The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Jeff Weaver: a new race for the White House

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race sent shockwaves across the US - and indeed much of the world - as the Democrats are scrambling to figure out their next move just three months away from the general election. And while it looks like Kamala Harris will be the nominee for the Democrats, there is still a lot of uncertainty around her candidacy and how she will fare on the national stage. To help us make sense of this unprecedented political moment, we’re joined by Jeff Weaver. Jeff has a deep understanding of how Washington politics works. He was Bernie Sanders’s campaign manager in 2016, and a senior advisor to Dean Phillips’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nominee earlier this year. He knows just about everyone in Washington, and the ins and outs of how campaigns are run - and won. SOURCE: The Hill   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events.This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/   Executive Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Senior Producer: Daniel Kitts Editor: Kieran LynchBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You don't help the poor by making everybody poorer. The media has a frame, and the frame is Israel is the oppressor, and the Palestinians are the oppressed. I shouldn't be forced to acknowledge my privilege unless I desire for that to be part of my interaction with somebody else. What I know to be true and what all of my fellow Gen Z know to be true is that this is the most talented generation yet. With respect to every indicia of disadvantage, there is still a racial hierarchy. And though I am, of course, in Anglo. I'm certainly not a Frizzan. Hello, Monk listeners.

Rudyard Griffith here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this. Our continuing conversations called the Monk Dialogues. These are in-depth questions and answers with some of the world's sharpest minds and brightest thinkers. On each monk dialogue, we go deep into the big issues and ideas that are driving the public conversation. I know yesterday's news is surprising.

and it's hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do. I know it's hard because you've poured your heart and soul into me to help us win this thing. Help me get this nomination. Joe Biden's decision to drop out of the presidential race sent shockwaves across the United States and indeed much of the world as Democrats are trying to figure out their next move just three months away from November's election. And while it looks like Kamala Harris will, be the nominee for the DNC, there is still a lot of uncertainty around her candidacy and how

she'll fare on the campaign trail. To help us make sense of these unprecedented political moves and moments, we're joined by Jeff Weaver. Jeff has a deep understanding of how Washington politics works. He was Bernie Sanders campaign manager in 2016 and a senior advisor to Dean Phillips campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination just earlier this year. year. He knows all the players in U.S. politics and the ins and outs of how national presidential campaigns are run and won. Jeff, welcome back to Monk Dialogues. Glad to be here. Thank you. The last time we had you on this program was in mid-February, 2024. We were debating whether Joe Biden should be the Democrats nominee. What the heck happened? It took the world six months later

to catch up to something that you saw clearly over half a year ago, what was everyone missing? Well, I don't think a lot of people were missing it, frankly. I think a lot of people on the inside knew what was going on, but it was a little bit of an emperor's new clothes scenario playing out. You know, there was a lot of fear about Donald Trump,

and there still is the prospect that he could be the next president. Joe Biden had beaten him once, and the Democrats were willing to ride that horse into November, despite all of their misgivings, as you probably have read in the media, you know, there were a lot of internal machinations to tilt the primary toward Joe Biden and away from any potential challengers, not just Dean Phillips, but any potential challengers. You know, in the end, the need to have an open and democratic process, I think, really bore itself out. You know, hindsight, we all acknowledge is 2020, but again, you were there early on,

demanding some kind of real primary for Joe Biden, for the party. What do the party miss out on in terms of not simply skipping that process, but actively thwarting it, actively in a sense, suppressing Dean Phillips' candidacy? Yeah, look, you know, they always create more problems for themselves than they solve when they try to circumprint the democratic process. This happened in 2016 when they really tilted the field to make sure that Hillary Clinton went over Bernie Sanders, who then proceeded to lose to Donald Trump. You know, this time around, you know, the president's people rearranged the primary schedule so that it would favor the president. One of the president's leading supporters, Jim Plyburn in South Carolina, who was credited by many as being the person who saved his campaign in 2020, said that the reason the primaries were switched around was to avoid embarrassing the president.

They canceled the debates, which then drove RFK Jr. and Fornell West out of the Democratic primary into a third party positions, which of course now, in hindsight, is a terrible thing to have happened because they may take votes from Kamala Harris, which would elect Donald Trump. So on and on it went, you know, they canceled the primary in Florida, literally canceled the primary in Florida and allocated all the delegates to Joe Biden. They wouldn't put Dean Phillips on the ballot in North Carolina. had they tried to keep them off of Massachusetts, which is the Secretary of State overturned. They tried to keep them off the ballot in Wisconsin, which the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned. So on and on it went, you know, and there was, you know, there clearly was a lot of threatened retribution for anybody who stepped out of line. And what might have been in a sense if there had been more of a testing?

And again, just to play this out, it's all 2020 hindsight. But what do you think would have happened if there had been a more authentic primary contest would voters have become more aware of joe biden's uh frailty maybe the party could have would have should have thought about forcing some kind of leadership transition six months ago or or previously to avoid frankly this kind of hurried what was increasingly looking like a kind of bum's rush to uh anoint camelah harris as uh as the uh designated candidate for November. No, that's exactly right. You know, the debate, which everybody saw and was horrified about, you know, if that had taken place back in February or March, you know, it would have been a

very, very different process. We would have had a number of people would have jumped into the race, governors across the state, other senators. You know, we could have had a real small D democratic process to nominate the best candidate to beat Donald Trump. Now, that may well have been Kamala Harris. She certainly would have come into the race with a number of advantages being. the sitting vice president. So, you know, it's not to say the outcome would have been different, but, you know, the process actually does matter. And what do you think about the process right now? What do you see is the drawbacks of the process? Obviously, there are some advantages. You more than most are aware of the internecine warfare that can break out within parties when there's

a leadership transition. How do you kind of, as a seasoned campaign observer and participant, how do you kind of weigh the advantages and disadvantages of going wider of opening this nomination up? Looks like that's not going to happen versus, you know, a message of unity of a kind of peaceful transition of power from one internal faction of the Democratic Party effectively to itself. Yeah, well, that's exactly what is happening. you know, democracy is always the messiest choice. And, you know, soon after the debate happened, the infamous debate, you know, I advocated for a sort of mini primary process, which would have included some debates between other aspirants. President Biden took a long time to decide to get out of the race in terms of how much time we had left. And so it became more and more difficult

to do. Look, I envisioned a process where we could have had some debates. We would have limited the field, you know, by putting on some qualifications, maybe you had to be a federal office holder or a statewide office holder so that we would, you know, have a limited field of people. They could have gone around the country, campaign. They could have spoken to the various constituency groups, which, you know, constitute the Democratic Party. And then, you know, the delegates would have chosen who they wanted at the convention in a sort of orderly process. It could have been done very civilly. I think there is great unity in the party around beating Donald Trump. And, you know, it would have been also a great audition if Kamala Harris had prevailed in that process, it would have been a great audition

for somebody to pick as vice president. But, you know, we're going to have a vice presidential candidate chosen now who is not going to have run for president in all likelihood unless she picks Pete Buttigieg, Secretary Buttigieg. And, you know, what we have seen over the past few cycles is many people who look phenomenal on paper really fall flat on their face when they get into the big ring. You know, the opposite is also true. You know, when somebody who people would Poo-Poo, you know, Bernie Sanders ran. They were like, oh, he's not going to do very well. You know, but he really shined up on the big stage.

So the primaries serve so many purposes. And that's all been certain. But fortunately. The risks now of this kind of hereditary succession that's going on here within the White House and within the party. Beyond Kamala Harris, what do you see is the challenges that the party will now face in foregoing some kind of competition for Kamala Harris. Do you worry that this may be, I don't know, does it deflate some of the potential energy

within the broader Democratic Party coalition in the United States? Is there an opportunity cost that the party is going to pay for this course that they're on? Well, I do think so. I do think a controlled civil process would have created a lot of excitement. I think the media would have covered it,

you know, wall to wall. all 24-7. I think it would have taken all the auction out of the room now. You know, Kamala Harris now is getting a lot of media. The media in the U.S. is really focused now on Kamala Harris. You know, how soon that switches back to Trump, we shall see. But, you know, I do think, and one of the other things it does is it plays into the Republican narrative about democracy. You know, ironically, the people who stormed the Capitol to try to circumvent the election, to stop the election from going forward, you know, accused Joe Biden, the Democrats, of being anti-democratic. And, you know, this will play into their narrative that party insiders chose

the nominee took it out of the hands of voters. And what do you think it says about our political elites today, Jeff? I mean, the fact is that they're doing this, regardless of what good counsel you may offer them or what might be ultimately a more viable strategy to put forward a successful nominee to win the White House and have down-ballot gains. I mean, they are going ahead, and it looks like they're relatively unchallenged at this moment by internally, by the media, by anyone. Well, I would say this about, this is, I think, true of both political parties. You know, both parties, the leadership, despite all of the theatrics on the Trump side about being in touch with the grassroots, is really not. You know, both parties are very, very

divorced from the realities of everyday life in America. And the Democratic Party, you know, has its own special challenges, you know, its coalition is getting narrower and narrower and, you know, geographically and otherwise. And, you know, that's a real, that presents a real, a real problem, long term. What do you think of the policy set that will go forward for the Democrats into November? We had seen that kind of sharp pivot from Biden, I guess, to, in part get the support of the, you know, key congressional members like AOC and others, you know, rent controls, other kind of policy ideas that were clearly, I don't mean this pejoratively, but were supported and we're enthusiastically endorsed on the kind of left of the Democratic political spectrum.

No insult here. No insult here at all. Is Camilla Harris, should we be thinking of her as just in a sense a continuum? of Biden policies and priorities and temperament and, you know, the situation and relationship of the White House vis-a-vis the other parts of the larger party? Well, you know, that's an interesting question. Again, you know, if we had had a small mini-primary, this might have been fleshed out a little bit more, you know, policy priorities.

Certainly the Republicans are going to try to paint Kamala Harris with all of Joe Biden's policy decisions. You know, people forget that despite the bad debate. having blown this whole thing up, Joe Biden was losing the race before the debate. And so if the race just continues where it was right before the day before the debate, we took a time machine and substituted Kamala Harris for Joe Biden the day before the debate, we will lose the election in November.

And so it's incumbent upon Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, to get out and articulate her particular vision. She has been, you know, to her credit, I've been a loyal vice president to Joe Biden up to the very last minute. I mean, she was a very vocal defender of him right after the debate, which is a very difficult moment. Having done a political spin myself, that was a very difficult moment to come out and say positive things. But now it's now it's her responsibility to go out and articulate a set of policy priorities, you know, a more populous economic vision that went similar to what Biden was starting to articulate,

I think would be very helpful for her in connecting with blue-collar workers of all races, You know, that's really, I think, the direction she needs to go. As you know, Jeff, policies only matter so much. There's a lot of, a lot of optics out there in terms of how Kamala Harris will be perceived. Many of them unfair. Many of them, no doubt, soaked and cloaked in racist views, in, you know, misogynist kind of takes. How challenging is that? I mean, if you had said to me, when we had had our conversation with you last time, six months ago, we'll be running as the Democratic nominee, a mixed-raced woman from California in this election cycle at this moment, I would say to you, that's a kind of high-risk proposition.

Well, look, as I always say, they're always going to attack you about something. And I have no doubt, given the opponent, Donald Trump and his team, that they are going to throw all kinds of mud, you know, much of it racially coded, gender coded. So I have no doubt about that. That's definitely the case. And, you know, but that's why, you know, policy becomes, it's a proof point of your narrative. Policies in and of themselves are limited, as you noted, but they are proof points of your larger narrative. And so if you articulate a set of policies that are, you know, populist in tone that benefit a broad swath of people as opposed to people at the top, you know, it will reinforce a narrative that Kamala Harris is in fact, you know, in many ways, you know, Kamala Harris as a mixed race, person of mixed race and a woman and younger, you know, also sends a message of inclusivity to the nation, that it's a new day and that the country is for everybody. And if you have a set of policy positions that can back that up, I think you can really push that. narrative out into the country. And I think it will be welcome. There, you know, there is, despite the fact that the country is divided, there is a strong yearning for unity, I suppose.

Would you also say there's a desire for some continuity here? You know, I guess what I struggle with is on one hand, we all understand fair. Again, fairly or not, the Biden administration was kind of savaged by people's experience of inflation and the after effects of that, regardless of a strong economy, to what extent do you see Harris kind of hewing very strongly to the kind of Biden record trying to project herself as a kind of 2.0 version of his presidency? Or would you advise that, in fact, she should. Maybe she needs to, you know, flag and indicate some of how she's going to shape this presidency into her own and be something different than the Biden, an impure that we've come to know so well these last four years.

Yeah, no, I think that's very important. As I was just saying, you know, she really needs to lay out a policy agenda that is hers so that she, you know, creates her own identity in this process. As I said, Joe Biden was losing before the debate happened. So if she just becomes Biden 2.0, we're going to lose. So we need, you know, Kamala Harris to articulate her own points of view. If you're enjoying the Monk Debates podcast, come over to our website at triple W monkdebates.com. that's MUNK DebateswithanS.com and check out our free monk membership.

As a complimentary monk member, you get all kinds of great perks and benefits, access to our weekly email summarizing our best debates, and ticketing privileges at our main stage debates, special news information, and offers all courtesy of the monk debates. You can grab your complimentary monk membership again right now at Triple W Monk Debates. simply look to the top navigation on the website and follow the links thanks in advance for joining our community i want to go a bit to your just serial experience inside campaigns and you know with candidates and in these kind of high stakes moments and in particular just go back to joe biden's resignation this weekend and how it how it happened again this is conjecture but

Jeff, did you feel that the process, the timing, how this all unfolded on Sunday to be a bit odd? No, look, I think a lot of people were predicting it would be over the weekend. I certainly was one of those people who thought that it would happen over the weekend when the dam finally burst. I do wish that it had happened earlier so that we would have had more time to be more deliberate in the, you know, succession. even if they had chosen to go with Kamala Harris as the sort of anointed candidate, would have given her more time. You know, we're very, very close to the election. And, you know, I know the people elsewhere don't have this experience,

but elections are typically very, very long in the U.S. They last really, in many cases, the next election will be starting the day after this one. So it would have given everybody a lot more time. And, you know, it's unfortunate that we didn't have that. But just this idea that, you know, you have a very small inner circle who wrote this letter, who I presume crafted with the president those kind of final words, that final message. And then it's out on X. It's out on Twitter. And your secretary of state, your secretary of the treasury, key cabinet officials, in a sense, are learning about. about all this in real time, kind of as it happens. And to this day, at least as the time of recording

of the show midday on Tuesday, you know, we've still yet to see Joe Biden speak to the American public to talk about his decision and why he chose ultimately to do what he did. Again, does this just seem a little odd? Well, like I can tell you as somebody who has been, the inside of a campaign when, you know, it starts to come to a close and sort of inevitable comes over the horizon. The campaign does get more and more insulin. That is certainly true.

And, you know, it happened in this case. And I think it's probably particularly true with older candidates, you know, who have inside advisors who have been with that person for many, many years. So that part is not particularly surprising. You know, Joe Biden was not resigning the that would have been a very different thing, I think. Now, I do think it would be good for him to get out and, you know, address the American people because he said he was going to do it this week, that he do it sooner rather than later, so that Kamala Harris really can turn the page and mount the campaign that she wants to mount. What do you think of the arguments that Joe Biden should be resigning the presidency, that if he feels he's unable to campaign successfully in the election, that, you know, there is an argument. There is a big question mark over him in his roles as commander-in-chief, as chief executive officer for the United States between now and November. Yeah, I don't see the, I don't see the correlation there. Just because you, the president, recognizes that he's not going to be reelected and he wants to prevent Donald Trump from becoming

the president doesn't mean he he's not capable of carrying out his own presidency. So, you know, I think there was, there was much more concern about Joe Biden being president in three years, but he seems fully capable of carrying out the remaining months of his presidency. What do you think the Biden legacy will ultimately be? How, how will he be remembered? how important, you know, will the last 72 hours be to, you know, his entry into the proverbial history books? Will these last few weeks be what people remember most about the last four years? Well, I do think if Trump is reelected, then, you know, these last few weeks become a much bigger part of the historical narrative about President Biden's presidency. If Kamala Harris wins and, you know,

was able to continue the progress that was made in this administration in terms of transforming the economy to one that works better for working class people, then I think that that part of the narrative becomes much less important. Yeah. And moving to the Republicans and Trump, you know, it's, again, a remarkable week or so period for him personally, for his party as by all indications of successful convention in Milwaukee. If you're advising the Democrats, how do you kind of blunt what's perceived of as a sudden burst of momentum on the Trump candidacy?

Maybe Jeff, you even go back over the last month and you start to look at how these court cases have been knocked off various dockets. This seems to be a candidate and a party that suddenly has gone from some big question marks over its political viability to a very strong position. As you say, 100 days from the election. And now there's no doubt that that's true.

And, you know, as they say, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. And, you know, Donald Trump has had an amazing run of luck in the last, you know, month or so. But look, you know, there is a long time to go. And I think having Kamala Harris as the nominee will highlight different, you know, aspects of issues in the race, obviously the issue of reproductive choice. will be highlighted in a much different way than if Joe Biden were the nominee. So I think that's an important issue that's playing out in the U.S.

You know, I do think, again, the opportunity to excite different racial groups within the Democratic coalition I think is important. There was a lot of polling that's been done that showed slippage among African-American voters, Latino voters, from the Democratic Party to Donald Trump, Kamala Heretz, as the nominee may be able to stem. Some of that, you know, she may have a better appeal with suburban women who have been a target of the Democratic Party than Joe Biden was. So, you know, there's a number of ways in which this race has really been shaken up. And it will take another few weeks for us really to see how that's going to play out.

You know, there's also the prospect of another debate, and I can guarantee you, you know, having run against Kamala Harris with Bernie Sanders in 2020. that she's a very good debater. Really, the high point of her campaign, people may remember, was when she forcefully attacked then-candidate Joe Biden over his earlier support or opposition to busing in his career. So she is a very good debater, and I do not think you will see a repeat of the debate that we saw previously. And I think the performance that Donald Trump put on

in terms of debate against Joe Biden would be viewed as inadequate to say the least when he's debating Kamala Harris. Do you think Trump's ego will almost necessitate him taking up Kamala Harris' challenge to have that second debate? I mean, you could see an argument possibly that maybe a less vain, glorious Republican nominee might make, which would be, I agreed to debate Joe Biden in September. I did not agree to debate Kamala Harris. How do you think that plays out?

Because that could be a very high-stakes moment. That could be the next big kind of pivot moment for this campaign. Yes. You know, the counterbalance of that. And, you know, the Trump campaign, I'm sure, will weigh this. And they may not debate at the end of the day. But, you know, his whole campaign is centered around. He's, quote, unquote, strong.

And, you know, he's looking at a lot of luster. And for them to then for him to cower away. from a debate, you know, it runs counter to that narrative. So they'll have to make a judgment about whether, you know, the damage they would take from looking weak is more or less than the damage they would take from getting trounced in a debate. So, you know, that will be a calculation that's done inside the campaign. And I think there's even money he doesn't do it.

Yeah. I agree. I think it's hard for him to, if she's forceful in the challenge and I'm sure she'll be successful in taunting him. to the nth degree. And if he ducks it, you know, it looks weak, which is the one kind of thing that Trump seems to hate the most. Talk about women, Jeff, because, you know, this is another time where we have the possibility to make history, to elect a woman to the White House. We know that Trump has had problems historically with female voters. He certainly has a record inside and

outside the courtroom of, you know, blatant kind of misogyny towards women. How important. And are we seeing any of that in the polls yet? Maybe it's too early. But could this be an election that in some ways that American women become a really important constituency and maybe surprise us? Well, they're always an important constituency. But, you know, we've, seen over the last, you know, cycles as, you know, reproductive freedom has been moved to the top of the Republicans, you know, agenda in terms of curtailing it and the recent Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion. You know, women have really been energized and women's issues, as they're called, although they're really everybody's issues, I think,

you know, have become much more central to the discussion. You know, the counterbalance that obviously is that, and on that issue, Democrats, you know, pull very high against the Republicans. You know, on the flip side, you know, on economic issues, the Republicans are polling much higher. There is a sort of nostalgia, I think it's a kind of phone nostalgia, but in nostalgia for the Trump economy, when things were viewed as, you know, cheaper and life was easier and what have you,

you know, that's a counterbalance. You know, Trump won white women in the last election. So, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a, the counterbalance if you you know we're having trouble paying your bills paying for child care and buying food and paying gas uh you know that serves as a counterbalance to some of these other issues you know around civil rights civil liberties yeah and on the Hispanic and black communities we've seen as surprising inroads by trump of all people has uh shifted a lot of those voters who have historically been firmly in the Democratic column over to the GOP, is Kamala Harris the type of candidate that can

reverse some of that, that drift in the Democratic voting coalition? Yeah, well, we certainly hope so. You know, the difficulty with that particular circumstance is, you know, there's a 40-year trend of declining standard of living for working class people in the United States. And, you know, you saw it first with, you know, white working class people who became the quote-unquote Reagan Democrats and then eventually became the Trump Republicans. And now you're starting to see that same erosion among, particularly among men, African-American men and Latino men at this point, you know, a very similar kind of migration to the Republican Party. And so, you know, in many ways it is part of a long-term trend.

And the Republicans smartly have seen this trend and are, you know, are trying to hide. highlight a more populist agenda, working class agenda, and painting Democrats as elitist. And so, you know, whether that can be stemmed, that migration can be stemmed by one candidate, I think is difficult to say. She may slow it. She may remind those voters why, you know, they have stuck with the Democratic Party while their white counterparts have not. But, you know, it is a long-term concern that is showing itself in this election. But it's really the result of long-term trends in the economy, the political economy in the United States. As we wrap up our conversation, two final questions. One, just to explain to a non-American audience,

what the attraction is of a second Trump presidency, given the chaos of his first term in office and not simply the chaos of the four years in the White House, but everything that happened between his defeat in the fall of 2020 and Joe Biden's inauguration. It's hard often for people, I think, outside of the United States to understand why all of that history doesn't matter more in people's assessment of how they're going to vote in November. America is the home of the guy who made up the great quote, you know, all history is bunk, Henry Ford. I don't, is there, Jeff, I know this is somewhat philosophical, but like,

is American politics just imbuted with presentism and people forget the past and the future is always better, bold, or bigger? I don't know, help us try to understand how Trump could be doing as well as he's doing now. Well, look, in defense of my American tribe, let me say that this Trump phenomenon is really part of a global phenomenon. You know, the sort of neoliberal world order is collapsing. It has impoverished millions of middle-class people in countries across the world. It has shown itself to be politically, economically, morally bankrupt. And so you see, you know, the neoliberal candidates being defeated everywhere. I think your own prime minister is having a little difficulty these days from the right that you saw in Europe and France and, you know,

in other countries as well, the sort of rise of the right-wing populism. So, you know, I don't think this is an American phenomenon. It is part of a global phenomenon. And, you know, unfortunately, you know, the neoliberals are unequipped to combat the rightward drift in this century as they were, you know, as the sort of liberal Democrats, I call them the Vimar Democrats often, are in any country in this century. So we need a change in politics in the Western world. We need to move to a more egalitarian social democratic direction so that everybody feels like

the democratic system works for them. Right now, when people feel the democratic system doesn't work for them, they're happy to throw it overboard. And that's what's happening in the U.S., and that's what's happening in Canada and countries all over the world. Yeah, it's a great insight. I think it's, you know, I often think in the context of pre and post-COVID, you know, Post-COVID, there's been a sense of falling living standards of a middle class that feels like it's being dragged down into something else, something that doesn't feel like a middle-class existence.

And I think a lot of the policies, the traditional pre-COVID policy prescriptions of our political elites really don't have much to say to an electorate that feels like it's grappling with something to them, subjectively, that feels like survival. I mean, people are literally, in a sense, trying to survive now. And these so-called luxury beliefs, again, I use that pejoratively only in part, but a lot of these luxury beliefs of, you know, EV cars and in everybody's driveway and, you know, I don't know, endless set of DEI prescriptions for everyone all the time everywhere. just don't seem to speak to the lived experience of, as you say, tens, hundreds of millions of the voting electorate across the West. Final question, Jeff, you've been very generous with your time. What are the signposts that you're going to be looking for in the coming hundred days to understand which way this campaign is going to go? Are there certain periods you think, Jeff, where, let's say Camel Harris would have to show parity with Trump in the polls to have to have. an ability to have the momentum to close the deal by November.

Trying to help us, just as lay people understand, you know, as the expert that you are, where and when some key things have to happen to determine this race. Well, look, I think the Democratic Convention will be very important. Candidates typically get a bump out of their convention. And so, you know, you would like to see Kamala Harris after the Democratic Convention being at least even and hopefully slightly. ahead of Donald Trump. So that would be an important signpost. It's also going to be very important to watch the so-called battleground states. As people know, we have a very convoluted system for

electing a president of the United States, which is connected to, but not entirely dependent on the popular vote. And, you know, the general rule of thumb is that, given the nature of the electoral college, in a national poll, a Democrat has to be up three points in order to be even. So if you're a Democrat who's even with Trump, you're really three points behind. And so, you know, it's going to be important to see the movement in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and potentially in some other states where the Biden people had sort of written them off for Georgia, which the president won last time, but which he was losing this time. You know, Kamala Harris turned that around. North Carolina is another state where Joe Biden narrowly lost. Obama won the first, in his first term,

one, North Carolina. Can Kamala Harris turn around North Carolina and put that back into play? You know, can they take Virginia, which has moved from being a Democratic state into a toss-up situation? Will that start to move away back into the Democratic column? So these are the sort of signposts, mostly around these battleground states. Can Kamala Harris put together the 270 electoral votes she needs to win? Excellent analysis, excellent insights, Jeff. You were spot on six months ago. about the perils and prospects of Biden presidency. As I said, at the top of the show, it took us six months to catch up to you. Let's see if it takes 100 days to catch up to you again in terms of your commentary on what we could and should and might see between now and November.

Thank you so much for coming on the Monk Dialogues. Greatly appreciate your time today. Happy to be here. Thank you. Well, that wraps up our dialogue. Today I want to thank our guest, Jeff Weaver. He certainly gave us a lot to think about. If you have questions or reflections on what you've just heard on this or any of our other podcast,

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