Speaker 1: Hey, it's John Stuart. Daily Shows off today. But the
Speaker 1: news cycle is unceasing, relentless, never off over time, trying
Speaker 1: to come up with more euphemisms for things that don't stop, unceasing, unholting,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Anyway, We're going to bring you the
Speaker 1: latest episode of the Weekly Show featuring Doris Karns Goodwin,
Speaker 1: Myle Pall, and Eugene Daniels from Politico. They joined me
Speaker 1: to discuss President Biden removing himself from the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four race from historical perspective as well as from a
Speaker 1: media perspective, and Kamala Harris the next steps for the nomination. Oh,
Speaker 1: for god's sakes, it's just going to be action packed
Speaker 1: and there might be some stuff about my skincare routine
Speaker 1: in it. I don't know. Enjoy the episode. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome once again to the Weekly Show with John Stewart.
Speaker 1: My name is John Stewart. And so last we left off,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was the nominee. There was nothing that anybody
Speaker 1: could do to not have Joe Biden be the night.
Speaker 1: It's just too damn late. It's too damn late, it's
Speaker 1: too damn hard. The American people won't stand for it.
Speaker 1: The Democratic Party won't stand for it. Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: now the inevitable next president. They are unified, deified, and
Speaker 1: on their way. And now there's a new candidate and
Speaker 1: she is deified and on her way, and it's a
Speaker 1: length and Donald Trump can't believe that he chose jd Vance,
Speaker 1: who's a lunkhead. And now it's been a fucking week
Speaker 1: and the whole thing is twisted on its head and
Speaker 1: none of it is really what's happening, and we still
Speaker 1: have another three and a half months of this.
Speaker 2: Dah.
Speaker 1: I'm here with my erstwhile producers Brittany me Medowick and
Speaker 1: Lauren Walker and I apologize for the the sheer mind
Speaker 1: blowdness of it. And the media takes their cues from
Speaker 1: the most prognosticating and speculating amongst us and locks it
Speaker 1: in as conventional wisdom. And you can just see none
Speaker 1: of it is real. It's my boggling. Yeah, we had
Speaker 1: such a hard time. I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: do this, Why is it it's difficult for us to
Speaker 1: book pundits or journalists that are on television. Their organizations
Speaker 1: will not let them come on our podcast. Let that
Speaker 1: sink in for just a moment. Organizations that rely on
Speaker 1: access and transparency refuse to allow their reporters to come
Speaker 1: on podcasts to talk about the issues of the day.
Speaker 1: Why what do they say to you, Brittany when you
Speaker 1: ask them?
Speaker 3: Honestly, I haven't been able to get clear answers, which
Speaker 3: is part of the.
Speaker 1: We're not naming names, but we may at some point
Speaker 1: no online.
Speaker 3: But it's unlike anything I've really ever seen, kind of
Speaker 3: in the decade that I've been doing this. Honestly, it
Speaker 3: just you know, and even the simple question like phone
Speaker 3: calls go unanswered, it's a very just like we're gonna
Speaker 3: we're gonna politely decline on this.
Speaker 1: This large organization at BC left you on Red, didn't
Speaker 1: they after saying no, we can't have our reporter talk
Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, And then they stopped answering as to why,
Speaker 1: and the reporters say, I'd love to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. In this case, reporters are like, would love to join,
Speaker 3: just need to get network approval. And then network approval
Speaker 3: comes back and says we're going to decline on this, yeah,
Speaker 3: And I say, oh, why is there a scheduling issue?
Speaker 4: Is there?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 3: What is the reason we're politely declining? So you call
Speaker 3: and you just say, wow, can I understand it? Like,
Speaker 3: is it you know any any information? We're reasonable, nice people.
Speaker 3: Well most of the time you are.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I get to fall into that category,
Speaker 1: but you certainly do. But just let that sink in.
Speaker 1: I just want people at home to let that sink
Speaker 1: in for a second. News organizations stonewall inquiries as to
Speaker 1: why their reporters are not allowed are being restricted from
Speaker 1: just being able to come on a stupid fucking podcast
Speaker 1: and give their opinion, even as just a promotional tool
Speaker 1: for either the reporter or for the organizations that they
Speaker 1: work for. Yes, you know, I've once heard a wise
Speaker 1: man say democracy dies in darkness. But how is it
Speaker 1: possible that a news organization would not feel shame and
Speaker 1: bewilderment at using the techniques of obfuscation that they rail
Speaker 1: against from politicians and public figures. Lauren, you worked, you
Speaker 1: were in journalism for a long time. Do you recall
Speaker 1: there being that type of How in the world I
Speaker 1: understand that you you know, you can't go write articles
Speaker 1: for other papers, or you can't host a show on
Speaker 1: another network, But these types of promotional or cross pollinating
Speaker 1: appearances should be standard. Fair. Nobody's saying that person is
Speaker 1: now hired to be a part of a regular, ongoing commentary.
Speaker 4: I'm reluctant to speculate because, you know, not very journalistic
Speaker 4: of me. But I do imagine that they feel some
Speaker 4: type of ownership of these, you know, journalists that they
Speaker 4: pay their paychecks. Maybe they don't want their ideas anywhere else,
Speaker 4: or maybe you appear partisan and they want to avoid.
Speaker 1: You know, NBC, I mean they have MSNBC. They have
Speaker 1: let me ask you a question, do you think this
Speaker 1: is a universal rule or this is me? Like, it's
Speaker 1: hard not to take this personally. It's a once a
Speaker 1: week podcast.
Speaker 3: But also we plug this, like we will say, like
Speaker 3: NBCCNN or MSNBC contributor.
Speaker 1: We have the same problem with CNN. They gave us
Speaker 1: a bunch of shit for trying to bring somebody on
Speaker 1: like it's bonkers. Yeah, and it makes no sense, and
Speaker 1: I would think it's it's an embarrassment to those organizations,
Speaker 1: those news organizations. And the crazy thing to me is
Speaker 1: the journalists themselves think it's insane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they want to do it.
Speaker 1: And it shows the fundamental disconnect between the people that
Speaker 1: are running these organizations and what those organizations are supposedly
Speaker 1: there for, which is informing the public on the issues
Speaker 1: of the day, whether they're informing it on somebody's podcast
Speaker 1: or something else. Just absolute nonsense. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: point out because and this is inside baseball, and who
Speaker 1: even knows how much of this survives edit into the show.
Speaker 1: But like, I just wanted to give props to Lauren
Speaker 1: and Brittany who have to constantly pivot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we are professional pivoters at this point.
Speaker 3: Makes it fun.
Speaker 1: That's so not the case. But I am excited about
Speaker 1: today's program because we do have access to two incredibly
Speaker 1: knowledgeable individuals, and we're going to be talking about all
Speaker 1: the changes that have been taking place within the presidential race.
Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about the media's inability to
Speaker 1: respond to it with any kind of chill. But it's
Speaker 1: all grand pronouncements, It's all just news. Biden is inevitable,
Speaker 1: Biden can't be inevitable, Biden can't win. Trump is inevitable,
Speaker 1: Kamala is inevitable. Trump is now regretted, Like holy shit,
Speaker 1: calm down. So I'm gonna let's let's jump in with
Speaker 1: that now and see where we go. All right, here
Speaker 1: we are. We're gonna talk to our guests, Doris Currents Goodwin,
Speaker 1: presidential historian, Pulitzer Prize winning author whose most recent book
Speaker 1: is An Unfinished Love Story, personal history of the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: and also Eugene Daniels, political White House correspondent and playbook
Speaker 1: co author. Doris lovely to see.
Speaker 5: You again, you too, yay.
Speaker 1: And Eugene. Very nice to meet. Eugene. We've not met,
Speaker 1: but I'm excited that you're on the program and Doris
Speaker 1: is on the program. Uh, Doris, I'm just gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start with you real quick. As a presidential historian,
Speaker 1: is this this is catnip? I would assume you know,
Speaker 1: an unprecedented moment in presidential history. Are you tasting the Pulitzer?
Speaker 1: Are you tasting what's coming your way when you write
Speaker 1: this book? What are your thoughts on the historic nature
Speaker 1: of what we're seeing right now?
Speaker 5: Well? You know, mostly I live with dead presidents, and
Speaker 5: I think about them in the morning, and I think
Speaker 5: about the one I go to bed at night, and
Speaker 5: I'm recounting history that went long before, right, And I'm
Speaker 5: asking them questions and they don't answer me. But this time,
Speaker 5: I'm living in a clearly historic time, and for a
Speaker 5: presidential historian, it just brings back echoes from the past constantly.
Speaker 5: I'm living in the eighteen sixties, or the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 5: or this nineteen sixty eight, and so it's an extraordinary time.
Speaker 5: I mean, you're happy to be living in a difficult time.
Speaker 1: What do you when you're hearing the echoes? What's resonating
Speaker 1: the most? Is it is it LBJ and him stepping
Speaker 1: out in nineteen sixty eight and opening up that was
Speaker 1: obviously I guess before the primaries or during the primaries,
Speaker 1: what are the echoes that are resident the most?
Speaker 5: I think it's clearly that the last time that a
Speaker 5: president withdrew from the race, he withdrew in March thirty
Speaker 5: first of nineteen sixty eight. And as you say, he
Speaker 5: was already in the primaries. He wasn't doing well. He
Speaker 5: had been battered in New Hampshire, he was about to
Speaker 5: lose in Wisconsin. But much more importantly what was happening
Speaker 5: to him was that they he had been told that
Speaker 5: unless he sent two hundred thousand more troops to Vietnam
Speaker 5: that and it could only be a stalemate if that
Speaker 5: was so. And he decided the time had come to
Speaker 5: wind the war down. So that was the major speech
Speaker 5: he was going to give. But he knew nobody would
Speaker 5: believe it if he were still a candidate, so he
Speaker 5: prepared that speech. It stunned the nation when he not
Speaker 5: only said that he was going to wind the war down,
Speaker 5: but that he was going to withdraw from the presidency
Speaker 5: so he could spend all of his time on the
Speaker 5: presidential duties. And I remember I was watching that was stunned.
Speaker 5: My husband was up in New Hampshire, Richard Goodwin, with
Speaker 5: Theodore White, the great journalist, and White had told him
Speaker 5: that five days before he had seen LBJ, who looked terrible.
Speaker 5: He was under such pressure and he felt like his
Speaker 5: face was sunk and his voice was so soft. And
Speaker 5: now he watched him on the screen before he even
Speaker 5: said he was going to withdraw, and he looked like
Speaker 5: a different person, composed, relaxed. The tensions had been reduced.
Speaker 5: So that's what reminded me most. I think of what's.
Speaker 1: Happening now now, to be fair, and I think this
Speaker 1: is for the historical record. LBJ never looked particularly great.
Speaker 1: Let's let's be let's be clear.
Speaker 5: Oh wait a minute, I'm going to argue with you.
Speaker 5: I'm going to argue with him.
Speaker 1: LBJ was a caricaturist dream the long every every one
Speaker 1: of his features would be accentuated and exaggerated. And uh,
Speaker 1: but it's fascinating now, Eugene, you're in You're in the
Speaker 1: middle of this. So Doris kind of gives us this
Speaker 1: historical macro overview. You're the micro guy. You're in there
Speaker 1: every day. The breakneck speed at which this is all
Speaker 1: happening has got to be dizzying for anybody who was
Speaker 1: on the inside trying to cover all the developments.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm hoping you can't see the bags under my
Speaker 6: eyes or the eye of the rest of the correspondence
Speaker 6: or reporters that are trying to cover the story. You know,
Speaker 6: these are unprecedented times. I could use some more precedent
Speaker 6: at times myself. That would be great. But I think
Speaker 6: you know the thing that was really surprising outside of
Speaker 6: the debate, So you were watching the debate, we go
Speaker 6: to political's offices, there's you know, dozens of people they're
Speaker 6: watching that happens around the country and newsrooms, and immediately
Speaker 6: people started to be a little bit confused about what
Speaker 6: was happening. And then when President Biden said I beat medicare,
Speaker 6: that is when our flowing phone started blowing up. So
Speaker 6: really that sentence is really what set off kind of
Speaker 6: this entire firestorm.
Speaker 1: I beat medicare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Trump said, yeah you did, Jane.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, so reporters and White House
Speaker 1: correspondents they're traveling with the president, yeah, at all times.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've been watching this in slow motion
Speaker 1: for two or three years. We understood. You know, there
Speaker 1: was a set that Biden was you know, he and
Speaker 1: Trump are both they're older men. They was sort of
Speaker 1: a sense that Biden is going to be a one
Speaker 1: term president. He himself said, you know, I'm running to
Speaker 1: stop Trump and and that's going to be it. That
Speaker 1: debate couldn't have come as a shock to the people
Speaker 1: that have been with him day in and day out.
Speaker 2: No, it did. It did, and this and this is why.
Speaker 6: Right, so, you know, we don't get to see President
Speaker 6: Biden at all the private moments that a lot of
Speaker 6: like now you have members of Congress and governor's kind
Speaker 6: of coming out and having these stories where either he
Speaker 6: didn't remember their name, or they he lost his train
Speaker 6: of thought, or he said something a little weird. Some
Speaker 6: of this is stuff that Biden has always been doing, right,
Speaker 6: So we're not starting. You know, the bar is already
Speaker 6: kind of low here for what people are anticipating from him.
Speaker 6: He's not, you know this, people don't see him as
Speaker 6: like this orator. And you know, if you think about it,
Speaker 6: the people around him, people who have been doing this
Speaker 6: for a really long time.
Speaker 2: If he was like that all the time, why would
Speaker 2: you debate?
Speaker 6: They decided that June twenty seventh was the debate that
Speaker 6: they wanted. They decided that it should be before he
Speaker 6: had the nomination sewn up. They thought it would focus
Speaker 6: the American people on the race. It has not in
Speaker 6: the way that that they wanted to.
Speaker 1: Were they were they deluding themselves to some extent.
Speaker 6: I think part of it is like you you know,
Speaker 6: when you have an older person in your life and
Speaker 6: if as things start to change you you're It's like
Speaker 6: also when you're like gaining weight in your house, right
Speaker 6: Like as I as I gain weight, me and my
Speaker 6: husband don't see it, but I go homeme, I go
Speaker 6: home and see my grandmother. She's like, what are these
Speaker 6: twenty extra pounds?
Speaker 1: They didn't realize Biden had a couple of he had
Speaker 1: some love handles, had a couple of duns. Things were
Speaker 1: thanks for getting out of control.
Speaker 6: That and that's the that is like the feeling. And
Speaker 6: when you talk to people, you know, that's what they say.
Speaker 6: And they knew he was old, but they were moving forward.
Speaker 6: And I think the most important aspect of this is
Speaker 6: that they you can put blinders on when your focus
Speaker 6: is no one else can beat Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Right, that is that was the delusion.
Speaker 6: That's the thing, right, that's the commandment within kind of
Speaker 6: Biden wrote and always has been only one person has
Speaker 6: and you know, they felt like he was the best
Speaker 6: poise to do. So we don't know that that's actually true.
Speaker 6: We're going to test that. The Democrats are going to
Speaker 6: test that theory moving forward. But that was moving and
Speaker 6: motivating them to kind of move forward in the way
Speaker 6: that they were, whether or not they saw well, at
Speaker 6: some point we will everyone will write books and long,
Speaker 6: deep articles about what people do.
Speaker 1: That's what what has changed, you know, I'm curious what
Speaker 1: has changed from the sort of the boys on the
Speaker 1: bus from that idea of the access to the presidential candidates.
Speaker 1: In your mind, was the Biden campaign different traditionally from
Speaker 1: other campaigns in the way that they limited access or
Speaker 1: has access? Do we have more reporters now but less
Speaker 1: actual access? Oh?
Speaker 5: I do think that access seemed more limited. I mean
Speaker 5: just think about FDR. He had two press conferences a week,
Speaker 5: single week, two press conferences, and that meant that the
Speaker 5: reporters had access to him and they could ask him
Speaker 5: questions he couldn't answer them. And then he was also
Speaker 5: having fireside chats, so that I think things have diminished
Speaker 5: over time.
Speaker 1: But they also protected FDR to some extent. You know,
Speaker 1: there was always that idea that they would never talk
Speaker 1: about his physical infirmity.
Speaker 5: No. In fact, it's incredible when he went to give
Speaker 5: an acceptance speech in nineteen thirty six, as he was
Speaker 5: going down the aisle holding on to two strong people,
Speaker 5: his braces unlocked. He fell on the floor and they
Speaker 5: had to pick him up. He got up there and
Speaker 5: he gave a great speech the Rendezvous with Destinies Beach.
Speaker 5: They never mentioned that he had fallen or that his
Speaker 5: braces had unsnapped. So things were different then and that's
Speaker 5: a problem. But I do think I just want to
Speaker 5: go back to one thing you said before, when you
Speaker 5: said that how badly LBJ looked. I knew him in
Speaker 5: the last years of his life, when his hair grew
Speaker 5: long and it was white and he looked like a cowboy,
Speaker 5: and that was a good looking LBJ.
Speaker 1: Doris, Doris, you got a thing for president. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't surly about LBJ. By the way, one of
Speaker 1: the few people in the country who believes Lincoln was
Speaker 1: a sexy beast. That's doors current's good way.
Speaker 2: I'm endors on that, all right, AME's up there.
Speaker 5: You know what happened to Eugene was that I showed
Speaker 5: John a picture when I was on his show a
Speaker 5: long time ago of Lincoln as a rugged person before
Speaker 5: the beard, and he really did look sexy. I wish
Speaker 5: that beard had never come ye. But you know, one
Speaker 5: of the things, one of the things you think about
Speaker 5: is that the pressures on the president are such. Can
Speaker 5: you imagine what they were on with Biden once this
Speaker 5: debate had happened. You know, you want to have a
Speaker 5: second term. You feel like that's even more important than
Speaker 5: the first term, because it's an endorsement of you. You
Speaker 5: go over and you say to yourself, what if I
Speaker 5: had just done it differently. It's what everybody who made
Speaker 5: a mistake during a debate must have said, whether it
Speaker 5: was Ford when he said something about Eastern Europe or
Speaker 5: Mike Ducacus when he said something about capital punishment, you
Speaker 5: go the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I've talked to these candidates and they say, you say,
Speaker 5: when did you stop thinking about They say, what do
Speaker 5: you mean? You think we stopped thinking about that? So
Speaker 5: for Biden, I think in those first days it must
Speaker 5: have been almost frozen to think about that, and then
Speaker 5: he had to consider, well, the press is coming after me,
Speaker 5: those editorials, the donors are coming after me. And then
Speaker 5: for a while he could say, well, it's just the elites.
Speaker 5: But I think when the Congressman told him that their constituents,
Speaker 5: the people in other words, were ninety to ten saying
Speaker 5: he had to stand down, then he finally had to
Speaker 5: make that decision. It's a really tough decision.
Speaker 1: I think the difference between you know, Doris references in
Speaker 1: terms of Mike Ducaccus was a question that he had
Speaker 1: gotten about, you know, if his family was violated through
Speaker 1: crime and what he would do he was against the
Speaker 1: death penalty and what he would do, and he gave
Speaker 1: sort of a twisted and you know, interesting answer that
Speaker 1: some say really lost him some support in the election.
Speaker 1: But those are having a bad debate where you misspeak
Speaker 1: is different than something that looks fundamentally unsettled.
Speaker 6: He was failing to put sentences together right and cross together.
Speaker 6: And you know, they went into this thinking that you
Speaker 6: have Donald Trump, who in every debate just kind of
Speaker 6: like yells and you know, says all these things that
Speaker 6: are misstrue, that are untrue, and that Biden would look
Speaker 6: really smart going into the details of all of these things.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: So they tried at one point to say that he
Speaker 6: over prepared, but he wasn't saying sentences. He was struggling.
Speaker 6: It was very obvious. They said he had a cold.
Speaker 6: It will be a very long time. We may never
Speaker 6: know what the actual truth is of what was happening
Speaker 6: up there, right, because we've seen him since and he's
Speaker 6: kind of back to old man Biden as opposed to
Speaker 6: what we saw on the debate stage. But I think
Speaker 6: something that that has continues to be fascinating to me
Speaker 6: is that when they were saying that it was the
Speaker 6: elites that wanted Biden out. That was almost never true.
Speaker 6: The primary, the primary that wasn't had in polling that
Speaker 6: voters wanted something else. Voters one did not want a
Speaker 6: Trump vi Biden race, and even Democrats didn't want President Biden.
Speaker 6: And then they, you know, the Democratic apparatus as it
Speaker 6: as it is, kind of came together and decided, as
Speaker 6: the they often do, no, we're going with the incumbent, right.
Speaker 6: It is rare that that, especially nowadays, that they would
Speaker 6: do something differently. And then what really I think turned
Speaker 6: the tide for Biden was kind of the way that
Speaker 6: he and his team strategized and worked this out that
Speaker 6: first week when it was kind of they hunkered down
Speaker 6: and did the normal Biden world thing, which they ignore
Speaker 6: everything they don't they don't want to be distracted, and
Speaker 6: then they focused on he had He had that North
Speaker 6: Carolina rally, then he had the one interview with George Stephanopolis,
Speaker 6: and they really thought that that was going to move things.
Speaker 1: It didn't, but they must have known that that Stephanopoulos
Speaker 1: interview was unimpressive at best.
Speaker 6: I talked to quite a few people they thought that
Speaker 6: they had he had done like maybe like a C minus,
Speaker 6: which is like enough to pass, not enough to get
Speaker 6: you that you might still graduate, but you know you
Speaker 6: have to keep going. If you get depending on how
Speaker 6: the great shakeout on the other tests, you might still
Speaker 6: get out of this high school.
Speaker 2: And I think that is what they end up doing.
Speaker 6: And on Monday, when he sent this letter to Hill
Speaker 6: Democrats being super defiant, basically saying get over it and
Speaker 6: get in line, that is when he started to hear
Speaker 6: a lot of members of Congress being like, oh, we're
Speaker 6: not doing that. His Morning Joe interview was was in
Speaker 6: that same vein, so that he would be in defiant
Speaker 6: and at one point he had to be humbled and
Speaker 6: so it and then he dropped out right. And so
Speaker 6: these the way that those decisions were made also really
Speaker 6: impacted how much Democrats were upset. And when he said
Speaker 6: in that George Steph Knoplis interview, you know, it just
Speaker 6: matters if I just kind of give my darnedist.
Speaker 1: If we end up a fascist regime, as long as
Speaker 1: I gave it my all right, And Doris, I want
Speaker 1: to ask you so very clearly, the Democratic Party lined
Speaker 1: up behind Biden and made sure that the primary season
Speaker 1: was not a real one. It was kind of a
Speaker 1: Potemkin village, and they put up one candidate. I think
Speaker 1: it was Dean Dean Johnson who phillips Dean Phillips, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: who we've all decided is actually not a real person.
Speaker 1: But in fact the picture on a hose sales ad.
Speaker 1: But Trump has utterly usurped the entire apparatus of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party. It really is in service to one man.
Speaker 1: He controls the platform, he writes it. Specifically, it takes
Speaker 1: out all the things that are traditionally Doris. How democratic
Speaker 1: are these parties? How much do they normally control what
Speaker 1: these apparatuses are, and how much of us say, you know,
Speaker 1: there's delegates, there's super delegates, there's all these things that
Speaker 1: make it not a true democratic party. But at least
Speaker 1: with the Democrats, they are answering in many ways to
Speaker 1: their base, to their voters who are saying, this can't be.
Speaker 1: We can't have this guy, right.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think you know, in the old days,
Speaker 5: the political bosses in the Democratic Party or the Republican
Speaker 5: Party had complete control at the convention. There weren't any primaries.
Speaker 5: You could just decide who it was you thought would
Speaker 5: be the best leader, and then they'd go forth in September.
Speaker 5: We would go from September to November. Sometimes I wish
Speaker 5: we could go back to that. You know. The primaries
Speaker 5: started in nineteen twelve with Teddy Roosevelt wanting to beat
Speaker 5: Taft in his own party.
Speaker 1: There were no primaries before nineteen twelve.
Speaker 5: No primaries before nineteen twelve. It was the people should rule,
Speaker 5: that was the argument. And Teddy Roosevelt wanted to beat
Speaker 5: his own friend and the current president Taft, so he
Speaker 5: needed primaries because he had the popularity and Taft had
Speaker 5: the party delegates on him. So anyway, that splits the
Speaker 5: Democratic the Republican Party in two and that's the end
Speaker 5: of the primary. Nobody wants it anymore until it finally
Speaker 5: comes back in the fifties and the sixties, and where
Speaker 5: it really becomes strong is in nineteen sixty eight when
Speaker 5: Humphrey wins despite having not gone into the primaries because
Speaker 5: he had the party delegates behind him and Lyndon Johnson,
Speaker 5: then they decide we need primaries. We need primaries.
Speaker 1: All right, we're going to be back in a bit. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back picking up again, Doris.
Speaker 5: I mean the interesting thing we was saying about Biden
Speaker 5: is that there were only fourteen million people that voted
Speaker 5: for him. He kept touting the fact that I was
Speaker 5: voted for by the people fourteen million votes. Fifty one
Speaker 5: million people watched that debate, and that's a huge distinction
Speaker 5: because that debate, one scene could not be unseen.
Speaker 1: But also those primaries were perfunctory for Biden, they were perfunctory.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk about Doris. This brings up
Speaker 1: an interesting point because we view the way things are
Speaker 1: done now as though it's the way things have always
Speaker 1: been done. It's the status quo, it's conventional wisdom, this
Speaker 1: is the only way to do it. And Eugene will
Speaker 1: get to you with this in a second, because I
Speaker 1: think it informed some of the coverage. What I saw
Speaker 1: in the coverage was this is impossible. It's way too
Speaker 1: late to in any way ever switch a candidate. But
Speaker 1: the truth is that is an utterly modern phenomenon, and
Speaker 1: none of this ever even takes place. Generally, I think
Speaker 1: none of it even begins to take place until the
Speaker 1: convention and moving forward. This permanent campaign that we are
Speaker 1: in is a modern phenomenon, is it not.
Speaker 5: Doors Absolutely no, in the old days where we produced
Speaker 5: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt. We didn't even start
Speaker 5: thinking about the convention until the convention came. Somebody would
Speaker 5: come out of the convention. Then they would wait until
Speaker 5: Labor Day, and then the campaign would start right after
Speaker 5: Labor Day, and we had two months to decide who
Speaker 5: it was going to be. And somehow we may have
Speaker 5: done a better job then. But I think the interesting
Speaker 5: thing is where the leaders came back. The Democratic leaders
Speaker 5: came back. The Biden situation was even before the debate,
Speaker 5: three out of four people thought he was too old.
Speaker 5: They were not happy with either choice of Trump or Biden,
Speaker 5: but somehow they didn't pay attention to that. They thought
Speaker 5: you had to take the person who was there, you
Speaker 5: had done a good job as president, etc. Etc. But
Speaker 5: then once that debate happened, those leaders are the ones
Speaker 5: that helped to make things change. Nancy Pelosi said, the
Speaker 5: question is was it an episode or a condition. They
Speaker 5: started making space for the fact that he might not
Speaker 5: be able to stay there. The pressure kept building up.
Speaker 5: They spoke up. So the leaders, the leaders of the
Speaker 5: Democratic Party, really helped to make this happen because as
Speaker 5: I say, they were hearing from the people. So finally
Speaker 5: he had to make the decision, as hard as it.
Speaker 1: Was for him, in some ways it was the base
Speaker 1: that decided this, not the elites. It was finally, it
Speaker 1: seemed the elites listened to the base.
Speaker 5: Listen to the people. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: The base had been saying all along, I'm not come
Speaker 1: and you see this now, Eugene. This brings up an
Speaker 1: interesting point to me about the coverage, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about as this thing was swinging, the sort
Speaker 1: of hot takes that come out of this. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to give you some of the examples of the
Speaker 1: whiplash that people were going through. So the articles were
Speaker 1: the Democrats are Democrats who believe Biden should drop out?
Speaker 1: Are insane? They are walking into a death trap. How
Speaker 1: are these are idiots that would say it's too late,
Speaker 1: It's too late for Biden to drop out. Biden is
Speaker 1: your only chance? You are idiots. Two days later they
Speaker 1: are saying, excitement around Kamala Harris are the Democrats' only chance?
Speaker 1: Thank god, they finally pulled the plug on this death
Speaker 1: trap of a candidacy that was Joseph Biden. In the
Speaker 1: same way a week before. It was Donald Trump is inevitable.
Speaker 1: The Republicans are coming out of this convention. Jd Vance
Speaker 1: is a brilliant stroke. And now they're writing Trump is
Speaker 1: in trouble. He hates jd Vance. Jd Vance is the worst.
Speaker 1: What do the reporters ever read their own articles?
Speaker 2: We do.
Speaker 6: But this is one of the things, John, is that
Speaker 6: like the one of the many is that there is
Speaker 6: so much going on right now, like ye you're on
Speaker 6: thistcast and who the hell knows what we're going to
Speaker 6: come back to, what world we're going to come back to?
Speaker 2: You never never.
Speaker 6: Moving on, You never know, like the speed at which
Speaker 6: even like the last like I don't know forty since
Speaker 6: since June twenty seven, the speed at which the cycle
Speaker 6: has moved has been so wild. And I think what
Speaker 6: we try to do is give people kind of a
Speaker 6: sense of what's happening right now. I think often, not often,
Speaker 6: I think sometimes that we can you know, we as
Speaker 6: well as other folks, miss the mark, right You have
Speaker 6: politicians who missed the mark. And I think, you know,
Speaker 6: being declarative about it had a lot to do with
Speaker 6: how Democrats were speaking about it, how behind closed doors.
Speaker 6: They wanted him gone, but they didn't know how to
Speaker 6: do it, but also whether or not they have the
Speaker 6: actual wherewithal like inside of them to do this to
Speaker 6: get rid of this guy who everyone loves and thought
Speaker 6: and really thought did a good job, but thought that
Speaker 6: he was going to make them lose into all of
Speaker 6: them down. More importantly, did they understand the rules of
Speaker 6: how an open canntion or a contested convention would actually work.
Speaker 2: And I think that's where a lot of the like they.
Speaker 6: Would be insane to do this came from because Democrats
Speaker 6: were like, how would we pick it would be we
Speaker 6: can't do that. Fourteen million people voted for this man,
Speaker 6: Like how what does that look like? But I talked
Speaker 6: to Lane Kmark, who is an expert. She's literally written
Speaker 6: multiple books she updates it every four years about the
Speaker 6: conventions in primary system for Democrats. Also the wife of
Speaker 6: Steey Hoyer, one of the members of Congress and a
Speaker 6: former leader in the House. And what she said is
Speaker 6: it is just like everyone just misunderstands what is actually
Speaker 6: possible that the power. It's really like when you vote
Speaker 6: for a representative to Congress, they make decisions on your behalf.
Speaker 6: When they can't go back to all of you and
Speaker 6: find out what you need, what you want to say, right,
Speaker 6: And so they send these delegates, and the delegates have
Speaker 6: all the power, and so have President Biden stayed in
Speaker 6: The delegates who are people who aren't just like who
Speaker 6: aren't just saying they're going to vote for him. They'ren't
Speaker 6: bound by him.
Speaker 1: No, they're they're self selected by the campaign so that
Speaker 1: they're loyal.
Speaker 2: They're very loyal people.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 6: So it's like the operation of this was I think
Speaker 6: misunderstood by not just reporters. And you know, I caught myself.
Speaker 6: You called it, you said idiots. I'm gonna call myself
Speaker 6: amongst the idiots.
Speaker 1: Because you're not.
Speaker 6: But like it's it's a it's a good lesson for
Speaker 6: all of us about like how quick the new said.
Speaker 1: They're never you know, the lesson won't be learned.
Speaker 2: I think I've learned it. How about that?
Speaker 1: But it's I'm gonna read you. Here's here's the he
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you the run. Yeah, forcing Biden
Speaker 1: out would have only one beneficiary Trump, right the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: Trump is preparing for a landslide win New York Times.
Speaker 1: This is how you know Trump smells victory July fifteenth,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump man of destiny. July eighteenth. The Democrats aren't
Speaker 1: even trying July nineteenth. Republicans emerged from convention confident and
Speaker 1: Trump talking about a blowout victory. July twenty second, pathetic.
Speaker 1: Trump already trying to weasel out of debating Kambala Harris.
Speaker 1: Same day. Why Trump suddenly thinks picking JD Vance was
Speaker 1: a mistake? Same day? Kamala Harris is shocking fundraising numbers
Speaker 1: terrify Trump? Like, when are we going to learn from
Speaker 1: the media, Doris? You know, we keep talking about the
Speaker 1: difference in the old days and the new days. There's
Speaker 1: no question. Back then, the smoke filled room was the
Speaker 1: elites choosing things. The reporters had a different relationship with
Speaker 1: the candidates. But what we have now is chaos without
Speaker 1: context or perspective. Hot takes that in many ways inflame
Speaker 1: the electorate rather than illuminate the electorate. How do we
Speaker 1: take a breath? What do we do in terms of
Speaker 1: we can't change the speed at which events take place,
Speaker 1: but can we change the manner by which we either
Speaker 1: cheer that on or cover it? Doris? What's your thought
Speaker 1: on that?
Speaker 5: You know, that's a really good question. I mean, the
Speaker 5: problem is when breaking news happens, there's an emotion that
Speaker 5: goes with that breaking news, whether it was the assassination
Speaker 5: attempt or the Republican convention, or then the fact that
Speaker 5: Kamala Harris has done so well in the last couple
Speaker 5: of days, that that emotion becomes part of what the
Speaker 5: press covers. And it means that you're changing ninety degrees,
Speaker 5: as you're saying, or one hundred and eighty degrees from
Speaker 5: where you were before. Maybe you can just sort of
Speaker 5: have a longer view. I mean, the weird thing about
Speaker 5: the old days was that the political bosses, Yes they
Speaker 5: may have been in smoke filled rooms, but they were
Speaker 5: looking for a candidate who could bridge the divides in
Speaker 5: the party, so they weren't looking for an extreme on
Speaker 5: either side. The problem with the caucus system now and
Speaker 5: the primary system is often a candidate comes from the
Speaker 5: extreme and then has to work their way back to
Speaker 5: them in order to win at the other end. But
Speaker 5: it is more democratic. We can never go backwards sometimes,
Speaker 5: and I don't think people would even go back to
Speaker 5: the smoke filled rooms. Although I like some of those
Speaker 5: old political bosses in the old days, they had an
Speaker 5: intuition about who could possibly be the right person for
Speaker 5: that time. So you know, when that first primary happened,
Speaker 5: The New York Times wrote an editorial saying it was
Speaker 5: so vicious as I was saying between Taft and Teddy,
Speaker 5: Taft called called Teddy a dictator, and Teddy Teddy called
Speaker 5: Taft a pinhead.
Speaker 1: That it was.
Speaker 5: Embarrassing, and if this is the first ptary system, we
Speaker 5: hope it's we hope it's the last. And they said
Speaker 5: we must have a blush on everybody's cheeks. I know,
Speaker 5: a pinhead is kind of a weird thing to call him.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a weird thing to call somebody.
Speaker 5: That meant he didn't have a lot of brains in
Speaker 5: that pinhead, right.
Speaker 1: I just find it interesting that these these lions of
Speaker 1: American democracy and statesmanship, and we have no idea the
Speaker 1: day to day of how they were actually dealing with
Speaker 1: each other in the penis. But Eugene, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, Look, reporters are human beings and they're invested
Speaker 1: in this as well. But I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: do you think now that the ubiquity of the coverage
Speaker 1: incentivizes reporters to the hot take. You know, you're human beings.
Speaker 1: You're going to see what gets the clicks, and maybe
Speaker 1: that shapes the extremity of what goes on there. But
Speaker 1: it's something that struck me during Donald Trump's trial is
Speaker 1: that in court they just litigate the parameters of reality,
Speaker 1: the parameters of what happened. There are evidentiary standards, and
Speaker 1: there are things that each side has to follow. Do
Speaker 1: you think that our journalists could maybe take some lesson
Speaker 1: from that idea of litigating the parameters of our reality
Speaker 1: rather than the speculation towards what this all means, because
Speaker 1: as we see, that is what's so temporal and ephemeral
Speaker 1: and doesn't really stand the test of time. But litigating
Speaker 1: what's going to happen next or how it's supposed to
Speaker 1: happen seems like a worthy endeavor.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you're right. I think the problem is
Speaker 6: that people who engage in the media are asking for context, Right,
Speaker 6: what does this mean? What how does this compare to
Speaker 6: the past, what could happen? And I think there's a
Speaker 6: fine line between analysis and kind of prognosticating and guessing. Right,
Speaker 6: you can say, you know, with former President Donald Trump,
Speaker 6: got shot. Republicans filled X, Y and Z. Democrats have
Speaker 6: paused on fighting with Biden because of it. You know,
Speaker 6: Republicans feel like this is going to give them a
Speaker 6: straight shot to November.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: That is fully things that are true at the time
Speaker 6: and so therefore will remain true that that happened. And
Speaker 6: that's how people felt about it. I think the bigger
Speaker 6: problem is, like the word a lot of people using the.
Speaker 2: Word journalists who are not journalists, a.
Speaker 6: Lot of people who are saying reporters are not that,
Speaker 6: And so you're having folks that are, you know, like
Speaker 6: share are sharing full opinions and on you know, whether
Speaker 6: it's cable news, on podcasts, in their own articles in
Speaker 6: our beds, Like the American people aren't. Really they have
Speaker 6: so much going on right that they're not going to
Speaker 6: spend a lot of time to go google if if
Speaker 6: Joe Bob is an actual reporter at a news organization,
Speaker 6: or if Joe Bob used to work for the Democratic
Speaker 6: Party at.
Speaker 2: One point and now he's a consultant.
Speaker 1: Right, But there are news organizations of great reputation that
Speaker 1: I just read those headlines from those aren't That's not
Speaker 1: from like Jimmy's blog, that's the New York Times, the
Speaker 1: Atlantic Politico like, these are reputable organizations.
Speaker 5: And do you know what, John Yeah, I think that
Speaker 5: people should have, given what we've seen in the life
Speaker 5: on four weeks where everything changed, a greater respect for
Speaker 5: the idea that faith could intervene at any time, and
Speaker 5: maybe that would prevent them from making whatever is happening
Speaker 5: now a projection for the future. I mean, for example,
Speaker 5: when when Lyndon Johnson pulled out of the race, accolades
Speaker 5: everywhere he was able. Three days later North Vietnam said
Speaker 5: they would come to the bargaining table. It was his
Speaker 5: happiest day of his life. People on the streets were
Speaker 5: cheering for him. And then the next day, as the
Speaker 5: plane was ready to go to Hawaii to bring people
Speaker 5: to start the negotiations, Martin Luther King was killed and
Speaker 5: then the riots happened in this.
Speaker 1: Opened when Kennedy was killed with it.
Speaker 5: That's what I'm saying. So that should give you a
Speaker 5: sense that faith can intervene, Things can change at any moment,
Speaker 5: and maybe even what you're feeling at the moment vance
Speaker 5: is a great choice. He's they're heading toward the You
Speaker 5: don't have to say where we're going for the future.
Speaker 5: We should have more more understanding that we don't know
Speaker 5: the future, and the future keeps backing us up every
Speaker 5: single time, as we've seen in this last four weeks.
Speaker 5: Who could have predicted the events of the last four weeks.
Speaker 5: So I think they should feel able list And now
Speaker 5: Eugene knows this better than I am not a journalist.
Speaker 5: I know fifty years from now, if I come back,
Speaker 5: I'll tell you exactly what it was going to be,
Speaker 5: how it ended. But they can't know that at the time.
Speaker 1: Doris, did you just say if I made did you
Speaker 1: just make the prediction you're coming back in fifty years
Speaker 1: to put in context for the American public at that time?
Speaker 5: Well, look, if my dead presidents are alive.
Speaker 1: I think that's wyn that be terrific. No, that's a
Speaker 1: wonderful point. Yeah, all right, we'll be back in a second. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. I wanted to ask in Eugene, this is
Speaker 1: probably to you, what does happen now? What are the mechanics? No,
Speaker 1: I don't mean what happens now is like Kamala hark
Speaker 1: What are the mechanics now of this convention? Basically it
Speaker 1: is an open convention, I would assume unless they do
Speaker 1: a nominating vote prior to that. But what what are
Speaker 1: the mechanics of what we're going to see next?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, first, the rules committees are meeting to
Speaker 6: kind of decide the rules right within within the party.
Speaker 1: It seems like those are not those are not set prior.
Speaker 1: That's that's the close to it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can change and then they and then often
Speaker 6: they vote on the rules like as a full delegation
Speaker 6: at the conventions.
Speaker 1: And so who are the rules committee made up of?
Speaker 1: Are they delegates?
Speaker 6: They are, Some of them are delegates, but a lot
Speaker 6: of them are like the A lot of names of
Speaker 6: them are people that folks will recognize as people who
Speaker 6: are in democratic politics.
Speaker 2: They are members of different types of constituencies.
Speaker 6: They are governors, their governors or members and and so
Speaker 6: they're senators. Some of them are local and state senators
Speaker 6: and members of the House assemblies. And so they will
Speaker 6: kind of get together and they will decide what they're
Speaker 6: what they're doing. We've got a draft proposal and essentially
Speaker 6: what it says is we're going to vote, and we're
Speaker 6: going to still have to hold a virtual role call vote.
Speaker 6: And the reason is they are certain that this kind
Speaker 6: of Ohio rule that if you don't have the name selected,
Speaker 6: if your person is not nominated, they can't make it
Speaker 6: on the ballot. Ohio changed the law. Ohio said, this
Speaker 6: law no longer matters. We can move on.
Speaker 1: The Democrats ignore the state could say you need the
Speaker 1: name of your nominee before you would get your nominating convention.
Speaker 1: That doesn't seem to make.
Speaker 6: Any and so they made this rule before it seems
Speaker 6: before the convention was like fully set. And so that
Speaker 6: is where they kind of everyone woke up and they're like,
Speaker 6: wait a second, we have to figure something out here.
Speaker 6: So they were going to do this with President Biden.
Speaker 6: There's a conversation about maybe we don't need to do
Speaker 6: it with Harris. Ohio says they're good to go, but
Speaker 6: they don't trust the Republicans in Ohio to at their word,
Speaker 6: and so they're going to continue to do that. And
Speaker 6: so it's by all intents and purposes, Vice President Harris
Speaker 6: is the presumptive nominee. We're not using that word because
Speaker 6: they've they've committed to her that I pledged to her.
Speaker 6: So you know, again with keeping knowing that the fate
Speaker 6: can intervene doors. They could get on that roll call
Speaker 6: boat and say like John Stewart is gonna get it.
Speaker 6: Let's go, Oh my god, I congratulates.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't cry. There's your way.
Speaker 1: President Stewart accept and I'm only running out except.
Speaker 6: And so and so that that that part will happen early.
Speaker 6: That also means Vice President Harris has to pick a
Speaker 6: running mate before then, because it's the way that the
Speaker 6: proposal and the draft this is that the.
Speaker 1: City is going to lead the Democrats around by the
Speaker 1: nose rather than trusting the process that they have in
Speaker 1: place for choosing it in a measured way. It doesn't
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: Democrats dont want to roll the dice. Here is what
Speaker 2: it is. They don't want to roll the dice.
Speaker 1: Hi, And maybe this is where we This is where
Speaker 1: we end up. And this is where we end and
Speaker 1: I thank you both for for for being here. But
Speaker 1: I want to talk about this very quickly. We are
Speaker 1: such a convoluted mess when it comes to our election systems,
Speaker 1: whether it's through the financial shenanigans of super packs and
Speaker 1: all the loopholes that exist, and corporations are people and
Speaker 1: money is free speech and the fourteen or fifteen billion
Speaker 1: dollars that we're going to spend on this election, and
Speaker 1: we don't know where the dark money is. So from
Speaker 1: the financing, to the rules, to the ubiquity, to the
Speaker 1: fact that it doesn't ever end, which means we are
Speaker 1: always at each other's throats and never have time for
Speaker 1: makeup electoral sex in the country, like we're just fighting
Speaker 1: at all times, like we are a mess. And one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things I heard you, yes.
Speaker 5: Ma'am, I was going to say, we created these problems.
Speaker 5: We can solve these problems. We can change things. We
Speaker 5: can have a political revolution, we can make it so
Speaker 5: that money is not in politics. We can do these things.
Speaker 5: I mean, why are the best people not running for
Speaker 5: public office now? Because they know they're going to have
Speaker 5: to spend their time raising money, tons and tons of money.
Speaker 5: They know their private lives are going to be exposed.
Speaker 5: They don't think that they're going to be able to
Speaker 5: get very much done because the two parties at log aheads,
Speaker 5: we created these problems by the system we created. We
Speaker 5: can change that system.
Speaker 1: You know they talked about we can't make a change
Speaker 1: in our candidate. Even given this most extreme and urgent
Speaker 1: new information that we've received during a debate because we
Speaker 1: don't have enough time. Meanwhile, Free I have time. They
Speaker 1: did two elections in six weeks, England did it in
Speaker 1: eight weeks, and those those systems can be applied here.
Speaker 1: We have an electoral industrial complex that needs to be
Speaker 1: broken up. It is monopolistic and FTC needs to get involved. Eugene,
Speaker 1: what say you, sir?
Speaker 6: I think you're right as someone who's in DC a lot,
Speaker 6: and I'm not going to prognosticate, but I have you
Speaker 6: seen enough of the kind of excitement from you and
Speaker 6: Doris about these kinds of things big enough to see
Speaker 6: changes actually happen. I can be pretty cynical on some
Speaker 6: of the political things because you know, people will say
Speaker 6: one thing behind closed doors, I'm pointing to my door,
Speaker 6: you can't see it, one thing behind those doors, and
Speaker 6: then a completely different thing, like to your face, and
Speaker 6: you know that the thing that both of those things happened.
Speaker 6: So our political incentive structure is off, first of all,
Speaker 6: and so people don't always speak the things that they feel.
Speaker 6: Many of them do want these kinds of changes, Many
Speaker 6: of them want money out of politics. There are a
Speaker 6: lot of Republicans who are speaking this language right now,
Speaker 6: which is really interesting. It used to be more of
Speaker 6: a democratic message, and so there's a world in which
Speaker 6: they do come together. That world has to and this
Speaker 6: could be one of those moments where maybe the parties
Speaker 6: are looking around depending on what happens in November, because well, then.
Speaker 1: Do it, because anybody who thinks they'll lose advantage in
Speaker 1: the same way that DC will never become a state
Speaker 1: because in the way that our system works, you can't.
Speaker 1: The Repulicans will never go for a democratic area getting
Speaker 1: a senator or getting you know, they're just never going
Speaker 1: to go for that type of sharing. But I think
Speaker 1: solving the time problem solves the money problem.
Speaker 6: And it solves the hatred in it helps to solve
Speaker 6: the hatred in the whole country, right like right, you know,
Speaker 6: like the amount of attacks that we all receive come
Speaker 6: from this, like the speed, the length of time at
Speaker 6: which we're hitting each other. There's the attack ads everyone's saying,
Speaker 6: this person's the worst person that's.
Speaker 2: Ever lived exactly.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of things that if we fix this
Speaker 6: one thing could could could work better in this country.
Speaker 2: I think the country might be better off for it.
Speaker 1: Doris, so let let us three.
Speaker 5: Let us three pledge. Let's pledge that we're going to
Speaker 5: argue about this. I mean, just think of how much
Speaker 5: better our lives would be if we only had to
Speaker 5: focus on these parts cidential elections, you know, over a
Speaker 5: six week period or ten week period. But we just
Speaker 5: have to believe that we can do it. I mean,
Speaker 5: we've made bigger changes in our lives and our political
Speaker 5: lives over time. You know, we ended segregation, We allowed
Speaker 5: more people to vote that didn't vote. Women couldn't vote
Speaker 5: for so long, and black people couldn't vote for so long.
Speaker 5: We've made those changes. We have to change the system
Speaker 5: as it is now. You've gotten me really riled up
Speaker 5: right now. Fifty years that is part of this. I
Speaker 5: want to be part of it.
Speaker 1: I'm so riled up, and I know that you and
Speaker 1: Eugene are riled up. And we can do this.
Speaker 2: And we have the technology.
Speaker 6: This is a road and the media cycle that like
Speaker 6: if in years ago, like if this was the sixties,
Speaker 6: or even if it was the eighteen hundreds and people
Speaker 6: had to get on the horse and buggy and go
Speaker 6: around and introduce themselves to other Americans, that.
Speaker 2: Would be much more difficult.
Speaker 6: These people can introduce themselves at the drop of the hat.
Speaker 6: You could have the amount of the amount.
Speaker 2: Of Twitter, the amount of information we can get about
Speaker 2: these people in a short amount of time.
Speaker 1: Too long, people will already be sick of it. You'll
Speaker 1: already be in that cycle of I'm tired of this person,
Speaker 1: I want the next person. The idea that this vetting
Speaker 1: process is somehow getting us closer to more competent and
Speaker 1: better leadership is nonsense and insane. And we have created
Speaker 1: an electoral campaign system that does the opposite of what
Speaker 1: it is intended to do, which is we've created a
Speaker 1: system so burdensome, so onerous, so expensive, so hate filled,
Speaker 1: that all it does is drag the worst of us
Speaker 1: to the highest positions in leadership. And I say it
Speaker 1: changes now. And I'm proud to announce my co chairs
Speaker 1: of Eugene Daniels and Doris Turns Goodwin, and we're going
Speaker 1: to make this happen. And I didn't even curse once,
Speaker 1: worry that a tire speech.
Speaker 2: Very good, very good guys are the best.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today and really helpful and
Speaker 1: informed at Doris Current's Goodwin. It's always an honor to
Speaker 1: see you and a delight I don't see enough. And
Speaker 1: Eugene Daniels, so nice to meet you. Doris Kurrns Goodwin
Speaker 1: presidential historian, Poetzer Prize winning author, most recent book and
Speaker 1: Unfinished Love Story, Personal history of the sixties. Eugene Daniels,
Speaker 1: political White House correspondent, playbook co author. Thank you both
Speaker 1: so much for joining us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Man. That was terrible for rob on sound or Nicole
Speaker 1: and man, I'm fired up now. It really there was
Speaker 1: an epiphany in the middle of it that it's not
Speaker 1: about the money, follows the time because the elections are
Speaker 1: never ending. The money hose is unceasing. If we change
Speaker 1: the time, we change the money, we change the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: we change the corrosive and eroding effects that it has
Speaker 1: on our souls. We shortened the time we have to
Speaker 1: endure this nonsense that is so true.
Speaker 4: It really gave me hope because when I think about
Speaker 4: tackling the money in politics issue, it seems insurmountable. But
Speaker 4: addressing the time is a secret way in I think.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. It's a backdoor hack, so we
Speaker 1: call it a life hack. On the TikTok world.
Speaker 3: Yes, Joan, are you on TikTok?
Speaker 1: I'm in my life hack Era, got it. I'm not
Speaker 1: on TikTok, but Maggie makes me no. Yeah, Kamala is brat,
Speaker 1: Doris is bratt. Doris is brat, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: what that was, but I'm assuming it's something. How are
Speaker 1: we doing otherwise? I know we got some viewer questions
Speaker 1: or comments. What are we dealing with this?
Speaker 4: We put out a call asking for people to send
Speaker 4: in some questions for you, so we have some for you.
Speaker 1: Come at me, bro, Come at me, Bro.
Speaker 4: We have some who is starting college and their roommates
Speaker 4: are random, and they want to know how they can
Speaker 4: avoid opinion slash political conflict in a tight dorm room.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're not supposed to. That's the whole point of
Speaker 1: the dorm room. The whole point of a dorm room
Speaker 1: is and then you got to read like Catcher in
Speaker 1: the Rye and then like just get all fucked up
Speaker 1: and high and talk about it till six in the morning.
Speaker 1: The whole point of the college dorm room is not
Speaker 1: to avoid that, but to learn to navigate your way
Speaker 1: through it with this person that is really only in
Speaker 1: there because you guys wake up around the same time.
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty much how college roommates are now selected,
Speaker 1: is what time do you wake up? And are you
Speaker 1: a complete fucking pig? So it's that's the gradation. But
Speaker 1: I would suggest you are in close quarters. There is
Speaker 1: no better You are now in the dojo. You are
Speaker 1: in the conversation and topic dojo, a ten x twelve room,
Speaker 1: two twin beds with plastic covering on it. You haven't
Speaker 1: slept on shit like that ever, and this is boot
Speaker 1: camp for learning how to get along with another person
Speaker 1: that you don't. I think they should switch roommates every
Speaker 1: six weeks and throw you into a whole other scenario
Speaker 1: of political and sociological tumult. And it should always end
Speaker 1: with like six thirty in the morning, being like in theory,
Speaker 1: socialism does sound good, but in practice it just never worked.
Speaker 1: That's what I don't avoid it. We dive in head first,
Speaker 1: feet first, and invest in a durable boond or Is
Speaker 1: that that's probably old school advice because now the kid's
Speaker 1: probably smoking those you know whatever those are vapesvapes? Yeah, yeah, done.
Speaker 3: Settle all right, next question, and this is a quote
Speaker 3: Oh my god, babe, you've got to drop your skincare routine.
Speaker 1: Oh well, here's my routine. Don't do anything for sixty
Speaker 1: one years and let the chips fall where they may. Terrible, terrible. Well,
Speaker 1: so far, I think we've done an excellent job at
Speaker 1: responding to viewers' concerns.
Speaker 4: Do you want another one?
Speaker 1: You give me one more and then and then we'll
Speaker 1: move it on.
Speaker 4: All right, John, here we go. Come on, I need
Speaker 4: advice on how to end a relationship.
Speaker 1: Oh that it's so interesting to me. You know, we're
Speaker 1: doing a podcast about social and political issues, and everything
Speaker 1: we're getting so far is like my lifestyle blog. I
Speaker 1: think they want me to be a get Ready with
Speaker 1: Me influencer. Yeah, talk about breakups and skincare. I think
Speaker 1: I've been doing the wrong show forever. The breakup thing
Speaker 1: is be creative. Nobody wants nobody wants just a straight thing.
Speaker 1: Have them come in a room and go, oh, it's
Speaker 1: so bright in here, and then lower the blinds and
Speaker 1: on it is written, get the fuck out, get out
Speaker 1: of my house. And then they're going to be like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, that hurts, But props to you for the
Speaker 1: creative endeavor in the way that in the way that
Speaker 1: you did it. That's our show, solid show boy. Did
Speaker 1: I love Doris. Very nice to meet you, Gene. As always,
Speaker 1: I want to thank lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mametovic,
Speaker 1: video editor and engineer, Rob Vittola, audio editor and engineer,
Speaker 1: boys our researcher and associate producer Jillian Spirit, Executive producers
Speaker 1: Chris McShane, Katie Gray. You guys are killing it. Great topics,
Speaker 1: great research, great information. Thank you all so much, and
Speaker 1: that's it for us. We'll see y'all next time on
Speaker 1: The Weekly Show, bully Boy, and thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to the episode. If you liked it, please follow The
Speaker 1: Weekly Show with John Stewart on your favorite podcast app
Speaker 1: and tune in every Thursday for new episodes because it
Speaker 1: just fills our heart with gratitude. Thank you. The Weekly
Speaker 1: Show with John Stewart is a comedy Central podcast is
Speaker 1: produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.
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