Biden Campaign Unloads on Trump's Conviction

We cannot keep pretending that Donald Trump is an outlier when everyone else seems to be out there with him. But instead of feeling paralyzed, our job now is to pull what we've got and see what we can make happen.
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Listen to new episodes of Assembly Required every Thursday on Amazon Music. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, the Biden campaign launches a big ad campaign that goes hard at Trump's felony conviction.
Trump courts black voters in Detroit, but a new poll shows many black voters aren't sold on him or Biden. The rules for next week's CNN debate are set, and more details trickle out about Trump's VP search with just a month to go.
But first, love it. Welcome back.
Great to be back. Your first full show.
Yeah, this is it. Now that you've prepared and read the news.
Yeah, my takes have been kind of in the cask, developing their flavors, pulling that sort of oaky vibe so that you can look forward to that wow exciting so we gave you a quiz about the news last week then you got the rest of the week off it's really a nice just easing back into it here yeah like a warm tub we do have a second assignment for you Democracy or Else this book Else, this book, it's out a week from today.

A week from today.

A week from today.

As a reminder, this is a book that you wrote.

Yeah.

With me and Tommy and Josh.

And Josh, yeah, yeah.

Is that ringing any bells?

No, no, it is.

It's right here.

And you want to do a pitch?

Yeah, sure, I'll pitch it.

Do a pitch.

Listen, all right.

We worked really hard on this book.

And yes, all the profits from this book

go to Vote Save America

and organizing on the ground to help protect our democracy. Even if it weren't going to a good cause, you would really like this book.
And yes, all the profits from this book go to Vote Save America and organizing on the ground to help protect our democracy. Even if it weren't going to a good cause, you would really like this book.
It is actually funny. I feel like there's a lot of people who are really funny and cynical about politics.
And there's a lot of really earnest doofs out there, you know, crossing the Delaware and every goddamn tweet. But we worked really hard to try to make something that was helpful, useful, entertaining, funny, hopeful, without being like kind of saccharine, you know? Like a lot of the content out there.
And it's illustrated, you know? So you can just flip through it. Like what we all do with The New Yorker.
We know there are articles in there, but whatever. I was gonna say, this is 160...
Mostly funny pages. This is 171 pages plus illustrations.
Plus illustrations. And the font type is pretty large.
And I feel like when we're all going to be paying attention to the news in a way that can suck the soul right out of your body. Like this is a really fun way to remember why you cared about politics in the first place.
How about that? You're supposed to ask Tommy what his favorite part about writing the book with you is. Oh, and Tommy, what's your favorite part about writing the book with me? Every minute.
I think the end. When it was over.
Here's the thing I think people like about this book. Everyone has their own unique amount of politics they can stomach or that they want.
You might just be looking to get better informed. You might be trying to figure out how to vote.
You might be trying to figure out how to give donations more efficiently, or maybe you want to run for office yourself. We got you covered step by step in this book.
There's a chapter for you. So read it and you will laugh along the way and you'll learn something.
Also, there's some embarrassing stories about us. And there's really smart advice from people who are a lot smarter than us.
And I'll just say one more thing. If you're listening to this and you've been listening to us for a long time, just do us a goddamn favor and buy the book.
We've been doing this podcast. We'll give you a refund for every episode.
Oh's right it's free we were losing to christy gnome and bill maher at one point on the on the rankings because if we get this happen because we want to get this on the new york times bestseller list because that's how the book gets into other bookstores and in front of a lot of people that might not otherwise come across it so and that's how democracy is saved ultimately yeah it's it's saved at the democracy or else. The airport Hudson goddamn news.
It's democracy or else, and right now, else is ahead, so- Yeah, else is doing pretty good. Crooked.com slash books.
Check it out wherever you like to buy books, and you can pre-order it right now. All right, enough of that.
Let's get to the actual news. We have spent a lot of time on this show pontificating about how hard the Biden campaign would go at Trump's conviction or whether they'd really do it at all.
Monday morning, we got a pretty clear answer. Campaign announced that they're putting $50 million behind a new ad buy that features this new spot called Character Matters.
Let's listen. In the courtroom, we see Donald Trump for who he is.
He's been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, and he committed financial fraud. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's been working, lowering health care costs and making big corporations pay their fair share.
This election is between a convicted criminal who's only out for himself and a president who's fighting for your family

i'm joe biden and i approve this message spicy a lot of bass too and i didn't hear as much bass

when i watched it at home there's also trump's mugshot in there which i know that the trump

campaign likes and the biden campaign likes everyone likes the mugshot and i like that the

voice that there's a deep kind of like baron harkonnen voice doing the thing yeah that's a

movie trailer guy yeah sounds like tell me what'd you think of the ad i mean i liked it because i think it not only mentions the 34 convictions but also they draw on the eugene carroll case they draw in the financial fraud issues and so the the ad in its totality perfectly dovetails with biden's message that this is a guy who's in it for himself joe biden is working for you what is missing from this spot is a Joe Biden second term agenda. But you can't get everything into a 30 second ad.
So it's, you know, that'll come later. You know, you're right that they're going to spend real money.
I don't know if it's necessarily on this ad, but in June, they say $50 million. That's a good thing.
But the Biden campaign has spent 53 million so far this year. It hasn't really moved the needle yet.
So that's kind of the other side of that coin. So we got to see these numbers move a bit.
Love it. I like that a lot.
I also, it just does all speaks to, I think, the challenge they're trying to address, which is they know they need to make salient for people the threat that Trump poses, remind people who Trump is. But also they have this catch 22, which is there's a lot of concerns about Joe Biden's age, especially among people who don't know what Joe Biden achieved.
If you don't know what Biden achieved, you might think it was because he is too old. And so they are trying to, I think, show through a contrast, not just who Donald Trump is, but trying to get it slowly kind of seed in people's minds that an affirmative case for Joe Biden is one people will get behind.
They're also solving the issue of, do you talk about his accomplishments or do you talk about his second term agenda with the gerund, which you'll probably hear a lot more of. He's helping lower healthcare costs, which he did do over the last four years, but also wants to do more of.
And he's making corporations pay their fair share, which of of course, is his entire tax agenda, some of which he has been able to enact, but a lot of he hasn't. We all know the power of the gerund when you're in your house and you know you're going to be late to meet a friend.
You're coming. You're coming.
There you go. I would bet that this ad tested very well, particularly because it is a it is a contrast ad.
And just for people who don't know, they've been testing all these ads and, you know, all these Democratic groups, progressive groups. And it turns out like there's the positive ad about Biden.
There's a negative ad about Trump. And then there's the type of ad that contrasts Biden and Trump.
And those ads always do the best. So you don't want just the positive.
You don't want just the negative. You want a little bit of both.
And that's what this does. And it's great that they broadened it out from just, hey, he's a convicted felon and that's all there is to talk about.
He's in it for himself and Joe Biden's in it for you. And here's why.
You know, so I thought it was a really good ad. It's definitely an evolution from earlier messages from the Biden campaign about how the only way to keep Trump out of office is at the ballot box, which I think was one of their first reactions to Trump being on trial.
How do you guys think they got from there to this ad? Yeah, well, so I feel like there's two pieces to it. One is just they, especially early on, need to remind the kind of people that will be donating, volunteering, paying attention, that they can't rely on the justice system, that actually we need to make sure that everyone's doing everything they can to to feed Trump in the election.

But also, I do think like they are grappling with the challenge of, yes, a big part of the case against Donald Trump are his character flaws, his racism, his xenophobia, his lack of discipline, all the things that Americans hate about Donald Trump, the chaos and the noise and all the rest, while at the same time knowing that a critical part of the electorate that they need to reach are people that have already decided they can't stand Donald Trump, but are cynical about politics and dissatisfied with both options. And I think like in this ad, you see them kind of finding their way to a message that tries to think about both.
Yeah. So it's been a little more than two weeks since the conviction, which is usually how long it takes for big news events to permeate the electorate and start showing up in the polling numbers.
What are you guys' takeaways from the latest polling, Tommy? So the most important finding I think I've seen was from a recent Politico poll that found 21% of independents both said the conviction was an important factor in their vote and it made them less likely to support Trump. So with people who are persuadable voters, they care 20% about, a fifth of them basically, care a lot about the fact that he was found guilty and are turned off by that fact.
Overall, it's a little more of a mixed bag. You've got, you know, a third of respondents saying it won't have any impact on their vote.
A third say it will make them less likely to support Trump. 17% said it will make them more likely to support Trump.
So there are definitely some MAGA types who are energized by this. But there's hope there that this could help move persuadable voters.
However, it's clear also that Trump's message has resonated where he calls it rigged because you've got 43 percent of voters saying the rationale for the case itself was to help Biden. It's not a majority, but there's enough people out there who think, you know, this is lawfare.
This is just, you know, Trump's critics going after him through the courts. Yeah.
Love it. thought the same thing and i also like in looking through the polls i kind of put a lot of numbers together and i kind of like you kind of just have to for me anyway i'm just like throwing away the the kind of republican side and democratic side of the poll because it's like what does it mean to say to a democrat who's fully anti-trump in their bones is less likely to vote for trump or nothing i think about that about that all the time.
If I took a poll and someone said, does the conviction make you less likely to vote for Donald Trump? I would say no. No, I'm 100%.
I was never going to vote for him ever. Right.
Which I'm sure is what the bulk of Republicans and Democrats are saying, both on opposite sides. Right, they don't even know what they're, I feel like it's a question that it's like philosophically has no answer.
And so I think some Democrats are trying to be good polling respondents and being like i'm even less likely than i was before even though i donated to p buddha judge uh but but then i do think yes buddha judge catching strays no no no that's a pro buddha judge point that's not anti but i just got to keep keep an eye because i know i've made my mistakes but uh he's got a list uh but but uh yeah your next k-hive even 44 percent of independents thought the case was brought to help joe biden and also by the way even though like i like almost like almost every person has heard about this trial still a third of independents that they don't understand the case well so i do think yes like the trump noise has really mattered so two polls uh recently came out about this blueprint polling 94 percent of voters have heard i think that is probably surprised me that surprised me too now it is a touch lower with the groups that are probably gonna be the swing groups in this election who are not paying as well much attention who Biden's struggling with so only 89% of independents 85% of 2020 non-voters 84% of Latino voters and 89% of younger lot of people, but like slightly less on those groups. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like I've heard of Bridgerton, and I just know they're hot and have sex.
So really, am I informed? You know what I'm saying? There's also some reporting that gets done there. News gathering.
News gathering. In Bridgerton.
In Bridgerton, they do news gathering? Yeah, yeah. Lady Whistledown.
Wow. Fascinating.
I'm getting some nods from the couch. Thank you.
Great. Thank you.
The groups that were overperforming on less likely to vote for Trump, so more than the overall number of 29% in the Blueprint poll, 20, 20 non-voters, which again is the ones that Biden's was struggling with, young voters, black voters, 51% of black voters in that poll said less likely, and 39% of Latino voters. Blueprint also did something interesting, which is they juxtaposed two statements and said, which is a more persuasive reason to vote against Donald Trump? He tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and wants to again, or he's a convicted felon and doesn't have the character.
I would have, if you had had me guess on that question, I would have said that the ACA would have won out big time.

And with some voters it did, but independents were split on that. Non-voters, ACA.
ACA. Black voters, conviction by a big margin.
And Latinos were split as well, which I thought was kind of interesting. Yeah, it is.
It does go to the conversation we were just having, too, about like, how do you talk about this when some of the most important you need to people you need to reach have already kind of decided that they find Donald Trump personally abhorrent, but are much more worried about like the actual policy stakes. Yeah.
So the big lesson is that, you know, I think we live in a world where we assume that just hearing about this verdict automatically tells you that this is disqualifying for a person to be president of the United States. And that's just not how this information is being received by a lot of the electorate.
Like you really have to message what this means, what it says about Donald Trump, his character. It doesn't have to be some super complicated, sophisticated messaging, but Donald Trump is going to just say, this was rigged.
I was set up. It's all political.
It's not real. They're fighting for me.
They're going after me because I'm fighting for you, that kind of stuff. And we have to counteract that.
Yeah. And look, I don't I don't necessarily know if his messages that message is working, that it's rigged.
But clearly what you're hearing from some voters is like, yeah, he's a convicted felon and he sucks. But I already knew he sucked.
Yeah. And if I have a problem, it's because like, you know, cost of living or this or that or whatever immigration, whatever the reason you're not for Joe Biden is.
And we haven't talked about the polling overall, but, you know, Biden gained a few points in the polls following the conviction. I think right now, as we're recording this, it's pretty close to where it was before the conviction.
Maybe Biden's still like a half a point up. And Seltzer, best pollster in the country, A plus rated poll out of Iowa.
Trump's winning Iowa 50 to 32%. He's got an 18 point lead over Joe Biden in Iowa.
Just for reference, Trump won Iowa by eight points. That would be bad.
Eight points in 2020. So a 10 point swing in Iowa makes you worried about Wisconsin, which has a very similar electorate.
Other Midwestern states, Michigan to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania to that's a that's a yikes that's a that's a not good yeah because that poll is usually fairly accurate so and again it's trump is at 50 sort of close to where he got what his number was and biden as in all these polls his number is the one that is much much lower because you have a bunch of people either who are biden voters saying i'm gonna vote third party or I'm not going to vote at all or I'm unsure. Yeah.
And by the way, like all of this, like the fact that when a former president is convicted of multiple felonies, there is an entire media or apparatus and a ton of Republican politicians who go on television and just shrug it off. Like those shrugs matter, right? It becomes then just a part of the political process, a part of the debate.
And this is now something completely and totally unacceptable, just becomes another piece of sort of partisan back and forth. And for somebody who's not paying attention that much and not thinking about politics every day, I think it's like not hard for that to be internalized.
I mean, you don't, some of the most engaged reporters in the world have internalized it. So it's not hard to imagine people that aren't consuming this all the time are like, well, you know, nothing is fucking changing.
Trump was unacceptable yesterday. It's just as unacceptable today.
Yeah. It's also the difference between something being done to Trump and Trump doing something that could hurt actual voters.
Right. And so they can see the conviction as something that has happened to him, something that he did bad, but not necessarily as something that he is doing to someone, which is why I think that Biden ad made the turn to like, he's only in it for himself.
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So some evidence that the conviction may hurt Trump with certain groups of voters, including black voters. but Biden's weakness there is still one of his biggest challenges.
And the Trump campaign is doing everything they can to exploit that. On Saturday, Trump visited a black church in Detroit and then spoke at the Turning Points USA conference.
The audience at the church appeared to be largely white people. And TPUSA is known for its ties to white supremacists.
So that's a big to be sure clause that I just threw in there. But Trump has never been a fan of consistency or discipline, as you can tell from some of his remarks at these events.
We don't need votes. We got more votes than anybody's ever had.
I think you should take a cognitive test like I did. I took a cognitive test and I aced it.
Doc Ronnie. Doc Ronnie Johnson.
Does everyone know Ronnie Johnson, congressman from Texas? And the people coming over the border, all those billions of people, they're inflicting tremendous harm to our black population and to our Hispanic population. Lovett, what do you make of the Trump campaign's emphasis on black and Latino outreach this time around? We've talked about this a lot in the last couple weeks this is this is your first go at it we should we should note though that trump got the name of the doctor wrong when he was demanding that joe biden take a cognitive test and then talking about how he is it's ronnie jackson it is i'm glad you pointed that out in case for just for listeners who weren't sure who ronnie jackson is yeah that's you're not wrong when you're going to accuse someone of cognitive decline you want to get the the doctor's name right yeah look i think trump is trump and the trump campaign are exaggerating their support because they know it's in their interest to kind of make the case that they're doing well amongst younger uh not just black voters younger they're younger white men younger black men younger hispanic men right men, right? Because that's a big part of like, they don't need to, they don't need to do what they claim they're doing.
They just need to do better than they did in 2020 for, for Donald Trump to win. And they also, by the way, like they're just putting him out there, right? Like he's just going to places that Joe Biden isn't going.
Yeah. They're getting the headlines.
Yeah. And so they're getting these stories and they know that it is obviously like great fodder for the political media to be talking about this issue.
And by the way, there is real weakness in the polls that justifies this debate and this conversation. So I think that that's what's going on here.
Yeah, I think Trump's not necessarily doing better with black voters. I think Joe Biden is not doing as well as he needs to be, is really the story here.
Trump is making inroads with younger men. And I think that's because of a deliberate, smart, concerted strategy that involves a lot of different things.
There's kind of like the MMA angle. There's a crypto policy angle.
We can talk about that more later. But I think if you talk to the Biden campaign, they will tell you that they are essentially maxed out in their support with white voters, but they have a lot of work to do to persuade voters of color, especially black and Latino men.
And this is it's good that they know this. It's a big change from a lot of recent elections where Democrats have often been criticized for not communicating with voters of color until the very end of a campaign and then just doing so with a get out the vote message.
Now they have to focus on persuasion and they have to do it early. And that's good.
You know, it's good that they figured that out now and that they're course correcting early, but it's still a challenge to win back these voters because, um, you know, they're, they're frustrated by the same things everybody else is the economy, inflation, uh, they're concerned about president Biden's age, et cetera. And he's got to win their support.
And I think some Democrats might ask like, well, but don't they understand how fucking racist Donald Trump is, right? He went to Turning Points USA, this conference in Detroit, where white supremacist Nick Fuentes was turned away. He showed up with his supporters and they finally, they've let him in in the past.
They finally got smart and decided to turn him away. But, you know, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Points USA and introduced

Donald Trump in Arizona just last week, you know, he said he thinks twice about flying with black

pilots. He said the Civil Rights Act was a huge mistake.
And then Martin Luther King Jr. was

awful. This is like the big organizing group for the Trump campaign.
So, you know, there's that.

But like, I do think that and, you know, Tommy and I have both talked to Terrence Woodbury, who's done a lot of focus groups with black voters. I did for the Wilderness, you did for Pod Save America.
And he'll say that, you know, a lot of black voters like, yeah, of course he's racist. We know that he's racist.
We're not like but like right now, our lives haven't changed that much over the last four years. And we're still worried about high cost of living.
And so maybe they're not backing Trump, but they don't know that they want to back Joe Biden. And so it really is incumbent upon Joe Biden and the campaign, and they know this, and Democrats, to not just be like, oh, don't you know that Trump is racist? But to be more like, actually, this is what Joe Biden has done, and this is the work he's going to do.
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the polls, there's not some ideological shift going on. Donald Trump remains incredibly unpopular among black voters.
Barack Obama reigns incredibly popular amongst black voters. The argument that Trump's making that somehow because somehow he considers himself a victim of the justice system, that somehow that's going to create some groundwell of support just as unpopular as Donald Trump is.
So it is pretty clear. And it's like, I feel like what we've been talking about this whole episode, like there are just a lot of people who need to be persuaded, not just to vote against Donald Trump, but to vote for Joe Biden.
Also, it's just worth noting that Trump's message in Detroit was demagoguing immigrants. He said, you know, they're coming across the border, all these millions of people, they're inflicting tremendous harm to our black population, to our Hispanic population.
So he's using this divisive anti-immigrant rhetoric to try to appeal to both Black and Hispanic voters. It's also worth noting that behind the scenes, Trump and his allies are doing everything they can to make it harder for voters of color to actually vote, to register to vote, to turn out on election day.
They're trying to shrink the number of days you can vote. They're trying to get rid of vote by mail in some states.
And so, you know, they're definitely like doing a public messaging effort at the front by going to certain venues. And, you know, I guess apparently saying TPUSA is a, you know, African-American outreach event.
But, you know, the truth is they're actually trying to suppress voters of color primarily. But, you know, your point, Tommy, about the anti-immigrant message, like, first of all, there's a long history of Republican politicians doing that and trying to drive a wedge between black and Latino communities, usually with immigration.
by saying, you know, immigrants are coming to take your jobs. It's also now, there is some evidence

that it's working with Latino voters

who, if you look at polls

of Latino and black voters,

their views on immigration

are broadly in line with a lot of white voters, certainly not Republican white voters, but white voters overall. We saw this with, you know, support for Biden's border move, right, which there was no difference between racial groups when they pulled that.
and so you know Trump, Trump knows what he's doing. But I also think he's the Trump campaign.
I don't think they believe that Trump is going to get, you know, 20 percent of the black vote this time as some of the polls show. But I do think that they are doing this to encourage and fuel cynicism among black and Latino voters who may have voted for Joe Biden in the past or may be undecided now.
And either they want them to go third party or they want them to stay home because that's still a win for them. Right.
It's not as good as voting for Donald Trump. But that's why you also heard Trump in these events.
He started hitting Biden for his crime bill back in the early 90s. He brought back super predator, right? Like part of this is just you talked about actual like legal voter suppression efforts.
But part of this is just don't bother. You know, neither of these neither of these two guys are good.
Might as well just stay home. Yeah, I feel like there's two parts.
I feel like that that is the argument that that that is just purely just kind of like muddy the waters, create noise out there. But then I think basically for a broad set of voters that they view as kind of like less likely voters generally, not just of all races, of all age, independents, like there is this immigration, the border, it all becomes a kind of strong versus weak argument, crime, all of this for like less ideological, less engaged voters that Joe Biden's age, that inflation and costs, the chaos of the border, all of that is a collection of things that prove a kind of weakness.
And Trump, through, you know, they have a lot of amnesia about what happened. There's a collective amnesia about what Trump was like, but that Trump for all of his sins and for all of his failures and for all of his vices was tough, was strong.
And I think that's like kind of a big part of what he's doing when he does these events. He says the word strength 50 times when he speaks in front of these audiences.
And I think that's like a big part of it. Yeah.
Yeah. And those and look, USA Today Suffolk polls, which it's great that a pollster did polls of just black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania, because then we've been talking about these tiny subsamples and larger polls, which aren't really useful.
So the fact that they did this is helpful. And, you know, Trump did gain in these polls, a few percentage points with black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but the majority of Biden's steep decline, which, you know, it was 76% said they voted for Biden in 2020.
And of those voters in the poll who said that, it's now only 56% are supporting him in Pennsylvania and 54% in Michigan. He's done 20 points in both states.
Yeah, so that is not great. And again, these same voters, because it's, are they, did they suddenly become conservative? No, Obama's approval rating in those states among black voters they polled is 88% and 84% in Michigan andsylvania so a lot of work to do on that one we got ourselves a debate next week guys kudos if you could hear that sentence without getting a pit in your stomach i truly i still can't believe it it is fucking june it is when is it really gonna happen i guess it is i think i mean it seems like this is really happening uh cnn uh which is hosted in debate, just reported that the rules have been finalized, agreed to.
This is what the rules are that both camps have agreed to. 90 minute debate with two commercial breaks.
No talking to advisors during the breaks. No props.
No notes written in advance. The podium position are designated by a coin flip who goes on what side.
No studio audience to play off of. And mics automatically muted except during a candidate's allotted time to speak.
It also looks like RFK Jr. will not make this round.
CNN says he's only at the required polling threshold in three national polls instead of the required four. And he's definitely not yet on enough state ballots to be able to actually win the presidency, which you need to do to be able to make this debate.
So do any of these rules, do you think they should change the way Joe Biden prepares for this debate? Do you think you can like do hand signals like a third base coach? Oh, yeah. Or maybe like go to the bathroom ahead of time and like leave a little note your

urinal put it under the toilet seat remember when that remember that chess player was accused of

having uh messages sent via morse code through some sort of anal device yeah i'm just i'm not

was that true was that false no whether it's true or false it's a great idea yeah well george bush

was accused of having uh like a battery pack on his back and they never explained that shirt that

jacket we never got to the bottom back there you got on back there. We got a truth there.
I mean, what was on that jacket? If Joe Biden is judged the winner of this debate, it doesn't matter about these rules. I mean, the conspiracies will be just everywhere.
Yeah. Rules.
Here's my question on the rules. So whether or not the mics are muted, I'm just imagining, I mean, I wonder how far away they are from each other.
Because you have to imagine Donald Trump is going to be just shouting whatever it is he shouts through the duration of Joe Biden's points. And it's going to be incumbent on Biden to not let that rattle him, not interrupt himself, which he likes to do a lot.
Joe Biden often interrupts himself. to take the earpiece out.
Right. Yeah, there's that.
Honestly. I also thought too

about like, you know,

there's not gonna be an audience, but are a bunch of Trump staffers gonna still try to applaud and pull shit like that? Oh, I don't think they'll let, I think they're gonna be pretty. I hope so.
I have to just, I'm just, look, my, look, the last time these men debated, Trump literally tried to kill him with COVID. I'm at the point where I'm like, will they release a fucking sack of minx in there like i don't know what's gonna happen who will enforce the rules is the question honestly i have more faith in and jake tepper and dan abash and cnn than i do the fucking uh commission on presidential debates that both campaigns said fuck off to once and for all jake and dan have like a ruler slapping hands setting up j Jim Lehrer's bones and just letting these people yell at each other for two hours.

This is better. I think the big thing that the no-mics or the mics muted is a big deal.
I kind of think the audience is an even bigger deal, no audience, because there's always an audience where they're like, we've told everyone not to applaud and whatever, and it never works, right? So you just got to get them out of there completely. but with no audience it makes the debate zinger

like a lot less important

because you... and whatever and then never works right so you just got to get them out of there completely but with no audience it makes the debate zinger like a lot less important because uh you when you when you deliver the zinger and no one is laughing and no one is oohing or ahhing or applauding like it doesn't really make the zinger that important at all love to leave it every week there's a reason sitcoms have laugh tracks yeah that's right And like neither of these guys is both of these guys need crowds to to react to like any attempts at humor.
And so I do think that that's, you know, you got to put the zingers away at a time like this. Yes.
I do think on the other side, I do like I remember the debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney. And it was this very staid and collegial affair that I think ultimately benefited the Republicans because we were trying to paint them as dangerous and extreme in all the ways that they were at the time back when that was the worst they could do.
And I do worry too that like not having it, like we have seen multiple kinds of, the Donald Trump that the campaign wants is the Donald Trump that was in Iowa kind of controlled, talking about being a husband and father, being very kind of generous. The Donald Trump that Donald Trump wants to be is the guy in New Hampshire that like renting and raving, going after all of his enemies.
And I do worry about like there is a kind of unintended consequence of having this kind of a debate where if he if he can kind of keep himself together, he ends up seeming like the kind of Donald Trump his campaign wants him to be.

I do worry about that.

For sure. I mean, if I was if I was preparing Donald Trump, which, you know, allegedly the Trump campaign is like, we're not preparing anything.
He's he doesn't need preparation. He's just ready to go.

But if I was preparing Donald Trump, I would say, like, everyone is expecting you to lose it, to go after Joe Biden, to talk about Hunter, to do all the shit that Trump does at the rallies, do your whole rally performance, right? And if you just go there and talk about how inflation is bad, people are struggling, Joe Biden has failed as president, he's too weak to lead, and then just stick to that message. And don't sound too crazy, like you're going to win's what i would how i prepared donald trump and maybe donald trump could do that for the first five minutes but i think that how long can he do that with no notes prepared no one whispering in his ear nothing like that like that and and for joe biden then i think the prep is you've gotta you want to speak directly to the american people and talk to people and not get into a like a you know fist fight But you want to also get under Trump's skin.
He's got to have a few lines that they know will really trigger Trump and then reveal the Trump that we all know and despise. You've got to bring out the Twitter feed.
We can't have the guy up there who is smart and is endorsing Larry Hogan in the Maryland Senate race, even though Hogan said, you know, we should respect the jury verdict in the New York House Money case. The other thing that worries me for Biden in this is, like, there's all these reports.
Look, it's very hard to be critical of your boss, no matter what, when your boss is the president of the United States. There's lots of reporting that it's even harder for the Biden team to bring up issues with his family, in particular Hunter's recent legal challenges.
I have to imagine that Donald Trump is going to bring this up in some way that it might be hard to predict. And Biden needs to be, he has to respond in a way that is calculated and on his terms.
Now that can be angry, but you can't just flip out or scream or let it get in your head. Like it's got to be really well thought through and you need to practice that.
Did you hear Trump last week say they asked him about Hunter and he said, it's a real sad thing for a father. That's all he said.
And again, I'm sure they like if they are smart, if Trump is smart, that's the kind of answer he'll give, which would shock everyone. Yeah.
And not play to type. Will he be able to if he feels like he's losing the debate right then all bets are off and he's going to be the trump he's going to be the trump we expect him to be but i think i think for biden also it's like smile look alert like like overdo it because you know everyone's going to be looking for a moment where you're staring off into space or you're looking down to your tights are like super alert the whole time.
I do think he should address Trump when he's attacking Trump. He should address the cameras otherwise.
And again, I think you want Donald Trump to try to complain when the mic is muted because then he'll just sound like you'll just hear like little bits. It might be distracting to Biden, but for the audience, if they just hear this other guy, I just don't know how much you'll hear it because it's a mic like 10 feet away that's designed to pick up the person right here.
So it might just be heard by Biden and not at home. Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
The other thing that Biden needs to do is just he does this thing where he often starts a sentence and then he cuts himself off. I don't want to get started.
Don't get me started, he says. Just stop doing that.
Start and then finish finish yeah and and the biggest problem and this was obama's problem in the first debate with romney is do not be defensive about your record this is not a debate where you are finally going to litigate all of your accomplishments and make sure that everyone knows of course he should talk about what he's done that people might not realize and how it's actually affected people hopefully not with like we did a billion dollars here and 15 billion dollars here like talk about the number of people you've helped a number of student loans you've relieved the number like the the bridges you're building whatever it may be talk about it that way but like when trump challenges you or jake and dana challenge you on this like do not be defensive about the record that is's the, one of the bigger challenges. Or make sure, like, it's very likely that Trump will spend a lot of time attacking CNN, attacking Jake Tapper, attacking Dana Bash, attacking the media generally.
Joe Biden just can't be the guy who does that too. And there's a lot of media criticism that comes out of people like us and the White House.
And I hope that it doesn't come out of Joe Biden's mouth. Particularly about like, the polls are just wrong.
Have you ever taken a poll lately? It's too hard. They're landlines only.
We don't need any of the polling stuff. Leave that to Trump.
Trump will do plenty of that if he needs to. I'm sure.
We just talked about an ad that we think we really like. And I just like, this is an opportunity to deliver the message of that ad.
While you were in court, here's what we were doing. And here's what we'll keep doing.
And by by the way that will have the effect of getting under trump's skin and like joe biden can do it very matter-of-factly you know yeah you were in court i know you were dealing with the law well i was i was uh out there trying to uh again i hope it's economic stuff and not like i was in ukraine i was in europe at the g7 we don't need that apologies tommy i'm sitting right here he's energizing the quad he was facilitating an AUKUS agreement that's a submarine technology going all the way to Australia this is it they're gonna let Tommy into Bay Prep oh the Indo-Pacific has no seat at this table pivot to Asia Pacific Rim that's a movie do they still wear the shirts which who when they to the silly ASEAN shirts they do that really funny leaders photo where they all dress up I like when the leaders have to dress up globalists alright one thing before we go to break some people think he means juice when he says that I knew that was coming yes one thing before we go to break love it hey it's so good to back. I love that there are toilets here and people have to laugh at my jokes because they work here.
And I'm hitting the road. Love it or leave it is going to North Carolina starting tomorrow through Friday.
We'll be in Charlotte and Asheville. We have some amazing shows lined up with with Tressie McMillan Condom, Sydney, Washington, T.S.
Madison, Congressman Jeff Jackson and a lot of other amazing guests. And John, Tommy, and I, we're doing our book tour.
The book's coming out. Sure are.
And we have book events in New York next Tuesday, June 25th. That's the night before our Brooklyn show.
And in Boston next Thursday on June 27th. And they're early, so you'll be home in time to watch the debate.
And hope your eyeballs don't fall out of your head and into your hands. Or hope that they do.
Maybe do that part beforehand. Get your tickets.
Please come see us at crooked.com slash events. We cannot keep pretending that Donald Trump is an outlier when everyone else seems to be out there with him.
But instead of feeling paralyzed, our job now is to pull what we've got and see what we can make happen. Here at Assembly Required, we will continue to face each executive order, legislative policy, and news cycle, no matter how terrifying or absurd,

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Okay, before we go, we are treating ourselves to a little deep stake speculation since Trump's decision is rapidly approaching and there's been some new reporting about who we might pick.

Reminder, Trump has said multiple times he'll announce his VP at the convention instead of in the weeks before, and that's now just a month away from the Republican convention. The campaign has sent vetting paperwork to eight people, according to Politico, but really it's down to the top tier is three.
But of all the possible contenders, a couple were out on the Sunday shows yesterday. Here's an idea of what you missed.
Because this guy is tireless. He's committed.
He's smart. He's funny.
He's nothing like he's portrayed in the press. And so if you asked me that same question today, I'd be like, absolutely, I would do business with him.
Because, I mean, think about how successful he's been, whether it's a whatever it is. Look, I think that I would have an ability to step in I'm actually pretty intelligent I can sift through issues really really well it's about judgment it's about logic streams it's about how you make decisions at the end of the day.
Under Joe Biden we've seen the movement to defund the police leaving communities like the one I grew up in devastated and ravaged by a wave of violent crime that we have not seen literally in five decades. Actually, Senator, as you probably know, the latest stats on violent crime and on the murder rate, they're actually down this past year.
So not quite literally. That was first Doug Burgum, and then it was Byron Donalds, a congressman from Florida, talking about how we can sift through information

and logic streams. And then the last one was Tim Scott just lying about violent crime.
Insiders are saying that of those three, only Burgum is on the real shortlist, which apparently is just him, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio.
The anonymous Trump allies quoted in the pieces about this warn as usual that Trump could always change his mind or just throw a curveball. But they're also not waving off the idea that for now it's these three finalists.
All right. Giving you guys a chance to revise your lists or keep them the same.
Who do you think is at the top of the campaigns list? Who do you think is at the top of Trump's list? And who are your dark horses if If you have dark horses. Can I tell you my favorite quote from all the reporting on this, which was in the bulwark, I believe, where Trump was bemoaning that his candidates weren't hot enough.
He said, where's my Cary Grant? Yeah. But he and listen, you don't want to fuck your vice president.
He's not swiping right. You're not.
You don't know the right guy. That's how it works.
You got to really want to get in there. Like, like, you know, he's kissed Joe Arpaio, but he knows he can do better.
What was your question? It is pride. Your list.
What do you think the campaign wants him to do? What do you think Trump deep down in his dark soul wants to do? And then are there any dark horses that we're just, that are not these top three that we're missing? I mean, it doesn't seem like the, the hardcore MAGA culture warriors all want J.D. Vance.
I treated myself to a couple right-wing podcasts this morning, as one does. They love J.D.
Vance. They love that he fights their culture wars.
They're worried that he's very young. He's 39.
That hurts. That cuts deep past.
I saw that. I was like, 30? He's 39? That hurts.
First you're older than the baseball players. Then you're older than the vice presidents.
Then you're older than the senators and you're dead. He's been.
Remember when people remember when Barack Obama got shit because he was like in his late 40s and he was a U.S. senator.
J.D. Vance has been there.
Just he just got elected. He's 39 years old.
Two years in. Yeah.
I mean, at least Stefanik is 39 as well. So there's a couple of youngins on this list.

But J.D., will he get it?

He is your slash and burn, put him on Fox News,

go hard to your opponents every day, probably MAGA.

Did you guys read the long J.D. Vance interview with Ross Douthat in the New York Times?

Oh, no, sorry, I haven't had the play here.

Save me for the plane.

I will say he really is the smarter Trump. He's scary.
Of course. And he still sounds very, everyone's pulling out the January 6th stuff and try to steal the election stuff.
And he sounds very bullshitty on both of those topics. But he actually makes Trumpism sound more reasonable than I have seen it in in print or heard of it and um it's interesting too he said to the people on the left i would say whose politics i'm open to it's the bernie bros that's who i'm that's whose politics i'm most open to he's like but generally center-left liberals who are doing very well and center-right conservatives who are doing very well have an incredible blind spot about how much their success is built on a system that's not serving people who they should be serving and it's like that is a again we can all put calls in and it's all bullshit but it is it's i do i do wonder if jd vance being so smart and such a favorite of the uh mega crew is like going to give trump any kind of pause because he doesn't remember trump doesn't like anyone out shining trump and so there is that i that I wonder about that.
And I wonder about the inexperience thing. But he he also called Trump America's Hitler at one point.
Well, no, but he was saying yes, but he but it was sort of like a can't beat him, join him sort of a thing. That statement.
But I find it really hard. Like I think Trump doesn't know.
So how could we know? But I find like it hard to get past the thought process that if you go with Rubio, you're making the same mistake you made with Pence, which is someone who's fealty is ultimately not gonna be with Donald Trump, but to his long-term interests, a kind of squish. So that I find a bit confusing.
I think Doug Burgum, without the money, is he still as appealing. He is kind of boring and kind of stayed in a way that won't outshine Trump.
But I'll tell you my, I like you played the clip of Byron Donald's. That was his worst moment in the interview.
It's actually pretty good. Yeah, that question.
The question was like, are you ready to be commander in chief on day one? And the fact that he didn't go, hell yes, I am. He kind of kind of he actually seemed like he really thinks about the questions he's being asked and then tries to answer them, which I think is a huge liability.
But what I found interesting about Byron Donald is, you know, unlike a Rubio or a Burgum or a Tim Scott or any of these other people, like he did, he's able to deflect questions that about Trump in a way that seemed less political. I thought he was like a very, very good interview.
And I thought he did. When I saw it, I was like, oh, wow.
If Trump is watching this, I think Trump is much more in favor of someone like this than some of the more political people that are maybe higher up the list. I think that the Trump campaign is trying to be cautious.
They think they're winning. Trump thinks he's winning.
And when you're in that situation, you go with the safe pick. And you go with the pick that's not going to upset the apple cart.
And I think that's Doug Burgum. And he's rich.
And Trump likes rich people. Trump likes, you know, apparently there's reporting that he feels closest to Doug Burgum.
He knows he's going to get complete loyalty from that guy. He thinks he looks good.
I don't know if he wants to fuck him, but he does think he looks good. He apparently also said that his wife is attractive, and Trump likes the hot wives.
That's a big deal. So he wants to see how it all looks on TV, right? Doug Burgum and his wife and Trump and Melania, he likes that.
So I could see him just going to Burgum and it's like, is it exciting? Is it going to shake anything up? No. But Trump doesn't want to shake anything up, really.
Of that list of three, I find it like the easiest to believe that it's Doug Burgum. But then I do wonder, too, if it really is going to hold this for the convention.
Is he trying to do something more interesting? There's a three-person short list that we're talking about now. There's also sort of an eight-person longer list.
There's only one woman on the eight-person list, which is shocking, Elise Stefanik. So that does tell you about the path they're going for, which is they're trying to reach young men, particularly young men of color.
Given that, I mean, Rubio... Doug Burgum.
Yeah, Rubio would be the smart pick, I think, because you think he could maybe make inroads with Latino voters. But I do get the sense that you do love it.
That's like, I wonder if he really passes the loyalty test. And there's also the 2013 immigration reform experience where Rubio tried to be thoughtful and reasonable and actually solved the problem.
And the right-wing base has never forgiven him for that. The question I have on Bergam- And he's a he's a neocon on foreign policy maga people don't love the neocon so he's rubio's got some hayley vibes yeah both rubio and uh byron donalds would have to move out of florida uh because you can't live in the same state as the president the question about bergam is i wonder if there's a deal where you're like all right doug come on board but you got to write a hundred million dollar check.
I'm sure you will. Oh, that's perfect.
A perfect third impeachment. Yeah.
A direct purchase vice presidency. That wouldn't surprise me at all.
I also think like Trump ultimately, like he's a racist and he like likes his peers. He looks like old men who he thinks are successful in business.
And that's Doug Berger. I wouldn't be surprised if the campaign or outside advisors like your Kellyanne Conway's are pushing Rubio.
I think she is, yeah. You know, because I do think like Rubio out there and he's fluent in Spanish.
He just did like a Telemundo interview completely in Spanish. The only, you know, major party candidate that can do that.
So, you know, I'm sure they're pushing on that. But like, I don't know.
Deep down, could just be Doug. I mean, it's a very Mike Pence pick if he does that.
Rupert Murdoch apparently likes doug burdo oh that's another one the only thing about him he's really boring he's not vetted like which dakota is he from maybe maybe he maybe he killed the dog too maybe he maybe you never know who he's killed but like there's not been you know you can get elected statewide in some of these gubernatorial races and not really get a tenth of the scrutiny you get once you're a serious presidential contender. Doug Burgum, though, does answer the question, hey, why do all these no-name idiots with no shot run for president all the time? It's because you might end up the VP like Dougie Fresh here.
And he was my guy from the beginning. You loved him.
That's just, you know, that's something to think about. All right, that's our show for today today and we will be back with another show on Wednesday it's gonna be Love It and Me and Kate Shaw from Strict Scrutiny isn't that exciting a lot of legal news a lot of legal news alright everyone we'll see you later 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 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 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 our associate producers are producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari.
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