7/25/24: Biden Breaks Silence On Dropout, Shock Kamala Trump Polls, Kamala DEI Debate, Top VP Picks Revealed, Bibi Trashes Protesters To Standing Ovation, FBI Director Stuns With Trump Shooter Details
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Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do, because soccer is back. Congratulations, my friend. Appreciate it. Still getting used to this wedding ring. I'm not so sure, guys. It's a little weird. Looks good on you. It's a little weird. What do we have? You wouldn't even notice it's there. Very good.

All right. So a lot to get to in the show. Biden gave his long-awaited, I guess, address last night. So we'll give you some highlights, if you want to call it that, from that. Very brief, interesting. Break that down for you. We also have new polls helping us to understand where Kamala Harris is in the presidential race vis-a-vis Joe Biden, although I still think it's a little bit early to see how all of this is going to settle out. But

We're going to dig into how she's doing among different demographic groups, vis-a-vis Biden. We're also going to take a look at, I wanted to specifically get Sagara to weigh in on this, the Republican attacks against Kamala Harris and how those are going. You have the whole DEI thing. You had a comment about her being the, quote, original Haute Tua girl. You now have the added attack that she is insufficiently pro-Israel. This one coming from Trump himself and Lindsey Graham, etc.,

We'll go through them and talk about all of that. Uh, we also have the latest in terms of her veep stakes. Now that she is effectively the presumptive nominee, who is she looking at? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Who is most likely to make the cut? Uh,

Yesterday, Bibi Netanyahu in town. He's actually still in town. Today, he's meeting with Biden and Harris. But yesterday, he gave his big address to Congress. It was, in my opinion, disgusting. But we'll show you some of that as well and the reaction to it. And we also are taking a look at the latest revelations with regard to the attempted assassination attempt. Attempted assassination attempt. The assassination attempt.

On Trump's life and what we are learning from now the FBI director about the stunning security failures. Earlier this week, the Secret Service director finally stepped down. It was insane that it even took the length of time that it did. So we'll bring you all of those details, which just continue, honestly, to shock. The entire thing is wild. It's one of those stories that I actually was unable to...

When I saw that clip of Ro Khanna and her, and she didn't know what happened with the Reagan director, I couldn't, I was like, this is the most insane thing. And then more and more of the details, just absolutely stunning top to bottom failure. The agency needs to be gutted. Wouldn't answer any, just basically, how many agents were there? Won't say. Why wasn't there someone there? Won't say. How many bullet casings were? I mean, it was just insane. We're getting more detail only from the FBI director, luckily. And I'm sure as the months go on, we're gonna learn even more about it.

it. Thank you to all of our premium subscribers. We appreciate you. We are gearing up. We are so ready for the DNC. We're gonna be on the ground, exclusive coverage, the entire crew there. So sign up, breakingpoints.com. We're gonna have some exciting news soon for premium members. But let's go ahead and start, as Crystal said, with Joe Biden.

He finally broke his silence. We hadn't heard from him in quite a long time. He issued a letter, he called in. There was a lot of speculation as to his health condition, etc. He's actually alive, what's happening. He's given us proof of life a couple of times, but he finally appeared on camera to make his announcement about why he is not running again. Very brief remarks, and you can see his age really shining through. We've cut a little bit of that announcement, and we're gonna talk a little bit about what he said. Let's take a listen. My fellow Americans,

I'm speaking to you tonight from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. In this sacred space, I'm surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents. Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words that guide this nation. George Washington showed us presidents are not kings. Abraham Lincoln, who implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt, who inspired us to reject fear. I revere this office, but I love my country more.

It's been the honor of my life to serve as your president. But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it's more important than any title. I draw strength and I find joy in working for the American people. But this sacred task of perfecting our union, it's not about me. It's about you, your families, your futures. It's about we, the people. We can never forget that. And I never have. So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.

That's the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There's also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now. I'd like to thank our great Vice President Kamala Harris. She's experienced, she's tough, she's capable. She's been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country. Now the choice is up to you, the American people. Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter

from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as President of the United States. But here I am. That's what's so special about America.

I mean, this is incredibly stunning, Crystal. I mean, just to reflect a little bit back on the history of it, I've been thinking a lot about that. The 1968 parallels are out of control here. We literally have an RFK in the race, a one-term Democratic president deciding at the last minute not to run for re-election. He's endorsing his vice president. The vice president now has the noose around the neck, possibly running better than the current

president would have, but has to contend with unpopular foreign wars and the domestic turmoil that has been wrought under their presidency. I haven't gotten yet a chance to even just consider how historic and crazy it actually is. I know things have been moving so quickly for everybody here at the desk, but let's take a moment and pause that this is a shocking turn of events. Theodore Roosevelt,

London B. Johnson and now Joe Biden, the three presidents who meaningfully could have run, I guess George Washington too, meaningfully could have run for another term and choosing not to do so is a stunning admission, at least in the two cases of LBJ and here. I could not win. I am not the best standard bearer. And I know you've weighed in on this too, but I can't tell you how annoyed I was reading all this. What a stunning and heroic man.

- What a great man. - There's no heroism in dodging a primary and by your own incompetence and arrogance agreeing to an early debate, then being forced out by Democratic primary elites, not actually Democratic voters who then you have the anointing of your vice president that nobody's actually cast any real votes here.

before you're even going into the convention. So it might be as anti-democratic as a process as it is. I am glad that he's gone. I mean, honestly, even watching that, I was cringing the entire time. I said, this man needs to go today. Like this is an urgent national security crisis. Now he continued throughout it saying, oh, I still am up for the job. I'm gonna continue the work. I'm like, dude, you gotta go. Like his decline just in the last two months

is out of control. Just truly stunning. To be honest with you, I felt like a sense of relief watching it that I didn't have to hold my breath as much from, because I'm like, at least there's a short timeframe left for this guy to be president of the United States. And I suspect that a lot of Democrats felt the same way because this was a short, this was 12 minutes off a teleprompter. This should be a gimme for any replacement level politician out there.

And still it's tortured. Still there were times where he's struggling to get the words out, struggling to read the teleprompter. And so, you know, at the same time, he's not saying anything about the real reasons he left. Number one, that he was absolutely pressured out, dragged kicking and screaming to this decision. It was only when he realized that

That Pelosi, Obama and co were not going to relent in her words, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. That he finally gives up the ghost. So he's not acknowledging that. He's certainly not acknowledging the fact that his decline became so manifestly clear that you had an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters who were like, dude, come on, hang it up. So none of that is outwardly acknowledged.

And yet it clearly hangs over this speech in the quality of his voice at this point, in the energy level of the delivery, in the inability even in a short speech like this that he clearly spent days preparing for to deliver it smoothly with any sort of life and vitality. So even though it went unspoken, those things were all very clear.

Obviously, this is his attempt to try to define his legacy. Right. Right. This is his attempt to lean into the story of his great selflessness and heroism, which is preposterous. Because if you truly were this self-sacrificing person who cares first and foremost about defeating Donald Trump, even if you, you know, if you accept that frame.

He has put his party in a very, very difficult position in order to do that. Because, well, we'll get to the polls, Kamala Harris already performing better than he is. She is still one of the weaker candidates- That's right. That Democrats could put forward. And so not only did you forestall, did you completely block

any sort of a Democratic primary process that would have enabled Democrats to evaluate their choices, decide for themselves who would be the strongest candidate to go up against Donald Trump. But then you anoint perhaps the second weakest candidate to go up against Trump. So even by your own metric of like, it's all just about preserving democracy, defeating Donald Trump, return to normalcy.

Even by that metric, you have done so much damage to your own parties and your own stated cause. And then, of course, I mean, the atrocities in Gaza go without saying in terms of this being a great moral, compassionate, selfless, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, even by his own standards,

He has dealt his party such an incredible blow. The party, the blow, the country blow too. It's genuinely dishonest and insane that you were functioning at this level, that the people around you- It's a complete betrayal. It is a betrayal of everything. I mean, and if you continue, people who watch the speech, he said very clearly, I believe that I have a legacy that I could run for another term. He still, to this day, is not accepting.

his own limitations. I mean, the arrogance of this man is just so unparalleled. It's part of the reason I really didn't ever believe he would drop out. I guess what I didn't factor in was the level of effort that Nancy Pelosi, Obama, and the donors actually were willing to exercise. It's also interesting too, because there's some differences, I think, between the Republicans and others, where the party institutions in the Democratic Party, when they want to be, are very strong. When keeping Bernie Sanders out, they're like, hey, this is not happening.

period. We will rig this thing till the end. Same here, anointing Kamala. I mean, Crystal, how nuts is it that they didn't even have a semblance of an open primary? You basically had Kamala and then boom, it was like all these members of Congress, Nancy Pelosi came out, Obama, a few others.

haven't done so, but so many others were pressured into where why wasn't a Gavin Newsom or a Josh Shapiro or an Andy Beshear or any of these folks even allowed to throw their hat in the ring? I mean, personally, if I were the Democrats, I'm picking Andy Beshear or Gavin. I mean, I think both those guys could win by a couple of percentage points if they wanted to. Kamala, I mean, I'm still putting her around 40% right now. We'll talk about this throughout the show. Definitely better than the 10% I'd give Biden. But I mean, do you wanna go all in with

the 40% hand? I don't. I certainly don't. There is no doubt that just judging based on the data past performance that Democrats have many stronger candidates that they could put in. And I mean, let's not pretend like an open convention is like a democratic process. Right. But at least there's some ability for people to evaluate and put pressure on those delegates and some sort of transparent process.

I mean, I think it's a couple things. Like, yes, the party apparatus in the Democratic Party has shown itself to be more coordinated and more powerful than the Republican Party apparatus. But the other thing is, like, if we think about, you know, an attempt to displace Trump, Trump has a genuine grassroots movement behind him. Joe Biden doesn't. He never has. Like, he's there because of elites, and they decided to pull his card, and that was that.

because there wasn't going to be any sort of outcry from the people or whatever, none of the powerful politicians behind the scenes, Pelosi and Obama primarily, they had nothing to fear from going hard against him, and he had nothing to fall back on. So, you know, there's numbers out there now, 90% of the public, including roughly similar numbers of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, are glad he stepped down, 90%.

So, you know, if it was if you can imagine the situation unfolding with Trump and they attempted in 2016 to do something kind of similar and obviously it didn't work and it would provoke a massive, massive backlash. I think you also have a situation where the your average Democratic base candidate.

And by the way, I think that this isn't just on the Democratic side. I think there is an openness to anti-democracy and authoritarianism that has taken hold in the public because of their sense, whether you're on the right or the left, of the

existential nature of the stakes right now. But I think your average Democratic voter has become very comfortable with the idea of ditching democracy in service of saving democracy, which obviously is insane and blatantly hypocritical and goes against, you know, your supposed belief in democracy. But I think they have been persuaded

of that case, which to me is deeply sad. But it's why, you know, Republicans who are trying to pitch a fit over the process right now and oh, this is anti-Democratic or the AOCs of the world. First of all, where were you when any sort of actual democratic process

was blocked from unfolding. You didn't care. You obviously didn't care. So, you know, the notion that you're upset now that Biden was removed by anti-democratic means, please, you don't care about democracy either. The time for those concerns was a while ago, and there wasn't a public outcry about the lack of a democratic process, even though you had a majority of democratic voters who said they would like to have a choice.

But at the end of the day, they were like, I guess we're just gonna take what we're given. I'll tell you what too. I'll eat a proverbial sock here. Okay. In terms of being wrong, what do I usually say? Debates don't matter. Well, there's tail ends, right? There are exceptions to the rule. So if we have learned anything from this is have

the debates, even if 98% of the time they don't matter. Could we not have a single debate? I mean, the convention's one. We have a couple of weeks. It only takes a couple days to put this thing together. Get Kamala on the stage, get Gavin, get Josh, get everybody up there, the open thing and let it fly. Let's see. Let's actually see what happens. And if you can't do that in the same way that Joe Biden's presidency was destroyed whenever he was okay on a teleprompter but fell apart under challenging questioning, why

What lesson should we draw from that, folks, is that we have to have the process, at least the very basics and the minimums, to vet the person and allow it to come. And then look, if she wins from there, cool. I don't think anybody could be upset about that. But the rigging from the very beginning is very, very troubling, right? Because as we said, there are two people it will be on. It will be on then, Joe Biden, for getting everybody in the situation if Trump wins. But it's also going to be

on the power brokers and others that didn't call for the quote unquote mini primary. Even Jim Clyburn called for a mini primary recall only two weeks ago. Yeah, that's true. But he didn't. Immediately he comes out and endorses Harris. I think that's a big mistake. It's a big, big mistake. You know, it's interesting too because Democrats thought that they were protecting themselves by blocking a primary process, an actual Democratic primary process back after the midterms when such a thing would have really started up in earnest.

They thought they were protecting themselves, but the reality of the situation is they created an incredibly difficult situation, an incredibly difficult landscape where now Kamala Harris comes in hobbled behind the eight ball. She's got momentum right now. She's doing well. She's doing better in the polls than Biden. But there's no doubt in my mind they could have come out with a stronger candidate. And if you had had Joe Biden having to debate president

back much earlier and the possibility of an actual democratic primary process playing out, they wouldn't be in this situation. The other thing with Kamala Harris now, I still think even if you had this mini primary or however you wanna phrase it, going into the convention, all this is obviously moot point 'cause she's it, she's in, it's done and dusted. But I think she would be very likely to come out the winner of that process. If you look at the polls right after Biden dropped,

You had a pretty strong consensus from Democrats that Kamala was their top choice. She's the sitting vice president. She has a lot of advantages going in. But she would also have additional legitimacy conferred on her, and she would be strengthened by having to go through that process and get sharp again and be a little better thinking on her feet and those sorts of things that she struggled with in the past. So-

I think it's, I do think it's a mistake for Democrats. I don't know that it will, you know, it doesn't end their chances of winning in the fall, but there's no doubt they could have gone forward with a stronger candidate that Kamala Harris, given her, how we've seen her perform in the past, given the fact that

She is tied to an administration that has been unpopular, and she is implicated in a tremendous cover-up of Joe Biden's decline that is a betrayal, legitimately is a betrayal of the American people. And so all those things give her a tougher hand to work from going into the election now. No question. You know, people forget this, but there was a real primary back in 2000. Bill Bradley, that former NBA player and the—

New Jersey, that's right. He was from New Jersey. He challenged Al Gore. Al Gore won, by the way, overwhelmingly. He won like 80% of the vote. But that mattered because Al could say, hey, I actually challenged and won this nomination. I'm just getting anointed because I'm the former vice president. Hubert Humphrey also ran a real primary process in 1968. Now, would he have beat RFK? No, I don't think so at all. But

But at the very least, he was able to coalesce the party to try and bring some consensus going in with Vietnam and all the other tearing apart of the process and there were civil rights and all of that. And I think he emerged strong enough for it. Now, he ended up going on to lose, but there was a lot that was going into that.

and others, he came relatively close. He could have won the election quite easily. Democracy and democratic action like debates, primaries and others, there's a certain anti-fragility to it in that it creates and stress tests you up to the top. And I've never actually believed more in that system than I have now just to show where I didn't think it mattered, but we've never had an 81 year old who's on the verge of dementia running before. And that is literally what the process is designed. Another thing I think Americans have been robbed of

is that I think it was George W. Bush and Obama who both echo something similar, where they said one of the benefits of the 18 to 20 month campaign is that everything will come out, everything, in that you will be tested, you will have your debates, you will deal with the press, you will deal with the swings and the ups and the downs, and that the process itself prepares you. We're not getting that with Kamala, and it's not fair. How many debates are we gonna get with her and Trump? Maybe one, maybe one.

Two, if we're lucky. No, we should have five actually, because you're so elated in the process. More so, we haven't had the ability to stress test this woman for real in a real campaign process. If I'm her, I'm not debating very much and I'm just gonna stick to the stump. She seems fine in a teleprompter and she does pretty well for donor calls.

and all that, but I don't think that's fair to America to have a very little amount of time when Trump, I mean, if anything, he's been out there for almost two years now. Yeah. And he's running. And so there is an inherent unfairness, I think, to Americans here. But the problem is, is that voters, as you've said correctly, they are very willing to just sit and eat it right now because they hate Trump or they hate, you know, Kamala or whatever. They'll just sit there and be like, it's cool. I'm fine with it. And we should get away with that. If she loses, I would hope the Democrats learn that lesson. I really do. What do you make? They won't. Spoiler alert. I know. They won't.

But some people were. Their fear of democracy and their desire to control everything from the top down ends up really damaging their own political prospects. Will they learn that lesson? Of course they won't, but they should. They should have already learned that lesson just from the fact that they put themselves in this horrible position for stalling any kind of an earlier primary process when this really should have unfolded. I wonder

what you make of the fact there's a lot of like, I think New York Post was reporting some rumors about Obama and why he hasn't endorsed Kamala. Now their claim is basically like, he doesn't think she can win. He's mad that Joe endorsed her on the way out. And so he, you know, was sort of like holding off out of his anger and hope that there would be some ability to have a different process. I don't know if I really buy all of that.

that because at this point the writing's on the wall like he's clearly going to endorse her and also if he really wanted things to unfold that way he could have set he could have done a lot more to put forward like you have to put forward an alternative I'm not sure I buy it either that said I trust out of all of them I'm going to trust Obama right this is a man who actually got himself elected president on the other hand he's the one who anointed Hillary in 2016 so when his political

instincts outside of himself have not been that great. I could waffle it either way. I would just say there's a Napoleon alleged quote, if you're gonna take Vienna, then take Vienna. So in my opinion, if you're gonna kick Biden out, then do it. Yeah. Then go, if you're gonna kick Biden out, let's go for broke and let's win. That's what the mindset would be. I don't know why they chose this crazy half measure. So if I were Obama, I'd say, all right, well, if we're getting rid of Obama, or if we're getting rid of Biden, then

well, then let's put somebody in who can win. Let's put in a Gavin. Let's put in a Gretchen. Let's put in a Shapiro, Andy Beshear. All four of those people would run more than Kamala Harris. I mean, even Gretchen Whitmer. And by the way, I'm not fans of any of these people. I don't like any of these people. But I can read a poll and I can understand, too, where that breath of fresh air, that ability to, I mean, look at the enthusiasm that has been engendered from Kamala. Now imagine it times 50, I think.

for somebody who literally came out of left field. I think it would be even more for Democrats, people would be excited, especially if you were able to put a ticket out there. So I think it was a huge missed opportunity, but I don't know, should we go to the next element? - Yeah, we've got, I think Karine Jean-Pierre doing her thing. - Here's Karine Jean-Pierre being asked why if Biden is gonna resign or if Biden is not gonna run, why doesn't he just resign? How can we have any confidence that he can even stay in the job? Here's her word salad of an answer.

The president believes that it's best for the country that he not be in the Oval Office for another four years. How can you assure the American people that he's up to be in the office for the next six months? Well, first I would say is that, and I've heard these suggestions out there. This is not an answer to you. This is an answer to the suggestions that I've had. I've heard about him resigning from office. We believe, and any suggestion of that note is ridiculous. It is not

what we believe. The president, I just laid out what the president has been able to do in almost four years, and it's been successful. He's been able to do more, again, than any president has been able to do in two terms. He's been able to do that more in one term. And he wants to finish the job that he started and delivering more historic results for the American people. And look, he didn't step down

from campaigning or from running because he didn't believe he can serve in a second term. That is not why. And what I would say as I just finished my opening, I would say, tune in. Tune in to what he has to say tonight, and he will lay that out for you all and the American people as to why he made that decision.

So yeah, that's their line. It's not that he couldn't run and it's not that if he was elected, he couldn't serve. It's just that he decided not to run because everyone said that you can't run and you can't serve and you can't win. Yeah. I mean, the tortured logic of this is just absurd and I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, at a certain point, what the next six to seven months are, or what is it, five months, I think, until January, right? Something like that. Let's go with that. Nobody checked my math. Oh, until January? Oh, yeah. So until he was actually gonna be president, until January 20th. Yeah. I mean, this is like an Edith Wilson situation, honestly. Like, just at the very end of...

Woodrow Wilson's second term where he was basically totally incapacitated. All the people around him are running the entire government. Every once in a while, the old man will show up like today for his meeting with Bibi. I mean, his old instincts will show up and be like, oh, we love you, Bibi. You know, something like that. 100%. Yeah, 100%. Nobody stood, not a Jew in the world would be safe if it wasn't for you personally, Bibi. And everyone's gonna be like, oh my God.

And that's it. That's who's running our country. So let's all hope and pray that everything works out for the next till January, because I'm worried. I'm frankly more worried today than ever before in terms of if he's truly unshackled. I mean, what are his real instincts here on Ukraine, on Gaza? I have no idea. And that's actually, frankly, a more terrifying concept. I think we've seen his true instincts on Ukraine and Gaza. And that's the point is like,

And that's it's already been disastrous because I am very much of the view that he doesn't have anything really to do with domestic policy. He clearly doesn't care about domestic policy at all. You can't like drag him to talk to about it kicking in straight. Doesn't even know his own housing policy that he was floating if he was going to continue his reelection. He's checked out.

on domestic policy and whoever the agency heads or his top aides or whatever are running the show there. He has kept his grip on foreign policy with regard to Ukraine and NATO and Israel in particular. And it has been, it's been disastrous. It's been utterly disastrous.

And a part of that does come from this rigidity of his old age and inability to process new information and a new landscape, etc. And weakness and feebleness when it comes to his dealings with Benjamin Netanyahu. So it's already had a very damaging effect. And the other thing I would say, yeah, I'm curious your view on this, Sagar. Again, to the, oh, he's such a hero and he's so selfless, blah, blah, blah.

I actually think that if he resigned- No, that's heroic. That would be- Yeah. That would be- And if your goal is for Kamala Harris to win- Right. I think that would benefit her too because one of the challenges of any candidate, but especially a black female candidate- Can we see her in the show? Can we see her in the role? And the fact she's vice president, okay, that helps, but let's be honest. They basically hit her for three years- Right. Because they were afraid after the Lester Hold interview didn't go so well of what she would say. Yeah.

Which I have to say, seeing her now and how effective she's been, especially since the Biden debate happened. I think that was a mistake because she's better than they seem to think that she was. But in any case, she hasn't been in front of the public wearing that mantle of vice president in all these very public meetings with foreign heads of states, etc. Which is what gives the vice president typically such an edge in

in electoral contests because even though they weren't the president, people can easily see them in that role. She hasn't really had the benefit of that. So if he really wanted to set her up for success, if he really wanted to be selfless and pass the torch, etc., he would resign now on a reflection of his own decline and inability to do the job and out of a desire to allow people to imagine her in the role and to test the mettle of her in this capacity as well. But obviously, he's not going to do that. Yeah, he's certainly not.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's and I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, unpacking the toolbox where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show to officially unpack season three of scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three mesmerizing, but

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth pulling scene that kicks off a romance. And it was peak TV. This is new scandal.

content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is.

I think he was like, oh, yeah, things come and go. But with me, it never came and went. Is she Donna Martin or a down-and-out divorcee? Is she living in Beverly Hills or a trailer park? In a town where the lines are blurred, Tori is finally going to clear the air in the podcast Misspelling. When a woman has nothing to lose, she has everything to gain. I just filed for divorce. Whoa, I said the words. Yeah.

That I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Cheaters and Backstabbers. I'm Shadi Diaz. And I'm Kate Robards. And we are New York City stand-up comedians and best friends. And we love a good cheating and backstabbing story.

So this is a series where our guests reveal their most shocking cheating stories. Join us as we learn how to avoid getting our hearts broken or our backs slashed. Listen to Cheaters and Backstabbers on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

So we have a lot of polling to indicate early, early days what this matchup is going to look like. And the TLDR from all of the polls that have come out, which there have been a number that have come out since the Biden dropout, but only a select few where they were in the field wholly after the dropout.

Basically what it looks like is Kamala Harris is doing better than Biden, but she is still not winning the race. It's either a toss up or she is slightly behind Donald Trump. CNN had a really interesting poll. There's, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen while I talk about it. Part of why this poll in particular was so interesting is because

they pulled a lot of the same people, they pulled like the same panel that they had pulled previously when it was Biden. So you could truly see was there movement even among these same individuals and there was.

Trump in the overall number is at 49% support among these registered voters. Harris is at 46. So again, still losing, although I believe within the margin of error close there too. But that is closer than an earlier contest which found Trump with a six point margin over Biden. Keep this up on the screen. Let me just talk through this. So when you dig down into the demographic groups,

You can see the areas where Kamala improves on Biden's performance. She is doing better among young voters. She picks up 11 points.

She's doing better among black voters. She picks up 16 points and she's doing better among female voters. She picks up five points. Now, I believe she also sees some erosion among those like older white voters who have been riding with Biden. And so we'll talk a little bit more about this in a moment. But this represents kind of a reversion to the expected Democratic coalition versus remember, Sagar, we were looking at these polls were like

Biden is doing terribly with young people, but old people usually vote Republican or voting for the Democrat. It sort of reverses some of those stranger elements that had manifested themselves when the contest was Trump versus Biden. I don't know. There's some I think I'm just going to put my flag down and just say it's too early.

Because America has not seen enough yet. All they've seen is the name. We haven't seen the speeches. We haven't really, frankly, even seen much of Trump, right? We just had the RNC. I heard the speech was long. That's what a lot of my friends told me. They told me it was very long. They were like, well, it was good for the first 10 minutes. I was like, well, how long was it? They were like, oh, an hour and 20. I was like, oh, man.

Okay. I think it was more than that actually. That's vintage Trump. I saw statistics the longest speech is 1955, which is certainly something. Really? So okay, so we've got Donald Trump and Trump is basically back, I would say to the mean. Just last night, I believe he was like, I said I was gonna be nice, but can I not be nice tonight? And I was like, here he is, he's back.

So Trump and Vance, let's see how they're going to react because we haven't fully gotten the Kamala stuff. They were very, very much hoping that Kamala or that Joe Biden would not drop out of the race. That was their hope and their prayer. Oh, yeah. And I mean, they were correct in that assumption. I would say I'm just back to where I was pre-debate for the Democratic chances. So before the debate, I said, I think Biden's got a 40% shot. I think Trump's got about 60. I think I'm back to that. Now, after the debate, I would have said Trump has a 90% shot. And, you know, so it looked

It's better. It's definitely better. I would rather be Harris than I would be Biden. There's still a lot stronger Democratic candidates, and there are a lot comes down to choices. As in, what are the coalitions? Who are we trying to win? If I am them, I'm not going to get pie in the sky and crazy. I'm going for 271 electoral votes, and that's it. And that's all I care about. I don't even care about the popular vote.

I'm going for Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If we win Georgia, that's great. That's great. But I am going all in on those three. So that's going to talk a lot about how their VP selection is. Now, VP selection usually doesn't matter. I think it will matter much more in this case in terms of who you pick and what you're trying to do. But

I think it also comes back to who she is and what she's trying to do her case against Trump. Her strongest case goes back to her so-called cop days. And prosecutor, I actually think there's something to it. We've always said here, for a lot of normies being a quote unquote convicted felon, it's a problem.

Like, let's be honest, it is a problem. That's suburban moderate voter. I also think the row, row, row your vote is going to be more salient than ever before. So there are two choices. This will either be the immigration economy election in a Trump win, or it will be the abortion and economy election. And there will be a Kamala Harris win. Both are actually quite narrow in how they will look

on the electoral map. But if I am Kamala, it's all abortion all the time. Abortion, they're gonna bat, or economy, they will battle it out. Trump generally has the edge on the economy. He's got a lot of people have very good feelings about the economy from back in 2019. Kamala also has the noose around her neck, quite literally, of Biden inflation and of a lot of the policy that

That most people objectively did not feel like things were going so well. That's part of the reason if I were the Democrats, I would have picked somebody else because I don't want somebody with that baggage who could present a real thing. But I wanna see how she goes up on the air. She's got a ton of money now. She's got a ton of enthusiasm. Yeah. That's huge. I wanna capitalize the hell out of that. And if I'm them, I'm just going all in on abortion. We're running the 2022 playbook and we're going all the way to the end.

- She is a much, so her strengths as a candidate are she's a much more credible messenger on abortion. - Yeah. - She's comfortable talking about it. - Yeah, she is. - Joe Biden, he did not want to talk about this issue. He doesn't even agree really on the issue. He just, you know, I mean, he's always been basically anti-choice pro-life Democrat up until very recent times when that was no longer sustainable.

Very uncomfortable talking about it. Not credible on the issue. Kamala Harris, much, much better messenger there. And her gender is a real asset there, too. I think that's actually where it is a real asset. Yeah, it's a genuine asset. And, you know, we'll get into some of the attacks. But, you know, one of the better attacks, I think, that they're making out is like, oh, radical California, etc., etc.,

It lands a little bit different when the culture war landscape now and the most dominant issue is one where the majority of the voters agree with the more liberal take. So it's not as effective a hit as it could be in a different culture war landscape than we're seeing right now.

I agree with you. I think it's too early to say where we are vis-a-vis the polls. The most hopeful case for Democrats, and I think there's a lot to this, by the way, is the big thing that was holding Biden back was just he's too freaking old. I brought it up a million times. Those word clouds that we did were the number one thing people said, oh,

And you look at every single Democrat running in the country and they are outperforming him. Whether they're a great candidate or a bad candidate or a middle of the road candidate, whether they're progressive or moderate or wherever they are, they are all outperforming Joe Biden.

And so the hope is that, yes, Kamala has her weaknesses, but maybe just having a sort of like replacement level decent okay can formulate a sentence, can deliver a teleprompter speech candidate, that may be enough. And I don't think that's crazy. I think the data actually would indicate that probably is where this election is. The reason I would say to hold on these polls and see where things shake out in a couple of weeks

This has been an insane few weeks of politics. Insane, like I think you would struggle to find another historic period where as much has unfolded in so short a time period. So on the one hand, you have Kamala Harris, what the Trump people put out on Amazon, she's having her honeymoon period, right? And I think that's true. I think people are projecting on her, including lefties, including the K, like everybody is projecting on her who's left of center.

Whatever they want her to be right that is going to come into contact with reality at some point and she's Kamala Harris She's gonna have some moment that's awkward and not good and shows her not put a real that those things are gonna happen So I do think she's in a honeymoon period true Trump is also in a sort of honeymoon period post assassination attempt and post RNC, right? Yes, the speech was long bore or whatever and

But parties, candidates almost always get a bump coming out of their own convention. And Trump has. His approval ratings right now are the highest they've almost ever been between the way he looks strong coming out of the assassination attempt and the rally around the flag sort of a dynamic there and coming out of his own party's convention, etc. So he also is in a sort of honeymoon period.

So, you know, once you get into the slog of the campaign season, how do these things shake out? And the truth of the matter is we really don't know at this point. The period of uncertainty today is just as high. I was talking with the crew and I said this is probably the craziest 25-day period or whatever since 9-11.

Now, 9/11 was definitely crazier, don't worry. But my point is that a paradigm shift. I mean, everything literally changed. Historic events happened day after day with almost very little time of reflection. Part of the reason I'm actually kind of happy I wasn't there is I actually got to sit and think and I was like, this is crazy.

I was like, this is actually what it was like to get married and take some time off or whatever on 9-17 or after 1968. My sympathies to all those people at that time, because you're just sitting there thinking, especially for somebody who's obsessed with history like me. And I'm going back to 68 in my head, and I'm going back to 1912 or whatever in my head and thinking about third party candidates and the convention and all of the, but then

you know, overlaying social media on top of that, the assassination attempt. And I mean, have we really grappled with the fact that Trump was inches from death? Like, not really. And what the, you know, the decision tree from that looks like. And then on top of Joe Biden. It's already old news. It literally is already old news. I mean, he's already a backup.

there. He's already on the campaign trails, like barely even mentioning it. I mean, to a certain extent, there's a strength of democracy, right? Is that everyone's kind of just like, yeah, that was crazy. Hope we create some security, but you know, the show must go on. I think that's good. But let's also sit and let's ruminate a little bit and say, wow, we have a new candidate here for president. Literally everything is on the table. That's part of the reason why there is a honeymoon period, because we don't know a lot about this lady. I mean, she ran in a machine state in California. You take some positions, but not

really. As a senator, let's be honest, you don't really do much anyways. She wasn't there that long. And then she was the vice president. She's been in a closet for three years. Last time we started on the stage was during the Democratic debate. Didn't do so well then. So it's like, now what? Who are you? And I think that's a real question too for Kamala. And this is part of the reason that I think maybe one of her political strengths, I don't think this lady believes in basically anything. And actually, I think that's to a benefit where you can become the chameleon for the moment of what you need to be. And that is where

I really wanna see, does she have good instincts or not? What are you going for? What are you gonna try and do? You have to navigate some very tricky problems here. We've got Israel, Gaza, we've got abortion. How do we talk about abortion? How are we gonna quote unquote prosecute the case against Trump? Are we gonna do it the cringe way or are we gonna do it the way that a lot of normies do? Right, there's a little bit of overlap. Are we going all in on MSNBC democracy stuff? Yeah. Are we looking at our polling? Are we gonna make smart choices in our candidates?

Now, there's a countervailing evidence everywhere. Are we going to pick good people? That's one of the most important things. She's had crazy staff turnover. One of the dings, I think, against Kamala is this lady has bad judgment whenever it comes to staff. Her campaign, you remember all those stories? It was a mess. Oh, yeah. Total mess. Well, her staff, she's the highest staff turnover in the West Wing. So, I mean, these are not good things, you know, for a chief executive. And they also tell us about what it means whenever we start to run, you know, in the actual election, too. And

who we're anointing, who we're gonna pick, what's our process look like? These things really matter at the highest level. - In some ways, this contradicts a little bit of what we said earlier about how Democrats would be in a better position if they had actually had a Democratic, I still believe that 'cause I think they would've had a chance of picking a better candidate than Kamala Harris. But if you were going to end up with Kamala Harris,

this is kind of an ideal scenario for her. - I totally agree with you. - Because the short timeframe benefits her, right? Obama's magic was that ability to maintain the illusion of I will be whoever you want me to be, that's who I am. - Yes. - Do I think Kamala is Obama level talent? No.

I mean, Obama was a, you know, historic generational level political talent, whatever you think of him. And you guys know I'm not a big fan. But in terms of political talent, this man is very talented. He was able to continue and maintain that mystique. Even

even really into his presidency and into his re-elect. - Hey, the man won. That's all that actually matters. - And that is a remarkable talent and skill. Does she have that skill? No. Can she maintain the sort of magic trick of illusion for three months? Maybe.

Maybe. It's possible. In a very tightly, you know, going out and giving her speeches and very tightly controlled. You know, they're not going to put her out to the wolves in terms of interviews. They're going to send her out to friendly people, et cetera, et cetera. So there's that. There's also the fact, as you said, where did she fail in the primary? Part of it was she was a terrible manager and she could not put a campaign team together. Um,

that could stay together and she could not settle on a message. She doesn't have to do that. She has a campaign. She's taking over the Biden campaign team, right? She's taking on the campaign manager, the HQ, the money's coming. Everything is just like campaign in a box. Here you go. They've all

already decided what their messaging is. And it's not hard to figure out. They're gonna do basically like these people are fringe, extreme, dangerous and abortion. And she's also trying to lean into some like of the Biden-ish, like I'm gonna be a candidate for the middle class. She's talking about that as well.

But also...

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She already has a message set because that was the other knock on her campaign. Legitimate is that like she changed her campaign slogans every season. Remember one of her campaigners said that is every season we had a new campaign slogan. So she eliminates the risk of that. Like this is your message campaign in a box. Ready, set, go. So I think all of those things are to her benefit. Now, I just talked about how she's

outperforming where Joe Biden was with young voters. Israel Gaza, how she handles that is one of the big, big question marks. Everyone's reading the tea leaves right now. They're reading the BB visit. We'll talk about that. The VP pick could have ramifications there. People are giving her a lot of grace right now. But even so-

She's still underperforming where a Democrat should be with regard to young voters. And there is a lot of risk that she could screw up the, you know, right now, Gen Z is like in love with her and meaning her like crazy, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of risk there that that relationship collapses.

could turn sour. So Harry Johnson broke down some of the data here. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. So I want to take a look at Trump versus Democratic margin. Just remind folks where we were at the end of the 2020 campaign. Joe Biden won voters under the age of 35 by 21 points. What do we see with Kamala Harris?

Well, she's still ahead, but the margin here is significantly less than what we saw with Joe Biden back in 2020. She's up by just nine points. You may make the argument that was better than Biden was doing before he got out, but compared to that Democratic baseline, where Democrats have historically in presidential elections, at least this century, been carrying that young vote by 20 or more percentage points, she is way down from that. So if this is unique support among young voters, I would like to know what

non-unique support is, is it even worse than this? Is she doing better than Biden was, though? She was doing slightly better. Maybe Biden was up by, you know, like six on average or five. This is maybe slightly better, but this is not game-changing stuff, Mr. Berman. All right, what have we seen in terms of motivation? Yeah, so, you know, the other thing is we talk about vote choice, right? But let's also talk about motivation, right? Because it's not just who you would support, it's whether or not you'd come out to the polls. And this, I think, is rather interesting. Do Democrats say they're more motivated to turn out after Biden left the race? Well,

We do see a significant portion of Democrats who say, yes, 39 percent. The thing I was interested in was that disproportionately younger voters who said that they were more likely to turn out or more motivated to turn out. And what we see here is it's 42 percent, not a big difference between 42 and 39 percent. So this idea, again, that the vice president has unique potential to dig in and get young voters to turn out. John, it's just not there in the numbers, despite all the Internet memes that are going around.

So still a lot of room. You could say still a lot of room to grow maybe if she continues to improve her position with young voters and make some savvy moves or people just really decide like I can't vote for Trump. It seems like right now some of what's happened, RFK Jr.'s numbers have fallen off. The third party numbers have fallen off. People who were disgusted with Joe Biden over Gaza are giving Kamala Harris a chance. Some of that is going on. Or they were disgusted with Joe Biden just because he was so freaking old. Yeah, because he's old. And now they're

They're like, all right, well, this lady's not really old, so this is great. But there's still a lot of question marks there about whether she can truly put back together the Obama-style coalition that would be more her strength. You said something about if you were her, you would go for Pennsylvania. You would just go all in on the industrial Midwest.

I'm not 100% sure because the demographics in those states, they were good for Biden because he outperformed with like older white voters. Kamala's got a different coalition mix.

And, you know, she already we're seeing some numbers that show she's more in contention in those Sunbelt states where Joe and Georgia in particular, where Joe Biden was not really in contention, basically all but written it off. So, again, I think it we have to see how things shake off, shake out to see where her best potential path.

My real thing is that if you look at the economic approval in Georgia and in Arizona, Biden-Harris was underwater by some 25 points. And I just don't think that's possible to come back from. Sure, are there a lot more black voters in Georgia who might be able to come out and save her? Yeah, certainly. I mean, and look, you've got Warnock and Ossoff that are barnstorming the state for you. I wouldn't count her out, but I'm not going all in. And so when you look at the math,

And you look at the margins, too. We have some state-by-state polling. Maybe we can actually put this in afterwards. I'm just going to reference. This is a new Hill-Emerson poll. It kind of bears out what I'm saying. If you look at Wisconsin, this just came out this morning. They were in the field after the Biden dropout. Trump and Harris are tied in Wisconsin. Trump is up by five in Arizona. He's up by two in Georgia, up by one in Michigan, and up by two in Pennsylvania.

The tightest margin is in the industrial Midwest. You've got Whitmer. She can try and hold down the fort there in Michigan. You don't have the Gaza sink that you used to, maybe. If I were her, I'd just run the hell away from it. Honestly, try not to even take a position. That's going to be tough, but if anybody can do it, it could be her.

If you pick Shapiro or somebody like that for Pennsylvania, he's an enormously popular governor. That contradicts the Gaza thing, though. That's a problem for her there. How many people, Arabs in Dearborn, are you really going to vote on the VP pick? Like, look, like it's complicated. We'll see. I think she's going to get more grace no matter what. Right. We'll talk about that more in the VP blog. Right. So we get Shapiro.

there, then we can hold down Pennsylvania. You've only got to win it by 0.1. That's the only thing that actually matters. And then same Wisconsin, Biden was tied with Trump in Wisconsin. So Wisconsin has always been, I mean, remember this, what did he win it by? A couple 10,000 votes or something in 2016? It was close. So-

You know, already you had Biden roughly there. So if I'm Harris, I'm feeling more confident. We can get some people to turn out in Milwaukee and you could try, you know, things there and we'll just see how things go. Whereas Georgia, the Sunbelt, I just think the Sunbelt is

economically, there has never been more pessimism in the Sun Belt today. And if you think too about who these new voters are, all the people who moved to Arizona, Georgia, Texas, and all, these people are all blue refugees from New York and California. They're all gonna be voting red, I think at least, so they're gonna be voting red. And so, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go all in there, um,

But I need to see too, some polling. I mean, I think Georgia is the one state where I think it was totally lost under Biden and is winnable now under Harris. But remember too, that Trump did not win. Nevada too, because she does better so far. Again, this is all so early, but she also appears to do better among Latinos. Let's put this next piece up on the screen just because one of the questions is,

Okay, how much of Biden's lag was his policies and how much was just his age? Very undefined question. And then the other question is, how much are Republicans going to be successful in tying Kamala to Biden?

Right, and they wanna do that, they're already trying to do that. So far the early indicators, the early data is that while Harris is seen as a liberal, she does enjoy perception advantages over Biden even when you look at the issues. They view her as closer to their views than Biden on inflation.

by 10 percentage points, government spending by 10 percentage points, immigration, I'm actually surprised by this one, by 15 percentage points, abortion by eight percentage points, and even corruption plus 13. We can go to the next slide. This is from this same analysis of where Kamala Harris performs well on the issues and where she struggles. It's not gonna surprise you. The best issue for her net of trust Harris over Trump is zero.

reproductive rights, then climate and environment, improving the healthcare system, reducing racial tension in the country, making sure everyone can get a good education, protecting social security, like sort of a typical list of liberal priorities. And then at the bottom, those same issues that dogged Joe Biden, securing the border, immigration, police and crime, although she's only minus two on that, which I'm a little bit surprised about there. It's interesting. Maybe it goes back to her Katmala days. We can talk about any credibility she still has on that one.

But in any case, you know, I thought the comparison with Biden was really interesting to me that people had separate views from her, at least at this point than they had on, you know, with Biden on inflation, et cetera. But I also am fairly persuaded that the biggest issue Joe Biden had wasn't really an issue problem. It was an age problem. I think age.

it's like bone marrow. It was at the center of everything with the conversation with Biden. Now that said, I mean, the economy is still bad. I think it's bad for the average middle class person. So that's why I would never have picked the incumbent vice president. I want to pick somebody from a more dynamic and an interesting state that genuinely understands some of the middle class economic concerns. I want to pick somebody who's got a real track record of at least trying to work on that. I've seen Kyle talk about Tim Walz. I mean, these are people that I

would really want to work for, right? And I would really want to, I would want to put that forward because that is a contrast to the Trump, you know, era and to a real vision also post 2024 where with Kamala, it's like, what are you going to do? Biden plus? It's like, okay. I mean, look, babe, great. But that's not anything all that interesting.

And so for her, I think it's just like I said earlier. It's going to be the immigration economy election or it's going to be the abortion economy election. And it's going to be a slog and it's going to be a battle to the death between those two. And the definition wars, I mean, the amount of money that's going to be spent on Kamala crime, Kamala borders are, Kamala open border on the Republican side. That's what I would do too if I was going up against her because it is also probably the area where they genuinely disagree the most. And then you flip it on abortion and

And, you know, you've got J.D. who's got press comments on abortion. And then you've got Trump who literally had Roe versus Wade overturned and appointed those people. That is as good of a contrast as I could ask for. And that's also where you can make it. There's a famous, you know, Barry Goldwater quote, the time for choosing that moment. This is a time for choosing on those two issues. So whichever you can get people to care the most about and define the other on economy, I think they're kind of a wash, frankly, for both, because you've

decent hits against both, you know, Trump on TCJA and extension, but he didn't have inflation. Kamala, you've got, you know, whatever she's promising, middle-class agenda. I don't know how much you'd believe that, but maybe. And then you, but you've also got inflation on those two. I think they relatively cancel each other out. So those are the two issues that I think are going to define this election. I would, I would throw another one into the mix. I mean, the midterms turned on the reason there wasn't a red wave, even though all the numbers seem to indicate like, oh, they've got a big problem on inflation and immigration.

It was abortion and it was extremism. Yeah, good point. It was the sense of like these people are really fringe. They're weird. You know, they're saying stuff that's just out there. And, you know, that was what ended up being the really determining factor in the midterms. And so I think that's what the Democrats are hoping. Those are still the issues that control and end up being the most persuasive to—

swing voters, you know, wherever they may live. So I want to move on. We do have, let me just show you this Pennsylvania poll real quick. B7, you already referred to some battleground polling, but this was another poll. This was actually commissioned by Republicans.

which is interesting. And it's, I think, a B-rated pollster, so not an A-rated pollster, but still not bad. You've got Trump winning, but only by two, better than what we've been seeing from Biden recently. You have Bob Casey, the Democrat, holding an eight-point advantage over McCormick. Dave McCormick, is that his name? Yes. The Republican. So again, you still see swing state Democrats outperforming the top of the ticket, but it's a little better than what they were doing with

Biden, it gives them a shot. Put B8 up on the screen. This was an analysis from Nate Cohn over the New York Times there, data guy, how Kamala Harris changes the race. One thing she said- Good piece. It is a good piece. Three things that he points to. Number one-

The original dynamic was Trump being a change candidate and Biden being very much not change candidate. Heresy says Democrats will have another chance to make the case they can improve the nation's fortunes. For one, she's neither Biden nor Trump. Two figures who've been in public life for decades, so she feels like a breath of fresh air. That's my, he didn't say that, I'm saying that. For another, she's not the president. She might be burdened by voters' perceptions of Mr. Biden's record, but she'll have room to distinguish herself. She even has room to argue for a new direction.

The other thing he refers to is the return of the usual demographic divide that some of what we've been talking about is she's returning to more of the Obama coalitional mold, better with young people, better with black voters, better with Latino voters. And they say the return of issues. You know, with Biden, the whole thing was just about like his age, basically. And

now there'll be a little bit more space in the conversation for an actual conversation about how these candidates would govern and what that governing agenda would look like. So we may see more talk of that with Congress at the top of the table. That is the greatest gift that Biden's resignation has given Democrats. It was the worst issue. And it was,

It permeated, like I said, everything. It was the bone marrow. And now when that's gone, I mean, look, it opens up a little bit of space. Now, to what extent? How are they going to work with that? How are they going to define things? I'm actually quite curious, you know, to see what the moves are in the next couple of days. But overall, I would say she's played her hand like pretty well from what I've seen so far. There's been a lot of Roe versus Wade. I think the campaign campaign headquarters speech is not bad.

I think that the rally speech from what I've read, or at least the excerpts don't look normal. Her very first ad is now out. It's called Freedom. It's got Beyonce's freedom or whatever. And it's all about, you guessed it, democracy and abortion, and Trump being a convicted felon. So the playbook is here. Yeah. And you've got a ton of-

of money. I also think, did we talk about the enthusiasm gap? Because that was actually maybe the biggest change. The biggest change here by far is the 896,000 people who donated to a Democrat for the very first time since Biden dropped out of the race. That's one in 296 Americans. That's crazy.

- Yeah, it's crazy. - And Trump famously has the most dedicated political coalition of all time in modern politics. Now Kamala has got the ladies and I'm never betting against abortion ladies at all. These people will and did crawl over broken glass to vote in 2022. And now they're, you know, Biden is gone. The biggest, worst deficit to them actually having enthusiasm. So now generic D, that has real power.

And if I'm Republicans, I'm worried as hell about that because this, get to the ballot box, row, row, row your vote. I mean, if you're in Northern Virginia suburbs where I am, I mean, these people are fired up now. They are ready to vote. They hate Trump with a passion that many Republicans have discounted now for several years. I have never seen Kamala Harris better than she's been in these past few weeks. And not just since she became the presumptive nominee, but since the Biden debate.

debacle. She has had a swagger. She has been genuinely charismatic on the stock. She has been good, like from just sheer raw political analysis. Now she hasn't had to do the things that are difficult for her. Exactly. Right. She hasn't had to do the interviews and be caught off balance. She's she has been very good. And the other thing she benefits from is she's not 80 years old and the bar has been set

Think of the Biden speech last night. Right. And then compare that to Kamala. You're like, holy shit, this woman's amazing. Right. She can speak. He set the bar below the floor. So when she's able to deliver competently a Democratic message and a Democratic attack on Trump with some energy.

and some vitality and you have people who are actually excited to hear from her, it feels so incredibly different than how things were before. And so, yeah, underestimate her at your peril because we all know what the weaknesses are. But

Trump is now, now Trump's age becomes an, like he is an old man. He's almost 80 years old, right? And he's been in the public eye for a long, people are sick of him. He's got negative approval rating. Like he's got all the baggage that Trump comes with. So, you know, there is, she's got a genuine enthusiasm behind her. And Ryan made this point, I think he's right. In a sense, the fact that she is a black woman

It's a benefit to her because Americans want to believe the mythology about marching towards progress and equality. And they want to see themselves as the type of people who would vote for a black boy. And this ended up being a benefit for Obama too.

And I think we'll talk more about this in the next block, but I think Republicans are a bit imperiled by how much they want to fixate on her race and gender as a negative. And so part of the enthusiasm for her is the sense of like, oh my God, like a black woman, and I see myself in, you know, what this means for the country and what this means for America.

how we conceive of ourselves. That's definitely a part of this and it's a part of what makes her feel like this huge break.

from the Biden and Trump slog that we were all looking towards with that. I'm not so much sure I buy that. I think that's true for a certain subset of the liberal white population who fetishize like voting for black people and makes it better. Now, have you seen the black organizing club? Okay, yeah, I mean, that's great. But that's the true whenever they had Obama. I mean, I remember I went to an Obama rally in 2012. It was the same vibe there. So I don't think it's all that unique. I just think it's anytime there's a prominent black person. Yeah, but that was good for Obama.

Okay, sure. Yeah, good. Good for him. I mean, I'm just saying, is that like a net net? It's the opposite of the like, oh, the country's too racist and sexist to elect a black woman. But we've already proved that stupid and wrong. It's the opposite. But that's what I'm saying. It's like, you know, that's the way oftentimes this is framed. And I do think there's an added challenge of like envisioning her in the role. But I actually think I've come to believe net net the level of

aspiration and enthusiasm that is wrapped up in that identity and image, I think that actually is a benefit to her campaign. Like I said, for a certain subset of liberal white people, I think that is true. I would hope for most people you don't have to care about whatever the race is of the president. I certainly don't care what the race is. But Sagar, I mean, listen, obviously for me, the policy controls, but you can't deny they did an organizing call with black women that had 40,000 people on it. They did one for black men that had 50,000 people on it. Like,

the level of

and willingness to organize. And they raise millions of dollars on these calls. Like, you can't just hand wave that away and say, well, it doesn't matter to me, so it doesn't matter to anyone. It does matter to some people. It does matter. Like, they're excited about this person looks different than what I expected. I didn't know if this would be possible. And I think Americans, like you said, including white Americans, like the idea of themselves as someone who's not racist and not sexist and would be willing to vote for this candidate. And so I don't think you can say, like, oh, this...

I think it's a benefit to her, her identity characteristics, which is the polar opposite of the narrative you normally get about the country's too racist. Oh, sure. Well, that's actually a media narrative, and I think that's false. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's 2008, and I think, sure, that's good. Now, I mean, yeah, it's great. I would want it. I'd rather have it than not. But, you know, there's a lot of white people in the country, too. So if I was, I wouldn't necessarily, I don't know. I just don't think it really matters. Like, if I'm looking at it from who it all is going to come down to, who you're going to raise the most money from, like,

I don't think it's going to be what black sororities or black women organizing calls. I'd rather have the money than not, but it's not necessarily going to turn anything. Will it have a lot of media attention paid to it? I just think it's a wash. Yeah, absolutely. Especially with Trump. I mean, look at the amount of enthusiasm he gets amongst white working class voters. I'd have that. Now, would I rather be Harris than Biden? Yes, absolutely. He's not getting that level of enthusiasm. But if I

were her, I mean, I don't think the election is going to turn on black voters. I think it's all going to come down to, like I said, suburban women. So if I were her, I'd be getting my ass out there in Detroit suburbs and in Milwaukee and everywhere else. I'd try and fuse the two together. Republicans have really been gaining some ground among black voters. And Trump was really banking on continuing to eat into those margins in a way that is significant in a lot of states.

And so, you know, I think she, we already have the numbers. Like she definitely reverses that trend. She reverts more back to that Obama coalition with regards to black voters. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't think you can just say like her identity doesn't mean anything in this race. You can see from the Republican reaction, like obviously it has resonance, good and bad among different segments of the population. But my only point is that the notion that we've been sold

We were sold after Hillary, oh, the country's too sexist to vote for her. We were sold during Obama, like, oh, the country may be too racist to vote for him. That was obviously not true. And they did vote for him twice. Twice. And with Hillary Clinton, it was not sexism. It wasn't sexism. That was the reason Kamala didn't do well in her primary. I think it's exactly the opposite. I think it's a benefit to her that she appears to be visually and her identity is such a break.

With, you know, just the surface level identity of the contest as it was originally formulated. That is part of why you have this flood of enthusiasm, donations, organizing, all of those things that you're seeing right now. Her identity is part of that. Sure, I think it's part of it. I think it would be roughly equal for Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom. I think that's really, so much of it is just he's not Biden. Like that is a massive part of it.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's and I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, unpacking the toolbox where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show to officially unpack season three of scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three mesmerizing, but

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All right, so Crystal was very kind and she wanted me to weigh in on some of the Republican attacks on Kamala Harris. So we're gonna start with one that has been making the rounds. Kamala is allegedly, quote, what is it, the original hawk to a girl. This was on Fox Business. Let's take a listen.

Yeah, and then there's the DEI press secretary telling you that the DEI vice president is the future of the party here. And so the future looks kind of dim for the Democrats here, but this is no shocker either. Kamala Harris, she's the original Hak Tua girl. That's the way she got where she is. And the party's going downhill if it's in her hands. That was tough. That was harsh. That was harsh. Look, I would just say this. Let's just not go into it. In general, I talked with Emily about it.

I have annoyance with some of this because some of this it's like, well, what is allowed to be talked about or not? So with Trump, it's like, okay, well, we have now spent years litigating. Did he have sex with Stormy Daniels up until the point of what? I'm not going to go into. Let's just say the very personal details of Donald Trump's anatomy, what the exact sexual encounter was between the two. That was a key thing against him. So it's like, well- It was in the context of a campaign payment and cover up.

That was the context there. Okay, but then the Karen McDougal thing also. You know, many of Trump's affairs. So Trump's sex life was like totally out in the open. So it's like, oh, we're not allowed to talk about Kamala, like basically having an affair with a very powerful, you know, what...

a relationship with a powerful San Francisco mayor and clearly how that, you know, contributed to her rise to the top. I would say it's fine to talk about. I wouldn't talk about it that way. But in general, let's just take it back to where we were in the beginning of this, in the beginning of this show, which is if we're talking about suburban women and abortion, I would probably just divorce. I was just going to say, I would encourage...

Republicans, please continue this line of attack. Laura Loomer, please continue talking about Kamala Harris's uterus and theorizing about her entire life. Please. The other thing about this, Sagar, and this fits with the DEI hit as well, this shit is so online. And so to people that understand it,

it's repellent, right? Like even the Fox business lady there is like repelled by it. And he's been pulled off there. He hasn't been seen since. Well, he is making it explicitly sexual. And that's part of the thing that I'll get into with the DEI thing, which is, by the way, I don't think anything should be off limits. I think it's fine. I think it is weird that when she was 29, she was dating Willie Brown. I think very

obviously for political purposes. I think that's weird. It tells me a little about her sociopathic personality that basically is required to become president. So I think she is just like anyone who wants to be president. Many of these people are willing to do anything in order to ascend to power. And that's basically a requirement for the arrogance to think that you should be president. Okay, so let's leave it at that. Now, I didn't say that in a sexist way. Note that I just put it in exactly the same terms of many people who want to climb to the very top are willing to do anything to do that.

So I think in that context, it's fine. Now, I would not put it in explicitly sexual terms the way that, I don't know who that guy was, the Fox Business analyst or whatever. Let me tell you what his Twitter profile says because you'll enjoy this. Please, hit me. It says, a father of four-

Host of first class fatherhood. All right, yeah, see, would you talk about your daughter that way? Would you want to talk about women that way? In general, like I said, this whole slut shaming thing, I wouldn't do it personally. I think talking about it in terms of what it reveals about character and background, I think that's totally on brand. And I think, fine.

You know, in the same way that I think the talking about Trump and his sexual promiscuity or especially sexual braggadocio in the past reveals like obviously something insecure about him and about his love of the tabloids and all of that. So in general, the reason why I don't trust Republicans to talk about this is probably the same reason that Mike Johnson's told them not to talk about DEI. It's not that it's not legitimate.

It's that, can we really trust the people who brought us Todd Akin and who was the other one who made the comments about rape? Indiana? I'm forgetting his name. It's something. It's totally on the top of my head. But my point is, is that can we really trust like these boomers who are, you know, or even people who are making hawk tool comments on national television, talking about the vice presidential candidate? Can we talk?

Can we trust them to talk about it in a nuance and I think in a way that could possibly make it a hit for the American people? No, I can't trust them about it. Especially on the sexual thing, I would just let it be. I mean, look, like I said, when we've got Trump on the ticket too, let's all call it even. I mean, this guy's argument that he made on Fox Business, which I've seen made, he's not the only one. This is being made online incessantly. The DEI thing obviously is being made by members of Congress and

op-ed writers and whatever, like his argument about her is that she's black and she's a whore. Like, again, if that's where you want to go with this, good luck. Because the other thing is, part of how you know this is not an effective attack is Trump is not engaged in any of this. I wouldn't put it past him. But here's the thing. I'd be curious to see what he says. No, here's the thing though, Sagar. Like,

Let me put my moralizing aside because I do think this is a disgusting thing to say about anyone. And I said the DEI thing too, we'll I'm sure talk more about this, but...

whatever original like good faith critique of DEI programs that existed, which I share some of, by the way, like it's clearly just become a term for a slur for like a black person with a job. And that's the way it's been used typically. But the bigger problem with both the Hoctua thing and the DEI thing is it reveals this like super niche, overly online type of brain that

That was why Vivek didn't do well in his campaign. It was why Ron DeSantis didn't do well in his campaign because they had these like niche online fixations, including a bizarre terminology that wouldn't even be familiar to most Americans. Like,

To the extent that most Americans would know the term DEI, it would be like black people who find it to be basically a slur, black people who were increasingly open to a Republican message, by the way, or people who are just like, I don't even know what that means. What are you even talking about? So that's why Trump never uses, he never talked about ESG, he never talked about DEI. He made fun of the fixation on wokeness because he saw it for being this overly niche organization.

online concern that doesn't land for normie Americans. So outside of the fact that I think there are certain demographic groups that will find this type of language and tech repellent, I also think it's just like way too online. I'm not willing to go there on DEI yet because DEI is a term that actually means something. Now personally, I would not use DEI, I would just say affirmative action, which is far more accurate and I think correct about who she is and about both why she was picked for the vice president

etc. But that is like, I don't know, let's think of a leftist equivalent where just because somebody has used the term improperly, does that mean that you just stop and it's become publicly defined or used as something else? Does that mean you give up on the term? Like, I don't think so. I mean, DEI is a real thing. It basically means affirmative action for minority groups. It embodies the whole equity versus equality. And that's a mindset and

and philosophy that Kamala believes in, including putting out equity cartoons. So calling her a DEI candidate is empirically true. She was picked for her race. She was picked because she was a black woman. If you look back at the time, Amy Klobuchar, Gretchen Whitmer, and her were on the final list. BLM madness was happening. Jim Clyburn says, you got to pick a black lady. And he picked a black lady, even though he didn't like her. And she wasn't all that politically effective and failed in the primary.

That is literally DEI. Here's what I would say. Yeah. The vice presidential pick is almost by definition a DEI pick. Joe Biden was put on the ticket with Barack Obama because he's a white dude. You're always picked. I mean, what are we talking about with regard to who Kamala will pick? We're like, it's going to be a white guy. Yes. Is that a DEI? Yes. That's my point. But here's the thing. When you get picked for your race, that is DEI. But Sagar, here's the thing. Yeah.

None of these people, and you, by the way, too, you would never talk about them that way. You would never use the term DEI to describe them, even though they're also being picked for their race or other demographic characters. Mike Pence picked because he's an evangelical with ties into that community. No one called him a DEI pick.

And that goes to my point of what this has come to mean, whatever you might mean when you say it, what it has come to mean is a black person with a job. - Okay. - And remember how they used it with the Baltimore mayor, right? - Sure.

So democratically elected mayor. No, but it doesn't define everything. Yeah, but you know that this is not just one idiot on Twitter. I mean, that's how they're using it in this context too. And it's not used consistently. Joe Biden was a DEI vice presidential pick. Mike Pence was a DEI presidential pick, a vice presidential pick. J.D. Vance was picked because of his unique ties in the Rust Belt. Or was he a DEI vice president? No, of course they would never talk about them that way because it's only used to talk about black people.

But let me just say, again, I encourage you to continue this line of attack. I encourage you to continue in this direction because not only is it off-putting for a demographic group that was starting to be somewhat open to Republicans, and I don't think just black people like...

Also, you have a lot, as you were saying before, you have a lot of suburban white people who don't want to see themselves as racist. If they're going to vote against Kamala Harris, they want a non-racial-based or gender-based reason to vote against her. So not only is it off-putting, but again, part of the problem for Republicans in 2022 was the sense of like,

You guys are just out there. Like, you're weird. You're fixated on this fringe stuff. And all this DEI, ESG, all this hyper online fixation. Talk to a girl. Like, do you think my mom knows what that is? No, she doesn't. Okay? Okay.

So I encourage Republicans to continue in this direction. I think this is gonna work out very well. I'm not defending Hawk too, but here is why. And this is, you brought up an important point. So let's think about the history. Affirmative action was literally created for black people. There's a reason why the term isn't extricably linked. Now, part of the problem with affirmative action- But that's what makes it an explicitly racial term. But this is what I'm saying.

The problem with affirmative action is that it became DEI, which became an all-encompassing term that got fused with BIPOC, ESG, all of this minority obsession. So whites are by definition not a minority, which is why the term is not traditionally used with that. Now, as a mindset itself, by the way,

I oppose racial preferences. I oppose voting for people because of race. And I don't believe in racial exceptionalism or any of this stuff. And I would have opposed it back in the 1960s too. The policy has been a disaster for the United States, which is why I think striking down affirmative action was a good thing. Now, calling her a DEI candidate, again, is empirically true when you utilize your race in the midst of the greatest racial hysteria in this country since the 1960s.

and use that to cross your opponents when your own record itself is one of political disaster in the campaign and you failed with black voters. Amy Coney Barrett, Trump had said he wanted to put on a woman. That's an affirmative action pick. That's correct. Yes. Do any of these people ever talk about it that way? People on the right actually did call Amy Coney Barrett an affirmative action candidate at the time. I've never heard any of these people complain about her being a DEI affirmative action candidate. It isn't, and you just acknowledge, it's an explicitly racialized act.

It was developed for race purposes. Okay, but that's what I'm saying. It's fair to talk about it. The argument, but I'm just saying, you're making an explicitly racialized argument then that the problem with Kamala Harris is based on her race.

and her gender. That's not the problem. That's a fair attack. You didn't earn where you are because of your race, which is true. But the same is true of Joe Biden. The same is true of Mike Pence. The vice presidential pick, it's not a dumb, nobody earns it. They get plucked

out of wherever for their demographic characteristics and what group people think they're going to appeal to. So I'm not saying you can't say it. Say it, please. Go ahead. Make the case. Go for it. I'm saying I do not think that this is a wise direction for Republicans to go in. Because let me-

Let me just add to this because I was thinking about, all right, if I was going to go after Kamala Harris, like how would I do it? What would be the most effective thing? Because I think that we, you know, we have sort of a model for that because of the failure of her 2020 presidential campaign.

What was it? She believes in nothing. What was it that was a problem for her? It was a couple things. It was that she believes in nothing, right? She's just a cipher. She's like, you know, just will say whatever's convenient in the moment. So she's a political chameleon. And the sense of incompetence that came from like the inability to run a campaign, her stumbles on the trail, et cetera, et cetera. So-

Make that case those things don't have anything to do with her being a black woman or a slut Right. This has to do everything with her own capabilities and where she's been and how she's been all over the place and that rings a lot more true the other thing that you know, this is very predictable like the thing Trump is actually going with as though she's radical laughs She's radical liberal etc. I think this probably has more traction definitely does and it's more over the target of what would make sense but I

But it also, effective attacks really have to ring true. And what rings a lot more true with Kamala Harris isn't that she is some hardcore committed lefty ideologue. It's that she doesn't believe in anything at all. So if I was going against Kamala Harris, I would leave her race and gender aside because like I said, people who want to vote against her, most Americans don't want to see themselves as explicitly racist or sexist, right?

They want to have some other reason that they can point to that they're voting against her other than that she's, you know, a whore or a DEI pick. They want to have something they can point to that absolves them of any potential implication of racism or sexism. So that's why I think these attacks

You know, I think they're just instantly repelling off-putting to certain groups. And I just don't think it's the most effective direction for Republicans to go to in terms of making a case against her. And there is a very clear case that can be made against her. I don't disagree with the case you're making, but let me make the case for the DEI affirmative action thing.

Nobody suffered more in this country by affirmative action than white working class voters. So this is the white working class election. They're already voting for Trump. No, not necessarily. Joe Biden was breaking what, 30%, 40% white working class? I mean, it's like with blacks, margins matter. Black voters, 90-10 and 80-20 is literally the difference between 400 electoral votes and what, 260, right? That's part of the reason why Trump's meaningful gains, I mean, he's winning like eight or he's winning like 15% of the black vote.

But that's still a lot more than 10. So if the affirmative action line can mobilize white working class voters in the industrial Midwest, it's not a bad thing. And if you look at Hillbilly Elegy and what is it? The History of the Scots-Irish People, I'm forgetting, Jim Webb's book. If you look at those two things-

core theme is about racial discontent and the obsession with Democratic elites of affirmative action. And so I think J.D. has a line in Hillbilly Elegy, something about people on the floor being upset because somebody got promoted because they were black. Or Jim Webb has talked a lot about this in the past, about how affirmative action is one of the reasons that he left the Democratic Party, then pointing to the person who is literally only in her position.

I mean, can we acknowledge, Crystal, that she would not win an open Democratic primary like from in 2020? I mean, obviously in 2020, she didn't. I think in 20, I think this time there is a decent chance she would have just because of her position as vice president. But that's after selection for her race. But again, that's like almost definitionally the case of every vice presidential candidate. So, I mean, listen, if you want to double the case you're making.

is let's like double down on racial grievance. That's not a racial grievance. It's empirically true. It's obviously a racial grievance. Like even if you say it's a legitimate racial grievance, it is a racial grievance. It is white working class feeling like black people got things they didn't deserve. Not just black people, a lot of minority groups got promoted because they weren't necessarily the most qualified for the job. Even taking any sort of like morality out of that, it is definitely a racial grievance.

I don't think that that is an effective strategy at this point in time. And it's not the coalition that Trump is trying to go after this time. I mean, they've really been trying to expand into a more diverse coalition. They have a lot of problems with suburban women that they know is going to be a major issue. So, you know, I think the J.D. Vance vice presidential pick was a foolish one for this exact reason, because it's also just doubling down on a base that is

already with you. Like, you already have the enthusiasm of this group. And again, to me, the fact that Trump, who is not, you know, he's not above saying anything and, you know, everything all the time when he thinks it serves him.

that he's not making these arguments, I think tells you a lot about the political foolishness of going in this direction. It's only been five days, right, that Trump has been on the election. We have one rally since then. We know that he's eschewed all this DEI, ESG, like he has eschewed all of that language very clearly. And

And even like made fun of Ron DeSantis. He always says he's woke. I don't disagree with any of that. Yeah, and that's a big part of what the rock that Ron DeSantis crashed into is his fixation with these things that are like hyper online and somewhat niche and just feel like we're infringed to a lot of normie Americans putting aside like, you know, the debate we're having about the morality and whatever. Sure.

I think if I were Trump, I don't think it's a bad attack. Like I said, with winning white working class and trying to, now let's say I would use the term affirmative action because I think it's also the most accurate. Now I'm also going to object though, that you can't just make these, throw these claims out because notice who I'm not going to call a DI candidate, Barack Obama. Barack Obama rightfully won the presidency and his primary election on the strength of his own name. And I don't think if anything, you know, if he had racial headwinds or whatever, it was far stronger in 2008 and he blew it out of the water.

I don't think he was a DEI candidate. He was never selected. He was never anointed. He was never given a position. He fought the Clinton establishment and he won. That's actually an inspiring racial story. And that's part of the reason why you can connect to that. That's why white working class people can connect to that. Obama grew up, his background, that was everything. Kamala is a different story. I mean, she was selected because of her race. And I'm not going to give, I'm not going to just put away and say, we're not allowed to say that, that in my opinion. Did I say you're not allowed? Okay, fine. But.

But listen, but again, Joe Biden was also selected for his race. But it's not the same. It is the same. At least at that time, they would lie about it and they said it's for his foreign policy experience. But hold on. It is like almost exactly the same. The veneer matters. It's almost exactly the same because...

He ran in that primary and he failed miserably. Yes. And it was his- That's why he's not a very good candidate. He multiple times failed miserably. So because this is the thing, the legitimate knock on Kamala is like, well, you ran and you failed and then you just got plucked out. Well, it was literally the same thing with Joe Biden. But that was never used against him. It was never called- No, no, that's not true. It was. It was.

credibility, his, you know, legitimacy in the position was never called into question. And Kamala Harris, I mean, you know, she won statewide in a large, very diverse position.

very economically powerful state multiple times. Okay, so yeah, I'm not gonna believe that, what's his name, Willie Brown? Willie Brown. This one man cannot possibly be responsible for every single thing that happens, every election that occurs in the state of California.

some level to the extent that there's any democratic process at play. She earned her stripes in the state of California. She won primary, she won statewide multiple times. She served in office, people got to evaluate her credentials, etc, etc. And she got put in as vice president in the same way that every vice president gets picked by nature of her demographic characteristics and who they thought she could appeal to. Now, I don't support

I think it is racist to assume black people are going to vote for a black person just because of their identity. I think it is way more complex than that. But you can't deny that the whole discussion we're having around Kamala Harris and how she'll pick her VP is about their demographic characters and who they'll appeal to and what their background is and all of those things. That's like just how VPs get picked. So I don't think that's fair.

I don't think it's fair for that to be held specifically against her when it's not held against anyone else who doesn't happen to be black. And I also, like I said, I hope Republicans continue in this direction because I think it's a very ineffective, off-putting, overly online attack. I think if you polled most of the public, they couldn't even tell you what DEI even means. I agree, but they might know what affirmative action means and they are two sides of the same coin. So I'm just gonna, look,

We'll see. We'll find out in November. I think as a person who is a minority, can I play my minority card now? If I ever got promoted or ascended or whatever because of my race, I'd be mortified because of it. So anybody who's out there who supports this type of crap, you're just shooting yourself in

foot in my opinion. And I think it's the stupidest thing. Now again, part of the reason why I connect with the affirmative action message is explicitly because I despise people whose only characteristic about them is making it all about their race. That's not interesting. What color you're born is not interesting at all. What you believe in what you're gonna do for others

That's, again, why I at least revere Barack Obama as a political animal, using his background as both a black man and also his white mother and his grandparents growing up in Kansas to create a story that everyone could connect.

to. That was genuinely inspiring. I remember thinking about it at the time and to this day is one of those where everyone can, but that's not necessarily unique about his race. Clinton was very effective in the same thing. He literally said, like, I grew up in a trailer park. I was trailer trash. And that's one of the reasons why they even called him at the time, the first black president, which is stupid.

but because he connected a lot with black voters. So that's my point is that it's not about race per se, it's about connecting with what people feel icky about the other person. Now, one of the attacks against her is she was selected because of her race. She's never been truly tested in the fire of democracy.

Now, I think you're one state. OK, OK, OK. This is a machine politics state. If you have D next to your name, you win. People still have to vote for you. There's a fake primary to pass the post. People still get to vote in the state of California. It's not like a dictatorship. The entire time. I mean, this is like saying a white guy in Alabama has been tested. I'm not sure how long they've had it, but now they have the jungle primary where you are up against very likely a Democrat in the fall as well. I mean,

listen, yeah, it's a machine state, but you still have to win votes. Sure, yeah. So I just think, I just don't think that's fair. Delaware is also a state where if you just have a D by your name, you get elected. And I don't remember anyone calling into question Joe Biden's credibility because of that. So that's why I just think it's, I mean, I just think it's really very unfair. And I think it is a foolish- We'll find out. I think it's a foolish direction to go in. And it makes it explicitly

explicitly racializes the argument against her and I don't think that's smart. - But then why is she allowed to explicitly racialize it and the media? Like, oh, it's so important to have a black woman. I'm like, I don't care if you're a black woman. It's like, what are you gonna do for me? - I haven't even heard, I mean, I haven't heard her say that, but to your point about Barack Obama,

All political candidates, except for Bernie Sanders, they use their identity. They talk about their biography, Trump as the business guy, right? He uses his biography and his identity as well. That's part and parcel of what you do. So I don't find her talking about her identity to be some crime against Trump.

the country. I think it's far more important what she's going to do. I think the fact that she hasn't stood for anything, and even after all these years in politics, I have no clue what this woman actually believes. I think that's a problem.

But for her to talk about her identity and for people to aspirationally want to, yeah, I mean, that was part of the appeal. Remember how excited people were when he was elected in 2000? I know you're a baby, but they were excited. Even people who weren't really Democrats or didn't even vote for, they were excited because of what it said about the country, right? She benefits from that as well.

And I think for Republicans to try to make an explicitly racial or gender-based case against her, I just think that will backfire, especially given the coalition they're trying to put together right now. I'm not sure I agree just because we have lived through BLM madness. We lived through anti-racism baby and all this other. People are fed up with a lot of this stuff. I mean, look, I'm not saying the CRT thing was like a big winner, but I think if you look at the general trend, people are mostly gone past. It was not a big winner.

People are mostly past a lot of the BLM nonsense that was shoved down our throats for an entire, what, two, three years in this country. I can't be the only one who was further radicalized on race as a question of that in terms of being explicitly against racialism in American politics. But that's the thing, Sagar, is that's actually the biggest danger is that right now Republicans are the ones that appear to be engaged in that racialism. Because I do think you're right

that Americans have an instinct towards like the colorblind ideal. - I think that's a good thing. - And so when you're making an explicitly racialized case,

It flips from, you know, Democrats. There was a time when Democrats were the ones who were like word policing and nannies and PC and cancel culturing and all this stuff. And then Republicans flipped the script because they got so obsessed with wokeness that it seemed like you guys are the ones who are obsessed with this stuff. And it's the same dynamic now. Kamala Harris is out there talking about like, you know,

the normal Democratic side, abortion and middle class, about all this stuff. And Republicans are out here making explicitly racialized case.

I think to a country that really prefers a colorblind self-perception at the very least, they find the explicitly racialized arguments when they were made by Democrats, but now when they're being made by Republicans, to be off-putting, repellent, and not appealing. That's what I think. Because I do think that the colorblind view where you're not obsessing over these demographic characteristics is—

is far more salient, far more reflective of like the aspirational place Americans want to be. And so when it's Republicans who are the ones who are talking about, you know, racial characteristics, they're the ones in danger of sort of violating that precept of, oh, we're supposed to be a colorblind country. Personally, though, I feel a bit gaslit on this conversation because it's like you can't and I'm not talking about you, but I'm saying media, Democrats, you can't spend the last 25 years of American politics

making everything about race. And then when people say, hey, you were selected because of your race. You're bringing up race. It's like, hold on a second. What? Like, what just happened here? So I am skeptical that this will have the negative effect. Because like I said, I think there are a lot of people out there. I mean, the affirmative action thing, that was very popular.

for most people whenever it was struck down. I think it's actually a decent attack. I don't trust anybody who was selected by affirmative action. Now, especially whenever it's the most important job in the entire world. So I think that's a decent enough attack. Now, also, for now she's talking about abortion. How soon until we see explicit racialism that comes from her about diversity quotas, about the people who she's surrounded with, what percent of her staff is gonna be black women or whatever, or

Asian men or any of that. I mean, are we really saying that that instinct is dead in the modern Democratic Party? Of course not. The Biden administration has racial quotas literally for people who work for them. So this is somebody who also, she always talked about her diversity in her office. You can't both believe in that and then get upset whenever it's used against you. Now, if I were her, I agree. I would only talk about abortion and middle class issues. But

I have no doubt that she, and especially if not her, the media and her surrogates will also make it into a thing. And I'm just not convinced yet that the backlash, now I wouldn't say use DEI, I would say affirmative action and against racialism specifically, which I think Democrats are the people who mostly use that rhetoric and have dominated the conversation now for a long time. I think pushing back against that is potent, has been for, I can only speak for myself. I don't know. We've only been here now for a week. I find it repellent.

that she was selected for that reason. I think it definitely works to be. - But do you find a repellent that Joe Biden was selected for that? Or do you find a repellent that J.D. Vance was selected because of his character? - But he wasn't selected explicitly because he was white. - Yes, he was. Yes, he was. - And this is the other thing, the lies we tell ourselves also matter.

They said, we're picking her because she's black. Do you find it repellent that right now the just bedrock assumption is Kamala Harris got to pick a white man? Is that repellent? Actually, yes, I do. Because you shouldn't pick anyone. I haven't heard you or anyone else say anything about that. No, no, no. Notice when I said Josh Shapiro, I said it because he's an actually popular governor. That's why I would, I mean, we're about to talk about VP.

But I'm based on your statistics. I mean, I would pick Gretchen Whitmer if I were to. I wouldn't necessarily pick a white man because she's popular in the state of Michigan. You got to win Michigan. I mean, if she was black, I wouldn't care either. Who's the governor of Maryland? What's that guy's name? Westmore. He's a decent candidate. You pick him too. I think you could win. I'm serious. I mean, this is somebody who's from around here. He speaks well, right? He's one of those where he does a good job on the stump. I think he's quite popular and he'd do a decent job with some of these swing voters. Like there, I just made the case. Was it repellent that Mike Pence got picked

because he was an evangelical? No, it was a smart play. It was tactically smart. This is my point. Sarah Palin picked because she was a

a woman. Yeah, that was actually stupid. And she was young. And she was picked for her, I don't remember anyone saying it's repellent that she was picked for her demographic characteristics. So why is it repellent when it's a black woman picked for her characteristics? And it's not repellent when it's a white man picked for his characteristics. Because they made the whole conversation about race, like I said, the last 20. Who is they? The media and Democrats who are literally donning

themselves in kente cloth, putting George Floyd and BLM signs up in every restaurant in the country. And then expecting everyone to just sit there and be like, this is actually totally fine that we've completely lost our minds on all of this discussion. And then it's like getting mad whenever you say, hey, that was actually crazy. You were picked because of these reasons. Why should we say that that's bad?

Because it's not applied uniformly. That's my point. It's only applied when it's a black person. That's the point. But they are the ones who made it about that. If you're going to make the case that people shouldn't be picked for the demographic characteristics, I am on board for that conversation. But that is not the case that's made.

The case is only made, that's why DEI has just come to mean a black person with a job. It's only made when it is black people. It's no problem when a white dude gets picked because he's a white dude or an evangelical dude gets picked because he's an evangelical dude or he's picked because he's from Pennsylvania or whatever. That's fine and isn't a mark against them. And so it's just a blatant double standard. And like I said, listen, you can make the case all you want. It's fine. I have no issue with it.

make the case, but...

I think Republicans run a real risk of being seen as the party that is racial, obsessed with race in the election. And you're right. The party that seems like they're obsessed with race, like Democrats did with the Kente Kala and all that stuff, right? The party that seems like they are obsessed with identity characteristics is in a poor position. And right now it's the Republicans who seem much more obsessed with her being a woman and being a black woman and

I think it's too early to tell. I don't think it's wise for them. And we'll see. I am not going to put it past the BLM people to bring it all right back circle, especially people like Kamala Harris. The BLM people actually opposed Kamala Harris' coronation, by the way, for what it's worth. They wanted an open convention. I don't believe that for a second.

They put on a whole thing. You don't have to believe it. We're gonna object to Ms. Bail Fund? What are we doing here? That's ridiculous. But look, anyway, I'll tell you what, if Republicans lose and they lose, what, even more of the black vote and suburban white vote than they did in 2020, then I'll think you're right. But if they don't, then I'm gonna say I think it was actually a smart play. And I'm curious to see how it actually resonates with the people. So why don't you think that Donald Trump is making this?

Because it's only been out for five days because he got shot in the ear and he's only had enough time to say laughing Kamala. What is it, lying Kamala? It's both. Okay, whatever. I think laughing is better, just for the record. These terms are, he has studiously avoided all of these terms because they sound like a secret language to like normal people.

voters. I agree. Don't use the term DEI. Use the term affirmative action. That's accurate. Everybody knows what that one means. And everybody also is going to know that that's correct whenever it's used against her. But OK, I think we probably beat this conversation. Yeah. So the other argument that they've been making is that she is insufficiently pro-Israel, which I think is another electoral loser. In terms of arguments against her, I think we have a C5 of evidence of this case that's

being made against her this week. Let's take a listen. This is an astounding bad decision not to appear behind Bibi as vice president of the United States. This is a signal to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran that we literally do not have Bibi's back.

This is really her first major foreign policy decision and she's gotten an F. Already you got a question. She will not show up for the prime minister's joint session of Congress today. She'd rather address in the summer a sorority, a college sorority. Like she can't get out of that. What she's doing is she's running away from Israel. She refuses to go to Bibi Netanyahu. Yahoo is in Washington. She refuses to be there.

Even if you're against Israel or you're against the Jewish people, show up and listen to the concept. But she's totally against the Jewish people. And it amazes me how Jewish people will vote for the Democrats when they're being treated so disrespectfully and badly. It amazes me.

It's shocking. I don't, I don't. So now we have a new victim to defeat. Lyon Kamala Harris. Lyon. L-Y-I-N apostrophe. So, uh. I'm not going with Lyon. Lyon is not his best work. Not even close. Lyon and Kamala are also not his best work. Lyon Ted worked because it really, this one, yeah. Lyon.

I could see it. I don't know. He needs something better. Yeah. He needs to bring the magic back. Also, the honestly, crazy Kamala. Crazy Kamala. He's used crazy for a bunch of time. I would be probably I think it'd be better than those. But crazy Nancy. Insufficiently pro-Israel, I also don't think is the political winner. Look, I don't think people care that much about Israel, especially now today. Maybe some young voters. Even then, it's not the majority. So like I don't think it's going to be the deciding election in terms of the money, though. That's where a lot of money is for Adonai.

Yeah, that's that's probably why he's doing it. That's it. But it's also like, you know, to the extent. So I think for young voters, it does not. I think they're watching very closely what Kamala Harris does and says in these next few days. And I think that is consequential for her in terms of being able to put together that

sort of recapture some of the Obama coalition. But for a broader general electorate, to the extent that it matters at all, it's the sense of like, why are you fixated on these? Why are you obsessed over these foreign countries when we got a lot of problems here? Yeah, listen, I count myself part of that. I don't really care about whether she's sufficiently pro-Israel or not, but whatever. Okay, we got a good conversation about VP. Let's get to it.

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All right, moving on now to the discussion of vice president. Who is Kamala Harris going to pick to be her candidate? Let's put this up there on the screen. There's between seven to 12 names that have been floated out there. I'm going to start with the most obvious and probably the front runner, I think it's fair to say, is Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, enormously popular in the state of Pennsylvania. His high approval rating obviously did very well against Doug Mastriano. Pennsylvania is a must-win state.

State number two on the list is Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. I personally don't think she's going to pick Mark Kelly because if he was gone, then that would open up a competitive Senate seat in a battleground state where it's been a bit of hit or miss for Democrats so far. Number three is apparently a North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper. Now, apparently her and Cooper go way back, both serving as AGs and have some experience together.

That would put him possibly higher on the list since this is such a crazy time that you definitely want somebody that you might be comfortable with. Next is Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. He's been all over television the last couple of days attacking J.D. Vance, really auditioning himself for the job. He was also, what is he, the most blue governor of a red state in the whole country. He's the most popular governor. Right.

Democratic governor in the entire country. Most popular governor in the Democrat, right. But at the same time, no one's winning Kentucky in the 2024 election. But maybe you could have some crossover rural appeal. Tim Walz is apparently on the list. That's the governor of Minnesota. Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker. Pritzker's a billionaire, probably helps in terms of bringing in the money. He's also the governor of a Midwestern state. And then Gretchen Whitmer. So what are we getting? We're getting a sense of

Governors, boring from the Midwest. People who are popular in their home states and can bring it home, at least in the battlegrounds with some of these white working class voters and we'll see. There's another list that is out there of some 12 people that are allegedly on the list. Let's see, who am I missing from the list that I spoke out? Okay, so the outside team is being vetted by Eric Holder. Some of the other people that are on the list that I missed here,

I think, what was it, Tim McRaven was on the list? Or Admiral McRaven. He removed himself from consideration. Ah, here we go. Gina Raimondo, the current Commerce Secretary, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, I would not do that one, and Arizona- He's gotten better. Kelly. Yes, at the same time, given his electoral track record last time and his South Carolina results, that's not somebody I was going to pick.

I don't think he did well enough in Iowa to prove that he has a real constituency outside of like hardcore Democrats. He doesn't have electoral sense really in the past. And I don't think he's got enough crossover appeal or coalition support to actually bring them in when you compare him to a governor, like a governor battle tested in the election, high approval rating, actually an executive, someone you can picture in the job, someone who Democratic voters know. I would pick a governor if I were her.

Pete, I think you could do worse than, I agree with you. Yeah, you could do worse than Pete. I think you could do worse than Pete. I think Pete has actually grown into his role as a regular. He's gotten much better about, you know, the things he's doing with regard to the airlines, whatever. He's very good on cable news. That's what he's always like excelled at. That's his only job. Anyway, I do think you could do worse than Pete. That being said, I think,

Personally, I'm hoping that she picks Tim Walz because Minnesota governor, he's got this kind of fun grandpa vibe to him. He's like Midwestern dad. He was a high school teacher. Right, that's right. He's a veteran. And he pushed through a, you know, truly like all the Democratic agenda items on wages and schools and the whole lot with like a one vote majority in the state of Minnesota. Minnesota is still sort of a swing state, so-

I like him. That means he probably won't get picked. My assumption is that the person that, you know, I want to be at the least, which is probably Josh Shapiro, is likely to to get the nod. And I mean, the electoral calculus here, I understand from their perspective, like, oh, it's Pennsylvania and he won by a lot. However, I think there are also risk factors with him that they are probably likely to overlook, which is, as I've mentioned a few times, like I

I think people are watching very closely right now what Kamala says and does with regard to Israel. Big part of the reason why Joe Biden was performing so poorly with young people was about Israel and the genocide in Gaza. She's getting a little bit of grace on that. Um,

And Shapiro was very outspoken with regard to the college protests. And he took a lot of action to quash the college protests. And he compared Palestinian protesters to pro-Palestine protesters to the KKK. That's a hard thing to get past. He's also...

has a lot of skepticism from unions because he was aggressively pro-charter school in the state of Pennsylvania as well. So while I understand the electoral calculus with it being Pennsylvania and him being popular, and he's good on camera and he does all the politician-y things well, etc. And he has some policy track record that I would be amenable to. David Serrano points this track record of holding power to account at certain times. That's

That's going to be a tough pill for people who really care about Israel-Gaza to swallow. So I think there's a risk that she undercuts the high level of excitement and enthusiasm and democratic unity that she's benefiting from right now. It's possible. I just I don't want to overestimate how much it actually is, because I think that the craziness of the election is going to just, you know, in terms of.

the enthusiasm and in terms of the defining issues already, the media attention on Gaza is probably like 1/50th of what it was previously. And a lot of people are just gonna suck it up and they're gonna vote for Kamala. I think a lot of people would have sucked it up and voted for Joe Biden anyways, a lot less.

But now, because she's so undefined, all she has to do is like kinda not taking a real stance on the issue. And she's kind of the beneficiary of both. That's what I would do if I were her. I'll tell you this about Josh Shapiro. The man, all he knows how to talk about is abortion and he's good at it. So my sister-in-law showed me his TikTok.

This guy's got hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers. Every single thing he posts is about abortion. And I hate to say it, it's good. He actually does well. You know, he does the blinking meme where he's like, me, whenever Republicans are trying to ban abortion, he's like, blink, blink, blink. And it's got hundreds of thousands of views.

And it's like me when Republicans are radically trying to do a national abortion, man, he's like 50 versions of that. He's quite talented at it. I mean, he's one of those where I think he messages correctly on the issue. And so if I were her and I'm just I'm focusing in on 271 electoral votes, I think he's probably the best pick, especially he's she's less connected to Israel, Gaza. You can have Whitmer can bring it home for you in a similar way, especially to stump

You're more undefined on the issue. And, you know, at the end of the day, what were we really talking about here? A million people or so are going to vote on Israel-Gaza. There's probably going to be 100 million people who cast their votes. Now, if you do it in the right way, strategically, it was going to make an impact. But it's not Biden. It's just different. Whenever it's not the guy who literally, you know, bear hugged Netanyahu. It's just fundamentally is very different. I think it's more of an issue than you do. But I...

I accept that and I regret to admit that they're probably looking at it similarly to how you are. Now, what could be more of a problem for them is that Shapiro had settled some like sexual harassment allegation. But it was about his staff. It wasn't him. But, you know, if...

you're trying to make that contrast with Donald Trump and that's hanging over him. I could see that being a hang up for them in terms of the vetting process. And then I also, the other thing that's been floated, I don't know if I really, I don't really buy this, that he's Jewish. And so, you know, if you're looking for that just straight up white dude, which seems to be like the tenor of the conversation, that he may not fit the bill, but I don't know that I really. I don't think his being a Jew matters. I don't think so either, but I.

- Wait, do people think that? - Yeah, people have been saying that. I don't know how they're looking at it. - What do they think it is, 1920? - I don't think it matters either, but I know. - Oh, he's a member of the Jewish faith. - I know, but anyway, that's out there. The other one, so I already, I like,

Tim Walz. Andy Beshear is interesting. I think he's an interesting contrast with J.D. Vance being from Kentucky, being able to speak about Appalachia. That's the contrast he's trying to make. He's pro-labor. He has had a track record, obviously, of extreme success in a very difficult state. So that's appealing for him, even though Kentucky, obviously, not a swing state.

I feel like Roy Cooper has a good shot at it because they have that long personal relationship. I don't know how she's looking at the choice. If I was making the choice, I would want someone that I knew and like outside of just this two-week time frame. I'm not sure who else she may have that personal relationship with, but I know Roy Cooper. She's done a number of events with him here. They know each other from the time when they were AGs. He's much more in terms of...

He's a very safe and cautious politician in terms of North Carolina. And he also has been very successful in a state that is pretty much red. Could they potentially put North Carolina in play? I think possibly. Biden only lost it by like less than two percentage points last time around. So maybe with some of the demographic shifts that having Kamala at the top of the ticket-

potentially pretends that's a possibility. The downside with him is Democrats are looking at, hey, this guy could run for Senate in North Carolina, have a shot down the road, and you are taking him off the board for that. So I don't know if that's a factor. I'm not sure. Mark Kelly, you could put D2 up on the screen.

one of the issues that the left and a lot of labor unions have had with Mark Kelly is he was one of the only Democrats who had not signed on to the PRO Act, which is, you know, this sort of like comprehensive pro-labor legislation that Democrats under the Biden administration were pushing. Now, under pressure, he's like, oh no,

No, no, no. Of course I support it. Of course I would vote for it. Okay. There are other reasons that unions are concerned about him as well. Some nominees, pro-labor nominees that he voted against and had issues with. So it's outside of just the PRO Act, but that was kind of the most glaring issue for him. But in terms of his pick, I think you're right, Sagar. The biggest problem for him is are they really going to want to take his, put his seat into play? Yeah.

in Arizona and risk that. I think that's a problem for them. Here's a conversation we all just had, which we left out the most important constituency, the donors. The donor class loves Josh Shapiro, right? This is one where he has made it a point with the Israel thing, but many other issues as well. The charter school thing is a real tell, right, about what exactly is happening here. And if I'm

I were the donor class. We know, Crystal, we know their politics. There's news out this morning that Reid Hoffman apparently gave $7 million to Kamala and was like, well, you got to fire Lena Kahn, you know, if something like that happens. So they're making their plays too. And Kamala may actually be more donor dependent. At

maybe as much donor dependent as Trump now at this point, because she's late to the game and she's got to make up some of this cash. She's got the hundred million, but she's going to need a billion point, probably a 1.5 billion to contend with the Republican super PAC machine. So the money, while it is there, there are certain things that come with that price. And because she was anointed and will be a product of superdelegates and more at the DNC, those donors are probably going to have even more of an outside impact.

on the VP selection. So that's why, you know, if you look at their ideology too and the way they look, that's not a bad case to make. I mean, I think if you're going with the donor pick, you're probably picking Pete. True. Yeah, they love him. They do love Pete. Because Shapiro does have some track record, and I'll have to look back at the things David Sirota's written, but he does have some genuine track record of like challenging, I think, tech and being a little more skeptical of corporate power. Mm-hmm.

So I'm not sure that he would be as beloved. I'm just not sure. I know the donors love Pete. So maybe he's got more of an inside track than we really think here. But it'll be interesting. Like I said, my working assumption is whoever I want the least is going to end up in it. So that would probably be Josh Bro.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's and I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, unpacking the toolbox where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show to officially unpack season three of scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three mesmerizing, but

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth-pulling scene that kicks off a romance.

And it was Peak TV. This is new scandal content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling, as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is.

I think he was like, oh, yeah, things come and go. But with me, it never came and went. Is she Donna Martin or a down-and-out divorcee? Is she living in Beverly Hills or a trailer park? In a town where the lines are blurred, Tori is finally going to clear the air in the podcast Misspelling. When a woman has nothing to lose, she has everything to gain. I just filed for divorce. Whoa, I said the words. Yeah.

that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Cheaters and Backstabbers. I'm Shadi Diaz. And I'm Kate Robards. And we are New York City stand-up comedians and best friends. And we love a good cheating and backstabbing story. Welcome.

So this is a series where our guests reveal their most shocking cheating stories. Join us as we learn how to avoid getting our hearts broken or our backs slashed. Listen to Cheaters and Backstabbers on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Bebe Netanyahu in town right now. Today he's meeting with Biden and Kamala Harris. Tomorrow he's flying, or tonight or whatever, he's going to meet with Trump in Mar-a-Lago. Yesterday, giving a speech to Congress, there were a number of Democrats about how

half the Democratic caucus boycotted the speech and you had a whole lot of protest activity in advance. We can put some of this up on the screen so you can get a sense. You had huge march. You see lots of Palestinian flags everywhere. You had some very, you know, tense protests

uh, scenes with, with cops and, uh, tear gas here. They are burning. I'm think that maybe that was a BB net Yahoo in effigy. And then they also burned an American flag. Um, there was, so they were, they were out in full force. They'd been out the day before, uh,

inside the Capitol building as well. So they were, you know, making their mark and making their statement about their upset that this war criminal was in town. We also can put this up on the screen. Some of the activists actually got into the Watergate Hotel where the Netanyahu coalition was staying and put these bugs and maggots. Literally like crickets. So I was like, is this a biblical thing? That's what I'm thinking. I think they just wanted to...

What they said is they just wanted to create chaos. They were also pulling fire alarms in the middle of the night, that kind of stuff. It was like a sense of creating chaos in the building. So making their presence felt, to say the least, also making his presence felt was Bibi Netanyahu himself, who received a rapturous reception from those who were in attendance. I mean, it really was wild to see the level of adoration,

coming to this man who's, you know, Israel, ICJ just ruled they have an apartheid state, the West Bank settlements are illegal, he's got ICC arrest warrants hanging over his head for the crime of extermination, but that did not slow the enthusiasm for his address to this joint session of Congress. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say. - I asked the commander there, how many terrorists did you take out in Rafah? He gave me an exact number, 1,203. I asked him, how many civilians were killed?

He said, "Prime Minister, practically none. With the exception of a single incident where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people, the answer is practically none." Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building. Not that many, but they're there and throughout the city. Well, I have a message for these protesters. When the tyrants of Tehran

who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran's useful idiots. And as we recently learned, they even brazenly threatened to assassinate President Trump. Some of these protesters hold up signs proclaiming "gays for Gaza." They might as well hold up signs saying "chickens for KFC."

Chance of USA there, a little bit weird. So, I mean, he lied about October 7th atrocities. You hear him downplaying there the civilian death toll, smearing Palestinian, pro-Palestine protesters as paid by Iran. You come to our country and you smear our young people who are exercising their freedom of speech to give you a sense of, you know, how excited they are.

how honored the members of Congress who attended were. Even John Fetterman, soccer, put this up on the screen. Yeah, put it up there. Fetterman wore a suit. Oh! He can't do it for, you know, his own constituents. Can't do it for, apparently his wife was like embarrassed by him and wearing his like tuxedo shirt. He can't do it for his family or his wife or his own president or party or whatever. No, but when B.B. Nutt

Netanyahu comes to town, suddenly Fetterman breaks out the suit. I have tried to tell everyone dressing like shit as a member of Congress is about narcissism. It is about saying that I care more about my comfort than about representing you. And when you're willing to put a suit on for the Israeli prime minister over your own constituents, it is about serving your true master and about signaling to the world about what you find important to the world, which was both your comfort when it's about Americans and it's about

respect only for foreign leaders, which I think is absolutely not. So obviously, look, I agree with you. I think it's disgraceful to have a foreign leader of any nation invited to the United States to openly trash American citizens. I think there is only one country in the world that is somehow allowed to do that. And that is Israel, obviously Netanyahu and others. I will say, Crystal, I know this can make you mad about this one.

I wouldn't be burning American flags here in the Washington Capitol. Didn't say it should be illegal, but people will recall that, what was it, the UNC frat incident of defending the flag, that's gonna ignite a lot of people who are gonna get very upset. Now, the obvious retort is, well, why aren't you as upset about Gaza or whatever? Well, listen, at the end of the day, it is our country. It's about our symbols. And you can't blame, some people just don't care or they don't feel all that connected to it. And you can't shame them and try and change their minds

Here's what I'm trying to say. Those chants of USA, the biggest mistake that you could possibly make is to say that being pro-Palestine is anti-America itself. The positive thing you want to say is that it is to the best of America or it is against American interests.

to phrase it about this country and not make it oppositional to actual American patriotism to be opposed. Because I do think that there are a lot of people out there. For example, if you don't want Josh Shapiro to be picked on Israel, don't be burning American flags in the middle of the US Capitol. It's just a foolish mistake. It's kind of like the river to the sea thing. Can you say it? Sure. You know, absolutely. But I think Dave Smith always makes that point. He's like, guys, that's not what we're trying to do. Like, we're not trying to change

So if I were them, I always think that they just go too far. A lot of the vandalism and a lot of the burning the flag thing, it just doesn't make the point that you guys wanna make. And it just makes you even more of a minority. Now the White House is out trashing you. It's just like, I don't know. I don't really see how that's possibly working to your benefit when, I mean, all you have to do is point out the fact that this guy, like the correct thing is he comes to this country and undermines our freedom of speech. That's a much more potent attack, no? I just think it's stupid.

Listen, on the tactics, I hate to criticize them because obviously much more disgust for BB-9. Much more horror at the genocide that's being part of the baby. I mean, it's just horrific. So it'll be like, oh, you shouldn't do this or that. I hate to do it.

I think there's a, you know, on the tactics, like, I can't really disagree. I think what has been very effective is when you have these groups of Jewish Americans who were there, who are, you know, very visible and, you know, are very organized and very disciplined. The hostage families who walked out, right? That says everything. That's powerful. Yeah, that's powerful. And that's important to know, the hostage families didn't walk out. And there were some, actually, that were arrested for the political symbols that they were wearing. But

you know, I don't even want to get into this debate because I think it's such a side issue from the key point here of how disgusting it is that this man has invited and fetted. It's at the top of every news hour, every boomer, Fox country in the viewer, they burn, they burn in American football.

American flag, you gotta understand, it's not working here folks. For them, they're getting mainline propaganda all day long and you see people burning flags, I'm not gonna listen to a word you say. - If you look at the polling, people have only moved more towards the pro-Palestine side. - But not waving Hamas flags, saying Hamas is coming. I just don't understand the tactics.

of a lot of these folks. And I think if anything, they might even be agitators because I'm like, are you so dumb that you think this is going to win people over? I think this is such a side issue from the reality of what's happening and the reality of what this man said. But let's just, so let's talk about what else happened here with regard to this speech. We can put this next piece up on the screen. We've got Rashida Tlaib who mounted a silent protest. She actually did attend the speech, which people were surprised about. She's wearing her Cafia scarf and she has a small,

sign that says on one side, war criminal, on the other side, I believe guilty of genocide. Yes. So she did her own protest there, which I fully support. We had a large number of Democrats who did not attend. We can put this next piece up on the screen. 100 House Democrats, 28 Senate Democrats were present in the chamber for the prime minister's speech, meaning around half of

of both caucuses were absent. This was really noteworthy, Sagar. I wonder what you make of this for Nancy Pelosi. She says, Benjamin Netanyahu's presentation in the House chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the U.S. Congress. Many of us who love Israel spent time today listening to Israeli citizens whose families have suffered in the wake of the October 7th

Hamas terror attack and kidnappings. These families are asking for a ceasefire deal that will bring the hostages home, and we hope the prime minister would spend his time achieving that goal. Obviously, it's Nancy Pelosi, so she's clearly, we have recently learned, very powerful. So the fact that she says this

number one, it's noteworthy because I think in the same way when she went on warning Joe and was like, oh, we're waiting for Joe Biden to make his decision. She opened the floodgates. She gave permission to the rest of the caucus to mount criticism of him and come out against him and, you know, really kept the flame alive in terms of pushing him out. I think this is a similar signal of like, Joe Biden's a lame duck now. Yes. You know, so all of

the impetus of we got to keep quiet because we don't want to show up the Democratic president. We don't make him look bad. We don't want there to be any distance between us and them. I think that's kind of out the window now. And for her, who has been a staunch ally of Israel for so long, to say something this stark, and she also didn't attend the speech,

I do think it's granting a permission structure. It's a notable shift. And I also think it could be reflected in some of the ways that Kamala Harris herself tries to at least give the appearance of distance from a Biden policy that has been wildly unpopular. I think this is very effective. And this is where most normie Democrats are. They're like, I'm very uncomfortable with this. But that's kind of why I was bringing up the flag thing. I think that's very repulsive to a lot of people.

a lot of people. This is the permission structure of, yeah, we hate Bibi. They're like, we're not with Bibi. And this is where a lot of Jewish Democrats are too, at least from what I've been able to observe. Like Nadler. Right, Nadler, Schumer, Pelosi, all these folks who are like, I am not pro-Bibi. I am meeting with these Israeli hostages. I'm allying myself with the families and the center-left parties or whatever.

of Israel, but I'm not like, you know, chanting from the Wizard of the Sea, you know, vandalizing and burning the flag. So this is where I think if I'm Harris, this is where I'm going. I'm going straight down to the center. And I think this is, I mean, frankly, this is the political center. If you look at the polling on the issue, people are pro-Israel in a like,

Yeah, they have a right to exist way. But anti-Bibi and anti-prosecution of the war. This is exactly where you want to be. The pro-ceasefire. Yeah, the pro-ceasefire. They're like, I think the war is bad. I think what you've done is terrible. I don't think America should necessarily be funding it. And yeah, I think that's mostly, you know, where we're at. And so the Pelosi thing, what can we always say about this woman? She's smart. She knows how to triangulate. So if I'm Harris, this is exactly the tactic that I'm on. And then you have Trump

and Vance, who would be to the right here, and that's fine, you know, for right-wing boomers, okay. But, you know, for anybody who'd be swayed on the issue, then obviously you're going to go Kamala. And if you try and capture both the left and the center, and you just leave the right to Trump, then any political benefit to Trump is just going to be money, and then whatever boomer voters who are going to vote on the issue anyway. Yeah. So anyone who can be captured, I think you can get there with this. Yeah, it's interesting to me too, because Bibi has now a very different political landscape.

Yeah, true, true. Because, and there's all kinds of, you know, if you read the Israeli press, there's all kinds of, okay, what does Kamala Harris really think? And I mean, this is a question with her on basically everything. We don't really know what she really thinks. She doesn't really think much of anything. Right.

The reason why I have been cautiously optimistic she would be – I'm not – listen, I'm very realistic about what's possible in the context of American politics. But why I think she could be better than Biden is because I don't think she's ideological. And I think at this point just a cost-benefit –

a sheerly cynical cost-benefit analysis of the politics as reflected by Pelosi and what you said, Sagar, would land you in a different place than where Biden has been. And her top foreign policy advisor is more of the Obama, more progressive, foreign affairs wing. She's already said she's gonna, it's already reported, she's gonna clean house in terms of the Biden, Jake Sullivan, Tony Blinkins of the world policy.

that's all a positive indicator. But like I said, it's not like I'm expecting any sort of courage from Kamala Harris that you'll be waiting your whole life if you're waiting on that. But I think the clear-eyed, reasonable political calculation at this point is that the Biden bear hug policy is doing more harm than good for them politically. And I'm

I think Nancy Pelosi, that's why her comments are so noteworthy because I think this is a sign that she also has that assessment of where the politics of this are at this point. Kamala has no foreign policy experience, right? We can only read the tea leaves. I know Philip Gordon. I've read some of his stuff. I looked a little bit in what he said in the past. I'd say it's a relatively mixed bag. I think everything here is pick and choose. So if you were an Israel-Gaza person, yeah, Kamala is probably going to be better. To be honest, though, on Ukraine, I think she'll be 10 times worse.

based on her comments. I'm going to be worse. Well, because she would be like, oh yeah, go ahead and strike Russia. Something that Zed Jelani said, which I think is so- They're already doing that. No, but deeper in Moscow, right? And something that Zed Jelani said, which is so deeply true, is that if you look at Clinton-

and all of the other no foreign policy experienced people, almost always they end up being more hawkish to prove to Washington. So on Israel, you're right, the consensus has moved away, right? But on Ukraine, that is terrifying. On anything related to, I mean, on Iran even, I would not, I would be worried. I actually would be worried because, you know, let's look, the Iran deal is now dead. No matter who gets elected now, they're going to have to deal with new enrichment and sanctions and

and all of that on Russia. I'd be worried a little bit on China as well in terms of how it looks, especially where our domestic manufacturing is. So on foreign policy, I am still in wait and see mode just because it's like you said, when you're a blank slate, I'm just gonna color in the lines of conventional wisdom.

conventional wisdom right now is basically where we are, I think, on Israel, I would say. But on Ukraine, it's frankly worse than I think it's ever been. Now they're like, oh, they're winning and everything. So I'm still very, very skeptical about where it's at right now. My view is on Israel, she may be a little better. Yeah. On Ukraine, she's probably the same. On Afghanistan, I don't think she would have. No, no way. I don't think she would have pulled down. So net

I will take that deal, I think, on net and especially given what we know about the people that she wants to go and the people that she's surrounded herself with now. If we have a return to the, I would 100% take a return to the Obama era foreign policy over what we've gotten under Joe Biden.

But you're right to say this is all guesswork because we don't know anything. We don't know. And she doesn't make it clear. And I think it's the one consistent with Kamala Harris is just that she is a political shapeshifter. You know, she is what she needs to be in the moment based on how she's reading the tea leaves at the time. You know, originally she's the tough on crime lady in California. This is just emblematic of the sort of political shift she's

Then she's, you know, the criminal justice reformer when she's in the Senate, when she's running for president and thinks that's to her political benefit. She's for Medicare for all when she thinks she's going to try to get to the left and that's the best lane in the Democratic primary. Then when donors are like, we don't like that, she's like, I don't like it either. So she's a shapeshifter. And, you know, it's it's unbelievable.

all, she doesn't even know really what she thinks about. And that's why I worry the most because on Ukraine, the people in this town have lost their freaking minds. They would let Ukraine into NATO. They let Georgia into NATO. I mean, we're going to go all out like neocon fever dream. And so, I mean, honestly, I am truly terrified of what she would do on Ukraine and Russia. And I think it would be 10x more consequential than anything else. I just don't know that it could be much worse than what Biden's

done. I mean, Crystal, letting Ukraine into NATO? No one is more obsessed with NATO than Joe Biden. But at least he didn't let Ukraine in. Letting Ukraine into NATO will be the big policy question of 2026 or whatever, whenever the stupid war finally ends. And at least with Trump, I don't think he would do it. But with Kamala, I think she would do it. And that is actually a nuclear war level event. But-

Look, we'll see. You know, we'll get to I want to this, by the way, why I want to see her do a damn debate. These are real questions, right? Yeah. In the old structure, we would have at least had a foreign policy debate. But, you know, this time around, is she even going to answer a real question? Like we need to know the answers to these things. No doubt about it. All right. Let's move on to the latest with regard to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

Still stunning revelations coming out about the failures on that day. The latest we had testimony from FBI Director Christopher Wray confirming, reporting that the shooter was able to fly a drone over the area shortly before this rally. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. We have recovered a drone.

that the shooter appears to have used. It's being exploited and analyzed by the FBI lab. The drone was recovered in his vehicle. So at the time of the shooting, the drone was in his vehicle with the controller.

In addition, our investigation has uncovered... Do you know what time of day he flew it and if he flew it on the day of the shot? So in addition, it appears that around 3.50 p.m., 4 o'clock in that window, on the day of the shooting, that the shooter was flying the drone around the area...

About 11 minutes. I want to be clear, but when I say the area, not over the stage and that part of the area itself, but I would say about 200 yards, give or take away from that. We think, but we do not know. So again, this is one of these things that's qualified because of our ongoing review that he was live streaming, you know, viewing the footage from that again, about 11 minutes ago.

Two hours before the rally. Two hours before the rally. How does nobody notice it? I was just telling you at my wedding, the photographer used a drone. You can notice the damn thing hundreds of feet away. So nobody is security perimeter is looking up and saying, hey, what's going on with this? I mean, anyone who's ever been by the White House recently, there's drones everywhere and there

all Secret Service drones. So they know what drones are like. They know what is supposed to be there and what's not. I mean, I've even read, Crystal, about anti-drone jamming technology in war zones or being used by Mexican drug cartels.

So they have better jamming tech or a prison or something like that. How do they know and have better tech than for the president's rally? That's crazy. I mean, the whole thing. It's completely insane. And then I've been reading a little bit about how the Secret Service admits that they denied resources to Trump. That's, I mean, just, I mean, frankly, outrageous just because when we look at now what the threat environment was like and how their level of incompetence here has been manifested with their lack of questions.

The lady didn't even want to resign until now. I mean, I just think this agency truly needs to be rooted top to bottom. It is clear over the last two decades they have failed dramatically. And every sign has been there. The Columbia hooker thing, the multiple Obama failures where somebody shot at the White House and they didn't notice until broken glass was found later. Somebody jumped the fence, was able to get in.

I'm trying to think more. There's been a few other episodes. Carol Lanning, I think, over the Washington Post has detailed all of this. I think in every instance, it's clear Congress has got to take over and they completely need to gut this thing. Yeah. I mean, a bullet touched the former president. Not negotiable, like impossible. And the stonewalling is insane. Yeah.

The fact that they identified this shooter like half an hour before he's able to— The photo, the rooftop. They saw him as a—so they tried to bring in a range fighter. They identified him. They lost sight of him. You've got ordinary people who are like, there is a dude with a gun on that roof. And President Trump is still allowed to go out on the stage and continue his speech. It—

just absolutely insane. We're also learning a little bit more about some of the interesting searches that this shooter was apparently engaged in Googling prior to this attempted assassination. Let's take a listen to Director Wray here. One of the things that I can share here today that has not been shared yet is that we've just in the last couple of days found that from our review to your point about devices,

analysis of a laptop that the investigation ties to the shooter reveals that on July 6th, he did a Google search for, quote, how far away was Oswald from Kennedy? And so that's a search that obviously is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears that he registered for the Butler rally.

So how far away was Oswald from Kennedy? And then that same day he registers for the right. That is one IQ thing in that he thinks Oswald shot Kennedy. So now we know a little bit about how smart that this guy actually was. So turns out he was an idiot. If you didn't know that already, if you actually believed that the magic magic

bullet theory or whatever is correct. But in his case, the irony of it is that in his case is that it is so obviously believable that it was a massive security failure. Now that we learn about every single instance and the only true miracle in this shot or in this is not the shot itself is that Trump turns his head at the last minute and survives and doesn't get his head, we don't get a pink missed shot on national television in high definition. I can't imagine what the country would look like in something like that. I know.

God, it'd be horrible. We also can talk about the Secret Service director. Let's put this up there on the screen. Finally resigning after being pressured by the both members of the House Oversight Committee. I do want to say, I want to give commendation. You know, I rarely will cheer for bipartisanship. This actually is the one moment where Jamie Raskin, Ro Khanna, you know, Comer, Republicans, Democrats, AOC, everybody was like, oh no, absolutely not. They're like, you got to go. Probably

Probably some of it is self-interest in that all of them have also had threats to their lives. But part of it is also, I mean...

Again, like let's live in the context of the pink miss shot on TV. That's great. We can't unsee that as a nation, like period. The Zapruder film was way after. I mean, to live with that, the consequence, the trauma, like the grieving and the RNC and everything that would have possibly happened. I mean, I know some people said Civil War. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but something, I mean, something horrible would have happened. So I want to at least commend them for

In Washington, it is so rare to see accountability. Now, we don't start here. It's a good starting point. This isn't just the finishing thing or whatever. But at least they actually came together and they're like, no, we're not staying for this. You got to go. Honestly, it was insane. She lasted as long as she did. No, she should have gone the next day. You're right, though. No one should delude themselves into thinking that it's like problem-solving.

No. It was just this one lady, she was the issue. No, there is a top to bottom issue with this agent. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And so this is where the conversation should begin, not end. But the fact that she remained for even a day.

After this all unfolded, especially when we immediately were learning about the stunning nature of the security failure. And she had the temerity to go on TV and say, well, we didn't position any secret service stations on that roof because it was sloped.

Right. Where there's a safety issue. Oh my God. Yeah, real snipers were like, wait, what? They're like, what did you say, lady? They're like, because that's exactly where any normal person would be, which is why he flew a drone, which is why as a range finder, outside the perimeter, there are cops inside of the building. Somebody's got a picture of him. Somebody's confronting him. I mean, it's just a cluster all the way to the...

I don't know. I mean, a certain, and this is also the problem too with stoking conspiracy. Everyone's like, oh, we need to stop stoking conspiracy. It's like, yeah, but people believe, I think rightfully, that usually security is pretty good at these things. I've been to a million presidential events. It's a pain in the ass sometimes.

I would never in my wildest dreams think that a gunman could get this close, having been through the security perimeter so many times. And I have experience in it, not just watching it on TV. So for a lot of people out there, I mean, it's just too shocking to behold. We still need a lot of answers. I see that there's a new story out with some more details and we can take a look and everything. But I think we're still at the very beginning of this. Yeah. I really do. Yeah, I think that's right. All right. All right.

I enjoyed being back. Nice having you back. Jeez. What is it? Two hours? We had a lot to catch up on. Two and a half hours? Yeah, we had a ton to catch up on. I miss everybody so much. Thank you all for the congratulations. That was very, very nice of everyone. And we'll see you all next week. And if there's any breaking news, I'm sure you'll see us again.

Hey y'all, Dr. Joy here. I invite you to join me every Wednesday on the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, a weekly chat about mental health and personal development, where my expert guests and I discuss the unique challenges and triumphs faced by Black women through the lens of self-care, pop culture, and building the best version of you. So if you're looking for more ways to incorporate wellness into your life, listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowes. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And we're the hosts of Unpacking the Toolbox, the Scandal Rewatch podcast where we're talking about all the best moments of the show. Mesmerizing. But also, we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind-the-scenes stories with Unpacking the Toolbox podcast.

Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years.

wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.