Kamala Harris’s “Different Kind of ‘Hope’ Campaign”
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I like how we're coming in hot. Coming in hot is right, you know? I'm just, I'm literally out of breath. Susan just came barreling. By the way, you guys on the other side of the country, I just want to tell you,

Susan is a pro. She just came barreling in here having already filed a story. Like, Kamala Harris has barely gotten off the podium. Jane, you know, we're all three newspaper people. In our bones, you would have been pretty impressed. I am impressed! The balloons were bouncing off my head as I was filing.

Welcome to The Political Scene, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. I'm Evan Osnos, and I'm joined as ever by my colleagues Susan Glasser and Jane Mayer. Hi, Susan. Hey there. And hey, Jane. Hi. Hi.

Susan and I are recording this episode, as you can probably hear, in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention just wrapped up a few moments ago, with Kamala Harris officially accepting her party's nomination for president. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth...

I accept your nomination to be President of the United States of America.

Harris's speech was personal and heartfelt at some points, but it was also muscular and sobering at others. She made a few slashing comments about Donald Trump, and it marked the end of a convention that was dominated by the promise of what she called a new way forward, an exuberant hope among Democrats that they may have seized the momentum in a race that barely a month ago many feared was doomed.

So what are the most important things that we sifted from this joy, to use the word everybody's using, this week here in Chicago? And perhaps most importantly, will that enthusiasm be decisive when it counts in November? Today we'll reflect on this extraordinary week and what it suggests about the 74 precious days until the election. So let's start with the speech that just wrapped up. Susan, you were sitting there, you were as close as you could possibly get. How do you think Kamala Harris did and what are the most important takeaways from it?

Yeah, I mean, look, obviously, this was a speech of Kamala Harris's lifetime. And, you know, talk about sky high expectations. Maybe a month ago, nobody had sky high expectations for Kamala Harris or indeed for the Democrats this year. But obviously, by this point, you know, we were all expecting not only Beyonce to, you know, prance onto the stage, but George W. Bush to personally escort her into the White House. You know, those things didn't happen.

I thought it was a powerful speech. Nonetheless, I thought that it did what Kamala Harris needs to do, which is to convince Americans she's not the kind of scary Kamala Comrade Harris of Donald Trump's recent fever dream imaginings. And I don't think she came across as a wild eyed communist. We might as well point out that she's not, in fact, a crazy Marxist. So that helps. But, you know, it was it was a

fairly centrist speech, I thought. You know, it was aimed, she said she wanted to be a president for all Americans. There were muscular words about how she was going to sign a tough border security bill, for example. There were words about foreign policy and staying strong in defense of Ukraine and Israel. So, you know, it wasn't a foaming at the mouth liberal speech. But I still think, and I want to know what you guys think,

That the unifying principle, the reason for all this joy is because Democrats, as they have for the last nine years, what they want is to beat Donald Trump, that he has unified them behind a plausible candidate who can who can defeat him.

Jane, you, of course, watched the Trump speech at the Republican National Convention a few weeks ago. It's kind of amazing it was just a few weeks ago. How do these two radically different visions, tones, approaches to politics...

sit side by side. How do you think these two coexist? I mean, honestly, the most memorable thing about Trump's speech was that he had a tightly scripted speech that he basically then just tossed out and started ad-libbing all the usual kinds of things that he always does. And so I

My takeaway from that was just his lack of discipline. This was, for Democrats especially, a very disciplined convention. Other than running late, it was very scripted. It's very clear that her message was, as Susan says, centrist, aiming to be a candidate who is sober enough to be president. There's a tremendous contrast between them. And also, if you had to pick a theme of theirs, it was fear.

And if you had to pick a theme of this, it was joy. It was excitement and it was upbeat. It was hope. I mean, those are very different contrasting emotions that these two were evoking. It is interesting. I mean, we tend to go as a political herd and we will gravitate to whichever political science seems to be dominating the moment. And, you know, when you go back to 2016...

Suddenly there was this flood of analysis telling us that, alas, fear is the dominant operative ingredient in politics. And perhaps it was always kind of naive to imagine that hope and excitement could prevail over the tribal identity. And I think you're seeing a counter argument this week. I'm curious, Susan, you know, you've sat through every minute of this.

And one of the questions that is challenging for Kamala Harris is how do you run essentially as a semi-incumbent? How do you say I am both the inheritor, I am responsible for the best parts of the Biden administration and also distinguish yourself and say I'm something new? Do you think she was able to figure out a way to do that?

Yeah, I mean, that's the trap that so many vice presidents have had in our history. It's one of the reasons why there aren't that many vice presidents who go directly from that office into the presidency. It's really hard to navigate that. Ask Al Gore, for example. You know, but it strikes me...

Evan, that really, she's made a choice and her choice is to be the outsider wherever possible. And, you know, while President Biden had the valedictory send off, there were lots of, you know, chants throughout the week of thank you, Joe. Thank you, Joe. The truth is that, you know, not only has he been sort of deleted from the chat, but actually, you know, it wasn't a lot of dunking on the achievements of the Biden administration. I thought this week as much as it was

presenting Harris as the fresh face, the torch has been passed. We heard that a million times. This was a forward-looking call to Democrats and when they responded to. But I actually think this thing about hope is really interesting because hope is obviously an intoxicating political drug. You know, Barack Obama, 2008, the ultimate hope campaign.

And yet this to me was like a different kind of hope campaign that Democrats were presenting. Frankly, their hope here was that we could actually win and defeat Donald Trump. It wasn't so much hope. I don't think anybody here is under the unfortunately unrealistic dream that we're going to be uniting country anytime soon, that we're going to be transcending this toxic time of division as much as it was before.

The hope is to put an end to this nine-year wrecking ball of a political career that Donald Trump has had. To me, that's the nature of the hope that we're hearing. The enthusiasm is real, but I don't think it's so much around an agenda of Harris's as much as it is around an agenda of stopping Trump.

I don't know. I mean, there was a lot of talk of, you know, we have more in common than we do against each other. And there was, you know, it was obviously a very multicultural kind of convention. And it certainly was this idea of we're not going back. We're hoping to have a better future. It struck me when you had Clinton up there, too, as, you know, the man from hope. I mean, that hope often does win in these kinds of in American elections.

But you're right, of course. I think the thing that probably created the most excitement and the thing that's lit everybody on fire was the possibility that maybe, maybe they dare think the Trump era is over. And I just want to, you know, I just want to say one other thing about thinking about the history of the vice presidents. You know, people talk about the curse of the incumbent vice president running for president and how tough it is. And historically, that is definitely true.

But this is such a weird and different situation because you have a vice president running against someone who was a president. And so in a way, she's the one that has not sat in the Oval Office and she's running against someone who did in many ways, unlike the president.

the usual setup, he represents something where we've been before. And what we're thinking about is, as I said, a sequel here, and the sequels are usually not as good. Exactly. And she's something different, you know, and, and so it's, it's not just marketing. It is actually a, an unusual situation where she is the untried leader and he's one we've tried. And I think this idea, this sort of, we're not going back.

It also, Susan, gets to your point, frankly, about Biden. In some ways, you know, the subtext to We're Not Going Back, which has turned out to be the most powerful piece of rhetorical technology in this race, is it's not only a comment on a whole conception of politics, including trickle-down economics and divisive politics,

tribal language that we use against one another. It also is, frankly, a generational case. And, you know, when you see the crowd seizing on that idea with such enthusiasm, in a way that she doesn't even have to make explicit, just her very

at the lectern on that stage is an eloquent testimony to the idea of going forward, not back. And that strikes me as one of the unifying forces here that has given such a tailwind to her. Yeah, Evan, I think that's exactly right. That is definitely the reason, I think, unfortunately,

underpinning this energy that we're feeling, not only in the room, but, you know, across the country in response to Harris since she began her campaign just a few weeks ago. But I'm interested in, you know, I've been wanting to ask you all week long, like, you know, the counterfactual, like, what would this convention have been like, uh,

Can we even imagine, you know, this without that slogan, we won't go back being available to the Democrats? Because, of course, Joe Biden represented a repetition in some ways, represented the past in some ways. What do you think? Like, I mean, as a student of Biden, you know, it's really fascinating to see him pretty quickly deleted. You know, they weren't stinting in their cheers for him on Monday night, but I didn't think anybody was any...

bit nostalgic, frankly, the entire week. No, I think you've got it right. I mean, I think there really was this feeling and people gave him a thorough and emphatic send off. And there was this feeling that part of her strength, the reason why she comes in here with a strong hand is because on just basic legislative achievements, economic health of the country, things like that, they're doing well.

But it is an amazing thing to see how fast politics can move on. I mean, by day two of the convention, Joe Biden was on vacation near Santa Barbara watching it on television.

I mean, it's brutal. It's brutal. And actually, the only person who kept talking about Biden really was Trump, who keeps, you know, looking over his shoulder and saying, there's been a coup and it's not fair. And, you know, he wanted to run against Biden. And this is just, you know, an outrage suddenly he cares about insurrections and coups.

Yeah.

So I wonder from, you know, what struck you guys inside the hall and in and around there? Were there things that we didn't get to see on TV? Were there dynamics? Are there, you know, what did you guys take away from it, from just being there?

Well, I will tell you that it is a huge contrast that can't be understated from the convention in Milwaukee just a few weeks ago, which I went to. You know, that was first of all, it was a smaller convention. My big impression, which I said to you guys after I left, was Donald Trump may have thought he was going to win at this time because Biden was still in the race.

But I actually came away thinking, wow, you know, the Democrats are going to win Wisconsin. And, you know, that there is that this was a kind of a hermetically sealed, almost a cult meeting. And the energy inside the United Center was just, I mean, overwhelming.

first of all, just decibel level alone. I'm not sure my ears have recovered yet at all from this tonight in particular, but not just tonight. Deafening screams. Last night, Wednesday night, I was, you know, as well in the hall listening to Tim Walz's speech. And, you know, that won't get as much attention, but I actually would like to, you know, have a little bit of a call out for that. I thought that was just as good of a vice presidential debut as I've ever seen. Everything about it

from his heartwarming children and their love for their father to, you know, the winning 1999 Mankato West High School football team state champions out on, you know, the stage in their jerseys to Waltz's own speech, you know, the pep talk from the coach. You know, you might not know it, but I haven't given a lot of big speeches like this. But I have given a lot of pep talks.

So let me finish with this team. It's the fourth quarter. We're down a field goal, but we're on offense and we've got the ball. We're driving down the field.

American flags waving every night inside the convention hall. At times you had to say, like, my God, you know, what happened to the Republicans, right, to the Democrats who have appropriated this sort of iconography of America?

And that is the opportunity, by the way, that Donald Trump, with his attacks on core American institutions and values, that is the political opportunity, of course, that was opened up to them. And the ability to prosecute the case against Trump in so many different ways on so many different levels is, I think, you know, the theme of the campaign that we saw here expressed here.

and very joyous version. I will say also that there is a young vibe to this that is really different. You know, the DJs and the, you know, that awesome roll call vote. I mean, Evan, I don't know. What am I missing in the recap here? Well, you know, I think one of the things that came through partly in Tim Walz's

speech. But when you put it side by side with Kamala Harris's, the difference in their life stories, the difference in their family stories, what they just by virtue of the careers they've had, the families they've built, it is proof of concept of this idea that they can be a unifying

And that, in the end, is a pretty big idea because part of Trump's entire pitch is that he is this life apart. I mean, he's this kind of aspirational ideal of a certain kind of

whatever you want to, I mean, for whoever aspires to that. But it is not intended to seem approachable. And in some ways, everything she is doing and what this ticket is doing is saying, no, we are, in fact, from your world, we are of that world, and we will help that world. And I think that's a pretty powerful case.

I got to agree with you as someone just watching it on television that I thought Walls' speech was certainly one of the absolute high points and incredibly well presented and sort of dramatized. And to me, I thought one of the things interesting about it was that

The inside the beltway conventional wisdom was that it was a big mistake in the beginning for her to have picked him over Josh Shapiro. And Josh Shapiro gave a fine speech, and so did the other also ran contenders, Kelly and Bashir and Thelma.

They were all fine, but they were nothing like Walls. I mean, and so you really, you know, as a first test of her judgment, that was a good judgment call. Yeah. Yeah, and it was, it went against her reputation to a certain extent for caution. I think it was...

You know, an unexpected choice in a way. And, you know, there there could be some downsides to it in the sense that he's not a fully formed, fully vetted national figure. And yet, you know, she went with it for all the reasons that we saw in his speech.

the other night. I did think, though, that the range of speeches that we heard was a reminder of just the, you know, the deep bench and the breadth of talent in the Democratic Party today. And also, by the way, a huge contrast to Donald Trump's kind of cult of personality up the way in Milwaukee. You know, they had far fewer star attractions because none of the former Republican presidents or presidential nominees who are living are willing to be seen with them. They don't want to

They wouldn't support him. They're likelier to appear here in Chicago than they were to appear in Milwaukee. All right. We're going to take a break. In just a second, we'll be back and we're going to talk more about the convention. We'll give you a little feel for some of the behind the scenes moments that we've encountered here. The political scene from The New Yorker. We'll be right back. The New Yorker.

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Because here's the thing. Our electoral system works. And Democracy Decoded will help you understand why. Listen now at democracydecoded.org or in your favorite podcast app. And a big thanks to Democracy Decoded for sponsoring the show. Susan, you've been here going around this week, not only inside.

the United Center, but also there's all kinds of events on the outside. There's parties. I think give people a feel for who haven't been here before. What are some of the kind of strange and interesting moments that you encounter when you're at an event like this?

Yeah, it's funny. I mean, this definitely it's the first kind of convention back since the pandemic. So it's really been eight years since the parties have gathered in person. So there's a lot of pent up, frenetic, socializing, networking and the like happening here. These are...

Events are really what you might call massive donor service events. And they're really, that's one key aspect of this that, of course, takes place out of view. It doesn't get as much coverage. But, you know, believe me, the big, big VIPs here are not just the bold-faced named politicians who are, you know, sweeping around with their security gear.

details. But the fundraisers I ran into the other night, the National Finance Committee, which is code for the biggest donors of the Democratic Party, they had been inadvertently dropped off at the wrong location and were frantically, they were scurrying around to get them back to the right place. These are people who've donated literally millions or tens of millions of dollars. Both Democrats and Republicans have these kind of donors in the wake of the

You know, the Supreme Court's sort of unleashing the floods of soft money into elections. And so that's one big element of this that people might not realize is how much it exists to, you know, give the VIPs a good time. But it also, you know, the Democrats, as Jane said, it's this sort of there is a festival atmosphere, very, very diverse atmosphere.

grouping of people from all over the country. The delegates have one experience and they're on the floor the whole time and they're cheering and they bring out these pre-printed signs for them. The journalists, meanwhile, there are thousands of them. But the real VIPs among the journalists this year were something called creators.

And I'll tell you, I had a great little incident, I think, that kind of sums up where we are in this declining world of the old mainstream media. I was roaming around the United Center the other day, and I came across a lounge that said something like, Creators Lounge. And I thought, oh, well, what's that? And I tried to go in there. And the woman said, no, no, you can't come in here. This is only for creators.

And I said, well, you know, hey, I'm a creator. You know, I'm creating words. I'm creating podcasts. And she said, no, this is for creators. And I said, so do you mean they're advocates that they're, you know, part of the official campaign? And she said, no, ma'am, they're creators.

Well, I eventually, I met one of these creators last night leaving the United Center. A very nice young woman who, when I looked her up on Instagram, turned out to have one million followers. And it seems like creating involves a lot of video and TikToking and not a lot of reporting. But they are definitely the VIPs among the journalism class these days. I mean, I'd heard that one creator was asking people,

what dish they would be. They're asking various candidates, you know, if you were a food dish, what food dish would you be? Which sounds like not journalism, but then I remembered Barbara Walters used to ask people, if you were a tree, what kind of tree you would be? So I think the line is blurry there. I have to say, though, it's pretty good news, frankly, that there are, you know, young people

creators who are interested enough in this democratic ticket that they want to actually show up at all. That speaks well of it. You know, in terms of getting a sort of feel for the mood, I mean, there was just like these little indicators. Somebody went and had coffee with Chuck Schumer the other day and came back. And I saw him later and this friend said, yeah, he was in the best mood I've ever seen him. I mean, he's just like, he literally burst into song in the course of this

And he bought the Danish, too, which was really the interesting part about their coffee experience. Because what it means is that Chuck Schumer is looking at the numbers for Senate candidates in a year in which they thought they were going to get really hammered because the map is very hard on Democrats this year. And they actually are feeling incredibly positive. So there is a feeling that...

you know, having been so far behind not too long ago that all of a sudden they're just slingshotting back into a much better position. How much, Evan, did you...

pick up the sort of the undercurrent of anxiety still around this, the kind of the irrational exuberance economy. To me, this is something that a lot of the more seasoned political operatives are sort of, that's what they're whispering about in corners. I feel like they got Bill Clinton to be their voice

of this fear in his speech on the convention floor on Wednesday night. In fact, Clinton broke out. I thought it was very, almost a very personal, even painful allusion to 2016 and Hillary Clinton's defeat. We've seen more than one election slip away from us when we thought it couldn't happen, when people got distracted by phony issues or over-competent.

And I thought that was really, to me, something I've heard in private from some of the, you know, kind of seasoned veterans of the Democratic Party as well. Yeah, I think there is some of that because, I mean, just to give an example, the head of Future Forward, which is...

the big super PAC that is supporting Kamala Harris, you know, said at an event on the sidelines the other day that their internal polling is not nearly as rosy as the polling that you're seeing in some of the media outlets. And now, look, you have to then also

you know, turn the wheel one more time if you're really trying to understand what's going on beneath the surface, which is some of that is designed to keep donors motivated. I mean, one of the things was there was such a burst of energy and cash that

for Harris after she got in that there was some fear. Well, hold on a second. We have to keep the tap going. I mean, it's a slightly gruesome fact, but they don't want to project so much joy that people say, all right, we can just ride this out for the next two months. So it's kind of a triple play.

That's really interesting. I think, though, also there's this sense from the old timers, and it includes Clinton, and both Obamas, really, were kind of saying, watch out, watch out. You know, you may feel good now, but we know they're going to throw everything at her.

And they're not just talking about raising money. They're saying knock on every door, get every vote. You know, it's going to come down to something really, really close. And then you had Jamie Raskin saying, basically, we've got to, you know, really, really, if possible, run up the margins because there's going to be such a mess around the election itself in terms of counting and challenges and accusations of theft.

that it really needs to be just obvious that the Democrats won from his standpoint. That's what they need to really go for. So anyway, there's a lot of cautionary notes, I think, all over the place. And I will say another thing. You know, I was at an interesting event yesterday about youth vote. And one clear theme that comes through is that especially among young, particularly young men, black men,

that there's a lot of wariness around Kamala Harris's background as a prosecutor, that there is some work to be done in terms of her making a case to people, that she has an image of law enforcement that goes beyond law enforcement. And I think, you know, that's a piece of the puzzle that hasn't been fully worked out in the numbers. And, you know, I think that's probably something that you'll be hearing more about. Did you get a sense, though, Susan, that

that there was a lot of concern beforehand about what protesters might do, about what they could disrupt inside or outside. And how much do you think they ended up having an impact here?

Yeah, 1968 redux, it did not turn out to be. I think we can say that pretty clearly. This was a party that really wanted to project unity and did a lot more of it than any of us might have predicted in advance. There seems to be a willingness to, even though she hasn't articulated any significant policy difference previously,

with President Biden on the issue of Israel and the war in Gaza, you know, there's a sense that she would have a different approach to it. I thought it was really interesting that Harris did bring up foreign policy in her speech tonight. She very strongly uses an opportunity to differentiate with Trump, first of all, obviously, talking about how strongly she wanted to continue to stand with Ukraine and to support NATO allies.

how she, unlike Trump, was not going to be exchanging any love letters with Kim Jong-un. But then she also brought up Israel and Gaza. When she said she would continue America's support for Israel, she got a loud applause, but she got an even louder applause. I mean, really one of the loudest roars of the entire evening when she said, And the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.

That was her biggest foreign policy applause line. I thought it was very notable. But the other thing is, you know, it's interesting to me that we're so fully immersed in this moment, as it should be, right, a moment of political peril. Jane is the only one who's even brought up the Obamas so far. And, you know, if we'd had this conversation on Tuesday night, you know, we all would have been, you know, dazzled and overwhelmed today.

by a hell of a performance by both Barack Obama and in some ways even more by Michelle Obama. I was going to say, you could say it was a performance by Obama and her husband. I mean, that really is what the feeling is this week. Because no one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. No one. Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation, not by spewing anger and bitterness.

But by living a life of service and always pushing the doors of opportunity open to others, she understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.

Ladies and gentlemen, you know, you can see what Donald Trump has been so terrified about these last few years about Democrats dumping Biden and nominating Michelle Obama. You know, you have the sense that, you know, the country would be willing to approve her by acclamation, you know, after that speech. How did she get so good?

She was a great speaker. She was incredible. I mean, I gather she's been on the speaking circuit with her best-selling book and other things, but unbelievable timing and confidence and just an incredible voice.

It was amazing. I had no idea that she was that good a speaker. And I think it's also noticeable. I mean, she hasn't given a speech like that in eight years. She's not somebody who wants to be in politics every day. She had a lot of things she wanted to say. And what was really fascinating was the evolution and the idea of when they go low, we go high. It turns out actually sometimes when they go low –

You got to drive right over them. And I think there was a way in which she was she was sort of giving people permission to use an overused concept. But it's important here to say it's it's OK to as Nancy Pelosi said to David Remnick not long ago, you'd have to know how to throw a punch.

For the children. For the children, of course. No, I think that, you know, she wasn't just throwing punches. She was kicking him where it hurts. But we haven't talked about Barack Obama's low blow or I don't know what you want to call it, but certainly getting Trump where it hurts. There's the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes. It's...

What did you guys think? Was it appropriate or not for one former president to poke at another former president in such a manner? Look, he was just talking about crowds. That's all it was. Just crowd size, Susan. I don't know if we have to, you know, it's just crowd size.

I thought, you know, you just knew that they've been pretty quiet about it, but they took so much in the way of so much relish in it. Because I think, you know, I was thinking about the Michelle Obama's

famous comment about, you know, when they go low, we go high, which was issued by her at the 2016 Democratic Convention. And I think at the time, maybe people didn't know exactly how

low Trump would go. He went so much lower than anybody's taken American politics in recent times that I think it's made everybody reconsider the high road and at least think you've got to do rapid response and self-defense and sometimes a pretty good offense. And that's what the Democrats seem to have learned.

They were definitely on offense, Gene. That's exactly right. And, you know, hey, Coach Walls tells us that good offense is the best defense, huh? Exactly. And I think, you know, it turns out that they can do it with a little bit of humor. It doesn't have to be such a grim march. All right, we're going to take one more break. When we come back...

What does that march ahead look like? Can the Democrats and Harris hold on to this momentum? What's the most important things to be watching for in the days ahead? The political scene from The New Yorker will be back in just a moment. ♪

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All right. So we've got 74 days left. Susan, you know, the shift in tone and attitude is now obvious. It's been kind of cemented here at the DNC, this feeling of optimism.

They're also now kind of openly mocking Trump. And one thing we know about him is for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction with him. He's going to do something. And everybody's been sort of waiting for him to gather himself, figure out what he's going to do to respond. What do you expect to come next? How do you expect Trump is going to try to find his footing again?

Well, speaking of offense and defense, Donald Trump doesn't play defense, so he's going to punch back hard. September 10th is going to be the debate between Harris and Trump. And it seems to me that if you look at the calendar with the early voting that will start soon, you know, even in September, this is it. This is a really this is the moment if Donald Trump is going to have another moment in

to present himself anew to people. This is the moment for doing it. We can't dismiss debates as being irrelevant to the politics since we've already in this election year had the most consequential debate in American political history. So I'm wondering about that. I do think you can pretty much bank on Trump going really low in some way and maybe coming up with some kind of surprise hit

Of some sort. I mean, what's in the back of my mind is just thinking about how desperate he must be to win, given his legal problems. I mean, this is not just an ordinary loss for him, which we know is impossible for him to accept anyway.

But this is something where it has tremendous legal implications for him, given the pending cases against him. What do you think, Evan? Yeah, you know, it's getting more and more acute for him. It's kind of becoming, you know, for a man who thought that he might be able to

slip his way through the knot here, that all of a sudden the idea that he's not just going to lose this election, but that might also be his future. And, you know, he's getting kind of frantic. There was this event the other day in Michigan where he was making all kinds of strange claims, false claims, I just call them what they are, lies about the crime rate. And he said at one point, you know, about Democrat run cities, he said, but you can't walk across the street to get a loaf of bread, you get shot.

You get mugged, you get raped, you get

whatever it may be. You know, at a certain point, you have to wonder whether there is still much of a market for that view or whether it actually begins to fortify his opponent, who is, after all, a prosecutor and running as a prosecutor. You know, does that make it harder for him to make those kinds of fear-mongering approaches that he did in years past? Susan, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, look, that's the question. You know, Donald Trump has been willing to break almost any...

that we've seen before. So if he's forced into this final defensive crouch, his effort to break out of that could be something that we really haven't seen in American politics. I mean, I was looking, I love a good balloon drop, and, you know, it was a very jubilant scene tonight, but I was looking back on my phone to the last moment

Democratic Convention balloon drop. And, you know, I saw these great pictures from inside the Hall in Philadelphia in 2016 when I was there. It was Hillary Clinton's convention. And, you know, the delegates were just as excited. They were just as convinced that they were going to beat Donald Trump in November. You know, I do think we're all a little bit older, wiser, and, you know, much, much more

sanguine about how to think about Donald Trump and the threat that he poses to the country itself at this point. But, you know, anybody who thinks at any moment in the next 74 days that, you know, everything's okay and Kamala Harris has got it in the bag, like, you know, take your phone out and look at the picture of yourself, you know, in November of 2016. Wow. You know. Yeah, I mean, at that point,

there were an awful lot of people who didn't take Trump seriously. I think maybe they've certainly learned to take Trump seriously at this point. That's one thing, even if there's exuberance in the room. But, you know, the other thing I think we've learned is just looking at the last month and

It's so many improbable things have happened in the last 30 days. It seems like anything could happen. Well, as Kamala Harris said tonight, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences, but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

And I think that's an appropriate note to end on. We've got this balance of joy and a sobering reminder of just how much hangs in the balance. Thanks to you both for staying up late and for helping to think through what has been an enormously important week. Thank you, Susan. And thank you, Jane. Great to be with you. Oh, thank you, Evan. It's been great to experience Chicago with you in 2024.

This has been the political scene from The New Yorker. I'm Evan Osnos. We had research assistants today from Alex D'Elia. This episode was produced by Sheena Ozaki, and our editor is Gianna Palmer. Mixing by Mike Kutchman. Stephen Valentino is our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of global audio. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. Thanks for listening. We're off next week, and we will see you again in September.

My name is Madeline Barron. I'm a journalist for The New Yorker. I focus on stories where powerful people or institutions are doing something that's harming people or harming someone or something in some way. And so my job is to report that so exhaustively that we can reveal what's actually going on and present it to the public.

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