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Hello, my name is Dave Gonzalez and I haven't read any of the books in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm Joanna Robinson and I've read every book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. And I'm Neil Miller and I have also read those very heavy books. Years ago, we hosted a Game of Thrones podcast called A Storm of Spoilers and we're thrilled to head back to Westeros to cover the second season of House of the Dragon on the Trial by Content feed.
We'll be using our book knowledge to dive deep into each episode and answer your lingering questions. So send us a raven every week to trialbycontent at gmail.com. Follow and subscribe to Trial By Content on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts to join us on Thursdays where these two will explain to me which Targaryen is right. This episode is brought to you by Vitamin Water. Food, entertainment, sports,
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This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike's Subs. Jersey Mike's uses only the highest quality meat sliced right in front of you, piled high with the freshest toppings. It is a Jersey Mike thing. My favorite is number 13, the Italian. Love the Italian. I'm half Italian. I like Italian subs. I especially like Italian subs made in good places. Like Jersey Mike's, planning your summer picnic, backyard adventure, or beach day? Well, Jersey Mike's. They have you covered with everything you need to beat the summer heat.
They have your favorite summer sub combo. They have everything you want at Jersey Mike's. A sub above. Order on the app today or visit jerseymikes.com to learn more. Great app, by the way. Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. This show is all about the presidential debate.
It's coming a little early for you. It's a primer of sorts. Getting you ready for tonight, Thursday, June 27th.
Sadly, I am taking off after the debate because they changed the calendar. I thought it would be safe to go on vacation, as I'm sure others have as well. So I'm going to be off next week. And I will, unless something insane happens, I will not be dropping in with a post-debate roundup. And I know you miss that and how I like to give out awards.
But like I said, I'll drop in from my vacation if I have to. But if not, you may not be hearing from me. But today I've got my former colleague, Mark Caputo, on the line. Mark and I worked together at Politico. He is now an illustrious reporter at The Bulwark. And we're just going to talk about these candidates today.
his reporting and my reporting on how they're preparing, the bunker, the not-so-bunker, the stakes of it all, what advice they're getting, and our predictions. Mark, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, Tara. Appreciate it.
Talk to me. I got I got a little message yesterday from your publicist saying, check out Mark's reporting. What you're hearing is that Trump is taking this seriously as opposed to last go in 2020 when it was a disaster. I think Trump always sort of took these things seriously, was seriously in his own way. And I think he's taking this seriously in more in more of a conventional way, which not to say he's a conventional candidate or the dreaded mediocre candidate.
insult that's always given to us when we cover Trump, which is, oh, you're normalizing Trump. Well, I'm sorry. He happens to be the Republican nominee or the de facto Republican nominee. And yeah, he appears to be taking this seriously in a conventional sense. Normally, Donald Trump doesn't express regret. Normally, Donald Trump doesn't say he made a mistake. And from what we're able to get infallible like the pope, you know that totally dude, except, you know, the pope is not American, right? Donald Trump is American. Okay.
is he accepted that he royally shit the bed in the words of an advisor at the time in 2020 during his first debate with Joe Biden. Yeah. Right? Which I watched last night just to like,
I don't know, to torture myself. It was a show. Yeah, it was like throwing things at the at the screen at the time. What is happening? Right. And, you know, it's funny because after that debate, immediately after, like, I did great. Everyone didn't really have the courage to tell him, like, no, you did terribly. And eventually the polling came out. His advisor said, look, you did terribly. Trump retooled, but didn't work anyway. He's had four years to stew over that.
And now he gets, you know, they say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And while this isn't a first impression, you do get a second chance to have a first debate against Joe Biden for Donald Trump. And that's going to be on Thursday. And he's told other people it's not going to be like last time. It's not 2020, which, of course, means it could be worse. Right. I did hear from sources that he was saying, people tell me that I.
Did better in the second debate. That's how he puts it. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah, I didn't hear that one. People are telling me. Many people are saying... That I did better in the second debate. And, you know, I watched the second debate too afterwards because I really hate my life and I wanted to torture myself. And it wasn't as bad. He was much more restrained. But...
I think what happened by that point was that everyone had already tuned out. So it was, the damage was done. You only, you're right. You only get one debate, although incumbents tend to lose the first debate. Obama lost it to Romney. George Bush lost it to Kerry. Um,
I would go on, but that would make me seem old. So I'm going to stop there, okay? But it also gives you a good, it's a good point to show is that very often these presidents, they would lose the debate, but then they would win the reelection anyway, right? All right. Except for Trump. Yeah, in Trump's case, that wasn't true. Not sure about George H.W. Bush in 1992, what happened there. Were you alive? You were alive for that, right? Yeah, I was. I was 55 years old at the time, right?
I was alive, but I was like six or something. Oh, bless you. But the thing that comes across from what we gather is like in 2016, and especially like in 2020, he doesn't have
a or like in 2020, Donald Trump doesn't have a debate opponent who is masquerading or standing in as Joe Biden. It's a series of these policy discussions and then different people with specialties drop by. Kellyanne dropped by special guest Kellyanne, right? To talk about about abortion. Yeah, right. J.D. Vance to talk about heartland issues in America. First up, Marco Rubio to talk about national security and defense.
Robert Lighthouser to talk about trade. Todd Holman to talk about the border, the former ICE and Customs Border Patrol head or whatever they're called. I'm missing one. Who am I missing? I'm missing somebody. It's okay. We get the point. Basically, he's not doing traditional prep. There's no person playing Joe Biden. We're not allowed to. They're not so prep. Policy refreshers, they're calling them. They're calling them policy refreshers. Just like a light refreshment. You know what I mean?
Whereas... It's like an Aperol Spritz. Yeah, like a little Spritz. They're using that contrast to mock Biden for taking this seriously and being in Camp David. They're calling it the bunker, you know, where his brain is being...
retooled. There's a lobotomy going on and he's also being injected with every last drug out there. It's like, get out. They're actually finding a stand-in for Biden. That's what I was told. So no, I'm kidding. They haven't gone that far yet. Well, you haven't, like you've seen some crazy stuff online. I did some TV show the other day. There was a conservative commentator on there. It was just like, no, I don't want to spread conspiracy theories, but I don't think
Joe Biden will be the nominee for the Democrats in 2024. I'm not surprised. I am surprised that you haven't heard conservatives say that, no, it's not going to be Joe Biden on stage. It's going to be Barack Obama on a Joe Biden mask, like some sort of Scooby-Doo villain, right? Yeah. And like the Hollywood gurus know how to make faces look different and they can do it. No. Yeah.
It's a stagecraft. What is Donald Trump being advised? I was told that Trump's advisors tell him that if he just lets Biden speak, he'll self-immolate. On the other hand, I've also been told that Biden is being told that if he just lets Trump talk, he will also self-immolate. And I think it goes back to this whole idea that each one wants to come out of this making the other person the referendum, right? That this election is a referendum on Biden rather than Trump and
And then Biden wants this to be a referendum on Trump. I don't know if either one will be successful. I mean, generally speaking, we've seen Biden have greater discipline and impulse control than Donald Trump. However, we've also seen Joe Biden have more slurry speech patterns than Donald Trump. Now, who comes out the winner there? I don't know. But, you know, this is kind of like the Statler and Waldorf debate, except these guys aren't going to be having a good time. Right. Like the two old. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
It's true. They both have their weaknesses. Joe Biden is not the strongest communicator. So when he gets out there, he's not good with stats, probably should not be using stats. If they're trying to pack his brain full of stats, that's probably not going to work so well. That's what I noticed from the last debate. Yeah, but one of the things that came across, at least in the first debate, is Trump's team and Trump thought Biden was just a lobotomized dementia patient.
And then he would get on stage. I know they still do. It's like, boy, I mean, maybe one day you guys will be right. But he thought if he went on stage and just pushed Biden around that Biden would shrink. And Biden did a really good job kind of getting under Trump's skin and pausing and properly timing his little jabs at Trump and really pissing Trump off.
So and don't get me wrong, in fairness to Trump here, Chris Wallace certainly helped. I mean, Chris Wallace was more often trying to restrain Trump rather than just kind of let it go and let these guys go and go at it. But by and large, Biden did a better job with that. Now, of course, Trump is also being advised, play to your strengths. One of the weaknesses in their view that the Biden team has is that they're communicating that Biden has a good foreign policy record.
And in the Trump team's view, this is going to be a real weakness for Biden's campaign if that happens. But of course, that's contingent on Trump being able to make the case. And frankly, Trump doesn't always make the case himself either.
Oh, you mean about Afghanistan and the pullout? I mean, their standard line is, you know, Ukraine didn't get in. This is them. This is Trump. Ukraine didn't get invaded when Donald Trump was president. I have Obama and I have him with Biden. Israel didn't get attacked severely by terrorists. That happened under Biden. It's an on down like Iran was crushed. They were almost bankrupt. Oil exports were in the basement, but
That got reversed under Biden. Biden's kept his Cuba foreign policy and on down the line. The Cuba foreign policy, by the way, is a thing that Marco Rubio, which he advised him on, helped craft when Trump was president. Some advisor said to me, look at the Philly rally from Sunday, apparently, or Saturday night. Apparently, he was pretty restrained and they're hopeful that
Trump will be restrained like he was the Philly rally. Did you watch the Philly rally or go to it? I watched a little bit of it. I must admit, I didn't notice that great of a difference. Albeit, you know, he didn't go off on his odd tangents that got picked up about, hey, if you're in a boat with an electric boat,
an electric boat with a battery and it starts to sink, what do you want to do? Are you going to drown, get electrocuted or get eaten by a shark? Right. He didn't say that. And that's, that's ultimately one part of the kind of the doppelganger of these two guys is neither of them is really great at giving a, a cleanly delivered, crisply tailored message consistently. Or even like a good quip. Right. Yeah.
It's not like anything they really come off with is a great clip that can be sent around. And I know this is sort of the memification moment and just little viral clips are going to be everything, but neither one of them are really clippable. They're only clippable when they're messing up. Well, the line from the first debate in 2020 was, will you just shut up, man? That was the clip that made it. If you draw one quote out of that debate, that was it. That's from Biden. Right. Yeah.
I have seen some reporters and people that I've spoken to close to Trump who think that the mic, the shutting off of the mic, the muting of Trump might actually be good for him because it will be a sign that he is crossing the line and he's talking too much. What do you think?
Well, I heard the same thing. Or will they just flail around and make it more like physical and then it's just like charismatic? You can have the mic off, but you can still shout, you know? I mean, the other mic will pick you up. Right, it actually might be better in that regard. You can be distracting to Biden.
Yeah. One of the people who speaks to him frequently, who has spoken to me, said, look, I would never tell Trump this, but this is great. This is basically a guardrail. In that first debate that we were referring to earlier, Donald Trump, I think, interrupted Joe Biden and Chris Wallace, the moderator, 145 times. I think he interrupted Biden overall like 71 or 73 times. And so the idea that a lot of those interruptions, just by the nature of the way in which this debate will be
technologically moderated where he kind of can't interrupt in that regard or be picked up. That's a good thing for Trump, probably, at least in their view. What do you think Biden is being advised or do you have any reporting on what he's being advised?
I have no idea, but having covered the campaign in 2020 and having talked to a little bit of his campaign people, but not like his top advisors, I think this is sort of the same old Biden. What they want to do and what his people have already said is that they're going to try to make sure that voters know Donald Trump is a convicted felon and he's been convicted of sex abuse and he had the largest fraud fine. They're going to try to lean in
Abortion. Abortion. Yeah, they're going to lean in heavily on character, abortion, like things that Joe Biden wins on. Donald Trump wins on immigration, the economy. And so that's what he's going to want to talk about. And crime. Yes, crime is decreasing. But polling shows that more people trust Donald Trump with crime than with Joe Biden.
Right. Okay. There's been a whole expectation game, which has completely been destroyed, essentially, by Donald Trump, who's lowered the bar so low, not for himself, like you're supposed to, but for his opponent, Joe Biden, basically saying he's a brain-dead zombie. So if Joe Biden shows up like he did at the State of the Union, he wins, essentially, right? But now they're trying to raise the bar. And they're like, I think Doug Burgum said, or no, it was Trump who said,
You know, Biden wasn't so bad in that debate against Paul Ryan in 2012. What do you think? Is it too late? Has the bar been lowered so much? I mean, I think the bar has been lowered for the past four years with all the videos of Biden looking away, even honestly his response to the Her report. That lowered the bar, too.
I think indeed. We think in these conventional terms of the, like, this is very mammal brain of us, right? Where's the bar? And kind of thinking in this linear way, like Trump approaches things in more of a lizard brain fashion, which is different for our mammal brains. And so- You understand lizards because you're in Florida. I don't get them as well. Yeah. By the way, we've got these new invasive exotic lizards here in Miami that are from like South America and they've like just taken over my property. It's crazy. But anyway, digress. The thing about-
Wait, wait, wait, really quick. What would you rather be infested by, lizards or rats?
oh, lizards any day of the week. I mean, these are really cool lizards we have here. They're called the amoeba whiptails and they get to like a foot long, like nose to tip. And they're kind of watermelon color, like a bright green and then like a pinkish color. They're cool looking. They're like mini dinosaurs. Oh, totally. Reptiles. Yeah, there's those. There's these red-headed agamas. They're really cool. But anyway, but Donald Trump's... Okay, back to the... Donald Trump doesn't...
Act in a conventional way. So, yeah, you're right. Like the conventional wisdom tells you, like, don't lower the bar on your opponent. And of course, here comes the lobotomized zombie of Joe Biden. Then they're like, OK, they're going to give him a special drug cocktail of Adderall and they're going to make him a great debater. All of a sudden they're they're all over the map. And I'm not sure it's strategy on.
Donald Trump's part as much as just who he is and who his campaign is. Their thing is just to create so much noise and such a racket that all of that stuff just gets sort of blurred out. Now, whether that helps him or not, you know, we'll see.
Interesting. So they want to create too much noise, by the way. Wait, just to bring this back. Trump's team wants him to create that much noise. Well, Trump's team is. That's what they're doing is like, OK, Joe Biden can't talk. He's an idiot. He's a moron. He's a lobotomizer. But not on stage. They don't want him to create that much noise on stage. They had a conference call just yesterday where they were saying, oh, we think Joe Biden is going to be injected with Adderall.
And all and all of these different potions. So instead of of like dumb Dr. Jekyll, it's going to be really smart, great debater, Mr. Hyde. Like they're totally changing things around. There's no consistent messaging out of Trump world on this, except for the fact like either the guy's an idiot or he's been given some special cocktail to make him a genius, which, of course, raises the question, like, why wouldn't he take that cocktail every day? Like, where can I get some? Right. There were always rumors that Trump took Adderall, right? Isn't that the long running rumor?
There was. I mean, the guy's Adderall, from my observation, I haven't spent some time around him, is Diet Coke. He's got a nonstop supply of Diet Coke when you're at Mar-a-Lago where these various waitstaff servants in black and white are constantly walking by and bringing new fresh cans of Diet Coke. The guy loves the stuff. That's why he was falling asleep in the New York trial. He was deprived of his caffeine. And yet he lives forever. And everyone's like, it'll kill you. And he, you know, ugh.
Who knows? Maybe it's Diet Coke has secret vitamins in it. All right. I thought about this today. And I think other people probably have thought about this as well. But if the debate ends up being a shit show again and people watch it and they're like, I hate these people. I hate both of them. I don't care if I hate one of them more than the other or less than the other. I fucking hate both of them. And then they decide, I don't want to go out and vote because it sucks.
And like my show says, somebody's got to win. That's actually a good thing for Trump because depressed voting probably hurts Biden more than him, don't you think? It does. The problem with these two guys is just the race is so close. We've never seen this before. We got two guys that 75% of America doesn't want to see run against each other. And that's the race people are going to get. Two ways to look at it. One, the polling shows that like a majority vote.
or a plurality of Biden voters say that they're going to be voting for Joe Biden because it's a vote against Donald Trump. And this is to your point. And a majority of the Donald Trump voters say that they're voting for Donald Trump and not against Joe Biden. So Donald Trump is the turnout provider. So that does indicate that Joe Biden has more of a base problem than Trump does, and that's what the polling shows. At the same time...
The research indicates that Donald Trump's voters tend to be more lower propensity voters, people less likely to show. So I can't tell you what a lower turnout election looks like. And therefore, the smartest and dumbest thing in politics that's ever said is it's all about turnout. It's who shows up. I mean, I'm probably more with you. But higher turnout tends to help Democrats. It has in the past. Yeah. I mean, it certainly did in 2020.
Trump also like angers people so much on the left. And I think that's why the Democrats thought, let's do an early debate, start the election early, remind people that this is going on. I don't know if it was the smartest move to start the debate this soon. I mean, it ruined my vacation, that's for sure. I too am taking time off. I think to your point, one of the things I've said about Donald Trump is Donald Trump, the metaphor, the comparison I use is like nuclear power.
He produces a great amount of energy and radiation. And the challenge for his team is to keep that cooling tower over the nuclear reactor, to keep it out of meltdown, to harness its power and make sure people don't get irradiated. In 2020, Donald Trump irradiated himself and lost. In 2016, he didn't. He won.
Yeah, barely, but yeah, he won. I guess barely is all you need. And he barely lost in 2020. You're totally right. In this divided country, that's what it is. Okay. This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike's Subs. Jersey Mike's uses only the highest quality meat sliced right in front of you, piled high with the freshest toppings. It is a Jersey Mike thing. My favorite is number 13, the Italian. Love the Italian. I'm half Italian. I like Italian subs.
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What does a win look like for Joe Biden? Based on the debate night? Yeah, debate night, like walking off the stage. What does a win look like for him? You know, that's a great question. He shows up. Absolutely no idea. I think a win would certainly look like a repeat of Donald Trump's performance in 2020. Not sure we're going to get that.
But, yeah, I think the bar has been set low enough with Joe Biden. If he's able if he's able to deliver one liners, if he's able to communicate that his record was superior to Trump's on jobs, on crime. And the toughest trick that Joe Biden has to perform, which would bedevil any politician, is he's he's up against this terrible dynamic for him where he needs to convince people that their feelings are wrong.
Like, yeah, I know you feel the economy is shitty, but hey, you look at all these charts and by almost every measure, almost every measure, things are way better now than they were four years ago. But people aren't feeling that. So that's how a Donald Trump or better said, a Joe Biden win would look like a winner. A Joe Biden performance would look like a win. I think a Donald Trump. So basically, if Trump performs badly, then that's a win. I think so. Well, if Joe Biden makes a persuasive case, like how does that look? I don't know. And I'd wait for the polling.
And I think, you know, on the on the other hand, you have the same thing with with Donald Trump is to what to to what degree can Donald Trump make Joe Biden look weak and feeble? If he can do that, I think that's the sweet spot for Donald Trump, because the persistent thing that is just bedeviling Joe Biden is that doubt in a plurality majority.
Right. It's like a majority or plurality of voters just think that like Joe Biden is not looking so great. To think that he's not strong enough and there enough to have conversations with Putin or Kim Jong Un. That's the goal. Right. And, you know, the Trump campaign. People will probably choose virile and crazy over what they perceive as weak and nice.
That's what we've seen, right? When I was at Politico in 2020, John Harris wound up writing a column about it. I tweeted about it before. During the Democratic primary in 2020, one of the Democrats who didn't like Joe Biden was lamenting at the time, it's going to be the nice old man with Alzheimer's against the mean old man with a dementia. And that was said to me in 2020 or 2019. I think it kind of the same dynamic still applies. Hmm.
Nailed that. OK, let's move on. What are the traps for Trump? I think anything that angers Trump is going to be a trap for him. Right. If Biden can get under his skin, then that's key. And what do you think will get under his skin? You're a loser. You lost the last election. Right. Because then you start communicating that we won the last. Well, they are. They are communicating that it's also going to be in Georgia. He's certainly going to get a question or Trump is going to expect a question of like, did you win Georgia or not?
Right. And the last time we hear that from CNN or do you think Biden? I would imagine you're going to hear it from CNN. I mean, that's kind of a common sense question. Yeah. But did you win the last election? Right. Like who won Georgia? Who won Georgia? Why are you saying? Do you still believe you won Georgia? Why do you believe that? Right. Or what? I think they'll probably ask, like, who do you still believe that you won the last election and why? But then again, that you're giving him a platform to talk about, like,
and boxes that were dumped in rivers and, you know, all of it. You're giving a two-minute conspiracy theory. You're giving, like, a Reddit sub-line, like, two minutes. Right.
The old fashioned newspaper comment sections, which used to have completely unhinged people in them. But I think when I worked at the New York Post, it was like next level, actually, those comments. I think that they had to stop them. Oh, everybody did. Yeah. They went to a registration system. They're like, no, no, we can't we can't do this anymore. But yeah, I think Donald Donald Trump also losing his temper and just sounding crazy. Right.
The thing that killed him in 2020 at that debate is that he normally has a certain amount of wit, sarcasm, a certain measure of charm. Humor. Actually, humor is probably something you should lean into a little bit. He didn't have it in 2020, and here he did. And I think overall, yeah, the guy who looks less, whoever is the least likely, Frankie, old man, who's about to die, would be the likeliest to be declared the winner.
Okay. Crankiest, least likely. Yeah. The least cranky. Yeah. At least the, yeah. Crank the least cranky would be the most likely to be perceived as a winner. Like the person who looks like, okay, look, you have all of your wits. You're able to speak in a complete sentence. My God, the bar is low if we think about it. Right. And you're not about to scream, get off my lawn or something like that. Right. But they probably would actually. All right. Here's another bit. Now,
You know, Trump is attacking the refs, the debate, the moderators, Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, Caroline Leavitt. His spokesperson was on CNN attacking them. Casey Hunt, who has a show, cut her off. And they're saying, oh, that's proof that CNN is biased against them. What do you think the dynamics are going to be like with the moderators? They're already saying it's three against one against Trump. That's Trump's team that's saying that. How do you think Trump will manage the moderators?
I, I'd like to ask how are the, I think the question is how are the moderators going to handle themselves? I think the more, uh, the more like automatons that they are and the, the least that they insert themselves into the process, the better it will be.
I agree. Don't fact check because let Biden fact check him and let Trump fact check Biden. And if they're going to go hard on fact checking Trump, they have to go hard on fact checking Biden for even if he makes fewer false statements. The reality is, is these aren't debates. They're almost never debates. These are TV shows that are moderated interviews that are put on by major television networks. And that's usually what we get.
And debates are most appreciated and the moments that are most appreciated that people talk about are when the candidates interact and debate. And very often you have in these debates rules that almost inhibit the actual debate and exchange of ideas between two people. So I think, yeah, the less like if it were up to me, I'd throw those two guys in a cage and give me knives.
Right. Go at it. Gladiators. Yeah. Two men enter, one man leave. Right. It's like, like Thunderdome. Yeah. Mad Max. Like, go ahead. But yeah, I think the debate moderation just step back and just watch. Oh, man. Brutality.
I love it. Okay. Let's make some predictions. Oh, no. I'm bad at this. We'll end it with this. All right. Who cares? It's going to air tomorrow and then people will think you're an idiot if they listen to it on Thursday night or Friday. I have no clue how it's going to go just to anticipate your question. But go ahead.
I've heard people just say, oh, it's not going to be that dramatic or like it's going to be like the debates before it. It's going to be like the second debate. And, you know, Trump's learned his lesson. It's not it's going to be a nothing burger. People aren't going to walk away loving Biden anymore or loving Trump anymore or, you know, having different feelings about either. It's going to remain the same in which people are either they know who their candidate is or they don't. That undecided group.
they're probably not going to tune in until later. That's what I have heard. I'm not sure I'm completely... I think unless something very dramatic happens, unless Trump acts, goes nuclear like he did the first time, but it sounds like everyone's told him not to. Hey, his freedom's on the line this time. It's a little different. Yeah, but his freedom's on the line this time. That's a good point. Yeah, it's either the White House or the big house, Donald, right? You know, who knows? I think the thing with the debate
That you're getting at is what we've seen in this election, you know, for almost two years now, a year and a half, which is we keep thinking these big things are going to change dynamics and have big results and they don't.
Donald Trump getting criminally charged. Okay. Then he gets criminally charged like three more times and he gets found liable for sex abuse and a giant fraud fine. And then he gets convicted in the stormy Daniels case. And it doesn't move anything. The needle. I barely remember that he was convicted.
Thanks for reminding me. And that's the thing is, well, Joe Biden is going to remind you of that tomorrow. Probably he's going to try. But yeah, there's just this marginal movement. So we keep thinking that things are going to make a difference. So, yeah, I think it's a fair point to make is like, well, considering all these other big things didn't have an ostensible difference that was made. Why would this? Right. And maybe that's also why they chose such an early debate.
In case it's a shit show, it'll pass. I think the Biden people have at least I have been told and I believe they've said publicly. So this is not any great insight that they wanted to debate early because they believe people aren't checked in. And that once people check in, people are going to realize like, oh, my God, Donald Trump is so terrible. I'm going to vote for Joe Biden. But that was the thinking on the Biden campaign. And also, how do you how does the DNC compete with the Olympics?
Right. And the sentencing and the RNC and like who really wants to pay attention to this right now? No one. Which is one of the reasons that Donald Trump might, if he can, might try to unveil his VP pick at the convention. Right. Have a rose ceremony. Why not? I think you should wait till the sentencing.
He might need a little distraction or after the debate in case things don't go well. He could use that as a distraction. It's a Trump card. I say hold that card. Yeah. That's my advice.
All right, Mark, it's a pleasure as always. Any last thoughts before I jump? No, I, uh, I, you know, you should have me on more often Tara. I've, uh, you know, I've, I've been, I think it should be the Italian show Caputo and Palmieri, actually Palmieri and Caputo. You get the second slating. That's fine by me. That's fine. But we can do with some Chianti or some sort of, uh, some sort of Ginzo wine, you know, who knows?
What would my grandmother always invite me for after dinner? Oh, my God. What is it called? I'm blanking on it. What was it? Anisette? The liqueur? Yeah. Something really thick, like a liqueur, Italian liqueur after dinner. And I'm like, no, thanks, Grandma. Love you. But yeah. Pass. I'm glad I remind you of your grandmother.
You do, you know, good luck with the lizard dinosaurs, monster reptile crocodiles that are swarming over your house right now and try to stay cool. Okay, great. I appreciate it. I'm gonna send you some videos of the, of the, the wild lizards like crawling around my property to see, you can see I'm not crazy.
I'll believe it when I see it. Okay, bye. See you, Tara. That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Brian Waters and Connor Nevins. If you like this show, please share it, rate it, subscribe. 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 Tara Palmieri.
20. I'm off for the week. So see you July 9th.
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