Joe Biden quits the race… what now?
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Hello and welcome to American Friction, back here with yet another emergency podcast. One normal Sunday is all we are asking for at some point in the near future, please. I'm Jacob Jarvis and I'm joined here as ever by Nikki and Chris.

Joe Biden, he's not going to run for president. After weeks of speculation, he's realized it's probably not for the best. And a lot of people have been saying it's not for the best. So I wonder why he's just realized that now. But we'll get into that. We can talk about it, discuss it all at length and give you all the analysis you need in this time. Nikki, I texted you about this when the news came in and your reply to me was screaming, crying, vomiting. So...

How are you feeling, mate? Mixed emotions. Yeah, I think. Wow. I think we all kind of knew that it was hopefully maybe going to happen. And then once it happens, it's like, oh, my God. Holy shit. Like there hasn't been an open convention in democratic politics since the 60s in a way. Yeah, it's incredibly anxiety inducing. It's also really exciting to like,

live in this kind of moment. I feel like the last like month of American politics has been insane and I'm just kind of in a constant state of delirium at this point. But it was just like, like, wow.

Yeah, it's this weird moment, isn't it? I was so shocked to see it because I just honestly thought it got to a point where Joe Biden was just so stubborn this wasn't going to happen. And we've spoken about that for this to happen, the only way for it to happen is for Joe Biden to say, all right, I'm going to do it. But I just honestly didn't expect that he would. But the fact he has then feels like something that is inevitable has just been delayed for such a prolonged period.

I'm out of time. It's very strange. Chris, how are you feeling? Yeah, probably the same as you guys, really. You know what? Fuck it. Let's go in with the polling. LAUGHTER

So, I mean, if you look at the polls, it really isn't a shock that this has happened. I was looking at FiveThirtyEight, which I've been basically monitoring every day. So their presidential election polling around June 26th had Trump at 41% and Biden 40.9%. Kind of neck and neck could have gone either way if things had gone differently.

well, I guess for the debate at the end of June for Biden, but they didn't. It was terrible. And then flash forward to today, you've got Biden before he pulled out on 40.2% and Trump 43.5%. So that gap was just getting wider and wider and Biden wasn't getting younger and younger. That's a simple fact of it all. So I'm not really that shocked to be honest. And I think you'd be a liar if

to say that you didn't see this coming in some shape or form. Yeah, I mean, I obviously felt like it was coming, but it still just feels like it's tipped over. It's been going for so long since that debate. It was so... That felt like a moment, this can't continue. And then shortly after that, Joe Biden gave that quite good rally speech and everyone went, see, it's just bad in debates. It was a bad day, whatever. And then...

Everything else, the shooting and all of that just feels like it's built up and built up and built up. But it still seems like there's been so many clear-cut moments where you could say this is the moment. So, Nicky, for you, what do you think has tipped this? Literally last night, Joe Biden was tweeting...

that it's the most important election of our lifetimes and I'm going to win it. And now, you know, he ain't even running. He's not even doing that. So how, why do you think this is just tipped now? I mean, look, if whoever ends up on the Democratic ticket, which at this point it's looking like it's probably going to be Kamala Harris, wins, all the credit will go to Joe Biden for stepping aside. So maybe...

Maybe that prediction of his from yesterday will hold true. But what I think tipped it, I think there's a couple of factors at play here. I think the first one was at the end of last week, the dam really broke among lawmakers.

calling for Biden to step aside. Yeah, it was about 36 today, right? Yeah. And not just like rank and file like Democratic House members, but like senators, Democratic leadership seem to be turning on the heat, putting on the pressure. And then the big one was on Friday, Kamala Harris held an emergency meeting with prominent Democratic donors to discuss like urgent evolving issues within the campaign. I think donors...

pulling their funding from the presidential race and redirecting that to Senate, House, down-ballot races, that was a huge trigger point. We've talked about this before, and I think I made the prediction at some point that he wasn't going to step down unless there was donor pressure. I do want to push back on this idea that it was the donors and the elite who ultimately pushed Biden out of the race. Once again, this has been an issue for voters for a really long time.

The polls before the debate and increasingly after the debate showed that voters were nervous about his age, concerned about his ability to do the job, weren't convinced by the subsequent interviews, press conferences, rally appearances in the aftermath of the debate to try and convince people that he was OK. This wasn't some invention of the media or the elite donor class. This was an ultimate threat.

crystallization of a longstanding concern within all factions of the Democratic Party. And I think at a certain point, it just becomes inevitable. You don't have the support of the public. You don't have the support of the party. You don't have the support of the rich people who make politics run in this country. Sorry, buddy. Time to go. Yeah, I would agree that it shouldn't be just framed as completely an elite pile on.

But do you think there's maybe something that we do have to learn from here? A discussion point of like, no one's been able to be particularly honest around this point for a prolonged amount of time in the early on when people raise the issue of Biden's age. And I remember myself mentioning Biden's age and it was framed as being ageist and you couldn't mention it. Look at his record. Look at what he's doing. You shouldn't mention his age. It shouldn't be a thing.

And then it became such a massive problem. And then it kept being talked about. And then the media did just pile in so hard on it when it didn't engage in it in any sort of constructive way in the beginning. You know, I'm not in America, but it feels like the discussion around it at no point has been very functional. It's just all been quite blunt, hasn't it? Yeah. I don't know if I entirely agree with the idea that like the conversation in the media wasn't exploratory enough.

Because even within the debate of like, should he drop out? Should he not? That was a very rigorous...

Like, I don't know if you've been on Twitter lately. Twitter is not necessarily representative of like the population at large, but it was getting fucking ugly down there. But there were a lot of discussions about logistically, how would we even do this? Is there the runway? How would the convention take place? Does he, you know, endorse Kamala Harris, which he's already done? Or does he allow it to kind of be just a free for all between like different candidates? How would we even go about that?

I think there were just like so many layers to this conversation underneath the like, will he, won't he? And there was a lot of backroom conversations as well among lawmakers because, you know, no one wants to be the person holding the knife. No one wants to be the person who like.

tells Biden to get the hell out and then he decides to stay and you're sitting there like, oh, sorry. I know what you're saying and it has all been talked about now, but maybe it just felt like it got talked about a little bit too late after there being a bit of a veil of not wanting to discuss it. And that's how it seemed to pile in. But yeah, I like the idea of, you know, I wonder who the Brutus was. That would be interesting when it comes out, who did actually...

Did Obama directly have a conversation with him here? Did Harris really push him? Pelosi's also in the mix there. It'd be interesting to know who tipped him over.

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How do we feel about that? Chris, is she a particularly popular figure at large? Yeah, but also from my experience of working briefly in the US and speaking to people in US politics, I think there is still a mystery around who she really is and what she properly stands for outside of abortion, which is her main ticket.

I think there's a mystery around her that people don't quite know who she is. But then within the Democratic Party itself, there's been polling from APNORC, Center for Public Affairs Research, that found that six in 10 Democrats believe that Kamala Harris would do a good job, but two in 10 don't believe she would.

And another two in 10 say they don't know enough to say, whereas everyone with Biden had an opinion and knew whether he would be good or not good. So there's a bit of mystery with Harris. And I think she kind of needs to shrug off this, you know, almost Biden 2.0.

if she is going to be the nominee and if she wants to be successful against Trump. It'll be interesting to see what issues she ends up being tied to. There was that point where she kind of got given charge of the border by Biden, which felt like a bit of a cursed task to give your vice president and whether that becomes something that plays into it. There was also that, was it Puerto Rico that she went to where she...

it was like a state visit and she came outside and the local residents were singing a protest song against her and she was clapping along to it because she couldn't understand it. I think that kind of image probably wasn't good for her. So yeah, I think she is popular, but I think she could be more popular and I think she's got a job to do to convince people that she's the right person.

I hope Joe Biden, if she does win, calls her up and does the we did it, Joe voice. We did it, Kamala. We did it, Kams. What do you reckon, Nikki? How do you feel around Kamala? So I think there's an interesting dynamic here because Kamala Harris did run for president in 2020. She ran for the Democratic nomination. So-

I think we already know what a lot of the criticisms of her are going to be from Republicans. They're the lines of attacks they've had against her for some time now. So I think in terms of like who who's going to end up with this nomination, there's already a lot we know about her weaknesses and her strengths, whereas other candidates that may not be as clear going into it.

She has really strong resonance with Black women who are the backbone of the Democratic Party. She has a background as a prosecutor and state attorney before she was in the Senate.

And when she ran in 2020 in the context of the George Floyd protest, the Black Lives Matter protest, all the criticism of like policing and the criminal justice system in this country, that kind of worked against her. But now when Republicans are running on like a law and disorder sort of platform of like, you know, crime is running rampant and out of control, which is not true. We know crime has been going down in most major cities in the United States at this point.

But she, through her history as a prosecutor, is very well positioned to make that argument, to combat those attacks. She has been incredibly strong on abortion and reproductive rights issues and has been acting sort of as the Biden campaign's mouthpiece on that topic for months now,

And she's also a really strong debater. She's incredibly sharp. We've seen her on the debate stage, like when she was running in California, when she was running for president. So we know what she can do when faced with a political opponent. We know that she can dress people down publicly. And I think that's

That's going to work very well in her favor. I think her VP pick, should she win the nomination, is going to be critical. We're probably looking at a white Midwestern man. White man of some swing state is what I think it's going to end up being. There's a lot of the people who have been thrown around as contenders for the nomination are also really strong contenders for a vice presidential pick. So...

I think one of the big arguments Kamala Harris has going into this is she has served as the vice president. The people around Biden in his campaign in the Democratic Party establishment know her, know what her strengths and weaknesses are, and they can pretty much hit the ground running if she's the candidate.

Yeah, it feels a lot more streamlined in that sort of way. How do you see her going up against, you know, her and Trump going up against each other? I mean, it's going to be...

We'll speak more about how Trump's going to react to this shortly, but it's going to be pretty, pretty ugly, I imagine, isn't it? But do you think, as you say, her kind of methodical ability, I mean, it can't be worse than the Biden debate, can it? The thing about the Biden debate is his abysmal, awful, awful, awful performance overshadowed the fact that Trump

is not a good debater. Not a good debater. His real only strength is like interrupting and yelling at people and being like such a obtrusive presence that it becomes hard for the other person to like even get a word in.

Harris is a she's a former prosecutor. One thing she can do is debate really well and prosecute a criminal. And Trump at this point is a convicted felon. And I think putting her on a stage against him and just letting her like go after him like point by fucking point, I would be excited to see it. And I don't know if that's just a result of like.

Like the misery that the last couple of years have been politically that Kamala Harris versus Trump gets my gears going. But that's why I say I'm excited. I'm just like I like everyone has wanted a shake up, a change that isn't just this like fucking slog we've been in. And I'm like, yeah, fuck it. If if if it's a shit show. Cool. It'll at least be more interesting than what I'm doing right now.

Yeah, I mean, at least it feels like it's a shit show which might be somewhat hopeful. Yeah. Instead of what this felt like to me was that, well, we're just going to run until November that just... It's Jover. It was just on a downward trajectory. This, I mean, I'm not convinced that this is...

the best move. But if it's, you know, if you're thinking about damage mitigation, you think, well, it's, you know, it's kind of win it takes all, isn't it? Either lose or let's try and win my workout. Oh, we just got a statement from Harris. Okay. What's she saying? All right. So I'm just going to quote loosely here. We just got a statement from Vice President Kamala Harris saying,

On behalf of the American people, I thank Joe Biden for his extraordinary leadership as president of the United States. A lot of thanking, a lot of praising his legacy. We did it, Joe. With the selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of public service, putting the American people and our country above everything else. I am honored to have the president's endorsement, and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.

OK. Over the past year, I've traveled across the country talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election. And this is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead. And then she talks about uniting the Democratic Party, defeating Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. Quote, We have 107 days until Election Day. Together we will fight and together we will win.

End quote. Okay. Well, you know, so she's all in for it. I hope that doesn't mean that the messaging is just going to be, hey, look how bad they are on Project 2025, like it had become with...

Joe Biden because he was unable to really say anything positive about himself and just had to say, look how bad they are. So yeah, let's hope that's an initial statement and there's more to come there. Chris, who else then straight away is kind of in the mix and realistically, you know, if not necessarily to beat Kamala, but to be running with her, if not being the main ticket? Yeah.

So there's a few. I'll start with California Governor Gavin Newsom. But we can probably rule him out now because he said in the past that he wouldn't run against Harris. So if it's Harris's intention to go for the presidency, then Newsom, I think, would, you know, maybe he's a VP pick. Yeah.

that would be as much, I think there. Also there's Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. I think also she has said outwardly that she has aspirations to run in 2028. I think it is. So I think maybe this isn't her round this time around, but she's popular. So maybe there's also Josh Shapiro, who's Pennsylvania governor, who I was actually looking at some polling and it looks,

Looks as though if it was him and Kamala Harris on the ticket as Shapiro's VP, then they would have a chance of beating Trump. It's from polling from public policy polling shows. Oh, it's in Pennsylvania that 47 percent of voters said they would vote for her if she were running alongside Trump.

while only 46% back to Trump and Vance. And that's obviously a big deal because that's often a battle state. There's also Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who, as I was mentioning earlier, I'm not a fan of in the slightest.

he ran in 2020, wasn't very effective, but I remember in 2023 when he was extremely, extremely slow to react to the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment that impacted so many people and probably still does, to be quite honest. It took him three weeks to get out to that site to basically do his job. And that wasn't that long ago. And since then, he's, you know, he's lost a bit of popularity over that in certain parts, but

I don't see him as a presidential nominee, to be quite honest. But they're the main ones. Well, I'll throw in two things here. I also think Buttigieg, he is gay. And I think as much as it fucking sucks to have to talk like this,

Running a black woman as president and a gay man as vice president would probably get scrapped right off the bat because people in this country continue to be racist and homophobic. And it's incredibly unfortunate. But those are the political calculations that people make in the back rooms.

Yeah, so I saw a quote from Latosha Brown, who is the founder of Black Voters Matter. And she said that, you know, Harris is already on the back foot being a woman of color. She's also has South Asian heritage, I think, as well, and also a woman. So she's already on the back foot with this. It's an uphill battle as it is. So her VP pick has to be someone who's really strong, but also will cast the widest net.

Oh, I will also throw in another name that's been floated around a lot is Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. He is a former astronaut, military record, a little bit more, I think, to the center on a lot of issues. Arizona is a battleground state. So I think he's also a big contender for at least the VP slot. Well, to infinity and beyond. That's right. A star man. There's a way to go of it. Yeah.

Mark Kelly is cool. I like Mark Kelly. Oh, he's an astronaut. You can't say an astronaut's not cool. Yeah, no, he's like pretty much the American dream. Yeah, completely. Might as well run like John fucking Glenn. Yeah, unless it's like an eagle running for VP. Yeah, a screeching eagle.

So, Nikki, practically then, what does happen next? To me, it feels like the thing that would be most simple, if this needs to happen, the decision around Biden has been so slow. Uniting behind someone else has to be quick, doesn't it? And it feels to me like it basically needs to be like a fucking coronation. This is what I'm excited about. Pick a person and they will go for it. So how does this play out? Or does it go down to the DNC and then we've got to wait for voting at the DNC and kind of...

That just sounds really stupid if it's going to take that long. All right. So there's like two general paths here. One, straightforward. The party coalesces around Kamala Harris.

They will either hold a virtual vote to like officially nominate her ahead of the convention. And then the convention will be like coronation event. They'll probably focus around like the VP pick if because the Democrats also have to confirm the VP via vote. We just saw that happen at the RNC with J.D. Vance. Second option.

They either hold a virtual vote or they hold a vote at the convention. The party coalesces around Harris pretty much. How do I even explain this? It's so weird. So have we talked about like delegates and pledge delegates, like pledge delegates and superdelegates before? A little bit. Okay. You know, get nerdy with us, man. Okay. So the way the vote takes place is...

A candidate needs 100, 1,976 delegate votes to secure the nomination. Biden had like over 3,000. There's a total of like 3,894 quote unquote pledge delegates, which are when a presidential candidate wins a primary, they get like delegates from that state. Those delegates then go to the convention and vote.

Now that Biden is out of the running, those pledge delegates are basically free agents. They can kind of vote for whoever they want. Biden signaling that he wants Kamala Harris to be his successor on the ticket. That is also a signal to those delegates like this is who I want you to vote for. Yeah. But theoretically, they could vote for whoever they want.

There are also 739 superdelegates who are party officials, like Democratic National Committee bigwigs, high-level elected officials, like governors, that kind of thing, major Democratic Party donors. They are not allowed to vote in the first ballot. First ballot is only the pledged delegates from the states. So theoretically...

If things go well, party unifies around Harris. There's one vote. She is certified as the nominee, whether that happens before the convention or at the convention.

And that's that. She's the nominee. She picks a vice president. We they move forward. The campaign goes. Yeah. Chaos version. Chaos version. The party does not unify. There are challengers. Multiple people say, I want to be president. And then you get a scrappy fight for the delegates.

The worst case scenario, in my view, is either in the virtual vote or at the convention. You get a Kevin McCarthy Speaker of the House situation where you're just having rounds and rounds and rounds of voting and no one is getting a majority. And it just looks chaotic and people are in disarray. But in that vein...

Because there are no primaries right now, that would be the closest the American public would get to like a mini primary process. So maybe chaos is fun. Maybe chaos is good. I do think that like open convention with multiple candidates and people like really fighting it out is the less likely scenario.

I'd like a t-shirt man that says maybe chaos is fun maybe chaos is good I don't know the person who believes in as much democracy as possible in me and the kind of lefty in me is like yeah let it be really messy and let it be right and everyone had their pick but unfortunately the grizzled pragmatic centrist inside me there's two foxes inside me inside you there are two wolves inside me

Yeah, and one of them is a lefty and one of them is a centrist dad. And the centrist dad side of me is thinking, just fucking get this sorted out because it's been dragging out for way too long and I can't bear seeing this drag out for any longer. And I don't know if I think Kamala Harris is the best option. I actually know I don't necessarily think she's the best option. I think that the long run up, I think a whole new ticket could totally make sense. But...

That's not gonna... That just doesn't look feasible. It just doesn't look feasible. It doesn't look like...

Like, I think the main goal of the Democratic Party, like the DNC party establishment right now is projecting unity and getting this done ASAP. Like AOC, for example, I don't know if you saw her, like she was like giving loads of ants on this. And I thought that was really interesting how like, you know, she basically didn't say that, you know, I really want to be Kamala Harris. And she also didn't say, you know, she didn't necessarily, she wanted Biden to stick around, but she was just like, look, like,

I'm obviously way more left than these people, but why the left sometimes get annoyed at me is because we just have to do what makes fucking sense. And we need to go down a path that makes sense. And I, I sincerely hope that's the way it goes on in terms of people who don't make sense. Then Donald Trump, uh,

He's reacted to this. And obviously, he's been a fucking dickhead, as you would expect straight away. He said of Biden, he's the worst president in the history of our country. He goes down as the single worst president by far in the history of our country.

I would argue that's probably just wrong. Yeah. Really? Yeah, not quite right. And then, yeah, he's come out with even more now saying crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for president, certainly not fit to serve, never was, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Is there the concern that this just, again, on the chaos side, if this isn't wrapped up quick, this is just an absolute gift to Donald Trump. I even, I'm worried about even, you know, say if they chose an online vote, you know, Donald Trump's going to turn that into a conspiracy theory. Whoever wins, he's going to be like, oh, the DNC establishment picked someone and this was all online. And that's why they, they rigged it for that to happen. And I'm going up against a rigged candidate who not even the Democrats want, the deep state media elite want them. Yeah.

This could really... It can go one way or the other, can't it? And we don't know why it can go loads of different ways. But on the split, it can either be start a pushback against Trump and maybe there's time, or this could just be a gift that plays into his hands totally, isn't it? Yeah, 100%. And...

I think the biggest thing for the Trump campaign right now is that so much of their 2024 electoral strategy was built around attacking Biden, attacking Biden as being old, attacking his policies as being ineffective, attacking him of being like incapable to lead and to meet the moment. Now that he's out of the picture, like,

They have to do a massive recalibration of their campaign messaging. They're targeting like everything from advertisements to like campaign materials has to be like redone and refocused. So what Democrats want to avoid is giving Republicans an in to be like, look at this fucking chaos. They can't even get their shit together to pick a nominee. Like...

Why would you vote for that? It was again, I think the Kevin McCarthy speaker of the House situation is pretty instructive because it was very embarrassing for Republicans to have to sit through like more than a dozen rounds of votes to pick a House speaker. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris, do you feel like this is all just kind of a little bit too late, potentially? You know, I mean, this has taken so long. It makes the Democrats look ponderous either way. It's now they've made the decision and that's bold in a way and that makes sense. But it's also because the decision was forced upon them.

Is there a worry that the Trump steam has been picking up quite significantly lately and the Democrats have been on a slide and now they've kind of paused and that's going to be hard?

Well, just before that, I think it's just it's incredibly ironic that Trump keeps calling Biden the worst president of all time, because if you look at the results from the presidential greatness survey, Trump is actually the worst U.S. president of all time. And Biden was I think he was 13th or 14th. Anyway, that's a sidebar. But I think I think it really depends. I don't necessarily think it is too late. I think if the right ticket is put forward. Yeah.

That's key. I think one thing they have to show is that this is not still Biden's ideas. I think they have to move away from Biden because then people just aren't going to change their minds. They're not going to disassociate a new administration from Biden, I guess. So I really do think it depends on the ticket. I think Nikki is right. It has to be

I guess some kind of white male uh terrible to say but you know that's essentially what Trump did with J.D. Vance um Kamala Harris as I say is on the back foot um already um so she needs to make her her hand as strong as possible if she's going to be the nominee so I don't think it is necessarily too late but there's a lot of work to be done that's for sure yeah yeah it's uh

It's so depressing to have to speak in those terms. But I think also I do hope much as there hasn't been honest conversations around Biden and the age thing, and that took too long. We have to be able to have those conversations around Carmen Harris and say, you know, as much as we would like this to not be a consideration, the American public clearly do see it as one. And she's going up against a ticket of two.

macho white men and the one orange yeah one one orange i suppose there nikki just on a final note you know this this recording we've had we've been up and down with our energy we're all obviously a little bit shocked by it there's some level of you know on a journalistic level excitement also as someone who's probably democrat leaning there's some level of excitement that this does feel like

I'll say it could all go wrong, but it could provide some hope as opposed to what I felt like. Unprecedented times. Yeah, it was just Biden on a slide. Do you think that the Democrats and the Democratic machinery then as well are kind of going to grapple with just how grave this is? Because...

We've complained about the delay in it, and I think this has taken so long. But is that delay because of that point of how grave it is? And Barack Obama's put out a statement now saying that he has faith that an outstanding candidate will emerge from this. Yeah, really interesting that he didn't endorse Kamala. Yeah, I did think, you know, he would be someone who would go down the pragmatic unity route. And obviously his voice, to me, it feels like his voice kind of tipped this. And you'd think he'd be on the front foot leading there.

You know, we speak about this all in the horse race if we look at the numbers of it. But a presidency, another Trump presidency would be a bad thing. Let's say that. And, you know, I try and not be toe biased on this podcast all the time. But frankly, I'd say that's pretty objectively the case. And having picked someone like J.D. Vance, you know, does it seem to you like the machinery there are going to grapple with that and that people are quite ready for just how serious this is going to be?

Yeah, I don't think the delay was entirely because of stubbornness. I think that is a very significant portion of it. But an incumbent president dropping out of the presidential ticket, choosing not to seek reelection this late in the game, that's huge. It's unprecedented. Like we were talking about Johnson earlier. Like it's incredibly rare and it's an upheaval, right?

of the process of, you know, the status quo, it throws things into chaos. And like we said, chaos might be fun. Chaos might be good. But I do think the Democratic Party, for at least like Biden's presidency and a little bit before through the Trump era, was really, in my opinion, incorrectly focused on like

restraining up and coming talent, particularly from the progressive wing of the party. And in this moment, I think one of the best things about this is that Democrats are being forced to look at their bench and say, OK, what are what are our options?

If the options are too narrow right now, that is a signal that you need to be growing your party, to be growing your base, to be prepping younger, agile candidates for national office. Because if you look...

It's sort of the leadership of the Democratic Party right now versus the leadership of the Republican Party. It's an incredibly stark difference. Republicans are seemingly by the day producing young, insane dudes who are like, I'm trying to run for the Senate or I want to do this. I'm going to do that. And.

They very quickly get elevated to the national stage, become prominent within the party. And that hasn't been happening as much on the Democratic side. And I think a lot of it was because when Biden won in 2020, Democrats did not want to

a major electoral challenge in 2024. They did not want to fight it out in the primaries. I think there was very much this attitude within like the DNC Democratic Party that like the rest of y'all need to wait your turn. And it went against everything we were seeing in the polling. It went against what voters were seeing. It went against like the objective reality that like Biden was very old, wasn't getting any younger. And that

Trump still remained really strong with his base and Democrats needed younger, more agile messaging to counter that. So I think the party kind of being forced into a corner or having to make this move and having to figure out, OK, what what's

what's missing in the math so that we can win and how do we get there? I think in the long run, that's going to be a good thing. Like, yeah, I don't think that this is the way we should be running like every election cycle. Like, please, please, God, do not have the candidate drop out like four months before the election in 2028. But if this is like the hard reset button that needs to be hit,

for there to be like a significant shift in strategy within the Democratic Party, I'm all fucking for it. Let's fucking go, baby. Pedal to the metal. - Nikki, why have you become so American right now? This has made you so, it's like Nikki's in the Fast and Furious right now. - I am running off like four cups of coffee, anxiety, and two weeks of like straight work.

Yeah, well, fucking pedal to the metal. Let's run. Well, actually, you know, for me and Chris, it's Sunday evening. So I think we're unpedaling the metal, if anything. Anyway, guys, we're going to be here in lots of uncharted territory together, finding our way through. Nicky.

Cheers, mate. Eat some food as well as having the coffees. I do need food. Don't drive anytime soon. I'm not sure. I'm not sure about that. I live in D.C. I don't have a car. What are you? The fact that I have a driver's license is honestly like a failure of the American system because I almost had a panic attack during my driver's exam. Yeah.

Oh man, four times for me. Failed. I failed the first one. I fully failed the first one.

It sucks. Worst thing ever. Chris, I hope you're all good. And thank you very much, mate, as ever. You're very welcome. And I guess thank you as well, Jov. Thanks for making me do this on a Sunday after I've just had a big delicious roast. Now I feel sick. At least you'd had your tea. I hadn't had my tea. So on that note, listeners, as I forwent my dinner in order to do this,

If you enjoy what we're doing, please do remember to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Our handle is at American Frick. And also, if you like what we're doing, we'd really appreciate you leaving a review on whatever podcast app you use. Yeah, that was an emergency American Friction. Fingers crossed there won't be too many more emergencies in the near future, but if there are, we'll be here every step of the way. And if not, we'll be back on Friday with another episode. Thank you for listening to American Friction. ♪

American Friction was written and presented by Chris Jones, Jacob Jarvis and Nicky McCann-Ramirez. Audio production was by me, Simon Williams. The group editor was Andrew Harrison and the executive producer was Martin Boitosch. Artwork was by James Parrott and music was by Orange Factory Music. American Friction is a Podmasters production.

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