The Dispatch Podcast - TEASE: Trump Goes Off Script, Because Of Course He Does | Dispatch Live

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

* This is the first half of our Dispatch Live livestream from last night. If you'd like to watch or listen to the full episode (which we highly recommend!), please become a Dispatch member on https://thedispatch.com/join/ * It's Dispatch After Hours. Our intrepid reporters stayed up till the wee hours to catch former President Trump's full speech on the last night at the Republican National Convention. In a manic edition of Dispatch Live, a sleep-deprived Sarah is joined by Jonah and Steve... as well as the entire Dispatch Politics team—David M. Drucker, Michael Warren, John McCormack, and Charles Hilu—reporting from the convention in Milwaukee. Was Trump able to stick the landing on his unity speech (or for that matter, to stick to the script)? Are Republicans going through an existentialist phase? Will Biden still be the nominee next week? Was the convention worth our time? What are we even doing here? You can watch or listen to the full episode here: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Td Bank knows that running a small business is a journey, from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. Welcome to the dispatch podcast. This is a dumb editorial. director and the hour is almost two in the morning on the last night of the Republican Convention. Trump gave his elaborate speech. We responded with an after hours dispatch live and you're about to listen to the first 30 minutes of that live stream. If you want to listen to the full stream, which I highly recommend, it was more manic than usual.

please become a dispatch member. It's on the skiff, our members-only podcast feed. You can become a member by going on thedispatch.com and subscribing. The skiff is waiting for you. And with that, let's dive right in. We are live. Oh, hey, guys. We're just watching the end of this speech here, Jonah.

Yeah. It's still going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's really, I think he's finally getting into the groove. I think he's really found his stride. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Welcome to Dispatch Live. I'm Sarah Isgert. That's Jonah Goldberg. And we think Steve fell asleep on the couch. After making fun of us for saying this is going too late and we're tired like two hours ago. And he mocked us.

And now we think he's comatose. Yeah. I'm just going to go ahead and read some of this. I mean, he admitted to falling asleep on the couch earlier. We were getting texts as of. oh i mean steve texted seven minutes ago and he's gone now um but yeah i mean steve was bragging that he doesn't need sleep uh i'm pretty good at getting kids to sleep actually thanks steve that's super helpful to tell a parent of a child under one year old um

all right so jona uh can we give overall impressions of the republican national convention. Are you calling Steve? I am. Hey, Steve, we're doing this thing. So you might as well just like, you know, come check in. He's sort of done. All right. Except for the part you fell asleep with during. Anyway, all right, me and Sarah are talking. You come join us when you feel convenient. Okay. So up until this last hour, I would say it was among the most disciplined conventions I've ever. Well, I should say at most discipline convention. I've seen a lot of discipline conventions.

It was the most disciplined thing I've ever seen the Trump campaign do. Right. I mean, compared to 2016 and 2020, where you really just didn't have the professionalization of a convention that we'd had in the past, this is a professional convention, a compelling convention. I mean, I just totally agree. I think it's as professionally run as 2012, but I thought it was a lot more compelling than 2012. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree that. I think absolutely true. This was a unified convention.

And I don't want to, I don't want to seem too much of a griper or a detractor from that because I think there are, there's a lot of people of diverse points of view out there. But at the same time, Donald Trump spent his entire presidency and most of his post-presidency purging non-Trump-y politicians, right? I mean, starting with the Jeff Flakes and the Quarkers and on all those kinds of people and swapping out traditional Reaganite or Bushy or whatever Republican State Party apparatuses, apparatus um and replacing it with with trump aligned ones and so the unity of the convention i think can be a little misleading because it's kind of like a selection bias if if you've replaced everybody with pro-trump people and you know kick everyone else to the curb then of course the people who

show up at the thing are going to seem more unified because it's a different party you know jennah I'm watching just right now as the family has all come on stage. It's very interesting to see the relationship that is developing or not developing between his vice presidential nominee. So he is surrounded by his family. And then you have Senator J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha, like really off to the side. You know, normally you have the big moment, right, where they like hold the hands in the center. And that's that at least has not happened.

And, yeah, just sort of fascinating. Okay, so that was your impression of the overall R&C convention. Oh, look, it's Steve Hayes. Thanks for joining us, Steve. Hi, everybody. Okay, impressions of the overall convention. Steve. I've already given mine.

Because we've been here for a while. I didn't want to start. I wanted to get every last minute of the speech. I can't believe you guys started. Did you hear what he said right at the end? like the last paragraph is unbelievable. I couldn't believe it. He's ditching J.D. Vance and he's instead picking Doug Berger.

Okay. Yeah, huge. Yeah, so overall impressions of the convention. I think, you know, who knows, I don't know whether these conventions matter or not. I think overall they had a pretty good convention. I heard you talking about the unity in the hall, the unity among the people who were there. I think that was real. I think there was, I think it felt sort of unified.

They felt excited. Undoubtedly, I talked to one delegate who said, unified by a bullet. And in the aftermath of the assassination attempts, it brought people together. Does that matter? I don't know. I have no idea if that matters. I literally don't even see... Oh, no, there's J.D. Vance. I finally found him on the stage. Okay. He's way over off on the side there.

Okay. So let's talk a little bit about J.D. Vance as the pick and his speech. Jonah, were you surprised it was Vance in the end? Did you think that Vance accomplished what he needed to with his speech last night? Um, so I was, I was thinking towards the end that it was going to, that I got caught up in the Bergam boomlet for a little bit. Um, you know, as, as one does. It's so, it's so seductive. Bergmentum. And that is, that is something that a sentence never been uttered before. Well, so it's funny. So last night, I get back to my hotel and I'm watching Bergam talk. And I'm like, oh, now I see why they pick Vance because I thought Bergam had a really kind of lame, not.

I mean, he's a nice man and he tried, but it was just not, there was no spark to it whatsoever. And then I saw Vance speak and I was like, why didn't they pick Rubio? Because I think Vance had a, it was a bad speech. I think given the richness of his personal story, the number of anecdotes, content in his memoir to screw up that speech so profoundly that there was no cadence to it there was no like there was nothing propulsive about it that made you sort of like want to hear what the next sentence was and um when the entire crowd is trying to help you by doing i can't remember exactly what your chair it was something like biden must go or he's got to go or something like

that and then vans at one point just sort of half raises his hand and says i agree and i mean it was it was better than saying i concur but not by a lot right i agree that would have been better um and so i thought i thought i thought i thought vance's speech leaning on the biography and all that kind of stuff was great fine whatever good i think the capacity of the the left and the MSNBC crowd to to lose their minds over interpreting it is helpful to him. But so far he has not shown me why it was obvious that he should be should have been the pick. And that's unfair because it's just a convention and the right conventions. I don't matter.

But well, Steve, I do think that the pick of J.D. Vance matters a lot. I think it matters because he didn't pick someone else. if he had picked a rubio or a bergum or haley or any of these people all of the people i just named came up through the old republican party they are creatures of that party they were elected in that party jd vance is really one of the only national figures who was it so whether jd vance is politically additive at this point or not trump has killed off the old Republican Party by saying, like, my successor is not going to come from that. There will be no oxygen given to that. It's over. This is going to be a clean break.

So I don't think it really matters whether J.D. Vance nailed the speech, shows up in anything. If people just cross out the P and the E on their signs from last time and just write V&A on it, I think it is more about not just Trump's legacy, which it is. it's actually more about not allowing that old guard any more time. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. I think the pick does matter. I'm not with the sort of conventionalism that this doesn't matter because Trump is so big and he fills the room. And so the VP pick doesn't matter.

I think it does matter. And look, I mean, you know, you didn't have to strain to see the symbolism. They played this anti-George W. Bush song every time J.D. Bush came to the stage. Um, every time Jady Vance came to the stage, you know, his, his speech, I agree with Jonah. I was, I think I had maybe, uh, my expectations were too high going in. And, and I don't think he, he met them. But it's hard to imagine somebody with the incredible biography that he has. I mean, he is 39 years old and he has lived a life of tremendous accomplishment.

They literally made a movie about his life. Yeah. Yeah. Before he had turned 30. Yeah. I mean, Hollywood blockbuster life. And I thought that was the best part of the speech, but it was still flat to me. I thought there was a really nice moment with his mother, like actually affecting moment.

But, you know, the job of the speechwriters was to tie his personal biography with the policy and the advocacy of Donald Trump that would follow. And I think they failed entirely. It was a disjointed speech. I didn't think it really worked as a speech. Having said that, you know, I talked to several people here who watched the speech were not sort of big Trump people and said, yeah, you know what? He seems approachable. He seems normal.

I like him. And it might not have, you know, won any rhetoric competitions, but he seems like a normal guy. And that's what I want as Trump's running mate. So in terms of the speech itself, I didn't think it did what it ought to do. Other people seem to think it succeeded. In terms of the pick, I agree with you entirely. I think it's a significant pick.

He is not, and I've said this before, I don't regard J.D. Vance as just MAGA 2.0. He is MAGA plus. He comes from this post-liberal, you know, new right, part of the conservative movement or conservative movement plus and it's it goes well beyond Donald Trump. You don't have to look far or look hard to hear J.D. Vance, in his own voice, advocate for policy positions for rule breaking that goes beyond sort of what we already know.

And I think if he's chosen as vice president, sworn in his vice president, we will see that and we'll see it early in the administration. There's lots of that that I want to take some issue with. But we've got John McCormick, Mike Warren, and David Drucker all with their own various thoughts, feelings, hair. Mike, you were there last night. Yeah. So the feeling in the room, and I've been asking people who watched Vance on TV, if it felt as flat as it felt in the room.

You mean J.D. Vance's speech, not the one tonight. We haven't even got to that. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, I was continuing the conversation. Oh, I know. I don't want people. We're all tired. We need to provide roadmaps here.

The only thing that ever happened is happening or will ever happen is Trump's speech. So, well, hold on. That would have felt like. Reset. I'm talking about Vance's speech. It felt very flat in the room. And there were a couple of moments that stuck out to me where I thought a more experienced speech afire would have handled it better. And so that's not even really a dig at J.D. Vance.

I just think he needs more practice. Remember, he's only been on elective politics for two years. but there were these the various chants that happened like at one point he said this is a good crowd and the the the audience of delegates responded by chanting yes we are which is a very weird chant in and of itself yes we are yes we are yes we are and and i think you can see this whether it's somebody like donald trump who's been speaking publicly for longer than i've been alive or somebody like, say, Nikki Haley, who has spoken at, you know, county Republican Party meetings for the last 20-plus years,

you'll learn to sort of plow through those moments. You don't let the audience, or sorry, the applause lines go on until they end. You know, you don't wait until the last person finishes clapping before you continue with the speech. And I think there were so many moments like that. where it just showed kind of how green he was. And I do think it matters because I think it's a, it will be a problem for the Trump Vance campaign. If Vance is not as useful of a surrogate as maybe they hoped.

And the person I was watching last night from the floor, he wasn't that close to me, but I was trying to spot as much as I could, his reactions was Donald Trump. And I got the feeling that Trump was a little, underwhelmed by how his brand new running mate performed. Which again, you notice then after Trump's speech, J.D. Vance is not next to Donald Trump on that stage.

And you get the sense that perhaps that's not a coincidence. All right, David, let's turn on your mic. Let's hear some of this noise, NPR style, the vibes. Right. This is why I was a little worried. No, it's great. The music's live. There were a lot of balloons.

and I'm sure it's something we all discussed, but it was like basically a Trump rally after that initial opening that was rather untrump-like, emotionally heartfelt, quiet. It was, Trump was telling a story, and I think for many people it was new. I mean, for me it felt new,

and I thought that that was very effective. And he actually sees, he actually seemed very likable and very endearing and then little by little the teleprompter paused and then it paused some more and pretty soon it was a trump rally he wasn't as angry as he's been in fact he didn't really seem that angry at all so there is that you know we had discussed on the slack channel whether all the normies went to bed after the good part and this was for the fans but man it was long and it just felt like I was at a greatest hits concert hey can I interject one quick thing here

this is a series of three tweets by Nate Silver fame pollster guy it's great first tweet during Trump's speech it's a weird but pretty good speech the past few weeks have been gone

the past few weeks have gone about as badly as possible for Democrats and they're likely underdogs against Trump regardless of who they nominate. But the opportunity to reset the campaign with a non-Biden nominee is a twist of good fortune. And then

about a half hour later, semi-retract this tweet. This speech is boring as F. But there are worse things politically speaking than being boring. And then about 23 minutes later, fully

retract and rescind, all caps. Sometimes both parties are trying to throw this election. Okay, so this gets then to the important question to you, John. A question from Daniel Lawrence. Do you see the convention as changing the trajectory of the race either way? I don't think the convention changes the race so much as the assassination attempt of the former and likely future president of the United States. I mean,

I mean, yes, the last hour was a terrible greatest hits concert, and it's jarring. I mean, we just lived through this insane moment in American history where, you know, Trump was shot in the ear. And the first 15, 20 minutes were incredibly compelling. And I think it helped them. I think that definitely helped them. And I really probably, as much as we all don't like having, you know, to endure the last hour, I think that, again, the normal people just turn it, turn it off when they're bored. They want to go to bed.

I mean, who's watching a political speech past, you know, 11 p.m. on a weekend. So I do think, I think that the event of last Saturday matters much, much more than the convention itself. Convention really amplified. Can I say real quick, I have a West Coast friend who texted during the speech who said, I turned on the TV to see if they were replaying Trump's speech, only to realize it was still going on. That sounds right. So, Mike, I do want to ask you, I mean, we were told heading into this after Saturday that Trump had ripped up his speech was going to present unity, not going to mention Joe Biden's name. Oops. A, I mean, I guess there's a few questions

here, right? Did any of that get achieved? Because I don't think the answer is necessarily no, just because Trump didn't actually do that over the full course of 90 minutes. getting the news out that he was going to do that and then having some of that feeling over the course of this, I don't know that it didn't achieve the unity, you know, thesis, if you will. I mean, it's an interesting question because what you're really asking is how will the voters who are still undecided or are still undecided if they're going to come out? how will they interpret the clips of the speech and the sort of interpretation of the speech that will come out when they watch it on their phones or also in that for five days they just

heard from a bunch of reporters that Trump ripped up his speech and was going to present this unified unity message maybe they won't hear any of the speech there won't be any clips it's just I think that's what he was going to do and I'm sure he did it whatever yeah I mean yeah there's like there's like a very postmodern like what matters is what you say the speech will be, then what is actually in the speech. I mean, I was struck, and I was saying this in Slack the whole time. Like, if you've been to a Trump rally, after that first 25 minutes, it was a Trump rally. It was exactly how he is.

If people were surprised by what they were hearing, they just have, I don't blame them, but they just haven't been to a Trump rally. This is how he speaks. And I think in a weird way, that is a secret weapon of his because people, except for the hardcore fans, people don't actually listen to the whole Trump rally. And I think if they did, they might sort of have some questions about whether or not he's fit to be president in the next four years. And instead, it's like you gloss over it and the pre-commentary is what matters. Guys, I just think we should go ahead. Well, I also just, I want you to make your point,

but I also want you to speak to the feeling in the room from these delegates because I think you had like a sports team basically coming in, feeling like they're favored to win this thing. The wind is in their sales. They are more enthusiastic about their candidate than the other side. And I felt like through the TV, we could really feel that up through tonight, even as maybe things lulled during speeches they found boring. So speak also to just the crowd that's there.

Yeah, let me, I think the question's a good one, and we're addressing some of this with a good story on the site tomorrow morning. It was a very unified convention, and I've, you know, grown so accustomed to covering Republican events and Republicans generally that are disunified. It was very interesting to see. So there are still parts of the party that are not unified, and there are pockets of opposition, but in the convention hall, it was, they were all rowing in the same direction. and they're all enthusiastic. And through the speech, the energy was there. So, you know, we're talking about this in terms of what we've seen over the years and how it feels to us. And we're trying to figure out how people around the country are going to interpret it.

And I've got some thoughts on that, but in the room they loved it. And one of the qualities of Trump rallies and Trump rally attendees is it's like a Grateful Dead tour. They come for the songs and they come for the slight variations on the same riffs they've been hearing for years. And so here, they loved it. And I just wanted to say quickly, oftentimes with convention speeches, it's a mixture of the analysis of the speech and the politics of the speech. But in the case of Donald Trump in this campaign, the worst, the absolute worst of Trump is built into the price of admission and he's winning. And so how this speech was interpreted or delivered really doesn't matter. The only thing that really matters is whether he might end up with a different opponent

because voters have taken Trump's measure and they've concluded that however bad he is, he beats the alternative. And so, you know, I think overdoing whether people watch this or didn't watch it or liked it or didn't like it is beside the point. All right. I do want to get to his opponent, maybe. John, I want to talk quickly about policy, though, and just what we learned about, you know, I made the point on Twitter earlier today that we keep using the term Republican Party to refer to two totally different political parties. We basically use the term Republican Party to refer to this party that existed in 2012 and 1984, but we also use the term Republican Party and the people at this convention as the Republican Party.

And to me, there's very little that those have in common. This isn't just the evolution of a party. I think there's actually a total shift. Are there any big policy moments that you think are worth highlighting or what Republican means now? Well, I thought the most dramatic moment was really the first of the convention where you had the Teamsters Union presidents, just totally demagogically denouncing big business, the elites, they have no nation. and they only are loyal to the balance sheet and the stock price. You had Amber Rose. I don't know exactly what her title is,

but someone who has an only fans page and an internet personality who has praised quote-unquote Satanists because they help them in the Southgate abortions, and there's many more greatest hits from her. And then he also had David Sachs, the billionaire, who said that Putin provoked, Russia to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine because they were just, Putin just so scared that Ukraine might join NATO. So, I mean, there was that. And obviously, you know, the abortion

issue, the solving the platform. Today, there was a faith in freedom coalition event. That was Ralph Reed. You know, J.D. Vance was there. He said that social conservatives will always have a seat at the table. You know, they should give Trump a little bit of grace and she was so great on Roe. And I mean, these people are there. And again, you know, you've got to take a step back. And I think that all the criticism you might get from people on these policy questions, they're willing to be maybe totally muted because of the assassination attempt. You know, I mean, half of the Faith and Freedom Coalition event this morning was talking about how amazing it was and providential in ways that were over the top, I thought, about Trump surviving. So, yeah, I mean, it was a big moment, I thought, just the way that this was, this was all. Trump. Trump has decided to take the party in every way he finds beneficial to him or he

dislikes. I don't think he needs to do a lot of this stuff. I don't think it really helps him all that much. But apparently his campaign does. Well, as many people say, it's not about comparing your candidate to the Almighty, but comparing your candidate to the alternative. Jonah, who is the alternative to Donald Trump? TBD. He sounds nice. It's like FDR. Yeah, I mean, look, I think Biden's going to go. But it's probably Harris, I think. What do you make of the rumors out there that the Democrats are really considering an open convention where some number of candidates would get to make their case to the delegates?

They would vote. So remember on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention, it's run very differently than the Republicans. Convention. There's basically real delegates and then what used to be called super delegates that basically you would have this first ballot with just the real delegates. And if no one got a majority of that, then you would add in the former super delegates. And you could have many, many rounds of this going on at the convention. There's been some people who've said that's a totally unrealistic Aaron Sorkin invention of how this can go, a pipe dream for people who think, you know, the Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear ticket is just right around the corner.

And yet there's other people who were like, well, stranger things have happened in the last 48 hours. So I've actually talked to a few Democrats about this in the last 10, 12, 24 minutes. Yeah. I mean, I've talked to a lot of Democrats. I actually think, I'm not saying that they've said this explicitly, but listen. Listening to them, I've become kind of convinced that it's possible that you get a hybrid where Biden releases his delegates and says, I endorse Kamala Harris.

She's the person I picked to be my vice president, but I want there to be an open process to give as much legitimacy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you would get, as one Democrat put it to me, an alliance of super friends that would come together because basically very few prominent democrats want the nomination under these circumstances right so they would all in a spirit of party unity um come together to say they endorsed harris too so it would look like she actually earned it on her own right rather than just had it handed to her something like you think about the the behind the scenes politics of this and remember like for all of these people whitmer knew some baby clobe

I mean, name your candidate out there. They're huddling with their people like me, right? And they're working through all of the variations of what's in their interest. And what they're looking at is this idea that maybe Trump isn't beatable no matter what. Maybe you're better off waiting to 2028. And if that's the case, you'd love for Harris to be the nominee because it also prevents her then really from being a legitimate candidate in 2020. Um, Mike, can I say something about that? I don't think that is where these Democratic leaders are. I think the, the panic about a second Trump administration is real and it is, um, it is clearing out in this moment. I'm not saying forever. I'm just saying in this moment, there is a sort of clarity of mind. Um, you just, you talk to Democrats. about this and they are

they are sincere at the highest level like they are sincerely mortified about what is going on and there's something about having your backup against the wall that that can be clarifying so I don't think that's happening I could

be wrong you work with you work with principals Sarah in another life so maybe you you are privy more privy to things if they think Trump's equal and of course they think that they're the best person to beat him the problem will be if they become convinced that this process, like, yes, it would have been great six months ago, but now it's too late. And the thing that you, I think that people underestimate is it's not like

you flip a switch, you change the nominee, and they're ready to go. Basically, no matter who is the nominee for the Democrats at this point, there's a huge risk that person has never been under the heat and the bright lights that they're going to be under. Nobody has been vetted the way that a presidential candidate gets vetted, and they get vetted slowly, right? through a primary, and then the beginning few months of a general election when things are pretty quiet in the winter and early spring. And this person is going to get dropped into a pot of boiling water. You know, think about all the candidates who you thought looked pretty good to you before a primary. I mean, we can name them all. Tim Pawlenty, Scott Walker,

Kamala Harris, something to mind. Fred Thompson. Oh, Fred Thompson, right? All of these people before you saw them in the primary, you were like, But that person's got what it takes to go all the way. Okay. And then the second they hit the primary, which is nothing compared to July in an election year, they got fried. Okay. Just to Mike's point, though, there's something about a sprint that, and I, Sarah, I'm with you about how debilitating the processes to a human being. But you've got a sprint and you can get from here to there before they have a chance to kill you, which in a long,

process, it's really hard to do. Yep, that's the upside is maybe they, you know, if there's lava, the floor is lava, you just like hop really quickly and your feet don't get singed. Steve, we haven't heard from you. You look awake, but I also feel like maybe you sleep with your eyes open. I woke up because I disagree so strongly with all of this speculation. Not with me. Not with me, Steve.

No, I'm closer to Mike. I disagree strongly with Sarah. Look, I think there's a lack of imagination right now. because people are so locked into this idea that this is a Trump-Biden race. And so the analysis is, oh, gosh, if it's not Biden and it's Trump and Trump looks really strong, he may be unbeatable. So I actually started, I'm working on a piece. I won't get into all the details of it.

But I've talked to several Republican strategists about the possibility of sort of a do-over, like a fresh start. So it could be Kamala and somebody else. I'm operating from the assumption that Joe Biden is not going to be the, the nominee. I feel strongly about that. Kamala and somebody else, or Kamala, not at all, and a totally fresh ticket. And one of the first texts I got from a really smart Republican strategist, the morning after the Biden debacle debate was, all right, that's so obnoxious. People are awful.

for podcast listeners we have a new breaking banner on the bottom of the screen that says breaking Steve Hayes is working on a piece why are all of you people laughing I'm laughing I'm thinking about a joke anyway I'm trying to make a serious point

but I have obnoxious colleagues so the morning after the Biden debacle debate I got a text from somebody said do you really think Biden's going to drop out. I said, I think he is. Very smart Republican strategist said if Biden is not the top of the Democratic ticket, Trump, there's no chance Trump wins. And I think, you know, because he's had a good week in, you know, over the past six days, there's this sense that the guy's unbeatable, but we're all looking at it in the frame of a Trump Biden race. There's nothing that this country wants more than to

vote for somebody semi-normal. And they don't have that option. And it's not been an option for them for a long time. And Donald Trump had a good week. He appears very strong, again, in the framework of a Trump-Biden race. But how much of his unfavorables changed over the past week, over the past four weeks, over the past six months? They haven't. The guy's got a ceiling. And I think, you know, right now there's this sense that Republicans are ascendant. Democrats, I mean, if you believe the reports about Stan Greenberg, who's an old school Democratic pollster who's been sending in polling memos to the Biden campaign almost on a daily basis saying in effect, not only is Joe Biden going to lose and lose badly, this could be devastating on sort of a generational level for the Democratic

Party if Joe Biden doesn't step aside. So Democrats are looking at, you know, what they think is maybe a near extinction event right now and they're potentially losing to Donald Trump in that way. What if you start fresh and you have an entirely different ticket? And of course, what if you have a time machine and everyone gets a unicorn? Yeah, but you know what? You said that about, you said that about Joe Biden dropping out and it doesn't seem that crazy anymore, right? What if Biden says no? The people who the people who say, yeah, we can't think about these crazy things. None of this would ever happen. Yeah, well, you know, we've been saying that for eight years.

And Donald Trump was never going to be the Republican nominee. And then he was never going to win the election. Then he was never going to be president. Some of us thought he'd be the Republican nominee. Can I question? Early? Early. Very early, Steve.

Yeah. In 2016, you thought he was going to be the Republican nominee? Oh, no, no, no. Sorry. Right. Okay. So the past decade has seen a series of events take place that the smartest people in politics, including and especially the conventional wisdom,

that have told us repeatedly wasn't going to happen. So I guess I'm just a little bit reluctant to say, yeah, none of this stuff could happen because we've seen so much stuff happen that was never supposed to happen. I think the Democrats, if they started fresh and had a totally new ticket, Gretchen Whitman, Gretchen Whitmer and Raphael Warnock. I mean, fill in the blanks, have the possibility of taking what now looks like a huge Republican year and long-term Democratic difficulties and totally flipping it to where the

point where Democrats could win states that they're not expected to win. And the conversations we're talking about the battleground states right now expanding to New Hampshire and New Mexico, Nevada, Minnesota on the Trump side could end up including a bunch of states that we now think the Republicans are likely to win because Democrats are in such a bad spot. John? Can I question the confidence that Biden's actually going to drop out? The actual confirmed news that we have in the past 24 hours is Pelosi and Schumer making

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