Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - Catherine Bohart: TL;DR - 1. We Need To Talk About Kamala

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

Columns. Analysis. The Guardian's Long Read. Who has time? Catherine Bohart, that's who, and she's going beyond the headlines to give you the lowdown on one of the biggest stories this week, alongside a guest journalist and roving correspondent Sunil Patel.This week: Biden steps down, Kamala steps up, but what's going to happen next? Puzzled by US politics? We've got you babes.Katy Balls, political editor of The Spectator, and US politics junkie, is our guide through it all; and Professor Sarah Churchwell joins to look deeper into how a younger candidate might affect the vote.Meanwhile, in the TL;DR Sidebar, comedian Sunil Patel throws his hat in the ring to be the Vice Presidential nominee. For both Trump and Harris.Written by Catherine Bohart, with Madeleine Brettingham, Sarah Campbell and Ellen Robertson.Produced by Victoria Lloyd & Lyndsay FennerRecorded at the Museum of Comedy, and Edited by David ThomasProduction Coordinators - Beverly Tagg & Katie SayerA Mighty Bunny production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. $1 per month on Rogers Internet. Visit Rogers.com for details. We got you, Rogers. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. ["Rogers," by The Bachelorette plays and audience cheers.] Welcome to TLDR, Too Long Didn't Read. This show is going to unpack one big story of the week. Yep, just one. Those stories that have been going on for so long

that it feels too late now to ask, wait, who, what, when, and what the hell does that mean? But don't worry, dear listener, I'll happily pose the questions you're too embarrassed to ask. Like, what is darts? And how does one become Lord of the Ring? The headlines can feel impenetrable. If you've managed to keep on top of the news every week then fair play to you.

I bet you also have a regular gym class and remember to call your mother. But for some of us we need a recap and a deep dive in the style of a catch up with our old school gang and this is a safe place to ask all the questions you like. News is just gossip for people with no friends. Let's not forget it. So how do we decide what to get into for our opening episode? Well, the French are up to their old tricks again,

showing off and selfishly stealing my thunder with the Olympics opening ceremony. To be fair, it's a great place for athletes. If there's anywhere you'd want to be carb loading, it is Paris. I refuse to have my thunder stolen, which is why I'm doing the whole show holding this giant flaming torch

and pole vaulting at the same time, truly honoring the Olympic motto, higher, faster, needier. In Westminster, seven Labour MPs have had the whip suspended for rebelling against Keir Starmer. This story makes me deeply uncomfortable. I don't want to think about Keir Starmer suspending whips.

It's like, right? It's like when you found fluffy handcuffs in your parents' room. In climate news, nine just-stop oil activists have been arrested this week at Heathrow Airport. Starmer's obviously concerned about this because he'll have to find nine more prison cells. Maybe he could cut out the middleman

and if they're found guilty of defending the planet or whatever the official legal term is He could send them all straight to work in Timsons He could solve prison overcrowding by really speeding up that crime to Timsons pipeline But in truth it wasn't much of a contest this week because this particular story looms so large in the public psyche that like a drunk Uncle at a wedding you cannot escape it Though let's face it so fast moving is the high drama of US politics that if we were on at a wedding, you cannot escape it. Though let's face it, so fast moving is the high drama of US politics that if we were on air a mere week ago,

we'd be discussing the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Imagine a news cycle where that's already been superseded. But it has, it has. You've got to feel for Donald, he got shot and the entire country gasped and then immediately got distracted by who's getting a promotion in the big boy office.

But you'd have to be living under a rock this week not to know that Joe Biden stepped in as democratic nominee for president and endorsed Kamala Harris for the job. But in the words of Big Brother's Nikki Graham. Who is she? Who is she? Who is she? Where did you find her?

There's a hundred days to go to the American election and there's suddenly a lot we don't know about the potential Democratic nominee. First things first, how are we saying Kamala? I don't feel bad by the way for asking this because I think she would struggle with Kweeva. To be honest I'd be able to pronounce it more easily if it was spelled C-A-M-D-H-B-A-L-I-B-H-E, Kamala. So, what do we know? Well, we know that Nancy Pelosi has come out, and I do wish the sentence ended there. Has come out in support of Kamala,

as have many other leading Democrats, delegates, and of course, Charlie XCX. We know that Kamala is good at understatement, speaking to her campaign staff on Monday after a week, which included an assassination attempt on the former president, the withdrawal from the race of the current president and a bunch of asparagus predicting America's first female president, Kamala said, I know, it's been a rollercoaster. Which is like describing 2020 as a bit indoorsy.

It's stressful because normally we've had 18 months of campaigning to get to know what this woman's deal is. But we don't have that. We need to get deep with Kamala and fast. Basically, we need to go on a hen weekend with Harris. We need to smash two bottles of Prosecco before dinner and do go ape together. I know, it's a lot, but luckily, we've got an in-house swat, and I'm not sure she'll love the title,

to help us out and make sure we know what the next few months might look like. She's the political editor of The Spectator. Please welcome Katie Balls, everybody. Hello. Welcome. Hi. You swear it's hot gossip, not really boring, right, Katie? I swear it's going to be a great handy. OK, amazing. I've never believed that sentence before.

First question. And obviously, she's the sitting VP. You have? Yes. Thank you so much. How likely is she to be the Democratic presidential candidate? Is she like China's gonna do well at the Olympics likely or Ireland's gonna do well at the Olympics likely? I don't offend you in case you were banking on Ireland. I know that. I would put her in China doing well at the Olympics category. Right, OK. Eastern Europeans winning the weightlifting, that kind of certainty, I think.

I love that we both watch the same thing in our downtime. Yeah. I bet it's for different reasons, Katie. Even though it's sort of assumed that she will be the candidate, she's not officially the candidate, how does she become the candidate? Literally what happens. Ideally, could you explain it to me like Juliet Stevenson explains the offside rule amendment like Beckham?

I'll start Biden's mayonnaise. Go ahead. Imagine I had over 5,000 condiments in front of me. Oh my God. OK, all right. I know a girl like that. Go on. Or maybe just under. Or just under 5,000. That's around the number of delegates there are, who would then vote for the candidate. And Kamala Harris has already got about two and a half thousand of those condiments.

Okay. She must be so full. Yeah. There's some real rogue choices amongst them. Yeah. And while the condiments are there, they haven't actually got to the point where they are voting for her yet because it's going to be done in a week or so's time over electronic ballot, but it's quite clear that she has the support of enough delegates slash condiments so she'll get over the line when the vote comes.

Does that work? It really does random applause for Katie if anything So Biden doesn't feel fit to run for president is he Fit to president like is he is anyone in charge anymore? Who's driving this thing? Help if you listen to Donald Trump, no. If you listen to Kamala Harris, yes. The Republicans are now attacking, the Democrats were letting Joe Biden continue. But I mean to be fair, there are lots of people saying

at 81 he was quite old to the job before he stepped down. He has a big team around him. I think they will keep the show on the road. What it feels like you're saying is he is the president because there are lots of other people to president for him. Yeah. Yikes. OK. I don't think he has to work every hour of the day. I might put it like that because he's got Kamala Harris and he's got others. But yeah, he will be president. But others might do more of the heavy lifting.

Is that like how me and my housemates are housemates but I'm in charge? I mean how much of your share of the chores do you do? Oh I do every... So here's something I'm confused by. If she becomes the candidate she's only got a hundred days till the election right so she's coming in late and it feels like we've gone from straight dating with Biden to lesbian dating with Kamala Like we've had years of dating Biden and we know everything about him. He's old. He likes ice cream and his son's a bit of a rogue Whereas with Kamala we have to now have one very intense weekend to decide if she's the love of our life So I guess my question is like what's her platform? Is she gonna have her own policies or would she just take over Biden's campaign?

Does she basically inherit a dying Tamagotchi or would she get her own Tamagotchi? So I think she inherits the Tamagotchi. She does. Yeah, because she is. No fair. She is his vice president. So she is pretty, you know, tied in to everything he has done in the White House. If it was a candidate who had not served under him, it might be a bit different. But I think she's partly picked, so she continuity so on the big issues you know for example talking about bi-denomics so pumping money into industry to create jobs and things

should be pretty much the same but there will be some issues where she is more happy talking about or she has more of a personal reputation whether it's good or bad so I think it will come out in rhetoric, also a female going against a male in the debates. But the main planks of the Democrat message will probably be the same. So she sort of has to take that on. Gosh it feels a bit like going to the same school as your older sister doesn't it? Like I'm different, I swear, I just can't remember why neither can you and you keep calling me her name. Okay. Now, I'd obviously never gossip unless it was important. But I'm also hearing that she's unpopular.

I'm hearing it a lot and I don't really understand why. Unpopular compared to who, I think is the question. So in some polling she is quite unpopular but Donald Trump is also quite unpopular. She was unpopular when she ran for president the first time amongst Democrats because she launched her bid when Joe Biden was running and she was in single digits in all the polling of the Democrat candidates and lots of people thought she'd do really well. But it turns out because she was a bit in the middle, if you were quite left wing you liked Bernie Sanders and if you were a bit more center right, but within the Democratic party, you liked Joe Biden. And

she kind of sank. But then she was quite savvy because she was polling really badly, but she dropped out the race before any primaries. So when you'd get voters actually voting on you. So she never actually had that bad a result because she jumped before a result came. And then I think her critics often call her, you know, Kamala Chameleon because she's quite hard to pick. I've never heard that, but I do like it. And will be repeated. She also has been more critical of Israel

than Joe Biden has been. But then if you look at her past, when she worked as a district attorney, when she worked in law, she has a tendency to really like to lock people up. Oh. But Americans love prisons. I'm confused. OK, wow.

So she is all over the map in terms of political opinions. Arguably. So then it means that you might have fans on both sides, but it can also mean you have people who don't like you on either side because they're not sure what they're getting with you. Okay. And then the other thing she's criticized not to be too negative about her. No I am. I am. Please go off Katie by all means. They often say she's very word salad so she just talks and talks and talks and says the same sentence a lot. Some people find that charming.

Katie before we go any further it's time for for you, the audience, to ask any burning questions we have left unanswered. It's ask the audience time. It's a bit like question time, but with people you wouldn't jump out of a lift to avoid. So does anyone have any questions? Does anyone have anything they don't understand that they would like answered? I'm Rachel. Hi Rachel. What is your question? My question was about Robert Kennedy or Robert F. Kennedy and where he sits in the game and like, who would he actually be taking the votes from?

Would it be from Republicans, Democrats? So if anybody doesn't know, RFK is the independent candidate, yes? Yes. Thank you. And who will he be likely be taking votes from? Great question. Yeah, I think it's a really good question.

Lots of people, and I think there's even recordings, Donald Trump wants him to step down and get in behind him because lots of people, if you look at the polling, the polling is so slight between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump that where these independent votes go or don't go could decide who wins the election. So there'll be lots of pressure on him to fold in behind Donald Trump. So far, he's not doing that.

And if lots of voters vote for him, I think people think it's worse for Donald Trump than the Democrats, but the votes can go both ways. And one of the things with these vice president picks is they're trying to pick someone who might attract not just swing Republican voters, but particularly those independent voters, so they can bring some of the votes back to their side. So I think the fight is on all sides but there's a reason Donald Trump is pushing so hard to try and get him to come in his tent. Great question, thanks guys. We've heard from the experts and now for balance, it's time to hear from Sunil Patel. So the presidential race, thoughts, ideas, feedback? Joe Biden has retired, which can only mean one thing.

Yes, the continued unraveling of American democracy. But also, there's a job going. So my mum will be absolutely delighted about that. Now if Kamala is going to be president she's going to need a vice president a Richard to her Judy a Jay-Z to her Beyonce a Jedwood to her other Jedwood and think about it Harris is going to need someone to take meetings on her behalf sure but also let's face it in this climate potentially also some small arms fire. Now, I...

No, no, no, no, come on now. So, I am delighted to formally announce that I found out what the vice president's salary is and I'm now willing to be her human flat jacket. So, I think I'm the man for the job. I think I'm also used to supporting a strong woman do her job, you know? I mean, I'm practically man for the job. I think I'm also used to supporting a strong woman do her job. I mean, I'm practically vice president of this show.

Yes. Catherine, don't give me that look. Come on. We're not even friends. Also, the vice president is an advisor. And I give amazing advice. Like, maybe you should have booked someone else who actually knows what they're

talking about to do this slot. I did ask. Plus, the Vice President has to be in charge of America when the President's not there. Easy, easy job. In 1996, I was in charge of the school hamster during the holidays and it only died a little bit. I'm the man for the job, that's what I think. I'm the man for the job because I'm a man. Okay, and it is going to have to be, come on, it is going to have to be a man. Okay? And it is going to have to be, come on,

it is going to have to be a man. Guys? It is going to have to be a man, come on, because this is America. Okay, we can't have two women in charge. It's not the Barbie movie, is it? Well, alright, who else is it going to be? Gavin Newsom? I mean, like, Americans are going to elect a handsome white guy. No way, gross. Also, there might be legal problems with that because the Constitution says the president and the vice president have to be from different states and Newsom and Harris are both from California, whereas I am from Somerset.

So one nail to me. Others have suggested Pete Buttigieg who might be a great public speaker and former Navy veteran, but has he ever nailed a tight five on Comedy Central? I think not. Now, if Kamala won't have me, I am willing to be Trump's sidekick. Indeed, one might even say his gimp. Now, obviously there is one problem. Trump has already selected his running mate, JD Vance, a man with the smallest eyes I have ever seen outside of a gingerbread

man. Vance has been called neo-reactionary and a right-wing populist by the press and a button-eyed weirdo by me. But I do think I could take him in a fight, so you you know come on Vance let's do this okay I'm the perfect replacement for him I think you know think about it we both have hot wives I'm kidding mine's ugly as hell which makes babies cry obviously I'm joking I don't have a wife. I am, and I can't emphasise this enough, very alone. Now, JD Vance is against same-sex marriage and gun control. Quite right.

Now, this might not be the right show to say it on, but I like my women heterosexual and armed to the teeth without any mental health background checks. Rock hard and afraid, that's how I like to be. We both have beards. Mine is better than his obviously. His isn't bad but is symptomatic of low testosterone. It's sad it happens these days. There are supplements you can take for that Vance or failing that I've heard that being in a relationship can actually lower a man's testosterone.

So maybe take a leaf out of my book and hit the streets with a bag of Johnnies. That's what I'm talking about. He's crazy. He was in the Marines for four years. And I was in the Army Cadets at school for five days. And then I left to do homework club, like the absolute stud I am he's super

into Bitcoin and I've done a radio for series about that I don't actually own any but I do have some chocolate coins left over from Christmas which to be fair in a couple years will probably be worth more than any cryptocurrency now he grew up in poverty and I grew up in Bath. Now you... LAUGHTER You might think Bath is a bit middle class, but I was there recently and sadly it now has two branches of Greggs, which basically makes it the British Rust Belt now. LAUGHTER

Vance is called single women childless cat ladies who want other people to be as miserable as they are. Yeah, which is a phrase I've used more than once to end a bad hinge date. He wants to ban abortion. Now, okay, we differ there. If I ever protest outside a clinic, it'll be the one that botched my testicle reduction. They made them bigger. So, if you're listening to this, Kamalaala or Trump, I am willing to give up my thriving British comedy career to travel across the Atlantic and be your little baby ballot box bitch. I have so many more questions, a very intellectual merit, and luckily we have a guest on the line who I think can help. So joining us now is Sarah Churchwell,

Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London. Hello, Sarah. Hello. Oh my God, how exciting. The voice of God. Sarah, as you are appearing to us, you're coming out of the walls and it's very thrilling.

How are you? I'm good, I'm glad to know God is the woman. That's good news. Oh my gosh, me too. Huge relief, Sarah. Though I do still have a is the woman. That's good news. Oh my gosh, me too. Huge relief there. Though I do still have a couple of questions. Trump obviously went through the primary process and competed against other candidates, as did Biden prior to an election.

Do you think it's a problem for Kamala that she's seen to be anointed, especially both, I guess, in terms of the vote, but also if she does go on to be the president in terms of her first term? Well, look, I think when people start talking about somebody being anointed, we need to remember that the person on the other side is someone who his voters say was literally chosen by the actual Judeo-Christian God. So, I mean, that's anointed, right? Some people think that their leader is anointed by God, say the English, for example.

Indeed, exactly, right? So these are people who think that Jesus is behind Trump's candidacy and stuff. Yeah, he ran in a primary, but there was never any question. I think the fact is that Democrats currently, as Katie was rightly saying, have every right to run against Kamala. There's nobody stopping them. They're not throwing their hat into the ring. They're getting behind her.

That's not an undemocratic process. It's that nobody else is throwing their hat into the ring, they're getting behind her. That's not an undemocratic process, it's that nobody else is throwing their hat into the ring. So partly that's because of timing, as we said, we don't have time to mess around, but it's also because they believe that she can win and that's how parties select their candidates. That is the democratic process, it's all kind of fine. Wow, look at that American directness. I've never finished a sentence with a full stop before, I can't believe it can be done, amazing! So look, I don't want to judge, there's literally never been more than two weeks between any of my romantic relationships, but do you think that there might be long-term consequences to the pace at which the Democrats have rebounded with Kamala and is some of their excitement around her,

is it all about her merits or is some of it a relief that it's no longer Joe that might be skewing their judgment, do you think? Oh, I think there's a lot of relief. I think that's probably more, it is probably more about that than it is about her merits or at least a little bit of both, but it's certainly a lot of relief. There's relief, first of all, that's just someone younger and energetic who's laughing and bouncing around and stuff. But of course there's relief that it is a woman and of course there's relief that it is the first black woman for a lot of voters.

This is the thing to remember is that, and this is an amazing statistic, but it's true. This is the first American election since 1976 that doesn't feature either a Bush, a Clinton or a Biden. Since 1976. That is a remarkable statistic and it's wild that it's taken that long. So I guess, yeah, it's refreshing. I guess there was a huge proportion of the votership that didn't want either candidate, so they must be relieved to have come over there. Right. So, you know, it might be rebounding, you know, to, you know, you're saying, are we rebounding?

OK, but maybe we're just discovering that there are other fish in the sea. And, you know, we're just excited to be out on the dating scene and meeting new people and that's all very exciting. Sarah, preach! You sound just like me, I love it. Your book is obviously about the legacy of racism in America and how white women in particular have supported anti-democratic movements in America, including you say Trumpism. The last time America had the chance to elect a white woman, it all went disastrously wrong. Do you genuinely think that they are ready as a country to vote for a black woman? And I can't believe I have to ask that question in 2024, but I think it's a pertinent one because even the discussion around her VP seems to diminish the likelihood that that could

possibly happen on her own merit. Yeah, no, it is a pertinent one because America is a patriarchy. And let's bear in mind that, you know, that the way, if you watched any of the Republican National Convention, they were absolutely hammering this kind of masculinist macho message. I mean, Trump walked on stage to James Brown's,

it's a man's man's man's world, right? If you can believe it in 2024, as you say, right? And so, and they have, right? And so, and they have, you know, Kid Rock, and they have these idiot men coming out and saying, I mean, I just can't, it's just, you can't even pretend to take these people seriously. I'm sorry. So if anybody who finds that completely toxic and feels like they're suffocating on the toxic masculinity, then the fact that we've got a woman running is actually going to be a really important counter to that. The other thing I would say is we need to remember that because of the way the American

election works, in point of fact, in 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. If it were a direct popular vote, we did vote for women to be president. We've already done it. It's just because of the electoral colleges that Hillary didn't win that election. So Kamala, as Katie was rightly saying, Kamala has to win those swing states to win the election. But we've shown that Americans will overwhelmingly vote for a woman. But do you think that intersects with racism in the states? So the real issue in this election is it's going to come down to young people.

If she's going to energize young people, young people in America are overwhelmingly progressive, they're overwhelmingly anti-racist, they're not going to have a problem voting for a black woman. Old, you know, white men in rural states definitely are going to have a problem doing for that. So the Democrats absolutely have to get young voters out and we have to make sure that they see in common the positive choice that they want to make. The other thing that we need to remember in all of this, which you guys haven't really touched on yet, is how important reproductive freedom is going to be in this election.

Well, that's actually a really good question because I do wonder, do you think it being a Harris ticket rather than a Biden ticket changes what the key issues of the presidential debates and indeed the sort of crunch areas where people vote on for the electorate are? Do you think that that's going to be actively changed because it's her and not him? Yeah, absolutely. So certainly around reproductive rights, for example, that's the perfect example of it. Joe Biden, he supports reproductive rights legally, but he is a Catholic who doesn't like to use the word abortion. So that hampers things when we're trying to actually fight for reproductive rights. Whereas Kamala Harris will stand right up

there and say, I mean, she announced in the beginning of the year that she was going on the Reproductive Freedom Tour, which I absolutely loved. I want to get t-shirts. I think we should all go on the Reproductive Freedom Tour. I think I heard their album, yeah, go on. Right, you know, I mean, you could tell her Swift would totally join the Reproductive Freedom Tour,

you know, you know she would. So I think that there's a lot of reason to think that if Kamala can continue the momentum that she has. Obviously it's really early, right? People right now, as you said, are just excited to see somebody new. But if she can continue this, yes. I'm just wondering if any of our audience have a question for Sarah. Hello.

Hi, I'm Noah. Hi, Noah. I was wondering what the American public think about the Green Party in America and like Jill Stein. Thank you. Great question. I think it's really hard, and I know this sounds like I might be dodging the question, but you have an eligible voting population in the United States of 230 million people, right? So it's really hard to generalize about mainstream voters at that scale.

You're basically, another comparison is that the continental US is roughly the size of two EUs. So can you generalize about a mainstream EU voter? Like you can't. There's just too much variation in there. But there are certainly people who are committed green voters in the US. But right now, if that's what you want to achieve, the people who are more likely to be able to implement decent green policies that recognize

the reality of climate change is actually the Democrat Party. It really does come down to between them and the Republicans, and the Republicans are completely committed to stripping all environmental protections away, to giving everything back to gas and fossil fuels, and to giving them all the money and all the environment, and to just letting everything burn. So look for the... They are. I for the they are. I mean, they've said that that's they've got this policy called Project 2025,

which I love that the actual wording from the leaflet. No, it is practically is. It's just let it all burn. Just let it all burn. Right. Thank you so much, Sarah. We really appreciate you. And it's been wonderful to have you on everyone. Round of applause for Sarah Churchwell, please.

So, Katie, at the end of the story, what have we learned? Do we have a hero of the week? Do you have a hero of the week? You don't often see an older man step aside for a younger woman even at the cost of his own ego. I think mine is Biden. Any big predictions or anyone whose Instagram we think we should be lurking on? Prediction wise I think it's's gonna be quite a close contest. Probably going up into the wire, in terms of not knowing who's gonna win, really, or having a clear leader.

Okay, this has been TLDR. I've been Catherine Bohart, and now, thank goodness, after all that learning, we can go back to mindlessly scrolling on our phones. I've been asked to change that because this is a Radio 4 audience. So thankfully, we can all go back to mindlessly scrolling our books.

Is that how books work? I don't know. We'll be here for the next five weeks. See you next time. TLDR was written and hosted by Katherine Bohart with Katie Balls, Sunil Patel and Professor Sarah Churchwell. It was also written by Madeline Brettingham, Sarah Campbell, Ellen Robertson and Georgie Flynn. The producers were Victoria Lloyd and Lindsay Fenner. It was a mighty bunny production for BBC Radio 4. From BBC Radio 4, John Holmes says the C-word. I am John Holmes and last year I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Following surgery, I'm recovering just fine now, thanks for asking, but it's all been a bit weird.

And I think it feels weird, not least because men don't really like talking about this stuff. So I've gathered together a load of other men who've been through it for brutally honest and, yes, funny conversations about all things cancer. Across the series we'll be hearing from, amongst many others, Stephen Fry. You saved my life. Oh my goodness. It's a wonderful thing to hear. Eric Idle. It's not the most desirable side effect, but it's funny. And the BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen. I took a dump on a newspaper. John Holmes says the c-word. Listen on BBC Sounds. Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day or binging TV shows all night.

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