The New Yorker Radio Hour - What Kamala Harris Needs to Win the Presidency, from a Veteran of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

Kamala Harris will face barriers as a woman running for the Presidency. “Women constantly have to credential themselves,” Jennifer Palmieri, a veteran of Democratic politics who served in the Clinton Administration, says. She was also the director of communications for the Obama White House, and then for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential campaign. Harris will “need to remind people of what she has done in her career and what she’s done as Vice-President, because people assume that women haven’t accomplished anything.” But Harris also has notable strengths as a candidate, and, having avoided a bruising primary campaign—and having been handed a torch from the incumbent—she has advantages that no other woman running for office has had. For a woman candidate, the world has changed since 2016, Palmieri believes. She shares insights into how Joe Biden was finally persuaded to step out of the race, and explains what she meant by advising women to “nod less and cry more.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Well, that happened. As soon as Joe Biden announced his departure from the race, we asked Jennifer Paul Mary to come on the program to talk about what this all means for the person who's almost certainly the new standard bear for the Democrats, Kamala Harris. Jen Paul Mary is the kind of politico in D.C. who's been around for half of forever. She knows where the bones are buried. When we talk about the Democratic Party establishment, she's right up there, a veteran of the Bill Clinton administration and Barack Obama's White House,

and she was the director of communications for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. Paul Mary now co-hosts the podcast, How to Win 2024. So she can tell us a thing or two about what? what exactly is going on in this bizarre and historic race for the White House. Hey, Jen. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I don't know. Anything going on? Oh, my God. Oh, my God, David.

I spoke with Jennifer Palmieri last week. First things first, you know everybody in this drama. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, the Clintons. Oh, my God. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What happened? What happened over last weekend that turned the tide here? So I think that there is a sense that is not true that Obama played a big role in trying to get President Biden to drop out. But it does, you know, it plays into an interesting Shakespearean storyline that, you know, between the two of them and the fact that, you know,

know, it is true that President Obama did not think that President Biden should run in 16. He endorsed Hillary. He, you know, had told President Biden that he didn't think it was a good idea. And that is the root of President Biden not listening to other people's advice because, you know, all of us were wrong. And I have to say, I'm one of the people who was wrong. I thought in 20 even President Biden shouldn't run because I didn't think that, you know, we normally don't go back, right? We go forward. And the party decided he was the guy they wanted. And, you know, He won and he was remarkable president. So, you know, part of the problem was that the normal people who would have credibility with President Biden didn't because all of them were part of the group that never thought he should run in 16 and didn't think he should run in 20.

So that dynamic is there. And that's why I think the sort of sense that President Obama played a big role here is overblown and it's easy to like kind of think that was a thing because of that history. But Nancy Pelosi, that appearance on, I think it was meet the press where she ever. No, morning Joe. Forgive me. Wordine Joe. I will never forget this moment. I will never forget this moment of television.

Was she ever so slightly, when Biden was already saying, I've made my decision, I'm going forward, she said, almost in a maternal way, but in a way that you know what she wants to happen. Well, the president will decide, which was a way of saying you haven't decided correctly yet. It was extraordinary. It was, you know, because I. I had heard, you know, and just like the degree to which all of us chat with each other and we all know each other. And, you know, I mean, I'm not talking directly to like Nancy Pelosi and he came Jefferson and Lila Schumer, but just like everybody around them. And it's like, Nancy's got to be the one. You can't send anybody else to tell Biden what needs to happen when that time comes than Nancy Pelosi. She's the one that had the cred with the president.

Because she did it. She passed the torch, right? First of all, she's tough. And she and honestly, David and I heard this a lot. I heard that the president. She's tougher than all of them. She's tougher than all of them, and men won't say hard things. They won't. So it was like when the time comes, Nancy's the one to send. And then I saw that she was going on Morning Joe to talk about, quote, democracy. And I was like, oh, yeah, right. Here we go.

Right. And then she gets the question about Biden staying in. And she's like, well, you know, he needs to decide. And Jonathan Lemire from Morning Joe is like, well, he has decided. She's like, well, I know. And that's why, you know, that's why it's so important that he makes a decision. The clock's running. And he really needs to decide.

And then Thursday, NATO, NATO summit, NATO press conference. Hakeem Jeffries schedules a meeting with the president to happen immediately following the NATO press conference. And I think this is important because Jeffries is thinking, if the press conference goes well-ish, then this could get another head of steam. And the president can think he can stay in. And so I am going to go see him right away. I thought that was a very smart, deft thing to do. That happens Thursday. Friday, Jeffreys puts out a statement that is very equivocal.

Says I met with him. I told him where a caucus is. Then that's it. Obviously, if the caucus had the president's support, he would have put it in that letter. He did not. And then I heard the next thing that's going to happen is Schumer's going to make a move. He's going to go see Biden on Saturday. So what happens on Saturday, the assassination attempt?

So then everything shuffled again. And I was thinking, well, this is done. Biden is going to be the nominee on Sunday. I'm like, that's it. He's going to be the nominee. And then, you know, by Monday, he did the Lester Holt interview, which, you know, was not great. He did a couple of interviews and they were not great. And you could feel it getting ahead of steam again. And then Wednesday was the day where everything's sort of crumbled. You know, that was when he got COVID. And Schumer let it be known that he did, in fact, go to Roebeth on that Saturday. So it was like the political version of D-Day, right? Pelosi hits the beach first on Wednesday. Thursday, it's Jeffries. Saturday, it's Schumer. And then you have the unfortunate and very tragic, you know, hiatus from the assassination attempt and the man that was killed in Pennsylvania. And then Wednesday was just when you were like, this is not sustainable. And then last Saturday. So last Saturday he's in Rojobie Beach. And he's, he summons Mike Donlin and somebody else. Roshetti. And, you know, there's two other players that I think were really important here that we don't talk about. Bill and Hillary Clinton, because.

you know, they understand people, right? And they didn't necessarily have Biden's back and saying he needs to stay in. But, you know, as I understand, they were calling him and, you know, talking him and just being friends and also telling donors continue to give him money because, you know, this is crazy. He's likely to stay in and he needs to have the resources and then just do it. And I really think that particularly because, you know, the Clintons have been allies, but then there's times where they were not, right? When Hillary ran and he wanted to run and then she lost. And so I think that for some people, you know, it's easier to talk somebody out of a corner when somebody's got your back, right? And for the Clintons to play that role, everybody had a different role to play here. And then I think that it was, you know, as was sort of reported in real time, we just didn't see any evidence of it kind of just taking hold with the president that this was, you know, getting more serious and told Roshetti and Donalind to come out to see him. And then they showed. him the bad polling, the polling that showed even his polling, his own internal polling, taking

big, big, big, big dives in the battlegrounds. Frankly, y'all, I mean, the vice president is off to a great start, but such dives that it's a very sobering look at, you know, her coming back from what whole a Democratic candidate is currently in. So we assumed at a certain point that Joe Biden was headed toward really catastrophic loss in November. What gives you the sense that Kamala Harris, whose poll numbers have never been all that great will do better? I understand that there's a burst of energy, a sense of relief among many people in the party. Yeah. But when it comes down to it, what gives you any optimism that the results in the ends of ends will be different in November than it might have been with Joe Biden?

I guess three factors. One is that there's a huge anti-Trump coalition in the country. Two, I was very worried about the cynicism of both parties or have big problems and they're not dealing with them. and like it doesn't matter and it's all rigged. And the Democrats had a big problem. We dealt with it. And I think there's a huge relief to see a younger person out there. So I think that's sort of like the second factor. And then the third thing is that the vice president, she's actually a very talented politician. She would not have accomplished what she's done in terms of like, you know, being AG, Senator from California, vice president, if that's not true. And her coverage has been horrific for the last three and a half years.

Why? You know, it's just – Why is the coverage – what's the coverage reacting to? So I think that – you know, and I wrote – because I worked for Hillary, so I wrote a book my experiences working for her because it's not like reporters are like, oh, we're sexist and we don't like women, and therefore we're going to write bad things about Hillary. I think it is that when you do not have a model in your mind for what a woman president looks like or in Harris's case, a black female vice president looks like, things don't make sense. like, well, what I would find with Hillary, it's like, well, how it would manifest itself as people would say, well, there's just something about her I don't like. And you're like, well, what is it? You know, we would do focus groups. There's something about her I don't trust. Well, she's always so sketchy. Well, what do you mean? Well, she's sketchy, whitewater. You know, it's like, well, whitewater ended up being nothing. Well, I don't know. She's always. And it's like, it's not like people are sexist or racist in an alert way, but just it's sort of confounding vaccine. It doesn't make sense. And it's like, there's something about our I don't like. And so I think the other problem for her as vice presidents do not get consistent attention. They get very sporadic attention. So you would just see snippets of her coverage. And it's like, why isn't she doing better? That's kind of like constant refrain. That's a really hard thing to beat back. You know, and still, she maintained like some level

of a favorability rating. And I think now we are going to actually see her. If I worked for them, I'd be like from now to the convention. You got four weeks. Who's a good idea for a vice president? I like Shapiro. He's a very good campaigner. Governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro. It's a good state to want to win. It's a great state to want to win. You know, Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona, he does a really good job at winning Arizona for him, for Mark Kelly. Right. Mark Kelly's a very specific thing. He's popular there. I don't know if that really translates. I do have a sense that, you know, if you're going to win Arizona or, you know, Governor Roy Cooper, North Carolina. He's another good option that she has.

Those states might be winnable, but I do feel like Shapiro could actually deliver Pennsylvania for you because he is that popular. And you aren't winning without it, right? Yeah. And Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are real hard this time. They're real hard. But I will say, having been this process a few times with candidates, personality matters a lot. Chemistry matters a lot. And, you know, I still think the best ticket ever was Clinton Corps, you know, not like trying to match or like, you know, not trying to round out the typical, but just like doubling down. We're like doubling down on our strengths.

It seemed like in some ways the same guy. Does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. matter in this race at this point? We hear all kinds of things that he might exchange an endorsement of Trump for a cabinet position. I've heard that. Even more unlikely when Biden was still kind of trying to decide what to do. that if he had left a gaping hole in the Democratic Party, that Robert F. Kennedy would love to have inherited the party of his father. That obviously was a fantasy too far. But is he a factor in the race anymore? Yeah. I mean, I always worry about him because it's going to be a close race. And so anything at the margins matters, he has proven to be less of a threat than people were concerned about early on.

So you still have to pay attention to him. We still have to define him, make sure that people know these got really crazy, dangerous views. so that if he is taking them from anybody he's taking from Trump and not from Harris. But, you know, also I think Jill, I think other people, you know, other people are still on balance in some places, you know. So it's any kind of third party thing, whether it's, you know, that is a concern, that's a concern. It's a big concern. Yeah. I mean, that's why Hillary lost, you know.

It could be everything. It could be ballgame. I'm talking with Jennifer Paul Mary. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. and we'll continue our conversation in just a moment. Welcome back to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. At this point, there's no safe prediction to make about this election.

That seems really clear. But we're talking today about Kamala Harris, who we presume will be the Democratic nominee. My guest is Jennifer Palmieri. She's a longtime veteran of Democratic politics. She worked in the Obama White House, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, and much more. She also wrote a bestselling book called Dear Madam President, addressed to some future leader of our country.

Now, you write that it was important for Clinton, Hillary Clinton, to show strength as the nominee. But you also recommend women running for office, and this is your quote, nod less and cry more. Nod less and cry more. What do you mean by that? I mean, the backup title for my book was crying at work because all women do it. and like it should not be Tadmoot. It is, I just, on the Clinton campaign, we got a lot of bad news, like a lot of bad news, right? Like, oh, Jim Comey just did a press conference where he said Hillary Clinton was reckless with classified information.

You're like, okay, I can handle this. Like, what else you got? And then it's like, Jim Comey's reopened the email investigation. And we just nod and we would say like, okay, I can handle this. I can handle this. And you're just absorbing too much. And you're not for yourself, you're not letting yourself like say, no, this isn't manageable. And then I do think in the Clinton campaign, we did kind of just absorb too much and think that we could just keep going.

What should you have done instead? You know, it was the before times, right? So it was like, you know, it was. It was the before times. It's really different. I mean, I did. Hillary got pneumonia from me. I got pneumonia.

I ended up in the hospital. And like, I was like, I can't believe that we think that we can manage all of this because we knew the Russians were hackiness and hurting us and no one would believe us. And, you know, plus Trump and all of that. But it used to be taboo for women to show emotion on the campaign trail. And as early as 2008, Hillary, you know, welled up a little bit in a New Hampshire diner. And people liked it. I think they see that as real. And there's like a thing in like women politics right now called 360 self.

Like women are now permitted to show all of themselves. That's why Kamala Harris can wear her chucks and her like rainbow coats. And like, it's okay. It's not considered unsurious. It is striking that we refer to Hillary. We refer to Kamala. That doesn't happen, for the most part, with male candidates. I think there's a couple of things happening here.

I can tell you Hillary Clinton does not like it. It is, I think part of it is like Harris is not very distinctive in Kamala is. There were two Clintons. also Hillary is a very distinctive name. But it's also true, I mean, in terms of, you know, what researchers will tell you about this is that it is diminishing of a woman to call her by her first name. And I thought, well, we only do it with Hillary and Kamala because they have unusual nades, but it's not true. We call her Nancy. You know, everybody knows who Nancy is. It's Pelosi, right? And, you know, I thought about even other senators I know. People refer to Amy, Amy Klobuchar, not. Not. I'm not. necessarily Clobuchar's. And it is, there's something that's not, there's something I, you know, I know that women researchers tell me it's bad and we should not do it. I do think there's something that, there's something about female leadership that people feel is welcoming. And I think referring to women by their first name is part of, is kind of part of that. So you don't want to lose all of it.

But there is a lot of research and there's a history here that says, And it's also true for black men that it is diminishing of them and something that goes back a long way. I spoke with Julian Castro on the program a couple of weeks ago. And he speculated that the Trump campaign, and I think he's probably not alone in this, would weaponize identity politics against Harris. And we've seen it already. She's already being called the DEI candidate. It seems that Trump is more concerned about her as an opponent than he was about Biden. So how is this going to work?

Yeah. I think that he is. I was surprised on, so she got announced on Sunday. And I was really surprised that that day, that Trump himself on his, you know, truth social posts and then his surrogates, like people like Stephen Miller and were just sputtering. They had nothing to say. They couldn't figure it out. And I was like, how are you not prepared for this? It's not, I don't think it is, you know, I had heard that they were going to do, shoot the DEI candidate and the border. Also, I don't know this is going to be affected, but I don't think it's that complicated. So I think that's what they will tap into is that there's a, you know, there's like a resentment on their side about, you know, that DEI measures have sort of, you know, they're part of the concern about, you know, in parts of America about how America's changing and like, you know, say that and talk about the border. And the thing that's good about this only being a hundred days, if Kamala Harris had to live with that critique for a year, it could wear you down. But I think, like, I just know in my own family, you know, people are just like, who do I vote for? I don't care. I don't care. Like, just tell me who to vote for

and I'm going to be for that person. How do I send my, like my sisters who don't normally give money? They're like, how do I send money to Kamala Harris? It's still Joe Biden.com. Like, what do I do? So I think that she is, I would say, like, you can't get tripped up and trying to diffuse the bombs that are good, that Trump is going to come your way.

You have to just push, you have to do, I think the first month, you define yourself. And then you just push. on him and you just do your offense on him. And women constantly have to credential themselves. So you'll see Brian Fallon, who is Kamala Harris's extraordinarily capable communications director and was Hillary Clinton's press secretary. So we've been through the battles together. When Trump attacks the vice president, Brian puts out a statement that says, you know, Kamala Harris was a prosecutor. And then, you know, an attorney general. So she's used to getting these kinds of attacks. She's been giving these kinds of attacks.

all her life. They don't stop her. They might offend other women. They might offend black voters, but they're not going to stop her. And so, like, what is he doing in that sentence? He's credentialing her. He's reminding people of what she's done. You constantly need to remind people of what she has done in her career and what she's done as vice president because people assume that women haven't accomplished anything. And again, it's just like, it's just something, it's not because we're all sexist. We want to keep women down. it's just like we're still catching up with what our sort of expectations of women are. So I think, you know, you do need to credential her. So you want to push back on the DEI thing.

You know, she's had this extraordinary career in politics. She's one of America's best politicians, given like what she's accomplished. But then you can't worry about what he's coming up. You just got to go with that's the benefit. She ran for president. And she wouldn't be the first person to run for president and lose and then come back and win it. But she ran for president. Yeah, like Joe Biden.

Exactly. more than once. But she ran for president, and that candidacy was a washout. It just went nowhere. What was she doing wrong at that moment? And what does she have to do better? So I think that that's good. That was in my mind when I talked about the short, how this is only 100 days, right? That campaign, she started that campaign in January of 2019, and she dropped down in December of 2019. So she ran that race almost a year, and it was still like a couple of months before anybody voted. Right. And it was. her first time out. And that is a big, I think it's particularly hard because like when I worked for Hillary Clinton, I came into that campaign as the White House Communications Director and I thought I knew what I was doing. And then all of a sudden, it was like I had driven, I had driven a bus for 25 years. And all of a sudden when I put on the break, the accelerator went. Like you're just like, and I think her team, most of her team had not really, they had not worked for a woman presidential campaign. Like it's, it's a different deal. The other thing I noticed for all of the women, all six of them, it's really hard for women to break through. In the 2020, primary you're talking about. Right. It was Biden, Beto, Buttigieg, Bernie. And it's easy. This is like a provable thing. And I'm not like super like crazy sexist person. But like we see potential in men that we don't see in women. And it takes a long time for women to break through.

Well, drill down on that. Tell me more about that. There's a thing in hiring, not just in politics, but also in hiring that we, you know, we sort of have this arch type of like, you know, Beto work, Pete Buttigiegs, we've seen them before. They remind us of Bobby Kennedy. They mind us a John F. Kennedy, you know, like the earnest young guy that has a lot of potential. And with women, and this is even true for like entry-level hiring, it's that they need to prove themselves more. We are less likely to take a flyer on them because we see potential. We want to see results in a record. And that's not very exciting to listen to. And it takes a while to breakthrough. And I think that's why, you know, in the end of that campaign, you had just Amy Klobuchar

and Elizabeth Warren standing. But you have to go through so many machinations to explain away your ambition because people are uneasy about that. Elizabeth Warren is the best at it. She was a genius about how she managed that. How so? She said her lifelong dream was, she said, I've lived my lifelong dream. I've been a public school teacher. And then she did that little like high five and kick that she would do on stage. And I, the first time I heard it, I gasped because I was like, she's a genius. Because what did she do right there? She said, don't worry, if you think my lifelong ambition is to be president of the United States, it's not. It was to be a teacher. We're very comfortable with women as teachers. Also, it's in the past because I've already done it. Jen,

The gloves are coming off, and it happened within hours. For example, the evangelical leader, Lance Walno, invoked a comparison to the biblical notion of a Jezebel when discussing Kamala Harris. A Jezebel. I hadn't heard that one in a very long time. Yeah. Wow. So Michelle Obama, it seems like ages ago, said when faced with criticism, when they go low, we go high. Is that era over?

Does Kamala Harris have to get down and dirty and punch hard? Yeah, I think our, I think for Democrats, when they go low, we go high, will never be over because we are fundamentally different from Republicans. And our voters are motivated by different things. So I never subscribe. I hate it. People are like, oh, you Democrats aren't tough enough. It's like we're also why the Republic is still standing. So be grateful for that. So I think it's more like, not like when they go low, we go high, but we don't go as low as they do. And I do think that, you know, People are tuned. Women are tuned. Women are so frustrated. They're so mad about abortion. They hear Jezebel. They know what that means. And I do think that this is probably why on Sunday when the Trump campaign realized this is who they're running against, they were sort of sputtering that they didn't know what to say because they know if they go after the DEI stuff too hard or start calling her Jezebel, that's going to alienate a lot of black voters. That's going to alienate a lot of women. So that's the tougher thing for them. And, you know, she just needs to make. the effective case about Trump. She doesn't need to diffuse everything that comes her way from them. And she doesn't need to be offended by what they say about her. Again, like what you say is, I can take it, but I don't want my little girls hearing that.

I don't want my grand needs to hear in that, you know, and that registers with people. It seems even before, even before she entered the race, that Democrats were doing considerably better with women and vice versa. so the Republicans were doing better with men. My guess is Holkogen's equivalent is not going to be introducing Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention. When did this happen, that the Democratic Party became the female party somehow

and the reverse for the Republicans? I think at a metal level that this is about this whole fight, Trump, the whole thing, is about women in power, not being the exception, but the norm. I really, I think fundamentally, that is what this whole fight is about. It's about people who have traditionally been out of power, women, people of color, not just, not just having a one-off here and there, but it is becoming the norm to expect that leaders are going to be, it's going to be 50-50, right? And I think that that is not to say that like all Trump supporters are sexist and racist, but like I think that because there's a lot of things that have not worked well in America

for a very long time and government has not responded to the economic needs of most Americans for a very long time. So there is real disaffection. But I do kind of think there is this other almost mystical battle of the genders about that. You know, I didn't think it was by a coincidence that we ended up that Hillary Clinton's nomination brought out somebody like Trump on the right. Or was it Barack Obama's eight years in office as a president? That's part of it. I think that's all part of it because that's part of it, of the moving away from the norm of the white man and in charge. And that is, you know, a big change that's, I do think that that is part of it. But why has it taken so, why has this taken so unbelievably long in the United States?

dozens of countries have had women as a state. Mexico just elected a Jewish woman, Claudia Shanebaum as president. Why does it seem like it's still such a big deal here in 2024? Big country, there is a macho element in this country. There is the archetype of what the American male leader looks like. The West is part of it. And then there is their system, their systematic differences. You know, it's much easier, this is like a whole thing with researchers about women leaders too, is that it's much

easier for a woman to be elected in a parliamentary system where a small number of people select you as the leader, and then you go before the country as the leader without having to go through a very bruising primary where people don't recognize you and don't see you and hold you to a different standard. And

that is why Kamala Harris is in a much better shape going into her general election because she didn't go through that bruising process. And this is not unusual. This is how a lot of times when women go into power, this is what happens. It was, there was a male leader that was in charge, and then something happens to them, and then a woman takes over, and that's the first breakthrough. In the last couple of days, she's raised $81 million in 24 hours. No, 100. They announced 100 this morning.

Well, time moves on. How indicative of these numbers? What's the relationship between dollars and votes in this way? It's a big, it's a big early indicator because it means if you have enough enthusiasm to give money and these are small donors, that is you're going to vote. It's a huge, it's not about how much money it is. It's about what it indicates for enthusiasm. By the way, Trump is going to have a huge number for his fundraising because of the assassination attempt. So he probably, he probably has raised even a lot more than that. But what's important is what it indicates for, she'll have plenty of money. She'll have all the money she needs. But it shows that there's. enthusiasm and excitement. Jen, you know more about this game than anybody I know. If Harris calls you tomorrow, what are your top three pieces of advice to her? I would say your speech on Monday night was fantastic. That is who you are.

That's his speech in Wilming. You are the prize fighter, accomplished woman who knows what she's doing better than anybody else. You don't need any more advice. Just keep that and go. Tell your story. pick your running mate and just show as much energy and be I actually like being with that person. Show us a new team, a new generation of leadership. And just don't doubt the team that you've built with your running mate and your campaign.

Don't doubt yourself and just go. And I really think it's not true for all candidates, but I really think that's what she needs. She knows what the contrast is. The contrast is really easy. The prosecutor versus the felon. The prosecutor versus the sexual abuse guy. The guy who's like corrupt and rigged versus the woman that held people accountable. Like she knows that's all fine.

She's got that and she knows what she's done. And just it's like, you know, just go do that. Jen Palmieri, thanks so much. Pleasure, David. Jennifer Palmieri was director. of Communications for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, and she's now the co-host of MSNBC's podcast, How to Win, 2024. I have one other question.

When you watch the Republican National Convention, what did you see? Yeah. I watched a lot of Gilmore girls during that, went to Stars Hollow. That's called approach avoidance in the psychological terms. Yeah, I never get to do that. And I was like, you know what? I did watch. I watched Jamie once.

You watched plenty of it. What did it say to you? I watched all of Trump, and I thought the only speech in the entire convention that hung together was Eric Trump's. I'm David Remnick, and that's The New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, Ursula Summer, and Alicia Zuckerman, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable,

Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deccett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.