Biden’s Michigan Problem
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. On a surface level, the results of the Michigan primaries for both Republicans and the Democrats was unsurprising.

Joe Biden won and so did Donald Trump. But it's the percentage of people that didn't vote for each candidate, which is going to be the most concerning thing for both of them heading into 2024 in this swing battleground state. For Donald Trump, he won 70% of the vote, but 30% decided to vote for Nikki Haley. That's concerning in a state where swing voters, often women, college educated, are

might decide they don't want to vote for Donald Trump in 2024, even though they may have voted for him in 2016 when he beat Hillary by just 10,000 votes in Michigan. He went on to lose to Joe Biden by 150,000 votes in Michigan. So that 30% is a very concerning number for his campaign. As for Biden, he won by 80% of the vote, but 20% voted uncommitted.

100,000 voters in Michigan wanted to send the message to Joe Biden that they are unhappy with his foreign policies, specifically over his alignment with Israel and the war in Gaza. In this episode, I talked to Hunter Walker, a journalist who knows a lot about what Joe Biden had to do to bring the Democratic Party together from the left to the center to take on Donald Trump and defeat him in 2020 and what kind of hurdles he has to get over this time around.

Hunter, thanks for joining the show. So the thesis of your book, The Truths, Progressive Centrist and the Future of the Democratic Party was really tested this week with the vote in Michigan, right? Clearly there is a rift between

the establishment, the Democratic establishment, meaning, you know, Joe Biden, the White House, the DNC and the progressives in the Democratic Party. And it's over the war in Gaza. There are about 100,000 people who voted uncommitted in the Democratic Party.

primary on Tuesday night. And obviously, this was a message vote, right? It was a protest vote. And it's not to say that these people are going to vote for Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden, but they may stay home. They may vote for Cornel West or Jill Stein. And like you write in your book, Joe Biden was able to bridge the divide between the party. He was able to heal the rifts in the party in 2020. And he was able to

There was also the threat of Donald Trump that helped to heal the risks as well. The threat of the big orange monster. But what can he do now? What can he do with this situation in Gaza? And the fact that students and African Americans and Muslims are protesting him. Well, first off, Tara, thanks so much for having me on. I love your pod and the stuff you're writing over at Puck. And I think our book tries to do so much of

what you do very well, which is tell the insider story. Essentially, Donald Trump is such a threat to politics as we know it in the Democratic order that he takes up all the oxygen in the room. This led to an avalanche of reporting where we knew who was up and who was down in a given day, even after he left the White House. We know what soda he's drinking. We seem to live and die with the man's moods.

And yet, as much as like Donald Trump put the country through an identity crisis, at the same time, the Democrats were going through an identity crisis of their own. And our thesis is essentially that it's a very much unresolved one, because as much as Joe Biden did manage to win with this fragile alliance between progressives in the center, it is quite a shaky one.

And also, I think there's a larger question of who will lead the party and what message they will have after Joe Biden is gone. I think, you know, where you saw progressives decide not to primary Joe Biden this time around, that was very much a temporary accord, as you say, as they were confronted with the threat of Trump. Also, the rearranging of the primary calendar made it more difficult for a grassroots candidate to challenge

Joe Biden, the Democratic National Committee decided to start the primary in South Carolina rather than Iowa. But we'll go into that a little bit later as well. Yeah, I mean, I think the primary calendar is something we dig into a lot in the book, and it's, I think, a really under-discussed story. And it very much was a creation of Joe Biden. But we can get into that in a second. But I think your first point is really important, which is, you know, Joe Biden would not have won without our titular truce with the left.

It was already a shaky one that took a lot of deft behind-the-scenes deal-making that we chronicle, some of it for the first time in this book. And Gaza is an issue that is almost uniquely, uniquely designed to block

blow up that alliance. Essentially, Joe Biden, you know, when I say he won with a coalition with the left and the center in demographic terms, that essentially means he brought out the youth vote to almost Obama like numbers and some measures exceeding Obama. He had really, really strong support from,

among the minority community and then enough support among, you know, independents and working class white voters where, you know, it all came together for him. And what we're seeing with Gaza is young voters who are so crucial to Biden's coalition and Democratic victories in general, you know,

According to some polls, three quarters of them disapprove of the way he's handling this. I've also noticed, I mean, the Times has done some great reporting on how black leaders are really concerned about the issue in Gaza. And I was talking to a progressive operative this morning. There's not a ton of public polling on Gaza and race, but they were saying that, you know, there's some private polls they've had a look at where the divide is really stark and black and Arab voters are just,

really strongly upset with how the president has been handling this issue. So Biden's coalition was already fragile and Gaza seems poised to shatter it just as he's heading into another campaign. The thing that's really interesting in a lot of the interviews that I've watched and read about, see them on CNN, read them in the New York Times, when they speak to these Arab leaders in Michigan where there's a huge Arab population, they don't

really care if not voting for Joe Biden or voting for Cornel West in the general election will help elect Trump. It seems to me like they are so angry they cannot fathom voting for Joe Biden. How does he win these voters back? Or are they lost forever? You know,

You know, Biden world folks who I've been hearing from have been sort of dismissing the importance of all this. How? You can lose Michigan by 100,000 votes. So I was talking to I was talking to Ron Klain, actually, just before I got this Biden's former chief of staff. And as we cover in the book, he was really an instrumental figure in building the bridge to the left.

that helped Joe Biden win in 2020. And it was crucial for getting a lot of his first term agenda passed. And Ron was sort of saying he's confident that ultimately voters are going to choose Biden over Trump.

no matter how they feel about anything else. These are false threats, you think right now? Well, I think, you know, that that's a solid argument. You know, Lupe B. Lupin, better known as NYC Southpaw on Twitter, who I wrote this book with, the two of us conducted, you know, hundreds of interviews with people on all sides of the Democratic Party, from socialist activists on up to the Biden White House and Obama world. And

And the one thing that Democrats of all these different stripes can agree on is that Donald Trump is an existential threat. So when it came to holding together his party in 2020, and when it comes to maintaining that alliance, essentially under duress caused by Gaza, uh, you know, I think Ron Klain is right. Trump may be the best ally that Joe Biden has at the same time. I think, you know, the point you're bringing up is an extremely significant one. Um,

we see Biden world saying, okay, you know, it's just a hundred thousand. I saw someone make the point this morning that this is just a hundred thousand people. But as you were alluding to, this is Michigan. This is one of the most crucial swing States there is. And you know, this is one of those States where we're 10,000, 20,000 votes matter. Um, we've seen over the last two elections, how a handful of votes in a handful of crucial States, including Michigan are, are,

really the whole ballgame. Right. I mean, the Clinton campaign would claim that Jill Stein, a third party,

robbed them of Michigan. Yeah. And I don't know about all that, but, you know, what we did see, and we cover this in the book, in 2016, I believe, and we make this case in the truce, that there's convincing data showing that the rift between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and the rift between the center and progressives paved the way for Donald Trump. You know, the number of Democratic voters who stayed home was greater than the Trump margin.

Right. And you don't have to take my word for that necessarily, because one thing we found in reporting this book was that Obama, uh,

you know, absolutely believed that the rift in the party had had, you know, brought the world Trump. And he was personally determined, you know, not to see that happen again. And, you know, we've uncovered a private speech he gave to Democrats. We've talked to people in his orbit. And Obama sees the youth vote as the whole ballgame.

That's what he was telling Democrats behind closed doors in 2019. That's what we've heard as recently as a couple of weeks ago. You know, his team was saying that's that's his main concern in this election. And as I was saying earlier, young people are really upset by Gaza. So I don't think, you know, Biden's allies, as much as they're confident people would choose him over Trump.

can dismiss all this because it's hitting in key swing states and key constituencies. One other thing I'd point to is the polling and focus groups that I heard about this morning included some with Black voters in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and they are completely upset by this. And you can't get more crucial for Joe Biden than Pennsylvania and Michigan. Do you think that it's the perception that Joe Biden is the establishment candidate?

just like in the same way that Hillary Clinton was perceived to be the establishment's candidate.

Is that the problem right now? Well, you know, as you were saying, I mean, there's a lot of emotion, particularly among Arab leaders. And I think it's it's interestingly, we're also seeing it echoed in the black community who seem to have a clear connection they're drawing with this type of. So you think they don't mind that he's the establishment candidate? They just are unhappy with his position on Gaza. I think Gaza has been uniquely bad for him.

I think that we saw progressives pre-Gaza line up pretty well behind Joe Biden. And again, I think the best evidence for that is you're not seeing AOC in the primary. You're not seeing Ro Khanna in the primary. You're not seeing Bernie in the primary, right? They all sort of lined up behind Joe Biden. But arguably they couldn't do it because the Democratic National Committee changed the calendar to start in South Carolina. I couldn't see South Carolina voters voting.

you know, nominating AOC or Ro Khanna or Bernie, right? So yeah, let's dig into what happened with the primary calendar a little bit. Okay. Certainly this year's edition was uniquely suited to benefit Joe Biden. And, you know, reporting that Lupe and I did both for this book and more recently for MSNBC shows that quite literally the call came from the Joe Biden White House. Because traditionally, just to go over this with the

the listeners, it's an Iowa caucus, New Hampshire primary, and then South Carolina primary. But the Democratic National Committee voted to change the rules so that it would actually start in South Carolina, not New Hampshire, and not Iowa. South Carolina.

helped Joe Biden win the nomination. He did not win Iowa and he did not win New Hampshire. South Carolina is essentially where Bernie Sanders went to die two times over. Right. They just don't like progressives. You know, and I think the term progressives is a fraught one because there are Democrats of all, all over the spectrum who sort of view themselves as progressives, but they don't like the left.

And for me, one experience that I always hearken back to is I was at this church in 2016 where Hillary Clinton had brought together the so-called mothers of the movement. You know, in the earlier days of BLM, the mothers who had lost their black sons in these high profile instances of police violence, and they were kind of anointing her. And I was outside this Baptist church and I heard, I saw these two women and they were just, you know, you're sort of

iconic church ladies with their crowns on sitting there. They dressed up for this event. They were older black women. And I asked them, you know, what do you think of Bernie Sanders? They said, I don't like him. And I said, why? And they said, he's communist.

And I was like, well, you know, actually he's a democratic socialist. That's a little more complicated. They were like, don't like it. It's not American. Right. And that was so that really stuck with me. They're pragmatists. That's what they would always say in South Carolina. Like we're pragmatists. We want to pick the person who's going to win. That's why, you know, the Clyburn anointment really matters. He's a South Carolina congressman. He was in leadership for many, many years. He's kind of seen as one of the grand poobahs of the party. Right. Right.

And yeah, I mean, Clyburn's the big dog down there. And he very specifically fought through the civil rights movement. Right. And they don't want to lose those gains that they quite literally bled for. And I think that's a big thing that we've tried to do with this book and a point that I think comes up throughout, which is you cannot paint the Democratic Party with a broad brush.

It contains, you know, black voters, Arab voters, Jewish voters, young people. It is a diverse party and it's an ideologically diverse party all the way from your DSA over to Joe Manchin.

And I don't think we see that on the Republican Party. You know, that is a by and large white party, a by and large older electorate. They're starting to become more diverse, actually. That's the interesting thing about the Republican Party. It's becoming more diverse. They are absolutely making gains, particularly with Latino voters. But I think, you know, certainly in comparison to the Democratic Party, it is a less diverse group. And then, you know, by its nature, being conservative,

falling behind a leader who's taking a bit of a strongman authoritarian type tack, there's a unity to that that the Democrats just don't have. And that's going to be a problem for them. I mean, at the same time, you know, I'm always careful not to sort of sound like I'm saying one of those Democrats in disarray messages because the reality is Democrats

The disputes and the chaos we've seen on the Republican Party have included people breaking into the Capitol and calling for their own vice president to be hung. The disputes that we've seen on the Democratic Party are over policy. However, with the Republicans having an electoral college advantage,

The disunity that we see among Democrats on the presidential level may actually be more consequential. OK, can you give me a little bit more detail about how Joe Biden was able to heal the wounds and the rifts in the Democratic Party in 2020? Yeah. You know, there was a lot of real work that was done and it started with these unity task forces.

that the Biden campaign set up. And that was where he had Bernie, he had AOC, he had veterans of the Sanders campaign and other progressives team up with his allies to sort of inform his first term policy agenda. So they were quite literally brought on board in the beginning. And that extended through the first couple of years of his administration. Namely, you had Ron Klain, who was someone that I think

people on the left and progressives really saw as an ally serving as Joe Biden's chief of staff. Oh, really? Even voters knew about this or progressive leaders. It was more of the leaders. I don't you know, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say Ron Klain's Q score is Ron Klain superstar. No, but he was able to get progressive leaders and surrogates on board, basically.

Yeah, I mean, there were some real things happening there. So, for example, you had Pramila Jayapal, congresswoman from Washington State, chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus. Squad member. And she was on the phone with Ron Klain on a nearly daily basis and really felt that she was included. She told us that he sort of put her in direct meetings with Joe Biden. But this was after Joe Biden won in 2020. This was not before the election. Right, right. So what I'm saying is the work to make that alliance happen

extended from the unity task forces, which were a campaign thing, to then what Klain was doing behind the scenes when Biden was in office. And that's part of why, you know, when it came time for him to try to pass his legislative agenda, the progressives, whatever disagreements they had, were actually pretty solidly behind Joe Biden. And it was actually what we termed sort of the radical centrists, your Gottheimers and your Manchins, who really were threatening to blow everything up. Yeah, they were the foils. They let the progressives...

basically passed one of the biggest social spending bills of all time, essentially, the Build Back Better Act, the Infrastructure Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. They were huge

legislative packages. Yeah, this wasn't all superficial. This was real. There were real policy gains for progressives. And then behind the scenes, the way that sort of looked is, you know, Biden, for example, gave them real wins on student debt. And on his team's calls, you had people like Melissa Birney, who

you know, is a real sort of fire starting activist on Twitter. And she was there participating in what are usually these rah-rah go team messaging calls, asking them tough questions and sort of rattling everyone's cages. So they let progressives in and progressives informed the policy agenda as a result.

But to go back to your first point that I think is a really important one, we now see Chairwoman Jayapal giving interviews with The New Yorker where she's saying, you know, the staff has changed. Klain has left. She feels like it's a completely different administration. And she's openly and repeatedly said that she's worried the coalition is fracturing over Gaza. And I think we're going to see her go even further out there with that message. Right. So...

What can Joe Biden do right now if the coalition is being fractured over Gaza? I mean, you hear these same squad members who have been quiet for, I mean, basically until October 6th. You haven't heard much out of them. It's been actually amazing to not hear a peep. And that's changed. So what can Joe Biden do about that ahead of the election? I think...

One of the biggest things for Biden is that he doesn't have a primary challenger on the left, that he has had progressives on board. That really is, as you said earlier, the thesis of our book was that, you know, this truce was so important for him. And, you know,

Jayapal is not the only one making noise over what's happening in Gaza. I think Rashida Tlaib, it's been really notable to see her and her family, her sisters leading the uncommitted campaign in Michigan, take this leading role. But what's interesting is the point that you touched on, which is the argument Tlaib and some others are making is vote uncommitted now, but

but vote for Joe Biden in November. And that's a complex message. And, you know, it remains to be seen whether that degree of nuance and that sort of balancing act can work for progressives who want to, you know, more cautiously express opposition and concern to Joe Biden.

Here's what I think, especially to like young voters who may be tuned out. They really need these young voters right now to come out and essentially organize for them, right? That's a huge part of the Democratic Party, door knockers, organizers, all of it. And if these kids aren't excited, they're angry over...

what's happening in Gaza. They're reading their news on TikTok. They're just getting angrier and angrier. And you have these young progressive leaders like AOC, you know, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, just kind of like feeding the fire. Then they're going to like turn on the switch in November and suddenly vote for Biden.

And also, where are they going to be in August when you need to get people excited and out? Like you said, the coalition for Joe Biden in 2020 was an insane turnout of young people. And if he's not going to have that this time around, I don't know how he wins. Unless Donald Trump severely bombs, but he's beating, he's leading Trump in Michigan in polling, right? By like three to four points in a lot of polling right now. So I think you've just summed up

you know, a lot of questions that are hanging over Joe Biden right now. And I don't think he has an answer for them. One thing that I find really, really interesting, I think a lot of people forget how, you know, in 2008, when Obama won, he did so largely as the anti-war president.

I, interestingly, don't think he ended up governing that way over eight years as we sort of continued our engagement. He had surges too. Yeah, as we continued and expanded our engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then when Trump

He almost took like a Rand Paul style message of, you know, let's end foreign intervention. And, you know, I would I would say it was a little bit superficial because we had 30 plus named military operations in Africa during the Trump administration. We had the mother of all bombs dropping in Syria. But but rhetorically and in a lot of ways, Democrats have kind of ceded the anti war ground to Republicans, right?

Donald Trump is the one who, you know, and really put the wheels in motion to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He wants to pull out of NATO or or at least force members to pay more. Yeah, he doesn't want foreign engagements. They don't want to pay for the war in Ukraine either at this point. Exactly. Ukraine is the other area where Republicans are sort of taking this anti-war lane.

And what's interesting with Gaza is I think we can all agree Trump and the Republicans are more pro Netanyahu than Biden is. I don't think young people would be happier with Trump's position on Gaza, but he's not the president. He doesn't have to weigh in now. And I think Republicans over the past 10-ish years have managed to sort of

take this anti-war mantle that used to belong to the Democrats. And it's something that I think really does animate young people. So I was talking to one progressive the other day, and he said, it's so wild because, you know, Biden, you know,

is to the left of Obama on so much economically, but he's to the right of Obama on Israel. And if you take that and sort of run with it and say, you know, Biden's to the left of Obama economically, but he's to the right on Israel. Meanwhile, Trump has kind of managed through Israel, Ukraine and a few other things to almost take Obama's left lane on foreign wars. And I think that's really dangerous, particularly when it comes to the youth vote. The problem is that Joe Biden is

he risks alienating possible Republican voters that he could pick up that don't want to vote for Donald Trump, like Nikki Haley voters, right? If he gives too much to the left in terms of the war on Gaza, if he appears to be alienating Israel. So how does he thread the needle? There it is, the million dollar question. I mean, I think this gets to the problem that, you know, one thing that really was a central conversation in our book is I think if you look at the country

Right. This is in many ways a liberal country. And yet electorally, we often don't get to that result. And that's sort of one of the mysteries that we plumbed in our book, including specifically looking at New York City and state, which has kind of served as a lab for the progressive movement.

Whether it be Occupy, the birthplace of Bernie, it's where AOC went and had her rise. We chronicle a lot of what happened behind the scenes there with sort of tensions on her staff and tensions between the DSA and even the idea of running for office. But, you know, New York has been sort of the engine of progressivism. And yet you look at the fact that New York was kind of where Democrats were.

had some of their most unexpectedly bad results in the otherwise unexpectedly good midterms. You look at Eric Adams, right? He's a pretty moderate leader. Yeah. And this is in, you know, arguably one of the bastions of progressivism in the country, New York City. And I think what we saw when we dialed into some of these city and state races in New York is that, you know, there's

three things that are bad for Democrats. Number one, fundraising advantages that Republicans sometimes enjoy. Number two, structural advantages that Republicans enjoy. And I think the presidential election provides one of the best examples of them. I mean, the Electoral College, there's no doubt in my mind that Joe Biden will win the popular vote, but he might lose the election.

Um, and then the other thing is that Democrats have trouble consolidating. Um, you know, we saw this play out in, um, the Thunderdome race that, that, um,

Dan Goldman ended up winning in New York, where the progressives just couldn't get behind any one person. There were three progressive candidates that ultimately lost to someone they really weren't that satisfied with. I think that's what plays out on the national level. Progressives have trouble falling in line as Republicans

Some often do. The far left is not that different than the far right in the terms that they have a hard time organizing. Yeah. They have a lot of ideas, but not necessarily ways of executing. And chaos is sometimes what they want. Burn it down. And then also... Start anew. They have trouble consolidating and they also have this issue of structural advantages that we see with the electoral college. And so I think all of this...

puts Joe Biden in a tougher position. I mean, the electoral college literally means the Democrats need to, you know, win by five to win by one, if you will. And, and, you know, in a world where he needs to bring together Democrats,

Jewish voters needs to bring together independents, some of those, you know, swingy Republicans that were so great for him in 2020 and were so great for Obama. And then he needs to bring together young people. It's almost an impossible problem. And and it's, you know, Joe Biden's always had a lot of luck or not always, certainly not over the course of his life. But in 2020, he had a lot of luck.

And we cover that in the book. I mean, he was on the brink of losing many times over. Right. And I think COVID plus a couple results that went his way, including the crash in Iowa, including doing just well enough in Nevada to survive. You know, he had kind of a lucky win and the luck is not going his way this time around.

Because Israel policy is almost uniquely suited to just bedevil his tricky calculus that was already a tough tightrope to be on. Totally. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. For me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been allowed of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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Can't wait for this one. Alien Romulus, rated R, now playing only in theaters. Get your tickets now. So what do you make of this resounding win in South Carolina that he had last week? 97% of the vote? I mean, South Carolina, we were alluding to this before, and I want to get into this thing with the primary that's super interesting. South Carolina...

has always been, you know, sort of not always, but certainly over the last couple of elections, this has been the mainline Democratic establishment's favored state. You know, this is where

Bernie got walloped. Yeah, Bernie got walloped there by Hillary. Biden, after he was on the brink of defeat following these losses in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, got propelled back to victory and relevance by South Carolina. Because as we were alluding, the voters there are, it's a 70% Black Democratic primary electorate. They have

been through it and they are pragmatic as a result. I mean, they openly talk in terms of that calculation. So Biden was always going to do well there. And that is why, as you say, he put South Carolina at the front of the primary pack. The problem, though, is that you may have mentioned this earlier, but

Changing the calendar opens up a Pandora's box, right? So if he can change the calendar, can the next, can the DNC change the calendar for another favorite candidate and in a sense, choose an establishment type candidate that pisses off progressives, right? In 2028, we could be in another situation where the grassroots is saying, not again, we want this candidate, but the party has decided that they are going to, I mean,

I mean, maybe South Carolina is just an easier state for the party. Yeah.

You're identifying something that is, I think, one of the most interesting and under-discussed stories that we've seen with this election. And, you know, I tend to think that we're paying way too much attention to the Republican primary because there is no Republican primary. Donald Trump has won and is winning. And we have not paid enough attention to the Democratic primary. It's sort of a microcosm of the phenomenon that, frankly, led us to write this book. Like, there's so much reporting on the Republicans, but there's really consequential evidence

existential crisis happening on the other side of the aisle. And there were major consequential changes to the primary calendar that have not just been reported. And this time around, they manifested themselves in South Carolina going first. But what's more interesting about the changes that Joe Biden pushed for is they include essentially perpetual review of the primary calendar. So every four years, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Commission will meet and it will have to choose a

completely new calendar. And that's extremely, extremely interesting because, you know, the last time there was a major change to the calendar was 2008. And it led to this extremely bitter Michigan and Florida fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This has not gone well. Essentially, the modern primary calendar came out of a huge fight. The riots that

we saw at the 68 convention. So this is an extremely fraught issue. And the Democrats have essentially guaranteed that they are going to keep fighting about it. And I believe they frankly set the stage for after Joe Biden, like this is totally independent of Gaza. After Joe Biden did all this careful work to heal the rifts of the party, they set the stage for a fight in the future.

Right. And we already see it happening. They do seem to be flying by the seat of their pants, though, the Democratic Party. You've got to think about that, even with the election of Joe Biden as a bridge. And then, oh, wait, he might.

Might be 86 at the end of his term. Might be hard. People will vote for a guy in his 70s, but will they vote for a guy in his 80s? No one really thought that one through, did they? I mean, again, I think a big thing that we sought to explore in our book was whether or not Democrats have found the answer to this core question of

who will lead them in the future and what will their message be? And I think by virtue of his age, by virtue of the fact that he didn't kind of definitively pick a direction between the progressives and the center, Biden was only a temporary answer to this question. And what we see in the future is that, you know, 2028 very likely could feature a left candidate like a Ro Khanna,

Versus someone more establishment or center-oriented like a Pete Buttigieg or a Gavin Newsom. And one of their crucial and most vicious and bitter battles will likely be at whatever hotel the RBC is meeting at. Right.

Again, you don't have to take my word for it because what we saw this time was the Bernie people sort of expressing upset that South Carolina went first. And we actually talked to Ro Khanna, who sort of already got his vision for a 2028 calendar that he'd like to see. And what's his vision? California first? He wants Michigan. He wants Michigan pretty early. Okay, fair.

Yeah. Well, that makes sense. He's been in Michigan. He's been out there stumping for Biden. Yeah. And as you say, he's been out there stumping for Biden. Progressives have decided to get behind Biden this time. He's also the Gaza healer now. He's become the go-between. Everywhere there's a problem, Ro Khanna is there with a solution. He just like drops in. I need to have him on the show. That's what we often see with these sort of, you know,

proto-presidential candidates, if you will. Like, like Ro Khanna is, is running his early 2028 campaign now. And that includes kind of watching and weighing in on this issue of the primary calendar that no one is paying attention to. And it's been extremely fraught. It's been extremely divisive. And the reality is almost anything that they choose, um,

We'll leave someone unhappy. And I think it's so interesting because this was kind of an opportunity for them to rip the bandaid off. You have an incumbent president. You have someone everyone's decided to get behind sort of

establish something and establish that you're going to go with it for more than four years. And they didn't do that. And as you say, it's a seat of the pants sort of unforced error moment that I think, you know, come 2027 or so, we're all going to be like realizing this is a big deal. Both parties are terrified of their left and their right, not necessarily the RNC, they would never explicitly do it. But the Republican establishment wanted

Ron DeSantis, the grassroots wanted Trump. So there you go. The Democrats, too, know that their grassroots is probably not necessarily in line with Biden. And that's just how it goes. I mean, they're terrified of their their parties.

or what their parties have become. I think it's slightly different on the right. And it's so interesting is in their case, the leader, the figurehead Donald Trump has no problem with the French, right? He, he loves Laura Loomer, right? Like, like when he, when he sort of, when you, when you envision the cash Patel, you know, senior role in the white house, that really is quite French. He thinks the proud boys are quote unquote, fine people. Um,

So they have this weird thing where it's like the Republican establishment is sort of terrified of the people who are now in the driver's seat. Whereas with the Democrats, they've kind of managed to keep the progressives in the back. And the question is how long they'll be able to keep pulling that off. Soon they'll get their driver's license and they will get this. I'll get to the front seat. All right. Thank you so much, Hunter. This was a really enlightening.

illuminating. And we'll see if Biden's able to bridge the divide if these kids come out and uncommitted voters in Michigan, they decide to change their mind. Also, how will it really, I think, will depend on how Joe Biden handles the crisis in Gaza if they feel satisfied in the end. I don't think anyone will ever feel satisfied with the way this is handled. No one ever does when it comes to Israel and Palestine.

All Joe Biden needs to do to be tremendously successful is come up with a solution to the Mideast peace crisis that everyone is happy with.

What an enviable position. That's so easy. Come on. No big deal. I'm only surprised we didn't manage to game one out on this podcast, but maybe next time. Doesn't Trump claim he did that through the Abraham Accords? Yeah, if that had happened, then why would we be here right now? Moving the embassy somehow didn't solve everything. Yeah, no, no, not at all. All right. Thanks so much, Hunter. Thanks so much.

That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins. If you like this podcast, please share it with your friends, rate it, subscribe. If you like my reporting, go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. You can use the discount code Tara20. I'll be back next Tuesday.