Speaker 1: Hey, it's John Stewart here. Daily Shows off today means
Speaker 1: we're going to drop an episode of the Weekly Show
Speaker 1: right here for you to enjoy. Every Thursday, we have
Speaker 1: I don't want to call them in depth conversations, but
Speaker 1: they are conversations. They are mid depth made to low
Speaker 1: depth com It's a round up to your knees. I'd
Speaker 1: say you could. You don't even need to tread water.
Speaker 1: They're really but it's special guests, big issues, threats to democracy,
Speaker 1: it's all there. We're covering the two party system, reproductive rights,
Speaker 1: military industrial complex. In this episode, today explores a young
Speaker 1: fellow by the name of Joseph Robinette Biden and what
Speaker 1: should be the plan moving forward. And I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be a good episode, so enjoy. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to the Weekly Show, John Stewart. I am John Stewart.
Speaker 1: We were off last week. It was it was July fourth,
Speaker 1: That was it was we celebrated America. We celebrated the
Speaker 1: holiday of America with good cheer, with barbecues, with explosions,
Speaker 1: which in some ways feels prescient where America appears to
Speaker 1: be heading in the present moment. Oh my god, was
Speaker 1: that an explosion. What the oh the house is shaking now.
Speaker 1: We are here, of course with our super producers Brittany
Speaker 1: Memedowick and Lauren Walker. Guys, we were going to do taxes.
Speaker 1: We're breaking down the tax bill that every American page.
Speaker 1: We're going to show where it goes to, how it
Speaker 1: might be disconnected from the urgent needs of the people.
Speaker 1: And then there was a something happened, Laura, that's exactly Brittany. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're both, Yes, you are both. There was a debate. No,
Speaker 1: we watched it, and since then there's been an explosion
Speaker 1: of conversation amongst people online and within the belway apparently
Speaker 1: only elitists, by the way, apparently people are not having
Speaker 1: this conversation. It's only elitist where there is a concern
Speaker 1: that the confidence in the current commander in chief may
Speaker 1: maybe waning somewhat. And so we thought, well, shit, we
Speaker 1: should probably talk about that. Have you had have either
Speaker 1: of you had conversations with family, colleagues, co workers? Was
Speaker 1: this in terms of triaging your conversations? Top of the list,
Speaker 1: bottom of the list, middle of the list. Where was it?
Speaker 2: I was doing what I watched my dad do during
Speaker 2: Mets games? Growing up, which was like lots of pacing
Speaker 2: and screaming, and I didn't really look at my phone.
Speaker 1: So you're suggesting that this debate was the Mets game
Speaker 1: of political intrues. Yes, have people been, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of post debates. What's been the general tenor of
Speaker 1: the conversations.
Speaker 3: This is the first time I've come out from under
Speaker 3: my covers. You know, I feel like I scroll on Twitter,
Speaker 3: which makes me sad, and then you know, conversations are split. Honestly,
Speaker 3: there are people that are very much like, stop talking
Speaker 3: about it, stop asking questions, just get in line support.
Speaker 3: You know, we're voting for an administration, not a single person.
Speaker 3: You know what. I get told a lot.
Speaker 1: It is interesting though they keep saying, you know, I
Speaker 1: keep hearing back when they were only talking about Trump,
Speaker 1: they were like, stop talking about Trump, And now that
Speaker 1: we're talking about Biden, they're like, fucking shut up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk about talk about Trump. But we do have a
Speaker 1: good conversation today. We got some guys for it. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in there and let's see
Speaker 1: where we go. So let's jump right in with our
Speaker 1: guests for the week. Uh, John Favreau and Tommy Veeter,
Speaker 1: their founders of Crookeet Media, host of Pod Save America,
Speaker 1: authors of Democracy or Else, How to Save America and
Speaker 1: Ten Easy Steps, and Bacari sellers see n N political
Speaker 1: commentator and author of The Moment, Hello everybody.
Speaker 4: Hello, Hey there, Hello, Hello.
Speaker 1: It is so nice to see all of you. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Uh. I think we
Speaker 1: should discuss maybe the obviously the kind of the elephant
Speaker 1: in the room that's been occurring.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Sky Dance has bought paramount. Why would they why would
Speaker 1: they do.
Speaker 4: Something like that?
Speaker 1: No, we're going to discuss the fallout from Joe Biden's
Speaker 1: debate performance and the general sense of the Twitter commentary
Speaker 1: that I should shut the fuck up, Tommy and John
Speaker 1: should shut the fuck up, and Butkari is a very
Speaker 1: nice man who should continue.
Speaker 4: Talking with that?
Speaker 1: Were that about summarize the the the fallout from these situations.
Speaker 1: So Tommy and John, I'm gonna I'm gonna start with you.
Speaker 1: I think that the debate so shocked my conscience on
Speaker 1: what my expectation was, that it felt to not speak
Speaker 1: out would be malpractice at some level. Is that what
Speaker 1: you were feeling as you watched it? What was your sense.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I think we all watched it together.
Speaker 6: I think five minutes in we're all watching from you know,
Speaker 6: hands over our face, between our fingers. It was so
Speaker 6: much worse than I ever imagined it could have been.
Speaker 6: And it wasn't just bad like a one off performance bad.
Speaker 6: It was bad in the way that highlighted I think
Speaker 6: Joe Biden's single biggest vulnerability, which is his age and
Speaker 6: concerns about his ability to complete four more years. You know,
Speaker 6: it would have been like Mitt Romney driving onto the
Speaker 6: twenty twelfth debate stage in a ferrari and like chucking
Speaker 6: cash out of people right, like highlighting your vulnerability, and
Speaker 6: then it would.
Speaker 1: Have been so it would have been cool, awesome if
Speaker 1: you had just walked out.
Speaker 5: And like Mage, I know, was that the first debate
Speaker 5: when he kicked you guys ass or not? Which debate
Speaker 5: we kicked.
Speaker 4: Our kicked our ass? But that was that.
Speaker 6: But that's a good point of carry because that was
Speaker 6: an ass kicking in the sense that, like by Obama
Speaker 6: wasn't sharp, he didn't have his message down, he didn't
Speaker 6: seem like he came ready to fight and make a
Speaker 6: case against Romney. This was bad in that, you know,
Speaker 6: Biden struggled to speak coherently and get sentences out and
Speaker 6: make an argument, and that to me was chilling.
Speaker 7: It would have been like if in that first debate
Speaker 7: with Romney, Barack Obama went out and said, look, I
Speaker 7: wasn't born here, but let me tell you something that's
Speaker 7: you know, I'm just you know, I'm not from here.
Speaker 7: I'm not from the country. I'm not from this country.
Speaker 7: Everyone who has been wondering.
Speaker 1: But Cary, I imagine you didn't watch the debate and
Speaker 1: think to yourself, he's killing it, but you had a
Speaker 1: very different response to what you were seeing. Do you
Speaker 1: want to talk about that? Yeah?
Speaker 5: No, I think he got his ass kicked up down, left, right,
Speaker 5: and sideways. I also don't think elections are one in June.
Speaker 5: I think that there is a great deal of just
Speaker 5: over excitement by a lot of my friends on the
Speaker 5: left or overconcerned. I mean, it is what it is.
Speaker 5: I mean people are talking about I mean, people are
Speaker 5: engaging in this fantasy fiction of this off rent, this
Speaker 5: proverbial offering, whether it's not one, people are talking about
Speaker 5: this open convention, whether it's not going to be one.
Speaker 5: If in fact there is an opportunity for someone else
Speaker 5: to replace Joe Biden. The only person who has the infrastructure,
Speaker 5: the cash in order to do that or at least
Speaker 5: give us a chance to last four months would be
Speaker 5: Kamalae Harris. But I'm just very soberly saying we got
Speaker 5: our ask if in the debate first and foremost. You know,
Speaker 5: we can have all of these conversations about Joe Biden
Speaker 5: needs to do this, and Joe Biden needs to do that.
Speaker 5: But after July twenty second, if I'm not mistaken, or
Speaker 5: twenty fifth, whenever we have the role call, he is
Speaker 5: our nominee. So then what are you going to do?
Speaker 5: I'm resolved to the fact that we have three choices.
Speaker 5: We have Donald Trump, we have Joe Biden and the couch.
Speaker 5: And whether or not I was at Essence Fest or
Speaker 5: whether or not I was fishing with my good friend
Speaker 5: Jerry lodhold Off, a doc in Orangeboro County last week,
Speaker 5: the people I talked to are all saying the same thing, like,
Speaker 5: let's just get on with it. I mean, we know
Speaker 5: what we're going to do, we know who we're going
Speaker 5: to choose, and it is what it is. We have
Speaker 5: bigger things that we're fighting for other than going back
Speaker 5: and rehashing the fact that our candidate is eighty one
Speaker 5: years old, probably eats the Danni's, goes tobate at four
Speaker 5: o'clock and changes tennis balls on his walker.
Speaker 1: You just described my perfect weekend. Thank So I want
Speaker 1: to talk about because I think kar you bring up
Speaker 1: a really interesting mindset and I want to talk about
Speaker 1: that because I am of the opinion that democracy is
Speaker 1: not just under threat by authoritarians or by a Supreme
Speaker 1: Court that has decided maybe we shouldn't have left England
Speaker 1: in the first place, and a monarchy is actually slightly preferable.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk about the phrase it is
Speaker 1: what it is because I think that that is a
Speaker 1: complacency that I've seen in the Democratic Party for a
Speaker 1: very long time. That includes Ruth Bader Ginsburg not retiring
Speaker 1: on time. That includes Merrick Garland not going after Donald
Speaker 1: Trump for January sixth on time on That includes not
Speaker 1: being able to get Merrick Garland onto the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: That includes allowing Amy Cony Barrett to get onto the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. That includes not being responsive to urgency and
Speaker 1: to new information and just saying it is what it
Speaker 1: is guys and shrugging. And I think my point is
Speaker 1: there is opportunity here. It may not be open convention,
Speaker 1: it may not be a new person to take onto
Speaker 1: the ticket, but there is a vibrant and I think
Speaker 1: ultimately positive at least conversation and acknowledgment to be had
Speaker 1: that is not being had because it is what it
Speaker 1: is and what are you going to do? So I
Speaker 1: want you to respond to that. If you yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't actually mind the conversation.
Speaker 5: I'm not somebody who wants to put you in Ats
Speaker 5: and Tommy and John and the guys and and Tim,
Speaker 5: put you guys on island and just ship you guys
Speaker 5: off like guysk white Boy Summer you and Cheed Hanks.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 5: So I'm not somebody like I appreciate the thoroughness in
Speaker 5: which you're having this debate. I'm kind of looking beyond
Speaker 5: that and to your is what it is, your kind.
Speaker 4: Of a monologue there.
Speaker 5: Look, the fact is you can go back to Rama
Speaker 5: Manuel not putting the impact on or the emphasis on
Speaker 5: the judiciary as he should have in Barack Obama, not
Speaker 5: doing what he should have done in the judiciary.
Speaker 4: Or codifying Roe v.
Speaker 5: Wade, or whatever he could have done when we actually
Speaker 5: had the House and the sent it in two thousand
Speaker 5: and eight. Those type of things, we can go back
Speaker 5: and reltigate those things under that mantra of it is
Speaker 5: what it is. What I'm talking about right now is
Speaker 5: very practically the choices we have before us. And so
Speaker 5: I am geared up trying to prevent Project twenty five.
Speaker 5: I'm geared up trying to make sure that the things
Speaker 5: that we're talking about, the Chevron ruling, which I mean,
Speaker 5: I know that people are caught up on presidential immunity Chevron.
Speaker 5: The Chevron ruling, in my opinion, was more devastating to
Speaker 5: the fabric of democracy than anything we've seen in recent.
Speaker 1: He's talking about the ruling from the Supreme Court, which
Speaker 1: made it much more difficult for federal agencies to regulate,
Speaker 1: whether it's the EPA or SEC or any of those
Speaker 1: agencies to regulate the people that they're charged with regulating.
Speaker 1: That they undercut those decisions from the Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: And they did what they did similar in Dobbs. They
Speaker 5: owed Similarly in Dobbs, they overthrew decades worth of president
Speaker 5: which the Supreme Court is not necessarily known to do
Speaker 5: unless you're like Clarence Thomas and you're getting flowed out
Speaker 5: by your billionaire donors all over the country. And so yeah,
Speaker 5: I am just I think there are a lot of
Speaker 5: people who sit in my seat and they have a
Speaker 5: very sober look at where we are practically and say,
Speaker 5: I cannot afford in November to go back any further.
Speaker 5: We felt like twenty twenty we won the precipice of
Speaker 5: a third reconstruction, and we missed that mark. And since
Speaker 5: that time, we've actually been going backwards. And I know
Speaker 5: that people just don't want to backslide anymore. And I
Speaker 5: feel like having conversations.
Speaker 1: Biden is the president. If we're backsliding under Biden, well
Speaker 1: you're saying we're no.
Speaker 5: But I can go through his list of achievements. But
Speaker 5: what we're right about are the attacks on the attacks
Speaker 5: on DEEI. We're talking about the attacks on firmative action.
Speaker 5: We're talking about how in Arizona they passed an abortion
Speaker 5: bill from the eighteen hundreds, how they passed Dobbs, how
Speaker 5: they we just went through presidential immunity. I mean, there
Speaker 5: are cultural and legend and policy initiatives that firmly make
Speaker 5: me believe that we've gone backwards.
Speaker 4: I mean, look at black home ownership.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying the
Speaker 1: administration is the administration right now. But John and Tommy,
Speaker 1: I wanted you to address this because what Bacari is
Speaker 1: suggesting is that he's being strategic. That this isn't about
Speaker 1: noticing that the president may no longer be up to
Speaker 1: the job. This is about staying with the status quo
Speaker 1: because strategically, I guess, and Bacari tell me, if I'm
Speaker 1: misrepresenting this, that gives us our best opportunity to win.
Speaker 1: And I think my point is, I don't know that
Speaker 1: that's the case. I think I would disagree that that's
Speaker 1: the best strategy. But what's your thought.
Speaker 7: I mean, you would disagree, and literally all of the
Speaker 7: polling and data available would also agree with this position
Speaker 7: as well. It's not fiction at all that Joe Biden
Speaker 7: could step down tomorrow. He could announce that I am
Speaker 7: you know what, I have an important job to finish.
Speaker 7: I'm doing two jobs right now. I'm President United States
Speaker 7: and I'm running for president. And President United States is
Speaker 7: too important and I want to focus on that and
Speaker 7: I can pass it off to Kamala Harris, or we
Speaker 7: can have an open convention, whatever he wants to do.
Speaker 7: He could easily do that tomorrow. And the idea that
Speaker 7: we cannot.
Speaker 1: Kara just got very sad.
Speaker 4: That's not a real thing, and it's a real thing.
Speaker 6: But Kari, why is that not a real thing?
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this makaark. Is it not a
Speaker 1: real thing technically or is it not a real thing?
Speaker 1: You think emotionally or technically it's not a real thing.
Speaker 4: I think technically emotionally.
Speaker 5: First of all, I mean the way this works is
Speaker 5: and I love the kind of land that we're living
Speaker 5: in where one can assume that Joe Biden can say
Speaker 5: that I don't have the ability to run for reelection
Speaker 5: after I've already announce that I am, after I've done
Speaker 5: all of these things, raised all of these money, These
Speaker 5: money's had the infrastructure around the country, But yet I
Speaker 5: don't have it in me to finish this campaign.
Speaker 7: No, he had say I can't win. I can't win
Speaker 7: because all the holding says he can't win.
Speaker 5: Yet I can still be President of the United States.
Speaker 5: So those things are not those can't.
Speaker 6: Win ones can't win when's this multi month job and
Speaker 6: one is auditioning for a four year job.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm also jump in and say, like, look,
Speaker 1: nobody actually knows now things are looking dire for the president,
Speaker 1: but four months I think any of us would agree
Speaker 1: in a modern media timeline is for fucking ever, it
Speaker 1: really is. I think we I think we confuse this idea.
Speaker 1: You know, we just saw France lose terribly in the
Speaker 1: parliamentary elections. Mat Cron jumps out with a snap election.
Speaker 1: He jumps in there. Weeks later, they've stemmed the tide
Speaker 1: of La pen. I mean, it can be done. All right,
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Okay, we're back. And that's my point, Macary.
Speaker 1: We are complacent, and that complacency sets in a cynicism
Speaker 1: with the American public. And I think you're giving us
Speaker 1: a binary choice that's not real. I don't necessarily agree,
Speaker 1: oh Biden can't win or Kamala can't when we just
Speaker 1: don't know and the world changes so quickly and we
Speaker 1: don't know about those things. But here's what I do know.
Speaker 1: It's not a binary choice. President Biden's defiance I don't
Speaker 1: think is the right strategy. I think the idea of
Speaker 1: not acknowledging the progressive and degenerative nature of what he's
Speaker 1: dealing with is gaslighting anybody who supports him, and of
Speaker 1: him going out there with bromides about Joey. My dad
Speaker 1: said to me, Joey, it's not about how you get
Speaker 1: knocked down, it's about how you get up. And You're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know that you can get up, sir. I
Speaker 1: think that's really not the metaphor you want to go with.
Speaker 1: And there's no shame in that. We all get there.
Speaker 1: So I don't understand there is an opportunity here to
Speaker 1: have a more honest, adult, sophisticated Fuck the media, fuck
Speaker 1: whatever they're gonna say. You are in control of how
Speaker 1: this goes down, and don't. I think they're bungling even
Speaker 1: the response. Butkary no, and so I don't. I've never
Speaker 1: said this choice has been binary. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: people who analyze as races being binary, and I may
Speaker 1: have missed your point have it wrong, because I've always
Speaker 1: said that and where I am right now today, the
Speaker 1: choices are Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and the couch that
Speaker 1: those are the three choices that people have in this race.
Speaker 1: And so I think I disagree with that, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out why you feel that that is
Speaker 1: that it is all etched in stone.
Speaker 5: Joe Biden owns this decision. And so if we want
Speaker 5: to spend our time pressuring Joe Biden, by all means,
Speaker 5: continue to tweet, continue to talk about it, do those
Speaker 5: things take that upper level. I've never in the history
Speaker 5: of history seen a white man see he's the most
Speaker 5: powerful man in the world. See all of that power
Speaker 5: to anyone, let alone a black woman.
Speaker 1: That's well gandallf I don't know if you remember Gandalf.
Speaker 1: I believe he.
Speaker 5: And Two, I disagree with the political climate where anybody
Speaker 5: says that you cannot run for president but you can
Speaker 5: still be president. Now, all of that's conjecture, none of
Speaker 5: that is technical, but I have a I know in
Speaker 5: the field.
Speaker 1: Day, but it isn't that anybody who's already served two terms.
Speaker 1: I mean, they they're president, but they're not running if
Speaker 1: it's your second term.
Speaker 5: But they're not quitting. That's that's a given, like you'll
Speaker 5: you'll be quitting the campaign.
Speaker 6: Johnk you mentioned the French beating fascism. You know how
Speaker 6: they beat fascism two candidate. It's stepped down in various
Speaker 6: district races so they wouldn't split the vote against the
Speaker 6: far right. That is how the French people.
Speaker 1: They put country over party.
Speaker 6: They put country over party. And when Joe Biden is
Speaker 6: the official nominee, I will shut the fuck up, and
Speaker 6: I will march, and I will fight for him, and
Speaker 6: I will knock on doors, and I'll donate and do
Speaker 6: whatever it takes. But this is an extraordinary situation and
Speaker 6: it is time for courageous action, and we have a
Speaker 6: window between now in the official nomination of Joe Biden
Speaker 6: where we can do something that's never been done before
Speaker 6: in our history. And I just don't agree that a
Speaker 6: mini primary is fan fiction. I think you could find
Speaker 6: ways to compete for four thousand or so delegates. I'm
Speaker 6: not saying you're saying that. I'm thinking that's what's out there. Like,
Speaker 6: you could find a way to compete for those delegates.
Speaker 6: They will all get together at the convention in Chicago
Speaker 6: and nominate. But if Biden doesn't want to do that,
Speaker 6: he is an excellent communicator in Kamala Harris waiting in
Speaker 6: the wings, and I think the subtext you hear from
Speaker 6: a lot of Biden supporters.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying you Bikari is.
Speaker 6: They're like, look, if Joe steps down, it's got to
Speaker 6: be Kamala and she's no, I am dad. She's not
Speaker 6: good at running. Yeah, they're criticizing her right there they are.
Speaker 6: They are knifing her on background in these stories, being
Speaker 6: like commas, numbers are terrible, she can't win.
Speaker 1: And I to buy the administration is doing that. People
Speaker 1: in the Biden administration.
Speaker 6: Supporters jug Joe Biden are absolutely.
Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly so, yeah they are.
Speaker 6: But they did it publicly.
Speaker 7: They put out a memboy where where he was she
Speaker 7: was doing worse than him against Trump. That was the
Speaker 7: first memo they put out after the debate, which I
Speaker 7: wouldn't have done to my vice president. But here's the
Speaker 7: here's here's all that matters. Yeah, Donald Trump is leading
Speaker 7: by more than he has ever led in a race
Speaker 7: for president.
Speaker 4: Right now.
Speaker 7: He is leading by more than any Republican has led
Speaker 7: at this point in a race in a general election
Speaker 7: in twenty years.
Speaker 4: Okay, since George Bush.
Speaker 7: Perhaps all the polling is wrong, but then you'd also
Speaker 7: have to explain why the same polls that have Joe
Speaker 7: Biden down all these Senate Democrats and tough races are competitive.
Speaker 7: So then you say, okay, well, we got couple.
Speaker 4: Months to turn around.
Speaker 7: Could he turn around? Yes, It's not that he can't win,
Speaker 7: it's the question is is Joe Biden facing We're facing
Speaker 7: Donald Trump and a threat to democracy, an existential threat
Speaker 7: to democracy as we are all, as Joe Biden says,
Speaker 7: And the question is, is Joe Biden the best candidate
Speaker 7: to give us the chance? Does he give us the
Speaker 7: best chance to defeat Donald Trump? Knowing that he has
Speaker 7: not been formally nominated yet, and he could make the
Speaker 7: decision himself to step down. And you know what, Joe Biden,
Speaker 7: who is an eighty one year old white guy Catholic
Speaker 7: who became president, has moderated his views a lot and
Speaker 7: listen to people a lot in the last several years.
Speaker 7: And when progressives push him on something or moderates push
Speaker 7: on something, Joe Biden listens, and he takes in his advice,
Speaker 7: and then he makes decisions based on what people are
Speaker 7: telling him. So the idea that we and I know
Speaker 7: that you said this is okay, Kerry, But like in
Speaker 7: the next couple of weeks, the idea that we all
Speaker 7: don't have influence on this decision when we're talking to
Speaker 7: members of Congress, and then members of Congress are talking
Speaker 7: to the President, Like, I think it's worth making a
Speaker 7: run at asking him to reconsider this because they haven't
Speaker 7: shown us a plan the Biden campaign of how they went.
Speaker 7: They haven't shown us any of their data, they haven't
Speaker 7: shown us a path they haven't made. They haven't talked
Speaker 7: about how he's going to turn it around. There's just
Speaker 7: been nothing. And like, I think it's weird that they
Speaker 7: think that the Joe Biden we saw on stage has
Speaker 7: a is a better has a better shot of beating
Speaker 7: Donald Trump than Kamala Harris, the first black woman vice
Speaker 7: president that he chose for the job, who is a
Speaker 7: fantastic communicator.
Speaker 4: Like, I just don't understand. So let me there.
Speaker 5: There are a lot of things, a lot of nuggets
Speaker 5: I just want to jump. I it looks if if
Speaker 5: Joe Biden decides one morning he wakes up after Catholic Mass,
Speaker 5: I think the most important day is actually, you know, Thursday, Thursday.
Speaker 5: If he's if he if he if he goes out
Speaker 5: there and falls down literally then okay, but is.
Speaker 1: That really where we're at at the president, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying that.
Speaker 4: Then then he may be like, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 5: Okay, I don't know, but but if he'd then I
Speaker 5: want to push back on the fact that it's an
Speaker 5: open primary.
Speaker 4: It's not an open primary. It's Kamala Harris's race.
Speaker 5: I mean, she will be the nominee and the fact
Speaker 5: is she should actually be president of the United States
Speaker 5: to make her stronger going into that, I mean, that's just.
Speaker 1: Just doesn't that undercut somewhat? It is what it is,
Speaker 1: like you're now laying out I think a scenario that's plausible,
Speaker 1: but I'm just also maybe even stronger.
Speaker 5: My complete thought is this, while we are, while you
Speaker 5: guys are launching a pressure campaign, which is effectively what
Speaker 5: it is.
Speaker 1: But I want to tell you something. So this is
Speaker 1: what I would object to, this idea that this is
Speaker 1: a pressure campaign. What it is is a visceral response
Speaker 1: emotionally to something shocking that was seen. Joe Biden has
Speaker 1: run on this idea of honesty and decency, but they
Speaker 1: have not been honest about the condition and the difficulties
Speaker 1: that he has been facing. And so it undercuts one
Speaker 1: of the foundational arguments that they even have made. So
Speaker 1: this is not a campaign. I am not working in
Speaker 1: coordination with various people. I have a platform, and I
Speaker 1: have been stunned and disappointed and angered by what I
Speaker 1: saw and how I've been talked to that I didn't
Speaker 1: see what I saw.
Speaker 5: That's all you saw. My point is you saw what
Speaker 5: you saw. You're outraged by what you saw. You have
Speaker 5: every right, all three of you all to be as
Speaker 5: visceral and have whatever reaction you want to have to it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: My only point is that there's going to come at
Speaker 5: point in time in the next two weeks maybe where
Speaker 5: I am working over the next two weeks to try
Speaker 5: to get Joe Biden reelected. Right, that's my goal because
Speaker 5: he's the nominee, he's the presumptive nominee. If that changes,
Speaker 5: which I really do not believe it is going to change.
Speaker 1: But do you want it to change, Bakary? I guess
Speaker 1: it's my question. Do you think we have a better
Speaker 1: chance if it does change? Bacary?
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I really don't know the answer.
Speaker 1: So there shows so it isn't what it is, is
Speaker 1: my point.
Speaker 5: But my point is that I think a lot of
Speaker 5: people have backup quarterback syndrome, they really do.
Speaker 1: I agree with that. I agree with that, and I'm Patriots.
Speaker 6: We had a hot ass backup quarterback.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, but you don't know, you maybe
Speaker 1: have Tom Brady or maybe you got Tommy cutlets. You
Speaker 1: don't know until you do them.
Speaker 4: Drew Bledsoe got a raw deal.
Speaker 7: By the way, is Drew Bletsoe the Joe Biden of
Speaker 7: this metaphor?
Speaker 4: Is that what we're Let me you know what it is.
Speaker 4: Let everybody love me, Harris.
Speaker 6: Tom Brady, maybe let me.
Speaker 1: Let me change the metaphor. Let me change the metaphor,
Speaker 1: and I'll throw this to John and Tommy. So we
Speaker 1: talked earlier about the French, you know, putting down fascism
Speaker 1: on the thing. I'm going to give you another metaphor
Speaker 1: about the French. In the nineteen thirties, as Germany was
Speaker 1: building up their armaments, the French decided on a strategy
Speaker 1: to defeat fascism. It was called the Magineo Wall, and
Speaker 1: they built it. And they were a series of giant
Speaker 1: concrete bunkers, stationary with guns all pointing in one direction.
Speaker 1: And the German came through the area and went oh,
Speaker 1: I think we can just go around this, and they
Speaker 1: went around it and then just fut and destroyed it.
Speaker 1: And that can't that also be a metaphor that this
Speaker 1: idea of no, this is our plan, it's rigid, it's
Speaker 1: status quo, it's all facing in one direction, and it's
Speaker 1: utterly incapable of holding off that onslaught And that was
Speaker 1: the last time I tried to defeat fascism. I guess
Speaker 1: what they didn't.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think my part of why I'm
Speaker 6: so concerned Bakari is because I watched the debate and
Speaker 6: I was like, man, that was really bad, but let's
Speaker 6: give him a little time to do some more things.
Speaker 6: Then I watched the ABC News interview, and frankly, it
Speaker 6: made me more concerned because it was at times incoherent. Again,
Speaker 6: during some of the radio interviews he did, where it
Speaker 6: turns out his campaign actually gave the host the questions
Speaker 6: like those didn't go particularly smoothly. Morning Joe wasn't great
Speaker 6: and you could hear him reading papers, and so I'm
Speaker 6: I'm not trying to be a dick like I have
Speaker 6: a lot of love and affection for Joe Biden and
Speaker 6: people in that white House. But the guy has not
Speaker 6: been doing things off teleprompter, and he has not shown
Speaker 6: us that he can run the kind of campaign that
Speaker 6: he needs to run to win. And like you mentioned,
Speaker 6: a pressure campaign. I mean, I'm seeing quotes from state
Speaker 6: party leader is saying, look, we can't say what we
Speaker 6: really think, we can't articulate what the grassroots is saying,
Speaker 6: because we'll get punished by the Democratic Party and we'll
Speaker 6: get robbed of resources. So that to me is kind
Speaker 6: of the worrisome omerta that's happened.
Speaker 7: And I'm sure mccari you're probably seeing these two, but
Speaker 7: like the private polls are coming back, the internal polls
Speaker 7: from like the Senate races, and it's freaking people out.
Speaker 7: It's like Biden down ten in Pennsylvania, Biden down six
Speaker 7: in Wisconsin, even as Bob Casey's up two and Tammy
Speaker 7: Baldwin's up three and and a lot of these House
Speaker 7: members are seeing it in their districts. Safe Biden districts
Speaker 7: are starting to look bad, like New York State.
Speaker 1: Why do you guys see all this stuff? How come
Speaker 1: I don't get to see it?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think this is siloed, Like this is
Speaker 5: kind of siloed. This is what happens when you this
Speaker 5: type of you know, visceral maybe rightfully so hysteria.
Speaker 4: I mean people literally, really.
Speaker 1: This is the tail wagon the dog.
Speaker 5: Bakari people are panicked, right and they're panicked, and so
Speaker 5: you're so you're seeing the reflection of that panic.
Speaker 1: But Bakari people are panicked for a.
Speaker 5: Reason, rightfully so, because they saw it. I'm not disagreeing, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm not disagreeing with that.
Speaker 7: Beninson had a poll out. They did a post debate poll,
Speaker 7: and voters who watched the entire debate prefer Trump over
Speaker 7: Biden by fifty one to forty six. Voters who didn't
Speaker 7: watch the debate are split forty three for Biden forty
Speaker 7: for Trump. So you actually Biden did better with people
Speaker 7: who didn't watch the debate or heard about the debate
Speaker 7: than he did with people who actually watched the WHI
Speaker 7: show us. It's not the hysteria or the reaction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a big book.
Speaker 4: I'm worrying people.
Speaker 6: It was the debate and polls.
Speaker 5: When was the last time a debate? Yeah, I know,
Speaker 5: when was the last time a debate dictated who was
Speaker 5: going to be president of the United States. And by
Speaker 5: the way, what was the question of John and Tommy?
Speaker 5: Because I do I do have a I do have
Speaker 5: like a scientific question. Oh, I was looking at all
Speaker 5: these I was looking at all these all these polls
Speaker 5: come out about Senate candidates. And I saw one poll
Speaker 5: in particular where Tammy Baldwin was up five points or
Speaker 5: six points and and Joe Biden was down five points
Speaker 5: or six points, which would mean in the state of Wisconsin,
Speaker 5: there are the math is like two hundred or three
Speaker 5: hundred thousand split ticket voters, which is something that's never
Speaker 5: happened in the history of mankind. Why do we think
Speaker 5: that the fundamentals of this race will be that vastly different?
Speaker 5: When to John's point, like I hear you, John, Like
Speaker 5: the under the undergirding foundation of who Joe Biden is
Speaker 5: is honesty, indecency, right, But you don't look at that
Speaker 5: in a vacuum.
Speaker 4: The question is is tertier is three three things?
Speaker 5: Like do you think that he's more honest and decent
Speaker 5: than Donald Trump? Or do you want to stay home?
Speaker 7: That's the scenario we're in after the Democratic Convention. If
Speaker 7: Joe Biden's the nominee, like complete, I completely or the convention.
Speaker 7: But I hear you that's before I'm sorry, yeah, whenever
Speaker 7: he whenever they do the roll call thing.
Speaker 1: I think I think that's too cynical. Honestly, I think
Speaker 1: that's the idea that like, hey, it's it's the it's
Speaker 1: the almighty all the alternative or whatever the pro mine.
Speaker 5: Don't compare me, don't compare me to the the alternative,
Speaker 5: to the alternative look, which is what I use with
Speaker 5: my wife and our ex boyfriend of the You.
Speaker 1: Know, my god, are you the cart? Are you getting
Speaker 1: I'm married in your own married?
Speaker 4: I'm married. No. No. What I've done is I've eliminated
Speaker 4: the opposition. I am selling to the.
Speaker 1: Uh, all right, well we'll be right back. Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1: So you know, when when there's a large threat, there's
Speaker 1: two things that you define. You define the threat and
Speaker 1: then you define your defenses. All I'm saying is, if
Speaker 1: we are taking an honest look at what our best
Speaker 1: chance to defend ourselves against a perceived threat, I think
Speaker 1: we are selling ourselves short and in a lot of ways, using,
Speaker 1: as as Tommy put it Omerica to stifle what could
Speaker 1: be an incredibly productive at least conversation. Even if Joe
Speaker 1: Biden came out and said, look, I understand where I'm
Speaker 1: at in my lifespan and cycle and what I do.
Speaker 1: Here's how this government works. Rather than coming out and
Speaker 1: becoming trumpion and saying you think someone else could hold
Speaker 1: NATO together, they could never. Only God can tell me
Speaker 1: to get out of the race, Like if you were
Speaker 1: to come out and say, here's my team, here's how
Speaker 1: we hold the line. But we're not seeing any of that.
Speaker 1: Nothing that's been done inspires any confidence other than the
Speaker 1: fatalism of it is what it is, and this is
Speaker 1: what we're stuck with. And that's the part that I
Speaker 1: think has degraded people's trust and institutions and the government
Speaker 1: from the get go. That's a problem.
Speaker 4: I'm a blend of both.
Speaker 5: It is what it is, and I'm working towards what
Speaker 5: I believe to be the ultimate goal, which is to
Speaker 5: defeat Donald Trump. While others are having discussions about the
Speaker 5: visceral reaction they add to the debate and alternatives, but
Speaker 5: I also think those discussions are decently healthy. Again, I
Speaker 5: don't I'm not trying to excommunicate the pod boys. I'm
Speaker 5: mad they were listed in the email, the blast email.
Speaker 4: Right, I'm not poddamn. I actually have a sticker that
Speaker 4: says pricks for Pricks for Biden. So like I'm not.
Speaker 5: I think I think the discussion is healthy because I'm
Speaker 5: going to need all of you all if I'm going
Speaker 5: to win this race, and I'm going to need all
Speaker 5: of you all to want to put every ounce of
Speaker 5: your being in.
Speaker 4: Although we disagree on who the.
Speaker 5: Nominee is or who we believe the nominee will be,
Speaker 5: I am still, you know, working towards that same goal,
Speaker 5: which is to rid ourselves of fascism, because I believe
Speaker 5: after November, if Donald Trump is re elected, it can
Speaker 5: go really bad, really quickly.
Speaker 1: Guys, let me ask you this. You know, when you
Speaker 1: talk about uh kind of ridding ourselves that, what do
Speaker 1: I do with my anger at a Democratic Party that
Speaker 1: honestly has put us in this rock in a hard
Speaker 1: place position that wasn't honest over this past year about
Speaker 1: what was happening internally at the White House, was not
Speaker 1: in any way preparing the public for Kamala Harris, wasn't
Speaker 1: doing any of that. There was a I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's complacency or deceit or whatever it was, but
Speaker 1: a Democratic party that missed all of the threats that
Speaker 1: were coming their way and has left us vulnerable here.
Speaker 6: I just think, you know, I hear you there. I
Speaker 6: think Bacari's right that normally in coming presidents run again,
Speaker 6: and I think President he said would. There was a
Speaker 6: suggestion that he would not run for reelection, that he
Speaker 6: would be the bridge the next generation. I believe that
Speaker 6: by the way, I suggest what he said, yes, but
Speaker 6: he never said I will not run again. And heyway
Speaker 6: stepping that aside. I think President Biden and his advisors
Speaker 6: took the wrong message from the twenty twenty two midterms
Speaker 6: that it was somehow about support for the White House,
Speaker 6: when in reality it was Donald Trump helping elevate some
Speaker 6: really terrible candidates like doctor Oz who got their clocks
Speaker 6: cleaned right, and then he made his decision to run again.
Speaker 6: And it sounds like, I don't know, I'm not around
Speaker 6: Joe Biden ever. I've seen two or three times in
Speaker 6: the last six months, but it sounds.
Speaker 1: Like the's a lot of time that's humble, humble, humble.
Speaker 6: B Well, listen, we saw him in an lay fundraiser
Speaker 6: out here.
Speaker 4: We had a couple of blight.
Speaker 6: Let me, let me, let me contectualize that I saw
Speaker 6: him in person at a fundraiser, and then I watched
Speaker 6: them on the debate. And the in person fundraiser I
Speaker 6: saw in Los Angeles a couple weeks before the debate
Speaker 6: was as bad as the debate. Everyone I walked out
Speaker 6: of the debate with John was there. We were talking
Speaker 6: to people around us in seats in the fundraising, people
Speaker 6: we didn't know, and this fundraiser and we were like,
Speaker 6: that was chilling in fact, And George Clooney just wrote
Speaker 6: an up at about how we need to know and
Speaker 6: he he hosted the fundraiser and he just said the
Speaker 6: same thing in the New York Times, which is what
Speaker 6: everyone at the fundraiser thought. Like everyone was there, like
Speaker 6: what happened? And he had just fallen back from Italy, right,
Speaker 6: so like everyone was like, oh, he must just be
Speaker 6: so unbelievably jet lagged. But obviously there is a more
Speaker 6: dystemic problem.
Speaker 7: Well, and that's why I don't think it was some
Speaker 7: It's not some conspiracy. Like I saw him. I was
Speaker 7: at the White House and I saw him in December
Speaker 7: of twenty two, and I thought he was fine. He like,
Speaker 7: remember he recognized my mother in law from meeting her
Speaker 7: in twenty eighteen. Like I was like, oh, he's not.
Speaker 7: I mean, he looks older and he sounds older, but
Speaker 7: he's fine. And then I saw him the night before
Speaker 7: the Correspondents dinner and he looked like he did at
Speaker 7: this LA fundraiser and at the debate, and I was
Speaker 7: very worried. And then the next night at the correspondents dinner,
Speaker 7: he gave a good speech and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 7: maybe he was just tired. So I do think people
Speaker 7: were wrestling with this, like maybe he's tired maybe, but like,
Speaker 7: look to your point question about the Democratic Party, this
Speaker 7: is a decision that Joe Biden and his closest advisors
Speaker 7: have made, and no one else like Joe Biden could
Speaker 7: have stepped aside, Like no Democratic I wanted to challenge
Speaker 7: a sitting president during a primary because they usually you
Speaker 7: don't beat a sitting president, right, Joe Biden made the
Speaker 7: decision to run. He and his advisors made the decision
Speaker 7: to run again, even though he said he'd be a bridge,
Speaker 7: even though he selected Kamala Harris, who they could have
Speaker 7: built up and said okay, now, I'm going to pass
Speaker 7: the baton to you. He made the decision to run,
Speaker 7: and so we were all left to say, Okay. The
Speaker 7: rest of the Democratic Party was like, all right, you
Speaker 7: guys are telling us you're the best chance. You're our
Speaker 7: best chance to beat Donald Trump again, to stave off fascism.
Speaker 7: We trust you. It's on you, guys. And then we
Speaker 7: got that debate, and then we got all the interviews afterwards.
Speaker 7: So it's like, I'm only interested in beating Donald Trump too,
Speaker 7: like we all are. That's the that's the number. I'm
Speaker 7: terrified of what will happen if Donald Trump win. I
Speaker 7: just don't know that Joe Biden is our best shot
Speaker 7: to do that anymore.
Speaker 6: When if we put points on the board, was the
Speaker 6: last time Joe Biden put points on the board? The
Speaker 6: State of the Union? You know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 6: what is the last good moment you guys remember, well.
Speaker 4: State of the Union. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I mean I try not to just stay tuned into
Speaker 5: the Washington Post in New York.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, listen, it's you know, the needle's going to
Speaker 1: move here and there and small.
Speaker 4: I think this is but this is what drives me crazy.
Speaker 5: About Democrats of the frame by which we like, you know,
Speaker 5: I remember in October, right Access Hollywood came out, Donald
Speaker 5: Trump was grabbing women by the bussy, right, and then
Speaker 5: soon thereafter the bottom fell out. Poles were showing that
Speaker 5: Donald Trump was getting his behind kick that all the
Speaker 5: Senate candidates were like, oh my god, like this man
Speaker 5: cannot be at the top of the ticket. Rant's previous
Speaker 5: actually walked up to the top of Trump Tower to
Speaker 5: try to convince him to drop out the race. Rants
Speaker 5: at the time was the chair of the RNC, and
Speaker 5: Donald Trump told him to go kick rocks right, go
Speaker 5: pounds in right. But what we saw after that, after
Speaker 5: he was resolved to stay in the race, we saw
Speaker 5: everyone then, I mean, and Republicans do this so well.
Speaker 4: They just fall in line, they don't fall in love.
Speaker 5: They gathered around, they got behind this guy who is
Speaker 5: a narcissistic sociopath, and they ushered him into the White House.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: But Curry, do you think that would have happened had
Speaker 7: the Access Hollywood tape come out a month before the
Speaker 7: republic Convention back in twenty sixteen, and Rant's previous and
Speaker 7: all those Republicans Ted Cruz, who spoke at that convention
Speaker 7: and was like, spoke out against Trump at the convention,
Speaker 7: even though he later fell in line like this is
Speaker 7: it's a different scenarios.
Speaker 4: I was like, where are you going with this? Where
Speaker 4: are you going with the taps?
Speaker 7: A different scenario Like if we were if this was October,
Speaker 7: this was the third week in October, we wouldn't be
Speaker 7: having this conversation right now, right like, we wouldn't be
Speaker 7: having the conversation.
Speaker 1: And Bakari I would also suggest, you know, Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: on the eve of it all, it came out he
Speaker 1: had had an affair camera Jennifer Flowers I think it was,
Speaker 1: and then it was the Paula Jones situation, and then
Speaker 1: there was the Monica Lewinsky situation, and Democrats did fall
Speaker 1: in line. There were I mean, people made, oh this
Speaker 1: is terrible and I'm disappointed with a president, but ultimately
Speaker 1: the Democrats did fall in line. I think that you
Speaker 1: are soft selling the more fundamental aspect of people viewing
Speaker 1: somebody who I'll be perfectly honest with you, I don't
Speaker 1: know of a job interview that you could have gone
Speaker 1: on and delivered the performance that was delivered by Joe
Speaker 1: Biden and gotten a job. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: the presidency. I'm talking about like cashier at home, deep,
Speaker 1: like a job that you would not think, Okay, that
Speaker 1: that is the hardest job in the entire world.
Speaker 5: The only problem with that, John, and the only problem
Speaker 5: with framing it as such, is the fact that you
Speaker 5: discount everything that he's accomplished in the first three and
Speaker 5: a half years.
Speaker 1: No, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't know what you do.
Speaker 1: But he's just running for what he did through and
Speaker 1: a year. He's running for the next four.
Speaker 4: But nothing happens in a vacuum.
Speaker 5: And what we what we have to do is people
Speaker 5: just want to my friends, my friends on the left,
Speaker 5: we want to only magnify what we saw on at
Speaker 5: the debate, Which is fine.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 5: We're talking about age, but I'm also talking about the
Speaker 5: accomplishments prior to and the threat that is right down
Speaker 5: the road. And I think, I mean, we do ourselves
Speaker 5: a disservice by saying our guy is old. We know
Speaker 5: that he shuffles old.
Speaker 1: It's not Bakaria. I think, what is it. It is
Speaker 1: cognitive decline. It's not just age, it's cognitive decline.
Speaker 7: At very least it's an inability to communicate, right, Like
Speaker 7: I'm not a doctor, but like he can't. We need
Speaker 7: the candidate that we run for president needs to be
Speaker 7: able to communicate effectively. That's just the most base of
Speaker 7: the job. It's the most basic part of the job
Speaker 7: of being a candidate for presidents. You need to communicate effectively.
Speaker 7: And if you can't do that, well.
Speaker 1: Reassure us that here's how we operate in that environment.
Speaker 1: But to suggest that this discounts three and a half years,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. But it does give you a window into
Speaker 1: the next four. And if you look at his performance
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty versus his performance in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: there is inexorable decline. It's just no, it's undeniable. So
Speaker 1: what I don't understand is, Okay, fine, he stays, but
Speaker 1: deal with it head on, stop pretending, stop gaslighting, Like.
Speaker 5: That's fine, deal with it head on, that's fine. I
Speaker 5: don't want to silence the debate. I think it's fine.
Speaker 5: I think it's healthy talk about it. Don't gaslight pope,
Speaker 5: that's fine, Like, I'm cool with that, But I'm also
Speaker 5: saying that there is a fucking monster that is November fourth, fifth,
Speaker 5: sixth whenever.
Speaker 6: You election agree, I know, I think I know so.
Speaker 6: And we're getting our asses kicked by the Monster's right,
Speaker 6: That's what we're worried about. We're worried about the monster.
Speaker 4: Listen, polls our reflection in time.
Speaker 5: And I do think that a lot of the hysteria
Speaker 5: that we are self inflicting upon ourselves causes a lot
Speaker 5: of the reflection that we're seeing in these polls. And
Speaker 5: I would also argue that in thirty forty five days,
Speaker 5: you're going to see a race that is once again
Speaker 5: neck and neck and tight around the country.
Speaker 7: It's a very polarized, closely divided electorate. The safest bed
Speaker 7: is a close race, and it's been a close race, right.
Speaker 7: But I have seen and I've sat in these focus groups.
Speaker 7: You've sat in these focus groups for like the last
Speaker 7: several years, and people just they are concerned swing voters,
Speaker 7: undecided voters, young black voters, young people, Latino voters. They
Speaker 7: say over and over again, they're worried that Joe Biden's
Speaker 7: too old to be president, and they they they respect him.
Speaker 7: They don't like Donald Trump very much. They think Donald
Speaker 7: Trump's a liar. Some of them think Donald Trump's quite dangerous,
Speaker 7: but they're like, I don't think Joe Biden's up for it,
Speaker 7: and they've been telling us this for three years now.
Speaker 1: I can tell you anecdotally the individuals like my mom
Speaker 1: and are friends who were all in responded to that
Speaker 1: debate with tears and with fears and with reality. And
Speaker 1: the administration's inability to deal with that honestly and forthrightly,
Speaker 1: to me is almost more damaging than the actual debate itself,
Speaker 1: and it shows a disconnect with or an inability to
Speaker 1: be agile and honest, and that's more troublesome to me
Speaker 1: than almost anything else.
Speaker 5: Don't disagree with anything you said. My only point would
Speaker 5: be that my mommy and her friends, who usually are
Speaker 5: the ones who determine who the Democratic Party nominee is,
Speaker 5: the black women in her chat group, they refer to
Speaker 5: themselves as the quote unquote posse.
Speaker 1: They were they were.
Speaker 5: Hurt, they were saddened. They said he got his ass kicked,
Speaker 5: they said he was old as hell. But at the
Speaker 5: end of the day they were more resolved than ever
Speaker 5: to call their girlfriends and say we don't vote for him.
Speaker 5: And then one thing they admonished us or monish me
Speaker 5: about was we don't need any more chaos.
Speaker 4: They don't want any more chaos.
Speaker 5: They're gonna ride with Joe Biden, and they don't want
Speaker 5: they don't want an open convention.
Speaker 4: They don't want to they don't want any of that.
Speaker 1: But you don't think you don't think White knuckling it
Speaker 1: with Joe Biden's chaos.
Speaker 4: It's but it's the chaos we know.
Speaker 1: I mean that.
Speaker 6: I think that's a fair argument. I'll take carry one
Speaker 6: thing you mentioned though, Like you mentioned like we're not
Speaker 6: talking about Joe Biden's accomplishments, and like, oh look, we
Speaker 6: we do a show a couple of times weeks. We've
Speaker 6: talked about those accomplishments constantly. And I give Joe Biden
Speaker 6: a ton of credit.
Speaker 4: I mean, the global we everybody.
Speaker 6: I give him credit for a climate change, the infrastructor
Speaker 6: Bill Ukraine, right, all the things he's done.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 6: But what is really glaring about this White House and
Speaker 6: Joe Biden himself is he does not have a message
Speaker 6: about the next four years. They are not talking about
Speaker 6: what he's going to do, why he's the only person
Speaker 6: he's going to do it. He is just like pointing
Speaker 6: to things he's done kind of angrily and being like,
Speaker 6: why am I not getting credit for holding NATO together?
Speaker 6: And Aucus switched? No one knows what that is.
Speaker 4: By the way, the.
Speaker 6: Nuclear submarine deal with the Australians, How the fuck is
Speaker 6: that coming up in these conversations, like, that's not your talk.
Speaker 1: I have voted in every election in the past twenty
Speaker 1: years on Aucus.
Speaker 6: Oh, the Aucus caucus. We're the Aucus caucus. The ship
Speaker 6: has sailed on getting credit from these things. Voters are like,
Speaker 6: we don't care.
Speaker 5: I heartily agree with you, and so prior to the debate,
Speaker 5: my main line was that I very rarely talk about
Speaker 5: Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the same sentence per
Speaker 5: se as I characterize him. Other than the fact that
Speaker 5: I felt both of them were prisoners of yesterday, I
Speaker 5: felt both of them just like it was for a
Speaker 5: different reason, Like Joe Biden has this weird nostalgia for
Speaker 5: like swimming in pools with pop pop, right, it's kind
Speaker 5: of freaky. And then Donald Trump, Donald Trump has this
Speaker 5: He's like the king of white grievance from yester year. Yes,
Speaker 5: and I think that both of them have a fundamentally
Speaker 5: Project twenty five is what it is.
Speaker 4: But you take that away.
Speaker 5: Both of them have a hard time articulating a vision
Speaker 5: for the future. And that's when I think age matters,
Speaker 5: because one is seventy eight and the other is eighty one,
Speaker 5: and it's very difficult when you're eighty one or seventy
Speaker 5: eight to talk about a future that you may not
Speaker 5: be a part of, right, and that is the prisoner
Speaker 5: of age. And so I agree with you wholeheartedly that
Speaker 5: I've been pushing them to lay out a vision for
Speaker 5: the future. And I don't know when they're gonna start
Speaker 5: doing that other than our you know, because right now
Speaker 5: they're kind of fighting from the backside to side. I mean,
Speaker 5: they're so busy beating up on y'all and John Stewart
Speaker 5: that they don't really they don't have time on today.
Speaker 4: But I believe it around mystic.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'll wrap it up with this because
Speaker 1: I know everybody's got to get going, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to say this Tommy, John and then Bacary you can
Speaker 1: have the last word. With all the headwinds and obstacles
Speaker 1: and front of us, I remain incredibly optimistic about the
Speaker 1: resilience of the system that we're fighting over. I do
Speaker 1: believe that the challenges that are in front of us
Speaker 1: are some of them intractable. But also you know, I
Speaker 1: never there's never despair in any of this. It is
Speaker 1: always all right. I guess it's buckling down. So I
Speaker 1: would ask you guys to maybe answer the question, what
Speaker 1: about the resilience of this system still gives you a
Speaker 1: hope in that?
Speaker 6: I mean, I do think you make an important point
Speaker 6: that it's we can't all speak in apocalyptic terms, and
Speaker 6: the left and the right does this, the country will
Speaker 6: exist the.
Speaker 1: Day after the election.
Speaker 4: If Donald Trump is president.
Speaker 6: I do think he might change core things about our
Speaker 6: democracy that we can't undo and just fundamentally change the
Speaker 6: character of this country. And so that's why I am
Speaker 6: happy to be the stupid podbro cracker talking about this now,
Speaker 6: because I do think the risk is real, and it's
Speaker 6: if Barack Obama lost a Mitt Romney, there would have
Speaker 6: been a different policy agenda implemented. I think Donald Trump
Speaker 6: could change the character of the country in a fundamental
Speaker 6: and dangerous way.
Speaker 7: Right, I think we have there's two choices, Right, you
Speaker 7: quit and then bad shit happens, or you try and fight, right,
Speaker 7: And I think that's what we're all trying to do
Speaker 7: right now and trying to stave off the threat of
Speaker 7: Donald Trump again. And I think what makes me optimistic
Speaker 7: is like when you talk to voters, right, voters, I
Speaker 7: know it drive They drive everyone crazy. They're complicated, they
Speaker 7: don't follow politics very closelier than news, but they're sensible
Speaker 7: and smart and know what they see. And when you
Speaker 7: make a persuasive case that is rooted in honesty and
Speaker 7: reality to voters, you do have a chance to change
Speaker 7: minds and change minds, meaning get people off the couch
Speaker 7: to the polls, or get people to change who they're
Speaker 7: going to vote for. And so I never want to
Speaker 7: give up on that, and that makes me hopeful. But
Speaker 7: I do think you have to make an argument to
Speaker 7: voters that meets them where they are and is base
Speaker 7: in reality of what they saw, which is why the
Speaker 7: Biden maintaining Biden as a nominee worries me. That said,
Speaker 7: if he makes the decision, if he refuses to step down,
Speaker 7: and he makes the decision, then we will make an
Speaker 7: honest case to voters, which is like, yeah, Joe Biden's
Speaker 7: too old to run for president, but Donald Trump is
Speaker 7: too dangerous to be president.
Speaker 5: Okry, Yeah, I feel like I'm kind of there. But
Speaker 5: I think what gives me hope, and I think what
Speaker 5: we underestimate sometimes is we are evaluating. This is King
Speaker 5: used to talk about, and he talked about it, and
Speaker 5: I have a dream speech and everybody remembers, like that
Speaker 5: rhythmic cadence if I have a dream that one day
Speaker 5: we shall But we forget about the most important part
Speaker 5: of that speech, when he talks about the fierce urgency
Speaker 5: of now. And I think a lot of times we
Speaker 5: discount the urgency that many people in the electorate voters have,
Speaker 5: as we talked about as you talked about your mama
Speaker 5: and her friends, or your parents and their friends, and
Speaker 5: my MoMA and her friends. The sense of urgency that
Speaker 5: people have, and my hope comes from the fact that
Speaker 5: I believe that there are more people who want to
Speaker 5: see this country move forward, didn't take it back to
Speaker 5: a place that is is dangerous for us all. It
Speaker 5: is dangerous because of who you love, is dangerous because
Speaker 5: you're Jewish, it's dangerous because you're black, it is dangerous
Speaker 5: because you're a woman. And I think that there are
Speaker 5: enough people who have that fierce urgency of now that
Speaker 5: after we get through this little intersquad squabble that we're
Speaker 5: going through right now. You know, whoever comes out the
Speaker 5: tent on the other side, his name of b Joe Biden,
Speaker 5: will carry him. We'll carry him to the finish line,
Speaker 5: like you know, you know, like the old great man
Speaker 5: that he is right.
Speaker 1: It always, it always reminds me, you know, they say
Speaker 1: that what's the quote, the ark of the moral of
Speaker 1: the universe bends towards justice. And what we all have
Speaker 1: to remember is and there's a good percentage of people
Speaker 1: trying to bend it back the other way, and it's
Speaker 1: a lunch pale job to keep it bent. And no
Speaker 1: matter what happens, I don't think that job goes away.
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably where we end. But gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you all very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Of course, we have Bacari, sellers from CNN and political
Speaker 1: commentator and author of The Moment, and John Favreau and
Speaker 1: Tommy Vetera, founders of Crooked Media, host of pod Save
Speaker 1: American and authors of Democracy or Elf How to Save
Speaker 1: America in Ten Easy Steps. So thank you guys very much.
Speaker 7: Thank you, thanks for having us.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's feisty. Yeah, there was a good amount
Speaker 1: of feisty was hot. Bakari wasn't. He wasn't having it.
Speaker 1: We're lucky that we were in separate studios. I was
Speaker 1: afraid one of the pod guys was going to get Weggie.
Speaker 1: I think I think he was going heavy on the
Speaker 1: listen to you nerds boys, you pod boys. There was
Speaker 1: coming after me. The administration is so angry with the
Speaker 1: pod boys and John Stewart Pacari. But I actually thought
Speaker 1: it was a good articulation of kind of the the
Speaker 1: positions there. And I think the it really is that
Speaker 1: it is what it is is the part that I
Speaker 1: think I find so difficult, like that idea that if
Speaker 1: you're not it is what it is, then you are
Speaker 1: somehow fantasy fan fic west Wing toady. I don't know
Speaker 1: how else to put it.
Speaker 2: Well, when you do go down to the logistics of actually,
Speaker 2: you know, switching the candidate, you start wondering would this happen?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: But it can? And you remember, oh, right, conventions they
Speaker 1: used to not actually have a candidate sometimes until after
Speaker 1: the convention. There is this idea that I think they
Speaker 1: are discounting just how much in a modern media environment
Speaker 1: how long four months actually.
Speaker 2: Is and the four months is not the same anymore.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Republicans wouldn't throw up their hands.
Speaker 1: They would just fucking bear down and get done the
Speaker 1: thing they wanted to get done and apologize later easier
Speaker 1: to ask for forgiveness and permission, and they would get
Speaker 1: it done and somehow end up at the supper court
Speaker 1: with it being fine like that. It's the complacency and
Speaker 1: that's the part that just buries my soul.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes me very sad. I just we've stopped
Speaker 3: being able to have conversations teams or even just like
Speaker 3: raise our hand to be like this feels uncomfortable. It's
Speaker 3: just very much like shut the fuck up and get
Speaker 3: in line, right, And.
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, is interesting they brought up he said,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a pressure campaign to get Biden to
Speaker 1: drop out. I would say the opposite. I think the
Speaker 1: pressure campaign is way boys more like a powerwasher coming
Speaker 1: the other way, like, hey, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: guy can Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a bad scene, But
Speaker 1: I would I think it would be a healthier outcome
Speaker 1: for democracy if it showed some ability and flexibility and
Speaker 1: did not continue around this feeling that it's very rigid
Speaker 1: and disconnected from real concerns. But yeah, we will get
Speaker 1: to all the topics though. Oh go ahead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just gonna say, the campaign recognized reality,
Speaker 2: and you know, if addressed it, addressed it exactly, we
Speaker 2: would be in a different place.
Speaker 1: But to all the people that are concerned about some
Speaker 1: of those issues that we had raised that are going
Speaker 1: to be coming up on the podcast, they will We
Speaker 1: do this every week, every fucking week. Yeah, out here,
Speaker 1: day in and day or day one a week and
Speaker 1: day one week. We're going to get to all those
Speaker 1: great topics. Uh, And thank you once again for listening.
Speaker 1: As always, thanks to lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany
Speaker 1: me Medwick, video editor and engineer Behind the Glass, Rob Vittola,
Speaker 1: researcher Gillian spear oh Audio editing and engineering, the Cole Boys,
Speaker 1: and the EPs, Chris McShane and Katie Gray. As always, Brittany,
Speaker 1: you got the socials on there that we do.
Speaker 3: I do, John Twitter, we are Weekly Show Pod, Instagram
Speaker 3: and threads. We are in Weekly Show podcast and on
Speaker 3: YouTube Weekly Show with John Stewart.
Speaker 1: I'm on all of those and including MySpace. All right,
Speaker 1: kitties to next week, next week and beyond, and thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to the episode. If you liked it,
Speaker 1: please follow The Weekly Show with John Stewart on your
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Speaker 1: because it just fills our heart with gratitude. Thank you.
Speaker 1: The Weekly Show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central
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