Mark Leibovich Imagines ‘This Town’ Under Trump 2.0
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Tuck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. On this show, I have the Bard of DC, The Atlantic's Mark Leibovich on to talk about this wild election cycle. The last time Mark and I were together was at the RNC sharing burgers at the

the CNN grill and Joe Biden was still in the game. And we were pretty sure that Donald Trump was going to walk his way into a victory. I was certain that Biden would be pushed out by the end of the week. And I think he was as well, but it was a very uncertain time. And we were pretty much ready to write our final pieces saying that Trump would win. But alas, here we are right now, pretty much tied. He gives Kamala a slight hedge and,

thinking that she may win. I'm not so sure. It's sort of choose your adventure when it comes to the polling. Though on this show, he gives his honest assessment on Tim Walz. Is he really as earnest as he seems or just a politician? We talk about what Kamala Harris is doing right and what she's doing wrong. What was Biden thinking when he immediately endorsed Harris? And what's on his mind right now as he finishes out those last few months of his administration? Is he stewing away in the Oval Office all alone, thinking about his enemies? Probably.

And ultimately, we talk about how this town or D.C. is preparing for Trump and how they will react if he conquers it again.

Mark, thanks so much for coming on the show. I have been meaning to pick your brain for a while because I have a sense that the town of Washington, D.C. is getting very anxious as they see the poll numbers tightening and that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are pretty much where Joe Biden was before that disastrous debate. They're essentially tied. And Democrats were bedwetting at that time, worried about Joe Biden. And I'm sure they're

also worried about Kamala Harris as well and seeing that the Trump administration could very well be coming back again. So as someone who is the preeminent chronicler of the town, you wrote the famous book, This Town, which is still being referenced to this day, even though it came out in 2013. How do you see the town preparing for another Trump administration? How are the elites processing the fact that

there's probably maybe more than 50% chance that he will win. Okay. I would say, I would say a few things. First of all, it's great to be here. Sorry, it's taken so long, but you know, thrill, honor, privilege, all that. I, so you're right. I mean, this town came out in 2013. You know, I hear about it a lot, but it was a whole different world. I mean, that in fact, that book was about sort of the incestuous one world and,

you know society of Washington I mean Democrats with Republicans lobbying you know all kinds of I mean I don't know it was it just feels like a comedy of manners in retrospect because we live through I mean we live through a Trump administration um and so this time was basically about the first term and a half of or the first one term plus of the Obama years which again is

Things that we used to think were absolutely existential back then were pretty tame by comparison to the kind of stuff that we've dealt with since 2016. I mean, everything between Charlottesville and the insurrection and everything that we've all lived through. So, you know, there was another book. I guess I'm plugging another book, but there was a book I wrote a couple of years ago, which is basically this town for the Trump years. But the point I made was this.

This this these things were for real. And what's scary about this is you're right. I mean, this is a jump ball election. You can quibble with, you know, is Paris better off than where Biden was in June? I think probably a little just because Biden was so hobbled, it seemed. But you're right. I mean, the numbers are very close and we could sort of go either way.

The stakes feel frighteningly higher. And I think what people have done in D.C. from what people I talk to and I'm sure you talk to also is subvert anxiety just to major focus on the campaign. And I think

people don't think you know i don't think they've thought a lot about the possibility of trump winning even though like you said there's about a 50 chance of that happening and no one knows what to expect just like no one knew what to expect the last time and you know the last trump administration was not an easy time for a lot of people around here but also but it was also kind of

I mean, there was like a circus environment. I mean, there was the Trump Hotel. So my last book took place basically in the bar of the Trump Hotel. That was the recurring motif. Spent a lot of time there. Yeah, we all did. Yes. And, you know, it was...

It was, I mean, there was, I don't know, maybe it was like cheers for the Trump years. I don't know, whatever you want to call it. Bacon on a stick with a bunch of lobbyists and Kim Guilfoyle and Dom Jr. holding court. Yeah. I mean, I don't, again, I don't want to think, I don't want to say it felt tame by comparison because there was some really, you know, some pretty serious shit that went down, especially, you know, later on with COVID and the Trump years and the insurrection and stuff like that. But yeah, we don't, I mean, there are some really dark and potentially, you know,

rightfully dark scenarios that could play out in what the next Trump administration, if there is one, could look like. And I don't think terms like

You know, for phrases like the end of democracy or democracy is at stake or authoritarianism. I don't think that's necessarily overheated. So, yeah, it's just sort of disconcerting to have an election and to have a set of elections that feel as high as the stakes have felt in recent years. So you just think everyone's focused on winning and they're not really preparing. It feels a little bit like then 2016. I guess they were...

assuming that they were going to win, but they seem to be blindsided by Trump. So do you think if he wins this time, they'll be blindsided and unprepared again? Yeah, because I don't think you can really prepare. I mean, it's like, I think one thing we've learned about...

about Trump is that you can assume the worst and it's usually not a terrible assumption. But at the same time, you can also assume that things are not going to go as they plan if they even happen. I mean, this is not a terribly predictable group of people. There's often a ton of infighting. There is. I mean, when you have

such an ecosystem that revolves around the psyche of one rather unpredictable, volatile, capricious man, you just don't know what you're getting. So that itself is unnerving because people just sort of

Human beings want some kind of stability and so forth. But, you know, it could be fun to cover, but it could also be pretty scary to cover. I've read some stories about agencies sort of like Trump-proofing themselves in advance. I mean, what can you really do, though? Yeah, I mean, you hear about governors talking about that at the state level. You hear about Congress doing it.

things that could potentially you know put some kind of amendment into some bill or something like that but you're right i mean you're talking about pretty arcane um provisions that are being taken for you know what is essentially a blunt force administration i mean that's the essence of of what trump brings which is just blunt force and again it's unpredictable but

It doesn't deal in nuance of Trump proofing or regulations and the letter of the law necessarily. How is the town preparing for Kamala? Is it just the same old people that were with Biden or do you see new energy? Like I remember when Obama won, the town felt different, right? Younger, fresher, newer faces. First of all, Kamala Harris, I mean, say what you will about her. I mean, she fits within the traditional dynamic of what a Democrat is, what a Republican is. I mean, Trump kind of...

all that out of the water. I mean, Trump was his own universe. I mean, he didn't play within established rules, whether in Republican Party circles or Washington circles or Democratic circles or what have you. I mean, I do think what Harris has benefited from is, I mean, this is kind of a cliche, but she is a change candidate. And

I do think that people have spent so much time in her campaign and her herself has spent so much time adjusting to this very sudden reality of Biden stepping aside, which no one really saw coming. And I guess in retrospect, maybe we should have seen it coming. But, you know, they're just I mean, there's just a lot of I mean, they got to like stand up a campaign. They got to run a campaign. They got to win. And that's, I think.

You know, it'll take a while. I mean, the transition will be more jarring, I think, than usual. But I think ultimately it will settle into something far more familiar than, you know, what we may or may not be able to predict with Trump. It's true. I mean, I'm sure she'll keep a lot of people, too, from the Biden administration just because you sort of have to. How many people are there really out there? The interesting thing, though, everyone says, you know, the difference between 2016 and what we'll see in a second Trump administration is that there are really no guardrails in this next administration. They are trying...

very hard to, quote, keep out the snakes, I believe is a phrase that Don Jr. used in a Wall Street Journal article, which I find kind of interesting because from what I know about Donald Trump Jr., he's sort of like the gateway back into Trump's good graces that you've fallen out of favor with Trump. He'll vouch for these people like J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson and even Cliff Sims, who's the deputy DNI director. He wrote a book about how the Trump administration was a bunch of like backstabbers and snakes and

Trump never read it because he doesn't read books, but he didn't like the look of it, right? So he kind of said some terrible things about him, but it was Donald Trump Jr. who brought him back into the fold, and then he ended up back in a very prominent role in the administration, considering where he was before as, like, in the press office. Absolutely.

I sort of don't think of Donald Trump Jr. as like the snake slayer. And if anything, I think he's almost like the snake charmer. He brings people back into Trump's orbit who've been cast astray. But, you know, they all claim...

America first policies, all these other think tanks are coming up with lists and lists of people that are allegedly loyalists and devoted, but I mean, who's left? Like who are the snakes that would try to get back in? Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, Steve Bannon was like a major snake for a while. I mean, he'll get back in when he gets out of jail, presumably. I mean, yeah. I mean, the thing about Don, the thing that Don jr has is, is family. I mean, it's very, I mean, same name. He's the kind of de facto heir apparent, you know, Trump, Trump,

trusts his family. I mean, it's so much as he trusts anyone, he trusts his family. And, um, I mean, you're right. I mean, there is definitely a trajectory through which like a Corey Lewandowski or a Cliff Sims or someone can, can come back. And, you know, as I guess the, um, analogy you hear, um,

And with certain people, I think Corey recently was a cockroach. You can't kill some of these folks. And everyone's kind of a snake. But is there a good snake? Is there a bad snake? Right. But like people who have said terrible things about Trump, like J.D. Vance calling him America's Hitler or Tucker Carlson shit talking him and messages that were shown in the depositions with the Dominion lawsuit. So they were able to get back in. I mean, Tucker and Trump talk all the time now.

They do. Yeah. And J.D. Vance is the right man. I mean, you're right. I mean, I think one thing that Trump really kind of gets off on is, you know, even though he knows, I think intuitively that some people either hate him or have hated him or maybe still hate him, whatever. It's a real strut. It's a real flex to be able to.

take people who he knows hate him and get them to sort of genuflect and humiliate themselves before him like I just I read a piece for the last the last Atlantic just on sort of

It's a Republican party under Trump. It was kind of a cover story that had no print on the cover. So the first like Atlantic cover story that didn't have print on the cover in 100 years happened to be something that I had the major story for. So my mother was very upset either here or there. But no, I mean, like I remember there was a scene in that piece where like Rubio Cruz, I mean, two people who said the most horrific things about him.

uh were just lavishing praise just laying it on such so thick at the convention in their speeches and they were trying to get into that little box that he was sitting in and there was that homage that um what's the guy's name lee greenwood used to kind of narrate and um just such a bizarre scene people started wearing their ear patches and everything i don't know if cruz and you know or graham or any of those folks did but they probably would have if they were asked to so anyway i think trump

Again, he sees that as like a sign of strength, a sign of, I mean, to some degree it's a game, but to some degree it's just the very simplistic and very kind of

What's the right word? I don't know. Again, blunt force. I keep coming back to. You wrote this. I love this line from your piece about how basically the entire party is capitulated to him. Right. And these are people who act like you said, Rubio, Ted Cruz, who said terrible things about Donald Trump during the primaries and up until the RNC, really, even after. But you wrote this.

This is the fun part for Trump, showing that he snapped up another politician like a distressed condo asset. And you're talking about J.D. Vance at that rally in 2022 where he boasts that J.D. Vance has been kissing his ass for an endorsement because J.D. couldn't win that primary in Ohio without Trump's endorsement. Frankly, he was in third place, right? Correct. Yeah, he just flaunts it. You're right. No, it's ownership. It's dominance. Again, nothing subtle about it.

To some degree, like those are refreshing is the right word, but there's a kind of candor to like to sort of have primal people in the zero sum world of whether it's politics or business or real estate or casinos or whatever world Donald Trump is operating in can assert dominance. And he doesn't hide his dominancy.

utter, you know, the gusto that he takes from that. You know, you also mentioned that, you know, in that piece that you referenced, Lindsey Graham and something he said in 2022 at a rally or speech in Nashville, he said, you know what I like about Trump? Everyone was afraid of him, including me. So there's like something in the party that they actually like being dominated. Correct. Again, which is why Lindsey himself

Read what you will into this has such a special, like kind of unique role in that he is willing to say the most humiliating thing out loud and do the most humiliating thing in the most ostentatious ways as he has for years and

You know, there's there's a lot going on there, whether it's daddy issues or McCain issues or just I mean, again, volumes could be written and I probably will not read them, but on the psyche of Lindsey Graham. But I think Lindsey Graham is emblematic of a larger sort of submissive role that the Republicans have readily played that has enabled the dominant character, you know, a flawed but greatly person willing to

and dominate as much as he can get away with. Right. I mean, people who have resisted him have basically dropped out, essentially, right? The Paul Ryans of the world, they've bowed out of the game. Nikki Haley, I don't see her in a future...

I think Trumpism is here to stay, in my opinion. Maybe I'll be wrong. Or they've lost their primaries because Trump has endorsed their wacko, you know, primary opponents. Some of them don't win. But ultimately, those rational actors like, say, Liz Cheney, they lose their primaries. Or others just who have gone out against Trump, they find their way back into his bosom with flattery, essentially. Yeah.

So it just feels like everyone has fallen in line, the entire party. So what does that mean if Trump gets the White House, the Republicans hold on to the House and like they're expected to, maybe they'll get the Senate by 51 to maybe 54 seats? What are we looking at? Oh, boy. Yeah. I mean, so when you're a president and you I mean, first of all, so understand that if Trump is elected, he will come in.

He will have gotten away with pretty much everything. Right. I mean, he would have gotten away with with an insurrection. I mean, everything that is on his rap sheet right now will have been vindicated, forgiven by the Electoral College. Right. Or by the electorate. He I assume all of his legal stuff will go right away. I mean, maybe I don't.

I mean, I don't know what the state ones would look like if there are state ones, but I imagine that will be wiped away at least for the time

time he's president. We can assume that his cabinet, that his White House staff is not going to be check and balance people like the whole grown up in the room thing or the alleged sort of adults in the room pose that we heard about in the first administration probably won't exist or at least people like the Reince Priebus and the Gary Cohns or John Kelly or Mark

Mark Esper or Matt go down the list right so um you know it sort of depends how the Senate how close the Senate is because it's like 51 49 I mean you sort of got to wonder will Lisa Murkowski Susan Collins um

I don't know, like with Larry Hogan, if he were to win, like would he play like a Romney-like role? I mean, he's probably unlikely to win, but I mean, there are some kinds of... Susan Collins is up for re-election in 2027. She's up for re-election. I don't know what her deal would be. I mean, she's probably, I think she'd be over 70. I don't know if she would run again. Tom Tillis would be up in two

years, I think, in 2016 or 2026. So he's been fairly kind of centrist recently. I don't know how political he's thinking in terms of the purpleness of North Carolina. But yeah, so there is that. But you're right. I mean, it's certainly the Republicans in the House, whether they're in the majority or the minority, are not going to have much of a sort of pushback caucus there. So, yeah, he'll he'll

He knows he can get away with anything. That will be so much even more so by the fact that the American electorate would forgive everything, which is essentially what they would do if he wins. But he'll be lame duck too, right? So what does he maybe have a year? Yeah, he'd be lame duck, but he would... There are a couple of variables here. I mean, four years is a long time. I mean, you can do a whole...

lot of damage in four years. People immediately fixate on, "Oh, well, he tried to run again. Will he try to suspend the Constitution? What will it look like in 2028?" That's always a thought exercise because, again, as we've learned, four years is forever. But you're right. He could conceivably try to run again at age 82, 83, whatever it is.

And but, you know, and then if he wins and he feels like he still has the party at his disposal, I mean, does he just anoint John Jr. And it just keeps going. And I'm not, you know, but if he loses, I mean, this is why, you know, one of the millions of reasons why the election is so consequential. I think it

could, I mean, first of all, if he loses, I mean, the whole, the next three months until January 20th becomes kind of scary because who knows what's going to happen in attempts to litigate, steal, whatever, uh, insurrects the election. Um, but you know, I do think that if, and when he does go away, um, and if he's defeated, um, I don't necessarily think Trumpism will have any kind of, um,

I think it'll become extremely weak if he loses again, if there is no Trump himself. I mean, yes, maybe J.D. Vance tries to or Don Jr. or someone tries to pick up the mantle. But I am

I imagine between everything that could happen to Trump in the first months of a Harris administration, what could happen to the party and how the party would take defeat. I can't imagine it would be a pretty picture. And also Trump stepping aside would create such a vacuum of leadership in the party because everything has been just geared toward to him. And

you know, when there's a vacuum, I mean, there's going to be so much friction. I mean, people are going to be fighting. I mean, just think about the Republican Party, right? The Republican Congress. I mean, there is no leadership there. I mean, they have gotten historically nothing done. I mean, it's a mess, right? So I think that we're

of a microcosm for what the party could look like without Trump. Yeah, people I've spoken to have said, you know, we really do, if Trump loses, we need to find a bridge between MAGA and the establishment. We can't go forward without it. No, there's no question. And for as chaotic as Trump is and unpredictable as Trump is, he's also, he has imposed a weird order on,

on the party in that it's all about him, right? So, I mean, that's quarterly in itself. I mean, he controls 80%, whatever it is, Congress, Senate, party, RNC, and that kind of thing. So if that person, I think like if anything, J.D. Vance showed at the debate that he could possibly be that person to bridge MAGA and establishment if he can come off as the way he did during the debate, right? If he went on a serious likability tour to try to improve his favorables.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. You don't really know what Vance was trying to do. I mean, I think Vance has a tricky needle to thread here. I mean, he you could argue that certainly within the base and within the party, he he acquitted himself very well in the debate. I mean, I think he performed well. He exceeded a lot of.

expectations sort of across the spectrum. You do have to wonder, and I remember having this conversation like almost immediately after the debate is, was he too good? Does Trump feel threatened? Will Trump feel compelled to, you know, add another debate with Harris or will Trump be on the lookout for someone who is positioning himself to either

um, succeed him, uh, or usurp him. And so, yeah, Trump is absolutely in his zero sum mind looking for someone or, or his tentacles are fixed on, on someone who could make him look worse than he is. So it's a danger place for him. And look, you don't know what you're going to get him with Vance. I mean, Vance is smart. I always think he was, I think he was underestimated. I think the press minute he was picked, um,

The diminishing of him, I always thought was a little bit excessive and also guided the whole couch thing. Look, I mean, the guy's got chops, I think. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You can be a bestselling author and go to Yale and he's a very talented person. You can be a loser and be a bestselling author and actually go to Yale too. I didn't go to Yale. I'll never go to Yale, but that's fine.

Yeah, but from where he came from, it's not easy. You can go to Yale and be a loser if your family is going to guide you along that path. He's a smart guy. I mean, he's scary, but he's a smart guy. Yeah, to be able to maneuver in those circles without having that upbringing is not an easy thing to do.

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Let's talk about the flip side, because we've obviously painted the picture of what Trump winning or losing will look like. And it looks pretty scary. If you're on the outside of it, though, if you're a Democrat, you know, you have your own issues as well. We talked a lot about, well,

the media has talked a lot about Kamala Harris's media plan, right? It does look though, like she's doing a kind of duck and run media strategy like Biden was for a long time. Yeah. Is that worrisome? I mean, she's coming out now and starting to meet the press or in her own way, call her daddy, Howard Stern. Yeah. We've seen this before.

Biden wouldn't take any questions. He wouldn't do anything. He wouldn't sit down for an interview. What do you make of that? I mean, I think, you know, Biden clearly, I mean, the strategy was to hide him. I mean, yeah, he did late night stuff. He did occasional. I mean, did he do like, I don't know. He didn't. He just didn't do much. And I think we know why now, in retrospect, Harris, you know,

I think what their strategy is now is to, now that the debates are probably over, just bring her out into relatively friendly territory. And in the 60 Minutes

thing was, you know, it was, that was risky. I mean, that's a, that's a, that was a tough interview, but I think that Trump did her a real favor by, well, maybe not. I mean, I don't know if Trump did himself or anyone a real favor, but he, he wasn't there. And I think that sort of few minute intro that Scott Pelley did in which he said, we tried to get Trump. And that was, that was a big win for, for Harris and kind of carried the night. And then, you know, you think have things like wall going on, Jimmy Kimmel and Harris going on Colbert.

I mean, these are...

very widely viewed shows. I mean, far more so than, you know, cable or anything like that. And they're friendly. I mean, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't take much to, to, to understand that like if Trump were to go on there, it could be, I mean, that, that it might not, it would not be as friendly. Almost certainly this is not 2016. This is not 2015 at all. So, yeah, I mean, so I, but I think she'll probably do more of it. I think wall should do more of it. I mean, walls is,

I mean, I've been more puzzled actually by Walls' invisibility in the media since really since the convention, because he was such a media star and he was just so good on pretty friendly. You know, he did a couple of when he was auditioning for the job, but you know, his MSNBC hits and his CNN hits and some of the friendlier hits he did when he was auditioning. I mean, he was great. I think like,

probably could have done more of that in August, maybe September, but for some reason they didn't. Maybe they were worried about him overshadowing Harris or something. I do want to talk about Tim Walz because you wrote a great piece about him. But first I want to ask you, what has Kamala done well and what has she done badly? I think she's done a lot well. I mean, I think she's definitely surpassed a lot of people's expectations, certainly mine. I mean, the debate, start with the debate. That was great. I mean, that was, I think, that helped her a lot. I mean, I think...

Helped her clear a seriousness bar. Trump didn't have a good night, I don't think. And I mean, to me, that was the big test. The convention I thought was really well executed. Her speech was, I would say, good, not great. I think, you know, there was maybe a little euphoria around the speech. But I do think when in the room,

I didn't think it was as good as what Walls did, what Obama did, what some of the other speakers did. But it was fine in the way that the sound bites. I mean, I think ideologically it was really smart. I think picking Walls is probably going to turn out to be a net plus for her. I think Walls

you know, has some issues. Um, but he's seems to be pretty winning and likable. And I think his shtick pretty well plays. I think he needs to get out more. I think the more people see him or they, they tend to like him. Um, so, and then the campaign seems to be running a lot better than it was when Biden was the candidate. I mean, I think,

They were so afraid to bring him out in public. I mean, I'm sure they would never say this publicly, but they just have a lot more to sell now, beginning with change. Right. And also just all the pent up frustration and nervousness and anxiety around

you know, trying to, you know, get Biden over the finish line. I mean, that the sudden absence of that has been this great release, I think, that has amounted to a lot of their momentum that Harris has benefited from. Right. I think Harris was able to, in that debate, define herself as a change candidate, even though they kept saying she was a change candidate, she was actually able to show that. 100%. Yep. I loved your piece on Tim Walls, the politician, because, you know, we're supposed to think he just woke up one morning and was like,

Got the phone call. I was working on my radiator, clearing out the filter. Yeah, my cell phone was aching a little bit. Yeah, yeah, right. So if anyone can pierce through that veneer, it's you. I really like the details, like that his hands were remarkably clean. Right. They were under the hood in that ad. Yeah. Oh, we never trust a mechanic with clean hands.

Exactly. He wouldn't let you interview him, which I thought was interesting, even though you were following him around. Yeah, a major mistake, I think. No, I think, look, I would have loved to. I mean, it actually, he seems like a fairly normal guy. Like, I would have talked football with him. I would have talked, like, I don't know, TV news. I mean, he's, we're basically, I don't know, a few years younger than him. He looks, like, way older than me.

He's very familiar. But once you see him over a few days at a few events, you do realize that he leans heavily into the kind of pale-faced bumpkin off the turnip truck shtick. Like, oh, I'm just going to shop at Bernard's and I'm going to fix my car and I coach football. And I do think that his over...

His sort of overreach a little bit on Schtick is what kind of gets him in trouble as far as maybe the misspeaking that has gotten him in trouble around, you know, whether, you know, his kids were born through IVF or regular fertility treatments. What else? Like weapons of war. Oh, the Tiananmen Square thing from the debate. Also, you know, the whole football coach thing, like they coach this, coach that. I mean, he was an assistant football coach, assistant high school football coach. If he played football... Two decades ago.

Two decades ago. If you play football, if you follow football, there is a massive difference between an assistant coach and a head coach, whether it's in high school, college or whatever. Two decades ago, I played soccer, by the way, for one year. Yeah, for one year. I'm a soccer player. You're a soccer player. Yeah. So that would be like if like your entire like nickname and a campaign were something soccer related. Yeah. Yeah. It's just not. I mean, it's like, OK.

So I just found that a little transparent and I think you should have talked to me, but that's neither here nor there. Yeah. I mean, I also, the one little nugget that you had in the piece too, that I thought was interesting was that,

And friends knew that he wanted to run for president when his term was up in 2027. I mean, we're supposed to think he's the least ambitious person in the room, right? That he's just a nice guy who fell into politics somehow. But then you forget, he's been a congressman for most of his career. He was a two-term governor. And I thought that was interesting that all along, you know, Walls was really angling. He was trying to get on TV. He was really trying to make this happen.

Yes, he is a politician. That is the takeaway. I mean, again, one of his lines is

Yeah, just a few weeks ago, I was sitting at home minding my own damn business. And then Kamala Harris called like this came out of complete nowhere. I mean, again, yeah, like you said, I mean, he's got a long political career, Congress governor, I mean, he's head of the Democratic Governors Association, definitely thinking about what he's going to do after his term ends. And yeah, wants to be in the mix. I mean, that's like any politician. I mean, there's no it's not a crime to be I mean, if it were a crime to be ambitious as a politician, I mean,

like a whole bunch of people in across the country and it's certainly in Washington would be doing time. So it would, but walls is, yeah, he's just like all the others. He's just got a more kind of pronounced stick that I think because it's such a compressed time period, you get, you know, maybe an overdose of it in a shorter period of time. Yeah. You know, I, I,

Sure, they hate this comparison, but I liked it at the end of your piece. So he comes out to John Mellencamp's small town. That's what he, that's what he comes out on the rallies. And you know who else came out to small town? John Edwards, as you mentioned in the piece. You write, quote, the lesson here is that schticks don't always age well, and neither did the story of Edwards.

I covered the trial for many, many weeks. It went on for a long time. Yeah. I did kind of wonder, I mean, am I showing my age here? Cause I actually, you know, covered like the Edwards is, I mean, I think his Oh four campaign and his Oh eight campaign, it was like small town, this small town that it was like a meal worker, little guy, a lawyer. I mean, yeah. So whatever, I mean, you know, very different people. I mean, but, you know, but again, maybe I'm cynical. Maybe we're cynical. Maybe we shouldn't be cynical, but your tentacles definitely go up when you, when you see it.

a parallel like that. Totally. Someone wasn't thinking, or the people with walls are too young to remember, perhaps. But I was, okay, so I'm showing my age here, but no, as soon as I started hearing that at his rallies, I immediately, like, called, tried to call, um,

uh, Jennifer Palmieri, no relation. Right. No relation. She has an extra eye. Yeah. So Jennifer, like a big Edwards person. That's when I first met her, um, 20 years ago. And I'm like, and she's working. I think she's, she's Doug Emhoff's person now. So she's on the campaign. And I, you know, I assume this has been, this has occurred to her before. It's like, I don't see this, but she never called me back. So maybe she was busy. She's probably just no comment. Right. Okay.

I just want to finish this off by talking about Biden really quick and what a weird moment we're in right now. Yeah, totally. Whenever he's rolled out or whenever he comes out and does his first press conference, people are like, this is weird. We haven't seen him. Cabinet meeting, Jill Biden's leading it. There's just like a lot of reminders that we had this conversation.

or have this person still running this country. And half the country was going to be forced to basically reelect him on the anti-Trump essentially platform, right? Yeah, it's funny. Whenever Biden comes out, it kind of reestablishes that relief or that release we were kind of talking about before. I mean, the Democratic Convention, which is now, you know, almost a month ago. I mean, the first night was basically Biden night. It's like, okay, we've got to deal with this awkward situation. We've got to say goodbye to him. We've got to give him his due. And then he...

Yeah, he was not even going to stick around. He'd go out to California. And there was a weird thing where a lot of the earlier speeches went late. So Biden didn't get on until like 11, well past 11 on the East Coast. Yeah, it was awkward. So I wondered, like, are they trying to do this on purpose?

And it was a fine speech, but I remember just walking out of there and you probably got a lot of those too. It's like, can you imagine, you know, if this were three nights from now and like he were like the guy, it was basically like, okay, we're going to dispatch this and then get on with the future. And occasionally, you know, when he does come out in public and it hasn't been very often these days, I mean, the automatic reflex you hear from people is, can you imagine, you

If he had to be like sold, not just as like a functional president or someone who gets out more. But when you sort of put that on a campaign stage and like, what would another debate look like? What would a speech look like? A regiment? I mean, Kamala Harris is I don't I hope she continues the campaign.

a heavy schedule. I think that is a good benefit for her because she has room to grow and she's shown that she can perform certainly much better than Biden. So, but yeah, no, I mean, I would read anything on what Biden's really thinking these days, what the dynamic is between him and Harris, what the dynamic is between him and the party, who his grudges are on. And obviously there's something going on there with

with Pelosi. There's obviously something going on there, probably with Schumer, probably with Obama. I mean, it's a lot of big names and big personalities there. And, you know, sitting in the Oval Office or sitting in the White House is this kind of, I wouldn't say tragic figure, but

There's a lot of fraughtness, if that's the right word to use, that I'd love to learn about. Why do you think he came out and endorsed Kamala? I don't know. I mean, I think he probably was... I mean, it does seem like a lot of people that he probably was even more mad at, like Obama and maybe Pelosi were mad.

They seem to be in favor a little bit of a common open convention kind of thing. So maybe that was like a spike thing. And it does seem like Harris played her played her cards pretty well in that weird three week interactive period. I mean, she didn't show publicly any daylight at all, although, you know, I'm sure she was fully aware of what was happening and what could have happened.

maybe he was just like, I don't know. I mean, Biden's got to be way up in his feelings and, um, you know, I assume ages does weird things with people, but especially when you're aging like that publicly and, um,

With everything that went down this summer, again, it'll make for much more interesting books and then or stories than than whatever postmortems we get about like what a Biden campaign would have looked like. Yeah, I think he probably wanted to feel like he had some role in his succession and give a little FU to Pelosi was privately saying an open primary would be great.

Probably. I mean, look, and what we're learning is like, I was a big, like, let's throw it open kind of guy. I mean, I thought that would have been cool. Um, but I mean, it does turn out like strategically to have been the right decision, both for the party and for everyone. Cause I think you're right. I mean, you, you do sort of,

you lose a lot of potential friction. I mean, who knows how something like that's going to end and she's been fine. But I do think if she loses, Biden is still going to get a lot of blame. And if she wins Biden, probably there'll be some sugarcoating and the whole kicking and screaming episode of July will probably be written a little bit out of the story. And it's like, Oh, he just gracefully stepped aside and was so selfless and so forth. I mean, I always get a kick out of people saying, you know, how he put his country before himself and everything. It's like,

Okay. Well, let's, I mean, I'm old enough to remember July. So I think people will, if she loses, they'll look back and think we maybe should have done an open primary where someone like Whitmer could win Michigan. Cause if she loses the blue wall, right.

could have won or Shapiro. Or if they lose Pennsylvania, you know, should they have gone with the Shapiro strategy? I mean, I'm not, I mean, who knows? Like when this is, you don't have to second guess yet, but there will be plenty of it. Probably much more fun to second guess than try to sort of predict who Trump's second national security advisor is going to be like, will he bring Mike Flynn back? Okay. Because it's the ringer and

The boss, Bill Simmons, loves predictions. Who do you think is going to win this election and by how much? And how? Let's get really technical. Okay, this is what I shouldn't do. Okay, but because I'm such a Bill Simmons fan and we also... Bill and I are both Boston people and we both...

We both worked at the Boston Phoenix around the same time. And Joe House is my pal. We have one child. Anyway, I could do my name drop ringer things forever. Go for it. I would say Harris has a better chance of winning. I'm not... I think it's a jump ball, but I think Harris is maybe a couple of inches taller on the jump ball. I think I would say that she probably has a 55-60% chance of winning. And I would say that because...

The anti-Trump vote is a very big coalition in this country. I think it certainly is bigger than the pro Biden or pro Harris coalition, but I think the pro Harris coalition is bigger. I think polling is better for her. Fundraising has been great for her. The earlier registration numbers seem good for her organization. I mean, the campaign does seem to be clicking a lot better than it did.

I don't know. I mean, it is, this is a, I mean, I hate the word vibes, hate it, hate it, hate it, but going out and being out and sort of seeing how it's planned, it feels like, you know, what are we four weeks out? Um, there is momentum that could sweep her to victory. And I also don't, like I said before, I wouldn't underestimate, uh,

the continued momentum that was propelled by Biden stepping aside. Because I think that that was a real, real albatross for Democrats, him being around. And, you know, I think that helps her too. So yeah, that's a long and kind of noncommittal way of saying, I think she, I'd rather be in her position than Trump's position. Would you go as far as to say how she's going to win? How she's going to get to 270? All right. I think she wins...

I think she wins Michigan. I say that because, you know, the Arab American votes, the I mean, a lot of big campuses there. So, you know, I mean, it could be like a Cornel West, Jill Stein factor there. Pennsylvania. I mean, she's pulling pretty well in Pennsylvania.

But you keep hearing that the Trump, I mean, it always you keep between Biden being gone and not being Shapiro. And I mean, apparently there are some fundamentals that are pretty weak for for Harris there, but I haven't seen it. You know, I do think she's got a shot at winning Georgia or North Carolina. And I think she's got a shot at winning Nevada. I mean, can you piece together? I don't know.

I don't know. I think I would say to be conservative, like she'll carry the blue wall and maybe Nevada plus one of the eastern Sunbelt states, meaning Georgia or North Carolina. And do you think we'll know on November 6th or it's going to be one of those like nail biters where we have to wait for? Yeah, I think almost no matter what, Trump's going to declare victory probably around 10 o'clock. When the early returns come in. It will be a mess because

You just I mean, there are very few. It's hard to imagine a universe where he gracefully accepts defeat, even in a landslide. So, yeah, I think by virtue of him saying he will contest everything, he will bring lawsuits. The Republican Party, because it's what they always have done, will almost in lockstep sort of call the election a fraud, whether there's any proof or not. I mean, I think I think 2020 is probably a bit of a preview of that could just be worse.

So yeah, let's have fun out there, Tara. What a pleasant note to end on. No, but you know what? We have to love life and embrace it. 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 Nevitz. If you like this show, please subscribe, rate it, share it with your friends. If you like my reporting, please 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 for 20% off a subscription at puck.

See you again on Monday with a very special episode. I am talking to my very own mother, the undecided voter in North Carolina, about why she still hasn't made up her mind. I think it'll be an interesting one. So stay tuned for that.