DNC Launches Kamala Harris (with David Axelrod & Michael Beschloss)
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— The Democratic National Convention just concluded with a triumphant acceptance speech by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. — And every day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge, and I said five words: Kamala Harris for the people.

On a special episode of Stay Tuned, I am joined by two guests. The first is David Axelrod. He's a Democratic political strategist and former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama. The second guest is presidential historian Michael Beschloss. He has authored nine books on the U.S. presidency. I speak with both about the convention, the political strategy guiding the Harris-Walls campaign, and the historical significance of this election. That's coming up. Stay tuned. ♪

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Tune into Saving Creativity, a special series from the Gray Area sponsored by Canva. You can find it on the Gray Area feed wherever you get your podcasts. The Democratic National Convention marks the official nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for president. Political strategist David Axelrod joins me to discuss the highlights of the DNC and what we can expect from the Harris-Walls ticket as we approach Election Day.

David Axelrod, welcome back to the show. It's a pleasure to have you. Oh, it's good to be here, and especially on this occasion. Yeah, so you're from Chicago. Yeah. You know all these folks well. I'll tell you something that I've heard many people say to me, and I've seen people tweet this as well, that given the energy, the mood of joy, enthusiasm, hope, change surrounding the Kamala Harris campaign, people have said, and I'm sure you've heard this also, that

that the last time they can remember feeling like this or feeling the aura of a campaign in this way was 2008. Now, I don't know if you had anything to do with 2008.

I think you may have some... Is that an apt comparison? Well, I think in some ways it very much is, Preet. I'm a big fan of hope. I'm a big fan of optimism. I'm a big fan of a big, generous, inclusive America. And those themes were all very much on display. But the thing that makes this...

similar is in 2008, there was just this mood to turn the page on kind of a grinding negative small politics.

And Barack Obama came along and he inspired people to think that we could do better. We're in a similar period here. And I think people really want to turn the page. And she has emerged as this turn the page candidate. She's offering relief from the grinding and negative and divisive politics of Donald Trump.

But the genius of what's happened here, and this was true with Obama as well, she's rooted her story in the mainstream story of America. She's wrapped her story in the best story of America. Her whole convention was suffused with American values, middle class values and aspirations and

It's a portrait that I think most Americans want to associate themselves with and associate their view of the country with. So in that sense, it's very much like 2008 as well. I have an interview also in this episode with the historian Michael Beschloss coming up. And we talked about the theme of patriotism and the chanting of USA, USA. Yeah.

When have you seen that before? We were big on flags back in 2008 as well. But again, I mentioned this on my own podcast and I talked about it on TV last night and I have a personal reason for feeling so strongly about it. But something struck me last night. I saw there was something that triggered an outburst of USA chants and flag waving and

And there was Waltz and his son, Gus, who the night before had displayed such love for his dad and enthusiasm and to be only to be ridiculed.

by people on the right. And Gus has, you know, learning challenges and some issues that are familiar to me because I have an adult child who has the same. And the cruelty of that was so grotesque to me. And then here were people waving the flag around this young man

And their view of America was a much different view of America. Their celebration of America was about a big, generous, embracing America where there's room for everyone.

And I really, really think people are hungry for that, especially against the relentless, negative, mean-spirited grinding of Donald Trump. You know, that Gus Waltz moment when he's hearing about the love of his father and he gets up and he has tears coming down his face and he says with great pride, that's my dad. My first reaction was...

Yeah, someone's cutting onions. Yeah, exactly. And until I saw some of the cruelty that you're talking about, it was almost inconceivable to me that a normal person, and particularly a parent, would have any reaction other than, you know, love for that moment. Charlie Sykes, I think, I think it was Charlie Sykes, said it best, like, that scene was a Rorschach test.

for who the most terrible people in the world are. Yeah. We're talking about you, Ann Coulter. I think she deleted the tweet. She did delete the tweet. But the fact that she even launched the tweet says so much. And there were others. I mean, it wasn't just her. It was despicable. And it is not the America that the vast majority of Americans embrace. It's not the humanity that the vast number of Americans embrace. So anyway, it's...

It's so much on my mind, I just had to say it. - No, I was gonna ask you about it. I was gonna ask you about it 'cause I think it was an important moment and it showed a difference between two different kinds of people. This is not to say, this is not a copycat act from 2008. It's recapturing some of that joy and hope and change, but with a sharper edge, I think, right? So Michelle Obama, who famously said, "When they go low, we go high." It's not quite that anymore.

Could you explain the difference? Well, look, we were running against John McCain for one thing. And this is a much, much different situation. And the genius of this convention was it made it clear you have a guy who actually lives outside the mainstream of American thought and American values, who really does represent a threat to fundamental justice.

kind of values and institutions of our democracy, not to mention policies that are outside the mainstream of American thought. And the genius of this convention and the speeches by the Obamas were part of it. Her speech last night was part of it. And some of the other symbols and speeches that we saw augmented it.

was to paint her very much in the mainstream of American thought and life, to paint her life that way. Everything about this convention did that, and at the same time painted Trump very much outside the mainstream and as extreme in

in ways that I thought were very deft. They didn't bludgeon him. They didn't need to. But they made a really, really thoughtful case. And they gave people a choice. And the choice spoke to a majority of Americans. You know, the Republicans have been trying to paint this caricature of Kamala Harris as, you know, not unexpectedly, you know, because this is what they do.

as a kind of wild, radical San Francisco liberal, anyone who watched this convention would come away with a notion that she is fundamentally a reflection of the best of America and her politics are very much in the mainstream. And that is a huge, huge thing. I mean, this convention did a ton of lift in terms of messaging and creating...

an answer to the caricature that the Republicans are hoping to create. It was really, really deftly done. It was. And not just a caricature of Kamala Harris, but the attempt to paint Tim Walz as some kind of crazed Marxist, communist, radical lefty. And you look at the guy and you hear the guy, this former history teacher, the desperation to try to paint someone

in a manner that just defies what your eyes and ears see i think donald trump tweeted last night this is the degree of yeah his tweets were insane he was not a coach he was an assistant coach yes yeah not not to mention that uh preet and you'll appreciate this because you're you wear many hats including that of prosecutor and following all of these legal cases he tweets

Where's Hunter? And it's like, dude, that race is over, okay? He's not your opponent anymore. I mean, it was like stream of consciousness panic reflected on truth social last night. My kids were around last night and we were talking about the assistant coach thing. Like, did you ever go up to the assistant coach at a game?

and say, "Hey, assistant coach, put me in." No. - Yeah. No, listen, I think the bigger point here that you're making is,

that at this point in a presidential campaign, and I always knew this, that you get to this point in a campaign and what happens moment to moment and how candidates behave and what people see supersedes media and everything else. And they're going to default in favor of what they see with their own eyes. They see Kamala Harris, they see Waltz, Tim Waltz, and they're

they just don't look like the caricature that Trump and the Republicans are trying to paint. On the other hand, Trump looks exactly like what Democrats are suggesting. And so that's a big problem. And if I'm sitting over there in the Trump headquarters, I'm thinking about how do we get this dude under control? Because he is beating himself right now. Yeah. Are you of the view that the more

Trump gets on the air and the more he's covered and the more he's talked about and the more he's filmed, that's good. Because there's some people on the left who say you're platforming a guy or amplifying his- Yeah, that's bullshit. That's not true. No, the more you see, the more you realize what a disaster that would be, correct? Yeah.

Yes, I would pay to have Trump out there every day if I were the Harris campaign, because he cannot control himself and he is modeling all the behavior. You know, look, people, even when Biden was in the race, there were a lot of people who said, yeah, I'm going to vote for Trump. And he's a jerk. You know, he's a jackass, but he's

you know, at least he'll get the economy moving. Now they have a palatable alternative to

And all of a sudden, they're not all that willing to embrace a guy who they just don't like. You know, there was a poll this week that had Kamala in favorable territory in terms of how people thought of her as a person. You know, you ask two things, a job approval, and you ask just favorable, what's your view of the person? She was in the positive terrain. Trump was 22 points underwater.

People do not like him, especially when he behaves the way he's behaving right now. And she is freaking him out because the way Donald Trump looks at the world is through the prism of just a few things. How do you look on TV? You know, how big are your crowds? As President Obama pointed out the other night. How are your poll numbers?

you know, and your ratings. I mean, he has, you know, he has a very narrow view of how you judge people. And she is off the charts right now. I mean, the polls are very close and we should talk about that. You know, this is a very close race, but she has closed the gap on him. That's freaking him out. But bigger than that is he knows a television star when he sees one. And she is playing so well. Yeah, look, he gave her some praise, right?

Yeah, he did. Didn't he talk about how good looking she was? Well, he said she looks like our first lady, Melania, or something like that. I mean, I don't even want to get into this. You crawl into Trump's head and it's a scary place. But he's also, one of the things about Trump and one of the things about presidential politics is authenticity is the coin of the realm. And no one ever says, gee, I wish Trump would speak his mind.

You know, whatever else, he does speak his mind. And yeah, he has sort of tipped his hand. He knows she's good on TV. She is from central casting. Someone wrote me last night, a prominent person who wasn't predisposed to be favorable to Harris, wrote last night effusive about the speech and said,

My God, she was Jed Bartlett up there, you know, and she looked like a president. Yeah, I know. She was, she looked like a president. She looked strong. And the big gap between Trump and Biden was this perception that, you know, the world's out of control. Biden is not in command. Trump is strong. Biden's weak. Vote for Trump. That was their whole message.

She looks strong. And now the big thing will be the debate and how she looks and acts on that stage with Trump, who's likely going to be acting out next to her. Yeah. I want to know where this race is going from here. But before we do that, you were praising the deafness

of the performances and the pageantry and the excellence of the convention, including, we haven't talked about it yet, the innovative and brilliant musical roll call, which is often one of the most boring things at a convention. Do you know who can we praise for putting all of this together? Because we need to praise those people. I'm so glad you asked that because she's my friend and my former colleague and

And one of the most brilliant people in American politics. And it's Stephanie Cutter. Stephanie Cutter. I know Stephanie. Yeah. She's pulled off two miracles in a row. In 2020, she produced the virtual convention for Biden that was probably the foremost important miracle.

message days of his campaign in terms of really focusing people on his middle class upbringing, his values, his faith,

faith, family, the military connection. She really changed the race in many ways with that. And it was brilliantly produced. I think they won an Emmy for it. This time she was producing a convention for Biden. And like little more than three weeks ago, they said, hey, you got to turn this battleship around. It ain't him anymore. We've got a whole new candidate and a much different message.

And I think she did such a brilliant job. And that roll call was her master stroke. It's also amazing to me. And her playlist, by the way. Pretty good playlist. Yeah. It's also interesting to me is in politics, it's very crystallized and sharply revealed. And we talked about this earlier. Some people see that moment between Gus Waltz

and his father, and think how human that is and how touching that is, and other people think the opposite. There are people who are responding to the musical roll call and saying that's cringe. And it makes me think that there's segments of the population I just don't have any understanding of

at all. I think that's one of the problems we have. We are so siloed now, and that is more than a little assisted by the social media culture and the algorithms that shove us into these silos. But there's a part of the country that was predisposed to hate everything about that convention last night. And so they weren't going to give credit for anything. I mean, that roll call is

was a celebration of America. It was music from the different states. It was joyful. The word joy got maybe overworked in this convention, but it was an accurate depiction of the mood in the room. There were people who were celebrating not just a candidate, but celebrating the country, celebrating community.

So, yeah, there were people who looked at it through the dour lens of another tribe. But this was a celebration of the American tribe. And it was very, very powerful. So talk about this concept of honeymoon. It's now been a month.

She has had the benefit of a particular calendar, right? The timing of her announcement. Yes, that's worked out incredibly well for her. Now we're going to have a pretty dead week. And then the debate. And then the debate. So everything is sort of frozen. Yeah. But then you have two months. Yes. How do you see this playing out? What are the inflection points after the debate?

How's this going to play out? Yeah, no, look, first, let's level set this. She has closed the gap on Trump. She has consolidated the Democratic base. African-Americans have largely come back. Still an issue with some younger African-American men. That's an issue that has to be worked on for her. Hispanics have come back to a large degree. Younger voters have

And I'm talking back to 2020 levels and remember how close that election was. But she's still not winning, despite some, I think, overly buoyant polls. I think you're basically looking at tied or a little less than tied races in a lot of the main battleground states, including and most importantly, Pennsylvania. She's become more competitive than Biden was in some of the Sunbelt states.

So she's got a shot in Georgia. She's got a shot in North Carolina, Nevada, maybe Arizona. But, you know, you still have to piece together 270 electoral votes. And that is by no means easy for her. So the next phases of this campaign are essential. And this debate, I can't overstate the importance of this debate because these events that she's excelled in are...

You know, she's done great and she's helped herself dramatically, but they basically are scripted events. Now she gets into the freeform portion of the campaign. I'm sure she's going to do some interviews. But the debate, the debate. But is it really that important? Because Hillary Clinton won every debate against Trump. It's important because everybody knew Hillary Clinton before.

This is still someone that I think, and people have made a judgment about Trump. And so they're really kicking the tires on Kamala Harris and trying to,

take the measure of her. And if she passes that test, I think that she will win this election because there are a majority of people who just don't want to vote for Donald Trump. But presidential elections are a series of tests. And it's like, you know, once you clear the bar and the bar gets raised, this is a major test because people want to see how you deal with the pressures of different situations. And this is high pressure, tense, high stakes stuff. But

Just on another level, strength was, as I said earlier, Trump's calling card in this race. She looked really strong on that stage last night. She looked presidential on that stage. Now she's going to be standing next to the guy.

And the question is, when he does his thing, how does she deal with it? Yeah. So what's the answer, David? What's the answer? How does she deal with it? I think largely she should be unbothered by it and talk to the American people. I think there's occasion when she's going to need to brush him off. But one thing you don't do, if you come to have a pissing match with Donald Trump, he always comes with a larger tank.

Okay, that is not a productive thing to do. And the idea isn't to enlarge Trump, it's to shrink him. And he's doing it himself. Help him do it and make people focus on the question about whether this is what you want for the next four years. There's a better way. There's a better path.

We don't have to go down the road of, you know, sort of the scorching, scorched earth, negative device of politics. That's not America at its best. That's not how we get things done. I mean, I would just talk past him in a lot of ways. Directly to the audience. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you can't ignore him entirely. There'll be opportunities. But I would use humor.

You know, I would be unbothered. And basically the message message should be, dude, your act is old. It's old. We're turning the page. We're moving on. What if you were advising Trump? What's his draft? I mean, I think that's a very difficult thing for him if you're his advisor because he knows only one act and nastiness in this context with this nominee is

I think, would almost certainly backfire, don't you think? Yes, especially nastiness in the way that he is inclined to project it against a person of color, a woman. This kind of triggers all his worst instincts. Look, you say it's a difficult job to be his strategist. I think that's generally true right now because you can have a rational strategy, but you don't have a rational candidate.

And that's very, very hard because he won't implement the strategy that you lay out. I mean, you know, the strategy should be for him to act like a president and to say, you know, I've been there. I have actually been there and I know what the job entails and what it takes to turn an economy around. I know what it, you know, and just go through that. This is a battle of who enlarges and who shrinks the other.

And you do it not by belittling. You do it by the way you project yourself. And this is a big challenge for him because his instinct is always to be on the attack. Always, always, always to be on the attack. And I don't know if they can bridle that. And I don't know if they can keep him on a message. One of the big pieces of this is...

When he was running against Biden, he was change and Biden was the status quo. She has flipped the script on him and she is now change and he is the status quo. And he has to push her back in the incumbent box. He has to make her an extension of Biden's policies that people are unhappy about on inflation on the border and so on. That's the strategy they're trying to employ if you look at their advertising strategy.

But he, every time he goes out and delivers message has to take a side trip into crazy ville and nastiness in a way that hijacks the story. It's, it feels to me like, um, they're punching the air. And I keep thinking about the ad that was run against you, your team.

Where they called Barack Obama the biggest celebrity in the world. Yeah. When that ad came out, did you smile about it? Did you think it was damaging? What did you make of that ad? Well, you know, it's interesting. You know, they got in our heads in a way that was unhelpful because we worried about that.

We worried about, we actually started saying, well, you know, maybe we should pull these big rallies down and we should do more intimate events. Maybe we shouldn't be. And we did that. And we did that through our, you know, obviously the convention was an interregnum in that, but we resumed that after the convention. And meanwhile, he picked Sarah Palin and now she, he's having big rallies. And all of a sudden he looked like the guy with momentum and we looked like

Our campaign was petering out. And the bigger and most threatening thing that John McCain did is a place where Donald Trump can never go. And that was at that same time when he was kind of presenting us as sort of callow and the Paris Hilton of politics, you know, famous for no reason. McCain was doing country first politics.

And, you know, his lifelong service to the country, his military service, his willingness to stand up and be a maverick. And it was powerful. He threw that all away when he picked Sarah Palin because she was not a country first choice.

It just goes to show, though, that there are ebbs and flows in this thing. You mentioned earlier the timing of it. This could not have worked out better for Kamala Harris because she got shot from a cannon 90 days before the election in a country that hated the choice it had and was so relieved to have another choice who was younger and fresher.

And that has really served her well. But there are always ebbs and flows, some of which you can plan on. A lot of them you can't. Lehman Brothers collapsing. Osama bin Laden releasing a tape three days before the 2004 election. Paul Pelosi, this isn't presidential, but Paul Pelosi being assaulted days before the midterm elections. Elections can sort of tilt on events that

you just don't know are going to happen. And so I don't know what's going to happen in this race. I think it's a very close race. Anybody could win if the election were today. I would not bet against Donald Trump. You know, I have to see what impact this convention has had, and we won't know for a few days. There'll be a bounce for sure, right? Yes, although because of the inelasticity of the electorate, how big the bounce is, I just don't know. She should get some, and some in a

in a tight race is not trivial, but mainly what she's done is she's laid a great foundation for the next 70 days message-wise, and they just have to build on it and be faithful to it and consistent to it. And I think they're on a good path. I was telling my college-age son,

Last night, when I was his age... A young fellow like you has college-age sons. Yes, sir. In 1988, I was in college. And after that convention, Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush...

Dukakis, I believe, was up 17 points. 17 points. 17 points. So you can't... No. I'll tell you, though, that was... The timing issue that you raised earlier is so important because what happened in that race was the Democrat convention was in July, mid-July, and...

In the interregnum, they did the Willie Horton campaign. They did this brilliant, brilliant negative campaign that was orchestrated by Roger Ailes that basically said, you know, this is who Dukakis is, this ultra-liberal.

And now he wants to do for America what he did for Massachusetts. America can't afford that risk. And there was a series of ads like that, including Dukakis helped by this ridiculous footage of him in a helmet and a tank where he looked like Rocky the squirrel. And they really changed the dynamic. And then Bush had a great time.

convention, and that led into Labor Day, and the whole thing turned around. There's not that much elasticity in the electorate now, and the timing has all worked out for her, so there's no interregnum where they could define her. And by the way, Dukakis assisted by not—they didn't have the resources at different time and place. He didn't respond. He hurt himself in the debates.

This is a wholly different situation, but it does speak to your point is right, which is like everybody should feel good today. Everybody should celebrate what was a spectacular week.

But it's not this thing is not over. And, you know, I got in trouble with some of your some of your friends by saying that Democrats should not engage in irrational exuberance. And, you know, the same people who weeks earlier were mad at me for suggesting that Biden should step aside. We're now accusing me of dogging Kamala for saying that we shouldn't be irrationally exuberant. What are you going to do? This is the life you've chosen, David.

I know. Can I ask you this question? Yes. What are we to infer from the fact that Kamala Harris has done almost no free-flowing interviews with the press? Yeah. No, you know, I mentioned this before. She's going to have to do it. I think the press, the media is much more intent on this.

and more offended by it than voters are. But, you know, look, this is a decathlon and you have to do all the events. And one of them is dealing with the media. It's not so much to satisfy the media or people sense that, you know, you have to respect the fourth estate. They just want to see you handle it. They want to see how you respond to it. It is a test just as the debates are a test, just as conventions are a test.

And if you duck it, it does compound. I think that if they've made any mistake, and I think they've been almost flawless since the change of candidates...

I would be doing regular gaggles with the press. I would go to the back of the plane and not just talk off the record, but on the record. I would make interactions with the media. I would talk to local media in the battleground states on a regular basis via Zoom. I think the more you do, the more you make interactions.

these interviews uneventful, sort of unremarkable by not doing them. Now you're raising the salience of these events and so, you know, of these interviews. So I would just routinize it in a way that, so that people say, yeah, she's talking to reporters all the time. That's a box checked. Let's move on. I also, but let me just say one other thing. I always viewed interviews for my candidates as,

Yes, there are minefields in some ways, but a confident candidate and confident campaign also views them as opportunities. And if you're good and you're agile and you know who you are and what your message is,

You should not view these interviews as trips for a root canal. You view them as opportunities. And if you're good, you can help yourself not just by checking the box, but by delivering message. And so I hope she approaches it this way. She was a little stung earlier in her vice presidency by...

I've seen her do some great ones since. She was with us on CNN on the night of the disastrous Biden debate, and that was not an enviable task. And, you know, Anderson Cooper, who is a great, great newsman, was –

I asked her the obvious questions and they were tough questions. And she responded with a little bit of edge and a lot of message. And when it was done, we all sort of thought, damn, that was pretty good. I'm sure there were about a million places she'd have rather have been at that moment, but she handled it well. And I think that should give people confidence in her campaign. And she could not have been prepped. She could not have been prepped for failure.

Nobody was. A completely disastrous debate. Nobody was. Nobody was. And it was in real time. Yeah. Look, she's a person who has been in court and court is generally speaking, not scripted. Yes. Yeah. You know that better than anybody. You have judges who go south on you. The greatest quality or skill that I learned from being a trained trial lawyer is actually how to think on your feet.

and respond to adversity rhetorically and substantively. And she's been doing that since she was in her 20s. So I don't know why, I guess last question, what is the reason why Kamala Harris in recent years has been so dramatically underestimated? And is that her superpower?

Well, I don't know if it's her superpower, but it's certainly an advantage right now. I think there are two reasons. One is she didn't run a good campaign in 2019, and I think she was ill-advised. I think she was ill-prepared for that race. I think she was swept into that race by her promise that

And, you know, the sense that this is a wide open race and you're a talented person and you should jump in. But it's very clear to me she wasn't prepared for that race. And she took the sort of conventional advice of the moment, which was just keep taking left turns and you'll get to where you need to go.

And when you keep taking left turns, you end up in the same place. It didn't work for her. And she didn't look comfortable delivering the messages. She didn't seem connected to some of the things that she was saying. They didn't feel well thought through. When she became vice president, she really wasn't well supported. And she wasn't particularly prepared for the maelstrom of that office. And she did some...

bad interviews. The Lester Holt interview will live forever around the border stuff. And so I think that effector. But the biggest thing, Preet, is vice president is a diminishing office. I mean, you are standby equipment. You know, you are, this is a dated reference. So maybe if there, if you have any older listeners, they'll understand it. But you're like Ed McMahon to

The president's Johnny Carson. You're not there to be a star. You're there to be a straight man. And sometimes a straight man, you're the butt of the joke. And so people know you as the vice president, but they don't really know you.

You're sort of, you know, you're in the background. You're standing behind the president. Now she's the main player and people are getting to know her in much greater depth and it's a revelation to them. I think we saw that all week long. You know, there's so much about her that people didn't know. And she herself displayed qualities that she didn't get a chance to display as vice president.

So all of those things I think are working in her benefit now or to her benefit now. Yeah. I'm seeing the Kamala Harris that I've known for a number of years. Yeah. Well, you know her better, you know, but you're seeing what America is just beginning to see and she may well be just the right person at the right time. Yeah. Final, final question. At the DNC, David. Yes. Who was your favorite speaker and why was it Michelle Obama? Yeah.

We don't get to change the rules so we always win. If we see a mountain in front of us, we don't expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top. No. Put our heads down. We get to work. In America, we do something. And throughout her entire life, what we've seen from Kamala Harris,

There are speeches that live forever, okay? Mario Cuomo made a speech at the 1984 convention that will live forever. I mean, it was just, it was a keynote speech and it was so good that if the convention could have re-voted there, they would have made him the nominee for president.

Barack Obama gave a speech at the 2004 convention that was so good that if America could have voted, they would have made him the nominee then. And everybody who was around for those speeches will never forget those speeches.

Michelle Obama's speech this week was one of those speeches. It was not a speech. It was a conversation with the American people. And it just felt like straight, blunt talk, value laden. It had just the right amount of edge to it. And it was big. And in its bigness, it lifted Kamala Harris, but it also made Donald Trump small, which I think he is.

David Axelrod, thanks for being on. Perfect timing. Thanks for inviting me. Always great to chat with you, my friend. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Coming up after the break, I'll speak with presidential historian Michael Beschloss. Stay tuned. Support for this show comes from Amazon Business. We could all use more time. Amazon Business offers smart business buying solutions so you can spend more time growing your business and less time doing the admin. I can see why they call it smart.

Learn more about smart business buying at AmazonBusiness.com. Support for this show comes from Mercury. It's time banking did more than hold your money. Now it can. With Mercury, you can pay bills in seconds, close the books faster, and even send invoices.

Not only does Mercury do away with a patchwork of tools, it eliminates guesswork, giving you complete and accurate visibility into your business finances. All from one account. Apply in minutes at mercury.com. And we're back with Canva Presents Secret Sounds, Work Edition. Caller, guess this sound. So close. That's actually publishing a website with Canva Docs. Next caller.

Definitely a mouse click. Nice try. It was sorting 100 sticky notes with a Canva whiteboard. We also would have accepted resizing a Canva video into 10 different sizes. What? No way. Yes way. One click can go a long way. Love your work at Canva.com. This convention and this election are making history. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss joins me to talk about the past, present, and future.

Michael Beschloss, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much, Preet. It's great to have you to talk about the Democratic National Convention, maybe a little bit about the Republican National Convention, what history tells us about this moment, what this moment tells us about history. My first question to you is, in the lead up to the DNC, in this age and time of political violence, actual political violence, polarization on many, many issues, including on Israel and Gaza,

fractures within the Democratic Party, a return to the scene of great violence and discord from 1968 in Chicago. There were a lot of predictions of, you know, bad things happening. Yep. And massive unrest and perhaps protest. What happened to all that? Where was the chaos?

What happened is this, you know, completely amazing month. And, you know, sometimes things happen in history that are turning points. You know, just think, Preet, a month ago, I think we were still in a situation where Joe Biden was still the nominee at least that week.

beginning to run behind Donald Trump and Democrats throwing up their arms in despair and saying, "Democrats probably have a majority of voters on the issues and probably a majority of voters detest and fear Donald Trump, but somehow it's not getting through." And so not only did you have the Selfless Act that he committed of walking away from power, although under some duress,

And at the same time, you had a candidate, Kamala Harris, who has been underestimated all of her life, has been seen as a less serious, less able potential president than she should have been. And I think one thing I would say, Preet, is that it's this terrible office of the vice presidency. It almost always diminishes people. George H.W. Bush, who was a quite good president and a pretty tough guy, looked like a pygmy under Ronald Reagan because he...

He shrank into the background in order to show Reagan that he was not a competitor of his. And the same thing with Kamala Harris. Most Americans got to know her as vice president. Now that that yoke of the vice presidency is off, and we saw what she could do with that Democratic convention this week, this is a very plausible president. And this was almost a perfect convention for the Democrats. I agree with you.

Can you settle an arcane political question? I'll try. Who was it who said the following, and what was the exact phrase? That the vice presidency was not worth a bucket of spit?

or not worth a bucket of piss? Yes. Well, actually, I've gone into that. That was John Nance Garner, who, as you know, served two terms under Franklin Roosevelt. And in 1960, he was very close to Lyndon Johnson, his fellow Texan. And Johnson was asking him if he thought that if Garner thought that Johnson should take the vice presidency under Kennedy. And Garner said, Lyndon, the vice presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm piss.

A warm piss. I didn't realize there was one. Yes, warm piss. You have to get this one. Every element of the nuance. But, you know, this was 1960, and when that was repeated, that was considered to be a little crud.

crude, so that was quickly changed to pitcher of warm spit, which really makes more sense. I personally, as a historian, would say absolutely vice presidency is not worth a pitcher of warm spit. It's absolutely worth a pitcher of warm, a bucket of warm piss, and maybe not even that. All right. I think we can move on from that. Although, you know, just because we're talking about it, how do you explain Dick Cheney?

Dick Cheney is the exception that proves the rule. Dick Cheney was a fluke because you had a President George W. Bush coming in with no foreign policy experience. Brought in Dick Cheney is essentially training wheels. So at the beginning of that presidency, especially on 9-11, Dick Cheney was almost a co-president.

Once Bush was beginning to feel that he could do fine on his own, not only did Cheney lose that, you know, that fabled place in Bush's life, but the two men were basically not on speaking terms by the end of that presidency. Speaking of vice presidents, obviously our current president was the vice president.

He spoke on Monday, and you said on television, quote, I've watched a lot of these speeches, and I usually don't get as choked up as I was tonight, end quote. Why is that? It's because of the way this presidency ended. Joe Biden, for whatever reason, thought that he could run for a second term and win.

By last month, that seemed to a majority of Democratic leaders, to put it as politely as I can, not to be a very good argument. So the result is he stepped away from power under duress and

And I think it's going to take him a long time to get over it. Giving up power is always hard, even for a president who leaves under normal circumstances. Dwight Eisenhower, after 20 years of the pinnacle of world power, hero of World War II, president of the United States for two terms, went back to Gettysburg and he found withdrawal. And he was a pretty well-adjusted guy from power so hard that he went into a depression his family felt.

Can we talk about some of the themes that maybe wouldn't have been the expected themes a month ago? Freedom. You don't always see the Democrats using that term, although they talk about civil rights and they talk about reproductive rights. But there seems to be an intense focus on freedom. There's a riff on the part of the governor of Pennsylvania who was not picked to be the running mate, Josh Shapiro, all about freedom. Is that an effort to take something back

from the Republicans. And by the way, adjacent to that is the theme of patriotism. I don't know that you often hear chants of USA, USA at a Democratic convention. I will make sure to feed the world into the future.

I, for one, love it. I do, too. I think unabashed patriotism is good. I call myself a patriotic American in my Twitter bio, and I think Democrats should be doing more of that. What do you make of all of it? Actually, that has a historical provenance, and that is the first time you heard anyone shouting USA, USA at a political convention was...

1984, Ronald Reagan, Dallas, when Reagan was running for re-election. And it was the same summer as the Los Angeles Olympics, where people were yelling USA, USA. So by doing that, and that was not spontaneous on that convention floor, Reagan's managers planned this and encouraged it. It was their way of appropriating the popularity of the American athletes in those Olympics.

and the Democrats have not regained it until this week.

And the other thing is you were talking about the word freedom. President Biden, and I totally was in favor of this, and with groups of historians, we talked to him about this, would give speeches, very good speeches, about the need to save our democracy. And our democracy is under threat from a 2024 opponent, Donald Trump, who's threatened to terminate the Constitution, wants an autocracy. But democracy, as it turns out, and this is almost a political consultant's problem, is

especially among younger people, does not have the same meaning that it might to you or me. So to use the word freedom, and I think Josh Shapiro has said it very well, the issue this year is that Republicans on the Supreme Court can be construed as trying to take away

you know, women's freedom over their body, Americans' freedom to have the right to vote, all these freedoms. And that word has been used by Republicans since 1964. Barry Goldwater at the Republican convention in San Francisco, when he said, I'm the candidate of freedom. Johnson is the candidate of the great society, big government that wants to take away your prerogatives.

Well, going back, you're the historian. Didn't Franklin Roosevelt talk about the four freedoms? Yes, he did. And he did that actually at a very opportune time. That was his State of the Union dress, 1941. And that was just at the time that Americans had to decide whether to potentially go to war against Adolf Hitler and the Imperial Japanese or not. And there was a

an equal number and maybe even a majority of Americans who wanted to stay out of war even as late as the beginning of 1941, the year of Pearl Harbor. So Roosevelt talked to his advisors and said, if we have to go to war, this can't just be sort of balance of power like

World War I, this has to be for a purpose. So he went to Congress and the State of the Union said that he and Americans were for four freedoms: freedom from want, freedom of religion, and so forth. And that was essentially the moral purpose of World War II when it began. So you talked about democracy. We talk on this program about the threat to democracy that former President Trump presents to the country. Sure. And I think it's very important.

and the rule of law, and all of that stuff, all of that high-minded stuff. It's not high-minded. It's our lives. I agree with you. But it seems that there's a little bit of a double track here. And rather than talking so much about the danger of Trump, although there is some of that, there is, in combination with the dangers of Trump, an argument that they're sort of comical, right? There's a strategy of making fun of Trump, making fun of J.D. Vance, this whole meme of weirdness,

Is that effective? Is that more effective? Is that effective in tandem with the argument about dangerousness? Is it effective because it resonates with young people better? Is it effective because it's a happy warrior kind of approach? What do you make of that shift? Sure, because a lot of people could not quite put their finger on it. And once Tim Walz began saying these people are weirdos...

And strange that really connected because no one had really given a name to it. But you're so right. It always has to be in tandem because if it's just they're weird, then this is sort of some odd eccentric candidate for president who you shake your head at. And that underestimates the danger of Trump.

As you well know, this is the first presidential nominee of a major party in all of American history who's threatened to terminate the Constitution, who wants autocracy, who's talked about using the Department of Justice, you know, your sacred place and mine, and the Department of Defense, ditto, against American citizens.

military tribunals against people who disagree with Donald Trump. There's nothing American or small-D democratic about that unless we keep on making that point and show Americans that this is a clear and present danger to them and their families and their communities of a kind that we've never had in 250 years. We are underestimating the danger.

Is this the most unified DNC we've seen in modern history? Is there another one that was like this? Usually DNCs are not very unified, so it's sort of like the best restaurant in a hospital would probably be the most unified DNC in recent history. But, you know, that's just the miracle of this last month.

When before have you had a candidate like Kamala Harris, who suddenly was the nominee, didn't have to go through bruising primaries,

didn't have to discuss issues, 900 different positions that are going to divide people, and where the vast majority of Democrats were so delighted to be delivered a chance to win this election against a potential tyrant that everyone is very glad to hug each other and love each other. We've been talking about the themes, the freedom theme, patriotism, joy, unity, and

There's another phrase that they keep using at the convention, they kept using at the convention, and Kamala Harris has used it, I think very effectively. I wonder what you think of it. We're not going back. Right. We're not going back. It's a very simple phrase. We are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back.

What do you think of the power of that phrase, if it is powerful? Well, I love it historically because it comes out of the civil rights movement. That's a, as you know, that's a chant that was used in the 1960s when there were forces that were trying to already in the mid-60s roll back things like the Voting Rights Act long before John Roberts did his damage. So that's one thing. But, you know, you're trying to connect with people in a primal way.

and women who have been robbed of their rights over their own bodies, other rights that are being taken away. All of us robbed by the Supreme Court of just the knowledge that a president will not do bad things because he might go to jail.

Well, that presidential immunity decision now says that, I assume, I would defer to you, but a president can get his White House counsel to attest that having his political opponents murdered is something that's necessary for national security. That is the most dangerous thing in the world.

There was the line by Representative Raskin. He asked the open question at the convention of J.D. Vance, like, are you aware of why there's a vacancy for the position of running? This is not a job with a lot of long term potential. This convention for the Democrats, I'm not asking you to judge it on its, you know, theatrical success or anything else, but on what they needed to do.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you think it worked out for them? Oh, 11. 11. It goes to 11. Are you going to make a Spinal Tap reference now? Yeah, right. Dating both of us. If you take like any hour of the Democratic Convention this week, almost every hour did its work. I mean, one tiny example, but it sort of proves the point.

You know, you and I have lived through roll call votes at Democratic and Republican conventions. Oh, my goodness. Yes. All of our lives. And when I was a kid, I'm older than you are, so I remember this. Democratic Party was usually some, you know, some old woman from the South who –

I would really not have liked to know what her position on civil rights was in the 1950s and calling out Alabama. And they'd go through this long roll call. Well, you're describing exactly how the roll call went for the Republicans. Yes. Well, since they are long before the 1950s, that's highly appropriate. But what I'm saying is that the people who planned this convention said, you

You know, let's even use the hour in which this boring roll call vote appears and instead make it into a dance party, a rock concert, which they did. And I hear from my sons, who are 27 and 30, that on TikTok now and other places, people actually want to watch and listen to that roll call because they love the music and they love the DJ. Ladies!

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is DJ Cassidy, and I'd like to welcome you all to the Democratic National Convention Roll Call! There's something else that's sort of notable. All of us have been talking for a long time about the historic nature of this nomination. First black woman, Asian woman, the standard bearer for a major political party. Yep. It's a big deal. It means a lot to a lot of people, and it means a lot to my family and others.

And yet, Kamala Harris in her acceptance speech didn't really talk about the historic nature as some might have expected and as some might have thought she would. Why is that? Well, I was looking at the screen and I did not need anyone to remind me that she's Black and a woman. So that was done by who she is.

And I think it was much more important for her to say, you know, "I want to be judged based on my experience and my ability and the content of my character. And the way to do that is to perform what she did." And that was the speech of a president last night. It looked like a president giving a State of the Union. Anyone who had doubts at the beginning of that speech about Kamala Harris as a strong, effective future president

I think if they were fair, they had very few such doubts by the end of that speech. So if she had gone into, you know, long thing, isn't it great that I'm, you know, campaigning to be the first woman to be

president of the United States, or isn't it great that I would be the second black president in history if I were elected? Terrific. But in a half-hour speech with 78 days to go, I think that is really a distraction. And also, I think it says that America is getting to the point which we want, which is

You don't look at Kamala Harris and say, there's a black woman. You say, there's a very smart woman of immense charm, speaks well, one of the most experienced candidates for president we have ever had. I don't remember exactly, but if you think back to 2016, my recollection is that Hillary Clinton talked a bit more about herself, a bit more about the historic nature. I was not mentioning any names. But was that...

A mistake on Hillary Clinton's part? In retrospect, I think she and I have not talked to her about it. But I think in retrospect, given what we now know about the outcome in 2016, especially at the Democratic Convention, it may not have been the greatest idea to go so deep on Seneca Falls and I'm the first woman and so on. I do not know what she thinks and I would love to ask her sometime. You should ask her. In that Trump year.

At this moment, at the end of the summer in 2024, what is the nature of, in the Democratic Party, what is the nature of identity politics and what is its role? And against the backdrop of history, how do you think

you know, that kind of emphasis on identity plays out. As it has been true all of American history, you try to have a ticket that reflects America. Unfortunately, for most of American history with the two major parties, that meant two white guys. So you're balancing perhaps a northern liberal against a southern conservative or right-of-center moderate.

Now, if you take a look at this ticket, I mean, for instance, I come from a small town on the edge of the suburbs of Chicago, 4,600 people called Flossmoor. And all I can tell you is that Tim Walls reminds me of so many of the teachers I had, so many of the dads in town, some of my baseball coaches. That is something, for instance, that the Democratic ticket of 2004 lacked.

You had John Kerry, who was seen by Midwesterners, by myself probably, and I'm still wired that way.

as a coastal elite, and he could have chosen Dick Gephardt, who was the Missouri son of a milkman. And if he had done so, I think Kerry would have gotten those 30,000 votes in Ohio that he lost, and therefore Kerry would have become president over George W. Bush. So it's not just identity politics. It is making as large a number of Americans feel that this is a ticket that not only embraces them, but understands what they're about.

Another unique feature, I thought, of the DNC was the prominent placement of a number, not just Adam Kinzinger, but a number of other sort of erstwhile Republicans who were saying they put country first. Somebody said, I forget which person this was, if you vote for Kamala Harris, that doesn't make you a Democrat, it makes you a patriot. How unusual in the history of political conventions is that? Actually, it's almost something that I would have predicted.

1964, Barry Goldwater, an extremist, although Trump makes Barry Goldwater look like an Upper West Side liberal in contrast. But at the time, Goldwater was seen as a right-wing extremist. There was a formal group that was called Democrats for Johnson. A lot of people who had worked for Eisenhower who said, "We can't support Goldwater," allowed Johnson to occupy the center.

Same thing happened in 1972 when George McGovern was nominated and seen by some people as too far left. There was an organization called Democrats for Nixon that was headed by John Connolly, who was Lyndon Johnson's best friend, Democratic governor of Texas for years, that did sort of the same thing. So the fact that that is happening this year, I can't tell you how happy this makes me because it means that we've got a healthy system.

Can we talk about the RNC, the Republican National Convention for a moment? And we had something that's sort of the opposite of what we saw in the Democratic Convention, and that is some of the most prominent voices, former cabinet secretaries, the former president, George Bush, still a Republican, as far as I know, not present at the convention. What does it say and how uncommon is it for some of the most prominent figures in the party not to even be at the convention?

Well, go back to 2016. What did Donald Trump say in his acceptance speech? I alone can fix it. This goes back to the beginning. He's got the soul of a dictator or wannabe dictator. He does not want to share the limelight. He does not want to acknowledge that the Republican Party existed before the summer of 2016 when he was nominated.

And the way you do that is you make sure that any contending voices are absent. And it fits with his whole M.O. You know, what has the last few years been but an effort to mow down anyone in his own party who might slightly disagree with him? Can I throw probably not a very smart theory at you? I can't imagine a not smart theory coming from you, Preet, but please do. So my thinking has been—now that it's been a month—

that if post-assassination attempt, Trump had pivoted even slightly to being a little bit more above the fray, a little bit less name-calling, he would have had the excuse of having a brush with death. He did have, you know, an expression a couple of times at the convention that was different, and not everyone will, you know, love me giving him some credit for this, that looked a little bit different. He looked like he might be on the cusp of understanding empathy and mortality and

And if he had done a little bit of that and been a little bit more open and a little bit more, I think, presidential, which is not something that is often said about him, he would have been in a tremendously powerful political position with, I think, independents and other swing voters who were sort of frozen in what to do because they don't like either of the candidates.

What do you make of that? I think you're right, but if you'll forgive my saying so, it reminds me of, you know, if my aunt had certain male body parts, she'd be my uncle. Donald Trump with modesty and humility and maybe a little bit of religion, that just is never going to happen. Can't even feign it. Can't even feign it, even after almost being shot in the head. Because some life experiences and near-death experiences do, like, it is not unprecedented, right?

for an event like that to at least slightly change a normal human being. And it didn't with him. Look what it did with Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan met with the Cardinal of New York, and he said later that he told the Cardinal, and he told himself after he survived an assassination attempt at the end of March 1981, anytime I've got left is reserved for him, meaning God.

and he felt that it had an enormous impact on his life. I'd even give a more modest hypothesis, Preet,

You know, I assume that there was someone in Trump's entourage who said to him, even if you don't feel any different after this assassination attempt, it might be a good idea to pretend that it's made you more wise and moderate and careful in what you say because those things will help you politically if nothing else. The point is, what has been demonstrated is, for whatever reason, even more than before, he has lost control over himself.

The Trump of the late weeks of the 2016 campaign, and I hate to praise him, but at the very end, he was a very disciplined candidate. He had speeches that were written for him by Steve Bannon and others that went after the neglect of, for instance, northern industrial states by the Obama administration that really began to connect. And he seemed like at least the beginning of a faintly plausible president, but

I don't think Trump has that ability anymore. I mean, if you saw the flailing around after Kamala Harris's acceptance speech, he calls up right-wing cable network after right-wing cable network. Even Fox was trying to get him off the air because he was sounding so eccentric. You

This is not exactly a disciplined, dangerous candidate against the Democrats, which means the Democrats even have less excuse if this election is lost. The only time that I can think of, the only times that Donald Trump shows some discipline is when his adversary is failing terribly. And I hate to say it, but during that debate, he was a disciplined debater. He didn't do any of his crazy antics.

because he saw what was happening, and you don't have to pile on. Joe Biden was not having— Joe Biden was showing the world that there were issues with his running for a second term. But when his adversary is soaring and getting big crowds and doing great, he doesn't know what to do. Because he's a deeply insecure and angry person.

that I would assume always feels that he's going to be vanquished in the end, and that may happen in 2024. So if he's debating against Joe Biden, who had this horrible evening and was unable to express himself in the way that Biden has for most of his life, you know, it wouldn't be in Trump's nature to be charitable, but he doesn't feel threatened.

If he is debating against Kamala Harris on ABC on the 10th of September, if that comes off, that's going to be a very different story. I assume you would not disagree that a prosecutor can make a very good political candidate. Look, in some ways, what's amazing about Kamala Harris's reemergence is that I think everyone understood and knew she's good in the prosecutorial setting. Some of the clips they showed at the convention and some of her most memorable viral moments as a senator are

were during hearings where she's questioning somebody aggressively. That's what she knows how to do. That's what I was trained to do. What was less well-known was could she stand at a podium with tens of millions of people watching on television and tens of thousands in the room and give an Obama-like electric connecting speech? And now that we know she can do that,

She's very formidable. Yeah. And I would have said, you know, six months ago, she's very capable of doing that. The problem is this damn job of being vice president when you have to, you know, basically bow down all the time and make yourself look like less than you are. Yeah. So my question about the future is, assume, I don't make this assumption, but I'd love to think about it. Donald Trump is defeated, let's say even somewhat decisively defeated,

He's then done. He's not going to run again in four years, I don't think. Assuming that he does not succeed in waging some kind of coup, which is, sad to say, an open question. So he will then have lost multiple times. He will have been the standard bearer for the Republicans three times in a row. I don't know if the Republicans have ever done that three times. I think the Democrats did that with William Jennings Bryan. William Jennings Bryan, right. And Stevenson almost, was almost nominated in 1960.

My question to you is, what does the Republican Party do? What does it look like upon a second failure of Donald Trump in the future? Take a look at the post-November 1964 defeat of Barry Goldwater and multiply that by 100.

In other words, after November of 1964, centrists like Richard Nixon and the Republican Party said, the problem was Goldwater. We can no longer go with a radical extremist. We have to go back to the center. And so that paved the way for Richard Nixon. And if we are still in a healthy system, which I pray, what will happen is that the people who were responsible for

The presidential popular vote defeat for Republicans in 2016, which Trump did not win, as you know.

2018, 2020, he lost the presidency. 2022, a surprising to some people loss in the midterm election. People will say, you know, this is Trump and this is extremism. And we can't afford this craziness anymore because this party is going to be gone. And it will encourage, you know, relative centrists like Nikki Haley or perhaps Governor Sununu of New Hampshire.

Well, that's a very optimistic assessment. That's if Trump goes. And there's a lot of- No, I still think it's optimistic. Yes. Because the Trump movement is bottom up. So it's fine to say that centrist Republicans will move to take the party back. But what about the 60 or 70 million diehard MAGA supporters of Trump? Are they really going to shift in what they want to see in a nominee, even if Trump loses again?

And by the way, they will believe that he was robbed of the presidency. No doubt. And Trump will be, you know, on the center strip of some highway saying that he was robbed once again. Right. Because because the dynamic is a little bit different, I think.

In the other dynamics that we were talking about, there is an understanding that the nominee failed and lost, and we can't stick with a loser. Here, he sufficiently warped enough people's minds as to make them think, no, no, our guy won. He's not a loser. He was robbed. And doesn't it make it a little bit harder to move on?

I just don't think you could keep on doing this. He's going to be 82 years old, four years from this election. He's not exactly in the most conspicuously best health and self-control. Yeah, no, I don't mean Trump himself, but people who emulate Trump. Yes, but a lot of the reason why Trump has been able to do this is that he's had a monopoly over this movement. You had someone who was on a hit TV show, The Apprentice, for what, 14 years?

And went into a lot of people's living rooms, not mine and probably not yours, but a lot of people's, and they thought he was this successful businessman, tough with a heart of gold. None of those things were true, by the way, but they thought that. Now, vying for the support of the MAGA movement is probably going to be 10 different people, some of them even more extreme. So you're not going to have one person who can take that entire lane and dominate the Republican Party.

And also Trump has, at least in his prime, had certain political skills that made him a lot more powerful than otherwise he might have been. That's an interesting note to end on. Michael Beschloss, thanks so much for joining us. Always love talking to you. Same here, Preet. Be well. Thank you. So folks, after this big week, I wanted to take the show out with one of the most on-point tracks from O Say Can You See, the amazing new album by Zeeshan B, which I had the privilege of executive producing.

The song is called "Change Is On The Way." It's a beautiful and moving track and you'll understand why I wanted to share it with you. I should mention that Zeeshan and I have been talking about how it could totally be a rally song for the Harris Walls campaign. So if anyone from the campaign is listening, let me just say as a legal matter that you have our full and complete permission to use the song.

If this week has shown us one thing, it's that there's hope that change is actually on the way. I said a change is on its way, a new age.

Well, that's it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guests, David Axelrod and Michael Beschloss.

That's 669-24-PREET.

or you can send an email to letters at cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tadishore. The deputy editor is Celine Rohr. The editorial producers are Noah Azoulay and Jake Kaplan.

The associate producer is Claudia Hernandez. And the cafe team is Matthew Billy, Nat Wiener, and Leanna Greenway. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I'm your host, Preet Bharara. As always, stay tuned. Support for this show comes from Amazon Business.

We could all use more time. Amazon Business offers smart business buying solutions, so you can spend more time growing your business and less time doing the admin. I can see why they call it smart. Learn more about smart business buying at AmazonBusiness.com. And we're back with Canva Presents Secret Sounds, Work Edition. Caller, guess this sound. Click. So close. That's actually publishing a website with Canva Docs. Next caller.

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