Stay Tuned with Preet: Elections, Now & Then (with Joanne Freeman)
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Hi everyone from new york magazine in the box media pocket network. This is on with care a swisher and i'm Carry swish er today we have a special episode from our friends over at stay tuned, hosted by pret bara, former U. S.

Attorney for the southern district, new york. Stay tune covers the news with lens of law, politics and power. In this episode, you're about to hear preet interviews the leading U.

S. Political historian, joane freeman. Their conversation covers what may turn out to be the crazy of thirty three days in modern american history. From the assassination attempt on former president down trump, the president joby his decision to withdraw from the present rates and the momentum behind democratic nominee and vice president kala Harris. We hope you enjoy this stop for discussion and go take a listen to more from stay tuned. You can follow the show by clicking on the link at our show note or by searching for stay tuned with bread wherever you listen.

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From cafe and the vox media podcast network. Welcome to stay tuned. I'm free bora.

We live in a time when violence has been in the forefront of our and political rta c. That factor has shaped what has become Normalized, generally speaking, and in politics .

specifically.

That's joan freeman. She's a professor of american history at yale university and former cohoes of the cafe history podcast now and then. Joan is a leading expert on the political history of the united states and a trusted voice in moments of political turmoil.

SHE joins me today to discuss the assassin attempt and former president Donald trump, president biden's decision not to seek election, vice president kala Harris presidential campaign and what else we can expect from now until november. And please stick around to the end of the episode to hear a special conversation with a very talented zeh on b who's new album I got to executive produce that's coming up. Stay tuned.

Now let's get .

to your questions.

This question comes in a tweet from synthia who asks in order to make Scott reforms to dams need to win White house and chAmbers of congress was at the thanks for your question. We talked a great length about the proposed gotto s reforms put forward by president joby this week on the cafe insider podcast. And joys fans and I discuss the ins announce of how and this would come about, and we expected to the three reforms.

I think it's clear that you would need a constitutional amendment, and we expect to one of the proposed reforms, probably you would need a constitutional amendment, remind people the three reforms proposed by president badar, no immunity for crimes of former president committed in office to essentially overturn the supreme court's decision from several weeks ago, two eighteen year term limits for supreme court justices. So you would have a new justice every two years, like clock ork and three and binding code of conduct for the supreme court. So to the extent that two or all three of these require a constitutional amendment, as a little civic reminder, the constitution has only been amended a handful of times since the founding of the country.

And to amend the constitution, you need two thirds of the house, two thirds of the senate, and then after that constitutional moment presented to the states, and you need three quarters of the states to ratify what congress is done. So at current levels of basically equal and divided government, to have slightly in favor of the republicans, the senate, slightly in favor the democrats, unless i'm new and unexpected spirit by partisanship about the court would, to sleep the nation, and in particular the congress, I don't see any of this happening anytime soon. As a matter of fact, we expect to the supreme court, the conservatives, you might imagine, like the status quote, is the supreme court functioning under these rules and under this confirmation process and under life tenure, during which robi way was overturned from the action was overturned and a whole of other things that had been overturned.

So even of these reforms are not sort of, on their face, partisan in any way. I don't see why conservatives will have any interest or incentive to accept the state is, quote, I think these reforms is interesting. I think they're warranted on the merits. But given how later is in the presidential term, given how deeply difficult IT is to amend the constitution, these amount to sort of talking points more than, I think, actionable items for the congress or for the states.

This question comes in an email from evan, who writes, do you think the eleven circuit will reverse judge cann's dismissal of trumps classified documents case in florida? Is IT possible that they reverse their decision and also resign the case to a new judge? Will these are great questions that lots of people speculating about? Just to remind one, there is this criminal case in the southern section of florida overseen by judge alien cannon, who was appointed some years ago by president trump himself.

The Jackson made, the special prosecutor has brought. There have been a series of motions to dismiss the environment. And in that case, and in other cases, were down crop is facing criminal accusation.

And low and behold, just a few weeks ago, I think the monday after the association attempt on present trump, I lean canada judge pick one of those issues as a basis on which to dismiss the indictment in its entirety against donal truck. And the basis of the dismissal was that, in her view, the appointment of j. Smith, who is need the president's appointed, the center confirmed, violated the appointments class of the constitution and also violated the appropriations clause of the constitution.

And as joys and I have set on Cathy insider a number of times, SHE sort of the loan jurors in the country who went considering this question has ruled in this manner to preliminary questions naturally arrived before even address what I think will happen on the merits in the eleven circuit. That one is, how quickly can this happen? And the answer the question is not very quickly.

Some people have wondered why jacks mh is not thought to exploit the appeal on this, you know, very significant setback, dismissed in the diamonds entirety. And I think the clock is what to play here. And in particularly the election clock, my opposition is that jacket mas is decided whether expertise or not.

This issue on appeal is not gonna resolved until well after the election, possibly not to leave after the next president is for n in whether it's communal, Harris or dial club. And so for that reason, why bother expendable IT at all other question that arises, as well as possible as illegal technical matter to cure the efficiency by just having this case filed by a sitting president's appointed senate confirmed you was atterley like the U. S.

atterley. In the issue of, because remember, part of the flam that the judge found, as i've said as a check, Smith was not presently pointed in that I confirmed. So just have someone with those potentials and that track record to lead the case.

There are many reasons why potentially in others SE, you might not want to do that. But one is, again, the clock to have a new U. S. Attorney file the charges put you back to day one. And I think there's a decent argument that even though the appeal will take a long time refiling the case and having to deal again with lots of similar chAllenges would be even slower than going through the appeals process.

So going back to the eleven circuit, I think of the eleven circuit being cleared and looks closely at the constitution and looks closely at the law here, IT will rule in the same way that other circuits and other districts ts have ruled, and reverse the dismissal of the indication. Of course, all of that is subject to the potential unfortunate eventuality of doing trumping reelected, in which case this matter and the dc matter in all likelihood, go away. This question comes in an email from ben hay, pre longer listener.

Quick legal question, now that you're a big time music producer, do your song recommendations on twitter have any sort of legal or civil guarantee of quality? You are an expert after all. Congratulations on another new success ban. What that's that's a wonderful question ban.

I don't know from a big time you to producer, but I am officially, as i've mentioned and actually here at the end of the show, an executive producer for what I think is a fantastic and great record album by my friends. Z shin b, some of you may know if you're on twitter or exit. Some people now call IT.

Starting about three, four weeks ago. Every evening, I post a song that I love. I started doing that a few weeks ago, just sort of as an escape for a few minutes every day, from all the things that we talk about on the pod cat, we think about on television and read in the papers.

It's a respect away from politics, away from the law, away from all these controversies and issues that we have to deal with in an important deal with the citizens who care about our country. I'm sure you'll agree when I say that, you know, music that you love is not only up lifting, it's transporting. And I found that you, when I take five minutes in the evening every night, and just think about what songs, what music makes me happy, that brings me to a Better place.

It's probably one of the best parts of my day, and i'm pleased by the reaction i'm getting to some of the picks. Not everyone agrees with everyone of my pics, but I love to hear from you. What are your favorite songs? What songs would do you like me to post?

Now the right back with my conversation .

with joan freeman.

The twenty twenty four election is right around the corner, but who knows what else might happen from now until then? Political historian and joe freeman joins me to make sense of .

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John freemen, welcome to the show.

Thanks for .

having me so good as gracious. We are recording this. That is one of time stamp pec for the audience.

We have a lot to get to you of a lot to explain to me and the public at large about what the hell is going on in the country. So we're recording this on tuesday afternoon, around lunchtime on july seventh. I did the mass.

So you don't have to. I don't know how how good at math historians are, but I resume your excel ent at IT, but I did the math anyway. The debate between dubai and outtrump was on june to twenty seventh.

That was thirty three days ago. And so I have had this conversation with a lot of eight people in the last thirty three days. But i'm now asking you a professional, verified historian at the yale university, is this the crazy thirty three days, certainly modern american political history, or is something to rival IT in .

modern american political history? Um i'm gona do what historians never do. great. They never save first, only ultimate best.

That's why I constrained to modern. Yes, thank you.

Because otherwise I couldn't say this. But certainly I would say it's the the crazy st and the quickest the sort of fastest hyper speedy moment of political change that I can think of in the modern era.

And when you when you watch the news and you realize these things that are happening now our headlines, but they will be really important parts of history. Yes, multiple inflection pots occurring in the space of less than thirty three days. How do you process IT yourself as you think, both in the immediate term but always I I assume ultimately he also thinking about in the longer term.

That's a really good question because I find myself struggling between the two. So as a historian and constantly thinking about the dynamics of this moment and how this moment is unfolding and why it's unfolding this way, and how I might look at IT ten years from now. So part of my brain is is on historian and autopilot, suppose, but another part of my brain is just swept up in this moment, and its its that cannot be disconnected.

So I find myself in sort of analyzing, like we could, i'm sure, at some point, talk about technology in this moment, because I think that's a fascinating thing. Historian brain is thinking, like law, new tweet on technology and democracy have fascinating, even as the other part of me is saying, think i'm gonna tune into that coming a zoom conversation tonight and see what happens because it's so interesting. So emotionally i'm swept up in this, even apart from historian dumb. And I think that's actually in many ways, representative of what a lot of people are feeling right now.

Do you think there is a structural reason, aside from how media Operates and how social media Operates, our technology changes things and distort things. This is something else about the structure, our democracy, that allows this kind of, for example, this is a terrible analogy or or metaphor parallel. But you know, we are seeing occasions of extreme weather that are attributable to climate change.

You know, the increase in in a by small amounts in the global temperature are causing people say, more hurray es, more tornado s more, you know, fires, more sort of, you know, colosSally significant weather events. Is there any analogy here? Is there something about the structure of our political system or the nature of our political rhetoric? C, or the technology you referenced that is giving rise to to the craziness of our politics?

Well, I think so. You know, I mean, I narrow. You have the historian brain will .

be talking now. Pilot.

I didn't neither. I think I just confessed something I probably .

shouldn't have confessed.

Yes, i'm telling google. Oh h but but here's the thing about technology and democracy um and it's going to sound obvious but I think when IT plays out, IT isn't so basically if democracy, if you understand that as a conversation between political powers holders and with the people who give them power, any technology that shapes that conversation can profoundly shape democracy.

And going back to the period I Normally write about the telegraphed that were suddenly things happened in washington, and forty five minutes later, the entire country new, and people in washington didn't know what they have to do is that and the people around the country didn't quite know what to believe. You can look ahead in time and say that during the civil rights era, television had that kind of an impact, where suddenly people were seeing what was happening to the protesters on TV, which gave them a totally different understanding of what was going on. And again, change the structure of things at the time.

Now, moving ahead in time. You could say that social media generally, I mean, having a tweet, president, but also, you know, just obama, using social media and email. I remember getting emails that seemed to be from president obama.

And I remember thinking not an email from president 68， so ridiculous at the time, but here's the thing about this moment. The zoo moment come is using zoom in a way that I think knowingly are not, is transforming this political moment in important ways. Because if IT means you can see, you can connect with IT, it's the there have been one or two positive things that came out of the pandemic.

Exactly, exactly.

Did I? Neither ge of most people, I would bet. And now as so for a while I was like, i'll look at that.

Zoom is letting people connect from home. Zoo m is allowing small cultural institutions to have a national or international reach with their programing. How great. But now we're watching the political impact of this in a way that IT hasn't been used before.

And just these zoom calls, you know, the White dudes for mila, White women for camera, all of these events that are raising millions and millions of dollars and have hundreds of thousands of people signing up this is this is a really interesting tweak in technology and politics. And thus, I think democracy, I think that it's IT seals as though you IT has the making of a movement. And that's partly technology that is Fostering that you said .

something a sort of funny in the circumstances recently, and you must head a bunch depending what's going on in the world, that when something bad happens with respect of violence in politics, you're very popular. People need to talk to professor freeman in part. The reason for that is wrote a book a five years ago or six years ago called the field of blood violence in congress in the road to civil war.

So you're all over the place as people try to make sense of and get explanations about the attempted the assassination of Donald trump that occurred sometime during that thirty three day period that were examining. Is there way for for U. S.

In historian to put that assassin attempt into the pantheon of the U. S. Is history political violence? Or are each of these things just totally separate and singular?

Well, I would say one important connection and and IT, I do talk about IT in that book, is that for violence or threats to be effective, they just have to seem possible.

So you know, in in my book I write about, I don't know, eighty, seventy, eighty violent incidents in the house and senate and say a thirty year period, which is a lot, but again, I suppose you can do what some mathematically inclined person would do and chap IT up, oh, per year. That's only someone did that to me once when I was giving that. Well, as only five incidents per year, that's not that doesn't seem good to me.

But what matters is that people believed and in the case of my book, i'm talking about southern and people who supported slavery, threatening northerners or anti slavery advocates with violence, not necessarily Carrying out the violence, but threatening, you know, they were armed, they had knives, they had guns. And what mattered was that the northern believed they could get hurt, they could get shot, they could get chAllenged to a dull. And that was enough for a long time for them to self sensor.

And so part of what interesting about this moment is that the there's been a lot of um violent rhetoric praising violence. A former president trump, smiling, added ffa ing. To get lawyers for people if they engage in at all of that kind of behavior over the years in which he clearly, on a certain level, enjoys that people are willing to do that for him.

And that ethos, even without actual violence, is enough to encourage violence, to discourage people, to intimidate people, and to motivate people to step forward and do things that now they feel encouraged to do, that they might not have otherwise. And so it's a it's a retorted employ and a really crafty one by someone in power to use, which is you say or do things that hint at what you like and hint at what you approve in the realm of violence. But then you can say, well, was me, I was just talking. It's just words. I mean, he is other people who chose to take action on IT.

But some people might take issue with what you just said. To the extent you are suggesting, I don't know that you are the down trump bear some of the blame for the assassin attempt on on him.

Is that what you're saying? Not that directly. I guess what I am saying is he certainly contributed to a climate in which violence has been in the forefront of our political rhetoric. He contributed to that climate. I have no idea, and I don't know if anyone has any idea about what happened actually in that moment and what the person who is shooting was thinking .

or any new report this morning about some of his social views. But I I think it's all unclear.

Clear, seems unclear. So I don't think we can actually draw a lot of conclusions about much based on that yet. But I would say that, you know, we live in a time when violence has been in the forefront of our thought and political rhetoric for a couple of years now, and in some ways, in a direct way that would have been unthinkable, able, not that many years ago. And ought, what I mostly saying is that factor has shaped what has become Normalized, generally speaking. And in politics specifically.

here's the thing that I kept talking about that day, and that leads to a bit of of a suggested paradox. And i'll ask you back in the moment, if I remember my memory is not great in the short term lately. What would have happened given the powder cagge in the polarization that is america, had the access and been successful? Do you have A A sense, given your understanding of history and the current climate, also about what kind of violence that would have provoked?

I mean, I I don't know if I speaking now is a historian or just um is a person um but that seems to me that that would have unleashed a lot of violence because then I would have felt to people like they had been attacked, they had been victimized. With that kind of injury flashed death and once people feel victimized, we see this a lot in some of the politics on the right as well.

Once people are convinced that their victims, that on leaches everything, then it's no holds bar, then it's just what i've been victimized. I, it's, it's my right to fight back. I should fight back.

What kind of a person M, I, if I don't fight back? Actually, what kind of a man? M, I, if I don't fight back? Which would be more in the realm of where some of the rehearing on the right is these days. So that even just for that logic alone, I think that would have unleashed a lot of violence.

Do you think that by in large people who are the political adversary of the trump, namely like to democrats and others, had the right reaction after this asinine attempt to think at the tone? right? I asked that because I have a question i've had to a couple times already.

Well, I mean, you inform me, you, I felt to me that the reaction was that was bad. That shouldn't have happened, you know, we have we, we're sorry, we feel bad for him or whatever. And then a little bit of what actually happened was IT real was at stage, which I can tell you, all the way back to the first assassination attempt against the president. That happened then two Andrew Jackson first assiniboin mpt against the president and people immediately said one of two things number one, maybe his enemy sort of made that happen to get rid of him or um number two, know maybe the whole thing stage to get him sympathy .

so I know we heard oh, spring ah I got all .

the way back.

So they are pre twitter.

way, way pre twitter. Yes, indeed. So in a way that that's a really logical political reaction in the world of high partisan politics. But please, I want to get your read on what are you describe, bing, when you save the reaction.

here's what sort of sit in my head. So i'm against trump. I don't want him to be reelected, I think as disastrous for the country. I also don't believe in political violence, and I can believe both of those things at the same time because you had a lot of people saying we wish the former president speed recovery. We're glad IT wasn't worse.

We're glad is okay and the trump supporters have said sort of that's very cynical some of them that you have a guy who some liberals say is like hitler hey, the guy who's almost like hitler, we wish you a speedy recovery and were glad you okay. And their point is, which I think is not a valid one, but their point is you're fully shit, right? You're saying these things because they are politically necessary to say, I guess is what they're saying.

You're saying these things because there because they're politically ly necessary to say. But this is a key who you think is going to become a dictator and you're blid wisting wishing him a happy recovery and you're happy that he's OK. And I say to that, that's not inconsistent at all, right? Because you should not wish death and injury and assassination upon your political rivals.

That's why amErica is great. That's why the the peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next is so amazing. An idealistic and beautiful and almost sacrosanct and holy in this country.

yes. And you don't want bad things to happen to your opponent, even if you think they're terrible. That's what democracy is all about. What am I missing?

No, I sadly maybe for for your broadcast. I agree with you because what we are supposed to be able to do is small d democratic and nation is encompass dissent, encompass disagreement, encompass all kinds of diversity. That's how we Operate.

That's what we're supposed to do that you know you can look all the way back and say, um the sort of framers and the founding generation talked a lot about debate and compromise and that sounds very civilized, but debate doesn't have to be civilized, right? Debate could be argument. Debate could be angry.

Debate can be high levels of detention and disagreement. Compromise is supposed to be the outcome, but you're absolutely right that we are supposed to be able to encompass all of this. We're first.

We will have a big tent. We haven't necessarily always been good at that. But yeah, I think wishing that your political opponents will be harmed and die. I don't think, as you're suggesting here, I don't think that's really something that is against smallpox.

Craic stupid and comes around is if that's how you going to want to conduct things, then you know people like guys on both sides.

both sides are then saying you I don't think you should live, that's another way. A A democratic, structured, successful political system yeah so I I .

ask a question that relate a little bit to the of crazy cycle of events in politics of the last number of weeks because I think you made some reference to this or or or support to this effect IT seems odd to me. That is just a few days since a major party nominee was almost shot to death. And it's not the top news anymore because other things have happened.

Is there something there's something odd about that? Or is that just the way we are now? Short attention spends.

Well, IT is certainly struck and strikes me as a that me particularly given that sadly, in some ways on the person, something horrible like that happens. And I immediately the person people call and I had a really busy week, yeah, a really busy media week. And then proof IT was gone.

So we actually, we actually have .

a scientific metric.

Yes, it's the join free. It's the joe freeman meter, right? If if you were to graph, this is, I love this.

This is great. This is actually political science and political science for dummy. So you don't have to do math, tha graphing. And I would include me if you were to graph the number of media requests you got starting and hate, you know, I don't mean to be verbs about this, but but the day after, right, you were the prem an expert on political violence in this country? Will um how to describe the fall off?

So that was what a saturday night, yeah, saturday day. I would say that by wednesday, I was getting far fewer requests. I would I would say for a few days I was all over the place I was radio, T, V. People are wanning opinions on things. And then I began to fall off, and I was filmed for documentary and political violence. I want to see on wednesday was supposed to air the following weekend, and they delayed because there was other news that was more important, namely president biding deciding that to run um so even within one week, other news bumped that from the media.

So we lead to this earlier, but I want to get more of your thoughts on this. There are conspiracy theory on both sides. One side believes there. There are people on one side who believe the trump stage to his own assassin attempt, which is ludicrous and logical for about four hundred thousand reasons.

There are people who on the trump side sincerely believe, based on their evaluation of events, even though those investigation, those events is not complete, that this was a failed, deep state cool assassination attempt by democrats and deal truck, which is also ludicrous and stupid for about four hundred reasons. yes. Should we feel good about the fact that this is not new? I mean, I I had known, I may I guess, the different one of the difference you refer to technology earlier is that conspiracy theory can convene on the internet where they couldn't before make IT worse. For the same .

IT makes IT worse. And not they convene, but just see the conspiracy theory, right? They don't even have to convene.

I mean, so know Jackson, an assassination tempt that the assassin, him on the steps of the capital and actually shot one gun at Jackson, which was fired, and then shot a second gun at Jackson, which was fired, which of course, at the time, people called providential, people found out about IT, because, ultimately I ended up in the newspaper. But, you know, that took time to get around. Where is, you know, in a nano second today, that would be all over the nation.

There would be people coming up with theories. They would be fake evidence. And one come back to that home mentoring. There will be all kinds of things. And I would be hard to peers the veal of what did or didn't happen. And that part of, you know was built into the technology moments that we're experiencing is that factor too, which involves other technologies. But the fact that even if you are serious and thoughtful and are analyzing and tracking the evidence that you're seeing online, IT still can be really difficult to tell what's real.

a huge problem and will continue to be. I'll be right back with john freeman after this.

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I only go back to a different circle moment then. I think we mentioned yet forty three years ago, I still remember I was a kid, and I remember watching a live television and seeing the replace of then president reagan being shot. And I remember that the news coverage was um you know nonstop, obviously, right he just been elected. There are some doubts about him, about his age and some other things have quint that there were doubts about a sixty .

nine year old man being precious. I resent that .

now to love those times. And he made a couple of jokes I still remember, I think, was something like he was reported to have said when he was getting surgery early, getting some treatment in the hospital. I hope you're all republicans and that entered him in a way that's impossible to describe today, right, to people all over the country, including tens of millions of people who did not vote for him and did did not want him to be the president.

And lots of people attribute his are early success and continue success to that moment, to how he used that moment with great political skill. Donal trump, whatever you think of him and whatever you think of his campaign and and everything else, had one of the most iconic moments in presidential history, or electoral history, when he did what he did after he was shot with the first bump. And that iconic photograph is IT too early to tell what effect that will have on his political fortunes. As compared toronto regan political fortunes.

I think IT is too early. Yeah, beyond a small circle of people like you and me and and folks who analyze that, I think broadly speaking, people still don't agree on what happened and they really don't agree on its interpretation in a way that I don't remember being the case when reagan was shot. I don't remember.

but I when Jackson.

Jackson, although that was all high level political people, right? So IT wasn't the american people at that point. They took them for ever to learn about IT. And actually, i'd have to do some pretty deep digging to find out what they thought about IT. And like, I think I read a diary entry in which someone says providential Jackson is special but I think now I I wouldn't make that prediction um because with ragging there was a sort of moment where everyone collectively sort of held their breath and thought, oh no and I don't know that moment happened .

what there's other difference, right, that we've talked about the podcast and i'm sure you have talked about and that is we were at a time when is recently is ninety four where a politician of one party or the other could win forty nine states, right? And I think if you put up like a box of shampoo on the democratic republican side, the non shampoo candidates would not win four to nine states there.

Probably like.

danger is a dangerous shampoo, I don't know, maybe conditioner high and ship. I was trying to come up with .

some inanimate object to mamo, an excEllent, but I was going for .

comedic value there. But the point is, I can't imagine a universe in which even the most pathetic, worst canada, either. As a republican era democrats, we gain only one state and in the best candidate, you know, even if there's a huge wide gulf in the talents and ethics and morality and integrity of the democratic republican. And you wouldn't get a lap sided result like forty nine to one.

right? No, that's true.

So what we what do we make that you're what's the time?

Well, you know, one I suppose one easy answer is as much as I had very strong feelings about reagan and and republicans and democrats back at that moment in time, I think I was college at the time. I wouldn't say that IT was a world in which, like now, we truly are not just looking at two different fundamental different world views, but there is one side which has a lot of people who fundamental have stepped away from supporting democracy.

And once it's no longer matter of I don't like your foreign policy, I think you should not spend so much money on welfare. I think know whatever people Normal policy disagreements, when you have fundamental structural, and then we ve called IT a disagreement, structural feelings about whether a democratic constitutional system is good or bad. That's a different world, that's a different planet. And in that kind of climate, everything gets an added meaning to IT, whether we want IT to or not. That's a new lens through which we have to understand what's going on politically.

So the best decision to withdraw from the race people have resided, people in your profession. Historic historians have said they're a really three, even arguable analogues, and some of them don't really fit. And I want to what you think of this, of presidents who were able to run again in voluntarily relinquish, ed, the chance to do so.

George washington, right before they were term limit on the presidency, stepped down after two very human in the middle of twelve century. And L, B, J, with all the world in controversy around the nawar. Are those the right analog? And if and if they are, how to place the biding decision in history? right?

So first off, i'll say um IT is true broadly, historically speaking, that presidents don't like to step away from hour. So the fact that you can tick off a handful like that in and of itself is suggestive. Um I don't think the reason wide I think this moment exactly sort of lines up with those um is because the moment when biden did this is different.

He he at all but secure the nomination. He was on his way. He was insisting he was gonna stay in and at that late moment, not because of a war, you know in the case of L B J, not because of um an outside event, but because of partisan politics, he decided at that moment, and again, as a historian, people keeps saying, you know, oh, he was shoved.

Doubt he was pushed out. IT wasn't his choice as a history and I say, wow, five years from now i'm going really want to see what happened behind the scenes because I can guess, but we don't really know still at this late point where he made a clear that he wanted to stay and then decided to leave. That's different. And that's not that's about partisan actually not part of that's about party politics. And that's a different kind of moment than the ones that you just named.

How is history gone to judge Nancy policy? Some people have suggested that choose the most consequential, and you can choose your way of finishing the sense the most, consequently speaker, the most, consequently democratic politician, the most consequential politician in recent memory. What do you think of that assessment?

I think she's enormously consequently I think she's had a huge influence. Um I think i'm gonna say IT because that needs to be said if if he were made people would have a lot listen negative things to say about Nancy polis so the fact that she's all of those things and a woman is a problem for some I do think she's amazingly consequently I think you can tell that by all of the ridiculous things that people try to attach to her my oh well SHE didn't call in the national guard or SHE whatever the crazy thing is that people claim like on january six I have nothing to do with her um I do think I can say as a historian and that if I know when ten years were looking back to this moment, you would have to think hard and really analyze, find her paper, see what people are saying about her behind the scenes to really understand what's going on now because he does have abroad influence.

There is one thing to have influence and will power which is impressive, but it's of limited impressiveness. When you're the commander chief, you actually are the commander chief. When you're speak of the house, you run the house, you have the gavel.

When you judge in the court room, your prosecute, you have a grand jury. When you're the speaker, a amErica in just one of four and thirty five, that's that's more impressive to me that he was able to a certain influence in power. What's the secret of that?

What part of IT, I think, has to do with why he was a powerful speaker? SHE has a skill set. SHE has ability. He has a strength of presentation and purpose. He has big political savi.

You know what he can do and how he does IT both strategically and even performative vely that has a real power to IT. She's really, really good at what he does. So even as someone who is a former speaker, and he's just one of many SHE doesn't leave that history behind her. He Carries that power with her, and he Carries that skills, said with her, me have to be .

very wise and fruit. I mei guess another person who is sort of in that category as an next president and has a lot of influence, at least IT seems to be the case, is barack obama, bill clinton less so is at a fair assessment? Yeah.

I would agree.

Why do you think that is is a recently .

this good question? Maybe it's recency. Maybe it's also because there was surrounding obama in the same way that uh nanci polloi had some of this a kind of um emotional support.

Look at who this person is. Look at what this person is done. In the case of polo, o, SHE is a woman doing this.

So it's extra. Bone is hard. And barack obama is a black man.

Extra bonus, hard. Clinton, A E, O, A White man being powerful OK. He was good at what he did as he was saving. Yes, he played the public in a smart way. He know was at the saxifrage. He played and he talked about is what kind of underwear and all that kind of stuff, which made people think, wow, a different kind of president. Then he kind of walked himself off the end of the Cliff during his presidency so he has a more um complicated and tangled partly that he did by himself um legacy as far as what trails after him. And I think obama and policy do not as a .

historical matter. I know if you participate in these surveys and you know to say if you do or not, but this famous survey, every so often, I think, every year where historians rank the president based on how good a president they were, and some people have rendezvous, some people fade, even though people thought the presidencies were great. Closer time to when they weren't office is dupe. I D participate.

The one talking, yes, I do.

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I on those surveys is president clinton, is his start rising or falling or remaining the same?

Oh, that's a good question. I actually do not know the answer to. I would not think .

it's what is that in your mind?

I would assume me somewhere in the middle yeah and I don't know if I would know if if it's rising or following, but I don't know why I would be rising.

Can you see a time twenty, thirty years hence? That the trump star rises in that .

context. Well, IT, so part of my answer to that has to do with where the hell we're gonna down the road and what we're comparing IT to. So it's hard for me to say that I would because IT seems in so many blatant ways, there were so many bad things about IT happening during a moment of extreme crisis is hard for me to see. But I we live in a time where you can no longer say what is or isn't possible.

I was talking about camera Harris and her strength and her weaknesses people can examine for themselves. But I want to asking about particular criticism, and I want to stay at the outset. There is no particular reason, professor frame, that i'm asking knew this question, but there has been some criticism.

You're helping me here. I know.

I know where going. You're, you really help me. You really know how to help you guys set IT up. There has been some criticism of commonly, Harris law. Are you offended by that criticism for no reason in particular.

The reason in particular, I, I, I am, am, I am offended, but I am offended for a very specific reason. So on someone who clearly has done a lot of public minded work, I talk to the public and my electrical ses are online. And I am very often i'm a female political historian and i'm talking to rooms full of men, or men are tuning to me online. And I cannot count on two hands the number of times someone has criticized me for laughing.

So what to help out about?

Well, in part I lump p IT. Along with your voices. Too high.

It's greek's. So I sound female and that horrible. I also， I just think it's away. I mean, people have been saying this online in the last minute is two men tell you to smile all the time, but they don't like a when you laugh, right? They to be pretty a smile, but they .

don't you like I you know, I don't mean the sound very strange. I I kind of like the sound .

of a woman .

laughing and is a successful joke. Yes, an asian every few minutes. What am I missing? And not not alf male enough.

I'm not even going to answer that one free but course your alphabet know. Um I think it's partly I mean, people have been saying this I couldn't come up with this on my own that um especially now or manhood mass culture or sort of really being talked about a lot on the right a woman laughing bears with that the idea of a woman laughing at you. And so that's bad, but I think it's an easy swipe.

A woman when people who criticize my laughing, they wouldn't say laughing that they say cackling or giggling. And either way, it's making fun of me for having your taking joy in what I do and not sounding like them not. And IT was also an excuse for people to not take me seriously.

What giggs, why should I listen to what he said? It's just a way of not is a it's as a highly gender way of swaling at someone and doing IT in such a way that, you know, I can't deny that I laugh all the time. I can't deny that I have a loud laugh and i'm not going to and i'm going to keep doing IT because it's who I am. But you know.

we're going to actually in the editing process, we going to amplify the volume OK. Note the note the note the team, please, like about the options for a moment, I get the politics. So my favor adage comes from the great screenwriter William golden, and he's speaking about the screen trade.

But IT applies to politics and so many other things. Nobody knows anything. On the morning before job and dropped out the race, people were speculating about how divisive things would be, how much infighting there would be, how many people would chAllenge haris.

The craziness of the convention was being speculated about. And boy, nobody knew anything. I never heard anybody suggest.

Maybe there are some people who are brilliant pundits. I don't remember having anybody suggest. Well, one way this could check out is that biden endorses her when he would draw.

And one by one, every leading figure, including people who could have been her rivals for the spot, will enthusiastically and jubilantly supporter and SHE will have the whole thing wrapped up, by the way, with two hundred million dollars raised, sixty something percent of whom our first time contributors within a week, right? Anybody see that coming? Well.

I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly didn't. Didn't I did not and and only did I not, because, again, I think most people did not. But given what was happening in the press leading up to that moment with this, this universal cry for, you know, biden needs to leave.

Biden needs to step down. Why the hell isn't he stepping down? He can't win. And it's orrible. What people were talking about along with that was not, if he does, color is gona be great IT was more like, well, of user might be good. You are there any number of other people, often men, who people were suggesting would be Better than I?

Like the break down the wall for second, the voice you use when you're when you're taking the position of somebody who's not the brightest. Yes, you have. Do you have a model for that voice?

No, it's my male voice.

Because you've laps into IT a few times.

Yeah no, that's my person of authority. Yeah OK, I didn't even realize that I had just done that. I guess I do that all the time.

But anyway, what you didn't see in those moments with people saying, and then man canal SHE would take us to the finish line. So even if you know you could get past what hell to me like this, you know, bandwagon of making, go away. That was so extreme that IT was pushing the public away from IT. IT was so over the top still there was no indication there that I picked up on that suggested that kalo come in number one and number two, that he would come in with this amount of momentum and support and um emotion is IT true that if .

they had gone the other way, and people were fearing that in a divided convention, isn't that the way used to work? And people are talking about IT as if he would be the death of the democratic party or democracy or some other no terrible outcome, but know these things were not corporations in the past.

Worthey, no, no. And and this matter of fact, know, again, going back to my time period, know in the nineteen century, conventions were actually places where decisions were made, as opposed to people marking in having pledge themselves s to support someone. And then you have a performative moment, and there were all moments when no one could find anyone who they agreed on, and they would pick some total dark horse candidate. No one who had ever .

heard of when was IT certain that john Kennedy would be the democratic nominee in one nine hundred?

I don't even know the answer to that.

but he wasn't like my my recollection is IT was was close in time. The nomination. Which which way is Better?

Which way is Better? I don't know if I would say one is Better or a worse. I do protest against people who are using the word coronation to suggest about kala hara has been to go in and she's just going to be coronated um you know is so somehow rather this is this monarchical privilege being bestows.

There will be voting and people there because biden no longer is the candidate. People pledge themselves to biden. They can vote, generally speaking, as they choose at the convention.

I is hard me to believe that we're going to see anything other than come the Harris being chosen as the nome. But coronation is not the word that I would apply to what we're about to see. We're about to see an actual process, which is a fine and wonderful thing to see in american politics, is actual political processes and action. This last speculation.

as were recording this.

I don't think we'll have the answer before this is made public. Who should cma Harris pick to be her voice president? Give us an assurance perspective on when they held that matters and when that doesn't matter and in which direction is IT? Can you only do harm or can you sometimes do a lot of good.

but I think you could do either. I think we're at a moment when the right hasn't yet figured out how to get to camera because the ways in which traditionally they might have are now big time baggage. So if they swatted her for being a woman, they look like the anti woman party in whether they don't want to appear.

If they are racist, openly racist, then that's also exposing a major thread within the right. Um they haven't yet figured out what to do to get back at her. So um the vice president for candidate, I suppose j events, for example, um might be someone that could do more damage than good. I can't tell. I do want to make one point though because I find this fascinating and hopefully you agree with me.

but i'm agreed in advance.

Thank you very much. I feel I feel good already. I ve been saying for maybe a little less than a year, I I even spoke to some senators and and set this in a speech to some senators that when you look back at the eighteen fifty and you look back at the people threatening the southern violent, Carrying guns, Carrying nice, threatening people, financing them into submission, what did the people who are really still political ly at that time do?

They used humor to push back. They deflated the bullies, and they wanna be authoritarians with humor down, malaise humor, but actually kind of mild and yet unmistakable humor. And IT deflated the southern lave holders. They just, you could watch them sort of dissolve into a little.

can't rebuck humor.

No, will exactly end. Because, generally speaking, authoritarian types, their power relies on feared. And if you can deflate that by poking fun and getting people to laugh, that's a real power. And and some of what we're seeing right now, you know, which is why we talked a little while ago about and make you fun of comfortless laugh, part of the humor that, to me, speaking as a political historian, is the humor that he has and is using to swat at trumping his supporters is highly effective because she's innocence hitting back.

And when you look at the late fifties once, suddenly you had northerns getting elected into congress, and they came ready to push back, ready to be innoxious, ready to stand up and not sit down, and someone tried to get at them, you suddenly had northerner saying, yes, do IT again. And I created a kind of a wee IT, created a group ness. And so some of the dynamic of what we're seeing now, I think it's directly related to that.

Professor joe and freemen. Thanks so much for spending time with this.

Thanks for having me my .

conversation with joe and freedman continues for members of the cafe insider community. In the bonus for insiders, we discuss whether the country is ready for a koala Harris presidency and the very implications that question.

when has anyone said, oh yeah, we're ready for that change. When do we ever see potentially monumental chain? And so yeah, we're all in. It's the change itself that makes itself possible to try out the .

membership for just one dollar for a month. Had to cafe outcome slash insider again, that's cafe 点 com slash insider。

Are we there yet? It's been a journey and i'm earning the. Where we belong, where we belong. It's been so.

A folks to end the show this week. I want to do something a little bit different, a little bit special, as I previewed last week. And on social media, I have a new title on top of being a lawyer, a pod caster, former U.

S. tourney. I am now, improbably, also an executive producer, the executive producer, no less, of a new music album performed by my friend Z H an b.

The album is called O, C. Can you see, we hope you will, downloaded from itunes by the final record that's also available without any further to do. I am joined by my friend z shoon bees. Z shon. Welcome to the show.

pres. Great to be here with you. Rather, this is rather early, as is not usually, you know, you take note, like to in the morning, yeah, yeah.

We communicate with each other from midnight until the we hours of the morning. Real pillow talk. This is, this is very early.

Yeah, it's truly pillow talk and found until you never people came up to me after they saw that you and I were on morning joe talking about the album, and they played a bit of the first track, the first single on my own, and like, what is going on? What are you? How are you producing a record album? And the first thing I like to tell people is, above all other things, you know, not just your message, not just the nature of your music, but the quality of your voice, which I say all the time.

Instead of morning, joe was a voice from heaven. And people can check out the veracity of that statement when they listen to the album. Variety magazine did a piece on the album in our collaboration and called the art couple. We are kind of a lot couple.

and I have agree with that assessment. You know, although when they said that were the odd couple, I said, which one of us is Oscar? Which one of us is felix? That was not hard to pass up.

So we tell the american story. You and I met about two and half years ago at a book launch. We had never met before.

And I heard you perform on stage, and I and everyone else in the audience was blown away. This was a venue in new york city, and we got to talking back stage, and we became fast. Friends is the kind of person that i've said before.

I've only known you, you tune half years, but I feel like I known you for decades. So we have instant connection. And then at some point, you're working on your most recent album and you asked whether we could collaborate. And I said what I say, I say yes.

First I think you were cut a flavour gassed IT was almost like they've seen in in goodfellas when when Sunny goes up to pollen is hick IT just bite this restaurant, Polly, what I about running a restaurant, I do .

anything actually like .

that where you were, Polly, where you said I do not be a music produced, I don't know anything and and I said, how hard can that be? Just put a cigaret in your mouth and order me around a little bit a little. Use cigar ars anymore. I guess they ve wait more.

Now, people can tell from this conversation how you immediately won me over by essentially using a good fille's reference that i'll give me.

that give me, every time .

you put a way, a few good fellows yourself. So I.

I think I have, I have, can we, before we start talking about some album, your roots are in both Opera and gospel. You was a Young person saying in gospel quires, he tells more about that.

Well, that was really a throw pat. I mean, I was the only non black kid that was in gossip quire. And not only was I the on the indian kid in gossip acquire, I was also delete sowest. And I think is because the director of acquire recognized that regardless of what this kid looks like, he's got the goods. You know, he can sing jesus .

song main light, telling what you know, did the song me like telling what you know this is. So and we tell what, you know, you just all up and tell what, you know.

you know.

why know you have the pipes .

of my friend. I want to get to this album. yeah.

So I can you see what album? Why do album? I put something .

out that was insured by my influences. You know, the pandemic was a time of great reflection for all of us. And in my case, my livelihood was completely taken away from me, and what I did as a musician was deemed non essential.

And so in those difficult circumstances, the only thing I could do was right. And I listened to a lot of orchestral music, and at some point decided I would like to do an album with an orchestra. And so this record is a sole record in a classic. Sole record is recorded with the chAmber orchestra, thirteen tracks, twelve in english, one in order.

Do one of my favorite songs on the album is in urdu.

yeah. And, you know, I feel very lucky to have inherit and treat them. sure.

I know you feel the same way to be inherit a very rich culture from the old country, you know. And I wanted to right in ordo song that had an R, N. B.

Flare, and that became the one ordo song was on. I had that on there. And that has really idiomatic strings that sound like something from india. But the beat is very just seventies R. B.

可怕 的 你 在。

The first single and people can catch the video two in the show notes on my own, that's a very different song from the one you're just mentioning was that .

song about that song is about this universal theme of lonely ess. Especially the lonely is that some of us feel live in big cities. We live in big cities surrounded by people, yet we still feel isolated in alone.

IT has a lot of melancholy in IT, but IT also there is a feeling of exaltation. And I wanted to tell people that even though you feel long, you actually are not, because there are many others around you. As the beetle said, all the lonely people. And in this case, that's what on my own was.

There's a great song, uplifting song, on on the album called mountain top. Tell folks what day you wrote that song or felt compelled .

to write that song. Well, I went to write a song with my song writing partner, my mike master. He's just a wonderful producer, song writer and his other half of my creative brain. Or should I say he's a third of my creative brain in a preoccupied thirty three point three percent, the other third.

right, if you say so.

But getting back to, I went in the studio that day with the intention of writing something that was anthemic, and I had just started writing a song. We, mike, I decided we wanted to write something around the liberation theology imagery of mountain top that you here in in gospel music, or in the the speeches of doctor king.

And we had just gotten to that point where I got the mountain top will be that focal point, that sort of linchpin of the song. When I got a text from my wife, think that robi wade was overturned. We wrote the song the day of rovin wade was overturned and my wife is so destroyed because he just felt like her voice didn't matter. And, you know, I took a break from the session, I went outside to call her, and and SHE was so upset, and I was trying to console her. But, you know, what could I say to her in that moment, other than to just listen and hear her .

out and just folks understand your wife is actually .

in the medical profession? That's correct. My wife is a doctor. And day and day out, SHE sees the disparities that exist in health care when he comes to minorities. And he was on the front lines of the pandemic, and IT upset her greatly, that women cannot have the access to reproductive care, and that their choices are governed by men. And this is something that I think should upset all of us. And so when he told me that awful news about robby weight being overturned, I felt so helpless until I went back in the studio and I said, well, this is the opportunity to do something about IT. To use my voice as a man is such a thing as using our male privilege to speak out on these injustices, these indignities.

cry. Do without you.

But your dream can be the night, let us fly will be the 巾。 What's the。

Had you feel about this moment with comm Harris and has .

that affect your music? I feel really excited. I feel just A A burst of optimism and hope.

And come on. Harris was so fascinating is in she's black and self asian. And in my case, those are the two cultures that influence my music the most.

So in a way, he represents me in many ways, and I couldn't be more excited. And I want to do anything I can in my capacity as a musician to help her campaign and to energize voters. I want to get the muslim vote out in detroit.

Ed, in michigan. There's so much that I want to do what my music has been used. Biden campaign circuits back in twenty twenty to get those slim votes.

I wanna do that again. The album has a lot of songs that I think project that same optimism in that excitement and that idealism that a vice present Harris projects. And so i'm just excited, i'm thrilled .

to mine decision before let you go the title track, the title of the album. O, C, can you see? Where do I know that line from what that sounds very familiar.

I think it's your room tone, right?

Well, i'm very patriotic.

Nothing not patriotic. You know, this is one thing that we denied. Another thing, we born down as we love our country very much.

And everyone, I ve grown tired of petridis m being hijacked by one side and being enshrouded in the bible, in the flag and guns and other things are those of us who on the other side, we are just as patriotic. In the case of oc, can you see, you know, i've sent the national lanphier for present obama at the White house. I also saying IT for present Carter at an event in detroit.

And this the true story. He, you, after I finish singing IT, he said that he was the greatest rendition of the star spangled banner that he ever heard, which was a great compliment to me. You know, this is a president.

You know, he probably woke up to the sound of, you know, a marine band, p that starts bangle banner. I'll like to say i've some our national lantus in those sort of high profile situations. And so I felt a certain proximately to IT.

I felt a certain equity. And in a certain shall we see ownership of IT that I wanted to request IT in my own way to sort of write my own version of IT. But to emphasize that question or say, can you see can you see what's going on? Can you see the past? Can you see the future? And the result is the title track.

I can just make believe. Everyone around they never use some. My body being around like a man in the crap.

When IT came to deciding the name of the album, greek was the one who said, why do we just call IT the name of the title track and my production team? None of us had thought about that. None of us had considered that. But IT was one of those moments where it's like, yeah like, wow, I didn't think about that so we do I got thank you for that, brother.

I don't take created for much on the album, but I also said you, I want a one more song you did you thought you were done and I said, I think we need one more, right? And that song is dream on.

That's right. I really enjoyed writing that song because IT was was a chAllenge. Like he said, we had already finished writing everything in. I guess i'd started to sit on my law, als, and you're like.

what we do, one more. And so very easy. I like that coach, I give more push PS.

like the champion exact producer in, I kid you've tt a, give me one more. You know, I loved IT. And so I embraced ed IT, and that song IT speaks to how I really tried to embrace simplicity in this record.

You know, I know it's hard to imagine, because the album here is big, complex or castle sound, you know, strings, horns. There is multiple dramas on some tracks in this auxiliary percussion tempi vivo from all that stuff. But you know, that suffer came later in the process. The first and foremost, the goal was the right songs that can slap with any arrangement behind them. Doesn't matter if they, they should be able to be just sung with voice and guitar or voice and piano, in our case with dream on.

We wrote that song in one day after you had asked for another song and you know, you had also echoed that sentiment of, can you make something super simple, just almost like we shall overcome and so it's amazing how hard that is to write stuff that is simple. It's difficult to write things that are simple. But we really enjoyed the chAllenge and we were very pleased with the result. Is simple.

I am too.

To the third. less.

Duck falls, hold your ground and wake fone the dreamers who did dream. The dreamer s who did the dreams.

You should. Congratulations on the album. It's amazing you in the rest of the band did unable, able job.

I listen to IT all the time highs compliment. You're going to get my dad love. S O. He listen to time on friday when he totally does.

You might be little bit partial to the, to the or do lyrics, but I would urge folks to listen to IT download the album on itunes. You have a classic vinal version of the that's available for purchase for those of you who like to listen to music that way. Very party, sir.

Very proud what we did together. I love you his shoe. Good luck and congratulations.

Thank you. Rather proud of use. well.

butter. Fly stop so high on the back of the oil in a tree. You love to fly three thousand miles. 嫂子 说， 已经， 巴里 在哪里？

Well, that's IT for this episode of stay tuned. Thanks again to my guests, john freeman and z. Shen bee.

If you like what we do, read and review the show on apple podcasts or wherever you listen, every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics and justice. Tweet them to me at breed bra with a hashtag, ask freed.

You can also now reach me on threads, or you can call and lead me a message at six, nine, two, four, seven, three, three, eight, that six, six, nine, two, four, create, or you can send an email to letters. A cafe outcome, stay tuned, is presented by cafe and the vox media podcast network. The executive producer is to marry sapper, the technical director is David ashore, the deputy editor is sane roar, the editorial producers are no aoi I and jake captain.

Associate producer is cloudy hernando. And the cafe team is Matthew illy, net winner and a Green way. Our music is by Andrew dust on your host preborn. As always, stay tuned.

Support for the show comes from clivia you're building a business clavo helps you grow IT claib O S A I powered marketing platform puts all your customer data pass email, email and analytics in one place with cavo tend fish on fish wife deliveries, real time, personalized experiences that keeps their customers hooked. They've grown seventy times revenue in just four years with clivia. Now that's scale. Visit K L A V I Y O dot com to learn how brands like fish wife build smarter digital relationships with clivia.

Hey, it's lee from decoder with new IP top. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series, diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially I mean, A I space, why are so many big players and testing not to acquire and instead license tech and hire away cofounded ers? The answer IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems you'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with the live presented by strike. You can listen to decoder whatever you get your podcast.