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now at collegeadvantage.com Welcome

1:21

to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. And

1:24

I'm Sarah Longwell. On today's show, we're

1:26

going to talk about Hunter Biden's conviction and what it might

1:28

mean for the president and the campaign. We're going to go

1:30

through the results of last night's primaries. And we're going to

1:32

talk about where we see the presidential race just two weeks

1:34

after Trump's conviction. With me

1:37

to discuss all of this is the incredible Sarah

1:39

Longwell, host of the amazing Focus Group podcast, publisher

1:41

of the bulwark. Sarah is going to share with

1:43

us some of what she's seeing in our focus

1:45

groups with Trump photos. Sarah, welcome back to Pod

1:47

Save America. Hey, thanks for having me. I

1:49

love doing this. It's so good to

1:51

have you. We have a lot to talk

1:53

about today. Just another episode,

1:55

another conviction. So that's sort of where we are in 2024.

1:59

Yeah, lots of people getting convicted. evicted these days. That's

2:01

right. OK. Yesterday, a jury in

2:03

Delaware found Hunter Biden guilty of lying about

2:06

his drug use when purchasing a gun and

2:08

possessing a gun while using illegal drugs. Both

2:10

are felonies. He could theoretically face

2:12

up to 25 years in prison, but sentencing

2:14

guidelines suggest he's likely to get much less.

2:16

In fact, maybe no prison at all. Hunter

2:19

still faces another federal trial in California for

2:21

allegedly failing to pay taxes. President

2:24

Biden released a statement saying, I

2:26

am the president, but I am also a dad. Jill

2:28

and I love our son, and we're so proud

2:30

of the man he is today. The statement also

2:32

said Biden will, quote, accept the outcome of the

2:35

case and will continue to respect the judicial process.

2:38

Look, in normal times, the first child of a sitting

2:40

president being convicted of a crime would be a seismic

2:42

event. But in a campaign where

2:44

the other guy just happens to be the first former president convicted

2:46

of a crime, the Hunter verdict may not

2:49

make much of a splash. Sarah, first

2:51

of all, what's your reaction to the verdict? My

2:53

first reaction is Hunter's

2:55

probably guilty of these crimes. He

2:57

also probably wouldn't have been prosecuted for them were he

3:00

not the sitting president's son. And

3:02

I think from a political standpoint, just a

3:04

political optical standpoint, it's probably good because

3:06

I think that it makes it a lot

3:08

harder for Republicans to argue that this is

3:10

a two-tiered justice system. I hear this from

3:12

voters a lot, where they say, why are

3:15

they going after Trump? Why don't they do

3:17

something about Hunter Biden? Why do they deny

3:19

that the laptop was real? Like, especially on

3:21

the right, people are very invested in the

3:23

Hunter Biden saga. And so I think

3:25

the conviction probably for,

3:27

look, there's still, and I

3:29

just did a focus group yesterday, with two-time Trump

3:31

voters in Utah. So I know that not everybody's

3:34

taking this and saying, oh, boy,

3:36

now I really believe in the justice system.

3:38

Many of them are saying, boy, Hunter must

3:40

have been really guilty in order to have

3:42

our crooked legal system still convict him. But

3:45

I think for swing voters, for people for whom

3:47

they're just getting a whiff of the Hunter stuff,

3:51

the fact that he was convicted sort of

3:53

puts to rest the idea that Joe Biden

3:55

is running some big conspiracy to convict Donald

3:57

Trump and like, you know, the

4:00

DOJ to just wield it

4:02

for his own political purposes? Yeah,

4:04

you know, it's the first reaction is

4:07

sadness, right? This is a sad story. This is

4:09

someone who has battled addiction their whole life. It's

4:11

a story that's very familiar to a lot of

4:14

Americans. I 100% agree with you that

4:16

not only is that, were he

4:19

not your Biden son, he may not have been prosecuted

4:21

at all, but certainly would not have been brought to

4:23

trial and probably would have had some sort of plea

4:25

agreement that would have resulted in a fine

4:28

community service, something like that, and not

4:30

be facing potentially some time in

4:32

prison, right? And the reason that he is

4:35

unlikely to get up to

4:37

the 25 years in prison is because he's a

4:39

first time offender. And most

4:41

importantly, I think because he did not use the

4:43

gun in a crime or in any sort of

4:45

violent way, but still he could face some time

4:47

in prison and it is going to

4:50

just I can already see the Twitter

4:52

explosion among people on the

4:55

left if Hunter Biden gets sent

4:57

to prison for this crime and Donald Trump does not get

4:59

sent to prison for his crime. But

5:01

I think it is, you know, I'm

5:03

going to be curious to hear a little more of your thoughts

5:05

on how people process, how voters are processing it, but I just

5:08

don't know that this people

5:11

are going to think a lot about what this says about

5:13

Joe Biden because it is one, and this is an important

5:15

point to make for all of what I find largely to

5:17

be the bullshit, you

5:20

know, subject of all the hunt and binder

5:22

investigations, the barisma payments and China and all

5:24

these other things that make have to do

5:26

on the right. This has nothing to do

5:28

with any of those things, right?

5:31

This is simply the story of someone going

5:33

through addiction who purchased a gun and

5:35

the jury found that he was contrary

5:37

to what Hunter and his attorneys argued

5:40

that he was on drugs when he did so. So

5:42

therefore he lied on a form. It is nothing.

5:44

It does not suggest any sort of broader

5:46

corruption or any other of

5:48

the stuff you hear from the right, but it is, you know, it's

5:50

sort of a sad story. I ask about Hunter

5:53

a lot in the groups and

5:55

in swing voter groups and certainly in Democratic groups,

5:58

as long as you're not kind of the MAGA. the

6:02

way that people interpret Hunter is a sad

6:04

story. Like they actually show a lot of

6:06

compassion and everybody says things like, you know,

6:08

there's one in every family. We all know what it's

6:11

like to deal with somebody in our family that has

6:13

addiction problems. And so people tend to

6:15

be very charitable around

6:17

issues like this. And they also

6:19

say like, if Joe Biden, there's

6:22

a connection with Joe Biden, I will hold

6:24

that against Joe Biden, but I'm not holding

6:26

this Hunter stuff against Joe Biden. Yeah,

6:29

I think that gets to sort of my next question, which

6:31

is let's leave Trump out of it

6:33

for a second. And there has been this, we have,

6:36

it really dating back to, you know, we're

6:38

on like six years now of the right going

6:41

after Hunter. Once they, once the right sort of

6:43

identified Joe Biden correctly as the

6:45

biggest threat to Donald Trump in the

6:47

2020 democratic field, you know, he is

6:49

Hunter Biden was the subject of the

6:52

blackmail phone called as a Linsky. There

6:55

has been this effort to use Hunter as a way

6:57

to portray Joe Biden as corrupt, right? So put aside

6:59

Hunter and the gun stuff, but do you see any

7:01

evidence from a suite of voters that sort of this

7:04

Biden crime family stuff is sticking to the president? You

7:07

know, here's where I think it works.

7:09

It's not that they think that Biden

7:11

is the head of a major crime

7:13

family. It is though that they think

7:15

all politicians are corrupt, right? Like

7:17

it plays into that. And so the

7:19

ability of the Trump operation to just sort

7:21

of besmirch Joe Biden, like muck

7:24

him up a little bit with this, that was

7:26

only, that was their goal all along. Like that's

7:28

why there's an impeachment trial despite the fact that

7:30

they clearly don't have any evidence and they are

7:32

finding themselves now up against a wall sort of

7:35

without having evidence, but they're willing to

7:37

embarrass themselves on that front

7:39

in order to just kick up enough

7:41

smoke around Hunter Biden and

7:43

Biden to try to offset

7:47

Trump's obvious criminality with what

7:49

I think is a preexisting

7:52

thing in voters where they're kind of like, yeah,

7:54

all these guys are corrupt. And that way it

7:57

like negates Trump's. at

8:00

least ameliorates Trump's obvious

8:02

criminal deficiencies. Yeah,

8:05

I mean, obviously he's been rerunning the play.

8:07

He ran with great success in 2016, the

8:09

Crooked Hillary. Now, there was much

8:12

more, not that I think that Hillary Clinton

8:14

is crooked or corrupt, but Trump was

8:17

surfing 20 years of right

8:19

wing investigations and attacks on

8:21

Hillary and a series of mistakes that

8:23

she had made that were not corrupt,

8:26

but were things voters don't like, like

8:28

giving speeches to Wall Street for

8:30

pay, right? Stuff like that. But

8:32

you do see, I see it in some

8:34

of the polling, which is, people think Donald

8:36

Trump is more corrupt than Joe Biden, but

8:39

a very unfair number

8:41

of voters think Joe Biden is corrupt,

8:44

someone who has conducted

8:46

himself not just better

8:48

than Donald Trump, but with decorum

8:50

and ethics and his president. There

8:52

are not real investigations

8:54

into his presidency. There

8:56

have not been scandals in his presidency, right? And he

8:59

was part of the Obama administration, which was, as we

9:01

always like to say, very famously scandal free if you

9:03

don't count the tan suit situation.

9:06

But Joe Biden has been in politics

9:09

a long time. He sort

9:11

of is a walking, talking avatar for a

9:13

political, you know, this is one of his

9:15

challenges, a walking, talking avatar for a political

9:17

system that voters inherently find corrupt.

9:20

And so I totally understand what the

9:22

Trump folks are doing. Now, I will

9:24

get that there is some cognitive dissonance

9:26

between Joe Biden, head of crime family,

9:28

and Joe Biden dementia. Can you, you

9:30

know, you can't be both. And

9:34

I've never seen them really pay a real

9:36

price for that sort of logical inconsistency, but

9:39

it's not really the hunter stuff. I think it's

9:41

the, just this idea that people think that politicians

9:44

are corrupt, people have been politics for a long

9:46

time are inherently corrupt. Like how could you not

9:48

be? It's a dirty system. And that does give

9:50

Trump some advantage, right? This is why he is,

9:52

you know, I think he announced with some fanfare

9:54

a few weeks ago that he was shifting to

9:56

calling him Crooked Joe. And

9:59

so I think that's probably. That's probably why. Yeah,

10:01

I think that's exactly right. I mean, this is just

10:03

about trying to even the playing field to a low-information

10:06

populace that is not plugged into the

10:08

difference in all these things. And

10:11

that low-information populace are the ones often most

10:14

likely to just assume that all apologists are

10:16

there. Low information and low trust are kind

10:18

of the two overlapping circles on the Venn

10:20

diagram. Now, you

10:22

might think the right-wing media machine that's been going

10:24

after Donald Trump's Manhattan conviction as a kangaroo court

10:26

would hold up the hunt of verdict as the

10:29

epitome of equal justice. Well, CNN

10:31

put together an excellent side-by-side of how Fox News

10:33

personalities reacted to each verdict. So let's listen. This

10:36

is a new era in America.

10:38

And I think it goes against

10:40

the ilk of who we are

10:42

as Americans and our faith in

10:44

the criminal justice system. In the

10:46

end, this juror, jury of ordinary

10:49

people from Delaware were not intimidated

10:51

by that family. And they recognized

10:53

that this was a clear-cut case

10:55

and that clearly no one's above

10:57

the law. This is a very

10:59

political exercise.

11:02

And you have to say that it accomplished what

11:04

it set out to accomplish. But I would say

11:06

this about Judge Norreca. I think she ran a

11:08

very fair courtroom. She ran

11:10

a very fair trial. Now, there's also

11:12

an emerging consensus that the verdict could

11:14

actually be helpful to Joe Biden, in

11:17

the sense that Joe Biden's own DOJ going

11:19

after his son shows that Biden is, in

11:21

fact, not weaponizing the justice system. And

11:24

I was really struck by how all over

11:26

the map Republicans were in the response to

11:28

the verdict. The Trump camp put out a

11:30

statement calling the verdict a distraction from

11:32

the real crimes of the Biden family. Trump

11:36

advisor Stephen Miller tweeted, DOJ is

11:38

running election interference for Joe Biden, apparently

11:40

by trying to send his own son to prison. And

11:44

oversight chairman James Comer, he of

11:46

the famously and laughably

11:49

unsuccessful impeachment effort, called

11:51

on DOJ to investigate the whole Biden family and

11:53

said if they don't, they're, quote unquote, covering for

11:56

the big guy. All right,

11:58

Sarah, let's unpack this. What

12:00

do you make of the Republican response? Could they really

12:02

have been caught off guard by a guilty verdict? So

12:04

I think sometimes they are. And here's why. They

12:07

are so good at creating their own reality and their own

12:09

echo chambers that sometimes they end up living

12:12

in that reality. And then when they realize,

12:14

oh, wait, the system's

12:16

not actually corrupt. The Department of Justice did

12:18

prosecute. And Hunter Biden

12:20

was found guilty. Whoops.

12:23

Now we need a new talking point. And

12:25

so you could see them

12:27

sort of because, and you could see how different

12:30

it was from Trump's conviction, where

12:32

they were incredibly locked up, had the exact

12:34

same talking points. Here they're scrambling a little

12:36

bit. But they do seem to

12:38

be settling on the

12:40

idea that what is happening

12:43

is that Joe Biden is hanging out his

12:45

son to dry on this

12:47

conviction or on this case in order

12:49

to distract people from the

12:51

bigger crimes so that they don't

12:53

get prosecuted. That's where people seem to be landing. Yeah.

12:57

It is wild that you don't have

12:59

to have been like a legal

13:01

analyst or a deep consumer of

13:04

the news or listen to the

13:06

strict scrutiny podcast here at Quirky

13:08

Media to know that the overwhelmingly

13:10

most likely scenario would

13:13

be that Hunter was convicted. The

13:16

evidence was clear. That's

13:18

what everyone watching it said. And it is

13:20

interesting. It reminds me a lot of the Republican

13:23

response to Joe Biden's State of the Union, where

13:25

they went in the morning

13:27

of the State of the Union, the Trump campaign, or one

13:29

of his super PACs, the camera which put out an ad.

13:31

They ran into a morning Joe to try to get in

13:33

Joe Biden's head with basically alleging he

13:35

had dementia and a bunch of out of context

13:38

clips. And then Joe Biden goes

13:40

out there and gives a very good speech. And

13:42

they're just like flabbergasted. They can't even imagine

13:45

that Joe Biden could give such a speech so

13:47

much so that they then reverse engineer the story

13:49

that he must have been on drugs, potentially cocaine

13:51

when he gave the speech. So it's just like,

13:53

it's like, it is, something

13:56

is hard for Democrats

13:58

to understand. dollar

36:00

a year increase for the

36:02

average American family. That

36:04

is a big deal. And how is he going to pay for that

36:06

tax cut? He's going to cut Social Security, Medicare, and repeal the Affordable

36:08

Care Act. I think we should be on offense

36:10

on the economy. I'm confident that

36:13

Roseanne, or hopefully Roseanne, will get

36:15

there. I think it's particularly important

36:17

in Nevada, given what

36:19

the electorate looks like there. It's obviously

36:21

a very diverse state. It's a state

36:23

with a large working class population. And

36:26

those voters have tended to tell pollsters that the

36:28

economy is even more important for them than others.

36:31

But I think that's right. But let's go back to Nevada for a sec. Could

36:33

you envision Brown? Because I think his strategy is

36:36

interesting here, right? He is trying to be the

36:38

first Republican not to just let a Democrat beat

36:40

him over the head on their abortion position. Could

36:43

you envision him cutting an ad, sharing his wife's

36:45

story? Or is that a bridge too far for

36:47

a Republican candidate? No,

36:49

I think he could do it. I mean, I got to tell you, I

36:52

think that it depends on where you're

36:54

running. If you're running in the red

36:56

state Bible belt, you're walking

36:59

a line. But you

37:02

just pointed this out. Nevada is a place

37:04

where you have a lot

37:06

of these white working class voters who are pretty secular

37:09

about this stuff. And there have been a number of

37:11

things that still surprise me about voters as I talk

37:13

to them. And one of them has been how often

37:15

in a two time Trump voting group, the

37:18

majority of the group is pro-choice. And

37:20

in fact, when you get voters criticizing

37:22

the Republican Party, like they're more Trump

37:24

voters over the Republican Party, one of

37:26

the main reasons they give is that

37:28

they don't like the social positions of

37:30

the Republican Party, by which I think

37:32

they mean gay marriage and abortion. They

37:35

just don't like the Mike Pence of it all, the judginess.

37:38

They like Trump's secular approach to

37:40

these social issues. And I

37:42

think that in a state like

37:45

Nevada, you can get away with, and

37:47

in fact, because it's his biggest liability and

37:49

because they do have a personal story to

37:51

tell, I think that they

37:54

could do that without suffering too much

37:58

from the far-right. still

42:00

quite large margin. And then this replacement

42:02

level Republican wins it by a much

42:04

narrower margin. And I think that is

42:06

a lack of turnout in the rural

42:08

areas for people who are MAGA first

42:11

and just don't really care to show up for

42:13

Republicans. I'll also say, I don't know this for

42:15

a fact, this is new, really new, but I

42:17

do wonder if because Trump

42:19

has become the entire Republican party, that

42:22

the local Republican apparatus like the turnout,

42:24

whatever, it's all getting pretty sclerotic because

42:26

now it's also Trump dependent. And so

42:29

I'm not sure they're doing the like

42:31

nuts and bolts turnout work in a

42:33

lot of these places that they used

42:36

to do just

42:38

because like Trump sucks up all the money,

42:40

all the attention, all the energy and like

42:42

the state parties are starting to wither and

42:44

just the run by cranks and sync offense

42:47

and not anybody who knows how to win an election. Yeah,

42:50

I started my take on this is now, if

42:54

the Republican had won by 40 points

42:57

and outperformed Trump by 11 points, there would have

42:59

been 1000 stories saying that this was doomed for

43:01

Democrats, right? It just would have been like it

43:03

would have led playbook or would have been a

43:05

panic attack on MSNBC. We have another round of

43:07

conversations about Joe Biden dropping out. It would have

43:10

been seen as a bad news. And though it's

43:12

obviously very frustrating for Democrats when bad news is

43:14

bad news and good news is no news, right?

43:16

Like that's that awesome. I 100%

43:18

agree. This doesn't tell us a lot. This doesn't tell

43:20

me that Ohio is going to be competitive or that

43:22

Sherrod Brown is going to cruise the reelection. It basically

43:24

tells me that two things.

43:26

One, your point about the

43:29

shift in who our base is that we

43:31

now just have a more high frequency voters

43:33

who make up our base. It also tells

43:35

me that our campaign machinery is up and

43:37

running, right? We are, this is not a

43:39

race that there's a ton of investment in,

43:41

but just in general at the local level,

43:43

this is one of the byproducts of all

43:45

of the organizing mobilization after Trump won in

43:47

2016 is that we just have people on

43:49

the ground everywhere who can do these things.

43:51

And that, that is helpful on the margins

43:54

in a close race. And so it's not decisive,

43:57

but it's to me, it's kind of interesting. One quick

43:59

thing before we get to break. We are two weeks

44:01

out from the release of Democracy or Else, John

44:04

John-Atami's incredibly useful, funny, timely

44:06

book. And

44:08

let me tell you how this works, because as many

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people have listened to me pitch my own books on

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the reason why that matters is every

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if you want to get this book on the

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John-Atami, you want to make sure as many people read

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this book as possible, because that's what we need. We

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need as many people to read Democracy or Else, and

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then go take those lessons and go help beat Donald

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on the bestseller list so that people see it. People know

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about it. Books on the bestseller list get put in the

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to make investments towards your future. is

48:01

unfit for office. I thought

48:03

the trial highly politicized, but in

48:06

the hands of the jury, both sides had the chance to

48:08

present their case. And that's

48:11

ultimately how it should have been done. I

48:14

am happy that the jury found

48:16

him guilty. And I think also now

48:18

that he is a convicted felon, he's

48:20

completely unfit. He can't pass

48:22

a basic security clearance at this point.

48:24

I'm not sure if he can vote

48:27

in Florida. He may not be allowed

48:29

to go to different countries as a

48:31

felon. This is not appropriate.

48:34

Knock it off Republicans.

48:36

Find somebody else. Were

48:38

you surprised by this reaction given what you normally hear

48:40

from these sorts of Trump voters, former Trump voters? No.

48:43

So this is this group that we

48:45

screened specifically because they were two-time Trump

48:48

voters, but who don't want to vote

48:50

for him again. Like they're kind of

48:52

out. They're not all the

48:54

way out. They're not like never, but they're, they

48:56

don't want to vote for him again. And we

48:58

often screen for this type of voter in order

49:00

to understand our persuadable universe, right? Because we run

49:02

Republican voters against Trump. These are the kinds of

49:04

people that we want to get, not just to

49:06

not vote for Trump, but to affirmatively vote for

49:08

Biden. And so we talked to them a lot

49:10

trying to understand them. And so it didn't surprise

49:13

me to hear them say things like, I'm

49:15

already out on this guy because, and this

49:17

is, there are a

49:19

lot of voters, like a meaningful number of

49:21

voters who held

49:24

their nose and voted for Trump both times because

49:26

they were tribally Republican, but they didn't like him.

49:29

Uh, who January 6th, they were like, I

49:31

am out. Now there's a bunch

49:33

of those voters who like slowly found their way

49:35

back and rationalized it over time. But there are

49:37

plenty of people who are still out. We hear

49:39

from them all the time. They are part of

49:42

our campaign now, which is all made up of people

49:44

who previously voted for Trump, explaining

49:46

why they won't vote for him again. And it's

49:48

like the election lies, the whining, and a lot

49:51

of these people were DeSantis people, right? They were

49:53

the move on from Trump. They're not never Trumpers.

49:55

They're move on from Trumpers. I want somebody

49:57

else and they just won't for the, they won't

49:59

vote for this. the dude again. The thing that

50:01

surprised me was not how they sounded. The thing that

50:03

surprised me was that five out of nine of them

50:06

said that they would affirmatively vote for Biden. And

50:08

I think that this is where the conviction makes

50:10

a bit of a difference, is

50:12

that to win this election, people,

50:15

when we talk about double haters, one of the

50:18

things I always try to make clear to people

50:20

is that double haters are just people who don't

50:22

want to vote for either person. But it's a

50:24

little bit of a misnomer because they don't hate

50:26

Biden. They don't want to vote for him, but

50:29

they don't hate him. They do hate Trump. The

50:31

feeling is stronger. And so what happens is, is

50:33

you get something like a conviction. And also when

50:35

Trump is more central to the conversation, when Biden's

50:37

central to the conversation, these voters that are center

50:40

right, they think about what they don't like about

50:42

Joe Biden. When Donald Trump is central to the

50:44

conversation, they think about what they don't like about

50:46

Trump and they start to be like, I'll vote

50:48

for whatever the tomato can that is going to

50:51

stand between Trump and the White House. I'm not

50:53

calling Joe Biden a tomato can. I'm just saying,

50:55

like, it doesn't matter who it is. They just

50:57

are like, you can't let this guy back in

50:59

the White House. And that is a, that is

51:02

how you get people right when they start to

51:04

focus on Trump. And when they start to think

51:06

about how unfit he is, that's when they make

51:08

the transition like, well, I'll vote for the other

51:10

guy, even though I don't want to. Yeah, I'm,

51:13

I was pleasantly surprised to hear that

51:15

five or nine number. And I very much, it's not often

51:17

I listen to your podcast every weekend. It's one of the

51:19

first things they do on Saturdays and I don't

51:22

often leave it feeling super

51:24

awesome. I just listen to voters. This is one where I

51:26

did leave quite optimistic and told my wife she should listen

51:28

to it because she even more would like me to filter

51:30

out bad political news. So I was, that

51:32

was great to hear. I was sort

51:35

of struck listening to them because it feels

51:37

like there are two main groups within the

51:39

Biden persuadable universe. There are the

51:41

more traditional members of the democratic coalition,

51:43

black voters, Hispanic voters, younger voters that have

51:46

soured on Biden. And then there are

51:48

the more right leaning folks who have soured on Trump, right? There

51:50

are either two time Trump voters or they are Trump

51:52

Biden voters who may vote

51:54

for Republican and the congressional race who aren't sold on

51:56

Biden. Do you think it's

51:58

possible that Trump's criminality in his conviction is

52:01

a better argument with the right-leaning voters. The

52:04

argument for those people is that Trump is bad, and the

52:06

argument for our people is Biden is better than you think.

52:08

Does that make sense? It totally makes sense.

52:10

And I gotta say, I don't

52:13

wanna depress you, but I am

52:16

often more optimistic about our folks,

52:18

the center-right voters, because they do

52:20

move over abortion. They do move

52:22

over January 6th. They do

52:24

move actually over issues of democracy, like Trump's

52:27

threat. These are older white voters

52:29

who came to the party to vote for

52:31

Ronald Reagan. They voted for Mitt Romney. They

52:33

voted for John McCain. And they don't hate

52:36

those votes. They were happy to

52:38

vote for those people, unlike the new Trump voters

52:40

who held their nose and

52:43

voted for those people. And so I feel encouraged

52:45

that as Trump comes into the

52:48

picture, these center-right voters who

52:50

really hate Trump vote for other Republicans

52:52

who aren't Trump, if

52:54

they're in the vein of normal, that

52:57

they will get there on Biden out of their

52:59

sheer hatred of Trump, I worry, because I listen,

53:01

I do focus groups with the young progressive voters.

53:03

I do them with the Democrats. And when they

53:05

say like, genocide Joe, and there's no difference between

53:08

Trump and Biden, I'm like, that

53:12

I don't know what to do about. Yeah,

53:14

it's the younger voters who, there's

53:16

this fascinating blueprint poll that

53:18

asks younger voters what they remembered about Trump,

53:20

what they knew about Trump. And

53:23

if you're under 30, Trump has not been

53:25

a huge part of your life, right? If you're under 25,

53:27

and like they asked them if they're remembered,

53:29

find people on both sides and all these

53:32

other things and they didn't. And so there

53:34

is an education effort on Trump.

53:37

It is a real challenge. All right, let's pivot

53:39

to the debate. According to

53:41

reports, the Biden campaign is already in the process for

53:43

preparing the president and their game planning, how to deal

53:45

with all of Trump's insanity. My

53:48

first question is, do you think Trump is really gonna show up? I

53:51

do, I know a lot of people think that he's not. I

53:53

mean, don't you buy a bulwark family,

53:55

think that Trump's looking for a reason

53:57

to get out of it. is

54:00

another one where I would just say, hi

54:02

on our own supply. The Republicans think

54:04

that Joe Biden is going to fall

54:07

asleep at the podium and that Trump,

54:09

where Trump really has Biden, is on

54:11

his big lunatic energy coming off as

54:13

much stronger, whatever. And so I think

54:16

he wants the opportunity to dominate Biden.

54:20

So I don't know why he wouldn't show up, but maybe,

54:23

why do you think he wouldn't show up? If

54:26

I had to bet money, I would bet that

54:28

he would show up. I have been struck by

54:30

the, I know

54:32

this is an old riff of his, but he really is

54:34

hammering the drug test thing. Which

54:37

I think maybe it's probably that's just the line that

54:39

gets applause. But this idea that Joe Biden must take

54:41

a drug test because he's going to be on whatever

54:43

his State of the Union stash was

54:46

that's going to make him seem energetic and

54:48

smart. And he's been

54:50

really hammering Jake, in

54:53

his words, fake tapper in Dana Bash, who I think

54:55

he calls Dana all the time. And

54:58

so he is at least, so he's doing one

55:00

or two things. And I think the most likely

55:02

is the former, which he's just trying to set

55:05

up expectations, where it's just like,

55:08

I went in there, these guys, the press was against

55:10

me, Joe Biden was on drugs, and I still did

55:12

pretty well, or explained away any failures. Or

55:15

the other one is to get out of

55:17

it. I think he would probably show up. I mean, he

55:19

thinks he's winning by a lot. And his philosophy

55:22

in the primaries was, if you're winning, you shouldn't

55:24

debate. So that's the only thing that

55:26

kind of gives me pause. But either

55:28

way, what advice would you give the

55:30

Biden folks about how to conduct the debate? Anything you

55:32

should say or do that would work with the voters

55:34

that you talk to all the time? He should take

55:36

whatever drugs he took during the State of the Union,

55:39

because that's the guy that needs to show up. I

55:41

mean, this debate is

55:43

all about, how does

55:46

Joe Biden come off? Does he

55:48

seem like he can do it? And what he

55:50

says, I mean, it's going to be important what

55:52

he says. I do think he's got to be

55:54

able to make an affirmative case that Donald Trump

55:56

is a lunatic who's going to be surrounded by

55:58

other lunatics in his next four years. and that

56:00

Joe Biden's gonna be surrounded by good people. Donald

56:02

Trump is in this for himself. He's only doing

56:04

it to stay out of jail and to get

56:07

people's money to support his, keeping

56:10

him out of jail. And I think

56:12

that he should go on offense on

56:14

those things, but like none of that is

56:16

gonna be as important as voters being like, remember

56:19

how you felt after the State of the Union? Just

56:22

remember how you felt after being like, look at that

56:24

guy, we need that. That

56:26

moment has to happen. People just have to feel

56:28

like Joe Biden stood in there with Trump, gave

56:30

as good as he got, seems like he could

56:32

do the job, and

56:35

that's the bar he's got to clear. Yeah,

56:38

I mean, it is, it's kind

56:40

of wild, right? I hear a lot from people

56:42

like, I'm having conversations with voters

56:45

and Biden's age comes up and it's like, well, what should

56:47

I tell them? And it's like, well, I've seen all the

56:49

polling and nothing you tell them really helps, right? There's

56:51

no verbal message that comes from another

56:53

person that says Joe Biden is

56:57

up to the job. But it really, and

56:59

they're gonna spend all this time as

57:01

they should, like here are the words you can say,

57:03

here's the moments, right? He's gonna practice lines in a

57:06

mirror, he's gonna do it, and that 90% of

57:09

it's gonna be how he sets the line, right? 99% of it, really. And

57:12

that's just sort of a wild thing.

57:15

And it'll be interesting to see like what the threshold

57:17

is, right? Because the State of the Union was Joe

57:20

Biden being judged against the character of Joe Biden, and

57:22

the debate is being judged against Donald Trump. Which

57:25

comes with good and bad, right? Good because

57:27

he might seem sane

57:30

and rational and like a normal human being worthy

57:32

of being a president while Trump is acting like,

57:34

like his energy during debates dating back to 2016

57:37

is quite crazy. Yes. And

57:39

Trump could be in his sort

57:42

of feral state reminding some voters of what they don't like about

57:44

the guy and why they were concerned about him in 2020. But

57:48

he, so he doesn't, and this is important, he doesn't have

57:50

to out energy Trump, he

57:52

just has to beat his own threshold. And

57:54

that's a hard thing, for someone who's as

57:56

competitive as Biden, right? It's

57:58

just gonna be fascinating. I'm gonna, I certainly hope

58:01

to watch some dial groups as it's happening of

58:03

how voters are interpreting it in

58:06

real time, right? And then afterwards at how voters are gonna

58:09

interpret the clips they see, right? And that's gonna matter

58:11

a ton. It's gonna matter a ton more than anything.

58:15

I'd be interested to see what viewership is, right? It was 70 million in

58:17

2020 when everyone was locked in their

58:20

homes. What's it gonna be

58:22

in the summer of 2024 when

58:24

we can go to baseball games and other things? Is it gonna be 40

58:26

million, 50 million? 50

58:29

million? But the vast majority of people in all the, and

58:32

the thing is that we also have to remind ourselves is that of

58:34

that 50 million, if let's say it's 50, 85%

58:37

of it are decided voters, 90% of

58:39

it are decided voters, and the rest of it is gonna be what

58:41

will be the clips people see. And that benefited by a

58:44

lot in the state of the union. And we'll see what

58:46

happens in the debate where there are people trying to push

58:48

out less favorable clips. Yeah,

58:50

can I just push back on this idea about people

58:52

being decided? Or I don't know if I'm pushing back,

58:54

but maybe I'm pushing back on the percentage in part,

58:56

because the thing about people who don't like either candidate

58:59

is that they're still gonna vote lots

59:01

of them. And my theory

59:03

of the case for Biden has always been that

59:06

the people who dislike both break late for

59:08

Biden, but some things have to happen for

59:10

them to break late for Biden. And part

59:12

of that is, and it's sort of like

59:14

the way Angela also brooks. We just saw

59:16

this happen with her, right? She got a

59:18

bunch of endorsements. She was running way behind

59:20

Troney, had all the name idea, whatever. But

59:22

when push games and stuff, people broke for

59:24

her, I think because of endorsements,

59:26

because of other things, and also because they just didn't like him

59:28

that much. And so the

59:30

late breaking thing is real. And I think

59:33

if the double haters, if

59:35

Biden can clear certain thresholds of like, he's

59:37

up to the job, he seems good, he

59:39

seems normal, I believe he wants to do

59:41

the right thing for the country. And I

59:43

think Donald Trump wants to burn it all

59:45

down. Like, I think that you can get

59:48

there. I just think these moments for Biden,

59:50

they're like pressure so high. Like he can't

59:53

have a, he can't crater in this

59:55

debate. He just can't. Yeah. Michael, my

59:57

moral on the 85% was who would watch the debate.

59:59

Do you think that some of those double haters will

1:00:01

tune in for the debate? Yeah.

1:00:03

Although you're right. I also hear a lot of

1:00:05

people in the group say like, Oh,

1:00:08

I can't watch. Like I was just, you know, that

1:00:10

is how I know. I

1:00:12

know a lot of Biden voters who cannot watch,

1:00:15

right? My, my mom is not going to be

1:00:17

able to watch the debate. She, but that's because

1:00:19

I hear voter, the poor democratic was the race. Like

1:00:22

I just get so nervous. I just, they all do

1:00:24

this thing where they put their hands out. Like they're

1:00:26

going to help Joe Biden, like an invisible Joe Biden

1:00:28

somewhere. Like they're going to steady him with their hands.

1:00:31

Yeah. This is the side you're trying to help a bunch

1:00:33

of nervous Nellie. She's trying to save democracy. Finally,

1:00:36

a bunch of outlets including ABC and NBC are

1:00:38

reporting that Trump's vice presidential search has moved into

1:00:40

a new stage and they've asked the

1:00:42

top contenders to fill out vetting paperwork. Anonymous

1:00:45

sources say the shortlist is some

1:00:47

combination of Marco Rubio, JD Vance,

1:00:49

Doug Burgum, and maybe Tim Scott.

1:00:51

There's also a second tier that

1:00:53

may include Tom Cotton, Elise Stefanek

1:00:56

and Byron Donalds. Do

1:00:58

any of these folks scare you more than others? Is there

1:01:00

someone that you secretly hope Trump will pick? Oh,

1:01:03

that I hope, but I know who scares me the

1:01:05

most. I mean, so anything that I think I'm going

1:01:07

to be curious, I bet I can guess who you

1:01:09

think scares you the most, but I want to hear.

1:01:11

Okay. Well, do you want to write it down and

1:01:14

then show me later or show me after I said,

1:01:16

I'll just tell you, I think it's, I think you're

1:01:18

going to say Rubio. I am going to say Rubio.

1:01:20

So and Rubio, it's Rubio scares me the most. Scott

1:01:22

scares me second most. And the reason is that, um,

1:01:25

number one, I think that what, and I think it's

1:01:27

going to be one of those two. Because I think

1:01:29

that the Republicans really want to, or Trump wants to

1:01:31

lean into the fact that they're doing well with both

1:01:33

Hispanics and with potentially black men. And so they seem

1:01:36

like ways to sort of signal that they want to

1:01:38

do more of that number one. But the thing about

1:01:40

Marco Rubio that freaks me out and Tim Scott, to

1:01:42

a slightly lesser degree, is that

1:01:44

the Republican establishment that hates Trump will

1:01:46

wet their pants over Marco Rubio. They

1:01:49

will be like, see, it was a

1:01:51

weird, circuitous route, but like we got

1:01:53

our Marco Rubio that we always wanted.

1:01:55

And Trump's going to eat a cheeseburger

1:01:57

and die. And we're going to get

1:01:59

Rubio. And we're all back, baby. Wall

1:02:01

Street Journal editorial page, we're

1:02:03

back. And I do not

1:02:05

want that for them. And I have a Tim

1:02:07

Miller, my colleague at the Bulwark, he

1:02:10

disagrees with me where he's sort of like, don't

1:02:13

you kind of want there to be like a semi-normy

1:02:15

behind Trump that like, if it is Trump

1:02:17

that, you know, and I like forget,

1:02:20

no, Marco Rubio, and this is a weird one,

1:02:22

because I'm usually kind of the institutionalist, but there

1:02:24

is no part of me that wants to give

1:02:26

either Marco Rubio or the Republican establishment that's

1:02:28

accommodated Trump an inch on this. I don't

1:02:31

want them to get this. I want him

1:02:33

to do his true

1:02:35

itself and bring Kerry Lake or

1:02:37

Marjorie Taylor Greene with him and

1:02:39

lose the election on all

1:02:41

their crazy, not another, not this,

1:02:43

this would be a major calibration and it would

1:02:45

help him a lot because man, these guys are

1:02:48

old. Their VPs are going to matter more than

1:02:51

they ever have before, which still is not a

1:02:53

lot, but still like more than

1:02:55

ever. Rubio worries me the most

1:02:57

by far for many of the reasons you just said. I

1:03:00

think it would create, there were going to be some

1:03:02

people, some of the kind you talk to,

1:03:04

not just the, you know, the

1:03:06

national review Republicans who are still trying to

1:03:09

wrestle with Trump, you know, but like actual

1:03:11

voters who were trying to decide between the

1:03:13

two and they're like, Rubio just

1:03:15

will speak to some sort of

1:03:17

previous Republican normalcy that could be a tiebreaker. Right?

1:03:19

That's kind of how I see the vice presidential

1:03:21

race for Trump is it's like, at most it's

1:03:23

a tiebreaker for some voters, which is why I

1:03:26

can help you pick Doug Burgum because I think

1:03:28

no one makes a decision for Doug Burgum. I

1:03:30

don't think it helps. And

1:03:32

I could really see him picking Rubio because it's

1:03:34

complicated. Rubio would have to renounce his Florida residency,

1:03:36

which I could see Trump enjoying doing. It's like he

1:03:38

gets to make Rubio move out of his state and

1:03:40

he gets to make him VP. And

1:03:42

so that he would worry me a lot. I am much

1:03:45

more worried, I'm worried about everything, but

1:03:47

much more worried about Biden's

1:03:50

performance among Hispanic voters than black voters.

1:03:52

Although I just know it again, I'm

1:03:54

worried about both. Tim

1:03:57

Scott, I am less worried

1:03:59

about. I think Tim Scott just

1:04:02

is bad. Like he just comes off, I

1:04:04

think the lesson of Tim Scott's miserable

1:04:07

failure of a Republican primary

1:04:10

campaign is not that he can't relate

1:04:12

to the Trump mega base, it's that he

1:04:14

can't relate to humans. Yeah. If

1:04:18

Tim Scott is chosen, he will give a very good convention

1:04:20

speech because he has a powerful story. He gave the same

1:04:23

speech in 2020. I

1:04:25

just don't see him really

1:04:28

relating to a lot of voters in a

1:04:30

way that is helpful. Let me make my

1:04:33

case on Tim Scott. Well, I think it could be him. He

1:04:36

has, like when you talk about

1:04:38

Trump, I totally agree with you, Trump would love to make Marco

1:04:40

Rubio have to move out of Florida. You know what else he

1:04:42

likes doing? Making Tim Scott

1:04:44

get married. That's

1:04:46

true. And so like Tim Scott clearly thinks

1:04:49

he's in it because he's gone ahead and

1:04:51

been like, I'm gonna reconstruct my whole life

1:04:53

to live this fantasy that Donald Trump's supposed

1:04:55

to do. Also, Tim Scott has a real

1:04:57

weakness to him. Like if I were Trump,

1:04:59

my concern about Marco Rubio is that inside

1:05:01

Marco Rubio lives a guy who always wanted

1:05:04

to be president, who

1:05:06

thinks he should have been president, who

1:05:08

secretly hates Donald Trump, who Trump can't

1:05:10

quite trust. Whereas Tim

1:05:12

Scott is like, let me

1:05:14

do whatever you say. And like, and he's wimpy on

1:05:16

TV, right? He's not good. You're right, he's not good.

1:05:18

But in a way that Trump is kind of like,

1:05:20

I just need him for optics and I'm running this

1:05:22

show. There's

1:05:25

a part of me, I don't

1:05:27

know, I still can see the case for Tim

1:05:29

Scott. I know, I can see that for why

1:05:31

Trump would pick Tim Scott for sure. I just from a political

1:05:33

perspective have been less worried about Tim, much less worried about Tim

1:05:35

Scott than Marco Rubio. This is gonna sound like

1:05:37

a crazy thing to say. I'm really workshopping

1:05:39

this right here in front of you and all of our

1:05:41

listeners is, if you told me who I'd

1:05:43

be to be more worried about Tim Scott or Byron Donalds, I

1:05:45

would say Byron Donalds. Oh, wow. Yeah,

1:05:48

I think he has more of a, he

1:05:50

has a story. He has energy. I

1:05:53

mean, he obviously is crazy, right? He's been running

1:05:55

around defending himself for saying, black people were better

1:05:57

off during Jim Crow. But

1:06:00

I think he, Tim Scott is just boring as

1:06:02

I'll get out. And Byron

1:06:05

Donalds, I think would have energy. And I

1:06:07

could see Byron Donalds going onto the

1:06:09

breakfast club and like mixing it up in a way that

1:06:11

Tim Scott would never be able to do, right?

1:06:14

Tim Scott just has weird politician energy

1:06:16

and that's sort of how he is.

1:06:19

And Byron Donalds has full MAGA energy,

1:06:22

but he's just better. He's much

1:06:24

better on TV and in the

1:06:26

press than Scott is. I think you

1:06:28

also nailed why Trump would not pick Rubio. He'd

1:06:30

have to be really convinced that Rubio was necessary

1:06:32

for victory. Because

1:06:34

he hates Marco Rubio and thinks he's a loser, to

1:06:37

reward him. And I think

1:06:39

he would also be worried that Rubio would be

1:06:41

like the people he has pledged not to hire,

1:06:43

right? The John Boltons,

1:06:45

the Gary Cones, the Rex

1:06:48

Tillerson's, the former establishment people who

1:06:50

didn't go along with all of his crimes. But

1:06:53

it's going to be fascinating to watch. I think it's pretty

1:06:55

interesting that Trump at least

1:06:57

is suggesting he's going to announce

1:06:59

during the convention who his VP is, which

1:07:02

is probably pretty smart. It

1:07:04

is. I will tell you, I am nervous

1:07:07

about the VP selection because I think there are a lot

1:07:09

of people he could choose. Your

1:07:11

point, I'm going to steal this now,

1:07:13

like it's mine. Because the tiebreaker point

1:07:16

is just right on. Because when you got the

1:07:18

double haters, right? And I think that

1:07:20

the conviction is like a log on the fire

1:07:22

that burns against Trump. You give him a good

1:07:24

VP that takes those double haters and gives them

1:07:27

something to be like, OK, this is my thing

1:07:29

that gets me over the hump. Yeah,

1:07:31

it is. I think the

1:07:34

VP is going to, as you said, is going to, usually that my

1:07:36

take is the VP will only cost you the election and won't win

1:07:38

it for you. And this time, they could actually win it for you.

1:07:41

And there are people on this list who I think would cost it

1:07:43

to him, right? I think these are all fine.

1:07:46

I mean, Doug Burgum's a nothing burger. JD Vance is

1:07:48

kind of a nothing burger to most people. Tom

1:07:50

Cotton, kind of a nothing burger. But maybe

1:07:53

some of them. Sarah, thanks for

1:07:55

doing this. Yeah, that was so fun. If

1:07:59

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