Emergency Pod: Biden Drops Out, What’s Next?
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. I think we can all agree that you will all remember where you were on Sunday afternoon, July 21st, when Joe Biden decided to step down from the House.

the top of the ticket to run for reelection in 2024. It's been a long, drawn-out process to get to where we are right now. In fact, I spoke to a senior Hill source this morning who was saying that he felt like they were frozen in time, like Pompeii, because he just would not make a decision. And this is sort of a characteristic of Joe Biden. But he seems to have done it in such a low-key way, issuing a white paper that

at around two o'clock Eastern time, stating that he's not running for reelection. And then in a tweet endorses his vice president, Kamala Harris. We'll see what that means for the party. Does this stop any sort of intra-party feuding? This is just a lot to digest right now. He's expected to make a national address at some point today, and he'll go into why he made this decision.

But I've got Steve Schmidt with me on the line. And Steve has worked for both Republicans and Democrats. Lately, he worked for Dean Phillips, who is a Democrat who tried to challenge Joe Biden in the primary. And he's had a bit of a victory lap, some sort of vindication, you could say. He's also worked for John McCain as one of his top advisors. Steve, thanks for coming on the show on such short notice. Although I will admit that we have been talking for about a week or so

planning for this moment because we thought it would come. It was just a matter of when, not if. Well, listen, I've always thought this moment would come two years ago. I said it'd be a national catastrophe if the choice was between Trump and Biden. And I think just starting out before we get into what's going to happen next, right, there's a baseline

And so much of the narrative that is driven by the national media that the American people are presented with is that these two parties agree on nothing.

And that's not true, really, when you think about it, because at the high watermark, you had 78% of the country two years ago saying, we don't want this choice. And yet the institution basically said, this is your fucking choice and you got to like it. It was like, eat your dog food. And they did not want to eat it. Joe Scarborough is someone I've known and been friends with for years.

a really long time, you know, decades. And but but I think there are two comments that he made that are incredibly important in understanding this this moment. The first one was he said that there really are no Democrats that come on my show and say on camera that

what they say in the green. None. Which is incredibly frustrating for me, too, as a journalist. At this point, I've started to call them out. I write to them. I'm like, I heard you on MSNBC saying we have to get behind Biden, but you privately tell me that he's a dead man walking. Why are you doing this? Why are you gaslighting the viewers? Right. So with regard to Dean Phillips,

I did not work for Dean in the sense that I was paid by him. I was a staffer. I walked out with him or probably more precisely helped him walk out in front of a campaign bus in the state of New Hampshire, trying to demonstrate that in America, nobody should be afraid

of their party, the president or White House staffers or party bosses to challenge somebody in an election. Right. And what went on about the quiet part not being said out loud to the American people has come due now. Right. Because it's been it's been it's been there for a long time. And so you had the second comment by by Joe was that

He reprimanded, even dropped an FU into it, that how dare anybody question the president's cognitive abilities? You know, this is the best version of Joe Biden ever and so on and so forth. And the reality is, is all of these members of Congress who are saying, well, you

You know, we've been deceived somehow by the White House and we learned something from the debate that we didn't know nonsense. They have all seen the president in group settings. They've seen him. They've worried about him. And so now the pretend in the charade has all played out. That being said, in this moment, how you get there, how you get to a result and what's going to be remembered.

This is a magnificent act. Even though it was painful and there was humiliation that was unnecessary, time will wipe it away. He is walking away from the most powerful office in the world for the good of the country. It's an office he pursued all of his life. So when you see an action of the country,

being put first. You remember that Lincoln arrived at abolition late. Frederick Douglass always criticized him from it. But there was a 2,000-year gap between Cincinnatus walking away from power and George Washington doing it, and 230-some-odd years between Washington and Biden doing it for a really noble reason. That being said,

It's a mistake for him to try to anoint the vice president because in America we don't have coronations. This is not the Prince of Wilmington who abdicates to the Duchess of San Francisco. So there are exactly six Democrats who have standing, I think, to challenge her under the proposition of, hey,

I'm a better candidate. But those people have to move on her. And absent one of them moving, then she will be the Democratic nominee. Yeah, it's a choice right now. They have to do it quickly. I'm talking to a major Democratic donor for Joe Biden who said to me, I don't see how they pass over her, but we shall see. They will have to consolidate fast if she's going to survive. Right.

And these other candidates are going to have to move very quickly. And I do remember when Dean stepped out, I thought to myself, if there's a moment to step out and go after Biden, and I mean, really challenge him, someone like Gavin Newsom, someone like Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, the bench,

For them to do that, it would have had to be when somebody breaks the dam. And it would have had to be around the time when Dean Phillips came out. And none of them did. They were afraid of the party poobahs. They were afraid of the donors. They were afraid of the Obamas coming out against them. They were afraid of the Clintons. They were afraid that they would not be eligible for the bench in 2028. So now these people have to make a snap calculation. Should I be afraid?

of missing out on 2028? Because if she wins, that same bench is not going to be the bench anymore in 2028. Well, yeah. I mean, if you look at this moment, right, about the question and the way you presented it, right, which is I would interpret as everyone failed the character test. And so all the people that failed the character test and all of the people who were involved in what will be recollected as a gaslighting

have hurt the cause. Now, Gavin Newsom, who I like very much, Gavin is a weaker candidate against Trump than Biden. So there's a felony stupidity that's beyond my capacity to describe. If you go from Biden, who couldn't win, to somebody who far

outperforms him in the losing category on the ballot test. He's down by 11 points, plus he was the most forward person in defense of the president being able to do this. He made a calculation. I've spoken to people close to him. He made a calculation and he did it early on, frankly, about a year ago. He made that calculation that he wasn't going to take on Biden. Sometimes you roll crap. Sometimes you roll sevens and elevens, right? Like it's a business where luck and timing

are underappreciated virtues in this. But to the point of all of those people, there is one person in the Democratic Party atop the ticket who I think if you think about it, and I have no idea if he has any interest in it, but he will beat Trump

decisively. And that's Mark Kelly from Arizona, a fighter pilot, astronaut, moderate Democratic senator, American hero. What if he picked someone like a Maria Shriver outside of the box? And I will argue through the through the day and the night forever that she's more qualified than being a freshman governor or

being a senator. And I think in this moment, there are some outstanding public citizens that you can look at at the ticket that the American people as the ultimate jury, you know, say, hey, I like these people better than a discredited politics class that I despise and loathe and that the country makes a judgment enough that right now the Democratic Party, as it stood to two hours ago, was losing an election to Donald Trump

who incited an insurrection and according to the whole of the party is an existential threat to democracy. And he was convicted. If that's true, you're losing to that guy. Yet at the same time, you're arrogant enough to maintain that we're doing nothing wrong. Nothing can be fixed, that we shouldn't pause. So like if it was me,

And I would analogize this to being like in a plane crash where everyone walked away from the plane miraculously in the woods and has a chance to survive. The first thing I would say, like truly would be like, no one fucking moves. Be still, be quiet. Don't do anything. This is a moment where this institution, the party has an absolute moral obligation. People to sit in a room who have sought and received, have positions of responsibility from delegates, right?

to political elected leaders, the moral responsibility of the institution is to field the strongest ticket to defeat what they all truly believe, and I believe correctly that they're right about, is a fascist political movement in America. So that's what their obligation is right now. I just want to slow down one second. Are you working for Maria Shriver or have you ever done? No, no. I mean, she's someone I admire, like that I know that I look at outstanding public citizens, like, for example,

Tim Ryan of Ohio, he ran for Senate, lost to J.D. Vance. Tim Ryan is the strongest conceivable VP pick for Harris. And Ryan lost a race by five points that the top of the ticket went down on by 26th.

It took them $57 million in spending. And you need a guy who drinks Miller Lite, is from that region of the country. JT Vance is a fraud who believes beaten women should stay married to their spouses. And that guy, when you're up against a real guy from that area that he's pretending to be, he went and was sipping Chardonnay wearing the Silicon Valley vest. And when he was out there, that guy said,

Hey, I'm not comfortable being with the people in Ohio anymore. He said that. Tim Ryan's a perfect candidate. So people have to stop and pause and think...

What is your ticket? How do you win? How do you bring Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin back? How do you stop the bleed in New Hampshire? How do you pause in Minnesota? You need a world-class communicator. Basically, you need someone from a battleground state, essentially, is what you're saying. You have a West Coaster at the top of the ticket. Yeah, it doesn't add anything. You already have Kamala. Right, that's what I'm saying. You already have Kamala. You don't need another one. Here's my thinking, though.

I feel like a lot of the bench per se, like the Gavins, let's put them aside. He's probably not the strongest candidate. He's certainly ambitious. But, you know, you've had JB, you've had Gretchen, you've had Josh Shapiro, you've had Westmore all go on TV and talk about how Biden is in perfect form. Like after the debate, you had Gavin out there sparring with reporters, telling them to not believe their eyes, basically, that he's fine. It was just a blip. And I just wonder if they've lost the

credibility or the honesty factor by way of defending him for so long? Or do you think voters just forget about that altogether? It's not a permanent mark on your record, but it's a time for momentary humility and stop it. And there's something, and I just have to say, whatever the range of menagerie of personalities that exist, and I know that I'm in this category, and it's the category of people that react extremely badly.

to being yelled at and being told you didn't just see what you just plainly saw. It's what made me so crazy about Trump in the first place. And it makes a lot of people crazy with regard to the people that I like and admire a lot,

Like Gavin Newsom, who who did that? Truth of the matter is, is the governor of California. Right. There's a there's a battle inside the Democratic Party that's in part cultural, geographical. So if a governor of California is going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party, there's only one way to accomplish that.

That's by winning the nomination under a regular order, regular process. How do they even do that at this point? Well, in twenty twenty eight, it's not going to happen now. He said there's no chance. Right. It's either a guy like you're going to have like a Mark Kelly who comes in. It's like the right stuff candidacy. Right. Or it's going to be Kamala Harris.

And a VP pick. And that VP pick. Should be from a battleground state. It can't be female candidates. It can be, but I don't think that's going to go. So it's going to be a white male candidate. And there you have Cooper. You have Beshear. Or you have Shapiro, Ryan. And Ryan is the best candidate, I think. Not just by saying on that. But this is a moment. How do you assemble an architecture of a coalition?

to beat this guy. And this is the moment right now where the Democrats have to reassemble that.

And they have to be able to appeal, obviously, to younger voters. Okay, I just want to talk to you about the state that we're in right now. You know, I'm talking to top money people. They've already started vetting, by the way, vice presidents for Kamala Harris privately because they know how long it takes to do this. And to be clear, a lot of these people really haven't truly been vetted to either be at the top of the ticket or to be the running mate at this point. A lot of them have only served one term, like Josh Shapiro and Wes Moore, for example. They don't even really truly have records quite yet.

But I agree on the probably the need to get a battleground state candidate either at the top or as a running mate. But I don't think it's going to be that easy right now because you kind of have the party split. You have the Congressional Black Caucus. It's saying it has to be Kamala, right? And they are very powerful within the Democratic Party.

You've got the president, a sitting president who is not stepping down from his position. I do think the next step, though, is going to be calls for a cognitive test for him to step down. But that would just empower Kamala Harris. It would give people the opportunity to see her in a position as a president, don't you think? That would probably help her campaign. And then you've already heard Nancy Pelosi reportedly talking in private with her own delegation saying that we should have a primary election.

And we should have, you know, people like President Barack Obama or Bill Clinton running this primary. Maybe it ends up being a delegate fight, a floor fight. Technically, the delegates, the ballot says Biden-Harris right now. And so he owns those delegates. I think we're in uncharted territory. What about you, Steve? Does Kamala automatically get those delegates if he passes them off to her? Does she have to fight for them? I'm just like, what's next? So I'm going to answer this question like very philosophically. The tighter you grip that wheel right now,

the more your ship is going to spin. The only way to have control is to let go. You mean Kamala's grip on the party? Everybody's. There is only one path for Kamala Harris to win this election in November. It is for her to earn this nomination by support coalescing around her naturally, as opposed to it

being imposed from the top down with all respect to the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who I view as a historic figure.

That is as delusional a fucking statement that a person could conceivably make. It is as if she lives on America's secret moon base. The idea that Bill Clinton will arbitrate the democratic process to pick the candidate

That will go up against. Well, they would have like mini town halls or something like that. Moderate. There is no mini town hall. There is only one thing that will happen now that he has stepped out. He must release his hands from the party. What he just did, he's abdicated. So it's like having someone in a family business. Dad just retired, but he shows up to the office on Monday. No, no.

He's not in a position any longer to impose. There's only one source. That was his last step of power. It's the delegates of the party who will conduct a democratic process and they will vote.

And they assume a responsibility. Can they choose to fuck that responsibility up? Absolutely. Could they not hate the squad? A hundred percent. But are you kidding me? The foremost architect of this disaster is Jim Clyburn. And now Mr. Clyburn seeks to impose another disaster on the party. Enough. Here's the truth.

The Democrats cannot win without independent voters and the never Trump Republican constituency, which when it comes to people who didn't sell out that were involved in Republican politics, there's about 20 of us. But I'm talking about actual normal Republicans in normal states who just have never signed on to the Trump proposition. But look at the farce that is played out and say, oh, my God, what am I going to do here?

So right now, these people that have fundamentally gaslit the country, have brought the party to a place of unprecedented disorganization and chaos. Now they're going to impose the solution? Holy shit. Fucking madness.

So let the chaos reign. Let there be an open convention with the delegates. Maria Shriver should give a speech. Tim Ryan should give a speech. Mark Kelly should give a speech. There's nothing wrong with deciding this on the 12th ballot.

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Here's a question I have, though. Are the delegates, I guess they come from across the ideological spectrum, right? I mean, the one thing about primaries is they tend to choose their grassroots, right? They tend to be more progressive and they tend to pick more left-leaning candidates. And that's something that the party is sort of grappled with, which is partially why Clyburn, you know,

picked Biden, essentially, in 2020. And the party got behind him. There was fears that more candidates that were closer to the progressive base couldn't win. That was also the thinking with Bernie. But now that you've got all of them, there's no, you know, first primary state, second primary state for them to choose. And, you

They're all there. Three thousand eight hundred eighty six delegates. None is more important than the other because they come before the other democracy. Yeah, this is actually a very strange moment that we're in. And so I just want to read to you something. There is no system for Biden to appoint someone to take his place as the

presumptive Democratic nominee. He has these pledged 3,886 delegates that he picked up throughout the primary races this year. If no candidate wins the majority of roughly 4,000 delegates, then the party's more than 700 superdelegates or automatic delegates will be able to vote at the convention. So that's 700 superdelegates. And they're representative of all the states, I'm guessing, right? Tara, you have a fundamental choice here, right? You're at a fork in the road, right? And there's not like eight directions, there's two.

So choice A is a Clyburn and Pelosi. And you have like seven people in their late 70s and 80s who believe they have the power to impose political suicide over thirty eight hundred people who are convention delegates who can be released by Joe Biden from any obligation to vote for him on the first ballot and be in a position to choose a nominee.

in a fair process. There's no question in my mind that I believe that that process is better off in the hands of the 3,800 delegates. And what I would say to them, as someone who's been a Democrat for five years now, used to be a Republican whose party left me to all this fascist cause, as a fellow American, what I would say is, wow, man, this is exciting. What an incredible amount of responsibility and duty the whole country is

is going to learn the rules of this. This is the most exciting moment in American politics in at least 100 years. Nobody knows what's going to happen. Nobody who's alive has any skills even. All the 28, 29, 30-year-old data droids that work in these campaigns that see sunlight three times a year, right, have to deal with human beings, right? You are going to have to deal and deal and put together coalitions, and you hope that

When you get 3,800 people in a room, really focusing on the nation's business, not their parochial interests. What can I grab for myself? Understand some of that goes on. Can you cut deals and stuff like that on the floor? I mean, that was the thinking. Yeah, this is an incredible moment, incredibly inciting. And the first thing that the Democratic Party needs, if it's a person, that person is laying down

on the ground, unmoving, unconscious, not breathing, no heartbeat. Got to put the paddles on the chest. Got to put the paddles on. So this process, right, is the paddles on the chest. You got to bring young people back to the party. Trump is a weirdo and a freak show.

Right. That whole kid rock thing. I was strange as fuck. Right. Normal people. Gladiators. Yeah. Right. All this C-list, D-list thing, the patina of cool and menace. This is cool. You're going to have young people. You're going to have like the full spectrum of America. I mean, you talk about this is this is this in this moment is the greatest diffusion of power. Right.

The power has been shattered. And now that power disaggregates to the delegates of the Democratic Party that look like America racially.

Look like America gender wise, look like America youth wise. So you're going to have 25 and 26 year olds. And that's OK, because we have people that age at the Declaration of Independence, right at the founding of the country, deeply involved and they get to make a decision. So this must not be independent.

imposed or it will be disastrous for the party to claim that claims it's for democracy. Yeah, I was just thinking, though, can you start lobbying these delegates now? Should the candidates, should their teams be making direct

pitches to the delegates. I know that when Biden was worried about his standing within the party, that his team was constantly calling delegates to assure them like he was to try to get actually the pulse and see if they were sticking with him because they are independent, free people that can do whatever they want. But I imagine that they would start lobbying them now if you were thinking about challenging the vice president. The campaign probably starts right now. It's out and going, right? Like because what you're sitting there is you have to figure out

right, as an intellectual exercise, like right as we speak, if you were around one of these people and you're thinking about going for it, right, you're like,

How do I survey these people, get a handle on the 3800? Who do I know? Who knows who? Who knows what? Who knows where? And all of it together in real human to human politics. I totally get what you're saying. It's going to be exciting. There's going to be a shiny new toy. And the Democratic Party sent a new candidate for everyone to meet after they're elected or even in the process.

But they'll have to be campaigning in the meantime, as we said, talking to the delegates. And Kamala Harris, if she gets the money from Biden, from the campaign, she will be in the strongest position to actually campaign and win those delegates over. How can anyone else really come up against her? J.B. Pritzker is a billionaire. He has money. Maybe the money starts flowing in all different directions within the party. But right now, she's in the strongest position because of her money. I think there is some merit to that argument. But

But like, I think the reality is the second that,

It's over that like whomever becomes the nominee, they're going to raise like six hundred million dollars instantaneously. Right. They're going to have geysers, gushers of cash. But in the meantime, though, she has more money before August 15th to make the pitch to delegates. She does. Right. Like, however, they want to do that and do with the campaign legally, I suppose. But really a question for lawyers. But again, work in the road is, is she going to earn it?

Or is it going to try to be handed to or imposed? And I just think that's an architecture for disaster.

at the hands of the people who caused the disaster. And by the way, one of the next questions of this, like, who's her team going to be? Is it the Biden team? Because all the communications people have lost their credibility. So, right, there's a lot of questions about the confidence. Brian Fallon's her comms person, used to be with Hillary Clinton. Who is the Harris team, right? Like, how does she propose to do this? And I think that's a very real question because of the competency of the totality of the effort thus far. Steve,

Loved having you on the show. This was fascinating. Let's stay in touch. This was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. Keep checking up on my feed at puck.news slash Tara dash Palmieri. You can use my discount code Tara20 for a 20% off a subscription at Puck. These are...

exciting times. These are historic moments. This is the time to keep checking in for clarity on the pod on our website. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins for staying with me all weekend for the past few weeks as we kind of waited for this moment to happen and keep checking in. See you probably as soon as tomorrow. Thanks.