0:00

Hey, so what's Topgolf? Well,

0:02

it's golf, but it's also not golf. Not

0:04

golf? Yeah, not golf, but still

0:06

golf. And not golf. Yes. With

0:08

the golf. Exactly. So you're saying

0:10

it's golf. And not golf. Just to be clear,

0:13

Topgolf is 100% golf. And

0:15

also 100% not golf. But that's 200%. Right,

0:19

but it's like a million percent fun, so can we

0:21

stop doing math and just go play? It's

0:23

golf. It's not golf. It's

0:26

Topgolf. Download the app, book

0:28

a bay, and come play around.

0:32

This victory belongs to Joe

0:34

Biden. The midterms changed everything for

0:36

Joe Biden. The Biden track record

0:38

is a phenomenal track record of

0:40

accomplishment.

0:41

President Biden has been a great president

0:43

for our country. And he is a leader for

0:46

such a time as this. After

0:48

months of questioning his leadership and

0:50

the prospect of a second term. I'm

0:52

rooting for President Biden to run. I think he is

0:55

our strongest candidate. I think he has demonstrated

0:57

that he has deserved it, to re-election.

0:59

I hope that he does seek re-election.

1:02

Party leaders were now lining up behind

1:04

him. And against that backdrop,

1:07

the party made an announcement that caught my attention.

1:10

President Biden is proposing a major

1:12

change to the presidential nomination process.

1:14

They wanted to change the order in which states would

1:17

vote in the presidential primary.

1:18

His proposal would have South Carolina

1:21

voting first in the nation. Putting South

1:23

Carolina first. If it comes to pass,

1:25

Iowa would be no longer among the first

1:28

states, and New Hampshire would no longer have the

1:30

first primary. Biden

1:31

talked about it in terms of representation.

1:33

Mr. Biden says the current nominating

1:36

process does not reflect the diversity

1:38

of America. And

1:40

the importance of black voters in the Democratic

1:42

Party. This acknowledgment that black voters

1:44

have an early say-so in this

1:46

process, I think, is a thank you

1:48

to black voters as a whole. But I wondered

1:50

if there was another way of thinking about what was

1:52

going on. Okay,

1:56

Sted, where are we now? So

2:01

the week after the RNC's winter meeting,

2:03

we went to Philadelphia, where the DNC

2:06

was holding its winter meeting, and

2:08

where the only real agenda item was

2:10

making the change official.

2:14

South Carolina was the state that saved Biden's candidacy

2:17

in 2020 after initial losses

2:19

in Iowa and New Hampshire.

2:21

It's basically Biden's home turf.

2:23

So putting it first would

2:25

make it way harder for a serious

2:28

Democratic candidate to get past

2:30

the early stages of a primary. So

2:32

I'm wondering how much of this is

2:35

morally driven, racial representation

2:37

driven, or how much of this is politics driven?

2:40

Right, to give Biden more of an edge

2:42

in the primary, just in case somebody might

2:44

want to challenge him. Yeah, to just make things

2:46

a little easier for a president who

2:49

might need that boost. By the end of

2:51

this meeting, it would be a done deal.

2:53

More than a year and a half before

2:55

the presidential election, the Democratic

2:58

establishment would have locked in the party's plan

3:01

for 2024 to nominate an

3:03

80-year-old president

3:04

unpopular with much of the party's base, and

3:07

regardless of what might happen on the Republican

3:10

side. And I just wanted to

3:12

see if they'd acknowledge it.

3:15

From the New York Times, I'm Estette

3:17

Herndon. This is The Run-Up. Hey.

3:21

You're here. How was it? Hey.

3:24

You're here. How was it? Actually

3:27

boring everything

3:30

to get you into it. Just

3:32

a few days after we got back from the RNC

3:35

in California, I met up with my colleagues

3:37

Elisa Gutierrez and Luke Vander Ploek.

3:39

This is no Dana point. I will tell you that.

3:43

Yeah. And even before we got to

3:45

the convention hotel, it was already

3:47

clear. The vibe at the DNC

3:49

was completely different than the RNC. Number

3:52

one. We are in frigid Philadelphia.

3:55

freezing cold

3:57

in Philadelphia. The

4:01

conference was being held on two floors of a

4:03

Sheraton hotel, not a sprawling

4:05

resort in Orange County. Yeah.

4:10

And pretty much everything would be open to the press. Is

4:13

it your credential? These sort

4:15

of events usually attract protesters. Oh,

4:17

yeah, I mean, you know. Oh,

4:19

yeah. But there weren't any.

4:21

No grassroots outsiders holding signs.

4:24

There was one guy with a van that said, that said,

4:27

don't run Joe, circling the hotel.

4:30

But that was it. When we got inside,

4:33

DNC members were starting to gather for committee

4:35

meetings. We grabbed a spot in

4:37

a quiet corner on the second floor and

4:39

started texting people from the Rules and Bylaws

4:41

Committee. They've

4:43

been the first to approve Biden's proposal, ahead

4:45

of the full vote this weekend. What

4:47

I want to do today is figure out

4:50

if any of them have any reservations

4:53

about the speed at which the DNC is

4:55

really coalescing around the president's

4:58

re-election vision. Right. Yeah,

5:01

all right. You're just done it. How

5:03

are you? How are you? How are you? And

5:06

as they started coming by to talk... Hi, how

5:08

are you? It's nice to meet you. It's very good

5:10

to meet you. How's it going? Good. I'd

5:13

take your hand when I go to the mic. I

5:16

wanted to ask them all a version of the same

5:17

question. You still see polling say

5:19

that people are unsure about whether they want Biden to run

5:21

again. Biden to run again, have concerns about things

5:24

like age and health. How do you all

5:26

as DNC members square

5:28

both what seems to be a universal

5:32

carpet rollout for the president

5:34

and his party at the same time

5:36

that the public is not

5:38

necessarily there yet?

5:40

Aren't you ignoring your voters? We're

5:42

proud to run on the accomplishments of

5:44

this president and this administration.

5:48

We are proud to talk about

5:51

the changes that this president

5:53

is making in people's lives around

5:56

the country. I guess I'm saying every

5:58

objective measure for a different

6:00

voters are would not say is they're united

6:02

around Biden 2024 as the people are

6:04

in this building. Is there any way that

6:06

the people in this building are wrestling with that fact?

6:12

The re-election campaign has not begun.

6:15

We expect that when it begins and

6:17

when we have the opportunity to talk

6:20

more about what has been achieved, Joe

6:22

Biden is going to

6:23

do very well. Look, I

6:26

think that, look,

6:28

let me just say there,

6:32

the

6:34

idea about South Carolina

6:36

going first, first, first within

6:39

the early window was, you know,

6:41

something that the president really wanted. And

6:44

we just reflected

6:46

back because we

6:49

thought it made A lot of sense, the

6:51

president's wishes. And I

6:53

think it was, it is

6:56

a matter of

7:02

making a statement to

7:06

a community that

7:11

has felt excluded. And

7:17

it was a brilliant, thought

7:20

that the president had, and we

7:23

honored it. Sometimes you make

7:25

very, very, very important symbolic statements,

7:27

and it sends a message.

7:29

Is that how it was communicated

7:31

from the president? The

7:33

job of the DNC has always been to support

7:35

the president. But I was actually

7:38

a little surprised by how quickly committee

7:40

members were putting this decision all on

7:42

Joe Biden,

7:43

even while they were defending it. Because

7:46

obviously Biden has the most to gain from this

7:48

move. And so that only made

7:50

me more skeptical, that the reasons for

7:52

this change were purely around symbolism

7:55

and representation.

7:58

I just didn't buy it. why

8:08

isn't as a very valiant violently ill

8:10

or except and that's what brought me to leo doctor

8:13

can you tell us for audio just you

8:15

can you say your name and what title role as you've

8:17

had in the dnc

8:18

sure my name is leo daughtry

8:20

i am an at large member of the dnc

8:23

representing the great state of new york at

8:26

the dnc i've been the chief of staff for

8:28

howard dean and terry mcauliffe i've

8:31

been the ceo of the two thousand and eight and

8:33

two thousand and sixteen conventions

8:35

and the only person and party history do have been

8:37

sealed twice and

8:39

that's

8:39

my role now i'm a member of the

8:42

rules and bylaws committee so you've done it all

8:44

in terms of the dnc roles

8:46

were pretty much i

8:48

understand how the dnc works out

8:52

for you as a as a black woman the some who has been

8:54

influential and kind of black politics

8:56

and democratic party where are you looking

8:58

for i will new hampshire the change for a long time

9:00

well you know i

9:02

have always found it to be an

9:05

annoyance and something

9:07

that i as a black voter could

9:09

not understand how we were

9:11

allowing these

9:12

two small white

9:14

states to have such an outside

9:17

impact on the process but

9:20

it was considered sacrosanct and

9:22

you just didn't mess what iowa new hampshire was

9:24

like you know divine right so

9:26

this was a cycle after

9:29

the last thing

9:30

with the iowa debacle well

9:32

we didn't know who won for three weeks through

9:35

it was like a kick we

9:37

gotta do something here so

9:39

that really the base of our party african

9:42

american voters get to have the first say

9:44

that how much of that decision specifically

9:47

around south carolina going first is

9:49

a rules and bylaws this isn't vs a

9:51

president biden decision

9:52

well we had decided in the

9:54

rules and bylaws committee what five states it

9:56

was gonna be like the

9:58

white house had made their interests

10:01

known and what their criteria were. The

10:03

order we were still jiggering

10:06

around with, but the president settled

10:08

that question for us, so we did not have to endure

10:11

several more rules meetings

10:12

to beat

10:14

that horse in the glue. But let's look at the five

10:17

states. Georgia has a bunch of blackfolders. Certainly

10:19

Michigan's got blackfolders there. Why South

10:21

Carolina first?

10:23

I think because we already knew South

10:25

Carolina had the capacity to

10:27

run an early primary. We know that,

10:29

so it is a foolproof, tried

10:32

and true mechanism for

10:34

running an early primary. We don't have to

10:36

guess about whether they're going to do it well. We

10:38

know they do it well because they've done it before. That

10:41

was a big part of that process, too. How

10:44

do we separate those reasons from

10:46

the politics of it? Because at the same time,

10:48

Iowa, New Hampshire, states Joe Biden, Tibetan, South

10:51

Carolina's a state he did well in. But

10:53

couldn't this also be read as a president

10:56

rewarding a state or prioritizing

10:58

a state that serves his political interests?

11:04

And okay, I don't have a problem with that. He's

11:06

the president, he's the head of the party. So he

11:08

gets to make the decisions that are best for the

11:10

party. Whether his personal

11:12

interests played a role in

11:15

line with our objectives, which is to shake

11:17

up this system to ensure

11:20

that the base of your party who

11:22

shows up every single cycle for

11:24

you have an

11:25

early set. That's interesting because sometimes

11:27

I've been asking folks that question. They've been asking like politics

11:30

is just not evolved to this. We're a political

11:32

party. Everything's political. This is just

11:34

about the, you know, representation. It

11:36

was just about, and so I appreciate you saying that

11:38

because I feel like

11:39

it has to be political. Well, I mean, for my,

11:42

this is the Democratic Party. We are political.

11:45

Every decision we make is political.

11:47

I think to say that it's not

11:49

is kind of disingenuous.

11:50

Yeah, yeah. Do you see

11:52

that the biggest reason that

11:54

this change was made is a symbolic?

11:57

I've heard some people talk about it in a kind of symbolic, us

11:59

putting black motors.

12:00

And I've also heard people use

12:02

kind of other constructions. How important was that

12:05

symbolism in making this decision?

12:07

For me, I kind

12:10

of put it in the mind of President Obama's presidency.

12:13

There's symbolism and

12:14

there's substance. And I think having

12:16

South Carolina first is a combination

12:18

of that. So there is the symbol of

12:21

black voters having an early say, but there's

12:23

the substance of what that means for

12:25

the party to have to invest

12:28

time for candidates, to have to

12:30

invest time, energy, and resources

12:33

in a state where black voters are

12:35

so important. Half of the argument about these early states, particularly

12:38

in the United States, is the economics of it. Millions

12:41

of dollars are spent by

12:43

media organizations and by campaigns

12:46

in those early states. So shifting

12:49

the order messes with their money. So

12:51

when you don't have millions of dollars going in, their economy's gonna be different

12:54

this year. this cycle

12:56

because they're not first. But what that

12:58

does in a state like South Carolina is

13:00

help to improve it. So now the money will be

13:02

spent there. And that's important.

13:04

Yeah. But if you look at the midterms,

13:07

black voters were one of the weaker spots

13:10

for Democrats in the midterm that was

13:12

pretty good for them. Has representation

13:14

in the way that Democrats have been prioritizing

13:17

it, is that actually the priority of black voters?

13:19

Is that actually translating to black

13:21

people as what they want?

13:22

I think black voters want to be represented

13:25

and they want to know that their needs and concerns

13:27

are being cared for and taken

13:29

into account. Nobody wants to

13:31

be negated and ignored. So

13:34

whether everybody agrees with the way it's

13:36

been done, I think it is

13:38

a far sight better than saying, I'm

13:41

not included, I don't see myself,

13:44

I don't hear myself. When I look

13:46

at that picture, where

13:48

am I?

13:49

Now we can argue about,

13:52

did he say it right? Did she say

13:54

it right? Is that the right word? Do I care

13:56

about that? But what I know

13:58

when I look at that stage, I see

14:00

Kamala Harris, when I look

14:02

at the Biden administration, I see

14:04

myself,

14:05

I see me at

14:07

the table, and that means something. And

14:10

so, you know, we can debate about the right

14:12

words, but I

14:14

see it and I feel it in my community. I

14:17

worked in the Clinton administration when black unemployment was

14:19

double digits. Try to hire

14:21

somebody these days, everybody's working. Yeah,

14:23

yeah. But it does feel as if there's

14:25

been a big shift from where Democrats were last year to this

14:27

year, right? There was not a universal

14:29

agreement or excitement about Joe Biden. There

14:32

was nervousness about whether that was the right

14:34

type of candidate to lead the party going forward.

14:37

How did that shift from there to now,

14:40

where universally folks

14:43

feel excited about, I

14:45

mean, people have talked about, we use words like coronation

14:47

for Joe Biden and looking ahead to this

14:50

one.

14:50

Because he's an excellent president.

14:54

He is very good at presidenting and

14:57

his policies have worked. We see

14:59

them, we feel them in our community.

15:01

And so you say, if it ain't broke,

15:05

why go with something unknown when this guy's such

15:07

a good president and you know, we

15:09

like Uncle Joe.

15:11

Thank you, I appreciate

15:13

that. A number

15:15

of people set a version of this to me. If

15:18

it ain't broke, don't fix it. And

15:20

to be clear, I'm not crazy.

15:23

I understand why the party wouldn't want to encourage

15:26

challenge to the sitting president. But

15:28

there's a reason I'm asking why South Carolina

15:31

specifically? It's a moderate

15:33

state filled with older black voters who

15:36

prioritize qualities like trust and

15:38

experience and often look to

15:40

community leaders

15:41

like Congressman Jim Clyburn for guidance,

15:43

and who typically back establishment

15:46

candidates they believe can win a general election,

15:48

like Joe Biden. So

15:51

what I'm driving at here is, is

15:53

the party using the language of representation

15:56

as a cover for protecting Biden. without

15:59

doing the much harder work a motivating

16:01

disillusioned black voters

16:05

lists of a long time

16:07

no say before

16:10

we even got to the meeting with as

16:13

to talk with the party chair jamie

16:15

here so it wasn't clear

16:17

if it was going to happen but then we got

16:19

a call from party officials telling

16:21

us to come to a conference room we were at

16:23

the rnc and they are quite so

16:26

boy yeah yeah for harrison is a

16:28

black democrat from south carolina because

16:30

it was handpicked for the role by president biden

16:33

as

16:33

chair he's function as the face

16:35

of biden state order change

16:37

so he's the person i wanted to ask directly

16:40

was the dnc reading the primary i

16:43

before voters had a chance to way i

16:45

hear the symbolic importance of south carolina

16:47

going far as what is the tangible importance

16:50

of how that will impact you think how people are

16:52

overpriced i think you will see

16:55

mean the think

16:57

about these past few years of having i

16:59

were new hampshire first and second people

17:02

probably heard more about ethanol than anything

17:04

else because

17:05

every presidential candidate had

17:07

to talk about because that was that something

17:09

that was important in iowa now

17:12

you come to south carolina nobody

17:14

ever talked about the maternal mortality

17:16

rate a black women in presidential

17:18

elections com the harris cory

17:21

booker talked about and then joe biden

17:23

hearing that when he went to the

17:25

beauty shops and when he went to the churches as

17:27

will south carolina

17:28

now rule

17:30

black folks urban black folks are going

17:32

to be able to we and on those people

17:34

who are running for president and expressed

17:37

in the issues that important to them they're

17:39

a quarter who they are and what

17:41

the struggle with all those things now

17:43

will be a part of the calculus and earlier

17:46

in the mindset of canada's is they come

17:48

into the states ah in

17:50

order to compete and therefore they're

17:53

going to make some promises on how they're going to address that

17:55

and

17:55

we're going to see those promises translate when

17:57

they get elected in off so it is just happened

18:00

that the political priorities of the president

18:02

also happened to align with the state

18:05

that he did the best in and the state that

18:07

is historically chosen candidates

18:10

who are more in line with the DNC

18:12

than said and the establishment. It just happens

18:14

to be happening. You were hanging out with the Republicans

18:17

and the conspiracy theorists too long at the RNC,

18:19

man, because in the essence,

18:21

South Carolina is earnest, its place

18:23

as an early state. So it wasn't- It

18:25

was already an early state. It was already an

18:27

early state. it already showed in the

18:30

last few elections that it, out

18:32

of all the

18:32

early states, chose the person

18:35

who ended up being the nominee and also

18:37

ended up being president of the United States. So

18:39

if you get good grades on your report

18:41

card, shouldn't you be rewarded for it? Poll

18:44

after poll says the majority of Americans do not want

18:46

Biden to run for reelection and includes

18:48

the majority of Democrats. How did the actions with the DNC

18:51

square with that reality? Listen, I

18:53

had a lot of polls also that said I was neck

18:55

and neck with Lindsey Graham and I didn't win, right? So

18:58

a poll is a poll, but what we do know,

19:00

concrete, is that Joe Biden has delivered

19:02

for the American people with

19:04

a very slim majority in both the House

19:07

and the Senate. So in the end of the day,

19:09

I hope folks understand, don't bet

19:11

against Joe Biden. I understand that. I guess it's

19:13

not a question about his accomplishments, not a question about

19:15

the midterms. But that's what you run on. No, no, no,

19:17

but it's a question about, do you want that person to be the person

19:19

going forward? Joe Biden would be 82 by the time of 2024. It

19:23

is very reasonable, and we have talked to voters who

19:26

like the last four years, but still have

19:28

questions about the next word. My question's

19:30

about the next four years. But instead,

19:33

why do you vote for somebody for president? I

19:37

think there's a lot of reasons. People have a lot of answers to the question.

19:39

But ultimately, people vote for somebody

19:41

who can deliver for them. This

19:44

man has been delivering for

19:46

the American people in a way that no president

19:48

has in recent history. And so

19:50

he has the record.

19:52

Now he intends to run for reelection. we

19:54

had the dnc are going to make sure that joe biden

19:57

stays in white house for another four years There

19:59

is no inkling. that

20:00

he will not be the nominee of our party.

20:03

I understand that. He deserves that. Joe

20:05

Biden's age does not come up at all, does

20:07

not, does not, because that comes up for voters. That

20:10

is a thing that they express that looks forward-looking

20:12

question for them. Something else that has come up

20:14

for voters is the fact that if you lived

20:16

in a rural community and didn't have wifi,

20:19

now you got it. Something else that has

20:21

come up is that if you didn't have healthcare, now we

20:23

have more people on healthcare in this country than ever

20:25

before, partly because of the work of Joe

20:27

Biden.

20:28

It's interesting. As you mentioned, we just came from

20:30

the RNC, and Republicans had a very bad

20:33

midterms, as we both know. Oh, they

20:35

do. And, but- I want to send Rona Flowers

20:37

and congratulate her, because I'm so happy

20:40

she got reelected. But the consequence of

20:42

that midterms is that they're very openly talking

20:44

about need to make changes for the future. They're

20:46

very openly talking about what they need to change

20:48

for 2024. What is that version

20:50

of that conversation in the Democratic Party? Because

20:53

there's a lot, while there are a lot of good signs for the midterms

20:55

for Democrats, it's not a universal

20:57

sweeping victory. Democrats lost the

20:58

House, right? Like, what are the changes for 2024?

21:02

Less than 6,000 votes across six

21:04

districts, right? Kevin McCarthy is the speaker of the

21:06

House. So I understand that. All I'm saying is what

21:08

is the Democratic Party's lesson going forward?

21:10

We know also the history. We were supposed to

21:12

lose the House by a lot. What, 20, 30 votes? We

21:16

didn't lose the Senate seat. We actually gained Senate

21:18

seats. But that's

21:19

not to say that we are not assessing

21:22

what our strengths are and where our weaknesses

21:25

are. We are doing that. I'm saying to look

21:27

for that assessment, where should I look?

21:29

I mean, I can tell you one of the things that

21:31

we want to do is to make sure that we increase turnout.

21:33

We want to make sure that we solidify the coalitions

21:36

that we rely upon in a word to win our

21:38

elections. We need to shore up

21:40

the black and brown and AEPI coalitions

21:43

that

21:44

are made up of the Democratic Party, black men,

21:47

Latino men, I mean, different groups. Right,

21:49

because to that question, we have certainly seen a growth

21:51

in the way Democrats talk about prioritizing

21:54

black voters. Even, I would say, this week as

21:56

another example, in South Carolina to

21:58

the front of the primary. But

22:00

the midterms

22:01

turnout among black voters was not one of the Democrats'

22:03

bright spots. How do you reckon the

22:06

rhetoric that is coming from the Democrats

22:08

about improvement

22:09

and prioritizing black voters with

22:11

the reality that that's not really translated

22:14

into growth in black votes? Well, I think

22:16

we have to just continue to do the work and

22:18

we will continue to do the work. That

22:20

means being in the community all the time instead

22:22

of just popping into the community a few months

22:25

before the election. Because that's how you rebuild

22:27

trust. That is how folks

22:30

then see the value of

22:32

actually registering and then going out

22:34

to vote for you because then they know that

22:36

it's gonna translate into some improvements

22:38

in the communities that they live in.

22:39

Thank you, guys. Yeah, thank

22:42

you. I appreciate it. I really appreciate

22:44

it. Yeah, no, no, no. You know, I'm gonna ask.

22:46

I know you're gonna

22:46

answer. I know you're gonna answer. I don't know.

22:49

I know you brought it to you. Yeah. There's

22:52

some subtext going on here. A

22:55

lot of Black Democrats in places like

22:57

South Carolina resent

22:59

the characterization that they're being used,

23:03

that they're followers of the establishment, or

23:05

just a pawn in Biden's game.

23:08

They think it has racist undertones, makes

23:11

it sound like Black voters don't think for themselves,

23:14

and flattens the diversity between Black

23:16

voting groups. And of course,

23:19

if a Democrat wanted to run against Biden

23:21

in 2024, they could still

23:23

go to South Carolina and make that case

23:26

directly.

23:29

Can you introduce your name and what you do

23:31

for the audio? The second

23:33

day of the meeting, there was new energy in the

23:35

hotel. That evening, President

23:38

Biden and Vice President Harris were gonna speak.

23:40

I'm Elaine K. Mark. I'm a senior

23:43

fellow at the Brookings Institution. And there was

23:45

one more DNC member we wanted to talk to. And

23:47

I'm the author of Primary Politics,

23:50

Everything You Need to Know about How America

23:52

Nominates Its Presidents.

23:54

That seems like a pretty relevant

23:56

discussion for this week. It's a relevant discussion

23:58

to this. I'm also a member of the. How

24:00

long have you been on the rules committee? Oh,

24:03

since 1997. So

24:05

you do the math. Elaine

24:07

K. Mark is another DNC lifer. And

24:10

I didn't just want to talk to her because she's an expert

24:12

on the topic. I'd also read

24:14

her work and knew that she had more complicated

24:17

views on the state of the party than a lot

24:19

of what I was hearing. It seems as

24:21

if some of this is informed by

24:23

a Democratic party that has largely,

24:26

largely caught less than Biden, right? Right?

24:28

That a year ago, there was not

24:31

the same level of

24:33

unity around his

24:36

administration. There was certainly fear

24:38

around the midterms, and there

24:40

was much more kind of open

24:42

discussion of presidential liabilities,

24:44

things like age and health and the like. That's

24:47

kind of evaporated. Yeah. It feels

24:49

like. It's gone. It's a

24:51

very different feeling. And

24:53

I think it was the legislative wins

24:56

and he was just like a dog

24:59

with a bone. He just kept doing it

25:01

and doing it and doing it and getting these wins.

25:03

He got the wins. The midterms

25:05

were a terrific success for him

25:08

and validation for him. And

25:11

so the party is saying, okay, Joe, you

25:13

know, this is great. We're with you. And

25:16

I think everybody will be with him for the next

25:18

two years.

25:18

In your view as a Democrat, in

25:20

your view as kind of a political expert, how

25:23

should we view that coalescing. It's not as if the

25:25

things that made people nervous have changed.

25:27

Yeah. Look,

25:29

I think we should view it as follows. The

25:32

man has done a good job. He's

25:35

not senile. He's done

25:38

a very, very difficult

25:40

dance on Ukraine that we should

25:42

all be really pleased with. And

25:45

that, by the way, is the

25:47

thing you do when you have experience. And

25:49

I think so So everybody sort of say,

25:52

okay, yeah, he's old, big

25:54

deal. There are advantages

25:57

that

25:57

come with age as well as

25:59

the density.

26:00

So maybe he's not the

26:02

most exciting speaker every day. Who cares, right? Look

26:05

at the other things that he's doing. And

26:08

I think that's where people come out and why the party is so unified.

26:11

Yeah, I mean, and I

26:11

definitely feel that argument here. I mean, that seems to be

26:13

where the party has really landed. And

26:17

that feels, honestly, true for progressives, people

26:20

who did not support him initially. Definitely feels like folks

26:22

have come around to that point. At the

26:24

same time,

26:25

you know, we read poll after poll. That

26:27

tells us Americans are not there. that

26:29

Americans are mixed about

26:32

the prospect of a Biden nomination

26:34

for the next presidency, even if they feel good about

26:37

what he did as president. Right. And

26:39

I think that one of the things we're seeing in the polls,

26:41

and we saw this in the midterm polls, is

26:43

that saying that you are

26:46

not crazy about Biden is

26:48

not the same as saying you're not going to vote for

26:50

him. You say that that's where I think

26:52

all the pundits went wrong. Yep. It

26:55

was they assumed that, oh, yeah, you disapprove

26:57

to the president so you weren't going to vote for them. No, that's not

26:59

the case. Or you didn't like the Democratic

27:02

Party for this or that. That didn't necessarily

27:04

mean you weren't going to vote for

27:05

them. Or you just didn't like the economy, so you weren't going

27:07

to vote for the party in power. Those were all old

27:09

rules that kind of got jumped in. They got all

27:12

thrown away. I mean, that

27:14

was a big problem. And

27:17

I don't think that's true anymore. Part

27:19

of this is because the

27:21

Republican Party has sort of gone off the rails.

27:23

This is where I'm going. So thank you for leading. Yeah,

27:25

is this where you're going to go? Yeah, I mean, part

27:27

of this is we have a crazy Republican party

27:30

run by lunatics who are extremists.

27:33

And I'll tell you an interesting anecdote.

27:36

After the election, I was at a panel talking

27:39

to some diplomats in Washington, and there was a nice

27:42

young Republican man there who said

27:44

to me, well, you know, we did

27:46

a good job. We recruited a lot of normal

27:48

Republicans. Normal.

27:51

It stuck in my mind, right?

27:53

And he was talking about his House candidates. And

27:56

I said, you know, I've been doing this for 30

27:59

years longer than. you'll have been and

28:01

i have never heard any representative

28:03

of a political party have to

28:05

call their candidates normal

28:09

okay now the fact that they called

28:11

did the normal and i've heard other

28:13

republicans do this too is an indication

28:16

that they know they've

28:17

got a lot of nut cases either

28:19

marjorie taylor green so the world scary

28:21

crazy people in their party and

28:24

that is you know i i warn

28:27

democrats all the time is that

28:29

party returns to a normal republican

28:31

party were

28:32

in trouble okay this is also where

28:34

i'm going i mean heard so you're

28:36

say like because it does feel

28:38

as if so much of this coalescing is

28:40

based off of books confidence

28:43

that republican stay where they are yeah that

28:46

and i'm i appreciate someone here

28:49

admitting that i think of it does

28:51

feel at the center of all of this is

28:53

a look around to the other side we were just at the rnc

28:55

so know you're angry enough kind of to go around

28:58

but it does feel as if the here is slightly

29:00

predicate it off of that republican

29:03

path continuing in a crazy

29:05

direction

29:06

right and the and that's why some of us

29:08

and in our writings you know argue

29:10

to fix the problems with the democratic party

29:13

okay don't assume that we're always

29:15

going to have a bunch of wackos to run against

29:17

because they will get over this american political

29:20

parties they learn their slow

29:22

learners but they learn okay so

29:25

just as they're getting rid of the

29:27

trump be people in the party

29:29

which i do believe they will do eventually

29:31

we have to make sure that we're not out there talking

29:34

about open borders and defending the police

29:37

and things that really hurt us in

29:39

elections so we have our own work

29:41

to do it's not just the republicans but

29:43

we have our own work to do because at some point

29:46

they're going to nominate somebody who is not

29:48

trump and then we

29:50

may have a real race on our hands

29:51

he is is a risk

29:54

for democrats to coalesce

29:56

around biden at the same time

29:58

republicans are having an open car where

30:00

they might do what you're talking about right now?

30:03

Well, it's that there is obviously some risk

30:05

in that. I mean, there always is. You know, you

30:08

get a great candidate on the other side. Listen,

30:11

you're talking to somebody who worked at the DNC

30:13

for Jimmy Carter when Ronald

30:15

Reagan appeared out of the

30:18

Republican Party, and, you know, he

30:20

was a superstar. I mean, he was just a superstar,

30:22

and so we lost that 1980 election right

30:26

across the board. It was pretty bad.

30:28

I mean, a very like landscape-shifting

30:31

election. Landscape-shifting, those do

30:33

happen, right? Those do happen. You

30:36

can't really

30:38

prepare for them.

30:39

Thank you. I really appreciate this. This was

30:41

really helpful. Yeah. We

30:44

found each other. Yeah, I think we. We

30:47

appreciate the honesty around here. Have

30:49

a sit down. A

30:55

few hours later, After

30:58

Secret Service swept the hotel. Go, go,

31:00

go, go, go, go. And

31:06

I present the Jill

31:25

Biden, I'm Jill Biden's husband. One

31:31

real Twitter. She's a Philly

31:33

girl. And he hammed it

31:35

up for the friendly crowd.

31:36

There's no way I could stand here

31:38

today without saying, Go Eagles, bye.

31:43

Then, he basically took a victory lap.

31:46

Remember the midterms? Remember

31:48

how our friends in the press said, the pundits

31:51

alike, and even some of our own party, predicted

31:53

a giant red wave? Oh,

31:57

guess what? What? It never happened. He

32:02

talked up the Democrats' victories in the midterms.

32:12

His legislative accomplishments. And

32:21

then. Biden

32:30

turned yet again to the other side.

32:33

This is not your father's Republican Party. No,

32:36

really, think about it. He's not conservatives.

32:38

He's not conservatives.

32:41

He's disruptive people. Last

32:43

year, he updated his anti-Trump

32:45

message to be an anti-Maga message.

32:49

Now he was updating it once again. Just

32:51

take a look at what they're doing. They can't

32:53

pay non-fiscal responsibility, but

32:55

the first bill to pass the House of Representatives

32:58

added $114 billion to the deficit. First

33:02

one. He framed Republicans as extreme

33:05

and dangerous,

33:07

not because of January 6 or election

33:09

denial, but because of their agenda

33:11

in the House of Representatives. I intend to get it

33:14

done more now, so let me ask you

33:16

a simple question. Are you with

33:18

me? Yeah!

33:21

It sounded like a stump speech for 2024.

33:24

We are more here! We are more here! We

33:27

are more here! We are more here! We are more here!

33:29

We are more here! We

33:33

are more here! On this cold Friday

33:36

in Philadelphia, one thing has become

33:38

clear.

33:39

This is Joe Biden's Democratic Party now.

33:42

His

33:42

message, his priorities,

33:44

and his voter coalition, which

33:47

helped the party remake itself after the shock

33:49

of 2016.

33:51

It may not be the party that Democrats envision for themselves

33:53

themselves before Trump.

33:55

But it's working.

33:58

So imagine the game of presidential black.

34:00

jack democrats

34:02

are pretty sure they have a good hand a president

34:04

biden but more

34:06

than anything else they're confident

34:09

the dealer they're playing against has a

34:11

much worse one and the

34:13

result is a party

34:15

that all in

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34:57

east africa correspondent of the new york times

35:00

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35:02

local language opens up

35:04

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35:06

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35:11

i come into someone's home and greet them in somali

35:13

or swahili you know like her body or her

35:15

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35:18

i understand the culture coming from and i'm speaking

35:20

to you in the language than you understand

35:23

that level of familiarity i use

35:25

that to really get deeper into

35:27

what's going on what i'm trying to

35:29

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35:32

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35:34

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35:53

the

35:53

next morning

35:54

stat where are we headed

35:57

now we're headed

35:59

back to the shared set out

36:09

that the next morning take to

36:12

where

36:12

i live back to this air then and

36:14

philadelphia for the final day

36:16

of the dnc winter meetings

36:19

today is going to be the day

36:21

that we get the formal boat to

36:23

officially changed the primary order

36:25

for democrats we know that this

36:27

is just a formality and

36:29

the states are gonna shift devo

36:32

forest and nominating for president will

36:37

be get back inside all the dnc members

36:40

or cap

36:42

on

36:45

the road

36:46

rules are rules of not last

36:48

minute all approving

36:50

the reports that the

36:55

eyes it's

37:03

an anticlimactic into a weekend

37:05

that's been defined by the absence

37:07

of drama and it's

37:09

in especially stark contrast to the week before

37:12

with

37:12

it's protests for the energized

37:15

grass roots and an establishment

37:17

that remained beholden to them regardless

37:19

of the mid term results here

37:22

there's no pressure to stop democrats from lining

37:24

up behind biden and no pressure

37:26

to stop the establishment from changing

37:28

the rules to lock in his nomination by

37:31

holding some other but then

37:33

after all the voting was over how

37:35

are you i'm a guy that i did i am

37:38

i found this guy so

37:40

know that rises her sitting

37:42

alone on the couch wearing a cowboy

37:44

hat no no

37:46

surprises we all know shan

37:48

is a progressive member of the dnc from michigan

37:51

about dumb you gotten involved with the democratic

37:53

party after being inspired by bernie

37:55

sanders and

37:56

it's not the specific changes to the state

37:58

order who takes issue with there's

38:00

lots of good reasons for those states or maybe good reasons

38:02

rather state area for michigan's i'm

38:04

glad that we're you know earlier

38:07

it's how was done they had a process

38:09

that was directed by the president from the top

38:11

down jimmy harrison like

38:13

the guys really person bone and andrei

38:16

he and i target and a couple conversations

38:19

but you know he goes around talking in a way

38:21

that

38:22

can easily be interpreted to mean

38:25

he's taking orders from the president and

38:27

it's are really are so i put

38:29

this i think it's really important

38:32

to have a distinction between the party

38:34

and the elected because the party

38:37

has to be the organization that holds you electrodes

38:39

accountable because if

38:41

the party isn't the one that organizes holding

38:43

them accountable what other organisation

38:46

is do that has significant power

38:49

over candidates over

38:51

elected people are your biggest subject said

38:53

with how this process

38:55

change was that it was directed

38:57

tops out from the president to the dnc

39:00

yes i get like is that these people are

39:02

nice people and you know they're not they don't

39:04

actually think that they're doing anything wrong

39:06

with they think that they're doing everything

39:08

the way that it's supposed to be done because they're doing it the way

39:10

that we've always done it but that doesn't make

39:12

it right okay what makes it right is whether

39:15

it's democratic or not you know whether or not

39:17

the people from the grass roots have

39:19

their voices heard and respected

39:21

and actually follow okay

39:24

the dnc does not represent

39:26

the grassroots the party you know that there's

39:28

all this raw raw stuff about how great

39:30

and wonderful we were we didn't twenty twenty two

39:32

which to me is nuts because

39:36

we didn't win

39:36

so much as they lost a

39:38

question i have is about the progressive movement

39:40

itself it would seem as if

39:43

the left would be the one who are be the most

39:45

upset by something like this that

39:47

the left would be a place where abiding

39:50

primary challenger could come from that

39:53

the left would be the sense of energy

39:55

that will push back against the coordination of

39:57

joe biden

39:58

and i don't see

40:00

any of that pushback. Where is it? Well,

40:02

so what left? I

40:04

mean, I call myself a leftist. I

40:06

don't have a problem with that. And I'm a progressive

40:08

and I'm even farther to the left than that. I'm a leftist,

40:11

okay? But there isn't an organized left.

40:14

I mean, I talk to leftists all the time who are like,

40:16

I don't want nothing to do with the Democratic Party. They

40:19

see the party as intractable. And

40:22

so there isn't a lot of energy towards

40:25

building something like that up. The people that

40:27

have gone into the party, like Bernie and AOC

40:30

and folks like that, a lot of them

40:32

have been, the

40:34

party has marginalized. Do you want to see

40:36

Biden face a primary challenger? Do you want

40:38

to see Biden face a primary challenger? I want

40:41

to see everyone face a primary challenger because

40:43

if we don't have a choice about who to vote for, it's not

40:45

a democracy. Do you go into 2024 with

40:47

Biden as the nominee

40:49

feeling good about the Democratic Party's chances

40:51

against the Republicans? So

40:55

it depends entirely on what the Republicans do,

40:58

because this is one of

41:00

the problems with the Democratic Party strategy,

41:02

is that we're relying on the Republicans

41:05

being Trumpians. So if we're relying

41:07

on them to be that bad, then

41:11

who we have is largely irrelevant.

41:14

What's the question is, how bad are they going to be and how

41:16

well are we going to be able to turn that? That's actually

41:18

the thing we should be looking at, what happens on

41:20

the other side, because you're saying that's some of the

41:22

assumption that this is working off of. Yeah.

41:25

Yeah, I mean, so for example, if the Republicans

41:27

figure out, hey, you know, Trumpianism is a

41:29

loser, which it is, and

41:32

they manage to organize around somebody who isn't

41:34

an obvious Trumpian, likely somebody

41:36

who has the same basic philosophy but is smarter

41:38

about how to cover it over, how to paper it up, then

41:41

we're going to be in real trouble.

41:42

Thank you so much. I really appreciate

41:45

your time. It's been a pleasure. No problem. No

41:47

problem. So as the

41:49

winter meetings come to an end, the

41:52

biggest realization for me is that

41:54

both parties continue to be shaped

41:56

by this group that the midterms seem to reject.

42:00

Republicans, because they

42:02

think they have no choice. Democrats,

42:05

because they think it helps them win.

42:07

And in

42:07

these closed-door meetings, the

42:10

parties have been quietly planning their 2024 strategies,

42:14

based off assumptions of what this group wants.

42:16

So

42:18

next week... Good morning and

42:20

welcome to CPAC 2023, protecting America now.

42:25

we go inside the America First

42:28

movement

42:29

to find out for ourselves.

42:36

at

42:59

your Nordstrom

43:00

Rack store.

43:03

The run-up is reported by me, Estette

43:05

Herndon, and produced by Elisa

43:07

Gutierrez, Caitlin O'Keefe, Luke

43:10

van der Ploeg, and Anna Foley.

43:13

It's edited by Franny Karthoff

43:16

and Lisa Tobin, with original

43:18

music by Dan Powell, Marion

43:20

Lozano, and Alicia Beitoupe. It

43:23

was mixed by Corey Schrepple and Fact

43:25

Check by Caitlin Love. Special

43:28

thanks to Paula Schumann, Sam Donick,

43:31

Larissa Anderson, David Halfinger,

43:33

Mahima Chablani, Desiree Ibbakwa,

43:36

Renan Barelli, Jeffrey Miranda

43:39

and Maddie Masiello.