On with Kara Swisher - What Happened to Joe Biden? What’s Next for Kamala Harris and the Dems?

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Audie Cornish, Franklin Foer, Ashley Parker, and Alex Thompson join Kara for a special bonus episode about the recent historic tumult in this year's presidential election. The panel breaks down how and why President Joe Biden decided to drop out of the race; what his legacy will be; and what a run by Vice President Kamala Harris could look like.  Audie is a CNN anchor and correspondent and host of The Assignment podcast. Franklin is a staff writer for The Atlantic and author of The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future. Ashley is a senior national political correspondent for The Washington Post. Alex is a national political correspondent for Axios, and he’s currently writing a book about President Biden.  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

Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees, and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer.

Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting

on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. It's on. It is on. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. We're bringing you a special episode of On today to talk about the big news over the weekend, the news that wasn't CrowdStrike. I'm talking about President Biden's decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race and to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president, or the brat, as CharlieXCX called her on Twitter. That is a big

deal, apparently, my children tell me. We're going to talk about what's happening behind the scenes at the White House and how this decision is already changing the election with a dynamic panel of guests that we grabbed at the last minute. And thank you so much for them for showing up. and author of The Last Politician, Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future, and Axios' national political correspondent, Alex Thompson, who is also writing a book about Biden. We'll be back in your feed on Thursday with more analysis on this. But now, here's the special. audie franklin ashley and alex thanks for coming on we're going to do a quick and dirty as i like to call it which is always fun um frankly before president biden announced that he wouldn't run um you had written that he had stepped down in order to quote avoid the long-term indignity

being remembered as one of history's great fools um wherever were you concerned you had written that he had stepped down in order to, quote, avoid the long-term indignity of being remembered as one of history's great fools. Were you concerned? You've written a book about him. You spent a lot of time with him that he would dig in his heels and refuse to give up because that was one of the stories going around. Totally. He has a psychological set of armor that he built up over many years in order to deal with humiliation and with episodes

where he falls flat on his face. And over the course of his career, he'd fallen flat on his face many, many times. And the story he told himself was that he always rebounded, that he had the ability to grit his way through. And so I figured that was what he was doing here. I felt eventually he'd get to a moment because he's a politician who's good at counting noses that he'd understand that it wasn't plausible anymore that the polling wouldn't hold up. But I knew he would dig in to avoid the humiliation for as long as possible. But you thought it was inevitable that he would drop out. It seemed like it to me just based on the polling, based on the way that elites were

responding. And one thing that Biden always respects is the opinion of other politicians. So if there was a critical mass of opinion from elected officials telling him this wasn't going to happen, that he was dooming them, it felt to me like he would respond to that after a very, very painful process of going through all of the many emotions of resentment and anger that he would go through. Ashley, there was a lot of reporting in the past. You were saying Biden was blaming Barack Obama for orchestrating the movement to force him out. Then a focus seemed to shift to Nancy Pelosi and her behind-the-scenes machinations, which

were quite machinating, it seems. He's saying he respects the opinions of politicians, but there was machinating politicians here. Right. He respects the opinions of fellow electeds because he believes, like him, they've had to answer to voters. They've had to win elections. And that matters more than sort of advisers. That said, he was keeping an incredibly tight insular circle of a dwindling number of advisors that could really be boiled down to Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti by the final days. And Ron Klain a little bit off to the side, it seemed, or at least publicly. I would say he was outer inner. But I think, you know, early on when this started, and like Frank, I went back and forth of, you know, is he gonna,

is he gonna withdraw? Is he not? And sometimes on the vibes, I would be like, oh, my God, it's going to happen. It's going to happen quickly. And then two days later, I'd be like this. This guy's staying in until November. So I have vacillated for the past three weeks. But early on, you know, the people who knew him now talk to him now talk to people who talk to him, worked with him, worked for him for decades. They basically said, though, if and when he gets out, this is how it happens. There's polls that show he doesn't really have a path. The money dries up. Both of those things happened. And then they said it will have to be sort of, if it's not the family, right, if it's not Jill, you know, his grandkids, et cetera, if it's not the family or this small coterie of advisors,

it will have to be sort of party elders, party leaders. So the Nancy Pelosi's, Chuck Schumer's, Hakeem Jeffries. But he seemed resentful, correct? He was certainly resentful of anything with Barack Obama because they have a complicated relationship and a chip on his shoulder from that. But when these and he's still frustrated with a lot of what he views as betrayal of people he's known for a long time. But they felt the most compelling pitch would be one that's not just the reality. And as Frank said, he can count votes. He's a politician, but also the appeal to his legacy. Right. I heard a lot of people said, you know, I would go to him and I would say, you've been a great president. Everyone had that caveat whenever they'd say get out,

just that idea. You've been so good that you must leave now. But yes. That works. So Audie, some people are blaming the media for supposedly forcing Biden out, which is odd, I think. I would say it was Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama,

and internal polls. Do you think that the media played a role in the ouster at all or not? It's funny. It's like a live by the sword, die by the sword, right? Like when politicians are enjoying their momentum, they are not like, the media needs to stop talking about how great I am.

It's too much, you know what I mean? But when it's on the other side, those are dark days. And just to pause for a minute, Cara, like it's funny thinking about how the things that you nurture as a person and your characteristics to survive are not always the things that help you

once you get there to thrive, like not to go Instagram grid on people, but like that ability to dig in that Biden has, like did not serve him in this last year. It reminded me a lot of tech leaders. I was successful with this and therefore. Completely. But on the other hand, I do understand the idea that,

you know, it was always said that he and Obama got along because each one thought they were teaching the other something. And I do think that Biden wanted a win on his own. Like, those wins were Obama wins, let's face it. And the win over Trump was more negative partisanship. It was a rejection of a Trump more than an embrace of Biden. I mean, you guys can fight me on it. And so this was going to be his win on his accomplishments,

standing on his own. And to have that kind of taken away, like, I'm just imagining the screenplay that's being written of him in Delaware, like the sun going down, the low tide, you know, and him, you know, and Zendaya as Kamala Harris. Exactly. And they like fade. It's like, and they go back to him like being a jaunty young man running up the steps of the Senate.

Like you can see how this story is going to go. But it is like, it's sad to have your political obit written before you're ready. That's correct. It happens a lot. It happens a lot with people. Speaking of tech leaders, they're right when conspiracy's correct. It happens a lot. It happens a lot with people. Speaking of tech leaders, the right wing conspiracy theories are critically flying

around social media. Earlier this week, it was the Trump shooting. Bill Ackman is doing most of them, actually. He was saying that there was two shooters. And now he's essentially saying Biden doesn't even know he's dropped out of the race because someone has essentially commandeered his Twitter feed and posted a resignation letter with a fake signature. It feeds into the narrative of the secret cabal of far left Democrats run by Kamala Harris, I guess, who have been pulling his puppetry. So Kamala is both an evil genius and can't campaign her way out of a paper box. Right, correct. Choose which one, folks.

What conspiracy do you want to fly on? So, Alex, it sounds goofy, but so did the birther conspiracy, and it eventually led us to Trump. Alex, it sounds goofy, but so did the birther conspiracy, and it eventually led us to Trump. So talk a little bit about the pushback from Republicans, which all seem to be conspiracy theories at this moment. Yeah, well, if you know anything, and Frank and Ashley and I all know this, is that like if anything, like Kamala was running very little in this White House, in part because the Biden inner core really sort of looked down on her. You know, you could argue it's because it was an objective look that they felt like she didn't have the political skills. But also, I think some of it came from the fact that Biden and his inner core really came from a different sort of world of politics, you know, and they are very different people with very different priorities, very different sort of mechanisms of politics. you know, and they are very different people with very different priorities, very

different sort of mechanisms of politics. I mean, even just like the states they come from. And if you want to get elected statewide in Delaware, you can almost shake every hand of every voter in Delaware like that. And that's how Joe Biden ran every campaign in California. You can't do that. It's all just about like raising as much money as you can from rich people and then running TV ads. And, you know, I think that and I can tell you, like, you know, the Biden, the Biden team really put Kamala Harris to the side and Kamala Harris sort of in in in response, basically tried to retreat from any sort of responsibility that was in any way risky. And then also was basically said like she was going to do her own thing and protect her future because the Biden team wasn't in some ways giving her the proper respect. Which is not unusual for a vice president, correct? I mean, you know, president, vice, nothing about the,

the, the president, vice presidential dynamic and this administration was that different from so many others. I would actually say like, in some ways that the Biden Obama one is distinct in the fact that they actually did have like a friendship that in some ways made it, made some of these tensions more emotionally fraught. I just thought for a bridge candidate, think about that. You know, like one of the reasons why I think people are so irritated is that they think Biden violated some sort of social contract by going out and saying, I'm going to be a bridge to the next generation out of this quote unquote mess. That's why you should vote for me. And then basically not acting like that.

I think I'll stay. Yeah, just being like, just kidding. And, you know, I think the Obama folks can take some credit for this, too. Like this real disinterest in cultivating the bench and putting them in positions where they can shine because they don't want to be outshined. There's actually a great bench right now, which was one of the frustrations, right? one of the frustrations, right? And part of the reason it was unspoken, but why Biden, why there was never a discussion of if Biden was only going to run for one term was because at the time, he did not believe that Kamala Harris could beat Trump. He thought she might be a perfectly good president if she was able to get to the White House, but he didn't think she could.

Only he, only I can do that. Neither did a lot of his top team. And there is a great bench. Biden may not deserve. We can debate if he deserves credit for cultivating them. But that was also some of the frustration once, especially once it became clear that Biden is showing signs of aging, not as agile mentally, as physically as he used to be. Democrats kind of looked around and said, look, we could have this vigorous, vigorous primary. And instead, it's, you know, a couple months before Election Day, and we're stuck with these three pretty mediocre options. Right. So he was blaming elites to trying to push him out saying that primary voters had spoken, even though they didn't really spoke. And they just they just went with the incumbent, essentially, the implication it would be undemocratic to force him out. And that's the argument Republicans are making besides the fact that he shouldn't be president anymore, which I think they're going to live to regret if she was

president. She'd have a much higher stature going into the election, even for a short time. Let's hear from everyone. How is this not undemocratic? Or is this what political parties do? Why don't we start with you, Franklin? I mean, I think what's less democratic is trying to prevent Kamala Harris from being on the ballot in various states, which is what Republicans are pursuing right now. I mean, there are mechanisms in place for when a president decides that he is not up for running for reelection again. And in this instance, there's a lot of flexibility because political primaries are run by parties, and the nominating process is run by parties, and parties are democratic in spirit in some sense, but they're not constitutionally provided entities. And so it's not amazing that this is happening at the last minute. It's not amazing that there was a political primary process that took place many months ago, which was not contested and which received very little interest and attention at the time. But to use a phrase,

it is what it is. And it's not undemocratic. It's not democratic. It's just where we're at. Anyone else? I'm going to disagree just a little bit with Frank. Sure. You can disagree a lot. I would just say, listen, Joe Biden didn't just decide that he's not capable. Joe Biden unwillingly, Joe Biden really wanted to stay in this race. He made that very clear the last three and a half weeks. He was driven out of this race by the Democratic Party that decided that he was not the best candidate at the top. You had Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and in subtle ways, Barack Obama and many of their aides basically say, time is up.

And in some ways, like that, that is undemocratic, that they, you know, the sort of old political science expression, the party decides, the party did decide, that's what one Biden aide told me, the party did decide. And Biden, as a good soldier for the Democratic Party, decided to go along with those orders. Although to disagree with Alex slightly, saying the party decided sort of makes it seem as if, you know, a secret insider swampy cabal with no agency from voters. And what's interesting was it actually took the party a long time to catch up with voters. And when the Biden White House would yell at reporters for reporting on his age or saying he'd slow down, the main reason we were doing that was because we were hearing that one year,

two years ago from voters. I would go out after the Dobbs decision to want to talk to voters about what did they think of reproductive rights? And they wanted to tell me about how old Biden was. There were Republicans who didn't even want to trash him because they felt bad for him. Republicans in Trump rallies who wanted him to just get taken care of by his family and they weren't being snarky. It was quite earnest. And there were Democrats who liked him, liked his presidency, would show up and vote for him against Trump no matter what his physical condition. But we heard this from the voters way before we heard this from the party elites. What's the argument for undemocratic?

I mean, look, I think as soon as like George Clooney weighs in, people are going to be a little bit biased, right? Because it's like, I don't know, go sell a villa. Like what you're jumping in here now feels a little bit late. And I think people are going to be resentful of that. Obviously, Biden was. But at the end of the day, I think what's fascinating about this moment is so much of it was self-inflicted. You know, like voters were saying in polls forever, we don't like either of these candidates. It's just been the most, that's the winner so far. It's like, I don't like these people and I don't like having this choice. And then the debate, the debate didn't have to happen, didn't have to happen that early.

Biden's people wanted that. So it's just, you know, if you're going to go out there, you got to perform. And at the end of the day, like he didn't do it. Now, was it mind boggling to watch like the power of Nancy Pelosi and all of these other figures having, as you guys said, this very above-deck, below-deck public conversation? Oh, she was quite explicit. She was explicit. I'll never watch Morning Joe the same way again. It's like, this is just audience of one. But at the same time, it just feels like it didn't have to be this way.

I do want to add one other thing, because I think two things are true at once, which is that I feel like anybody who got out of bed and went to their primary to vote in the Democratic primary this last year and decided they wanted Biden-Harris, I don't think they're the voter that's like, just Biden, though. Right, right. I got that. That's fair. That's crazy. You didn't even have to get out of bed. It was not really contested. So if you did it, you probably also are fine with Harris. Right, right. And you knew that there was going to be an 86-year-old president, which meant that the vice president was likely to have, yes. You might have had Harris. You might have had Harris.

That's correct. We'll be back in a minute. What do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple.

We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send

money to people you know and trust. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us, but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement, is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start? Claude from Anthropic may be the answer. Claude is a next-generation AI assistant, built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability.

Anthropic's latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can help you organize thoughts, solve tricky problems, analyze data, and more. Whether you're brainstorming alone or working on a team with thousands of people, all at a price that works for just about any use case. If you're trying to crack a problem involving advanced reasoning, need to distill the essence of complex images or graphs, or generate heaps of secure code. Clawed is a great way to save time and money. Plus, you can rest assured knowing that Anthropic built Clawed with an emphasis on safety.

The leadership team founded the company with a commitment to an ethical approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash clawed. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy? Marketing. And when you're starting your small business, while you're so focused on the day-to-day, the personnel, and the finances, marketing is the last thing on your mind. But if customers don't know about you, the rest of it doesn't really matter.

Luckily, there's Constant Contact. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform can help your businesses stand out, stay top of mind, and see big results. Sell more, raise more, and build more genuine relationships with your audience through a suite of digital marketing tools made to fast track your growth. With Constant Contact, you can get email marketing that helps you create and send the perfect email to every customer, and create, promote, and manage your events with ease, all in one place. Get all the automation, your events with ease, all in one place. Get all the automation, integration, and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by Constant Contact's expert live customer support. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. Constantcontact.ca.

Talk about big donors, not just George Clooney. They were publicly saying they're moving their money away, which I thought was huge. Last week on the Chris Wall Show, I said, you don't understand how much money Kamala Harris has access to. Donald Trump may have rich friends like Elon Musk. Kamala Harris has at least 10 of them like Lorraine Powell Jobs, I'm guessing Melinda Gates, Sheryl Sandberg. There are more women

than men but there's Reid Hoffman, there's Ron Conway, people that, this is in tech, this is just the tech. Which is good to hear because I've read

so many trend stories about Silicon Valley going conservative. They're not. So I don't mean good for Kamala, I just mean I'm having a tough time understanding where Silicon Valley is in this election year. It's only 10 largely white guys who are really loud, essentially. But how big was that a role? Actually, Ashley, talk about that,

the money part. Obviously, money runs everything, correct? Right. Well, I mean, that was one of the pressure points to get Biden out. These Democrats coming out and freezing their money and freezing pledged funds that they hadn't actually given yet was one of the things they could do to force him out. And they did that. Right. They did that. Anyone else on the money? I think I was hearing from a lot of them. They were they were doing an embargo. We're doing an embargo.

I mean, this is going to be the most fascinating donor month in Democratic politics in a long time, because you're basically going to see almost no donations for the first three weeks. And then you're going to see a ton of donations just for the last week of the month. Like this last week of July, there's going to be this huge rush of money. But to Ashley's point, I mean, you could even sort of refer to it sort of as blackmail, right? Where like the biggest donors, the Democratic Party were basically like, we're not going to give to you anymore unless you ditch Biden. And this wasn't just to the presidential ticket.

This was down ballot too. Like donors were putting pressure on down ballot Democrats saying you can't like embrace Biden. This was in some ways we were talking about like Democratic elites forcing Biden out. It was also the Democratic elite donors. Rich people. Yeah. When Reed Hastings did that, everyone was like, wow, Karen. I'm like, what do you think he'd do? That's how they operate. That's how they all operate rather explicitly. One kind of wonkish point about the

big, the high roller donors designed to appeal to Cara is that you did hear among the billionaire class in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, a lot of hostility towards Biden that was actually based on his record and based on installing Lena Khan at the FTC and being more aggressive on mergers. And that hostility, I think, informs some of the hostility that they had towards Biden headed into this moment. And one interesting question about Harris is that her economics are a little bit more of an open question that her record as California AG and as a senator such as existed. She comes from California and doesn't have a lot of the same hostility towards big tech that Joe Biden had.

Also, J.D. Vance has come out to be like, I like con, like mergers? No thanks, that's not American. They're called conservatives. Yeah, exactly. So it's sort of a topsy-turvy bit of politics in this moment. I will tell you, Kamala Harris is well-liked by tech people, but they don't think she's a

pushover either, I think. I think it's kind of a mixed bag. So let's talk very quickly about President Biden's legacy, because I think it's important. And Franklin, I want you to, when historians look back, what will they see as his biggest wins and fails? Is there anything he didn't get attention it deserved at the time that will be consequential? I mean, I think we have to say that everything will be seen through the lens of this election. So if the bungled transition to Kamala Harris and the bungled process of Sadi Natarajan culminates in a Trump presidency, that is the lens through which he is judged full stop. But I think that if we look back at the Biden record, I think that he did run an effective

presidency where he navigated a rolling series of crises beginning with COVID, where he gets exceedingly little credit. And within six months, it was possible to stroll into a CVS and get a shot in your arm, which is really one of the most incredible things that government has ever done. And that type of technocratic achievement gets no respect from voters. But then you look at other big things like the ways in which he helped usher in a new age of democratic economics. We just talked about Lina Khan and the way in which the government has acted much more aggressively against big tech, the way in which he was the first president to walk a union picket line and brought prestige to a rising

union movement. And the way in which the CHIPS Act ushered in an age of industrial policy where government plays a very different role in directing the trajectory of the economy, where it's much more like an investment bank making these huge bets on semiconductors and clean energy so that America accomplishes other goals, but also controls the commanding heights of the industries of the future. That's a big, big deal. Yes. No, he's much more consequential than the Obama administration. Audie, Alex, and then Ashley.

I think that there's a reason why everyone's using the word consequential and not saying best, which is subjective in a different way. I think that there's no two ways about it. It's always going to be marked in the story of who he is, that he is a president who, you know, stepped away after one term. It's always going to be marked that he was vice president to the first black president and had the first black female, the first woman vice president. These things are always going to be markers in terms of his achievements. I am interested to see if he could become a Carter kind of character, where at first it's not sounding so good, right, the way people talk about you. And over time you grow in a kind of stature. And I think he has that opportunity as well. Yeah. Ashley? Yeah. I mean, legislation is

not always sexy, but just even what he was able to push through big, muscular legislation with a pretty narrowly divided Congress with a lot of Republicans whose sort of only ideological goal was stopping Joe Biden. He did a ton. He also, you know, the economy with a lot of indicators is doing quite well. Now, politically for him, the problem is interest rates are still high in those markers that people feel every day, right? Like the cost of food, that doesn't feel good what people vote on. But the economy could be in a lot worse position. Trump had, you know, 2000 infrastructure weeks, Biden actually passed an infrastructure bill. And when the Ukraine when Russia invaded Ukraine, I was covering that at the

time. And Biden was able to incredibly quickly kind of marshal the world and strengthen NATO against Russia, which was hardly foregone during the Trump era. Yeah. All right, Alex, against Russia, which was hardly foregone during the Trump era. Yeah. All right, Alex? I think the first line of his narrative is just going to be whether or not Trump returns or not, which is sort of Frank's point. Is he just this sort of, you know, pause in between two Trump terms? Or was he sort of the escape hatch from Trumpism? And, you know, the fact that he ran again when there were people around him or

people in the administration that weren't sure if he could serve another term could end up being sort of the, you know, a very damning in, you know, and be very treated very harshly in history. I mean, it's sort of this great virtue of his ability to bounce back and never quit, which Frank talked about before, which can end up being a tragic flaw if he ends up losing because he didn't quit in time if Trump wins. Now, maybe this will all work out. And actually, like he was going to be remembered as the guy that helped usher, you know, to help beat back Trumpism. Right. All right. So let's look forward to that.

Wait a second, Kara. I want to ask you. Sure. Does anyone's story matter as much as Trump's right now in terms of history, right? Like when people look back on this period. He is the story and everyone else is a footnote in the story. No, he's, no, actually. He is the story and everyone else is a footnote in the story. True, but I do think if Biden does manage to get him twice, that would be a consequential achievement on his part. By stepping down, by winning and then stepping down and winning, I feel you preserve sort

of, you know, he fell on his sword kind of thing. It's not quite George Washington, is it? But it's a, to me, giving up the presidency is something else. That is a tough, you know, everyone was like, why is he being so stubborn? I'm like, he's the president. He took his whole life to get here.

Are you kidding me? He likes the M&Ms. He likes the M&Ms. He likes the, yeah, right, exactly. He's run once a decade until he finally got it. I can see him going, oh man. And for sure, presidents don't give up their jobs. Why would you?

Yeah, it happens exceedingly rarely. Why would you? Yeah, it happens exceedingly rarely. Why would you? We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Indeed. If you need to hire, you may need Indeed. Indeed is a matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more

visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Support for this show comes from Grammarly. 88% of the work week is spent communicating, typing, talking, and going back and forth on topics until everyone is on the same page. It's time for a change. It's time for Grammarly. Grammarly's AI ensures your

team gets their points across the first time, eliminating misunderstandings and streamlining collaboration. It goes beyond basic grammar to help tailor writing to specific audiences. It goes beyond basic grammar to help tailor writing to specific audiences, whether that means adding an executive summary, fine-tuning tone, or cutting out jargon in just one click. Plus, it surfaces relevant information as employees type, so they don't waste time digging through documents. Four out of five professionals say Grammarly's AI boosts buy-in and moves work forward. It integrates seamlessly with over 500,000 apps and websites. It's implemented in just days, and it's IT-approved. Join the 70,000 teams and 30 million people

who trust Grammarly to elevate their communication. Visit grammarly.com slash enterprise to learn more. Grammarly.com slash enterprise to learn more. Grammarly. Enterprise ready AI. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you. Deliver that feeling to your customers every time. Klaviyo turns your customer data into real-time connections across AI-powered email, SMS, and more, making every moment count.

Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond. Make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at klaviyo.com slash BFCM. Is the Democratic Party more or less likely to win in November without Joe Biden on top of the ticket at this moment in time? Let's start Franklin, Ashley, Audie, and then Alex. Since there was no scenario with which Biden could reverse that disastrous debate performance, I mean, I think any alternative would make it more likely because it gives the Democrats a fresh

start. The party certainly thinks they have a better chance with someone other than Joe Biden, despite numerous, numerous, numerous concerns about Kamala Harris, which is one of the things that delayed this for so long. Too early to say. I mean, look, the week we just had is so bonkers. Like, if you don't remember, there was an attempted assassination. Next week, aliens are landing. I cannot tell you what, the last 25 days were so nuts

that I cannot venture to guess the next 25. All right, Alex, you have to guess then. No, I was just going to say the same thing as Ani. So I'm just going to hedge and not say anything. Can any of you point to a scenario with which Biden was able to rebound and beat Trump, given the debate performance, given his poll numbers, given everything else? Oh, I think you could have. Oh, wow.

Just because I think Joe Biden at 110 years old still gets 40% of the vote in this Trump era. Like, I think actually there was a world where even though people didn't think that he could serve another four years, they still would have been like, like, Biden is less risky. Yeah, I see that.

And there were polls showing there wasn't a path, right? Especially if you look at these specific battleground states, blah, blah, blah. Did the country have a wild swing where all of a sudden it was 60-40? You know, like that just didn't happen. I don't think it ever will. We are still voting on concepts, not people. Values, not people. It's still very red versus blue.

And after the bad debate, it wasn't that Trump's vote share went up. It was that Biden lost vote share. So to Alex's point, there's a world in which those people return to the tribe on Election Day. Right. So right now, the worries about Harris, of course, are not being the greatest politician yet. Hasn't shown herself, although I suspect she hasn't made a misstep since the debate. She was probably the best defense of Biden of anybody, and there were a lot of good ones. But right now, it looks like she will be the nominee. And apparently Joe Manchin said he's not running. I know we're all waiting to see if he would. Look, he had a great 10 hours while he

was there. I know, exactly. He really could just... Oh, man, sit down, George. Enthusiasm. Go make your ill-gotten gains and enjoy the rest of your life as a fat cat. Before Biden stepped down, a lot of Democrats were worried that if Biden got pushed out, that it would lead to chaos. So one, Ashley, I'd love you... How did it coalesce so quickly around her from your perspective?

It's a great question. I was frankly surprised just how quickly, how just within these past 24 hours, just about every single person who might have run against her has come out and said they're not running. They support her. You know, the conventional wisdom, but I heard it from so many people that it might be true, was there was also a sense within the party that it would be very hard to bypass. I mean, talk about undemocratic or party insiders, to bypass a historic first woman, Black, Asian-American vice presidential candidate for someone else who frankly hasn't been tested either, right?

And as Axelrod says, you know, presidential campaign is an MRI for the soul. I mean, I even think of Whitmer. There was all this fanfare around here. That's not to say she wouldn't be a great candidate, but her gridiron speech was meh. Right. Like you don't know these people. So to bypass Kamala for someone else, a white guy who might implode is just unsustainable. I will also in terms of her flaws very briefly, because Alex is also on this podcast and we are both former Maureen Dowd assistants. Sure, Maureen. But one thing of all of her flaws, one thing that she has a lot of growth to a lot of areas where she performs better than Biden or has the potential to. But one thing Maureen said that always stuck

with me is the people who win have staff and have loyalists who are willing to crawl through glass with them, right? And when I covered early Obama, those kids, it was a point of pride. If you were the number two hire in Iowa or the number four hire in New Hampshire because they had turned down Ivy League law school or big consulting jobs to work for this guy who they didn't think he could win, but they just believed in. So to me, of all the criticisms I hear of her, the one that I think maybe has the most resonance is the rate at which she has just churned through staff. And very few people from the AG followed her to the Senate, very few people to the Senate, to the campaign, very few people to the campaign, to the VP's office. And then she's had an almost full overhaul. That, I think,

is the biggest question for me. Although I have to say, that has been well known, obviously. And I kept thinking, I'm waiting for the Amy Klobuchar Cohn moment here. But those stories are hard to get on the record. But then actually, this is why we're befuddled, right? It's like, so the person who's known for not running a tight ship ran the tightest of ships on Sunday. Yeah. So who is, I kept thinking, is that someone else's ship? Is that Biden people? Like, why did that fall into place? Well, I actually think Biden endorsing Kamala was more reflection of how Biden was feeling at the moment than like Kamala Kamala politicking. I mean, I also think like Kamala Harris was new from the very beginning, from the inauguration, that her main task was she was going to hug Joe Biden as tightly as possible. There were clearly like staff, you know, staff wars and such, but like publicly, she was always there. And also like, you know, Nancy Pelosi made it clear that she wanted an open process while

she was also pushing out Joe Biden. And Joe Biden was like, well, I'll drop out, but I'm not going to do the open process. Right, right. Well, someone did a good job. I don't love the narrative people have. That's like, well, I'll drop out, but I'm not going to do the open process. Right, right. Well, someone did a good job. I don't love the narrative people have that's like, you can't throw her off. She's a black woman. That always makes me think of people who think like, well, you can't fire this person because a vague sense of DEI concerns and values that someone somewhere. Which, of course, is being attacked by.

Yeah, which, of course, we're going to hear a lot of it. I think there's an also and, which is, I'm sorry, who's going to raise $100 million by September? Who has even called a single state chair to be? I mean, Joe Manchin, for God's sakes, he had to call up and be like, oh, yeah, also I'll register to be a Democrat again. Like, hadn't even done the most basic step. And it just seems so weird that people, obviously, there is a grassroots movement, active black and brown women who support her. Also, and it is not clear to me that other candidates were actually prepared to stand up a campaign, a billion-dollar campaign. And empirically, they didn't.

They didn't. No, they didn't. But people are just sort of like, we can't do that. It's like, oh like oh also you have no one else it was striking like what if you watch like a lot of fox news like the first year of the biden administration it was that kamala was the master puppeteer of the entire biden administration controlling everything and then eventually they shifted to that she's a di incompetent you know uh you know diversity well they'll try a lot of stuff.

I mean, the other one. Can I just to tie two points together? Sure. I mean, one of the most obviously blatantly racist memes about her that you see emanating from Fox News is that she is lazy, which is, I think part of the reason she's had so much staff turnover is because she is demanding that when she prepares for an interview or public appearance, she does, she A, does not want to go out and make a mistake because she's been punished for making mistakes in disproportionate ways before. And so she works her staff's ass off in a way that becomes untenable for them and

drives them crazy because their schedules end up getting ripped up because they're always getting drawn into prep sessions. Yeah, also coming from a woman, it's harder for people. It just is. Unless you're a lesbian and then you get a pass. In any case, there is an argument, though, that the Trump groups are making, I've noticed recently, is that she, besides the master puppeteer or incompetent DEA hire, is that she kept his decline from the country. This is an argument. They're testing out a lot of things, but this is what I'm seeing. It's funny seeing the testing happen in real time.

You can see people like, how's this talking point? I don't know. Try this other one. They're incongruous. That's okay. Is that an effective one, anybody? I'm curious if it's effective.

Well, I was going to also say, I'm not sure if it's effective with voters, but I do think it's also something she's going to have to answer for whenever she starts doing tough interviews is that she was the main public validator of Biden's mental fitness, especially after the Robert Herr report earlier this year that raised questions. She was way out there and she has not really sat for a tough interview about those things. I don't know if voters care, but as a reporter, I care. Yeah, okay.

So, Audie, you recently said of Harris, she's not a strong candidate in a lot of ways. And you also said that, quote, she doesn't have a constituency fighting for her. I don't agree with that a little bit. No, they've risen up. They've risen up. The K-Hive is back. Check your memes. She's all over TikTok.

Because now she's a thing, right? Because I think that's what happens influencers so what is her what is her strengths and weaknesses as a campaigner from your perspective because you were skeptical i would say uh i don't know her strengths and weakness as a campaigner let me take that back i think there are new strengths and weaknesses for her since she has stepped into the vice presidency, meaning when the Dobbs decision came down and she decided, I'm going to go out and talk about abortion, all right? You guys don't want me to do this. I'm going to go out and have that conversation and do it in multiple

places. She was doing that. The kids noticed. When she gave her speech at Selma, she said, by the way, ceasefire in Gaza maybe for for a couple of weeks. But like she said it out loud before Biden did. And the kids noticed, wait, Kamala is out here talking about the children in Gaza. And now in terms of defending Joe Biden, she did what she was supposed to do. I actually think that there are many people who are far more out there than her. And I think there's going to be a collective responsibility for the party. I have a hard time seeing her being the one, given Clyburn and Bernie Sanders and whoever. But I think that she has some strengths in that she actually has spent the last year and a half being out there talking specifically to and about the voters that they were most worried about. And even now, this

week, her original schedule said she was going to be in Wisconsin. And it was going to be her fifth trip. Right. She's been a lot of places. It's like she's doing the stuff that, again, those other candidates out there, potential fantasy football Democrat candidates, they aren't doing. And she also turned the coconut thing around. She didn't do it on purpose, but the internet turned it around for her.

Now she's popular on TikTok. Trump is popular on Twitter. And Biden really suffered on TikTok, especially because of the Gaza policy. And I think that now it'll be interesting to see, will these influencers come back? Because remember, they care about engagement. Not to say they're cynical, but they care about engagement. And if the engagement on her is very positive, get ready for an algorithm that will do that. There's a lot of dancing happening right now.

We need to remember that even before the debate, the Biden campaign was kind of a disaster. It was unable to articulate arguments for itself or against its opponent in any sort of way that had any sort of staying power. And I think the appeal of Kamala Harris, in theory, at least, is that because she's a prosecutor, because she's had these moments, that she's coming at you straight, and that she can make an argument. Or that she doesn't have to define herself. She just has to define Trump in a way that will be disqualifying. And if she can do that, that could make the difference. She's a prosecutor. He is now a convicted felon. In 2020, she also used the same argument of prosecute the case against Trump. Her challenge there was she had a tough time beyond articulating a case against him, articulating what she

affirmatively stood for. And I'm curious what other people think. But now when the entire Democratic Party, all they care for is being against Trump with one hundred and five days left until Election Day, maybe that is a short enough window where she can just make the case against Trump. That is sufficient. She has to mean something. She has to mean talking to her allies. They did say you should view prosecute the cases broader than just against a convicted felon. Right. They said it's prosecute the case on reproductive rights. Take it to him in a way that Joe Biden couldn't or wouldn't. And she can also, last thing, prosecute her skill. She can simplify down complicated topics in an easily understandable

way. And a number of people pointed to her appearance at the Essence Festival, where she talked about the Supreme Court's immunity decision, which is kind of complicated and connected. But can she be consistent under scrutiny? This is the thing from the campaign period that I wonder about. It's like when she doesn't have a single focus mission, like what is she going to be like? We actually don't know. Trump is on true social complaining that his campaign spent money and effort running against Biden and mocking the president. On Monday morning, he wrote, it's a new day and Joe Biden doesn't remember quitting the race yesterday. He's still talking about Joe Biden. He's attacked Harris and says she'll be easier to defeat than Biden. I think that's a tell on everything.

How is the Trump campaign reacting, Franklin? I mean, we ran a piece in The Atlantic by my colleague, Tim Alberta, which made the case that there was this Trump apparatus that had been built for one purpose, which was to beat Donald Trump. And that the thing that causes them pause is that Biden was somebody that they'd managed to define, but the Democrats headed into this election have certain advantages that they weren't able to realize when Biden was at the top of the ticket. And then suddenly you switch it up and you have a fresh candidate, then suddenly some of those latent Democratic advantages as it comes to kind of the attacks on Trump or the underlying economic conditions of the country or whatever

it is, start to go back to the Democrats. That's the fresh start. The two things they're going to try to do are they're going to try to tie her as much to Joe Biden as possible, because to Frank's point, the Trump campaign had designed this campaign to beat Joe Biden. So they're going to try to basically make her one the same. In addition to that, they're going to try to basically take whatever the playbook was to run against Kamala Harris had she won the nomination in 2020, which is, you know, honestly, her electability was part of the reason why Joe Biden ended up winning. They're going to try to basically do both. And I don't know if that's going to be effective because it's a little bit muddled. They're going to try to attack her as like a left wing nut, plus also like a Joe and own anything bad about Joe Biden's

legacy. I think they're just going to tear her apart. I think it's going to be a big character thing. Yeah. I think they're going to take advantage of every nasty meme that's out there about her and amplify it to 10. She got up. Effectively or unaffectively, do you think? I think it'll be effective, but I am a cynical person.

So to me, I'm like, if a black woman can't be president of Harvard, Godspeed. But I also think that she wants to run on Biden's record and she can distance herself from the mistakes. But like, that's not going to be the catch. I think the catch is going to be

challenge every step of this, make Democrats talk about it for the next hundred days, whether it's legal. Is it a coup? Is he okay? Should he resign? Just muddy the waters with a lot of nonsense and create reasonable doubt.

It's not about affirmatively doing something against her. It's just make it so that you start to think, well, these Democrats, I don't know what's going on. Right, exactly. It's going to be. One thing about just one thing about the age issue is that there were. She's younger. She is younger. I think that's that's.

In what years though she's older. We can debate that. We can debate that. She's 112 and above. But there were you look at things like the crime numbers and their ways in which Biden, if he was just making a data driven case for himself, could claim successes in all these areas where Republicans are asserting failure. But because Biden is old, nobody would have believed them. They believed that the world was spinning out of control and that there was nobody who was actually in charge. And so if she's able to both call on the data and project strength,

there's a possibility for neutralizing some of the main attacks. I think this is where the running mate comes in. There are a lot of jokes bouncing on Twitter about how Kamala is looking for an extremely white man, extremely white wine as her VP. You know, a dry white, a fruity white, whatever. The idea that she has to be very strategic about her choice, obviously. Ashley, is that true? So the Trump people talking to them at the RNC last week are most concerned about Josh Shapiro.

Now, I don't know that that's who she's going to pick. For a lot of reasons, that might not make sense. But that's who they are most concerned about. And I was just struck by and have been thinking of looking into this further. All those memes you've mentioned, right? Like they show a bunch of frat boys at a game and say, these are the faces Kamala is considering for her running mate, the wines. I think, again, it's the conventional wisdom. I think at the end of the day, she probably does choose a white running mate and she probably does choose a white male running mate but I was kind of curious like what is it what does it say about society that when you have a black woman at the

top of the ticket that it is almost just a foregone given that nobody even it says it's racist and sexist but go ahead yeah I mean I guess that is what it says but I was just kind of struck by I have not heard a single voice of dissent of well she might she might choose this woman or she might choose this person of color. I would like put Whitmer on there and just let it fly. But it's too big a risk, I think. She's not a risk. She's a risk averse person. It's not just that.

Like, past is prologue here. Like, Barack Obama had Joe Biden specifically for the same exact reason. Yeah, that's true. Like, oh, you don't have that much experience. Joe Biden does not think of it that way. Of course. Of course he doesn't. But that was him.

He's a DEI hire. He was going to get on the ticket and talk to the parts of the country that might be reluctant and something, something Pennsylvania like that was the shtick. I get that. But in the year 2024, don't you think maybe it shouldn't be so foregone that it has to be a white man? Only if you haven't been paying attention to 2022, 2023 and 2024. Patraean case. So this election really comes down to two or three states, right? So we're talking, and two of the vice presidential contenders

come from two of the states that will determine the election. So if you make a calculation that Whitmer or Shapiro can buy you a point or like, you know, a half a point in one of these states that will determine the election, I think that trumps all other considerations. So it's not wildly impossible to me that she picks Whitmer because Michigan matters and that Whitmer is popular in Michigan.

You want to have a beer with her? And the vice president doesn't matter that much in terms terms of the aggregate uh sum of things and so you have to think very it matters for the first woman yeah yeah yeah go ahead i'll just say as a reporter not a political strategist i mean whitmer would be the most fascinating story especially given the contrast with trump just had his rnc where he's introduced by hulk hogan and the head of the like ultimate fighting championship, like all testosterone and like picking Whitmer would be like, okay, let's make this boy versus girls in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision and really make this election

like a fascinating story and reflection of America. Well, Whitmer says she's not leaving Michigan. That said, I bet she would if she did. So last question for each of you. Very quickly, Ashley, you start. What should be her motto, Kamala Harris's motto? I think it's going to be probably Kamala Harris for the people again, what she did in 2020. Audie? My God, I'm not good at mottos. On the Internet, I saw some women had chopped the Biden off the top of their sign. And so it just said Harris. And I think that's it. Okay. All right. Alex?

Because I think, to your point, I think she's proud of the Biden record. But there is going to be some risk there because a lot of people have thought that the only reason Biden wasn't winning is because of his age. And what happens if you remove the age and people actually don't like the Biden record? Right. Franklin? Yeah. Youth, vigor, energy. You're all wrong.

Awake. I didn't just fall out of a coconut tree and then do a dance. There we go. No. Anyway, I really appreciate you guys. What a coconut tree and then do a dance. There we go. Anyway, I really appreciate you guys. What a fascinating time. It's too bad there's not more news around for all of you to chew over. And I really, truly appreciate it.

This was really helpful. And thank you so much. Thanks. You're the best. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Kateri Yochum, Jolie Myers, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Kate Verby, and Kaylin Lynch. Our engineers are Rick Kwan, Fernando Arruda, and Aaliyah Jackson. And our theme music is by Trackademics.

If you're already following the show, you get a lovely bunch of coconuts. If not, you have to listen to Lee Greenwood and Kid Rock for the next four years. My ears still hurt from the RNC convention. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. We'll be back on Thursday with a new episode of On. Support for this podcast comes from Stripe. Stripe is a payments and billing platform supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like Uber, BMW, and DoorDash. Stripe has helped countless startups and established companies alike reach their growth targets, make progress on their missions, and reach more customers globally.

The platform offers a suite of specialized features and tools to fast-track growth, like Stripe Billing, which makes it easy to handle subscription-based charges, invoicing, and all recurring revenue management needs. You can learn how Stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at Stripe.com. That's Stripe.com to learn more. Stripe. Make progress. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees. And it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you. Tells you which leads are worth knowing. And makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers.