On with Kara Swisher - David Axelrod Breaks Down Kamala Harris’s Messaging and Strategy

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

David Axelrod was one of the first prominent Democrats to suggest that President Biden should withdraw from the race. The former senior advisor to President Barack Obama earned Biden’s ire in the process (and a colorful nickname to go along with it), but time proved him right. And now, he’s calling on Democrat’s to temper their “irrational exuberance.”  Kara talks to the Axe man about the Democratic National Convention (of course), his role in persudading President Joe Biden to drop out of the race, and his analysis of Vice President Harris’s messaging and campaign strategy. To get more David Axelrod, watch him on CNN or listen to Hacks on Tap and The Axe Files. Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Claude Sonnet can generate code, help with writing, and reason through hard problems better than any model before. You can discover how Clalawed can transform your business at anthropic.com slash clawed. Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. David Axelrod needs little introduction. The former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama is widely acknowledged as one of the sharpest political minds in America. After doing media strategy and ads for over 100 campaigns, he shaped Obama's message and helped propel the first-term senator into the White House and then helped him win re-election in 2012. Axelrod is now a senior political commentator on CNN, the founding director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, and host of two hit podcasts, Hacks on Tap and The Axe Files. We spoke on Tuesday morning after the first night of the

Democratic National Convention in Chicago and before the Obama one-two punch on Tuesday night in which they slagged Trump mercilessly and bestowed upon Vice President Harris their legacy. Axe and I talked about the convention, obviously, his role in pushing President Joe Biden to drop out of the race, and his take on Harris's campaign so far. Axelrod has called out Democrats for their, quote, irrational exuberance, so I obviously asked him about that. And our expert question for this episode comes from Will Hurd, a former Republican congressman from Texas. Well, welcome, Dave. How you doing? Thanks for coming on. I'm tired, man. That was a long night last night at the Democratic Convention.

That was a long night. Oh, man, what happened there? Well, we'll talk about that in a minute, but I want to take a step back and ask you about the convention itself. How many conventions have you been to? This would be my 15th. But that includes three Republican conventions that I've attended for CNN. But this is my 12th Democratic convention as a reporter or a participant. So I'm convention rich in experience here. Yeah, same number as Biden. The convention is being held under very unique circumstances. Biden is out, Harris is in. As someone put it, it's a difference between a wedding and a funeral. Vibes is undoubtedly the most overused word in 2024. But I have to ask, how do the vibes of the 2024 DNC compare to the vibes of the 2008 one when Barack Obama first ran for president? Yeah, you know, there are similarities. There's no doubt about it, because there's such a feeling

of renewal in the Democratic Party right now. You know, Biden stepping aside, now. You know, Biden stepping aside and the speed with which she stepped in and the, frankly, the grace with which she's handled herself in this period and has, I think, really charged people up. So there's no doubt it's comparable. And, you know, look, I mean, they don't talk about the historic nature of her candidacy, and I think they're smart not to. We never did either. You kind of get that for free. But she does seem very much like a turn the page, even though she's the sitting vice president. She seems like a turn the page candidate at a time when people very much want to turn the page. So less than two months ago, Biden is in the middle of debate prep and the conventionalism in the Democratic Party was that Harris was a weak and flawed politician. Why did everyone underestimate her? Well, I mean, look, she ran a bad campaign in 2019. She started off as a co-frontrunner

and never made it to Iowa. And she was not a great performer in that camp, and she was an uneven performer. My view is that she got bad advice and she took it. And that advice was take a left turn at every juncture and you'll get to where you want to go. And of course, if you keep taking lefts, you end up in the same place you started. keep taking lefts, you end up in the same place you started. And then as VP, I think there was a combination of things. I think she was uncertain and unsteady at the beginning of that administration. I don't think she got a ton of help and support at the beginning as well, which I think is unfortunate. But, you know, one of the things you look for in people is how do they grow?

And I think she became a much more steady performer over the course of that administration. It's just people did not pay much attention because people don't focus on the VP, you know. But she went out and carried the ball on the Dobbs decision, became the point person in the administration on that and some other issues and did very well. And I remember, Cara, on the night of the horrible debate, she was tasked with the unenviable task of going on television and defending him. And Anderson asked her some tough questions, appropriate questions, and she pushed back hard. And I remember after that interview, we were all like, wow, that was pretty strong. So there were signs, you know, that people that she had grown into this. She took the nomination in a matter of hours, right? She went out, she organized. It was shock and awe.

And that showed a certain level of political competence. Then she went out there and started speaking. And her speeches were well-delivered and well-conceived and hit the right notes. And she seemed organic to the word she was speaking, which was the problem in the past. And I think she did last night as well. Right, genuine. Yeah, I was always surprised about that because everyone was like, she's so left. I was like, no, she's not.

Just not in San Francisco, she's not. One of the things about running for president, yeah, you're obviously very familiar with her from your own life experience out there, but one of the things that is a killer in presidential politics is if you don't build on the foundation of who you actually are. You know, we ran against Mitt Romney and I've, you know, I'm friends with Mitt Romney now and I have great respect for him. I disagree with him on some stuff,

but his campaign never allowed him to talk about his faith because they thought, you know, Mormonism would turn people off. Sure. That's a huge part of his life. They never let him talk about his business for obvious reasons. But we went and described what he did in his business. And, you know, at least they could have told a counter story about what he had done in his business. They didn't do it. They wouldn't let him talk about being governor because he had done something akin to the Affordable Care Act in Massachusetts. And they thought that would turn off their base. And so there was nothing left. There was nothing left. And you have to run on who you are and build on who you are.

This time, I think they're doing that. She's running as a prosecutor. She's running as a prosecutor. She's running as an attorney general. They're telling her story. It's a much, much different kind of deal right now. And I think she's profiting from it. Yeah. One of the things you said in a 2020 DNC, the things that were stressed were Biden's middle class roots, his face, his attachment to the military, things that signified people to middle America. He's actually from here. He's one of us. And you went on to explain that his Yes. or childhood friends, kept saying middle class for the people, you know, using both legal terms and also popular terms, a fighter who stands up to bullies. This is what she's like. I mean,

in my many, many years of knowing her, decades of knowing her, and also charming. I think people miss the charming part, and even including, I took my wife to meet her at her house not too long ago, and my wife wasn't a real fan of her or not, didn't have thoughts, right? And she walked away, and she's like, what a stunning politician. I was like, I know. Like, for some reason, it couldn't get out. Talk a little bit about the messaging around her in this way. I'm like, this is a person I know. was this very leftward tug to which her campaign responded. But she, you know, I always thought even then that she should have run on who she was. And who she was was a center-left politician, a, you know, tough prosecutor, and an attorney general who had been involved in some very big cases involving large numbers of people who had been abused by various powerful forces. All that story was lost. And because she wasn't comfortable with the story she was telling, I don't think that she seemed uncertain. That charm that you're talking about wasn't as evident.

It seemed uncertain. That charm that you're talking about wasn't as evident. It was that when she announced the day she announced, but oftentimes not after that. I did some stuff with her for CNN and podcasts and so on. And the level of caution that didn't allow her to open up was very high. Well, it's obviously, she and I have had that discussion, actually, interestingly. Just be yourself, because you're kind of interesting. I don't know. But the caution level, it's obviously tougher for a black and Asian woman from the Bay Area, Oakland. Yes, absolutely. To sell to middle America, even if she is from very, quite middle class roots, rather than the white guy from Scranton. He is from very quite middle class roots rather than the white guy from Scranton. Yes, of course.

But, you know, I worked for a black guy who had a name that's even tougher than Kamala Harris. How do you pronounce that? I'm kidding. But rooted. Believe me, there was a lot of mispronunciation back then. But he had a great American story story and we told that story. The one thing I did learn from Obama, by the way, Sonia Sotomayor, he wanted to appoint her to the Supreme Court. He asked me to talk to her to see how she would hold up in the process. I asked Sotomayor, what do you most worry about in this process? And she said, I worry about not measuring up. And in the context of that

remark, I realized what she was saying is, I know I am going to be judged differently. I am carrying the hopes and dreams of a lot of young Latinas and Latino kids. And it gave me more appreciation for my own guy who never talked about it and didn't complain about it. But it is really hard to be a path-breaking politician. And so that's an added weight on her without a doubt. But listen, you either win as who you are or you don't win, but you can't win as who you're not. That's a really good point. The most authentic candidates almost always win.

And even Donald Trump, Cara, nobody ever says, gee, I wish Trump would just speak his mind. That's never an issue. Okay. So I hope that they continue to do this. Now, she is benefiting also from a just tremendous sense of relief in a country where people looked at the choice between Biden and Trump and said, God, do we have to do this? Do we have to do this? Let me get into that, because you were one of the first very influential Democrats, I think the first that I heard, because I was like, oh, dear, David Axelrod, to publicly question whether or not Biden should run for re-election. We were doing it over on the

Pivot podcast, but nobody was listening. This obviously didn't endear you to him, and he reportedly referred to you as a prick. I think you know that. The implicit theme underlying this whole convention is Democratic unity, but obviously there are hurt feelings that are papered over now. How do you feel about having done that? Because obviously, you'd have to have thought a lot about going out on that limb you went out on. Yeah. Well, listen, just to understand my relationship with Joe Biden, I was, Dave Bluff and I were the last people to interview him before he got chosen for VP. We were enthusiastically recommending him. I never regretted it. He was a great guy to work with as VP. He was very kind to me. And I was always happy he was in the room because he had

the guts to say things that needed to be said whether it was on Afghanistan or middle class economics or he was a great voice in the room and he was an incredible asset in terms of the assignments that he took on and completed for the president so I have nothing but warm feelings for him and I think he's done some really historically important things that history will remember more than voters are right now. All of that said, the issue is just whether anyone should run for president when they're 78 years old. And I apply it to the Republican nominee right now who seems to, to me, seems to be kind of losing it. But it was hard, you know, a lot of my friends were unhappy.

The problem with Donald Trump is how can you tell? Well, that's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. But, you know, yes, it was uncomfortable, but I felt very secure in saying what I thought needed to be said. secure in saying what I thought needed to be said. And I wish that he had acted on it earlier, because I think it would have been better for him had he done that. But I do have a box full of buttons that someone sent me. I will tell you, it was Karl Rove. I was doing an event with Karl,

and I was asked about this two days after the story service that he had called me a prick. And I said, yeah, I'm the chairman of the Pricks for Biden. And Rove sent me a box of Pricks for Biden buttons, and I'll save one for you. They're heirlooms that are very rare. I'll give one to Scott. I'll give one to Scott because he was really out there the same thing. But how does she make sure everyone stays on the same page? She has been very gracious. Someone was noting that last night, like she's gone out of her way to, no matter what he does, to be like, let's stick with Joe. She has to be gracious, including as a woman of color, right? She has to not look like a usurper in some fashion.

like a usurper in some fashion. Well, she's been really good because, you know, I mean, I remember the scene on the tarmac when the hostages came back. And, you know, it wasn't entirely clear to me that he was that happy that she was there because this was his moment. And he wandered away from her to the media and he started doing a scrum and left her standing there.

And she kind of wandered up beside him and she looked to me and she looked completely serene and she was smiling. And she looked like the adult child of someone whose parent had wandered away, who was like watching over to make sure nothing bad happened right you know of an older parent but uh and she's been very good on this the big thing is is is yes be gracious to him but internally you know that you have to meld people who were there because of joe biden and working for joe biden yeah and now they're working for her. And there has to be some friction there. And, you know, part of, you know, I'm sure part of the sensibilities of putting this convention together is this has to be a Harris convention from this point forward. The big thing is the message has to be, we're turning the page. This is, you know, we're pointing to the future. You know,

this is a chance for the country to take a new direction. And implicit in that is you're turning the page, not just on Trump, but on Biden. And I'm sure there's been friction in how you accomplish that because there are people who are doing this, who are working for Biden, and there are people who are doing this who have come in because of Harris. And so, you know, there are, by definition, there are going to be some difficulties there. I hope everybody recognizes inside there that now this is like the Olympic team, whatever team you play on during the regular season, you're all wearing the same uniform now, and the stakes are big. And so you got to work together you know do you like the when we fight we win you obama's 2008 was change we can believe in do you like when we fight but the slogan that we carried throughout our years was the one from a senate race which was yes we can the most

important word to me is the word we um i think what you're doing is enlisting people in a cause and the cause is not the candidate no matter how charismatic the candidate is i mean what you're doing is enlisting people in a cause and the cause is not the candidate, no matter how charismatic the candidate is. I mean, unless you're on the Trump side, you know, um, I thought Hillary made a mistake in 2016 when they had this slogan, I'm with her. Oh, good point. Because it's not about the candidate. It's about the country. And a successful campaign enlists people in a cause that is about their own lives and about the future and about the health of their community and the strength of their families. And you want to encourage people and inspire people around a shared mission.

Right. So I like the word we. I like the word we. Right. There's two we's in that one. I think that's important. Yes, exactly. There's two we's.

Yes, it's like French. It's we, we, yeah. We, we, we, we. Not too French, though. You've praised Harris. Remember Freedom Fries? Yes, I do indeed. Oh, good God.

You've praised Harris for repeatedly choosing not to emphasize the historic nature of her candidates. In other words, smart enough not to highlight her race or gender. So she's choosing to run more like Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton, that's clear. And then you have worked obviously with Barack Obama, but one of your specialties as a political strategist was, quote, packaging black candidates for white voters. At least that's how the Economist magazine put it. You worked to elect a lot of black mayors, including Harold Washington in Chicago, Dennis Archer in Detroit, Anthony A. Williams in Washington, D.C., and Lee Brown in Houston. Talk about both the misogyny and how should she package herself for white voters and male voters? Yeah.

Which is where she has the deficit. Yeah. Yeah. Which is where she that the emphasis. Barack Obama always used to say, I am proudly of the black community, but I'm not limited to it. And I'm not running to be the first black president. I'm running to be president of the United States and to represent everybody in the United States.

And I think that is the mindset that you have to carry into this. Everyone who is inspired by the fact that she is an African-American, an Indian-American woman, everyone knows that. You don't need elaboration on that. And people who are inspired by it are going to follow that, their heart in that, and the people who are dismayed by it may as well. you know, voting for a woman for the highest office in the land, voting for, you know, a person of color for the highest office in the land if they didn't vote for Obama. And you want to make sure that you're speaking to them and that they understand that you get their concerns, their lives, that they are part of the America that you see. And there are so many things that

unify. She said last night, there's so much more that unifies us than divides us. That is the thing we want to communicate. Everybody has aspirations for their kids and their families. And, you know, I have a place in rural Michigan. I have neighbors who are without question Trump voters. They're also good neighbors. And we relate over so many things, you know, over the weather and our kids and, you know, when this store is going to open and, you know, all kinds of things. She needs to send that signal and make it easy for people who just want change and want to turn the page and want a presidency that isn't all about rancor, as in Trump, and is very much focused on their needs with a president who seems energetically able to go after them. That's what they need to do. And that's the story I think that they're going to tell.

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today. Go to constantcontact.ca for your free trial. Constantcontact.ca. You were a journalist before you were a strategist. I'm not sure people know that that much, but you obviously understand why the press is calling for her to do interviews. I suspect she's already planned them, would be my guess. Why is that important? As a journalist, I obviously would love to interview her at the same time. I can see sort of why she's not. When does it hurt her? Listen, she's riding the wave. She's riding the wave right now, Cara, and she should ride it as- And also Trump keeps making messes and why not let someone make a mess while—

Absolutely. Listen, I do think that she will do them. She has to do them. And it is one of the tests, and it's not a test because, you know, people feel strongly that the fourth estate must be respected. It's a test because people want to see you in a lot of different kinds of circumstances, handle pressure and challenges. That's how they judge whether you're equipped to be president. And so, you know, if you're put on the spot, if you're asked a challenging question, how do you handle it? How do you handle it?

That's frankly a test that she fell down on early in the administration in the interview with Lester Holt when she was down in Central America, you know, talking border issues. And so, you know, and she's still sort of recovering from that, but you have to do it. And she will do it. But I don't have, you know, look, my job in life has been to interpret politics and politicians to journalists and interpret journalists to politicians because I've lived in both worlds. And I think there is a sense of entitlement among journalists, just as there's a sense of among policy people, you know, who are waiting for her white papers. I don't think voters are necessarily sitting around demanding white papers and constant interviews. I don't think voters are necessarily sitting around demanding white papers and constant interviews. Or interviews, I would agree. Yeah, but they want to see you in a lot of

different ways. The debate will be big in this regard. That is the biggest test. That is the most pressureful test. And then the other most pressureful tests come in packages that you never really anticipate. You know, Lehman Brothers collapses. That was a pressure test. You know, this was less of one, but Osama bin Laden surfaced at the end of the 2004 campaign. It changed the end of that campaign in George W. Bush's favor. I mean, there are events that will inevitably happen between now and next November that will have implications for the presidential race, how she deals with them will be important. But, you know, so I wouldn't sweat the sort of clamor. I would, by the way, just one more footnote on this. I would be doing sort of the

routine stuff more regularly. I'd be doing scrums on the tarmac. I'd be going into the back of the plane and I would be doing on the record scrums with the reporters there. I'd be going into the back of the plane, and I would be doing on-the-record scrums with the reporters there. I would take more risks. There was an old baseball manager, Eddie Stanky, in Chicago who used to say, no risk baseball is second division baseball. Some of that is true in presidential politics. You want to take calculated risks, smart risks, but I view interviews as opportunities, and she ought to view them as opportunities to go out there and burnish her message and not treat them as minefields. Yeah, I think she's perfectly capable of doing it and including the debate. But speaking of

white papers, a lot of the press has been writing about the light on policy stuff, but she did offer some policy crumbs when she gave the speech on economic policies and emphasized kitchen table issues, including a plan to stop price gouging and the $25,000 for first-time home buyers. According to many polls, they want more details because they don't quite know who she is, right, where she stands on some things. Elizabeth Warren had reams of white papers that didn't win her many votes, right? How do you approach that idea? Listen, policy is a surrogate for values and focus. So you want to send a message through the policy that you embrace about what your values are and where you're going to spend your energy.

And do you connect with the things that are most important to people in their lives. And I don't think the details of policy, I mean, I know people's hair was on fire about some of the ideas that she, a lot of economists didn't like some of the ideas that she advanced last week. But, you know, there aren't that many economists in the country, and they only get one vote. I think voters probably appreciated it more. And even if they didn't fully understand the details, and even if the details weren't fully spelled out,

she was saying, yeah, housing is a real problem for people, and we've got to figure out a way to help people who are renting and afford their rent and how people who are buying homes for the first time can afford to buy homes for the first, you know, that message is important to people. You may not like the price gouging thing, but the recognition that this is a real problem for people that things are 20% more than they were a few years ago. You know, so I think that that's how you have to approach policy. Mario Cuomo said you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. That is very true. So don't be so prosaic that, you know, that policy becomes something, you know, sort of an end in itself.

Policy is a window into what is important to you. In that vein, what is her weakest policy area? Is it immigration? And what's her strongest? I assume abortion, correct? Or maybe not. Well, I think as an asset in this campaign, her advocacy around the abortion issue, which is very, very important, clearly is important. I do think that her credentials around advocating for consumers and doing things that relate to economic security for people is very, very important given the primacy of that

on people's minds today. Immigration is a vulnerability that she needs to, that she's going to have to— What would you advise her to do? Listen, I think that my whole thing is always start from the truth and work from there. I think she should go back to orthodoxy on this democratic orthodoxy to the, and it isn't even democratic orthodoxy. George W. Bush had the same position. And the position was, we need an expansive immigration policy that has at its core enforceable borders that are respected. because you can't have a working immigration system if you don't have rules that people abide by. We have to deal with the

immigrants who are here, and in some way, we have people, Cara, and you're brilliant on economics, we have people here who are embedded in this country, who are part of what makes this country go, who are hardworking people, who, by the way, are contributing to Social Security but not collecting it, and in many ways supporting our communities. We have to figure out how to take them out of the shadows and regularize. And in the day, we would talk about getting at the back of the line and so on. You know, we have to figure out how to address these problems once and for all. So come out in a way that gives people who care about enforceable borders a sense that you're damn serious about it. Right.

but also give people a sense that you want to have a solution to the problem of people living in the shadows as they have for decades in this country. So I think, you know, that to me is an authentic answer to the problem. And, you know, you can say, oh, you can't say bring people out of the shadows because that'll be amnesty and you can't be too hard on the border because the base won't like if you get caught up in that kind of thinking you're going to be uh that then you're not it's not going to go as well just tell the truth about what we need to do and and by the way just on the contrast with trump here is so strong because he really doesn't give a shit about these problems i don't know if you can say that on this podcast. No, you can say as much as you want. Yes, but to him, everything is something to exploit. It's something to exploit for your own advantage. To her, what she should project is she sees problems as challenges to be solved to move the country forward.

He sees problems as something to exploit to move himself forward. And that is a contrast that I would keep hitting. Yes, I would keep hitting that hard throughout. In that thing, he's showing it in his recent appearances of Republican strategists have been begging him to stick to the issues and not do this, because a lot of personal attacks, a lot of personal agreement, he's putting that on display. Yes, he's out of control. Yeah, he seems congenitally incapable. But if we do a thought experiment, imagine he somehow manages to say somewhat on message. Is that good for? Well, I don't know whether he can, but this is a close race and everybody should be sober about this. She's had an incredible run and she's played herself into contention. She has not played herself into a lead. You know, she may be marginally ahead in these national polls. She's not ahead in a lot of these battleground states. And I know there are some very heady polls out there. But this is going to be their battleground states for a reason. And this is going to be a dogfight from start to finish. If he got on a disciplined message,

and the message that his team wants him to be on is probably the one I would recommend if I were his strategist, it's the best he can. He has to make her the incumbent because if she is change, he is dead. And right now she is change, he's the embattled old incumbent. That's a dynamic that's a loser for him.

So if he got on that message, he would improve his chances. Would he win necessarily? Maybe not. But right now he is modeling all the behavior that makes people want to turn the page. He's mean, he's obnoxious, he's racist, he's misogynist. All of the bad behavior that has turned people off in the past is now worse because he's frantic and desperate. And so all his worst qualities are being amplified. He looks like the incumbent. You're right. She looks like change. So you had talked about irrational exuberance on the Democratic side.

So you had talked about irrational exuberance on the Democratic side. I would agree. On Monday, the president of Future Forward PAC, one of the biggest PAC supporting is she is not ahead that if you were advising the campaign and i your former partner david pluff is um who i just talked to recently um what would you say to do here and how do you how should you prepare the democratic side for where we are because it is exuberant here it is it's fun it's exuberant yeah well you think the trick is you don't want to bridle that enthusiasm and energy. You just want to translate it into action. And, you know, one thing about Plouffe, who was my partner for years and who I traveled many miles with on this Obama journey, he is the most competitive human being on the planet. And I think his message will be we are in the fight. will be, we are in the fight. We have not won the fight. And the fight can easily be lost unless we take all this energy and all this exuberance and walk precincts and talk to our friends and

do all the things that one must do to win a close battle. That is the message that, yeah, I know the same people who a few weeks ago were mad at me because I was suggesting the President Biden should get out of the race are now mad at me because they think it's a terrible thing to say, don't be irrationally exuberant. Yeah, I mean, Pelosi said the same thing to me in a recent interview. She said, you must get out your vote. I don't care what they say. Get out your vote. Of course, you must persuade. We know the enthusiasm is there, but get out your damn vote, essentially. Yes, it's like, you know, and you do have to still persuade. And there's a

lot of work to be done. I mean, the exciting thing is, she's in a position to win this. The thing is being in a position to win, it doesn't mean that you're going to win unless you do the work. And so the work has to get done. Where does she have to focus? What states? What areas? Pennsylvania? Well, I mean, look, I still think Pennsylvania is the tipping state. And Chauncey McLean from Future Forward said what you quoted at an event at the Institute of Politics that you were such a great fellow at, held on Monday here. And he said, and the Republicans will say the same, Pennsylvania is a tipping state because it's 19 electoral votes. It's the largest battleground state. It's hard to replace that. But the difference for her

is she also, she's not ahead, despite what some polls say, in Georgia and North Carolina, but she has a chance in those states to win those states because she's doing better with younger voters, with voters of color. Nevada is another example of that small number of electoral votes. But if you won one of those two states in Nevada, you could lose Pennsylvania and still win the election. She's got more possibilities. So, I mean, I would put Pennsylvania at the top of the list, Michigan, obviously, and Wisconsin. You really want to focus on those states. The blue wall states are still primary, but I would also devote a lot of effort. I think North Carolina could be a sleeper state here. They've got a troglodytic candidate for governor on the Republican side who is going to rally Democrats to the polls. And the makeup of the state seems more suited to Kamala Harris than than it did to joe biden yeah it does you

know the pennsylvania is a tipping point stage should she have chosen shapiro walls are you pleased with that well i i you know look i i'm i was focused on the math uh and so shapiro made sense to me um the you know i think that what happened there was you know there was a shapiro's not naturally a supporting actor. You know, he's a main stage guy. And you saw that in the in the rally where they he introduced helped introduce Waltz and the ticket. But, you know, I think he would have made a marginal difference in a state that may be one marginally. So I think, you know, I'm going to reserve judgment on that.

If she wins the presidency, then I will say she made a, you know, the right choice. If not, you know, we can have that discussion. Waltz is an engaging guy. I mean, he is a, and he is, you know, he is like right out of central casting from middle America and the Midwest. And, you know, he has one big task here now which is debate with advance which will get an audience and will be important but i think he's proven himself to be uh valuable in many ways and so you know i i'm not gonna make a judgment on this but

but we will we'll talk again after november yeah we'll see i said that to someone someone do you think he should i was like we'll see i mean said that to someone. Do you think you should have? I was like, we'll see. I mean, it's not a bad choice. None of them. Honestly, none of them are bad choices. No, she had a lot of good options. We'll be back in a minute. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere?

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Shopify.com slash VoxBusiness. So each episode, we have an expert send us a question. We think you'll like this one. Hey, Axe. This is Will Hurd, former member of Congress from Texas. Here's my question, my man. What does the party that loses the election in November need to do following the defeat to rise from the ashes? Can either party achieve a turnaround the defeat to rise from the ashes? Can either party achieve a

turnaround the way Labour did in the UK? I'm asking for a friend. By the way, Cara, you sound fantastic. Another former IOP fellow and a great guy, Will Hurd. Look, I think the best thing that could happen to Will's party is to lose this election and finally turn the page on trump if not trumpism and have uh another uh chance to uh reimagine itself in 2028 for the democratic party i don't think the issue is before you get to that and i'll answer the democratic who would be the standard bearer for them on the on the sort of revival yeah yeah well look i think there would be the standard bearer for them? On the sort of revival? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, look, I think there'll be, the problem is, you know, I have issues with Nikki Haley's sort of moorings in terms of principle, but, you know, she proved herself to be very, very strong. There are some Republican governors, Kemp in Georgia, for example, who could emerge here who are quite conservative, but because he tried to be Trump. And people wanted the original more than they wanted the, you know, the next version, Trump 2.0. So but he's popular still. And, you know, there'll be a battle. And, you know, you see others, Hawley and others, you know, advance himself.

There'll be others who will step up to try and grab the mantle of Trump. So they'll have a battle. But I think some of these governors, perhaps Haley comes back, will carry the sort of more of the center-right conservative banner. And it'll be interesting to see. On the Democratic side, the issue isn't going to be an absence of um talent or a kind of general consensus about what the party should be it'll be what kind of country do we have i mean the problem for democrats is the problem for the country which is what is a post-trump era going to look like if trump gets four years untrammeled by laws and armed with the experience of undermining, you know, the government and the Constitution in his first go around. What will the country look like?

You know, I think take a look at Hungary for an example of where I think Trump would like to lead. He keeps mentioning Viktor Orban as a role model. I think he means it, you know, which is sort of a zombie democracy. And so the question is not whether Democrats could win in 2028. I think Democrats would win in 2028. The question is, what will they be governing over if Trump gets four more years? Yeah. How do you come back from that zombie democracy? All right, my final question, Malcolm X famously said that, quote, the most disrespected person in America is the black woman.

We already talked about why you think Harris and Surgis shouldn't emphasize the historic nature of our candidacy, but it's historic. You know, it's a historic moment, no matter how you slice it. So as a person who was critical for Barack Obama to win the presidency, I'm going to ask you, what would her win mean from your perspective? And she asked in a very pointed way. And he said, well, you know, there are a lot of ways to answer that. But I think one thing I know for sure, the day I raised my hand, there are a one of the reasons I've devoted so much of my life to it, it lifts not just that person, but everyone who comes behind them. You know, it seems one of

the reasons that she has been able to kind of sidestep that issue is because of the fact that Hillary Clinton did run. Barack Obama did win. All of this seems less unique than it once did, and that's good. And we want young girls, you know, young African-American girls, young Indian-American girls, girls generally to say, yeah, I could, I could be that one of the, one of the most moving things, Cara, when I was working for Obama was I had a young friend, a friend of my son's who was a middle school teacher on the West side of Chicago. And he taught, uh, that he was teaching social studies and they, they had pictures of all the presidents and, uh, a kid said,

raised his hand and said, why are they all white dudes? And this kid, the teacher said, you know, that is true. But this year, you know, our own senator, Barack Obama, who's a black man, could get elected president of the United States. He said their eyes were as wide as saucers. It just they couldn't believe that that could happen. Even though the kid asked the question, they kind of knew the answer. And that made me realize how true what Obama said was. So it will mean a lot. And I will say this not to be patronizing.

It's because I really believe it. I think that women do bring something special. The women do, there's something about. The women do. There's something about the way women approach things. Maybe it is. There is more of an opportunity. I mean, Pelosi is as tough as can be. But she also she was both the overlord of the Congress and the den mother of the Congress. And that combination was really,

really powerful. So I don't know, I'll probably get nailed for, but, uh, but I, you know, I'm a big fan of women in leadership and, uh, but the biggest thing is I think it broadens our aperture and it gives a lot of young people a higher people a higher goal to shoot for with some expectation that they can reach it. And that's a gift, you know, to our country. Absolutely. As well as to these young people. So we'll see. I very much hope that we get there.

Yeah. Well, David, thank you so much. We'll check in afterwards when we see you. Always, always, always great to speak with you, my friend. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Kateri Yochum, Megan Burney, Jolie Myers, and Gabriela Biello. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Kate Furby, and Kaylin Lynch. Our engineers are Rick Kwan, Fernando Arruda, and Elia Jackson. And our theme music is by Trackademics.

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