Joe vs. The Unknown

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Speaker 3 What's up, Boston?

Speaker 6 Good to be home.

Speaker 3 Welcome Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Fabro.

Speaker 7 I'm Mehdi Husson, and I'm kind of the am I the odd one out? I'm the odd one out.

Speaker 8 I'm John Lovett.

Speaker 3 I'm Tommy Vitor.

Speaker 3 I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Speaker 8 And thank you all for being here at tonight's opening act for Love It or Leave It.

Speaker 10 We have a great show for you tonight.

Speaker 3 Your governor, Maura Healy, is here.

Speaker 3 And our guest host this evening, the legendary host, commentator, debater, founder of the new media outlet, Zatayo Medi Hassan. Mehdi, welcome.

Speaker 11 Thank you for having me.

Speaker 12 Thank you very much, boss.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 Let's get right into it

Speaker 3 and start by talking about what's on everyone's mind right now.

Speaker 3 How about them Celtics?

Speaker 3 That's it. That's what we're going to talk about.

Speaker 10 No, we have to talk about the debate.

Speaker 3 On Thursday night, Joe Biden debated a deranged criminal bent on destroying democracy. And according to every single post-debate poll and all of our eyes, the deranged criminal won by a large margin.

Speaker 3 More than 50 million Americans watched the train wreck, which is about 30% fewer viewers than the first debate in 2020, but still quite a big audience. Yeah, you can cheer for that.
That's great.

Speaker 3 Too soon to know how this will affect the race, though the early polls have not been great.

Speaker 3 But the Biden campaign is charging ahead and pointing to the president's livelier performance in North Carolina today. Let's listen.

Speaker 13 Now, folks, I don't know what you did last night, but I spent

Speaker 13 90 minutes on the stage debating a guy who has the morals of an alley cat.

Speaker 3 Close to this.

Speaker 13 I know I'm not a young man.

Speaker 8 State the obvious.

Speaker 13 I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to.
I don't debate as well as I used to.

Speaker 3 But I know what I do know.

Speaker 13 I know how to tell the truth.

Speaker 13 And I know how to do this job.

Speaker 13 I know how to get things done.

Speaker 13 When you get knocked down, you get back up.

Speaker 7 So,

Speaker 8 a lot of Chubba Wumba fans here tonight.

Speaker 3 I love that.

Speaker 3 Donald Trump had a bit of a different take at his rally in Virginia. Let's listen.

Speaker 13 The question every voter should be asking themselves today is not whether Joe Biden can survive a 90-minute debate performance, but whether America can survive four more years of crooked Joe Biden in the White House.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you can boo that.

Speaker 3 All right, Meddy.

Speaker 3 Well, so a lot of our listeners, they've already heard our takes on the debate. So I'm going to start with you.

Speaker 3 I want you to know I don't enjoy doing this, but yesterday before the debate, you tweeted. tweeted.

Speaker 3 I think Republicans will regret setting the bar so low for Biden and helping spread the distorted image of him as a guy who is totally out of it, suffering from dementia, no grip on reality, no ability to speak.

Speaker 3 Any updates there?

Speaker 7 John, it's even worse because there was an extra line at the end of the tweet that said, it's a very low bar for him to clear.

Speaker 7 The update is that the bar was not cleared.

Speaker 3 It was not cleared.

Speaker 7 The update was that I am someone, the reason I wrote that tweet, John, is because for several months, actually for several years, when I was at MSNBC for three years, I did a lot of monologues, a lot of segments saying the age thing, it's not as big as people say.

Speaker 7 Yes, he's old, but that can't be the defining issue when you're up against a deranged, narcissistic fascist who tried to steal democracy.

Speaker 7 And I said for a few weeks since I left MSNBC, same position in the last few months, we had all these distorted videos from Fox, the TikTok nonsense.

Speaker 3 It's like, come on, this is bullshit.

Speaker 3 And then last night happened. Yeah.

Speaker 7 And I can't say that anymore.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 7 And from like 9.01, I couldn't say that anymore. I don't know what I was watching.

Speaker 3 Because as I say, I wrote the tweet.

Speaker 7 I thought this should be straightforward. I don't know what I was watching.

Speaker 7 The inability to finish whispered sentences, the deer in the headlights, the inability to actually, my biggest complaint about last night was separate to age or abilities.

Speaker 7 I want a presidential candidate who is going to batter Donald Trump because Donald Trump is for the battering. And

Speaker 3 he didn't do well. Like Donald Trump turned in a terrible performance.

Speaker 7 He turned in the second worst debate performance we have seen in 2024.

Speaker 3 RFA russia

Speaker 7 Joe Biden lost a debate to a guy last night who, when he was asked about climate change, said, We had H2O.

Speaker 7 That is what he said.

Speaker 3 I took that note. I had notes on the debate.
And so I I would once in a while type out something that Donald Trump said, and then every time Joe Biden would speak, I would just type, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 7 He said we had H2O, and Joe Biden, of course, passed the biggest climate investment in American history. And yet, Donald Trump said we had H2O, not in a whisper, and with a great confidence.

Speaker 10 And therefore, he wins the debate.

Speaker 7 And I'm not okay with that. But you have to live in the world as it is, not as the world was that we want it to be.

Speaker 7 And that's why I think it is a real problem for the the Democrats now to have Joe Biden over the next few months. I have not said that until now.

Speaker 7 I'm not somebody who's been saying, get rid of him, get rid of. After last night, I have to be honest and say, I don't know how we continue like this.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Tommy, let's talk about the Biden campaign's reaction and strategy going forward. You heard the president's speech in Raleigh.

Speaker 3 The campaign also says that after the debate, they had their best hour of fundraising yet. They've raised $14 million since last night.

Speaker 3 They are claiming that their own focus groups in polling look better.

Speaker 3 And other than that, full speed ahead.

Speaker 3 What do you think of their strategy and sort of Biden's message at the rally where he acknowledged what happened?

Speaker 6 Yeah, so we all watched the rally.

Speaker 14 I think

Speaker 14 it was good that in his remarks, I think President Biden acknowledged the obvious, which is that last night didn't go well. It was sort of an oblique reference to it, but he acknowledged it.

Speaker 14 It was smart to do a big rally. to show some energy behind a campaign that could use it right now.

Speaker 14 I think Biden was able to deliver some lines at this North Carolina event that they probably wanted him to land last night.

Speaker 14 So maybe that will help kind of shape the narrative on the margins, but you know, we'll see. But I do think we have to be honest about some big challenges.

Speaker 14 The first of which is exponentially more people will watch the debate last night and the coverage of that debate than will ever see this rally. And that's just an unfortunate fact.

Speaker 14 The second is, I just, we're grading on a curve here. Yeah.
You know, like we're comparing a rally today to a very bad performance the other night.

Speaker 14 And, you know, if you really dig into the performance, like, Biden is sticking with some lines that I feel like just don't really work.

Speaker 14 Like, I don't know what's going on with the alley cat comparison.

Speaker 14 Why are we attacking unhoused cats?

Speaker 3 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 I didn't know

Speaker 3 they're known for their bad morality. Lack of morality.

Speaker 7 I didn't know.

Speaker 8 They live in the fucking alley.

Speaker 8 What are you begrudging them? Oh, look at that immoral alley cat going through my garbage. What do you want it to do?

Speaker 7 The Supreme Court criminalized them living in those alleys just this morning.

Speaker 3 Now we're going after a bunch of unhoused alley cats.

Speaker 14 All cats are serial killers.

Speaker 3 I had cats. I love cats.

Speaker 14 They would leave dead bodies on our doorstep all the time.

Speaker 15 If you die in your home, they will eat you.

Speaker 8 I don't want to live in a world where rich cats are held to one set of fucking rules.

Speaker 14 That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 He is also very proud of this line, comparing Donald Trump to Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover was president from 1929 to 1933.

Speaker 9 That is not a cultural touchstone for a lot of people.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but like, you really remember your college years, you know?

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 14 I'm not a doomer. I'm not even close to giving up.
The fundraising numbers, I think, are good. A lot of this campaign will be waged through paid advertising.

Speaker 14 But like I still feel like last night President Biden dug a deep hole and I don't I'm not yet comfortable feeling that he has the capacity the communication skills to get out of that hole.

Speaker 14 I think it's going to require some more work.

Speaker 3 Just to do a hard swerve here in what we've been doing, let's talk about what he said, not how he said it at this rally. Because I think there's something concerning there, right?

Speaker 3 I'm with you on the alley cat thing. Strange, weird, doesn't really hit.
Thank you. But what what he said about his own debate performance, that's the right thing to do.

Speaker 3 You're supposed to go out and say you did poorly and then try to pivot to a better argument.

Speaker 3 What I am concerned about with the Alley Cat and the Trump lying is we are now pivoting back to an argument about who Donald Trump is. America knows who Donald Trump is.

Speaker 3 What this campaign should be about and what I think President Biden was intending to do with that debate last night was to make this race about what Donald Trump will do.

Speaker 3 And that is so essentially important.

Speaker 3 There are not a bunch of people who are just going to wake up tomorrow and realize Donald Trump's an asshole. They know that, right?

Speaker 3 They're not going to wake up and realize he's a liar and change their vote.

Speaker 3 They have to focus on the damage he would do to their lives, the freedoms he would take away, what he would control if he gets reelected.

Speaker 3 And that has to be the message every single day going forward because we're running out of time here.

Speaker 7 I totally agree with Dan. And I think

Speaker 3 there were...

Speaker 7 There were two words missing from the 90 minutes last night, Project 2025. I would like

Speaker 7 to have many, too of many.

Speaker 7 But I would like the media to be talking about this. I would like the Democrats to be talking about this.

Speaker 7 I would like Trump to be put on the spot for what he plans to do in terms of putting the military on the streets and ripping families apart, et cetera, et cetera, firing half the government.

Speaker 7 And we have to ask some questions about the CNN debate coverage as well, right?

Speaker 7 I'm not going to defend Joe Biden's performance, but it took them 39 minutes to mention the fact that the guy on stage is a convicted criminal.

Speaker 7 I would argue that should have been 39 seconds into the I mean,

Speaker 3 I know, but like they probably, I am sure that Jake and Danner were like, well,

Speaker 3 Joe Biden is debating a convicted felon. He's probably going to bring that up on his own relatively early in the debate

Speaker 3 since no presidential candidate has ever debated a convicted felon before. Look, Biden failed in that.

Speaker 7 And we can park that and say Biden failed at that, but the media's role there as ever. I mean, I spent nine years trying to stop the normalization of Donald Trump in our media.

Speaker 7 I spent the last three years trying to stop the rehabilitation of Donald Trump in our media. I have failed miserably at both tasks.
And I think last night's debate was evidence of that.

Speaker 7 Donald Trump is standing up there in the first debate since he was impeached for trying to overturn American democracy, since he was found guilty for financial crimes, since he was adjudicated as a rapist by a judge in a civil trial.

Speaker 7 And we opened with, what about the economy? As if this is like any other presidential debate.

Speaker 3 What the hell?

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 by the way, by the way,

Speaker 7 John very kindly said, I'm a guy who likes to debate. I do.
That was not a debate. You can't moderate a debate if you're not moderating.
There has to be some kind of fact-checking.

Speaker 7 Donald Trump can't say, hey, they're trying to kill babies in Virginia. And then you go, thank you.

Speaker 3 Over to you, Joseph.

Speaker 8 I just don't. I just like, I fundamentally disagree with what we watched.
There were plenty of times in that debate,

Speaker 8 multiple times the moderators followed up. The question was about the child tax credit, or the question was about, would you accept the election? I think they went back and forth.

Speaker 8 I just think like, sure. in a debate, a live-fire exercise like that, are they going to follow up at every moment? No.
But

Speaker 8 I do not believe any change in how that debate was moderated would have changed the outcome because ultimately that was not a failure of moderation. That was a failure of Joe Biden.

Speaker 8 There were plenty of moments where Joe Biden didn't do the basics that shouldn't have been up to the moderator.

Speaker 8 It wasn't their job to discover in real time that the person that showed up wasn't the Joe Biden of the State of the Union, but something much, much worse.

Speaker 8 And the reality is, I think Tommy's right, we are grading on a curve. And you know what? That would be okay.

Speaker 8 We could accept that the best Joe Biden we could get was maybe the Joe Biden at the rally or the Joe Joe Biden at the State of the Union, but not when the worst Joe Biden we

Speaker 8 ever seen showed up at the most important moment in this campaign. That is the problem.
It's not that his best isn't good enough. It's that his worst is too low for us to potentially get out of.

Speaker 8 And I don't know how to get out of that, but we just have to be honest about it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Love it, you'll be shocked to learn that Republicans are feeling great.

Speaker 3 They're kind of just stepping back, eating popcorn while the news cycle plays out and the the terrible debate clips make the rounds.

Speaker 3 Though Speaker Mike Johnson and others are calling the cabinet to remove Biden from office using the 25th Amendment, it seems like that's gilding the lily.

Speaker 3 But what do you think, and what did you make of Trump's rally?

Speaker 8 You know, one of the points Trump made in his rally was like, oh, it's not about how old Joe Biden is, it's about his incompetence, because he is well aware that he doesn't have to do any work on the question of whether or not Joe Biden is too old, because Joe Biden's doing that work for him.

Speaker 8 There was a moment where Trump was shit talking Joe Biden by doing a golf swing and saying, let's see Joe Biden do that. Like, this is a victory lap because he's winning.

Speaker 8 I mean, it wasn't a draw, and we needed better than a draw. So of course they're going around and crowing.
Of course they're going to do the same 25th Amendment schtick that we did.

Speaker 8 They're having a great fucking time. It's a great time.
Don't you think Trump's like, hey guys, chill with the whole 25th Amendment thing?

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Let's just wait this out and let's let this thing play out for a minute.

Speaker 7 You think he doesn't want to do?

Speaker 14 I think he probably is pretty happy with the state of the race.

Speaker 7 I think Donald Trump is the master of the hashtag every accusation is a convention, right?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 7 So he's mastered, everything he's ever said is taken from the other side. Fake news began as something about right-wing media.
He weaponized it to make it about the media.

Speaker 7 And of course, if somebody accused him of, you know, we know that his own cabinet were considering the 25th Amendment. He loves this shit.
He probably told him, go put it out there. 25th Amendment.

Speaker 14 I think he didn't want him to go through with it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I saw some Republican tell reporter, like, maybe we went a little too far because we needed Biden to be bad, but not so bad we get someone else, right?

Speaker 8 Well, that's that's wondering that too.

Speaker 6 Right.

Speaker 8 I mean, I think it's a little be careful with, they're a little bit of caught the car here because of how bad it was.

Speaker 8 But I do think it's worth pointing out a distinction because, you know, I've seen people compare the Democratic reaction to Joe Biden to internal Republican concerns that they've had about Donald Trump.

Speaker 8 But there's an important distinction, which is I think Democrats right now, they're nervous and scared for the country because they understand the stakes of this election.

Speaker 8 And I think that leads some people to believe the right thing to do is to embrace Joe Biden and continue on this path, and others to believe that we need an open convention.

Speaker 8 But the one thing we're not is scared of each other.

Speaker 8 Republicans were afraid to question Donald Trump, not because they cared about the country, but because they were afraid of Donald Trump, because they believed Donald Trump was a threat, not just to the country, but to their own safety.

Speaker 8 That if they were honest about the threat MAGA posed, they would face physical intimidation, that they'd be having to worry for their families, that they would get death threats.

Speaker 8 And I do think part of what is, I think, good about this moment is that we are reacting to this with like good old-fashioned democracy and having this open conversation, collectively trying to figure out what the best thing to do with it.

Speaker 7 But are we doing that? Because you're right.

Speaker 7 There is the threat, you know, Joe Biden's not going to send people out to try and kill you or incite your death.

Speaker 7 But the conversation, is it really happening? I mean, we're let's say that's what we're doing.

Speaker 3 We're trying.

Speaker 7 We're trying, but

Speaker 3 like.

Speaker 14 Not at a senior level. You're right.

Speaker 7 But this morning, everyone's like, it has to be Jill and Barack.

Speaker 3 And then Barack said no.

Speaker 3 I know. I don't know what that tweet was all about.

Speaker 8 Well, look, if you go by, look, I think public-facing Democrats are not putting their names to this, but in private, my goodness, are they being honest? Isn't that exciting?

Speaker 8 These anonymous Democrats are

Speaker 3 so smart.

Speaker 3 They're so brave when they don't put their names on it, when they text the reporter.

Speaker 3 The ultimate collective action problem here, which again, which is what you said, which has been the Republican story since 2016. All these Republicans selling reporters like, we don't want Trump.

Speaker 3 I don't like Trump. I think Trump is crazy, crazy, but I don't want to be the one to say that because I don't want to get in trouble.
And it's just a very,

Speaker 3 yeah, we don't want to be like that. We don't want to be like that.
But there's two parts to this, right?

Speaker 3 Like, there is right now, it is understandable that a lot of people who desperately like Joe Biden, care about Joe Biden, and want to defeat Donald Trump rush to his defense at this moment, right?

Speaker 3 Gavin Newsom, who was on everyone's list as someone who would run if the seat became open, was in the spin room. Like, what's he going to say, right?

Speaker 7 I mean, it would have been cool if you had just declared the nomination.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 8 But

Speaker 3 the person who throws the first stone is not going to be the nominator. You don't want to be holding the knife.

Speaker 3 You're not yet, like, if you're the one holding the knife, you're not getting the nomination.

Speaker 7 I would have liked to watch the debate last night with Dean Phillips. That would have been fine.

Speaker 6 What did he say?

Speaker 3 He got asked about it. He had a quote from Guy.
Something cryptic. Yeah, he said, don't speak if it won't upset the silence or something like that.
It was very good.

Speaker 3 But there's going to be another, like, there's this moment right now, and Biden has done a lot, and people have spoken out to stem the immediate bleeding.

Speaker 3 But the question is going to be, what happens in the polls polls over the next 10 to 14 days, right? It is possible that this moves it just a little bit, or maybe it moves it a lot.

Speaker 3 And if it moves a lot, all of a sudden you're going to have a bunch of people who are Democrats running in red states or purple states or in purple districts who are all of a sudden going to freak out, right, if their numbers drop because of it.

Speaker 3 And we'll have to see what happens.

Speaker 3 But the big difference is, because

Speaker 3 we've talked about this, we all went through this when Obama had a horrible first debate against Mitt Romney. The difference is,

Speaker 3 first of all, it wasn't as bad as this, but

Speaker 3 the big thing, but even if it was, it was October, right? Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee.

Speaker 3 Just about every candidate, Republican or Democrat, who has had a terrible disaster of a debate in the presidential debate, it's been in the fall after the party has nominated them officially.

Speaker 3 And now we are in a situation where if this was in October, we probably wouldn't be up here talking about this right now. We'd be like, yeah, it sucked.

Speaker 3 We have a couple weeks to the election, and we all just got to bear down and figure this out.

Speaker 3 But we have five weeks right now.

Speaker 6 Exactly. So

Speaker 3 we have not nominated Joe Biden yet. So Dan, we talked last night about how it's not too late for Joe Biden to step aside if he decides the debate fallout is just too damaging.

Speaker 3 And he has to decide because it is too hard.

Speaker 3 It's his decision.

Speaker 3 No one's challenging him.

Speaker 3 People voted for him. The delegates are his.
So he's got to decide. There are no indications so far that he'll do that.

Speaker 3 But one question we keep getting from everyone is, if he were to do that, what happens next?

Speaker 3 Like, what are the steps and what does the Democratic convention in Chicago and the weeks leading up to it look like?

Speaker 3 So you made an important point. It's not just that no one is going to challenge him.
It's that no one can challenge him. He has a overwhelming majority of the delegates legally pledged to him.

Speaker 3 They are legally obligated in many states by state law to vote for the winner of the state's popular vote on the first ballot.

Speaker 3 So if all of a sudden Dean Phillips or some other Democrat were to come out and say, this is a bad idea, I'm going to challenge him, that means nothing. That person has no access to delegates.

Speaker 3 They could possibly get the sliver of uncommitted delegates from people who voted uncommitted in the primaries, but that would be nowhere near what you would need.

Speaker 3 So I think if Joe Biden were to decide tomorrow that he was not going to run, he was going to step aside, he was going to finish his term as president, but not run for re-election, There are two paths.

Speaker 3 The first path is he steps aside and he says, I am endorsing Kamala Harris, my vice president, to be the party's nominee.

Speaker 3 Someone could challenge her, but what likely happens there is that all of Biden's delegates, if he's not running, become unpledged.

Speaker 3 They can vote for anyone on the first ballot, but they're all people that his campaign hand-picked and are loyal to the president.

Speaker 3 So if he were to say, I would like my delegates to support my vice president, she likely becomes a nominee. The party coalesces around her.

Speaker 3 I would be shocked if anyone of consequence, the other people we talked about, Newsome, Whitmer, et cetera, were to run. And so the general election against Donald Trump would start that day.

Speaker 3 She'd be the presumptive nominee. She would have to pick a vice presidential nominee.
She'd still have to be ratified by the convention, but that'd be a no-drama event.

Speaker 3 And we would just be off and running Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump. Maybe she ends up debating him in September, that previously scheduled debate.

Speaker 3 The other option would be that Biden steps aside and says, I'm going to let the process play itself out. Some number of Democrats,

Speaker 3 more than five, maybe as many as 50, would announce they're running for president.

Speaker 3 And those people would begin a sprint to get support from delegates. They would do meetings.
They'd seek endorsements. They'd come on Pot Save America at every possible opportunity.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 3 they would head towards the convention and we'd get to the convention.

Speaker 3 And it's theoretically possible that someone, some ticket, a person or a ticket that formed together could amass endorsements from enough delegates that others would drop out.

Speaker 3 But the most likely scenario is what we call a brokered convention. They would go there and they would address the convention.

Speaker 3 The delegates would vote. You would need to get just about 2,000 votes to win because you have to get the majority.
It's not plurality. You have to get a majority of the delegates.

Speaker 3 So you'd have your five candidates who make it all the way there. They all address the convention, convention, and votes.
Almost certainly no one gets a majority in that scenario. They vote again.

Speaker 3 And then the second vote, the superdelegates come in, right? Super delegates, second vote, the superdelegates come in.

Speaker 3 The superdelegates, 700 superdelegates are party officials, officials, elected officials, former presidents, former party chairs. They all get a vote.

Speaker 3 They used to be more involved in the process than they weren't because it was like too much influence from party insiders.

Speaker 3 And so now they can't vote in the first ballot, but in the second ballot, the superdelegates are not. Right, they can't pick the nominee.

Speaker 3 They can't influence who becomes the nominee on the first ballot, but they can get involved in the second ballot. And you just keep voting and keep voting.

Speaker 3 and keep voting until you get an actual nominee. This was actually an episode of The West Wing at one time, which is why everyone calls this sorkin-ask fan fiction.

Speaker 8 And twists, it worked.

Speaker 3 And in that case, it did work.

Speaker 3 And so

Speaker 3 the question is: that could be incredibly messy, it could be incredibly divisive, or it could be a process that ends with everyone understanding that whoever eventually gets the majority, we're going to coalesce behind them, because there is nothing more important than beating Donald Trump.

Speaker 7 Dan, that is. What you just did

Speaker 7 is a fantastic and invaluable explainer. But just for the crowd, I just want you to add on something else.
What happens between August and November?

Speaker 7 If something happens, if Biden falls out, or God forbid, something happens to his health.

Speaker 3 Well, I left out actually a very important wrinkle in this whole process, which is as of right now, the DNC is actually planning on scheduling a virtual roll call so that Joe Biden can officially become the nominee before

Speaker 3 the convention because in order to be on the ballot by state law in Ohio, you have to have the nominee by August 7th. Our convention starts on August 19th.

Speaker 3 So we would have to either cancel that roll call, either have to move it up and do this all by virtual roll call, which seems impossible to me, or you'd have to get Ohio to change the law, which they do not want to do because they don't want to make things easy for us.

Speaker 3 And it's a Republican governor and a republican. Republican Republican legislature.
Or agree not to be on the ballot in Ohio. Now, that seems

Speaker 3 we're not competing.

Speaker 3 Biden's not going to compete in Ohio, or are the Democrats not going to compete in Ohio, but not having a presidential candidate on the ballot could, because Trump will be on the ballot, could affect turnout for Sharon Brown and congressional races there.

Speaker 3 So that is an important wrinkle. Now, what happens if Biden were to decide afterwards?

Speaker 3 The DNC actually scarily explored this in 2016 when Hillary Clinton had that incident on 9-11, which had a concussion. And

Speaker 3 would the DNC members would get together and pick a new nominee?

Speaker 3 Now, that person would almost certainly be Kamala Harris because she would be the one person who had been ratified by a majority of the delegates as vice president.

Speaker 3 But so they have the power to change it. Now, it's even more complicated if the states have printed their ballots.
Oh.

Speaker 3 Because we've had situations in the past, like in 2000, when the governor of Missouri died in a plane crash, his name was on the ballot, and

Speaker 3 he ended up winning. His wife said she would fill his seat.
So you could be in a world. If that were to happen, Biden could still be on the ballot, but not running for president.

Speaker 3 But a vote for Biden could elect.

Speaker 3 So it's complicated.

Speaker 3 Democracy. Jesus.

Speaker 3 Everybody feels good. How's that? That good? Yeah.
Happy Friday. You thinking about it? All right.
When we come back,

Speaker 3 we are bringing out your governor, Maura Healy.

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Speaker 3 Welcome back.

Speaker 3 So, we are in Boston to help launch our new book, Democracy or Else.

Speaker 3 Seems like

Speaker 3 Else is winning right now, but that's okay.

Speaker 3 But because Tommy and I are proud mass holes,

Speaker 3 we're always looking for an excuse to come back home.

Speaker 3 And we are especially excited to be here right now

Speaker 3 that you've elected a fantastic Democrat to represent the Commonwealth again.

Speaker 10 Please welcome to the stage your governor, Maura Healy.

Speaker 3 Oh my god, this is the best thing ever. Are you kidding me?

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 14 Holy shit, there's a lot of sugar in this.

Speaker 3 Oh my god.

Speaker 16 Not enough for me.

Speaker 14 This reminds me of the summer I spent, the summer between high school and college.

Speaker 14 I painted the exterior of houses and I would get a Dunkin' Nistal extra sugar, triple cream, you know, kind of white goop up to here. So thank you very much.

Speaker 21 And it's hard to paint at 10 o'clock at night because you'd still be up.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. Governor, I will tell you what this reminds me of a couple hours ago

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 I have had four of these since we've been in Boston.

Speaker 6 It's amazing. And he had like six in New York, too.

Speaker 3 Six in New York, too. I love Dunkin' Donuts.

Speaker 14 John postmates Dunkin' Donuts to his house in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 I do.

Speaker 9 He lives and dies this house.

Speaker 3 And you know what? I postmate the coffee with this exact donut because my son Charlie is obsessed with this donut. So thank you.
This is amazing.

Speaker 1 Good for Charlie. Welcome home, guys.

Speaker 3 Welcome.

Speaker 21 Let's welcome these guys back to Massachusetts.

Speaker 3 Honestly, right?

Speaker 21 North Reading, we have North Reading in the house.

Speaker 3 North Reading?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 There we go. There we go.
And Wusta? Hornet.

Speaker 21 And Dedham.

Speaker 3 Dedham.

Speaker 3 What's up, Dedham? Amazing. How are you?

Speaker 3 I said Dedham, not Dover.

Speaker 14 Oh, no, Dedham. I'm Dedham.
My mom's Dover.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 So I want to start with a topic I know you must be as excited as we are to talk about last night's debate.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 I love Joe Biden. I support Joe Biden.
I am eternally grateful to Joe Biden for defeating Donald Trump and for accomplishing just an amazing number of things as president.

Speaker 3 As you just heard us talk about, what I am worried about is Joe Biden's ability to defeat Donald Trump again.

Speaker 3 What about Joe Biden's performance last night makes you confident that he can beat Donald Trump again?

Speaker 21 Well, I was going to say, how about those Celtics?

Speaker 3 See, yeah, that would have been easier.

Speaker 21 No, I mean, I think what we got to remember here, this is about defeating Donald Trump. And for all of

Speaker 21 Joe Biden's failures last night, and it was a big fail. I mean, that was horrible.
It was tough to watch. We also had standing next to him somebody who just repeatedly lied.

Speaker 21 And actually, if you weren't so distracted watching Joe Biden and listened, what he said was downright scary.

Speaker 21 So I think, John, part of what gives me confidence is that this is about defeating Donald Trump, what he says he will do, what he's talked about.

Speaker 21 Because if there's one thing we know from the Trump years, as the guy who brags to this day about overturning Roe, when he says something, he's going to do it.

Speaker 21 So I think that's where we are right now, and we need to settle from the other night,

Speaker 21 but continue to really press on what this is about. And this is about keeping Donald Trump out of the Oval Office.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, for sure.

Speaker 21 And I think it's also about talking about what has happened the last few years that has been good. People's rights and freedoms have been protected.
We're on a new course.

Speaker 21 We see the benefit of it here in Massachusetts, where we are home to North America's first utility-scale offshore wind facility.

Speaker 21 All of that is happening because Joe Biden and that administration is standing up a climate economy.

Speaker 21 So these are some of the good things that we really need to be focused on and talking about and that are very important. I mean, look at the healthy economy.

Speaker 21 How many students are worried about debt right now? How many young people can't afford homes right now? Joe Biden's building homes. He's relieving student debt, right?

Speaker 21 He's finding ways to grow salaries. We've got a problem with inflation, no doubt, right? But we had a heck of a lot to come out of and to come through.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and he's done an incredible job, and

Speaker 3 he's clearly a better choice on every single issue. A couple other New England Democrats were asked about this today.
Senator Gene Shaheen

Speaker 3 said, we'll let the process play out. Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island said, it's Joe Biden's decision.

Speaker 3 If Joe Biden called you and asked for your advice and said, you know, I'm not sure what I should do, should I stay in? Should I not, what would you tell Joe Biden?

Speaker 21 You know, the one thing I think I believe so deeply about Joe Biden is that he is a true patriot. He loves this country, and he's a thoroughly decent human being.

Speaker 21 I don't think it's about telling Joe Biden anything.

Speaker 3 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 9 So, Governor,

Speaker 14 you ticked through some of President Biden's accomplishments that helped younger voters, but it's a fact that the Biden campaign is doing very well with people over 65, but is struggling badly with younger voters.

Speaker 14 How do you think the campaign should tweak its message or its policy to make sure that they're appealing to Bill Belichick and his girlfriend?

Speaker 3 Ouch!

Speaker 3 Ouch!

Speaker 21 We got this guy. Do you know, we got this new guy, though.
This Gerard Mayo, though.

Speaker 3 Great coach.

Speaker 21 Good things. You know, we just, we're going to build on winning streaks here.

Speaker 21 You know, I don't know, more 0.5s, maybe?

Speaker 21 I think it's about talking

Speaker 3 to the issues.

Speaker 21 I mean, this is about defeating Donald Trump. But I'll tell you, the one thing we have to do is remind young people what this is about.
Young people care about the economy.

Speaker 21 They actually want to be able to afford a house. They want to be able to afford to have a kid, right? They want to be able to grow in a career and in opportunities.

Speaker 21 And, you know, Donald Trump's the guy who all he did was cut taxes for the very, very wealthy.

Speaker 21 You know, it's been Democrats who've been finding ways to relieve student debt, to build more housing, to support the middle class.

Speaker 21 It's Donald Trump who wants to raise costs, including by doing things like cutting Social Security and cutting Medicare, which are for you know an older population.

Speaker 21 But those are also people's parents, right?

Speaker 21 So if you're young, you care about the economy, you care about health care, you sure care about access to reproductive health care you're did you know in Worcester John knows this John John spent a long time at the cross the cross and we love Bob and we love Bob Cousy

Speaker 21 do you know what else Worcester produced other than the amazing favs

Speaker 22 the birth control pill you got it

Speaker 21 so young people you know young people actually care about things like having access to contraception and health care generally and they care a lot about climate.

Speaker 21 They care a lot about climate, and they are not going to be well served by somebody who is just going to allow billionaires and fossil fuel CEOs to write a check and determine the fate of this country and this planet.

Speaker 21 That's what young people have to know.

Speaker 14 Didn't Clarence Thomas go to Holy Cross?

Speaker 3 He did. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Me and Clarence Thomas. And Bill Simmons.

Speaker 14 When it comes to birth control, Worcester giveth and taketh away, I suppose.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 tough, tough but fair. Apologies.

Speaker 14 So Governor, you recently sent a team down to the border to basically educate migrants about the lack of space in homeless shelters here in Massachusetts.

Speaker 14 For those who don't know, I believe Massachusetts is the only state in the country that has a right to shelter law.

Speaker 14 I believe it was passed in 1983 by Governor Dukakis, an incredibly kind, decent, empathetic effort. but that I think has been sort of overtaken by events, right, because of changes in migration.

Speaker 14 What does it say to you about how broken our immigration system is when the governor of a state sort of has to send delegates to essentially say, please don't come to our state because it might overwhelm the services?

Speaker 3 I mean, how can you even address that?

Speaker 21 Yeah, Tommy, well, I mean, this is not a new issue.

Speaker 21 And most recently, it's Republicans in Congress who passed twice, failed to take action on necessary border reform, immigration reform, that would have included relief for states like Massachusetts that are now having to house this extraordinary number of new migrants because of the geopolitical situation and the violence in other countries.

Speaker 21 So

Speaker 21 that's just a damn shame, right? That there was a path,

Speaker 21 there were things that were going to be done. So I support the president's executive action.
I think that's absolutely necessary.

Speaker 21 And what I've said here, and I'm proud of the people of Massachusetts because we have found ways to house people, but we've reached full capacity here.

Speaker 21 The good news is we've been able to process people for work permits. So, you know, about 3,700 out of 4,000 have been processed for work permits.
They're working now.

Speaker 21 They're taking ESL, right? And they're here lawfully.

Speaker 21 And, you know, that's, but I but I wanted to send folks to the border because I needed to communicate to service providers and others there that the situation here in Massachusetts.

Speaker 21 And, you know, we are a humane people and we are a humane state, but we don't want people coming here if we're not going to be able to safely house them. And that's where we're at.

Speaker 21 But what needs to happen is that this is a federal issue. The federal government and Congress need to act.

Speaker 21 And if you put governors in the room and they were honest with you, Republican and Democrat, we'd sort this out because

Speaker 21 we know what needs to happen, but there's a lack of political will right now and

Speaker 21 a lot of

Speaker 21 obviously politics and gamesmanship. And it's ridiculous because people are paying the price.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 you mentioned some of what you've been doing around the issue of abortion. You recently asked health care providers in the state to stockpile doses of abortion medication.

Speaker 3 You said this week,

Speaker 3 you said this week that if Trump and Republicans in a possible Trump administration actually enact a national abortion ban, that you would absolutely not enforce it in the state.

Speaker 3 How confident are you that could withstand legal challenges and a potential future administration that has talked about like sending federal agents and troops into recalcitant blue states that don't pay attention to what they want to do on abortion, immigration.

Speaker 3 How are you thinking about that?

Speaker 21 Well, I'm just thinking about what's right, you know, and I can wear my old hat as an attorney general and talk about protecting the freedom of choice, the freedom of bodily autonomy.

Speaker 21 I mean, how outrageous is it that right now, because of Donald Trump and what he said he would do, which he then did in overturning Roe, one in three American women live in a state with an abortion ban.

Speaker 21 I mean, it's outrageous.

Speaker 21 So, I think my job is to make sure in Massachusetts, you know, after Dobbs, we stockpiled doses of Miffy, so we have those for years to come because I want women here protected.

Speaker 21 We passed laws to make sure that patients and providers here and elsewhere were protected. And yes, this week I issued an executive order.

Speaker 21 Knowing this case was up and coming out of the Supreme Court that said, in Massachusetts, let's be clear: any woman who needs emergency care, including emergency abortion care, hospitals are going to provide it and insurers are going to cover it.

Speaker 21 That is the way it's going to continue to be. So,

Speaker 21 I.

Speaker 12 Governor,

Speaker 14 when I was a kid,

Speaker 14 when John was a kid, New York was our sports rival.

Speaker 8 The Yankees always beat us.

Speaker 14 The Mets and the Rangers had like one year each. We won't talk about it.

Speaker 14 We lost some games to the Jets in the regular season. The Knicks were okay.

Speaker 14 Now the whole state is pathetic.

Speaker 14 Do we need a new rival to replace New York when it comes to sports?

Speaker 3 Ouch!

Speaker 21 I love that. And we also got got to tweak Dan, right? Because Dan's from Philly.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I mean, it's really,

Speaker 21 isn't it a shame?

Speaker 6 Is it,

Speaker 9 do you ever get sick of riding on duckboats?

Speaker 21 Good times.

Speaker 3 That,

Speaker 21 we've been so blessed, right?

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 14 Is the duckboat maintenance built like through the roof?

Speaker 3 You got to get some budget cuts?

Speaker 14 It's the tires, you know they wear but seriously you were telling us upstairs how much you love this celtics team how fun it was to be out with them i mean just talk about it for me because you're you are a you are a basketball fan you are a basketball player um so you understand the sport you've lived and bled on the court with folks like tell us what this team meant to you my god well who's from massachusetts here right

Speaker 3 yes

Speaker 21 I mean, this team was awesome. And

Speaker 21 they're just to a person such incredible humans. They're out in the community.
They're doing all sorts of things.

Speaker 21 But what I loved about this team, and it reminds me of 86, too, and you're too young, but we had these guys, Bird,

Speaker 21 that's Larry Bird.

Speaker 21 Parrish and Mikhail and Ainge and DJ, these guys, and there were superstars, but on any given night, people were ready to step up and play. And with this team, it was the same thing.

Speaker 21 You know, we had all these people who were like, any given night, somebody was ready to show.

Speaker 21 And so the other thing I like about this team is it's really hard if you're number one and you're at the top to go into the playoffs with that pressure and perform the way they did.

Speaker 21 And it's super cool.

Speaker 21 They're built for success. So hopefully

Speaker 21 we'll give them a break and

Speaker 21 root on our Red Sox and our Patriots and

Speaker 21 then soon it'll be back in the garden for the Celts.

Speaker 14 So I saw that a couple weeks ago you named, I think it was June 12th, Tom Brady Day. You said you issued a proclamation that he was a goat.

Speaker 14 We love GOAT debates here, and I guess we're sports media for the next six minutes.

Speaker 14 None of our listeners know what the fuck we're talking about, right?

Speaker 3 It's like

Speaker 6 the VEM diagram for this episode is like one guy.

Speaker 9 He works for us.

Speaker 6 His name is Elijah.

Speaker 14 Let's do something really annoying for you. Can we rank the following Celtics greats?

Speaker 14 Larry Bird, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, Paul Pierce, Bill Russell.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 21 let me go through all different eras, okay?

Speaker 21 I go back to Bill Russell, who played with Koozie. Bill Russell, iconic, his civil rights,

Speaker 21 all the work that he advanced.

Speaker 21 Just an incredible education.

Speaker 3 Bill Russell also gave us Bob Koozie. Enough with Clarence Thomas.

Speaker 14 You know what you did.

Speaker 21 So, you know, it's hard to, he's in his own category. And then Larry Bird, you know, he's in his own category.
The way he saw the floor and everything that he was able to do.

Speaker 21 The Jays, you know, here they're starting out. They're 26, 27, so let's give them a few years, you know? And I love Paul.
It was great to see Paul back with his headband in the garden.

Speaker 21 He also had a good title. So that is a very politic way of non-responding.

Speaker 3 Smart, smart.

Speaker 10 I would say beautifully handled.

Speaker 14 And Paul Pierce, if you're listening, stay off the live streams, you know?

Speaker 14 Another joke for like seven people.

Speaker 3 Governor Healy, thank you so much for joining us. Fantastic.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 3 What's poppin' listeners?

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Speaker 8 The audacity of Bostonians.

Speaker 8 Taboo, New York City. You are Philadelphia with smarter assholes and worse sandwiches.

Speaker 3 What the fuck, man?

Speaker 3 Unbelievable.

Speaker 8 Just because you have cobblestones on the street doesn't make you fucking sophisticated.

Speaker 3 You need to talk shit about the fucking Freedom Trail, huh? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Come on.

Speaker 8 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 The second you're cornered, it's Liberty Bell, Liberty Bell, Liberty Bell.

Speaker 3 Hey.

Speaker 3 You all heard Governor Healy's answer on whether Joe Biden should stay in the race. This is something we didn't just pick on her.

Speaker 3 Every single current and former Democratic elected official has been asked today.

Speaker 3 So far, no Democrat in higher office has called for him to step aside. And the responses, when asked, have ranged from vague hedging to full-throated defense of Biden as the nominee.

Speaker 3 Here's a a sample.

Speaker 5 We've got to have the back of this president.

Speaker 14 You don't turn your back because of one performance.

Speaker 3 What kind of party does that?

Speaker 7 You go home with the one that brought you to the dance.

Speaker 3 100% all in.

Speaker 12 Do you think President Biden's the best messenger for the top of the ticket?

Speaker 24 I'm a very big supporter of President Biden.

Speaker 3 He's been a great president and done great things throughout the country.

Speaker 12 Thank you.

Speaker 25 There were calls even inside the House in the Democratic Party that he should step aside as the nominee. What do you say to that?

Speaker 11 This is an administration that gets things done, done, and it's because of his leadership.

Speaker 11 It's his decision what he wants to do going forward.

Speaker 3 What are you going to tell him?

Speaker 6 What did you make of his performance last night?

Speaker 24 Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight.

Speaker 3 So I'd say things are a bit in flux right now.

Speaker 3 And since we said on last night's episode, and we just talked about earlier that Democrats should not be afraid to have an honest debate about this issue in public, we're going to kick things off right now.

Speaker 3 And who better to have with us to do this than Meddy, one of the best debaters and author of How to Win Every Argument?

Speaker 3 Love it, how's this going to work?

Speaker 8 What do we do? What happens next?

Speaker 3 Could it work?

Speaker 8 Should we? That's not just what happened after after Tommy and I accidentally brushed hands once after three martinis.

Speaker 8 That's what Democrats across the country who admire and respect Joe Biden but worry about whether he is the right person to take on Trump are asking each other.

Speaker 8 And there are good arguments for sticking with Joe Biden and good arguments for seeking an open convention. So we're going to debate it right here on stage.
Here's how it works.

Speaker 8 John, Mehdi, Tommy, and Dan will form two teams at random. One is riding with Biden into victory, the abyss, wherever.

Speaker 8 The other wants to do to the Democratic Convention what a gay couple does to their relationship after a long and difficult conversation in Palm Springs. Open it up.

Speaker 8 So, first, we will choose teams. Austin, bring out the ceremonial hat.

Speaker 8 Austin, everybody.

Speaker 8 It's Austin's birthday tomorrow.

Speaker 3 What? Happy birthday, Austin. Woo-hoo!

Speaker 3 Happy birthday. Okay.

Speaker 8 First, we will choose the pro-Biden team. All right? And then, I guess, by process of elimination, we'll get the other team.

Speaker 8 It's only four names in the hat.

Speaker 3 Our names are in the hat? Yeah, it should have been teams in the hat. Come on.
What the hell?

Speaker 3 Hold on.

Speaker 8 We're pro Biden and just anti-Biden we're not pro another candidate you are pro the Biden remaining the candidate and what's the other side the other side is wanting an open convention got it wanting Biden to step aside and have an open convention all right we'll do oh we'll do Biden side first

Speaker 8 the Biden side will be Dan

Speaker 6 and Tommy oh wow so stay right there

Speaker 8 Meddy and John oh

Speaker 3 the upside is we don't have to move seats what's a big win we don't have to move seats we don't have to move seats so Meddy and John will argue for an open convention.

Speaker 8 Each team will have an opening statement. Each team will have a rebuttal.
Then we will converse. The timing will be at my discretion.

Speaker 3 The rules are loose.

Speaker 8 The microphones will not be muted.

Speaker 19 Why?

Speaker 8 Because we're all adults who live in a society.

Speaker 9 We begin...

Speaker 8 With Team Joe. One of you can issue the opening remarks.

Speaker 3 Sure, sure. You want me to do it? Happy to or let Rip.
rip. Go for it.
You do it. Okay.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 14 Joe Biden, here's the reason he should stay in this whole thing. It was one debate, you spineless weenies.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 14 Biden did poorly in almost every single primary debate in 2020, and then he won.

Speaker 14 We're making way too big a deal of this. Also, the period between now and the election is an eternity in political terms.
Remember the insurrection?

Speaker 3 Neither does anybody else.

Speaker 14 Calm down. Joe Biden was counted out in 2020.
He was counted out in 2022. He showed all of you what he was made of, and he'll do it again.

Speaker 14 Joe Biden exiting this stage right now will lead to nothing but chaos. There is no clear or obvious choice for who would succeed him.
The process would be messy and disastrous.

Speaker 9 There will be factions.

Speaker 14 There will be vicious attacks. It will be a disaster, and the worst of the party will be on display for the entire world to see.

Speaker 14 And finally, you can get elected statewide in a state like California or Michigan or wherever, and you get vetted by the press, kind of, but nothing compares to the proctology exam that is running for president.

Speaker 14 Every human being has skeletons in his or her closet. They will come out during the general election, and there will not be time for the Democratic Party to vet them beforehand.
Stick with Joe Biden.

Speaker 14 We know him. He got us here.

Speaker 14 Go home with the horse you dated or some shit.

Speaker 3 Sure.

Speaker 12 Whatever Newsom said. Yeah, go home with that.

Speaker 3 Go home with the alley cat that brought you.

Speaker 3 Fuck that alley cat.

Speaker 3 Wow. Powerful words.

Speaker 8 Rough landing, but he got there.

Speaker 8 Much like Joe Biden at his best.

Speaker 8 That's your fucking line? Okay.

Speaker 8 They're mad about the sandwich thing. Meddy, you want to take us away for the brokered jokers?

Speaker 7 I do. I do want to go first because I wasn't going to go first, but then I heard Tommy speak and I thought this is just too easy.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 12 It's like when I was in the White House and met him with the journalist and he used to kick our ass.

Speaker 7 You know what Tommy said? You know what Tommy said? To lose the entire debate? He said it's an eternity until the election.

Speaker 7 So if it's an eternity until the election, why the fuck do you want an 81-year-old guy waiting for an eternity? I don't want to wait any longer.

Speaker 3 Four months?

Speaker 7 Yeah, that's an eternity. My dad is 86 years old.
He's one of the smartest, most knowledgeable, most hard-working people I've ever met.

Speaker 7 My dad doesn't want to be put in charge of anything right now, let alone the nuclear codes. And by the way, when you're making the case for Joe Biden, don't mention proctology exams.

Speaker 3 That's not helping your side either. It's just not.

Speaker 7 Last but not least, last but not least, let's just deal with this debate bullshit. It was just one bad night.
Obama Romney. Obama Romney, there wasn't that much at stake.

Speaker 7 The guy wanted a binders full of women. He wanted to put his dog on the car.

Speaker 7 Democracy is at stake in this election, and therefore we need a guy who's not going to say beat Medicaid and run out of steam.

Speaker 7 We need a guy who's going to beat the fascist, save American democracy, and that requires big D Democrats to put their big boy pants on and sort this shit out and have a brokerative convention in August and have some democracy.

Speaker 7 Everyone in this room knows that John doesn't even need to speak.

Speaker 3 We've already won.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 7 Some big D Democrat energy over there.

Speaker 3 Look at that.

Speaker 3 Powerful words.

Speaker 8 Dan, care to respond?

Speaker 7 Sure.

Speaker 3 I can explain why we have to stick with Joe Biden. I'll give you two words.
Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 3 You may say, huh, why am I saying that? Let me tell you.

Speaker 3 If Ron DeSantis had never run against Donald Trump, and Donald Trump had just been, say, I don't know, convicted of 34 felonies and sentenced to prison, and they were looking for another candidate to replace them, they would have picked Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 3 Looks great on paper. Governor, seems like he had presidential timber.
He would have gotten in that race and shat the bed in five minutes. We do not know who our Ron DeSantis is.

Speaker 3 Any single person we pick could end up being bad and worse than Joe Biden. I, in my long career, I'm older than you guys, have met with dozens of people who thought they would be president.

Speaker 3 Governors, senators, members of Congress, business people. They all seemed impressive on paper.
They seemed impressive in the meeting.

Speaker 3 Most of of them never got off the launching pad because there is nothing harder in American life than running for president.

Speaker 3 It is the going from even the governor of a state like California to running for presidents like T-ball to game seven of the World Series.

Speaker 3 We at least know, for all of his flaws, that Joe Biden can win a presidential election. We know that there are tens of millions of people who have voted for him, who are willing to vote for him again.

Speaker 3 He is behind in this race, but he's not behind by much. What happens if we pick the wrong person? Because there is no going back then.
Can I follow up on that as the moderator?

Speaker 8 Am I describing? My boys, wicked smack.

Speaker 8 And we'll go to John in a second.

Speaker 8 Isn't that?

Speaker 8 I appreciate the fear of the unknown, but that's an argument against any new person from running for president. That's an argument for John.

Speaker 3 Because you have a primary.

Speaker 3 You have a year and a half long primary.

Speaker 3 Like there's very possible that when we all, when those of us went to go work for Obama on the very first day, that he never made it out of the first two months. But he had what it took.

Speaker 3 He got knocked down. He got up.
He had to sit before Edwards, he had to go to 13 debates to do all of these things. There is a process to get the wheat from the chaff.

Speaker 3 We are going to skip that process here. We are going to pick up, we're going to allow, I don't know if you ever been to a convention, you ever met the delegates?

Speaker 3 We're going to ask a group of people who collect pins for a living to pick our president.

Speaker 8 John.

Speaker 12 Have you ever met the delegates just won this whole John?

Speaker 8 Tough hit on the delegates, I assume many of whom are fucking listening.

Speaker 8 It's a tough hit on hyper-engaged partisan activist Democrats doing the daily grinding work of keeping our party alive. Over to you, John.

Speaker 3 This is not about Joe Biden as a human being, because he is a wonderful human being. This is not about Joe Biden as a president.

Speaker 3 He has accomplished legislatively more than almost any president of our lifetime. I think you could even argue more than Barack Obama, okay?

Speaker 3 And I think he has done a fantastic job. This is about Joe Biden as a candidate.
You know who our Ron DeSantis is?

Speaker 15 Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 Because we saw it last night. Because that was the, because in terms of performance, that was not just the worst debate, that was the worst public performance of anything we've ever seen.

Speaker 3 70% of voters have a problem with Joe Biden's age. It's concerning them.

Speaker 3 And Joe Biden won 2020 by 40,000 votes across three states. That was 2020.
That was before any other polls. In that election, he was leading Donald Trump by five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten points.

Speaker 3 Going into this debate, which was the worst disaster in modern debates, in any debate. Joe Biden was behind Donald Trump in the debate.

Speaker 3 The debate was the one moment that more people were watching this race than any other moment that will happen happen in the campaign.

Speaker 3 And we hope that there's a debate in September, but if you're Donald Trump, why would you agree to the debate in September after you just did that?

Speaker 3 So now we have a convention in August where Joe Biden will hopefully, presumably, give a great speech. And then

Speaker 3 Donald Trump in July will give a great speech, and there will be no more moments. And the race will be frozen like this.
The biggest challenge...

Speaker 3 in this race has been to capture people's attention in a very fractured media environment.

Speaker 3 There are now no more opportunities because the one opportunity when 50 million Americans tuned in, Joe Biden did not show up. The Democratic Party does not have a problem with the party.

Speaker 3 We won the 2022 midterms. Josh Shapiro won in Pennsylvania by double digits.
Gretchen Whitmer won in Michigan by double digits. Raphael Warnock,

Speaker 3 the first black senator from Georgia, won in an extremely difficult state multiple times. He won.

Speaker 3 We have, over the last, since Donald Trump has won won the presidency in 16, Democrats, younger, like energetic Democrats, diverse from the left to the center left, women, men, black, white, have won all over this country.

Speaker 3 The party does not have a problem with Democrats. It has a problem with Joe Biden.
That's what people are trying to tell us right now. And

Speaker 3 a convention would be, look, a convention is risky. It is definitely risky.

Speaker 3 We could end up with a candidate, like Dan said, who then goes through the ringer over the next couple months, and we'll all sit down and be like, oh, this was worse. This was worse than Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 But this is democracy, right? All the candidates that are going to run will get to make speeches. There will be polls.
Yes, the delegates will pick. Would it be better if voters picked?

Speaker 3 Yeah, of course. But that's not where we are right now.

Speaker 3 We're in a situation where in just a couple months, Joe Biden could lose to someone who wants to end democracy, which we know because he tried to overturn democracy four years ago.

Speaker 3 That's where we are right now. So why not? I'm sorry, I'm going to have people

Speaker 3 respond Can you mute his mic, please?

Speaker 8 I'm going to need to let them respond. I'm going to have to let them respond.

Speaker 3 Speaking of overturning democracy, we have a process to pick our nominate.

Speaker 6 We had that. We went through that process.

Speaker 3 Anyone could have run.

Speaker 3 Deacon Phillips ran. Marianne Williamson ran.
We all could have voted for them.

Speaker 7 We didn't.

Speaker 3 We voted for Joe Biden. And now, like, I don't know.

Speaker 3 I'm trying to think of another person who, after an election is over, doesn't like the results and then considers storming a meeting in which people are certifying the results of that election.

Speaker 3 Wow. Wow.

Speaker 8 I have to say, that's a low blow, Dan.

Speaker 8 And I want to keep this civil. I do want to follow.

Speaker 7 First, he's like, they're all collectors of pins. Then he's like, don't hurt them.

Speaker 6 I want to ask

Speaker 8 about a specific problem and why we shouldn't worry about it, which is, if we were to go to some kind of an open convention,

Speaker 8 what is the cost of a period of time in which Donald Trump has the stage to himself and Democrats are arguing with each other rather than fighting Donald Trump?

Speaker 3 That's a great question, John. Thanks.

Speaker 3 Stage to himself.

Speaker 3 A contested Democratic convention, which has not happened since 1968. I was just talking about the biggest challenge in this election is attention.

Speaker 3 We'll get more attention, more media attention, than anything that has happened in politics in a decade.

Speaker 3 And Donald Trump will be yapping away, posting on Truth Social, and the attention of the rest of the country will be on the diverse array of Democratic candidates that are at that convention talking about the values of our party, where they're going to take this country, what they've done in their states.

Speaker 3 That's what the attention is going to be at a Democratic convention that's messy. Will there be arguments? Yeah, there'll be plenty of arguments.

Speaker 3 There'll be arguments between the left and the center left, and we'll have to deal with all that.

Speaker 6 But you know what?

Speaker 3 Unlike the primaries that we've been through that last like a year, a year and a half, it will be condensed.

Speaker 3 It will be a couple of weeks of debate and argument, argument, and then we will have a nominee.

Speaker 7 Also, Americans like new shit.

Speaker 3 They do. Sorry,

Speaker 7 I've been an American for four years, and that's what I've noticed. You go into the grocery store, it's always something new.
Why do you think there's so many freaking sequels in Hollywood?

Speaker 7 But I think people like new stuff.

Speaker 7 Let me just be the skunk in the room here and bring up a topic that I know no one really wants to talk about, but it is crucial to this conversation, which is if you don't have Joe Biden on the ticket, you don't just deal with the age issue, you deal with with the Gaza issue to an extent.

Speaker 7 And to an extent, I've been to Georgia.

Speaker 9 I've been to Michigan recently.

Speaker 7 Every single brown person I met, people who voted Democrat all their lives, say we're not voting Democratic. We want to punish Biden.
Now, don't shoot the messenger.

Speaker 7 I'm just telling you, that is what people are saying. And if you get rid of Biden, you do kind of deal with that problem, which is a fresh start for the Democratic Party.

Speaker 7 The next guy comes in and gets to talk only about ceasefire, not about eight months of providing weapons. And I think that

Speaker 7 will help hugely. Before the age thing came along, I thought Biden might lose because of Michigan, Georgia, and all the young people and people of color I've heard who say they won't vote for Biden.

Speaker 8 Tommy,

Speaker 8 we've heard a pretty beautiful idea of the democratic process in action at an open convention. Do you have any concerns about what that might look like?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest with you, John.

Speaker 14 I'm just kind of sad, you know, listening to to this.

Speaker 3 You guys have the loyalty of an alley cat.

Speaker 16 And you guys are acting like a couple of giant Democrats.

Speaker 14 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 I do know what you're saying. I know what you're saying.
Capital D Democrats.

Speaker 14 Listen.

Speaker 3 That was a rhetorical football. Capital Diant Democrats.
Is that what you're going to say?

Speaker 3 I thought where you were going to go was, it also deals with the problem of incumbency.

Speaker 3 We talk about Joe Biden's age as one of the reasons he has been very unpopular the last four years, but I do think for all that Joe Biden has accomplished and for the fact that in this country inflation has gone down faster than almost anywhere else in the world, incumbents across the world right now are facing real political challenges.

Speaker 3 It doesn't matter if they're left, center left, center right.

Speaker 3 There is an anti-incumbent mood that has happened because it's a post-COVID, post-inflation thing that has been hurting incumbents all over the world.

Speaker 3 And if you have a new nominee from a state that has not been around for the last four years making decisions, then that is a fresh start.

Speaker 8 Now, Dan, is it difficult hearing an argument like this from someone like Mehdi when you find out that he has

Speaker 8 the food taste of a four-year-old child

Speaker 8 and has never tasted sushi and has literally never had a fucking smoothie in his life? How can a person that incurious about the world be someone we take seriously in a debate as important as this?

Speaker 3 I, for one, do not want to delve into personal attacks here. I don't want to end this on sort of our version of the great golf handicap debate of 2024.

Speaker 3 I would like to respond to John's idea about media coverage because I think he has it backwards. I personally do not subscribe to the Kim Kardashian theory that all press is good press.

Speaker 3 And what I would say is,

Speaker 3 the problem is not that the, like maybe we have a great open convention and there are great candidates and it's very friendly, but the problem of the seven weeks where Donald Trump is running unopposed is that there is no attention on Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 Every single moment of press is on us. It's who is Gretchen Wishmore talking to? It's how we prohibit it.
What do you think the Democrats are going to be talking about?

Speaker 6 Not beating Donald Trump?

Speaker 3 No, we're going to be fighting with each other. Have you said we've been in a primary before? Dan, that was last.

Speaker 8 Let's let one person speak at a time.

Speaker 3 No, no, no.

Speaker 6 This is.

Speaker 3 I will finish my point real quickly and hand it over generously to me.

Speaker 7 Mute my mic if you dare.

Speaker 3 Dan,

Speaker 7 that's, I mean, sorry, that's BS. 90 Minutes last night was a chance to go after Trump, and they blew the 90 Minutes last night, and you keep saying, well, the people voted, the people voted.

Speaker 7 I dare you to ask all those people to vote again this morning after what they watched last night. It's just not the same thing.
We're in a very different place.

Speaker 6 People saw the car crash in front of their eyes.

Speaker 3 I understand that. I respect that.

Speaker 3 I respect your food choices as well.

Speaker 3 I think they're your choice.

Speaker 7 On food choices. They're your choices.
I am not going to be lectured on food choices by the side that is promoting the ice cream guy for another four years.

Speaker 3 We know you want a mulligan lunch in common.

Speaker 14 We know you want a mulligan, but Joe Biden just hits big, sweet, long drives. And that's what we're going to keep doing here.

Speaker 8 And I think that that's a beautiful place to leave this very, actually genuinely interesting and passionate debate.

Speaker 8 I think that actually did a great job of representing the fact that anyone who says this is easy or that we shouldn't have this debate is not being honest.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 that's it.

Speaker 3 I want you all to know we've had this debate many times. I could have argued, we all could have argued the other side too.
We have. Absolutely.
Because it really is.

Speaker 3 That is how tough the choice is. And that is how good the arguments are on both sides.
It is a very difficult situation, which is why we've talked about having this in public.

Speaker 3 Because I think people who deeply believe that we should stick with Joe Biden, I get it. I totally respect it.
People who think like, no, we need to, he should step down, I totally get that too.

Speaker 3 We're in a fucking tough space.

Speaker 8 Find people on both sides, is I think that's a good idea.

Speaker 8 That's the key thing here.

Speaker 3 No labels.

Speaker 3 When we come back, a game.

Speaker 8 When disaster strikes, we think of all who are directly impacted, whether it's a natural disaster like a snowstorm or a man-made disaster like what Kanye did to that mansion in Malibu.

Speaker 8 All right, not an architecture, TikTok.

Speaker 8 Well, we think of almost everyone who is impacted, but when there is a massive blunder or mistake or human error, when a decision is made that cannot be unmade, we often overlook one particular impacted individual, the poor spokesperson sent out to the microphones to defend the company whose oil tanker is currently coating an endangered seal with crude, or the aircraft manufacturer struggling to keep doors attached to the planes, or the campaign whose candidate was chased into a bathroom stall by the National Enquirer while he was visiting his secret baby.

Speaker 6 I didn't work there anymore.

Speaker 8 I made reference to Baghdad Bob to a producer who I realized was too young to understand the reference. That was my personal disaster.

Speaker 8 So here's how it works. I am going to assign a disaster to each of our boys out here, and they will have to spin that disaster.

Speaker 15 Are you ready?

Speaker 3 I hope so.

Speaker 8 First up, Dan, you are the spokesperson for the big dig, and you are

Speaker 8 speaking to someone who sat in traffic from 1987 to 2006.

Speaker 3 Okay, are we ready? We're ready, go. All right.
Look, I get it. No one likes traffic.

Speaker 3 You have places to be, you have things to do. I understand that.
It can be frustrating. It can be annoying.
I feel your pain.

Speaker 3 But I think you're thinking about it wrong.

Speaker 3 It's not just that you're waiting at traffic.

Speaker 3 Like the greatest generation, you are sacrificing for future generations.

Speaker 3 There will be a day,

Speaker 3 maybe a decade from now, maybe several decades from now, when your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren are getting from Charlestown to Dorchester on time, they're getting to Logan Airport without any traffic, and they will, like the greatest generation, they will think back to what you did to help them.

Speaker 3 That your time in traffic is sacrifice for their punctuality. Dan, you are Sacom Bridge.
When you, you are, you are very slowly storming your own Omaha Beach.

Speaker 8 Dan, I gotta press, as a journalist in this case,

Speaker 8 hey, when a project takes an extra decade and $8 billion,

Speaker 8 don't you think there should be someone in charge of gluing the ceiling to the fucking roof?

Speaker 3 Time's a construct.

Speaker 8 All right, well done, Dan. Well done.

Speaker 8 Next up.

Speaker 8 Let's go to Tommy. You are the spokesperson for Mitt Romney after he put the family dog on the roof of his car.

Speaker 8 And you are trying to defend yourself to Sarah McLaughlin.

Speaker 14 Hey, Sarah, thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 14 I know we'd reached out about licensing your music for the Mitt Romney Senate Family Library, and this is why I think it will work for you. The fake news media has written a lot about

Speaker 14 strapping Seamus to the roof of a car.

Speaker 14 What they don't talk about in these stories is that dogs famously love putting their faces out of cars

Speaker 9 when you drive them places.

Speaker 12 So, why not go the extra yard?

Speaker 14 Why not level up the experience

Speaker 3 for your dog?

Speaker 3 Wow. Powerful words.

Speaker 8 I actually think that that's a really good point.

Speaker 16 I can't believe how much hay we made out of that.

Speaker 8 Dogs love being outside in the cars. It's like a dream come true.
It's alfresco.

Speaker 3 People didn't like it. It was fucking weird.

Speaker 8 It is weird, but wait, hey, wait a second. That's weird.

Speaker 7 Well, it was...

Speaker 7 Now,

Speaker 14 in fairness, it was a drive from Boston to Canada.

Speaker 14 I do think the dog shit down the window.

Speaker 3 Not really making a good case for yourself now. But

Speaker 14 if you give your music to us, it will remain in the arms of a Romney.

Speaker 3 Oh, wow.

Speaker 8 Well done, Tommy. Thank you.

Speaker 3 Thanks.

Speaker 8 Next up, Meddy.

Speaker 3 Chernobyl

Speaker 8 is unfolding.

Speaker 8 And boy, do you have bad luck because at the very moment they're trying to figure out how to place a kind of cement sarcophagus over the steaming disaster site, it's your job to convince the people of Worcester that it's Worcester.

Speaker 3 Worcester. Worcester.

Speaker 7 How do you say it?

Speaker 3 Worcester. Worcester.
Worcester.

Speaker 3 Worcester. Oh, please.

Speaker 3 Oh, please.

Speaker 8 That's not on me. You pick half the fucking letters to pronounce you, illiterate fucks.

Speaker 3 Please.

Speaker 3 Wooster.

Speaker 8 You got your accent from the British rejects of 300 fucking years ago.

Speaker 8 Meddy, back to you.

Speaker 8 I have no patience. I have no patience for Boston.

Speaker 3 Medi.

Speaker 8 You're trying to open a nuclear plant in Worcester.

Speaker 11 Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 8 Convince these vulgar, rude Cretans why nuclear energy is the right path forward.

Speaker 7 Like Dan, I believe that we need to sacrifice for future generations.

Speaker 7 Climate change, existential threat to our way of life. We need to get on with it.
We need to stop climate change. Nuclear is the fastest way to stop climate change.

Speaker 7 Don't worry about what happens in Russia.

Speaker 15 That's Russia's problem.

Speaker 3 You don't care about what's Russia's problem.

Speaker 7 You care about what's Worcester's problem.

Speaker 7 Worcester wants to save its children.

Speaker 3 I don't know how the fuck to say it. Worcester.

Speaker 3 Worcester.

Speaker 7 Worcester

Speaker 7 wants its... Worcester!

Speaker 7 Worcester

Speaker 3 wants nuclear!

Speaker 6 And to quote the next president.

Speaker 7 To quote the next president president of the United States, nuclear is very strong.

Speaker 3 Oh, no. Oh, no.

Speaker 6 Well, powerful words.

Speaker 3 Much like we don't care what happens in Russia, Boston doesn't care what happens in Worcester because it is

Speaker 3 past 495.

Speaker 3 Got the

Speaker 8 you say that now, but then a bunch of radioactive suburbanites are wandering down the fucking boulevard.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 8 John,

Speaker 6 you

Speaker 8 are Buckner's agent

Speaker 8 after the Mets beat the Red Sox

Speaker 8 in the World Series.

Speaker 3 Oh, boy.

Speaker 3 Okay, look.

Speaker 3 Everyone has a bad night.

Speaker 10 Everyone has a bad performance.

Speaker 3 Had he been injured all season? Sure.

Speaker 3 Had he been struggling with that injury? Did he walk like he used to walk? No, he didn't walk like he hasn't walked like he used to walk anymore. Did he run like he used to?

Speaker 3 No, couldn't run like he used to run anymore. But you know what?

Speaker 3 Did he cost the Red Sox game six and then the World Series? Sure.

Speaker 3 As a five-year-old, was it the first time I saw my dad punch a wall? Yes.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 10 But you know what?

Speaker 3 No one ever talks about the run he scored in game seven.

Speaker 3 Yeah. No one ever talks about the pitching.
Maybe it was the pitching.

Speaker 3 Maybe they shouldn't have put Buckner in when he was injured. No one ever talks about that.

Speaker 14 That's true.

Speaker 3 It's not, it's not, we shouldn't be focusing on Buckner's one night of bad performance. We should be focusing on our common enemy, Mookie Wilson.

Speaker 8 But John.

Speaker 8 But John, wait a second, John, but wait a second. That's all well and good if there are other factors.

Speaker 8 But if one bad night is the difference between winning the World Series and losing the World Series,

Speaker 8 isn't it worth thinking about whether or not it was right to put someone like Buckner in that position, especially after we saw what had happened?

Speaker 3 You know, it's a good point, but here we are. So what else are we going to do?

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 9 Powerful words.

Speaker 3 Bill Buckner.

Speaker 10 And that's our game, and that's our show for tonight.

Speaker 7 Thanks to Medi for being with us.

Speaker 10 Thanks to Governor Healy and thank you to Harvard Bookstore for selling Democracy or Helps.

Speaker 8 Go get a copy.

Speaker 10 And thank you, Boston.

Speaker 3 Hang in there.

Speaker 3 If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends.

Speaker 3 And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more.

Speaker 3 Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a crooked media production.
Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.

Speaker 3 Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Reed Sherlin is our executive producer.
The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadway.

Speaker 3 Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.
Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming.

Speaker 3 Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Andy Taff is our executive assistant.
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kirill Pelavieve, and Molly Lobel.

Speaker 3 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 22 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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