S.E. Cupp: Grieving the Insanity

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Additional terms apply. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast.
I'm your host, Tim Miller. I'm pumped to have, for the first time, were you ever on with Charlie? S.E cup political analyst cnn contributor host of battleground on fox owned stations never trumper what's up s.e what's up good to see you is this your inaugural visit to the board podcast i did something with sarah before focus group maybe yeah all right well that's good welcome yeah let's do this this is gonna be good the people are going to be ready.
We have much to discuss. The podcast will be significantly shorter than Trump's speech was last night.
The longest convention speech in history. I don't know who is the person in charge of measuring that over at Guinness, but whoever it was, 96 minutes outpacing the second longest ever, which was Donald Trump's 2016 speech.
And Bill Clinton's 1998 speech, a previous title holder, was just swamped last night. I want to talk about that and Tucker and obviously what's happened on the Dem side.
But first, just what was your biggest top line impression of the four nights that we saw in Milwaukee? I was impressed. Listen, I've been saying this for some time.
The operation that Lasaveta et al. are running is good this time around.
It's disciplined, it's focused, it's organized. It's running better than Trump is, actually.
And evidence of that was last night and Trump sort of meandering, rambling, undisciplined, not unifying speech. But the operation's been great.
And I think the RNC went really well for Republicans. If you're measuring it against whether or not they're getting new voters with this, that's another question.
I think they are, but not because of anything they're doing, but because Democrats aren't fielding a competitive challenger. And so independents or moderates or undecideds who might've tuned in might've said, well, this looks like a party that's organized, unified, wants to win.
This looks like a candidate who's strong. I don't know what's going on on the other side, but yeah, I might be able to give these people my vote.
I don't know how many of those there were in the important swing states, but I think it went as well as could be expected. What did you think? Yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying with that.
We're definitely grading on a curve. I almost wonder if it was a little too corporate.
Sure. Let's put Trump in a separate box a little bit, because the Trump speech was so weird and so different from everything else that happened.
Okay. So just speaking about the rest of the convention for a minute.
Did it lose a little bit of the joie de vivre of MAGA? I mean, it's tough, right? Like, it's tough to do this. And Trump brings in people because of his unique style, right? He repels people, President Company included, because of that style.
But I don't know. There was nothing there.
And I guess if their goal was in the fallout of the assassination attempt in Butler to not scare people away, it wasn't unifying. They didn't do that.
They can't reach the kumbaya. There's no Barack Obama.
There's no red states, no blue states. You didn't have any of that.
The rhetoric wasn't singing. But did they achieve not scaring anybody? Did they achieve? Do no harm.
Do no harm. And if they think that they're ahead, I do think so.
And to your point, you're complimenting Las Vidas kind of on an old measure, right? Which was like, what did we want from the Mitt Romney convention in 2012 to not have Clint Eastwood yelling at an empty chair, right? Like if you went back, like you would have, you would have hopefully done no harm. And that was not achieved.
And I guess they they achieved that so we'll grade them on a curve

on that i hear you um the trump speech on the other hand for people who didn't suffer through it like i said 96 minutes the first 20 minutes was the best i could describe it would be like like you're sitting in a classroom you have like a retired person that comes to a classroom to read a story to children about an assassination attempt.

And they kind of went on for like 19 minutes. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I've done it on every show.
We're happy. Thank God for the one inch, Miss Bullitt.
But I just, to be descriptive of what he was doing, that was the best I could, the way I could describe it. And then after that, that was 20 minutes.
Then after that, there was like another 20 minutes of, of like Toastmaster at a wedding, recognizing the sister of the bride, my buddy from high school came all the way from New Zealand. You know, my wife, good to see her.
I haven't seen her in a while. Like it was very strange.
Like it was very strange yeah that part and then he gets into the actual speech like as long as a normal convention speech usually is now that's when he's beginning the actual substance of the speech yeah and so i wanted to give that to you first and get your response because to me it ties to my answer about the other thing the only positive i can think from him him of that speech is, I looked at that and I'm like, that guy didn't feel like Hitler. Oh my God.
You know what I mean? A little less organized. It didn't intentionally work, but if the Democrats' big frame here is Mike Donilon buying the big frame, he's like democracy is on the ballot.
I didn't watch that and think. I mean, I feel that way still because I know about Donald Trump's people.
But I feel like if I'm a casual watching that, I'm like, that doesn't feel like Mussolini to me. That feels rambly.
Well, a couple things. I think that was the trick of the RNC.
And again, to the organization, they really put a fine veneer on the party. And, you know, akin to telling Donald Trump to distance himself from 2025, to not dancing on Joe Biden's grave, all that advice was very, very good and counterintuitive to what Trump would normally do.
The speech, I think, was meant to be along those lines, disciplined, maybe a little bit more unifying, but we know Trump, he doesn't do that. And watching over the first few days, I got doing interviews, I got a lot of questions like, Trump looks a little reserved in the box.
He looks a little somber. Was that maybe because of the attempt on his life? And I said, no, he doesn't want to listen to other people speak.
He wants to be speaking. He is not here for Nikki Haley's speech and Marco Rubio.
He wants to be the one speaking and he is bored out of his mind.

He looked especially bored. Let's see if we can say it at the same time.
Which speech do you look the most bored during one, two, three, Eric? He looked like he was like, how could this still be going? Yeah, he looked bored. I know.
I think he likes Kai more than he likes Eric. For sure.
But I think Trump is Trump, no matter how you polish it.

And he wanted to be the one speaking. He was never going to stick to a script.
He can't help himself. He has a stage.
He's going to use it as long as he can. And so he stretched and stretched because he loves it up there.
But it was weird. It was a weird speech.
I don't know how impactful those are on voters. Again, I think it was a do no harm convention.
But yeah, it was a weird speech, better than American carnage, but like a weird speech. You know, if he wasn't Trump, if it was a normal politician, we'd be like trying to analyze, what were they trying to do with it? You know, like there were these moments where he was, he talked about how love, I wrote down some words during the speech, talked about faith, devotion, providence, the things that he cherishes.
All of that stuff sounds just off key for Trump. Like when you're watching- Well, he didn't write that.
He doesn't know what providence means. Yeah, exactly.
When you're watching a cover band of a band that you know and you're like that note is not right like it's just it just hurts your ear a little yeah no pun intended there so i guess the point was just hey we're not gonna scare people or do you think they really thought he was capable of doing like a soaring oratory thing and they thought that they might actually be able to land with some of

the women voters that they're struggling with i'm grasping because i just don't know what the point like when they were chatting about it like what do you think the point was i think there was a concerted effort in this convention to be happier and more upbeat and little less doom and gloom And I don't know if that was because of, you know, current events. Yeah.
Or that they had always planned that. I don't know.
But I think there was the feeling that they're in such a good position, and they are, that let's ride this and let's try to make this a little more positive and upbeat. Trump isn't capable of staying up there, but I think that was the effort.
And listen, like I said, whoever's advising him to be as disciplined, quote unquote disciplined, as he has in the past few weeks, has been effective. That has been very effective.
And I think they thought maybe we can get one more, we can get one more good performance out of him. But it was too long.
You gave him too much time. In that amount of time, he's never going to stick to script.
I do love the speaking on a curve side of us. Among the discipline speech included an extended riff on him

imagining that if he was the president of

Guatemala, that he would empty

the prisons and send all

the worst prisoners to America.

An unusual kind of freestyle

for a nomination acceptance speech.

Truly.

I do have to say it. I feel like I have to say it.

It's fucking insane he was nominated

by, it's my former party. Are you still, I you're still where you're still identifying these days it's come on yeah former officially former some people are hanging on i found michael steel let me i guess still hanging on for some reason i don't know he surprised me with that the other night okay good on him we got the michael steel podcast on the board network by the way go check it out it's a good promo i just did for Michael.
So anyway, my former party, it's fucking insane. Three times.
It was the third time they nominated this person. Do you ever just sit with that for a second? I mean, all the time.
I still can't believe. I'm eight years removed from the moment that everything changed around me.
And I am still, I wouldn't say in a state of denial, but I'm not at like acceptance. I'm still grieving the insanity of where we are, nominating a person who lost the White House, the House and the Senate for Republicans, nominating a person who was twice impeached, nominating a person who's a convicted felon, rapist.
I mean, it is insane.

And yet the shocks keep coming.

I mean, just when you think, okay, this might be a bridge too far or the party will come

back to sanity.

They go way past, you know, sanity.

And it's like, no, no, no, we haven't even gotten to the craziest place yet.

So, I mean, it's, I'm still mourning something that truly ended eight years ago.

Eight years ago.

It's been long gone, and it's just gotten worse and worse. But I still can't believe where we're at.
And the sad part for me, in addition to all the things that this guy is our party's representative, that this guy is our country's representative,

that the party has morphed and given up on so many policies and principles. The thing that saddens me the most is that conservatism as a set of values doesn't change regardless of who's in the White House or who's leading the party or whatever.
But for the past century, the people talking the most about conservatism have been Republicans. Now, no one's talking about conservatism.
No one. I mean, we do occasionally, but no one listens.
So it doesn't even matter. It's like in a vacuum.
So you've got Democrats arguing about progressivism versus more progressivism. And you've got Republicans arguing about nonsense like tariffs and let's explode the debt, who cares? Crazy stuff.
No one's here to talk about conservatism. And that really saddens me because I don't know who can keep doing that.
Does anyone listen to Adam Kinzinger or Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney? I mean, I do, but Mike, Mike is out there doing it. Mike Pence.
He's got a new group. I heard, I don't, I don't hear my, I asked Melissa.
He couldn't be less relevant. He's less relevant than I am.
I'm not a traitor. He's a traitor inside this movement.
Yeah. Who of relevance is left? I mean, we're all doing it, right? It's Bulwark and and you know jonah and the dispatch we're doing it i've moved on now i'm focused on liberalism i'm a classical liberal now i'm trying to take back liberalism i've given up it's over i think it's lost i think the word is lost for me that makes me really sad i'm sorry to sadden you yeah okay well it's good i'm happy that you haven't got to acceptance because I thought I was at acceptance and then I watched him last night and I was like, how is this still real? How is this real? Yeah, I know.
Speaking of things that are crazy, the assassination attempt, the Secret Service did finally confirm that it was a bullet. Obviously, it was a bullet.
Yes. But I didn't believe in any of the conspiracies about it.
I thought it I thought it was weird how long it was taking them to like answer questions about an attempted assassination on a, on the leading presidential candidate. It felt like there should have been a press conference earlier or something, but they did confirm that.
Heilman asked me this last night. I was over on his podcast.
If you need more takes from me, listeners, I felt like it was my worst answer. Cause I just don't know.
And so I'm curious, maybe you'll have a better answer. What do you think we think the staying power of that is? Are we in this world now where by October that's going to feel like it was 18 years ago? Or do you think that it's galvanizing the party in a permanent way? Do you think it's changing Trump? Open question.
What do you think the ramifications of that tragic event is going to be? I don't think it has staying power. And part of my job for several networks now is to be on the news.
And when Monday came and it was RNC time, the shooting was there in the background. but we were fully on the next beat.
We were onto the RNC. And that was a little shocking to me because it was literally a day's distance.
You had Sunday between the shooting and the RNC, and maybe it's because of the RNC that we just completely kind of left that news cycle. I mean, again, there were smatterings of it throughout the day.
We got fans wearing ear bandages at the RNC and stuff. But really, we were fully, fully onto the next story, which was the RNC.
And now that that's over, we're going to be fully onto Joe Biden leaving the ticket fully. And once Republicans aren't dominating the news cycle with an RNC kind of event, I think it's gone.
It's done, which is wild to think, but I think it's gone. I think the moment happened and we're past it.
Yeah. That's so weird.
I agree with that, I think.'s weird. You're a little more pro gun than me.
Should a 20 year old be able to go buy 50 rounds of ammunition and just immediately like buy it that day? No. Don't you think that's something we should be thinking about? No.
And you know, a problem that is a usual, a typical problem is that he took someone else's gun right in this case his dad's right which is not to say he couldn't have bought it legally he might have been able to but as pro second amendment as i am i have long advocated for making it much harder for bad guys and sick people to get their hands on guns and it's hard hard to do young boys constitutionally and young and young boys. And listen, there's been movement specifically on that over the past few years.
Adam Kinzinger, big gun rights guy as well, um, has called for age limits, um, age minimums to buy assault weapons. I think that's common sense.
These are hard things to do, but I'm fully on board with changing our gun laws. Fully on board.
There was one speech that maybe, well, there was maybe more than one. There were a couple of other moments.
I just think it's fair to say, well, the Arnesty Convention was tamped down a little bit. There were signs calling for mass deportations.
There were some weird scream. Peter Navarro went straight from jail to the stage.
So there was still some weird moments. Savannah Chrisley was like my weirdest moment.
Did you see Savannah Chrisley? I missed that one. No, I missed that.
Who is that? Well, she's a reality TV daughter. Both her parents are in jail for bank fraud and tax evasion.
They did it. Okay.
But she's trying to say in solidarity with the sham witch trial against Donald Trump that the DOJ also came after her parents. No, they just broke the law and they're in jail.
And that was weird. That was a weird, let's shine a light on criminal activity.
Like why shine a light on criminals? But that's where they went. That's kind of core to the core of the convention.
All right. Savannah Chrisley.
We'll put that in the show notes. I'll have to go check that one out.
I mean, I felt like I watched a hundred hours of the convention. So how could I have missed one? But I guess, I guess.
The biggest winner was the house band. We're about the same age, but I like identify more young, younger millennial because my Peter Pan syndrome and you're like a full, you're a xennial i'm an old soul yeah you're an old soul and i like classic rock and like dad rock yeah music was a little gen x for me and they've been getting so much love the band is six wire they're out of um nashville tennessee and like i had democrats calling and being like that band is awesome man like they killed it i think they it.
I think they're going to get some, like, national attention now.

What do you think was their highlight?

38 Special.

Great.

I live in the 70s, like, late 60s, 70s music, so it was great for me.

Girl.

The other speech, besides Savannah Chrisley and Peter Navarro's Ode to Criminality, that left me a little unsettled uh was from your your old buddy tucker carlson let's take a listen everything was different after that moment everything this convention is different the nation is different the world is different donald trump is different when he stood up after being shot in the face bloodied and put and put his hand up, I thought at that moment, that was a transformation. This was no longer a man.
Well, I think that. I think it was divine intervention.
But the effect that it had on Donald Trump, he was no longer just a political party's nominee, or a former president, or a future president, this was the leader of a nation. And I think there's a difference.
I mean, I've spent most of my life in Washington where the president is at the top of the pyramid, everyone wants to be the president. But if you think about it, the presidency comes with great power, obviously.
But if you think about it, that is a title that is bestowed by a process of some sort that can be subverted. And in the end, it does not confer by itself, as no title does, legitimacy.
Yeah. That was the fascist thing, I think, at the whole deal.
Again, I was kind of worried the whole fucking week was going to be super fashy and that we were going to go to a very dark place.

So I'm kind of happy that it was a little muted.

It was sprinkled in.

Yeah.

But that's some weird stuff.

Like that was a little bit, there's a little bit of Mussolini in that for me.

There's a little bit of a Russian kind of, and Tucker's a Russophile now,

kind of like a Stalinist leader of the nation,

blood and soil,

providential.

I don't know.

What'd you make of it?

Right.

Well,

your face kind of tells me for YouTube viewers,

but go ahead.

There's so many emotions when I listened to Tucker.

And one of them is that I used to know him very well and admired and

respected him and he's smart.

And that makes it harder to watch these turns that he's made. But I mean, predominantly, I, you know, I'm not a theist.
So some of that language scares me. Besides that, yeah, I mean, it was a little jarring because we didn't hear as much of that as I thought we would as well.
But that's what Tucker's there for. I think that's what he's there to do.
And he still, I think, has a big fan base, not as big as he once had. But I think it's a compliment to that wing of the party that wants to hear that kind of stuff and really does see Donald Trump as a cult figure.
And Tucker sees no problem with leaning into that. Like that's, that should be a big turnoff that people see him as a cult leader.
And for someone like Tucker to kind of just turn right into that, I think shows you just how much very smart people have accepted that that is the makeup of the party. Now that it's made up of cultists, and they have to appeal to them.
Yeah, as somebody who is not really attracted by cults, or these sorts of religious appeals, I have to note that it was just 2021, three years ago, that Tucker was texting that he thinks Trump is a demonic force. He used that phrase, a demonic force.
And so it's intriguing for somebody to be a demonic force, a force of hell in 2021. And then three years later to say that he is the hand of God is with him.
Correct. It makes me think that maybe it's not an authentic conversion.
Maybe?

Hard for me to just throw that out there, but I don't exactly know.

Maybe?

Yeah, I don't know.

Or maybe people that are very attracted to cults,

it's kind of the two sides of the same coin thing.

It's easy to flip from demon to prophet.

I don't know.

Well, I wouldn't put Tucker in that category,

nor J.D. Vance, who mused that Trump might be America's Hitler, right, and is now his biggest fan.
These people know better. These people are just craven and opportunists.
But I think there are a lot of voters who truly believe these kinds of things that are being floated around. And so people like Tucker and J.D.
Vance have to appeal to those people and really buy into the cult status. If they talk about Trump like a regular politician, that's just not sealing the deal for a lot of people.
I'll say this. Cults are not appealing to me.
I feel I'm very unlikely to get sucked into a cult at any point. But I do find them interesting.
Very deeply into that documentary a couple of years ago about the cults. That was at the Indian cult that went to Oregon.
Yeah. Wild, wild West.
Yeah. Wild, wild West.
Yeah. I've seen them all.
Yeah. Yeah.
I was very fascinated by that. And so I get the appeal.
The Tucker thing to me was scary because I, I could see how people could get sucked into it. J.D.
Vance speech was like, I find this to be one of the most unappealing humans I've ever encountered in my life. Yeah.
And so that's like in a way less scary. That's less scary.
Yeah. Yeah.
Agreed. J.D.
Vance is not a charismatic person. I think he's pretty douchey.
Yeah. Tucker has some douchiness, but he's very charismatic.
We are so aligned on the J.D JD thing. Last night on our live stream, I was like, some people have gaydar.
And despite being gay, I'm not very good with gaydar. But I have a good douchedar.
And I was like, when JD first came with Hillbilly Elegy, I don't know what it was. I didn't read it.
I didn't really look at the internet. I watched a couple clips of them and I was like, this guy's a douchebag.
I was like, he's a douche. So I just made a snap judgment.
Yeah, it was like a blink. It was like Malcolm Godwell blink.
I just made a snap judgment. I think this person is a douchebag.
And so I didn't engage with Hillbilly Elegy. And I do feel vindicated by that.
Oh, you're right. You were right, for sure.
He's real douchey. And I think the J.D.
Vance that America met at the RNC

is a bit lighter than the dark J.D. Vance

that you're going to see a lot more of

now that the RNC performance is over.

So I think more of his douchiness and darkness will come out.

He can't hide it very well.

All right, I was about to move on to the Dems, but I just, Kathy Young just sent me this. So I

do feel like I have to share it with you to just get your snap reaction. Bacha Ungersargon,

she writes for Newsweek and does some stuff over with Barry Weiss. She wrote this,

being pro-Trump has lost its taboo, even in Dem circles. The tides have turned,

the vibe has shifted. The sincerity that was lame and cringe is now retro hot.
Hipsters for Trump. Gangsters for Trump.
Your parents' favorite band is back on the radio. Normies of the world unite for Trump.
What is wrong with these people? What is happening? I don't understand her. And that's not new.
Okay. I was in a panel with her and listen this is not personal like she i'm sure she's nice i'm sure she's nice yeah right no i don't know i did a panel with her at the paley center on social media and disinformation and she said in all sincerity with a straight face i think we need more disinformation we've gotten too used to good information and trusting information.
And I'm just like, I don't, what, what is happening? The gaslight, I don't know if it's gaslighting or if it's, I'm just trying to be interesting and contrarian. I don't know what it is, but to me, that feels like pretty typical of her to sort of say the thing that is completely untrue, completely not true.
And that no one is thinking, but really try to make, like, say it with sincerity. I don't get it.
I don't get it. Shout out to my, my book editor who I just noticed is the first reply to that, to that tweet with, I can't tell you how wrong this is.
He's a real one. Eric Nelson.
We love you, Eric. All right, let's move on.
We love Eric. Let's move on to the Dems.
Oh, good. Well, you just go.
I have a few things, but what are you thinking about what's happening over there with the president? Well, let me just be, let me get personal for a second. You know, I've been very open about my anxiety and how I've struggled with anxiety, stemming from lots of things, but additionally from politics, right? And the sort of shifting contours of politics over the last eight years.
It's been personal for me to watch the party completely change, et cetera. Watching the shit show on the left, it's not like I'm giddy or gleeful about it.
I'm not because the stakes are very high, but I don't have the anxiety of it because it's not my house that's falling apart, right? It's someone else's house that's falling apart. And so I'm able to see it much more objectively, which is to say, I have no emotional attachment to this when I say it, which is that Joe Biden has to go.
He has to go. He has to go five minutes ago.
In fact, he had to go two years ago when people like me were saying, we don't need to field him again. He did the job.
He transitioned. He got Trump out.
I knew I wouldn't like his policies. I mostly don't like his policies, but he's a good person.
But now he's actively hurting the country. He's actively hurting Democrats down ballot and across the spectrum.
This is bad. And he's playing with our democracy.
And I, you know, this isn't personal to Joe, although it's getting personal. The longer he stays in, the more I'm disliking him and the people around him.
But this should not be a tough decision. He can't do another four years and he can't beat Trump.
That's the whole ballgame. Let's just be honest and realistic about it.
He can't accomplish either of those two missions. I guess the podcast is over.
No, no, no, no, no, you're exactly right. No, exactly right.
Okay. I did a similar rant about how this isn't about him.
That's the frustrating thing about it. Like, I hate how much they're all making it about him.
Like, he deserves it. Yeah.
No, it's not. Public servant.
This whole conversation. Yeah.
This whole conversation has nothing to do with Joe Biden. It's about us.
Okay? Right. The people put him in there because, in part, because some of us wanted him to save us from Trump and to save the country.
And so that was part of his coalition. He had some parts of his coalition that were very ideologically motivated and others that were motivated by other reasons.
Nobody put him in there because it was Joe Biden's rite of passage to ascend to this office. This wasn't about him in the first place it's not about him now and so i agree they shouldn't take it personally but i'm starting to i am too and i think did you vote for him in 2020 of course yeah of course yeah happily by the way happily and it was maybe my happiest vote i've ever cast honestly say same girl same however it was my first vote for a democrat i it pretty seriously.
That's how bad I thought Trump was, right? And I feel like that vote is being shoved in my face. I feel like it was taken for granted.
And now it is getting personal. I'm getting mad at Democrats and Joe Biden for taking advantage of me like that because I did it with the explicit promise that he made to be a bridge president and then hand it off to another generation.
He's not doing that. And he's expressly not doing that because he doesn't think anyone else can win.
No one else is showing him that he cannot win. It's a problem.
And the longer they wait on it, because he's going to go, but the longer they wait on it, the harder it's going to be to condition an environment to vote for anyone else. want to get to the he's going to go thing but just one more thing on the clarity of the never trumpers on this stuff because i feel i have a lot of people that are mad at me about this which i'm sure you do as well about my auntie joe but maybe not because you kind of you've maintained a more like i'm a guest here about the joe biden coalition than i do yes because i don't even like for me i got it i dislike some of policies.
I like some of his policies. I was always a rhino squish, right? So like I disagreed with all the Republicans I voted for, right, on various policies.
So like it was a much more natural transition for me than for some who are more conservative than I was. Some of the people who follow me are mad about this.
And they're like, you're a Republican is showing. And like, why should we listen to you? You used to be a Republican.

And I'm like, that's fine.

You don't have to listen to me.

That's a fine point to not listen to me.

You can choose who you want to listen to.

But I do think that like we have a clarity of vision about it by not having the baggage.

Right?

Exactly.

Guys, like this just isn't happening.

Like it's not happening. Like let's not not like stop trying to to post talk come up

with some rationalizations for why it could happen or why it should happen or whatever it's like it's just not happening it's just reality no i actually think in addition to the clarity we have the most credibility on this issue because we were republicans we did vote for him we got we got the appeal. We got the danger.
We still have that clear sense of the dangerous stakes. Other people seem to have dropped the ball on that, seem to have lost the point of all of this.
So I actually think ourselves on the back of it because we have been, I think, intellectually honest and consistent about this in ways that other partisans cannot be. I feel a little uncomfortable patting myself on the back, but I appreciate that.
I'll accept your pat. I'm not as sure that you are that he's going.
I don't know. I'm always a rain cloud.
The reports from Bob Costa at CBS last night that he's upset at people, that he's isolating and he's feeling pressured. He should be feeling pressured.
There is some discussion that John Meacham was writing a speech. Bob Costa was throwing water on that, on the record comment from Meacham.
Maybe this is just buying time, but you're sure? You're sure it's happening? I have some sources that lead me to believe. Johnacham nope not meacham not halperin not heilman nope no okay well good i'll take your anonymous sources that's great that's encouraging i needed that so for me the meacham thing was nervous because because me in my head it's like it's nancy and it's meacham they need to seal the deal and then it's jill right like that's my trivirate.
We need to have those three on board. And so having me on the record thing from Meacham was concerning for me.
One other thing that concerns me, AOC was on the internet last night. Did you see this? What was she doing over there? She did an IG live after the speech.
And I'm just like, what is AOC up to? Let's play the clip and then I'll tell you what was in the rest of the IG live. And I'm going to say what a lot of these folks aren't saying.
I'm just going to say it. If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave, that Kamala, that they will support Kamala, Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken.
And I'm going to say that because if they're going to come out and say all their little things on background off the record, but they're not going to be fully honest, I'm going to be honest for them.

I'm in these rooms.

I see what they say in conversations.

A lot of them are not just interested in removing the president.

They are interested in removing the whole ticket. She goes on to talk about the legal minefield guaranteed by republicans if another name is to go on the ballot how this is an elite thing a lot of elites are trying to push them out and how we're out of time and she didn't really say it but that's kind of why she's sticking with Joe.
What's happening?

Shouldn't AOC be the biggest cheerleader for changing tickets?

This is where I feel like an immigrant to the pro-democracy coalition.

I'm like, what is the play here?

I don't understand what's happening.

So I'm hearing from, there's a wing, mostly progressives,

who are talking about wanting, and they're okay with getting rid of Joe, but they're talking about wanting now an open convention. Because I think they want to feel like they've got some buy-in here, and they've at least had an opportunity to field or support a candidate more aligned with progressive values.
And that's not Kamala. But the realistic Democrats know that that would be a shit show.
Exposing all the chasms of the Democratic Party and then attempting to unify, you know, a day later is a fool's errand. The best and only way to do this is to say, Joe Biden's stepping down and here is your new ticket.
Period. Full stop.
We're not doing this again, get on board. And I think, you know, if they do that, if it's say Kamala Shapiro, which I think would be the best choice and the easiest thing to do, I think there's so much exhaustion and frustration among Democrats through this whole process that you'd actually have a much easier time unifying around this ticket than ordinarily, or if that ticket had been run earlier.
Shouldn't AOC just be saying that though? I guess the thing, I think it's so weird to do this whole like- It's very weird. It's almost threatening.
And we should be considering Joe. And yeah, she's kind of threatened.
And it's like, to me, again, maybe she knows her Instagram fans better than me, but it's like, i think that she's unappealing her to her own people like her own people should be like what are you talking about aoc like we're gonna we need to maybe stick with this old man that doesn't remember the secretary of defense's name right because you're worried about some lawsuits like it feels like she's off key she's in her own head she's this is not reflective

of where most democrats are inside the party or even among voters it's just not and i i talk to a lot of them i might not be in the room like she is but i'm in the room with a lot of democrats including on on you know team biden team obama um team hillary i talked to a lot of these people And there is consensus that he has to go.

There is not consensus about who should replace him. And that is a that's a problem.
But it's a smaller problem than sticking with Joe Biden. All right.
I got a loud fire truck, which is which means this is the perfect time to your question about how there there's going to be some indecision within the Democrats. But I want to know where you fall in our new segment, The Coconut Meter.
You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? So I want to know where you are when it comes to the Passover to Kamala. Are you at the bottom of the coconut tree? Are you climbing it? Are you shaking the branches? Are you at the top? Are you about to wear a coconut t-shirt? Where are you on the Kamala? I'm coconut bikini.
I'm fully on board the coconut train, tree, coconuts, whatever this meter is. I think it has to be Kamala because you can't jump over, A, the person that is meant to replace you.
That's where she's there. And you can't jump over a woman of color.
That would look so awful. And I don't think it's necessary.
Listen, I won't speak for you, but I know a lot of Never Trumpers who got to a Joe Biden vote because he put someone like Kamala on the ticket and not a progressive, you know, Elizabeth Warren type, but someone that seemed sane and rational and somewhat moderate. Now you can criticize the job she's done, which isn't really a job, but you can criticize what she's done as vice president, but she is the reason I think a lot of people felt okay voting for Joe Biden.
They should lean into that and use that as an asset. They buried her for the last four years and did her no service.
So Democratic voters and independents and moderates are not ready for a Kamala ticket. They should have been.
They should have been preparing voters for a Kamala ticket over the past four years.

They didn't.

So they're sort of starting from behind the blocks.

But I think they can get there

if they just do it already.

Rip the Band-Aid off, do it.

I'm shaking the branches,

but I'm not all the way at the top of the tree

like you are at the moment

because I just keep coming back to,

wouldn't it help her to have a little brief open process?

I guess, I don't know.

I don't share the AOC scare on this.

Wouldn't a little open process be okay?

Like, what's the harm in letting her earn it?

Well, what that does is expose her

to criticism from within the party.

I don't think that helps her.

I think what you want is a unified party and you can't get there through an open process. Listen, I love democracy and I love these processes, but we're too late into the game.
If you really want to give her the best shot at this, you don't set her up for two or three weeks of criticism and attacks from the far left and the right and the right and the middle, you just don't set her up that way.

I think you say Joe Biden stepping down and here is your new ticket.

Please get on board.

That's fair rebuttal.

I'm not quite convinced, but, but I'm on board either way.

The Shapiro thing.

So my short list and just, you know, just so people have it out there.

I think Shapiro, Chris Murphy and Mark Kelly thought about this a lot.

I think are the ones that make sense. Chris Murphy.
he can talk he she needs somebody that can talk and do interviews pete can do it you don't like chris that's fine good let's say pete can do it but you can't have a gay on the ticket sorry i can say it all right we can't have a gay i think no let me just say i think you can have a gay man on the ticket a bit easier than you can have a jewish man on the ticket in this this is where i'm going this is where i'm going so aren't you worried about that with shapiro because i think shapiro is the obvious pick except for it's like you finally get over this hump of all the internal turmoil and you're uniting and then you pick josh shapiro and then the palestine protests are back i. I know.
I know. Of course I've thought about that.
There is no ideal perfect person. I heard Roy Cooper floated about like no one knows who that is.
He can't also is not, I can't talk. You need somebody.
JD got picked. JD has a lot is very unappealing.
My credentials on that are good. But he's slick.

He'll be good on that debate stage.

And you need somebody that can marginal him.

That's why I look at Kelly, astronaut.

He's not that great.

He's not Shapiro or Pete.

He's not particularly deft with his words.

But he already had to debate Blake Masters.

So he knows what it's like to debate a sociopathic smart person.

And he won. So I like that.
i like that he's an astronaut sure obviously the gabby gifford story yeah yeah so i like him it's not bad from from an important state it's not bad yeah the spiro thing worries me sure thing worries me okay there we are i see this has been so good i have to ask you before i lose you is that al gore over your shoulder what's happening there is that Al? That is Al. That is Al Gore and his children.
Okay. So for listeners, let me just describe this.
Where are you? You're in your home? Are you in your home right now? Yeah, I'm in my studio. You have a very large horizontal portrait of what appears to be Al Gore in a mock turtleneck playing a game of football, maybe on Thanksgiving or something.
Touch football. And I don't know if you can tell the scale, but this is like six feet by four feet.
It's giant. Yeah, it's huge.
No, the story, there's two parts to this story. This is a picture of Al Gore playing touch football with his family a couple days after the election in 2000.
As you know, it was not solved on election day.

His handlers told him,

go outside on your front lawn,

play football with your family.

It'll look like you're really confident.

And of course, the only thing that the media cared about

when they saw this performance

was that it looked so staged because it was. And so that's all that they talked about was how staged this was, which really went to the criticisms of his overall campaign, which was that he was not authentic.
He wasn't a real person. He was plastic and packaged.
Yes. So that's the part one of the story.
Why I have it is because this is a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph that hung inside the New York Times old building when I worked there for eight years. And when we moved buildings, they said to all of us employees, you can take the pictures off the wall.
You can all take one home. So people went for like the Yankees championship photos and other.
I wanted this one. You went for Gore.
I wanted this one because it's such a good reminder in politics and life that authenticity goes a long way. People cannot like what you say or what you think, but if they think you mean it, it really does go a long way.
So that's why that's why that's there.

Can I throw something by you?

Harris Gore, 76 years old, rested, tanned, rested, ready.

Massaged.

He's ready to go.

Okay, Harris Gore, let's think about it.

Way younger.

He would be younger than either of the current leaders of the ticket.

I'm sorry, I know the podcast is supposed to be over, but tommy vitor of pod save america is currently texting me jen o'malley dylan is on morning joe right now as we tape joe biden absolutely staying in the race he's the best person to take on donald trump and prosecute the case not here to say this hasn't been a tough couple weeks but uh blah blah blah i need to reassure people but he can win how good are your sources se because i'm panicked right now i think they're good i think they're good but no source is unimpeachable but i think they're i think they're good all right i hope you're right everybody i hope you have a wonderful weekend uh and uh you know i hope you find some separation from this. You know, go out there.

Have a white claw.

Go for a walk in the woods.

Go to the beach.

Maybe take a gummy.

Whatever.

Whatever it is that you do.

Read a book.

Pick up some fiction.

Enjoy that.

Essie, thank you so much.

Let's do this again soon.

This is great.

Love to.

Thanks for having me.

All right.

Thanks to Essie Cup.

We'll be back on Monday with Bill Kristol.

Unless Joe Biden drops out of the race,

and then I'll give you a weekend pot.

We'll see you all then. Peace.
It's too late when you realize what you had And my mind goes back to a girl I've had No years ago Who told me Just hold on loosely But don't let go If you claim to talk then you're gonna lose control You're barely someone to believe in, and a whole lot of space to breathe in It's so damn easy, when you're feeling lost, such To overprotect her

To love her too much

And my mind goes back to a girl I met

Four years ago

Who told me

Just hold on loosely

And don't let go

If you're going too tight then