Sam Stein and Ron Brownstein: Now We're Talking

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Speaker 4 Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
We are going to have the great Ron Brownstein in segment two. But first up, my buddy Sam Stein, managing editor of the Bulwark.

Speaker 4 We've got a bunch of news. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheetles resigning.
We have the first Kamala actual campaign event out in the States this afternoon in Milwaukee.

Speaker 4 She gave a rousing speech at Campaign HQ yesterday. Beyoncé has given Kamala permission to use freedom as her campaign anthem.
So that's a big update. And I'm excited to talk about it all with you.

Speaker 4 What's happening, Sam?

Speaker 5 Oh, nothing, man. Kind of a crazy beginning to my time here.
I say that each time I'm on, but three weeks of just torrential news non-stop is really remarkable.

Speaker 4 It has been the wildest. And

Speaker 4 how many days ago was it that there was an assassination attempt? It's still weird to say the words assassination attempt. We've lost a candidate.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I've been talking to people about this. They're like, it's kind of crazy that that seems to have become like an old news cycle so quickly, but like

Speaker 4 it was a little over a week ago. Yeah, I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer about this.

Speaker 4 So maybe if a listener has a good memory and wants to share, because I was asking Bill Crystal about this, James Carville, I'm asking all my elders, I was like, what was it like when Gerald Ford, when there was

Speaker 4 the two assassination attempts in September of 76? And I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer. Maybe that's just the nature of human nature that like we just, you know, we move on.

Speaker 4 My mother always says, like, when it's over, it's over. And just like, maybe that's just life.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we don't dwell on the past.

Speaker 4 You have a piece out that I wanted to talk about called How the Democrats Got Their Shit Together. I also want to talk about Kamala and J.D.

Speaker 4 Vance's split screen yesterday and do some Veep talk, but let's just go backwards a little bit first and answer that question that was the rhetorical question in your headline because there was doubts about this.

Speaker 4 Not here, not me. I didn't have any doubts about that.
But many people out there were saying that like, this was going to be a shit show and like, there's no way to handle this.

Speaker 4 You know, I was at an event last night and there's like some conspiratorial thinking out there among kind of normies that are like, oh, this, they must have been plotting this behind the scenes.

Speaker 4 And they've been working, Kamala had been planning it and working on it. And that's why it was so clean.
I don't think either of those things are really true.

Speaker 4 But talk to us about how you think things kind of came into focus so quickly.

Speaker 5 Yeah, first of all, I will applaud you for just handling it with such calm demeanor these past three weeks. Really?

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. I've just been steady as a rock on this podcast.

Speaker 5 You haven't worn it on your sleep at all. Yeah, it's funny because I always get these,

Speaker 5 you know, when you're in the business, I suppose people come up to you who aren't in the business and they just assume that there's like a heavy hand behind the scenes that's orchestrating all this stuff.

Speaker 5 And of course, you know, Joe Biden, they did this deliberately and all setting it up perfectly for Kamala to swoop in. And then maybe Obama was helping out.

Speaker 5 You know, something, there's always that weird sort of quasi-conspiratorial stuff. And sometimes it's true, but in this case, it's definitely not true.
You know, I looked at it through two lenses.

Speaker 5 One is they got their shit together after sorting through a lot of shit, right? And that it just was a painstaking emotional process that really caused a lot of harm. That's one way to look at it.

Speaker 5 And the other way to look at it is that, you know, people never give power away willingly.

Speaker 5 And the fact that Joe Biden did in the span of four weeks and has done so with relatively little harm to the party, in fact, maybe some gain to the party is kind of remarkable.

Speaker 5 I tend to side with that latter camp, that ultimately, if we're going to look back on this and be like, wow, you know, yes, it was a painful process at times, but four weeks ago, you know, we just assumed Joe Biden would be the nominee, and a disastrous debate performance led to a lot of lawmakers having serious doubts and then led to leadership kind of coming to the White House and saying, look, we got to move.

Speaker 5 And then, you know, for two weeks, it was back and forth, back and forth. But ultimately, that's not that long a process to have a transition of power.

Speaker 5 And that's what ultimately this is, is a fairly remarkable transition of power.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I like the quote from Congressman Yarmouth, Kentucky, right?

Speaker 4 Kentucky. Kentucky, yeah.
Democrat, he told you ex-Congressman, but he's great.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Democrats aren't as cold-hearted as they need to be. And then he added, sometimes.

Speaker 4 And I think that that is like at the heart of this, maybe my disconnect with all this that was happening as a former Republican is I was over here.

Speaker 4 And as soon as the debate's over, I'm like, chop off his head. Okay.
Like, it's like, it's over. Time to move forward.
Cold-hearted. Like, we got to move.
It's time to move.

Speaker 4 And maybe that there was something about the nature of the Democratic mindset, Maybe a little different. I don't know.

Speaker 5 Well, yes, and no, right? Like, I think, first of all, Republicans never would dump Trump, right?

Speaker 5 Like, he could literally, someone, I had another quote where someone said, like, he could take a piss on the debate stage, and the Republican response would be like, what a beautiful piss.

Speaker 5 Like, so, so clear. The man is so hydrated.

Speaker 4 That's true.

Speaker 5 But, yeah, so that's that weird visual I just put out there. Yeah, there's something to like, I think the problem here was that people like you and me and others were like, the stakes are existential.

Speaker 5 Like it's very clear post-debate that what you have to do and go and do it. And so in that sense, it's like, of course it ended up in this place.
It could not end up in another place.

Speaker 5 To a lot of Democrats, it was different. It was, you know, this man has served us.
We owe him a chance to, you know, correct that. horrendous debate performance.

Speaker 5 You know, the sort of historical parallels are bad when you switch a party candidate like this. And maybe it actually doesn't make sense.

Speaker 5 And they kind of had to work through that, not just on a political level, but on a psychic level. And again, I come back to the idea that, you know, that's not easy.

Speaker 5 And four weeks is not all that long. Obviously, in the context of a campaign, it probably is.

Speaker 4 But was it only four weeks? I mean, I felt, if you just look at my grays, it felt a lot longer. If you're living those four weeks one second at a time, angry texting your friends.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And every day it was like an emotional roller coaster because you'd wake up, you'd be like, yeah, he's sticking, he's sticking through it.

Speaker 5 And then by the end of the day, you'd go to bed, be like, there's no way he survives. It's like, he's obviously falling.
He's going to leave tomorrow.

Speaker 5 And it's just, you'd go through it again and again and again.

Speaker 5 And when it ultimately happened on Sunday, I don't know what you were up to, but when it happened on Sunday, I was just like, whoa, you know, even though I prepared myself for the likelihood that this was going to happen.

Speaker 5 Actually seeing it happen was one of those news moments that I will forever remember.

Speaker 4 Yeah, same. I was on TV.
I have like this, I have this TV look.

Speaker 4 It's so strange. I was on TV for Biden sending out the tweet with the letter that he was dropping out of the race.
I was on TV for the announcement that RBG had died. Damn.

Speaker 4 And I was on TV for the jury verdict on Trump's guilty plea. I'm not on that much.

Speaker 5 No, is this just a ploy to get you booked more? You're like, look, book more.

Speaker 4 No, I don't know. No, it's the fates.
The fates want my initial reaction. I gay yelped twice on two of the three times.
I gay squealed.

Speaker 5 What does a gay squeal sound like, just for the viewers?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Gay squealed on two of the three.

Speaker 4 They have their shit together now. Maybe not forever, but as of right now, the Democrats have their shit together, as evidenced by the vice president's first speech yesterday at campaign headquarters.

Speaker 4 Before we just pre-judge it, let's take a listen to one bite of it together.

Speaker 6 And when Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms as President of the United States, I will sign it into law.

Speaker 6 We the people.

Speaker 4 Indeed, we the people.

Speaker 6 So ultimately, to all the friends here, I say, in this election, we know we each face a question,

Speaker 6 what kind of country do we want to live in?

Speaker 6 A country of freedom, compassion, and rule of law?

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 6 Or a country of chaos, fear, and hate.

Speaker 6 You all are here because you as leaders know

Speaker 6 we each,

Speaker 6 including our neighbors and our friends and our family, we each as Americans have the power to answer that question.

Speaker 6 That's the beauty of it, the power of the people.

Speaker 6 We each have the ability to answer that question.

Speaker 6 So in the next 106 days, we have work to do. We have doors to knock on.
We have people to talk to. We have phone calls to make.
And we have an election to win.

Speaker 4 Sam.

Speaker 4 Sam, there's a word for that. The word is, that's fucking politics.
They're doing fucking politics now. So that's nice.
That's a big upgrade for me.

Speaker 4 I don't know about you.

Speaker 5 I guess I have to ask, like, are we just so conditioned to having candidates who meander or like end their sentences with, anyways,

Speaker 5 we just like can't comprehend what a basic speech is like.

Speaker 4 And maybe

Speaker 5 it doesn't matter now, right?

Speaker 4 Maybe, yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe that's it.
I don't know. All I can tell you is I was watching that yesterday and I was ready to take off my shirt.

Speaker 4 I was like ready to put on face paint. I was like, this is a speech.
This is a speech. We've had years now where we haven't had a good speech.
And it's like, that matters.

Speaker 4 It's not the only thing that matters.

Speaker 4 But like, that's not nothing.

Speaker 5 No, and it clearly matters a couple of things here. One is, I knew there was going to be a lot of enthusiasm for when whoever it was, but likely her, jumped into the race.

Speaker 5 I've been almost shocked at the levels of it, the ways we can measure it, right? So, within what, 36 hours, she's raised $100 million in online giving.

Speaker 4 I knew that was going to happen too, but not that, you know, not that it's just a victory for me, but I did. I said that multiple times, and they're gonna do record fundraising.
Go ahead, continue.

Speaker 4 We have no Stradamus right now. There were some things that were obvious, that's all I'm saying.
That people would be excited and give money, but go ahead, continue.

Speaker 5 I'm trying to get the reader up to speed here, reader, the listener.

Speaker 5 They have 1.2 million unique donors now, which means people who will now give again. 1.2 million.
It's just nothing.

Speaker 4 It was like half of those are new or something. It was like an insane number.
Hundreds of thousands of people had never given before.

Speaker 5 It's crazy. You know, we think, you know, the stuff that's uplifting now, I'm imagining, maybe I should ask you because you can predict the future clearly.

Speaker 5 The convention is going to be something unlike anything. At first, we were thought it was going to be a calamity, right? We were like, oh my God, Chicago riots, yada, yada, yada.

Speaker 5 Now I'm totally whiplash. I think it's going to be one of the most insane emotional events in Democratic politics history.
I mean, when Biden comes out there, likely to introduce her.

Speaker 5 as the candidate, I can't see the arena stopping its applause for 10 minutes straight. They're going to wrap their arms around the guy one last time and thank him for the send-off.

Speaker 5 It's going to be crazy. And her speech is going to be absurd.
And now, I don't know if this is enough, right? Like good vibes are great.

Speaker 4 They're great. Sure.

Speaker 5 And certainly you need them if you're going to win.

Speaker 4 Certainly better than bad vibes and being unable to enunciate a message, I would say.

Speaker 5 Caputo's got a piece coming on this today. We're going to have three months of just absolute mudslinging right at her on gender and race.

Speaker 5 And it's just, that's the question we're all wondering in in the back of our minds, is the country ready to not just elect a woman, but a black woman?

Speaker 5 And specifically, are six tens of thousands of voters in six specific states ready to do this? Because that's what this is all about.

Speaker 4 We're going to talk about that a little more with Ron Brownstein in a bit. But the Caputo thing, the three of us were chatting about this.
I think it's risky.

Speaker 4 I think there are a lot more salient potential hits on Kamala than she's a DEI president, which, you know, there's a good rundown today.

Speaker 4 And Jake Sherman did a punchbowl of all the obscene number of Republicans that have used that talking point already and just kind of going after her.

Speaker 4 You know, there was Seb Gorka was like called her colored already on TV.

Speaker 4 I think that the potential backlash effect on that stuff conceivably outweighs, you know, everybody thinking about, you know, America's darker angels and, you know, people's misogyny and sexism.

Speaker 4 Misogyny and sexism exist, but the backlash against overt misogyny and sexism also exists.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I hear you.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 4 You're going to be more negative about it.

Speaker 5 Go ahead. I just don't know, right? Like, I just don't know.
I want to see how it happens in the next two. I think the next week is going to be really instructive.
There is a case to be made.

Speaker 5 I don't know if you abide by it that what she should do is just lean into it.

Speaker 5 And by that, I mean pick Gretchen Whitmer, like go all female, say, yeah, sure, it doesn't matter who I pick because you're going to try to attack me for being a woman. Let's lean into it.

Speaker 5 Let's just make the contrast even stronger.

Speaker 5 And let's just make this election about a misogynist and his 39-year-old sidekick who wants to, you know, have a federal abortion ban versus two women who are at the top of their field and are standing up for like decency.

Speaker 5 Now, I don't know, that's a risk, but someone compared it to like Bill Clinton picking Al Gore.

Speaker 4 Yeah, let's sit on that for a second, actually. Let's sit on that because there was one thing, one other thing from Commonwealth's speech I really liked.

Speaker 4 I don't know the clip was where she talked about how she took on perpetrators of all kind, predators who abused women. And then she said, so hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type.

Speaker 4 So I like leaning into it in that way. As far as the ticket is concerned, you mentioned Gretchen Whitmer.

Speaker 4 I have another clip about another kind of sleeper candidate that people have started to talk about. Can we play this about Senator Talbot?

Speaker 4 You know something, man?

Speaker 3 Senator Talbot might not be a terrible choice for a running mate.

Speaker 4 An all-female ticket?

Speaker 4 The American people work hard for a living, okay? They don't need that kind of bullshit. Selena Meyer had a different take for you.
I was saving that for later, but you know, you set me up for it.

Speaker 4 I don't know, man.

Speaker 4 Look, whatever. Come, look, Gretchen.
I could get excited for that. Gretchen can also deliver a political message, which is useful, and that's going to be an important state.

Speaker 4 Just as a practical matter, we'll get into this more with Ron Bounstein. But

Speaker 4 if one of the key demos that the Dems need to win back is black and Hispanic and younger men of all races, it's just like, ugh, you know, are you rubbing it in the face? Are you just making it

Speaker 4 more challenging?

Speaker 4 I get it.

Speaker 5 The question is, it's like, I'm trying to borrow a sports analogy here but it's like

Speaker 5 you're let's say you're a team you're you're trailing in the fourth quarter basketball game like

Speaker 5 and you decide you know what if we're going to get back on this we got to go like either full court press or go small right like just do something dramatically different rather than try to match up with them conventionally sorry i'm sounding like bill simmons here but that's like the analogy it's like you do something really quirky and unconventional because even even with all this enthusiasm, I think we generally agree Trump is probably slightly favored to win.

Speaker 5 So you got to change things up even more so, perhaps, rather than play it conventionally.

Speaker 5 Now, the other side of the argument is that, no, and we're going to run a piece on this tomorrow morning where this is it.

Speaker 5 No, you actually, this is a sort of election that is defined somewhat about masculinity, alpha maleism, things like that.

Speaker 5 And you need to show that it's okay to be comfortable with a strong woman by having a number two that is a male. And so, I don't know,

Speaker 5 it's just tough to game these. And I think people who, you know, people who actually are in the trenches and have polling data will make an educated decision on this.

Speaker 5 I just think my point is not to like weigh the merits of one person or another.

Speaker 5 It's just to push the proposition that maybe the thing to do for Democrats here is to just think unconventionally about this race rather than conventionally.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 4 So let's do a little rapid fire then on Veep, on unconventional, because I had a couple other, we've talked about the main candidates in the short list, last few episodes, Shapiro, Kelly, Senator Kelly out of Arizona, Governor Bashir out of Kentucky.

Speaker 4 Carville mentioned Mitch Landrew, former mayor of New Orleans yesterday.

Speaker 4 Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina, has been mentioned quite a few times. So I want to throw out a couple other things.

Speaker 4 We've had several listeners, speaking of unconventional, several listeners that have messaged me and been like, this is the bulwark. Okay.
Why aren't we floating a unity ticket? So, you know,

Speaker 4 why not? Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Mitt, Condoleezza Rice.

Speaker 5 Yeah, no, I mean, that was like, it wasn't, well, no, Aaron Sorkin wanted them to nominate Mitt.

Speaker 4 We're not doing Sorkin. Let's just take it seriously for a second.
I think both of us would think that probably no, but why, why no for you?

Speaker 5 It's not that it's a no.

Speaker 5 You would have to find a Republican who is pro-choice.

Speaker 5 Right. It has to be, because that is the dynamic.
It's the issue that Democrats are going to centralize the debate around. So that limits you a little bit right off the bat.

Speaker 5 This is not a national security election, despite what we, you know, the bulwark audience wants it to be. This is really about sort of Trump and domestic politics.

Speaker 5 So if you find a Republican who's pro-choice and who is, you know, willing to sort of tear the bark off Trump, which I think there are a few of them there, then yeah, I think you could consider that.

Speaker 5 At the same time,

Speaker 5 that's probably not going to happen.

Speaker 4 The abortion problem is the problem.

Speaker 4 Like I said, if you really want to throw yourself in the mix, I don't know if you're listening, Liz Cheney, but like, you know, maybe do an interview where you had a road to Damascus moment an abortion and you know your friend your niece had an ectopic pregnancy the more the more clever idea that like i'm sure bill crystal will write about uh at some point in time because he loves these types of things like do you like name a you know a bipartisan cabinet that you would appoint in your term right like sure in that case you could be like yeah you know i'd i'd have a spot for cheney somewhere or something like that yeah her kinsman our boy we got a shout out at him all right one other name that has emerged in the last 24 hours that we haven't discussed is tim walls governor of uh minnesota i watched him on morning Joe this morning.

Speaker 4 What did you think? I thought he was actually better on Morning Joe than Andy Bashir was because he was doing

Speaker 4 pure figure skating judging. I got to tell you, I'm not 100% sure I knew what Tim Walls looked like before this morning.
Maybe I did and I'd forgotten.

Speaker 4 He's been a pretty progressive governor, just as far as if you just go through a tick list of things accomplished, maybe the most progressive governor in the country, which cuts both ways probably, versus Shapiro, who's been also very accomplished, but is more of a center-left governor in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 4 He gives off, though, kind of like a you'd hang out with him in a VFW hall in Wisconsin vibe. Yeah.
So I don't hate that. On the other hand, it doesn't really scream future.

Speaker 4 He's an older guy, bald, kind of gruff, a little gruff, friendly, but gruff. I don't know.
Anyway, would you have any thoughts on Tim Walls? Are you Tim Walls-pilled?

Speaker 5 No offense to Tim Walls. I don't think that adds much at all.
I think if you really are thinking this through,

Speaker 5 you're looking for someone who can help you with a specific state.

Speaker 4 Although that's

Speaker 5 integrated.

Speaker 4 Sam, I can read through. You're Shapiro or whatnot.

Speaker 5 Well, I guess, and someone made the case for Mark Kelly, and I get it. And Arizona's an interesting state.
It's probably not going to be in the Democratic ledger this cycle, but like, maybe.

Speaker 5 I don't know about that. But I think they need someone who can keep this momentum going on.
And that, I mean, it's like generation. You need generational, interesting talent.

Speaker 4 Speaking of lack of dynamism, let's take a listen to JD Vance yesterday. Let's just listen, actually.

Speaker 4 It is the weirdest thing to me. Democrats say that it is racist to believe.
Well, they say it's racist to do anything.

Speaker 4 I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday and won today.

Speaker 3 I'm sure they're going to call that racist too, but

Speaker 4 it's good.

Speaker 4 I love you guys.

Speaker 4 I love you guys. I can make this joke because it was my candidate and I was in the room when it happened, but my favorite tweet about this said, please laugh.

Speaker 4 I know, but it's a play on it. Please laugh.

Speaker 4 And it helped me.

Speaker 4 It did trigger me a little bit. He does do this, I love you guys.

Speaker 4 There was a good tweet from somebody that was like, hey, he's like the one guy at a bachelor party that doesn't know anybody else at the bachelor party and he gets all drunk and he starts saying, I love you guys.

Speaker 4 And he's weird.

Speaker 4 He has negative charisma, I think, is my takeaway from that 27 seconds. I don't know if you have other thoughts.

Speaker 5 Negative? Yeah, perhaps. I thought Edgar had a really smart observation today, which is that he seems to not realize that this is all about Trump, right?

Speaker 5 Like, and that he's just got to make this about Trump because he's out there talking about how he's, you know,

Speaker 5 what he adds to the ticket and that they're cheering 12 more years. He's like, oh, let's not get ahead of ourselves, but he's clearly internalizing that he is the future.

Speaker 5 And I think Trump's probably looking at that being like, what the fuck is going on with the Mountain Dew? Like, what is he talking about? And then secondly, it's, you know, the question of like,

Speaker 5 is he subservient enough to the boss is going to come up at some point.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Let's get Caputo on this.
Trump's already asked somebody at the golf course if he, if he made a mistake. There's no doubt.

Speaker 4 If I was a betting man, like Trump has already been like, oh, we sure did.

Speaker 5 He just finds him a little bit weird. Like, culturally, they're not the same people.

Speaker 4 I think Don Jr. is about to be in the doghouse at Mar-a-Lago.
That's all I'm saying. Because

Speaker 4 Trump is going to look at his guy and he'd be like, you know, Kendall from Succession, you fucking idiot. You know, like, how did you, how did you set me up with this guy?

Speaker 5 I don't know. Maybe he give him a little time, I suppose, on the trail because maybe he can rectify this charisma thing.
But who's just riffing on Diet Mountain Dew?

Speaker 5 Like,

Speaker 5 what? It's totally weird. The whole thing was bizarre.

Speaker 4 All right. Hey, one last thing.
At that J.D. Vance rally, there was a pre-speaker that had a very ominous threat.
Let's take a listen to that.

Speaker 7 Trump and Butler County's J.D. Vance are the last chance to save our country politically.
I'm afraid if we lose this one, it's going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved.

Speaker 7 It's the greatest experiment in the history of mankind. And if we come down to a civil war, I'm glad we got people like Schmidti and the bikers for Trump on our side.

Speaker 4 Sam, what do you think about that?

Speaker 5 So I saw this, and like, the first thing that occurred to me is, one, it's fucked up, like talking about the idea that we maybe need a civil war.

Speaker 5 But two, is that in any prior cycle, like we say this all the time, but like in any prior cycle, like you would have to disavow that dude. You would have to disavow him.

Speaker 5 You'd have to say, I don't know who he is. Like an intern probably loaded that prompter or something.
You'd have to make up some reason to get rid of this guy. And that's just not where we're at.

Speaker 5 And clearly, like, you know, you should not have an opening speaker musing about the idea that we might need a civil war. That's just nuts.

Speaker 4 It needs to be where we're at. Our friend Chris Lasavida needs to be in the barrel.

Speaker 4 There's been a lot of hagiography about those guys, but it's time to start for them to start answering for what's happening on the stages at their own events. All right, we got Ron Brownstein up next.

Speaker 4 Sam, thanks for chatting with me.

Speaker 3 What a pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker 4 We'll be talking to you soon. All right, later.

Speaker 1 Get Ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carise Van Houten.

Speaker 1 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 1 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 1 Why is Adam after the Tanner family? What lengths will he go to?

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Speaker 4 All right, we are back with Ron Brownstein. He's a senior editor at the Atlantic, senior political analyst for CNN.

Speaker 4 Most recent book, Rock Me on the Water, 1974, the year Los Angeles Transformed Music, Movies, Television, and Politics. Welcome back to the pod, Ron.
How's it going, man?

Speaker 3 Good, good. You know, we just had the 50th anniversary of Chinatown being released.
That was like a, that was a big moment in the world of Rock Me on the Water. I wrote about it in the Atlantic.

Speaker 3 And who would have thought that 50 years later, America would turn its lonely eyes to essentially Noah Cross, which was the bad guy played by John Houston, and who had many things in common with Donald Trump as their savior.

Speaker 4 Am I in trouble that I've never seen Chinatown?

Speaker 3 Yeah, you are, actually, yes. I'm in trouble.
That's pretty unforgivable.

Speaker 4 Could you do me a memo of Cultural Touch Jones from 1974 that I need to take in?

Speaker 3 Have you seen both Godfathers?

Speaker 4 I better not answer that.

Speaker 3 No, don't answer that. Yeah, that's really unforgivable.
The other day, I was watching my friend Ben Mankowicz, who's great, you know, introducing Casablanca

Speaker 3 about six months ago, actually, on Turner Classic Movies.

Speaker 3 And he said he described it as the greatest movie of Hollywood's golden age, which I immediately picked up on my ears perked up because he was leaving open.

Speaker 3 the possibility that there was a greater movie in Hollywood's silver age, which is what 67 to 76 is known as. And in fact, he was leaving open room for The Godfather.

Speaker 4 Okay,

Speaker 4 we'll get Sonny Bunch over on that. We got it.

Speaker 4 To weigh in on that.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Let's talk politics, huh?

Speaker 4 All right. So let's talk about this.
The article is: Can Kamala Harris Reassemble the Obama Coalition? So let's get nerdy. I guess my first question is: you don't write the headlines, so maybe

Speaker 4 you don't agree with that premise. Is she trying to reassemble the Obama Coalition? I guess it's the first question.

Speaker 3 You know, it's the updated version of it.

Speaker 3 So we think of Obama as mobilizing young people and people of color at very high levels and also running well among college-educated white voters, you know, suburban cultural liberals.

Speaker 3 Obama also ran very well competitively.

Speaker 3 He didn't win them, but he ran competitively among working-class white voters in those Rust-belt states that he won, which at that point included Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Iowa, right?

Speaker 3 It's not really plausible for any Democrat to run as well in the Trump era among those working-class white voters anymore as Obama did in 2012 and especially in 2008.

Speaker 3 But if you look at what happened in 2020, Tim, right?

Speaker 3 Joe Biden did not come close to matching Obama's numbers with those working class white voters and older white voters, but he ran a little better than Hillary Clinton did among them in the first Trump race.

Speaker 3 I mean, he improved slightly among them. And that really was important.

Speaker 3 It wasn't the only reason, but it was important in him taking back Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which were the three states that made Trump president in 2016 by a combined 78,000 votes.

Speaker 3 So fast forward to where we are today. Why was Biden in a weaker position than he was in 2020? Why was Trump winning when he was losing by eight points at this point in the 538 poll average in 2020?

Speaker 3 Well, the biggest reason by far was that Biden was eroding with younger and non-white voters, right?

Speaker 3 You know, Biden was running, has been running significantly weaker than he did among black voters really weaker than he did among hispanic voters and really weaker than he did among young voters harris has the potential her best electoral asset is the potential to reverse biden's biggest weaknesses and to regain some of the ground he has lost maybe a lot of the ground he has lost since 2020 among young voters and black voters and less certainly but certainly within the realm of possibility some recovery among hispanic voters but but, you know, even amid all of his other troubles, Biden this year was holding relatively more of his support among those blue-collar and older whites, right?

Speaker 3 So he improved over Hillary among blue-collar and older whites, and he was largely holding that in 2024 despite everything else going on.

Speaker 3 So while Harris, I think, is very well positioned to do better among black voters, among young voters, maybe Hispanic voters, and even to squeeze a few more points out of pro-choice college-educated voters, the big demographic question, which has big geographic implications, which we'll talk about in a minute, is whether she can match what Biden did among working class and older whites in 2020.

Speaker 3 or whether she starts sliding back further toward the Hillary level of 2016,

Speaker 3 in which case, you know, she's going to need really big numbers among the other groups where she's stronger to offset that.

Speaker 3 That makes sense?

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, it totally makes sense. A lot to chew on there.
So let's focus on the positives for the vice president first.

Speaker 4 We have a tiny bit of data and it's so early, but it's just worth pointing this out because it speaks to the point of your article so closely. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Civics, which is a pretty credible organization, they started tracking Trump versus Harris two weeks ago and through 721. So that's through Sunday.
So this was before actually the handoff, right?

Speaker 4 So we don't know if there's been any effect the handoffs, but Biden trailed Trump 46-44 nationally. Harris was ahead 48-46.

Speaker 4 This is better than she's been in some other polls, but let's just use it as a baseline. They noticed this on why.
Young voters 18 to 34, Biden plus eight, Harris plus 20.

Speaker 4 Independents, Trump plus 16 to Trump plus 8. Harris then also picks up seven points among black voters and eight points among Hispanic voters, almost all from the third-party undecided camp.

Speaker 4 So, like that, I mean, that is a essential outline of like what is a good scenario for her.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. There's a Quinnipiak poll as well, which actually had Trump ahead, but showed some of the same changes.

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, certainly Harris should be in position to reverse what polls have found of the gains for Trump among black voters.

Speaker 3 And look, there are lots of Democrats who don't believe those anyway, right?

Speaker 3 Now, whether even Harris can get get back all the way back to Biden's level among black voters in 2020, I think is probably not going to happen.

Speaker 3 You know, it's hard to imagine there isn't going to be some erosion among black men relative to 2020, because nominating Harris does not eliminate the effects that inflation has had on their view of, you know, whether their life was more affordable under this presidency or under Trump.

Speaker 3 I don't think she gets all the way back there, but I certainly should be able to reverse some of those gains among among black voters. Hispanic voters, you know, it's a little less clear.

Speaker 3 Now, you know, with Hispanic voters, what's important is that the erosion since 2020 for Biden has been among both men and women to a greater extent than Black voters.

Speaker 3 Black voters, the losses are mostly concentrated among men. Hispanic voters, I was just talking to someone on Sunday, the decline is pretty equal.
So can she improve among Latinas?

Speaker 3 I would think there's a strong chance of that. How much of that erosion can she claw back among Latino men? We're going to find out.

Speaker 3 You know, and then young people, younger whites, especially younger white women,

Speaker 3 I kind of put them under the subhead of the third group, which is that Biden was somewhat underperforming among people who support abortion rights.

Speaker 3 I mean, people who support abortion rights were not immune to the question of whether Biden is too old to be president.

Speaker 4 And there was also the famous TikTok of the college girl who's like, Roe was overturned when he was president. What shouldn't he have done something?

Speaker 4 You know, so so like, there's all of that element of it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I think there is more room for Harris.
Like in the Queen of Pier Cola came out Monday, they sent me some additional data that they didn't publish.

Speaker 3 She was already at 62% among college-educated white women, which is pretty good, but probably not her ceiling. You know, there's, there's room to grow there to maybe 65 or 66.

Speaker 4 Why not 68?

Speaker 3 Well, there are some college-educated white women who are pro-life or evangelical or, you know, really worried about the border.

Speaker 3 By the way, Mike Madrid has an interesting view about college-educated women versus Hispanic women.

Speaker 3 And the way Republicans are trying to reel back the college-educated white women who are pro-choice is by making them really afraid of immigrants and the border.

Speaker 3 And by doing that, they risk the inroads they've made among Latinos, especially women.

Speaker 3 So if you look at it this way, you say, okay, Harris should be able to do better, definitely do better among black voters, probably do a little better among pro-choice white women.

Speaker 3 And I regain at least some ground among Latinas,

Speaker 3 maybe Latino men as well. But when you look at the other side of the ledger, Joe Biden was running pretty close to even among whites over, you know, older whites, whites over 65.

Speaker 3 Can she do that? And even more importantly,

Speaker 3 you know, Joe Biden didn't massively improve among whites without a college degree relative to Hinton Clinton, but he did a little better, about five points better nationally and a little more than five points better, according to the exit polls, in Michigan and Pennsylvania, which we'll get to and Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 I think Michigan and Wisconsin, not Pennsylvania, which we'll get to in a minute. So, okay, you know, in those states,

Speaker 3 those are a really big block of voters. Half of voters or more are whites without a college degree in those three critical states across the Rust Belt.

Speaker 3 So if she cannot maintain Biden's level with them, if she starts sliding back toward these really low levels that Hillary had with them, the blue-collar whites in 2016, you need significant turnout and gains among, you know, the white-collar whites, young people, and minorities who are mostly black voters in those states.

Speaker 3 And that, I think, is going to be, that's the ledger on her. It's clear where her opportunity is.
It's also pretty clear where her risk is.

Speaker 4 Yeah. The one opportunity that I think, in addition, when you talk about those groups on the risk side of the ledger,

Speaker 4 is it possible? Like, we haven't been able to run an experiment, you know?

Speaker 4 Is it possible that the older whites that were sticking with Biden, really, that was more of, that was more of like a anti-Trump thing? Like, these are people that did not like the Clintons.

Speaker 4 They were probably Fox News viewers, right? And then Trump gets in there and it's like, oh, my God,

Speaker 4 this guy's horrible. Like, we did see that in Republican voters against Trump.
So maybe some of those folks are really more anti-Trump voters than pro-Biden voters.

Speaker 4 And then the non-college whites, similar to how you mentioned with the Latinas, isn't there not potential for growth with the non-college white women, particularly around the issue of abortion?

Speaker 4 Sure.

Speaker 3 By the way, in that Quinnipiac poll, which is the first measure we have, they sent me this.

Speaker 3 She was running at 38% with non-college white women, which may sound terrible, but which is about what Democrats get. these days.

Speaker 3 I don't remember exactly what Biden's number was with them in 2020, maybe a little better than that. But yeah, I mean, how men react to this, you know, we're going to see.

Speaker 3 It is eight years later than Clinton.

Speaker 4 And Clinton had some other vulnerabilities besides being a woman. I just like, she had been targeted for 20 years as like, as corrupt, as an insider.

Speaker 3 And one way I think about this is that Harris has to carry all the crosses that Biden did in terms of discontent on their record, you know, inflation and immigration.

Speaker 3 The same people who are upset about their record on those issues, Biden's record are not going to be, you know, automatically going to Harris.

Speaker 3 The big difference is that while she might be on the defense on the same questions, minus the one big one of age, she can go on the offense much, much more effectively.

Speaker 3 I mean, Biden wasn't a great communicator when he was 50. And, you know, I covered his presidential campaign when he was like 50.
And, you know, he wasn't a great communicator then.

Speaker 3 And he really did not have the capacity to drive the offensive democratic message against Trump centered on the idea that he's a threat to rights, values, and democracy, but also that he's going to favor the rich over the middle class.

Speaker 3 You saw yesterday, you know, in her first campaign approach, she can deliver that message much more effectively.

Speaker 3 She can make the anti-Trump case on the day-to-day job of being a candidate at this point. She is just much more effective than Biden, right?

Speaker 3 Despite beyond all of the demographic considerations we're talking about.

Speaker 4 And you're an old pro. That does matter, right? Like we

Speaker 4 campaigning matters. We're all doing this for a reason.
This is not all just for show. No, it it does matter.
That has to matter somewhat.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's not everything. I mean, you know, especially in the presidential race, conditions matter more than in any other race, I think.

Speaker 3 You know, the people are voting on kind of their broad sense of the country and their broad sense of the candidates. But yes, I mean, she can draw very stark contrasts with Trump.
I'm a prosecutor.

Speaker 3 He's a convicted criminal. You know, I put rapists in jail.
He's been adjudicated to be a sexual abuser.

Speaker 3 I went after fraud financial fraud he's been judged to have committed financial fraud and of course she's now 20 years younger

Speaker 3 doddering old guy so there are like some really powerful contrasts but when you when you get down to it ultimately the question will be whether the voters she brings are more numerous than the voters she might lose and the other half of what we really should talk about is well what are the geographic implications i want to go state by state but really quick before we go straight by state, do you have any thoughts on just the turnout, just the closing of the enthusiasm gap, which I think is the other potential thing here?

Speaker 3 It should help.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it should help.

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 4 I mean, also the overall turnout.

Speaker 3 Tom Bonyer at Target Smart, who is one of the smartest people in the Democratic Party on voter targeting, told me for a story a few weeks ago, he thinks turnout could be as low as 140 million, down from 160 million if it was Biden and Trump.

Speaker 3 More people are going to vote now, without a doubt, both after the assassination attempt, which is certain to gin up a lot of Republican turnout.

Speaker 3 And I think there's no question that Harris will generate more Democratic-leaning turnout than Biden would.

Speaker 3 Mike Pothoser, who used to be the political director of the AFL-CIO, using data from Catalyst, which is Tom Bonnier's competitor as the chief targeting group among Democrats, Mike has calculated that over the last three elections, 2018, 2020, and 2022, there are more than 90 million separate human beings, 90 million separate individuals who have come out in one or more of those elections to vote against Trump and Trumpism.

Speaker 3 That is significantly more than the people who have come out to vote for Trump and Trumpism. Like over 90 million people.
You don't need 90 million people to win.

Speaker 4 You've lost some of those people, probably, but yeah,

Speaker 4 it's a big, bigger pond to swim in.

Speaker 3 There is an audience out there that she will have a better chance of turning out than Biden.

Speaker 3 But again, the question of where she might give some ground is really important because it has huge implications for the geography of the map, which is how we pick the president overall rather than the number of votes.

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Speaker 4 so sam stein last segment still was pretty pessimistic about arizona to me i think arizona is a big change potentially here i think that she you know could bring that back onto the map i think we saw a lot from 2022 there's a big group of my people the disaffected former republicans in maricopa you know who i think would be open to harris especially if she picked a mark kelly or somebody like that in that vein um so what do you think about that does does arizona become more in play, or is that not where you would start as the state that has the biggest difference?

Speaker 3 Well, yes, it does become more in play, I think, without question.

Speaker 3 And exactly for the reason you said, which is her potential to regain ground among white suburbanites around Phoenix who just were wavering on whether they could vote for Biden both because of inflation and his age.

Speaker 3 If you think about where Harris is strong, right? Younger, more diverse, potentially white-collar suburban women a little more than Biden.

Speaker 3 Those strengths should allow her to be more competitive than Biden in all of the Sunbelt swing states.

Speaker 3 Georgia and North Carolina with their big black populations in the Southeast, Arizona and potentially Nevada in the Southwest, where she should be able to improve at least somewhat among Hispanics.

Speaker 3 Now, Biden's deficit in all of those states was pretty formidable. you know, when he got out of the race.
I mean, he was not on the brink in any of them.

Speaker 4 So Jackie Rosen and Ruben Gallego were winning in the Senate races in Nevada and Arizona, which is why those jump out to me over the other two. Right.

Speaker 3 Let's not forget in 2016 and 2020 presidential years, exactly one Senate candidate out of 69 races won in a state that voted the other way for president.

Speaker 3 So, whether they can hold it is another question. But I don't think anybody really sees North Carolina as

Speaker 3 an option. But Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, with Arizona and Nevada, and Georgia probably in that order, can she bring those back into play with her strengths?

Speaker 3 She is stronger among the groups that are numerous in those states. They're younger and they're more diverse.
And Biden was losing ground with them and that was what had tipped them to Trump.

Speaker 3 But the hole she's trying to climb out of in those three states is pretty substantial.

Speaker 3 So, you know, whether she can put Georgia with its 16 electoral college votes back in play or Arizona and Nevada with its combined 17 is really critical.

Speaker 3 Because if she can't, if she can't, she is in the same situation as Biden, which is that to win, she would have to sweep Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin plus the one congressional district in Omaha.

Speaker 3 And if you're looking at those three states, they are not built as much for her demographic strengths. They are built largely around her demographic challenges.

Speaker 3 So, you know, if you're talking about Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which were all part of what I once called and has lasted the Blue Wall, 2009, coined the Blue Wall.

Speaker 3 That'll be like on my tombstone, you know, father of the Blue Wall.

Speaker 4 It's a pretty good tombstone. My attempt to coin red dog Democrats.

Speaker 4 I don't think that's had the same staying power, but you know, you never know.

Speaker 3 Maybe, maybe, yeah. You know, they even have a red wall.

Speaker 3 I was speaking at something the other day. I met some guy who was like an MP, and he was like, wait, you coined the blue wall? You're the one who gave us the red wall?

Speaker 3 I'm not really sure I understand the concept of the red wall, but it's apparently big over there anyway look why was trump president because he won michigan and pennsylvania wisconsin he dislodged them from the blue wall by a combined 78 000 votes by the way just just so people understand the blue wall was not just those three states the blue wall was the fact that After Obama's second victory in 2012, Democrats had won 18 states plus the District of Columbia for six concept, at least six consecutive elections.

Speaker 3 So most states that either party had won over that many elections since the formation of the modern party system.

Speaker 3 And then in 2016, Trump dislodged three states from the 18, from the Blue Wall, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. You know, since 2016, all of them has trended back toward the Democrats.

Speaker 3 I mean, Democrats won the governorships in all of them in 2018. Biden won them all fairly comfortably by local standards in 2020.

Speaker 3 And then in 2022, Democrats won the governorships again, in each case, by a bigger share of the vote than Biden did.

Speaker 3 So like they have every reason to be optimistic going into this election about their standing in those states.

Speaker 3 Problem is, Biden was trailing in them too, much more narrowly than in the Sunbelt, but trailing as well.

Speaker 3 So, if Harris can't win Georgia or both Arizona and Nevada, she's got to sweep them like Biden had to sweep them. Okay.
Can she do that?

Speaker 4 Can't you in Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania?

Speaker 3 Yes, Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 Arizona can replace Wisconsin, but Wisconsin is the easiest of the three at this moment for Democrats to win.

Speaker 4 Yeah. So this is where I want to go, though, really quick to you.
And you know the demographic numbers better than me.

Speaker 4 So Wisconsin has been the one where Biden had been polling the strongest of the three. Yes.

Speaker 4 But demographically, isn't it not right that Pennsylvania and Michigan still have more of those groups that we think that Kamala could perform better in?

Speaker 4 And so I guess that do you get stuck between a rock and a hard place where she's in the one swing state where Biden was the strongest is, I guess, maybe her weakest by comparison to him?

Speaker 4 Or is that not right?

Speaker 3 That's a really good way of putting it.

Speaker 3 You know, look, there is clearly a pro-choice majority in Wisconsin, as demonstrated by that state Supreme Court election in 2023.

Speaker 3 So I think that, you know, Wisconsin, 90% of the voters are white, and somewhere between 55 and 60% of the voters are non-college whites. So on paper, it's a tough state for her.

Speaker 3 And yes, she can replace that with Arizona. If she loses Michigan, she can replace it with both Arizona and Nevada, right?

Speaker 3 If she loses Pennsylvania, you're talking Arizona and Georgia or Georgia and Nevada. So you kind of get a sense of the escalating difficulty of replacing any of the old blue wall states.

Speaker 3 Pennsylvania and Michigan are pretty similar demographically. About 80% of the voters are white in both of them compared to 90% in Wisconsin.
There's a bigger black population.

Speaker 3 There's a meaningful Hispanic population in Pennsylvania. There's obviously the Arab American population in Michigan.

Speaker 3 These are states where I think Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Harris is going to have to squeeze out a little more from the white-collar whites.

Speaker 3 She's going to have to get more black turnout and bigger black margins than Biden was likely to get.

Speaker 3 And that would potentially allow her to squeeze by, even if she gives back a couple of points from what Biden got in 2020 among the working-class whites.

Speaker 3 I think she definitely can compete for Arizona. And I think Arizona is the best of the three Sunbelt swing states that Biden won in 2020 for her out of Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia.

Speaker 3 I think Arizona is definitely the best. But, you know, Arizona can only replace Wisconsin.
Arizona can't replace Michigan. Arizona can't replace Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 So like if it was up to me, you know, she'd be picking Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro as her running mate.

Speaker 3 Mark Kelly is probably better suited for the job, better able to walk into a debate at this point. But Democrats can win Arizona and lose.

Speaker 3 I think if you're making a hierarchy, Pennsylvania is the state that they are least likely to win without. And that would elevate Shapiro unless you want to make...

Speaker 3 really roll the dice and do what I find a lot of enthusiasm for, even among male Democratic consultants, is really making history, picking Whitmer, doubling down on change, doubling down on choice, and trying to just kind of overwhelm Trump with your strengths, right?

Speaker 3 Rather than trying to shore up your weaknesses, which is what the other candidates are.

Speaker 4 So, this was now your two in a row. Sam was just saying this, too.

Speaker 4 And so maybe, maybe this is my, you know, went to all boys high school and his gay internal misogyny that I try to fight through, you know, now that I'm a girl dad. But I just worry about it.

Speaker 4 I just look at that and I'm like, man, if the problem is with these, you just laid out the problem demos.

Speaker 4 Black men, Hispanic men, working, white working class men.

Speaker 3 And white working class women who make it.

Speaker 4 Doesn't that feel a little risky?

Speaker 3 Yes, it's yes, more than a little risky. It is totally risky.
But, you know, the question is, do you feel like you're on track to win with a more conventional pick?

Speaker 3 You know, I've been saying the last couple of weeks, you can't jump halfway across a chasm, right? Democrats have already jumped into the unknown by replacing Biden with Harris.

Speaker 3 So like, why not roll the dice and go all the way?

Speaker 4 I don't think that's what will happen.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Evil can evil.
I was seeing Crosby Sills Nash and Young on their, maybe their last American show ever on the night he tried to jump across the Snake River. But I don't think she would do that.

Speaker 3 But I am surprised by how many kind of conventional white male Democratic strategists think that would be the move.

Speaker 3 Like I said, if you're picking Whitmer, you're trying to overwhelm Trump with turnout from your strengths.

Speaker 3 If you're picking one of the white guys, you're trying to shore up one of your weaknesses in the places where he is strongest. Actually, I could write that.
That's a pretty good column.

Speaker 4 That is a good column. We've helped you brainstorm your next one.

Speaker 3 Yes, exactly. But that's the difference.
Like, Shapiro or Kelly are the only ones that I think make sense among the white guys. But there is a case for Whitmer.
I would be surprised.

Speaker 3 She's keeping basically the same Biden team. This isn't, you know, campaign team.
I'm not sure this is a move they would make. So I would think you would get Kelly or Shapiro.

Speaker 3 And Shapiro makes more sense because he's in a state that's more important to your fortunes than Kelly.

Speaker 4 We're going to carry on. You're at Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and

Speaker 4 we'll see who she carries this on with. Ron Brownstein, thank you so much, my man.
Appreciate you coming back.

Speaker 3 Nice, nice. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I couldn't do Chinatown or the Godfather references. I can do music references, though.
We'll catch you next time through. All right, brother.

Speaker 3 Thanks for having me. All right.
Take care.

Speaker 4 All right. We'll see you.
And we'll be back tomorrow for Wednesday edition of the Bloor podcast. See you then.
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