Pod Save America - Biden Passes the Torch to Kamala

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

In a historic moment in what was already a norm-shattering campaign, Joe Biden withdraws from the presidential race and endorses Kamala Harris. As the rest of the party moves to unite behind the VP, Jon, Lovett, Dan, and Tommy talk how Biden arrived at his decision, the particular strengths that Harris brings to the race against Donald Trump, and how the GOP will look to blunt the new burst of Democratic energy and excitement. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Well, holy shit. We have just lived through what I'm pretty sure were the most shocking 52 days of any presidential campaign in our lifetime. Definitely. On May 30th, Donald Trump became the first presidential nominee in history to be convicted of a felony. On June 27th, Joe Biden had a debate performance so catastrophic that most Democrats and Democratic voters eventually called on him to step down. On July 13th, Donald Trump survived an assassination

attempt a few days before picking J.D. Vance as his running mate and accepting the Republican nomination for the third time in a row. And at 1.46 p.m. Eastern on July 21st, Joe Biden posted a letter on Twitter announcing that he'd be withdrawing from the race. Shortly after that, he posted a message fully endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, to take his place. And since then, she's won endorsements from dozens of Democratic officials. And most importantly, just about every single potential challenger for the nomination. The vice president made her first appearance this morning at the White House during an NAACP sports event. Here's what she said about Biden's legacy. Biden's legacy of accomplishment over the past three years is unmatched in modern history.

In one term, he has already, yes, you may clap. In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms in office so uh we're going to discuss everything but let's just start with a quick sentence or two reaction from everyone i'll just start like trump's party is a cult of personality and ours is not and the democratic party rallied around Joe Biden in 2020 when everyone believed that he was our best chance to beat Donald Trump. He did. And then Joe Biden held that coalition together by listening to the people in the party with different views, in some cases changing his own views. And in 2024, when the party and the voters told Biden he

wasn't our best chance to beat Donald Trump anymore, he listened again and he changed his mind. And that's not just the model of what a strong leader should be. That is the model of what a strong democracy should be. The last few weeks have been contentious because we all understand the stakes in defeating Trump. But the only reason the debate was worth having, and this went unspoken, the only reason it was plausible is because we also understood Joe Biden's character, which meant we knew that he would ultimately do what he felt was best for the country. And yes, there's ego and there's pride. But the reason people felt like this argument was worth making is because if we could succeed in making the argument, he would do what was best. And so I feel like there was an incredible outpouring

of enthusiasm and excitement, but my first reaction was just this feeling of gratitude to Joe Biden for being the best version of Joe Biden in this moment where we needed him to be. I decided to leave my phone inside and be present with my daughter for 45 minutes yesterday. Huge mistake. And that's when this broke. So joke's on me.

How many texts did you come back to on your phone? A trillion. Um, but no, but jokes aside, I am relieved, but anxious about how difficult the road ahead is going to be. Um, I think our odds of winning this election are a lot better than they were a week ago, but still at best 50, 50 at best 50, 50. I think Joe Biden deserves a lot of credit for stepping aside. There's a reason people still celebrate George Washington, and it's because most people don't voluntarily give up power. It's exceedingly rare. I'm sure this was an agonizing decision for him. Politics is not just his job. It is his calling. It has been his life. And I think he probably feels like a piece of himself is dying by giving it up. And that is brutally hard. of himself is dying by giving it up. And that is brutally hard. That said, I am worried about how long it took to get from the debate to today. Republicans are trying to try to turn this into a conspiracy and they're going to try to lay it at the feet of Kamala Harris. I worry about the damage this process has done to trust in the Democratic Party writ large. But today I am

energized. The party is too. You can see it online. You can see it in the grassroots fundraising. You can see it from the big donors. I got a text from a donor yesterday who said he had gone from basically leaving the Democratic Party to cutting a massive check, massive check. So as Obama would say, fired up, ready to go, but like a lot of work to do here, people. Dan? My immediate reaction was sadness. Like I was sad that we were at this place and I felt just empathy for Biden and all the people around him, the people who work for him, all the people who were on that campaign. But I think it really is a hallmark of Joe Biden himself. In 2020, he came out of retirement to run because he believed, and correctly so, I imagine, that he was the only one who could defeat Donald Trump at the time when his country needed him the most. And then in 2024, he did the thing that almost no politician would ever do.

And certainly, it's impossible to imagine Donald Trump doing, which is to put his personal ambition aside and do what is right for his country. And we should all be grateful to him. We should celebrate him. And I think that it is a testament to the president he is and the man he is that he did this at this moment, because it is an incredibly difficult thing to do. And he did it. And it's just, thank you. It was, I think, what we should say to him. Yeah, for sure. All right, let's start with what we know about how Biden made the decision.

According to NBC, senior campaign aides weren't told of the decision until 145 Eastern Time on Sunday. That is one minute before the letter was posted on Twitter. As late as Saturday morning, Biden was telling staff that the campaign was, quote, full steam ahead. We haven't yet heard from Biden about why he changed his mind. He said in the letter he will address the nation this week. He's still recovering from COVID. But the reporting is that his two top aides, Mike Donilon and Steve Reschetti, came to him with new internal polling from the battleground states that showed almost no path to victory. Politico reported that these were the first swing state polls the campaign had conducted in two months, which is shocking if true,

and that they showed Biden behind everywhere and even sinking fast in Virginia and New Mexico. They also reportedly knew that the pressure from Congress and maybe Nancy Pelosi in particular was about to enter a new and more public phase. So starting on Saturday afternoon, Biden worked with Donilon and Reschetti at his beach house to draft the letter. He apparently spoke with the vice president and General Malley Dillon, his campaign chair, and a few of the most senior West Wing staffers before the letter went out. But that was about it. What do you guys make of the reporting around how and when Biden made the decision and how he made the announcement, Tommy? So, I mean, I think that Joe Biden deserved to break this news himself, which is why it was so close hold among staffers and why I think the process between decision Saturday and announcement

Sunday feels very compressed after, you know, a long period before that. I've seen some reporters and others like dunking on Biden staffers for saying last week that Joe Biden was still in it. Frankly, I don't think that's at all fair. Like he was running until he decided not to, there was no dishonesty there. Like that's what happened. And so it was all present tense. If you look back, Joe Biden is the candidate, Joe Biden is running. It was, and that's not, that's not new. I mean, right. Like this has happened every time someone announces for president, you're not running until you are. So I too was shocked to read that they hadn't polled in swing states or at least some swing states for a while. That suggests some

willful ignorance maybe by some of Biden's top aides and that some of the pushback about Biden's numbers not moving in swing states was not honest or at least not fully honest. But I think big picture, Biden's got a great campaign team. I'm really glad Kamala Harris is going up there today to meet with them. Some of the smartest people in politics are sitting in Delaware, like waiting for marching orders. They had a candidate challenge and a decision making challenge at the very top. But there's a super effective organization sitting there for Kamala Harris to take over. And that's a good thing. I will also say on the polling from that reporting, just about everyone in the

Biden campaign did not have access to the polling. And so it was very closed off. It's the best way to use polling. Just a few top advisors. So part of why I think a lot of the rest of the team was saying, well, the numbers haven't moved just because they just hadn't seen it. As for what changed, Dan, what's your take on the polling element of these reports? Why do you think they didn't poll swing states for so long? What was going on there? I'm very skeptical that that report is true, right? It just seems impossible for me to imagine that a well-funded, incredibly sophisticated campaign would not do a series of polls during the 21 most tumultuous days of the campaign, right? Just not even put aside, like I understand the hesitancy given how committed Biden was to continue the race to do a poll to determine

whether he should get in or out. But you want to be tracking it to know what's happening, to know how to adjust your ad traffic, to just understand what the dynamics are, allocate resources among states. And so we know they did some polling because they put that polling out in the, I think, 96 hours or so after the debate. It was a Jeff Guerin poll. It was a poll of seven battleground states, right? Not seven individual polls of the battleground states, but a combined universe taken only from the battleground states that showed movement kind of akin to what we were seeing at the time of a few points against Biden. And we were seeing mostly in that poll, people moving to undecided, not to Trump. So I just don't know whether that's the first poll that made it to Biden or something. It doesn't make a ton of sense. I don't know. I kind of

think that that is what they were doing. Cause I think some campaigns just do the, like they did the, the, the Garin polls that were the universe of swing States, but they had some other reporting said that they just hadn't gone in to the actual state by state swing states in a long time. That is possible. That is possible. Right. It's just, we have this one report that says that, and I'd like to see more before concluding that they didn't do real polling in that period. You sort of understand not polling, not investing. It's a tremendously expensive endeavor to poll, to do seven large sample size polls in the battleground states. And they did more because this report suggests that they also went into the states that have now become purple, like Virginia and New Mexico and Minnesota, to not do that for the

July week and letting things settle out from the debate. So who knows? But maybe it was willful ignorance. Maybe this was the moment when it came time to share that polling with the president to make the case. They seem to be basing a lot of their public arguments, at least, on a very selective cherry-picking of public polls. When we were all seeing private surveys that were circulating around from high-quality Democratic pollsters showing something that I think was very similar to what was in this Biden poll that he was reported to have seen on Saturday. I guess it maybe speaks to just the maybe lack of a process to get to this point until the very, very end. There was a political story that had more details about Chuck Schumer's meeting with Joe Biden last week that I just found interesting,

but this is what the story says. It says, Schumer said to Joe Biden, I do not expect you to walk out of this room making a decision, but I hope that you will think about what I said. The president tells Schumer, I need a week. And then the two of them hugged. And I just found that to be like a moving story. It's hard for me to imagine that moment

between these two men that have known each other for a long time. Do you think it was a grip and squeeze? Or was it like a tap on the back? I bet there was like three to five taps. But it just, that whatever the, like the mounting pressure he was feeling, whatever new information he was feeling,

whatever kind of easy way or the hard way we were hearing from Nancy Pelosi, it was just, just in seeing this, it was a reminder that a lot of this, yes, we care about the political stakes, but this was human. And this was people trying to persuade someone in a very difficult moment. Long time friend too. Yeah. Yeah. That's all. But I do think, I think it's important to realize before we move on that,

you know, it's Joe Biden, which pushed out, it was elected officials, it was donors, it was this, it was that. At the end of the day, it sounds like there were, from all the reporting, there were two factors in the decision, what voters were thinking and his ability to change their minds. And, you know, for all allegations of polling denialism and all this kind of stuff, at the end of the day, Joe Biden saw the numbers and the number behind the numbers are voters and what the American people are thinking and said, you know what, there's not a path here. And, and I'm going to accept that. And I'm going to listen to the voters in my own party and in the broader electorate.

And I'm going to do the unbelievably hard thing that is the right thing. Yeah, I do think you have to, I think that's all true. And then on top of that, the fact that it did seem as though as much as we had seen politicians coming out publicly against him, that the week starting right now was going to be even worse. But even that they were, they didn't want to come out against him until they saw that. No, of course, of course, it was all the internal bullying. All right, let's talk about what's next. The DNC immediately

announced that the party would quote, undertake a transparent and orderly process to come up with a new candidate. But as of this recording, pretty much the entire Democratic Party establishment has endorsed Kamala Harris, including around 150 House Democrats, 35 Democratic senators, 17 governors, including everyone who was thought to be a potential challenger to Harris in a possible mini primary. So Gretchen Whitmer, Andy Beshear, Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsom, Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, Wes Moore, J.B. Pritzker all endorsed Harris. Joe Manchin also said he's not running. There was a moment there where there's sources close to Manchin saying he was thinking about it, but he said this morning he's not running. And it seems like the... He just couldn't resist. One last

news cycle. He couldn't resist. Like, maybe I'll re-register as a Democrat and run. Probably wouldn't go well. Us boat tour. And it also seems like the entire Biden campaign operation can and will now get to work for her, which is excellent that, you know, they're in general. Mally Dillon on a call yesterday told them they all still have jobs and they should. They've been working their asses off for under the most trying circumstances imaginable. Tommy, what do you make of the quick support behind Harris? And why don't you think any other Democrat took up the DNC on their offer to run in an open process? I think there's a few reasons. I mean, I think the first is they all probably know that Kamala Harris is the immediate front runner and anticipated that Joe Biden would endorse her the way he did and then saw this flood of endorsements right out of the gate.

The second is I think everyone is aware in Democratic politics of how little time we have between now and election day and now and the formal nomination process. We were arguing a couple of weeks ago that a mini process could be great because it creates press attention and it showcases all our great candidates. And it's a conversation about ideas. And that if Kamala Harris won, it makes her even stronger. But at some point, it could be divisive. Uh, the time is just wasn't there. And so they decided let's unify. And then third is just, let's be honest, like politicians are risk averse and a lot of them know Kamala Harris is the front runner and they know that Trump is currently winning. Uh, and many are probably thinking, all right, let's let the vice

president run this cycle and maybe I'll run in 2028, you know, I'll keep my powder dry. So I don't know if it was a mistake or not. I just think it's just a function of how constrained this timeframe is. Yeah. We have a strong bench, but none was bold enough to challenge Biden two years ago. It doesn't seem like they would be bold enough to try to mount a three-week campaign against a front runner endorsed by the president when there's so, so, so little time. I do think like if there were someone that was going to do it, like we are in the middle of an open and orderly process, right? Kamala Harris working the phones all weekend to get people to endorse her is politics. And if any of these

candidates had been thinking about maybe mounting a challenge this weekend, the last week before, they'd have been working the phones saying to elected Democrats in important positions, hey, just keep your powder dry. I'm thinking about jumping in. If I do, let's see what the polls say, whatever. They would have done politics. So just because a bunch of people come out and say they are behind Kamala Harris doesn't mean we are not in the middle of that open process. It's just someone would have to challenge her. Yeah, Dan, I was a fan of the idea of an open process, like in the days after the debate, both because I think it would help rebut the argument that the DC insiders were installing a new nominee. And because I thought it would like, I think Kamala Harris was the overwhelming

favorite. And if she emerged from that process as the candidate, it would make her even stronger. And if she emerged from that process as the candidate, it would make her even stronger. As the days ticked down, I was like less and less enamored of the idea because I just didn't know if we had enough time. And then by the fact that it happened on Sunday and we only have three, four weeks to the convention, I was like, I don't know how you would do a process in a couple of weeks. And I imagine even though one of these candidates could have challenged her, that's what they were all thinking, too. too. She's getting all these endorsements. What am I going to do? I'm going to jump in now. Yeah, I think that's right. With every passing day, the stakes get higher and the pressure mounts. And yes, in an ideal, I hate to say this, Sorkin-esque fashion of this roadshow where they're doing debates everywhere and meeting with labor unions and meeting with seniors and speaking at the NAACP and all of that seems great. And that would be

this great media play. We just don't have time to do that. If someone had wanted to do it, that would have been the right process, but no one does. I think that was, yes, this is maybe a risk averse group where they thought they couldn't win. But also, Biden's decision is so historic because it therefore speaks to the stakes. And so let's just get to work because there's not a great argument against Kamala Harris. And there are a million great arguments for her to be our best standard bearer in this moment. And by the way, like one of the reasons was to make sure that it didn't seem as though some smoke-filled room was making the decision. Based on the collective energy and response, I think the fear of that was

overblown. I think everyone was excited to get behind her. And if anything, a challenge that seems to suggest some group of party insiders was suggesting we should skip over Kamala Harris and go to somebody else, I think could have even been more damaging. The Sorkin version was apparently Mitt Romney wins after a series of town halls hosted by Emma Chamberlain and Millie Bobby Brown. And Zendaya, I think, was on that list as well. I missed that part. There was some crazy thing in Semaphore that someone had pitched a series of town halls that was as silly as you could possibly imagine. venture capitalist and Rosa Brooks, who's a long-term democratic policy advisor, who had a very, very good process for this with the exception of making the mistake that everyone makes in a memo, which is suggesting Taylor Swift be involved with something. Too much detail.

Yeah. There was a forum on the humanities with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Taylor Swift, but point being, we're not going to have to cross any of those bridges. And so no one has to send a calendar invite to Taylor Swift to get her ready for this. And Sorgan withdrew his Mitt Romney pitch with a few hours. Yes. Yeah. It was tough timing for his pitch since it happened just hours before Joe Biden withdrew from the race. There have been some questions about why Pelosi, Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Barack Obama have not endorsed Harris yet. It's only because, Hakeem Jeffries and Barack Obama have not endorsed Harris yet. It's only because, per the DNC's statement about wanting to have an open process, they, as party leaders, did not want to thumb the scale for anyone. And they want to have, like, it's a contest. Let's see who's in.

I would imagine now that just about all the contenders have decided to bow out and that there probably was not going to be a challenge to Kamala Harris. I would imagine the four of them will probably endorse soon. But just for people wondering, that's why. Yeah, it was the right thing to do. They were stepping back and saying, even in President Obama's statement immediately, it was that he hopes that she earns it. That was the whole idea. And Kamala Harris in her statement said, I want to win and earn this nomination.

Right. And that was a very specific signal to the open process. There was no secret plan by moderates in the party to install Joe Manchin or some other boring person. The people tweeting about that are losing it. Everyone just focus. It's wild. We're back.

And now we're going to talk about Kamala Harris' candidacy. And we have some refreshments here because we are now... We're coconut pilled. We're coconut pilled. Thank you. We're all coconut pilled just like everyone else. Not Dan, though. Oh, that is so thick.

Oh, my gosh. That's just a mix. Jesus Christ, people. It is just the mix. I didn't want to say. Just the mix. It's morning. I didn't think anyone wanted booze.

Hey, come on. It's been a long couple years. Why are you so burdened by what has been? Look, we were half drunk in almost all of the pods we recorded last week. What do you mean half? The five in a row. I was on the plane when we were just about to take off from Chicago when the note came through. And I was just like, screw it.

I'm going to be drunk on a plane tweeting about Kamala Harris. Let's go. I really did. I really was just two sheets to the wind. All the best tweets happen when you're drunk. Absolutely. Kamala Harris candidacy completely upends the dynamics of the race. That is an understatement.

People are clearly very psyched and energized, especially Democrats. Act Blue, which is the platform, the fundraising platform for Democrats, had its largest fundraising day ever yesterday. Harris has already taken in more than $86 million as of this recording, probably more by now. Then there's the polling. So polls taken before Biden announced he would withdraw have generally been slightly more favorable to a Harris candidacy than Biden. CNN had the vice president polling four points ahead of the president nationally. And the Time Sienna poll that we talked about last week has her outperforming Biden in Pennsylvania and Virginia. But it's not like she's outright winning the state she'll need yet.

Nate Cohn had a piece out this morning setting out the challenges for her. Her approval rating isn't much better than Biden's, and she's never been broadly popular. But obviously, circumstances are completely different now. She has a huge chance right now to reintroduce herself to the country, and she's going to do so with a ton of attention on her. And it's always a challenge for any candidate in this media environment to get attention. She'll have a ton. And she'll also now have a ton of money behind her. A lot of people have already been circulating this ad from Harris's 2020 primary campaign just as a preview of what her campaign against Trump might look and sound like. Let's listen. Sick of this? Well, think about this. He's a world leader in temper tantrums. She never loses her cool. She prosecuted sex predators. He is one. Grab him by the... She shut down for-profit colleges that swindled Americans. He was a for-profit college.

At Trump University, we teach success. Literally. He's owned by the big banks. She's the attorney general who beat the biggest banks in America and forced them to pay homeowners $18 billion. He's tearing us apart. She'll bring us together this is trump and in every possible way this is the anti-trump so if that's what you're looking for in your next president

there's really only one comma no put him just put in my veins. Love it. What do you think about Kamala's upside? So what advantages she have against Trump? So that ad, I think, captures it. The contrast that we've all felt like was missing, that we've been really wanting this campaign to make. They now have the perfect candidate to make it. First woman to be vice president campaigning for reproductive freedom against a man found liable for sex abuse who overturned Roe and wants to control your body and ban abortion. The chief law enforcement officer of the nation's most populous state against a convicted felon who incited an insurrection and someone new and someone exciting versus someone who most Americans are fucking sick of and have been telling pollsters for years they would rather have an alternative to. And so you just see the contrast so clearly. It's freedom versus control, like safety and calm versus chaos and corruption and the future versus the past.

Pelosi just endorsed breaking news on the pod. There we go. Okay. Harris, not Trump. Yeah, yeah. Good flag, Tommy. Good flag Tommy, good flag Thank you One other advantage that was in that ad That media pundit types

Might not grab onto But I think voters are going to really care about The housing point That when she was attorney general She sued the banks On behalf of homeowners And returned $18 billion To homeowners Housing is the number one

affordability concern among every demographic group, every voter you talk to. Donald Trump is a slumlord. That's his background. And Kamala Harris has already fought the banks on behalf of homeowners, making it more affordable. I think that's just a great contrast, and I hope we hear more about it. And I think slumlord is part of it. But I also just he is in the pocket of his wealthy donors and billionaires, right? He has already promised them a corporate tax cut. He has already he is on the trail talking about how he wants to reward these people. It's his it's one of his biggest proposals. So I think I think that is important. Dan, where in the electorate are we seeing enthusiasm among certain groups of voters that that might not have been there in the polls for Biden?

Well, as we know, because of his age, because just of being ground down as an incumbent during really tough times, President Biden has suffered with three key groups from his 2020 coalition, young voters, Black voters, and Latino voters. And Kamala Harris offers upside with all of those. We already know that she does better with Black voters than Biden does. There's a split ticket data for progress poll of Black voters where her overall favorability rating was five points higher than Biden's. And most importantly, that five points came entirely in the strongly favorable category, so there's more enthusiasm for her. She has more room for definition because fewer people know enough about her to draw an opinion. We know broadly in all of the polling that the groups least likely to have an opinion yet on Kamala Harris are the exact voter groups that Biden has been suffering with, so there is upside there. Our friend Carlos Odio tweeted out today some

polling from a recent poll in Nevada of Latino voters that showed that she showed real potential to both win back some voters, Latino voters, particularly Latinas, who were open to supporting RFK Jr., and others who had sort of dropped out of the electorate altogether because they didn't like the choice of Biden or Trump. And just broadly here, people have, and you see this in the enthusiasm and the act blue numbers you mentioned, just the flood of pro Kamala Harris content on TikTok and other social media sites, just something you never saw for Biden, just never, ever, ever. And it is everywhere for Kamala Harris today is that people have been screaming for a different choice and now they have one. And so there was an opportunity there to build back the coalition that beat Donald Trump in every election since 2016. Right. And so she has the ability to do that in a way that Biden wouldn't.

the groups that she was winning back voters who said they were going to sit out a Biden Trump rematch, so-called double haters, and those who somewhat disapprove of Biden where, and Biden was losing those voters. And now she's winning the somewhat disapprove voters. So that, that is early signs one state, but like, you know, encouraging for sure. Tommy, what are some of the challenges? What are the biggest challenges that Kamala Harris is facing? Sure. So here are some of the ways I think Republicans are going to go after her based on a scan of conservative media over the last couple of days. I do think the biggest message, the public messaging will be attacking her on immigration because she had this central job to dealing with migration and Republicans are going to argue that she was the immigration czar

and she is responsible for the situation at the border. I think the more subterranean whisper message will be about race and gender. The worst people on the Internet are calling her a DEI vice president, which is racist and sexist and stupid and wrong. And it kind of gets worse than there. Like you're already seeing some birther stuff again, people suggesting she's not eligible to run. That is, again, a lie. but that stuff travels fast on the internet. You're going to see Republicans say she was complicit in a coverup of Biden's age and fitness for office. They're going to go after her on crime, especially helping raise money for a bail fund in 2020. They're going to try to tie her to every liberal thing that has ever happened in California for time eternal.

They're going to go after her for not having children. So, like, again, obviously, a lot of these attacks are disgusting, racist, sexist, dishonest. But I think that's what we all need to be ready for. Like, this is not likely to be a high minded debate about the issues, you know, in health care. It's going to be some nasty stuff. Can I just make one point here? Like, this is not a, this is a hard conversation to have, like in the back and forth of a campaign. If you're having it, you're probably losing, but it is just as a factual note that Kamala Harris was not in charge of the border.

Like she was not in charge of border management. She was not in charge of DHS or- No, she, what she would ask to do was to go to some of the Northern Triangle countries and try to work on the issues that are underpinning migration, leading people to want to leave those countries. She was very specifically not in charge of the border, but they will try to tie that to her. Which is the exact job that Obama gave Biden when Biden was vice president. Yeah, I like sort of the country is clamoring for new and normal. And so they're going to be desperately trying to say she's not new and she's not normal. And I think the challenge, the goal and the opportunity is for Kamala Harris to be able to go out there and rightfully take credit for being part of the incredible successes of this administration while talking about the future and all the things that she can do in the future. And just by her being out there, and I think having this groundswell of support and unity behind her will help in tamping down the ways in which they try to paint her as other, whether because of race or gender or trying to paint her as a lefty. And by the way, I think one of the reasons some people sort of were at least a little bit skeptical of Kamala Harris, and that skepticism I think grew over the past couple of years is because when she ran for president, she, she was, I think she struggled to talk about being a prosecutor at

a time when there was a lot of progressive angst around police and a lot of energy around reform. And I think that being an asset, a pure asset in the run-up to November is really important. And I think she's going to embrace her role as the chief law enforcement of a state running as a criminal. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I've seen the polling. I've sat in focus groups since the 2020 election in the primary. And voters do tend to have an unfavorable, not Democratic based voters, but swing voters, voters who are who we want to get people who don't know if they're going to vote yet. They tend to have an unfavorable impression of her. But the upside is that impression is not hardened. It's not like they have strong feelings. They have like a vaguely unfavorable impression

of her. And so now that she has all this attention and this opportunity to sort of reintroduce herself, I think that she can change those impressions, certainly more so than Donald Trump can change impressions about him or Joe Biden could change impressions about him. Right. And, you know, I think that she she's an underdog in this race. I think she should embrace the role of underdog here. And and like, you know, when you're a black woman whose name is Kamala Harris, like you're always an underdog. And, you know, she can say that I didn't she didn't get where she is by, you know, complaining or waiting her turn or asking for favors. She fought.

She fought hard for it and she worked hard and she was elected attorney general of the largest state in the country. Then she was elected senator from the largest state in the country. And then she served three or four years as vice president of the United States and like every national security meeting. So like she gets to have the sort of the experience that comes with being vice president, but she doesn't have to be tied to all of the unpopular stuff. And in some way she is unburdened by what has been. Yeah. And yet she exists in the context of it. I get that as many times as we can.

Yeah. No, it's not stale yet. Is it? No, I don't think so. No, we're still there. VP speculation is already heating up. We got one more veep sticks. I can it? No. I don't think so. No, we're still there. VP speculation is already heating up. We got one more Veepstakes. I can't believe it.

I can't believe it. We thought they were all over. And they say God doesn't give with both hands. Apparent frontrunners include Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. We should say that Governor Gretchen Whitmer took herself out of contention this morning right before we were recording. She said she's going to be co-chair of the campaign. She has no interest

in being vice president. Thoughts on the PAC, Dan? I mean, they would all be great. They all offer different things. Like Josh Shapiro is incredibly popular in Pennsylvania. There is no path to 270 without Pennsylvania. Andy Beshear offers ideological balance. Mark Kelly could help put Arizona back in play. And also he is also offer some ideological balance. And there's also an astronaut, which is very cool. So the question is, what is the process going to be to vet these people on an incredibly short period of time?

Even if she waited until the absolute last minute of the convention, there are three and a half weeks to do this. This is normally a months-long process. And there had not been, none of these people have ever been vetted for vice president before, so there's not some long dossier sitting on a shelf somewhere in the DNC. So it's going to be incredibly interesting and challenging to get that process done quickly. What do you guys think? So my one thought in all this has been, how can the Kamala campaign use this selection process as a way to get attention and put her in a position to be making the decision

in a way that redounds to their benefit? I don't have an answer, but I've just been thinking about that. Do you do big meetings? Are you an apprentice kind of thing? Listen, don't know. Bad ideas. No,

like a reality. No bad ideas at a brainstorm. I'm not, I'm not. Let's talk to our special reality TV correspondent here. Oh, by the way, the only reason we have a literal palm tree on ready is because it was here

for when I got back from my little trip. But, uh, no, but I, I do think that like a moment, like showing her make, like this is the,

this is the first and the first and biggest decision she's going to make as the as the presumptive nominee of the party. And I would like to see like, you know, they're they're all coming to the observatory, whatever. So I was excited about that. I mean, look, I'm basing this entirely off of like a very cursory understanding of the resumes of all these people. So take it with a grain of salt. But it's hard not to like the idea like living in a world where people know like one thing about the vice president. It's hard not to like the idea of that person being an astronaut from a swing state. You do worse than that, Mark Kelly. And similarly, I know. And you know, I love Governor Josh Shapiro because he fixed

fixed the highway. Yeah. In a matter of days. And I'll never forget it. Exciting young governor from Pennsylvania. That's interesting. I mean, there's a lot of videos, I don't think coincidentally, circulating of Mayor Pete Buttigieg or Secretary Pete Buttigieg eviscerating Republicans in arguments. Pete could be a strong choice. At a minimum, someone should talk to Pete and say, hey, man, resign from DOT and hit the campaign trail full time from now until November. We'll make you a secretary of defense or something next time. Get that guy out there. He's really good.

He kicked some ass on Bill Maher. He shut up Bill Maher. Do you know how hard that is? We've got to get Pete on the show because last time he was on, he did it from the Department of Transportation, and he had to be all serious and nonpolitical. I mean, you were badgering him on Boeing. Can you guarantee my personal flights are? Hey, Dan. Don't you think that was warranted? The doors are flying off the fucking planes, Dan. him on Boeing over Can you guarantee my personal flights are Hey Dan

Don't you think that was warranted? The doors are flying off the fucking planes Dan Oh I'm sorry I'm sorry over at the Department of Justice they launched an investigation after that. Just saying you seem very interested in your flight you were this close to giving him your personal flight numbers on your next six trips So here's the deal

I think that you just they're going to throw poles in the field here. Right. If you find that Josh Shapiro adding him to the ticket really like helps you in Pennsylvania significantly, which I think it may. He's wildly popular in Pennsylvania, even among Republicans. When we were at the RNC, we were talking to some Republicans there pretending for a while that we were not who we are and asking who they're most afraid of. And they're from Pennsylvania. And they were like, yeah, we'd be very afraid of Josh Shapiro. So, but, you know, test it out, see what happens. I think you'd probably do the same for Mark Kelly in Arizona, because I do think that if Kamala's advantages are that she could potentially do better with

younger voters, black voters, brown voters, it may start putting some of those Sunbelt states back in play that were sort of out of play with Biden. And so, you know, you could see the Mark Kelly thing. And for all the reasons Tommy mentioned, working well, if you're looking for like a really effective communicator who can be on the trail and be on television and everywhere else all the time making the case, then you got your Pete Buttigieg, you know, those are sort of my thoughts. I mean, can you just imagine the amount of anticipation in the audience for a Pete Buttigieg's J.D. Vance debate? I mean, yeah, it'd be good.

I'm excited right now. I also do think that like, they are all good choices. There are good arguments for all of them. Also, any one set of polls in this environment, like who knows if you should really trust it in terms of what will matter for the end. So it isn't really about who she feels most comfortable with in terms of someone who's going to be there in that big role i also do like the idea though of you know if you have we have doug we have josh apiro we're on our way to a minion all right and that's something to think

about as well i'm gonna float mike pence again he's got experience you know he sticks by his values yeah she wouldn't be able to meet with him one-on-one that is a huge that's so funny three feet on the floor that's the role Values? Yeah, sure. She wouldn't be able to meet with him one-on-one. That is a huge plus. That's so funny. Three feet on the floor. That's a huge plus. That's the rule. Donald Trump.

Let's talk about Donald Trump. The changed man who's been touched by the hand of God. He seems to be taking all of this in stride. He went on Truth Social this morning and wrote lots of things, saying that Biden wouldn't remember his decision to step down and also, quote, the Democrats pick a candidate, Crooked Joe Biden. He loses the debate badly, then panics and makes mistake after mistake, is told he can't win and decide they will pick another candidate, probably Harris. They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries of first. These people are the real, all caps, threat to democracy.

It's just he's really he was on one. He's on one. Here is a clip of Trump talking about his new likely opponent, Kamala Harris, the day before Biden dropped out. And then you'll hear reactions to Biden's endorsement of Harris from Trump aides Stephen Miller and Kellyanne Conway. From the moment we take back the White House from crooked Joe Biden and Kamala, I call her laughing Kamala. You ever watch her laugh? She's crazy. You know, you can tell a lot by a laugh. No, she's crazy. She's nuts. They held a primary. People, they had ballots.

They filled out circles. They went to the voting booths. They spent money on advertisements. And as President Trump said, the Republican Party spent tens of millions of dollars running against Joe Biden. Now they just woke up one morning and said, never mind, we're canceling the entire primary.

We're getting rid of our candidate. And we're pretending the election has never even happened. And we're going to let donors handpick a new nominee. She had disastrous staff turnover as vice president. I check it on the daily. Her public schedule, gentlemen, rarely has anything on it or one or two things on it. She does not speak well. She does not work hard.

All right. So, Kellyanne, let me ask you. And she should not be the standard bear does not speak well. She does not work hard. All right. So, Kellyanne, let me ask you. And she should not be the standard bearer for the party. She does not work hard. I'm really trying to get that in there. I would love to see an ad of all these guys getting her name wrong on purpose. It's such a purposeful disrespect. Yeah.

It's also just fucking childish. They're children. They're just childish. Tommy, why do you think Trump's been attacking someone he's no longer running against for the past 24 hours? He really hasn't said you heard him at the rally talking about Harris, but he really hasn't been truthing much about Harris yet. Yeah, I mean, it's not an exaggeration to say that their entire campaign is built around running against Joe Biden. Tim Alberta tweeted a photo from the Trump campaign office where on the wall it says Joe Biden is weak, failed and dishonest. It's written on the wall it says, Joe Biden is weak, failed, and dishonest.

It's written on the wall. I guess they're going to have to paint over that. So, you know, Democrats have wanted this campaign to be a referendum on Trump, but Republicans have managed to make it a referendum on Biden and his age and his fitness for office. That line of attack is now gone. And so I'm sure these guys did some oppo on Kamala. They were probably preparing a messaging push around the VP debate, but now they have to just change everything. So the campaign is flailing. sure these guys did some oppo on Kamala. They were probably preparing a messaging push around the VP debate, but now they have to just change everything. So the campaign is flailing. Trump is flailing. They went from confident, convinced they were going to win to this new dynamic. And also, I watched Fox News for a couple hours yesterday. You see it there too.

They have not figured out their marching orders and how to refocus on Kamala Harris. That's going to change. But it was really interesting. Again, Tim Alberta, who wrote that long piece for The Atlantic on the senior leadership of the Trump campaign, he said, you're already starting to hear some regret about the selection of J.D. Vance as vice president because it was cocky and he doesn't give you anything. So like these guys, they're going to figure it out, but they're discombobulated. Just what we were all saying is that that's the pick you make

when you think you're going to win, not when you're trying to. In that piece, too, he also has a quote from Susie Wiles, who runs Trump's campaign on Super Tuesday, and she said, I don't think Joe Biden has a ton of advantages, but I do think Democrats do. So they are clearly, they think that they're worried more about Democrats than they were about Joe Biden. Dan, how do you think the campaign's message changes with the

Harris candidacy, the Trump campaign? It means we have lightning quick pivot from ageism to racism and sexism. I mean, Tom is exactly right that their entire strategy was based on weaponizing the three quarters of Americans who thought Joe Biden was too old to do the job and frame it as strong versus weak. That does not work anymore because now Trump is the really old candidate. Trump is the one who misremembers things and misstates things. Trump's the one who doesn't have the stamina to keep up a normal campaign schedule where he does a couple events a week and spends the rest of the time sort of hanging out at Mar-a-Lago. And that flips everything they had planned to do on its head. It's very clear that I think there's going to be a two-part strategy. One is to continue to take advantage of

the broader anti-incumbent environment that is happening across the globe and paint her as the incumbent and tie her to all of the least popular policies of the Biden administration, and then to do what they always do with a female candidate or a candidate of color, which is to try to define them out of the American mainstream in terms of values, right? You could hear Kellyanne Conway in the least subtle way possible doing that right there. They're going to talk about being from San Francisco. They're going to take some of the policy positions that she had maybe earlier in her life, or maybe took in the 2020 Democratic primary and tried to say that she is too radical, too far left for the country. Because the one place in all the polling where Harris generally does better than Biden by a point or two with

almost all groups, except Republican-leaning independents, where Biden had a little bit of advantage. And so that's the place where they're going to try to stop the bleeding here if she starts making gains. And that's usually the way in which Republicans have had success, at least on a state level, with candidates like Kamala Harris. Yeah. It does feel like in right-wing media, in the first 24 to 48 hours after a big news development, when none of them have figured out what the message is. And so they're all just sort of flailing. It's a fun thing. You can watch it happen. By next week, they'll have all landed on something probably along the lines of what Dan was saying. right now it is uh you can enjoy it for now david just sent along a trump truth which is he says uh joe biden will go down as the worst president in the

history of the united states kamala are horrible and incompetent borders are will be worse so immigration first taking that out which is that does speak to the upside of kamala harris too right is that she has the capacity to, and I think it's even more important for her than it was for Biden, to lay out a second term agenda that has some differences with what Biden has done or proposed, right? And so you can't run away from the administration that you were on, but you can talk about what you would do going forward that may be different than what he'd done. You can do that on the border and that might be a huge priority for her. Also on the border, she has a pretty easy answer right now. You know,

Joe Biden and I took an executive action and border crossings have plummeted over the last month since he took the executive action. But you know what? It's not enough. And if you want to do more, you can pass the bipartisan legislation that was written by one of the most conservative senators if Donald Trump lets you. I mean, it's like Donald Trump blocked. Yeah, it's just an easy. So love it. There was humiliate BB Netanyahu on Wednesday when he visits, slap him around a little bit publicly. I wouldn't I wouldn't hate it. That's your king. Cancel the meeting. That is my king. It's the only thing I can think about. So love it. There was a second presidential debate slated for Tuesday, September 10th. But following Biden's June debate performance, we all kind of assume the

second debate wasn't going to happen, partly because Trump didn't seem like he was going to go for it. Do you think Trump will ultimately agree to debate Harris? So first of all, it was Trump that introduced the idea already of not debating Harris under the terms they already agreed to. And it does speak to the lack of discipline of Trump. And he did that by saying, well, it's supposed to be on ABC, but George Stephanopoulos is, you know, bad for some reason. So now we got to do it on Fox. He's opening the negotiation again. But just, you know, what we've been talking about for a long time is a hyper-disciplined

on-message Trump campaign and an undisciplined Trump where they let him truth like crazy and then try to kind of, you know, cattle prod him into submission when he's in front of cameras. But this was a 24-hour period where they really had no message and no way to control him. So he's really introducing the idea that he is worried about debating Kamala Harris. And I'm glad that he's introducing that idea. I think with Trump, it's all transactional. I believe he'll want to debate, but I also think it'll be a question of whether or not he feels like he needs to debate. And I think that'll be based on polling, but I find it,

I find it hard to imagine him not wanting to be out there saying he wants to debate Kamala Harris and that it won't ultimately happen. And that he's just using this to reopen the negotiations on more favorable terms, which is what he does on everything. Anyone have a different view? I think she should do the Fox news debate. Yeah. I mean, just-

Depends on the moderators. The way to, I mean, yes. I mean, it would obviously have to be Brett Baer and Martha McCallum, who I have no fan of in any stretch of the imagination. But just imagine going into the lion's den and taking down Trump on Fox News. I think you should demand both, right?

You do the ABC debate, I'll do a Fox One in September. Like, she is an underdog. You gotta throw, you know, you gotta be aggressive about it. And I think she could beat him in a Fox debate. And that would be, it would be a huge moment. It would, it really would. No, I think, I mean, you're right about the polling. Like if she doesn't make up this gap and it's like, you know, he's five points ahead, four or five points ahead by September, he might feel fine being called a coward, um, which is what he'll be called if he declines to debate her. But if it's, you know, if it's close, I think it's going to be hard for him to just seem like he's

afraid of debating her. Yeah, that's I think that's what it comes down. And by the way, I just think it's yeah, I just think we're heading towards at least one other debate. I wouldn't be surprised if Stan said that there wouldn't be two. Almost immediately following Biden's announcement that he would not seek the Democratic nomination, congressional Republicans began calling on Biden to resign the presidency with Speaker Mike Johnson tweeting, if Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he's not fit to serve as president. You guys think this matters at all? I think anything can matter if, you know, congressional Republicans and their conservative media mouthpieces decide to make it matter. You also have a White House press corps that was described to me by some Biden aides as the most

angry version of a press corps they have ever seen because they feel misled about Biden's age and because the attacks on stories about his age were admittedly so far over the top and harsh that I think kind of radicalized them against it. My guess is that most voters think that the question of whether Joe Biden deserves four more years is very different than six more months. You know what I mean? Like, I think the idea of like calling on him to resign now is ludicrous. There's also not a lot of time for congressional investigators to like rev up, you know, hearings or subpoena documents, but it could happen. And like, I'm anxious. It's not the highest, you know, on my anxiety list, but it's there.

Any moment Republicans are spending trying to attack Joe Biden is a moment Kamala Harris is out there able to define herself. If they want to make the next few months covering up, if they do that, that will be the bank shot. Sure. But like, you know, I think the Democrats are going to be so lined up behind Joe Biden as the hero who served out his term and then did what was best for the country. And and so I just I don't I think it can matter if people think, oh, was do people know about this? They're going to try to do it as a conspiracy and a cover up. I'm a little worried about that, but I'm not worried about this specific argument. I had been more worried about it until it started happening and I saw how it was like playing. Because I think it's just an attention thing, right?

Like so much attention now is on the race between Trump and Kamala Harris and what they're doing that even the bank shot feels like it's like if I was them, there's more direct arguments against Kamala Harris that would probably resonate with voters than to do this. Because the whole fucking thing about a cover up too too it's like what are we talking about right like these republicans these in congress have met with biden and they've said stories like oh he seems like he's lost a step and stuff like that but none of them walked out of meetings for the last couple years and being like oh he must step aside he must resign this is so bad and so like that's the same kind of relationship kamala harris said so like what are you talking about gates on the floor on the floor of the House saying that Kevin McCarthy was out negotiated by Joe Biden. Like we. Right. Joe Biden has been the president. He has been being the president.

It's just it's them. It's something that they were going to. It's their old campaign argument that they're still doing. And you're right. They might send investigators there. They like to move the goalposts. We'll see if they even bother. Yeah. Republicans are also continuing to threaten legal action. Speaker Johnson is saying that Republicans are likely to file challenges alleging a violation of state rules on withdrawing or substituting candidates on the ballot ahead of the election. Dan, should we be concerned about this? I would never say in a world where there are a bunch of Judge Eileen Cannon clones running around the judiciary or with the Supreme Court, we shouldn't be concerned at all. But there's pretty clear body of law here, which is the Democratic Party is the one with the ballot

line and is up to the Democratic Party as it sees fit to pick their nominee. The way that Kamala Harris is going to become our nominee is through a totally normal, well within the rules process where a majority of the delegates ratify her as the nominee. I'm sure there'll be legal challenges, but a bunch of lawyers, including Mark Elias, has said they are not going to succeed in doing it. So this is not high on my worry list right now. I mean, if God forbid Joe Biden had had a health incident that prevented him from being the nominee, there would be zero question whether the Democratic Party would have ballot access for a new candidate. He has decided to step down, withdraw from the race on his own volition. So it's like, well, it's the same. I don't understand.

And by the way, it's absurd. And by the way, also, it looks like we're heading towards doing a kind of early nomination process, assuming there's no real challenge anyway. And so those questions just, they're, they're just, they're throwing shit at the wall right now. Well, it's very funny that for the longest time, Republicans are like, Joe Biden must step down. He's too old. He must, the democratic party must replace him. He's too old. And then the, so then he steps down and comments, no, wait a minute. You can't do that. Joe Biden has to be the one. Most of what we say is bullshit why did you do that it doesn't make a lot of sense also just like these tribunes for the 14 million uh votes stephen miller is is beside himself on behalf of the base of the democratic party a group of people he votes whose votes he wanted to be

thrown out in the name of an insurrection such Such bullshit. All right, before we go, just wanted to share some incredible Vote Save America numbers from Shaniqua, who runs VSA. Roughly 6,000 people signed up for Organizer Else over the weekend. And people donated $225,000 across all of Vote Save America's funds.

1,500 were new donors, many of which were recurring. So far, in total, over twenty four thousand people have signed up and those folks have already reached out to over one million voters. Don't be left out. We need everyone's help right now. All hands on deck for the next four months. Again, Kamala Harris is going to be an underdog in this race like Joe Biden has given us the chance. Kamala Harris is going to be an underdog in this race. Like Joe Biden has given us the chance. Kamala Harris is giving us the chance, like a fighting chance to win. Doesn't mean it's in the bag by any means.

We are still underdogs here. This is gonna be a really, really tough race. But if everyone works really hard over the next four months, we can pull this out. So go to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 and click sign up to get started. This message has been paid for by Votes Save America. This ad has not been authorized

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with friends, family, or anyone who wants to be more engaged and informed about politics. And if you want to go even deeper and you want to win this election, so please consider sharing Pod Save America with friends, family, or anyone who wants to be more engaged and informed about politics. And if you want to go even deeper and you want to be even smarter, you sign up for Dan's Message Box newsletter. You gotta sign up for Message Box. Crooked.com slash newsletters. You can sign up and be a Message Box subscriber.

Alright, maybe, do we are we going to have like a day off before you hear us again or what? I don't know. I don't know. Every day. She can announce her VP tomorrow. I record tomorrow. Oh, my gosh. Make it love or leave it tomorrow. Okay.

Well, we'll probably talk to you on Wednesday. Well, we'll talk to you on Wednesday. Tommy will talk to you on Wednesday. If you're sick of hearing us talk, you don't know how sick we are of hearing us talk. That's true. So we're with you. That's true. And we know you're not sick of hearing us talk.

And you're going to listen to every goddamn episode. Okay. Thanks, everyone. We'll talk to you on Wednesday. Bye, everyone. not sick of hearing us talk and you're gonna listen every goddamn episode okay thanks everyone we'll talk to you on wednesday bye everyone if you want to get ad-free episodes exclusive content and more consider joining our friends of the pod subscription community at crooked.com friends and if you're already doom scrolling don't forget to follow us at pod save america on instagram twitter and youtube for access to full episodes bonus content and, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Tolles, Kiril Pallaviv, and Molly Lobel.