S4 Ep43: Kamala Gets The Start (with David Axelrod)
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark. As you know, I have been agitating for Joe Biden to get out of this race since that disastrous debate performance last month, and it has happened. That blocks Donald Trump's glide path to the presidency. But this week, I want to talk about the work Kamala Harris has in front of her to earn American voters' trust. And I'm going to talk about the work that she's been doing to get out of this race.

Now, we're still waiting on really reliable polling on this new reset race, but Harris starts as a slight underdog. In a CNN poll conducted after Biden dropped out, she trailed Trump by three points nationally, while Biden trailed by six points in that poll in June.

Today, we're going to look back on voters' reactions to her over the years and where her campaign has to go from here, because this is an important period for Kamala's campaign. I've been known to say that public opinion is malleable at first, and then it hardens like cement.

My guest today is grizzled. My producer wrote that, so sorry. Grizzled veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns, David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Obama and host of two great podcasts, The Axe Files and Hacks on Tap, one of my favorites. David, thanks for being here.

Great to be here. Grizzle kind of bugs me because I actually shaved for this podcast. I know, you look very shorn. You look clean. Yes, I'm freshly shorn. Freshly shorn. And yet I still get hit with the grizzle thing. I'm sorry. I think it's a little ageist, actually. Yeah, well.

You know, like the president, I'm used to that. So tell me, what did you make of Biden's speech last night? Let's start with that. So we're taping this on, what day of the week is it? Today's Thursday, yeah. So Wednesday night. So Wednesday night, there was a speech. What did you think about his speech? I, you know, look, partly, I think he deserves a lot of grace for this moment. It's a hard, hard decision for anybody to make, and particularly a guy like Joe Biden, who

whose stubborn pride and indomitability has led him through so many difficult situations over the course of his life and career. You know, he thinks he can overcome any obstacles. So this was a hard decision for him. I thought he did very well. I thought he met the moment. I thought there was a nobility to the message. And he did put it in terms of the stakes of the election.

He did embrace the vice president in the way he should. I know there were complaints that he didn't acknowledge the reason that he decided to leave, other than to say that he was stepping aside because he thought it would unite the country. I don't think dwelling on the fact that, you know, people thought he was too old. I just don't think that was necessary in this speech. So I thought, I actually thought he did a really good job. Wait, wait, what did you think?

Since I heard you in your introduction essentially take credit for the fact that he got out of the race, I feel like you should at least share your critique of the speech. I am not taking credit. I am simply saying that, look, we took a few weeks of drubbing here as we talked about. Well, I took a year and a half of drubbing. You and I agreed on this a long time ago. Right. Very clear I didn't think he should run. And it's because of the focus groups. I mean, I've been listening to voters talk about the fact that this guy is too old to

to do the job for a long time. I'm not sure how worthwhile it is to dwell on that to your point now, because I feel like we have turned. It's done. I mean, it's done. Yeah, we've turned the page. And there is an issue, though, and you do. There is this issue that the Republicans are trying to work as to whether people around the president, including the vice president, like deceived the public. I don't think the public was deceived.

I mean, I don't think anybody expected what they saw in that debate, but obviously neither did his team or they wouldn't have sent him out there to debate. So the nature of aging is that it happens on its own pace and it tends to quicken as one gets older. That's why at the beginning of the race, before he got in, my feeling was that he shouldn't run. And I said my analysis was not political, it was actuarial. And now we've seen that. And

And by the way, I think that's now an issue for Donald Trump. Totally. You know, he is going to be the oldest president ever elected if he wins and should raise some attention to his VP choice. I think age is an issue for him. I think he set the terms of this race around age and infirmity. 100%. And now he has to live in that frame as we go forward. Yeah. I think it was not an issue for him relative to Biden. Yeah.

Yeah, I think what you'll find, though, is I think the assassination attempt and the way he responded to it kind of added to this image of indomitability that he has. And so, you know, he gets some points on that. But the truth is, if you go back to the debate that was so dramatically bad for Biden, it was only slightly better for Trump.

Had he had a worthy opponent, and I don't mean worthy in terms of personal merit, but on that day, on that stage, I think he would have suffered in that debate. I'm really interested in the next one because he will have a worthy opponent. And

He may be the addled old man on the state. Yeah, I do think he is both a little addled and a little old. But let's jump into the voters. Yes. I want to get into how the voters talked about Biden's decision to leave the race. Let's listen to what a group of Trump to Biden, so these are people who voted for Trump at 16, Biden at 20, voters said about it after Biden made his announcement.

These people should be enjoying their retirement. You have, like, worked hard your whole life. And how do we wind up with, like, these very old white men? I really wish he had done it before the primaries so that the voters could have had a say in who the nominee was. Like, I feel like this is very much, oh, well, now all of the big donors get to pick. I really wish he would have thought of this a while ago when there was, like, viable options.

You should not be running the country at that age because half of the time they don't know where they are and they don't know what they're doing. Why do we need to roll somebody into a wheelchair onto the Congress and then like sit there while they're sleeping and snoring? It should have been done a lot earlier, but just glad it's been done now. Like Biden's struggling to keep up. Like maybe he's just a little slow and saying things that don't add up. So I think

You know, that tells me as a voter, OK, maybe maybe you should step down and take care of yourself. It's a right move. And I think based on what I'm seeing online, it seems like the younger generation, they are more likely to vote for Harris over Biden. That's just the vibe that I get based on what's being posted online and based on what's being shared on social media. I felt that it was interesting.

Joe's decision. And I really hope that it was. I mean, I know it seemed like he was being forced out every day. They were like, Joe needs to step down. But I think at the very end, he realized it was the best thing for the country. I wish that he had not ran again. Like, he had made this decision a long time ago.

So obviously the voters were kind of harsh on Biden for taking so long to reach this decision. But personally, I hope history is kind to him. But I'm curious, what do you think Biden's legacy is going to be?

Well, look, part of it is tied to this election. If his withdrawal leads to Kamala's victory and a second Trump defeat, that in and of itself is a landmark achievement, having beaten Trump once and engineered his defeat again. But look, I think history will be kinder, Sarah, to Joe Biden.

Remember his inaugural on the steps of a battle-scarred capital surrounded in barbed wire in a country that was ravaged by a pandemic. And he led the country through that. He, against all odds, and in a very divided Congress, passed some landmark laws.

legislation, including the infrastructure bill and some bills on climate and healthcare and, you know, even a gun safety bill. And, you know, I think his leadership in pulling the world together against Putin's aggression, you know, may not sit well with Tucker Carlson and

J.D. Vance, but I think history will look kindly on that. So I think his legacy in some ways will be rescued by the decision that he made to leave this race, which would have colored

his legacy had he stayed. I think he would have lost, and I think he would have lost badly, and I think a lot of Democrats would have lost with him as a result. And that would have been the coda on a very distinguished career. He's avoided that. Yeah, I think that if she wins, him stepping aside,

will be the number one piece of his legacy because it's such an extraordinary action. I think we can't appreciate up close to it. Like I hear the frustration, I feel frustrated by it. I also tend to believe it's never too late to do the right thing, even though time is very short. But I just think that 100 years from now, it will seem like a miracle to people that this sort of old white guy gave up the presidency and turned it over to America

a younger generation, a more diverse generation, and that history will look very kindly on him, especially if she wins. If she loses, I'm not sure. Yeah, no one, who does this? Who does it? Who walks away from the pinnacle of power? And I know in these groups, the groups that we watched, there were, and you heard some of it there, you know, people saying he was forced out. They don't like the fact that they were handed Kamala. And although, you know, in polling, the numbers are overwhelming that he did the right thing. And at least among Democrats,

overwhelming support for her. But to the degree that he was pressured out, yes, politicians expressed themselves to him, but they were merely expressing what voters were saying. Voters were saying he should step down. And so at the end of the day, voters had their say and he listened and he acted on it.

It wasn't the donors and it wasn't the politicians. It was the reality that the American people had made a judgment and he yielded to that judgment. Yeah, I will say not all swing voters definitely buy that. There is still a sense of... Well, it's being fanned by Republicans. Well, it is. It's part of the DEI presidency stuff is trying to

sort of tack on to this idea that she didn't earn it, right? Because Americans really like this idea that somebody earned it and that I was robbed of a primary, an opportunity to earn it. And so I do think that's one of the things that she's going to have to sort of get over the hump of that with some voters. Yes. And she knows that because the first thing she said was she wanted to earn the nomination. But I'll tell you something about these presidential races. By the time they get to November,

There'll be no doubt that she earned it or didn't earn it. I mean, she's going to be toe to toe with a brawling and frankly, a unbounded opponent who will do anything to win. And if she can stand up under the fusillade that's going to come, she will have earned it. I think people will learn a

lot about her and what they're gonna find is oh she actually has a long career she was a prosecutor she was pretty tough prosecutor she was an attorney general and she took on some really powerful interests she's been representing the country around the world in a serious way and that one of the things interesting things in New York Times poll is

One of the questions was which candidate is either smarter or more intelligent. She had like a nine-point lead on Trump. So that tells me they've been paying some attention to both of them. Yeah, well, I hope that they continue to discover how smart she is, but they're pretty sure he's a dummy. So I want to throw something at you. All right, I'm ready. So I have...

had been a big Biden shouldn't run. And then I, you know, wanted him to get out immediately. And I had sort of my fantasy candidate. I thought a Whitmer Shapiro ticket, they get black up Michigan and Pennsylvania. And I even talked to a lot of black voters in the focus groups and they just wanted to beat Trump. And there was not this sense of, oh, it has to be Kamala or there's going to be a revolt. And yet, and

And yet, the way that this has happened, I have found myself quickly feeling like this was actually exactly the right way for it to go. Even though I think that Kamala has some liabilities, I wonder if you think the way that she has comported herself since it became clear that it was her and the fact that there was sort of this seamless transition, it seems like it almost could have gone as well as it possibly could have. Do you think that's true or not?

Well, yes. I mean, I think she's had a really spectacular rollout here. And the rollout is not just this sort of shock and awe of how she put together the nomination in a matter of hours, which showed a kind of mastery of the inside game. But the candidate who we've seen in her public interventions is a much different candidate than we saw four years ago when she wasn't, frankly, very good.

She seems comfortable. She seems in command. She seems relaxed, given the maelstrom that she's now been tossed in. And her messaging has been good.

The comparative that she set up with Trump, the focus on some kitchen table issues. I've been really, really impressed with how she's handled herself. And, you know, the thing is, Sarah, these campaigns, whether they're truncated or elongated, they are oral exams that never end. And people are looking at you closely and they're looking particularly closely at her right now. I think she's done very well. The challenge for her is going to be putting together

a kind of fighting machine in midair and retrofitting it to the campaign that she's in, not the campaign that Biden was in. But in terms of her own performance, I think she's really helped herself. And obviously, there is, in fact, a tremendous jolt of energy in a party that was moribund a week ago.

I don't want to get carried away by irrational exuberance because I've seen a lot of that in the last few days. She still has a tough race. Biden won by 7 million votes last time and barely won because of 45,000 votes in three states. So because of the nature of where the population is in this country, she's got a lot of work to do. She's gaining among Black voters, Hispanic voters, and younger voters. She's probably losing a little ground among some

segments of white voters. She's got a lot of work to do, but she's got a shot. She's got a shot. And that wasn't the case a week ago. ♪

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Okay, so I want to set the stage a little bit and we'll move through a bunch of sound here. And so let's listen to a small sample of what we've heard recently about Harris over the last couple of years. Voters have been very consistent about Kamala Harris in terms of what they think about her, especially a lot of swing voters. But so the people you're about to hear, they all voted for the Biden-Harris ticket. Let's listen.

She does nothing. She's plugging in an electric car on the news today. And that was it. I'm like, do something, woman. I feel like she's making us look stupid as a woman. When Obama and Biden were in office together, you could see that both of them really acted as a team.

For some reason, I don't get the idea that Biden and Harris are acting as much of a team. It's not giving me the same energy like they had before. It doesn't feel like a partnership. It just feels like a business deal. I think Biden's office doesn't even like her because they give her the worst assignments over and over again and set her up to look bad. And she doesn't really help her case at all.

I feel like Michelle Obama was way better and was way more visible. I never see Kamala Harris anywhere. And I personally am extremely disappointed. I feel like she wasn't very visible at all during Roe versus Wade, something that majorly affects women in our country. She's been put in charge of like task force, the border, and she was on like a gun violence task force and none of that's improved.

i'm wondering what she's done after the election she vanished yes so i can't put my trust in the invisible woman she just doesn't see why she's presidential material and that's something that's important for the vice president because it could happen there's this like press interviewing and

somebody was asking her can she support giving support to ukraine and she just like smiled giggled and laughed that that is a war-torn country and you're just laughing at it and playing it off i feel like he chose her because that was the thing at the moment you know with black lives matter it's like uh everything was going on and obviously you know uh racial justice i don't think she was qualified but i mean it's nice to have a female vice president but you don't hear her

All the things that she's done have been against minorities. The only advancement is that she's female and of color. But is she really? That's like saying Christmas cinema is a Democrat and she's freaking voting for the Republicans.

So she has universally gotten tough reviews from voters. A lot of those are swing voters. They voted for... And these were taken from interviews you've done over... Just the last couple of years. I'm going to tell you about a phenomenon that I discover listening to focus groups all the time, which is sometimes the context changes and suddenly the thing that you've been hearing people say for a long time sounds different or hits in a different way. And let me explain this.

I have now heard for years, the number one complaint about Kamala Harris is, I don't see her. I don't know her. What does she do? You know, it's been that. After Biden's debate, and I started thinking about, okay, what, like, obviously I had my ideal scenario, but I was like, okay, if it's Kamala, if she's the most likely scenario, I'm

I feel like, oh, these voters, they don't like her. Then I thought about it and I was like, actually, what they're saying is, I don't know her. I don't see her. And I realized, no, there's upside there. There's upside there. Because if they see her, if they get to know her, if they feel like they see what she's doing, if they feel like they know what she believes in, these people could get there for her. Yes, absolutely. Look, what I heard in these focus groups was the challenge and the opportunity. There's a race going to happen here.

between the Trump campaign and their allies and the Harris campaign and their allies to define her.

You're going to see both the super PAC and campaign on the air probably by weekend for Harris. A lot of that's going to be biographical just to fill in the picture. And as you point out, she's filling in the picture. And the more people see her, especially if she performs as she has. I mean, the growth has been pronounced.

Biden was very visible because Biden was handed very visible assignments, discreet and achievable, on which he did a good job. He also was a familiar figure for four decades, you know, in Washington. So, you know, she now has an opportunity to reintroduce herself.

to the country in a much different way. And I think that's a great opportunity for her as long as they seize it quickly before the Trump campaign, you know, fills the airwaves with bile about her.

Yeah. So, first of all, I completely agree with that analysis. And so I want to get into what voters have been saying about Harris since Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, because much of it will sound like what we just heard. But I think with a little more emphasis on the opportunity side. I think she's quick witted. She's funny. She has a personality.

There are people out there that don't want to vote for a female president. I think those same people are ones that would not vote for Biden either. I really think that far more people were racist and sexist than they let on. And that's going to be how they vote. It's going to be the, oh, but what happens if, you know, she has a bad day and she gets really emotional?

I mean, Hillary Clinton, let's be honest, she just wasn't a very likable personality. And I think that's why she lost the election. Trump at the time was something really different. He was not a career politician. And I think that's a large part of the reason why people were interested in him.

But, you know, I think America is ready to elect a woman. I think it'd be a good thing. And I think that the overturning Roe v. Wade, hopefully she can stoke the flames of that fire as a female presidential candidate to rally people and, you know, especially women to get out and vote. If you think about Obama's wife, I mean, at least she did some things. I mean, this is his wife. At least she was visible. And I can't say anything. I forgot that she was the vice president for a while.

I feel like I just don't know her well enough. The positive part is, I assume, her being a woman, she's going to be looking out for women's rights. She's not going to be throwing women under the bus, trying to put us stuck at home cooking and cleaning. Like, 2025 project, I'm like, oh man, that sounds like where that's headed. It'll be like a breath of fresh air. I feel like it'll be like a new beginning instead of feeling like you're watching a rerun because Trump has already been in office.

What I do know about Vice President Harris is not attractive to me. You know, her time in California as the Attorney General or the District Attorney, to me, she did a lot of tag-along, like a lot of taking on anything that's popular when we're tough on crime. She kind of used that to facilitate some arrests that were questionable, if you will. You know, a good leader will understand that sometimes you've got to take a look at what you've done in the past

And if it's wrong, you've got to admit that. And Harris refused to admit that she locked up some people that she probably shouldn't have. And to me, she doesn't have any passion for anything. Like everything's allowed for everything's funny. Nothing's passionate. Like Bernie Sanders, I know exactly where he stands.

she's just in the background right now. Like she's the backup. She's on the bench essentially doing like a sports analogy there. Like now it's her time to shine. She gets the starting role. So I got to see what she does. And I wish that happened a lot earlier so that we would have more time to formulate an opinion and get to know her better over the course of time. Cause now that window is a lot shorter. Yeah.

So I know that there's still like some real negativity in there, but I got to say that is as nice since Biden stepped aside. We've done a couple of groups. There's been like people saying breath of fresh air. There's a lot of people saying they're like interested in hearing her pitch. There are people with a negative impression of her. There's only a few people who have like locked in negativity around her. It's more like the not knowing her. And I also will say it is weird to me the way people keep bringing up Michelle Obama, uh,

When Kamala is the vice president, that seems like a weird thing people are doing in their minds. Yeah. Yeah. I would note one thing about that young black man who who talked about her prosecutorial record in California. Yeah. I read and I believe that the Trump campaign says they're going to attack her from the left.

on crime in communications to young black men in particular, because they're worried, as they should be. In this New York Times poll, I think Trump dropped from 23 among African Americans to 15 in the course of a matter of days with Harris on the ballot. You know, the way these guys generally run against African American candidates is to call them

super liberal and soft on crime. And they may try to do that. But on the other hand, they're going to be trying to work it from the left because she actually was a pretty tough prosecutor. If I were her, I'd lean into that, you know, because I think that that is part of her story that she didn't want to emphasize in 2020. And I think you took a big part of her biography away from her.

You know, one other thing that comes up a lot in the groups that is interesting and stupid is Kamala Harris's laugh.

everything you heard and that I've heard in these groups has been negative as though that's a cackle or whatever. There is renewed sense of Kamala Harris as somebody who has joy. One of these guys in here was talking about not taking it seriously. I've heard other people say, like, I think she has a good personality. Like, I'm just hearing more positivity than I've heard before, even with just this very short period of time. And so I

You've watched her. Do you think that she has—this is a question I get a lot, and I have an opinion on it, but I'm interested in yours—do you think she has the ability to win over more of these swing voters? I do. I mean, I say that now, having watched her for the last few days. The laugh, in some ways, was a reflection of her uncertainty and nervousness that—

There was none of that in the last few days. When she laughs, it's in an appropriate way at an appropriate time. I just think she's gone through metamorphosis. And despite what one of those respondents said about Roe versus Wade, I think part of the way that she's found her sea legs at this level has been as the point person on the administration's response to

the Supreme Court decision. And she's been all over the country talking about that. But she is not the same person. She's the same person, but she's not the same political performer that she was early in the administration and in the last campaign.

You know, I think one of the things that's interesting is that while these voters talk about the fact that they don't see her, that does not mean that she has not been out there. And so she has had three years of gaining diplomatic experience of being on the road and talking to people over and over again. This is a theory I have.

Voters like nothing more than authenticity. And I think you're right when you say the laugh was a function of nervousness, but also of her having to carry somebody else's brand, somebody else's agenda. Like this thankless job of a vice president is in part that you are subsumed from

into somebody else. And I think her running in 2020 to the left of everybody, all of that felt inauthentic. And it was, and she looked inauthentic. And so she looked inauthentic. And so I think part of what we're seeing now is a mixture of experience, real experience of the last three years, and the fact that like, she's on her own now. She gets to be who she wants to be. She gets to be herself. And suddenly she looks so much more comfortable in her skin. And I think that voters respond to that

Which is an essential, an essential ingredient in a successful national candidate. Inauthentic candidates never win. Even Donald Trump, no one ever says, gee, I wish Donald Trump would speak his mind. Yeah, right. So, you know, authenticity is the coin of the realm in presidential races. And she seems like a lot more authentic now than she did when she ran in 2000 and well, really 19 because she didn't make it to 2020. That's right.

That's right. Just want to take a quick break and tell you guys that the Bulwark is heading to Dallas, Texas for a one night live show Thursday, September 5th. I'll be joined by Tim Miller, Bill Kristol, Sonny Bunch and our newest Bulwark contributor, former Congressman Adam Kinzinger.

I love doing these live shows because they are the best opportunity to meet like-minded folks who remind you that you are not the crazy one, even as our politics gets crazier every day. I hope you'll join me for this fun night of politics among Bulwark friends in Dallas. Tickets are on sale now. Head to thebulwark.com slash events to get yours today. And I will see you guys in Dallas.

All right. I want to get into something that is coming up more and more often in the focus groups. Project 2025. When Kamala Harris was on the trail this week, she reacted to Trump's Project 2025 agenda. Let's listen to how it comes up with the Trump to Biden. So these are the swing voters, the Trump to Biden voters we talked to.

i don't know if you guys are familiar with project 2025 but that is terrifying and it's very real and uh if you guys don't know about it google it it's really bad they want to dissolve the epa entirely and the supreme court's already starting to take steps they want to completely get rid of the federal uh department of education the secretary of education and put all that on the states which is going to hurt impoverished schools the worst which is really bad

They're already struggling. And there's so much more. They want to make contraceptives illegal. What? I mean, I could probably go on forever about it, but there's literally nothing good in there. Let's start with the, I'll call it loyalty tests for government employees, like wanting to basically do away with gay marriage and socializing.

So much of it just makes it sound like they really just want women pregnant in the kitchen, and if you're not a straight white man, you have no place in society. I'm going to vote for her regardless, because Project 2025 scares me way too much.

It's a lot and it's not good and it's changing a lot of laws and reversing a lot of things and looks like a lot of not good stuff. I read into it a while back, I don't remember, but some of the stuff that Reddit was posting and they posted specific links, it seems like very, very specific rules about certain things. Some of them sound a little extreme.

As I read it, it kind of was crazy on paper. I wasn't for a lot of it. It has a lot of religion taking over the country. It had a bit of crazy in there. I wasn't for it because, you know, America is supposed to be free. Give people the right to be what they want to be. Give women the choice to choose for them. I shouldn't be allowed to choose for a woman. I am not qualified.

So let them choose. I've heard it's just like Christian nationalism, essentially. They want to move the boundaries between church and state, and they want to persecute people who buy contraceptives and that sort of stuff. So yeah, just basically rolling back progress to like the 1950s, basically.

So, David, here's what's so interesting to me about this. So there's this terrible three weeks, right, where the Democratic Party and some of us Never Trumpers are having a big fight over Biden stepping aside. And all of a sudden, sort of the folks who want Biden to stay in, they start doing this thing where it's like, why are you talking about Biden? You should be talking about Project 2025. Now, of course, I've known about Project 2025 for a long time now, but I was always sort of like,

guys. Like people were talking about schedule F and I was like, you're not going to get voters to care about schedule F guys. But it was like, because of this sort of tension, it was like, there was this explosive interest in project 25 and making that kind of a forward looking talking point. And it manifested. And now it seems like project 2025 has become this like nebulous catch all for all the scary stuff Trump wants to do in a second term, which is how sort of the media and voters seems to know about it. Right. So,

What do you think? Can we make Project 2025 a real electoral issue? Well, I've been skeptical and I'm still somewhat skeptical. I think you can make elements of Project 2025 absolutely.

issue in the campaign. As those folks described, there are things in there that are so noxious and so extreme that I think they will drive voters away. My question is, I mean, I don't know what the listening habits of these particular respondents were. Sounds like a very much like an MSNBC thing. You know, shorthanding everything as Project 2025 sounds like a Washington-

an MSNBC thing to me. And I think you might be better testing the elements of Project 2025, figuring out what the most egregious and frightening elements of it are, and offering them as Trump's program. Because despite his denials, that 900-page manifesto was written by his people,

And so, you know, he can run from it, but it's, you know, very much in accord with things that he said and what we can expect. Kind of a zombie democracy of the sort that they now have under the leadership of his hero, Viktor Orban in Hungary.

Yeah, he can run for it. But I'll tell you, the choice of J.D. Vance also just ties in more to it. J.D. Vance wrote the foreword for the Heritage Foundation. And I will say, Trump obviously has a horrible track record with women, but because so much of it is baked in, Project 2025 plus Vance, it's causing voters, as best I can tell, to take, even in this last week since it's happened, to

There's this new, like, these guys are weird. What are they doing? The weird and extreme. I think J.D. Vance was an awful choice for Trump, an awful choice that they are going to deeply regret, and they may already be regretting. But I feel like

At some point, they're going to put some meat on the Project 2025 bones. It's like how woke. Woke is a catch-all nebulous term, but it had like some specific things that people can really kind of grab onto. And I think it's going to need a little bit more of that. But I don't think it's bad at all for there to be sort of a just a thing that people say like woke that sort of tags on to the idea of these guys are weird and extreme and I don't like it. You know, I can envision a spot where you tell people what Project 2025 is and

And, you know, just put some money behind that and then quickly describe what comes under the heading so that people understand and then close out with the conclusion that you just drew, you know, extreme, scary. Yeah. Trump. I just think people have been dealing with the fact that so many of Trump's liabilities are sort of litigated.

baked in, well-known. And Project 225 Advance are sort of helping to reanimate some of it in new ways, which I think is good. All right. Speaking of VPs, now that Harris has gotten a battlefield promotion, there's a job opening in the Democratic Party. So I want to hear what voters had to say about her process for picking a running mate. Like, who kind of person do they want to see? We don't know much about her. We don't know what her priorities are.

I really hope it would be a qualified person versus trying to check a box and say, okay, well, I need to check this box and this box. I really feel like at least pick somebody that has some charisma.

Definitely want to see a balanced ticket, like a moderate Democrat, because she is a little bit on the far left side of the spectrum. I mean, forgive me if this does sound racist, but I just hope she's not like, "Let me build us both up and let me pick another Black woman so that we can all rise together." I just hope that it's really someone that's of merit. Like someone that could balance areas that might be perceived as weaknesses.

you know, because I think most of us have said we don't know a lot about her. We don't know what she's done. Although I'm confident she has been working. We just don't know on what. But obviously all of us have strengths and areas that we need to work on. So.

Okay, so you wrote in your book, Believer, about how Obama in 2008 was looking for some gray hair and Washington experience on the tickets to put voters at ease about his youth. Now, by the way, he doesn't need gray hair because one of the things that comes along with being president is your hair quickly grays. But go ahead. Well, I'm interested in how that was sort of an obvious way to think about balancing a ticket. How should she be thinking about balancing her ticket?

There were a lot of different dimensions to that decision. Yeah, tell me. We wanted someone with gray hair, but also someone who had Washington experience because Obama had not very much. We wanted someone who was very much fluent in global affairs. And we wanted someone who could go into the northern industrial states, the battleground states that are still battlegrounds, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, maybe Minnesota, and

who was comfortable campaigning in those areas. And, you know, we thought Biden was a good person for that. Moderate experience, older. I mean, he checked a lot of boxes and was, you know, helpful to us. I think that the selection of a vice president is important because it's the first presidential decision you make. And it gives people clues as to how you're going to govern.

And so in her case, I think it's particularly important because they don't know that much about her yet. So this will be one more insight into who she is. And it's interesting to see. And I wanted to ask you as a Pennsylvanian your thoughts on this. I mean, one other issue is it has been a long time since a vice presidential candidate sort of delivered an election to someone. It was probably Lyndon Johnson in 1960 when Kennedy put him on the ticket in order to carry Texas.

We hear the name of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who's a very talented young politician. Do you as a Pennsylvanian think that Shapiro on the ticket would help Harris carry what I think is an essential state?

Yeah, I'm pro Shapiro. I think she should pick Shapiro. And I think this point about it doesn't really help deliver a state. Well, nobody's really tried to make it help deliver a state for a really long time, right? Like you guys didn't need Delaware. That wasn't a big pickup for you. And Tim Kaine wasn't going to be a big like Virginia wasn't really in play when Hillary was running. Wasn't a consideration. I think that when you've got a young, talented politician who's got 60 percent approval rating in the tipping point state.

I think that's a tough thing to walk away from. I'm interested in what you think the main pushback that I hear that is compelling to me, but doesn't always hit me quite right as a

centrist, right-leaning person, is the fear of Josh Shapiro not being Jewish, but being sort of pro-Israel and very fluid, talking about his faith in a way that I think people are worried reopens the wounds of the big Gaza fight. What do you make of that? Well, I mean, look, I hear that. I mean, I remember when Gore picked Joe Lieberman, and that was like

an earth-shaking development that there'd be a Jew on a national ticket. Now you're talking about an African-American and a Jew. And the question is, are there negative ramifications of that? Josh Shapiro has been incredibly successful in Pennsylvania, and he's been successful in places where other Democrats have not.

in small towns and rural areas, as well as the big population centers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. So, you know, it obviously hasn't bothered voters there. I mean, the place you're looking at mostly as a matter of concern is Michigan.

I've talked to people who I trust in Michigan who seem not to be as worried about that. The other thing that he would do, and look, there are other people who would be good as well, but he is a very, very talented and kind of iconoclastic thinker who is not idiosyncratically liberal. You know, there were people on the left who

who were unhappy about this. Actually, if I were Harris, I would not let that dissuade me. In fact, I think it would be quite a statement if she went her own way on this, because I don't think that people are going to walk away from her in this race. And I think having a guy like Josh Shapiro, who, by the way, I think would destroy Vance in a debate, would strengthen her in places where she needs to be strengthened.

I really agree with that. I mean, he is my top choice, like sort of with a bullet. Sometimes people can talk me into a slightly less exuberant position on him, but they can't talk me out of him. I'm glad I didn't try. It would have been a waste of time. And you know, when I see Josh Shapiro, I've seen him in action a couple of times. I think he's an incredibly talented. Did you see him after the assassination? Yeah, it was excellent. Excellent. He understands people. He knows how to talk to people. But I'll tell you one of the things that strikes me about him, do you know what I see him talking about all the time?

helping to put pads and tampons in schools. He is so proud of having gotten pads and tampons in schools so that no girl has to miss school because she has her period because they're so expensive. It is such a small, almost...

odd thing for like a dude governor to just talk about all the time. But I think that's the kind of thing that people get. It like immediately clicks with people like, oh, you care about this. This is a thing you saw. Let me raise one other that's not quite as intimate. I don't know. But, you know, one of the first things he did when he became governor was reclassify a whole bunch of jobs in the state of Pennsylvania, you know, state jobs that required a college degree in

but really didn't need one and didn't account for other kinds of training and experience. And, you know, one of the things that I think Democrats have done poorly, I mean, there is this sort of anthropological approach to non-college folks in the country, which is to say, we're here to help you become more like us. And the unstated message is somehow you are less than

than us. Shapiro completely threw that out the window and it aggravated some, I was in some elite audiences where they thought that he was denigrating a college education. I don't think he was doing that. But there are a lot of people in this country who do essential work

who are smart and able. You know, they work with their hands. They work with their heads, but it may be technically trained work. And I think that was a really insightful and important thing for him to do. There are other people who...

Mark Kelly is a really formidable person. I think that Governor Cooper of North Carolina is as well. I think he's sort of taken himself out of it, either officially or unofficially, because... He has? I didn't know that. Well, I don't know if he's done that publicly. But the rumor is, if he leaves North Carolina under their constitution, the lieutenant governor, who is a particularly problematical guy there...

Yeah. Would have full power of the governorship. And so he doesn't leave the state very much. Also, he wants to run for the Senate in a couple of years, apparently. So, you know, there's interest in Bashir. There's there are other people. But Pennsylvania looms large in my head because I think it's the tipping state and will remain so. Yes. And I think that he has qualities that would broaden her appeal.

I think that's right. Because I think she, in ways that Biden couldn't, will hold on to people who will believe that she is more with them on some of those issues. And Josh Shapiro can bring people in for whom they worry that she is more with them on those issues. You've actually thought about choosing a vice president before, not I. And so I guess one thing that I was curious about, there's a sort of a clinical political case to be made. And then there's like a

a more who does she vibe with? Because there's part of me that also thinks really what you need is like a white dude who says, look,

look at this person. She's excellent, right? Who sort of builds her up, helps her tell her story and helps build a permission structure loosely for white dudes who might need a little push to get there. And so I could see a case for just like Bashir bro-ing out and all day long talking about how great she is in his Kentucky accent and that having value. Or like she's close with Pete, you know? Or I think, I don't know how

close there. What do I know about people's relationships? But by all accounts, she and Pete know each other pretty well. Pete Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg. Who, by the way, I think is the best political athlete in the Democratic Party. And he's proving it. He's going out there now on her behalf.

He's killing it every time it goes out there. You know, there are questions about black and Jew. There's questions about a first black woman president and the first gay vice president that gets raised. And, you know, how much are people willing to accept and embrace that?

But there is nobody better at messaging and at communicating than Pete Buttigieg. I just want to throw that in. Another name, by the way, I didn't mention is Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, whose name has been mentioned. Guy with military experience from the middle of the country, was a member of Congress. Another guy I think might be considered.

Yeah. And honestly, I don't think there's a lot of bad choices in there. I think these are all perfectly good choices and you can make a case for a lot of them. But I guess my question to you is really like, is it rapport and vibes between two people or is it pure political calculus? Which one is more important? Well, listen, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were not close. OK, they weren't close in the Senate. Obama was the most junior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Biden was chair and a guy who very much

lived by the seniority system. So if you're the lowest man on the totem pole, you don't get a whole lot of attention. And they were opponents in the campaign. But over time, they forged a very close relationship and friendship. But it was kind of a shotgun wedding. And that's often the case. In this case, three of the people that she is considering or supposed to be considering are

Shapiro, Beshear, and Cooper were all attorneys general when she was an attorney general. And she knows them all as colleagues. I'm given a belief that she is very friendly with Josh Shapiro, that they had a good relationship as fellow attorneys general. And that I think is meaningful. I do think, especially for someone

who's being thrown into this morass at such a late moment in the campaign, to have someone with whom you don't have to develop a relationship because you already have a relationship,

I think that might be advantageous. Yeah. I agree with all that. You know what? We're going to have to leave it there. This was a great conversation. David Axelrod, thank you so much for joining us. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the Focus Group Podcast. Remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube. We will see you guys next week.