Kamala Harris's Path to 270

Transcript

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.
I'm Tommy Vitor. Good to be back from Chicago, but I really miss not sleeping and eating like shit.
What about you?

Speaker 1 It's weird to not be doing this in eyeshot of a Michael Jordan statue or 15,000 of our closest friends. Yeah, that was a lot.
Super loud noise all the time behind us and no headphones.

Speaker 1 Great week, though. Very fun.
Also, fantastic city.

Speaker 1 Chicago, it was like, what, 72, 75 every single day. Perfect.
It made me want to move there again. And we barely got to enjoy it.

Speaker 1 I walked by the lake one time for about an hour. Did you get out? Smart? No, not at all.
Sorry about that.

Speaker 1 I like two blocks from the hotel, maybe. All right.
On today's show, the Trump campaign says Trump is serious about ramping up his schedule and staying on message as we head into the fall.

Speaker 1 And they really mean it this time. Kamala Harris and Tim Walls get ready for a swing through southern Georgia in their first big interview.

Speaker 1 Then you'll hear Harris Campaign's Battleground State's Director, our friend Dan Cannon, talk to Pfeiffer and me about the campaign's path to 270 and what they're doing on the ground to get there.

Speaker 1 But first, now that both conventions are over, one of the last and potentially the last big event between now and Election Day is the September 10th presidential debate on ABC News.

Speaker 1 But even that might not be a sure thing. On Sunday night, Trump posted a rant about ABC News on Truth Social, saying, quote, I ask, why would I do the debate against Kamala Harris on that network?

Speaker 1 Ostensibly because Sunday's this week roundtable triggered him in some way.

Speaker 1 He also doesn't like George Slapadopoulos. Slapadopoulos.
That could be a thing. He complains about Slapadopoulos, John Carl, Donna Brazil.
Huh.

Speaker 1 He was just, he was pretty angry. It's been the same cast of characters on ABC for a while.

Speaker 1 You probably should have seen this one come in.

Speaker 1 So Playbook had more reporting on Monday morning that there's actually a substantive disagreement between the campaigns about whether the rules should be the same as the Biden-Trump debate.

Speaker 1 The Trump campaign wants the mics muted again when the other candidate is speaking.

Speaker 1 But this time, the Harris campaign wants the mics on the whole time. Got it.
Here's Trump when he was asked about it in an event on Monday.

Speaker 1 Would you want the microphones muted in the debate whenever you're not speaking?

Speaker 14 We agreed to the same rules. I don't know.
It doesn't matter to me. I'd rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same.

Speaker 14 as it was last time. In that case, it was muted.

Speaker 14 I didn't like it the last time, but it worked out fine. I mean, ask Biden how it worked out.
It was fine. And I think it should be the same.
We agreed to the same rules.

Speaker 14 Same rules and same specifications. And I think that's probably what it should be.
But they're trying to change it. The truth is they're trying to get out of it because she doesn't want to debate.

Speaker 14 She's not a good debater. She's not a smart person.
She doesn't want to debate.

Speaker 1 On message. I love there's like a takeout order coming in as he's doing a press conference.

Speaker 1 So perfect. I also like that he had like campaigns messages,

Speaker 1 same rules. We agreed to the same rules.
Got to be the same rules. And then he just can't help but just do his own thing.
Oh, I don't care either way. I don't care.
Put them on.

Speaker 1 Maybe I think I'd rather have them on, but they were off last time. Yeah.
Also, we demand the Biden debate.

Speaker 1 So after that, Brian Fallon from the Harris campaign tweeted, basically, great, we're agreed. I like that.
Why do you think the Harris folks want Trump's mic on? while Kamala is speaking?

Speaker 1 Because of what we just heard, he's an angry, undisciplined jerk, and swing voters dislike that about him.

Speaker 1 When the Trump the Twitter Twitter feed shows up, I think Kamala Harris does well and also I think they probably know that Donald Trump is going to get very triggered by criticism from Kamala Harris.

Speaker 1 Historically speaking, he's especially thin-skinned when criticized by a woman or a person of color. And they want everyone to experience that reaction in real time.

Speaker 1 You don't think a lot of voters will find a crazy old man interrupting Kamala Harris every five seconds

Speaker 1 attractive? No, I don't. I think it'll be incredibly off-putting and people could hate him.
It's interesting because I think you were one of the first people before the last debate when

Speaker 1 they talked about the mics muted. And I remember you saying, like,

Speaker 1 you know, I don't know if it's a great idea for Biden to ask for the mics to be muted because Trump will be interrupting him, but we won't get to hear Trump saying all this crazy shit. Right.

Speaker 1 That was my concern. He started barking at him from 12 feet away, but the mics don't pick it up.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think like in the one of his post-debate interviews, Biden actually said that part of his problem was Trump continuing to like yell at him and him not being able to.

Speaker 1 But yeah, no, I think it's a pretty, I totally get why the Harris campaign wants the, wants the mics on. It feels like the Trump campaign seemingly doesn't want that for the same reason.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's right.

Speaker 1 I mean, we keep reading these background quotes and stories from frustrated Trump aides who want him to be, talk about policy, stay on the prompter, just generally be disciplined and not be himself.

Speaker 1 And then the best part is that Trump then complains about these conversations with his aides at rallies. You and I were watching one of these in the bus the other day, right? Remember

Speaker 1 he did an audience poll about whether he should get personal with his attacks. And then when they said yes, he said he was going to fire whoever told him not to do that.
Yep. It was great.

Speaker 1 I mean, I thought it was... smart of the Harris campaign to basically

Speaker 1 this debate had been happening behind the scenes and they basically made it public.

Speaker 1 They told Playbook on the record that like they think that the Trump campaign didn't believe they could keep their candidate under control for 90 minutes, but they suspect that Trump believes otherwise.

Speaker 1 And sure enough, they drove a wedge between Trump and his campaign. That's right.
I mean, they know that any kind of story like this about Trump being handled by a staff is going to make him mad.

Speaker 1 And it's going to lead him to want to overrule them publicly, which gets Kamala Harris what she wants.

Speaker 1 It's also, you know, there's been a lot of reporting, I think correct reporting, about how the Trump campaign until recently was a lot smarter and more disciplined.

Speaker 1 And we're also seeing them slowly bring back the old names, like the Corey Lewandowskis of of the world, who are not disciplined, who are disruptive and chaotic.

Speaker 1 And so if Kamala's spokespeople can like roll a grenade into Trump HQ with these background staffs, make him pick a fight with his own aides, that is a huge bonus.

Speaker 1 And by the way, now he has, you know, they can go back and do negotiations and being like, your candidate just said publicly he doesn't mind if the if the mics are not muted. If for some reason.

Speaker 1 They can't agree on this and the mic and they say same rules. Let's just do that.
That's easier.

Speaker 1 I don't think it's like the worst thing in the world for Kamala Harris, but I do think it's much better if the mics are are on.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the mics on would be better, but also everyone's just kind of like feeding the daily press cycle beast here. Yeah.
I mean, do you have any doubts that we'll still have a debate?

Speaker 1 I mean, tell me if you disagree because I feel too confident in this, but

Speaker 1 I think this debate happens because at the moment, I could make the case that it's in the best interest of both sides. Trump is seething at Kamala Harris's good press.
He wants to destroy her.

Speaker 1 He says publicly that he hates her. He says publicly that he thinks she's dumb.
That's going to lead to overconfidence. So he's going to want a debate.

Speaker 1 Kamala Harris and her team, they know she's good at this, that she'll put the time in, that she's disciplined.

Speaker 1 And also, though, that most voters don't know her. So this is an important opportunity.

Speaker 1 I also think the stakes, the downside risk of being seen as ducking a debate when maybe it's the only one is pretty high. Yeah, I think I agree with all of that.
I think that it is in both of their...

Speaker 1 best interests to want the debate. The reason I'm not 100% certain is because I don't think either of them absolutely needs the debate at this point to win because the race is basically tied.

Speaker 1 So you could see it falling apart because, like, you know, tied race, maybe Trump's up in a couple battlegrounds, maybe she's up in a couple battlegrounds.

Speaker 1 If somehow this whole thing falls apart, you know, you could see both of them thinking, all right, I'll just grind it out doing my rallies and interviews on my own until November.

Speaker 1 But you're right for the reasons you said.

Speaker 1 For both of them, I think they'd rather have the debate, each campaign. Yeah, it'll be a lot of eyeballs.
Yes. A huge opportunity.

Speaker 1 And he wants to, you know, he wants to use the debate to just plant more doubts with voters about her, and she wants to reassure people who might not know enough about her.

Speaker 1 So, regardless of what happens with the debate, the Trump campaign's telling reporters they're launching a new strategy for the fall.

Speaker 1 More events, and surprisingly, smaller non-rally events, where Trump will allegedly drive a more focused message.

Speaker 1 He took this strategy for a spin on Monday when he addressed a National Guard Association conference in Detroit, where he was officially endorsed by former Democratic presidential candidate turned Trump debate coach Tulsi Gabbard.

Speaker 1 She's had a journey. Then he kind of sort of stayed on message.

Speaker 1 Let's listen.

Speaker 14 Look at what's going on right now

Speaker 14 with Ukraine desurging into Russia. Okay, you're going to end up in World War III.
Kamala Harris is letting terrorists come into our country at record numbers.

Speaker 14 and letting jihadists pour into our homeland by the thousands and thousands and thousands. Can't do that.
Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz are promising the exact opposite.

Speaker 14 They want endless war, open borders, voting rights and free health care for illegal aliens, Soviet-style price control, censorship, unlimited migration from terrorist hotspots.

Speaker 1 Does the new strategy involve a horse tranquilizer? Yeah, that was weird. I mean, also, like, your boss likes one thing, big rallies and crowd events.

Speaker 1 And you're going to say, actually, we're taking your toy away. You're doing small events now.
That's not going to go well.

Speaker 1 This reminds me a little bit of 2008 when McCain picked Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin starts having these big rallies.

Speaker 1 And their message about Obama was he's the biggest celebrity in the world and all he can do is do these big rallies. And so then we decided as a campaign to like have Obama do these smaller events.

Speaker 1 And then I remember one day there was this split screen where Barack Obama, who could command these like huge crowds, was like in a library with kids and he was like reading the kids like George W.

Speaker 1 Bush, my pet code style. Yeah.
9-11. And so there's Obama with a small little crowd and he's sort of trying to do like an early childhood education message.

Speaker 1 And then there's Sarah Palin with this huge fucking crowd. It's like, no, no, no, we can't do that.
Fix this, right? That's the whole point. No, no.

Speaker 1 The big rallies are the whole point for Donald Trump. Yeah, I don't know why you take that away from him, but he's not going to be disciplined no matter where he is.
So give up.

Speaker 1 What did you think of the on-message Trump? I don't know if it was much of a message.

Speaker 1 So my favorite is when off-message or at least off-prompter Trump disagrees with on-prompter Trump in the same event. So, this is my favorite example from the speech today.

Speaker 1 This is verbatim, by the way. Trump says, The National Guard is America's first and last line of defense, and you do not get the credit you deserve.

Speaker 1 But actually, you do, because deep down, everybody knows it. You get a lot of credit in your own way.
It's so funny.

Speaker 1 You can tell when he's reading the remarks for the first time and then reacting to them like that. I just like it, whatever.
That's his message, I guess. He wasn't,

Speaker 1 you know, he wasn't doubting Kamala Harris's racial identity. He wasn't calling Tim Walls tampon tin as we did on Twitter last night.
He did it the other day. He did it today, too.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I missed that part. Okay, so he wasn't really on message.

Speaker 1 But I think even that message, like they haven't, it doesn't seem like they've settled on a message about her that is, that seems effective to me. Like, why is he talking about Russia, Ukraine?

Speaker 1 Like, what? He was all over the place. So they had the prompter remarks, and then he did a rally speech on top of it.
I thought, I mean, yeah, there was a lot of talk that he was low energy.

Speaker 1 One thing I thought was interesting was he was joined by Tulsi Gabbard, who was an Army Reserve officer and then served in Congress as a Democrat. When you have Trump going from the RFK, Robert F.

Speaker 1 Kennedy Jr. endorsement, and then you have Tulsi Gabbard on stage, I think that's kind of an interesting, like bipartisan narrative.

Speaker 1 Now, sickos like us know this is a misleading narrative because Tulsi quit the Democratic Party in 2022. And RFK Jr.
is a dino. You know, he's a Democrat in name only, literally.

Speaker 1 He is just an anti-vaccine person. The rest of the speech was the greatest hits.
I did think the emphasis in front of a military audience, basically,

Speaker 1 that the Afghanistan withdrawal was a mess and Trump is the one who will keep the U.S. out of wars could be compelling, but it's just mixed up with all this other junk.

Speaker 1 I mean, to your point about sickos like us, I do think in these

Speaker 1 bigger rallies or events or whatever, like we're the only ones paying close attention. and watching this whole rally other than the people there.

Speaker 1 And so all of this is about just like, what message headline do you want to generate every day? And they're not coming anywhere close to doing that.

Speaker 1 No, and they have no control over what the headline of the day is because they can't control their boss.

Speaker 1 Do you think there's any value then to the Trump campaign signaling a new strategy that their candidate is surely going to be unable to follow?

Speaker 1 Or are they just looking for like a narrative reset or what?

Speaker 1 I can never tell if this is because Trump's staff just constantly talks to him in the press, if this is undisciplined people just kind of like mouthing off.

Speaker 1 But it does set up the easiest gotcha in the world if you're going to be like, we're going to do small, tighter rallies. And then he goes off script for 45 minutes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was trying to think about this. Like

Speaker 1 you do have, you have a structurally close election and a press corps that's just going to get bored of the Kamala honeymoon narrative.

Speaker 1 And so if you still have a tide race a few weeks from now, or even if Trump, you know, gains a point or two, maybe they then want the coverage to treat that momentum as if it was like fueled by a new Trump or at least a new Trump strategy.

Speaker 1 So it's like, let's go where the, let's go where the puck is headed. That makes sense.
Yeah. I guess.
I don't know. Because I do think we're already seeing it in some polling.

Speaker 1 Like this is, it remains a close race. It was always going to be a close race, except when an extenuating circumstance like Joe Biden's debate performance happens.
Right.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump versus a generic Democrat, a generic, or

Speaker 1 most Democrats against a generic Republican. We're still going to be like within five points.
So everyone should just, you know, buckle up and it's going to be a close race. Nailbiter.

Speaker 1 So a CNN story this morning said that the increased pace of events is a, quote, direct response to the enthusiasm spike from Democrats since Harris replaced Biden atop their ticket, sourcing that to people familiar with the plans.

Speaker 1 We love a source familiar. Okay.

Speaker 1 I would also note Trump's truth post the morning after the DNC that said, my administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights. That sounds it.
Just Just wild.

Speaker 1 Maybe the first time he's used that phrase. Followed by a campaign statement sprinting away from conservative positions on IVF and contraception.
Another data point here, J.D.

Speaker 1 Vance, who will reportedly be camping out in the blue wall states, especially Pennsylvania as part of this new strategy, reiterated on Meet the Press that Trump would veto a national abortion ban.

Speaker 1 Do you think the Trump campaign is genuinely nervous or just this is just what a campaign normally does to try to win?

Speaker 1 I mean, I think that they thought when it was Joe Biden running, and maybe even before the debate, they thought that the campaign was over and that they were going to win 400-plus electoral votes.

Speaker 1 You saw that

Speaker 1 Tim Alberta at the Atlantic did this long piece where he spent all this time with Susie Wiles and Chris La Cevita, and they were so cocky and they were talking about this historic sweep of MAGA through the country.

Speaker 1 Trump was barely doing events. He was just golfing every day.
And now they know it's a toss-up.

Speaker 1 So I think they're definitely trying to get him to refocus, be more disciplined, mop up some problem positions. Unfortunately, you can't mop up the choice of J.D.

Speaker 1 Vance, but maybe they're just going to stick him in a state and never see him again.

Speaker 1 But, you know, like those tweets you just read aloud about, you know, protecting reproductive choice or Trump vetoing a national abortion ban. Don't believe that for a second.
It's bullshit.

Speaker 1 But it's a good strategy to try to get ahead of those attacks before the debate or just attacks generally about abortion.

Speaker 1 It makes me think they're seeing something in the poll, in their polling that abortion is really hurting them which you know should not be a surprise to any of us but it's good to know that they're seeing this too well and part of it i think is you're also seeing this sort of widening gender gap i bet that's a lot of it and you know if we get to the point where you know kamala harris is winning women by more than donald trump was winning men then that's sort of ballgame and more women turn out i think that's right so like that's that's kind of it i also think that whether the campaign's rattled or not trump is clearly rattled himself because, of anyone, he knows the value, the political value of attention and celebrity.

Speaker 1 And he's looking over at Kamala Harris and he's thinking that, like, her popularity is sort of like reaching into more celebrity status. And he doesn't like that.
No, not at all.

Speaker 1 And, you know, he saw Obama's celebrity translate into massive electoral victories. Yes.
So we haven't really talked about RFK Jr.'s endorsement of Trump since it actually happened on Friday.

Speaker 1 We were flying home. Trump and Kennedy appeared together at an event in Arizona where where Kennedy said Trump will make America healthy again, which he's now abbreviated as Maha,

Speaker 1 which I didn't realize until I was sort of looking at Twitter this morning and I see all there's like hashtag Mahas everywhere, Maha memes.

Speaker 1 It sounds like pretty funny. Something you get deboned at the table at an expensive restaurant.

Speaker 1 Really weird. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Good luck with that, buddy. Rebranding MAGA, okay, RFK Jr.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and then he said he had this like long tweet too where he was trying to redefine MAGA and he's like, I know some people don't like it, but it's actually, it can be kind and it can be like welcoming.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's an audience. And Trump goes on like a 10-tweet thread just out of his fucking mind.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the audience of one for that RFK tweet trying to redefine Make America Great Again for Cheryl Hines, his wife, who I believe is furious at him reportedly about this decision.

Speaker 1 He said at one point he said she would divorce him if he endorsed Trump. So

Speaker 1 do with that what you will.

Speaker 1 Kennedy said on Fox this weekend that Trump did not offer him a cabinet position or anything else in exchange for his government, though he later said he talked to me about a unity government.

Speaker 1 So I don't know what the fuck that means. What?

Speaker 1 Yeah, unity government with like someone who

Speaker 1 got no votes. Right, exactly.
By far the biggest news about RFK right now involves yet another dead animal, Tommy.

Speaker 1 In a newly unearthed interview with Town and Country in 2012, his daughter Kick Kennedy, who has reportedly been spending time with Dunkin' Donuts spokesperson Ben Affleck.

Speaker 1 It's just a whole nother story we can get into. She said that when she was a kid, her dad cut off the head of a dead whale with a chainsaw and tied it to the top of their minivan to bring it home.

Speaker 1 Key quote, as if you needed a quote, every time we accelerated on the highway,

Speaker 1 whale juice would pour into the windows of the car and it was the rankest thing on the planet.

Speaker 1 We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us. Why don't you close the windows?

Speaker 1 That is incredible. If you have a whale carcass on your roof, close the windows.
How many stories like this does this family have? Infinity. First of all, I want to say kick Kennedy is a cool name.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And when Hannah and I were figuring out what to name Lizette and James, I did not know that random verbs were available to me as options.
Yeah, her little brother punched Kennedy.

Speaker 1 Is that true?

Speaker 1 Shimmer Vitor. Also, did you know that Connor Kennedy, the Taylor Swift ex, is also RFK Jr.'s kid? Yeah, I did know that.

Speaker 1 These family gatherings must be wild. You got Ben Affleck, you got Taylor Swift.

Speaker 1 Talk about a black sheep. You got zero vaccines.
RFK Jr. Yeah, no vaccines anywhere.

Speaker 1 I would like you to rank the whalehead, the dead bear cub, and the brain worm in order of which creeps you out the most. Brain worms run away number one for me.

Speaker 1 Disgusting.

Speaker 1 Worms are generally disgusting. And anything in your brain, I think, is like actual nightmare fuel.

Speaker 1 To rank the other two, I need some more information, which is what kind of whale? Because it really.

Speaker 1 Well, the blue whale is the largest thing ever known to live on the Earth. Do you want to do Charlie's bedtime? Because he has been obsessed with

Speaker 1 types of whales, types of sharks. He's very into marine life right now.
He has lots of questions. And you're a big marine life guy.
Call me anytime. But a blue whale weighs between 100 and 200 tons.

Speaker 1 So that's a lot of head for your roof. Now, even like a beluga, a baby beluga, if you will, that's still, I think, like a thousand, two thousand pound whale.
So

Speaker 1 what I'm getting at is they're talking about like a hundred pounds of head on the roof and all the associated juices. So I'm guessing, so

Speaker 1 baby bear is gross because it's sad that it's a baby, but I think it's probably brainworms one, whale head two, bear three. Your rank?

Speaker 1 So it depends on which category right like if you if you rank them by stories like in insanity of the stories it's got to be bear cub first you think even chainsawing off the head of a i just think that in terms of how hard i've laughed like oh the watching the video of him tell the bear cub story to roseanne is maybe the hardest i've laughed all cycle i was literally crying

Speaker 1 crying laughing so that there's so many holes in the story if you talk about like what i'd rather like personally i do i would not want the brain worm sure

Speaker 1 but of all the stories we've talked about on this podcast, when I just said the words, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, I came closest to actually gagging these poor kids.

Speaker 1 Of all of the different stories.

Speaker 1 That is fucking gross. Have you ever seen the video of the rotting whale carcass on the beach that explodes? Oh, yes.
Because they get all the juices. And anyway.
Google it. Anyway.
YouTube it.

Speaker 1 Now that we've had a few days of coverage and we got the whale story in,

Speaker 1 what do you make of how the Kennedy endorsement is playing for Trump so far and how much it might matter? Like, it's hard to tell.

Speaker 1 So I watched parts of the Kennedy press conference and then I watched parts of the Trump event where he introduced him. And RFK got a huge ovation at Trump's event.

Speaker 1 So that probably tells you something about, as Kamala Harris would say, the Venn diagram of overlap between their voters. Like they're probably a little more MAGA.

Speaker 1 Trump said that RFK, he wants RFK to investigate chronic health problems and childhood diseases.

Speaker 1 And my favorite part of the pitch was Trump praising Kennedy for his commitment to providing safe and healthy foods to kids.

Speaker 1 Remember, this is the guy who fed college athletes McDonald's every time they came to the White House. Anyway, like Kennedy's message, it was muddled.
It was weird.

Speaker 1 He made it sound like he cut some backroom deal. And then also he's going to stay

Speaker 1 on the ballot in some states. So none of it really makes sense.

Speaker 1 The polling on this has shown that RFK pulled votes pretty evenly between Trump and Harris. The RFK was doing better with Latino and black voters.

Speaker 1 And so if he's able to peel off some of them, that could be a problem. But that might have been a legacy from the polling about RFK from the Biden era.
So my guess is it's a wash.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and it's maybe too early to tell still. I mean, Nate Silver

Speaker 1 re-ran his model without RFK Jr. said that basically nothing changed.

Speaker 1 We had a poll out today, maybe the first big national poll since the debate, and from Echelon. By the way, it has Trump 49, Kamala 48.

Speaker 1 But they also ran it with Kennedy and then without Kennedy, but still with the other third-party candidates. And it maybe helped Trump a smidge more without Kennedy in the race.

Speaker 1 But when they did the four-way or five-way now without RFK Jr., Kamala was up like 48, 47.

Speaker 1 So it's hard to tell. It's all, I think, around the margin of error.
So it's sort of tough to figure it out. Right.
Is Robert F.

Speaker 1 Kennedy, is he going to endorse and then go do work in key battleground states?

Speaker 1 Or is he going to endorse and then just like go collect dead corpses of animals around his house you know and what audiences is he speaking to good question that aren't already Trump people or you know that so I don't think it matters too much

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Speaker 1 What's poppin, listeners?

Speaker 2 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

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Speaker 1 Kamal Harris and Tim Wallace have been off the trail since the convention, meeting with advisors and just letting the vibes permeate.

Speaker 1 We also know that she already started debate prep at Howard University with longtime Hillary Clinton spokesman Philippe Rynas playing Donald Trump. Who went full method last time? Full method.

Speaker 1 He was like in character.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I wonder if Philippe has done that to himself again.
I wonder if he ever left. We should reach out to Philippe and see what kind of response we get back if he sounds like Trump or not.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm on it. On Wednesday, Harris and Walls are going to head out on a bus tour through South Georgia together.
And on Thursday, Harris will hold a solo rally in Savannah.

Speaker 1 We're going to hear from the Harris campaign's Battleground States Director in a minute. But what do you make of Harris and Walls targeting Georgia for their first post-convention travel?

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm going to do my best Dan impression here.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, it suggests that they think there are multiple paths to get her to 270, 270 electoral votes.

Speaker 1 I mean, when Biden was a nominee, it really felt like the only path to 270 was Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Nebraska 2nd District, right?

Speaker 1 The other paths would involve Sunbelt states, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and maybe North Carolina.

Speaker 1 That just seemed off the table because actually Trump's numbers had been improving in those states because, well, I'll get to that in a second.

Speaker 1 Kamala going straight to Georgia suggests that her team really thinks that they might win the state. I mean, it's not like a quick trip, it's a two-day bus trip.

Speaker 1 So the reason for the previous sort of calculus with Biden was he was doing well with older, whiter voters, but struggling with young voters, black voters, Latino voters.

Speaker 1 Kamala Harris has improved the party's standing among all of those groups, which opens up these Sunbelt states.

Speaker 1 So basically, whereas before losing Pennsylvania was basically game over for Democrats, this means there could now be viable alternatives.

Speaker 1 And Pennsylvania and Georgia both loom so large for each campaign because I think if Kamala Harris loses Pennsylvania, it becomes really tough.

Speaker 1 for her to find a path to 270, even winning a lot of the other swing states.

Speaker 1 Conversely, if Trump loses Georgia, he would need not just Pennsylvania, but another Biden state and maybe two, depending on which ones it is.

Speaker 1 So if Kamala Harris can win Georgia, she goes a long way toward putting Trump away.

Speaker 1 I also think that for all the reasons you just said, they wanted to, the Harris campaign wants to send a message at post-convention that they're not just camping out in blue wall states, right?

Speaker 1 That if they do really see, which they do see multiple paths to 270, as Dan Cannon will tell us soon, then they want to tell everyone, like,

Speaker 1 we're going for it.

Speaker 1 And also, if, you know, even if the easiest path to 270 remains Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and Nebraska too, while you still have time, now is the time to go to Georgia and Arizona.

Speaker 1 If it's October, you know, maybe, and we see the polling change or whatever, maybe you're back in those three blue wall states all the time, but at least now you should go to Georgia.

Speaker 1 And by the way, this is how you win Georgia if you're Kamala Harris and Tim Walls. And honestly, this is sort of how Joe Biden won it as well.

Speaker 1 Like you go to, to, obviously, you win it in Atlanta and the suburbs, right? Like, you try to get a huge vote share, huge margin out of there.

Speaker 1 But a lot of these, like, rural southern areas that are like heavily black population in Georgia and probably haven't been visited by either campaign in a while, ever, ever, like, you want to cut those margins.

Speaker 1 You want to increase black turnout. And it's great that she can do that, you know, and she can have a message in southern Georgia that's, you know, economically populist.

Speaker 1 And I don't know, and Georgia's, and Georgia has a weird relationship with Trump for a, for,

Speaker 1 you know, a purple, sometimes Republican-leaning state. Yeah, I mean, back to the sort of discipline of the Trump campaign and whether they've changed their tune on some things.

Speaker 1 I mean, Trump just seemingly, like a week ago, put to bed this little online feud he's been having with Brian Kemp, the very popular Republican governor of Georgia.

Speaker 1 So they're clearly trying to get him to take the state more seriously. Yeah, if nothing else, you want to run down

Speaker 1 Trump's margin in these rural counties in every state, basically, including Georgia.

Speaker 1 I mean, at the end of the day, campaign strategists will both talk a big game and try to suggest that they have an opportunity to win as many states as possible.

Speaker 1 But what you should look at is their money and their candidates' time.

Speaker 1 And the fact that Kamal Harris and Tim Walls are spending two days in Georgia suggests to me that they think it's a very real target. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And, you know, Pluff told me on that last episode of The Wilderness, he's like, headfakes don't make any sense. He's like, it's too expensive.
He's like, if you're going to,

Speaker 1 you don't say like, oh, you know, we're head fake, meaning we're going to seem like we play in one state only to like lure the other campaign in and whatever else.

Speaker 1 He's like, if we're going to a state, we're going to play in the state. We're going to spend the money.
Especially at Georgia where, you know, North media market.

Speaker 1 Yeah, North Carolina is shockingly expensive to play in on TV.

Speaker 1 So word has leaked that Harris and Walls are going to sit for an interview together during the Georgia swing. We don't know yet with whom.

Speaker 1 As you all know, the political press has been really into Harris doing an interview. They've been a little annoyed that she hasn't done one yet.
Any chance that first interview was with us? I think.

Speaker 1 Surprised, maybe? Much. Maybe you guys didn't tell me? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Love it, just did it on Fiji or something. That's where he is right now.
Yeah. I think several months ago, John, there was no chance of us getting that interview.
Now maybe there's a slim tenant.

Speaker 1 Well, let's take a look at it. There's more paths for us.
More paths for us. We know more people.

Speaker 1 Fewer people in the organization want to kill us currently than a month ago.

Speaker 1 Let's want to take some bets on what outlet. Yeah.
Oh, that's fun. My money's still on 60 minutes.
60 minutes.

Speaker 1 That's the one to do.

Speaker 1 It's the obvious, easy one.

Speaker 1 But if we put odds on it, we could go down the way. I wonder, I could see Lester Holt in NBC.

Speaker 1 Lester Holt or Anora O'Donnell are both like,

Speaker 1 you know, they're good, solid interviewers who are respected because they don't lean one way or the other, but they're also not like, they're not just like looking to get you. Now, the question is.

Speaker 1 and she and she had tough she's had notoriously tough interviews with both of them with Lester yeah um the question is will the press count an interview if it's with a progressive host like if you did a Rachel Maddow sit-down would anyone know okay that's not they will not count it they will even though Trump never leaves his Fox News exactly complete double standard

Speaker 1 and she will just not get credit for it which is absurd but I'm I'm betting they know that NPR NPR I don't know a local Georgia

Speaker 1 I would do a lot of local interviews I mean I think what they probably should do after this big interview going into the event is just do a ton of local press, a lot of local TV. They should.

Speaker 1 What do you think are the toughest questions she'll get? And how should she answer them? Should we just, let's do some interview prep? Should we bucket them? Yeah, let's bucket them.

Speaker 1 So there's one bucket that's probably like,

Speaker 1 what did you know and when did you know it about Joe Biden's health? I hadn't even thought about that one. Probably get a lot of those.

Speaker 1 Do you think that's that hard? I think, obviously, the guys can do the job through the first term. I mean, we now know that as

Speaker 1 obnoxious podcasters and others were trying to push Joe Biden out of the race, he was negotiating a massive hostage deal with Russia to get a bunch of Americans home.

Speaker 1 So clearly, the guy can do the job. And I think she'll probably say something like that.
She'll use that as an example. She'll use all the legislation they passed together as an example.

Speaker 1 She'll talk about, you know,

Speaker 1 we saw him at the DNC on Monday night. Yeah, give a speech that was like a rousing speech for the crowd.
Yeah, like there's a, there's plenty of answers to that, I think. Yeah, that's pretty easy.

Speaker 1 Okay, second bucket, maybe positions you took in 2020 that you walked away from now. I think that's like the first one they ask her.
Yeah, so John, aren't you going to ban fracking?

Speaker 1 I think, look, on all these issues, my values haven't changed, but I've always been realistic and pragmatic. I said that during my DNC speech.

Speaker 1 And also, that's how Joe Biden and I governed over the last four years. We worked with Republicans to rebuild America with an infrastructure bill.

Speaker 1 We made private health insurance more affordable for people and brought down the cost of prescription drugs.

Speaker 1 And we worked with one of the most conservative Republican senators in Congress to put together a really tough border bill that Donald Trump killed.

Speaker 1 So we know what it's like to be pragmatic and work with the other side. What I'm hearing from you is you value winning.
Yeah. My values are.
In it to win it. She should just say that.

Speaker 1 I'd be fine with it. Yeah.
We worked with, what's his name? The super white-looking guy, the vampire one, Lankford. Linkford, he did the immigration.

Speaker 1 Well, that's the third bucket in my little notes here. Immigration, the border.
What is your role role in the sort of policy generally been over the years?

Speaker 1 Now, there is some helpful data for them where apparently,

Speaker 1 I can't remember if it was crossings or like contacts at the border are down something like 50% after the executive order.

Speaker 1 So they'll probably point to some successes, but people are still pretty concerned about the border generally. Yeah, and I do think that's the best.

Speaker 1 I think the border is actually the easier one there because she can say, yeah, you know what? People are concerned about the border and that's why we want to pass.

Speaker 1 That's why I've said that if I become president, we'll pass this border bill, this bipartisan deal that was written by a conservative senator.

Speaker 1 And, you know, Joe Biden had to take action on, we had to take action on our own when Donald Trump killed that deal. And guess what? Crossings are down, but we got to do more.

Speaker 1 I think that's an easy one. I think on inflation,

Speaker 1 she could probably say, you know, the steps that Joe Biden and I took brought inflation down faster than almost any other country, but we have a lot more to do to bring down costs.

Speaker 1 And I'd love a Congress that would be willing to do more. Like Republicans just blocked a bipartisan bill to extend the child tax credit.
That would lower costs for people.

Speaker 1 Why aren't they passing that bill? Because it would hurt my campaign, because it wouldn't help Donald Trump. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think what has been so great about her campaign and message so far is that Kamala Harris seems far more unburdened by what has been and doesn't feel as obligated to defend the Biden record as much as paint a picture of what she's going to do going forward.

Speaker 1 And I think that's a lot better in this context. She will not probably be starting the answer with, I'm the guy who passed the Inflation Reduction Act.

Speaker 1 And I'm, you know, like, it's she'll, the balance of what we've done and what we need to do will be much more weighted towards what we need to do. Yeah, for a variety of reasons.

Speaker 1 We'll probably get zero I'm the guy responses. And then

Speaker 1 if it was me, I would love to know how she differs from Biden on Gaza policy, whether she's willing to increase pressure on Netanyahu to end the war, if there's anything we can do in the next few months.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm of the personal opinion that Joe Biden might not be running again, but that he is going to be very personally engaged on all things through the remainder of his presidency, especially foreign policy, especially the Bibi Denyahoo account.

Speaker 1 So I just don't think she's going to have a lot of space to change things.

Speaker 1 But I think she should signal that she will do things differently going forward. I think the progressives want to hear that, but also

Speaker 1 the war has been going for 10 months. Like whatever we've been doing has not affected change in the way that we, the United States, wants.
We want a ceasefire. We want the hostages back.

Speaker 1 We want to end the war. And showing some sort of space between her and Biden and the willingness to do something different, I think would be meaningful.

Speaker 1 What could she say that is like meaningfully different in terms of like, where do you differ with him? I'm trying to remember who floated this idea.

Speaker 1 I think it might have been Peter Beinart in the New York Times was like, what she should say is I will enforce current law, specifically the Leahy law, which says you cannot give military or material support to military units that have been accused of gross human rights violations, and use that kind of blanket statement as a signal that we would condition aid to some of these units in Gaza that have been accused of human rights violations.

Speaker 1 You know, you can go deeper than that. But I think that's, you know, that would be signaling a pretty large change because the Leahy law has never been applied to Israel before.

Speaker 1 But you could also, there's other ways to do it.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think you could have an advisor go out there, someone like Phil Gordon, who's our top foreign policy guy, and give an interview and do some of this work for you.

Speaker 1 So I'd like to see something. One question I have is, how forward-leaning should she be on saying that she has changed those past positions that she's taken during the 2020 primary?

Speaker 1 Do you, I mean, because I'm sure if you're an advisor and you're writing out the talking points, you do something like I just did, but she'll get pressed.

Speaker 1 by some interviewers and she'll certainly get pressed in the debate.

Speaker 1 I wonder if at some point you have to say, you know, I learned over the last four years governing an entire country with Joe Biden that you've got to be more pragmatic.

Speaker 1 And, you know, like, I wonder if she sort of signals a cleaner break with her past positions than just trying to skirt around it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think I would advise her not to be cute with it and be like, look, I spent four years as vice president. I learned a lot of new information and I changed my mind.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But if you do that four or five different times on a bunch of issues, I think you can,

Speaker 1 you could string it together in a way if you're the Trump campaign that makes her look bad. Yeah, you need to do fracking, you need to do Medicare for all,

Speaker 1 and you need to do

Speaker 1 border policy, and then some of the ones like, sure, I'd ban plastic straws and

Speaker 1 that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 Were we for banning plastic straws? Was she? Unfortunately, too many people are. Sorry, that's just my unpopular position.
Yeah, you go ahead. Come at me, straw people.
I love it.

Speaker 1 Come at me, straw people. I love straw.
I'm indifferent to straws. Straws people.

Speaker 1 I'm learning to go without straws, okay? I'm trying to be a good liberal in California. Is it a tooth thing? Some people have sensitive teeth.
Yeah, it is. Okay.
Okay, fair.

Speaker 1 I'm just trying to unpack this. Thank you.
I appreciate that. What's the biggest pitfall with the debate coming up? What are you most worried about? With the debate itself?

Speaker 1 Yeah, like for her and the debate. I think it's just the stakes.

Speaker 1 Well, this is such a funny, obvious thing to say. No, I mean, look, the last debate ended a candidate's career.

Speaker 1 So I think there's going to be some... Yeah, it's a big deal.
It's going to be some eyeballs.

Speaker 1 We also, listen, we also went from a race where I think I remember this number from a poll. I don't remember which poll it was.

Speaker 1 73% of voters said they had all the information they needed about both candidates to make up their mind. They all felt like they couldn't learn another thing about these guys and they didn't want to.

Speaker 1 And that changed the day Kamala Harris got into this race. So she knows that if she's got a great debate,

Speaker 1 it will benefit her enormously. Even if she has a good debate, people just want basic information about who she is, who she'll fight for, what she'll do.

Speaker 1 I'm sure there will be this debate as we head into the debate about how much she should focus on Donald Trump and talk about Donald Trump because most voters have made up their minds about Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 And I do think that

Speaker 1 her primary goal should be giving voters information about her, voters who don't know enough about her and want to know more, who are open to her candidacy. That's number one.

Speaker 1 But he is going to try to put her on defense the whole time. And so are the moderators are going to probably ask her some pointed questions.

Speaker 1 So you do want to have some offense on Trump just to eat up the time so that you're not spending 90 minutes just taking hits from Trump and trying to defend yourself?

Speaker 1 Because even if you do that well, it will still be judged as you were on defense the whole time. Yeah, that's a good question.
I think she's got to be on offense a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, I mean, you can do a lot of framing your positions through as an attack on your opponent. Yeah, and do a lot of comparison stuff.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I mean, I hope I'm going to do this, he's going to do that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 It's honestly, it's a good thing that they've been off the trail for a while because I hope they're doing a ton of debate prep because it helps. It does.
And he's not, he's doing policy discussions.

Speaker 1 Do you believe that? I think he's a liar. I bet they do real debate preps, and he just is too arrogant to say it.

Speaker 1 Well, also, if Tulsi Gabbard is involved in debate prep, which the reporting says that she is,

Speaker 1 and she, and the reason she is, I don't know if anyone remembers, but in 2020, when she was running for president on the Democrat.

Speaker 1 in the Democratic primary, during a couple of debates with Kamala Harris, she really, she picked Kamala Harris to go after more than any other candidate.

Speaker 1 And she claims to, I think with some, you know, good reason, know a lot of Kamala Harris's positions and how to get her and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 So I could imagine Tulsi Gabbard just playing Kamala Harris in debate prep. I could.
I don't know why you wouldn't do that if you don't, unless you're just an undisciplined, lazy fuck, which he is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, or the only reason not to, I guess, is you probably want that person to memorize verbatim some of the Harris lines, and maybe Tulsi won't do that work.

Speaker 1 I think the same article that talked about Tulsi being at prep said that Matt Gates was one of their best

Speaker 1 debate prep secret weapons. Yeah.
He's good at zingers. I can see that just because he seems like a terminally online individual

Speaker 1 who would know exactly what Kamala Harris and Democrats have been saying because he just consumes that much information. That sucks.
I hate to have to compliment him. I know, but I could, you know.

Speaker 1 Well, I don't think it's a compliment. It's one of the worst qualities about us

Speaker 1 being terminally online. Yeah, that's fair.
Come on our subscription show.

Speaker 1 And then we'll always have that photo of him from the RNC with just the

Speaker 1 Putin-like Botox. Yeah, it's tough.
Okay, when we get back from the break, Dan and I sat down with the Harris campaign's Battleground States director, Dan Cannon, on the sidelines of the convention.

Speaker 1 We decided to save it for today because it's about exactly what we're talking about in this show, how the Harris team is approaching the fall campaign and where they're putting their resources.

Speaker 1 Before we get to that conversation, two announcements. Speaking of Battlegrounds, Pod Save America is headed back to Phoenix on September 7th at the Celebrity Theater.
Oh, on the road again.

Speaker 1 We just got home.

Speaker 1 Two weeks from now? Two weeks from now, yeah. You should tell Hannah.
Yeah, same. Same with Emily.

Speaker 1 Join me, Dan, Lovett, Tommy, and guest host Jane Coston as we welcome Senate candidate Ruben Gallego to ask him hard-hidden questions like, why is Carrie Lake like that?

Speaker 1 You think if we invited Carrie Lake, she'd show up. Probably.
She would. Yeah.
It's worth thinking about. Should we host a debate? Yes.
An impromptu debate for Gallego. I'm sure he'd appreciate that.

Speaker 1 We'll also be in Philly at the Met Philadelphia on Sunday, October 6th. For a limited time, we're offering our listeners 10% off select tickets.

Speaker 1 Use the code WEIRD10 to unlock the tickets tickets labeled DNC offer. Very specific.
Get your tickets at crooked.com slash events today. We would love to see you in Philly.

Speaker 1 We are also very excited to share that the trailer for Crooked's newest limited series, Empire City, is here.

Speaker 1 In Empire City, the Untold Origin Story of the NYPD, Peabody award-winning host Chenjirai Kumenika takes you deep into the hidden history of one of the largest police forces in the world, from its origins rooted in slavery to rival police gangs battling across the the city to the everyday people who resisted every step of the way.

Speaker 1 It's a captivating and immersive look into New York City's past and a must-listen primer for understanding today's debates around policing, especially in this moment as we gear up for another election.

Speaker 1 This is an excellent show. We've been working on it for years.
Chender is an incredible host. Yeah, he did a series in 2018 called Uncivil that folks might have listened to.
It was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 So when we had the chance to work with him, we jumped at it. So check it out.
Amazing show.

Speaker 1 So you can listen to the trailer out now wherever you get your podcast and follow Empire City on your favorite podcast platform to hear the first two episodes when they premiere on September 9th.

Speaker 1 When we come back, Dan Cananen.

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Speaker 1 Joining us now is the Battleground States Director for the Harris Walls campaign, Dan Kennanet. Dan, it's great to see you, buddy.

Speaker 17 Hey, Dan, hey, John. Good to see you guys.

Speaker 1 Thanks for coming on. Happy to be here.
Let's start with the map. Okay?

Speaker 1 Talk to me about how you guys see your best path to 270.

Speaker 17 The thing I'd say about the race today that's actually pretty similar from the last, really the whole year, is that there are seven or so states, and we talk about them all the time.

Speaker 17 You guys talk about them all the time, but you've got the Blue Wall states of Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and obviously the Sunbelt states in North Carolina and Georgia, and then the western states in Nevada and Arizona and they've been close this entire time.

Speaker 17 I know that some people obsess about the polls.

Speaker 1 Bounce out

Speaker 1 other people.

Speaker 1 No polar coaster. Yes, exactly right.

Speaker 17 But people look at that and obsess a bit, but in truth, all of those seven places share the characteristic of having really close races for Senate, for governor, for president, in multiple cycles in a row.

Speaker 17 And we all know that those election results are way more predictive. We believe there's political gravity in this country.
Stuff's going to snap into a close race kind of regardless.

Speaker 17 And we never really felt that they were out of reach before.

Speaker 17 I think we're strengthened in the Sun Belt, certainly, over the last month or so, but I still believe all seven of those places are destined to be very close. I don't think about it.

Speaker 17 Jen does not think about this like a blue wall path or a southern path.

Speaker 17 There's seven places, any one of which could be the tipping point state, and so we have operations built to scale in all of them to win a close election.

Speaker 1 Are you thinking of North Carolina?

Speaker 1 Like, the way this has been commonly thought of, not by you guys necessarily, but by Yahoos like us, is there are the six, the six that put Biden over the top in 20, the six that Democrats did very well in 2022, and and then there's North Carolina, which is sort of the one potential expansion state.

Speaker 1 Are you treat them all, is North Carolina in the same category as the other six for you guys?

Speaker 17 Sure, it was 1.3 points separating Biden. 73,000 votes, right? It's not that much, right.
And the demographic changes have been good for us in that state over the years.

Speaker 17 Also, you've got a characteristic there, much like in Arizona, with Mark Robinson.

Speaker 17 I mean, what his rhetoric and what he stands for, he's a living embodiment of Donald Trump and mega extremism in that state. Josh Stein is going to win that race for governor.

Speaker 17 We're going to link those two guys. I think those politics are just toxic for suburban voters and some of the new residents of that state.
So it's a tough place to win, Dan, no question about it.

Speaker 17 But we think about that as one of the core seven battlegrounds.

Speaker 1 Can you talk about why the demographic changes there? What are the demographic changes that have made it seem more favorable?

Speaker 17 Yeah, you've got more educated voters coming into the state. You've got folks that are moving in from northern states as well.

Speaker 17 And you've got obviously a population center in the triangle with expansion in the economy,

Speaker 17 new housing, housing, a really blooming place to be. The kind of voters that maybe are not very into politics are not necessarily died in the world Democrats, right?

Speaker 17 But they are not the kind of folks that are attracted to Donald Trump's brand of politics. They just don't want that level of extremism.
And we did see some of that in 2016.

Speaker 17 I mean, Hillary Clinton did well in the suburbs,

Speaker 17 in North Carolina and nationally, and we lost in some of the rural parts of the state, and we didn't quite turn out the cities like we had to.

Speaker 17 And so I think what we've learned since then is it's not enough to have the demographic shifts work in your favor if you just kind of like cleave off a whole section of the state.

Speaker 17 Which is why having an organizing approach with 173 staff, 25 offices, people have been on the ground since January, where in 2016 we had a team built in like July and August.

Speaker 17 We're just starting really at this point in time in 2016. That gives you a runway to really engage people and cut those margins in rural North Carolina.

Speaker 1 Can you talk a little bit about that organizing program in all the states and sort of your strategy for when you have your staff on the ground, your volunteers in the ground, like how they're going about trying to get voters?

Speaker 17 Yep, Yep, so one big advantage we think we have against Trump campaign is they've not done any of this. They've got no infrastructure.

Speaker 17 In North Carolina, we've got 24 offices, 25 actually, to their one. They opened up last month.
Pennsylvania, 36 offices to three. Nevada, 12 to 1.

Speaker 17 You can rinse and repeat that story across all the battleground states. I don't think Trump cares about having a relationship with any person, but certainly not voters, right?

Speaker 17 He's transactional and thinks his cult of personality is good enough. But we built 1,600 staff and growing, 300 offices and growing.

Speaker 17 They're engaging tens of thousands of volunteers who are doing hundreds of thousands and now millions of voter contact attempts in a week. And that's important on the mechanics of an election.

Speaker 17 You can register people, you can turn people out, you can cure ballots. There's lots of things you do to win a tight race with that organization.

Speaker 17 But the other thing it does I think is really underrated in politics is there's a presence and an engagement level. People are bought in the election.

Speaker 17 All this enthusiasm, the 400,000 people that came to this campaign organically when Kamala Harris became the nominee, there was a place for them to go.

Speaker 17 So this last weekend, 2,800 events in Battleground States just that weekend leading into the convention. The Battleground States then shifted 24,000 people in action on Monday.

Speaker 17 We had 400 phone banks on Tuesday night. We had 500 watch parties coming tonight.
Every day there's this new momentum and a place for it to be channeled.

Speaker 17 And what I think that does is it makes the conversation, whether it's over paid media or earned media or just in the discourse, it makes it more real to people when they know someone someone who's been a part of the campaign, they've seen an event in their community, people that look like them and think like them and part of their area are connected to this.

Speaker 17 I think that's how you cut through and actually connect with people in a way that's more real and lasting.

Speaker 1 Rumors are, reports are, that on Friday RFK Jr. is going to drop out.

Speaker 1 Maybe he endorses Trump, maybe he doesn't. We'll put that aside for now.
But have you guys thought a little bit about how that might impact the race?

Speaker 17 I mean, I think his stock overall has tumbled pretty far since the early part of the race.

Speaker 17 He's obviously toxic and has some pretty kooky ideas and is tumbled. So I think less about him at this point, obviously, especially if he decides to exit the race.

Speaker 17 There are some voters that have been kind of parking themselves with him or really any third-party candidate.

Speaker 17 And for his voters in particular, I think those are people that do not want to be with Donald Trump and MAGA for one reason or another, and so they're kind of sitting over there.

Speaker 17 So I think our approach has to be to be inclusive, to be welcoming, to say, look, there's a home here, there's a sane place for politics,

Speaker 17 that can responsibly govern this country, and you don't want to be with that lunatic. And it may be a hard sell for some of those voters, but I think that we can make a good case.

Speaker 17 And so I think less about him, but more the ability to welcome those folks into this campaign.

Speaker 1 And obviously, over the last month, a lot of the Democratic coalition, the anti-MACO coalition, has come home.

Speaker 1 We've seen numbers go up with young voters, black voters, Latino voters, all across the board. Who are the folks that you're still trying to get across the board?

Speaker 1 Give me an example of some of your targets.

Speaker 17 Yeah, I mean, I think there's a bit of an all of the above strategy here because every state's state's going to be so close that we can't have just one pathway.

Speaker 17 So you named a few, Dan, those are definitely places that we've done well, I think in the last month.

Speaker 17 We still have to push on expansion into the suburbs and do better, even better, with Republican women and independent men, especially on reproductive rights, or perhaps on January 6th, people that just cannot be with Donald Trump.

Speaker 17 We want to keep bringing those folks into the tent. I think we have to do really well with union and labor households in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Speaker 17 And the fact that the vice president's been endorsed by 12 unions, John Fane, enthusiastic again on both a convention and in Detroit with UAW, those are huge targets for us as well.

Speaker 17 And then across rural America, whether it's in Wisconsin or eastern North Carolina, having a presence so that we don't get killed. It's not 80-20, it's 60-40 or even 70-30 in some places.

Speaker 17 In Wisconsin, we've got 44 offices, which means a presence there in community, in a state with 72 counties, right? So we're kind of everywhere with the intent of cutting those margins.

Speaker 1 Do you think you guys will use walls in some of those rural areas to try to drive those numbers down?

Speaker 17 Yeah, I think so. I mean, and the vice president as well.
I think the two of them together actually complement in their values. But certainly, Tim Walls, you know, the camo hat's pretty great.

Speaker 17 You've seen us rock that out all week.

Speaker 1 I have a list of 12 people who want me to bring home a camo hat. They can't be found anywhere in America.

Speaker 17 America, I have not been able to find the camo hat yet. I've been looking for one all week.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 Same here.

Speaker 1 One of the biggest challenges this cycle, and it's sort of been a growing challenge over the last several cycles, is reaching voters who just don't pay a lot of attention to politics and sort of don't get their news and information from the places that we all do.

Speaker 1 How are you guys thinking about that challenge now?

Speaker 1 Are more people, I'm guessing many more people are tuned in than they were just a couple months ago, but like how do you see that universe of voters right now?

Speaker 17 So I think that's a great way of thinking about what this moment does for us. The race has not fundamentally changed.

Speaker 17 It is still a very close race, as I said, with states that are like, they're going to be tight and

Speaker 17 razor close at the end. But we have enthusiasm and people that can now carry on that message to cut through.
John, so, I mean, you know this, it's a fractured media environment.

Speaker 17 People are siloed, they can curate their own content, they can go down a rabbit hole of their own making and not really be part of a discourse on a broadcast basis.

Speaker 17 And if you don't have people that can cut through at the doors or on phones, but also in online spaces, our program is a blended organizing program.

Speaker 17 If you're a volunteer, just like in real life, we ask you to volunteer in WhatsApp groups, on Facebook chats.

Speaker 17 A shift these days can mean spending some time on a message board, having a conversation, the same way you would do a phone bank, right?

Speaker 17 So we cut through in all the places people have real conversations with real people, and to do that at scale, so what this enthusiasm does is take the infrastructure we built, that intention, and have enough people to carry forward into those places that can cut through an otherwise pretty fractured media environment.

Speaker 1 How are you feeling about the 2nd District of Nebraska?

Speaker 17 I'm feeling great about the 2nd District of Nebraska. We had a great rally there.
We had 7,000 RCPs within a span of six hours for Tim Walls. He sold the building out, of course.

Speaker 17 Good team on the ground, and I think that we'll have a great chance to win the 2nd District.

Speaker 1 I mean, I hope so.

Speaker 1 I ask that only because I know you guys don't think about paths, but

Speaker 1 the...

Speaker 1 One path depends on the 2nd District of Nebraska. Have you heard anything about Republicans making another run at trying to turn the state into a winner-take-all situation?

Speaker 17 You know, it's not something we track too closely. I think that our message here is to build something on the ground that can be lasting and large.

Speaker 17 The fact that Governor Walls came there and you saw such tremendous enthusiasm for his candidacy, I think helps on all those measures, but we feel good about it.

Speaker 1 There's obviously been a lot of focus on

Speaker 1 the anti-mega coalition coming together over the last month since the vice president's become the nominee and sort of the polls have tightened.

Speaker 1 Is there anything with Kamala Harris as the nominee that now opened up sort of new challenges for you guys that you hadn't had before when Biden was the nominee?

Speaker 17 I mean the challenge that we really have right now, less so about her as a candidate, more so about the fact that it's a different race from a structural standpoint, not with the voters, not with the polls, but structurally with the people coming in.

Speaker 17 We have to run a different kind of campaign now in some respects.

Speaker 17 Yes, we have the infrastructure built, yes he had the offices, he had the staff, he had an approach to people in these battleground states, but now we have to meet the demand of literally hundreds of thousands of people coming in and wanting somewhere to go.

Speaker 17 One, they got to know more about Kamala Harris, they like her, the first impression's been phenomenal, but we got to fill that with a real story story of her bio before the other side does that against us, right?

Speaker 17 And then arm them with the ability to go carry that forward to other voters. So I think every day, and this is what keeps me up at night to the extent anything does, is racing to meet that demand.

Speaker 17 You know, we caught the car in some respects, and so the team has to be built fast enough and stay up, keep up with that so that we can service that.

Speaker 1 Is there anything that you think the Trump campaign is doing well that worries you?

Speaker 17 Well, I'm not sure something they're doing well that worries me. I just know that they have the ability and he has the the ability to completely operate independently from any ethics or morals.

Speaker 17 And so whether it's election interference or denialism or whatever else, you just can't trust that they'll play straight and fair. They won't, right?

Speaker 17 And so I think we're prepared for that. And on that point, nothing like experience.
We saw this in 2020.

Speaker 17 We've had a really good voter protection team, of course, but also a legal operation built way earlier than ever before, taking on challenges even months or years ahead of, more than a year ahead of the actual election, to help set the stage for a strong legal defense in the fall because we know they'll bring stuff that's off the wall, but you have to knock it all down, of course.

Speaker 17 And so that's a place that's unknown for us how they'll do that, but we know that they'll try and the team is prepared.

Speaker 1 Prior to Kamal Harris becoming the nominee, the Republicans were making bones about competing in Virginia, New Mexico,

Speaker 1 New Hampshire.

Speaker 1 Public polling I've seen shows that those are sort of reverted back to where they they are. Do you guys have to play any defense there in terms of, do you have operations built there at all?

Speaker 17 Well, we do. We don't take any votes for granted.
You know, we've got a team in Virginia and in Minnesota, right, in Maine and New Hampshire.

Speaker 17 And we don't expect that we can just not talk to voters and have it work out for us, right? So, yeah, we'll treat voters with respect and have a good operation there.

Speaker 17 Doesn't change for us the theory that they'll score seven, yeah, really the seven. And, you know, we have folks in Florida, too.
Florida's not going to be 2020 Florida.

Speaker 17 It's not the center of the battleground map. That's pretty clear.

Speaker 17 But there's an interest there because there's a ballot measure, there's a really bad ban on abortion, the politics there have been untested in some respects.

Speaker 17 And I'll just point out that what Ron DeSantis has done, which people think works because he's won and now he keeps doing this stuff, but his most extreme politics have not been on the ballot.

Speaker 17 It's all happened since his election. And when it has been on the ballot, Daniel Cameron tried that playbook and lost in Kentucky, right? So I think Florida's interesting.

Speaker 1 We'll test that out a little bit. Okay,

Speaker 1 that's news. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Interesting. It's interesting.
It's interesting. It is an interesting state.

Speaker 1 Maybe news was a little bit of exaggeration there, but it was interesting to me. You know, one thing that keeps us all up at night is whether the data is correct, right?

Speaker 1 In 2020, the polls were off by eight points in some cases. I think the Biden campaign had better date than anyone else, but even still,

Speaker 1 that campaign was in Iowa and Ohio at the end, right?

Speaker 1 Can you talk a little bit about anything you guys have done or that may give you more confidence that you're accurately assessing what the electorate will look like in November?

Speaker 17 Yeah, I mean I think over every single cycle, and you know this, the Democratic data operation iterates. It does not.

Speaker 1 We iterated backwards for a little bit, but we're iterating forward again.

Speaker 17 We're iterating in the correct direction.

Speaker 1 We're not going back. We are going backwards.

Speaker 17 But I have a great deal of confidence that we have a robust operation there that's got a lot of data, a ton of it, a very good approach to how we think about it, a conservative approach to how we evaluate what's real and what's not real.

Speaker 17 You know, I think people watching this back to the polar coaster just shouldn't worry about the head-to-head stuff too much.

Speaker 17 I mean, the data that's the best data, of course, is the actual election results, and we kind of know where that's been.

Speaker 17 But in terms of our operations and what voters we talk to, how we think about registration, how we think about expanding the electorate, where we have to go, I think we have a really sophisticated operation.

Speaker 17 Democrats have put a lot of resources in the last several cycles into making sure it's strong, it's robust, and we have access to it.

Speaker 1 Dan Cannon,

Speaker 1 what's up? For our listeners who are fired up about Kamala Harris and Tim Wallace, where can they go to help you elect their family?

Speaker 17 Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Dan.

Speaker 1 Take us there. I was going to get there.

Speaker 1 Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 17 They can go to go.kamalaHarris.com. I'll say it again: go.kamalaHarris.com, PhoneBank, Canvas Shift, just get involved in any way you can, and we'll sign you up.

Speaker 1 They'll put you to work, guys. They will.
Sign up. Dan Cannon, thank you so much for joining us and good luck out there.

Speaker 17 Thanks, John. Thanks, Dan.

Speaker 1 That's our show for today. We'll be back on Wednesday with Lovett and guest host Simone Sanders-Townsend, Friend of the Pod, MSNBC host, and of course, former Kamala Harris advisor.
Jealous.

Speaker 1 Haven't seen Simone in a while. Talk to y'all soon.

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Speaker 1 Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producer is David Toledo.
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