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Democrats Aren't Doomed — Yet · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_01: If you're somebody who believes in the power and importance of media narratives,
0:04
SPEAKER_01: that makes it more important to have a nominee who can go on a somewhat skeptical
0:13
SPEAKER_01: television show,
0:14
SPEAKER_01: get a question like,
0:16
SPEAKER_01: what's up with you being so fucking senile?
0:20
SPEAKER_01: And say, the real issue here is that my opponent flew on Epstein's rape plane.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Hey, everyone, you're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcast.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we'll discuss the big Democratic Party succession crisis.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Is there a way forward that's both plausible and hopeful?
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Is doom the only viable outlook?
0:45
SPEAKER_00: And what do various scenarios from Biden guts it out to Biden yields to a new
0:51
SPEAKER_00: ticket look like in practice?
0:53
SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoy the conversation.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to hear the whole thing, you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Hey, everyone.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Boitler.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm Matthew Iglesias.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Matt picked an interesting time to go on vacation last week, so welcome back.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Great time.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: That was Portugal.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:15
SPEAKER_01: like the president,
1:17
SPEAKER_01: I am struggling a little bit with jet lag,
1:19
SPEAKER_01: even several days after my return to the United States of America.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure I'm fully at my best,
1:25
SPEAKER_01: but,
1:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:26
SPEAKER_01: hopefully with adequate doses of caffeine,
1:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be able to deliver coaching sentences.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: You've got to get that provigil.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've got no provigil, but I'm just like, I'm here, I'm talking.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: I had some cold brew, nitro cold brew this morning.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: So my energy's up.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: So, okay.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: There was a disturbing debate performance on the Thursday night before I left for the debate.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: I wrote a take.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: Lots of people wrote takes.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: And I felt like in the takes universe, there was pretty strong consensus that...
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Not just like the president had done a bad job and that was bad,
2:07
SPEAKER_01: but that we had been waiting for six to 12 months before the debate with concern
2:16
SPEAKER_01: about Biden's position in the polls,
2:18
SPEAKER_01: knowing that the electorate was concerned about his age,
2:21
SPEAKER_01: etc.,
2:21
SPEAKER_01: etc.,
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And that lots of people had already,
2:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:25
SPEAKER_01: sort of cut bait or,
2:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:27
SPEAKER_01: been very mean to him or said he should drop out.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: But that I certainly was like, give him the benefit of the doubt, et cetera.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: The debate just seemed like his big chance to silence the skeptics and show the world.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: And he just clearly failed to do that.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, according to Joe Biden, he did a very bad job at the debate.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: So I left town, you know, the day after the debate.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: disturbed by the situation, but also hopeful.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: And honestly,
2:59
SPEAKER_01: not hopeful about what we've now been talking about over the past seven days,
3:03
SPEAKER_01: which is some kind of effort to pressure Biden out.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: But just that Biden and his team,
3:11
SPEAKER_01: which I assumed saw the same polls as everybody else,
3:16
SPEAKER_01: knew that he was down,
3:18
SPEAKER_01: knew that they had scheduled this debate before the convention for some reason,
3:24
SPEAKER_01: knew that lots of people,
3:25
SPEAKER_01: not just like you,
3:26
SPEAKER_01: me,
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Ezra,
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Klein,
3:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:28
SPEAKER_01: like the voters,
3:29
SPEAKER_01: the majority of voters before the debate said that Joe Biden was too old and that
3:35
SPEAKER_01: this was a major concern of theirs.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: And then like he did a terrible job at the debate, right?
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Like demonstrating incapacity.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: And then like the things Biden has said, like he said his performance at the debate was bad.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: He said that a full week of debate prep was not adequate,
3:52
SPEAKER_01: that having a cold made it impossible for him to deliver a cogent debate performance,
3:58
SPEAKER_01: that he had to not do work after 8 p.m.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: to be mentally ready to go do these things.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: That was his own account.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, we have reached a painful...
4:12
SPEAKER_01: decision point where,
4:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:15
SPEAKER_01: like the president is going to have to stand down as a candidate,
4:20
SPEAKER_01: which is
4:21
SPEAKER_01: going to generate an ugly situation where,
4:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:25
SPEAKER_01: a lot of people don't have confidence in the vice president,
4:29
SPEAKER_01: but she seems like clearly the most logical choice to go with.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: There'll be ugliness one way or the other.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: There'll be Republicans saying like, this is dirty pool.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like cheating to switch the candidates.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we just we had our answer.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: And there's almost like nothing more to talk about.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: And then while I was gone on vacation, things took a very different turn, right?
4:51
SPEAKER_01: It seems like Biden huddled with his family for a couple days and reached the
5:00
SPEAKER_01: decision that he was determined to stay in the race.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: And so then the bulk of what's happened over the past week has not been...
5:11
SPEAKER_01: Joe Biden and his team taking counsel to consider what's best for America.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: Like that just hasn't been going on.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: Instead,
5:19
SPEAKER_01: there's been this like drama about whether Biden's skeptics in Congress or in the
5:26
SPEAKER_01: donor community or among pundits can like,
5:29
SPEAKER_01: quote unquote,
5:29
SPEAKER_01: push him out.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: I think for a few days, there was coverage that like suggested maybe they could.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: And now after yesterday, I feel like it's seeming clearer that they can't.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: But I've honestly been...
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday,
5:42
SPEAKER_00: as we record this,
5:42
SPEAKER_00: was Monday,
5:43
SPEAKER_00: and it was the first day Congress was back since the debate.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: And there was a question like,
5:47
SPEAKER_00: will the dam break and all these members come and tell him he should...
5:51
SPEAKER_01: And it was the opposite.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the few members did that, and ultimately the leadership...
5:57
SPEAKER_00: basically pulled their members and decided that the path of least resistance was to
6:01
SPEAKER_00: just double down on Biden and say,
6:03
SPEAKER_00: well,
6:03
SPEAKER_00: white knuckle it through.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: But I honestly was was dooming before that.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I got off the plane Saturday, you know, back from Portugal.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: And I was already in doom mode by then, because once it became a a conflict story.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: I just think it was obvious that Biden was going to win the conflict.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: He's the president of the United States.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: He won the... All this stuff he says in fuck you mode, that's all true.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: He's the president.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: He won the primary.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: You can't stop him.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: The question to my mind is...
6:45
SPEAKER_01: Why does he want to do this?
6:47
SPEAKER_01: What's going on here?
6:50
SPEAKER_01: But I don't know.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: You were telling me yesterday that you're not in full...
6:54
SPEAKER_01: Is there a path forward here to any outcome other than Biden just not campaigning
7:03
SPEAKER_01: through the fall and losing the election?
7:05
SPEAKER_01: What are we doing?
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Just a peek behind the curtain of politics prep is that
7:11
SPEAKER_00: We talked about this before we had a full sense of what the Democratic caucuses were going to come to.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: And then by the end of the day yesterday, AOC had basically said, this matter is closed.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden's going to be the nominee, and I support him.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: That's important for the left flank.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: The leadership, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, both said, we're with Biden.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: The Congressional Black Caucus seems to have been basically locked down, and that's
7:39
SPEAKER_00: can be like the rest of the caucus kind of sees that as a threat,
7:44
SPEAKER_00: that if you say Biden should stand down,
7:47
SPEAKER_00: now you're violating unspoken rules about race politics within the caucus,
7:54
SPEAKER_00: even though obviously the most viable alternative to Biden is his black vice president.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: So as of this morning, I'm like less...
8:06
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't optimistic yesterday.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm less optimistic today.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: But I tend to treat these kinds of moments like the way I treated the Build Back
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Better situation a couple years ago,
8:22
SPEAKER_00: where there was a big,
8:25
SPEAKER_00: important thing that Joe Biden wanted to get done.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: And then it looked like it had just failed.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And then it was this year of backbiting.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: shrinking the bill and like are we just um like is this is this really just a
8:39
SPEAKER_00: zombie bill and we're just going through the motions here but i would be like i
8:42
SPEAKER_00: know how the rules of congress work and i know that this bill isn't actually dead
8:45
SPEAKER_00: and there's still some small chance that the good thing that we want to happen will
8:50
SPEAKER_00: happen and so i viewed the the path between here and there like that there was a
8:55
SPEAKER_00: light at the end of it right and i still think that about biden and suspending his
8:59
SPEAKER_00: campaign right um
9:02
SPEAKER_00: And the reasons why I am not 100% persuaded that Biden will be the nominee in
9:10
SPEAKER_00: August despite his recalcitrance right now,
9:14
SPEAKER_00: there are a few reasons.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: One is that –
9:17
SPEAKER_00: There is a logic to Biden acting 100% in until the moment when he realizes he's
9:27
SPEAKER_00: making a mistake and then reverses and is 100% out.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy enough to understand why.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: There's still a really good chance he's going to be the Democratic nominee.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: And if he's been waffling in public and then becomes a nominee, that's really bad.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: That creates...
9:43
SPEAKER_00: like ample fodder for Republicans to say even the Democrats nominee isn't certain
9:48
SPEAKER_00: he should be president.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: So Biden acting this way doesn't necessarily tell me that he is in permanent denial mode,
9:58
SPEAKER_00: that he will like never listen to reason,
10:01
SPEAKER_00: look at polls,
10:02
SPEAKER_00: talk to frontline members and come to a different conclusion.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: There's also the fact that there's a NATO summit happening in DC in a couple of days.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think that there is a credible logic,
10:14
SPEAKER_00: although it doesn't matter to me personally very much,
10:18
SPEAKER_00: that Biden should lead those proceedings under the pretense of being an incumbent
10:24
SPEAKER_00: rather than a lame duck,
10:25
SPEAKER_00: right?
10:26
SPEAKER_00: He is the person holding NATO together.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: He's largely responsible for the expansion of NATO,
10:33
SPEAKER_00: and it introduces some global uncertainty for him to go to the summit as somebody
10:38
SPEAKER_00: who's dropped out of the race,
10:39
SPEAKER_00: and now there's uncertainty about what the policy future looks like.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: But we are in such uncharted waters that I am also not certain that this doesn't
10:51
SPEAKER_00: end in a totally different way.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: I think it's still possible,
10:57
SPEAKER_00: though unlikely,
10:57
SPEAKER_00: that Biden's health actually isn't good enough to continue to campaign or possibly
11:04
SPEAKER_00: even to be president,
11:05
SPEAKER_00: and that we might learn that through him or through another mortifying public
11:10
SPEAKER_00: incident between now and the convention.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: That's totally possible.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
11:15
SPEAKER_00: and if we're like really fantasizing about hardball politics scenarios that you
11:19
SPEAKER_00: might see in a movie,
11:20
SPEAKER_00: if something like that happens and he's still being obstreperous about it,
11:24
SPEAKER_00: what does he do if Kamala Harris says,
11:26
SPEAKER_00: I no longer have faith in this ticket's ability to win.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: And unless you stand aside and let me carry the torch, I'm going to resign as vice president.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's going to happen, but like it could because things are really crazy right now.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: And what would Biden do under those circumstances when he's that abandoned?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: And then,
11:45
SPEAKER_00: like,
11:45
SPEAKER_00: I also think that there has been a lot of effort to persuade Biden that he's losing
11:51
SPEAKER_00: and that this is sort of a dead end.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, he can deny polls.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: He can convince himself he knows better than the Democratic leadership or than,
11:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:00
SPEAKER_00: quaky need frontline members and candidates who worry that he's going to drag them down.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: He can, you know, motivated reasoning himself into just discounting all that.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: But I do think that he is fundamentally acting out of ego at the moment.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And there are potential appeals to his ego that might not work today but could work
12:26
SPEAKER_00: at some point between now and the convention if polls do slip,
12:29
SPEAKER_00: if he does have another episode,
12:31
SPEAKER_00: if his Thursday press conference goes poorly.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: where it's presented to him not by Chuck Schumer or Barack Obama or people who
12:39
SPEAKER_00: doubted him,
12:40
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:40
SPEAKER_00: and counted him out in 2016 and 2020,
12:41
SPEAKER_00: but by these,
12:42
SPEAKER_00: like,
12:44
SPEAKER_00: These,
12:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:45
SPEAKER_00: the people who write coffee table books about history and leadership and stuff like that.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: And they could say to him,
12:50
SPEAKER_00: you are facing down the prospect of being remembered as a hero who saved democracy
12:55
SPEAKER_00: from Donald Trump and then made an enormous personal sacrifice in order to make
13:00
SPEAKER_00: sure he didn't return.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Or you can be remembered as the guy who acted like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and brought us fascism.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And do you want the hero's exit or do you want like an eternity of infamy?
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And I am not certain that that's been tried yet by anyone who he respects intellectually.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not certain it wouldn't work.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, like we will know soon enough because the Democratic Party has to nominate somebody.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And once he's nominated, then it's sort of too late.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Then I think what's done is done.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: And unless he, you know,
13:37
SPEAKER_00: croaks or ends up hospitalized or something like that, he is going to be the nominee.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And so that's not like to say I'm optimistic,
13:48
SPEAKER_00: but I also think that,
13:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:51
SPEAKER_00: there's been a lot of over-reading or maybe like under-interpreting the news from
13:59
SPEAKER_00: Capitol Hill on Monday to be Biden's final word on the matter.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: And I just don't think
14:06
SPEAKER_00: this is Biden's final word on the matter.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: We would know if the story was really over,
14:12
SPEAKER_00: just like we would have known if the Build Back Better bill was really dead.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: And we're not at that point yet.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: That's,
14:18
SPEAKER_00: I think,
14:18
SPEAKER_00: the case for continuing to press the case that he's the worst possible candidate at
14:26
SPEAKER_00: the top echelon of Democratic politics.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And it's the case for not just succumbing to
14:32
SPEAKER_00: The pressure that the Biden team is definitely putting on everyone in liberal politics to get in line.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: It's like we, you and I, and people like us, still have running room.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: I just like... You know, I...
14:54
SPEAKER_01: It's it's frustrating to me that this has gone into this kind of like vote counting,
15:00
SPEAKER_01: like caucus roundup,
15:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:03
SPEAKER_01: kind of dynamic,
15:05
SPEAKER_01: because the question really is like what.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: Why is this good for Joe Biden?
15:17
SPEAKER_01: What are we doing here?
15:18
SPEAKER_01: Is this fun?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: This is why I think the ego thing is really the key to it more than any kind of
15:29
SPEAKER_00: rational or empirical or numerical quantitative appeal is that there are actually
15:37
SPEAKER_00: three paths.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: One is that Joe Biden
15:41
SPEAKER_00: goes down in history as like worse than Neville Chamberlain,
15:45
SPEAKER_00: who maybe gets a bad rap compared to what Joe Biden is talking about doing right now.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Another is one where he steps aside and he gets a kind of hero's exit and people
15:55
SPEAKER_00: are grateful to him for having defeated Donald Trump in 2020 and then grateful
16:01
SPEAKER_00: again for being an adult about his current circumstances and giving somebody who
16:08
SPEAKER_00: can campaign energetically a chance to beat Trump the second time.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: But the third option,
16:12
SPEAKER_00: the one he sees in his head,
16:13
SPEAKER_00: is the one where he beats Donald Trump once,
16:16
SPEAKER_00: then beats him again for all time.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump is...
16:21
SPEAKER_00: off the political game board.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: And he's remembered as like a superhero who like,
16:27
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:28
SPEAKER_00: came to the country's rescue when nobody else could.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's what's keeping, like, it's- No, I agree.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: This is why,
16:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:35
SPEAKER_01: when I see these statements from members of Congress,
16:38
SPEAKER_01: politicians,
16:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
16:39
SPEAKER_01: whatever,
16:40
SPEAKER_01: people say things,
16:41
SPEAKER_01: right?
16:41
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the statements that have come out in favor of Biden are actually ambiguously worded.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: And it's people saying like, I support the Biden-Harris ticket.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: Because to be clear, I also support the Biden-Harris ticket.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
16:56
SPEAKER_00: It's not the same as saying Joe Biden should be our nominee.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: It's different.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Like if the election is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris against Donald Trump and whoever, J.D.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Vance, like I will vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: And if people tell me like, what are you going to do about the president's terrible health?
17:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say like, I don't know, if he gets sicker, Kamala Harris is going to become president.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: To me, that's just why I
17:26
SPEAKER_01: Harris, at minimum, would be better than Biden.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: Because you can't persuade somebody to vote for Joe Biden if that person is not
17:36
SPEAKER_01: persuaded that Harris could be president.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make sense logically as an argument.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: So let her be the nominee, let her run with it, whatever.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: So I support the Biden-Harris ticket too.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: But I don't think that should be the ticket.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think that Joe Biden should step aside and do the right thing for America.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: What bugs me is when I see statements like Mark Kelly did this.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, he was asking reporters and he was like, I don't put a lot of stock in the polls.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, I seems to me like I won two elections and the polls were wrong.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: And like, that's just not true.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Like the polls said Mark Kelly was going to win.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: And then Mark Kelly won.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people have convinced themselves,
18:19
SPEAKER_01: based on the fact that in any given midterm election,
18:23
SPEAKER_01: 2022,
18:24
SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of races occur in a midterm election,
18:28
SPEAKER_01: right?
18:29
SPEAKER_01: You have multiple Senate races, multiple gubernatorial races, dozens and dozens of House races.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: And there were definitely some races in 2022 where the result was pretty far off
18:41
SPEAKER_01: from what the polling had predicted.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: But in the aggregate, there was a good 538, you know, did a roundup of this after the election.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: They were like, how accurate were the polls across all the races?
18:52
SPEAKER_01: They were off on average by four percentage points,
18:55
SPEAKER_01: which is not nothing,
18:56
SPEAKER_01: but that is less than you historically see in polling,
19:00
SPEAKER_01: right?
19:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's just not true that like the polls were bad in 2022.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: They were some of the best polls that we ever had.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: When I see Democrats start to say, make false empirical claims,
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Now,
19:13
SPEAKER_01: if you just want to say,
19:14
SPEAKER_01: like,
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Biden is a stronger candidate than anyone else,
19:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's true.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, who's to say, right?
19:20
SPEAKER_01: A lot of arguments you can make.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Biden, to the best evidence that is available to us, would lose the election if it were held tomorrow.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: And he would lose it fairly badly.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: What's more,
19:35
SPEAKER_01: historically,
19:36
SPEAKER_01: the polls have been quite stable,
19:38
SPEAKER_01: and there's a small number of events that can move polling.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Debates are the biggest opportunity to move polling.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: We had one of two debates, and the polling moved against Biden.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: That is really bad news for his reelection.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: That's the facts.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: And when I see people under pressure or whatever else saying things that aren't
20:02
SPEAKER_01: true about current polling,
20:05
SPEAKER_01: past polling,
20:06
SPEAKER_01: the historical reliability of polling,
20:09
SPEAKER_01: that makes me really worried.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: Because ultimately, Biden has to make this choice on the advice of people that he trusts.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: And those people have to have information.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, like,
20:23
SPEAKER_01: People love to talk about, now that it's in this like,
20:29
SPEAKER_01: struggle narrative.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: All the smart journalists are talking about incentives and gaming things out.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: And Liam Donovan,
20:36
SPEAKER_01: who I like,
20:36
SPEAKER_01: was like,
20:38
SPEAKER_01: the moment Biden opponents failed to coalesce around a singular alternative to him,
20:43
SPEAKER_01: it made it easy for Biden's strategy of waiting it out for the storm to pass to succeed.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of agree with that.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: But that's also not the point here.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: The point is not...
20:55
SPEAKER_01: through what gamesmanship does Biden succeed in retaining the nomination?
21:01
SPEAKER_01: It's like,
21:01
SPEAKER_01: what decisions does Biden make about himself and about the country and what
21:06
SPEAKER_01: information are putting out there?
21:07
SPEAKER_01: If people want to put out there, I support the Biden-Harris ticket.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: God bless.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: If people want to put out there, it's up to the president.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: I'll do what he says.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't really agree, but go with God.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: Don't lie to people.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: Just a deep problem in Democratic Party politics over the past five to 10 years,
21:27
SPEAKER_01: it seems to me,
21:28
SPEAKER_01: across a huge swath of terrain,
21:32
SPEAKER_01: has been real junking of empirics and truth-telling as a value.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: All year, Biden has been down in the polls, which has generated questions about what's going on.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people have been saying stuff about Biden being down in the polls that is not accurate.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: You know,
21:55
SPEAKER_01: they've been making claims about midterm polling or about 2020 polling or about
22:01
SPEAKER_01: other things that's just like not true.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: And nobody has been like disciplining them, you know, and saying like, this is bad.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: Simon Rosenberg to say things that aren't true about 2022 midterm polling.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And to me, like,
22:19
SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of back in the 2020 cycle when people involved in Latino politics,
22:29
SPEAKER_01: some of them reached out to me to be like,
22:32
SPEAKER_01: you should do an article about Trump's gains with Latino voters.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: And then the organizations that those people worked for denied on the record that
22:45
SPEAKER_01: Trump was making gains with Hispanic voters.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
22:50
SPEAKER_01: And like,
22:50
SPEAKER_01: it turns out that's why people were reaching out to me because like their bosses
22:54
SPEAKER_01: were telling them like,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: we're not allowed to say what's going on.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: And that's like really troubling.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, it can just like lead to bad articles in July of 2020, but it can now lead to like
23:09
SPEAKER_01: catastrophically misguided decision-making by top political leaders in July of 2024.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: The point of polling is to give people an accurate assessment of the state of the race.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't use it that way, you're asking for a world of pain.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: So it's not that I think you're wrong, but I do think that there is something...
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Although the overall circumstances here are very unusual, abnormal.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: The phenomenon of a losing campaign or a campaign struggling with something,
23:45
SPEAKER_00: going out and spinning about the polls or saying things that aren't true about the
23:49
SPEAKER_00: polls in public while privately...
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Retaining good data and being clear about things that happens a lot.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: And I don't you know, and often those campaigns go on to lose.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: But they're whatever they're saying in public,
24:04
SPEAKER_00: their decision making is based on what they know in private.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: I've seen this happen every election cycle.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: And so it's troubling that Biden's campaign and Democrats writ large are engaged in
24:15
SPEAKER_00: this for the top of the ticket because it suggests things are in a really bad place.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: But it also, I think, suggests that they know.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: And that's why they're saying the false things.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: What disturbed me a lot yesterday that I think hasn't really probably has gone
24:32
SPEAKER_00: unnoticed by most people is that for the first week after the debate,
24:38
SPEAKER_00: This question, what should happen at the top of the ticket?
24:42
SPEAKER_00: What should Joe Biden do?
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Can he be persuaded to step down?
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Was received basically well by – people disagreed.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: They disagreed strongly about whether he should stay, if he should step out, how he should – like what –
25:02
SPEAKER_00: process should he endorse for picking an alternate nominee.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of disagreement about things like that,
25:07
SPEAKER_00: but just generally the conversation was not met by Democratic Party loyalists with
25:15
SPEAKER_00: disdain or anger.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: It was just, I believe everyone kind of understood it.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: It's the right conversation to be having right now.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Starting maybe over the weekend or Monday, anything you...
25:30
SPEAKER_00: post to Substack or post on social media or write about in the New York Times to
25:38
SPEAKER_00: suggest things aren't going well for Biden or to suggest Biden's making a
25:42
SPEAKER_00: historical error by insisting on staying in the race.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: gets you flooded with abuse right like and it doesn't hurt my feelings when people
25:53
SPEAKER_00: like say they think my articles are shitty on twitter but the the sort of like the
25:58
SPEAKER_00: pile on dynamic is one that really does trouble me it's like they're you know the
26:04
SPEAKER_00: democratic party is not like maga but there are components to it that behave that
26:08
SPEAKER_00: way and they are um
26:11
SPEAKER_00: They've been given the green light,
26:13
SPEAKER_00: either implicitly or explicitly,
26:15
SPEAKER_00: to go and just basically be like,
26:16
SPEAKER_00: if you see anyone casting doubt on the top of the ticket,
26:21
SPEAKER_00: bury them in invective.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: And that makes me think that there is...
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Not that the Biden campaign is in denial,
26:32
SPEAKER_00: but that they're fully aware and that they're just going to go ahead with this
26:37
SPEAKER_00: losing proposition anyway.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: And my very strong hunch is if something happens between now and mid-August to make
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Biden reconsider,
26:50
SPEAKER_00: all the accounts and all the loyalists who are partaking in this sort of
26:56
SPEAKER_00: bullying game will revert and they'll be like of course kamala harris is the
27:00
SPEAKER_00: obvious sure sure sure um uh but but the the the campaign has decided that um like
27:08
SPEAKER_00: get on board or fuck off is is the like only move they have left and they're going
27:14
SPEAKER_00: with it that but that troubles me like i i
27:19
SPEAKER_00: I will be like concerned until that stops.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: And if it stops, I think it'll be because preparations are underway to, to have a transition.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Um,
27:30
SPEAKER_00: but yeah,
27:31
SPEAKER_00: like I,
27:32
SPEAKER_00: I,
27:32
SPEAKER_00: I would be,
27:33
SPEAKER_00: I guess it wouldn't be surprised,
27:35
SPEAKER_00: but I don't presuppose that like Steve Ricchetti and Jeff Zients and Mike Donilon
27:44
SPEAKER_00: are blowing smoke up Biden's ass about where he is in the race.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: It's, it's possible that they're telling him, yeah, you're right.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: You have been discounted and these polls probably are wrong, but I, I,
27:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't I'm not certain that that's happening.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And yes, it would be nice to know.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: So let's I think we should talk about sort of some of the deeper dynamics here,
28:09
SPEAKER_01: because one thing that I do think has been,
28:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Twitter gives you a lot of attention.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: Sorry,
28:16
SPEAKER_01: a lot of access to the views of prominent people speaking their mind about things
28:22
SPEAKER_01: that are not in their field.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: And one thing, you know, I mean, it does, you know, which is interesting.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: And so like one thing that I think all year has been very clear is that a lot of
28:32
SPEAKER_01: people who are not in politics seem to strongly believe that like Barack Obama
28:40
SPEAKER_01: could play some kind of puppet master role over Biden's decision making.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, that was an idea I heard before the debate, after the debate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: And I think that a really important piece of context just for understanding the decision
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Biden and his allies,
28:58
SPEAKER_01: at least,
28:58
SPEAKER_01: understanding of what happened in 2016 is that Barack Obama and other top
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Democratic Party congressional leaders urged him not to run for president.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Now, how true that actually is, I think, is an interesting question to explore.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: You'll recall at the time what Biden said was that he was mourning the death of his
29:23
SPEAKER_01: son and just like,
29:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:26
SPEAKER_01: didn't.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: didn't have the fire in the belly under those circumstances, right?
29:31
SPEAKER_01: And what he said in 2019,
29:34
SPEAKER_01: as he announced his presidential campaign,
29:36
SPEAKER_01: is that the Charlottesville rally made him feel that he had to step up,
29:40
SPEAKER_01: right?
29:41
SPEAKER_01: Like, his story was not...
29:44
SPEAKER_01: Barack Obama and other party leaders urged me not to run in 2016.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Hillary Clinton's loss convinced me that they have terrible political judgment, and now I'm going for it.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: But that's the story that he believes, right?
29:59
SPEAKER_01: Is that he was urged to stand down for the good of the party,
30:04
SPEAKER_01: and those people catastrophically miscalculated.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Which I do think is now what most people...
30:13
SPEAKER_01: Right.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: Is that like if Biden had run in 2016,
30:18
SPEAKER_01: he could have soaked up the anti-Hillary energy that wound up going to Bernie Sanders.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: Or, but he could have split the mainstream.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I mean, I agree.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I mean, I, yes, I agree.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: I think that this is the kind of thing where like people get too locked in to the counter narrative.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: But like the thing that became conventional wisdom at a certain point is that if
30:42
SPEAKER_01: Biden had gotten in,
30:43
SPEAKER_01: he would have been the alternative to Hillary.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: Bernie never would have gotten oxygen.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Biden would have beaten Hillary and then Biden would have beaten Donald Trump in 2016.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: The whole country would have been saved.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: In particular,
30:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:57
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of moderates in their like wish casting of this because Bernie never
31:02
SPEAKER_01: takes off because Biden is there.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: The whole like leftward lurch that happened in Trump's term like also never happens.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Though, as you say, it's not clear to me that that's true.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Like one reason that Biden was discouraged from running in 2016 is that Hillary was
31:21
SPEAKER_01: clearly going to run and that it had kind of been she had secured the support of
31:28
SPEAKER_01: every prominent woman in Democratic Party politics.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: All the elected officials,
31:33
SPEAKER_01: all the donors,
31:34
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
31:35
SPEAKER_01: like they had all locked in on Hillary Clinton is going to be the first woman.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: president.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to and I'm pretty sure also that in the post 2008 primary,
31:46
SPEAKER_00: let's put the party back together after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ripped
31:49
SPEAKER_00: each other's heads off.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: The basic deal was you would be my secretary.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: It was an implicit deal.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: But but also just and I will endorse you after my two terms.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: Noting when Bernie ran against Hillary.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of commentary to the effect of,
32:05
SPEAKER_01: this is just sexism because you're trying to stop the first woman president.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: But Bernie had a big ideological disagreement with Hillary Clinton that he could fall back on.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: To be like, look, I'm not just trying to stand in the way of the first woman president for no reason.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing democratic socialism.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: What would Biden's reason have been?
32:26
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
32:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, again, when you go back to like why people weren't urging him to get in.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Now, I heard, I mean, I don't know, he's dead.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to burn these.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: Like, Rich Trumka came to the Vox offices one day.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: I don't know Rich Trumka well.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: This is not like a longtime source of mine.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: But he was just like, Hillary Clinton, like, that's not a very good politician.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: We'd be way better off if Joe Biden ran.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: So that,
32:51
SPEAKER_01: A,
32:52
SPEAKER_01: makes me a little bit doubt the story that everyone was discouraging him from
32:55
SPEAKER_01: running because,
32:56
SPEAKER_01: like,
32:56
SPEAKER_01: the head of the AFL-CIO seemed to be encouraging him to run.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: But also,
33:00
SPEAKER_01: while I don't,
33:01
SPEAKER_01: like,
33:02
SPEAKER_01: disagree with the observations he was making,
33:05
SPEAKER_01: like,
33:05
SPEAKER_01: what kind of campaign would that have been?
33:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, just like an endless reiteration of the you're likable enough, Hillary, like, debate.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I don't know.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: It's made Biden, though.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: clearly not that interested in like other people's opinions about what he should do
33:24
SPEAKER_00: right because like he's particularly this this class the obama and the obama alums
33:32
SPEAKER_00: and the uh you know the early clinton endorsers from yes the precise group of
33:38
SPEAKER_01: people who i would say like um just like
33:43
SPEAKER_01: business guys and non-political journalists who they like to mouth off about?
33:47
SPEAKER_01: Because they were trying to think like, who are the most prominent Democrats I can name?
33:51
SPEAKER_01: So they'll come up with like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: But like Biden doesn't care what any of those people think because he is convinced
34:00
SPEAKER_01: that like their own skepticism of him is why Donald Trump became president.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: And that like he is on a mission,
34:08
SPEAKER_01: as he said,
34:09
SPEAKER_01: from the Lord Almighty to like vanquish that catastrophic error of judgment and to
34:15
SPEAKER_01: go forward with it.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: They've built this into this kind of weird narrative where everybody dismissed him
34:22
SPEAKER_01: in 2020,
34:23
SPEAKER_01: when actually he just led in the primary polls most of the time in 2020.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: The New York Times editorial board said that Amy Klobuchar would be a better
34:34
SPEAKER_01: electability candidate than Biden,
34:37
SPEAKER_01: which I just think is true.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's why they said that.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: They said it because it's true.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: He beat her because he's a lot more famous than she is, which like is fine.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Like it's, it's a legitimate.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: But that's also why he led throughout the whole primary.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: But yes, but, but like, that's what I mean.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: But like, there was no, there was no moment in the 2020 primary when people were like,
34:59
SPEAKER_01: this guy's campaign is toast.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: Or rather, I shouldn't say that.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: There was like a week when people said that after he did so poorly in the Nevada caucuses.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: But he was leading the whole time.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: People knew that he was the well-liked former vice president.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: They were offering the analytical perspective that they either wanted a more left-wing person
35:21
SPEAKER_01: the Warren and Bernie supporters,
35:24
SPEAKER_01: or that they wanted a younger electability candidate,
35:28
SPEAKER_01: which eventually became Buttigieg,
35:31
SPEAKER_01: but initially was Steve Bullock.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: And I just think it's like always been true that if you buy the like theoretical
35:40
SPEAKER_01: case for Joe Biden,
35:41
SPEAKER_01: which I do,
35:42
SPEAKER_01: that like Steve Bullock would have done that better.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: He's like younger and he's got a bolo tie and he won in red states.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, like, it's fine.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he won, but, like, the self-mythologizing about his own victory is odd.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: And then it's particularly odd because you saw as he started to round up support,
36:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:08
SPEAKER_01: he started at the left.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: You know,
36:12
SPEAKER_01: like,
36:12
SPEAKER_01: getting people to vouch for him because it's the,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: like,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: swing state members who were most,
36:18
SPEAKER_01: like,
36:19
SPEAKER_01: antsy about it.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: But,
36:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:23
SPEAKER_01: when you're counting on Elizabeth Warren vouching for you,
36:28
SPEAKER_01: you've now forfeited your role as the guy who saved the frontliners from Elizabeth Warren.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know how...
36:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how rooted in facts or in alternative history his myth-making is.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: I think what... He debated the other Democrats in the 2020 primary several times.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: A few of those performances were really bad.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: Like...
36:58
SPEAKER_00: verging on as bad as his performance against Trump was just like digressions about
37:03
SPEAKER_00: how people used to raise their children by putting on a record player,
37:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:08
SPEAKER_00: like old,
37:09
SPEAKER_00: old guy got lost in whatever stream of consciousness was happening in his head.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Um,
37:14
SPEAKER_00: and people witnessed that and were like,
37:17
SPEAKER_00: this is a,
37:18
SPEAKER_00: this is not a great situation for the person who,
37:22
SPEAKER_00: who's going to be most likely to be the nominee.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: And, um,
37:26
SPEAKER_00: we have concerns about that.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: And even if he manages to win in 2020, what's going to happen in 2024, he's going to be four years older.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: He's going to,
37:33
SPEAKER_00: and like,
37:34
SPEAKER_00: here we are the people who he's mad at for having called into doubt his performance
37:41
SPEAKER_00: in that primary.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Are actually fully vindicated, but he's mad at them for having made the observation in the first place.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: And maybe he includes Barack Obama in that for whatever Obama told him privately or
37:55
SPEAKER_00: whatever Obama allies said publicly in 2016.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm not.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: certain because I just don't know how Biden would take it if Barack Obama paid him a private visit.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: And their relationship is obviously complicated, but it isn't just rooted in this bitterness.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: There is clearly love and respect there too.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's completely crazy to imagine Barack Obama being the person or one of a few people who
38:24
SPEAKER_00: can uh can make biden reconsider um but i do think that your point that you started
38:30
SPEAKER_00: with about how a lot of the ideas for um or for trying to persuade biden to
38:38
SPEAKER_00: reconsider are coming from people who um who are kind of amateurs about this stuff
38:45
SPEAKER_00: uh is important because it's also true that people who are like shut up let's end
38:49
SPEAKER_00: this conversation
38:52
SPEAKER_00: It would be reckless to throw Biden off the ticket or for Biden to be persuaded to
38:56
SPEAKER_00: leave the ticket because of X,
38:59
SPEAKER_00: Y,
38:59
SPEAKER_00: Z reasons.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: And let's put a paywall here and talk about it because I think the ways they're wrong show kind of why –
39:10
SPEAKER_00: Like,
39:11
SPEAKER_00: it's pretty easy to imagine a very quick turnaround where everything seems horrible
39:16
SPEAKER_00: right now,
39:16
SPEAKER_00: but in two or three weeks,
39:17
SPEAKER_00: we'll look back and be like,
39:19
SPEAKER_00: wow,
39:20
SPEAKER_00: Democrats are pretty well positioned to win the election.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: All right.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: If you want to hear that part of the conversation, go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.