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00:00Hi everybody. Welcome to the Esquire Politics conference call, Morning After
00:07the Debate edition. Thank you all for being here. Looks like a bunch of people
00:11have joined us and we're delighted to have you here. I'm Kelly Stout. I'm the
00:18Articles Director here at Esquire and of course Charlie needs no introduction, but
00:23we're here with Charles P. Pierce. Charlie, what do you have to say for
00:27yourself? Everybody should breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe. We'll start by
00:35breathing. That's my first thing. You know, I don't... I have
00:43to, you know, I have to start off with a line from my friend John Fuglesang. One
00:49guy needed a throat lozenge and the other guy needed a parole officer. I mean it
00:54was like watching, you know, some kind of weird Star Trek episode where guys from
01:01two different universes were, you know, existing in the same time space. I will
01:07grant you that the current president did not look at all well and for the
01:12first 30 minutes of the debate didn't sound well at all, but the other guy just
01:19lied. He lied from the first moment, from the first word out of his mouth to the
01:24last word out of his mouth. And when he didn't lie directly, he lied by
01:29avoiding the question. You know, answering, you know, a question about child care by
01:36talking about the border or answering a question about climate change by talking
01:41about what a schmo President Biden is. I mean, it was amazing to me.
01:47And all we got in terms of moderating was that question was about child care.
01:54As you put in your column this morning, moderation, if you can even call it back.
01:58Yeah, I mean, a couple of, and it was only Dana Bash, by the way, who did this. A
02:02couple of times, she kind of pushed back a little, saying, you know, hey, let me
02:09repeat my question. Yeah, of course, didn't help. You know, it helped that one
02:15time where she repeated her climate change question, and we got the great
02:19answer. We have great H2O.
02:22That was a wild moment. All right, but before, let me reset here before we get
02:27too deep into this. There's so much to discuss. I know that the listeners on the
02:30call have a lot of questions, too. Folks, if you haven't submitted stuff in
02:34advance, don't sweat it at all. You can put right into the chat any questions that
02:38you have, and we'll do our best to get to them. I mean, I have one of my own,
02:45Charlie, that I think we should get to just right from the jump, which is that,
02:50you know, the worst thing that could have happened in this debate was the entire
02:53conversation became about age and lucidity, and it has. There was a ton of
03:02chatter this morning about whether Biden should step aside. Should he?
03:06I still find the, you know, the practical problems with having him step aside at
03:13this late date to be overwhelming, and to be, you know, impossible to get around.
03:23Practical meaning, like having a brokerage venture?
03:25You have the incredible, touchy question of what the hell do you do with the Vice
03:29President? And I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really
03:34good question of what the hell do you do with the Vice President?
03:38Yeah, that's incredibly touchy.
03:40I realize that a quote unquote, open convention is every political pundit's wet
03:46dream, but it's catastrophic for the party holding it. First of all, nobody's held one
03:53in like 100 years, so nobody really know how to work one. Second of all, find me a
03:59who does better against the Republican nominee than the President now.
04:08Well, there's sort of two-
04:09I mean, everyone I've seen has every possible
04:15Democratic replacement doing far worse.
04:20Well, I wonder if that will remain the case after the performance we saw last night.
04:24And I choose the word performance carefully because, you know, there's two aspects to
04:30the job. There's how you do the job of President, and there's how you do the job
04:34of running for President. And it's pretty inescapable that Biden is not up for the
04:40job of running for President right now, setting aside his ability to do the actual job.
04:46What do you think of that? Do you agree with me?
04:48I certainly wasn't up to it last night.
04:53But, you know, apparently he gave a he gave a speech to a watch party in Atlanta last
05:02night after the debate, and he was great. So, you know, I don't I honestly don't know.
05:12I know the Democrats are much worse at getting behind their guy, win or lose,
05:21or, you know, in sickness and health, as it were.
05:26When you remember that, you know, Ronald Reagan was clearly an Alzheimer's patient in his first
05:32debate against Mondale. And there was no public hand-wringing from the Republicans.
05:42The Democrats did a little bit better job at getting behind Obama after that
05:47sleepwalk in his first debate against Romney. But part of the reason they were able to do that
05:51is that Biden came up next in line and made a fool out of Paul Ryan.
05:57Yeah, I mean, I think there's a big difference between the Romney and Obama debate, which was
06:04that was a bad debate performance. This a lot of people are saying this was just a man who
06:11isn't up for the job. He you know, there was no escaping that he just wasn't.
06:22Functioning the way you would expect someone to who's running for president to function.
06:27No, that was I mean, and that that again brings me back to Reagan and to Reagan and right in in
06:3384. Go back. I mean, I know because I did a book on this. I know a lot of physicians
06:43and researchers involved in the Alzheimer's community and to a person.
06:50I asked I asked them about that debate and the ones that have watched it
06:54had about the Reagan debate. Yeah. Reagan and Mondale from Louisville.
06:59They said, I saw what I say, I see in the clinic every day. If you would have that night,
07:07if you would ask Ronald Reagan what city he was in, he would not have been able to tell you.
07:12I would almost I would bet my house on that if I had a house. But.
07:19Again, I mean, the Republicans are good at that. They fell in behind him. He told a funny joke in
07:25the second debate and nobody remembered the first one. Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't understand
07:32who in Biden's camp thought this no audience. No fact checking format that was was anything
07:42you'd want to participate in. That was my next question to you. Why do you think they agreed to
07:46this? I don't know. I think they thought it was I mean, they must have thought it was advantageous
07:52to them. Maybe they thought that that that Trump would be. You know, so.
08:01That shit insane as he is on the Trumps on the stump so often that, you know,
08:07they'd come away with a win that way. And it turned out he wasn't only his only his answers
08:13were crazy. Yeah, I mean, his demeanor was really cool. He didn't look particularly nuts.
08:19No, he didn't. And especially.
08:24I saw somebody saying this morning. Oh, nobody could have come. Nobody could have come up with
08:33any comebacks that made any sense to what Trump was saying, because it was so far divorced from
08:37reality. I don't agree with that. I think that in the hands of somebody who is a little bit
08:44is a little bit more able to debate that we could be focusing today on all of Trump's lies
08:51instead of focusing on what a bad performance. Well, I mean, to an extent, yes. And I think
08:58that Joe Biden, who demolished Paul Ryan, Ryan. Would have demolished Donald Trump last night.
09:06Because there was so many there were so many opportunities to make him look foolish.
09:10Yeah, absolutely. No, just laugh at him. And he didn't. I mean, not once did Biden laugh at him,
09:20which is the best way to get under his skin. Yeah, I mean, he didn't really.
09:26You know, talking about optics. I know that there are problems with that, but
09:32also how he reacted when he was not speaking. Biden did not look like a mind at work. He didn't
09:41do all the things he did when he debated Paul Ryan that made him such a fierce debater. He
09:45didn't do even the things that he did when he debated Trump last time.
09:52I mean, I don't know. I don't know how much of that to attribute the fact that he that he was
09:57sick. You know, he obviously he obviously had this, this this much discussed cold. But I and I
10:08think somehow he got the notion that the moderators would bail him out. That they just wouldn't let
10:18Trump lie about everything. And he should have caught on or somebody should have caught on
10:25during one of the breaks that that wasn't going to happen. Yeah. They weren't going to bail him out.
10:34Do you think this is a question from Kathy? Do you think the Biden campaign should insist there
10:39will not be a second debate? Well, frankly, I don't think the Trump people are going to agree
10:46to one. Why? Because they got what they wanted last night. Yeah. Why would you? Well, I mean,
10:52it's still, you know, putting him on a debate stage is still driving down the mountains with
10:58the truck full of nitroglycerin. I mean, why would you risk that again? You got everything
11:04you wanted last night. You got grist for his rallies for the next 10 years.
11:14If I were if I were the Trump people, I wouldn't I wouldn't. I mean,
11:17I guess they've already agreed to one in September, right?
11:20They have. Yeah. I.
11:27You know, if I were Trump people, I'd back out of that one completely. I'd find a, you know,
11:32some kind of bullshit reason for him not to debate, which is what I thought they were going to do
11:37this time. But.
11:43Do you think that? I just. How did we get here? How did we get to the point where we've got
11:53a candidate who? Can't really debate and and nobody in the party who is sort of
12:02we're able to step in a vice president who nobody is convinced is the candidate.
12:12What do we do? Well, I think for the moment, Democrats have to suck it up and get behind the
12:21guy. And there's not there's as Gavin Newsom said after the debate, there's no other choice
12:29at this point now. Well, there's definitely going to be no other choice, maybe in a week
12:35or so when things calm down. But I mean, I just don't see a practical way.
12:44To find another candidate at this point. Plus, the only way that it's going to happen is if
12:51Biden decides he's not going to run. Yeah, I mean, I can't throw him overboard.
12:58No. From Greg. What can the president do now to turn this around?
13:10It was a weekly press conference. Number one, he can keep being president. That's
13:17I mean, I think that one of the things that got lost in all the noise over the last couple of days
13:23is that there are still serious advantages to being the incumbent.
13:29Tell us what? Well, I mean, you well, you control the agenda. You can you can you can
13:37do things in the office without being heckled, you know, by a madman. Now, and if you do enough
13:47of them and the Republicans block enough of them, you can run against that. Now, see, I worry that
13:54the disastrousness of his performance as a candidate is so loud that and again, we're
14:04talking the morning after. So this could change. I hope you're right that it changes in a week. But
14:09I'm worried that the disastrous performance last night is going to blow out of the water
14:14any perception of how he's doing as the president.
14:23You don't share that word, given the nature of the political, given the nature
14:27of modern political journalism, that's a serious concern.
14:31I mean, the only way that last night's debate becomes the only story.
14:38You know, in the news cycle is up to the people who control the news cycle.
14:54Here's I've got a related question from Alonzo.
15:02Does Biden purge his campaign staff now?
15:05Now, no. Again, if he doesn't now, it's a panic move. And while every other Democrat on the planet
15:14seems to be panicking at this point. I don't think you do it willy nilly after, you know,
15:24after what happened last night. I mean, there's some, there's certainly some
15:31somebody else should prepare for the next debate.
15:43It's hard not to imagine that that was his choice. Also, you know, the Joe Biden we know,
15:52I'm sure would not listen if somebody said, don't do a debate.
15:56Like, I don't know how you lay this at the feet of his staff, really, beyond,
16:01well, I mean, I never should have signed him up for that.
16:03They're opposed to preparing him could have been bad.
16:06What do you think they should have done differently?
16:08What?
16:09What do you think they should have done differently?
16:13I would have emphasized
16:17his gift for
16:18you know, blue collar mockery.
16:22You know, don't get angry, get funny, get sarcastic.
16:31You know, spell your, spell your achievements with a smile, basically.
16:38What do you tell you? Yeah, go ahead.
16:40Go ahead. No, I'm sorry.
16:41My reaction while I was watching that debate was not, this is a strategy error, but just he
16:47couldn't do that. I think even if they had prepped him to do that, I don't think he could have done
16:52that. You know, he's not the, he's not the same guy who was able to do that four years ago.
17:02I think he's not the same guy who was able to do that four years ago.
17:06He's not the same guy who was able to do that four years ago.
17:14That was my reaction.
17:15He seemed to be, he seemed to be the guy who could do that at the State of the Union.
17:20Yeah, State of the Union.
17:21You know, when he, when he trapped them, when he, when he trapped them on social security.
17:26Yeah. I mean, that's such a different event though.
17:30Well, but it's, you know, now, I mean, given the nature of what your audience in the chamber is
17:37like these days, it's very close to being, it's very close to being heckled at a nightclub.
17:46All right. I mean, I hear you. I think I'm just drawing a distinction between having a
17:52teleprompter, being able to practice the very words you're saying, your intonations as opposed,
17:57you know, this was the first time.
17:59That's a different animal, but I meant that the off-the-cuff stuff,
18:05you know, as I, you know, as I pointed out, the whole thing about, about trapping them,
18:10about not changing social security, that wasn't on the tele, I guarantee you that wasn't on the
18:15teleprompter.
18:16Yeah. He's a witty guy in his good moments. It's just sort of too bad that he didn't have,
18:22he seemed not to really have any last night.
18:26No, that, I mean, that was the, one of the most surprising things to me was that he didn't use
18:32that great gift he has for being, you know, the funny guy at the, at the bar after the shift
18:38changes.
18:39Yeah. Holding that, holding onto that until the after party.
18:47And I can't explain away the strategy.
18:50I do, I do think he got stronger as the night went on.
18:55Yeah.
18:56And I do think that Trump did hurt himself with his answer on, on Dobbs, his answer on,
19:08you know, what, what, you know, are you going to, I think he really hurt himself in,
19:12are you going to, are you going to take the, the, you know, the election seriously if you lose?
19:18Because he absolutely went in, you know, you know, he, he, he threw all kinds of
19:24squid ink up on that one. First, he didn't answer it. And then when Dana Bash gently
19:31insisted that he answer it, started talking about if it's fair and, and, and, and, you
19:38know, remember the last time and, you know, that, that I think cost him.
19:41No, I haven't seen any focus groups data one way or the other on that, but.
19:50Should that have been the first question?
19:53Will you accept the results in this election?
19:55Yeah, well, October, January 6th, it didn't come up till 39 minutes into the,
20:02into the debate. I clocked it.
20:05At which point?
20:07The first question was a, an anodyne white bread, you know, we Tina question about the economy.
20:18But that should have been, you know, that should have been question one.
20:22And question one, a should have been about being a convicted felon.
20:29And Biden was the one who had to bring up the phrase convicted felon.
20:37How would you, what's your dream answer to, from Biden to the question of,
20:48let me rephrase that.
20:51What could Biden have done differently to place his status as a convicted felon
20:57at the center of this debate?
20:58Well, I mean, if it was up to me, I'd have him use the phrase in every answer.
21:03You know, I would not, it would not be the pronoun he would not, would not enter
21:10into my vocabulary for the night. As the convicted felon pointed out,
21:15da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. As the convicted felon pointed out, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
21:21da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. As the convicted felon pointed out, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
21:26And I certainly, certainly would not have gotten in an argument about false scores.
21:31That was beyond the pale.
21:33That was, that was so bizarre.
21:37I think that was an example of Biden trying to be funny and failing.
21:42Well, I mean, it was Trump that brought it up.
21:45No, I know, but the way he engaged with it.
21:46I'll play with you anytime.
21:49I won two club championships, not senior championships.
21:52Yeah. Does anybody believe that?
21:54You know, that's, that's like the old Korean guy who had 18 holes in one.
22:03First of all, we know he cheats.
22:04Rick, Rick Riley wrote an entire book about how he cheats at golf.
22:08And second of all, I don't believe, I mean, I, did anybody else compete
22:12in these two champions championships?
22:15Charlie, we're falling right into his trap.
22:17We're discussing his golf game.
22:19No, we're discussing his use of his golf game.
22:22Okay, fair.
22:22As an avatar for his complete inability to tell the truth about anything.
22:31So speaking of which, a lot of people are asking about the lack of fact checking.
22:35What would you have liked to have seen from the moderators?
22:41Number one, I wish they had defended their own questions.
22:45More, more harshly.
22:48Meaning the question was about child care.
22:51Yeah, the question was about climate change.
22:53Why in the hell are you talking about, you know, terrorists coming over the border?
23:00The question was about child care.
23:02Why are you talking about, you know, a crime wave that doesn't exist?
23:09That's number one.
23:10Number two, I would have forced him.
23:13I would have tried to force him to talk on the same plane of reality that we all live on.
23:20The country is not a mess.
23:22Okay, we are not a third world nation.
23:26Your, you know, batch of, you know, Bible banging, hay shaking morons may think we are
23:35because, you know, because they believe everything I say.
23:38But I think those two things would have gone a long way.
23:43I think you look, you look small if you don't defend your question.
23:52No, you're in charge, not the candidate.
23:55If he doesn't answer your question, you deserve to hammer him until he does.
24:02Or at least tries to.
24:07I mean, that was preposterous to me.
24:09It was to me, too.
24:10And I also thought it was preposterous that they said, at one point, they said,
24:17feel free to answer in your feel free to, you know, fact check that basically.
24:22I don't remember the words that they used.
24:23It was something like, feel free to address that in your response.
24:28I don't know.
24:29Dana Bass said, feel free to say anything you want.
24:33Right.
24:33Which, okay.
24:35Boy, you talk about opening a door.
24:39Oh, my God.
24:45Hi, listeners.
24:46In the coming weeks, we'll be covering the story.
24:49I don't know what happened there.
24:52Something popped up on my laptop.
24:54There we go.
24:55How do you think that.
25:09If they're to do another one, how do you think they should handle fact checking?
25:18I think that, well, I think that, I mean, obviously, I think they should follow my advice.
25:22Right.
25:24I think they should not be daunted by the fact that he's going to lie about everything.
25:31I think they should call attention to it.
25:35I guess you're going to call him Mr. President.
25:37I really loathe the idea, but okay.
25:40You know, Mr. President, that's simply not the case.
25:43That's not true.
25:46If you want to, you know, if you want to, you're never going to prove to him that it's not true.
25:51But you just have to emphasize and defend your own position.
25:57Defend your, as I said, defend your own question.
26:01If you ask a question, you don't get an answer.
26:03Demand an answer.
26:09You know, I've got, what was the thing?
26:12I had the top environmental statistics.
26:15My people told me that right before I came on stage.
26:18What people?
26:20What statistics?
26:22The hell are you talking about?
26:25You know?
26:28Professor out of Europe.
26:3019 people have debunked the suckers and losers story.
26:34Who are they?
26:36Yeah, so let's, I want to, we've got a question.
26:39Who are these people?
26:43Donna wants to know, why didn't Jake Tapper acknowledge to Trump that he was told about
26:46the suckers and losers quote by General Kelly?
26:49I don't know.
26:51Because I think that was part of the no fact-checking format.
26:58Yeah, he just let him answer.
27:00That's the only thing I can think of.
27:03Because it was just, I mean, Biden should have mentioned it for sure.
27:08That was the other problem, of course.
27:10My biggest problem with Biden's performance was that he wasn't up to making the fact that
27:16the other guy was lying about everything into a liability for him.
27:23I mean, just calling something malarkey isn't going to cut it.
27:26You got to demonstrate it.
27:29How do you think that, this is a question from Richard, do you think that
27:35people who are on the fence are going to concentrate on those lies?
27:41Or on the optics of the presentation?
27:43I tell you, to tell you the honest God truth, I don't think this thing got changed 100 minds
27:53around the country.
27:57I don't care what the polls say, the flash polls say.
28:02It's going to be forgotten by the middle of August.
28:05You know, I don't think it will materially move the numbers
28:17in Trump's direction, because there was still enough there
28:24in his performance to scare people, to
28:28to make people realize that maybe the other guy doesn't have the stamina to be president,
28:36but this other guy doesn't have the character to be.
28:42One guy's running to be president again, the other guy's running to keep out of prison.
28:49Do you think that that message reached people last night?
28:53I don't think it reached them through the debate, but I don't think
28:56anybody to whom it had already reached, changed their mind.
29:08So you don't think, do you think it's going to have an effect on turnout?
29:11Or is it so far in advance that that's not even relevant?
29:14I think that's a question I don't know.
29:16I mean, turnout questions to me all depend on whether or not
29:24your turnout operation is working or not.
29:27You can get people to the polls.
29:31Now, turnout operations have been a whole different animal in the era
29:37post-Shelby County with voter suppression laws.
29:40There's a lot of workarounds that have to be done, but
29:47I think that I think turnout questions, turnout questions are for the week before the election.
29:53Fair enough.
29:55We've got a question from Andrea here, which is,
29:59what do you see as the biggest challenges moving forward?
30:02And how do we overcome poor debate processes?
30:06What do you see as the biggest challenges moving forward, and how do we overcome
30:09poor debate performance in a way that has a positive impact
30:13on perceptions of Biden's ability to do the job?
30:21Honestly, I think
30:25one of the ways to do that is to do the job.
30:28As I said before, try to get back some of the power of incumbency.
30:34Because it is there.
30:36The guy is the President of the United States.
30:38He's still the only person who ever beat Donald Trump in an election.
30:50And secondly, whatever you do, don't fold up.
30:55Don't feel, don't feel, don't believe the people telling you
31:00that this was an election-ending catastrophe.
31:05It was a bump.
31:06It was a pretty big bump.
31:08But it was a bump in the road.
31:11Treat it like that.
31:14You know, get back on your, get back on your horse and campaign.
31:17Remind people why they like you.
31:20I'm glad to hear your optimism.
31:22I'm not being optimistic.
31:24There's no other choice.
31:27I'm not saying any of this will succeed.
31:29I'm just saying that that's it.
31:31I'm just saying that that's the only thing left for the guy.
31:33What else are you going to do?
31:35Yeah.
31:36What's the move at the convention?
31:39What do you mean?
31:40For Biden.
31:43What's the, how do they sort of play this?
31:45That's the next big thing that we've got.
31:48He's got rallies.
31:50I know he's in North Carolina today.
31:51But the next sort of big thing that people,
31:55that his likely voters are going to be watching is probably the convention.
31:58We have a long way till then.
32:00But how does he handle that?
32:02Well, I think, you know, he does a State of the Union speech, basically.
32:08He finds it in himself to do that.
32:13And there's going to be a lot of grist for people to talk about coming out of Milwaukee, I think.
32:23Because I think the Republican convention is going to be, you know, an absolutely manic episode.
32:32It'll be nice to switch the focus on to Trump, his lies, and his utter insanity
32:42without any sort of noise about Biden's performance.
32:47Yeah, I, yeah.
32:54Yeah, I mean, I mean, to have this, for him to have the spotlight all to himself
32:58is certainly a mixed blessing for them.
33:02Plus, watching all the Republicans, you know, pay worshipful homage to this guy
33:17on stage for a week.
33:21I mean, I'm sorry, but it's got to be embarrassing for some.
33:26Yeah.
33:29I mean, it really does.
33:30I mean, you can only debase yourself so often before you start hating yourself.
33:40We're getting a few questions on what effect
33:44Trump's upcoming sentencing might have on what happens next.
33:50Well, I mean, it's going to be very hard to campaign if he's in jail.
33:55I don't, I mean, I think it'll have some.
33:58I mean, it'll remind people that he's a convicted felon.
34:08I mean, I certainly, it certainly will register in the polls.
34:11Now, I don't know, because I don't think, I don't think people are buying,
34:17a lot of people are buying the whole, you know,
34:23you know, the world is against me spiel about his legal trouble.
34:28The conspiracies.
34:30Yeah, you know.
34:31No one's ever been treated this poorly.
34:33You know, a Democratic prosecutor, and the jury, you know, I don't think people are buying that.
34:40You know, we used to have, my grandfather used to tell me a story of a guy, an Irish guy
34:46named John C. Mahoney, who was the editor, who was the mayor of Worcester, where I grew up.
34:53And his big pitch every time you're in for election was to get on the radio and see and say,
35:01me back is to the wall, me feet are, my feet are at the flame, and the Protestants are after me.
35:10That's what you're getting from Donald Trump.
35:16I think there's a shelf life to that kind of thing.
35:18I hope you're right.
35:25Okay.
35:29Mark wants to know, do you think Democrats can use the recent horrible SCOTUS decisions
35:34to their advantage? Can Dobbs and Chevron revitalize?
35:38They still can use Dobbs. And to an extent that the gun, the Bruin gun decision. You know,
35:46I mean, today they, you know, they, you know, I think they could,
35:49they could have a lot of fun with the legalized bribery thing too.
35:56Unfortunately, that kind of thing is a bipartisan exercise.
36:03You know, as many Democrats, you know, at, you know, low level city and state offices,
36:12you know, take the honor, take the honorarium as much as Republicans do.
36:22Okay, so they, that's going to be a tough one to have fun with, I suppose. What about Chevron?
36:26Can they do anything with that?
36:30It is the single most serious of the decisions so far, because it's a radical power grab
36:37by the judiciary. It's the biggest one. Ellie Mistel is right. It's the biggest power grab
36:43by the judiciary since Marbury versus Madison. It's, it's going to result in,
36:51you know, terrible consequences for the environment, for product safety,
36:57for safety in the workforces, you name it. But it's really hard to explain what it is.
37:05Yeah, how do you, if you're buying a campaign?
37:08You cannot sell it in a, in a, you know, a 60 second commercial.
37:16Do you have any advice for them about how to do that?
37:20No, I mean, I, you can, you can, you can use it as a general jumping off point
37:27to his incredibly, what, you know, his incredibly bad record and his incredibly
37:33bad promises on environmental issues. You know, the, you know, his Supreme Court guys
37:39have now made it, his Supreme Court majority has now made it easier for people to pollute
37:44your water and pollute your air and, and, and, you know, poison you with, with superannuated
37:50pork products. You don't have to specifically name the case, but you can fold it into a general
37:56attack that way.
37:57We've got a question from Brent. Should Biden consider a different VP option?
38:02No. Again, that's, again, it's a panic move. You know, it's, you, you, the time for all of this
38:14was in February. To do it now, and especially, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
38:25to do it now, and especially to do it in the wake of Thursday night, you look,
38:35it looks like a panic attack. I mean, it looks, it looked like, it looks like you're taking
38:40all the armchair neurologists seriously.
38:44Plus, you, you, like, unload Kamala Harris, and the African-American community is, is going to be
38:58wildly apathetic towards your candidacy for the rest of the year.
39:04Especially if it's interpreted as you're unloading her because you don't think she's up for the job
39:10either, which is the way it would be spun.
39:16What do you think she should do from here on out?
39:20What should she do?
39:21Yeah. How, how is she going to strengthen, what should she do to strengthen the case for
39:26a Biden-Harris ticket?
39:27How would you use her if you were Biden?
39:33I, I'd tell her to, to unleash her inner prosecutor, you know. The problem, the problem I have with
39:39Kamala Harris, and I don't have problems at all, is that she turned out to be a terrible campaigner.
39:46When she didn't make it to the starting line,
39:48I don't know why that was. Her staff was a mess, I know that. But I think if you got her into,
40:03into her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her,
40:12I think if you got her into, into her, her prosecutor slash attorney general mode,
40:20she could be a real asset. She could explain Chevron
40:27without, without getting into, seriously, without getting into the weeds.
40:34She could explain what it means to water and air and product safety.
40:38And, you know, land use, and everything else.
40:48I mean, he's got talent. In his, I mean, certainly Pete Buttigieg is a talent
40:56in the cabinet. Deb Haaland certainly is. You know, he's got people that can work for him on the stump.
41:03So, I mean, that, that, if you're grasping for glimmers of hope, as I clearly am,
41:16that's, you know, that's another one.
41:20To the question of his...
41:21Man, I'd have Pete Buttigieg out there on the stump every day.
41:25Yeah, so Robin has a question related to that.
41:28He seems to have a real gift for speaking wingnut, or for, for arguing in wingnut.
41:37Why? Here's what Robin has to say about that. Where are the other big Democratic figures?
41:42Newsom's the only one speaking. Where's Obama? Popular governors? Buttigieg?
41:48Buttigieg was not Robin's question, I added that.
41:51No, and I think it's a good question. I think the Obama question is a tremendous question.
42:00I mean, his, you know, kind of ephemeral presence in the politics is really starting to annoy me.
42:14I mean, it, you know, through the entire Trump presidency, you know, he was kind of drifting in
42:25and out. And, you know, Michelle was the real, was the real presence at the convention, not him.
42:36I just, him, I don't understand. I mean, his former underlings are out there sniping away.
42:45Which I find significant. The Pod Save America guys are all out there,
42:52you know, saying that, that the president should step aside and let somebody else run.
42:57They don't have any more idea of how that works than I do. But yeah, that's a very good question.
43:06I mean, I think it's time to, first of all, it really is time for all hands on deck.
43:11I mean, Gretchen Whitmer should be out there.
43:15Buttigieg should be out there. Bill Holland should be out there.
43:23You know, you go through, Newsom apparently already is.
43:29He seems to be the only one who said he wasn't going to jump ship right off the bat. He didn't
43:34sort of go back and huddle to decide what his response was going to be.
43:38Well, he was the one who went on TV right away. Yeah, that's, I thought that was impressive.
43:46I don't know, you know, I haven't read enough of the
43:51Dems and Disarray stuff today, because I know it would just infuriate me. But
43:57but I haven't seen a lot of, a lot of the superstars
44:13flying to, flying to the president's side.
44:17David says the surrogates are great, but should Biden also do more public appearances?
44:26I think that's a good question. How do you balance surrogates against himself?
44:30I mean, I think, now I think he should. I think he's got to demonstrate to the country that he's,
44:35you know, a little bit more lively than he was the other night, or last night. Yeah,
44:43he's got to get out there and show them, you know, he's, you know, kept up.
44:59That brings something interesting to mind. I wonder if he,
45:03if somebody advised him that the whole Biden will be jacked up on something for the debate
45:11thing was working, and that he shouldn't, you know, take an Advil or something before he went on stage.
45:20I don't know. I'm just asking. That's one where I'm just asking the question. I have no idea.
45:26Like you sort of purposefully tried not to play into that.
45:29Conspiracy theory? Yeah. It's very lethal. He could have used the RICA law, you know.
45:38Yeah, he absolutely could have.
45:46What, Paige has a good question. She says, what can we do in our respective states to win this
45:53election? I have a good political organizing friend of mine named Carl Frisch, who always says,
46:01if you're not completely exhausted the day after the election, you didn't work hard enough.
46:08Knock on doors, make the calls, you know, raise money if you have to, if you're able to.
46:17You know, one foot in front of the other until Election Day. Don't worry about,
46:26you know, the whole macro, the national macro. Worry about the neighborhood micro. I mean,
46:32that's, I don't have enough. I don't have, as an old field organizer, I don't have any
46:36other explanation than that.
46:37What would it take to get voters to focus on that?
46:45What do you mean, get voters to focus on what? To focus on the micro of it.
46:53As opposed to the sort of like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
47:01the, as opposed to this sort of like optics.
47:15That's a good question, because they're going to be, that's, that's a good question,
47:18because they're going to be fed the optics now for the better part of a month and a half, I'm sure.
47:26Well, it's also easier to, it's easier to wrap your head around.
47:30Yeah. I mean, I've been fighting this battle for so long that I'm, you know, I feel like Don Quixote.
47:42You know, perception is not reality. Stop saying it is. You know, it's not your job to
47:52accept that as axiomatic. Reality is reality.
47:57Pound the reality. Pound how, you know, pound into them how their grandmother died of COVID
48:06because she, you know, ate ivermectin instead of getting vaccinated. You know, pound to them how,
48:15you know, the federal bureaucracy fell apart. You know, pound into them that,
48:20you know, the country will not be recognizable in two years if they vote a certain way.
48:27I don't know if you can, I don't know how
48:35well you can fight illusions and delusions with facts, but I think we're going to be able to find
48:41out because, you know, we get right back to the fact that he didn't tell the truth for a single
48:47second last night. I can't come up with one thing he said that was true, except that he was president
48:54for four years. That is, alas, an undeniable fact. But why do you think the focus is more
49:03on Biden's performance than Trump's lies, is a question from a reader.
49:08Well, I think I wondered that myself on the blog today.
49:12I think the Trump persona, as it were, has been normalized.
49:31You know, I think, you know, people have, in my business and outside my business,
49:38have just taken to this is the way he is. I think that's a criminal way to do politics
49:45and a dangerous way to do democracy. But I don't understand why
49:55that wasn't a bigger topic of conversation.
50:00What? How much he lied?
50:02How much he lied.
50:03The fact that he did not tell the truth for 30 consecutive seconds in an hour and a half.
50:12It's just become normalized. It's what we expected and what we got.
50:15I went back and watched it again. I read the transcript. It's true. He does not tell the truth
50:22ever in that debate. If he's not insulting the president, which he did promiscuously,
50:33he's lying. He repeatedly, I mean, he knows nothing about policy, except how to bluster
50:40about it and make up his achievements on it, which don't really exist. I mean, my God,
50:48he's still telling the lie about how he signed the Veterans Choice Bill. That was Obama.
50:54Yeah, you mentioned that in your blog this morning.
51:01How would you respond if you had been Biden to that?
51:06How do you even begin to respond in a debate setting to that many lies if you're Biden
51:14and not kind of end up on the back foot looking like you're playing defense the whole time?
51:18Well, you respond aggressively. You borrow the line from Ronald Reagan. Here you go again.
51:28You remind the moderators of their jobs. I don't know if you guys noticed, but
51:36nothing he said there was true, and I'll explain to you why.
51:39I mean, you simply cannot trust the guy. And that was a line of attack that was completely
51:54abandoned last night. You can't trust the guy in his personal life. Although I did think,
52:03you know, morals of an alley cat was a real throwback.
52:07I thought that was great.
52:09That was really a nice piece of like 1930s invective.
52:14I mean, this guy has the morals of an alley cat. There should have been more of that.
52:20You think that was practiced?
52:21More of that good old Scranton, you know, grandpa common sense.
52:29I mean, isn't that something your grandpa would say?
52:32Yeah, 100%.
52:37I don't know how fair it is to alley cats, but.
52:44Yeah, it seems kind of rough on alley cats. They never bothered anyone.
52:50Oh, except their cats.
52:52Yeah, well.
52:53We won't go into that.
52:56That's for the next conference call.
53:00A related question to press coverage is, is the press covering Biden's campaign trail enough?
53:06Yeah, I mean, I don't think they're covering it any less than they would any other incumbent
53:16presidents. You get drowned out because there are, you know, five or six, you know,
53:26propagandistic semi-networks who carry everything Trump says.
53:30You know, I mean, right-side broadcasting news and Newsmax and everything else.
53:37Every one of Biden's speeches is not carried on live TV, I don't think.
53:44He's certainly not as entertaining.
53:45Maybe now, because people will be hoping he, like, falls off the stage or something, but.
53:53Another question, why no mention of Project 2025 last night?
53:56Thank you. I was, I was, I was hoping we didn't go an entire hour without mentioning it. I have
54:02no idea. That is a big ol' fat target, and it's a demonstration of what's going to happen,
54:08and nobody mentioned it.
54:12And why, why the hell not?
54:14I do not know. That is inexcusable.
54:18It's inexcusable on the moderator's part. It's inexcusable on the president's part.
54:23It's, it was, I, I could see, I, that moment, when I realized that, which was after the
54:30debate was over, and I started, you know, scroll, you know, going through the Rush transcripts,
54:37I had to go through them three times. I couldn't believe it. The phrase never came up,
54:44let alone the details.
54:48How should the Democrats make that a centerpiece?
54:51Well, Ayanna Pressley is going around the country explaining how, that you, you, you demonstrate
54:59the differences between what Project 2025 is and plans to do, and what we all are accustomed to
55:10American government doing, and, and behaving. And she's doing a great job. Another person who,
55:17who should be out there on, on, on the stump hustling. I mean, that's the, I mean, that,
55:25that to me was the most stunning omission of the night. Because it is starting to be a
55:34omission of the night. Because it is starting to, I mean, that issue is starting to get legs
55:44with people. John, thank God for John Oliver, who did a magnificent segment on it,
55:53I think two weeks ago, and which has subsequently gone viral.
55:57That is, that is just flatly bizarre.
56:07It is fascinating to see that they are, have rolled out the plan for authoritarianism and
56:15that wasn't discussed. That wasn't discussed. I mean, it wasn't even referred to.
56:21How would you have liked Biden to have referred to it last night, brought it up?
56:26Well, you just, you just bring it up. You know, when he starts talking about it.
56:29In an answer to any question?
56:31Any time he starts talking about making America great again, you hammer him with that. Because
56:39the blueprint is out there. This is what he means by America being great again. The death of public
56:45education. The death of Social Security and Medicare. You know, the death of the Environmental
56:55Protection Agency. Not doing anything about climate change. Jesusing up public education.
57:04Every time he says that he's going to make America great again, that's what he really means.
57:10And you've got it. I mean, it's all down on paper. You can read it.
57:14All right. We've got one more. We've got time for one more question. It's 157. This is maybe
57:24a good one to end on. How do we stay the course, not get swayed by Biden's performance last night?
57:38Get swayed by the fact that the other guy lied every time he opened his mouth. Get swayed by
57:43the fact that you know what the other guy is. Get swayed by the danger of a second Trump
57:50administration. Get swayed by that. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with putting some
58:03heat on the media, too. You can call television stations. I don't even know if you can write
58:23letters to the editor anymore. You can rise up against the people you think are doing terrible
58:32jobs, whether they're politicians or media people or me or anybody.
58:43Well, Charlie, thank you for the past hour. I think that's a good note to end on.
58:50Another big omission, voting rights. He's putting together a
58:56kind of death squad to go to the polls and intimidate people. He's got some guy in Kentucky
59:05making up lists of civil service employees he wants to fire. That's all Project 2025.
59:14That's part of the deal. Anyway.
59:17Lots to discuss today. We'll save some more for next time. See you all on the blog. Thank you so
59:22much for submitting questions. Thank you. Thanks, Kelly. No problem. Everyone who tuned in, thanks
59:29so much. And we'll live to fight another day. Have a good Friday. Everyone have a cold one.