Speaker 1: Well, this is fun Lone Hee Chen, longtime friend of
Speaker 1: the Armstrong and Getty shows stopping Baylon He of course,
Speaker 1: Daven Diane Steffy, Fellow in American Public.
Speaker 2: Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and the.
Speaker 1: Director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University, Lani, how
Speaker 1: are you.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's great to be with you guys here in Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: Is this the first time we've done this in person?
Speaker 3: I think it.
Speaker 2: I think it might be.
Speaker 3: Well, this is great. I think were you in the
Speaker 3: building last night for the moment?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was electric.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's funny because there were a
Speaker 4: lot of big moments last night. You had the Teamster's president.
Speaker 4: Was the last time the Teamster's president spoke at a
Speaker 4: Republican convention? Yeah, I don't think it's ever happened. You
Speaker 4: at the revelation of the vice presidential nominee. But all
Speaker 4: of that I thought paled in comparison to when they
Speaker 4: first showed my former president coming down the tunnel and
Speaker 4: then coming into the actual arena, And the level of
Speaker 4: emotion that he exhibited was reffer too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, he has talked about some interviewers have
Speaker 3: talked about him being a changed man. I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know at his age, blah blah blah. He
Speaker 3: was shot, which something will change it. But he looked different. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I've never seen his eyes well up with
Speaker 3: tears like that before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, if there is emotional experience for a
Speaker 4: lot of people, right, and and with with Lee Greenwood
Speaker 4: singing Proud to be an American in the background, it
Speaker 4: was it was a this one thing that Donald Trump
Speaker 4: has always gotten right as a stage craft of conventions,
Speaker 4: and and that can be tough to pull off. I mean,
Speaker 4: I was the guy who had to put the program
Speaker 4: together in twenty twelve when Mitt Romney was the nominated
Speaker 4: say it's a hard thing to get all the pieces right. Well,
Speaker 4: it was off as jiv and transparent. But last lag
Speaker 4: was amazing. It was really well done.
Speaker 3: I I was hold together until the crowd started chanting fight, fight, fight,
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Yeah, that is something.
Speaker 1: And can you believe towards the end of last week,
Speaker 1: we were thinking this might be a sedate affair and
Speaker 1: lacking a bit in news.
Speaker 2: As a student of history, can you put.
Speaker 1: Into words how extraordinary this political moment is in so
Speaker 1: many ways. I mean, between the assassination attempt, you know,
Speaker 1: Trump's come back, Joe Biden's clearly declining mental faculties, and
Speaker 1: the rest of it.
Speaker 3: These are crazy times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I did meet the press on Sunday
Speaker 4: and one of the things I was reflecting on.
Speaker 2: That's funny they didn't ask us, Nathan which next week. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you did a good time.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I was reflecting on was,
Speaker 4: you know, when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, he wore a
Speaker 4: coat and on the inside of the coat was inscribed
Speaker 4: one Country, one destiny. And we're at this point now
Speaker 4: where our country could go in one of two directions.
Speaker 4: As I view, we could go the direction that we
Speaker 4: had between nineteen sixty three and nineteen eighty one, where
Speaker 4: you had the assassination of a president Booke, ended by
Speaker 4: the attempted assassination of another president, and several assassination attempts
Speaker 4: in between. Gerald Ford there were at least two attempts,
Speaker 4: serious attempts on his life, and it's like, do we
Speaker 4: want to go down that pathway of political violence and
Speaker 4: division or do we go in a different direction. And
Speaker 4: so far, at least the tone that we're seeing out
Speaker 4: of our politics, out of everyone from the former president
Speaker 4: to the current president. Is an attempt, I think, to
Speaker 4: try and move in a different direction. Now will we
Speaker 4: stay there? That? I don't know, but history tells us
Speaker 4: that we've seen some pretty dark times before.
Speaker 3: Well, people are Here's my I opened the show with
Speaker 3: this yesterday. Here's my axiom for the whole thing. This
Speaker 3: doesn't end until sides start calling out their own people. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so far, I haven't seen that. I mean, Joe
Speaker 3: Biden's willing to talk about things on the other side,
Speaker 3: Charlottesville or whatever, but none of the stuff on his side,
Speaker 3: and the same I'm hearing the same out of Republicans.
Speaker 3: So and to start calling out your own side.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 4: I think you're right. I think that is that is
Speaker 4: the big difference. And our politics have become so tribal.
Speaker 4: It's hard to imagine that happening, you know, And I
Speaker 4: don't know. I mean, I would hope that people would
Speaker 4: be able to call spade a spade, but I haven't.
Speaker 2: I you're right, I haven't seen it.
Speaker 3: I was pretty disappointed. Joe Biden brought up the ridiculousness
Speaker 3: of it. He promises a bloodbath behind that Lester whole interview,
Speaker 3: all that he got.
Speaker 2: That's why he got pressed by Lester.
Speaker 4: I think on the bullseye comment, right, I mean, and
Speaker 4: and it was an unfortunate choice of words. Clearly glad
Speaker 4: to see that he admitted that, but you know, he's
Speaker 4: still got some Democrats out there who are unwilling to
Speaker 4: admit that that.
Speaker 2: He even said that.
Speaker 1: I want to talk more about Biden's stain in the
Speaker 1: race in his campaign in a couple of minutes. But
Speaker 1: first you referenced Sean O'Brien, the head of the Teamsters,
Speaker 1: speaking of Yeah, the Republican Convention, which is an extraordinary thing. Crazy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with it, I heard it pointed
Speaker 1: out that this is the first time, and smarter guys
Speaker 1: and me pointed out, well, that's because there were mobsters
Speaker 1: like for decades and decades and that.
Speaker 3: Would have been weird.
Speaker 1: But anyway, having said that, the direction of the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: it's changing coalition is so interesting right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've talked a lot about this, which is that
Speaker 4: the one of the things that Donald Trump ushered in
Speaker 4: was a more populist Republican Party. Whether you think about
Speaker 4: issues like trade or even taxes right, or lots of
Speaker 4: different things. Donald Trump had a very different perspective on them.
Speaker 4: Selecting jd. Vance essentially made sure that that perspective is
Speaker 4: going to be the predominant perspective in the Republican Party
Speaker 4: for the next several I don't know what it is, right,
Speaker 4: I whant I call it decades?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 4: I mean the vice presidential nominees thirty nine years old, So,
Speaker 4: I mean it's a remarkable thing. But we are seeing
Speaker 4: this transition. The Republican Party is increasingly a working class,
Speaker 4: working American party, and that was not the case for
Speaker 4: much of my childhood, much of my coming up in politics,
Speaker 4: we were the Party of Wall Street and the Party
Speaker 4: of corporations.
Speaker 2: Country club, Yeah, country club.
Speaker 4: And it's a very different Republican Party and we're seeing
Speaker 4: that on full display here.
Speaker 1: It was obviously uncomfortable for folks who saw the O'Brien
Speaker 1: speech last night when he he pivoted from what you
Speaker 1: describe as pro worker to just blatantly anti corporation, which
Speaker 1: did not sit well with a lot of the cut
Speaker 1: You know, to me, that's like you to be pro
Speaker 1: child is to be anti parents. It's not the way
Speaker 1: the world works. Yeah, and look, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of things. I mean, you guys know, I think about
Speaker 1: healthcare a lot. And in healthcare, you know, some of
Speaker 1: these companies have been responsible for some of the biggest
Speaker 1: innovations we've seen in healthcare over the last couple of
Speaker 1: years in terms of people who don't get access to
Speaker 1: affordable care, and a lot of that's been led by
Speaker 1: by corporations. But it's not a zero sum game, and
Speaker 1: I think that there's a danger to thinking about our
Speaker 1: economy that way.
Speaker 2: But we'll see.
Speaker 4: I mean, the politics of last night, I'm just remarkable
Speaker 4: to have the head of the Teamsters here. I mean,
Speaker 4: that was just it was like my mind was blown.
Speaker 4: It will be blown for weeks to come way in
Speaker 4: a good way or a what the hell way? No,
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I think it's good. The Republican Party
Speaker 4: needs to expand its appeal. Now there are many ways
Speaker 4: of doing that. Recently, the appeal has been expanded to
Speaker 4: working Americans, as I noted earlier. Ideally it would also
Speaker 4: be expanded to newer Americans, and I think for some
Speaker 4: newer Americans the Republican Party has its appeal as well.
Speaker 4: But I'm all for growing the party and growing the tent.
Speaker 4: I just think that to your point, once you start
Speaker 4: talking about how awful businesses are, I mean, that's when
Speaker 4: you lose me a little bit.
Speaker 1: Right of course, although from thirty thousand feet, as they say,
Speaker 1: it struck me as a moment of Hey, let's concentrate
Speaker 1: on what we have in common. Well, we disagree with
Speaker 1: this guy and a lot of stuff, but we agree
Speaker 1: on some stuff, and so we've in right. Because I
Speaker 1: was thinking, if you're going to be a majority party,
Speaker 1: like the Obama coalition had a lot of groups that
Speaker 1: didn't agree on a lot of things. Yeah, but if
Speaker 1: you're going to be a majority party, you have to
Speaker 1: bring in together those groups. I think that's a great point.
Speaker 4: And by the way, the reason why the Democrats are
Speaker 4: having so much to get to your point about why
Speaker 4: the Democrats are having so much difficulty now with what
Speaker 4: they do with their nomination process is because that Obama
Speaker 4: coalition has fallen apart. And nothing does better in holding
Speaker 4: coalitions together than winning. You saw it with Republicans when
Speaker 4: you had the Reagan coalition. Bush had a slightly different
Speaker 4: coalition that was a different coalition, and that fell apart.
Speaker 4: Once the Bush presidency ended. Nothing helps people stay copaesthetic
Speaker 4: like winning. And I think the reason why that coalition
Speaker 4: is falling apart because people are looking at the president's campaign.
Speaker 4: They're saying, this guy can't win. And I think for
Speaker 4: that reason, people are starting to desert the ship. It's
Speaker 4: not pretty.
Speaker 3: Do they Are they turning against Biden because he can't
Speaker 3: win or because his brain don't work? I have a
Speaker 3: feeling that if he was up by ten points, nobody'd
Speaker 3: be talking about his brain. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, it is all about elective politics. It's all
Speaker 4: about what are the polls showing us? And I have
Speaker 4: to believe his advisors are seeing the same polls that
Speaker 4: President Trump's advisors are seeing and that the public are seeing,
Speaker 4: which suggests that they are little to few to no
Speaker 4: pathways to victory for the Democratic ticket.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, David Axrod keeps saying he thinks his inner circle
Speaker 3: is keeping the polls from him. New York Times alluded
Speaker 3: to that today too. Is is Joe Biden looking at
Speaker 3: the actual.
Speaker 2: Attem might look? I mean, how crazy an allegation is that.
Speaker 4: He does keep referring to polls that show him up right,
Speaker 4: I have no doubt there are polls that show him up.
Speaker 4: I'm just not sure that they're conducted by credible.
Speaker 2: Pollster, Doctor Jill Dosom.
Speaker 4: I mean, I just as as a candidate, one of
Speaker 4: the things you have to do is you have to
Speaker 4: be inquisitive about where is the race right now? Because
Speaker 4: we all, I mean, I've been a candidate before. You
Speaker 4: want to think as positively as you can about the race,
Speaker 4: but you got to know where things are well in
Speaker 4: a realistic view, you know. And I just I just don't.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he's getting the full picture, if
Speaker 4: it's being kept from him, if he doesn't want to
Speaker 4: see the full picture.
Speaker 2: But the data seems pretty clear to me. Well, everything's
Speaker 2: going on right now.
Speaker 1: Every good and great leader I've ever run into wants
Speaker 1: to know the bad news. Of course, you demand bad
Speaker 1: news first. You know, you're, like us, a human being,
Speaker 1: he says, as if that's some sort of observation, and
Speaker 1: a family man.
Speaker 2: You ask you right, exactly, But.
Speaker 1: If you've dealt at all with the decline of age
Speaker 1: or dementia or Parkinson's or anything like that, you know
Speaker 1: it only goes in one direction. And on the political
Speaker 1: side of things, in three months, it's going to be
Speaker 1: absolutely tragic for the Democrats. But putting that aside, there
Speaker 1: is no chance Joe Biden is anything but significantly worse.
Speaker 1: My mom died of complications from Parkinson's and by the
Speaker 1: time we are in October, it's going to be really
Speaker 1: hard to watch. And it's difficult for us as non
Speaker 1: political pros to process that anybody think that's a better
Speaker 1: idea than saying, hey, let's go quick, let's figure out
Speaker 1: if Gretchen or Gavin or Jos Shapiro, who gave a
Speaker 1: lovely speech the other day, if they're a better option.
Speaker 1: It's difficult for me to understand how you could stick
Speaker 1: with that sinking shift.
Speaker 4: So let me give you the argument that I'm sure
Speaker 4: the Biden team is giving to a lot of people
Speaker 4: right now. And by the way, this is an axiom
Speaker 4: that I would say in politics is widely believed. You
Speaker 4: always rather the devil you know to the devil you
Speaker 4: don't sure, okay, because you want the predictability of the
Speaker 4: liabilities you have in front of you versus the non
Speaker 4: predictability of liabilities that come from a new candidate who's
Speaker 4: not been vetted. And so, by the way, I've talked
Speaker 4: to Democrats in that circle who say this to me
Speaker 4: that you know, we don't know what's out there about
Speaker 4: Gretchen Witmer. We don't know what's out there about Gavin
Speaker 4: Is or or the vice president. Even so we don't
Speaker 4: for that reason alone, we would prefer to go with
Speaker 4: the horse we have.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I think more and more Democrats, and even some in
Speaker 4: very high levels of the Democratic National Committee are wondering
Speaker 4: whether that is the right strategy or because we're all
Speaker 4: seeing the same thing. Right.
Speaker 2: We all watch TV, we all see what's going on.
Speaker 4: So I feel like even during this week when all
Speaker 4: the attention is here in Milwaukee, there are lots of
Speaker 4: conversations going on about what does the future of the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party look like, what's going to come next?
Speaker 2: Can we precipitate a change. We've talked about this before.
Speaker 4: I'm still not really convinced they will make a change.
Speaker 4: I just think that you do not force a incumbent
Speaker 4: president out of anything unless the president himself comes to
Speaker 4: the conclusion because he sees the.
Speaker 1: Data, he can't win. As you sit here, what's your
Speaker 1: lead story of the convention so far?
Speaker 4: The unity of the Republican Party, This is a party
Speaker 4: that's been pretty at various points divided since twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: since Donald Trump first became the nominee, and of unity.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've talked to lots of Republicans over the
Speaker 4: last day and a half i've been here, including a
Speaker 4: number of Republicans who were very skeptical of Trump at
Speaker 4: various points. And even if they're skeptical, their view is,
Speaker 4: you know, he's the nominee and I'm going to support him.
Speaker 4: And I'm hearing a level of you. You got Nicki
Speaker 4: Haley coming tonight, right, you're the keynote speaker tonight.
Speaker 1: And you had Tucker Carlson sitting the two seats away
Speaker 1: from the president last night.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting way uniting the tribes, right.
Speaker 3: The Evance once called him America's hitler, and he's his
Speaker 3: running mad Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hey, you know what, the former president loves a
Speaker 4: redemption story. Yeah, And we've seen it over and over again,
Speaker 4: and this is just the latest example. The other thing
Speaker 4: I'll note is that you couldn't have picked a VP
Speaker 4: more different than Pence. If you think about the profile
Speaker 4: of these two men, and you think political profile and
Speaker 4: actual profile in terms of appearance, age, mannerisms couldn't be
Speaker 4: more different, and I think that that's intentional, that's not
Speaker 4: an accident.
Speaker 3: What you would know this, what is the latest date
Speaker 3: Biden could step down and you could like even conceivably
Speaker 3: change to a different candidate.
Speaker 2: So I think there's two issues.
Speaker 4: There's one that's like a democratic rules of the Democratic
Speaker 4: Party issue, and that one's coming up. I think that
Speaker 4: was like the next couple of weeks they've got to
Speaker 4: figure out because they got to nominate, They got to
Speaker 4: formally nominate at the convention, and I think they were
Speaker 4: talking about doing a roll call ahead of that to
Speaker 4: get it. For some reason, there's a ballot issue in
Speaker 4: Ohio or somewhere where they can't get on the ballot
Speaker 4: unless they have a named Democratic nominee by X date.
Speaker 4: So what I was gonna say is there's the Democratic
Speaker 4: Party rules issue, and then there's the legal ballot access questions.
Speaker 4: I don't know well enough to know what the exact
Speaker 4: deadlines are, but I can't imagine we've got too much
Speaker 4: long so weeks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably.
Speaker 3: And the reason I bring that up is because we
Speaker 3: were discussing yesterday. Isn't that the only way the Democrats
Speaker 3: could like turn the page and start a new conversation.
Speaker 2: The forcing function is a different.
Speaker 3: Candidate, because how would you run against Trump at this point?
Speaker 3: Since he's just been shot, right, You can't demonize him,
Speaker 3: can you, Which.
Speaker 4: Is the hard message, and it makes it very hard
Speaker 4: to run a campaign. I mean, you know, they had
Speaker 4: to pull everything down for a couple of days. My
Speaker 4: guess is they'll go back to business as usual soon,
Speaker 4: but they are. They're going to be in a tough spot.
Speaker 4: But to get back to the conversation we had, you
Speaker 4: know before the break, given how polarized we are, they'll.
Speaker 3: Be able to have.
Speaker 4: I mean, they'll they'll go right back to attacking Trump
Speaker 4: within a matter.
Speaker 3: You think they'll be calling him an existential threat to
Speaker 3: Democrat I think.
Speaker 2: I think they'll be. I think some will.
Speaker 4: I think some member Democrat members of Congress are completely unhinged. Well, yeah,
Speaker 4: the completely unhinged about about Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Well, and I was going to say, in spite of
Speaker 1: the assassination attempt, and where you think that might push
Speaker 1: the discussion. A desperate beast is not prone to reasonableness,
Speaker 1: that's right, and the Democratic Party is a desperate beast.
Speaker 2: This I mean, I would not surprise me if you
Speaker 2: started to hear that.
Speaker 4: I mean, uh, you know what I what I come
Speaker 4: back to is when you say this person has to
Speaker 4: be stopped at all costs, what do you think is
Speaker 4: going to happen? Right?
Speaker 2: Right? What do you think is going to happen? Right?
Speaker 4: And to be fair, I think that that language hasn't
Speaker 4: been used by all Democrats. But you know, people conveniently
Speaker 4: overlook that there are some who've been engaging in that
Speaker 4: kind of dialogue for years.
Speaker 2: It's a difficult thing, the question of.
Speaker 1: If your rhetoric incites the most mentally disturbed tenth of
Speaker 1: a percentage of the population, is that necessarily unacceptable rhetoric?
Speaker 3: But both sides have got to quit saying that if
Speaker 3: the other side wins this election, we'll never have another election, right,
Speaker 3: because that's crazy thing it is, It is absurd.
Speaker 1: And the blood bath thing, I mean, if I were
Speaker 1: to take Joe Biden's word, he at his word. He
Speaker 1: repeated it on Lester Holds again last night that Trump
Speaker 1: vowed a bloodbath if he lost, virtually anything would.
Speaker 4: Be justified, right right, Well, again, we got to figure
Speaker 4: out a way to get the rhetoric toned down. I'm
Speaker 4: not enthusiastic it's going to happen, but I think the
Speaker 4: sanctity of our republic depends on it.
Speaker 3: This week at the convention, do you think speeches have
Speaker 3: been significantly changed or will be significantly changed from what
Speaker 3: they were going.
Speaker 4: To be or not? It doesn't feel like there's been
Speaker 4: significant change. Maybe you know there's been some nipping in tucking.
Speaker 4: There always is. I mean again, I was engaged in
Speaker 4: this process. You know, there's always a nitthing in tucking.
Speaker 4: The big question is going to be what Donald Trump's
Speaker 4: speech sounds like on their day, right, I'm watching for it.
Speaker 3: Well, did you follow the story? Ron Johnson Wisconsin get
Speaker 3: pretty strong.
Speaker 2: Speech the teleprompter loading the Ron.
Speaker 3: They loaded the pre shooting speech by accident. You know
Speaker 3: what do you think that's a bus No?
Speaker 2: I mean that can happen. It's chaotic back there in
Speaker 2: the production of production.
Speaker 1: How about on the fly you leave out the most
Speaker 1: inflammatory stuff. I mean, come on, you don't have to
Speaker 1: read it. Right, Yeah, we've barely got a minute until
Speaker 1: a heartbreak. So the key question who is the smartest
Speaker 1: person among major news personalities and who's the dumbest?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, how long do we have. I gonna
Speaker 4: get in trouble if you make me answer that question.
Speaker 3: You work for NBC. If you run into Lester, tell
Speaker 3: him nice job on the interview. Not only did he
Speaker 3: ask hard questions, but he followed up ye Biden last night.
Speaker 3: He's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be a chat with Lanhi Chen if we
Speaker 1: didn't ask at least one.
Speaker 2: Incredibly unfair question. Hey, we really look forward to chatting
Speaker 2: more throughout.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for being.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. Yeah, oh our pleasure.
Speaker 4: Yeah,