Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Democrats looking for a backup plan after Biden's disastrous debate
Speaker 2: performance last week, are starting to rally behind a candidate
Speaker 2: some might find surprising, Vice President Kamala Harris. Despite her
Speaker 2: struggles as second in command, consistently low approval ratings among
Speaker 2: voters and doubts from pundits, Democrats that had once written
Speaker 2: her off are starting to realize Harris could have some
Speaker 2: key advantages in the fight against Trump. For one thing,
Speaker 2: access to Biden's over two hundred million dollar campaign war chest. Another,
Speaker 2: a CNN poll released after Biden's debate performance showed that
Speaker 2: she do slightly better than the president in a hypothetical
Speaker 2: matchup with Trump, though notably, both Democrats are trailing the
Speaker 2: former president. But even as Democrats float Biden alternatives like
Speaker 2: Harris ahead of the upcoming Democratic Convention, Biden and his
Speaker 2: allies have deflected concerns about the president's age and defended
Speaker 2: his record. At a press conference Wednesday, White House Press
Speaker 2: Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said Biden is absolutely not considering
Speaker 2: dropping out. Meanwhile, Harris has been positioning herself as loyal
Speaker 2: to the president. When asked in a CBS interview this week,
Speaker 2: if she was prepared to lead the country, she said,
Speaker 2: are you.
Speaker 3: Ready to meet the country if necessary? I am proud
Speaker 3: to be Joe Biden's running mate.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Today on the show Bloomberg White House correspondents
Speaker 2: A Kayla Gardner and Gregory Cordy on the calls for
Speaker 2: a Harris candidacy that are servicing now, who else could
Speaker 2: be a contender and what the chances of Harris leading
Speaker 2: the ticket really are? Hi, A Kayla and Gregory, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for being here. A Kayla. We reported
Speaker 2: out a story Today's Big Take, and I'm just going
Speaker 2: to read the title, Kamala Harris is having a surprise
Speaker 2: resurgence as Biden's campaign unravels. Why is this a surprise
Speaker 2: and what's behind this resurgence?
Speaker 3: This really has a lot to do of what's played
Speaker 3: out over the last couple of days. I think we
Speaker 3: saw pretty early on people sort of floating names of
Speaker 3: very ambitious governors, people who are rumored to potentially run
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty eight. But quickly people began to realize
Speaker 3: that if Byan were to set aside those millions of
Speaker 3: dollars that the campaign has which is right now, over
Speaker 3: two hundred million dollars on hand, would only be able
Speaker 3: to go to Kamala Harris because her name is on
Speaker 3: that line that donors have signed, and that would basically
Speaker 3: mean that anyone else would have to start from scratch,
Speaker 3: which would be very hard to do at this point
Speaker 3: with a little bit over one hundred days to the election.
Speaker 2: Can you help us understand the only candidate that would
Speaker 2: be able to have access to those funds would be
Speaker 2: Vice President Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: I think there's a few scenarios. I think right now,
Speaker 3: the understanding is that, yes, legally that she would only
Speaker 3: have that right.
Speaker 1: If it's not Harris, then the money would likely go
Speaker 1: back to the Democratic National Committee, which would help a
Speaker 1: Democratic presidential candidate. But the party money doesn't go as
Speaker 1: far as candidate money. There's different kinds of money. We
Speaker 1: talk about hard money, we talk about soft money. This
Speaker 1: is a little softer than the candidate money, so it
Speaker 1: would not completely go to waste if it's somebody other
Speaker 1: than Harris. But as Akila says, when those donors signed
Speaker 1: those checks, they send it to the Biden Harris committee,
Speaker 1: and so that money is half hers to begin with.
Speaker 2: And Akaila, What does the latest polling indicate about how
Speaker 2: Vice President Harris might do if she were to become
Speaker 2: the Democratic nominee.
Speaker 3: There was a CNN pull out earlier this week that
Speaker 3: drew a lot of attention that basically showed Harris performing
Speaker 3: two points ahead of Biden against Trump, and that was
Speaker 3: really the first time that we had seen something like that.
Speaker 3: Harris has mostly plowed behind Biden or about even with
Speaker 3: Biden against Trump, So this was really the first sign
Speaker 3: that we saw that she could be more competitive and
Speaker 3: really potentially signs that his debate performance is really having
Speaker 3: an impact on voters. We just had many mishaps during
Speaker 3: that debate performance, and I think voters are starting to
Speaker 3: really question whether he can continue in this job, especially
Speaker 3: because he would be eighty six at the end of
Speaker 3: a second term. He's eighty one right now, and I
Speaker 3: think there's no political strategy that can really get around
Speaker 3: the fact that the president is old and people are
Speaker 3: concerned about it.
Speaker 2: Gregory, how well is Vice President Harris doing compared to
Speaker 2: other potential nominees that have been floated, like California Governor
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretten Whitmer or Department of Transportation
Speaker 2: Secretary Pete Buda Jedge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've tested all of these names in our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News Morning Console Poln. Now, this was back in May,
Speaker 1: so a lot has happened since then. When we did that,
Speaker 1: she was sort of what we would call the best
Speaker 1: of the rest. Right, she has the highest name recognition
Speaker 1: of any of those names that you just mentioned.
Speaker 2: What other advantages might Harris have given that she's already
Speaker 2: the vice president.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, she obviously has access to Air Force two.
Speaker 1: She can command a bully pulpit already by virtue of
Speaker 1: her office. She would, as we've talked about, be able
Speaker 1: to inherit the Biden Harris campaign, sizeable war chest, the
Speaker 1: cash on hand that they have to run ads and
Speaker 1: mount a campaign. But she also looked compared to a
Speaker 1: lot of the other names that we mentioned, she seems
Speaker 1: ready and prepared and has the ambition to fill those
Speaker 1: shoes by definition as vice president. She has already said
Speaker 1: that she is ready to step in a moment's notice.
Speaker 1: So I think it would be difficult for the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party to skip over her. She is the heir apparent.
Speaker 1: She seems to have Biden's support if it came to that.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the problem the Democrats have is
Speaker 1: they are the Democratic Party, and so if not Biden,
Speaker 1: there would be many voices in the party arguing for
Speaker 1: an open convention that it should not be preordained, that
Speaker 1: we should at least hear from the delegates about who
Speaker 1: their preference is. That preference may well end up with
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris if it came to that, but I think
Speaker 1: others might also want a chance to convince the convention
Speaker 1: that they too would be a good candidate.
Speaker 3: I would also add to that hears can also run
Speaker 3: on Biden's record. She is his vice president, so the
Speaker 3: same things that he's talking about and bragging about when
Speaker 3: doctor voters, she can talk about that as well. And
Speaker 3: she's also run for president before, so she has faced
Speaker 3: national scrutiny. She has faced plenty of attacks from Republicans
Speaker 3: over the years. Anyone knew would have their record freshly scrutinized,
Speaker 3: they would be freshly attacked by the Trump campaign by
Speaker 3: the RNC. These are things she already has built in
Speaker 3: to her favorability, to her polling numbers. Now, so she
Speaker 3: is already somebody who could pretty much slide into that
Speaker 3: thought without going through the same sort of reintroduction to
Speaker 3: the American public.
Speaker 2: If Biden steps down and endorses Harris, could other Democrats
Speaker 2: still throw their names in the ring and lead to
Speaker 2: an open contest at the DNC in August.
Speaker 1: That's possible, but kind of unlikely. And the reason is
Speaker 1: because remember that Joe Biden has ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: the pledged delegates already committed to him. Now, these are
Speaker 1: delegates that are not pledged in the same sense that
Speaker 1: Republican delegates are. When we talk about Republican delegates, they're bound.
Speaker 1: They are legally required to vote for whoever they are
Speaker 1: pledged to. The Democratic rule says that the delegates shall,
Speaker 1: in all good conscience, vote for the preference of their state.
Speaker 1: And so these are Biden delegates. It would take six
Speaker 1: hundred delegates to put their names on a petition for
Speaker 1: somebody else other than Biden or Harris to have their
Speaker 1: name place into nomine out of more than four thousand delegates.
Speaker 1: So not impossible, certainly mathematically within the realm of possibility,
Speaker 1: but would be a pretty difficult task. And as one
Speaker 1: Democrat explained it to me, it would take a Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi level whip counting operation even to just figure out
Speaker 1: which of those six hundred delegates could come over to
Speaker 1: your side to place your name and the nomination.
Speaker 2: But a Kayla, what would the reaction be within the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party and its voter base if Harris, for example,
Speaker 2: were passed over in favor of another rising party star
Speaker 2: in the case that Biden might step down.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of frustration anger from some
Speaker 3: of Harris's closest allies, including Rugunell Sharpton. We talked to
Speaker 3: Melanie Campbell, who's also a leader of another civil rights organization,
Speaker 3: and they felt like that would be wrong. They feel
Speaker 3: like the vice president has almost a right or would
Speaker 3: be the natural air apparent in this situation, and the
Speaker 3: optics it wouldn't look good. She's the first woman of
Speaker 3: color to serve in her role. Voters of color are
Speaker 3: particularly I poor in this election, Black voters in particular,
Speaker 3: and so they might not take too kindly to her
Speaker 3: being passed over. And those are constituents that Biden really needs.
Speaker 3: He's already unshaken ground with a lot of those constituents,
Speaker 3: so they may not be so happy if she were
Speaker 3: to be passed over.
Speaker 2: Let's came out really quickly what a Harris campaign might
Speaker 2: look like. Gregory, if you're a Democratic operative, what are
Speaker 2: Harris's biggest strengths that you might look to leverage.
Speaker 1: Well, I think one strength is the issue that she's
Speaker 1: really been running on for the Biden Harris ticket for
Speaker 1: months now, and that is the issue of abortion. She's
Speaker 1: a woman, she can speak to that a little bit
Speaker 1: more personally than maybe Joe Biden can himself. She has
Speaker 1: gone to Florida, She's gone to states where they have
Speaker 1: passed restrictive abortion laws, some states where there's literally abortion
Speaker 1: on the ballot, where a number of states are trying
Speaker 1: to pass referenda or constitutional amendments to enshrine abortion rights
Speaker 1: on the ballot. As Akaela said, she's weeks to Black
Speaker 1: voters in a way that no other candidate in this
Speaker 1: race is right now. Look, these are important Democratic constituencies
Speaker 1: that Biden has historically done well with but has struggled
Speaker 1: with over the past few months for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the Israel Gaza war, maybe it's the state
Speaker 1: of the economy. But she has done that sort of
Speaker 1: care and feeding of these constituencies while the president is
Speaker 1: busy being president.
Speaker 3: I would also say Harris does have a lot of
Speaker 3: connections to Wall Street. We did a story about her
Speaker 3: meeting with CEOs. She's sort of forged a lot of
Speaker 3: public private partnerships in the administration, trying to support some
Speaker 3: of the efforts that the administration cares about, whether that's
Speaker 3: supporting minority owned businesses, small businesses, dealing with the root
Speaker 3: causes of immigration. So she potentially has a pretty big
Speaker 3: pocket of donors herself to tap Okayla.
Speaker 2: What are scene as Vice President Harris's biggest weaknesses.
Speaker 3: Well, I think pretty early on an administration, she was
Speaker 3: sort of saddled with some not so popular issues. She
Speaker 3: was given the task of dealing with the root cause
Speaker 3: of immigration, which, as you can imagine, have been created
Speaker 3: over many generations and are very difficult to deal with,
Speaker 3: and immigration in general has been a weakness for Biden.
Speaker 3: He has put out these executive orders in the last
Speaker 3: couple of weeks. Many people felt in preparation for the debate,
Speaker 3: knowing that Trump would likely use that against him. But
Speaker 3: that is certainly something that Republicans have hit her on.
Speaker 3: Is because the immigration crisis, if you will has been
Speaker 3: so acute in this country. Also, Republicans have sort of
Speaker 3: pounced on these video clips of her having quote unquote
Speaker 3: word salad answers. People have felt that some of her
Speaker 3: speaking engagements have felt scripted, but again, these are attacks
Speaker 3: that she has faced for a many number of years,
Speaker 3: and another contender would just be freshly put into the
Speaker 3: race and have to deal with similar attacks.
Speaker 2: Gregory, has anything like this ever happened before an incumbent
Speaker 2: dropping out and his VP taking on the candidacy As
Speaker 2: we're discussing right now, boy, I'd.
Speaker 1: Have to think back to pre modern times. The one
Speaker 1: president that we were talking about most recently is probably
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson, who dropped out of running for reelection in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. But that was in March and now
Speaker 1: we're in July, and so it's a little bit different
Speaker 1: times that the way that you campaign for president has
Speaker 1: changed a lot over the past fifty or sixty years.
Speaker 1: But also we're much much later in the game, and
Speaker 1: so now there's no real modern precedent for this.
Speaker 2: Obviously, a lot of this is hypothetical. Biden has not
Speaker 2: indicated he's stepping down. His team has defended his debate
Speaker 2: performance and record. What will you be watching for in
Speaker 2: the coming days as strategy discussions within the Democratic Party continue, Well.
Speaker 1: The President himself has been telling members of his party
Speaker 1: that he understands to get a poor debate performance and
Speaker 1: it's on him to try to turn around that perception.
Speaker 1: He's also acknowledged that that kind of has to happen
Speaker 1: pretty soon, and so he's scheduled a number of interviews
Speaker 1: over the next few days. He's going to be making
Speaker 1: some campaign visits to swing states. He's going to get
Speaker 1: back on the trail. We're going to have to see
Speaker 1: him in unscripted situations, right without a teleprompter. He's going
Speaker 1: to be doing some interviews on black radio stations in
Speaker 1: a number of key swing states over the next few days.
Speaker 1: He's going to sit down with George Stephanoppolis from ABC News,
Speaker 1: and people are going to be watching just how he
Speaker 1: conducts himself in these interviews. Look, he's Joe Biden. He's
Speaker 1: always stuttered, he's always been gaff prone. But now he's
Speaker 1: under this relentless spotlight of every single misstatement is under
Speaker 1: a microscope. People are going to comment on it. It's
Speaker 1: going to compound his problems, and so he really needs
Speaker 1: to be able to have a top notch performance over
Speaker 1: the next few days.
Speaker 2: Thank you both so much for sharing you're reporting with us.
Speaker 2: We're excited to follow where it takes you next.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: That was Gregory Cordy and Akaela Gardner, both White House
Speaker 2: and politics reporters at Bloomberg. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 2: Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. We'll
Speaker 2: have more on the story in the coming days on
Speaker 2: bloomberg dot com, The Terminal, and here on the podcast.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Julia Press, Thomas lou and
Speaker 2: Alex Subiera, who also mixed this episode. It was edited
Speaker 2: by Naomi shaven Our senior producer, and Nicole bumsterbor Our
Speaker 2: executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. We'll
Speaker 2: be back after the holiday.