S4 Ep41: Gambling Our Rights? (with Audie Cornish)
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, and this week, I'm still at it. I'm still checking in with voters about the future of Joe Biden's campaign. And I want to state up front, I still believe it's vitally important that we honestly reckon with how voters are thinking about Joe Biden's age, because I think the fate of democracy in America might right now hinge on how Biden and the Democrats handle this situation.

So you're going to hear some more fresh outtakes from swing voters about how old Joe Biden is and how unelectable Kamala Harris currently seems. But, but, but, but before you turn it off and get mad at me, I also want to dig into Democratic base voters who think Biden should remain the nominee because those conversations were also extremely interesting.

My guest today is one of my favorites. I've got Audie Cornish here, host of the CNN podcast, The Assignment with Audie Cornish. Audie, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I am a professional listener of your podcast. I'm a fan. Amazing. So this is exciting to be on it. Like, seriously.

You know, this show and your show are kindred spirits. They are. They are. That is how I think about our shows. Because you love to have conversations with real people about the thorniest political issues out there, which is great that I've been on the show. I love it. And I want to know from you, actually, before we get to the sound, is there anything out there that you think the popular narrative is missing about the limbo we find ourselves in at this moment? Um...

No, I know that sounds silly, but I do think that if anything, a conversation that needed to have been had before,

in its fullness, is now being had, right? That was the thing about doing the debate, CNN doing the debate, and I was sort of on the analysis panels for that night. And ahead of the evening, I said, you know, one thing about this format is the silences will be deafening. Like, you're just going to get not a TikTok edited, not any of that. It's just going to be those guys and the spotlight and an open mic at length.

And in that way, we all got what we wanted, which is the air quotes, kind of the truth about who they are in this moment. Right. And they both were who they are, you know, like the way Trump answers the things he says, the untruths that he says, the way Biden was performing. Right. And how different he looked from the years before. I just think it's so rare to have a truly revealing moment in politics that for once,

I don't have more questions. You know what? The thing that you just said, actually, is, like, we're finally having the conversation that actually, like, should have been had a long time ago. It's like we've all been tiptoeing around Joe Biden's deficiencies, around what it means for Kamala Harris to be the vice president, and, like, this...

where voters are with those things. And people have not been having honest conversations about this. And as a result, it's like something got blown open. Oh my God, a dam has burst. Yeah. Now every thought everyone has ever had. And that's what's so fascinating about the conversation we're going to have is like listening to people just say that stuff

out loud and the differences they're being heard. Before you could say that stuff out loud and people would be like, yeah, okay, sure. But what about Gaza? It was sort of like, you're talking about something that is not pertinent to the moment. All of a sudden it is super pertinent and important in the moment. And the odds of you being heard even as a constituent are as good as they're going to get literally in this 10 day period. Hey, can I ask you just real quick,

So I was at the Aspen Ideas Festival. So I also like watched it live and had to react in front of people. But you had to react like in the moment. And like, that is the worst. I was like, don't come to me first. Don't come to me first. When you were sitting there watching it, what were you thinking?

Sarah, you're going to do this to me. You asked me really hard questions when I was on your show. I did. I'm going to ask you hard questions now. I did. And this also goes to just being a pundit or an analyst, which is something that's not my first nature. I went into it with an open mind in that I felt really strongly that the format was smart.

I have my own ideas about how moderators, I think it's like the most thankless job in journalism now. I think fact-checking as a moderator, we actually have a more complex relationship with that as voters than people let on. If you don't believe me, ask Candy Crowley, right? Like what happened to her career and she was a moderator for a debate where she quote unquote stepped in to correct something. So I think at the end of the day, like,

I went into it just being like, whoa, this will be great. Like, I don't want a bunch of people in the room applauding. I just want to hear them explain themselves. And the thing that struck me the most about Biden's performance was his complete and total inability to parry.

There was no ability to say, you said this, well, that reminds me, blah, blah, blah. Like there was just none of it. And I think that, again, contributes to the sense of, is this person energetic? Is the vitality there, their ability to jump in, to make a joke, to retort? And that means it's not much of a debate in a way. And so when people talk about the moderators, I understand why you're doing that, right?

But the candidate has a job to do. And I don't think I was fully prepared. Like, my notes weren't ready for a scenario where there weren't comebacks, zingers, dialogue, right? And the thing that came to mind after that I couldn't say was, welp? You know, just like...

Like, this is the election we're in, folks. Like, whelp. This is whelp 2024. We laugh because it's so sad. It's so crazy. It's so crazy. And all these people who...

I feel for voters who feel like, how did this happen? Yeah, I do too. I also feel for voters, but I've also been on like a tear of focus groups. Oh, so do you also blame voters? Well, it's not that I blame them. I just, because I talked to so many before this, I already knew that Biden had a huge age problem. So I went in as my punditry analysis is like, Biden has a huge liability, but you...

You got to turn this around. You got to prosecute a case against Trump. And it's funny because I'm surrounded by other pundits. Let's say George Conway, other people in my room. Exactly. And everybody wanted to be like, well, Biden's got to say this to Trump. It needs to get at him that way or whatever. And to watch Biden not be able to do anything. Exactly. It's one thing for you to all imagine, well, Biden just says this. And if he makes this case and he goes on offense, but to just see it like,

kind of fall apart was one of those crystallizing moments of, you know, we're in a different place than I thought we were. And now we're going to have to reckon with that. Yeah. And the other meta thing was I had sort of thought the days had passed where debates could make a difference.

And this was almost like Nixon level, right? Where just like there's something about the camera, the lights, the are you paying attention to where you should be looking? Yeah. The presentation of it. I feel like we have not seen a debate where it had that kind of impact before.

in a while, right? Like in possibly decades where you just looked up and the story was told even if your TV was mute. This is such a good point. You know, but it was, there was something about, again, this is where you can be surprised by politics still. Yeah. And you know, this thing about the camera, it's such a good point because I've got a lot of people, whether it's on Twitter or other places being like,

why aren't we talking about 2025 and no voters going to listen to that? And they all saw Donald Trump lie. And I was like, guys, that Nixon debate where he was sweating and he was against JFK, like that decided the whole thing. The optics of this matter a great deal. And the lost look was like a little bit of an accident of a camera angle.

Like he was looking in the wrong place. Yes, I thought that. But you know who wasn't? Donald Trump. The guy who used to be on a reality TV show. Staring right dead straight into the camera. And that made... And even knowing where to point, right? Knowing like if I put my hand in this direction, it's pointing at the guy.

I mean, I can't even fix my hair on camera. Well, because left is right and up is down when you're looking at yourself in the camera. Yeah, it's impossible. Exactly. Yeah, it's a hot mess. So anyway. Okay. We'll do another show on that that's like Sarah and Audie trying to function on...

A television set? I've just given up. I like look at myself on TV like my collars are a mess and I'm like, you know what? Yes, the collar thing. You know what, guys? You have to listen to my words because my clothes, I can't figure out. So sorry. Yeah. Okay. So I want to examine this Biden stay or go question from every possible angle today. So one thing I've been interested in is the spin from Biden world that calls for him to drop out or driven by the DC pundit class.

while if Biden is swapped out, like the Democratic base is just going to melt down. Like that's what they're saying. I wanted to test it. So we convened three groups of black voters from swing states who voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, who's a black Democrats. And it's true. Black voters are the most receptive to Biden staying on the ticket. Like that's what all the polling is showing. And Biden world is like leaning on their relationship to black voters right now is like why he's got to stay in. So 43% of black voters wanted him to stay on the ticket.

in the most recent New York Times-Siena poll, while only 32% of whites felt the same and all the other demographics were lower, right? So he's still holding on with Black voters. So let's listen to how the Black voters we talked to, by and large, talked about the question of replacing Biden.

I think if we're going to have the candidates that we have now, Biden needs to stay at the top of the ticket. And that was why he was first put up as the candidate in 2020 in the first place, because folks didn't believe that an Elizabeth Warren or anybody else could successfully beat Trump. So I think we're in that same that same quagmire again right now. I think it's too late in the year, honestly, to.

bring in a brand new candidate and actually have that work. If we were having this conversation in December, heck yeah, I'd say go for it, do it, campaign, push and get it done. And I would 100% support bringing someone in. It's July. We only have a couple months left. I don't think it would work.

Throwing somebody in the game, unless it's really a last resort, I think is really going to be hurtful to the push, especially dealing with Trump staying on the Republican ticket. It's too late to do anything. If we put somebody else, we would be giving the election to Trump. But I also want to see his agenda through. I trust that he's trying to work for the people. And like someone else mentioned, Trump is working for foreign entities.

I feel like all of our rights and freedoms are on the line with this election. So we have to stick with Biden. He is a true politician and he has a track record of doing the right thing.

November will be here before we know it. And to say, okay, we are going to pick someone new, gain the trust of the country and all the things in such a short period of time, it just seems ridiculous. I think we need to stick with what we have. You know, he had one bad night. Does that really say his whole political career just goes down the tubes because of one bad 45 minute span? You know, I just think...

It's ridiculous. I am voting basically for democracy this time. I do not want to see whatever the Republicans or this Project 2025 are trying to do. No Biden, he's not the best option, but he's all we got. It's either that or we're going to make a great by knocking it back several hundred years.

in this election, we're not really voting for the people per se, because each of these people, they come with their own set of values that they bring to the presidency. And at this point, their values are in such stark contrast that it's like, we just need someone who can beat them. It's

Who's going to make sure I can get my medicine without paying $500 a pop? Who's going to make sure my student loan payment doesn't jump to $1,000 a month? You know, who's going to not take away my civil rights even more than they've already been taken away? But I just feel like Biden covers everybody. Like no matter what, if you're anti-Trump, you're going to like something about Biden. Even if it's just he's a straight white man.

So these voters prefer keeping Biden for pragmatic reasons, but it sounds like defeating Trump is their animating factor for most of them in this election. And by and large, these voters that we talked about would vote for any Democrat. And so here's my question for you, because much of the pushback to replacing Biden hinges on there being a backlash from

among the Democratic base if Biden is replaced. That is not what I heard. What I heard is a pragmatic commitment to defeating Donald Trump, not an impending revolt if there's a new nominee. I want to know what you heard in there. Yes. Well, I think we have more tape coming, too. We do. Oh, we got lots more tape. Yeah, yeah. There's some ideas here that directly tie into that pragmatism.

But I want to stay with that word. I'm so glad you're using it because someone said it in that tape. They're like, the reason why we have Biden in the first place was in a way because it was a pragmatic decision.

And I think we have a lot of narrative residue from past elections sometimes that we kind of forget how things were playing out. And I remember at the time there was this sort of idea of like, well, older Black voters are homophobic, so they don't like Pete Buttigieg. And these other kind of voters don't like Elizabeth Warren. And it was all rooted in this kind of identity concept. And what I heard in your focus groups, and we'll hear more, is there's also deep-rooted

pragmatism, cynicism about what America is capable of embracing.

and that they look at Biden, as she said, at least if he's a straight white guy, maybe there's a shot. And I do think that we shouldn't listen to this next couple of voices without having in mind the post-awokening vibe in America, that there was this moment after George Floyd where everyone was like, we care about so many things. And the years since it's been like, I don't want to care that much. Actually, I don't.

I don't really care about your pronouns. The D.I. department's canceled. Like, police reform. It's basically dead. Like, all of this kind of whitelash backlash. Black America got the message. Like, okay, here we are. We're back to this.

And if we're back to this, then let's be honest about how you all are going to vote. And I think compared to your mixed race focus groups that I heard, this group was far more preoccupied with who are those other people going to vote for?

And I have to do a calculus. Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm rambling. Oh, no, no, no. It makes sense. But have you been hearing that the last month? Like, am I telling you stuff you already know? No. So I'll say, I obviously, I do groups of Black voters often, but doing three back-to-back and doing it on this topic to me was deeply illuminating. And part of it was, they're all talking about not reluctantly sticking with Biden, but kind of like,

Like, it's too late. And like, I'm here to tell you we got to beat this guy. And like, I don't want to mess around with all these other things because that doesn't- No alarms, no surprises. Yeah, that's right. That's it. Like, I'm not into gambling. This is what I hear them saying anyway. I'm not into gambling my rights. The idea that the election has high stakes because democracy is at stake, very vague, right? And we know from polling that lots of people hear that word democracy and think many different things.

Obviously, for older Black voters and even, you know, kind of Gen X Black voters, there is a real sense of what rollbacks can look like.

And so the idea of something being a high stakes election, you could hear it. It's still with them. I think there are voters out there that might look at Trump and say, we actually lived through this before and it was fine. Like we didn't go to war. Like actually things were pretty good. Like they have a whole dialogue that's like what could possibly go wrong. And what you heard in these focus groups was, oh, actually we're just trying to halt the

possible rollback that could be detrimental to our day-to-day lives. But let me ask you the thing that, to me, I found surprising, which is they're all saying they're going to stand with Joe Biden because it's too late, but he has a Black female vice president standing right next to him who would be the option if he stepped down. And the way that

And they talked about that. I'm going to get to that sound, so I don't want to preempt it too much. But I guess my question, though, before I do more sound. Yes, I know where you're going with this. Go ahead. I just want to know why in three groups of Black voters, two of which were all Black women, and they were the most pragmatic, straightforward group of people I've maybe ever listened to.

why they didn't want to go to Harris, why they thought it was too risky. Again, the pragmatism. I think they look around and they see a complete lack of interest in

in Kamala Harris, from progressives, from swing voters. I think that if anyone actually remembers the vice president's performance in the primary when she ran, it was not Obama too. You know what I mean? The enthusiasm just simply wasn't there. I think people think that just because

it's a Black candidate, Black voters will automatically fall in line. And they don't remember that Barack Obama was charismatic, well-spoken, young and vital compared to a John McCain,

who at the time came off as doddering during a crisis, an economic crisis befell the country. And in that moment, both candidates sat at a table and one of them didn't look ready. One of them looked in the way we're talking about Biden kind of now of like, well, is this guy really like know what's going on?

And so at the time, Black voters didn't just flock to Obama. It took a while. Iowa was a turning point because the takeaway was, oh, are white people doing this? Okay.

Yeah, cool. We'll do it. Like, that's what we want. But we didn't know y'all wanted it. And I think like that idea of a permission structure is very real. And when we talk about pragmatism, I know I'll say this over and over again. That's what it's about. I think Black voters look around. They see white people ignoring or actively dismissing Kamala. And they say, OK, not an option. Moving on. But what they don't want is chaos. They're not interested in chaos. I think they think that could be costly.

And what I heard in your voters, one of them even said the messaging would have to be right for whatever they did. The other voters weren't talking about messaging, you know what I mean? But there was this real kind of like,

in-depth understanding of, okay, Democrats, if you're going to do something, do it well. But don't kick off something that you're going to turn into like a Keystone Cop situation and it's just going to be a mess. They aren't interested in a mess, which I think is fair. Just because George Clooney says we have time to fix this and never mentions Kamala, like that's also a message being sent. Okay. You just raised something and I'm going to hit it because it's an important one.

These voters still found Biden the more electable than Kamala. Oh, for sure. And the reason that you just were articulating was they think swing voters won't vote for her, don't like her because they hear them say things. Longtime listeners of this show will know that the swing voters are not kind to Kamala Harris and are not interested in her being at the top of the ticket. And so I want to listen to how these voters talk about her.

For me, Harris doesn't have the depth of knowledge or the experience that is required for a president. And things that she said, offhanded comments that she's made are just ridiculous. She's just like a lightweight. Here's the thing. I also was not happy with the way that Biden chose Harris.

Why didn't he say, I'm going to choose the best person for the job? These are the people that I am considering for my presidential partner. He said, I want a woman. I want a black woman.

What if a yellow woman was better for the job? What if a black man was better for the job? What if a white woman was better for the job? That's exactly opposite of what Dr. Martin Luther King said. He said, don't judge a person by the color of their skin. Judge them by the content of their character. And I just really think he missed a great opportunity there.

I just kind of keep going back into how she got into politics to begin with. And, you know, the relationship that she had just makes me feel like she slept her way to the top. It's a character thing and I just can't have any respect for her. If you're going over her when it's her opportunity, then I feel like that's a bad look because then why was she in that situation in the first place? She just seems like somebody who's there just to be there. I,

her actions, the way she talks, it just doesn't seem like somebody who could be in charge of the country, you know, God forbid something happened to Biden. She just doesn't seem like she fits in that role for me. So, Sarah, how did this differ from your past focus groups with swing voters? This is par for the course. Okay. Well, I didn't know if the debate thing had, like, raised the stakes or made people more bold. Not for swing voters. Here's the thing about swing voters.

In this context, the way that we talk about them, they were Trump 2016 voters, Biden 2020 voters. They are center-right, typically, in orientation. And they often sound more like Republicans, but Republicans who find Trump despicable. And so they were willing to vote for Biden in 2020.

they really don't like Harris. They really will bristle at any time they see something that looks to them like what they see as identity politics. Yes. Right? Like, the moderator actually in this case did correct the person that, he said that about the Supreme Court. He did not say he was going to pick a Black woman as his vice president. Your moderator is very good, by the way. You need to play clips of your moderator more often. My moderator crushes. The phrasing of the questions is extremely key in sensitive things like this. Yeah, she is excellent. But,

But that litmus test thing always rubs them the wrong way. And remember what I said about post-awokening politics? Yeah. Like, I think a lot of people of color know this. They've experienced this in their workplaces. And there's someone at the office, right, who's like, well, why can't I say so-and-so and this is ridiculous? And, you know, the whole DeSantis platform. Like, there's just been this ongoing loud dialogue

from corporations to politicians that says, perhaps we sentence caps have gone too far with X. And like, that is the group I felt like we were hearing from just now. So this being a typical group, I have long also shared the opinion that it couldn't be Kamala Harris, because I just listen to swing voters and think they're never going to go for this.

There's a lot of these groups, we're going to play the sound because I don't want to characterize it without really letting people have their say because they are on point. They're deeply cynical and there's a lot of America will not do this. America will not elect a black woman.

I have never agreed with that because if you take a bunch of Democrats who don't want Joe Biden or even if they do and you're like, okay, fine, who do you want? There's only one name that comes up over and over and over again. Do you know which name that is? Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama. That's who everybody wants.

So I picked up dust in the studio. My eyes rolled so hard. Yeah, because she doesn't want to do it. You know, same thing with Oprah. Yeah, they don't know that. These voters don't know that. They're all like, why isn't Michelle Obama doing it? Here's my pushback. I don't think that it is that these voters won't elect a Black woman. There is something about Kamala that...

People react to and they bring up her laugh all the time, which they do not care for. But also the Black women in the focus groups did not say that they cared for Kamala a whole lot. All right. So here's where I'm going to jump in because like a poll cannot give you the moments that I had watching this.

In the mixed race swing group, when people said the things they were saying there, the handful of people of color looked away from their cameras. And one of them even got up and walked away. And like, maybe he had to get a snack in that moment, but...

I saw all of the visual coding of here we go. One person had their hand on their forehead. Another person, their face just froze in the like, I'm not going to make a face. I'm not going to make a face face because this was the like, all right, here we go, white America. Just say it. Say all the things. Here's where it gets tricky, I think, for the black voters, especially you had these black women voters who by and large, their attitude was a little bit like,

I may not love Kamala. Like, I don't know about her. But where they identify with her is that the way she will be talked about if she was on the top of the ticket is so disheartening and so familiar to women of a certain class and background that they cringe knowing what's coming. Because

in their own life had been talked about in similar ways. And I know I have, certainly. Oh my God, to my face, right? Of just sort of like, I don't know what it is, but you just don't seem right for this job. Like, it's just, I don't know, your laugh is weird. It's a vague sense of like, you, woman,

Because woman is a huge part of this. I think the criticism of her, quote unquote, sleeping her way to the top, that is just like straight up sexist coded language in so many ways. We have a big problem with male presidents who... Yeah. Yeah.

We never check in on their sex lives. What could possibly go wrong in their sex life? We've never had a sex scandal with a male politician. Thank God we stick with men. But it's the kind of thing where I think that there's a lot of Black women who perhaps, and in this focus group it was reflected, feel like,

Jesus, I don't know if I can sit through six weeks of people saying this person is incompetent, not good enough, a diversity hire, shouldn't be there, was only there because they were hired for their race. That's the way she is a proxy. I think what happens in the media is they tend to think very literally. I'm a Black woman. She's a Black woman. And therefore, I'm protective of her. That's not it. It's like,

This person who is a proxy for me in the public space is going to be torn to shreds in ways that feel so familiar that I'm not sure I can stomach it. That's my assessment that I probably won't say on TV, but that I felt when I listened to your focus group.

Yeah, no, I think you're nailing exactly the dynamic. And I'm going to make you guys listen to me read an ad right now. And then we're going to play this sound for you. So one second, because this show is sponsored by Factor.

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Okay. We paid the bills. Now that we paid the bills, I want to turn to the Black voters that we talked to, what they thought about Harris. And two of the groups were just women. And like you said, they generally liked Harris. Okay. But very few of them wanted to replace Biden on the ticket. And how they think the rest of the country will talk about Kamala was a major reason why. Let's listen.

I think the whole election, her whole time in office will be her fighting because she's a woman and not only a woman, it will be a Black woman. So mental health is something that's important. I would want to know how she'd take that backlash and that fire from having that position. So I just think that we should leave it at it is and hope for the best. As a Black woman, we already know what's going to come with that. The backlash. Yes, a woman in general, we saw what happened to Clinton.

And this time it's a black woman. So now we throw something else on top of it. I don't see that going well. And honestly, just black woman to black woman, I feel for her because that's an extra weight that she would then have to carry. And we're seeing what that weight does.

It's also unfair to her to put her on the ticket at the last minute. It just doesn't make sense. It's going to cause more outrage. I mean, we're in a country where you use a black mermaid in a Disney movie and people are in an outrage over a fictional character. I'm concerned about his health. And then I'm also concerned, say, if Kamala...

becomes president because Biden has to bow out because of his age. I'm not as concerned about what she will or won't do without the pushback and the resistance from America, not prepared to have a woman president and not prepared to have a president of color. Yes, I feel that Kamala wouldn't win the ticket because she's

Just in the Black community, there's still a struggle with men wanting to see women as leaders. I mean, I face that every day, working in positions, different things, having certain isms coming towards you and things.

you know, seeing women in certain positions. I don't think she has a very positive image in the Black community, and I'm not sure why. I mean, it could be her law enforcement background, you know, district attorney and, you know, putting people in jail all the time. But I think that if we change right now, it's close to the election, we are going to lose.

So the most revelatory thing to me, and you hit this before I could even get there, which was just how these voters carried the future anguish of...

a Harris presidency or a candidacy, right? They worried about how the country would treat her and the consequences that would have for her personally. I mean, they were like afraid for her having to sort of take all of that. And look, she joined the TIC in the summer of 2020 when we thought there was going to be the start of a racial reckoning and things sort of felt hopeful around that. And then...

Yeah, like you said, we kind of, I don't know, backslid or moved on. And that's contributed to this skepticism that people will elect a Black woman. And so, but I'm going to tell you how sad I found it. Because the white voters...

don't talk about it that way. The white voters absolutely think we would elect a Black woman in this country. Yes, of course. But the Black voters don't. They feel very, this real sense of it just can't happen. And I wanted to ask you, do you think that

these voters are worried. Nobody said this, so I'm interpreting here, but that, hey, they want somebody to represent them and they're worried that Kamala Harris might not be the best person to do it. Like if she loses, they might not get another shot to have a Black woman on the ticket. And like if she has to carry the weight of having lost to Donald Trump, like people were like, don't just throw her on the top of the ticket. That's not fair to her. Like that was sort of, what do you make of that? Do you think I'm overreading it?

No, no. I like hearing someone else's thesis on this. It sort of helps me think. I mean, one thing I think where we differ is I'm very much like past is prologue. Like as voters, especially voters at a voting age, you already saw this movie with Barack Obama.

Even the idea of Michelle Obama, lots of us remember how Michelle Obama was talked about in the public space, physically, how her looks were discussed. She was not treated well. And I think because she's, you know, had a big selling biography and things like that, there's a little bit of like literal whitewashing of like,

We all love her. You know, it was like, no, Michelle Obama also had a tough time. Barack Obama had a tough time. And in the aftermath of the first Black president, in a way, white America delivered Donald Trump, right? Who was his antithesis in so many ways. I don't think people think that, oh, if Kamala doesn't get it, like we'll never get it. I don't really think anyone thinks that way right now. But I do think that

White voters have the luxury of saying, well, we solved that problem. We had a Black president. So now every decision after that, like we're never going to think about race again. Whereas as we hear from all these Black voters, they have, as W.E.B. Du Bois said, double consciousness. They have their own thing. They have their own way of looking at themselves. But they're also acutely aware of how the world sees you, particularly white people see you.

And so you are always balancing these two things. You have your own interests, but you also are aware of how things are being seen and how they're being processed outside of you. And I think that is what comes into play with Kamala. It's like a lot of things are true at once. She's not a strong candidate in a lot of ways. And anybody jumping on this ticket right now, it could be at a disadvantage. Like those things are true. Like the election is very soon.

It is also true that lots of people watched how Hillary Clinton was treated and realize if you're a woman running for office and people decide for whatever reason you're not quite right, it's a tough road. Like the lesson from Hillary Clinton's campaign really wasn't, we're almost there, so many cracks in the glass ceiling. It was, damn, America's still not ready.

were interested. And I think a lot of pundits sort of, again, you can say like, well, Clinton had all of these problems, blah, blah, blah. But I think one of the lessons you could take away was, I don't know, who's going to be this perfect woman candidate that swing voters will like? I legit don't know.

Well, let me ask you this. Politics ain't beanbag, right? So like Joe Biden right now, the attacks that he endures as somebody who is senile before even I think he has now hit a point, not where I think he's senile, but where his age is really causing problems. But like he's been getting hit with senility, dementia from the jump, number one. But also like

The way they come after his son, they talk about him like showering with his dog. Like the attacks on anybody in politics are about as gross as it gets. They are. But during the Obama administration, I mean, the Secret Service numbers were not great on threats. Like there is a special anti-Black hatred that exists in the country that can surface in a variety of ways. And again, this is such a hard conversation to have because obviously,

the vice president has not proven to have a strong constituency of Black voters. Yeah. Like, you don't meet that many people who are like, oh my God, I have been for Vice President Harris since the beginning. Like, that's just not her story. There's not going to be a Shepard Fairey print

of Vice President Harris. What do you think about the cop thing? The Kamala's a cop thing? Yeah. Yeah, that had great impact, especially with Black male voters. Again, context matters. When Democrats were having a conversation about police brutality to the point where they would bring up, quote unquote, mothers of the movement, women who had lost sons and daughters to police violence on stage at the DNC,

I sat down, actually, I think I interviewed Kamala Harris and asked about, hey, you got this background. Is that a liability? You know, wither the black law and order Democrat.

Is it the end of that kind of Democrat? And now here we are with Eric Adams, mayor of New York, is like, we're back, baby. You know, like put as many cops on the street as you can prove to the public that you care about this. And at the time when Biden considered vice presidential options, remember Val Demings, who was a sheriff from Florida? She was considered for a minute.

Yeah, she rides a motorcycle. She's cool. Rides a motorcycle as a sheriff, which if anyone knows about Florida and sheriffs, their power, it's a whole thing. It's actually quite intense. But anyway, I'm getting wound up. All that to say is that you are right. Kamala, for a lot of reasons, the vice president is not the strongest. She doesn't have a constituency that is fighting for her. But I don't think that people should mistake what I would call the wince factor for

for Black voters and dismissing her, leapfrogging her, and just in generally saying she's trash. Like, people don't really want to sit through that dynamic.

dialogue. Let's talk about that piece. Okay, that's where we are. Perfect segue. It's like you're a pro at this. Okay, so this idea, if you bypass Harris, though, Black people will revolt. I want to listen to one exchange we heard about that in our groups, followed by some discussion of who they think this country would and would not elect.

The vice president steps in when the president can't. So why are people just like afraid of Pamela Harris having that spot? If she can't have it, you can forget about the Black vote. We're possibly going to lose a lot of the Black voters. However, we're going to lose a lot of the white voters too, who do not want to see a Black woman in office.

I agree with all that you're saying. And that's exactly why I say Joe should stay where he is. If we just want anyone on a ticket other than Biden, in my opinion, they aren't going to win. But it has to be a straight white male. Sucks to say I'd rather vote for a white man than a black woman. But at this point, we're not getting into the emotions of it.

I mean, even President Barack Obama, like he's a man and it was horrible. Like people's reactions to him winning. It was horrible. And as people mentioned already, Hillary Clinton, like if we were going to do a woman, it would have to be a white woman first. I think they would vote for a white male gay president before they would vote for a black woman. That's true. Because I think that's proven to be true.

Almost as sexist as they are racist. Do you guys think in this climate that a Jewish man could be Trump? Many of us feel that the Jewish community can, and I'm being honest, you know, can get away with anything. So that comes in business, that comes in a lot.

And there's a lot of reservation behind the Black community as it relates to Jewish men or the Jewish population. So that last woman's comments came up in the context of Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. And there was some resistance in other groups to his pro-Israel stance, with one participant saying that you can't ask Black voters to vote for a pro-genocide candidate, although...

Not sure why Shapiro is that different from Biden in that regard, but. Exactly, exactly. But also was a young voter, I noticed with that person who used the genocide phrase, right? So there's always that generational piece of it.

But talk to me about the if Kamala's passed over. Because what was interesting to me about this group is that an older woman suggested you can forget about the black vote. And then everybody else was like, no, that's wrong. Yeah. And pushed back. They were like, actually, it would be fine. They were like, go find me the straightest, whitest. And somebody kept saying, like, broad shoulders. You know, they knew what they wanted. Gavin knew some dialogue. I mean, we should be on time for that. There was some Gavin dialogue. People had thoughts about him. I was like, this is petty, but also delicious. Yeah.

Yeah, there was a real sense of like, we sentence caps have to put something before white swing vote America that is palatable enough for them to do that instead of Trump. That was like over and over again. I do want to come back to something in the middle of that though, which is that voter who had that kind of anti-Semitic tone to the argument, right? I would call this a little bit of like,

Yeah.

But there is this residue. And I find that sometimes for the media, it is hard to disentangle. And maybe it's not right to disentangle it, actually. But it's hard to disentangle it from the real and honest dissatisfaction with the war in Gaza. And that one remnant of the awokening in the post-George Floyd age is a linking of oppression internationally.

this is something that happened in the 60s. And then it happened again. And I've talked to students, you know, who have done protests, not necessarily Black students, but the idea that oppression is oppression everywhere, et cetera, like they really believe that and are paying attention to it. And it's not just students in the Black community. There are just plenty of people, I think, Black voters who look at what's happening in Gaza and they don't think it's right.

And they have a really hard time reckoning with anyone who tells them, but what about, but what about this? What about that? Very valid reasons, right? Like terrorism, Hamas, existential threat to Israel. But I hear it a lot. They'll just like, this is not a good war. This is not something the U.S. should be supporting. And that's where these kinds of sentiments arise.

come up, really? Like, you were asking them about Shapiro, but the line of questioning was also in the context of what about this position, right? Even though Biden...

pretty much has unequivocal support of Israel. It's not a change. You know what I mean? It's not some big change in policy if somebody was a Jewish candidate. I don't really think that's a big thing. I also wish your questioner at the time had said, well, what about Bernie Sanders? I do think there are plenty of people who...

would be appealing, regardless of their heritage. Yes, you are picking up on our centrist bias in our questioning. You're right. Just a tiny bit, right? Like, if it was Bernie, I'm sure those Black voters would have been like, okay, let's have a conversation. You know, he's talked about, in particular, the Gaza issue, and I think in a nuanced way. But even, I think, some of your focus groupers said, oh, well, you know, these young people, they're on TikTok all the time, and they really care about the war. Like,

Everyone knows a young person in their life who is deeply preoccupied with the war in Gaza. Sure. It was interesting to me that that tended to not dissuade them from Biden. Exactly. Right? I mean, in this group, it didn't. Although, I mean, I've done tons of groups of young people and the Gaza stuff is... They know. Yeah. They're obsessed. So they're pushing back on the idea that you could skip over Kamala. Let me ask you, though.

Because they also were like, can we win? Now these people... So it's like, just whatever we can do to win. So like, square that circle for me. Oh, see, I didn't think those were two separate things. In the context of that, I feel like the vice president is a proxy for something else. Right. How are Black women treated in positions of power and in the culture and public space? Are they dismissed, ignored, et cetera, undermined? It's not like that can't live alongside...

They don't want chaos, too. And the can we win thing is also about chaos. I heard voters here who don't trust Democrats to do this cleanly.

Because there is a clean way, quote unquote, to pass it off to Kamala Harris. So that is something that the president can do and is something I'd like to remind people as they wait. I don't know by the time this airs, but like everyone's like, why won't Biden say this? Why won't Biden say that? If the president actually takes seriously this discussion and really starts thinking about it, he immediately has to think about the next question. Who does he put his support behind? And if it's not the

the vice president, that's a whole other conversation that I don't think will be handled in a day or two. And so I think there's a little bit of like the media, we want this news cycle to move very quickly and these decisions to be made. I actually think there is enough time

There's enough time to do anything if you live with the consequences. But this idea that it's, if the debate was in September, sure, panic. But like, this is plenty of time to have a real conversation. And I think the voters consider the information new and upsetting enough that they would not say, but I voted for Joe Biden in the primary. Like, no one's going to say that. No one's going to feel like they're disenfranchised in the face of this new information. Yeah.

I think that is 100% correct. I do want to just put my own thinking about Kamala on the record because I have on this program talked about her a lot and even sort of became convinced myself after saying for a long time that Joe Biden should not be the nominee. I did this thing that I now sort of regret constantly.

I said after 2022 and all through 2022, I was like, this guy cannot run again. He is too old. Voters think he's too old. He's carrying too much baggage. People, they are voting for these down ballot folks in spite of Joe Biden. This is not his win.

And then it was him and everybody was like, get on board. And I was like, fine, I'll get on board. And one of the things they do to get you on board is they say, otherwise it's Kamala because she can't pass over the first black vice president. As a threat. Right? And I've listened to so many swing voters talk negatively about Kamala that I was like, well, I don't know how to run a campaign.

that unites the anti-Trump coalition around Kamala Harris. I just don't. And so I was like, fine, Biden, fine. And then when the Dean Phillips stuff happened, this is where I'm sort of, when Dean Phillips ran and even my colleague Bill Kristol does a lot of, you know, somebody should primary Biden. I was like, no, that just hurts him. Stop this. This is nonsense. Like Joe Biden's the nominee. We just got to get on board. But I knew that voters thought he was too old. I knew what a liability it was. And I got to say that now,

Even though I have listened to these voters talk about Kamala for so long, there's also a thing that they do. And I don't have sound for this, but people have heard me play it and talk about it hundreds of times if they listen to the show. So you're not just taking my word for it. One of the things they always say is people are like, but I don't see her. What is she doing?

It's not that they, like, hate her. They don't have a cemented view of her. Yeah. Although some of your swing voters had very much heard the criticism that she's failed on the border, like she's been assigned to do things and hasn't done it. I mean, Joe Biden didn't solve cancer. He was tasked with that. But, like, you know, vice president's a tough gig. Yeah, it's a tough gig. None of these voters think that they are voting for Joe Biden for four more years. They don't.

You ask them, they think he is never going to finish out four years. They're not sure he can finish out four months. So they know they're voting for Kamala on some level. So you get her baggage, but you get it without any of her upside. I have become persuaded. I have decided that actually in this moment, Kamala could be uniquely situated at a hinge point in history to say the prosecutor and the felon.

And I've just been watching her as this news cycle's gone on. Like, there's something about the fact that Joe Biden struggles so much to communicate that it feels like he can't talk, that when she talks, I'm like, well, just listen to this person stringing perfectly good sentences together and prosecuting a case against Trump. I mean, she spoke after the debate, actually, on CNN, and she was excellent. She was excellent. Surprisingly so. And so I am giving Kamala Harris another look. And if you let me...

I would take Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro. That's what I would do. I'm a centrist, former

I'm a Republican who loves my Midwestern governors. And that's what I would do. So you're that person that's like no way to Newsom. Absolutely no way to Newsom. No, no, no, no, no. Some of the black women voters are like, they won't vote for Newsom. I was like, wow. They did, they did. And I was like, you guys have me exactly right. I would not, well, it's not true. I'll vote for literally anybody over Donald Trump. So I'm not the best. But if you said, hey, Sarah, in your analysis, what's the best ticket? It's your fantasy ticket right now. If they're going to hold an open convention, I would be like,

Whitmer, Shapiro, or just some combination of these Midwestern governors in the swing states that have to be won. Donald Trump is such an existential threat. If there was any way I could get there, I could. That being said...

I understand that it's messy and that you might not be able to get there. And I think Kamala Harris is a better choice than Joe Biden. And I also do not agree that America won't elect a black woman. And maybe I just sound like a white swing voter right now. Name Sarah? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, from central Pennsylvania. I am right here to be exactly how I am. I revert to type. I love it. I love it. What do you think?

I'm not going to comment on this. There was something I have wanted to say about this election, which is that in a way, people are angry because they feel like a social contract has been violated. That Joe Biden said, hey, listen, let's hit pause on this craziness. I'm going to run. I know what I'm doing. Do you guys care about this race stuff and all like everything going on? OK, how about this person for second on the ticket?

And I'm here to steady the ship. And I think everyone added extra sentences in their mind on to the end of that, which was, and I'll go away after I have steadied the ship. And so even the choice of Kamala on the ticket, I think, felt like in line with the legacy of Joe Biden, who had been vice president to the first black president.

There were things that just sort of lined up that felt, quote unquote, right to voters, especially coming off of chaos of Trump and being in the middle of the terror, which we don't talk about, the psychological terror in some ways of COVID. Everyone thought at the end of that,

they would applaud him and he would just kind of quietly walk off and perhaps her with him, that like they had done what they promised to do and would wipe the slate clean. And then everybody would get a fresh start and you would have the conversation that you, Sarah, just had. What about these governors? What about this? What about that? And there's something about

Biden looking dead into the camera the other day and saying, like, not even the Lord can tell me to walk away, that I think really rubbed people the wrong way. It really, again, was that violation of like, well, wait, what? Like, we didn't sign up to do your whole years and years that you think you have. Like, you did what you said you were going to do. And now it's your job to actually help us transition to something different.

Instead of this conversation that is being had now, which is like trying to take the keys from granddad. That is not where people wanted to be or expected to be at this moment.

So that's how I add to your wishes. It's like, I wanted your wishes too. Everyone thought that they would be having a choice, right? And instead, the complete and total lack of choice is just like, it feels like a middle finger from the political class to the voter. It does. And on top of that, we've got Trump again, right? And so the stakes take on this existential proportion, unlike...

standard issue Republican from the old days where you'd be like, oh, I don't want this person, but also like... Which is why the Project 2025 dialogue is catching fire. I know sometimes we talk about things as like, oh, this narrative doesn't matter, this matter... I think sometimes things catch

because people already feel like they have a hunch it's going in that direction. So if you already had a hunch that Biden was elderly and doddering and having a problem, and then you saw that debate, it was like, oh, okay, here we are. My hunch was correct. If you have a hunch that Trump, the sequel, will be more, bigger, better, aggressive,

then you are nervous. And in the Black community, for example, Taraji Henson got up at the BET Awards and was like, go Google Project 2025. And people did. How about it being in these focus groups? I got to tell you, we were not hearing about Project 2025 and now all of a sudden every group is talking about it.

Yeah. And the reason why is because, again, if you are nervous, this confirms your hunch that there's a group of people rubbing their hands together in a dark room and planning for worse things for you and your community. And I hear in your focus group stakes that I don't hear from swing voters. Sometimes I feel like swing voters really just don't feel stakes, that they're just like,

you know, under Trump, I didn't end up in a camp or something. It's fine. And under Biden, this hasn't been great. Milk is expensive. And like, those are the stakes for them. And I feel like for some other communities, not just Black communities, the idea of what the stakes are feels visceral when they talk about it. Yeah, I'll just add that the swing voter groups, if anybody wants to feel additional panic, and we've been seeing this for a while, these are people who voted for Trump that voted for Biden.

And many of them were going back to Trump. Like if you did head to head, they were going to vote for Trump again, which is, I think, a real problem for Biden and one of the main reasons that I have become sort of convinced he can't win. But you said something, and I'm going to close with this because we're running long, but this has been the best. Are we recording this? I thought we were recording it.

Oh my goodness. It does just feel like hanging out. This is a great time. So I wrote in the Morning Shots newsletter this week, if there was a drinking game that I played, every time somebody said the lesser of two evils, I'd just be dead. Yeah. Because people say it all the time about how they decide on...

vote choice. But they also said this thing about taking the keys away from the parents. The thing about Joe Biden's being old, I think about this sort of with abortion too, the issues that often resonate the most are the ones where people have a really clear sense of them. People will just tell you, do you know how hard it was for me to get the

keys away from my aging parents or my grandparents, or I couldn't get the keys away and he ran into a tree. You know, aging is something that people understand. And so... And notice this conversation has appeared, not ours, but in general, into ageism, right? There hasn't been a backlash from the sizable elder voter class. Massive.

to being like, we like them and we're all fine, by the way. You know, it hasn't happened. You know, I think they're sort of like, I probably shouldn't run the country actually right now. But I want to close with what we heard about Biden from this group of undecided Clinton Biden voters. This is the other reason that I am panicked. We have done a number of Clinton Biden voters for people who are now undecided and on the fence. So get out your favorite shot glass and listen.

I appreciate that he's like all in, like I'm not stepping down, I'm not backing down. But like, I liken that to your aging parent or grandparent doesn't want to give up their driver's license. They're fine. Everything's fine. You know, like, of course, he's going to say, you know, there's nothing wrong with me. And that's all I can really think about when he talks about it. So hearing that people around him are concerned.

That makes sense. I don't think he's ever going to admit. I heard George Stephanopoulos drill him. Like, are you cognitively fit? And he just danced around the question. I mean, I mean, I don't think he'll ever admit it. It takes someone else to say, no, you can't do this. You can't drive anymore. Seeing the debate was everything. Letting him continue to run is like not taking the keys away from your parents after they cannot drive. The only strength is having that hard argument and getting them away from the keys. Yeah.

Anyone's letting him run at this point. He's just being weak. I do think he should step aside. And the sooner, the better. Because my concern is when we keep referencing our aging parents, I've seen firsthand how difficult it is to get mom's driver's license or aging parents license away from them, or even just to convince them of the need for assistive care.

What does that look like when it's the president of the United States? Right. I mean, yes, we know there are all these amendments that lay out a process for, you know, when the president is incapacitated. But how hard is it going to be to make that determination once he is in office again? It made me think of my own aging father who's right around the age of Biden. And I thought, do I want my dad in charge of the U.S.? No. Right.

You know, I mean, love him dearly, but he says weird stuff now. He does weird stuff. He's older, you know, and that's part of the great thing about being older is you can't say stuff like that, but not for someone who's supposed to be in charge of our country.

I drank every time. This is water and I'm hammered. Let's close the show on a tough note. What do you think about the fact that given the sort of lesser of two evils frame, people would rather go with grandpa whose keys you can't wrestle away from him over totally competent, cogent black female vice president? Ouch. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how to process that. Like Black voters. Yeah. Again, Black voters are not going to decide this election in the way that the media says it. Like, oh, there's a precinct outside of Philadelphia, and so you got to get these five guys to say yeah. Like, it doesn't work that way. But it is the group that Biden is relying on to keep him in this race. Absolutely. I have a friend who said that every four years Biden gets Black.

And I was like, not wrong. You know, like, okay. But again, pragmatism. This doesn't mean that people are going to look at you and say, if everyone around him is telling him not to do it, Black voters will see that too. They're not making these decisions in isolation. And then one other thing to your point about a criticism that people can connect with. Gen X is uniquely positioned to

have tried to take away the keys from their boomer parents, right? Boomers held on a little bit too long in just about every gig and have been a sandwich generation. Boomers who had a very, and still do, active, thriving, elderly life bolstered by the wealth they accumulated through the policies that they enjoyed.

and the younger people who are like completely panicking, right? Like climate anxiety and like hear about everything that's wrong. So I listened to some of your focus group and what I was looking at is who they were in the generation. And Biden is a little bit in that generation that's like, as long as I'm walking, I can still do it. And I don't know about you, but I definitely know one or two journalists who they were working till the end. That is a goal for a certain generation.

And I think that you're hearing people viscerally react because they've experienced some version of this in their own life. And that's always going to be a very, very powerful thing that you cannot overcome with a cute focus group tested message.

Audie Cornish, thank you so much for joining us. Sarah, you're my favorite. You have the best job in politics. You have given yourself the best job in politics. I aspire to your work. And I hope people are listening who understand how good the show is, just objectively. Oh, that's so nice of you to say. I appreciate it. I appreciate what you guys are doing. And I believe in democracy. I believe in voters. I think we're having this conversation because people were like, what?

let's talk about this, right? Like, I do think Americans are capable of having tough conversations and arriving at an answer that makes sense to them if the stakes are right.

as cynical as I am and so jaded. Like, I do still believe that. Hey, I listen to voters all the time, and I know they can be frustrating sometimes, but I also think, man, people are great. People are great, man. They are. They can say bananas things. They sure can. You can be like, what? But, like, it is, you know...

democracy I didn't even play the woman in this group who thought that women should definitely not hold public office as long as they had a husband to I mean there was like a you know people say all kinds of things and I still love the people man okay thanks thank you thank you to all of you for listening to the focus group podcast remember to rate and review us on apple podcast subscribe to the board on youtube we will see you next week