Kamala Harris Starts Hot (feat. Pete Buttigieg)

Everyone should catch everything you're doing on MSNBC. And also, you filled in for me on Pod Save the World when I was on paternity leave, and you kind of did a better job than I do. So I'm wondering, you know, in hindsight, was that a polite thing to do to a sleep deprived father?

And one was filling in for you. Because everybody listens to this and everybody was like, you know, I get all my information, I get all my analysis from Pod Save. So I was actually a tad nervous. But I'm glad you thought it worked well. I'm glad to be back with you.

And Barack Obama and Michelle Obama did their first interview with Oprah Winfrey and Gayle. And my boss, at the time, I guess, like didn't want to staff something on a Saturday morning at like 10am. So it was the Obamas, me, Oprah, Gayle, and just kind of like sitting in a room like, how did I get here? That's something.

The vibes are immaculate. Voter registrations are surging. Politico reported this morning that Vote.org saw its biggest day of the cycle so far, with 38,500 new registrations, most of them people under 34 years old. Everywhere you look online, people are sharing and remixing Kamala content and memes. And while money isn't everything, it's something.

It's a lot. And the Harris campaign and allied groups have raised more than $250 million since Sunday. And, most importantly, out on the campaign trail, Kamala Harris is kicking ass as a messenger. Here she is yesterday at a rally in Milwaukee. Before I was elected United States Senator, I was elected Attorney General of the state of California, and I was a courtroom prosecutor before then.

And in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women,

fraudsters who ripped off consumers,

cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type. This campaign is also about two different visions, one where we are focused on the future, the other focused on the past. We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.

So like a little goosebumps here. So Ali, we knew that if President Biden stepped down, the first few days of this rollout would be critical for resetting the narrative. How do you think it's going so far?

The idea that I think Democrats were so hobbled by the fact that the Biden question had become disuniting. Wherever you were on the spectrum of whether Biden should stay or Biden should go, it felt hopeless for Democrats. And she has walked into this thing and she has said, all right, we're putting that conversation aside. We're done with that conversation. Now we're deciding what the message is to the American voter, who was either unenthusiastic, was feeling overwhelmed.

I'm amazed, as you know very well, it's very early days on one hand. On the other hand, we're talking about almost 100 days to the election. It's really about 65 days before the first ballots are cast. And people don't know Kamala Harris as well as they think they do. In other words, she didn't get that far in her attempt to be the presidential candidate the last time around.

So it is her reintroduction to America. And she's got an opportunity here that I wouldn't have even guessed on Sunday that she had.

If we're being honest, part of it is a sense of relief that Joe Biden is no longer the candidate. I'm not trying to be mean to him, but there is, you know, this kind of exhale that we're no longer having a conversation about his age anymore. But in addition to that, there is genuine excitement for Kamala Harris. And it's manifesting online in ways that I haven't seen since 2008.. And also on the ground, I mean, I talked to my buddy, Ben Wickler, who runs the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

He says that, you know, younger staffers at WisDems are telling him that they're hearing from friends who have never voted before, but now they're going to, because they feel like this moment is historic. That was the word he used. The Milwaukee event that Harris did fit 3,500 people on very short notice and could have been bigger. They had, you know, lines down the block. The state party raised $350,000 since Sunday.

And the Harris campaign says that they've had 100,000 volunteer signups since Sunday. So that's that's real enthusiasm.

And it didn't need to be a massive reason, but it's a reason. And I think Kamala Harris has a remarkable opportunity here, not just for the first impression, but to shape what the discourse is going to be for the next 65 days and then 105 days, or whatever it is, until the election.

Number two, I thought that clip you played of Kamala Harris was kind of amazing. It was Ronald Reagan-esque, right? She has decided, and this is going to be a bit of a heavy lift for Democrats, particularly, or even for people like me, who say that this is an existential election about democracy. For the moment, she's embracing a slightly different message, that there's a bright future for America. She's going to lean onto the Biden economic track record, but generally talk about the future.

And that contrasts with Donald Trump's, generally speaking, bleak, restrictive, isolationist future. I think that might be a more creative thing. People like me are still going to go on and warn people that if you don't vote in this election, your democracy could be at risk. She may go out with a different message, and it might be refreshing, and it might be enticing to voters who are going to sit on their hands.

She sounds different. She's far younger than Donald Trump. And so it just, the message fits. But yeah, that was another moment where I was like, oh, this is just wonderful to hear.

They feel overwhelmed. And the idea that you can be useful, that you can be part of a movement, that you can be part of something that feels like the future, not a negative future, where we close off our borders and we call immigrants vermin, and we obsess about transgender kids, and we worry about how many ways we can restrict abortion. An actual future that talks about economic growth, the growth of our country, leadership of the world, the saving of democracy, the reinstituting of human rights norms around the world, and being a leader at that. That's exciting. That makes me feel like I want to get out and do something as opposed to just the endless onslaught of my freedoms.

And I also think, you know, Harris, in some of the polling about her versus Biden shows she gives us the chance to win back younger voters, black and Latino voters. She also clearly excites the base. And I think she is proven to be the most effective messenger we have on abortion rights and abortion access, and she can drive that hard.

Kamala Harris is actually a leader on both of those areas. Or the things that could cause people who weren't going to vote to go out and vote. Those are two of the major issues. Obviously, Israel and Gaza is another one, and we're yet to see how that unfolds. But I'm actually more hopeful that she's able to motivate some of the voters who weren't going to show up for Joe Biden on that issue.

And I think Kamala Harris has that chance now to set herself out and, as she did in that clip that you played, to say, I know what people like this are. Donald Trump's a lawbreaker. Donald Trump's a cheat. Donald Trump is a fraudster. Donald Trump is dishonest.

To be able to go down that road, to which people were really hoping Biden 2024 could do, like Biden 2020 could do, 2019 could do. Biden wasn't able to do that this time around as effectively because he was playing defense the whole time. Kamala Harris now gets to play offense. And on that front, a prosecutor, the worst kind of person for Donald Trump, not just a prosecutor, a woman who's a prosecutor, a non-white woman who's a prosecutor, that's going to get under his skin. And when you get under his skin or J.D.

Vance's skin, as you know, because they're both awful thin skin, they react in ways that look pretty ugly.

About half of those voters said spending on policing should be kept the same. 34 percent said it should be increased and only 17 percent said it should be decreased. But an overwhelming majority of black voters think that policing needs major reforms. And that is basically Kamala Harris's message. She wants a bunch of reforms.

She wants to end mass incarceration, but also increase funding for community-based policing and training. So she's kind of in the sweet spot for a general election audience.

To defund the police was just some bad branding. That was a naive, silly bumper sticker. It was an attempt from people to have a bumper sticker who, unfortunately, the real sentence would have been too hard to encapsulate, and that is, we need to resource the police properly for the actual challenges they face, de-emphasize their violent interactions with the people. And many police forces have done this. Philadelphia.

If a cop sees you and you don't have your license stickers not valid, they will not pull you over anymore. You'll get something in the mail. They've just realized they don't want their first interactions with people to be what they are. There's a lot of space. And now that we're a little farther away from George Floyd and that rash of police deaths at the hands of police, although there was one in Chicago just a few days ago, we may be able to have that discussion in a more nuanced fashion.

We are not looking for a world without police and without policing. We just want a world in which we have better policing, and that might actually involve greater funding of police.

And given the disaster we all lived through last month, do you think it makes sense for Kamala Harris to squeeze in a debate and all the prep that goes into that in the very limited time we have left?

She landed one punch on Joe Biden last time and it was a good one, but that was it. I'm not sure she should subject herself to it. On the other hand, who's going to be more provocative than Kamala Harris to Donald Trump? If she's got the attack lines, you could cause him to go on the defensive. I'm not sure it's worth it.

I think. Kamala Harris, here's another point. I'm not sure Kamala Harris fundraising is worth it. They're not having a fundraising problem. I think Kamala Harris needs to get out there, do those high energy rallies, motivate the base.

She has an interesting thing in that she too has been prone to not gaffes, but sort of saying things that are a little bit unusual. and she's a bit quirky. And the K-hive, the internet, has decided they're going to take that and lean into it. She's not even getting in trouble for the quirkiness. They're embracing it.

She should just get out there and own that stuff. These young, energetic people, the digital masses that are behind her, I think that's where she should live. I just don't know that these debates are worth it. That last debate, Donald Trump lied, I don't know, 30, 50 times. Nobody talked about it, because they were just all focused on what Joe Biden was doing.

I'm not sure. debates get you that far right now. I think she's got an opportunity, but smarter minds than I am are involved in that.

She's smiling like, well, what's wrong with a little joy in our lives here? And I was just reminded that Fox News has proposed a Trump-Harris debate on September 17th. So that could be a deadline. I mean, you know, it's interesting. I think I would argue, if she's losing, she should debate, but there will be a cost to that.

Like you have to come off the trail, for, you know, extended period of time. You got to do a bunch of prep. Any prep she did on JD Vance is now worthless. Hopefully she didn't do much, but, you know, as an underdog, you got to shake it up a bit, but we'll see. I mean, the polling in a week could tell a different story.

But I think that the trick for her is not just swing voters in swing states, it's disaffected Democrats. She's not, she doesn't live on the center left and she was not historically seen as that person. She's largely been a moderate. The people we're talking about as potential VP picks right now are largely seen as moderates who will appeal to older white men. So we have to just think about that.

What does that mean in terms of energizing bases? What's the base? What's the coalition right now? Are we going after undecided voters? Are we going after people who are disaffected by Trump?

Or are we going after Democrats who were not going to vote for Biden? Remember, in the last election, 81 million votes for Biden, about 81 million registered voters didn't vote. More people, almost as many people as voted for either of the presidential candidates didn't vote. That, to me, is a screaming opportunity for Kamala Harris.

I saw Joe Biden step out on Sunday and I wondered what that's going to mean for the party and whether that's going to be a brokered convention and disarray and a whole bunch of people fighting for the job. And within days, this thing just changed. That's not manufactured. That's the opposite of manufactured, actually. There's something organic about what has happened here, which surprises me.

As somebody like you who watches us all the time, I did not expect to be having this conversation with you today about where we are. You want to call that manufactured? Do so at your own peril. I will tell you about manufactured. Ben Shapiro used to be an interesting, textured character.

Then he went to Home Depot one time and bought a piece of wood. And I don't know what happened after that, but he lost... That was the manufactured attempt to talk about something. I don't know if it was supply chains or wood, or... I don't know what it was, but that's manufactured.

I think what he doesn't recognize anymore is what non-manufactured looks like, what organic actually looks like. And I will... I am not the person who thinks that Kamala Harris was always going to be the best candidate for this. I will tell you something. There's some kind of groundswell happening that I did not anticipate.

I don't know what it's about. I don't know how it came to be, but it's really there. I don't know. if that... How would you would have manufactured that?

She was attorney general of the biggest state in the country. She was a United States senator and then vice president for four years. You don't get better resumes.

if the Republicans were running someone who was actually good at being president the last time around. People have to remember, he lost. He had to re-election in 2020..

There seem to be.

. There's this weird thing he does all the time where he pauses his speech to laugh at something inaudible shouted by someone in the audience, and it's just really not working. Let's hear a clip of that. It is the weirdest thing to me. Democrats say that it is racist to believe...

Well, they say it's racist to do anything. I had a dive mountain dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're going to call that racist too, but it's good.

Your assessment of him as a political animal?

He's a very smart guy. There's no question. But he's empirically smart. He's got a life experience, a life story that is remarkably compelling. But this is J.D.

Vance. He's an opportunist. He's a grifter. He may have a thinner skin than Donald Trump, which is hard to imagine. This is actually who he is.

He's not actually that good. And if Kamala Harris takes an opportunity to pick a vice presidential candidate, most of them that we seem to be thinking about right now are the kind who I would tune into that debate. That's a debate I think is worth having, J.D. Vance, the vice presidential debate based on the people that Kamala Harris is vetting as a candidate. But that's who he is.

He's not nearly as substantial as you'd think his life experience and his book and the movie made about his book should be. His arguments are a little weak, the diet Mountain Dew stuff, the everything's racist. He also made a comment the other day, which is very telling, and it's the point of the whole exercise, why you want J.D. Vance. He implied, it's great coded language, Kamala Harris is not grateful to America.

Right? I don't think you should use that about Democrats. I don't think you should use it about Republicans. But this is where a guy like J.D. Vance will go with this stuff.

You owe it to us to be grateful. You're ungrateful. If you don't like the fact that there are too many white men controlling the place, you're basically ungrateful. He's not, he's not as sophisticated as I think people thought he might be.

What political benefit do you provide to the ticket? So if you want to say that Mike Pence is a DEI hire for evangelicals, go ahead, say it, but it's just, it's an insufferable, sexist, racist way to describe her and make her seem different than every other VP ever.

And, frankly, in this country, becoming vice president doesn't actually make people know you any better until the time that you run for president. So this is her moment. And the thing that you know that a lot of Americans don't know is this is what campaigns are for. This is actually what you do in a campaign. This is your opportunity to let people find out who you are.

And she's got a lot of questions that she now knows needs to be answered, and she can answer those.

He tells stories, often they make no sense, but people love it. I have seen zero indication that JD Vance has a winning personality or could fire up a MAGA crowd. I mean, there's no doubt he could get a room full of venture capitalists going or, like, you know, some incel adjacent YouTubers. But despite his resume, I just I have not seen him yet connect with the MAGA base. Maybe it'll happen.

Time will tell. But, you know, Trump is sort of a singular figure in the party and you're starting to see some reporting that maybe his allies are not happy with the pick.

You'll never, ever get back. But you should watch a Trump rally. And God forbid if you're close to one, I tended to understand the difference, understand the spiritual link between the attendee and the guy who would like to be seen as a spiritual guy, as a Christlike figure. Just try and understand that, because it exists in this weird way. So where Joe Biden would flub because his, his, his words would fail him, or whatever the case was, Donald Trump forgets what he's doing and he just carries on about sharks and batteries and whether it's better to die by electrocution or by shark bite.

It's just his coping mechanism, which, by the way, I think people like us who are talking all the time, also sometimes do. It's like, oh, I forgot. I'll just tell you about something else. That's what he does. It's nonsensical, but it is funny.

Donald Trump told a story after I got shot with a rubber bullet in Minneapolis. He took months later. He would tell the story at every rally about my getting shot. Much more interesting than what actually happened. More compelling.

I wish I were that guy in Minneapolis who what do you know, who was in the middle of what Donald Trump said had actually happened. He's much better. He's a really good storyteller and it does compel people, because what they don't do is lean into his flaws, where the K-Hive is in a funny, good way, leaning into where Kamala Harris does or says funny things, which she does a fair amount. They just ignore that. he did that, right?

They won't tell you that he went on this weird diatribe about sharks and batteries. They'll just pretend that he's something else. And so that's another lesson for Kamala Harris. Lean into it. Have some fun.

Like our police should not be shooting unarmed civilians who are not involved in violent activity with rubber bullets. No extra protection, because we're journalists. We're not entitled to more protection than every citizen in this country should have. But you know, that's, that's some bad stuff. And that was that was stoked by.

I don't know. I don't know who shot me and I don't know what their what was on their mind or what they saw in their scope. But we were in a moment, if you'll recall, where Donald Trump himself was stoking this idea of violence, both journalists and towards civilians who were thought to be unruly. Those are dark moments in our history that we could be headed back toward if we make some bad choices in November.

So I'm curious about that. I think Mark Kelly is a very interesting choice if you are prepared for the risk of losing a Senate seat. Mark Kelly as a military man, as an astronaut, as a gun owner, as a person whose wife was shot in the head, a member of Congress, he's eminently qualified and would be appealing to those people who are scared of Democrats or scared of maybe even a black South Asian president. I think Josh Shapiro is a really smart person. Sure, it probably solidifies Pennsylvania, which he won by a lot.

On the other hand, not that much distinction between the two of them. They have similar backgrounds. So I don't know what it necessarily gets you, but I think he's very strong. I think the Roy Cooper conversation is very interesting. He's a lot older.

He's 67 years old. But this is a guy who not only has won in a state that Democrats in North Carolina, Democrats can afford, you know, it would be really good for them to put into play. He also has done it through appeal to the same things. He has gone all out on abortion. He is really seen as a leader on that.

And I maintain that abortion will be the number one issue that drives voters this time around. So that combination intrigues me as well. I think she's got a lot of good choices.

But I think a lot of people would say he doesn't necessarily, he hasn't jumped off the page in interviews. I would argue that Whitmer is probably more of a combination of both, like someone who's seen to be a really good political athlete and has a great resume and is from a good state. Shapiro, of course. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is another one who, you know, really has distinguished himself as one of the best messengers in the Democratic Party, period. He's...

Absolutely.

He will meet all comers. And so part of our job is to shake him off his message, right? To hold power to account, because sometimes I've interviewed him when times have been tougher. He's overseeing, you know, he's overseeing a few things that are really bad and he engages all the time. He engages all the time.

And I think that's really important in this space that we're in right now. He's a great debater. He's got broad appeal. I think... I didn't mention his name because I know he's on the show today.

He's definitely an obvious and important contender. Yeah, he's an interesting pick.

You and I won't have seen it when this posts. So John and Dan will cover it on Friday's show. But I just wanted to ask you what you think about potential opportunities for President Biden in this lame duck period, now that he is unburdened by what has been and can just kind of not worry about an election in the future. Like, is it... Do you have a wish list?

I think it will enable him. Ukraine's not been an issue for him because, generally speaking, other than a few isolationist weirdos in Congress, it is still, generally speaking, a bipartisan thing, despite the fact that Mike Johnson, at instructions from Trump, has tried to stymie this. Israel-Gaza is a place that he may be able to use this political moment to say, I'm now not beholden to particular interests, to move forward and put pressure on all the parties, more so than he's been able to in the past. But I do think that Joe Biden is not going to go quietly into the dark. I think he's a potent and important force in the Democratic Party and in the world for democracy.

I think there's a big role for him in the next few months.

He wants to build on that. I think the biggest space he'll have is on foreign policy. Ben Rhodes and I were talking about this today on this episode of Pod Save the World. I would love to see, Ben would love to see, if Joe Biden could cut some kind of, you know, revised nuclear agreement with Iran. Now that there's new leadership in Iran, they elected a more moderate president.

You could go back to the Obama era, Cuba policies, which, admittedly, were wildly unpopular in Florida, but Florida is gone.

But Joe Biden brought heft and decades of experience to those issues where he didn't have to, didn't have to read in. He can use that in his, in his final months of his presidency, to do some of those things. You know, Cuba was an interesting thing, that that that was unpopular. But people didn't understand the threat of an expansionist Russia at the time. They hadn't realized where, like, all of a sudden, Cuba is really, really crucially important.

. The Chinese are building spy bases on Cuba.

Let's, let's just stop this right now. We don't have that ability. We use intermediaries. It's BS. Why do we have to do that?

We had a deal. I don't know that we'll succeed in getting back into it, but that would definitely be something for Joe Biden to put it back into.

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Okay. When we come back, Pete Buttigieg.

My guest today serves in the Biden administration as secretary of transportation, but he's here today in a personal capacity to talk about hitting the campaign trail. on behalf of Vice President Harris and the Democratic Party. Welcome to the show, Pete Buttigieg. Thanks. Thanks for having me on.

It's great to see you. Thank you for doing the show. It has been a weird couple of weeks. We had the debate, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, President Biden making this, you know, bold decision to step back, and now Vice President Harris is the presumptive nominee. We've all been watching this from the outside.

You are very much on the inside. What has this last month been like for you?

But now we're in this moment where there's a lot of hope. There's a lot of energy. One of the things that's been amazing to me just the last couple of days is how people are rallying around Kamala Harris with enthusiasm. And I think that that shift in energy, that that shift in tone, has been really exciting, coming out of everything that we've been through.

So who knows exactly what shape that takes, but I'm going to do everything I can to help.

D. Vance pick. There's clips going around from his events where he just looks like an awkward goober and he's kind of bad on the stump. What do you make of the guy?

But most don't. And I think we're seeing a little bit of that. But, you know, more than just his style or his fluency or his comfort on the stump, what I think is really concerning about him is how out of line he is with Americans. I think he was picked on this theory that, you know, he's from Ohio. He has roots in Appalachia, is this biography that's going to connect him to most Americans.

But you look at his actual views, whether it's the kind of faux nature of his populism, because he's actually on board with tax cuts for the rich and has a zero percent rating for labor. And just the more you look at it, the more out of touch he is there. But also, you could not have found a more anti-Ukraine person to pick to put on this, this ticket, which puts him out of line with even a lot of Republicans. And at a moment when the Trump campaign is trying desperately to distance itself from its own policy blueprint, which is Project 2025, I just learned that he literally wrote the foreword to a forthcoming book that might as well be entitled Project 2025. The book, it's by the leader of the Heritage Foundation.

It's really kind of a popularized version of that policy manual, which is so wildly unpopular that even President Trump is claiming he knows nothing about it.

Like you, live in Michigan, Wisconsin's a quick flight. We could have you home for bedtime at night.

Dave McCormick, who is a hedge fund guy running for Senate in Pennsylvania, has an ad up highlighting some of Vice President Harris's comments from that primary. They include banning fracking, getting rid of the filibuster, treating illegal border crossings as a civil offense, abolishing ICE. The list goes on, but I'll stop there. You were literally in the middle of those debates, you know, on stage. How worried are you about Republican efforts to weaponize the policy debates from 2020??

And how does the Harris campaign fight back?

is they scramble to come up with some kind of angle. But I think a couple of things are important to remember. First of all, in that 2020 primary process, you know, there was a lot of lanes, there was a lot of sorting us all out on a spectrum, right? That the 20 of us who ran, there was very much a left lane and she was very much not in that lane. You know, you had Bernie Sanders, you had in a different way, Senator Warren.

But that is not the space that she occupied. So, even within the Democratic Party, it's just not honest to say that she's from some kind of fringe or even from one end. And of course, she's. she's served in this administration, whose policy priorities have been in line with the mainstream of the American people, unlike Republicans. Right.

She, like most Americans, she's for protecting her right to choose. You know, like most Americans, she thinks rich ought to pay their fair share. Trump fancies about the opposite. The other thing I want to say, though, is I don't think that attack is going to have a lot of potency, given who it's coming from. In other words, nobody's going to out radical Donald Trump.

Right. You have to get led by a guy who talks about terminating the Constitution, inspired political violence against the transfer of power in this country. I just don't think it's credible, even if you do disagree with the top of our ticket on some particular policy issue. At the end of the day, if this election is going to be about who's more extreme, that is really going to be a dynamic that counts against Donald Trump.

Immigration has been one of the worst polling issues for President Biden for a long time now. How do you think Vice President Harris can make a break from the Biden administration's record on immigration and then go on offense?

And he went out of his way to block a bipartisan compromise. that would have really helped. And I think we really need to make sure there's some accountability for that. You know, he did this not even as an elected official, as an outside force, when Republicans and Democrats negotiated an approach, one that was, by the way, hard for a lot of Democrats to come on board with, hard for the Biden-Harris administration to embrace, because it did concede a lot of things to the conservative position. But that's how a tough bipartisan compromise works.

It was teed up. It was ready to go. If you know anything about Senator Lankford, this is not a bleeding heart liberal Republican. Only for Donald Trump to come in and kill it, because, obviously, he needs this to stay bad. He needs the chaos to continue because he thrives on chaos.

And if not, what's the best way to fight that perception?

And I think that's the best and simplest response. It's just, you know, we're going to hear from the president directly. And I think he's going to continue to remind us of why he has been one of the most effective presidents in modern times. That that didn't change when he decided he wasn't going to accept the nomination and run for another term. If anything, I think his selfless decision consolidates his standing as a great American president, with several months to go in this presidency that I expect he will use to their fullest.

Can we do a quick dad lightning round here? Let's do it. Which is a crazier block of time in your house, 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. or 5 p.m.

to 7 p.

m.

How about you?

You're right, though. We've had some injuries off of slides at times because maybe dad was looking at his phone. We won't get too deep on that one. But yes, swings are safer. Pete, thank you so much for doing the show.

Great to talk with you, as always. And thanks for all the work you're doing. See you on the campaign trail.

All right, Ali, finally, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu just gave an address to a joint session of Congress at the invitation of Speaker Johnson, but also, you know, maybe grudgingly endorsed by Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Chuck Schumer. So this was a bipartisan mistake that we all just were forced to witness. A lot of Democrats did not attend, including Vice President Harris, who, at the end of the day, as VP, is president of the Senate. But President pro tem Patty Murray didn't go. Bernie Sanders didn't go.

Tim Kaine, AOC. There's been reports of 80 to 100 members of Congress skipping. I saw Rashida Tlaib attended, but had a sign up calling him a war criminal, which was nice. Johnson said ahead of time that there would be zero tolerance for any interruptions. I don't think I saw any.

I do think they might have asked Representative Tlaib to put down her sign eventually. So maybe that will count. But Netanyahu laid out an unbelievably dark vision of the war in Gaza, of the U.S.-Israel relationship and much more. Here's some key bits. I want to thank President Biden for his tireless efforts on behalf of the hostages and for his efforts to the hostage families as well.

And he came to Israel to stand with us during our darkest hour, a visit that will never be forgotten. Clarity begins by knowing the difference between good and evil. Yet, incredibly, many anti-Israel protesters, many choose to stand with evil. So these protesters burn American flags even on the 4th of July. And I wish to salute the fraternity brothers at the University of North Carolina who.

He said, this is not a clash of civilizations. This is a battle between civilization and barbarism. And this is a. You know, he has. he did a really good job, and this is why one can never write Benjamin Netanyahu off of making this seem not like a war in which tens of thousands of civilians, children, women have died and people have lost their homes.

It's made it seem like the thirty, nine thousand, forty thousand people who are dead are all Hamas soldiers. And, and, you know, he's got an argument when he talks about Hamas and their soldiers. He's got an argument about why that's a war. And Hamas probably should have paid much more attention to that prior to October 7th to say, what, can we keep this as a military to military type of thing? But Benjamin Netanyahu has glossed over all of that.

He introduced a hostage, a former hostage, which was amazing to see her in freedom, because Noah Ergomani's face is somebody we saw on October 7th being taken away. But he didn't mention the fact that there are still hostages in. there is because he's not actually trying as hard as he could be to get them out. There are deals on the table that he's not agreeing to, because when this ends, he could end. It also ends for for Hamas leaders, which is why they're also not motivated, because the protagonist of this thing will all cease to exist in some fashion if this war ends.

But Benjamin Netanyahu at this point is as much a protagonist and an antagonist. And there was nothing about that in the speech. They were promising some conversation about the day after. There was no day after other than the fact that he said Israel does not want to reoccupy Gaza. But there was no actual plan.

So a disappointing speech, disappointing to see the number of Democrats who stood up for what was theater. Most of the people who didn't attend were Democrats. Thomas Massey of Kentucky didn't attend. And he stated, he said, I don't want to be a prop for for a piece of theater. That was a piece of theater.

I'm still the guy for the job, because, you know, our existence depends on support from the Americans. And I'm the guy who can deliver that. I have to say, stepping back like I expected that speech to be bad, because I,

you know, I'm the guy who delivered to Congress where he just attacked Obama. But I am shocked at how upsetting I found watching that. It felt like I was watching a Bush era war on terror speech.

He actually said in his speech that there is no context for stuff. It's like there's always context. That's just a ridiculous thing to say. But the idea that he can go out there and make what sounded like a State of the Union speech, in which he just kept introducing guest after guest after guest and get these standing ovations from American elected politicians, given that we are party to this war in which lots of civilians are dying, is kind of remarkable. It's kind of disappointing.

And yeah, he pulled one over on America again.

But the venom in his voice, the anger, the enemies in this speech. It was not just Hamas. It included American protesters, American college students, college professors,

You're an enemy of civilization. He actually painted it as either you're with me or you're an enemy of civilization. It lacked all nuance. If you are the prime minister of Israel in this fraught moment, there is such opportunity for leadership. And he has dodged that opportunity at every chance that he's been given.

There are hostage families in America who are protesting. Why is he here? Why is he even here? I don't understand what this is for. Why is here?

We just need a deal. We just need our people released. That's all we need right now. You can deal with Hamas as you see fit, because they can. The Israelis can.

Mossad can take out. They know who all the Hamas leaders are. They will take out every last one of them. And that's that's a fair fight. Civilian noncombatants are not a fair fight.

Israeli civilian noncombatants are not a fair fight. That should never have happened. Not one of them should have died in this whole argument. He said at one point when he talked about Donald Trump, the assassination attempt, he said there is no place for violence, for political violence in a democracy. It's a little rich coming from Benjamin Netanyahu.

By the way, remember, he was Mr. Security. That was his promise to the countries that he would keep them safe.

Thousands of children who have died in this war. I found it incredibly upsetting, as you mentioned, to see him single out the families of these hostages over and over again, when we know that in Israel, Netanyahu is believed to be the biggest impediment to getting them home, because he won't cut a ceasefire deal, that his team will negotiate it and then he'll walk away from it.

I hope it does. But that's exactly right. I think we all thinking people can agree these hostages should not be there. They need to be released now. There's no question that there needs to be a conversation about what happens afterwards.

And it does seem like there's an infrastructure in a deal for having that conversation. Ben and I have this talk all the time. It's not. he's not hopeful that it's all going to work out, that we're going to solve this problem suddenly. But we can't throw up our hands and say we're not going to.

And that jingoistic bumper sticker speech that Netanyahu gave, that was literally a good and evil. You're right. It was very much a war on terror, Bush era speech, good versus evil. It's much more complicated than that. And for him to do that and for everybody to get up and clap their hands and to see Democrats clapping their hands for that stuff, there are certain things that are always worth clapping your hands for, honoring people, a hostage, Noar, Ghamani.

Yes, absolutely. 100 percent worth clapping for. But he was giving a political speech for which Democrats were applauding. And I don't understand that.

And Israel is a political actor here. And they're trying to cut a deal, a ceasefire deal that includes a hostage release scenario. And Netanyahu just won't get it over the finish line.

There are Palestinians who think Hamas is the worst thing that ever happened to them. It brought terror on their, on their homes. There are others who think Hamas got me out of jail in a prisoner swap for hostages. It's just complicated. And for Netanyahu to say that if you don't agree with this, then you must be that.

It's just not correct. You and I can both sit here and say what happened on October 7th was terrible. I've spent time in Gaza. I've been able to say worst thing to happen to Gaza is Hamas. There's no question about that.

But you can hold we're not squirrels. We can hold several thoughts at the same time that everybody there is entitled to safety and prosperity and self-determination. And it's our work to help them get to that. What you heard in that speech today had nothing to do with safety for Palestinians, self-determination and peace. It was just about an attack on what he called barbarism, which we're supposed to mean.

anything that he does in Gaza is is fine, because it's all about fighting barbarism.

Hamas is a different operation, as we've learned, or I hope we've learned. Most people in Gaza didn't vote for Hamas. They're too young to have voted for them. They've not had an election in a long time. And part of the reason there hasn't been an election in the West Bank, because the Israelis and the Americans also didn't want one, because they know what would happen, that Hamas would also have won in the West Bank.

And then you'd have Hamas in two places, which is why Netanyahu supported Hamas's funding through through Qatar. He was trying to keep everybody out of balance and it collapsed on him. But that story doesn't get told. There was none of that. There was an opportunity today for a meaningful speech.

I don't think you and I thought that was going to happen, but it was yet more jingoistic than I think we both expected.

That said, Trump's relationship with Netanyahu is not great. Here's a clip from a Trump speech that he delivered just after the October 7th.

And the night before it happened, I got a call that Israel will not be participating.

In this attack, and he came on the plane and we followed him right from the situation room, we followed the whole thing and. About 15 seconds later, it was all over and we did it, but I'll never forget.

I'll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing.

Netanyahu and Trump are transactional. They need each other. Netanyahu needs Trump to become the president of the United States so that America continues to fund Israel's weaponry and doesn't attach any strings to it. And Trump needs Netanyahu to help him with American voters. So it's transactional to both of them.

And both of them have shown a remarkable ability to overcome personal differences. to do that. I would say that Joe Biden gave Netanyahu a remarkable bear hug right after October 7th and showed remarkable support for for Israel. And that cost Joe Biden to some degree politically. But he did.

He did that. That's where, and I, you know, I've heard that President Obama advised Joe Biden, don't, don't, don't get into bed with this guy, because it never works. It never works. It'll never pay off. There'll never be anything that comes of of of of getting to bed with with Netanyahu.

And that's what happens. I mean, Joe Biden, by all accounts, did the right thing by by Benjamin Netanyahu after October 7th. And Benjamin Netanyahu is, for all intents and purposes, going to stump for Donald Trump.

So quickly. in a conversation with a great reporter named Barak Ravid at Axios, Trump said of Netanyahu, fuck him because of that congratulatory phone call. I did hear what I heard today in Bibi's speech was an effort to really kiss some Trump ass. There was lots about the Abraham Accords. He talked about this sort of like new America-Israel-Arab alliance.

He wants to call it a name, right?

sees the political wins.

He gave Trump a lot of credit for the Abraham Accords, which they're not really a thing. They're trade deals.

And how much space do we think she has on Gaza policy to change things in the administration or to publicly put pressure on Netanyahu to change course? Do you have any hope that she can put some distance there?

And he got off on the wrong foot with this. And Kamala Harris, I don't know how distinct her policy is. She was always quicker to be critical of things that the Israelis were perceived to not be doing correctly than than Biden was. But she did seem to be more empathetic. But the bottom line is, Biden is aware that his efforts to influence the Israelis has not worked.

So now he I think that gives her permission to say, why don't you try it your way? Why don't we play good cop, bad cop? I'll be semi good cop. That's Joe Biden. And you can be a little bit more bad cop.

Maybe we'll see. I would like to think so, because there are. first of all, the election may depend on it. There are a lot of voters in Michigan and Wisconsin and some down ballot races across the country. that will depend on us having a more nuanced approach to the Middle East.

And, like you said, she's got an opportunity for a reset. She's got an opportunity for a new set of first impressions. And she's got a lot of backing from a lot of young, progressive sorts who would not normally be Kamala Harris supporters, but are at this point. Who will probably say, hey, we really like you. We want you to be the next president of the United States.

We want you to make amazing history, being the first woman, the first black woman, the first South Asian woman. But we do need something else, just like the union leaders go to these candidates and say, we need something, in exchange. They might go and say, we need you to take a different approach to this thing. And frankly, we're 40,000 deaths and it's time for a different approach.

I mean, people actually have educations, they're in schools. There is nothing worse for creating your enemy than people being unhoused, being in a refugee status, being hungry. You know, you're not getting close to your cause. No. I think we can share in Benjamin Netanyahu's cause that the people in that region should respect each other's, you know, self-determination.

We're not going in the right direction on that one right now.

Also, you have a great memoir out, Small Acts of Courage. It's fantastic. You and Ben talked about in more detail on Pod Save the World. If folks want to hear more, people should buy that. And I'm told you're appearing at this daylong MSNBC Lollapalooza thing in Brooklyn on September 7th with Jen Psaki.

You know, I do the Velshi Band Book Club, where I interview an author of a banned book every week. So I'll be doing that. So, for those of us who like to watch us and want to get to know us a little bit, come on out. Excellent.

You're going to hear Alyssa Mastromonaco and Dan Pfeiffer discuss who they think are the most viable picks to be Kamala Harris's VP and whether or not Trump regrets choosing J.

D. Vance to be his. You can sign up at Crooked.com slash Friends to hear the full episode, plus Dan's show, Polar Coaster and much, much more. OK, here's Inside 2024..

Welcome back to Inside 2024.

. I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Buddy, we're back together. We're now at the part of the outline where it says banter, so that's good.

As if we don't need, as if we need reason to banter. Yes. Dan, you remember in 2020, when you and I hosted the Pod Save America series, That's the Ticket? Well, we had so much fun doing that series that we wanted to continue that topic and bring it to you, the subscribers. In light of Trump's selecting J.D.

Vance for his presidential ticket and Vice President Kamala Harris becoming the Democratic presumptive nominee, today we're talking about vice presidential candidates, their impact on the campaign and the surprising ways onboarding a new candidate can be a bitch for staffers. I just want to note, for just to bring the subscribers behind the scenes, that BITCH is in all caps. in this outline. There's BITCH. Caroline has.

Caroline has things to say. Speaking of Caroline, moderating this discussion today is producer extraordinaire HerWords, and my favorite Crooked producer, also, HerWords, Caroline Reston. Caroline, take it away. I am honored to be here. I feel like you guys didn't really fulfill the promise of the premise of banter, but Listen, these things come together organically.

Yeah, I can't fake charm. Yeah. And it's our second podcast together of the day. Yeah. Like, we can't do that.

So it'll come. I promise. We'll give, we'll give all the charm. OK, fine. Well, you better be charming as fuck.

Otherwise, which is also in all caps. But yes.

OK, you guys have been really looking forward to this episode. Biden has officially dropped out of the race. Like you said, VP Kamala Harris has secured enough support from the Democratic delegates to win the party's nomination. Everyone is wondering who is Kamala Harris going to pick for her. VP?

Fife, what do you think?

I haven't really fully formed my thoughts on this, but if I had to place a wager today, on this day, July 23rd, I would put money on Mark Kelly. Me too. Mark Kelly or Josh Shapiro, even though I do not feel normally, having been in the middle of the penis from since I was like 28 years old, picking someone based on their state, I normally don't think matters. I do think that he has such high favorability in Pennsylvania that he could potentially deliver the state. But buddy, like Mark Kelly to me is he's he's got the easiest bio to explain.

Right. In like three words. It's like hero, astronaut, husband of Gabby Giffords. Yeah. And veteran.

And yeah, hero. That was my hero. Oh, hero. And, uh, but also has been through two incredibly difficult elections and a two year period in Arizona, a state that he could potentially bring back on the map. Uh, as of the moment before Biden dropped out, there was a general consensus that Arizona had been out of reach for the Biden folks.

I think Kamala Harris brings you a little closer there and Kelly can make that state very competitive again. I think he has gravitas. He's he'd be great. Now I will say that when I was at the Republican convention, we were walking around, humble brag. Oh, what a brag that was.

I was in Milwaukee with a bunch of mega dudes. Well, let me tell you, I bumped into Charlie Kirk. Whoa. I saw that. I didn't actually bump into Charlie Kirk, but the, uh, Tommy probably did.

actually, we were kind of, sort of undercover, in the sense that no one knew who cared, who we were, and Tommy was walking around wearing a red 0% liberal hat. Um, but we struck up a conversation, and by we, I certainly mean everyone, but me, uh, struck a conversation with some delegates who are walking, and we asked them who they thought, who they most feared or did not want Kamala Harris to pick. Were she to become the nominee? And they said, Josh Shapiro.

That's who they were afraid of. The, you know, and you know, the other bonus to Mark Kelly, Democratic governor. So if he did win, a Democrat would be appointed to his seat. And then, in, uh, North Carolina, Rory Cooper is also on the list. And if he were to, uh, become the vice president, at least for the end of his term, Mark Robinson, who is the nut job, who's running for his running to be governor, would finish that out.

But that would, that would really not really matter. Cause he's either one and become the governor or, uh, he would be governor for two days. And Dan, correct me if I'm wrong. Josh Shapiro's won statewide three times and Cooper six times. Yes, I think that's right.

Cooper has won governor's races twice in very tough years, right? Both in 16 and 20, uh, Shapiro's had pretty easy elections. Um, certainly, his governor's race was quite easy. Won by double digits. Mark Kelly had very tough races.

Andy Beshear, also on the list, uh, had tough races. and we are ignoring, of course, as we should not, Gretchen Whitmer, who is on lots of lists circulating, although she has said that she does not want to be vice president, but that many people say that before accepting the job. Selina Meyer told us in season seven of Veep that you cannot have two women. Well, I was just going to say, so. first of all, someone didn't read the research.

Josh Shapiro has won three statewide elections. That's what I said. That's what she said. That's what I said. She said,

because, Caroline, I don't want to sound like I'm fucking reciting your outline. Okay. This is the charming banter that was in the outline. We promised we delivered. What's going to be the timeline for Kamala on choosing a vice president for her ticket?

Cause we are on a time crunch. I mean, look, I think the sooner, the better, uh, the faster that they can find someone, I think the, and, and get the campaign like really sort of underway. Is great. I think. realistically, Dan, what do you think?

I think probably 10 days, two weeks. I think it's the, I think they're probably on a timeline similar to Trump's announcement at JD Vance, where it abuts up to the convention. Probably either the Friday before the convention or the weekend before the convention. I mean, look, they're being, the vetting team is being asked to vet these people. None of whom have ever been, to my knowledge, vetted for vice president before, to do it in a record amount of time, right?

Who are those poor people who have to, just like, dedicate their lives for the next 10 days to going through Kamala's old Twitter pages? Well, it's, uh, Eric Holder is running the selection committee, right? Well, yeah, they're using the attorneys in his law firm to do it. Right. So it would be attorneys.

And so these people are going to be asked to give a massive amount of financial paperwork over, um, tax returns going back 10 years, at least. Um, voting records, voting records, you know, medical records, mortgage. You know, and house, you know, more, they're, more, they're, they're deeds to their house, mortgages, college transcripts, potentially. And just the compilation of that stuff takes days, if not weeks, normally. And we don't, and then it takes weeks, if not months, to review that.

And they're going to do all of this in two and a half to three weeks is wild. Anyone who has had like a prosecutorial background or has been a lawyer, they're going to look at all the cases, cases that they have, uh, cases they've tried. That. that's going to be a real challenge for Josh Shapiro too, because as the attorney general of the state of Pennsylvania, the cut, sorry, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there will be, uh, every case that his, uh, office tried is somehow related to him and it could potentially be a problem. and how you review all of that is sort of impossible to fathom to me.

I want to pivot to JD Vance, which feels like honestly, such old news at this point. Something I was thinking about is obviously Trump made this decision before he knew Kamala would be the top of the ticket. My first question, before we kind of dig in a little bit more, is, do you think there's any part of his campaign that might regret having chosen someone like JD? JD Vance has proved to be a dud thus far. Like, I think he is the most boring.

His speech, he was in his home state of Ohio yesterday and, like, couldn't get a laugh from the crowd. And one interesting thing I just want to flag, it seems like the Trump campaign and or RNC is writing in applause lines with, like a hold for applause. And then the applause is not happening. Um, which I think is a funny thing to watch on television. Yeah, I think they very much regret it.

Um, it was, it is, it was a, I think, Tim Alberta, who's done some really great report from the Atlantic, who's done some really great reporting on the Trump campaign, basically just, and it was pretty embedded in their campaign too. And so he has a real sense of how they think about things. He said that this was, the JD Vance one was a pick of gluttony, humorous, right? Where they, they believe they were winning. So, cause JD Vance offers literally nothing to the ticket, right?

He doesn't help bring a state into play. He doesn't solve a political problem, right? You know, in the past, you often will pick someone who addresses a political weakness, like, for example, Bill Clinton, when he was running in 1992, was deluge, was scandal. And so he picked Al Gore, who was known as the most ethical man in the Senate. Right.

Gore then had to pick Joe Lieberman for the same reasons. Cause eight years of hanging out with Bill Clinton had damaged his, his reputation for ethics.

Sometimes you pick someone because they address a, they help you with a constituency with which you're weak. Like Trump, picked Pence because Trump had a real weakness with evangelical voters who are sort of the base of the Republican party. Pence had, was, was one of their favorites. So he picks Pence. JD Vance does nothing.

He doesn't help with the constituency group. He doesn't help with the state. He doesn't address the political weakness. He is, the only thing he can possibly do is be a good governing partner, in the sense that he is a true MAGA believer, or at least is a voracious convert, MAGA convert, who will execute the agenda in office, sort of like Cheney did for Bush. But in terms of helping him win this election, he is a big fat zero.

It is shocking to me that they could have picked a woman and didn't. Like whether Katie Britt, Nikki Haley. I mean, I don't think Trump could ever swallow the idea of Nikki Haley, but there are so many women out there who could have appealed to suburban women, from like Virginia to Idaho, for Donald Trump, who, as someone with a reputation as a sex pest, would have like inoculated him against that. I just think that, you know, abortion being such an issue, having a woman stand next to you does nothing but help. I think, even if she's not pro-choice, it's still like, see, she agrees with me.

So it was such a total missed opportunity, I think, for him to have not picked someone Ivanka-ish who, like, wasn't his actual daughter. And never really considered a woman either. Like on none of the shortlists was like. there was some, at least Stefanik and Sarah Huckabee Sanders talk early on, but it seems that the only true finalists were some combination of Doug Burgum, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and maybe Tim Scott, but probably not.

But the Marco Rubio one is another one just ultimately left on the table because their theory of the case, which they're very clear about, which is why they probably never considered a woman. I think that was a political error. But the reason why is they view their path to victory as winning over male voters who have abandoned Biden. Young black voters, young Latino voters, young white male voters. And J.D.

Vance helps with none of those things. And Marco Rubio could have been a huge asset with some segment of Latino voters. And even if it only helps on the margins, this is a close race. J.D. Vance is a pick you make when you think you're going to win a landslide.

Right. So on that, you guys kind of already detailed some of the big reasons why a candidate would be chosen there, the state they come from, gender, the demographics that they do well with. How, in the past, not just in this election, how often has a vice presidential candidate actually moved the needle in any significant way? I think Sarah Palin in a bad way, but not at first. Right.

I mean, if you remember. When McCain, when McCain announced Sarah Palin, there was panic in the house because the enthusiasm that he had been lacking was suddenly front and center. I mean, then she's her Katie Couric interview and it all went to shit. And then it, you know, she was impactful in a way that was really negative. But I think, you know, I'm not sure.

I feel like in some ways John Edwards helped John Kerry, but I don't think he was hugely impactful. I mean, John Kerry had this sort of like statesman Brahman aloof, and, you know, John Edwards was this like very scrappy, handsome, young family, fought poverty. You know, why are you laughing at me? Sorry. John Edwards family did not age super well.

But in the moment.

I was pro. I loved him. back then. I was like, he's, he's hot. He knows what he wants.

He's a liberal. I was so stupid. But also, if I recall, we lost North Carolina. You know, yeah, I mean, it matters on the margins. only like this.

I think the vice president do no harm and the vice president, the vice president race is probably the moment in American politics with the greatest chasm between how much is talked about and how much it matters. But you can fuck it up. Right. If you fail the readiness test, like because this is the one big decision you're making in the campaign. And so voters will judge you on how you made it.

And it's kind of pass fail. Right. So it's like it's like a pass fail. Of course, if you do, you pick John Edwards, even Mike Pence, Kamala Harris, you pass. maybe a little benefit here, nothing huge.

But if you fail it, you fail it spectacularly. And John McCain was one of the few people to fail it. And time will tell. Maybe Trump failed it. We'll find out.

That'll wrap up the preview of Inside 2024 and our show today. Thank you so much again to Ali for joining the show. And if you want to hear more of Inside 2024 or any subscription content, go to Crooked.com slash friends.

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