Bill Kristol: Biden Drops Out of Race

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Speaker 5 Hello and welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
I promised you a weekend podcast if he did it, and he did it.

Speaker 5 Joe Biden has, in a statement, said that he is stepping aside from the campaign. He will remain in the presidency and focus on his job there.
We did it, Bill, and Nancy.

Speaker 5 Bill Crystal is here with me to chat about it. How are you doing, Bill?

Speaker 2 I'm fine. How are you, Tim?

Speaker 5 It isn't. It wasn't.
Nancy, does Nancy get the credit here? Is this the

Speaker 5 final feather in her cap for the Speaker Emeritus?

Speaker 2 I think the final feather will be winning in 106 days from now, but this is the semifinal feather in her cap, totally. Don't you think she gets the credit?

Speaker 5 I'm happy to give her the credit.

Speaker 5 Well, I guess we'll just start biggest possible picture, your initial reactions. I was starting to have doubts, so I don't know where your head was at, but how do you feel following the news?

Speaker 2 Was it you I texted when you said you were having doubts, and I said I thought the silence was sort of a good sign in the sense that everyone went quiet for 12 hours and they must, you know, Pelosi, Jeffries, all of their surrogates.

Speaker 5 I'm out there like firing off, shame on you.

Speaker 2 You were great.

Speaker 5 I was like, screeds, like, shame on everyone.

Speaker 5 And then, meanwhile, while I'm angrily shouting into the void, they were writing a letter.

Speaker 2 So that's good. No, no, they were on the bubble and you pushed them over.
I'm giving you 100% credit. That was a fantastic screed and argument.
Let's call it an argument, not a screed.

Speaker 2 So I don't know. What do we even say? I mean,

Speaker 2 that Lenin or fake Lenin quote is so overused now, but it is still pretty apt, right? There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.

Speaker 2 I mean, this has not happened before in American politics, has it?

Speaker 2 A prospective nominee would draw

Speaker 2 68. Not after he's gone through all the primaries and so forth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 68 would be close, I guess.
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 And then he endorsed Vice President Harris, which I think was to be expected.

Speaker 2 He's going to endorse his vice president.

Speaker 2 The question of whether he and others use muscle to kind of, or muscle's not fair, persuade everyone else, or whether everyone else just decides it's the right thing to do to coalesce behind her.

Speaker 2 What do you think? I think it's very likely, but not quite inevitable.

Speaker 5 I'm going to pause you before we get to Harris, because here's what the president said on that. He goes,

Speaker 5 he said he'd speak to the nation later this week in more detail about his decision. He didn't really give a rationale.
It was one of the things missing.

Speaker 5 The letter included all the things he felt proud of, rightly, accomplishments of the first term, I guess the only term of the Biden presidency.

Speaker 5 Then he wrote, for now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who've worked so hard to see me re-elected.

Speaker 5 I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work.

Speaker 5 And then in a follow-up, he wrote that my very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice president. And that's been the best decision I've made.

Speaker 5 Today, I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats, it's time to come together and beat Trump.

Speaker 5 And I think that kind of leads us to, there was, I guess,

Speaker 5 Joe Scarborough was reporting that there was some conversation about that back and forth, about what to do with that.

Speaker 5 And the thinking was sort of along the lines of maybe it would benefit the vice president for him not to endorse her in various ways. But I don't know.
What's your take on that decision?

Speaker 2 First of all, when you check your WhatsApp or Signal or whatever encrypted device you use, you'll see the private note for the president. Thank you for what you've done.
And I got mine, too.

Speaker 2 Thank you, Bill, for six months ago when you began doing the Morning Trust newsletter for calling on me to step aside.

Speaker 2 And you got the, but he told me he's also writing you to thank you for jolting him last night, one last step over the line to do the right thing. So

Speaker 2 actually, let's just pause there.

Speaker 5 Let's just pause before because we'll have plenty of time to talk about going forward.

Speaker 5 I was a little rude in the article that I wrote just about kind of this notion that this was tough for him and this is like emotional and that we need to care about Joe Biden's feelings and all that.

Speaker 5 And I stand by all that. I think it was kind of silly to obsess over Joe Biden's feelings.

Speaker 5 But it is pretty remarkable in another way, you know, that for him to just really just like come to terms with this and step away. And it's not, it's not nothing.
It's not a nothing decision.

Speaker 5 And it was something that he should have done. It's something that all of us have been agitating for him to do.

Speaker 5 Something that he probably should have done before the primary started, to be real frank about it. And yet, he kind of only had to gut this thing out for another two more weeks.

Speaker 5 You don't want to give him any credit?

Speaker 2 I do want to give him credit because I very much feel that. Honestly, I don't, you know, I think he does deserve credit.

Speaker 2 Better late than never is it, would be a not so gracious way of saying it, but I feel that that's honestly about the situation. I mean, I do wonder if you could have gotten it out, though.

Speaker 2 I'm not so certain that I mean, I think you would have had a public statement at some point by Pelosi and Jeffries, and delegates aren't literally pledged.

Speaker 2 And I mean, it really could have been unbelievable chaos. And I wonder, I'd be interested when we see all the TikTok reporting, which I have zero insight on of what really happened behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 How much of it was Pelosi telling him, I'm making this up, obviously, you know, last night, this is going to happen, Mr.

Speaker 2 President, as opposed to him deciding, look, this is the right thing for my country, or having an honest conversation with his physician, conceivably, about where this, you know, where he might be a year or two or three years from now.

Speaker 2 So I'm happy to give him credit. I really am.
And I like Biden. I've always liked Biden.
I've known him for a long, long time.

Speaker 2 We and I worked for him and worked to help him in 2020 when it was unclear who was going to win the Democratic primary. And we enthusiastically supported him in 2020.

Speaker 2 And on the whole, I think I've been a defender of him, even on issues where he's sort of 60%, right, 40%, not so great. But I've always thought so much better than a lot of the alternatives,

Speaker 2 infinitely better than Trump, but better than a lot of the alternative Democratic presidents would be. So I am pro-Biden.
I wish he had done this earlier. But maybe it'll work out fine.

Speaker 2 You know, this 106-day sprint, maybe that's in a weird way, not a bad, might be fine

Speaker 2 for the country. And it does.
Many people voted in the South Decer, I think, was one of the first, right?

Speaker 2 Trump is now the oldest, will be the oldest nominee ever nominated by one of our major parties.

Speaker 5 Yes, Donald Trump, officially the oldest nominee. That is wonderful.
I want to talk about that a little bit more.

Speaker 5 My one little note that I do have since I wrote the article and have heard from a lot of people since the tenor of what I was writing was just about like how irresponsible the people around him and the family has been, just focusing so much on Joe Biden's legacy and not on like this urgent task at hand.

Speaker 5 And a lot of the reporting, even as late as this morning, like in the morning news, in the Politico and Axios newsletters, were like pointing to the fact that among people hunter was advising him and was and was encouraging him to stay and i did have a little birdie share with me um after the article was out that like that that was not the impression that that was actually true

Speaker 5 and you know and i think that maybe you know you that was the unfortunate thing about these sort of things it's what i why i understand how people sometimes get frustrated with the political press like you know because it's like you have to decode what is happening here right and you know it's and to me it actually makes a lot of sense that there was you know, a small cadre of advisors around him.

Speaker 5 Some that wanted him to stay, some that didn't, and the ones that didn't, you know, rather than wanting to point the finger at the boss's dithering and his will famous, famously takes him a long time to make a decision,

Speaker 5 you know,

Speaker 5 it's like, well, let's blame Hunter, kind of an easy target. So anyway, I just thought that was a little interesting nugget.
Okay.

Speaker 2 We move forward.

Speaker 5 We press forward. The question now in front of us, Joe Biden has endorsed the vice president, which we said.
And so that takes us to maybe the final installment. Who knows?

Speaker 5 We'll see what happens of the coconut meter.

Speaker 6 You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?

Speaker 6 My coconuts.

Speaker 5 Is it Kamala time, Bill?

Speaker 5 Or do you think maybe not? Maybe the process might lead to somebody else.

Speaker 2 I think it's very likely. Kamala time.
Some people will say, let's have an open process. One or two.

Speaker 2 But to have an open process, for one thing, one or two candidates have to throw their hats in the ring. And it may be that if it looks inevitable,

Speaker 2 someone who's got a promising future in Democratic politics is not going to be the person who gets 14% of the delegates against Kamala Harris. A lot would depend on what I think.

Speaker 2 So Biden has endorsed her, but that's appropriate. She's his vice president.
Will Speaker Pelosi endorse her? Speaker Emerita, I guess, former Speaker Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schubert.

Speaker 5 You know, I did Latin in high school at Jesuit school, and I keep calling her Speaker Emeritus when you are actually correct. It's Speaker Emerita.

Speaker 2 Well, just because she's a woman, yeah. I mean, it hasn't been one of those before.
And I mean, the whole speaker think that's an invented title, which the Democratic Conference, I think, invented.

Speaker 2 Maybe the House invented as a tribute to her, and it was controlled by the Democrats, but not a real thing in a funny way. You know, what would I guess Obama, Clinton?

Speaker 2 I mean, you could imagine one scenario where everyone is on board and it's over 24, 48 hours from now, I guess even six hours from now.

Speaker 2 You can imagine another scenario where she's the very, very heavy favorite, but J.D.

Speaker 2 Fritzker is thinking of running and someone else, and a few delegates are saying well let's let's take a look at them all

Speaker 5 she would still be a pretty big favorite what do you think i think she's an overwhelming favorite i think that they should open it i think it would benefit her to have an open process and to win it james carville's made that argument very compellingly i don't like and i'm frankly turned off by and so i i don't want my analysis to be clouded by how turned off i am by the argument of like you can't pass her over you can't pass over a black woman i sent this out which people are already upset at me about which is fine uh i'm free now.

Speaker 5 After all this, we freed ourselves, Bill Crystal, from having to concern about whether people are upset at us

Speaker 2 for saying the truth.

Speaker 5 But I pointed out that Mike Pence has been passed over, I guess. I mean, nearly murdered.
So worse than passed over. If you look at the last VPs, Joe Biden was passed over by Hillary Clinton.

Speaker 5 Dick Cheney was, I guess, passed over by John McCain. Your former boss, Dan Quayle, passed over by George W.
Bush. Nepo Baby.

Speaker 5 all those guys are white men last time I checked so it's a stupid reason to nominator if there are other reasons to denominator that make a lot more sense that I'm happy to talk about but I don't like that argument at all I think the more compelling arguments are number one like the time frame and logistics to she can take over the fundraising apparatus the campaigner apparatus immediately like it's starting tomorrow conceivably you know they can start running ads with Kamala on them you have a whole team already in place versus having a three-week period where all that is in limbo a little bit.

Speaker 5 I don't think that's a life or death reason. I think it's something to think about.
And kind of a unity element to this, preparing for a DNC convention that is cleaner.

Speaker 5 And just the fact that, you know, she hasn't done anything as vice president to disqualify herself. And she has a long resume that is certainly suitable for the presidency.

Speaker 5 So those to me are the arguments for just having a clean handoff. But I don't know.
I think it's worth at least talking about.

Speaker 2 No, totally. And those are legit.

Speaker 2 I think there are arguments against the, let's call it the clean handoff or the anointing, which would be the negative way of putting it, which is the flip side of what you said.

Speaker 2 I mean, exciting contested convention could ultimately be better for the party than

Speaker 2 everyone agreeing on Vice President Harris' anointed convention. Maybe not.

Speaker 2 That may be fanciful, or at least the odds may be too great that it wouldn't just be exciting, but chaotic and disruptive and embittering. But we don't know what the balance would be on that.

Speaker 2 I mean, for me, if Biden had said at the end of 2022, I'm not running, I would be inclined to favor others over Harris, but just on purely kind of more cent, they're more centrist, fresh-faced, successful governors of big mid-Western states kind of grounds.

Speaker 2 Not that I have anything particular against Vice President Harris.

Speaker 2 And as former chief of staff to a vice president, who was unjustly calumnied in so many ways and caricatured, I do think it's hard to judge a vice president.

Speaker 2 And I also think that there's a pretty, a bigger upside than people think when she now emerges in a weird way.

Speaker 2 When you've been underestimated, you can prove that, oh my God, everyone said she was so, wasn't up to it. And here she is being forceful, sort of dynamic, coherent, et cetera.

Speaker 2 For me, the biggest downside is, though, the flip side of Biden endorsing her, which is it is a continuation of the Biden-Harris administration to some degree.

Speaker 2 And I think it's very important to flip the script as much as possible.

Speaker 2 So I very much hope that she, and I assume she's watching this, so I'll just say it directly to her, you need to run as your own person, as a fresh start, a new ticket, a younger ticket, obviously in no way disrespectful of or repudiating President Biden, and in fact, defending the achievements of his and your administration.

Speaker 2 But it cannot be a kind of, I can do a better job than Joe Biden of defending our record. I'm going to go back and explain that the border thing wasn't as bad as you thought.
I mean, none of that.

Speaker 2 It's got to be Trump is too old, too criminal, too authoritarian, and me and my vice presidential nomadi are a fresh start for the 21st century, whatever.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think, I just think very important that you internalize the notion that it's a new beginning and not a continuation.

Speaker 5 I concur. I definitely agree that the thought that

Speaker 5 the baggage maybe rather than thought, the baggage from being Biden Harris, feeling like you have to defend him, he's still the president. Are there interpersonal dynamics working there?

Speaker 5 You know, like, I do think that conceivably in a perfect world, in an imaginary world, being able to say, you know, voila, you know, we have two outsiders who have come in, you know, who are young and fresh-faced.

Speaker 5 That would, I think, probably be better, but that's not our real world, right? You have to be practical. And, you know, as the week goes on, we'll talk about the various contingencies.
But just as

Speaker 5 from an organizational standpoint, there are real benefits to the fact that she is already on the Biden-Harris ticket. It can now be a Harris question mark ticket, which we'll get to next.

Speaker 5 And, you know, they have the existing cash on hand. They have the existing staff in the States.
You have advertise, advertising. You know, you have people that can do advertising.

Speaker 5 There was an ad that I was watching last night from her unsuccessful 2020 primary campaign that

Speaker 5 got me a little excited, I have to say.

Speaker 2 Sick of this? Well, think about this.

Speaker 2 He's a world leader in temper tantrums. She never loses her cool.
She prosecuted sex predators. He is one.
Grab him by the f ⁇ . She shut down for-profit colleges that swindled Americans.

Speaker 2 He was a for-profit college.

Speaker 5 At Trump University, we teach success.

Speaker 2 Literally. He's owned by the big banks.
She's the attorney general who beat the biggest banks in America and forced them to pay homeowners $18 billion.

Speaker 2 He's tearing us apart. She'll bring us together.
This is Trump. And in every possible way, this is the anti-Trump.
So if that's what you're looking for in your next president, there's really only one.

Speaker 2 Kama.

Speaker 5 I hope you're as excited as I am after listening to that. I mean, that's pretty good.
That's good. That's good.

Speaker 5 That is something they can, I mean, they can start having that shit turned around by Thursday if they're just moving on to Kama. And like, there is some, there is some practical advantage to that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, that is good. And I'd forgotten that.

Speaker 2 You forget the ads of the people who pulled out before the first caucus or primary, you know, but that she wasn't, oh, that's worth getting into 2019 and all that.

Speaker 2 She wasn't, people are overdoing how bad a candidate she was.

Speaker 2 There are always people who run, they just don't catch on, this out of the lane, other people catch on, Buddha Jarsh and so forth, and they end up not making it.

Speaker 2 And if they're smart, incidentally they pull out early as she did and don't get 3% of the, or 6% or 9% of the vote in Iowa and New Hampshire. And so they had this sort of not marred by that.

Speaker 2 And she, in fact, was therefore selected as vice president. So people have overdone how much we can conclude from the fact that she didn't make it to the finals, as it were, in 2020.

Speaker 2 You know, one thing I was struck by this, and I'm curious what you think about this, just looking at things quickly online for a few minutes.

Speaker 2 I had thought a week ago that it might hurt Vice President Harris that, you know, the cover-up accusation, what did they, because there'll be a lot of reporting now of who knew what about Biden and when did they think he really wasn't quite up to it or did they?

Speaker 2 And how come she didn't ever say anything?

Speaker 2 But watching Lasavida and others attack her on that just now on Twitter for speaking, what, mid-afternoon on Sunday and just the last hour since she made the announcement, I think that attack attack may not work.

Speaker 2 I mean, no one begrudges a vice president

Speaker 2 not

Speaker 2 calling out her boss the president, right? And she didn't go out of her way to gaslight either, I've got to say, she defended him appropriately, I think.

Speaker 2 So I actually think if the Trump people go crazy with that, which they may, about how she's part of the greatest cover-up in modern American politics, how could she have not told us about it?

Speaker 2 I wonder if that could, she could answer that in a sort of dignified way, A, and B, I'm not so sure attacking Biden, which is what the Trump people are still sort of doing as he gets out, is very smart at this point.

Speaker 2 Isn't there going to be a bit of an upswelling of respect and affection for President Biden here?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think that's a big, big loser. You know, I think that's just a big zero is a message.
I've seen a bunch of people, that feels like a Twitter-brained message.

Speaker 5 I've seen a bunch of political types try to make that happen, particularly on the right. I don't know.

Speaker 5 I think that people are going to be relieved that Joe Putin is not an 81-year-old against a 78-year-old 78-year-old running and don't want to obsess over

Speaker 5 the intricacies of the relationship between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I think the country is going to be ready to move forward from it.

Speaker 5 I think focusing on that would be a big mistake for the Republicans. I also think that they're going to end up being

Speaker 5 totally unable to avoid just their most base instincts, which is the campaign going straight after her on immigration and all the right-wing media figures calling her a DEI presidential candidate or some other racist stuff about how she's an affirmative action president.

Speaker 5 And so I just think that both of those attacks on her will overwhelm this

Speaker 5 kind of notion that she was part of some cover-up. There also will be the kind of lightweight.

Speaker 5 Trump has already unveiled Laugh and Kamala as his nickname, which doesn't really work for me.

Speaker 5 But I do have to mention that I thought Desanctimonious was really bad, and that kind of grew on me over time. So you do never know sometimes with these things.
But

Speaker 5 Laugh and Kamala, I don't think think works. But I think that the Trump against

Speaker 5 Harris message will be immigration,

Speaker 5 racial dog whistles, and kind of lightweight, not ready for the stage, particularly related to foreign policy, not standing next to Putin, you know, kind of standing next to she.

Speaker 2 Like, is she going to be tough enough for that?

Speaker 5 I think that will be their contrast. What do you think?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm not so sure as you say what I just think about it as you say it. She's pretty tough.
She's not a kid. I mean, she's late 50s, I think.
I mean, she's attorney general.

Speaker 2 She was a DA and Attorney General of rather of the largest state for eight years, I think, if I've got that right. And then senator, obviously, for a couple more, and then vice president for three.

Speaker 2 I mean, she spoke at the Munich Security Conference and did a pretty good job. It's a speech, and it was a bunch of meetings.

Speaker 2 I knew a lot of people who were there, though, and they were pretty impressed. So the idea that she doesn't know, she couldn't deal with world leaders, I don't buy that for a second.

Speaker 2 And I don't think people will buy that.

Speaker 2 And so, you know, at the end of the day, it becomes a more standard, you know, you indict the nominee of the party that's in power that has the White House with whatever you don't like about what the White House has done for the last two years.

Speaker 2 And that's fair enough. And, you know, that's going to happen on the border, obviously, and on inflation.
And I guess on weakness and foreign policy to some degree. But I don't know.

Speaker 2 It's so hard to judge. I just haven't been through this.
How much of that was

Speaker 2 Biden-specific, you know, in some of the things? Afghanistan, it wasn't that the decision quite. It's not like Trump was for staying there, really.

Speaker 2 It was the way in which he didn't respond to critics and sort of, you know, looked

Speaker 2 arrogant or dismissive of people saying, wait a second, this isn't going well. And some of this, even inflation is a little bit of that, right?

Speaker 2 So to the degree that she kind of gets a fresh start on some of these things, I think she's much stronger than Biden. And I think it's very hard to know.
Where do you think?

Speaker 2 I mean, you've been through this. I mean, no one's been through this, but you've been through presidential campaigns.
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 2 What do we think the vote folks are going to say in a week, Trump versus Harris?

Speaker 5 I think she'll do slightly better than Biden because there's some very low-hanging fruit out there of people that are essentially Democrats that were saying that they were not for Biden.

Speaker 5 And so I think you get a very small bump, one or two points. And then you get into a fight.
And I think these are kind of the battle lines. We talked about where Trump is going to hit her.

Speaker 5 I think that really they are in big danger of overstepping on the DEI attacks, I think, and having backlash. And we saw people do not want to think about this country as a racist country.

Speaker 5 You saw all this after George Floyd. Trump really got hurt by going overboard on that.
I think there's a potential for them going overboard overboard on attacks on her.

Speaker 5 I think the immigration thing will be potent on the weakness, as you're saying. I don't know.
I think she's going to beat expectations on foreign policy stuff. I really do.

Speaker 5 I think I've mentioned before, I had an off-the-record with her a while back where she talked at length about

Speaker 5 foreign policy, and she beat my personal expectations just about her,

Speaker 5 A, her thoughts on America's role in the world, and B, also just her kind of proclivity for being able to kind of talk intelligently about the various players and, you know, her time.

Speaker 5 She's been to multiple Munich security conferences. And so I think that she's really done her homework on that.
I think people are going to be kind of surprised about that. So

Speaker 5 I think those

Speaker 5 are kind of where

Speaker 5 the Republicans will go. I think Israel-Gaza could be a potential landmine for her.
you know, on all this. In some ways, it could be a fresh start that you don't have all the baggage there.

Speaker 5 And the other ways, kind of, we'll see how she kind of talks about that. Going the other way, though, is what people can be excited about and going back to that ad and more interesting.

Speaker 5 I mean just hearing the one part from that ad of Kamala Harris being like I prosecuted sex predators and then Trump with the grab her by the you know what audio that's pretty nice.

Speaker 5 That's pretty compelling. I like that they're leaning into that.

Speaker 5 I think that we're so far away from the defund the police stuff that hopefully she'll be able to really kind of embrace the prosecutorial record that she had.

Speaker 5 They kind of allude to it here, but you know, back then they were working with Trump University and how she prosecuted frauds and how he was a fraud.

Speaker 5 There is so much more material on that front now to counter with him then.

Speaker 5 And then the one other thing is on the baggage with Biden, like some of that is going to be there, but just the fundamental, you know, Malcolm Gladwell blink judgment is this is a 59-year-old black woman going up against the oldest presidential nominee in history.

Speaker 5 And the nature of it is different, is fresh, you know, and so making her carry the baggage, I think, is tougher than if it was, you know, Biden, Tim Kaine or whatever, you know.

Speaker 2 It's hard to game out as we're talking. And of course, everyone will have days or maybe several weeks to think this through in terms of the running mate, assuming it is Harris as the nominee.

Speaker 2 I mean, part of me thinks, just as we talk, Trump has the advantage, also disadvantage, I guess, of being the ex-president. That does create the stature gap that he's met with.

Speaker 2 I mean, there were horrible meetings often with Putin and so forth, but he's been at every NATO, those four NATO summits for when he was president and so forth.

Speaker 2 But she has been vice president in a weird way, though. I personally am closer.

Speaker 2 I think if you give me a chart of people's issues or whatever, you know, to the Shapiros and Whitmers of the party than Harris, probably. She's a California Democrat.

Speaker 2 They're Midwestern and more moderate Democrats, probably, though she did have a reputation as a tough prosecutor and all that. Still, I'm probably closer to the others.

Speaker 2 But I would worry a little for one of them, that it's a president, ex-president versus a governor, you know, who's in foreign policy experiences, two trade missions to abroad or something like that.

Speaker 2 They can't say that about Harris. I wonder on the VP pick, incidentally, whether she should think about that a little.

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Speaker 5 Let's talk about the VPs. Are you ready? Let's just do that.
I want to keep open the process of an open process, but like I think we both concur that it's almost certainly going to be Harris.

Speaker 5 So let's just go.

Speaker 2 And even if it's an open process, it's likely to be Harris. So it's still legitimate for us.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so let's see. So let's still game out the VPs.
To me, the short list is

Speaker 5 Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania governor, who I interviewed a while back. If you guys missed that, you can go back and listen to that.
Obviously, we're big fans of Governor Shapiro here.

Speaker 5 I think Mark Kelly, Arizona senator, astronaut, wife Gabby Giffords, was shot and so has been an advocate for gun violence. He defeated Blake Masters in the midterm last time.

Speaker 5 You know, so he has a little experience going up against this sort of nationalist, you know, the Ivy League nationalist turned populist, Republican, fascist type thing that J.D.

Speaker 5 Vance is going to give. People will throw out Andy Bashir and Roy Cooper as the southern white governor's safe picks.
Roy Cooper was as North Carolina's governor, Andy Bashir, as Kentuckies.

Speaker 5 That to me seems like the short list. And then, you know, then you start to get into, well, do you consider a double woman ticket with Whitmer or maybe Amy Klobuchar?

Speaker 5 Some people have thrown out some other folks who are good on TV. Chris Murphy or Mayor Pete jumped to mind as kind of second-tier option.
So anyway, that's kind of my list. Maybe go through

Speaker 5 that first batch bill and then we'll take it from there.

Speaker 2 I mean, Shapiro, I think,

Speaker 2 and Whitmer, except presumably two women might be a rich too far. I don't know if it really matters, but let's just say that maybe it does.

Speaker 2 So they're the governors of the large states that have to be won, and they both won huge victories in 2022, which is not ancient history. It's like, you know, 18 months ago, right?

Speaker 2 So, I mean, there's a huge case for them, just as a practical matter. I don't know.
DeShapiro doesn't guarantee Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 Makes it a heck of a lot more likely, and you kind of can't win the presidency without Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 Michigan's a little less of a must-win, but it's a pretty high in the list of close-to-must-wins, very close to must-wins.

Speaker 2 So I would say that if you wanted to gamble with the two women, Wimmer wouldn't be crazy. Arizona, I don't know that Kelly wins you, Arizona.

Speaker 2 That state's got other issues, I think, though he is won a good re-election race in Arizona.

Speaker 2 I think the strong argument for him is he was a Navy captain, I think, who then became an astronaut, but it's a military guy. So it neutralizes Vance, at least.

Speaker 2 Vance doesn't become the only veteran on a ticket. I also think this will sound totally crazy, but I think I noticed I looked it up.
Kelly is just almost about Harris's age.

Speaker 2 I think there's a case against.

Speaker 2 You want Trump to be too old, but I think you sort of want to reassure people that it isn't just, you know, like two people you've never heard of who are kind of, quote, promising coming off the bench, you know?

Speaker 2 So I think Harris Kelly has.

Speaker 5 Fresh out the womb.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Karis Kelly is sort of like a grown-up ticket, but they're each 58 or nine or something like that.

Speaker 5 That kind of sounds like a hedge fund guy, you know, Harris Kelly, you know,

Speaker 2 yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 2 Or a supermarket. Very solid.
Or maybe a sort of upscale supermarket or something.

Speaker 2 So one way to think, though, is, well, who's actually run well in a presidential campaign who's available?

Speaker 2 And I think that gets you to Buddha Judge and Klobuchar, who both ran excellent campaigns in 2020.

Speaker 2 It happened that they fell just a tad short in Iowa and New Hampshire, and that's what opened it up for Biden to become the centrist alternative. And then Bloomberg blew up.

Speaker 2 And then it was, Biden was the only centrist alternative left to Sanders. But they really did run well.

Speaker 2 I mean, and very impressive campaigns from nowhere, basically, in both cases, especially for Buddha Judge. In another world, I would say Buddha Judge.

Speaker 2 I mean, and maybe I should say it even in this world, honestly. I mean, you know, super impressive.

Speaker 2 Say Ranwell in 2020, in the cabinet now. It's a little bit too much.
Maybe the Biden administration, though, they're both part of the administration. So that's a bit of a negative for Pete, I'd say.

Speaker 2 And then I don't know, is America ready for

Speaker 2 a black woman and a gay man?

Speaker 2 It would be interesting. I mean, no problem for me, but I don't know.

Speaker 5 My Instagram followers would be excited, but I don't know that that's the core base of the party.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I don't know, but the Pete thing, I mean, he just, we'll put this in the show notes too. He just eviscerated J.D.
Vance on Bill Maher last night. And so it's like the idea, it is tempting.

Speaker 5 It is tempting.

Speaker 5 I just think about how fresh we would all feel next week if you go from the Biden interviews where it's like you're working when a sentence begins, you don't know where it's going to end.

Speaker 5 And like, then you have Harris and Pete out there really dropping bombs left and right on the Trump Vance ticket. There's something appealing about that, but yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 Part of me says feels like we're maybe getting a lot a little over skis.

Speaker 2 It's too much.

Speaker 2 And the only other person I'd mentioned, or type of person, but I'll mention one name as an example, would be Jim Stavrides, the former NATO commander, whom Clinton, Hillary Clinton, seriously considered in 2016, you know, pretty political in his post-4-star general life and good Democrat.

Speaker 2 But I don't know. It probably would be a mistake, actually, but not a mistake.
It probably just wouldn't work particularly to excite people. But you could make a case, very dangerous world out there.

Speaker 2 Vice President Harris' fault that we just said that she has some foreign policy credentials, is basically a domestic policy person.

Speaker 2 And it wouldn't be crazy to say, hey, we've got a high-powered, someone here who really knows what's going on in the world.

Speaker 2 And it is a weakness, I think, for Trump that he's going to blow up the entire liberal international order. So, those things, people always talk about that, it never quite happens.

Speaker 2 And I suppose Jim Stockdale is the one time it did happen for Ross Perot, and that didn't work out so well.

Speaker 5 Exactly on Les Clark, aren't exactly the same. Yeah, no, exactly.

Speaker 2 So, there's always kind of like a, so probably not, I guess.

Speaker 5 I don't know. It does provide some gravitas.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I don't know. The thing that does come back to me is in this era,

Speaker 5 the ability to communicate is more important than ever. We're not in a TV ad world anymore, as much as I like Ted Harris ad.
And I think that

Speaker 5 you can move the needle somewhat on ads, but you're going to have to be able to have somebody that can

Speaker 5 resonate on social media where we know who the undecided people are in this race. They're not the people that want, that pay attention that closely to the news.

Speaker 5 So, somebody that can get little good sound bites that get onto social media, to me, is the best case for Pete or somebody of that ilk.

Speaker 5 It's the thing that has me worried a bit about Mark Kelly, who's not that strong at that. You know, I do think that Mark Kelly has a good story, though.

Speaker 5 I like the idea of an astronaut, you know, like in Arizona, like him going to Wisconsin. It's not scary.
You know, all of a sudden, it's like the Harris-Kelly ticket does not feel,

Speaker 5 you know, like you were saying, quite as like that they're not up for the job. Like, really, Mark Kelly, senator, astronaut, and, you know, like the former prosecutor and AG and senator.

Speaker 5 You know, I think that the lightweight message gets very undermined by that. But he's not the strongest communicator out there.

Speaker 5 I don't, I actually haven't listened to Andy Bashir and Roy Cooper talk enough to know if that's true, but my understanding is that neither of them are actually lighting the world on fire either in these kind of environments.

Speaker 5 And so that gets you back to Josh Shapiro.

Speaker 5 To me, it just you keep kind of landing at Josh Shapiro, who is the governor of a swing state, who can speak, who can deliver a coherent message. To me,

Speaker 5 he's a clear frontrunner.

Speaker 2 And I think the most conspicuous, moderate success story in the Democratic Party, I mean, pretty unambiguously on the centrist side of some key things.

Speaker 2 15 points he won by 2022 against a very flawed candidate, sure. Still, 15 points in Pennsylvania.
You rebuilt I-95 in 12 days.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the one thing people would know about him to start with, which is pretty impressive. And that's kind of the kind of Democrat you want, get things done, not too ideological.

Speaker 2 So I'm a huge fan of Shapiro. And I, you know, you think we may all end up back at him and not just back at him, but just with him at first.
I don't know. Maybe she'll pick Shapiro.

Speaker 2 Maybe if it coalesces behind her, she should pick Shapiro before the convention. So we have two people to focus on, not one.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 Yeah. I do worry a little bit about bringing Gaza back into play with picking Shapiro, who has been a vocal defender of Israel.
He's Jewish.

Speaker 5 But on the other hand, there was a really funny tweet that my friend sent about Harris and Shapiro together. It's kind of like trying to put Obama into one person.

Speaker 5 It's like you're like you're using two humans to really regenerate the Obama coalition. There's something to be said for that.

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Speaker 5 One more thing on the two women. As I've been mulling this over the past few weeks, I was initially drawn to the idea that, like,

Speaker 5 maybe you just really make it feel fresh with two women. And, of course, really brings reproductive issues to the forefront, which is already a huge vulnerability for Trump and Vance.

Speaker 5 But the problem for me is that, like, unfortunately, the core group that matters for the Democrats right now, the number one group they've got to make sure to shore up is men, black and Hispanic men, young men of all races.

Speaker 5 Like they are underperforming in that demographic. And so

Speaker 5 that feels just as a practical political matter, like a risky move when you know that you need to try to win some of these men who've been traditionally Democrats and who

Speaker 5 are either RFK curious or anti-Biden. You got to win them back.
You know, that's maybe not

Speaker 5 politics is politics. You know, I don't know.
If you have any thoughts on that,

Speaker 2 no. I mean, I guess I'm slightly averse to too much focus on which group you have to win back and, you know, which candidate is going to speak best to the group.

Speaker 2 Obviously, that's politics, as you just said, and it's very reasonable to think that way to some degree. And that's the traditional way politicians have thought, ticket balancing and so forth.

Speaker 2 On the other hand, this is also a way in which if you have a good ticket, it's going to lift you some with every group. You know, these groups don't wildly go.
They start in very different places.

Speaker 2 So the vote share is very different, but they usually move in the same direction. Usually, not always.

Speaker 2 So if you have a good ticket, it'll help with

Speaker 2 lower information younger voters and with, I think,

Speaker 2 older voters at the same time, maybe, unless it's too tilted.

Speaker 2 That's where I guess the two women, though, and Buddha Judge does would test that proposition because they might just have very divergent appeals and lack of appeal to different groups.

Speaker 2 So I'm not, I would say on a woman, I mean, this is slightly, I mean, Mikey Sherrill from New Jersey, who I think is a member of Congress, Abigail Spanberger from Virginia, who's a member of Congress here and will run for governor next year.

Speaker 2 Either of them would be fantastic picks, I would say, but they're one step away from probably being at the level where they could do it.

Speaker 2 Mikey Sherrill, a helicopter pilot in the Navy, I believe, super impressive. And Abigail Spanberger, former CIA.

Speaker 2 I mean, you get a real kind of toughness there with the two of them, as well as just good political skills and communication skills. So they're probably not in play, though.

Speaker 5 Probably not. We're trying to get Mikey on the pod.
Hopefully, we'll have her on soon. I agree.
Okay, last thing. We have a RFK press conference announcement tomorrow.
We don't know what that is.

Speaker 5 Five o'clock, it could just be that he thinks that he's solved autism in children or something. But there is some discussion that it might be an endorsement of Donald Trump.

Speaker 5 I think that emphasizes this kind of question about reaching with your points well taken about picking a good ticket, about focusing the Democratic ticket, whatever it is, on winning back some of these younger men that have been traditionally Democrats.

Speaker 5 I think that if RFK were to endorse Trump, I think there'd be a lot of buzz about how that would be good for Trump. But I think it would be very bad for Trump.

Speaker 5 So I'm kind of fingers crossed that he does it. Because to me, to steal from Sarah, Kamala, or if something happens, somebody else is building an anti-Trump coalition.

Speaker 5 And so the fewer off-ramps there are for people who do not like Trump, the better. I don't know if you have any final thoughts on that.

Speaker 2 You know, I didn't even know about this press conference until you mentioned it, but my instinct is exactly where you are.

Speaker 2 Now he muddies the waters, and I think his vote was going to drop anyway, and it could end up coming more from Trump. Let him endorse Trump.
Let's just have a clean choice here.

Speaker 2 Lunatic, anti-vaxxers, 70-year-old or 78-year-old, isn't RFK 70? I think, yeah. You know, white men who are pandering to the...

Speaker 2 crazy in a demagogic way to all kinds of crazy parts of American society and in really distasteful ways.

Speaker 2 I mean, and are distasteful, if we can just be honest, distasteful human beings in their private dealings with people, especially women, but everyone too,

Speaker 2 and against a decent ticket of

Speaker 2 people in their 40s or 50s who have been responsible public servants and who can

Speaker 2 make you feel okay about having them as president and vice president.

Speaker 2 I hope he does endorse Trump.

Speaker 5 All right, Bill Crystal. You got your wish.

Speaker 5 Are you feeling good? I mean,

Speaker 5 you've been banging this drum, banging and banging and banging for years, it feels like. And you've had much negative feedback.

Speaker 5 People in the Reddit, the bulwark Reddit, did not like you a year ago when you were saying all this. And

Speaker 5 do you feel any satisfaction? Are you going to have a glass of chamblie tonight or anything?

Speaker 2 I feel relief, honestly. And I think it's good for the country and good for the cause of defeating Trump.

Speaker 2 I guess I feel a little personal. Satisfaction isn't quite the right word.
I really do feel it's more relief and more, but also I do a little bit of the dog that caught the car, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, now, okay.

Speaker 2 You and I.

Speaker 2 I just want to point out that with your fantastic piece yesterday and everything, you're fully out there with, you caught up to me. I just want to say you, you and I and Sarah, pretty much too.

Speaker 2 We three dogs, we three dogs have come

Speaker 2 up running in a tandem for the last few weeks, and we've caught the car. And hopefully we can, I don't know what the metaphor is, sound this.
We can, we can, we can steer that car. Drive it,

Speaker 2 get the wheels

Speaker 5 with our paws.

Speaker 5 We didn't fall out of a coconut tree yesterday, okay, Bill.

Speaker 5 We all, we exist in the context of everything we came before, and now you know we want our dreams, we want our future to be unburdened by those past newsletters and those past comments.

Speaker 5 And I look forward to doing that with all of you. We might be back tomorrow, I don't know.
We just jammed this out really quick for you.

Speaker 5 The Monday pod on Sunday, we might give you a bonus one tomorrow. Keep an eye on the feed.
Otherwise, we'll see you back here on Tuesday. Enjoy what's left of your weekend.
It's coconut time. Peace.

Speaker 2 I got a friend named Jack.

Speaker 2 Looks like a bone in a paper sack. That's my friend Jack.

Speaker 2 Come on, Jack.

Speaker 2 Smell these corners.

Speaker 2 There's enough for everyone.

Speaker 2 Everyone.

Speaker 2 Jackie likes the smell of cut grass. He used to play ball on Saturdays.
Playing in the sun.

Speaker 2 Jackie likes to smell cutgrass. He used to play ball on Saturdays, playing in the sun.

Speaker 2 Jackie had his way.

Speaker 2 Give some cutgrass to everyone.

Speaker 5 The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

Speaker 6 Even though severe cases can be rare, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is still the leading cause of hospitalization in babies under one.

Speaker 6 RSV often begins like a cold or the flu, but can quickly spread to your baby's lungs. Ask your doctor about preventative antibodies for your baby this season and visit protectagainstrsv.com.

Speaker 6 The information presented is for general educational purposes only.

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Speaker 9 you're always listening to your baby, especially when RSV is on your mind.

Speaker 9 Bifortis, Nursevimab ALIP, is the first and only long-acting preventative antibody that gives babies the RSV antibodies they lack.

Speaker 9 Baphortis is a prescription medicine used to help prevent serious lung disease caused by RSV or respiratory syncytial virus in babies under age one born during or entering their first RSV season and children up to 24 months who remain at risk of severe RSV disease through their second RSV season.

Speaker 9 Your baby shouldn't receive Bifortis if they have a history of serious allergic reactions to Baphortis, Nursevimab ALIP, or any of its ingredients.

Speaker 9 Tell your baby's doctor about any medicines they're taking and all their medical conditions, including bleeding or bruising problems. Serious allergic reactions have happened.

Speaker 9 Get medical help right away if your child has any of the following signs or symptoms of a serious allergic reaction, such as swelling of the face, mouth, or tongue, difficulty swallowing or breathing, unresponsiveness, bluish color of skin, lips, or underfingernails, muscle weakness, severe rash, hives, or itching.

Speaker 9 Most common side effects include rash and pain, swelling, or hardness at their injection site. Individual results may vary.
Ask your baby's doctor about Bayfortis.

Speaker 9 Visit Bayfortis.com or call 1-855-BEFORTIS.

Speaker 6 Even though severe cases can be rare, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is still the leading cause of hospitalization in babies under one.

Speaker 6 RSV often begins like a cold or the flu, but can quickly spread to your baby's lungs. Ask your doctor about preventative antibodies for your baby this season and visit protectagainstrsv.com.

Speaker 6 The information presented is for general educational purposes only.

Speaker 8 Please ask your healthcare provider about any questions regarding your health or your baby's health.