The Daily Beast Podcast - James Carville: Why Trump’s Smokescreen Will Fail

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Joanna Coles sits down with legendary Democratic strategist James Carville, the “Ragin’ Cajun” who helped elect Bill Clinton and has never been shy about saying what his party needs to hear. Carville unloads on why Trump’s media circus is a deliberate smokescreen, keeping Americans distracted from real economic anxieties—rising costs and disappearing job security. He breaks down why Democrats are failing to cut through the noise and warns that "pronoun" obsessed liberals are more trouble than they’re worth and should go off to start their own party. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, I'm Joanna Coles. I'm the chief content officer of The Daily Beast, and you're listening to The Daily Beast podcast or you're watching on YouTube, where we have had hundreds, thousands of comments, especially about our last two interviewees, David Rothkopp and Anthony Scaramucci. Mock Turtle 1402, you did not like us having Anthony Scaramucci on and neither did Top Cat 298. And you hated the idea of Elon Musk being pulled back into the Democratic Party. Of course, he was a Democrat, and then he moved over to the Republicans. You hated Anthony Scaramucci's idea that he should be brought back under the Democratic roof. Anyway, we have an equally provocative commentator today. James Carville, who you will remember, got Bill Clinton elected with a white board, a war room, and, of course, a winning election slogan, it's the economy stupid.

So, let's get into it. James Carville, what the hell is going on in America right now? Well, our president seems to be doing very well. The country is not doing very well. And I don't see that changing here in a foreseeable future. And when I say the president's doing very well, it didn't mean politically, I meant financially. Right. So he's very good at distracting us, isn't he? What should we actually be paying attention to here, James? Well, we should be paying attention to is that he said on day one that he would get rid of inflation, that the economy would boom. that we would get so tired winning our head would be spinning. And right now, the dollars losing its value, you can't imagine what the forecasts are coming up. I see the airlines are predicting much softer summer travel, Walmart, people like that, are already-ish-in mornings.

And so he obviously didn't deliver anything. They've only passed five pieces of legislation since the Republican Congress and he took over. So he keeps doing things to distract our attention from what's really going on in the country. Like I'm going to annex Greenland. I'm going to run for a third term. And he deflects us from what the real is, and that's the massive failure of his administration. So why hasn't there been more response to it yet? One thinks back to Trump won, and there were protests in the street, there was the woman's march,

and now there seems to be crickets. I don't know that all that. His rating is going down precipitously. The action, to do something caucus. We can't just stand here. We must. Do what? You don't have any power. And whenever you go to people and, well, pound the podium or throw your hands in the air, what good is that going to do? We start, right now, I start talking about alternatives to what they're doing. What we would do, make them take. bad votes. By the way, I don't know how to tell the commentary at this. Democrats don't lose elections anymore. What does that mean? Well, I don't know what it means. It means we get more votes than they are. Okay. I would never tell a certified, bona fide number of press that

election returns are more important than polls, but I actually think they are. So, James, what do you think about AOC and Bernie Sanders' oligarchy tour? Is that an effective response? Let's deconstruct this problem. Okay, okay. People think when you ask them about the Democratic Party, they say they're old and they're coastal. All right. That's the image of the party. Well, and you've said that too.

You've said that they're talking to Oberlin professors. Other people. Focus group after focus group, after a piece of research, after everything. Trust me, when people see the Democratic Party, a huge number of them say they're old and they're urban. So I got a great idea. Let's send an 83-year-old and a congressman of the Queens out in the country. And by the way, they think that we're trying to talk over people's head and use language among each other. Let's try the word oligarchy, who 90% of people in the country have no idea what they're talking about.

And that's the problem with Democrats, particularly the more identity, the more pronoun you get, the more you try to use language that no one else uses. So I'm not a big fan of the quote oligarchy, unquote, tour. And what good does it do? It just identifies you as an old urban party. And to me, it's counterproductive. Okay, so you think it's counterproductive. If you were advising the Dems right now, what would you say they should be doing?

Well, first of all, in politics, timing is everything. thing. And so you anticipate timing, all right? And so you know what's coming. You know they're going to have this terrible vote coming up. They'll probably have voted by the time we do it. For the big beautiful bill. That's on the one part of the budget. Then they've got to go to another part. Then they got reconciliation. Then they got Senate. Then they got the debt extension. So be prepared to at all times offer an alternative and point out where all this adapts. The second thing is, Simon, is to Virginia governor's race. I can't tell you how important that is. Why is it so important? Well, it's going to tell a lot. It's going to affect recruiting going in the 2026. All kind of candidates

say, well, I don't know if I run, you know, can I win? It turns out the way in Virginia that I'm starting to believe that it will, the Democrats will get a lot of better recruits. And it's a telltale election. That accompanied with New Jersey. You're not going to post until November of 26. The idea is not to win the summer. The idea is to win the election. So what's the messaging in Virginia? Well, the message in Virginia is, what do you think state has the highest percentage of federal employees of any state in the country? Uh-huh.

No, yeah. Now we're getting somewhere. Okay. What about the naval bases in Hampton Roads and Portsmouth and places like that? I think you're going to see a turnout, the likes of which you've never seen. And they're already, they're trying to set, they're so, you know, warning all of the listeners to this podcast, they're trying to set up the expectations game. They have a story in political about how much trouble the Republicans are in Virginia. So when Spanberger wins, and when she's, she is going to win, by the way. You think she is?

You said that. I'm just going to remind you, you did say that about Carmelah. I didn't. I was wrong. I don't know how to explain. I also said we shouldn't use identity language. I also said Biden should get out of race two years before he got out. You did. You did say that. And I also said we should have a contested primary when he got out. You did say that. I was three for four, which is pretty good night. All right. But you're gung-ho on Spanberger. Spanberger's going to win. All right. And Marchant is everything. And if she wins by three,

And people will go, well, the liberal rights always win, when only Terry McCallough in, I think it was 2013, it broke that chain. But if she wins by a lot, it's going to shake things up. It's going to shake people's mentality up. The other thing is, there are nine house seats in the state house that are Republicans in the district that Harris carried. I don't think these people are going to have a good November. So this feels like there would be a boost in Democrats' morale, which right now still seems pretty low. It's low. And the reason it's low is Democrats don't like their own party. Oh, go on. How interesting.

And why they don't like their own party is because their party lost. The purpose of a political party is actually to win elections. And when said party loses the election, members of said party don't respond favorably to the party image. If we start winning, that's going to change a lot. And I think we're going to win in November. And then we're going to start recruiting better candidates. But understand, again, we're not trying to win the summer. We're trying to win the election. Right.

Podium pounding and throwing your hands in the air and all that is a very limited utility. What did you think about Senator Booker's filibuster? It's amazing. the guy could sit there for 25 hours. I mean, my heart's hard. What did it change? I mean, as you do it, fine, I don't have any problem with that. It made some people feel better.

Okay, that's fine. What's going to change is when they have to start voting on deficits of $4 trillion, when they have to start voting on cutting Medicaid that affects people, it affects that people, even more, when they have to start doing that, we have to just beat out with alternatives, not just to oppose it, but say, this is what we would do when we get in, or this is what Democrats should be doing. And then they got a vote for this debt extension, and they got the bond market and interest rates are looming over their money. This is the most untold story now.

Market rates are now for 7%. That basically, home buying the United States is almost out of stance still. In addition to, I don't know how many other things, and Trump knows that. And so he keeps coming with some silly shit. And the whole commentary, oh, my God, he's going to do this. He's going to arrest the congressman. Well, he's got to keep doing that.

So you don't talk about and I don't talk about. And no one talks about the 7% mortgage rates that he was going to get down from day one. No one talks about shipping down 65% in Pacific Ocean. No one talks about price hikes that are already being installed because of the day one. is tariffs. No one is talking about how young people don't have access to education or home buying, anything else that we marked as real parts of obtaining the American dream. But for God's sake, let's cover every bullshit thing that he comes up with to stay distracted from the fact that the country is going in the economic toilet right now. We're recording this on Wednesday. It will drop on Thursday.

there's been a lot of focus this week on Joe Biden's diagnosis of prostate cancer. You're, I think, the same ages as Joe Biden. I might be a little bit younger, but it's close enough to scare the hell out of me. Well, I was going to ask you, do you have your PSA levels checked regularly? So, honestly, what I'm told, that after you reach 75, some age like that, they don't check it. And the theory being is generally very slow-go-old. I do not only know what I read and what my own physician said. Actually, I had some more extensive blood work done by a nephrologist, and they did check it.

So you did have it checked? But I didn't ask for it. And I don't, I think the urologist, but I don't think it's a urologist, but I don't think it's recommended on people, Biden's age. Because almost everybody has it at that point. I don't know the whole story. In Ed Kilgore, who's a really smart guy who's dealt with it, he's at it and runs at his family. There's some cases that usually very slow going, according to what Ed said. And sometimes it can be very fast going.

I don't know the whole history. But I do know there's pretty standard that you stop doing PSA tests after a certain age. And I think Biden has reached that age some time ago. So you don't think that he would necessarily have known that he might have prostate cancer, while he was in the White House. I don't have any idea. I do know that it's not recommended for people above certain days, but I don't know any of the facts.

I think that all this is going to put a real focus on the health of presence or potential presence. And I'm not saying this, just spending it. This is going to cause a lot of attention on Trump, who is not a young man at all, and who will be 81, I think, when he finished. issues is termed. But there's more to find out in the revelations that have come out thus far have not been very complimentary to President's team. Well, I was going to ask you about that. Have you read the Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson book original sin? Because obviously that's dropped this week,

too. So it's like a double whammy against the Biden. It's only been out since yesterday, I think. I've read a lot of excerpts. Look, the story is basically true. That, that, he was in the White House. He was saying he was run for re-election. He obviously had, he was slowing down physically. He obviously had some cognition issues. It's obvious that some people knew about it and it's obvious that they tried to cover it up. And you were pointing this out. You were pointing this out two years ago and saying he needs to step aside. Yeah, I was pointing out as early as 22 that it didn't, I always thought I was in a unique position because I was elderly myself. I had some idea what the job entailed, and I didn't, I don't think that's a job that is designed for a person in the 80s. I just

don't. And I thought that if the party had so much underutilized talent that if he didn't run and we let all this talent go out there, we would have won this election by six, seven points. If we would have had an open process, we would have won this thing easily. And what people forget, and there's all this, the doom of the Democrats, it's the end of days, it's the worst a party has ever been in history, it's the lowest rating. Will it ever exist? So we go into the 2024 cycle. What about is a disastrous lead-up as you can have, an unpopular president who's aging, and the public knows he's aging. And he stays. in the race until

less than three weeks, I think, before the start of the convention. Then we nominate someone who was elected vice president, but that doesn't mean a lot in terms of the electoral appeal.

We're just sight unseen, and we take it and she offers no change. And, well, wait, we lose by a point in a half. We played a seven-string quarterback, and we lose by a point in a half. We actually pick up a house seat. So it was a disappointing election.

I'm not saying that at all. But it waited to be reported on. You would think it was like a 64. Well, it's because the Democrats lost every single trance of government, right? All three. Well, I understand that. And we don't have power in government. But the party has not collapsed.

Okay. It didn't get blown out by any stretch of the imagination. and what we've seen in the past as an electoral blowout. But everybody, I've never seen anything glory. Okay, and by the way, women lost an election this year. And I don't think we're going to start. James, just hold that thought.

We have to break for some messages. A big thank you to our sponsors. We love you. And we're now back with James Carville. Should Kamala Harris run again? She's talking about thinking about running for governor. California. I don't know if she runs, that's her perfect right to do, but I'm going to tell you the field is going to be really fast, really good. And I hope everybody runs, but I would tell

every potential candidate, you better lace up your shoes because this is awfully fast tracking than I'll be running on. And I think people are going to be blown away at the talent level in a Democratic Party, blown away. So our previous guest on the podcast, Anthony Scaramucci, pointed out the Democrats do much better with younger candidates. So JFK, your candidate, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. Who are the candidates that you're excited to, as you say, put on their shoes and lace up? Well, the problem with me saying that is I always forget someone. Okay. But then I go, why didn't you mention this? Well, we're some ways off. Let me, let me, the number of potential Democratic presidential candidates under the age of 60,

is stunning. I mean, it's just stunning. And anytime I talk to any of them, I said, but God says, run, run. And we're going to be helped when people, hopefully we, you know, my idea in the last election was at the end to just announce four town halls around the country, have President Clinton, President Obama, moderate it and invite six people. You'd have done that, we don't want this thing so easy. You wouldn't even bleeped it. So I think the party chair, and I think there's a really good idea. We're talking about doing like a mini convention in 2026.

You let the public get a look at the people that are thinking about running for president. I think it's important. So we talked about AOC and Bernie. You made the point. We thought we talk about is AOC and Bernie, but go ahead. Let's continue to talk about AOC and Bernie. I'm only asking about it because they are doing something. They're clearly putting themselves out.

You know what they don't do? Mm-hmm. Win elections. Okay? And that's the, you've got to understand. That's the only thing I care about. Right. And the progressives, all they do is impress other journalists.

They never beat a Republican. Tell me when one body from that wing has ever run against a Republican. All right. That's the problem. So everybody goes and says, okay, in Bernie has run for president. Twice. He lost twice. He lost more the second time. But when I go on cable TV or a podcast like this, the entire Democratic Party is AOC and Bernie. You know, Jackie Rosen doesn't exist. Timmy Baldwin doesn't exist. Ruevan Gohago doesn't exist. Alyssa Slotkin doesn't exist.

I never get asked about them. What about AOC? What about it? But to be fair, I did. I'm saying fair. To be fair, but I asked. to you and you said, oh, I'm not going to name them. I'm not going to name them. So what I'm, what we, what we want is other people to watch, right? And they're putting themselves out there. There's so many stories detailing so many potential Democratic 2028 candidates. You can just read them and see. And the names will just fall off your lips. But let's just say there's an abundance of potential candidates and there's a lot more to the Democratic Party than AOC and Bernie. Okay, let's, let's stipulate that. All right. So I guess my.

push back to you would be that some of this is about name recognition and what AOC and Bernie both have, and I take your point about Bernie having run twice and lost twice, is name recognition, which we don't know who will run from the Republican Party, but clearly for Carmelah, it wasn't long enough. The 107 days she had wasn't long enough to establish a beachhead against someone as well known as Donald Trump. So shouldn't we be talking more specifically about names now just to get the name's on the radar. We don't go to Post until 28.

Right, but remember, James, James, but remember Donald Trump had 16 seasons of the apprentice when he got up there. The man had dominated American media for 40 years. It's a huge advantage. I'm not more than worried

about the nominee of the Democratic Party and not being sufficiently known by election day. This is not even the summer of 2020. The election is in the fall of 2008. Why in God's name do we have to articulate an entire program and an entire laundry list of potential presidential candidates? The answer is we do not. That is not necessary.

Timing is everything. I don't, and I would push the clock up to the extent that in 2026, in the summer of 2026, I would have a, a, cattle call, whatever you want to call it. And so, well, okay, AOC has recognition. You know how many times on Fox News AOC has mentioned in a day? I have no idea. Go on. A ton. All right. And so she represents a plus 25 Democratic district. And every time that you see a Democrat that is out there screaming and pounding the podium, ask yourself, have you ever beat a Republican? is it is that really because if you know me you know that there's one and only one noble purpose in politics and you know what that is winning the election okay that's that's why we exist

so it we're not going to win the election in the summer of 2025 we don't need to try You know, what we have to do is set up ourselves is the party that is simply trying to help people who are trying to make it. And what they're trying to do is help people who already have it made. You know, you're not going to achieve the American dream with a 7% mortgage rate. It's not going to happen. And you're not going to achieve it by giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to fat cats and billionaires and causing and the deaths that they go up and interest rates to go up even more. We have plenty to talk about.

So at the next election, Donald Trump will not be standing. Even he said he won't stand. Do you think MAGA can survive Trump? Does it continue? Or is he such an anomaly? And once he goes, the Republican Party is then split and they're trying to figure it out. So there are two views about this. Trump came along and he was very,

skilled politician, a very skilled communicator. And he sets that there was some potential here. Through his genius, he was able to massage and exploit this and build it into a political movement. That is one view. There's another view that I think was most particularly presented by a woman named Kathy Barnett, who ran for the Republican nomination, a senator from Pennsylvania, I think, in 2022. And she said that Maga has... always been there that Trump came up in MAGA supports Trump because Trump supports MAGA and MAGA will be there after Trump is gone. I agree with the Barnett view. That it's always been there and it's going to be there when Trump is gold. And there is nothing at all remotely conservative

about MAGA. In fact, if you look at what Trump's actually saying, he's saying, he now wants to raise, says, of course, not going to do any such thing, says he's going to raise taxes on wealthy people, says he wants to force the drug companies to cut prices to everyday people. He's not going to do it, but he's running to the left. Right. What they do it is just standard Republican crap. But, you know, the Republican Party used to be, you know, really free traders, you know, the Wall Street Journal editorial plays, you know, free markets, free speech, free world.

and all of that, that was all the fantasy that never existed. So as you're looking out over the next year or so, just sum up your priorities for what you think the Dems should be doing, given what's happening right now. First of all, I think we should use our legislative opposition to not just oppose them, but articulate what our alternative view would be. that to me that's critical and it's critical that the party correlates around how is this going to help anybody that's trying to make it in this world and I think that involves huge huge majority of all Americans and I think it's a construct that people understand I think that we should

encourage to have a large feel of presidential candidates because that's who's going to be that's going to define a party. We can't define congressional leaders don't define political parties. The only one I really did that I can remember is Newt Gingrich and that ended in a disaster. One of the books was tell Newt

to shut up. And you're not going to have a party leader until you get a nominee. And we shouldn't try to accelerate the process. We shouldn't try to force the process. And

focus on, you know, winning elections and that people in the Democratic coalition have a responsibility to the larger coalition. Now, some of the, and I've said this before, and I'll say that again, some of the people of the more pronoun side of the party ought to consider having their own party. I'm serious. Really? You think that the Democrats should split? Well, I think that somebody that says that, like, white males are responsible for all the violence in the country or some idiotic like that. I think you can find, you could have the pronoun justice, socialist, communal community party of the United States. And run on that. And then after the election, maybe you could do what you do. And Paul, Mary, you could be part of the call. You go back and

you say, we'll cut a deal. We'll be a part of the coalition. Give us a couple of committee chairs or something. But the amount of damage, the party, and people sit down and say, look, is the amount of damage that you do to the party brand worth what you bring? I think it's time to have to think about that. I think the damage that the identity left has caused the Democratic ban, I think it may exceed its value to the party. And most of these people are a lot of different things with both Democratic either. Either way. But so if you look at what's happening in Arizona, whatever, I don't know what party chair, who we haven't won anything in Arizona, and as soon as I can remember, I can remember,

the governor of parliament, the governor's governor's president of deconsia, and that's it. We hold the governor's right chair, and we hold two senators, and he's attacking the senators. Well, who elected this guy, nobody? That's exactly what they do. when you go out and you win an election, that's the highest thing you can do. The Arizona Democratic Party should be worshipping at the feet of Santa Diego and Santa Clara. They should be trying to do everything you can to help Governor Hobbs. You're not there to promote your own agenda.

You dare to promote people who get elected. And, you know, I'm serious. They might not be worth the trouble. That's just this cold, hard fact. It's fascinating. James, as always, your perspective is, is really helpful. I'm pretty confident that your pronouns are he, him. I think so. And, yeah, you know, I don't know how that stuff, whoever came up with that, that's no idea. But many had to have some kind of imagination to think of something that would be so politically disastrous. I think Elon Musk secretly came up with it. Well, I was just going to ask you about Elon Musk.

That's my final question to you. At our last interviewee, Anthony Scaramucci, got a lot of... Ah, he's a good guy. He's a good guy. A lot of people responded because he said he couldn't believe the Democratic Party had ever let Elon Musk go. Should they bring Elon Musk back? His platform X is pretty useful.

He said he's not going to put any more money into politics for the time being. But should the Democrats woo him back or is he too damaged at this point? What do you mean bring him back? Bring him back to the Democratic Party. He's left? Yes. No. No, you think he's done now.

Well, I can't imagine that after all of this that he'd want. And what does he bring? The guy is like single hand. Look at the damage he's done to the federal government. Why do we want him? Well, fair point. It's just that he used to be a Democrat. Then he got embraced and suckered in by the Republicans.

He used to be smart and then he went crazy. Good point. All right. So no more Elon must for the Democratic Party says James Garville, pronoun he slash him. James, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you very much. I want you to come back soon. Thank you. Just remember. It's all about winning, stupid. It's all about winning. It's all about winning. All right. Well, this was a winning interview. Thank you very much. I love talking to James Carville. There's something reassuring about talking to someone who's had a big win in their life so they know what's. success feels like. They know what momentum it creates. And also, who doesn't give a fuck, who just says it as he thinks it. And it's provocative. And there's also so much common sense in it.

I am looking forward to talking to him again. And of course he doesn't use any fancy pronouns. Of course he, he, him. Anyway, if you have been, thank you for listening and watching us. and please subscribe to The Daily Beast. Subscribe to the podcast. Tell all your friends about it. Subscribe on YouTube. And do subscribe to the Daily Beast too. We are independent media.

We call it like we see it. And on Sunday we're going to be talking to Daisy Goodwin. She's a big TV producer who lost 50 pounds on a GLP1. And it's really her story of transformation and how it's impacted her life in all sorts of ways that she could never have imagined. It's super, super interesting. And until then, be Beast. Today's episode was produced by Devin Rodgerino, Anna von Erson, and it was edited by Deanna Chapman.

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