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Transcript

Biden Digs In · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Happy 4th and welcome back.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We're back.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: You guys managed to unplug for the holiday weekend? Stop
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: thinking about politics?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I know you're joking. I really did try. I really
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: did try. No, I see every once in a while
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I go into the box of screams and I'm like,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: there you are with your megaphone screaming with everybody else.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Screaming with a bunch of blue check marks calling us
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: traitors and funny fonts. Good stuff. Good stuff out there
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: on Elon's internet.
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, real fun.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what about you?
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. Yeah, no.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I will say I was not too offline while I
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: was in Maine for the week, but it was a
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: nice place to Be staring at my phone the whole time.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: That's what I thought. And I did, as Emily likes
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to say, you know, saw all of my in-laws live there,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: all their friends. And she's like, you've basically done the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: pod a couple times a day for everyone here in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Bitterford Pool. Because it's all anyone could talk about. I
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: don't know if you guys got this. We've been worried
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: for a long time about attention on this race. People's
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: attention is now focused on this race.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Big time.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: In a way that I have not seen in a
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: long time.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: And look, we'll get to some of our critiques, and
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: we have a few, but in fairness.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wish it was in other circumstances, for sure.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: In fairness, the Biden strategy of using the debate to
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: draw more attention to the race has succeeded.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: That's what, yeah.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: It absolutely worked.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Checkmark.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Checkmark on that one. Okay. So it's been almost a
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: week since our last episode, so we got a lot
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to catch up on. On Friday, Joe Biden sat for
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a taped 20-minute interview with George Stephanopoulos. in an effort
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to dispel concerns about his age and fitness, explain why
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the debate went so wrong, and reiterate that he isn't
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: dropping out. We'll talk about how well he did in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a bit. The president then did a few fiery campaign
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: events over the weekend in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where he
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: focused his attacks on Trump and the people urging him
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: to step aside. He doubled down Monday morning when he
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: responded to the small but growing group of Democrats in
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Congress who've called on him to drop out, with a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: letter to all House and Senate Democrats that said, while Biden's, quote,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: not blind to the concerns people are raising, he's still
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the best person to beat Trump, has, quote, rock-solid support
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: from the base and elected Democrats, and that bowing out
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: of the race would overturn the will of the primary
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: voters who chose him overwhelmingly over the course of the spring.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: He then called into Morning Joe, as one does, to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: hit the same themes and belittle the people calling for
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: him to go. Biden does not have plans to campaign
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: this week because he's hosting the NATO summit in Washington,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: including a Thursday press conference. where he's going to get
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: asked about all of this yet again, and then I
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: believe he's going to have some campaign events this weekend. So, Lovett,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: you're going to be talking later in the show to
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Congressman Ro Khanna of California, who is a key Biden
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: supporter and liaison to the progressive community, about where things
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: stand on the Hill, now that a few more Dems
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: have come out with statements of support for Biden. Just
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: before recording, there's others who are.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Adam Smith, I believe, called on him to step down today,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Monday afternoon. And then some senators now are saying like, hey,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: this is serious. We need to figure out who's going
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to beat Trump. And so we're not going to say more,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: but let's just have this conversation.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: They want to meet in person. The senators are all like,
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: we're now finally in Washington. We want to get together
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: and talk.
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And so Lovett's going to talk to Ro Khanna all
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: about that in a bit. But let's start with the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Stephanopoulos interview from Friday, especially since more than 8 million
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: people watched it live, which is far more than any
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of the other events Biden has done since the debate.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: If you haven't seen the interview, Here's some of what
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: you missed.
• 3:51
  Speaker 7: Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: I don't think I did, no.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Well, what I want to get at is, what were
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: you experiencing as you were going through the debate?
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: Did you know how badly it was going?
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look. The whole way I prepared it, nobody's fault
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: of mine. Nobody's fault of mine. I, uh... I prepared
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: what I usually would do, sitting down, as I did
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: come back with foreign leaders or the National Security Council,
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: for explicit detail. And I realized about partway through that,
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: you know, I get quoted, the New York Times had
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: me down at 10 points before the debate, nine now
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: matter is that what I looked at is that he
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: also lied 28 times.
• 4:41
  Speaker 7: I couldn't.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, the way the debate ran, not my fault.
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: Nobody else's fault. No one else's fault.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And if you stay in and Trump is elected and
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: feel in January?
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: I'll feel as long as I gave it my all
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: and I did the goodest job as I know I
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: can do. That's what this is about.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Look, George, think of it this way. You've heard me
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: say this before.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: I think the United States and the world is at
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: an inflection point When the things that happen in the
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: next several years are going to determine what the next six, seven.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Decades look like.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: And who's going to be able to hold NATO together
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: like me? Who's going to be able to be in
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: a position where I'm able to keep the Pacific Basin
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: in a position where we're at least checkmating China now?
• 5:34
  Speaker 8: Who's going to do that? Who has that reach? Who
• 5:39
  Speaker 8: knows all this? We're going to have, I guess, a
• 5:42
  Speaker 8: good way to judge me, And you're going to have
• 5:44
  Speaker 8: now the NATO conference here in the United States next week.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Come listen. I didn't realize we were on the verge
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: of checkmate against China. That's huge.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Knock that queen over.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Reaching that key Pacific Basin voter constituency.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: It's Joe Biden calling for love.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Is he with Mika?
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: You hear mine?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Let's try that again. I think we should leave that in.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So, uh, what'd you guys think of the interview and, uh,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: how are you feeling in general? Uh, since you guys
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and Dan talked last week, excellent pod. It was great
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to just be a listener.
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: Uh, You basically produced it because you were sending so
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: many goddamn clips.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: That's true. Well, you know what? You did a great job. Tommy,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: why don't you kick us off?
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: I thought it was bad and at times very hard
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: to watch. And in fairness to Biden, I don't think
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: that that interview could have solved the political problem that
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: stemmed from the debate. It could have stopped the bleeding.
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: For me, it made me more concerned. And here's the
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: reason why. Every time I've seen President Biden speak off
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: a teleprompter recently, he has struggled to communicate clearly. And
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: I don't mean it's a bad message. I mean, like,
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: struggle to speak in a clear, coherent way. The sentences
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: run together. They're hard to understand. And I think we
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: just heard it in that clip. All of us were wincing.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: It was hard to listen to. And that is separate
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: and apart from.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: My concerns about the message itself, which is Biden just
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: mostly being very defensive about his record and not articulating
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: a second term agenda that is compelling and makes me
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: want to vote for him over Donald Trump if I'm
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: a swing voter. But the explanations for why the debate
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: went badly range from having a cold to jet lag
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: even though he'd been back for 12 days to blaming
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: debate prep. But I just don't think any of those
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: answers fully explain how bad the debate was. And so
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: I don't know. It was hard to watch. The cut
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: shots are not kind to him. He's consistently misstating polling
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: data about himself.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I came away very concerned. Love it.
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: So the interview itself, before he's even taken a question,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I think it was a hard setting for him to succeed,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: even at his absolute best, because it's hard to justify
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: why it was more than a week after the debate
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: that it was so brief and he was only doing one.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: That's the first problem.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: The second problem is the debate wasn't just a bad night.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: We all saw it. And it is barring an explanation,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: which he keeps denying. He keeps denying outs, right? Like
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: that he was very sick or that he has some
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: condition that has been repaired, whatever. The explanations are kind
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: of vague and they're about having a cold or having
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: been jet lagged or having been run down, but that
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: doesn't do enough to assuage our concerns about what we
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: saw that night, right? And so the explanations don't offer anything,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: but even with those caveats there about why his job
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: is so difficult, if you were going to raise the
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: stakes on one interview, it can't be another example of
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: you being hard to understand, not because he's soft, not
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: because he's mumbly, but because his train of thought doesn't
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: makes sense. And so you've now told us that he's
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: up for this job. Everyone's saying, why isn't he out there?
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Why isn't he out there? Why isn't he out there?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: He goes out there and he offers this middling performance
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: and it ends up being the absolute worst of both
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: worlds because he's right, right? The stakes are incredibly high.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Trump is an incredible threat, but either he will prosecute
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: that case or someone else will. And right now we
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: get neither.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I heard some people say that it was more coherent
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: than the debate. I do agree with that. I thought
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: he looked better than the debate. I thought he sounded
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a bit more coherent than the debate for sure. But
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I came away thinking, all right, they had a week, sorry,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: it took a week to do another sort of live
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: fire event like this, right? Where it wasn't a, he
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: gave a couple of rallies, he did a couple of
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: rallies that weekend as well, or he had just done
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: a rally in Wisconsin and energetic, just like the North
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Carolina rally on a teleprompter. Okay. And then, But they've
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: had a week to prepare for this interview. And even
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: if you go through the transcript, right? Because some people
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: were like, well, the sound was off and maybe there's
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of conspiracy theories out there. Maybe ABC was
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: fixing the sound and this, forget it. So you just
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: read the transcript and say you do him a favor
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: by cleaning up all the garbles and all the syntax
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: issues in the transcript. You are left with what is
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: his message? And of course, it's difficult to deliver a
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: message when George Stephanopoulos is asking you multiple times, well,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: are you okay to serve? Do you feel like you're
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: cognitively okay, right? But as you're preparing for that interview,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you would think that your staff, and I'm sure they did,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: would say, okay, so you say, I had a bad night.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I know why people are concerned. I'd be concerned if
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I saw that. And I blew a big opportunity for sure.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: You know what? I feel okay. I'm going to prove
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: in the And I'm going to make the case everywhere
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I go. And this is the case. And then you
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: just keep pivoting back to that. But like that didn't happen.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: And I do think that like, as we were saying,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: he's back to a defense of his record, which at
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: times before we criticized for being a defense of like
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: all the economic accomplishments when people weren't sort of feeling
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the recovery, that would have been better than talking about August.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Careful.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I know, Tommy, I'm sorry. But even the world, I'd
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: love to hear what the world is. talking about AUKUS,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: talking about the Pacific, NATO. And I'm just like, what?
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I don't, I just, the urgency was not there. And
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it made me really worried that he's going to be
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: able to prosecute the case going forward and make up
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: for the debate. Because guess what? He was behind before
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the debate and now he's still behind by more, whatever
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you think about the polling, even his own internal polling
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: has him behind right now. So the question is, what
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: are you going to do to win over, say you
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: don't lose any voters, say you don't lose any Biden
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: 2020 voters from the debate. You're still behind. What are
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you going to do to win over voters who were
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: undecided between Biden and Trump when you have that message
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: with George Stephanopoulos?
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: I mean, we went from NATO to AUKUS to getting
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: the Japanese to spend more, I assume, on defense was
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: the context. I mean, like just to level set, In
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: July of 2020, Joe Biden was up nine points in
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: the polling average of national polls. In July of 2023,
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: Trump is up three points. So that's a huge swing.
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: If you look under the hood, it gets worse. 70%
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: of the electorate, if not more, thinks Biden is too old.
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: His disapproval rating is 57% in the 538 average. There's
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: an Emerson swing state poll that came out today that
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: has Biden down in every single swing state. And CNN
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: found that 75% of voters think that someone else would
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: do better and get more likely to win. So for
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden, the question of whether I should step aside
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: is a very difficult one, no doubt. But if you
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: were stripped away the names and the emotion and just
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: kind of looked at it based on the data, it
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: seems like a very clear cut choice that we'd have
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: a better chance with someone else. But like his perspective
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: here seems to be that, you know, I'm only going
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: to listen to the almighty.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Well, Tommy, also the campaign was touting the set of
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg morning consult swing state polls that also came over
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to the weekend that showed Biden doing better than their
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: last set of polls. And, you know, they're tweeting them
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: with like, there goes the narrative. And this is just
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Twitter being Twitter again. And look at how great Joe
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Biden's doing. It's a set of polls that have him
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: losing to Donald Trump by two, down seven in Pennsylvania,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and 55% of voters in the swing states saying that
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: he should step aside. And that's the poll that the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: campaign is saying proves that he's like on the rebound.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: I find it's like, so, you know, he's not delivering
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: the message effectively. If you actually watch that first answer
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: that you played, what you kind of see is, oh, like,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I see what he's pulling from, right? Like I see
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: there was some argument about how his polling wasn't that
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: impacted that the Times has him down now, but had
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: him down before. And you see, he lied this many times.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Here's what he lied about. What you see in that
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: interview is actually a campaign that's being let down by
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the candidate, right? Like that's what this is about. This
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: is a campaign that is being, and a White House
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: that is being let down by their principal over and
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: over and over again. I would be very comfortable having
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: a conversation about like, How are the polls moving? Is
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: it not as bad as it looks? If the Joe
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Biden we were seeing was more like the Joe Biden
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: we were seeing at the State of the Union or
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: even a slightly worse version of that. But the Joe
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Biden we have seen in the past couple of outings,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: other than when he's on teleprompter and even there, he's
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: not he's I mean, better than this. Like that George
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Stephanopoulos interview was painful to watch as we were sitting
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: here listening to the clip. I actually was thinking, oh,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: should we cut this down so people don't turn off
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: the podcast? It is ridiculous.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: It is ridiculous that we were talking about this interview
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: in a series. Like it was a terrible interview. He
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: did a terrible job articulating why he's in the race,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: what happened at the debate and why he's the person
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: to beat Trump. He's doing a terrible job.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And I read it. I read the transcript on the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: plane home last night because I was just like, again,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to try to read the transcript, like
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: put that because, you know, his voice sounds whatever. And
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: it just, it did not make much sense. And like,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: to your point about the campaign, the campaign knows what
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: they have to do. They know the case they have
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to prosecute and the message that works. You can tell
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: from their Twitter accounts, from their press releases. TV ads, surrogates.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Their ads, right, yeah. They're, you know, over the weekend,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: they've been talking a lot about Project 2025. We're going
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to get to that in a bit. And there were
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of people complaining, why aren't we talking about
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Project 2025 more? Why isn't the media covering Project 2025?
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden- in front of an audience of 50 million
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Americans at a debate, did not once mention Project 2025. Then,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: in an audience in front of 8 million people with
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: George Stephanopoulos, did not mention Project 2025. The campaign knows
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: that what Joe Biden has to do and what they
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: have to do is talk about what Donald Trump means
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: for the next four years and the danger that he represents,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and then what Joe Biden will do and fight for
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the next four years. You didn't get any of that
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: from any of his appearances. What you get is he
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: calls Donald Trump a liar, which every poll shows a
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: vast majority of Americans already believe Donald Trump is a liar,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and he's still ahead in those polls. You get that
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden did something amazing on the economy, which we've
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: already said most voters do not believe, and so you've
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: got to prosecute that case better. And then Joe Biden
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: kept NATO together, which no voters fucking care about. I'm sorry.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Or at least not the critical voters you need to win.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Well, the problem with all of this is some 70%
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: of people believe Joe Biden is too old. Donald Trump
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: is only getting between 45 and 50% of the vote, right?
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: What does that tell you? That means there's a sizable
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: group of people out there that right now believe Joe
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Biden is too old, but they're still going to vote
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: for him, right? There's a lot. And that tells you
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: something like Donald Trump is baked. People know who he is.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: They're looking for reassurance. about whether or not Joe Biden
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: can do the job. And Joe Biden is not right
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: now at all able to persuade people that he's up
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: to do the job. His outings are, if in a
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: campaign rally, I would say fine, like maybe assuage some people,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: but his interviews, his off the cuff conversations, the videos
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: that are circulating online are damning.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And he's got those people, you know, I mean, a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: lot of people are like, well, I think he's, I
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: think he's old and I'm, I thought the debate was awful,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: but I'm still voting for him. It's like, yeah, no, he's,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: he's going to get 90 something percent of, of voters
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: who who he got before, like us, who were like
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: very worried. But if it's Joe Biden, Donald Trump, they're
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: going to pick Joe Biden. That's not the race now, though.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: That's why the focus on how little or how much
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: the horse race number moved is kind of silly because
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: it's a polarized country. And the more concerning numbers are
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: under the hood of the questions about age and fitness to.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Do the job.
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: So that interview happens Friday. Over the weekend, a bunch
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: of news stories hit about Biden's age and health and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: potential decline over the last year. Olivia Nuzzi did extensive
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: reporting in New York Magazine. It was titled The Conspiracy
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: of Silence to Protect Joe Biden. The president's mental decline
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: The New York Times interviewed a current senior White House
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: official who said they worked with Biden during his presidency,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: vice presidency and 2020 campaign, but now believe Biden should
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: not seek reelection. And the quote is, the official who
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: insisted on anonymity in order to continue serving said, said Mr.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Biden had steadily showed more signs of his age in
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: recent months, including speaking more slowly, haltingly and quietly, as
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: well as appearing more fatigued in private. Small group of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: people that could be that worked with him as vice
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: president 2020 campaign and then now senior officials currently serving
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: in the White House. Then just before we started recording,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: we got quite a story from The Times about how
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a Parkinson's disease specialist from Walter Reed Medical Center visited
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the White House eight times from last July to this
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: past March. which is the end date for that batch
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of visitor logs. All visitor logs in the White House
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: are made public. So if you visit the White House,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: your name is on the visitor log. White House spokesman
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Andrew Bates responded, quote, a wide variety of specialists from
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the Walter Reed system visit the White House complex to
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: treat the thousands of military personnel who work on the
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: grounds and that Biden has only seen a neurologist once
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a year as part of his annual checkup and that
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: those exams have, quote, found no signs of Parkinson's and
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: he is not being treated for it. there was a
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: medical report released in February from the president's last exam
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: that does say that about Parkinson's and other neurological conditions.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: It is worth noting, though, that the statement did not
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: flatly say that these visits were unrelated to Biden and
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: his care. And White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to answer that question during the White House briefing. She
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: cited unspecified security concerns as to why she couldn't get
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: into it.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: And privacy.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and privacy. So that's a lot. What did you
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: guys make of the Olivia Nuzzi story and the Times
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: interview with the senior White House official? Let's start there
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and then we can move on to the Parkinson story.
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think big picture, I sort of found
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: the kind of voicey first person reporting less compelling than
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: like this anonymous official quoted in the Times who worked
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: with Joe Biden over the years and said that He
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: shouldn't seek reelection. I mean, I think that is very damning.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: I think the problem, the challenge, like for the Biden
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: campaign to push back on quotes like that is that
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: they are backstopped by the fact that Joe Biden hasn't
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: really been campaigning.
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: We had this this rough debate on when was it
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: a week ago now, a week plus. And his schedule
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: has been relatively light.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: So, you know, I don't know.
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: And then we should get into this Parkinson's story because
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: it consumed the White House briefing today.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: So.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: The problem, like I'm just being very cynical about this
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: and it's like, okay, there's a, there's a like a
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: feeding frenzy right now, right? There are people that have,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: there are reporters going to people that work there trying
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: to get whatever they can. How old does he seem?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Does he seem too old? Like there's a, and, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: people are speaking in a way they maybe weren't speaking before.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: It is hard to tell in these stories, the difference between, wow,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Biden is really showing his age. He is slower, more lethargic,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: but still copus mentis, still up to the task of
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: doing the most important parts of his job. And stories
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: that are insinuating something worse. And I think part of it, right,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: is that if you're somebody interacting with Joe Biden once
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: in a while, right, like you're saying, oh, that was,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: he's older than I expected. But is that him on
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: his best day? Is that him on his worst day?
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: You know, like we went to the White House before
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: the Correspondents Dinner.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And I thought of this story reading Olivia's piece because
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Olivia ends with, her seeing Biden the night of the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Correspondents' Dinner and feeling like, oh, gosh. I mean, she
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: describes it in much more vivid detail, but we saw
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: him the night before.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the experience of seeing him was, oh, wow,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: like he is he's slower. His speech was halting. He
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: kind of gave remarks that were like a little bit
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: like I think there was one point where he kind
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: of went back to an anecdote, kind of did it twice.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: And you kind of, you know, you see people that,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: you know, like, oh, you know, he just got back from,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I think it was either the G7 or Ukraine. He just,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: he'd been on a long flight. It's, it's a Friday evening.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: The president has a, every Friday evening is an evening
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: in which the president is exhausted. And you think, okay.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Giving remarks to some random group of people. He doesn't
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: even know why he's there.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Doesn't even know why he's there.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: That's every president.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: No, that's every president.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: It was confusing. I don't know who the group was.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: It was like us and Some influencers, some other people.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: It was a weird mix of people. So I'm sure
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: when Joe Biden comes down and has to give like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: 15-minute remarks, he's like, who the fuck am I talking
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to right now? Right.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: And so you're in there and you're like.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Obama would have felt the same thing. Of course.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: And so you see this and you're like, I don't know. Like,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: that was pretty bad. But what is this event? He's
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: probably exhausted. You chalk it up to that.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: We were saying to each other, like, hey, maybe there's like,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: is there a national security thing going on? Like, he seems...
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I remember that was the first moment that I was like, wow,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: he really seems... It doesn't seem great. I had seen him,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I've told this before, but I had seen him in
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: December of 22, when my whole family was at the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: White House. He brought us up to the Oval. He
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: was incredibly kind. He recognized Emily's mom from meeting her
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: in 2018. That's because she's so hot. She's going to listen. Yeah,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: she's going to let that in. And he recognized her,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and he was telling details of the Bork nomination fight
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to my father-in-law as a federal judge. And we left
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: being like, that's Joe Biden talking. tells a lot of stories,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of details, long-winded, but like seemed, I was like,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you know what? People call him, he's with it. He's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: with it. The night before the Correspondence Center, I was nervous.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Then I remember going home and then watching the Correspondence
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: dinner night on TV and seeing him there. And I
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't nervous because I was like, oh, well, he seems better, right? This,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the same thing happened when we all went, all three
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of us went to the fundraiser in LA that he's
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: now been talked about a lot. And he looked, it
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: was really bad. It was like debate style bad. And
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking after that, like, well, the debate's in
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a week. Either he'll do great in the debate and
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: we'll all be like, well, you know what? He was
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: tired from doing two trips to Europe and that's why
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: he was bad at the fundraiser. Or he'll be like,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: this is the debate and then everyone will be talking
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: about it. And here we are.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, just, we all walked out of that fundraiser
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: here in LA and we're talking to each other and
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: to people around us who are, you know, in politics and.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: We're like, that was chilling. It was very, very, very unnerving.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: And especially like, we follow this all the time, Emily
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and Hannah. were there and they do not follow it
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: all the time and they do not see Joe Biden
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: all the time. And they, more than us even, were like,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: what was that? And now, look, the reason I think
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: it's important, I think, to tell these stories is because
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: there is a growing narrative, too, that there's been this
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: cover-up by everyone who's ever talked to Joe Biden or
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: everyone who was a Biden supporter. And I think it is,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: as you pointed out, Lovett, it's difficult when you see
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: someone once in a while where you're like, Is it
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: showing signs of age? Is it just like a president's
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: job is really brutal and they're traveling all the time
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and sometimes they're just off and like Obama, when he
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: was tired, his remarks would be terrible. Like this happens
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: all the time. And so you just don't know. It's
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: more of a gradual thing, I think.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that's part of the issue here. And
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: I think part of why even his ability to explain
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: it in these interviews is so difficult and why I
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: think some of these stories are not dishonest, but are
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: also a bit over-torqued in terms of like... a conspiracy
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: of silence. If Joe Biden we were seeing in the
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: last couple of weeks was the Joe Biden we were
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: debating whether or not to nominate or whether there should
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: be a challenger, I think that conversation would have been different.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: The facts have changed. The information has changed. Do I
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: know how much, how often these kinds of moments where
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: he seems like he's lost a step to the point
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: where you worry about him being the candidate? Do I
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: know that these weren't happening frequently in the past?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: But my sense of just watching this is everyone collectively
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: has been watching a slow decline that came into stark
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: relief when we saw him at the debate that put
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: other moments where we saw him in better context. That
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean, like, The reason I think we didn't sort
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: of say, oh, we have to talk about a new
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: nominee after we see him with Julia Roberts and George
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Clooney is because they think, I don't know, maybe he's
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: having a bad day. We'll see him at the debate, right? Like,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: you don't know what his best and his worst is.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: You don't know what his median is.
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: Well, in the LA one, he'd specifically gotten off of
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: a plane from, I think, the G7 that day. So
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: everyone's like, oh, he was exhausted.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Same thing we said after the White House thing.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: This is why the White.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: House is in such a terrible spot, is because where
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: before you might have gotten some grace in moments like that,
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: now everyone is looking for the conspiracy because some reporters
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: feel misled. They feel like the White House came down
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: too hard on the Wall Street Journal story from a
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: couple of weeks back about his age. And I guess,
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: you know, the Olivia Nuzzi piece was.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Like emotional and well-written as all her things are.
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: But I thought like she made a lot out of,
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: for example, Jill Biden giving her a look without having
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: really any idea why Jill Biden was giving her that look.
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: But like now the White House briefing today was consumed
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: top to bottom with questions about why a doctor who
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: specializes in Parkinson's research visited the White House eight times.
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: And there's just no way for that to be a
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: good thing for the White House. I mean, poor Karine
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: Jean-Pierre was up there for 45 minutes trying to deflect questions.
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: They said they wouldn't comment on why the doctor was there,
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: privacy issues or something, or security. It's just, it's not
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: going to stop the questions. And I mean, I went
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: back and I rewatched the ABC interview. It seemed like
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: there Biden said he had not gotten a cognitive test.
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: Karine Jean-Pierre today said he'd gotten one every year. It
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: seems like there's some inconsistency here in the story that's
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: being told, or at least in precision.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I was going to say, I couldn't tell
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: if it's the difference between a neurological exam and a
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: cognitive test, which I believe are two different things. But
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: it is hard to, again, because Biden is not necessarily
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: clear in his comments. And then also, you know, there are,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: of course, there are privacy concerns here and there when
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: a doctor visits and you don't want to start. But
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: like at this point, it's going to be, like you said,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: it's going to be very hard to just keep saying,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: we have a report, medical report from February and that's it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And that's all we're doing. It's just, it's a hard
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: thing to do.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: I watched that entire briefing and actually it was actually
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: kind of very difficult to understand what the name is
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: in a public log. The question is, did this person
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: see the president? And then the answer is, oh, there
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: are privacy concerns because this doctor could see other people
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: at the white house. And maybe there's a way I'm
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: not understanding it. I also don't put it on the
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: press secretary because this feels like an, like an incredibly
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: like impossible position that Joe Biden has put everyone around
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: him in. But, but the issue here is those questions
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: won't stop because Joe, first of all, it's wild to
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: me that Joe Biden isn't doing everything he can. You know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: he's writing letters to members of Congress about how the
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: stakes are totally selling morning, Joe, the stakes are the stakes,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: the stakes, Joe Biden. We can't let die. It's so
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: the stakes, the stakes, the stakes, but then, okay, well
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: then get out there more, right? Like nobody would give
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: a shit about when his last neurological assessment was. If
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: he had spent three days mixing it up with reporters
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: and shaking hands with voters, talking to journalists, being the
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden of three or four years ago, who would
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: certainly be doing that right now. So he can't, he's
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: not out there. He's saying, oh, the cognitive test is
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: me being out there, but he's not out there. They're
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: getting these confusing answers about what tests he is getting.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: It is as if their response is designed to continue
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: this morass, like to keep us trapped in it.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, it's tough. And I get it, like,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: say they have nothing to hide on this, right? The
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: reason they're probably avoiding Answering more questions aside from whatever
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: real privacy and health concerns there are and guidelines and
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: rules there are is like, if they say, sure, he'll
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: take another test, then it's like they're thinking, then we
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: lose more news cycles, focusing, waiting for the test.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: They won't give an inch.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: They don't want to give an inch. That's exactly right.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: From a campaign perspective, Biden's strategy seems to be punching
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: back hard at critics who want him to step aside
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and making appearances with his strongest supporters. He spoke at
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: a black church in Philadelphia this weekend and did events
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: with John Fetterman and Governor Josh Shapiro. Biden's also trying
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to rally support among older Black Democrats, consistently his best
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: demographic group in all the polling. Jonathan Martin reported in
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Politico this morning that he's counting on his relationships with
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: unions and the Black political establishment to be a kind
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: of firewall against calls for him to drop out. J-Mart
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: reports that Congresswoman Maxine Waters told a gathering of Black
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: voters in New Orleans over the weekend that the nominee
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: will be Joe Biden, full stop, and that she told
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: other congressional Black caucus members, particularly the younger ones, in
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: a Friday conference call that they need to get in
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: line behind Biden. Today, the CBC chairman, Congressman Steve Horsford,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: was one of the members issuing statements of support for Biden.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: As we mentioned, Biden also sent that letter to all
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: congressional Democrats and then took a page out of the
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Trump calling into Fox and Friends playbook by calling into
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: his favorite morning show, Morning Joe. Let's listen to how
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: that went.
• 30:48
  Speaker 7: We're not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere. I
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: wouldn't be running if I didn't absolutely believe that I
• 30:55
  Speaker 7: am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024.
• 30:57
  Speaker 7: Who else do you think could step in here and
• 31:01
  Speaker 7: do this? I expanded NATO. I solidified NATO. Ask your
• 31:05
  Speaker 7: brother about it. Remember all this talk about how I
• 31:08
  Speaker 7: don't have the black support? Come on, give me a break.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Come with me. Watch.
• 31:13
  Speaker 6: Watch.
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: I'm getting so frustrated by the elites. Now, I'm not
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: talking about you guys, but about the elites in the party,
• 31:20
  Speaker 7: who they know so much more.
• 31:23
  Speaker 9: Said, well, as long as I did the best I
• 31:26
  Speaker 9: could do, that's the most important thing. That's caused Democrats
• 31:32
  Speaker 9: concern who believe that losing is not an option. What
• 31:38
  Speaker 9: would you say to those who are concerned by that answer?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: It's not an option.
• 31:43
  Speaker 7: And I've not lost.
• 31:44
  Speaker 9: I haven't lost.
• 31:45
  Speaker 7: I beat him last time. I'll beat him this time.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: If any of these guys don't think I.
• 31:50
  Speaker 7: Should run against me, announce the president.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: Challenge me at the convention.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I thought AI Joe Biden did a great job in
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: that interview. I think that whoever was on those buttons,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: like the Zoo 100, did a pretty good job.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: We can get to the morning Joe of it all
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: in a second, but what do you guys think about
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the overall strategy of sort of using his closest supporters
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: as a firewall and dismissing his critics as a bunch
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: of elites?
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: Nothing says I don't care about elite opinion like a
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: phoner at the morning show. It's basically like a mainline.
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: It's the Beltway's brain. I think, look, on the one hand,
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: I'm sympathetic to, like, Joe Biden cannot show any daylight on.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Whether or not he's dropping out or it's over.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: So they're 100% in until they're not. But I do
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: think that a lot of the pushback has been inaccurate
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: and some of it has felt pretty cynical. The inaccurate
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: part is the idea that only people in Washington know
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: care about his age or his ability to do the
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: job for four more years. The polling shows the opposite.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: This is an issue with every voter in all demographics, age, race, gender, Democrats.
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: Majorities of Democrats in some of these polls have concerns
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: about his age. And sometimes Joe Biden kind of is
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: a bit of a polling truther when he's confronted with
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: this reality and pushes back on polls and sort of
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: cites ones that he says his internals are better.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: And it's just, it's not accurate.
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: And then The cynical part is the suggestion that it's
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: somehow racist to tell Joe Biden to step down or
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: disrespectful to black voters when, you know, the most likely
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: person to come after him would be Kamala Harris. I mean,
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: I'd find that the cognitive dissonance there to make that
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: argument is hard to wrap your head around.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: I laughed at first when I read it because I
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: was like, what?
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: I just think also, but like what I resent is
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: the attempt to silence the conversation about whether he should
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: drop out by saying, shut up. You could silence us.
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: By doing a one hour press conference at a bunch
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: of campaign events and knocking the cover off the ball.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: And then I'll shut the fuck up. That's how I'll
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: shut up.
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: But like the idea that people shouldn't have this conversation,
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: given what we all know the stakes are in the selection,
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: I find offensive.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: If I thought that Joe Biden attacking elites, attacking media critics,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: attacking whatever it is, if I thought that was an
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: effective strategy to beat Donald Trump, I'd be like, go
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: for it, man. Call us whatever the fuck you want.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I don't care. Hit us every single event. Make it
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: part of the stump speech.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: It's my kink.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I don't feel hurt. Who cares? But it's coming from
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the voters. The concerns are coming from the voters. And look,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: it's not just post-debate either. Pre-debate. Let's talk about where
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: we were before the debate. The polls right before the debate, right?
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: And there was the New York Times-Siena poll, but this
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: was all the polling averages, right? Think of where we were.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was convicted on May 31st. For a month,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: for several weeks straight, we had nonstop coverage of Donald Trump.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump in courtroom. Donald Trump is a conviction. The
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign is out with tens of millions of dollars
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: of ads in the swing states, mainly on their own.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: The Trump campaign was not spending in the swing states.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: So you got the Biden campaign. Joe Biden is out
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: there campaigning. He's campaigning. Donald Trump's a convicted felon. Everyone's
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: talking about it. All the press that a lot of
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: people are complaining about now that's not covering Trump, they're
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: all covering Trump for a whole month. And then the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: polls right before the debate show, and the New York
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Times poll showed Trump 48, Biden 42. They asked, do
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: you think Biden should be replaced as nominee? 64% of
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: all voters said yes. 55% of black voters, 66% of
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Hispanic voters, 48% of Biden voters, people who said they
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: were supporting Biden. And then do you think Biden's told
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: to be an effective president? Sixty nine percent of all voters.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Sixty two percent of black voters. Sixty eight percent of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Hispanic voters. Fifty five percent of Biden voters. Now that's
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the New York Times poll. Maybe that was an outlier.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: There are similar numbers in every single poll. And we
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: know from now from post-debate that the campaign's internal polling,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: their own polling, even though they think that polling is broken,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: they do a lot of internal polling. And guess what?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: They don't think it's broken when you talk to them.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Their internal polling had the race closer, but still extremely close,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: if not behind, a little bit in the battleground state.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: People are more worried about Joe Biden's unfitness because of age,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: and they are Donald Trump's lack of fitness due to
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: his criminality and abuses. That is such a damning fact
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: about where the electorate is, not where the elites are.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: And this idea, even just like this, this is not
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: a strategy to persuade. It's a strategy to embarrass people
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: into silence. That letter was about provoking cowardice. It was
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: about provoking cowardice on the part of House Democrats to
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: let them know, don't go out there too far on
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: that tree branch. We're going to saw it off. So
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: as much as you're texting each other and talking to
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: each other and telling reporters anonymously that you're terrified of
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden as the nominee, not just because of what
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: it means for Trump to be president, but because you're
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: afraid of the down ballot impacts for the Senate and
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: the House, as much as your honesty in private is
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: telling you that Joe Biden shouldn't be the nominee, keep
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: your mouth shut because I'm not going anywhere and it
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: will only hurt you.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I've heard people make two arguments as to why critics
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: should shut up right now. One is it's pointless because
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is the one making the decision and Joe
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Biden has already said he's in it. So why are
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: we wasting our time? And the second is the criticism
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: is hurting him more. It wasn't the debate as much.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: It's the criticism that's hurting him. The first one, I
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: would say, like, he's still not the nominee. He still
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: has not been nominated. He could still make the decision.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: We are running out of time for sure. But in
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks, he could still make the
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: decision to step down. That decision could be influenced by
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the people around him. If the people around him are
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: taking the temperature of the voters and swing, again, forget
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the elites, forget the pundits, look at the voters, look
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: at the polls. And if people around him on his
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: campaign team see the numbers really drop, or they have
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: real concerns that they're hearing from Democratic Senate campaigns, House campaigns,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: that not only could Joe Biden lose, but those Democratic
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Senate and House candidates could lose, yeah, then maybe they'll
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: have another conversation with Joe Biden before the convention. So
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think it is useless. The second one that
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: is hurting is just... So our BSG polling, which is
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Joel Benenson's polling group, Mike Kulishek, who is a pollster there,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: worked with us on wilderness stuff, he did a set
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: of polls before the debate and a set of polls
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: after the debate. And he said that we could share this.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: So voters... who watch the debate, who watch the debate,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: prefer Trump over Biden 51 to 46. Voters who did
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: not watch the debate are split 43% for Biden, 40%
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: for Trump. And voters who just heard about the debate
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: also favor Biden over Trump by 53, 45, an even
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: bigger margin. So the idea that it was the criticism
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: and reaction and press narrative after the debate is not
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: borne out by the polling. It was the people who
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: watched the debate in its entirety. Those were the people
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: who moved against Joe Biden, even if it wasn't by
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: a huge margin. But they did.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: So the one thing I also I feel like I
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: think one reason this has been such a kind of
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: heartbreaking and anxiety provoking experience is that we all feel
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: like two things are happening at once, which is on
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: the one hand, it's like this is just Joe Biden's decision.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: It's entirely up to Joe Biden. Whatever happens is up
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: to Joe Biden. But on the other hand, the feeling
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: like we all own it and it's our, and so
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: that's the problem. Yeah. This is that, that his decision
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: has great effect on all of our lives and we
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: don't want to feel powerless in this process. And so
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: I do think by the way, like members of Congress
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: are going to be important in this because if a
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: bunch of House Democrats and a bunch of senators start
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: saying that they want Joe Biden to step aside, it'll
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: be harder for Joe Biden to ignore that.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: That will move him.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: So if you think that Joe Biden should not be
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: the nominee and you want your member of Congress to
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: represent you in that fight, you should call them. And
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: by the way, if you think that all of this
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: is insane and that we're doing more harm than good
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: than having this conversation.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: So angry with us, then go call too.
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: But I really, I really think it is like, It's
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: only Joe Biden can make a decision. Yes, but he's
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: going to make that decision in the world as he
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: finds it. And I think it is incumbent upon all
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: of us to remember that, like, we should act as
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: if we have agency in this fight and remind our
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: members of Congress that they may be right now worried
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: about the fallback of Joe Biden as the nominee, but
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: they should also worry about their voters who are watching
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: and who care about what happens in this election and
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: that none of us is going to forget what members
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: of Congress did when all of them are privately wringing
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: their hands and then telling reporters on background that think
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden should step aside while putting out dumb statements
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: that say, Joe Biden had our back, so we got
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: to have his back, even though you don't believe a
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: word of it.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: It's a very big coalition, a very broad coalition that
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: defeated Donald Trump in 2020. People who are fans of
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: AOC and Bernie Sanders all the way to Mitt Romney
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: and Liz Cheney. That's a big coalition. And all those
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: people want Donald Trump to lose. And defeating Donald Trump
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: is the number one most important priority and everyone shares
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: that priority. But if that's our number one priority, then
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: we have to be strategic and smart about the best
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: way to do it. You said this on the last pod,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: which is like loyalty. What is loyalty? Loyalty is for
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: like personal relationships and friendships. Loyalty is not for politics. Loyalty,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: like that's a side. Loyalty, identity, record. It's about who
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: can win. That's it. That's the only thing that matters
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: I just.
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: One thing I just want to say about this Morning
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: Joe interview, it was a good idea to have done
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: a week and a half ago.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: This is the kind of thing you do to kind
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: of staunch the bleeding among elite opinion, like the day
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: after a debate that was that bad.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: And you know what?
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden really, really cares about elite opinion. He watches
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: Morning Joe. He reads Tom Friedman. He reads the New
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: York Times.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Like that stuff matters to him.
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: He doesn't listen to this dumb bullshit that we're doing
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: right now, but that's fine.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: That's okay. He's 81.
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: But like, again, on the interview itself, like it was not, look,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: there were times when Biden was like reading from talking
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: points and even that part wasn't coming out like crisply,
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: you know, Mika said to him, how can you ensure
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: you won't have another night like you had at the debate?
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: And his response was, look at my career. I've not
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: had many nights like that. And it's just like, that's
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: not how aging works.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: So like, I just, His proof point is like, watch me,
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: you know, if someone underestimated neurologically, you know, I've been
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: out campaigning.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Everything's fine.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: He's barely been campaigning.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Can I also this the second piece of this, which
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: is like, oh, this is causing harm. You're doing harm
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: because Joe Biden's not going to go anywhere. You're doing harm.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I think like two points about this. People have been
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: really antagonizing the media about this.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: You're right.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: The Times, these op ed pages, they are talking about
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden in a way they didn't bother doing about Trump.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: That is because A, they treat Democrats like protagonists because
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: they believe that Democrats are subject to pressure and have
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: like a fundamental respect for democracy and free inquiry.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: So yes, you're right.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: They believe that they will be taken seriously. And B,
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: they believe Joe Biden is decent. that Joe Biden is
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: ultimately guided by decency, that this argument is worth having,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: that we're having this argument, even if it is ultimately
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: up to Joe Biden, we believe Joe Biden wants to
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: do what's best for the country. I don't think that
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: has anything to do with it.
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: They're doing their job. They're covering a story. Mental fitness
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: of the president matters. It's not about decency. It's not
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: about both sides-ism. I see liberals out there being like,
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: we need to go hard, the fucking media. They should
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: be doing Project 2020. No, this is a story that
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: should be covered.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about the op-eds calling for him to withdraw.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: The criticism, the idea that, oh, they're writing op-eds about
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Biden withdrawing, but they never called on Donald Trump to withdraw.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I'm just, I think that there's a, that like, that
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: the media does focus on Democrats and treats Democrats like
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: they have agency and responsibility in a way they don't
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: do for Republicans.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: That's all. They fucked up royally in 2016. They kicked Donald's,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: they have been kicking Donald Trump's ass this cycle. I
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: mean- We had nonstop coverage of the motorcade leaving Mar-a-Lago
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to the core. I mean, what are we talking about?
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: And also, why do we think they're doing this now?
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Because Joe Biden and his team took the biggest risk
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: they could have possibly taken by asking for a debate
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: in June when they could have waited and done one
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: in the fall or got out of it altogether, maybe.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: And they took this big risk. And then in front
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: of 15 million people, Joe Biden gave the worst debate
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: performance ever. Maybe in presidential history and like the news
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: media is going to be like one bad night. Let's
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: move on to Project 2025. That's fucking nuts.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: But this is the point, though. Let's say the media
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: did that. Let's say we all shut the fuck up
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: and moved on and stopped talking, did what the fucking
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: internet Delaware crossers wanted us to do and just get
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: on the boat and shut the fuck up. You think
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: the right wing's going away? Do you think that the
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: TikTok videos of Joe Biden looking too old that already
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: had had a huge impact is going away? Do you
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: have any idea what this fucking Republican convention is going
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: to be like? Doctors parading in front of it.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: They've barely spent any money on their ads. The Trump
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: campaign and the RNC have barely spent their money.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Budget one of the lessons of the last decade is
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: you don't the the right-wing media is gonna do what
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: they're gonna do we need to talk about this now
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: because that's coming regardless of what we say now age
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: will be the defining issue if joe biden is the
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: nominee even if we all fall in line which we
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: will do.
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: You're yelling at like four twitter users well no i'm
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: not because having a nice conversation.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: You're right but one did have a back right now
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: um all right so leaveable One of the frames we
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: obviously keep hearing from Biden is that he's the only
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: candidate who can beat Donald Trump. Of course, the only
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: person who can hold NATO together. The other most critical
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: part of this election. That's it. One person can hold
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: NATO together.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: By the way, the other thing, too, is like, oh,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: it's somehow you're not being respectful of the voters. When he,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, tells Morning Joe and Mika that who else
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: could do this job? Slap in the face to your
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: vice president.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Great segue. That was my next sentence. Great.
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: So.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: It does. All of this raises some questions about his
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: views and his campaign's views on the very qualified vice
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: president he chose, Kamala Harris. Most Democratic officials believe that
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: if Biden does change his mind at this point and
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: step aside, which again, running out of time, Harris as
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: nominee would be the most likely possibility, if not the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: only possibility. Others have suggested various open convention scenarios. I
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: would suggest Ezra Klein wrote a Great piece about Jim
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Clyburn's sort of one-off comments last week. Every once in
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: a while, Clyburn just says something else that's like a
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: quick comment. You're like, whoa, that was kind of a
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: big deal. At some point, Clyburn said that if Biden
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: stepped aside, Democrats could hold a, quote, mini primary. James
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Carville wrote in The New York Times today, he suggested
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: a series of town halls hosted by Barack Obama and
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton. where the two former presidents would apparently also
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: choose the participants and candidates, possibly with the help of
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: the country's Democratic governors.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: So here's how this works.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: It's like a draft.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: So basically, those are two-hour town halls. And after Barack
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Obama and Bill Clinton finish their opening remarks, each candidate
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: will have between two and three minutes to speak. And
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: it'll be an incredible event. It'll be an incredible event.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: We'll hear about energy policy from Clinton for about 20,
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: 30 minutes.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: It'll be awesome. And there's just a bench, and it's
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: like Whitmer and Shapiro and Kamala Harris. And they're all
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: just sitting there like, going.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: To stop yet?
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: That's all the time we have.
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: All the mini primary proposals would benefit from less detail.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Spell it out less.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Here's the best one then. Semaphore reported on a memo
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: floating around from a few Democrats who proposed a, quote,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: blitz primary. that would involve weekly forums moderated by cultural
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: icons like Michelle Obama, Oprah, and Taylor Swift.
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: No bad ideas in a brainstorm, huh, guys?
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Taylor Swift's in Budapest getting a shiver. She doesn't really
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: know why. She's like, I feel like my name was
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: mentioned in something I don't want to be involved in.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: It does seem like as of this recording, at least,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: we are quite far from a scenario where Biden steps down.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: But if he changes his mind, what are your thoughts
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: on the pros and cons of either anointing Harris the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: nominee or holding some version of an open convention primary
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: that that does not involve Bill Clinton and Taylor Swift.
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think the mini primary idea is a
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: great one. I realize it could be chaotic, but I
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: also think it would be really interesting and people would
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: tune in and maybe it wouldn't just be like hardcore
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: Democrats that watch the conventions for once. And some people
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: worry that it would get ugly. I kind of doubt
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: that it would. There's not that much time. You're appealing
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: to like 4,000 delegates who probably like all the candidates
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: in the mini primary and they will get turned off
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: if you're super mean. It would allow for Some vetting
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: of candidates' backgrounds in this compressed period of time, not enough,
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: but hopefully enough to, like, expose any real big problems.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: Is it risky?
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: But I think that candidates and parties benefit from competition
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: and throwing punches and taking punches.
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: Like, think about Obama.
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: He was a way better candidate after slugging it out
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: with Hillary Clinton for months and months than he was before.
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: And it was a very good thing for us that
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: the Reverend Wright story came out early and not in
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: October 2017.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Before the election.
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: So the elephant in the room is obviously the vice
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: president and sort of like what she is owed in
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: this moment as next up if Biden were to resign.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: As president.
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: But I think like for her, the optics of competing
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: and winning the nomination is really good, even in a
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: weird like ad hoc process. It's better than the party
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: seeming to dictate an outcome. I don't think people like that.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I worry a lot about it seeming like the party
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: dictates an outcome, especially after the party's nominee steps aside
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: because of, you know, and then there's all these stories
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: out there. And has anyone been hiding age stuff? So
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: already people are going to start feeling distrustful, right? And
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: if you then, and I think this is about Kamala Harris.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I think this, if someone came out and said, here's
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: our Governor Whitmer, Josh Shapiro ticket, it's here for you
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: and we're giving it to you, right? I'd feel the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: same way. Like, I don't think at this point that
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the party itself, senior leaders can just come out and say,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: here is the person. I think that Kamala Harris would
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: be the overwhelming favorite in this scenario. But I think
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: she would emerge as a stronger candidate in the general if,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: like Tommy said, there are a series of town halls, interviews,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: debates with some of the other potential candidates. And I
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: think that that would also sort of blunt a very
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: easy line of attack from Trump and the Republicans that
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: like the cabal got together that was propping up Joe
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Biden and then they just gave us this person. And like,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: you know what? Again, debating makes you stronger. And the whole,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: everyone just assumes that the chaos and division. If this happens,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: if Joe Biden steps aside, the Democratic Party will have
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: taken the biggest gamble ever this close to the election
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: where the stakes are total. And I think once a
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: nominee is chosen, talk about people getting in line. Everyone
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: is going to be like on their best behavior. There
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: are very few ideological fissures in the potential candidates that
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: we could see at this point. We're not going to
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: have like ideological divisions like we've had in the past.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: People are going to be like, I'm on board. You're
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: already seeing like the Bernie bros and the K hive
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: and the never Trumpers all get together. You know, it's just, it's,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: it's already happened.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: And it's, and honestly, it's beautiful.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful.
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: Think about dumb, the ideological divisions of 2020 where it
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: was like, how fast are we going to implement Medicare
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: for all? And what fantasy reality are we really fighting about?
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: And that's, and that those kinds of conversations are never
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: going to happen.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I, I do think that like, obviously like
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: the best way Kamala Harris could be the nominee is
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: to be the nominee after some kind of an open process.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: I am not, I think what you're saying makes sense.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: But if you told me that the way this shakes
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: out is that the Monday after the Republican convention, Joe
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Biden calls a press conference and says, I've decided to
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: step aside and I'm throwing my support behind my vice president.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: I always said I would pass the torch. Voters across
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: the country voted for our ticket. I'm going to respect
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: the will of the voters. I would be 100% fine
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: with it. And by the way, it isn't people in
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: a background choosing because the Democratic primaries unfolded and she
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: was going to be on the ticket. So it's like,
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: And there's an argument made that the money goes to her.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: She is the vice president. It is rightful that given
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: the fact that there can't be a primary, the primary
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: already took place and selected her as the backup. And
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: if that is the way it goes, I will be
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: completely happy with that. I am not persuaded that the
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: risk of the mess that could happen in the weeks
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: before the convention is better than than that moment, which
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I think will be just as interesting and exciting to
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: the press for the three weeks before we get to
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: the convention.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I just start with the same principle that we're applying
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: to this whole conversation about Biden, right? Which is winning
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: is all that matters right now. Beating Donald Trump is
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: the only thing that matters. And we have to put
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: forward the candidate in the Democratic Party who has the
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: very best chance of beating Donald Trump. are we going
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: to know who that candidate is with certainty? Absolutely not.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: You can never know for certain. You're never going to
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: have the data that gives certainty, but data can help.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Polling can help. Interviews can help. Debates can help. Like
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: that can give delegates information that they wouldn't otherwise have.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: And I do think it would help to make at
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: least an educated guess.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: About what's going to happen. I like, I'm not saying
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: this with any confidence whatsoever. Like I, I am, my
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: concern with this whole idea is it may not be
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: possible in that short span of time to get an
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: amount of information big enough. Basically, what we're trying to
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: figure out is what are your liabilities? Are you our
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Jeb Bush? Are you our Ron DeSantis? Are you our
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: Wes Clark? Whatever. And given that, I don't know that
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: four weeks is enough time to get that. And Kamala Harris,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: like you know, there are goofy clips of Kamala Harris.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Like we kind of know Kamala Harris's liabilities right now.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: We could think through what those are. She has been
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: vetted on the national stage. She's been attacked on the
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: national stage. We know what they'll try with her. We
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: know what they've said. So I like, I am, I am.
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: I mean, the counterpoint to that is that her 2020
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: race went very badly.
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: You know, so I mean, I'm not, I'd look again,
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: I would be thrilled if she were the nominee. I'm
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: just saying like, well, we should talk about The downside,
• 54:09
  Speaker 5: like her polling is not great. Her disapproval is at
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: 51% in the 538 average. You talk to people who
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: do a lot of focus groups, they say swing voters
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: don't like Joe Biden and they also don't like her.
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: She might get tagged with some of the policy failings, right? Gaza, immigration, inflation.
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: She could get pulled into recriminations about whether she knew
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: of this, you know, allegations of an effort to cover
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: up about Joe Biden's age. I'm saying there are downside risks.
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: I agree she is the most vetted because she has
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: been the vice president. There's also benefits, which is a
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: lot of smart people think that she would be able
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: to use all of the Biden campaign's money and infrastructure.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: I don't totally get how.
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: The campaign finance system works, but it sounds like it
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: would be more plug and play. Women and black voters
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: are the base of the Democratic Party. The hope would
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: be that she would energize those voters. She's been very
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: effective prosecuting the case on abortion and in the Dobbs opinion.
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: So there's a lot of upsides to Kamala Harris.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: And also like she starts as the front runner in
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: this process. And I think that in some ways that
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: gives her a clean slate to say, yeah, you know,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: you saw these clips last couple of years, whatever. I'm
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: going to prosecute the case against Donald Trump. She was
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: at the Essence Fest. She was great.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: She was great in a very tough situation the night
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: after the debate in those interviews.
• 55:21
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: We saw her at moments in the 2020 campaign, which
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: you're right, did not go well. But like on the
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: debate stage where she you know, gave it to Joe
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Biden pretty good. Like she, she definitely has the capacity.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I think it would, like I said, I think it
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: would benefit her to go through.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that we were all so shell shocked
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: from the debate itself that I feel like we saw
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: her interview with, I can't remember CNN or MSNBC. I
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: think she did both right after you could, you was
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: hard to see it outside of the context of Joe Biden,
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: but going back and watching a clip of her talking
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: about abortion and trying to make the case about Donald Trump,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: it was excellent. One other just point about this too,
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: is look, I, again, an open process may be the
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: best thing. I actually could be, I probably have a
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: different opinion tomorrow, but also like, you know, every day
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: when Joe Biden's out there, he's being like, no, no,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you, I still got my fastball. I'm like,
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: throw it. He's like, I'll throw it tomorrow. He's like, no, no,
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: I'm still on my fastball. You'll see, you'll see. And
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: it's like another couple of weeks of Democrats talking amongst
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: ourselves instead of one person out there day after day
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: after day articulating the case against Donald Trump, which as
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Adam Schiff pointed out is excellent.
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: That would be 90% of the mini primary, though. It
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: would be like 90% attacks on Trump, 10% about yourself
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: and your bio and what you do.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: By the way, Hakeem Jeffries and AOC both are coming
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: out in support of Biden as we've been recording this, so.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: Interesting to see where the party's going.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Are they, Biden is the nominee statements or are they full-throated?
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? There's like these categories of
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: statements now.
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: There's the like- Huckin-Jeffrey says, I support President Biden and
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: the Democratic ticket.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: My position has not changed. AOC is, he's a nominee.
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: I'm making sure that I support him and I'm focused
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: on making sure that we win in November.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are still in the, I don't know. It's tough,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: some of these statements. I think everyone's just trying to
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: figure it out. Well, we're going to find out more
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: about what's going on in Congress because right after this,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: Lovett is going to talk to California Congressman Ro Khanna.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: But before we do get to that conversation, guess what, guys?
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: What?
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Democracy or Else is officially number one on the New
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: York Times bestseller list, which means all of you who
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: bought the book and helped it get there also contributed
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: to Vote Save America. That's a lot of money to
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Vote Save America. And that means that a lot of campaigns,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: grassroots organizations that are going to help elect Democrats up
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: and down the ticket and register voters in 2024 are
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: are going to get more money. So good for you guys.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: And even more importantly, for the rest of our lives,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: we get to say we're number one New York Times bestsellers.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: I know you are. I saw you try to get it.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: I'll just steer around it.
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: But thank you for enduring these housekeeping updates. If you
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: didn't buy the book, if you did, thanks for buying
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: the book as well. Also good news, guys. The Democracy
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: RL's tour is headed to the Orpheum Theater in Madison,
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: Wisconsin on Friday, July 19th, day after Trump's speech at
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: the Republican convention. We'll probably have some stuff to talk
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: about And on the 20th, Love It or Leave It
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: will also be in Madison at the Barrymore Theater. It's
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: been great to see all you out there these last
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: couple weeks.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: You've been fantastic. The Boston show is like one of
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: my favorite shows, especially for like a bleak day after
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the debate. It was one of the most fun shows.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: It was really, it was, we were exhausted. We had
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: watched the debate the night before and it really was
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: one of the best live shows we've ever done. And
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: I think it, I think like it was nice being
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: with everybody when the news was so bleak because all
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: we could do was gallows humor.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: It was nice.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: Head to cricket.com slash friends to grab tickets. And when
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: we come back, Ro Khanna.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, no, I turn on my phone. And the
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: first thing I see is a message from you telling
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: me that Trump was convicted. By the way, you like
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: whoever's sending texts for you has like hacked the mainframe.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: And I'm just gonna tell you, you've been reported as
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: junk from so many different numbers and you're still in
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: my fucking inbox. I don't know what to do, I
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: can't get rid of you. I am glad I had
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: a chance to bring this up. So many texts. It's unbelievable.
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: Laugh all you want. Well, it's good to see you, Congressman.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you for taking the time. I think we can
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: jump in.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Are we good?
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: All right. If you're ready, I'm ready. Joining us now
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: needs no introduction. It's Congressman Ro Khanna. Thank you so
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: much for making the time. There's a lot happening and
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: it'd be very helpful to have your perspective. So After
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's debate performance, you posted, Rocky wasn't the most
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: eloquent in speech, but he was a fighter. His character
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: conveyed his eloquence. Our message, Biden's character is his eloquence.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: And you know that Rocky gets beaten half to death
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: and loses, right?
• 59:47
  Speaker 6: I do. I grew up outside Philadelphia, so I watched
• 59:50
  Speaker 6: too many Rocky movies. The Creed ones are even better.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: So jokes aside... I'm curious what your reaction was to
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: the George Stephanopoulos interview. But when the American people are
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: very clearly concerned, in part because of how Joe Biden
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: is unable to convey his message, if your character is
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: your eloquence, how do you dissuade people of their concerns
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: about Joe Biden's age?
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: Well, first of all, you acknowledge that the concerns are valid.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 6: You don't go on calling people bedwetters for raising concerns
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 6: that many Americans feel. And by the way, it's not
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: just rich donors. It's activists. It's grassroots folks. It's ordinary
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: people in coffee shops. So this idea that we're going
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: to attack our own supporters is not effective. The other
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: thing you don't do is go to war with the press.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 6: I mean, Napoleon once said that four hostile newspapers were
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 6: a bigger threat than a thousand people with bayonets. And
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 6: I know... John recently has been complimentary to the Biden
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 6: campaign team. But whoever made the decision to go to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: war with The New York Times is malpractice, should be fired.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: I mean, who goes to war with The New York Times?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: Go do an interview. Who goes to war with The
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: Washington Post? Have the humility to engage the press. Don't
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: go to war with the pod save guys either. Not
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 6: a smart strategy. So all of this, I think, is
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 6: a correction that the Biden campaign needs, which is to say,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: let's have an honest conversation. I understand it. I am
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 6: not as articulate as I used to be. I have
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: diminished in certain ways as anyone would when you're aging,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 6: but I still have the values. I still have the judgment.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: I have the wisdom. And this is why I'm running.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: And let's make the contrast to Donald Trump.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: So President Biden sent a letter to you and your
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: colleagues today, basically explaining his position on In that letter,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: he says, any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: It's time to come together and move forward as a
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: unified party. Now, I saw that you posted the comments
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: from former Attorney General Eric Holder, who said that it's
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: actually appropriate for Democrats to be having this discussion. So
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: I take it, based on what you're saying here and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: what you said there, that you disagree with that part
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: of the letter.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: I disagree with the tone, and I do think it's
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: important to unify, but you don't unify by suppressing conversation.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: You don't unify by suppressing dissent. You unify by acknowledging
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: people's concerns, being vulnerable and acknowledging the truth, and then
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: offering a way forward. It's your job to inspire unity,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: not to demand it. And when you look at great
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: leaders in our history, whether that's Abraham Lincoln through the
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: force argument or Barack Obama, they didn't say, oh, come on,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: unify around me because I'm the nominee. They said, let
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 6: me persuade you. Let me inspire you to unify. And
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 6: so I don't think actually it's going to unify the
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 6: party by being over the top in demanding something.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Did you see the George Stephanopoulos interview? I did. And
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: you think that that performance is one that would help
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden to swage people's concerns?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 6: I thought the Morning Joe interview was better towards that.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 6: I thought the Stephanopoulos interview, he didn't have any clear flubs.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: But I also thought there were answers that weren't that
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: great that people have talked about. I mean, saying that I,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 6: you know, I'll just give it my try and I'll
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: be OK. I know what he was trying to get at.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 6: You know, you do your duty. We can't control larger
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 6: things in life. But it came off as he wasn't
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 6: fully in the fight. There were other answers that were meandering.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: And so it wasn't one of his best interviews. But
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 6: I don't think that it was disqualifying, that interview. And
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 6: I think he's got to do more of it.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Have you talked to Joe Biden directly since the debate?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: Have you heard from him about what happened?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 6: I have not. I have not tried to reach him.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 6: And I came out pretty early on saying that it's
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: his decision. He, you know, one part I did agree
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 6: with on the letter is he won the votes. We
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: have a process. We have a primary process. He is
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: the nominally unless he says otherwise. And I made that
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 6: pretty clear to the senior people around him. So he's
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 6: got their 218 people in our House caucus. There are
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 6: other calls probably more worth his time. You're not the
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 6: problem right now.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: So, you know, you I have to say I've been
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: quoting you for a long time because of something you
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: actually told me on Love It or Leave It about
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: a year ago. Can we play that clip, please?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: So yes, President Biden is old. You can't have anyone
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 6: assume the presidency, even Democratic politicians we've had, and not
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: have something that you could say, well, I wish he
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: was 65. Sure, I wish he was 65. But look
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 6: at what he has achieved. He has extraordinary experience. He
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 6: has done a lot. He can win in the Midwest.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: And I think he deserves a second term. By the way,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 6: you know, all this polling, someone said, oh, there's a
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 6: poll showing Nikki Haley up. You know, we didn't have
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 6: President Dukakis. We didn't have President Gary Hart. Like the
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 6: polling right now is kind of irrelevant. He has the
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 6: humility to know that the party changed. He listened to
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: young people. He listened to Bernie. He listened to AOC.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 6: He listened to Elizabeth Warren. He listened to the moderates too,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 6: but he went where the median of the country was.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: And that takes a lot of actually wisdom to say, look,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to be the same person. I'm going
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 6: to listen to where the country's moving.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: So I wanted to play that for two reasons. One,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: you made the point that age was Joe Biden's biggest
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: liability and we know it. We know that is his
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: biggest liability and it's every candidate would have one. And
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: the second was that one of Joe Biden's great strengths
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: was that he knew how to listen and he knew
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: how to learn and change. And that was a really
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: impressive part about his presidency. At what point do we
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: decide based on the polling, at what point does Joe
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: Biden decide based on what he's hearing that the time
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: has come to listen to the people, the majority of voters,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: almost the full majority of Democrats now, almost majority of
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: Democrats now that think he should step aside. At what
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: point Does Joe Biden need to show that kind of
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: humility that made him such a good president in his
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: first term?
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 6: A couple of points. First, he should not deny the polls.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: I mean, arguing that the New York Times poll or
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: other polls are wrong and he's actually up. I think
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: you should just acknowledge these four points, five points down
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 6: and say, look, the other candidates have been down and
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: I'm going to come back. I mean, that's not an
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: insurmountable margin. But denying the polls is not a great look.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 6: The question about whether to run is such a deeply
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: personal decision for someone who's been the nominee, who's gotten
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 6: millions of votes. And that's a decision he and his
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 6: family and his close friends will make. I think he
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 6: owes people the ability, the opportunity to listen in terms
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 6: of his platform, in terms of what he's going to do,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 6: in terms of listening to their concerns about what he
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 6: needs to do to win the race. But I don't
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: know if you can expect someone who's won the votes
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 6: to say, okay, now that the polling shows that the
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 6: majority are opposed to you running, that I'm just going
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 6: to give up. I mean, I think that's asking too
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: much of listening.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I just, do you really think
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: that if the voters of the Democratic Party saw that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, we saw at that debate, that he would
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: be the nominee right now? Do you believe right now
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: that the Democratic voters who voted in basically an unopposed?
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: No, I don't. They won't.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: You don't. If they saw the Joe Biden at that debate,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden would not be the nominee. Do you agree
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: with that?
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: I agree with that. And I agree with that.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: But and so we're bound, you know, bound to what
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: happened before. Like, let's say Joe Biden. He's not nothing
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: has gone terribly wrong with his health. Let's hope that
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: that's the case. But he's had an inexorable march of time.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: The inexorable effects of age have now come to a
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: point where people have these deep concerns that are far
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: worse than they were two years ago. We are bound
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: to what happened in basically an unopposed primary election. even
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: though the voters today have given another chance, would want
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: something else?
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 6: I think that the question is that you're going without
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: any contest, without any polling. I mean, if it was
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 6: something that was clearly, obviously disqualifying, and I guess my
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 6: point of view here is that you have reasonable arguments
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 6: on both sides. I don't think this is clear cut.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 6: I don't think Joe Biden went and committed some criminal
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: act where on our side it would be. clear cut.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 6: On the other side, it's not. I don't think this
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 6: is a case where, God forbid, Joe Biden had a
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 6: stroke that was incapacitating and where he couldn't recover. I
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 6: think this is a case where you have a large
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 6: chunk of the party that still believes that Joe Biden,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 6: because of the incumbency advantage, because of his connection with
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 6: African-American voters, with the Midwest, because of his record, has
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 6: a very good chance to win and is one of
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: the best chances to win. Now, we could debate whether
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 6: that's 30%, 25%, 40%, and what the other side is.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: But you can't, I don't think on that ambiguous a record,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 6: you can say, okay, you know, you just need to
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 6: quit the race. I think what you can say is,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: please consider this very seriously. Please talk to your friends,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: your family, please consult outside folks. But ultimately, I think
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 6: this is still a judgment that Biden himself has to make.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 6: I think he would do himself favors to recognize the
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: ambiguity of it and that it's not a clear-cut clear
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: cut decision. By the way, if it was a clear
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: cut decision, you would have people like Barack Obama and
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 6: others coming out and saying that he shouldn't run. So
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 6: I think that the fact that you've had so many
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: people that the party respects being ambiguous about it suggests
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: that there's real ambiguity.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: Is that what that suggests? I mean, tell me if
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: this is wrong, that behind the scenes, members of Congress,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: even members of Congress that are currently saying Joe Biden
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: is my candidate and he had our back, so I
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: have his back. They're full of shit, right? Behind the scenes,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: they're terrified and think he's going to lose.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 6: Not all of them, honestly.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: But some of them.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 6: I'd say quite a few of them, quite a few
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 6: of them think that. But they're two camps. Some of
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 6: them may think that and think it's still a bad
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: look to take away the the Democratic choice from a
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 6: candidate who's won the primaries. I get that they were unopposed,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 6: but one of the reasons they were unopposed is not
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: like some committee said, don't run. It's that candidates at
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 6: the time looked at Joe Biden's poll numbers and said
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 6: he couldn't be beaten in a Democratic primary. And I
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 6: think they were right. I don't think that Joe Biden,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 6: if a year and a half ago, would have been
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 6: beaten in a Democratic primary. And so there's a process
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 6: and some people are reluctant to undermine that process. Some
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 6: folks genuinely think that he has a a better chance
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 6: than someone who had just come up for four months
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 6: in a presidential campaign, untested against a huge brand name.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 6: It's unclear to me that two of the great Democratic presidents,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 6: I disagree with some of their policies on some things,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 6: but I don't think either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 6: thrust into a general election campaign four months before a
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 6: general election would necessarily have won. I mean, maybe they
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 6: would have. I mean, maybe they would have given some
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 6: great speech and done it, but it's not an easy thing. Yeah.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: But if Joe Biden decides not to run and he
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: goes and throws his support behind Kamala Harris and I
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: have every confidence that you personally will be one of
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: the best and smartest advocates for Kamala Harris making the
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: absolute best case for why she could win, right?
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 6: And I think she's absolutely qualified to be president. I
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: think she is very warm in person. Having just met
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 6: her a couple of weeks ago, she was asking about
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 6: my family. She's much more charming than the media gives
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: her credit for. I would unambiguously, 1,000%, support her. And
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: I think she would have a reasonable chance to win.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 6: I don't think, but that judgment is something that President
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: Biden and Kamala Harris together have earned the right to make.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 6: I mean, and I think they, you know, I guess
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 6: my view is, well, let me ask, put the question
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 6: back to you. Do you think Biden is, why do
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 6: you think he's staying in? I mean, do you think
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 6: he doesn't think that he's the best candidate to beat
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump, which is what he says?
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. I find, I think
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: that there's something a little bit insulting towards Kamala Harris
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: when he says to Morning Joe, who else could do this?
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: Who else could hold NATO together? I think it's insulting
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: to the many other Democrats waiting in the wings who
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: you would be an incredible advocate for, we would be
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: advocating for and knocking on doors full-throatedly, full-heartedly if they
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: were the nominee. I don't know Joe Biden's psychology right now.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it's like to, you know, he
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: said to George Stephanopoulos, I didn't Did you watch the
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: debate again? He said, I don't think I did, which
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: was a perplexing answer. I don't know what it's like
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: to be 81 years old when you're not president, when
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: you are president, when the stakes feel so high, but
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: it's not really about him. I feel like it's incumbent
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: upon all of us to advocate for what we think
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: is going to put us in the best position to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: defeat Donald Trump. If that's Joe Biden, then he has
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: to put these stories to rest and If Joe Biden
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: called you and said, what do you think I should do, Roe?
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: Would you tell him to stay in the race?
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 6: I would say, first of all, Mr. President, it's your decision.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 6: But I would say, I think one of your most
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 6: endearing qualities is your humility. I think some of your
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 6: recent interviews where you're attacking your own supporters, where you're
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 6: calling anyone who questions you as an elite, where you're
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: stifling dissent within the party is not a good look.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 6: I understand that You believe and you have been a
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: great president and probably anyone who runs for president believes
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: they're a person of destiny and only they can do it.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: But that also, I think, undermines your brand as someone
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: who is a humble public servant. And I would say,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 6: you know, you need to show the American people you
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 6: don't need this. You don't need another term for the presidency.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 6: Why do you need it at 81? But you're doing
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 6: this because you deeply believe that you have as the
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 6: incumbent and given your economic record and given your ability
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: to to win over people in de-industrialized parts of the country,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: the ability to win this race against Donald Trump. And
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: I would talk about, instead of attacking your supporters on
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 6: Morning Joe, I would say, you know, Joe Scarborough, do
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 6: you know what came out today? That of the de-industrialized
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: counties in America that Donald Trump said he was going
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 6: to turn around, we actually did. For the past three years,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 6: we've had more job creation there than we've had in
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: the past 20 years. This is what I want to
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 6: continue doing. And I'd focus on that. And I'd say, Mr. President,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 6: get out there. If you want to run, get out
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 6: there and don't You know, if you make mistakes, people
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 6: understand that. But you got to look like you're fighting
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 6: and trying and doing everything you can and do the
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 6: editorial board interviews, do the town halls. That's that's what
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 6: I'd say.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: And then he says, and I'm sorry to keep putting
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: on this, but then he says, wow, that means a
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: lot to me. That means the world to me. But
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: I'm just honestly not sure I'm the right person. Would
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: you write? Do you think it should be me or
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: do you think I should step aside and pass the
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: torch to my vice president? Like I said, I would
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: do when I first ran.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 6: Well, if he said that, I would tell him to
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: pass the torch, but I don't think he'll say that.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 6: And the reason I would tell him to pass the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 6: torch is even when you run for Congress, if you
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 6: don't think you're the right person and you're having self-doubts,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: you're not going to win the race. So if someone
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 6: was saying, I'm thinking of running for president and I'm
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 6: not sure, I'd say, yeah, probably you shouldn't run. I mean,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 6: you've got to have a conviction of steel.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: This guy's good. This guy's good. That's a good answer.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 6: I can't say that. Just stepping back a bit, when
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 6: many of us worked for Barack Obama in 2008, we
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 6: thought after Obama there would be a generation of people
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 6: like Hakeem Jeffries, that there were going to be young,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 6: new generation leaders, that this was this new era that
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 6: was being ushered in. And in that sense, at least
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 6: I and many were wrong. I mean, after that, we
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 6: had Hillary Clinton, and then respect, great public servant, but
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 6: that wasn't going sort of forward in terms of a
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 6: generational change. And then we had Joe Biden. And I
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 6: think we have to ask why. And part of the
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: reason is that this country is grappling with something very difficult.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: We're becoming a cohesive multiracial democracy. There's a lot of change, technology, economics.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: People want the familiar. They want also what is understandable.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 6: And we got two old guys arguing about their golf handicaps,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 6: and half the country thinks they're totally out of touch.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 6: But some of the country thinks, you know, I understand
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 6: that these folks are familiar. And that's the debate we're
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: having as a country. But at some point, we're going
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 6: to have generational change. But I guess what I would
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 6: say is let's have this debate in an open way.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 6: But it's not a cop out when I'm saying it's...
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 6: I don't think there's an obvious truth, clear answer on
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 6: either side. And I And I criticize the president's team
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 6: and him for squelching the dissent. But I also think
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 6: people are like, well, Biden obviously can't win. Let's remove him.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 6: I think that also is that's a point of view.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 6: But I don't think it's OK. This is clearly obvious
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 6: that that should be the case.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: And and right now you don't have a preference between
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: those two. You you right now you sitting there, you're
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: not sure if Joe Biden should or shouldn't step aside.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: You don't have a preference? Me? My view?
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 6: No, I do have a preference. I mean, my view
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 6: would be, first, that he has earned the right to
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 6: make the decision, and I trust him to make that
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 6: decision with sufficient input. But I would be on the
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 6: side that he can stay in, and we need a
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 6: strong economic contrast message, that we should be bold in
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 6: the contrast with Donald Trump and have everyone around the
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 6: country be a surrogate for making that message. Have people
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 6: talking about Project 2025, have people talk about Trump's hollowing
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 6: out the working class, have us focus on a few key,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: bold economic policies, and I think the president can win. Now,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 6: do I think he's the underdog? Yes. Do I think
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 6: that absent Michelle Obama coming in, that someone else, whether
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 6: it's a Kamala Harris or a Whitmer or a, a
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: Newsom or a Shapiro would start out with significantly higher
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 6: odds than Joe Biden? I don't. This is my own view.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 6: And so I guess if I could be convinced that,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 6: you know, you told me Michelle Obama is running and
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 6: we all had to commit, then I'd say, yeah, of course,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 6: it's a no-brainer. But I don't think that the alternative
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: is worse. I certainly think Kamala Harris could win. I
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: think Whitmer could win. Gavin could win. I mean, I'm not...
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 6: But I don't think it's significantly better if Joe Biden
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 6: runs a good campaign. And I think we're capable of
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 6: running a good campaign.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: You're saying you don't believe someone like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Raphael Warnock, Kamala Harris. You don't
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: believe that their ability to just be out there day
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: after day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: Day after day.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: You don't think that that is enough to overcome the
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: liability of starting with someone new. And you don't think
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: that's enough to overcome the age liability that Joe Biden brings.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: That's what I don't understand.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 6: I think they'd be better messengers than Joe Biden, all
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 6: of the names that you mentioned. I think some would
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 6: be spectacularly better as messengers. I don't think being a
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 6: messenger is all that it takes to be president of
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: the United States. I think there is a deep authenticity.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: There's a trust you have to establish with the American people.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 6: You have to convey why you're doing it, what your
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 6: vision is. And it's unclear to me that any of
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 6: those folks untested in four months would be able to
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 6: do it. I'm not saying they couldn't, but there's a
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 6: reason that We had, look, unknown candidates or relatively unknown
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 6: candidates can win. People like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 6: and Barack Obama. But they take two years to earn
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 6: that trust. They don't just come in with four months.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 6: And there's almost something I think maybe it's people say
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 6: we want the fresh or maybe people will say, well,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 6: this Donald Trump guy, he's overcome convictions for two years
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 6: and he's been at it and he's been fighting and
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 6: he's and now we're just going to hand the presidency
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 6: to someone who's campaigned for three months. I don't know.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know how it would cut, whether
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 6: people think you've got to earn people's votes. I realized
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 6: that when I ran for Congress, I lost the first time,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 6: two years, and then I won 60-40 the next time.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 6: A lot of people said, you know, you stuck with it.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 6: We like your grit. We like the fact that you
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 6: were willing to earn that vote. And I guess I
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 6: don't know anyone who's come out of nowhere and won
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 6: without that slog and without really earning it over a
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 6: long primary process.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: What a time to be alive, you know?
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 6: I think, look, I am hopeful about this time. And
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 6: the reason I'm hopeful is because I view it as
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 6: that we're on the cusp of doing something incredible in
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 6: this country. You look at the freshman class in Congress.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 6: You look at people like Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost. You
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 6: look at the fact that, you know, now, I mean,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 6: I'm biased because I'm Indian American, but you've got six
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 6: Indian Americans in Congress. John, when I was growing up,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 6: you couldn't meet My family couldn't meet a staff member
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 6: to a member of Congress. It's like we're growing more diverse.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 6: We're growing in spite of ourselves. We're becoming this cohesive
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 6: multiracial democracy. And so if we have a moment of
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: generation saying, you know, we want to go for the familiar,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 6: we're still unsure. You know that we've got to win,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 6: but I am so hopeful about the next generation in
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 6: this country. And I believe that what Biden should have
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 6: said is if for some chance Donald Trump wins, I'm
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 6: going to be the first one to continue the fight.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 6: I mean, Donald Trump, the one thing that drives me
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 6: crazy and I look, I understand Donald Trump. is threat
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 6: to American institutions, project 2025 voting rights, women's rights. But
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 6: the one thing that drives me crazy is when we
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 6: just sort of say, Oh, Donald Trump wins at the
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 6: end of American democracy. Give me a break. You think
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 6: Abraham Lincoln thought like that? FDR thought like that. John
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 6: Lewis thought like that. We're not going to lose democracy
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 6: to a buffoonish billionaire. We have to have the conviction
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 6: and the fight to continue to fight for what this
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 6: country is going to be.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we also could have an Indian American president, uh,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: you know, if we play our cards right, right? It's
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: sitting right there.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, only if my texting program continues
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 6: to annoy you, John.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: That's the key to this.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 6: That's the key to the whole thing.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, listen, you're, you know, obviously... It's.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 6: An Indian-American conspiracy. We have so many people in tech,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 6: at Google and the tech.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: Well, and the vice presidency. That's what's going on. And
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: the vice presidency. Congressman Khanna, thank you so much for
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: taking the time. Thanks for taking these questions. I think
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of people... feel a little bit, this has
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: been a very, I think, upsetting. They understand the stakes.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: They are scared. And they feel both that this is
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: on somehow Joe Biden's decision, but also collectively a decision
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: that should belong.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: To all of us.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: What do you say to people listening that are wondering
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: what they should be doing right now? Do you think
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: that if somebody believes Joe Biden should be the nominee
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: or shouldn't be the nominee, that they should be calling
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: their members of Congress? How do you think people should
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: be responding to this? rather than just being on their
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: phones and they want to feel like they have agency?
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 6: First of all, I say that I hear you and
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 6: I think you're absolutely right. And where I think our
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 6: party has failed is by making people feel unheard, making
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 6: it feel like it's, Either you get behind the president
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 6: or somehow you're not loyal or somehow you're not a
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 6: good Democrat or somehow you're engaged in bedwetting or a
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 6: circular firing squad. Where our party has failed is trying
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 6: to deny the obvious, what people saw, or trying to
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 6: pretend like Joe Biden is something that he's not. And
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 6: I think we have to welcome the conversation. We need
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 6: to say it's very legitimate. And I don't think, okay,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 6: we're having this conversation three, four weeks. I don't think
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 6: that's like, okay, we can't win. I think it's better
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 6: that we air it out. I have full confidence, John,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 6: whether it's you or whoever is saying that we should
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 6: have a different nominee if Joe Biden is the nominee
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 6: come August, that we'll all rally around him. And I
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 6: don't think there's any problem having a conversation in the meantime.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 6: And I would encourage people to talk to their members
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 6: of Congress. to be a voice on social media, to
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 6: talk to people you may know at the White House,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 6: and to have your view. And I will say that
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 6: if I did have an opportunity to talk to the president,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 6: the biggest thing I would say is, you know, Mr. President,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 6: politics is ultimately about persuasion. Let's be in the business
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 6: of persuasion. Let's not just be employing the tactics of
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 6: criticizing the media and calling people elites and rallying our base.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 6: That's not the best of democratic politics.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you so much for your time.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: Really appreciate it. Hope to talk to you soon.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, before we go, we figured we should talk about
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: the other guy in the race, Donald Trump. He must resign.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: He should step down.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: Just want to get on the record. He's been doing
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: his best to stay out of the spotlight and let
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: the Democratic invite and consume news cycle after news cycle,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: though apparently his discipline only goes so far because tonight
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: he's going on Hannity. That should be fun. A few
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: things have happened in Trump world, even without the candidate
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: being out there. The Republican convention is next week. On Monday, apparently,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: Team Trump's urging the RNC platform committee voted to remove
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: a call for national limits on abortion, according to Politico.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: The final ratified platform is basically just one page of
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: vague statements seemingly recycled from Trump's stump speech, like seal
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: the border, stop migrant invasion. Carry out the largest deportation
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: in American history. End inflation is one. Just end inflation. Nice.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: And then my favorite one was, unite our country by
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: bringing it to new and record levels of success. That's
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: like a, that went through the, that just went through
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: the whole, that was a plank. That's a plank on
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: the platform.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: What kind of process do you think this thing went through?
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: This comes after Trump decided, seemingly out of the blue,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: to distance himself from Project 2025 in a post on
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: Truth Social that reads, I know nothing about Project 2025.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: I have no idea who was behind it. I disagree
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: with some of the things they're saying and some of
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: the things they are saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with them. He knows nothing. The things
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: that they're saying are bad, but he knows nothing.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about it. I also hate it.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: But good luck.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: And what part's the part you hate?
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: I have no idea who's behind it, even though 16
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: of my former administration officials are behind it.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. I know everybody's been sharing the hot dog meme.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: All right. But this is really more of a I
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: can't believe there's gambling in this casino situation, honestly.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: It seems like they've realized that Project 2025 is getting
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention and that it is terrifyingly unpopular.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: How do you think the Democrats should handle this? First
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: of all, we get a vague watered down convention platform
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: and Trump trying to distance himself.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: So I was I was actually noticing before Trump put
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: out this statement that that we were starting to hear
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: about Project 2025 from nonpolitical sources. Like Taraji mentioned it
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: at an award show, like Love It or Leave It.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: It's hot on TikTok.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: Love It or Leave It guests have been bringing it up.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: And what I, that like comedians have been bringing it up.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: Like they're worried about, hey, you don't know about this,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: this thing, Project 2025, Project 2025. And I think we
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: finally have what the right normally has, which is they
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: have a secret conspiracy.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: It sounds conspiratorial. They have a secret plan to destroy
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: the country. All these powerful figures have a secret plan.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: And they're all working on it at their conferences. These
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: powerful elites, a kind of Illuminati that's gathering in the
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: desert of night in smoke-filled rooms to come up with
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: a plan to destroy the country. And it's real.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is real. And I think that, like, look,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: Trump's going to try to walk away because he's got
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: advisors being like, hey, man, you're on the path to
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: victory here. And everyone's like, why hasn't the media been
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: talking about how Trump's been out of the spotlight for
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: 10 days? He's been hitting balls.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: Of course he's out of the spotlight for 10 days.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: He's smart.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: Every time he finishes a round of golf, his poll
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: numbers improve.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: Either he's gut smart, he's become smart, or they got
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: him in a cage somewhere. They got like a shock
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: collar on him.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 5: I don't think he's just one, but he is smart.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 5: these in political instincts. He was watching this car track
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 5: and he couldn't believe.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: His luck in that to step back, hanging out.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: And I think that's why they want to walk away.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: Even though project 2025, Stephen Miller, part of it, his
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: Trump's current press secretary. She's in a video for it.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: Russ vote is like the architect. He was the head
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: of OMB, the office of management and budget under Trump.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: could be the next chief of staff. Like, give me
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: a fucking break.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: It's the Trump plan. It's the Trump plan. This is
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: what they will implement. The people that wrote this, all
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: the advisors will be staffed throughout the administration. This is
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: Trump's denials are meaningless. This is their plan for next.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: We should just be moving forward under the correct assumption
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: that this is their plan for 2025.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: And it is definitely moving beyond the junkies to the normies.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: a friend who doesn't follow politics at all really and
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't text me and be like, dude, have you heard
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: about this 2025 thing? They're trying to ban porn. It's like, oh,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: now you're involved in the election. Now you're paying attention.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you, it's the fucking, porn is the key.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: It's the whole barstool audience.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: It's porn, man.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: It's porn. He's like, what the fuck? He's like, I
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: think that Biden's kind of old, but like the porn,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: it's going to be. So anyway, Project 2025. You know
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: who should talk about it more?
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. All right, thanks to Ro Khanna for joining
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: us today. We will be back with a show on
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon. We'll talk to you then. If you want
• 1:30:00
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• 1:30:02
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• 1:30:06
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• 1:30:09
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• 1:30:19
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• 1:30:22
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• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Reid Cherlin is
• 1:30:29
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• 1:30:32
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