Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/30/24: Breakdown: CNN's First Interview With Kamala

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Krystal and Ryan give you an in depth breakdown on the entire CNN interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, guys. So the much-anticipated Kamala Harris plus Tim Walz interview on CNN happened last night, so we thought we'd do a whole streamer style breakdown and react to the entire interview. Ryan, of course, here with me. Hi, Ryan. Good morning. How you doing? You can tell that they waited way too long to do an interview by the fact that the New

York Times last night had a live blog. About this one interview. Here we are reacting to it in real real time trump did like three interviews like during her interview and people were like whatever yeah but they were with like who were they with random uh yeah he's into this the podcast world i know he's doing an interview with lex friedman that'll be kind of interesting and there was one that he did with this florida reporter who asked him how are you going to vote on the constitutional amendment on abortion that's right yeah the abortion stuff he's gonna vote against it for abortion rights i mean that that ballot initiative the pro-choice side is now going

to get like 90 percent of the vote because it was already at about 60 percent and what it has to get 60 to pass right yeah 60 or 67 yeah yeah and so i think now with uh trump backing it man he threw those pro lifers right under the bus didn't he and he's saying he's gonna do ivf for all as well so i guess maybe the path ryan to medicare for all this will just go body part by body part yeah procedure by procedure and piecemeal it until we've got entire coverage for you know for the entire body so anyway i'm sure we'll get to covering all of that next week i actually want to set up um i've been trying for breaking points to set up a abortion debate is saga and i had this debate but we're both pro-choice so it'd be nice to have

two people who are actually pro-life debating you know the trump campaign strategy and whether it's worth sacrificing the yeah like that's a very good idea lila rose isn't that her name who's been going very forcefully on the pro-life side like this is outrageous we need to hold them to account it as lefties I feel a lot of compassion for their position because I feel like we're in the same spot with regard to issues like Gaza and Palestine in there yeah in any case we'll get to the interview now but before we do uh Ryan you guys have a new story that you just broke on Dropsite News which you you guys should all, by the way, go and subscribe and support. Ryan and Jeremy over there, because you're doing phenomenal work. So what do you got? Oh, yeah. So last night, we published this piece about Ecuador this time. From 2007 to 2017,

Ecuador had a social democratic government. They were called the Correistas, run by Rafael Correa. In 2017, it's very complicated, but a U.S. right-wing turn. It was a bit of a coup, bizarre situation. But what we have, and the next four or five years were spent prosecuting Correa and his allies. a judge and also to a member of parliament that we've obtained and reviewed show that she was very specifically targeting her prosecutions at the left and delaying prosecutions of the right in order to hurt the left in election campaigns with, you know, in coordination and in constant contact with the U.S. ambassador in Ecuador. So a lot of the times the U.S. is not carrying out the kind of old military coups that we're used to seeing from the 1970s and 80s, though we still, you know, once in a while might

dip back into that playbook. But in general, it's more of what they call lawfare. And using the public's hostility towards all politicians, the public is fed up with corruption so then you have social democratic reformers coming in and the way to combat them is that it's just drop charges of corruption on them and then the public's like ah they're all the same this is like what was done to lula in brazil for example can't trust anybody exactly and then and then a strong man comes in instead it's exactly what they did with lula threw him in jail for corruption until those were exposed by intercept brazil glenn greenwald

for being politically motivated and we partnered with intercept brazil on these on on this story as well so fantastic new elections coming up um at the beginning of uh next year in ecuador so and already this the story's you know picking up a lot of steam there. So we'll see. So this is the sort of thing that was likely suspected, both the targeting of the left, but also the U S involvement, but you were able to actually get the goods. Right.

Exactly. So people could check it out. Like the, the way that last, last point on this, she was sending the messages using an app called confide, which is popular in Latin America, which as soon as you read the message, it but what the guy was doing kind of a deal he he was filming as he would read

her messages with a second phone and so uh we were able to he got a forensic analysis to prove that like these are this is authentic wow so we have fifteen hundred videos of messages that we had to look through and then translate. Wow. That's unbelievable. You can see the result over at Dropside News dot com. I'm looking forward to checking that out. I'm also looking forward to checking out your next exchange with Matthew Miller or whoever said the State Department. They haven't had a briefing in many weeks, but have they really not? Yeah, I think probably not allowed. You know you know i mean that anyway they need they need a vacation from their hypocrisy just like anybody they can't take it either okay all right let's go ahead and get to uh comrade kamala here coconut kamala and her very first interview this is it is kind of a sudden first interview post biden dropout which

happened back on what july 21st so we're like you know a month and a week post biden dropout, which happened back on what, July 21st. So we're like, you know, a month and a week post-Biden dropout. And we're finally getting her first interview, very strategically timed before the Labor Day weekend, I might add. Let me go ahead and pull this up and we can just start playing it and react. Here we go. Part one. All right. Here it is. President, Governor Walz, thank you so much for sitting down with me and bringing the bus. Bus tour is well underway here in Georgia. You have less time to make your case to voters than any candidate in modern American history. The voters are really eager to hear what your plans are. If you are elected, what would you do on day one in the White House?

Well, there are a number of things. I will tell you, first and foremost, one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. When I look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people, I think that people are ready for a new way forward in a way that generations of Americans have been fueled by hope and by optimism. I think, sadly, in the last decade, we have had in the form of president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans, really dividing our nation. And I think people are ready to turn the page on that.

So what would you do day one? So out of the gates, a very, I mean, the most obvious question, what's your day one agenda? Very vague initial answer here, Ryan. How do you get blindsided by the question, what do you plan to do as president? It reminded me of that. Especially someone who, I mean, I'm sure she's wanted to be president for quite a lot of years

now, you know? It reminded me a lot of, you remember Ted Kennedy's, and I'm just going to pull it up, but people can just Google it, Ted Kennedy's 1980 answer to a similar question, like, why do you want to run for president? No, I do not remember that, Ryan, but I'm sure you do. Ted Kennedy himself had been, he contemplated running for president in 1968 so that's this is 12 years you know after he started at least very publicly thinking he was probably thinking about running for president when he was five years old right yeah you're a kennedy you're raised in 1980 he's asked this question and he flubbed it way worse than harris yeah but he's Yeah, you're a Kennedy. You're raised to do that. presidential campaign and they can watch it for themselves. At least she had an answer, but I'm going to support the middle class. It feels like such a layup. You could say, all right, the first thing I do when I get in there, I'm going to send

a bill to Congress that codifies Roe v. Wade. Yeah. After that, I'm going to send a bill that cuts taxes for the middle class and expands the child tax credit. Whatever. Right. Like things. Yeah.

Like things you're going to do. right specific things that indicate because when we've interviewed presidential candidates this is literally always our first question because it seems to me the you know this is the starting point and it gets at not just what are the laundry list of things that you claim what is your priority because we all know that you're not going to be able to do all of the things that you want to do. So what is the like flagship priority day one? And we get, you know, help the middle class. And by the way, Trump is bad. Now she goes on. Let me pull this back up. Dana actually presses her like, OK, but like, what does that actually mean? And then she goes into some of the specifics that she laid out in a recent economic policy speech. Let's go ahead

and listen to that. But you can kind of tell she's just like, yes, she, for whatever reason, was not, had not really thought of what her day one priority would actually be. So now she's just reaching into the bag of policies she recently talked about. Day one, it's going to be about, one, implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy. I've already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we're going to do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we're going to do to invest in America's small businesses, what we're going to do to invest in families, for example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child's life to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib. There's the work that we're going to do that is about investing in the American family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now. So there are a number of things on day one. So I guess, Brian, the positive, if we're looking for a silver lining here, is something you pointed out, which is that, you know, being an empty vessel is a negative thing in terms of

if you want someone who has like these core commitments or like you're Bernie Sanders, you're going to fight for Medicare for all. We all know you're going to do it. Or even, you know, Barack Obama, we knew health care was going to be a major focus for him as well. The plus side is that this allows you an opportunity as a public to pressure her into what you want to see happen on day one. And you made a point that I thought was interesting,

that there's almost like in some ways a healthier relationship to Kamala Harris because there isn't this cult of personality. It's just like, all right, she'll do. And we've got an agenda that we're interested in. And maybe she'll be willing, especially with the addition of Tim Walz here, to get some pieces of it through. Right. There's nobody on the Democratic side who thinks that they can just

sit back and let Kamala Harris lead them to the promised land, like zero people. Whereas that was an overwhelming feeling among Democrats when it came to Barack Obama. Oh, yeah. And then they were all let down as a result of that. Kamala Harris is not going to let anybody down. So it requires exactly the public to be involved and push her and say, okay, you know what? You don't really have any ideas for what you're going to do on day one, but we do. And here's how we're going to organize and pressure you to do those things. Well, it's also why the choice of tim walls ends up being really important because she can just okay just do his agenda you know like he had a plan and he did a thing and didn't just talk about it but actually was like no i'm gonna figure out how to get these things through so just just do that and that's part of why he felt so

consequential i think to a lot of us when he was chosen, because he didn't just come with, you know, as a person, he's a talented politician and a great background and class diversity and a union member and all of those things. But he has a plan, had an agenda and got it through. So she can just sort of grab that or she could grab the, which there's a lot of overlap here, the pieces of Build Back Better that, you know, that Bernie was pushing that never got pushed through. So that's the that's the hope and the aspiration is that that's the thing that's sort of floating out there in the ether that Kamala Harris, who clearly doesn't really have any thoughts or plans of her own, that she can just pick up on there. But you? Well, I'm excited about this agenda, too, as I said, the idea of inspiring America

to what can be. And I think many of these things that the vice president's proposing are things that we share in values in the child tax credit. It's one we know that reduces childhood poverty by a third. We did it in Minnesota to have a federal partner in this. Unbelievable, I think, in the impact that we can make. Yeah. And there's the Tim Walls, you know, coming in to say, hey, we did this. By the way, here's a he's like, here's an actual policy. Right. Right. There was a lot made by the right of Tim Wallz being part of this interview, which, you know, I mean, on the one hand, I understand because she hasn't done a solo interview. On the other hand, of course, it is traditional, I guess, after the conventions to do a joint interview. The other thing that there's some irony to it to me because some segments of the right have thoroughly convinced themselves that Tim Walz was a horrific vice presidential pick.

There was all kinds of like, oh, he's going to have to drop out any day now. Meanwhile, he has the most the highest favorability rating of anyone, you know, of the four presidential and vice presidential candidates by far. And so they kind of flipped on a dime from he's such a catastrophe, he's going to have to drop out to he's such a tremendous asset that she can't even do an interview without having him by her side. Right. It can't be both things. But I think, yeah, she made, this is a problem of her own making. It doesn't look weird to have them both together if she's also doing lots of other interviews. Right. Yeah. She hasn't done an interview practically since like that Lester Holt debacle. So yeah, that's true. That's true.

All right. Let's see where we go from here. Talk about you call it the opportunity economy. You are well aware that right now many Americans are struggling. There's a crisis of affordability. One of your campaign themes is we're not going back. But I wonder what you say to voters who do want to go back when it comes to the economy mean, literally, we were all tracking the numbers. Hundreds of people a day were dying because of COVID. The economy had crashed. In large part,

all of that because of mismanagement by Donald Trump of that crisis. When we came in, our highest priority was to do what we could to rescue America. And today, we know that we have inflation at under 3%. A lot of our policies have led to the reality that America recovered faster than any wealthy nation around the world. But you are right. Prices, in particular for groceries, are still too high. The American people know it. I know it.

Which is why my agenda includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries. For example, dealing with an issue like price gouging. What we need to do to extend the child tax credit to help young families be able to take care of their children in their most formative years. What we need to do to bring down the cost of housing. My proposal includes what would be a tax credit of $25,000 for first-time homebuyers, so they can just have enough to put a down payment on a home, which is part of the American dream and their aspiration, but do it in a way that allows them to actually get on the path to achieving that goal and that dream. So you have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you're

talking about now, why haven't you done them already? Well, first of all, we had to recover as an economy and we have done that. I'm very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%. The work that we have done to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors. Donald Trump said he was going to do a number of things, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Never happened. We did it. So now, as I travel in the state of Georgia and around our country, the number of seniors that have benefited, I've met, I was in Nevada recently, a grandmother who showed me her receipts. And before, we kept the cost of insulin for seniors at $35 a month. She was paying hundreds

of dollars, up to thousands of dollars a month for her insulin. She's not doing that anymore. You maintain Bidenomics. So that part where, you know, what the answer to what do you say to people who actually are like, no, actually, I do want to go back to the economy under Donald Trump. The answer she gave there could have subbed in nicely for the day one answer. This one, she was clearly she was prepared for right she had gone over whatever they wanted to say here and i thought she handled that quite well in the same respect it shows you you know she's not like like i said that answer could have been great for the day one answer she's not nimble enough on her feet to if it wasn't specifically in the briefing book for the answer to that question she's not able to like pull it over in real time to insert it into the day one question. Right. Yeah, that was right. Exactly. So

if she has prepared for an answer, she can deliver a good answer. And I thought she delivered that one quite well. Right. Yes. And she's had some debate moments where she clearly had like prepped like I was the kid on that bus or whatever. And hit those marks quite well so she can do that and that is you know prosecutors are probably that's what you're trained to do like all right here here are the here's the evidence we've got against this defendant here's how we're going to lay it lay it out and you deliver it well thinking on her feet and which requires you to have some ideas about exactly what you're going to do. That's her challenge because she's kind of just reaching for things. That's a great point because it's one thing to memorize the bullet points that someone else has given you. It makes

it much easier in these situations to be extemporaneous. If you yourself have an agenda, a plan in mind, core values, things you want to articulate. And, you know, I think that's always been the challenge for her. The first debate back in 2020 when she did the whole that little girl was me thing. I mean, now it's like curdled into being rather cringe. And they immediately started selling like mugs and T-shirts that kind of forced it to become immediately cringe she was fantastic in that debate and not just in that moment which did land at the time but throughout the debate i thought she was the the best performer on stage but part of why is because she was fairly low in the polls going into that and she wasn't taking a lot of incoming so she was able to pick her spots based on where

she was prepared and she was able to occupy more of that sort of prosecutorial position of i'm going to challenge you with these things that i've already prepared and already thought through and that's when she's at that's certainly when she's at her strongest and when she feels her greatest comfort or you know a lot was made of the way she was in some of the senate confirmation hearings with uh what was it brett kavanaugh, where she people really liked how she performed a similar deal right there. You prepare your staff, you and your staff, you prepare, you know what your line of questioning is and you can go in. So but in any case, the one other thing I wanted to note about this, this answer before we keep playing it is she has a lot. She she's been unburdened in a lot of ways by the fact that people are unhappy with the Biden economic legacy.

They don't blame her for it. It's amazing. Actually, she is now basically tying in some in some instances exceeding Donald Trump in terms of who would be best on the economy. And I think part of the reason for that is, number one, I think just the fact that she's younger and so there's more confidence she could actually do some stuff or at least communicate some stuff. Number two, she genuinely was sidelined in the Biden administration. So people aren't wrong to be like, oh, this lady had nothing to do with any of this. I think that's actually kind of accurate. And number three, she's able to more comfortably make the commentary she just did, which is like, listen, things were challenging. We did great work.

We got a lot done, but we know people are in pain and there's a lot more that needs to be done. That piece of being able to really empathize with people and where they are right now, and especially the concerns over pricing, is something that she is more free to do than Joe Biden was. And of course, Joe Biden was not able really effectively to communicate about anything at this point outside of like NATO and AUKUS. Oh, and one quick thing on that.

Yeah. And our Trump supporting viewers, and we love our Trump supporting viewers, are going to pick up on her $35 insulin thing there. There's become a meme that actually Trump did that. And just the basic facts of this are Trump in mid 2020 did an executive order that that basically encouraged pharmaceutical companies or who were dealing with Medicare to keep to lower it down to $35 a month. It did lower prices for, you know, at least probably some millions of seniors on Medicare. Good for Trump for doing that executive order. Two thumbs up for him. Biden did it through the Inflation Reduction Act and made it mandatory for everybody,

not just some seniors who voluntarily got a benefit from it. So that's the difference between what they're talking about here. Do you want to assign her any Pinocchios or anything like that? No, the way she said it there was actually totally accurate. Yeah. And I just saw some polling. I can't remember. I think it was like Progressive Pollster, but who polled all of her agenda items and lowering the cost of prescription drugs and specifically insulin was like the number one most popular thing. So no surprise that she- They deserve credit for that. They took on big pharma, like they legitimately did.

That's right. So no surprise that she that she emphasizes that here is a success. I maintain that when we do the work of bringing down prescription medication for the American people, including capping the cost of the annual cost of prescription medication for seniors at two thousand dollars. When we do what we did in the first year of being in office to extend the child tax credit so that we cut child poverty in America by over 50 percent. When we do what we have done to invest in the American people and bringing manufacturing back to the United States so that we created over 800000 new manufacturing jobs, bringing business back to America, what we have done to improve the supply chain. So we're not relying on foreign governments to supply American families with their basic needs. I'll say that that's good work. There's more to do, but that's good work. So Ryan, before we go to the next question, any thoughts on that piece you got asked about? Like, well, did you think the Bidenomics was good? Because, you know, Bidenomics has become sort of a toxic brand just because of how unpopular, frankly, Joe Biden himself is. Yeah, they roll through that stuff again, like that. That's all great stuff. Now,

the flip side of having cut child poverty in half is that when they let it expire, they doubled child poverty again. So, you know, no credit for that. But yes, that agenda that was enacted in 2021 and into 2022, that was a old school European social welfare state that I think the country would love to see brought back permanently. Yeah. And if you look at the approval rating, actually, of Joe Biden, he was at his most popular when he was doing that social democratic welfare state type of legislation when people were benefiting from COVID supports of a wide variety, including the child tax credit. And it's both when a lot of the story of the Biden administration is those things being cut piece by piece by piece. You couple that with

inflation. And then another pivot point, unfortunately, in the Biden administration was when he did the right thing, which are from Afghanistan. His approval rating takes a massive hit because of the overwhelming media onslaught and punishment of him for doing what the American people have asked presidents to do now for years at this point. And then his decline and inability to really defend himself or articulate what he's up to or what the agenda is or why people should believe in it. And you lead to the abysmal approval rating, abysmal assessment of Bidenomics, et cetera, that we see today. I think it's some clarity on where you stand on some key policy issues. Energy is a big one. When you were in Congress, you supported the Green New Deal. And in 2019, you said, quote,

there is no question I'm in favor of banning fracking. Fracking, as you know, is a pretty big issue, particularly in your must-win state of Pennsylvania. Do you still want to ban fracking? No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020 that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking. In 2019, I believe, at a town hall, you said, you were asked, would you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking on your first day in office? And you said, there's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking. So, yes.

So it changed in that campaign? In 2020, I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024 and I've not changed that position or will I going forward. I kept my word and I will keep my word. What made you change that position at the time? Well, let's be clear. My values have not changed. I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against

what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate. And to do that, we can do what we have accomplished thus far, the Inflation Reduction Act, what we have done to invest, by my calculation, over probably a trillion dollars over the next 10 years, investing in a clean energy economy, what we've already done, creating over 300,000 new clean energy jobs. That tells me, from my experience as vice president, we can do it without banning fracking. In fact, Dana, Dana, excuse me, I cast the tie-breaking vote that actually increased leases for fracking as vice president. So I'm very clear about where I stand. And was there some policy or scientific data that you saw that you said, oh, okay, I get it now. What I have seen is that we can we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.

So there you go. That's part one. There's three parts here that we want to get through. But what do you make of that fracking exchange? It's pretty slippery. It's pretty slippery. It's just it's just tough because the honest answer is I was pandering to the Sunrise Movement and the youth vote trying to win the Democratic nomination for president in a period where the left was ascendant. I failed at that. And now I'm doing a different political thing. Right. So I think if you're not going to be honest about it, like the best approach would be, you know know if you had to really clearly they workshopped like all right how do we answer this and not sound like complete frauds to say okay look at the time i

thought you needed to ban fracking in order to confront climate change but now i think you can actually confront climate change without banning fracking now that's a lie it's not blah blah blah but like i guess that's the best you can come up with i don't know how would how if you were kamala har Harris without saying, I was lying because I was pandering to youth voters. Like, how would you? I mean, I guess you could frame pandering in a positive light of like, I'm responding to what voters want, right?

And at the time, voters were saying, we want you to ban fracking. Sorry, the dog is in here now. She's moving everything um but uh you know so you could frame pandering as like being responsive to the will of voters but no i think that saying my values are the same but you know i have new information i realize that we can now do this without banning fracking i think probably is the best that you can do and i mean it's fair to say that there... My value is that I would like to win the election. And that hasn't changed. True.

That's true. I mean, I think she could fairly claim that technological developments are changing when it's possible, blah, blah, blah. But the part that to me came off as the most weaselly is when she said something like, you know, in 2020, I stood on the stage and said, I would not ban fracking or something like that.

And Deanna immediately was like, yeah, but three minutes before that, you were saying the polar opposite, which is kind of the point here. So there's no real wiggling out of this. And she comes back because this is not the only position that she's changed. She ran as Bernie in 2019. Yeah, for a while. And then also, you you know she starts off supporting medicare for all because she thinks that's the thing then she gets donor pushback then she moved off of that even at the time so um so in any case yeah right her argument was i flip-flopped on this four years ago right yeah i have a long flip-flopped on i moved off this a

long time ago why are you still talking to me about it um now i think one other thing that i'll say is there is a lot of justified criticism of comal harris just very clearly shifting her positions depending on what she thinks is advantageous we were talking about trump earlier on abortion like he does the same thing even perhaps even more shamelessly because he is there a position on abortion that he hasn't held at this point? Right. Not yet. You know,

from Planned Parenthood supporter to saying that he's so pro-life that women should be criminally punished if they have an abortion to now being, you know, kind of going, coming back to the pro-choice side of things. Like he literally shapeshifts even sometimes within the same conversation, but he's just much more difficult to kind of pin down on those things so people people don't this isn't the line of attack that they take against trump

that he's a flip-flopper for whatever reason i'm not really sure why that is but they don't think that they would be able to really nail him with that charge right right yeah nobody thinks he has convictions true yeah so they're not expecting it. Yeah, true. All right. Let me pull up part two here. Here we go. Okay. Oh, by the way, I just want to mention, I have this on 1.25 speed just to not, you know, make people think that I'm manipulating the video or whatever, just to get through it

a little bit quicker. As vice president, you were tasked with addressing the root causes of migration in southern countries and the northern part of Central America that deals with that affects the southern border of the U.S. During the Biden-Harris administration, there were record numbers of illegal border crossings. Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions? Well, first of all, the root causes work that I did as vice president that I was asked to do by the president has actually resulted in a number of benefits, including historic investments by American businesses in that region. The number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced since we began that work. But I will say this, that Joe Biden and I and our administration worked with members of the United States Congress on an immigration issue that is very significant

to the American people and to our security, which is the border. And through bipartisan work, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Congress, a bill was crafted, which we supported, which I support, and Donald Trump got word of this bill that would have contributed to securing our border. And because he believes that it would not have helped him politically, he told his folks in Congress, don't put it forward. He killed the bill. A border security bill that would have put 1,500 more agents on the border. And let me tell you something, the border patrol endorsed the bill. And I'm sure in large part because they knew they were working around the clock and 1,500 more agents would help them. That bill would have allowed us to increase seizures of

fentanyl. Ask any community in America that has been devastated by fentanyl, what passing that bill would have done to address their concern and pain that they've experienced. So you would push that legislation again? I just want to push it. I will make sure that it comes to my desk and I would sign it. Just one other question about something that you said in 2019. I don't know if I've talked to you, Ryan, about this whole Democrats think that we're so clever with this whole we're going to adopt the Trump border agenda and then, you know, try to get Republicans to pass it and then do this. Gotcha.

Aha. See, we did a jujitsu move. And actually, we're the real border hawks and we're the ones that really want to do the fascism on the border. I think that this is both immoral and the wrong policy. But I also think and it's the critical part is it decoupled what has long been the path of having comprehensive immigration reform, path to citizenship and the, you know, the border sort of crackdown measures, and they just took out the border crackdown measures and just try to pass that. They thought this was a brilliant jujitsu move. Meanwhile, I'm sure you saw this poll, Sagar and I talked about it on the show. Because Democrats have accepted the Republican framing on immigration, and also because of the reality of high number of border crossings and, you know, migrants being bused into blue cities, et cetera. Higher immigration has never been more unpopular and decreasing immigration has never been more popular. So basically under Trump,

actually immigrants were more popular than ever before. And now under Biden, they are, you know, at a low in terms of support for increasing levels of migration. I really owe it to this political philosophy, which I think is utterly foolish outside of, again, I think immoral wrong in terms of what would actually be good for the country, etc. And we already have multiple experiments of this being tried in Europe, all the center-left European parties, when there was a migration surge over the last 10 years in Europe, swung far right to try to say that they were just as tough on immigrants as the right wing,

but they were going to be more humane and liberal and reasonable about it. And they all were obliterated. There's basically no center-left left in Europe. Or you can think about the clip of, well, I guess we didn't play the Trump clip, but of Trump talking about abortion rights with this Florida reporter.

So now he's pro-choice. He's going to vote against the constitutional amendment. You know, he's going to vote for basically, you know, allowing abortion in Florida all the way up to whatever. Yeah, it's like, it's basically codifying allowing abortion in Florida all the way up to liability. Yeah. It's like it's basically codifying Roe in Florida effectively. So first of all, does anybody believe as a result of Trump saying that that Republicans are good on abortion rights?

Like nobody believes that. Yeah. And you're literally the guy who put these justices on the bench. So in the same way, does anybody believe that democrats are the ones like if you really want somebody who's going to crack down on the border of course who's it going to be democrats republicans of course but what will trump's capitulation on abortion rights due to the polling there'll be some trump supporters who are like you know what like you said that that florida amendment now will probably pass in like massively like with bigger numbers

than it would have otherwise and so in this and and you see the flip side on immigration the numbers moving people are like all right well if democrats are for this and republicans are for this let's do it if you but you know in your debate with saga you guys talked about how there's a correlation between you know illegal crossings and people's anger at immigration and the desire to reduce those crossings. So what you could do is actually do what Kamala was talking about, which is root causes. It's true that in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador,

where she was tasked with reducing outflow, there has been a reduction in outflow. It doesn't have a lot to do with what the U.S. did. A lot of Bukele in Honduras, you had a social democratic in Xiomara Castro come in who made things a little bit better. But a lot of the migrants are coming from Haiti, Venezuela, and Cuba.

And they're all coming as a result of U.S. policies. So we could, like, if Democrats actually want to do something about it, rather than trying to act like Republicans, they could actually just stop sanctioning Venezuela, stop messing with and destroying Haiti, and stop sanctioning and destroying Cuba, and boom. Like, something, some massive portion of the migration flow into the border stops cold. People would prefer to stay where they are.

Yes, that's right. We flatter ourselves. Thinking the whole world wants to come here. Thinking that everybody wants to come here. That's not right. Like if you live in Venezuela or Cuba, you want to stay there. The other thing is we are in a different place economically than we were like when Trump was first running in 2016. And if you take him seriously about literally deporting all 12, 15 million, however many undocumented immigrants that we have here, the level of economic catastrophe that would be is basically unfathomable.

I mean, we have a low unemployment rate. Now, the wages aren't high enough. There's a lot of problems in the labor market, but it, we have a low unemployment rate. Now, the wages aren't high enough. There's a lot of problems in the labor market, but it's actually not a high unemployment rate. There isn't a massive, you know, unemployed group of laborers out there waiting to, you know, pick the strawberries in the field or lay the roofing in the construction or help build the houses that we desperately need to build in this country that's exactly right i mean if you just look at the instead the most salient issue that people tell us over and over again is their biggest economic concern is prices if if you genuinely kicked out of the country all 15 million of those workers or whatever the number is

the the amount that the prices of all of your grocery items and of every new house, the amount that would skyrocket is literally insane. Not to mention, you know, the massive cost to the state of and what an incredible imposition. You know, I'm not talking about the deep state

or the police state or whatever. Like it's unfathomable how you would have to crack down and surveil and militarize this response to round all of these people up many of whom have been here for many years etc like if you actually take it at face value from an economic perspective it's utterly insane um but you know again no one is making that argument no one so of course the public is like oh well the democrats and the republicans agree so they i guess they're right i guess we just need to do this border crackdown

and that's that and these immigrants are just net net bad in every single way which of course is not the reality of you know that the immigrant population both legal and uh illegal that we have in this country at this point yeah all right let's see what we got next when you first ran there was a debate you raised your hand when when asked whether or not the border should be decriminalized. Do you still believe that? I believe there should be consequence. We have laws that have to be followed and enforced that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally. And there should be consequence. And let's be clear in this race. I'm the only person who has prosecuted

transnational criminal organizations who are trafficking guns, drugs, and human beings. I'm the only person in this race who actually served a border state as Attorney General to enforce our laws. And I would enforce our laws as President going forward. I recognize the problem. Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you've made, that you've explained some of here in your policy? Is it because you have more experience now and you've learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you're saying now is going to be your

policy moving forward? Dana, I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed. You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed, and I've worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time. We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension the globe around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as an example. That value has not

changed. My value around what we need to do to secure our border, that value has not changed. I spent two terms as the Attorney General of California prosecuting transnational criminal organizations, violations of American laws regarding the passage, illegal passage of guns, drugs, and human beings across our border. My values have not changed. So that is the reality of it. And four years of being vice president, I'll tell you, one of the aspects to your point is traveling the country extensively. I mean, I'm here in Georgia. I think somebody told me 17 times since I've been vice president in Georgia alone, I believe it is important to build consensus. And it is important to find a common place of understanding of where we can actually solve problems. On that note. Any reflections on that part? First of all,

her favorite phraseology at this point is transnational criminal gangs. She tries to say that as much as she possibly can. Yeah, it's the same problem that she has with all of the other, you know, left-wing positions that she took in 2019, 2020. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same, like, how do you say, like, it's, I'm just, I was pandering then, I'm pandering, like, it's, there's no good answer. You just flip-flopped.

You're trying to win elections. Yeah. You just got to stick to the script and hope that the questioner moves on ultimately. You had a lot of Republican speakers at the convention. Will you appoint a Republican to your cabinet? Yes, I would. Anyone in mind? No one in particular in mind. I got 68 days to go with this election, so I'm not putting the cart before the horse, but I would. I think it's really important. I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it's important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the

benefit of the American public to have a member of my cabinet who was a Republican. What did you think of that, Ryan? Because there was a lot of online commentary on the left about this comment because everyone immediately is like wait a minute you can have a republican in your cabinet uh but you can't even have a palestinian give a two-minute vetted speech on stage at the dnc where they're supporting you so that i think that part punched a lot of people in the face but in general like you know obama had ray la hood as his transportation secretary this like moderate uh republican and you know he did fine as a transportation secretary it's like yeah you can you can find a republican who's gonna there's also now like so many cabinet positions they've elevated a whole bunch of things to quote quote unquote

cabinet level positions that you can you can harmlessly toss one of those to a republican if it um you know if you think there's some political benefit and you're going to win over the bill crystals and other never trump republicans yeah yeah i mean i do think like even though we may discount it there are a lot of like you know moderate suburban formerly republican whatever who see that hear this and like oh she's you know the party should get along it's a thing that you hear from normies yeah yeah exactly right yeah i mean i sort of felt the same i felt all of those emotions because the point about like oh you know all they ever do is reach out to republicans and punch the left right and um and for the beginning of the harris campaign which is now

all of like a month old um you didn't see a lot of that. I mean, the choice of Tim Walls was the most dramatic break from that pattern. I just assumed like, oh, progressives want this guy, the left wants this guy, there's no way it's going to be Tim Walls. And then that comes as a major shock. At the convention, and in this interview, you get the sense that those old Democratic Party patterns are taking hold. And it's almost like, you know, there's the classic political theory of like, oh, in the primary, they, you know, they dance this way. And then the general election, they, they go back the other way, the like primary general election two step. And I guess that's happening here. It's just in a very condensed timeline, since there wasn't, you know, really, there wasn't a primary at all. And so she went from two weeks

of being relatively benevolent towards the left to now doing the normal Democratic general election. I'm going to get a Republican in my cabinet thing. I will say some people online were floating like, hey, why don't you pick like Susan Collins, for example, or like another Republican senator in a state that a Democrat could win or that has a democratic governor that appoints the the senator etc etc so i don't on its face i don't hate having the idea of having a moderate republican in especially if it kind of gives you cover to do something that's meaningless as a gesture to the right but then have an agenda that's actually like populist in the way that the agenda she has announced is populist and does represent, you know, some of the better parts of the,

of the Biden administration. Yeah. I want to ask you about your opponent, Donald Trump. I was a little bit surprised. People might be surprised to hear that you have never interacted with him, met him face to face. That's going to change soon.

But what I want to ask you, have you met Trump face to face, Ryan? Been in rooms, but not, no, not really. So I actually, I actually, this was the part I didn't know she'd never met him. I actually, back, okay, the White House Correspondents Dinner after the one where Obama humiliated him, I was doing like a red carpet interview thing for MSNBC and him and Melania came.

And this was back when he was teasing that he might run, but it hadn actually and no one was taking him seriously right everyone's like okay yeah whatever this is just a stunt to um help you with your apprentice brand which may have been true by the way anyway um so yeah I asked him the question I asked like hey what happened with those private investigators down in Hawaii that you were sending to look at Obama's birth certificate. And he was like, that was that's the wrong question, Crystal. That's the wrong question. I was at that dinner, too. My table was actually really close to his. I was just watching him the whole time and his face was just boiling. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, funny that she's never met him face to face about is what he said last month. He suggested that you happened to turn black recently for political purposes,

questioning a core part of your identity. Any same old tired playbook. Next question, please. That's it? That's it. Okay. Great answer. Best part of the interview, in my opinion.

Like, learned a lot from the failures of the Hillary Clinton campaign. This is exactly and so different from how Democrats have handled Trump the entire time, which would any other moment this would have launched into some long moralizing tirade about it. And this would have been a multi week news cycle. And instead, because of the way she handled it at the time which was also very dismissive like this everybody just moved on and it didn't work it didn't work yeah makes him look weird and like a loser yeah exactly and they're just like okay whatever moving on um yeah this is this is exactly

and uh just an overall note dan i think at one point we'll get to it asked her specifically about her identity but very different from the Hillary Clinton campaign she really does have the idea that the sense of like you look people can see I'm a black woman like I don't need to talk about it you know the trailblazing status or it's that's obvious and it's not what people care about and sort of narcissistic to always constantly be leaning into like what this means for me personally on my journey of self-discovery and, you know, and ambition. So I think they've been very that's been one of the smarter aspects of this campaign. Yeah. Let's talk about some foreign policy issues that would be on your

plate if you become commander in chief. President Biden has tried unsuccessfully to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He's been doing it for months and months along with you. Would you do anything differently? For example, would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel? That's what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do. Let me be very clear. I'm unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel's defense and its ability to defend itself. And that's not going to change. But let's take a step back. October 7, 1,200 people were massacred. Many young people who were simply attending a music festival. Women were horribly raped. As I said then, I say today, Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters.

Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And we have got to get a deal done. We were in Doha. We have to get a deal done. This war must end. And we must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out. I've met with the families of the American hostages. Let's get the hostages out. Let's get the ceasefire done the American hostages. Let's get the hostages out.

Let's get the ceasefire done. But no change of policy in terms of arms and so forth? No, we have to get a deal done. Dana, we have to get a deal done. When you look at the significance of this to the families, to the people who are living in that region, a deal is not only the right thing to do to end this war, but will unlock so much of what must happen next. I remain committed since I've been on October 8th to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution where Israel is secure and in equal measure, the Palestinians have security and self-determination and dignity. Your thoughts, Ryan? dignity your thoughts ryan well dana said some weapons i know maybe harris didn't even pick up on that yeah she didn't say like completely weapon you know some weapons like the biden administration has even said that they would restrict some weapons like the 2 000 pound bombs

used for offensive purposes uh it seems like harris people keep saying that Harris is better rhetorically and more empathetic. Where's the empathy there? When you're actually not even standing by the tiniest of concessions that the Biden administration, her administration has made, it seems like she very clearly wants to just say she unequivocally, unconditionally, whatever, supports Israel's right to defend itself. Whereas even Biden would say, well, maybe the 2,000-pound bombs dropped on refugee camps, we're not going to allow that. Or at least we won't allow it for like a two-week pause period. Well, that's such a great point that she could have really leaned into i mean it's

kind of bullshit because they ultimately release those weapons whatever right and have given israel ultimately everything israel could possibly want and more but it is enough of a fig leaf to allow her to create some sense of separation at least from the Biden administration, by leaning into that. Listen, we did this with the Biden, you know, with Joe Biden. We said this is unacceptable and we did withhold it. And I would do, I would keep that option on the table.

You know, so there was a way to say this with, you know, there's such concern on this one issue. There's such concern about a clear break with the Biden policy. There's no concern on that and on literally any other issue.

But she clearly feels like or, you know, also maybe just ideologically believes or feels that that's less likely because I don't think she has ideological beliefs, but she feels this is where the pressure is as she needs to prove how committed to Israel she is. And she doesn't feel as much pressure from the left for whatever reason, whatever political calculus she's doing, which, by the way, I think is foolish when you look just look at the polls. But yeah, on this one issue, she feels like, oh, I have to just stay lockstep with the Biden administration, not show any sort of, you know, distance. And I think that's kind of I think that's an excuse. Like, I think that's what I see people making that excuse for. I think that's kind of a bullshit excuse.

And when Dana Bash says that this is what the progressive left wants you to do, it's true that the progressive left wants you to do that, but so does more than 60% of the country. Yes, that's right. That's exactly right. Approval for Biden's Israel policy is in the 20s. It's like he's less popular on his Israel policy than he is on his approach to inflation and immigration.

That's right. That's exactly right. And breaking with him would be a political benefit. And then she leans in to this, the mass rape claim, because she understands that there's absolutely no consequences, you know, for saying that, despite the fact that there is not yet evidence of that being the case. Right. In fact, Israel is so desperate to produce some evidence.

I don't know if you saw this last week. I did, yeah. This Facebook group produced a letter that we now have confirmed is a complete hoax, making up the most horrific things. And it spent a week getting shared by prominent journalists, and then the admission that it was actually a hoax was just quietly announced. It just gets buried. Yeah.

And meanwhile, on the contrary, we have seen on camera IDF soldiers gang raping a Palestinian prisoner. Right. And that somehow— And dozens of cases confirmed confirmed by human rights human rights organization yeah so and so we have lots of documented evidence of systematized sexual assault of palestinians who are being held in this you know prison concentration camp um so bad that even the israelis felt like oh we to at least pretend like we might prosecute some of these guys and then come under massive pressure and huge backlash from their own

citizenry. But yeah, that somehow never gets mentioned. So I had a question for you specifically because you've done so much work reporting on the political incentives and shaping of you know the israel palestine um conflict in this war specifically my hope for kamala harris was kind of the hope of like this is just a political cipher like she doesn't believe anything biden is an ideological zionist you are not moving him off that position period end of story my hope was that she would look at the polling that you mentioned like hey you know this isn't just the progressive left. A clear majority of the country, including a very clear majority of independents, Republicans are the only one opposed to this,

and they're not voting for you anyway, so don't worry about them. They want a ceasefire, but they want to see weapons. They don't want their taxpayer dollars going to drop bombs on children who are in tents in refugee camps. They don't want that. And there's been a lot of polling at this point about how just pure,

cynical electoral calculus, you stand more, you have more to gain from taking the position of the quote-unquote progressive left than continuing to do this whole Israel has a right to defend themselves no matter what, and yes, they can do a genocide, and yes, they can drop the bombs on the babies in the tents and have a polio epidemic and whatever endlessly and i'll never do anything about it that was my hope but it doesn't seem like she's making that calculus it seems like she feels the pressure she feels is the pressure that democrats and republicans but democrats in particular have felt from time immemorial that they can't piss off the Israel lobby or the people for whom

this is a diehard commitment to the end of time. Yeah, I think part of it is that ingrained fear of decades of that commitment to the pro-Israel lobby. And then I think also my guess is that the campaign is nervous about what's going to happen on college campuses between now and the election. And they think that she's not helping things with these kind of comments no right that's an interesting point yes she she will make things worse like the way to end these campus protests is to get a ceasefire deal and just force it like the Like the Israeli government already put forward a proposal that Hamas accepted. Just implement it.

Just do that. Like you could do that. You're the United States of America, most powerful empire in world history. Not doing that is going to inflame campus protests for the next two months. And I think that they don't want to be at all associated with those campus protests. Not to mention, the longer this goes on, the more likely you are to have a larger regional war. That means that not only are you going to be hobbled politically

in terms of getting yourself elected right now, but your whole presidency is going to be hamstrung by being tied once again into an unpopular war in the Middle East and whatever thoughts you know, thoughts you may potentially theoretically have about a child tax credit, et cetera, like all of that is going to be undercut. If you are boxed in in the way that Bibi wants to box you, first, he wants you to lose. Okay. He's doing his best to make sure that that happens. And if by some, you know, chance you are able to win in spite of his efforts um he wants to box you in

so you have no exit and it's you know dramatically politically unpopular for you to leave at that point so yeah um yeah i mean they're they have fallen into his traps every step of the way and i didn't expect her to have any like moral qualms i thought it would all be ambition driven but she seems to be engaging in the same like outdated, foolish political calculus that leads her into the same, you know, foolish bear hug position of Joe Biden. And that is deeply, deeply disappointing. Yeah. All right. Got the part three here. Last piece. Let me go ahead and pull this up. Here we go. Country is just starting to get to know you. I want to ask you a question

about how you've described your service in the National Guard. You said that you carried weapons in war, but you have never deployed actually in a war zone. An official said that you misspoke. Did you? Well, first of all, I'm incredibly proud. I've done 24 years of wearing uniform in this country. Equally proud of my service in a public school classroom, whether it's Congress or the governor. My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming here to know me. I speak like they do. I speak candidly. I wear my emotions on my sleeves.

And I speak especially passionately about our children being shot in schools and around guns. So I think people know me. They know who I am. They know where my heart is. And again, my record has been out there for over 40 years to speak for itself. And the idea that you said that you were in war. did you misspeak, as the campaign has said? Yeah, I said we were talking about, in this case, this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war. And my wife, the English she told my grandma, is not always correct.

But again, if it's not this, it's an attack on my children for showing love for me, or it's an attack on my dog. I'm not going to do that. And the one thing I'll never do is I'll never demean another member's service in any way. I never have, and I never will. What do that. And the one thing I'll never do is I'll never demean another member's service in any way. I never have. And I never will. What do you think, Ryan? He forgot in the first answer to contextualize it. And Dana kind of like helps him out with the follow up answer. His quote where he said he carried weapons in war was in this congressional debate about an assault weapon ban in the wake of a school shooting. So he was indeed talking about weapons of war the way he said it was quite misleading. He said, I've

carried weapons in war. But he should have contextualized what the debate was first. I also think he should just let people know what the argument is about because so many people are not following it. He deployed as part of Operation enduring freedom to europe like where turkey or i think it was italy italy so he deployed as part of oef and it is understandable he could say it's understandable that people who are not in the military hear me say that i deployed as part of OEF think that the deployment was either in Afghanistan or Iraq, but it was not. And people who are in the military understand that there are lots of kinds of deployments that do not involve, you know, seeing combat or being in a war zone. So I don't know. What did you make of it? So I think I agree more with your first point than your second point. I think probably the best way to respond to this is to immediately shift from, you know, clearly he misspoke, whether it was intentionally misleading or, you know, or just a true slip of the tongue.

Hard to say. People aren't likely to, you know, trust politicians at their word with this stuff. But to immediately shift the frame to, well, let's talk about what I was talking about, though. Because I was talking about our kids having to go to school and do lockdown drills, which our kids are all back in school. Mine have already done their lockdown drills. I hate those drills. Those drills are not helpful. And my seven-year-old is coming home and asking me questions about it

and sort of freaked out. It is a horrible state of affairs that this is the reality in america and as a public school teacher no one would be better positioned to really speak to that horror and immediately shift the frame so i think i think it would be fine for him to just be like yeah i just slip of the tongue i misspoke but let me tell you what the real issue is here and then move on because the minute you get in the weeds about like well my rank was technically this but then i didn't fill out the paperwork and then it's that and then yes it was an operation then you're playing into their you

know what they want you to be talking about um the other thing that i would say is you when he immediately goes you know if it wasn't this it'd know, if it wasn't this, it'd be my kid being, you know, expressing love. It'd be the attack at my dog. I don't know if you guys saw this, but there was this whole, like, online conspiracy about how he was lying about it.

It was insane. It was so ridiculous. And the right has given him that out because they have been, they do have Tim Wall's derangement syndrome and they have attacked him for some of the most ridiculous things. So if this, you know, attack on him, quote unquote, misrepresenting his military service, if this was going to stick, they needed to stay in this lane rather than now trying to dig up like the most absurd minor.

There was that story about, oh, he said he got an award from the chamber of commerce but actually it was the junior chamber of commerce gotcha so they kind of you know back themselves into a corner by having tim wallace derangement syndrome and attacking him for his kid and his dog and getting whether it was the chamber of commerce or the junior chamber of commerce wrong or having a rally sign that was like you know didn't have all the context of his service in Operation Enduring Freedom or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Just one other question, because again, this is all new. This was not however many days ago. This was not on either of your bingo cards, especially yours. You had to clarify that you had said that you and your wife used IVF, but it turned out you used a different kind of fertility in order to have children.

And then when you ran for Congress in 2006, your campaign repeatedly made false statements about a 1995 arrest for drunk and reckless driving. What do you say to voters who aren't sure whether they can take you at your word? Well, I've been very public. I think they can see my students come out, former folks I've served with, and they vouch for me. I certainly own my mistakes when I make them. The one thing I'll tell you is I wished in this country we wouldn't have to do this. I spoke about our infertility issues because it's hell, and families know this. And I spoke about the treatments that were available to us that had those beautiful children there. That's quite a contrast in folks that are trying to take those rights away from us.

And so I think people know who I am. They know that record. They've seen that. I've taught thousands of students. I've been out there. And I won't apologize for peaking passionately, whether it's guns in schools or protecting reproductive rights. The contrast could not be clearer between what we're running against the vice president's position on this has been clear. And I think most Americans get it if you've been through that. I don't think they're cutting hairs on IVF or IUI. I think they're cutting hairs on as an abortion ban and the ability to be able to deny families the chance to have a beautiful child. See, that I think is handled as well as you can. And to say, you know, I own my

mistakes, but, you know, here's the point. Let me take it back to the political issue. Because he got, correct me on, I don't know quite the details. They got some fertility treatment, but it wasn't IVF? It wasn't technically IVF. Yeah. So, in any case. Yeah. Which, again, I think if... I think his point, the depth of the pain and anxiety associated with it is equivalent, probably, is what he's saying.

And I think that's fair. Exactly. is what he's saying and i think that's fair exactly and and like i said just you know shifting it from him and what he said to the issue itself which is clearly a strong one for democrats as evidenced by donald trump himself sort of freaking out about it um i think it's probably the best way that you that you talk about that vice president harris you were a very strong i also just wanted to mention i don't know if you notice kamala's face like looking at him while he's speaking but she loves this guy. She clearly has a lot of affection for him. It's very clear. It's like a proud mom looking at him while he's talking. Defender of President Biden's capacity to serve another four years right after

the debate, you insisted that President Biden is extraordinarily strong. Given where we are now, do you have any regrets about what you told the American people? No, not at all. Not at all. I have served with President Biden for almost four years now, and I'll tell you, it's one of the greatest honors of my career, truly. He cares so deeply about the American people. He is so smart and loyal to the American people. And I have spent hours upon hours with him be it in the oval office or the situation room he has the intelligence the commitment and the judgment and disposition that i think the american people rightly deserve in their president by contrast the former president has none of that and so um, one, I am so proud to have served as vice president to Joe Biden. And two, I'm so proud to be running with Tim Walz for president

of the United States and to bring America what I believe the American people deserve, which is a new way forward and turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies. So she pivots there from, you know, do you love Joe Biden? Yes, I love Joe Biden, too. But let's talk about Donald Trump. You know, let's let me let me get off this whole Joe Biden situation as quick as I can and talk about this guy that we're going up against now. It's how the whole country feels. So it's kind of an easy one. That's what she's betting on, too, is, you know, it's kind of one of her strengths has been the not going back frame of the campaign, which I think a lot of people do relate to of like, even though she's

the sitting vice president, she feels like turning a page, as she said, she feels like she's kind of the change candidate, even though a lot of ways she is reflective of continuing the status quo of the Biden administration. And so she benefits from being in the vice presidential office and people being able to envision her in that role, but also feeling like, just because, frankly, of her identity and her relative youth, etc., feeling like she is turning of the page to a different era. You know, I think the polling shows people don't dislike Biden as a person. Maybe they should, but they don't. They just didn't want him to run for re-election.

Yeah, the most popular thing he's done as president is say he's not going to run again. You're like, oh, okay. We kind of like you now. That's fine. Yeah, soans really wanted this to be because i mean it is a scandal that who who knew the level of his decline like what was going on behind the scenes that you all were covering up it is a genuine scandal and people republicans really wanted this to be a problem for her. And people are just so relieved to not have Biden on

the ticket that and there's such overwhelming support for him making that move that I just it has not landed as a political attack whatsoever. Yeah, because by virtue of the scandal that it was, and the scandal was that he was trying to run for reelection. By not running for reelection, the scandal goes away. True. Yeah, that's true. This decade, of course, the last three and a half years has been part of your administration. I'm talking about an era that started about a decade ago where there is some suggestion, warped, I believe it to be, that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down instead of where I believe most Americans are, which is to believe that the true measure of the strength of a leader

is based on who you lift up. That's what's at stake as much as any other detail that we could discuss in this election. Because we haven't had a chance to talk, I'm just curious, staying on President Biden, when he called you and said he was pulling out of the race, what was that like? And did he offer to endorse you right away or did you ask for it?

Hard-hitting question there, Ryan, right? It's like this is when you're like this really had to steal herself for this one this is when you really are starting to sympathize with conservative criticism of of outlets like cnn where you're like seriously like if you're vanity fair and you're doing like a magazine profile this is interesting stuff and then you can write some flowery narrative around it. For a sit-down interview with a presidential candidate who hasn't given an interview yet, you got to use your time to hit them on policy. Well, that's the thing too.

Having done these interviews, you and I both with presidential candidates or other type of candidates, you know, you are very aware. I've got a clock ticking from the moment we say go until the moment it's over. And I have to be very strategic about what I get in and what is most consequential. And, you know, and try to either I'm going to really drill in on a couple of issues or I'm going to have a wide ranging conversation conversation hit on as many possible things as I can. I think that's probably the approach I would

take here just because she hasn't given him. So we don't have her on the record. So I try to get her on the record on as many issues as you possibly could. So to spend, you know, there's five minutes left in this interview, five minutes, you can get a lot accomplished and all of it is just dedicated. You're about to hear to Kamala talking about like cooking pancakes and her adorable, admittedly adorable baby nieces wanting more bacon and whatever. When Joe Biden calls. It was it was a Sunday. So here I'll give you a little too much information. Go for it. There's no such thing, Madam Vice President. My family was staying with us, including my baby nieces. And we had just had pancakes and, you know, Auntie, can I have more bacon? Yes, I'll make you more bacon.

And then we were sitting down to do a puzzle. And the phone rang and it was Joe Biden. And he told me what he had decided to do. And I asked him, are you sure? And he said yes. And that's how I learned about it. And what about the endorsement? Did you ask for it?

He was very clear that he was going to support me. So when he called to tell you, he said, I'm pulling out of the race, and I'm going to support you. Well, my first thought was not about me, to be honest with you. My first thought was about him, to support me. So when he called to tell you, he said, I'm pulling out of the race and I'm going to support you. Well, my first thought was not about me, to be honest with you. My first thought was about him, to be honest. I think history is going to show a number of things about Joe Biden's presidency. I think history is going to show that in so many ways, it was transformative, be it on what we have accomplished around finally investing in America's infrastructure, investing in new economies, in new industries, what we have accomplished around finally investing in America's infrastructure,

investing in new economies, in new industries, what we have done to bring our allies back together and have confidence in who we are as America and grow that alliance, what we have done to stand true to our principles, including one of the most important international rules and norms, which is the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity. And I think history is going to show not only has Joe Biden led an administration that has achieved those extraordinary successes, but the character of the man is one that he has been in his life and career, including as a president, quite selfless and puts the American people first. I just have to ask you both about two standout moments, aside, of course, from the addresses that you both gave,

but standout moments that were perhaps unexpected during the convention. You mentioned one of them, Governor. A moment that you shared, that the world shared with your son, Gus. You were speaking, the camera caught him. Another incredible softball. I did think they talked about pancakes and bacon for the last five minutes, but apparently they also, you know,

let Tim walls talk about how much he loves his family too. And I mean, this is look, the, the Kamala moment there, like it's charming. She's charming in that moment. It's like an in-kind contribution though.

Like that's not your job, your, your goal and your job in these interviews isn't like to make people feel warm fuzzies and do basically a campaign ad for them. It's supposed to be to hold power to account. Is there any chance that her first thought was about him? No. Any chance on earth?

No. Any chance whatsoever? No. There's a scene in Veep where Selina Meyer gets a call that the president is not running for reelection and instead she's going to run. That's how that went down. See, I never watched. I watched like maybe two episodes of Beep. So I'm not familiar with the whole Beep universe.

You're not prepared for this administration. I guess I got to watch it. Put that on the list for me and Kyle. Because I don't think he's watched it. I'm not sure. Maybe he has. Oh, my God. It's an absolute.

It's a documentary. That's scary. Scary. All right. let's finish this up. So incredibly proud of you. So emotional saying that's my dad. Yeah. I, I don't know, as a father, I could have ever imagined that. I grateful for so many reasons to be on this ticket, but that moment, to understand what was really important to have my son feel a sense of pride in me that I was trying to do the right thing. And it was, you try and protect your kids, you know, it brings it brings notoriety and things.

But it was just such a visceral, emotional moment that I'm just I'm grateful I got to experience it. And I'm so proud of him. I'm proud of him. I'm proud of Hope. I'm proud of Gwen. It says breaking walls. What it was. It was like walls grateful for visceral, emotional moment with son at dnc some breaking news there ryan i mean it is true uh that it is very rare that uh children let alone take pride in their parents but even look at them as human beings so yeah i have no doubt that was an authentically like invigorating and experience that he'll remember the rest of his life no doubt about it What does that have to do with anything? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. To experience it. And I'm, I'm so proud of him. I'm proud of him. I'm proud of Hope. I'm proud

of Gwen. She's a wonderful mother and these are great kids. And I think the one thing is talking about the era we're in is our politics can be better. It can be different. We can, we can show some of these things and we can have families involved in this. And I hope that there was a, I hope people felt that out there and I hope they hug their kids a little tighter because you just never know. And life can be kind of hard. How good is he though to immediately pivot from that to like hit one of his core themes of, you know, we can get back to the Thanksgiving dinner table where we don't all like hate each other and dread it and whatever. Pretty, pretty masterful politician. Yeah, he really is. I would, I'd be happy to just skip the Kamala Harris era and go straight to the Tim Walz era personally.

Last question. Open primary, we might have. Very true. Very possible. Madam Vice President, the photograph that has gone viral. You were speaking. One of your grandnieces that you were just talking about was watching you accept the nomination. You didn't explicitly talk about gender or race in your speech, but it

obviously means a lot to a lot of people. And that viral picture really says it. What does it mean to you? You know, I, listen, I am running because I believe that I am the best person to do this job at this moment for all Americans, regardless of race and gender. But I did see that photograph and I was deeply touched by it. And you're right, it's the back of her head, her tool braids. And then I'm in the front of the photograph, obviously speaking. And it's very humbling. It's very humbling in many ways.

Did she talk to you about it afterwards? Oh, she had a lot to talk about. She had a lot. She listened to everything. And she listens to everything give you your hot cake oh yeah definitely uh-huh madam vice president governor wallace thank you so much for your time so there you go um but that last answer very emblematic of how she has she's really adopted more of an obama approach to the quote-unquote historic nature of her

candidacy she lets it speak for herself she really wants to empathize give comfort to everyone that listen i'm not going to talk about like all this black stuff i'm just i'm going to be a president for everybody and if it means something to you that's great but that's not what i'm that's not the reason i'm here and i think that's sad that that's what she has to do but i think it's the right approach i mean but on the other hand like obviously representation matters and it does speak for itself but more important is okay what are you going to do on roe versus wade that is going to be much more impactful to all women versus you know you yourself kamala harris transcending to this position of power yeah but yeah again if you're a conservative watching that you're like how is this a how's how is this a is this a journalist what like what's going on here yeah uh and it's

fine like it is a cool picture and for the public to and democrats in particular to like love the picture that's great but for the media like to take the opportunity of this interview to just elevate that and give her an opportunity to sell it more it's just i mean cnn's gonna do what it's gonna do but you know yeah they can't complain then when people see them as democratic party apparatchiks that's it's that's exactly right um overall tldr what um what grade do you give her do you think this is going to be consequential in any way? Are there any moments from this that sort of survived the weekend? She did fine enough. I think it was much better than her previous interviews.

It was a pretty easy interview. There were no really tough questions. The only reason that questions were tough is because there were some obvious ones. You used to say the complete opposite of what you say now. Why? Right. But, you know, she didn't do the word salad that she's famous for, for the most part. True.

And so I think, like we were saying earlier, unlike Obama, who people really vested all of their hopes and dreams into and were willing to let them lead them wherever, that's not how people feel about harris they just want her to not fall over and that and they will like the crowd will like carry her on their shoulders across the finish line they're like just just be alive just be better than biden yeah and she's doing that yeah it's also the case that the bar has been, it is fair to say the bar has been set exceptionally low because of Biden.

But also because all we've really seen of her for the Biden administration has been like whatever word salad clips have been cut and shared virally. And so there's a caricature of her, number one, and number two, that forgets some of the moments where she has been strong and capable. And she's obviously, you know, I think she also has an added confidence and swagger in this moment she didn't previously have. And I also think she probably grew on the job

as vice president, you know, even though we weren't seeing everything she was doing. She was doing some stuff and having to get reps in and hone some of her skills and get better so um yeah i think she i think republicans will be disappointed that she isn't actually the caricature that they had in their mind where she's just totally incapable of answering any question without a script right in front of her or someone holding her hand, et cetera. Yeah. I think that she had a month to prepare for it.

Yeah. And so she did some prep. Previously, the concern among her departed staff was that she refused to prepare for interviews and flubbed easy questions. Obvious questions, yeah. She did that at the start of this one. The day one. But was prepared for other ones.

And so, yeah, it's like she should do more of these and not make it like a national event once you don't interview we have to do an hour and 20 minute uh response parsing every single answer because this is all we have this is all we have at this point of uh you know what she's given us in terms of um interview sit-downs Do you think that this, you know, when do you think is the next time? Do you think now she'll feel like, okay, maybe I can do a few of these and I can survive it? Or do you think she'll feel like, all right, checked that box. Not going to have to do another one of these for another month and a half. Maybe she'll do one a little sooner.

Yeah. Or maybe she'll just punt. Because what they did, they punted it to the end of the month, and then they did it right before Labor Day. So they'll skip Labor Day week next week. Then they got the debate. So that'll buy them some time. Maybe not until a couple weeks after the debate.

And then there's the walls debate. So they might punt it they'll punt it for as long as the media and the public lets them get away with it yeah and um i actually think that the media and the public are pretty much gonna let her get away with it to be honest with you i don't i i don't see that there was like a huge real back i i've you know think she probably could have they felt pressure and the media was getting you know pissier and testier there's the other danger with this is they stop liking you and they start being more aggressive with you start doing tougher stories right yeah exactly so i think they were starting to feel some of that build but i i have a uh i have a feeling

that you're right that she's gonna feel like i checked the box i don't have to do this again for a while so yep so enjoy it guys all right ryan thanks for uh doing this with me this morning enjoy pleasure yeah enjoy the long weekend guys enjoy labor day and we will see you back for a full breaking point show and we've got the friday show actually oh that's right yeah it'll be up later today um yeah you guys had a rfk juniorr well rfk jr debate yeah that was michael tracy and then a field staffer for rfk right who was yeah national previous national field director for rfk kind of defending his decision to endorse trump i'm i haven't checked that one out yet so i'm looking forward to seeing that i know michael tracy's been going hard in the paint as he is as he is want to do so all right y'all enjoy that. Check out

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