Pod Save America - VP Picks Her VP

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

We're just hours away from the announcement of VP Harris's running mate—and she's reportedly narrowed it down to Gov. Tim Walz and Gov. Josh Shapiro. Jon and Lovett talk about what they love about both finalists, what the influx of Obama veterans like David Plouffe could mean for the Harris campaign, why Trump doesn't want to debate the Vice President, and Trump's grievance-filled rally in Atlanta. Finally, they play a round of "Okay, Stop" with RFK's bizarre bear cub admission. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy's on vacation this week, though I though not sure how restful it's been. A lot of news. A lot of new things going on. On today's show, Kamala Harris adds some Democratic all-stars to her staff as she and her new running mate barnstorm the battlegrounds this week. Trump is in meltdown mode as he refuses to debate Kamala Harris

without a security blanket of MAGA supporters and whines about her crowd size in Atlanta. And RFK Jr. tweets a video of him telling Roseanne about the time he hit a dead bear cub in Central Park when he ran out of time to eat it. More on that later. Yeah, following this developing story. You can just go back a couple seconds.

I did say that sentence just to hear it again. Yeah. The dead bear cub in Central Park. Under a bicycle. Under a bicycle. We're going to get into it. But first, we are recording this Monday afternoon, but by the time you hear it on Tuesday, it is highly likely that Kamala Harris will have announced her running mate. Reporting indicates the campaign will be releasing a video just before the VP appears with her VP pick at a rally in Philly on Tuesday night.

Campaign is looking to keep their momentum going for the third straight week. The polling averages and models are now showing a tied race and a few, like Nate Silvers, even have Harris in the lead for the first time. Her outstanding campaign team is also getting some help from some of the most successful campaign operatives in the Democratic Party, who also happen to be our good pals. David Plouffe, who led Barack Obama to victory in 2008 and 2012, is joining as senior advisor. Mitch Stewart, who ran the Iowa caucuses for Obama in 08 and went on to oversee all the swing states in 2012, will be a senior advisor for battleground states.

Longtime Democratic comms pros Stephanie Cutter and Jenen paul mary are heading back in and the list goes on gang's all here obama's 11 that's pretty good i didn't even prepare that that just happened that's david binder's gonna be there it's just they got a great crew yeah and jen o'malley dylan of course uh an obama person before she was a biden person remains campaign manager and her fantastic team that has been working on this campaign now, probably in their minds forever. So we will get to the VP selection in a bit. But first, what was your reaction to the staffing news? And talk about some of the challenges of adding all that new talent to an existing campaign. I had like sort of two reactions, which was first to once again, pause to note how well

the campaign has done under extraordinarily strange and unique circumstances that something there was such a dramatic shift in how the campaign operated once Kamala became the person that they were rallying behind that just spoke to how much talent was already there waiting to be deployed if they had kind of, I think, the right energy, the right enthusiasm and the right person to get behind. We went through this in 2008. After Obama secures the nomination, that campaign has to grow. There's this Hillary Clinton campaign sitting side by side with it that had been fighting it through every single state that also had a lot of really great and talented people. And so as that Obama campaign becomes a general election campaign, it's supposed to a primary campaign, you see them starting to hire some of the people they fought so hard against. And that integration process is interesting.

It's personal. It's people deciding that they're going to put the campaign fights behind them. There's questions about, it's often some of the hardest people are like spokespeople who might have been out there saying things about the campaign, but on the most part, everybody recognizes that we're now on the same team. What's interesting here is there wasn't a primary. That didn't take place. But the Biden campaign was, I think, first of all, had fewer senior leaders in Delaware. It was more run out of the White House. So they just need these kind of voices to come into the fold to help a team that's already doing so well. Yeah, there's a few reasons why I think they needed this crew, partly because Joe Biden had been in politics for so long that he had this sort of small circle of senior advisors that were really close to him. Mike Donilon, Anita Dunn, who's now going to be at a super PAC supporting Kamala Harris, Steve Ruschetti, a few others.

I think that Kamala Harris inherited like everyone from Jen O'Malley Dillon on down, that whole staff like could stay right where they are and they're going to be fantastic and they've been great. But she needs people who have been like on a successful national presidential campaign to be communications and messaging advisors and to sort of be like your big think strategist kind of people, right? And that's what Plou, right? And that's what Plouffe does. And that's what Cutter and Palmieri do. And certainly Mitch, when it comes to the battleground states. So it is a fantastic crew. It gave me like a lot of, I just felt really good.

Oh, yeah. No, you said security blanket. It just it felt like it felt like a security blanket. And then and just the fact that like, this is also like, they're not drawing on a year of what it was like for Kamala Harris to be campaigning in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, which you might've had if there had been a longer primary or a longer campaign. So of course they need people who have a ton of experience, you know, making strategy for those kinds of places. Cause they haven't been on the ground testing things and trying things and figuring out what works. And she knows them and they know each other right like jen knows all the obama people obviously because she was one and kamala harris one of barack obama's earliest supporters in 2007 she was like i remember being in the des moines iowa field office with her and maya harris like knocking on doors right before the caucuses in 08 so the whole like

i know when everyone was waiting for obama to endorse kamala harris there was like some some questions like oh does he really support whatever? Like they've known each other for a long, long time and are quite close. Was I'm like my brain. Was there a joke where he got in trouble? Yes. Yes. And when he was president, he did say that she was one of the she's a great attorney general, one of the best looking attorney generals in the country.

And then we did a joke at the Correspondents Dinner where obama references the fact that he uh said this about attorney general kamala harris and said he had to apologize uh for calling uh kamala harris the best looking attorney general in the country uh he had to apologize to eric holder right that was a good joke that was a good joke i remember that um glad he apologized anyway it's just something that happened campaigns also bringing back our pal liz Allen, who's currently the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy to be the chief of staff for Kamala's VP pick. Liz was VP Harris's communications director when she was the VP pick back in 2020. So this is a little inside baseball, but I do think the other challenge with bringing on a running mate is integrating the two teams because you pick a running mate and then you need an entire staff for the running mate, an entire campaign operation for the running mate. What are some of the considerations there?

Well, just the day the person is chosen to be the vice presidential candidate, they're plugged into an organization and a schedule that is full right there. and a schedule that is full, right? They are, and that is an operation that takes a ton of people. And whoever it is, whether they're a senator or a governor or a secretary of transportation or what have you, they don't have that kind of operation. And more importantly, that operation

isn't plugged into the campaign. And because you don't know, maybe until the day before, you know, we're recording this on Monday afternoon, the campaign is telling people right now that she hasn't made her mind up. This will be someone at an event tomorrow. Then you just have to have that organization built. And then you assume that once the person is chosen, they will bring along their people

that will plug into this operation. And then it just becomes an organic question of personalities and people working together and figuring out how to make it work in real time. Sometimes it's easier than other times. Yeah, you need some Harris people on the team, in this case, Harris people, to make sure the VP is on message and isn't doing their own thing. But you also want to make the VP pick feel comfortable with some of their own people. So it's just a question of, it has almost always worked in situations I've been in. We were on the Kerry campaign when John Edwards was picked, and those teams integrated quite well. And to the point we were just making about adding all the staff. Back then, when Kerry won the primary and it

was the general, a lot of Bill Clinton's advisors and strategists joined the campaign in DC as pollster strategists, whatever else. And then in the Obama campaign, Biden and the Biden people sort of fit in very well and everyone got along and it was great. I remember when the Obama campaign named Hillary Clinton's former campaign manager, Patty Sleaze Doyle, to be the chief of staff to whoever the VP would be, who it turned out to be, Joe Biden. Do you remember in 2004 when there was tension because John Edwards wanted to use hope is on the way versus help is on the way yes and there was like uh there was a stupid thing it was and so that then there's a placard

at the convention yes as a placard he wanted to do so the the carry campaign message was help is on the way and it worked uh help never came yeah and yeah uh yeah sort sort of, yeah, DoorDash has canceled your order. But, but, but Edwards wanted to do Hope because that was his, he wanted to do Hope. So he wanted to do his version, which was Hope is on the way. So on his night, there were just completely different signs for Hope is on the way. What does this have to do with Patti Sluice Doyle and anything else? Just to do sometimes there's tension between a vice presidential candidate and a presidential candidate. Sometimes they bring their own.

I thought that was clear. You went down, you went down. I'm getting nods. I'm getting nods. Adrian's in. Yeah, Oh, okay. Sometimes they bring their own. I thought that was clear. You went down. I'm getting nods. I'm getting nods. Adrian's in. Yeah, no, great. Okay. All right.

As for the VP pick, as much as we hoped selfishly, it would have leaked by the time of this recording. I guess we still got time. It hasn't. The latest reporting is that the final choice has come down to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. And of course, the reporting could be wrong. We could all be surprised by a dark horse. Who knows? But here's what we're going to do for all you fine people. We're going to do one reaction as if it's Shapiro, one reaction as if it's Walz, and one reaction as if it's a total surprise.

We're going to really put it, we're going to really try to put ourselves in that mindset. All right, let's do it. Ready? Here we go. Love it. She did it. Kamala Harris chose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her vice presidential pick. Always knew it was going to be Shapiro. Always wanted to be Shapiro. I love walls, but secretly I really wanted Shapiro. What do you think? Why'd she do it? And what does Josh Shapiro bring to the ticket? So first of all, Josh Shapiro is a very popular governor in Pennsylvania, a popularity that has exceeded recent Pennsylvania governors up to this point. And he has also won in parts of Pennsylvania where he has outperformed even other figures

that are popular in the state, like John Fetterman. He is a former attorney general. So now we have two attorney generals going after a criminal. I really like what that story says. And he fixed I-95. Which is one of the biggest pluses for you. In two fucking weeks. You've been talking about that forever. I have. So I'm a huge fan of Josh Spear. I think she chose the person who is most likely to help her win the election. And the reason is because the importance of Pennsylvania

cannot be overstated. If Kamala Harris does not win Pennsylvania, it is very, very difficult. She has very few paths to 270 without Pennsylvania. If she does Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, doesn't work without Pennsylvania. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin

doesn't work without Pennsylvania. Like there's so many, she has to basically run the table on not just the other blue wall states, but Arizona and Georgia and Nevada or some combination of those three if she doesn't have Pennsylvania. So that's why that's known as the tipping point state. So incredibly important to win Pennsylvania. Now, does Josh Shapiro automatically get her Pennsylvania? Absolutely not. But like you said, wildly popular, 60% approval rating, doesn't happen a lot, including an approval rating of over 90% with Democratic voters, with young voters, with black and brown voters. He's super popular. He's young, dynamic,

executive experience, which is what she wanted. There were criticisms of Shapiro on a few different issues. One was Israel. Some folks on the left were concerned that Josh Shapiro, you know, when he was 20, he wrote a college essay. I think that he didn't believe in a two-state solution. He now does believe in a two-state solution, he said. He said some other things in that essay that I think he clearly doesn't believe anymore. When he was in college. Yeah, when he was in college, he was 20 years old. There was also some concern about what he said about campus protesters, even though he said every campus protester has a right to protest peacefully and that the vast majority of encampments and college protesters were, like he had no problems whatsoever and they wereouting anti-semitic tropes specifically explicitly he said if white

supremacists were doing something like that we would treat them differently yeah so in that this is i think people have said that oh he's comparing student protesters to the kkk which i think is like a deeply ungenerous uh interpretation not only of that sentence but the broader interview he is simply saying that if someone was spouting something really, really antisemitic, that if a member of the KKK was saying something really, really racist, that you should not hold these things to the same standard. But in that same interview, he says, because Jake Tapper confronts him and says, these are not protesters coming from the right. These are protesters coming from the left. And he says, even though we may disagree on policy, that these are people with

strongly held and even righteous views. He says that in the same interview. So obviously, he is not in the same breath describing student protesters as righteous members of the KKK. He's making a distinction, which I like. He was obviously not saying that. Let's leave it there. And then the other issue was he had some opposition to his support for some kind of school vouchers and charter schools, though I'll point out that the Pennsylvania chapters of the American Federation of Teachers and another Pennsylvania State Union did endorse him. And they actually said, we don't agree with everyone on every issue, but he's been really good on education overall. And so we're going to support Josh Shapiro. So I do think, look, the divisions and opposition to Shapiro that have appeared on Twitter and in the media, they are real, right? But they are just not representative of how most voters or most Democratic voters feel about Josh Shapiro, particularly Democratic voters who know him in Pennsylvania, very progressive ones, very young voters, all of them.

And by the way, that doesn't mean having these criticisms of Josh Shapiro's positions isn't a valid thing to express and to make sure that the Harris-Shapiro campaign doesn't honor what your concerns are, right? Like this campaign will reflect this big, broad coalition. And so the question is not what is Josh Shapiro's position or what was his position? It is what is the position of this campaign and this presidency, which will obviously come from Vice President Kamala Harris. So if people have concerns, they should express them, right? But this campaign is a reflection of the views of Josh Shapiro that you disagree. And again, Pennsylvania in 2020, Joe Biden won by one to two points, okay? And right now the polls are tied. And if Josh Shapiro even helps Kamala Harris half a point in Pennsylvania, three quarters of a point in Pennsylvania, it could mean the entire election. Right. And so like that's that everything that Kamala Harris has done since Joe Biden stepped aside and she announced her campaign has screamed, I'm in it to win it. I'm in it to win this thing. I'm going to do it. And I do think that's that is the Josh Shapiro pick in a nutshell.

I think if Josh Shapiro, all things being equal, if Josh Shapiro was the governor of Minnesota and Tim Walz was the governor of shapiro all things being equal if josh shapiro was the governor of minnesota and tim walsh was the governor of pennsylvania with everything else being equal i think that of course she would pick tim walsh and not josh shapiro because it's pennsylvania yeah i think that's right yeah okay love it she did it she did it kamala harris has been walsh pilled and selected the minnesota governor as her vice presidential pick what do you you think? I knew it was going to be Walls. And I secretly, honestly, I didn't want to say it, but I always wanted to be fucking Walls. I was Walls pilled from the fucking beginning.

It was always meant to be Walls. I think it was his appearance right here on Pod Save America. Friend of the show. His interview with you. He came into the office just a month or two before that with Tommy, before the whole Walls pilled craze started. Yeah, he'd get a seat at the goddamn table. All right, what does Walls bring to the ticket?

Why'd she do it in the end? What's going on? So first of all, I think it is amazing how Tim Walls has gone from who to the vice presidential pick in a matter of weeks, in part just on this. You were very clear about that with him.

Yeah. In the interview. I was. Guys, why are we hiding this guy in a fucking, in a bushel? You know?

He should be shining. In the tundra. Yeah. He should be shining. In the tundra. Yeah. He should be shining. That's what they're missing? Yeah. Just kidding, Minnesota. We love you, Minnesota.

Hide him in the dairy. But first of all, it is an incredible thing to do a vice presidential audition and issue a message that catches fire nationwide. That's first. And then I think second, once people started hearing from Tim Walz and seeing how he delivers a message and then diving into his background and his story, not just about where he comes from, but how he's governed, he became an exciting kind of representation of what we want this ticket to be. Even if, obviously, Josh Shapiro might bring more to one state, that Tim Walz brings something to the whole ticket compete, not just in Minnesota, but Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Yeah. If you're going just by what is going to help Kamala Harris win, you could say that Tim Walz sounds and looks like the kind of voter who may decide the election, which is the Obama Trump voter from a small town or rural area who is

tired of Trump, but not necessarily sold on Kamala Harris. Maybe they weren't. They might not have been sold on Joe Biden because of his age or whatever else. They might not yet be sold on Kamala Harris because, you know, she's portrayed as a San Francisco liberal, right? But Tim Walz, you can send into any small town in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and he is going to connect with people like he's been connecting with people all through this audition process. I think that he's obviously fantastic on TV. And according to John Heilman and Puck, that caught the eye of Kamala Harris herself and some people close around her. So she really liked that he was he performed so well on television. The resume, of course, is outstanding veteran

social studies teacher, football coach, rural town, wildly accomplished record as governor in Minnesota with the Democratic trifecta. With a one vote majority. I mean, they have put places like California and New York to fucking shame. They have used the power that they were given and they've been unafraid of doing it. And it's been really awesome watching Tim Walz defend that record when he's asked about it, right? Like, oh, are you too liberal? And he's like, I'll never apologize for making sure kids have food in their bellies when they're learning in school. And so I think that was all very inspiring. And like, obviously there's a contradiction here and like, well, what are you looking to get out of your VP, right? One is just

like, we got to win fucking Pennsylvania. And that's why we need Josh Shapiro. The other is people don't vote based on who the VP is, right? Paul Ryan didn't deliver Wisconsin. The VP pick is a reflection of the person at the top of the ticket. And what does it tell you about them? And that what Tim Wall says is more powerful, not just in Pennsylvania, but in Michigan, in Wisconsin, in everywhere we have to win. And also, like Shapiro would have been, he is young, dynamic, executive experience, governor, right?

That's what she wanted. And also, he ended up getting a lot of endorsements at the end. So everyone from, you had Nancy Pelosi endorsed him, Bernie Sanders, the UAW, or at least said that they wanted him to be picked. And I do think that speaks to probably why she ended up with him over Shapiro is this was the let's not rock any boats pick. And like most people in party won't be upset. Some pundits, some folks will say, oh, she caved to progressives but i don't really think that matters as much as like what she says and does with regards to her own position and

messaging right like whatever her her vp is yeah now the the challenge is he probably he has a bunch of votes in a record that probably haven't been as vetted because he wasn't like the front runner like shapiro but that's like a small that's a small thing yeah the other i also like i i just like the story of it and what it says about her, right? Like Tim Walz wasn't on anyone's shortlist from the beginning. And the fact that like from this process, he emerges and she kind of defies the expectation where, which started with Kelly and Shapiro and Pritzker and a few others. And ends up going with this Minnesota governor that doesn't deliver, that is from that if, if we need, we're in trouble elsewhere anyway, it'll kind of like speak to the leadership qualities you want in your

president, right? That they like that she sat down and felt most comfortable with this person based on who he is, not based on some other, not based on some like kind of objective political calculus. Love it. Wow.

Yeah. Complete surprise. Maybe for you, a dark horse just fell out of the coconut tree. Kamala Harris for her running mate has selected george santos yeah no it was weird look i always knew it was going to be somebody like santos out of left field kind of i don't know i don't have it but uh i mean i guess i guess we could still get a kelly we could still get a basheer who else you know it seems like that

that like they're signaling that it's that it's a governor um but you know it could also be a pete right i guess pete's schedule that's right oh yeah i just saw the pete's schedule is like he's in maine or suggests he's elsewhere yeah i mean look i there's a lot of speculation and like you know this is the person that she's leaning towards is the person it's like nobody really knows it's a decision she's making right now it's just her and doug yeah i mean look i and again i'll say this before we know who it's going to be i genuinely will be very happy if it's either walls or shapiro i haven't sat down with these people like she has right like i don't i didn't do the interview process i didn't look at the internal polling in pennsylvania to see exactly

how much josh shapiro helps or doesn't help so like in my mind when i think about you know i've been in it to win it the entire time this is why we thought that biden should step aside right this whole thing it's like this this isn't about ideologies or personalities this is about how can we beat donald trump so i lean like slightly towards shapiro for that but again i think walls has so much upside and so much talent that i would be like very happy yeah i with either of them my feeling on this is that like i also would be happy either way and have interviewed them both and come away from my

interviews with both being extraordinarily excited and impressed. When I interviewed Shapiro when we were in Pennsylvania, I was Shapiro pilled and have been Shapiro pilled. I'm taking both pills. I got a Shapiro pill. I got a Walls pill. I take them both every morning with a glass of

whole milk. Maybe that gets you a dark horse. Yeah. But there was a story that I think, I don't remember when it came out, but it was a story that came out after the Kerry Edwards campaign about an uncomfortable moment between John Kerry and John Edwards

where Edwards said something to John Kerry about his son who passed away and how he told John Kerry, I've never told anyone this story, but I want to tell you this story. And it was meant to convey to John Kerry how much John Edwards was moved by the opportunity to be vice president, but it made John Kerry deeply uncomfortable because John Edwards had forgotten that he'd already told John Kerry that story.

And despite his misgivings about John Edwards as a person, he chose John Edwards. He didn't trust his gut. He went a different direction. And I just think with this kind of decision- Are you saying John Edwards is untrustworthy? He's in purgatory. He can't get out of purgatory because of what happened and everything else. But I don't even know, John Edwards lives in another world between life and death. But anyway, all that's a way of saying, I think all the calculations aside, I think something about walls feels very exciting in this moment.

And I don't know, you can't put your finger exactly on why, but that makes me lean a little towards my man walls. There's one other big unresolved question about the next few months, and that's whether there will be at least one debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Late last week, Trump said he's backing out of the previously scheduled ABC debate on September 10th because Joe Biden pulled out of the race and because he's suing ABC over that contentious George Stephanopoulos interview way way back when which i can barely even remember right now trump said that he instead wants to

attend a fox news debate on september 4th in pennsylvania with quote a full arena audience in attendance uh the harris campaign did not take the bait kamala harris wrote on twitter quote it's interesting how anytime any place becomes one specific time, one specific safe space. I like that. I'll be there on September 10th, like he agreed to. I hope to see him there. Awesome. Why do you think Trump backed out?

I think he's an undisciplined mess and wanted to give Kamala Harris, like, doesn't realize he's giving Kamala Harris yet another great news cycle. I also think he wants to renegotiate these debates on more favorable terms. The reality is that Donald Trump can't get more. No one in history has ever gotten more out of a debate than Donald Trump got out of the first debate. It is not possible for him to get anything better out of this debate. I think it's hard to see how he doesn't stand to lose. So that means I think he has more to lose, which means he has more reason to pull out and try to renegotiate slightly better terms, right? Yeah. First of all, we should say that his excuses are bullshit. The suit against ABC was filed in March before he already agreed to the ABC debate with Biden. So the whole George Stephanopoulos

thing is not a real, that's not a real excuse. He's generally scared to debate. He was in the primaries, the Republican primaries. He just wasn't scared to debate Joe Biden. And then he had the appearance we talked about last week at the National Association of Black Journalists, where he just had a fucking meltdown and was completely undisciplined and unhinged. And I think he probably feels like he's going to look old and probably too angry and a little unhinged next to Kamala Harris. It's also a lot of work. He has to do work. He doesn't want to do the work. He's doing one event this week. He just really doesn't want to work very hard. He was very pleased with the schedule

Joe Biden had him on, right? Because he could just, he could, you know, go out on the golf course, say hi to the bride and groom, do a couple videos. Get back to his iPad, DJing, Mar-a-Lago. Once the trial was over. Now, he is probably thinking that by trying to go for the Fox thing, it will be conflated in voters' minds as like, she wanted her media outlet, he wanted his media outlet. They couldn't agree. Too bad. It's all a mess. Like, that's what he's going for now. What do you think of Harris's response? I think it's great. I think it's like, everything is about this new and energetic campaign versus this old and lumbering and boring and spent donald trump

the fact that he's playing into it is delightful and great you know we we talked about how it can be hard especially this phase of the campaign to keep winning news cycles or like to keep to keep keep out there and this is just a way to keep that going gets you to the vp pick the vp pick gets you the convention the convention gets you to the fall yeah the idea that kamala harris should ever agree to a fox news debate with an audience with a with a fox news selected audience is completely insane yeah it's just like of course not of course of course that's what donald trump wants he wants to turn this into a cage match right and i do find it like it's it's interesting thinking about so basically the the harris campaign believes that abc has said when they agreed that if one of them backs out they will still hold the debate and give that one candidate airtime. Now, that is quite valuable for Kamala Harris to have 90 minutes to herself on prime time.

I do wonder if then, I mean, she'll still have to prep for that because there's going to be journalists who are like, well, we're going to ask her super tough questions, right? Now, if she, you know, does well there, then she'll have been introduced on her own terms and defined, well there, then she'll have been introduced on her own terms and defined, been able to define herself in front of an extremely large audience just weeks before early voting starts in Pennsylvania on September 16th, by the way. So like, that's a real, I guess, I know it's September 10th, so six days before early voting starts. It's a little bit, you know, I see the, the, the, the campaign saying I'll be there and this will be happening whether Trump comes or not is quite a quite a nice thing, quite a nice thing for the campaign to be able to say. I wonder if ABC wouldn't feel obligated to offer Trump an interview as well, kind of in the same format on the debate and do two interviews.

They could do that. Yeah. I also like it. I also think it matters what happens with the polling. We now see the Nate Silver model now has Kamala ahead for the very first time. But if you dive into the numbers, if you go based on where the averages are at in every state, it is right now, according to that model, 270 to 268. Kamala winning by two electoral votes, one of which is the Nebraska electoral vote. So this thing is fucking tied. And if there's this $300 million war chest, the campaign is getting into a good swing. Trump is having bad news cycle after bad news cycle. Kamala Harris is having good news

cycle after good news cycle. If the polls start to shift, I think Trump will start to become more and more open to a debate. And I do think now the negotiations are back to being open. And like, honestly, I don't I don't think that that's unreasonable, right? Like it is a different candidate. I think that he should just accept the ABC debate because that's probably something more akin to what the format should be and would be if they just renegotiated this anyway. No, it's not going to be the Fox News fucking Thunderdome with with Sean Haddon and a bunch of MAGA goons sitting behind him. Like that's obviously ridiculous, but it's all just a negotiation. Yeah. I'm trying to think though about your point about the polls. So she announces her VP.

That usually is a good couple news cycles. If it's Shapiro, I'm sure there'll be some griping on the left and there'll be a little Democratic division thing here and there. But overall, it'll probably be a good week then we have next week and then there's the convention and a convention for whichever party has the convention is always good for them you always get some kind of bounce or at least you don't get overtaken during the convention you know because you're on tv all the time and so are all of the other democrats making the case for you so the convention then ends around august 22nd so now we're like we're two weeks from voting beginning.

Well, it went to the debate because then, so then what, I'm trying to think of like, if Kamala Harris is either still tied or ahead, at what point would Donald Trump feel like he actually needs that debate? And then also, yes, but then there's also what happens

between Vance and whoever, the Democratic person. Oh yeah, that's right. There's going to be a vice presidential debate while the presidential candidate is refusing. Are they going to refuse to do both? That's deeply strange. So now you got Walls or Shapiro

barnstorming the country saying they want to debate J.D. Vance, which of course they do, because what a treat. And for all of us. Right. And Kamala Harris is saying, debate me, Trump, debate me, Trump. Like one of the reasons Biden

proposed this early debate was because they understood that they were in this sort of vicious circle of Trump saying, debate me, debate me, debate me, debate me. And so he had to like break out of the tit for tat to make it clear that he wanted to debate more than Trump wanted to debate. So it didn't seem like a concession. Like Trump's backing himself into this.

We're showing up to debate is going to seem like he's afraid. Right. Which is why I don't know that he can, even if he needs to, I don't know if he can just show up now. They might have to do like a third proposal or a debate. Maybe we're headed for like one in October or something. Or it is the ABC debate, but there's some change to the rules. Maybe they add like a fucking Brett Baier or Fox News person or something like that. Who knows? Regardless, Trump seems quite angry and scared right now, which is always when he's at his most effective and disciplined. We played the clip

last week of Harris in Atlanta saying to Trump, if you've got something to say, say it to my face as the crowd went nuts. Trump was in the same venue on Saturday at Georgia State. He got a good crowd as well, and he was in full insult and grievance mode. Let's listen. Crazy Kamala, ultra left, you know that. She was here a week ago, lots of empty seats, but the crowd she got was because she had entertainers. I don't need entertainers. I filled the stadium because I'm making America great again. That's our entertainment. That's our entertainment, making America great again.

She's Bernie Sanders, but not as smart. That's the way I feel. I said she's a dumb version of Bernie Sanders and but not as smart. That's the way I feel. I said she's a dumb version of Bernie Sanders and actually further left than him. And we're going to defeat crazy Kamala. Kamala. You know, there's about 19 different ways of saying it. She only likes three.

The choice of this election could not be more stark. On the one hand, you have a radical left freak. So he's really, he's testing, he's throwing spaghetti at the wall there. See what sticks. Radical left freak we're at remember we're in trouble we can't call these people weird i think this is challenging because he is used to like the country had a very set opinion of hillary clinton in 2016 the country has a fairly set opinion of joe biden right specifically in 2024 in 2020 they still knew joe biden a lot but you know he had not been on the top of the ticket right like kamala harris people know her name id is obviously very high but like they haven't successfully defined her

yet she hasn't maybe defined herself yet but so trump sort of doing a shortcut by just calling her freak left Bernie Sanders dumb. Like, I don't know that that lands unless you lay the predicate for it, which his campaign have not done yet. Well, they and which they couldn't do because there wasn't time. Right. Like it is like what I was thinking about, like, you know, Donald Trump gets credited for being this like idiot savant when it comes to branding. And it's like, well, let's take a step back on that. Right. Like, wow, he managed to paint the dumbest fucking group of bozos in the Republican Party as bozos. Like, was that that hard?

Like, Hillary Clinton had faced decades of right-wing attacks and misogynist attacks that left her with an impression in the public as a career politician, you know, Clinton corruption, all of that, that Donald Trump could prey on. Joe Biden's biggest liability, Joe Biden, first of all, he couldn't beat Joe Biden the first time. Joe Biden's biggest liability, there's never been a candidate with as clear cut a single and powerful and widely accepted liability

as Joe Biden had with age. So of course that wasn't a fucking tough ball for Trump to swing at. Kamala Harris is more difficult, right? Like saying she's an ultra left freak and calling her a phony. Those are in conflict, right? This would happen with how McCain dealt with Obama, too, because it was for a while it was Obama's the biggest celebrity in the world. And they tried to say, oh, it's sort of like this. She has entertainers, but I'm entertaining because I'm making America great again. The McCain campaign did a little bit of

that. Then they add Palin and then Barack Obama is palling around with terrorists, sinister other. There's Barack Obama, the lightweight, Barack Obama, inexperienced, Barack Obama, professorial. And I mean, there's they tried a whole bunch of different things. And again, a lot of those are in conflict, right? Like Barack Obama is too smart. Barack Obama is too inexperienced. Like, you know, obviously black, not black enough. All of that. And like with with, you know, he also, by the way, like last week, you know, went into this racist and ridiculous attack on on her being biracial. And it was little noted because it was in the middle of a larger freak out. But like there was an insinuation in his post about he was trying to use the racial attack to claim that she's a phony in some way, like she uses her identity the way she uses everything.

to claim that she's a phony in some way. Like she uses her identity the way she uses everything. Right. Which I think is a subtle nod to all the right-wing freaks that are saying that Kamala Harris slept her way to the top, which is an attack they want to use against her,

which is obviously a misogynist and ridiculous libel. So like he's kind of casting about and a lot of these are kind of, I think the kinds of attacks that are really going to backfire. Like obviously like this sort of like disgusting accusation that he's trying to insinuate is not going to be effective with a lot of people who understand that this is the kind of attack that

is basically pointed at anyone who's not a straight white male who's had some success and people want to slime. Yeah. Trump also made some news at the rally that I'm sure his campaign was hoping for. He attacked the popular Republican governor of a crucial swing state. Here's what he said about Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. Your governor, Kemp, and Raffensperger are doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win. What are they doing? I don't know. They got something in mind, you know. They got a little something in mind.

Kemp is very bad for the Republican Party. If it wasn't for me, he would not be your governor. I think everybody knows that. He's the most disloyal guy I think I've ever seen. Somewhere he went bad. And you know what? Your numbers in Georgia are very average. Your crime numbers, your economic numbers, all of your numbers numbers you're a very average you can do a lot better and you'll do a lot better with a better governor he's running against kamala harris it's unbelievable it's incredible uh in a post before the event trump also went after kemp's wife for not endorsing him uh kemp responded with the tweet saying my focus is on winning this november and saving our country from kamala harris and the democrats not engaging in petty personal insults,

attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past. You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it. Oof, message delivered, Brian Kemp. That has to be, put it in the fucking time capsule, one of the most humiliating, embarrassing statements I've ever seen from a public figure. You keep this up, Mr. Trump,

and I'm going to fight for you just as hard. Like, the guy's negotiating. He's always negotiating. Stop attacking my wife and let's focus on working together. Yeah, stop attacking my wife so that I can keep helping you. You're making it harder for me to help you

because of all the attacks you're leveling against my family. It's very Ted Cruz. Very Ted Cruz. But also, is attacking the popular governor of a swing state you need, is that a good strategy? What was he doing?

He must have just, like, it's like he saw. He's upset. He's upset. He's in a state. He's in a state. Trump has been in a state for the last three weeks, and he's lashing out. Yes. Look, he'll settle down.

He'll settle down. He needs his num-nums. But, yeah, it's like he saw a bad poll and he pitched forward to losing and needing somebody to blame. And so if he's going to lose Georgia, he's not going down for this. Brian Kemp's going down for this. And by the way, Brian Kemp has a pretty big and sophisticated campaign operation in the state of Georgia that has helped him win several races. And, you know, do I think Kemp's's gonna just like turn it off and not help him from that tweet clearly not but you know there's things people can do short of like giving it

their all for uh for a candidate absolutely yeah right like so brian kemp's gonna have a lot of like a lot like he's gonna have others there's other seats there's local races there's a ton of stuff that's gonna mean he's gonna want to mobilize his operation but is he gonna be as strongly barnstorming across the state trying to help Donald Trump win? Like, I don't see why he would. I don't think so. And Georgia is now one of the states where Kamala Harris is catching Donald Trump. And she, you know, it's down to a couple points now in Georgia, which it had not been when Biden was running this time around.

It would obviously was, you know, the polling in Georgia in 2020 had Biden behind by a couple points most of the time. And then at the end, the Biden campaign was like, we're going to play in Georgia. And there were a lot of eyebrows raised. I was sort of like, what are they doing in Georgia? And then they won and it were paid off. So like Georgia is one of those states

where the very voters that Kamala Harris is doing better with than Biden had, younger voters, black voters, brown voters, Asian-American voters. That's the state of Georgia is becoming more diverse and becoming younger because of all the people moving there and moving to like the Atlanta metro area. So that is a it's a it's a it could be a good state for her. And I just like one of the reasons Brian Kemp is governor is it is true. One of the reasons Brian Kemp is governor is it is true. It is in part because of Donald Trump, but not in the way Donald Trump thinks is because Brian Kemp looked moderate in comparison to Donald Trump. And there are voters out there. There are voters out there that are Kemp Warnock voters, Kemp Ossoff voters. Like those are people that could make the difference in November. And those are all people that are going to be turned off by Trump and reminded of all the reasons they were against Trump in the first place. And by the way, a lot of those people just like left the top of the ticket blank in 2020. It's not even like they voted for Joe Biden.

They just didn't want to vote for Donald Trump. Okay, before we go, we're going to talk about someone we haven't talked about in a while, RFK Jr. His polling has fallen to single digits. His campaign barely has any money left. And he's barely been seen out on the trail since the Harris-Biden switch, even canceling some events. But on Sunday night, he came out of hibernation.

See where that's going? By releasing a video in which he admits to a bizarre story about planting the body of a dead bear cub in Central Park. The details are too nuts for me to even repeat here, so we're going to let Kennedy do it for us in our latest rendition of OK Stop. Elijah, Elijah is in studio today. He's here in LA. Elijah, are you ready with the

tape it's actually matt with the tape but yeah great well my script says elijah so that's why i'm saying elijah but hey matt hey one second i would have been ready i was taking a group of people up in goshen new york up in hudson valley and that Okay, stop. So first of all, fucking RFK Jr. out of the gate at 100 miles an hour. I was taking people falconing in upstate New York. You know who he's telling this story to? The only person that is famously crazier

than he is, he is telling this story to Roseanne Barr, of all people. Roseanne. And keep in mind, this is a video that was filmed by RFK Jr.'s campaign and tweeted out last night in advance of a New Yorker

profile about him, and the point of this video is to get ahead of the story. They thought they were pulling something over on the New Yorker profile about him. And the point of this video is to get ahead of the story. They thought they were pulling something over on the New Yorker with this video of him telling this story to Roseanne Barr about him falconing. The tweet is, try to spin this one, New Yorker. And you're like, okay, I guess probably the New Yorker was going to probably put a pretty bad spin on this story. So I'm glad we get to hear it out of the horse's mouth.

A young bear. I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear. And it was very good condition. And I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator. Okay, stop. So first of all, let's just, by the way, I want to be clear about something. A lot of the time, the focus on R. Cave Jr. is that he's insane. And I think that that's valid.

But there's often two qualities that are not given as much attention, which is one, he's super rich. And the other is that he's a liar. Right? So he, are we meant to believe that he saw a van, hit a bear, and then they pulled over and picked up the bear? And his first thought was, mmm, delicious. Because, because... Well, this is serendipitous

because I was hungry for bear meat. Well, it's just sort of like... And here it is. It's like either you don't know how long the bear has been there or you do. And so you would like us to believe that the... Oh, yeah. Yeah.

If the bear was there a long time, I don't care if you put it in the refrigerator, maybe that's why he got the brain worms. I leave a turkey sandwich out on my desk for three hours. I have to Google whether or not I'm allowed to eat it. You find a bear on the side of the fucking Taconic. Also, if you're listening to this, you got to watch the video. If you're watching on YouTube, you got to watch Roseanne's. Do one viewing where you're just getting the story. Then do a viewing where you're just watching the expression on Roseanne's face. Because what you're seeing right now is a crazy person herself raising her eyebrows even further when he basically says that he was going to eat the bear. Because RFK Jr.'s tenor in this entire story is, don't you hate it when this happens? entire story is, don't you hate it when this happens?

And Roseanne is like, what? Roseanne, like, Roseanne has lost it, obviously, but the comedian in her is like, I can't believe this person thinks that this is a cool story to tell. All right, let's keep going. In New York City, you can get a bear tag

for a roadkill bear. Instead of going back to my home in Westchester, I had to go right to the city because there was a dinner at Peter Luger's. Okay, stop. First of all, just a window into a whole world, a way of living that none of us knows about. He drove upstate with some friends to go fucking falconing, came back in time for dinner in Brooklyn at Peter Luger's. Cash only, by the way, time for dinner in Brooklyn at Peter Luger's. Cash only, by the way, Peter Luger's. Something to keep in mind. And was held up by a baby bear cub on the side of the road. And also, by the way, he's like, so Roseanne, obviously we picked the bear cub up off the ground and put it in the trunk

of my car because it's legal. In New York State. In New York State, you can do this. If you're asking me about Idaho or Kansas, I couldn't tell you. But I know that in New York state, you can do this. If you're asking me about Idaho or Kansas, I couldn't tell you, but I know that in New York state it is legal to get a tag and to eat the bear meat. You can take that bear meat right off the side of the road. And at the end of the dinner, it went late and I realized I couldn't go home. I had to go to the airport and the bear was in my car and I didn't want to leave the bear in the car. Okay. So I just want to pause there and say what he's just describing let's just no no mr kennedy it is probably not a good idea to leave a decomposing fucking bear carcass in the trunk of your car when you head on a trip i don't know where you're going my friend but no you're right

you're smart you shouldn't leave the bear carcass. What was the original scheduling idea, by the way? Taking some people falconing back into the city at Pier Lugers, going home to Westchester and then going to the airport? I don't know. I don't know.

How late was it? What's going on here? What is his life? What is his life? Was it a red eye? Where is this guy in a rush to fucking get? What kind of environmental lawyer is this?

All right. I wasn't drinking. People were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea. And I had an old bike in my car that somebody asked me to get rid of it. I said, let's go put the bear in Central Park and we'll make it look like he got hit by a bike. Okay, stop. What? The bike happened to be in the car so i just happen to have a bike that i needed to get rid of so rosanne's laughing there is awesome because he's like so he had this funny idea isn't that a funny idea to sneak into

central park and hide the dead bear under a bicycle and she's like oh yeah no i could see how people would think that was a funny idea also. Also, his excuse is like, well, people were drunk, I wasn't drinking, but the people around me were drunk, and they had the idea. Well, you can get like a contact high. You know, kind of like you're around people who have been stoned, you feel stoned, even though you're not stoned. Clearly. For people.

So everybody thought that's a great idea. So we went and did that, and we thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something. The New Yorkers somehow found out about it. And they're going to do a big article on me. And that's one of the articles. So they asked me, the fact checkers, you know, it's going to be a bad story. Yeah, it is. It is going to be.

The way Roseanne laughed there is also fantastic. So I just. It's going to be a bad story. That is sh to be. The way Roseanne laughed there is also fantastic. So I just. It's going to be a bad story. That is shrewd. So 10 years ago, literally 10 years ago, in October of 2014, there was a story in New York. And the story was dead baby bear found in Central Park under a bicycle. Bear appears to have been murdered. And it was a wild whodunit. The bike was compensated. RFK Jr. notes that they were

going to try to find prints on the bike. It was an incredible mystery because why on earth would anybody have snuck a bear cub dead into Central Park and hid it where people could find it underneath a bicycle. The New York Times reported it at the time, and it was written by Tatiana Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy's granddaughter. Which seems like actually was a coincidence. And as a coincidence, because she said, I didn't know at the time. How could she have known at the time that it was her uncle that disposed of the bear

with the bike in an attempt to fool people because they thought that was a great idea. And I just, I really like the dilettante-ish quality of a group of drunk assholes who just spent the day falconing, thinking, wouldn't it be droll if we drive into the city and put this dead bear in Central Park? Last martini at Peter Luger's. Unbelievable. city and put this dead bear in central park last martini at peter luger's unbelievable anyway that's that's amazing you think you think that's gonna get many votes one of them someone should do a poll are you more likely to vote for less likely or no difference

this is one of the most disturbed people so awesome that we've ever dealt with like on the national public stage every story out of him is about how there's something deeply deeply fucked up about him 10 out of 10 no notes on that also i just this is not the most important thing but i don't know even if he hadn't been traveling if that bear meat was going to be good after peter luger's he had now we know why he got brain worms. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Good job, Claire Malone at The New Yorker, for uncovering this. Yeah, awesome.

It's quite a profile. And a photo. There's a photo. There is a photo. Where he's pretending to be bitten by the dead bear. It's disgusting. Weird shit, guys. Weird shit.

All right. There are probably some people in your life who don't listen to this show, but who could benefit from what we're offering here. For example, processing the RFK bear cub story while the fate of the Republic literally hangs in the balance. You can't get that anywhere else. No. In all seriousness, we would love it if you take a few seconds to share this episode of Pod Save America with a friend or two. You guys sharing our show with your network

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consider dropping us a review to help boost this episode or spice up the group chat by sharing it with friends, family, or randos you want in on this conversation. Pod save America is a cricket media production. Our producer is David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our

executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production

Andy Taft is our executive assistant Thanks to our digital team Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril were watching two old, unpopular men running for the world's most demanding job. My, how things change in between when the ad copy is submitted and when we record it. Nevertheless, since 1992, every American president except for one has been a white man born in the 1940s. If Trump wins, that could span 36 years.

As the boomers near the end of their political journey, John Perdue sets out to make sense of their inheritance and their legacy. Search boom from The Economist wherever you listen to your podcast and unlock all episodes by subscribing to Economist Podcast Plus.