call that Israel will not be participating
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: in this attack. And he came on in the plane,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: and we followed him right from the situation room. We
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: followed the whole thing. And about 15 seconds later, it
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: was all over, and we did it. but I'll never forget.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: I'll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: was a very terrible thing. I will say that.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I think that story is total nonsense, by the way.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I think the Israeli provided- First.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: Of all, are you supposed to be saying that stuff
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: if you're really, you know, like, is that, is there
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: a national security issue with describing exactly how you got them?
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: But yeah.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: I think the Israelis gave us some intelligence, maybe the
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: cell phone for Soleimani, but like, they didn't need to
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: be part of the strike. It was just a drone
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: strike the Americans do all the time.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Is that falling out worse than J.D. Vance calling Trump heroin?
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're all transactional, right? Netanyahu and Trump are transactional.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: They need each other. Netanyahu needs Trump to become the
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: president of the United States so that America continues to
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: fund Israel's weaponry and doesn't attach any strings to it.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: and Trump needs Netanyahu to help him with American voters.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: So it's transactional to both of them. And both of
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: them have shown a remarkable ability to overcome personal differences
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: to do that. I would say that Joe Biden gave
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: Netanyahu a remarkable bear hug right after October 7th and
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: showed remarkable support for Israel. And that cost Joe Biden
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: to some degree politically. But he did. He did that.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: That's where, and I, you know, I've heard that President
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: Obama advised Joe Biden, don't get into bed with this
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: guy because it never works. It never works. It'll never
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: pay off. There'll never be anything that comes of getting
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: into bed with Netanyahu. And that's what happens. I mean,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, by all accounts, did the right thing by
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Benjamin Netanyahu after October 7th. And Benjamin Netanyahu is, for
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: all intents and purposes, is going to stump.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: For Donald Trump. Yeah, look, I think Joe Biden's a
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Zionist in his bones. And I think he thought he
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: had a unique relationship with Bibi Netanyahu that could work
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: for both of them. I don't think it did. I
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: think that you're right that the Trump relationship with Netanyahu
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: is transactional and complicated. Trump was reportedly furious that Netanyahu
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: congratulated Biden on his victory so quickly in a conversation
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: with a great reporter named Barack Ravid at Axios. Trump
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: said of Netanyahu, fuck him. because of that congratulatory phone call.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: I did hear, what I heard today in Bibi's speech
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: was an effort to really kiss some Trump ass. There
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: was lots about the Abraham Accords. He talked about this
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: sort of like new America-Israel-Arab alliance. He wants to call
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: it- Give it a name, right?
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: He called it the Abraham Alliance.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Abraham Alliance. That's a lot of that. That's very implicitly
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: giving credit to Trump. So, I don't know. It seems
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: like the political wins. In order to give him.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: The political cover to talk about Trump in that speech
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: in the United States House of Representatives, he then, he
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: had to do some stuff for Biden. You know, he
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: said some nice things about Biden ahead of that. And
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: I was wondering, like, is he going to get to
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: the Trump part? And he did, of course. He gave
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: Trump a lot of credit for the Abraham Accords, which
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: they're not really a thing. They're trade deals.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: They're trade and arms sales. Last question on this. So
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of reporting that Vice President Harris was
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: in a different place on Gaza policy. And also, I
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: think you could hear in her voice when she gave
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: speeches and talked about Gaza, that she just did a
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: better job of showing empathy for the suffering of the
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: Palestinian people. The question, though, is she's now the nominee,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: but Joe Biden is still the president. And how much
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: space do we think she has on Gaza policy to
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: change things in the administration? Or to publicly put pressure
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: on Netanyahu to change course. Do you have any hope
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: that she can put some distance there?
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: I think there's an opportunity for some space here. I
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: think she's got permission to do that for a couple
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: of reasons. One is Joe Biden, who is a remarkably
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: empathetic person generally, didn't, was not able to nail the
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: empathy around Palestinians for whatever reason. It was, it was
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: a tough thing and he got off on the wrong
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: foot with this. And, and Kamala Harris, I don't know
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: how distinct her policy is. She was always quicker to
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: be critical of things that the Israelis were perceived to
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: not be doing correctly than Biden was. But she did
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: seem to be more empathetic. But the bottom line is
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: Biden is aware that his efforts to influence the Israelis
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: has not worked. So now he, I think that gives
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: her permission to say, why don't you try it your way?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: Why don't we play good cop, bad cop? I'll be
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: semi good cop. That's Joe Biden. And you can be
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: a little bit more bad cop. Maybe we'll see. I
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: would like to think so because there are, first of all,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: the election may depend on it. There are a lot
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: of voters in Michigan and, and Wisconsin and some down
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: ballot races across the country that will depend on us
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: having a more nuanced approach to the Middle East. And
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: like you said, she's got an opportunity for a reset.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: She's got an opportunity for a new set of first impressions.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: And she's got a lot of backing from a lot
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: of young progressive sorts who would not normally be Kamala
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: Harris supporters, but are at this point, who will probably say, hey,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: we really like you. We want you to be the
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: next president of the United States. We want you to
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: make amazing history being the first woman, the first black woman,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: the first South Asian woman but we do need something else.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: Just like the union leaders go to these candidates and say,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: we need something in exchange. They might go and say,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: we need you to take a different approach to this thing.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: And frankly, we're 40,000 deaths in. It's time for a
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: different approach.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: The scale of human suffering is hard to overstate. I mean,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: the war has been raging for nine months. There's 40,000
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: people believed to be dead. I suspect that number is way.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: Higher when you start digging through the rubble.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: The number of people who have hepatitis C, or other diseases,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: the number of children that are being born way underweight,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: the number of kids that haven't been in school for
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: a year. I mean, life is hell in the Gaza Strip.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: That's the worst part. The thing you just said about
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: the number of kids who haven't been in school, Benjamin
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: Netanyahu said in his speech to Congress and to the Senate,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: we want Palestinians to grow up understanding we should live
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: in peace.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Fantastic.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: That should be applauded. How does that happen? It means
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: people actually have educations. They're in schools. There is nothing
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: worse for creating your enemy than people being unhoused, being
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: in a refugee status, being hungry. You're not getting close
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: to your cause. I think we can share in Benjamin
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: Netanyahu's cause that people in that region should respect each
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: other's self-determination. We're not going in the right direction on
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: that one right now.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: God, no. Yeah, Stan McChrystal, the famous head of Joint
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: Special Operations Command, his insurgent math was for every innocent
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: civilian you kill, you make 10 insurgents. So That math
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: does not bode well for Israel in the future. Ali,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: that's it for the show today. Thank you so much
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: for being on.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: We've got a short version? What happened?
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: No one better to talk to about this speech to
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: vent with. A couple things, though. First, I would encourage
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: everyone to tune in to your excellent show, Velshi, which
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: airs 10 a.m. Eastern on Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. Also,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: you have a great memoir out, Small Acts of Courage.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: It's fantastic. You and Ben talked about it in more
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: detail on Pod Save the World. If folks want to
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: hear more, people should buy that.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: And.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: I'm told you're appearing at this day-long MSNBC Lollapalooza thing
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn on September 7th with Jen Psaki. What is
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: that all about?
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: It's on September 7th. It's this event where there are
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: going to be more people from MSNBC showing up than
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: I thought worked at MSNBC. All of us are going
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: to be there. We'll be bringing our own sort of
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: special flavor. You know, I do the Velshi Band Book
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: Club where I interview an author of a band book
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: every week. So I'll be doing that. So for those
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: of us who like to watch us and want to
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: get to know us a little bit, come on out.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: Excellent. And if you're in New York, check it out.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: And tickets are on sale at msnbc.com slash democracy 2024.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: Thanks again. And John and Dan will be back with
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: a new show on Friday.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: Tommy, thanks a million.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: I love it. Finally, we're giving you guys a little
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: treat at the end here. We are going to put
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: in an excerpt from Inside 2024, which is a subscription show.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: This is from that show, a friend of the pod series,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: Inside 2024. You're going to hear Alyssa Mastromonaco and Dan
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: Pfeiffer discuss who they think are the most viable picks
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: in to be Kamala Harris's VP, and whether or not
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: Trump regrets choosing J.D. Vance to be his. You can
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: sign up at crooked.com slash friends to hear the full episode,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: plus Dan's show, Polar Coaster, and much, much more. Okay,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: here's Inside 2024.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 9: Welcome back to Inside 2024. I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 10: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 11: Buddy, we're back together.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 10: We're now at the part of the outline where it
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 10: says banter, so that's good.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 11: As if we don't need, as if we need reason
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 11: to banter.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 11: Dan, you remember in.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 9: 2020 when you and I hosted the Pod Save America series,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 9: That's the Ticket? Well, we had so much fun doing
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 9: that series that we wanted to continue that topic and
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 9: bring it to you, the subscribers.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 11: In light of Trump's selecting J.D.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 9: Vance for his presidential ticket and Vice President Kamala Harris
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 9: becoming the Democratic presumptive nominee, today we're talking about vice
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 9: presidential candidates. Their impact on the campaign and the surprising
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 9: ways onboarding a new candidate can be a bitch for staffers.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 10: I just want to note, just to bring the subscribers
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 10: behind the scenes, that bitch is in all caps in
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 10: this outline.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 11: There's bitch. Caroline has things to say.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 9: Speaking of Caroline, moderating this discussion today is producer extraordinaire,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 9: her words, and my favorite Crooked producer, also her words,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 9: Caroline Rustin.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 11: Caroline, take it away.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 12: I am honored to be here. I feel like you
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 12: guys didn't really fulfill the promise of the premise of banter.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 11: But charming banter. Listen, Caroline, these things come together organically.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 10: Yeah, I can't fake charm. And it's our second podcast
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 10: together of the day.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 9: Yeah, like we can't do that. So it'll come, I promise.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 9: We'll give all the charm.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 12: Okay, fine. Well, you better be charming as fuck.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 10: Which is also in all caps, but yes.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 12: Okay, you guys, I've been really looking forward to this episode.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 12: Biden has officially dropped out of the race. Like you said,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 12: VP Kamala Harris has secured enough support from the Democratic
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 12: delegates to win the party's nomination. Everyone is wondering, who
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 12: is Kamala Harris going to pick for her VP?
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 11: Fife, what do you think? I.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 10: I haven't really fully formed my thoughts on this, but
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 10: if I had to place a wager today on this day,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 10: July 23rd, I would put money on Mark Kelly.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 11: Me too. Mark Kelly or Josh Shapiro.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 9: Even though I do not feel normally having been in
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 9: the middle of VP-ness since I was like 28 years old,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 9: picking someone based on their state I normally don't think matters.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 9: I do think that he has such high favorability in
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 9: Pennsylvania that he could potentially deliver the state. But Buddy,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 9: like Mark Kelly.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 11: To me, he's got the easiest bio to explain, right?
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 11: In like three words. It's like hero, astronaut, husband of
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 11: Gabby Giffords.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 10: Yeah, and veteran.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah, hero.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 11: That was my hero.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 10: Oh, hero. But also... has been through two incredibly difficult
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 10: elections in a two-year period in Arizona, a state that
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 10: he could potentially bring back on the map. As of
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 10: the moment before Biden dropped out, there was a general
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 10: consensus that Arizona had been out of reach for the
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 10: Biden folks. I think Kamala Harris brings you a little
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 10: closer there, and Kelly can make that state very competitive again.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 10: I think he has gravitas.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: He'd be great.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 10: Now, I will say that when I was at the
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 10: Republican convention— We were walking around.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 11: Humble brag.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 10: Oh, what a brag that was. I was in Milwaukee
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 10: with a bunch of mega dudes. Well, let me tell you,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 10: I bumped into Charlie Kirk.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: Whoa.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 11: I saw that.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 10: I didn't actually bump into Charlie Kirk, but the Tommy
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 10: probably did actually. We were kind of sort of undercover
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 10: in the sense that no one knew who cared who
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 10: we were. And Tommy was walking around wearing a red
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 10: 0% liberal hat. But we struck up a conversation. And
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 10: by we, I certainly mean everyone but me. Struck up
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 10: a conversation with some delegates who were walking. And we
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 10: asked them who they thought, who they most feared or
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 10: did not want Kamala Harris to pick were she to
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 10: become the nominee. And they said Josh Shapiro.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 7: Really?
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 10: That's who they were afraid of.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 9: And you know the other bonus to Mark Kelly, Democratic governor.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 11: So if he did win, a Democrat would be appointed
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 11: to his seat.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 10: And then in North Carolina, Rory Cooper is also on
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 10: the list. And if he were to become the vice president,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 10: at least for the end of his term, Mark Robinson,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 10: who is the nut job who's running to be governor,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 10: would finish that out. But that would really not really
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 10: matter because he's either won and become the governor or–
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 10: he would be governor for two days.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 11: And Dan, correct me if I'm wrong.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 9: Josh Shapiro's won statewide three times and Cooper six times.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 10: Yes. I think that's right. Cooper's won governor's races twice
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 10: in very tough years, right? Both in 16 and 20.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 10: Shapiro's had pretty easy elections. Certainly his governor's race was
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 10: quite easy. Won by double digits. Mark Kelly had very
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 10: tough races. Andy Beshear also on the list had tough races.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 10: And we are ignoring, of course, as we should not,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 10: Gretchen Whitmer, who, Is on lots of lists circulating, although
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 10: she has said that she does not want to be
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 10: vice president, but many people say that before accepting the job.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 9: Selina Meyer told us in season seven of Veep that
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 9: you cannot have two women.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 12: Well, I was just going to say, so first of all,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 12: someone didn't read the research. Josh Shapiro has won three
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 12: statewide elections.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 11: That's what I said.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 10: That's what she said.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 11: That's what I said.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 10: She said more people want sex.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 9: And by the way, because Caroline, I don't want to
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 9: sound like I'm fucking reciting your outline, okay?
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 10: This is the charming banter that was in the outline.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 11: We promised we delivered.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 12: What's going to be the timeline for Kamala on choosing
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 12: a vice president for her ticket? Because we are on
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 12: a time crunch.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 11: I mean, look, I think the sooner the better.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 9: The faster that they can find someone, I think, and
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 9: get the campaign really sort of underway is great.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 11: I think realistically, Dan, what do you think? I think
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 11: probably 10 days, two weeks.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 10: I think they're probably on a timeline similar to Trump's
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 10: announcement at J.D. Vance, where it butts up to the convention,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 10: probably either the Friday before the convention or the weekend
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 10: before the convention. I mean, look, the vetting team is
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 10: being asked to vet these people none of whom have
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 10: ever been, to my knowledge, vetted for vice president before,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 10: to do it in a record amount of time.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 12: Who are those poor people who have to just dedicate
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 12: their lives for the next 10 days to going through
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 12: Kamala's old Twitter pages?
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 9: Well, Eric Holder is running the selection committee, right?
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 10: Yeah, they're using the attorneys in his law firm to
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 10: do it.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 11: Right, so it would be attorneys.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 10: And so these people are going to be asked to
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 10: give a massive amount of financial paperwork over, tax returns
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 10: going back 10 years at least.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 11: Voting records.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 10: Voting records. Medical records. Mortgage and house. There are deeds
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 10: to their house, mortgages, college transcripts potentially, and just The
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 10: compilation of that stuff takes days, if not weeks, normally.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 10: And then it takes weeks, if not months, to review that.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 10: And they're going to do all of this in two
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 10: and a half to three weeks is wild.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 9: Anyone who has had a prosecutorial background or has been
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 9: a lawyer, they're going to look at all the cases,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 9: cases they've tried.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 10: That's going to be a real challenge for Josh Shapiro, too,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 10: because as the Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania, sorry,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 10: the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, There will be every case that
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 10: his office tried is somehow related to him and could
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 10: potentially be a problem. And how you review all of
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 10: that is sort of impossible to fathom to me.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 12: I want to pivot to J.D. Vance, which feels like
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 12: honestly such old news at this point. Something I was
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 12: thinking about is obviously Trump made... this decision before he
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 12: knew Kamala would be the top of the ticket. My
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 12: first question before we kind of dig in a little
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 12: bit more is, do you think there's any part of
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 12: his campaign that might regret having chosen someone like J.D.? J.D.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 9: Vance has proved to be a dud thus far.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 11: I think he is the most boring.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 9: His speech, he was in his home state of Ohio
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 9: yesterday and couldn't get a laugh from the crowd. And
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 9: one interesting thing I just want to flag, it seems
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 9: like the Trump campaign and or RNC campaign is writing
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 9: in applause lines with a hold for applause, and then
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 9: the applause is not happening, which I think is a
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 9: funny thing to watch on television.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 10: Yeah, I think they very much regret it. I think
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 10: Tim Alberta, who's done some really great reporting from The Atlantic,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 10: who's done some really great reporting on the Trump campaign, basically,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 10: and was pretty embedded in their campaign, and so he
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 10: has a real sense of how they think about things.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 10: He said that the J.D. Vance one was a pick
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 10: of gluttony almost.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: Hubris.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 10: Hubris, right, where they believe they were winning.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: So because J.D.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 10: Vance offers literally nothing.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 10: To the ticket, right? He doesn't help bring a state
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 10: into play. He doesn't solve a political problem, right? You know,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 10: in the past, you often will pick someone who addresses
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 10: a political weakness. Like, for example, Bill Clinton, when he
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 10: was running in 1992, was deluged with scandal. And so
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 10: he picked Al Gore, who was known as the most
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 10: ethical man in the Senate. Gore then had to pick
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 10: Joe Lieberman for the same reasons because eight years of
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 10: hanging out with Bill Clinton had damaged his reputation for ethics.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 10: Sometimes you pick someone because they help you with a
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 10: constituency with which you're weak. Trump picked Pence because Trump
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 10: had a real weakness with evangelical voters who were sort
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 10: of the base of the Republican Party. Pence was one
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 10: of their favorites, so he picks Pence.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: J.D.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 10: Vance does nothing. He doesn't help with the constituency group.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 10: He doesn't help with the state. He doesn't address a
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 10: political weakness. The only thing he can possibly do is
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 10: be a good governing partner in the sense that he
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 10: is a true MAGA believer, or at least is a
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 10: voracious convert, MAGA convert, who will execute the agenda in office,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 10: sort of like Cheney did for Bush. But in terms
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 10: of helping him win this election, he is a big
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 10: fat zero.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 9: It is shocking to me that they could have picked
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 9: a woman and didn't. Like whether Katie Britt, Nikki Haley,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 9: I mean, I don't think Trump could ever swallow the
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 9: idea of Nikki Haley, but there are so many women
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 9: out there who could have appealed to suburban women from
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 9: like Virginia to Idaho for Donald Trump, who as someone
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 9: with a reputation as a sex pest would have like
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 9: inoculated him against that. I just think that abortion being
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 9: such an issue, having a woman stand next to you
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 9: does nothing but help, I think, even if she's not pro-choice.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 11: It's still like, see, she agrees with me.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 9: So it was such a total missed opportunity, I think,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 9: for him to have not picked someone Ivanka-ish who wasn't
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 9: his actual daughter.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 10: And never really considered a woman either. None of the
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 10: short lists was one. There was some Elise Stefanik and
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 10: Sarah Huckabee Sanders talk early on, but it seems that
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 10: the only true finalists were some combination of Doug Burgum, J.D. Vance,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 10: Marco Rubio, and maybe Tim Scott, but probably not. But
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 10: the Marco Rubio one is another one just ultimately left
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 10: on the table because their theory of the case, which
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 10: they're very clear about, which is why they probably never
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 10: considered a woman. I think that was a political error.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 10: But the reason why is they view their path to
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 10: victory as winning over male voters who have abandoned Biden.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 10: Young black voters, young Latino voters, young white male voters.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 10: And JD Vance helps with none of those things, and
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 10: Marco Rubio could have been a huge asset with some
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 10: segment of Latino voters. And even if it only helps
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 10: on the margins, this is a close race. JD Vance
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 10: is a pick you make when you think you're going
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 10: to win a landslide.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 12: So on that, you guys kind of already detailed some
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 12: of the big reasons why a candidate would be chosen.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 12: The state they come from, gender.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 12: The demographics that they do well with. How, in the past,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 12: not just in this election, how often has a vice
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 12: presidential candidate actually moved the needle in any significant way?
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 9: I think Sarah Palin in a bad way, but not
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 9: at first, right? I mean, Fife, you remember when McCain
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 9: announced Sarah Palin, there was panic in the house because
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 9: the enthusiasm that he had been lacking was was suddenly
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 9: front and center. I mean, then she did her Katie
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 9: Couric interview and it all went to shit. And then it,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 9: you know, she was impactful in a way that was
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 9: really negative.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 11: But I think, you know, I'm not sure.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 9: I feel like in some ways, John Edwards helped John Kerry,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 9: but I don't think he was hugely impactful. I mean,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 9: John Kerry had this sort of like statesman-y Brahmin aloof and.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 9: John Edwards was this like very scrappy, handsome, young family,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 9: fought poverty.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 11: You know, why are you laughing at me?
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 10: Sorry, no, I'm just laughing. The John Edwards family did
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 10: not age super well, but in the moment.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 11: No, no, no, no, did not.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 9: I'm not saying that in 2024, knowing what we know,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 9: but at the time we got a big boom coming
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 9: out of the announcement going into the convention.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 12: It was like, you know, I went to a John
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 12: Edwards rally, which is why I'm laughing.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 11: Were you four?
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 12: I was pro. I loved him back then. I was like,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 12: he's hot. He knows what he wants.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 11: He's a liberal.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 12: I was so stupid.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 11: But also, if I recall, we lost North Carolina.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 8: You did.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 10: I mean, it matters on the margins only.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: In a do no harm.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 10: And the vice president, the vice presidential race is probably
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 10: the moment in American politics with the greatest chasm between
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 10: how much is talked about and how much it matters.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 10: Like you, you can fuck it up, right? If you
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 10: fail the readiness test, like if, cause this is the
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 10: one big decision you're making in the campaign. And so
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 10: voters will judge you on how you made it. And
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 10: it's kind of pass fail, right? So it's like, it's
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 10: like a pass fail. Of course, if you do, you
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 10: pick John Edwards, even Mike Pence, Kamala Harris, you pass
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 10: maybe a little benefit here, nothing huge. But if you
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 10: fail it, you fail it spectacularly. And John McCain was
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 10: one of the few people to fail it. And time
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 10: will tell. Maybe Trump failed it. We'll find out.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: That'll wrap up the preview of Inside 2024 and our
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: show today. Thank you so much again to Ali for
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: joining the show. And if you want to hear more
• 1:30:35
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.