The Young Turks - IT'S JOEVER!

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Inside Biden's historic decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. All state Democratic party chairs endorse Harris. MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki dismisses Kamala doing better than Biden: ""Based more on hope"" than actual polling." HOST: John Iadarola (@johniadarola), Francesca Fiorentini (@franifio) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. Well, the Young Turks live from the Polymarket Studios in L.A.

I'm your host, Jane Hugar, and it's on vacation today. Bad day for it, but it's okay. God bless. I'm going to go old school. I'm going to do the first hour solo, then I'm going to bring in Jordan to. We're going to bring a representative of Rokana. We're going to bring Adam Green for the progressive perspective. We got it all for you guys today. Kind of a big day, isn't it?

And oh, by the way, a lot of people have already written in Wang Jun, A, C, G, C, etc., that this is going to be the Jank was right episode of the Young Turks. Now, in the beginning, you're going to be spectacularly right. But later, I instantly, instantly take a big L. Interesting. Okay, hold, hold, that's all the first hour. Today is, of course, amazing bananas, historic. So sharing is caring, share the stream, let's do this. And without further ado, let's start our first story.

Hit it. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Yeah! Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. We got confused there. That's okay, sorry, Kate, that's my bad. That's our producer. I meant Bart.

So bring back Jover, let's do this again. Let's do this again. Let's do it right, okay? And first, Bart, hit it. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. All right. So, listen, not too much celebration. The celebration is about Joe Biden did the right thing. And I'm going to give him huge credit here in a second. And we now can beat Donald Trump. That's what you should be excited about. So in terms of Joe Biden, what's done is done. Let history deal with, you know, how his record is viewed.

I'm about to give you his final hours and his final days as he was a candidate giving up power. And that is a really interesting story that tells you all you need to know about politics. But before we do any of that, just the tip of the hat to Joe Biden, who did something that Donald Trump refused to do. Yeah, you might say it was late, and I would say that it was late. I wish he had done it earlier. I wish he'd done it a year earlier. We'll talk about that in a second. I wish he'd done it three weeks earlier.

Having said all that, when Donald Trump lost an election, he still couldn't let go of power. And he did a fake elector scheme. He did a coup against America. Joe Biden still well ahead of the election. When he saw the handwriting on the wall, he did the right thing, and he stepped aside for the good of his party and for the good of his country. Was it dragging and kicking? Yes, I'm going to give you the details on that in a second. But the bottom line is credit where credit is due when someone gets to the correct decision, which is exactly where Joe Biden wound up. So now before I tell you his final hours,

let me show you a clip from a little bit earlier in Young Turks history, not too long ago, and then that'll give you the context for what you're about to hear about the Joe Biden story in the last couple of days. Let's watch. So I want to ask you if you're an average Democratic voter. Do you think that this is your fault? Or do you think maybe it's Joe Biden's fault and Democratic leadership's fault for trying to placate his gigantic ego and saying, oh, I am the greatest. Only I can't defeat Trump. Even if I'm 81, I can't finish a sentence.

It has to be me, me, me, no hope, no prayer. He cannot win this on his own without his own party backing him. He's just dragging it out, dragging it out because of his colossal Uranus-sized ego. It was a curious planet to choose. Okay, so if you've been watching the actors, you heard me say that many, many times. So now let's go to a story from NBC News. It's going to be backed up by a similar story out of CNN. First, they explained that on the last day, quote, isolated, frustrated, and angry.

He felt betrayed by allies who turned on him in his hour of need. See, I want to pause here to tell you guys, listen, guys, this was never about Joe Biden, but he made it about Joe Biden. He made it about his feelings, and he was angry, and you should have had my back. But brother, this was never about you. It was about winning. It was about beating Donald Trump. It was about protecting democracy.

So unfortunately, I told you guys that he made it about his own ego and his own feelings. when he should have never done that, and this story confirms it. So for the first time, I got to show you this. Okay, but I'm not done with it. Okay, so now we move on to the obnoxious part of our proceedings. So number two quote here, mad as he was and still is, NBC explains. Biden came grudgingly to accept that he could not sustain his campaign with poll numbers slipping, donors fleeing, and party luminaries pushing him to the exit.

Also exactly what we told you, okay? And you've now seen me say this dozens of times. And in fact, here's another video that explains it from the past. Now reporting out about how the donors are very upset, they felt that they were misled, etc. And everybody's furious at the internal staff of Biden. The donors aren't going to give any more money to this guy. They've already, Axios reporting, they're shifting the dollars to House of Senate races, because now they're deathly afraid that they're going to lose the House in the Senate.

And Trump is going to have Congress. He's going to have a mandate. There's only one set of people who could actually take Joe Biden up. And that, unfortunately, is not the voters. It's not the senators who are now an open rebellion. It's the donors. And it's the donors that put him into place. It's the donors that are his source of power. So if he loses that source of power, he has no power left and has to withdraw.

All right, let's give you another quote that confirms exactly. how it went down, just as we explained earlier on the Young Turks. So NBC reporting major donors cut off money to his campaign and the party. In drip, drip, drip, drip fashion, elected officials started to call for him to drop his bid. Sorry, but told you. The donors run this place. Guys, we do the told you and all that stuff and show you the earlier clips, both because it's fun, but mainly because.

you see that these things are predictable. So when they tell you, oh, they have ideological debates and they're having a policy discussion within the Democratic or Republican Party, nonsense. No, the donors control. And the only other set of people that were relevant here is I explained to you in dozens of other clips were the Democrats in Congress because they're going to lose their elections and the polling indicated that. So now let's go to the next quote from.

CNN this time. When Biden huddled with his too close to advisors Saturday, the information they provided on polling and where top Democratic officials stood underscored that a path to victory was, quote, basically non-existent, according to another person familiar with the matter. Sorry, but told you. So, and here's another important reason why I'm doing that. Because guys, When I said he had a near zero chance of winning, these same people said outrageous, ridiculous, how dare you? I mean, maybe he slipped to 49 or 48% chance of winning. And tons, literally millions of good people in this country believe them that it was a super

close race. So when I said it was near zero, people are like, oh, you're crazy, no way. Okay, maybe he slipped to a tiny bit of an underdog, but easy to come back. No, his inside guys knew all along. Look at that. His pathway to victory was, quote, basically non-existent. And then right after he dropped out, all of a sudden, the MSNBC host like Rachel Maddo, turn right around and admitted he had, quote, a near zero chance of winning.

Just like we've been telling you for weeks. After the debate, he was already done. Look, before the debate, he was already going to lose. But after the debate, it led to a slippery slope that he couldn't get out of because people began to realize how done he was. And then they were banning him, mainly the donors, but then the congresspeople. And of course, MSNBC wouldn't let go until the dear leaders said, oh, it's okay, I give you permission to tell the truth for like a day.

And then we're going to go back to propaganda for Kamala Harris. And so MSNBC went from Joe, I'm definitely going to win. Why is everybody panicking to all of a sudden? Oh, yeah, he had a near zero chance of winning. Of course, we all knew that. No, you didn't know that at all because you were misleading them the entire time. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio, your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles

with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. So now back to NBC News, now reporting afterwards on the last couple of days. Friends had told him that he was risking his legacy as a man who defeated Donald Trump and enacted a series of major laws and could end up becoming a scapegoat if Democrats get clobbered in November. In 2020, he had promised to be a bridge candidate. In the end, he did not want to be a bridge between two Trump terms. This is another thing we told you.

What did I say was the number one thing that could get Biden out of this race? Not any appeal to logic or facts or the Democratic Party, et cetera, but an appeal to his ego. And both the upside and the downside of it. And the downside of it is the more relevant one here because the one and only thing you care about is your precious legacy. So your legacy is going to get destroyed if you continue in this race and lose to Donald Trump. And boom, here we are, NBC reporting afterwards, CNN backing it up, saying his main concern was his legacy, that he would ruin his legacy.

Oh, so it was about Joe Biden's ego after all. And it was true that that was the one thing he cared about. Look, this isn't about beating up Joe Biden. He's done, he did the right thing at the end. I just want you to know that when the actors on TV tell you that the politicians are earnest, honest, honest, wonderful, decent, sweet people. No, it's all theater.

leader, in reality, politicians are the most egotistical people in the whole country. Even the ones you like, you think it's only the bad guys on the other side, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, I'm sorry to tell you this. And I, like, for a lot of people who is the most obvious thing in the world, but for a lot of people who grew up watching television, where they grew up on fairy tales, it's kind of heartbreaking to find out even the politicians on your side are egomaniacs and that they only care about their so-called legacy. So that's the situation, and now after the fact confirmed by mainstream media. Let's keep going.

Now, on NBC News, they got a quote from Cedric Richmond, who was a White House official, one of the top campaign people for Joe Biden. Used to be a congressman and now is a huge establishment and Joe Biden backer. He said, once money dries up and elected officials pull their support, quote, it's impossible to win, and he's always put country and party first. Well, sorry, but don't you, not exactly. He didn't put country and party first until he realized that the donor money had dried up. But I appreciate the admission on that front.

And now, finally, when we get to what was happening and how he was making the decision, NBC explains an integral member of Biden's reelection team, You'll find out after a family member read a news alert, the person noted how everyone around Biden was taken by surprise, particularly after some of Biden's closest allies were on Sunday shows pushing for his candidacy. So basically, he got mad at the end. And again, all the stories confirmed this. And instead of doing what I thought he should have done along, which is immaculate planning, hey, is it going to be Kamala Harris? If it's Kamala Harris, how do we do this launch? How do I coordinate with everybody in the party to make sure we're all in this?

same page. No, he got angry and he was like, all right, let's just release the letter online on Instagram on Twitter. He barely called a couple of people. He called Kamala Harris, his own chief of staff, which he was apparently not checking with and was not among his inside advisors. His most internal advisors were only a couple of people, which is mainly his family and his family staff. The person he seemed to listen to most was the first lady's chief of staff. I think that's super weird. It doesn't matter because that decision's been made. But the bottom line is, no, he didn't do immaculate planning. And that's why Kamala Harris endorsement wasn't even in the first letter. He didn't do any video. He didn't do any announcement in person. He forgot to include

Kamala Harris because he was mad. Look, I'm not trying to make fun of Joe Biden. I'm trying to tell you all of these politicians are egomaniacs. And if you want to influence them, it sucks. But you You got to play hardball and you got to bruise their ego a little bit. I'm telling you this so you know what to do in the future because everyone in mainstream media will say, no, no, no, no, no, never bruise their ego. That is the most precious thing in the world. You all have to be super polite, super deferential. And whatever you do, obey democratic leadership.

Look at this, total chaos, didn't coordinate, acted out of anger, passion, and emotion because his feelings were heard about his legacy. just like we told you on the Young Turks, and we've been telling you for a long, long time. Last thing's, look at this one. A bad member of Biden's reelection team said, no one knew, comma didn't even know. This is horrific planning, and it's acting at a peak. So there was no secret plan. Oh, we were binding our time so we could do this right and that right.

I thought maybe they were getting the delegates in order barely. No, this is a sad indictment. of the last couple of dates here. Now back to CNN, Biden called some Democrats over the weekend who were out on TV on his behalf. Two told CNN that the president voices gratitude and then his anger at those who were trying to push him out. There was, quote, there was some hurt in his voice, but mostly anger, one of the Biden loyalists said. Well, that puts a lie to Cedric Richmond telling us it was about putting party and country above himself. He was super mad that people were not backing him, whether he was going to be the best candidate,

or the worst candidate, and all the polling indicated he was the worst candidate given the current situation, but he was like, I don't care, I don't care. They should support me because my feelings are hurt. That is not putting party above, putting country or party above yourself. Last one from NBC, here's a man who has always talked about dignity, a long time, Biden ally said, and what was happening to him in a very public setting was undignified. Where does Does a president go to get his dignity back? Well, I'll tell you where he goes. He goes back a year and does this right and goes, oh, well, obviously my faculties are slowing

down, I'm not the man I used to be, I could barely walk. And guys, I keep forgetting what I'm saying all the time, hey, first lady, chief of staff, congressional leaders, do you guys see anything wrong? Are you a little concerned? Maybe we should do debate prep way ahead of time, maybe we should consider other other people for the nomination. Those are all the things you could have done to leave in a dignified way. But instead, he's like, no, no, no, no, no, me, me, me, me, me, me. It's got to be me, right? And now all the media that told you was the greatest, sweetest, old grandpa from Scranton,

and just the most empathetic man you've ever imagined. Now that he's gone and out of power, they all admit, yeah, he was obsessed with himself, obsessed with his emotions, legacy, career, ego, and barely thinking about what's right for the Democratic Party, how in the world do we beat Donald Trump? You see me animated more than anyone else on how do we beat Trump? How do we get the best candidate to beat Trump? He's barely thinking about it. He's been thinking about, oh, should I be two terms or one term, et cetera? Look, last time, it's over.

And thank you, Joe Biden, for making the right decision. We appreciate it. It's definitely not too late. And he did it in enough time. And it is a giant contrast of Donald Trump who couldn't get to this point, who couldn't ever let go, who proved to be Gullum chasing after precious over and over again. So Joe Biden did the right thing. And I talked about his good record in the videos I made over the weekend. You should check those out. But the bottom line is, for these politicians,

do not believe them when they tell you, oh, my God, I care about you so much. And so I have all these ideas and principles and I'm trying to get that done for you. No, unfortunately, almost all of them are obsessed with themselves. All right, now, we're going to take a quick break here. When we come back, is it already over? Kamala Harris, is she already the new nominee? Well, I'm going to give you some facts on that that'll be very clear. We'll be right back.

All right back on the young Turks. Here are first new members Stephen Meyer wrote it been watching from Canada for about eight years now. First time joining just just wish there was a Canadian equivalent. Well look we get enough members I'd love to do it in Spanish, you know, Arabic, French, Russian, Russian, Portuguese, any language that we can, even Canadian, just kidding. But still, we'd love to do a version for Canada, but we need a lot more resource to make that happen. I'm not stopping you from hitting the join button. And in your case, Steve, you already did, and I appreciate you.

Josh and Debray, King Thai also joined. We appreciate you guys. Anastomagon gifted five membership, Trisha Brings gifted one. Swadane Dragon gifted 10, you're amazing. And to all the wonderful people who were anonymous, who donated on TYWRING, IT.com slash team, including the big one there that I see. You guys are awesome. We love you and you make this show possible.

So thank you to all of you guys. Now, let's go to the next story. Joe Biden's legacy of accomplishment over the past three years is unmatched in modern history. In one term, he has already, yes, you may clap. All right, Kamala Harris, see me to take over the mantle of leading. Did she deserve it? Is she already the leader of the Democratic Party? Well, I've got a ton of facts for you guys.

And at the end, you're gonna see that the jury might have come in already. So that was her doing a tip of the hat to President Joe Biden who endorsed her. That makes sense, it's a good thing to do. But you did get a little bit of a Jeb Bush please clap moment there, but not too bad, not too bad. You got the famous Kamala Harris giggle slash laugh, but not too bad. But not too bad, not too bad. And she has done a lot better in the last three weeks in terms of the speeches she's giving,

the interviews she's giving, et cetera. So now, let's show you who has backed Kamala Harris and who is left standing for not bagging her. So Joe Biden didn't say it in his first announcement, but within a half an hour did endorse her after he dropped out of the race. Right afterwards, Hillary and Bill Clinton joined. Now these are giant players here you're gonna see, but there's a couple of people notably missing. One of them was Representative Nancy Pelosi, but right before Showtime, she also endorsed Kamala Harris after earlier holding out and not endorsing her. So interesting development right there. And then all of these progressives for reasons that are still a mystery to me are apparently love Kamala Harris, AOC, Corey Bush, Rokana, Ilhan Omar, later Elizabeth Warren, you know, some of those others, not as progressive.

But those are big, giant progressive names. And then establishment figures like Representative Adam Schiff, Adam Smith, who led the movement in Congress to oust Biden. He's a little bit more of a conservative Democrat, but he was on the right side of the Biden issue. And then the governors that might have been competitive with her, Governor Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, West Moore, Gretchen Whitmer, Roy Cooper, J.B. Pritzker. So almost all the big names now having endorsed Kamala Harris just within 24 hours. Now, I've got to tell you, Kamala Harris did something really smart.

She put out a list of four names of potential VP picks for her. And those were among her top potential competitors. So Andy Bashir, Roy Cooper, Mark Kelly, and these folks were people that were on the list that might challenge her. And once she put them on their potential VP list, they were like, think about it. If you're Governor Shapiro in Pennsylvania, she's got four people on that list. You don't know that the list is 100% right, but it probably is, or it's close enough. That means you've got about 25% chance of being the vice president. It's not bad odds.

Those are pretty good odds, right? Or you're going to do a long shot to challenge Kamala Harris when you've got this avalanche of other people endorsing her. Well, that makes it easier. You go for the safer bet, endorse her, and try to be the VP. And that knocks out four of her top competitors. Well played. Look, I wanted to test Kamala Harris to see if she could do strategy and she can be savvy as a candidate. That's partially a test and nicely done.

So I'll give her credit for that. And I think it needs a significant amount of credit. So I just want to see her being able to conduct this campaign in a winning way so she could defeat Donald Trump. So now here's the New York Times in terms of the people who have publicly supported her. Let's show that graphic for you guys and then I'm going to get to who is not supporting her. So these are the folks that they say publicly supported representative, senators and governors. Those are Democrats all obviously. There are people who did not specify and people who have not commented.

As you can see, the overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress and Democratic governors already backing Kamala Harris. but three still at this late hour have not joined the festivities. And they're very relevant names. Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the Democrats in the House, and President Barack Obama. They have not endorsed Kamala Harris yet. Now, there's a theory that they're waiting

so that they do big endorsements back to back to back, capturing the news cycle over and over again, I don't think that's the case at all. For reasons I'm about to show you, including a quote from President Obama, I think the real answer was they're waiting to see, can she lock this thing up? Can she bring in most of the delegates and most of the endorsements on her side? And if she does, of course they're going to join in. And if she can't, well, then they're going to keep an open mind, which I think is the correct thing to do. So I think it was actually relatively well played by Pelosi Jeffries and Obama. You don't hear me saying that often. So here's what President Obama said

in his statement after President Biden dropped out of the campaign. He said, I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges. I believe that Joe Biden's vision of a generous, prosperous, and United America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic convention in August. So he was clearly for an open convention. He said, you want to be. wanted a process through which we picked the strongest candidate, and he mentioned the convention. So that was a very strong endorsement of an open convention. I'm not sure anybody at MSNBC quite picked it up.

Main Street media didn't emphasize it so much, because they were all our frenzy of, it has to be Caballaris, we need a leader. We need a leader, we've been without a leader for several minutes. There was massive panic that set in. And that's because, my theory is, honestly, I think mainstream media, mainly MSNBC, has trained Democratic voters and politicians to take orders. And they use the excuse of unity. They never tell you who you should unify behind, except they say implicitly in everything

they say on air, but, I'm already said it's for guys radicals, right? No, no, not those guys. Never unify around them. But unity, when it comes to corporate Democrats, then all of a sudden we need your obedience. And unfortunately, it has become a part of the culture of the Democratic Party. And that part of the culture, I cannot stand. For God's sake, you've listened to these Democratic leaders, get it wrong so often. Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2024, and you still want to do the anointing business,

but a lot of Democrats did. And so, and by the way, to be fair to all these folks, it wasn't just the donors and Democratic leaders, etc. No, the grassroots. That's why I said it's not just Democratic politicians, also Democratic voters. And so they voted with their money, and they have every right to do that. And by the way, also fair that that's one of the things that Kamala Harris had to prove. Is there enough excitement from actual Democratic voters behind you? And she passed that test too. Eighty-one million dollars raised just in 24 hours, which is a giant number, 81 million in 24 hours.

Now look, I think ton of that was Democratic panic. We need a leader. No convention. Don't test the candidate. Don't test. I just need somebody to tell me who the leader is and I'll follow them. But having said that, look, you guys, you put an $81 million and your grassroots, your voice matters.

And if you supported Kamala Harris and you wanted Kamala Harris as a candidate and you donated money, well, good job on you. you made a difference. So credit where credit is due. I might have a certain opinion, but I also acknowledge in my analysis, which way things are going. So Democratic voters wanted a leader. They thought the vice president made sense, and they showed it in that spectacular number. Now here's another spectacular number that also made a giant difference for the Democratic politicians. So Future Forward is a PAC that was raising money for Biden, now raising money for Kamala Harris. And they say they have $150 million in large donor commitments. And that's

a monster number. And Kamala Harris is also taking over about $100 million left over from Joe Biden. So instantly her war chest goes up to nearly half a billion dollars. And that'll push all the other Democrats out too. So I'll get to a summary on that in a second. But let me show you the last two pieces of facts. So here's the Washington Post summary. of where things stand and she needs to get to 1,976 delegates because there's about 4,000 delegates overall and she's got to get past that midway mark. And in their last look at it, she had 1,208 already, okay. Well, Wall Street Journal has updated that according to their count, everybody is slightly

different count. They say it's already over. So here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal, Harris has secured more than half of the the delegates, she will need to clinch the Democratic nomination. And by the way, they say that's according to a White House, I'm sorry, to an Associated Press count of the delegates. So I was going to make a call for an open convention here, as you've heard me doing now for months when I thought that Joe Biden would drop out. In fact, I wrote an op-ed that I had ready to go that we published on in Newsweek this morning. So we were on it. And it appears we have already lost. So You know, look, we won on Joe Biden getting out of the race, and that was an enormous accomplishment.

And by the way, again, thank you to the TYT members. When we started doing that, everybody said it was absolutely impossible. But you said go forward, try it anyway. We got caught trying, and it worked. And it worked. So don't let them ever tell you that hope isn't possible. But at the same time, you have to be practical and pragmatic. If the Associated Press and Wall Street Journal are correct, that she has over half the delegates,

Well, she won. That's the whole point. Now look, I would have preferred that the process be a little bit longer and I would have preferred that we go to the convention and I think it would have made the convention the most exciting thing anybody's ever seen. And I think we could have gotten a couple of billion dollars of free media through that entire exercise. But if she's already locked up all the delegates she needed, in a sense, she already proved what she had to prove. I wanted someone to be able to get the most amount of delegates. And it looks like she has the most amount of delegates. So if that's confirmed, by all the other news organizations, well, then this thing's already over. And Kamala Harris is your new nominee. She'll pick a vice president sometime between now and the convention. And we'll have a new ticket. And is that better than Joe Biden? Well, in the old words of Sarah Palin, yeah, about ya. Okay, why?

Because Joe Biden had, now as everyone acknowledges, including his top advisors and even the propagandists at MSNBC, yeah, he had a near zero chance of winning. We were right all along. Is Kamala Harris higher than zero, way, way higher? So I don't know how the race is going to shape out yet. We don't have enough information. In fact, that's why I wanted to go all the way to the convention.

And I wanted this to be a longer process. So we can have more information about who could be the best candidate. But that jury's already come in in terms of who the candidate's going to be. It appears. So now we're going to see how good Kamala Harris is on the campaign trail. I don't think we have, I know, I don't have enough information right now to make a prediction. We're going to have to see how this thing plays out. If you forced me and said, how do you have it right now with the very little information that we have,

I know that Trump is very unpopular, and I know that Kamala Harris's issues with her polling, which we're going to get to a little bit later in the show, I'd put it at about 50-50. 50-50 is a lot better than zero. Okay, so we're back in the ballgame. So it's a good day in America overall. And now, one more thing, we ask you guys, what would be the dream ticket? And we put this on our social media accounts on Instagram, on YouTube community, et cetera. And we put all sorts of different combinations, not necessarily just involving Kamala Harris.

And you guys were clear, you also wanted Kamala Harris. Every combination with Kamala Harris won. But the number one combination you guys chose. Now, this is not surprising giving our audience, but Kamala as president, Bernie Sanders' vice president, unity ticket. I thought Democrats wanted unity. Well, our audience certainly had unity on that one, a huge 61% saying that that's the best combo. Again, given our audience and how progressive we are, certainly economic populists like Bernie Sanders in 2016 and throughout, that's not overly surprising and it's not a scientific poll. We're not. We're not, we're not, or the establishment for that matter, pretending things are scientific when they're not.

That's just a sense of where our audience stands. But I was a little bit surprised by it because you guys are. When I say you guys, I mean in general, the people following us in social media, not necessarily the people watching live or the membership. But overall, there was a big search for Kamala Harris. So now that the Democrats have decided in lightning fashion, whether I like it or not, let's see how Kamala Harris does. This is going to be a hell of an exciting race. On July 18th, get excited. This is big!

For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs. Only dinner's July 18th. After I tell you that, we've got an ironic story about Joe Biden's doubts about Kamala Harris. Drams.

Okay. So before Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Axios has a story saying that he delayed a little bit because he was unsure about Kamala Harris. Uh-oh. A little bit of drama. Now remember, in his initial statement saying that he was dropping out of the campaign, he did not endorse Kamala Harris. I don't know if he forgot. I don't know if that was on purpose to say a slight wink and a nod to I'm not sure. Or if he's just angry and he put out the statement, I don't see how it could be calculated

because when Kamala Harris wasn't mentioned, people were like, whoa, he's not endorsing Kamala Harris and that didn't sit well, obviously, with a lot of people. About a half an hour later, he did put out a second statement endorsing her, but maybe it's because he had doubts all along. So let's go to the Axios piece. They say President Biden hesitated to drop his reelection campaign, in part because he had his senior advisors worried that Vice President Kamala Harris wasn't up to talking, wasn't up to taking on Donald Trump, according to three Bidenates familiar with recent talks about his plans. Now, by the way, it's not like Joe Biden had the world's greatest judgment near the end there. So if he had doubts about Kamala Harris, it doesn't mean he's right, but it is interesting.

I mean, he has worked with her for three and a half years, and apparently he harbored some of those doubts. So let's keep going. They say this next week will be critical for Harris to prove data was wrong as she moves quickly to try to clear the field of potential challenges for the Democratic nomination. But as we just told you on a live show in the last story, it looks like she might have already done that. So hey, there you go. She passed that test.

They continue. Biden, Bill, and Hillary Clinton, and many Democratic lawmakers quickly endorsed Harris, but others, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former President Barack Obama did not immediately do so. So I thought that was very telling. So it's not just Biden who had at least some concern or doubts. It was all those major leaders in Democratic Party. But as we discussed earlier, Democrats in mass, in my opinion, both the voters and the politicians panicked, was like, ah, we need it later. It's got to be Kamala Harris. What I was trying to do is go, whoa, whoa, hold on a second. Let's figure out why these guys are worried about her. But we didn't. So it looks like she's probably going to be the nominee as they stand now.

But they continue. Of the 47 Harris staffers, this is some of the reasons they're concerned. Of the 47 Harris staffers listed in 2021, only five still worked for her as of this spring, according to the disclosures. Hmm. That's a little concerning. So now she has to disclose about half for her staff because of Senate rules, not the other half. But in this half, 42 out of 47 left. That's not a great sign. But hold on, hold on. There's twists and turns here because let's hear out why they did. So Axios says some former aides said Harris had high standards that some did not want to keep up with.

But others felt that she frequently grilled them the way she grilled Trump officials, such as then attorney general Jeff Sessions when she represented California in the U.S. Senate. Former aides are often referred to Harris as prosecuting the staff. That doesn't sound that bad at all. I'm not one of those people who are like, oh my God, she was once mean to an employee and asked for research. No, she's the vice president of the United States of America. She should grill her staff and they should be perfectly prepared and they need to get her prepared. Now, when I've seen her in public until recently, they didn't look that prepared.

So I think maybe she should have grilled her a stab even more, but I don't mind that at all. If the people are putting that out to attack her, I think for me it has the opposite effect. I hope she is vigilant as a boss. Alex Thompson from Axios continues. White House Aides sometimes felt Harris wasn't a team player and stayed away from any task with risk. At times, Harris' suspected Biden's team didn't want to give Harris opportunities to shine to avoid her being seen as a viable alternative to Biden ahead of his reelection bid. Well, again, I don't want to break your heart, guys, but these politicians are oftentimes not such good people behind the scenes.

So while Biden and Harris publicly say, oh, we love each other. And Biden belatedly says, oh, just best decision I ever made was picking Kamala Harris is my VP. I endorse her. Behind the scenes, he's like, I don't know about her, man. And oh, she might be trying to upstage me. Well, then don't give her anything good. bruh, that's disastrous. Jesus Christ, the country's on the line here, work together.

Meanwhile, of all the things stated so far, the one that concerns me most of by Kamala Harris is she's adverse to taking risks. But if you're going to be a bold leader and you're going to win a campaign, you've got to take some risks. So if you're just sitting there go, ah, and you're scared of taking a risk, that is not a good sign. Tough boss, not bad. Risk averse, not good.

Okay, in April 2022, Harris was the, this is an amazing story, was the guest for a dinner at a D.C. news mogul, David Bradley's home, a salon-style event, Bradley hosts with Washington journalists and newsmakers. Harris's anxiety about the dinner was such that her staff held a mock dinner beforehand with staffers playing participants, according to two people familiar with the event. Uh-oh, that's a really bad side. I've been to a ton of events. Yeah, with politicians, people in media, you know, significant folks to dinners. Any of you do mock dinners to prepare? I know she's a vice president. Totally different.

I get it. You're going to go over to Bob's house. You're not going to do a mock dinner. I got it, right? But even in that dinner, they're like, well, should we give her a couple of glass of wine to simulate the dinner better? And then they decided against it. I don't know, man, that's super weird. Like if you're a politician, you should be able to schmooze a room filled with powerful people.

A rehearsal for a very normal power dinner in Washington. That does not give me a lot of comfort. Okay. So look, jury's out overall on how she's going to do some good signs, some bad signs. But that's why we should have tested her, but no one wanted to test her, no one wanted to vet her. They just wanted to jump right in without knowing enough. So now you see these things, I hope it doesn't come back to bite us. But her being super nervous, her having to practice normal mundane things, not great signs.

But I hope she continues being tough internally and externally. And lately, the last couple of weeks, she's been giving good speeches and interviews way better than the word silence she was doing before. So jury is totally out. I have no idea how she's going to perform. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to tell you about her numbers. How's she doing so far? How's her polling?

Is she way better off than Joe Biden? Is she competitive with Donald Trump? And then Jordan's going to come join me and beat me up a little bit for not. being enthusiastic about Kamala Harris. So you have that to look forward to when we come back. And look at all these new people joining us as well. Doing the show with us today is John Pender Dragon, Eddie Corallis, James Otto, Robert Angel. I say that because whenever you become young turks members, you are part of the young Turks and you're doing the show with us. So I appreciate it.

Hit the join button like they did, become an American hero. Syntha 333 gifted five membership, so did Kyle Shen and Box Gifted One membership. You guys are amazing. We really appreciate you guys. Okay, so now let's go to our next story. The same polls that produce this average since the debate in the Biden-Trump race, what do they show when Harris is substituted in? A difference, but it's a difference of a point.

For Democrats, they view this move as something that's going to improve their chances in the general election that is based more on hope than it is on the numbers right now. Well, that doesn't look like much of a difference, but I think it is. I think that that number is wrong for reasons I'll explain in a second. But the numbers are about to get a little bit worse. So if you haven't seen this, buckle up, brace for impact, because I know everybody rushed to make Kamala Harris the nominee, but we didn't look at any of the numbers. So other than, to be fair, by the way, you see me criticizing MSNBC all the time. Here's Steve Kornacky doing a good job on MSNBC presenting real numbers.

Let's look. This is the average when you ask that question. Do you have a favorable, unfavorable view? Biden, 36, 57, been seeing numbers like this for a long time with them. Obviously, these are very perilous numbers. What are they for Kamala Harris? Average from the same set of polls, a little bit better. 36 goes up to 38, 57 comes down to 52.

But, you know, take a step back. Those are not strong numbers. She hasn't entered the race with strong numbers on that basic question. What's the comparison to Donald Trump here? Trump averaging 41 favorable, 55 unfavorable. Oops. That's not that good. Okay, but I did the math for you guys. Joe Biden was down by 21 in terms of his favorability. Not against Trump, but against himself, basically. He's 21 points underwater. That's an epic disaster. And especially if you're an incumbent, you cannot recover from being in the 30s. Now, Kamala Harris is 14 points underwater. First of all, it's seven points less than Joe Biden. So I'll take it. It's a little bit better. Could we have gotten a candidate that wasn't underwater at all?

Probably, but we didn't. We panicked. We'll get to that debate in a second in discussion. But I don't want you to lose any kind of hope here because here's the iceberg that people keep forgetting, especially because of the assassination attempt and the positive halo that Trump got around it. Did you see that disapproval number for Donald Trump? It's at 55%. And it's been at 55% for a long.

long, long time. 55% of this country hates Donald Trump. So all the people on the right wing who are celebrating, oh, we already won, they thought that was Joe Biden. I know I was there at the RNC. And I was like, okay, guys, I showed the members in a video, all the fired Joe Biden placards they had. And I was like, look at all the money they wasted on this.

It ain't even going to be Joe Biden. We were right about that. Then now, today, when they find out it's likely to be Kamala Harris, they're celebrating again. Oh, yeah, it's going to be easy to beat her. I don't think they have any idea in their own bubble how unpopular their candidate is. So I think this race is now wide open. So Jordan, we were going to do a poll here, and I'll still put it up, because not every news organization is confirmed she has the most delegates.

But Kamala Harris now, or open convention, t.yt.com slash polls, okay? And we were doing a petition on this, but given that the AP saying she's got enough delegates, maybe not the petition. So I don't know that that poll is going to be relevant anymore, but I wish it was. So I didn't want a rush into Kamala Harris. I want on an open convention. You like Kamala Harris more. Tell me why I'm wrong.

Tell me why, oh my God, it's great that we got Kamala Harris right away. It's not that I liked Kamala Harris. It's that given the circumstances that we're in. And we talked about this on Friday, which many people saw. The circumstances don't really allow for an easy transition to anyone other than Kamala Harris. And by no means is she perfect. By no means would she be my first choice if we had an open primary, which is something that you and I are, we're in lockstep on. We should have had an open primary and we wouldn't be in this situation.

We wouldn't even be having this conversation now. We would have potentially picked a stronger candidate, maybe than both of them. But they didn't allow that. I think that's the root of the problem. So it's not necessarily should we have had an open convention or should we anoint Kamala Harris. It's that the circumstances that we were in 72 hours ago only really allowed for someone like Kamala Harris. We talked about the money transfer. What's that?

I was going to say why. I mean, everybody keeps saying that. But I don't know why they say that. So the money transfer, you were about to say, we had that discussion. It can go to a super PAC. So I think the panic over that was unjustified. Why else did we have to do it right away in this circumstance? I don't think we should discount the money thing.

That's huge. And on top of another huge fundraising day, they've got a massive war chest on the heels of FEC reports showing that Biden had lost his cash advantage on Trump. So they were already showing signs of slip. on top of, you know, you reported earlier, future forward, all of those donors that were holding donations now are back in. So that's, it's a good development. The other thing is the delegates. You talked about it a little bit earlier. I talked to Dave Weigel last night on my podcast, and he explained how they would move and how it's not a guarantee that they would go behind

a candidate or there would be even a clear coalescing behind a candidate that Biden could release them that he showed his support for Harris makes it a quicker transition also allows her to get access to that money sooner. And then she'll be able to spend it. She'll be able to build up a campaign. You already have an infrastructure in place. Because we're on such a short timeline in that aOC live streams, again, this is the only person I've seen explain all of these circumstances, all the logistical hurdles. With ballots going out in early voting, in some states at the end of September, we're in a very, very short timeline. We now can start moving in July, building a campaign, getting volunteers out there, rather than waiting another month before we start

campaigning. So it's just a matter of time. Unfortunately, they didn't allow for an open primary. Now we have to, we just kind of have to do this. It's not ideal. But when the options are Harris and Trump, Harris is going to be more receptive to people like us speaking up, people taking action, demonstrating calling for policies, calling for change, calling for anything when Trump would just wouldn't do anything. Yeah, oh well, vis-a-vis Trump, yes. Okay, overall on the ballots, not buying it at all. So, for example, here, I could prove the case. All right, good, we got Colin Harris, so we're good on the ballots. Jordan, who should we write in as the vice presidential candidate on the ballot? Who do I think should be the vice president?

No, who should we write in because the ballots are ready to go, right? Oh, right, the ballots aren't ready. I'm being a jerk. But that's also not what I was arguing. I wasn't arguing that the ballots are printed now, that they would come out in September. I know, but Jordan, so if they're going to come out in September, what difference does it make if we decide now or the day before? Because we're not going to decide who the VP is and hence who's on the ballot until right around the convention. So it would have made no difference.

because they can start campaigning now. She's at the campaign headquarters today. Now they have an additional month of campaigning versus waiting until August after the DNC to get moving. Okay. So I hear you. It's not about a thing, but you're saying the two things are she could raise more money now. She's already going to get the bucket of cash today. And she's going to be able to raise for that extra five weeks.

That's real. I get it. And that's a lot of money, right? and she could start campaigning instead of having, you know, all these different Democrats in the race, making different arguments, et cetera. Okay, so perfectly legitimate argument. I think we would have been far better served if we had had all those Democrats. And then everybody's paying attention. Oh my God, what's Bashir saying?

What's more saying? What's Shapiro's saying? And it would have been so much more exciting, so much more free media, so much more attention to Democratic Party. But your side won the debate, it appears, Jordan, because AP says that she's already got enough delegates. But to be, wait, why are you, but it is your side, right? You want to come right away. It's not even really my side. It's just like, given the circumstances, that's the smartest strategic move.

Yeah, I don't agree. Yeah, I don't agree at all. The smartest strategic move was have the delegates, have the different candidates going. in and fight for the delegates and get 10,000 times more attention. You know what the money buys you? It buys you ads. Ads are paid media. They're far, far, far, far less effective than free earned media.

And we would have had 10 times that much if we had a real contest. But we didn't. I think it was a mistake. And but Jordan, I was going to say, it didn't really matter what I thought, right? Because no one really challenged her. They all immediately endorse her. all those governors that I wanted to enter the race, right? So I think the lesson that they are, they took away from 2016 was a fractured base helps

Trump. Chaos, you know, chaos at the convention even, even though there really wasn't, there wasn't a chance materially for Bernie to get the nomination of the convention, that there were disruptions, that there was vocal dissent, created a fractured sentiment that they think led to Trump. I don't think that's entirely the case. Maybe that was part of it. It fueled sentiments that led to some people staying home for sure. Of course, Hillary was a uniquely unpopular figure. I think many, many other people could have beaten Trump that cycle. But alas, I think that's one thing that they are trying to avoid. I think it's why they are trying to push for a virtual nomination, or at least were until yesterday. They are desperately trying to avoid a scenario

like that that might fuel apathy, lead to people sitting home and then paving the way for another Trump victory. Nobody wants that. And I think they're trying to be mindful of those types of circumstances, creating that apathy, leading to people sitting home and giving Trump the win. Yeah, there would have been no chaos. The Democrats would be lucky to be within miles of chaos. All they have is obedience. So anyways, but I, whether I would have been right or not is now appears to be irrelevant because Kamala Harris has won enough delegates. But by the way, to be fair to Kamala Harris, you could argue that she won those delegates. She just won them in 24 hours.

And so well played. And I gave her credit for doing that gambit about who her potential VP's could be. That was smart and strategic. Now let's turn real quick, Jordan, to how she's going to run the campaign. Because this is an ad now, not recently, but from 2020. But on a really good ad of Kamala Harris against Donald Trump. Let's watch that first. Sick of this.

Well, think about this. He's a world leader in temper tantrums. She never loses her cool. She prosecuted sex predators. He is one. Grab them by the fuck. She shut down for profit colleges that swindled Americans. He was a for-profit college.

At Trump University, we teach success. Literally. He's owned by the big banks. She's the Attorney General who beat the biggest banks in America and force them to pay homeowners $18 billion. He's tearing us apart. She'll bring us together. This is Trump.

And in every possible way, this is the anti-Trump. So if that's what you're looking for in your next president, there's really only one. Comma. So on this one, we agree. I suspect because I thought that was an awesome ad. So if she runs that kind of campaign, we're in business. So, you know, I don't know if it's the same Kamala Harris is four years ago.

I don't know if she has the same team that created that ad, et cetera. But that was a pretty compelling message, Jordan. So when you look at that, what do you think? Are you hopeful that we move back to favorites? I mean, especially considering her poll numbers are pretty bad. Keep the whole context in mind. Yeah, of course. Her poll numbers, like you said at the top, aren't great right now. That can definitely change once she has the benefit of being at the top of the ticket after the DNC, having this moment.

You already see the energy. You rattled off some of it. But you've got people showing up, according to campaign officials, showing up at field offices in Pennsylvania and Nevada asking how they can volunteer yesterday. That's unthinkable. 28,000 people volunteered in one day. That is over 100 times the amount of people who volunteered for Biden in a single day. So the energy is there. And on the messaging, they're already doing it. We've got good news for you, Jank, because she just went to campaign headquarters. They had press pool with her. And she basically articulated all of those points over again in her speech to staff that was televised.

And she said, like Donald Trump is a criminal. I'm a former prosecutor. She's highlighting these contrasts between him and her that are just perfect for the median voter to see and clearly recognize that Trump is unfit for office. So they already are leaning into that messaging. Yeah, in fact, I just got breaking news that she just said in an event, I specialized in cases involving sexual abuse. Donald Trump was found liable by a jury for committing sexual abuse. So she's going to prosecute that case. Look, we end on agreement here because I'm excited by that.

I don't know that's the best thing to focus on, but I, but at least she's hitting hard right out of the gate and it's a great contrast. Look, part of the reason we wanted Joe Biden now was to get this kind of energy in Jordan's right. Now we have this energy, 81 million raised in 24 hours, that's from the grassroots. All those volunteers showing up, Jordan's right about that. That's huge, wonderful energy. So can she make up those poll numbers?

One, don't be overconfident about it because that that's not easy to get out from approval rating in the 30s. So on the other hand, don't worry too much about it yet either because Kamala Harris hasn't been in a race with Donald Trump. She's just been the vice president. So all you've people have seen is attack jobs by right wingers who every once in a while will take pot shots at her. So I don't think those numbers are that reliable.

We got to get the race going first, and then you'll get reliable numbers. So Jordan, we leave this with me going, all right, well, let's see what we got, 10,000 times better than Biden, and I got it at kind of 50-50 for now with a lot left to determine, and you got it at pretty damn excited. Am I hearing you right? Not about Ir, but just the energy we're saying, like you laid out in these numbers. It feels it feels a lot like 2008, the people who were engaged, the people who a couple weeks ago were totally checked out, many of whom would not even vote. This is a new moment and an opportunity for her to pivot chart a different course.

Francesca and I talked about this a lot on TDR today. She can really distance herself from the worst aspects of the Biden presidency to continue to harness that enthusiasm, bring in new people, bring in people who are going to stay home. and you see these volunteers, you see a lot of young people excited. I'm not necessarily excited about her, the candidate, or her, the president. I'm excited about beating Trump, and I think we can do it. All right. We'll leave it right there. We'll take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to switch roles.

Jordan's going to present some stories for us, including what's Kamala Harris's position on Israel, on foreign policy? Because Benjamin Netanyahu's coming to town. In fact, he's already in Washington. And that is going to be a huge issue for Kamala Harris. Come right back.