Full Comment - Kamala Harris and J.D. Vance compete on awfulness

00:00:00.000 the old saying is may you live in interesting times in american politics these days it is

00:00:15.780 interesting unlike anything i have ever seen before hello and welcome to the full comment

00:00:20.620 podcast my name is brian lily your host and this week we're going to try and and look at what's

00:00:25.540 happened and what will happen going forward between now and november 5th when americans will

00:00:30.640 cast their ballots for the next president we've had an assassination attempt we've had a presidential

00:00:36.720 candidate and the president himself forced out by his own party and now a new candidate that is not

00:00:43.580 someone that the voters actually chose what a time in american politics if you want to really

00:00:49.760 see something that said take a look at what happened

00:00:52.240 there's no place in america for this kind of violence it's sick it's sick it's one of the

00:01:04.080 reasons why we have to unite this country i am so very honored and i pledge to you i will spend

00:01:09.980 the coming weeks continuing to unite our party so that we are ready to win in november

00:01:17.820 here to help us unpack some of this understand what's going on as someone who actually lives

00:01:23.740 it because while we as canadians can watch american politics we're not really in the middle of it that's

00:01:30.580 not so for jd chile he is a columnist with national post he's also contributing editor at reason.com

00:01:37.680 and he joins us from arizona jd thanks for the time my pleasure thanks for having me on

00:01:43.040 look america had a very um tumultuous political time in the 1960s that was before i was born but

00:01:51.860 i've of course grown up hearing about it ronald reagan was shot in the mid-80s that's the touchstone

00:01:58.800 that i have for what happened to donald trump but you put all of these things together we've never had

00:02:04.660 a time like this that i can think of we really haven't i mean the last period of significant political

00:02:10.720 violence and tumult is what you refer to the 60s but we're back in a period like that now uh one that

00:02:17.220 i would compare to that or even to italy in the 1970s uh the annie di piamba years of lead uh it's

00:02:24.080 the point now where we have uh incidents that uh are happening so quickly that they actually get

00:02:29.320 overlooked by the press there was an incident in michigan a couple of days ago where uh a biden or

00:02:35.640 at least a left-wing supporter uh went on a rampage tearing down uh trump and and republican signs and

00:02:41.380 ran over an 80 year old man is now in a critical condition he then ended up um offing himself before

00:02:46.600 the police got him but uh that's something that would have been headline news 10 years 15 years ago

00:02:52.760 and these days as awful as it is there's enough competing awfulness that it almost gets buried in

00:02:58.660 the tidal wave of what we have going on around us i like how you described that competing awfulness

00:03:04.440 um you know whatever one thinks of trump he was he's a former president he's a current presidential

00:03:12.360 candidate he's a human being and someone tried to kill him that should shock and revolt everyone and

00:03:18.540 yet there's still too many people putting on their team jersey and and yelling or screaming it was a bit

00:03:23.920 of at the the beginning oh yes it's horrible oh this should never happen and but also a lot of

00:03:29.580 oh wow i wish i wish he didn't miss not just celebrities and uh and people working in the

00:03:35.180 news media saying things like that no there were congressional staffers who got called out because

00:03:40.400 and and of course this is partially social media as a let's uh our dumbest thoughts that uh there's

00:03:46.340 something we might share with a friend uh in the past uh we can we can pop them out for the world to

00:03:51.640 examine uh right now in a moment uh but um several congressional staffers said things like that

00:03:57.380 and a couple of them had to resign because what they said was almost murderous um one of the

00:04:02.920 differences i think between the current moment in the 60s for instance is that our institutions

00:04:07.760 are more decayed and uh and the legitimacy of the political system as a whole um isn't there uh people

00:04:17.120 view it as it's legitimate only if their side wins and that gins up the partisanship and the the wishing

00:04:23.860 of harm on the other side because it's not about maintaining the political system it's about

00:04:27.760 winning at all cost that whole thing about um it only counts if your side wins yeah i've spent the

00:04:36.080 last couple of years since january 6 2021 well trump didn't accept the elections only republicans believe

00:04:43.300 that elections are stolen i've heard people state this clearly as if it were truth as if they don't

00:04:51.020 remember al gore or hillary clinton or any of the times that democrats have made that same complaint

00:04:58.060 that same claim since 2000 basically since 2000 you know whichever side wins claims the other one is

00:05:05.060 illegitimate and that is that is a significant dividing point the 2000 election is when uh and you

00:05:12.300 know unusually internationally red got established as the conservative color in the u.s and blue got

00:05:17.980 established as the uh as the liberal color i know in canada it's it's still different and in uh most of

00:05:24.260 the world blue is right wing red is left wing and that's because there was simply an uh they were

00:05:28.860 rotating the colors uh during the election that year and at that moment uh red was being used to

00:05:34.900 represent republican leaning states and blue is being used to represent democratic leaning states because

00:05:39.740 they didn't want to associate democratic party with socialism and communism and it got stuck with the idea

00:05:45.660 of partisanship and the contested election the denial of the legitimacy of the election and that really

00:05:51.100 was a turning point a pivotal point in american politics where it became less about okay how do we

00:05:57.100 simply peacefully transition power and more along the lines of if my side doesn't win i'm going to fight

00:06:03.220 tooth and nail deny the legitimacy of a win that doesn't include or doesn't feature my my team um on the

00:06:09.580 upside uh and the whole thing was all about winning at all cost and so yeah 2000 was a pivotal election

00:06:16.300 and that was when we when we started seeing on a regular basis uh denials of election legitimacy if

00:06:22.260 if a candidate lost the election well one thing that uh links together two issues you mentioned there

00:06:28.900 peaceful transition of power and illegitimacy can be summed up in the person of kamala harris there was a

00:06:35.360 peaceful transition of power within the democratic party over the last little while uh and now that's

00:06:41.420 being called illegitimate um i'm not going to go that far uh i was saying for months that biden had to

00:06:49.980 be replaced as democratic party candidate i think he should be replaced as president as well i'm not

00:06:56.300 i don't i say this with no malice i don't think the man has his faculties about him i don't think he is

00:07:01.600 up to the job of being leader of the free world which is what the u.s president still is that's

00:07:06.360 it's not a cold war relic term they still are the leader of the free world like it or not and

00:07:12.540 to me it's just not there so they had this party coup and i'd like love to get your take on this as

00:07:19.060 as someone that's living in the middle of it um was was the fix in from the beginning did this

00:07:25.660 i mean just the way it happened with biden saying hell no i won't go to yes i'm out and miss harris is

00:07:33.120 who who i'm backing and then you had the clintons come out and support her right away you had all

00:07:39.240 these endorsements then you had the donor money that had been held off just flood in uh i mean those

00:07:44.900 weren't little old ladies uh sending in uh twenty dollar checks uh that that was big donor money what's

00:07:50.960 your take on on on what unfolded over the last little while is it an internal party coup um i'm

00:07:57.840 a big believer in and not attributing to malice what can be explained by incompetence and i think

00:08:02.720 what happened was that the democrats backed themselves into a corner um and you know they

00:08:08.000 have set themselves up as the tribunes of democracy even though they're awfully elitist and awfully controlling

00:08:13.100 uh but they also nominated a man who really has passed a sell-by date back in 2020 because they

00:08:21.060 didn't want to end up with an elizabeth warren or worse yet a bernie sanders who isn't even a democrat

00:08:26.400 he's an independent socialist as the nominee for president who might have lost or worse might

00:08:32.180 have won and then been a radical um so they ended up with joe biden and joe biden while he's never been

00:08:39.240 a principled uh candidate and certainly not an intelligent one at least was more or less

00:08:44.820 predictable except that he was losing his faculties even then now we're four years later and he's in

00:08:50.880 a position he's elected it's not like the party can say no your turn is over you got to get out

00:08:54.480 he was elected as a as an individual to that office and despite his vows in 2020 they would serve one term

00:09:02.220 he decided he didn't want to and he dragged it out and he dragged it out he dragged out until it was

00:09:07.440 impossible for him to really make a case that he could be a decent candidate and too late in the

00:09:14.100 game he would they were able to force him to uh or his aides whoever's handling him these days

00:09:19.180 to issue that letter uh resigning his uh his position as the candidate uh although not the

00:09:24.200 presidency so i think this was something that they were backed into and kamala harris is the

00:09:28.940 logical heir because she's a co-signer on the campaign papers meaning that she has access to the

00:09:34.240 campaign funds and organization something that's not true of another candidate who enters the race

00:09:38.520 uh yeah so explain explain that quickly because there was a lot of dispute about that uh you know

00:09:44.800 if somebody like a gavin newsom came in could he access the tens of millions that have been raised

00:09:50.240 already he cannot um he would have access to the political action committees which are independent

00:09:56.360 funds which could choose to support him but the actual campaign apparatus is basically an

00:10:01.720 incorporated entity and it's under the control and dedicated to two candidates joe biden and kamala

00:10:08.800 harris um their names are on the on the papers for it there is no easy way in particular to transfer

00:10:15.160 the money it was set up deliberately that way so that you couldn't raise funds in one cause and then

00:10:20.580 shift it over to another one and that other one might be a replacement candidate not named kamala harris

00:10:26.440 so it's easy to put her in she could just tap the funds in the organization easily uh whereas somebody

00:10:32.220 else would pretty much have to start with their own fundraising operation and their own campaign

00:10:36.220 apparatus from square one in july of 2024 and that would be very difficult um she's also the vice

00:10:43.120 president and frankly um in an identitarian era with the democratic party very dedicated um to uh

00:10:50.300 ethnic national uh sexuality uh religious identity as a teller of you know as a as a signer signer of

00:10:57.980 virtue um kamala harris would be very hard to push aside without alienating much of the base of the

00:11:03.240 party so she was very much the person lined up without without a hard fight from somebody else

00:11:08.840 to take on the mantle and and i hear you on that but in the days before they announced and

00:11:15.260 she absolutely makes sense for why they would uh why would they would want her to be the candidate

00:11:21.480 but i couldn't believe that i was watching even someone like van jones who served in the obama

00:11:27.720 and biden administrations as advisors at times a man who lives and breathes the identitarian politics

00:11:35.140 that you were talking about was making the case for how and why she could be and should be skipped over

00:11:41.240 that that was fascinating for me to watch and that's true and the reason why is because even

00:11:47.540 though she is legally um i didn't you know identity wise uh position wise as the vice president

00:11:54.320 the logical heir to you know the the nomination of the democratic party she's a bad candidate and she's

00:12:01.740 a kind of an awful person uh they put her in the position uh i mean the running joke for years and

00:12:07.660 you know the press is trying to forget they ever published this was that she was joe

00:12:11.100 biden's insurance policy so long as she was the person who was going to step into the presidency

00:12:15.440 something happened to him everybody was going to make sure that nothing would happen to him

00:12:19.580 she has a reputation as a horrible person to work for she has 92 turnover in her staff as vice president

00:12:29.600 i think she retains four of the original 47 people who went into the job with her and for the record

00:12:36.180 that is much much higher than the average even among the sociopaths who occupy the political class

00:12:41.080 her record as a prosecutor when she was attorney general of california was one of which her office

00:12:47.840 argued to delay the early release of prisoners in the overcrowded california prison system these were

00:12:53.940 low-risk prisoners the prison system had been ordered to release early to release the overcrowding

00:12:59.420 and her office argued they shouldn't be released because they needed the cheap labor to fight wildfires

00:13:03.980 in california before that as the san francisco da her office actually denied evidence to defense

00:13:12.600 attorneys that the crime lab they were relying upon for prosecutions was crooked and corrupt and they

00:13:18.240 got castigated by a judge and over a thousand cases ended up getting thrown out including those that

00:13:23.320 had wound up in convictions they had to release people from prison so this is a this is a person who has

00:13:28.360 a bad record uh in public office she's extremely difficult to work for and she also has never

00:13:35.060 really demonstrated any dedication to learning her job um when she was assigned to be a border czar

00:13:42.100 as the press dubbed her at the time they're denying they ever they ever named her that but when she was

00:13:46.480 given a responsibility for border policy the biden administration she never boned up on it when

00:13:52.020 lester holt of nbc uh challenged her as to why she'd never been at the border she said well i've never

00:13:57.060 been to europe either why does that matter i mean that's a ridiculous answer she's an unserious person

00:14:01.900 so this is why van jones who's a very smart person had doubts about her as a candidate and he was not

00:14:08.160 the only one so polling is something that is fascinating to watch and i had a interview the

00:14:16.240 other day with daryl bricker he's the toronto-based ceo of ipsos global public affairs so he oversees

00:14:23.360 polling around the world for them and and folks were pointing to a recent ipsos reuters poll showing

00:14:28.900 that well harris is up by two points over trump it was 44 for harris 42 for trump and and daryl's a

00:14:36.860 wise man and he just said look um calm down everyone this just happened uh it's a polarized country and

00:14:46.300 we've got to take a bit of time to see how things even out it's been several other polls trump's still

00:14:52.300 ahead by about two points um and in some of the swing states like georgia or where you are in

00:14:58.820 arizona he's well ahead but he said we we need a week to 10 days of solid polling to be able to look

00:15:06.860 at this but the things you have to ask are which candidate is the candidate of change and of course

00:15:13.400 right now that'd be trump and then he said and then who owns the issues that matter to people right now

00:15:18.160 and inflation whether you know the the the public inflation number is going down or not people in

00:15:25.760 your country and mine feel like everything's costing more and who do they blame in part the

00:15:29.820 government uh crime and the border these are big issues in america right now and the democrats they're

00:15:36.400 not really owning any of them are they they're not the only issue which they've been polling reasonably

00:15:42.220 strongly is reproductive rights abortion which is why harris has said she's going to make that a

00:15:47.600 centerpiece of her campaign um and that may be effective i mean it's certainly very important

00:15:52.980 say to suburban women who are kind of a swing vote these days but is that enough and i don't think it

00:15:57.820 is cost of living issues i mean the two issues that are repeatedly mentioned the most as he met as you

00:16:02.480 said are immigration and inflation cost of living issues and then crime comes up behind that and on all of

00:16:08.120 those trump leads um undoubtedly as a fresh face in the campaign harris gives a bump of enthusiasm to

00:16:15.280 the democratic base so i would expect her to poll a little bit better than biden no matter what i mean

00:16:20.080 there was a sense of impending doom uh in the recent weeks with with biden's candidacy i think

00:16:25.580 democrats were just dropping away and kind of ignoring the election uh harris bring i mean she's at least

00:16:31.680 uh you know i've referred to her as the half of the biden harris team that still has the ability to

00:16:36.300 climb upstairs and that in and of itself has some kind of a value to it even if it's not a lot

00:16:42.220 um so whereas trump was polling about three three and a half points ahead of biden he's polling now

00:16:49.540 uh in both the real clear politics and the hill averages of holes about two points ahead of harris

00:16:55.420 um but we don't know i mean and here's the thing trump is also a bad candidate uh and when you have

00:17:02.880 two very unpopular candidates uh harris's uh her approval rating is about 38 percent almost identical

00:17:11.100 to biden's trump's is a little higher his favorability is about 42 percent but both of

00:17:16.320 them are underwater their unfavorables are higher than the favorables which means this is less of a

00:17:21.100 race to see who's going to win and more of one to see who's going to lose there was a poll out just

00:17:27.140 before biden did step down showing that uh most americans wanted both candidates to leave the race

00:17:33.260 i think it was 57 percent would prefer donald trump to uh you know take his name off the ticket

00:17:40.820 and 70 percent wanted biden the difference was republicans still backed trump but democrats it only

00:17:48.840 went down to 65 percent among democrats when they were asked well what about your president biden should

00:17:55.920 he drop out 70 percent general population 65 percent uh among the among democrats that that was

00:18:03.800 pretty damning um what is it about trump that republican voters are are sticking to

00:18:11.220 obviously some don't like him but a lot of people love this guy and he packs the stadiums he packs the

00:18:17.360 fields like the the one in bethel pennsylvania where he was shot what what's the attraction well i mean i

00:18:24.760 think the important thing here is that the republican party of donald trump is not the republican party

00:18:29.760 of uh 2016 when rand paul and uh jeb bush were running for the uh for the nomination against him

00:18:37.060 and the u.s i mean i think i think we saw that in the fact that grover norquist did not speak

00:18:42.560 at the republican national convention hulk hogan and dana uh white did

00:18:47.640 and that's exactly right i mean in the u.s we don't we don't abandon political parties and establish

00:18:53.540 new ones uh we we just we just kind of re-inhabit their hollowed out shells and the republican party

00:18:59.820 of now is not the smallish government free marketish political party of 10 years ago it's a nationalist

00:19:06.380 populist party and it's very much that is uh that is trump focused he's made it pro-union he's made it

00:19:12.780 a protectionist he's made it a nativist uh it's hawkish on on the border issues and it's not

00:19:18.960 especially free market oriented which is why you don't see grover norquist there or a lot of the

00:19:24.000 old free market economist types you might have seen in the past uh this is a party of john

00:19:29.160 trump and jd vance's running mate which is more has more in common with say france's national alliance

00:19:36.740 that it does with the republican party of uh oh ronald reagan by any means and so the reason

00:19:44.740 republicans are sticking with him is because these are people who join the republican party

00:19:48.940 for trump and they're at the moment something of a cult of personality but they're also creating a new

00:19:54.780 populist political party around what they perceive as his ideas um and that's why because they're they're

00:20:02.960 there for him and they are going to stick around so long as he's the guy leading uh leading the charge

00:20:07.980 so as you you sit back and you look at trump versus harris um one of the things that that uh

00:20:16.320 bricker from ipso said to me was you know a two-point lead he said given all the euphoria around her

00:20:22.520 taking over and the closing of the enthusiasm gap all those democrats they just said oh no i can't

00:20:28.700 i can't look at joe biden i can't vote for him no please take him off the ticket they're suddenly

00:20:34.200 back bricker said he thought it might have been bigger i look at it and i say you know her approval

00:20:41.200 ratings as you pointed out lower than trump's uh to me it's surprisingly close uh i i thought trump

00:20:49.220 would have had a a bigger lead with a candidate yes she's been vice president but you know not as active

00:20:56.760 that that doesn't give you the same name recognition or popularity as being president

00:21:00.840 the advantage of harris is that she's not biden but that's pretty much all she has but the other

00:21:09.680 problem but the big problem with her is that she's part of the biden administration and so she owns the

00:21:15.840 policies and when you talk about cost of living when you talk about immigration i mean she was given

00:21:21.300 responsibility for border policy and she didn't do much with it uh she has the albatross of the 20 to

00:21:29.540 25 percent increase in cost of living over the last four years hanging around her neck she has the

00:21:35.180 failures and perceived failures the unpopularity of the biden administration associated with her because

00:21:40.360 she is part of it so she's not a fresh face she's kind of in many ways she's a continuation and

00:21:46.560 a known quality so there's the enthusiasm you're seeing the bump you're seeing i think is among

00:21:51.080 democrats i don't know that she's going to attract many of those undecideds however few you know there

00:21:55.920 aren't that many to begin with but she's not going to just you know she's not going to persuade people

00:21:59.340 to break away from um say voting for trump or a third party candidate uh and come over to her side

00:22:05.140 because she's not something new offering an unknown package or a fresh package she's just the biden

00:22:11.380 administration rebranded when we come back we'll talk more about this also about the other jd not

00:22:19.820 jd to chile we'll talk about jd vance and we'll talk about trump and why are they on the path that

00:22:26.860 they are now more in moments vice president harris was not a border czar meantime vice president and

00:22:33.280 border czar tamala harris facing some backlash what he said about harris and immigration was not true

00:22:38.500 she was never appointed border czar and this will be her first visit to the uh u.s mexico border

00:22:43.980 region since she was appointed as the border czar by president biden people have to counter the

00:22:48.420 misinformation you already hear folks talking about the border czar she wasn't the border czar

00:22:52.060 president biden tapped kamala harris vice president kamala harris to be the border czar now she wasn't

00:22:57.720 the border czar that's what republicans uh labeled her bit of a media memory hole there right

00:23:04.240 was she the border czar was she not uh jd your thoughts on this i mean this is literally an

00:23:10.240 attempt to rewrite history maybe she didn't officially have the term border czar but nobody

00:23:15.160 has the official title czar within the american government and yet the term has been used what

00:23:21.660 obama used it i'm not sure if george w bush used it before him but there have been plenty of people

00:23:27.040 given the title of green czar a border czar different things she was called border czar over and over again

00:23:34.040 the new york times msnbc cbs abc all of them and now they're trying to say oh she was never the

00:23:40.560 border czar this just undermines media credibility in a time when it's already in the tank and people

00:23:46.920 think uh that the uh the media is on one presidential team or the other what i what boggles my mind is why

00:23:55.560 they bother to do this uh credibility for the media is down around 15 to 20 percent tops and then they go

00:24:01.900 when they try to they try to claim that they never said something that's available their own archives

00:24:06.580 the new york times did call her the border czar that was a term i think the new york times first

00:24:10.880 used in fact um axios definitely called where the borders are i saw four different stories that they

00:24:15.920 ran in 2021 2022 using that term and of course they've now added axios has now added corrections

00:24:22.680 and updates to those stories saying that they shouldn't have called her that yeah they did call her that

00:24:27.880 though and it's in their archives so i i guess the next step is they start scrubbing their archives

00:24:32.440 but the fact of the matter is she was given responsibility for border policy in the biden

00:24:37.700 administration and she was very very bad at it she never did her homework she didn't go to the border

00:24:44.340 she got called out for it by nbc's lester holt um she was awful and she dropped the ball in a tremendous

00:24:51.100 way and she has now linked to her responsibility for policy uh which under the biden administration

00:24:58.860 the performance of which has been extremely unpopular with the american people americans are

00:25:03.740 not happy with how the biden administration has handled immigration policy so they can deny this all

00:25:09.620 they want but they don't undermine the american people's awareness that she was the border czar

00:25:14.860 they undermine the press undermines their own credibility let me ask you if you can explain

00:25:19.820 why the the border matters so much and and and what's going on that bothers people because

00:25:25.440 sitting up here in the great white north we have long supported um high levels of immigration it's

00:25:33.500 been you do the polling on it uh every time i say this i get angry emails saying that's never true

00:25:38.560 but i've watched the polling for years that was strong support for high levels of immigration then

00:25:43.100 the trudeau government came in ramped it up even further then they started allowing people crossing

00:25:48.680 rocks and road uh our levels of asylum seekers are through the roof we're bringing in 109 000

00:25:55.300 people per month on average and now we've got a housing crisis an affordability crisis in the

00:26:02.180 housing sector partly driven by demand outstripping supply and suddenly immigration is not as popular as

00:26:09.220 it used to be up here you guys have been dealing with large numbers of people coming in illegally for

00:26:14.560 years i imagine especially in a state like yours that's on the border in arizona what is it about

00:26:21.040 the issue that that drives people because it's not just republicans this is something that democrats

00:26:26.140 used to be excited about used to be upset about clinton promised to fix it everybody's promised to fix

00:26:31.300 it give us a sense of the border and why it's an issue from your point of view well part of it is

00:26:37.440 that our situation is a little bit different than canada's our neighboring country to the south even

00:26:42.380 though it's much more prosperous than it used to be uh is a poorer country and it has poorer countries

00:26:47.740 still south of it uh so when we talk about immigrants who can just walk here um from those countries

00:26:53.700 we're talking about people with uh you know lower skill sets by and large um they come from an impoverished

00:27:00.860 background they're willing to work uh for lower wages now that can be a good thing and we actually had a

00:27:06.540 very good relationship with with migrants back and forth across the border for a very long time

00:27:11.560 and immigration was very popular with americans up until relatively recently that has changed

00:27:16.620 but it was always an issue in that people could come from other countries coming to the u.s originally

00:27:22.620 from mexico now from guatemala and other places in central america take jobs at low cost and they're

00:27:28.840 also very visible because they do speak a different language and they come from different ethnic backgrounds

00:27:33.500 and the result was that our laws regarding immigration actually are a mess we need the labor

00:27:40.460 it's almost impossible to stop the flow because it was a very long border with mexico

00:27:45.000 but we the laws actually leave almost no legal path for immigration to the u.s at this point

00:27:52.480 they were anybody that's ever looked at it i i've looked at it even with family connections uh

00:27:59.520 it is horrible to try and do this legally i could have been like so many canadians and just gone down and

00:28:05.200 stayed uh and then passed as american but i never did that but you're right the laws are horrible

00:28:12.300 the cato institute actually published a flow chart last summer of the paths to immigration and they

00:28:19.280 pretty much all end up at failure the immigration rate is under of those who try to get in it's under

00:28:24.340 one percent so inevitably those who want who are seeking opportunity are coming from countries where

00:28:30.220 there are no jobs where they're falling apart because they used to have jobs but they weren't

00:28:34.440 and elected a communist dictator venezuela we're looking at you um there's going to be demand for

00:28:40.780 opportunity and safety in the u.s and so they're going to come here one way or the other and if you

00:28:44.700 don't leave an open legal path and they can just walk then they will just walk and that's what they're

00:28:51.020 doing so it becomes a huge battle between those who resent the influx of illegal immigrants but who have

00:28:57.260 not yet grasped the fact that the only real effective way when you have a vast land border

00:29:02.480 to cut off the flow of illegal immigrants is to somehow set up a legal pathway for a decent number

00:29:08.700 of them to get in and work above board rather than be here illegally in their millions

00:29:13.600 so uh doesn't sound like either candidate is offering up anything that would deal with what

00:29:22.560 you're describing trump wants to close the border biden or now harris sorry wants to open it wider

00:29:27.980 and and not give a legal path just except for those who have already come in illegally so nobody

00:29:35.900 actually wants to reform the immigration laws they just it's one way or another of dealing with

00:29:41.760 the illegal immigrants without giving them a legal path yeah i mean every now and then about a half

00:29:47.440 dozen u.s senators and both parties will uh throw themselves on the pyre and actually try to craft

00:29:53.020 some halfway serious reform for our border our migration laws um they always end in failure and

00:30:00.060 they've been doing this for over 30 years now and i i give them credit for keep on coming back to it

00:30:04.500 it's a different half dozen each time uh but the fact is the republicans are nativists they don't want

00:30:09.820 immigration period uh or they want a very small number and only highly educated wealthy people

00:30:15.660 to come in as immigrants and that's not realistic uh again big land border there's only so much

00:30:20.760 control we're ever going to have over it um and the democrats of course even though they are

00:30:25.180 like immigration there's a constituency in their party a strong one that is not open to any kind of

00:30:32.160 of restrictions whatsoever including background checks including uh you know health checks including

00:30:38.220 do you have any skill sets and so doing anything that changes the status quo other than kind of

00:30:43.060 backing the border patrol off uh doesn't fly with their base so the nativists and the gop don't

00:30:48.960 want a legal path and the and the democrats who are more open to immigration than the republicans

00:30:53.860 can't set up a legal path because it would inherently involve restrictions who would that

00:30:58.260 would anger some of their base and so nothing gets done and you keep on watching an illegal influx

00:31:02.920 across the border i think the current estimate is about 11 million illegal immigrants live in the

00:31:08.680 united states at this time at this moment which is actually down from a high 14 years ago about 12.2

00:31:14.400 million let's talk about the other jd um jd vance i knew him from him writing a book he's been in the

00:31:24.940 senate what two years not a not a great record for him to go on um it you know it's just two years it

00:31:31.940 takes a while and now he's the vice presidential pick uh is he there because he meets what you keep

00:31:39.960 referring to as nativist in that he's straight up doesn't like free trade doesn't like nafta um

00:31:46.960 i mean he he must like immigration to a degree based on who he's married to uh but why was jd vance

00:31:54.940 the pick for trump and and what does that tell you about the future of the republican party going forward

00:32:00.580 uh jd vance i mean my ideological disagreements with him aside and basically i agree with jd vance

00:32:07.260 on almost nothing uh but uh you're coming at things from a pretty libertarian point of view

00:32:12.280 well i am and i'll be clear about that i'm a libertarian i'm not happy with either of the major

00:32:16.400 parties but uh jd vance uh i think was not a wise choice as a running mate on trump's ticket trump chose

00:32:24.100 him um we're told you know under the persuasion of his sons uh in order to drive up the core

00:32:31.080 turnout because they wanted to really hammer down that labor vote that rust belt vote uh that kind of

00:32:37.620 you know that that real trump base and then he did it when the opponent was biden and biden was

00:32:43.540 definitely fading the thing is with a harris in the in the race with any other candidate in the race

00:32:49.180 uh as the uh as the democrat uh you you need to at least try to reach somebody who's not already one

00:32:56.240 of the uh the converted um you need to reach across the uh if not across the aisle at least pull in some

00:33:01.340 of the old republican coalition maybe some free market types uh maybe some folks who are real

00:33:06.160 entrepreneurs who are open to something else in the world uh vance is kind of an entrepreneur he has a

00:33:10.920 tech capital background except that he's set himself up as a populist he's not free market um he's very

00:33:17.340 much uh kind of you know the tribune or the working man even if he went to yale uh for law school so i

00:33:22.980 mean that's the image he projects and i don't know that he's going to give uh trump the boost that he was

00:33:28.460 hoping for against a harris um when he you know when he was chosen just in order to nail down the base

00:33:34.540 when the when the opponent was biden does he so you're not sure he's going to give him a boost that

00:33:43.380 uh securing the core the gender gap between these two candidates is going to be massive

00:33:50.440 um it was already massive in favor of the republicans in terms of attracting men does vance

00:33:59.400 do that i mean i've watched him speak and i have not been impressed i was not impressed with his

00:34:06.060 his speech at the rnc i saw him talking about drinking a diet mountain dew the other day and i'm

00:34:13.540 not sure why he and his team put out that clip um he's not as strong a speaker as i would have thought

00:34:19.420 um will he be able to at least draw in that young to middle-aged men demographic

00:34:27.660 i don't know that he will i mean if you wanted to go for that i would have i would have thought

00:34:33.360 you would have gone for like a vivic ramaswamy or somebody in that category somebody's a little

00:34:38.480 more energy okay maybe not as frantic as vivic ramaswamy but um vivic is wow he he is energy

00:34:46.120 he is all over the place but jd vance does not exactly exude energy he exudes kind of a uh

00:34:52.600 kind of a a pompous a pompous bombast a um and and uh you know this pretense of being a tribute to

00:35:00.100 the working man um i don't know that he reaches out to the the gen z voters that you want and even

00:35:06.180 so i mean trump is still attracting gen z men i mean i see it my my son is 19 years old i see it as

00:35:12.040 friends uh you know much greater lean to the right that i would have anticipated to see among this

00:35:17.120 generation and the polling shows this shows the same it's not just anecdotal but if you want to

00:35:21.620 reach more of the gen z if you want to pull women in if you want to excite people jd vance is not the

00:35:26.580 guy um there are a number of candidates that would have been better choices i would think uh you know

00:35:31.900 the republicans actually have a pretty strong team um in terms of governors in terms of senators um in

00:35:38.900 terms of people who actually have accomplishments and are not ideological cookie cutter versions of

00:35:43.460 donald trump himself and actually have some energy you mentioned earlier about you know

00:35:49.400 bringing in voters from the outside elections are determined especially these days you know we

00:35:54.960 our polarization is not as bad as yours but it it exists and elections are won by swing voters

00:36:01.280 often low information voters people who engage with politics far less than you and i will uh which is

00:36:08.100 daily and so you've got to be able to reach out beyond them you mentioned earlier that harris is going

00:36:13.920 to lean in heavy on abortion well if abortion is your motivating issue you're already voting democrat

00:36:20.660 uh that you know maybe it energizes suburban moms as you said maybe it brings some people back who had

00:36:27.680 moved over to trump i'm not sure that's the only issue so you know maybe by the time this uh is out

00:36:35.040 we'll know who uh the vice presidential nominee for harris is uh what i've been told by my contacts is that

00:36:43.580 the donor class is leaning heavily on one of your senators mark kelly uh he's a former naval fighter

00:36:50.660 pilot former astronaut married to former congresswoman gabby giffords he would insulate the democrats for

00:36:59.040 being you know claims of being weak on defense or or things like that a bit of a tough guy image

00:37:04.660 who else do you see out there what do they bring and and will any any of them help harris

00:37:10.140 close that gap or or even supersede trump i know we we got to wait a while to see where

00:37:16.480 things land in the polling and the trends in it but is there anyone that you can see on the democrat

00:37:21.780 side where uh it it would give her a boost well yeah i mean i think mark kelly would be a good choice

00:37:28.900 for her i mean she has a reputation as being very left-leaning mark kelly probably would have been a

00:37:35.000 john mccain type of republican in a different period of time i believe he was in fact uh so he would be

00:37:40.980 a good choice for a josh shapiro from pennsylvania the governor of pennsylvania is a decent choice

00:37:44.960 personally i like jared polish he's the governor of colorado uh he's a market-oriented guy would would

00:37:50.700 kind of uh take away uh the suspicions that uh kamala harris is a kind of closet socialist or at least

00:37:57.100 encounter that some um so the democrats do have a second bench that'd be strong and if they do that

00:38:02.540 they have a better chance of reaching voters who would otherwise be alienated by kamala harris herself

00:38:08.020 which ideally is what you want to do with the choice of a number two on the ticket uh and that's

00:38:13.860 what that's what vance does not give uh trump with with his selection so i am in terms of the

00:38:19.060 availability of possible names and because now the race is gelling as a harris trump race and not a

00:38:24.940 biden trump race harris is in a much better position to choose herself a vice presidential candidate who

00:38:30.680 could reach uh voters who she might not reach herself voters that can bring her uh states like

00:38:37.800 pennsylvania john king got in a bit of hot water the other day on cnn for saying that putting josh

00:38:44.540 shapiro on the ticket could cause controversy and i don't think john john king is anti-semitic

00:38:50.320 for a moment he's you know formerly married to dana bash he's got two jewish kids uh but what he was

00:38:56.680 talking about and what the democrats have to deal with in this election in michigan and and anywhere

00:39:02.480 with a big left-wing college campus is anti-semitism is a major issue they were losing votes under biden

00:39:11.060 over his support for israel harris didn't go to netanyahu's speech uh unlike when she went to

00:39:17.700 zelensky's speech held up the ukrainian flag behind him how are they going to deal with that issue over

00:39:23.600 the next little while and and and would putting someone like josh shapiro on the ticket you know

00:39:31.060 mean cost them votes in in other states might help them with pennsylvania but will they lose votes in

00:39:37.200 michigan they could well and this is a big problem for democrats is that the progressive wing of the

00:39:43.260 democratic party and and actually the left wing of politics throughout the west um is increasingly

00:39:48.640 embracing open anti-semitism and i don't think there's any doubt about that at all and so a

00:39:53.260 josh and josh shapiro as himself has said that there's a problem i mean he had to confront that

00:39:56.880 at the university of pennsylvania uh because he's on the board of trustees even though that's a private

00:40:00.760 university uh the anti-semitism problem in the democratic party is going to make it potentially

00:40:07.400 challenging they may actually they may lose votes to left-wing uh third party candidates if they put

00:40:12.720 somebody who was jewish on the ticket as a number two and there's no easy answer i can't believe that

00:40:17.980 this is a discussion in 2024 yeah it is and it's we shouldn't be here and it's a problem the

00:40:23.780 democrats are going to have to confront the labor party in the uk had to confront it and they ended

00:40:28.080 up kind of purging that far left anti-semitic wing of the party although some of it's back but they

00:40:33.180 purged that at least for a while because they had to if they were going to appeal to anybody in the

00:40:37.000 center and the democrats i think unless they deal with that left-wing progressive anti-semitism um on

00:40:43.040 their left uh they're going to have a similar problem they're fracturing just the way the republicans

00:40:47.240 fractured and they've got some segments of their party that are incompatible with one another they're

00:40:54.100 gonna have to decide which they want to go with and i would hope they'll be the ones more towards

00:40:57.640 the center and towards more tolerance and not the anti-semites jd i'll leave you with this if you

00:41:04.380 could give advice to canadians on how to deal with either party if they win i'd appreciate it because

00:41:11.540 we we've we've kind of been um blessed to be your neighbor and we've got great trade relationships

00:41:19.020 and now our economy you know it's well it's long been dependent on that trading relationship

00:41:23.080 but instead of having one part of the other be slightly uh protectionist now they're both

00:41:30.400 full-throated protectionists and so my advice to the trudeau government

00:41:34.160 is and whoever hopefully takes over soon from them that you got to wake up to the fact that we

00:41:40.140 don't have friends in washington anymore not on trade issues so what what would be your advice to

00:41:45.960 dealing with a washington that at least at the executive level has suddenly embraced protectionism

00:41:52.360 i would say tread carefully there's a real risk um in dealing with the u.s government in the current

00:41:58.080 environment of being seen not as an ally of the u.s government but being seen as an ally of

00:42:04.020 whichever party is currently in power and if that happens and inevitably elections turn and

00:42:10.140 the cycle changes then that then as an ally of that party in power perceived one then you're all

00:42:15.700 of a sudden you're on the outs so you have to be you have to tread carefully to not embrace a

00:42:21.320 candidate or party that you think is going to be better for your country um even if at the risk of

00:42:27.600 having to be a little standoffish with the u.s government we're going through a very troubled period

00:42:31.620 and you do not want to be dragged into our problems well then we're screwed if trump wins because uh

00:42:38.680 justin trudeau has been campaigning against donald trump instead of his real uh opponent conservative

00:42:44.220 leader pierre polyev he's been doing that for about a year and i don't see him stopping jd thanks

00:42:49.360 so much for the discussion today and best of luck come november thank you i appreciate that

00:42:55.000 full comment is a post media podcast my name is brian lily your host this episode was produced

00:43:00.640 by andre prue theme music by bryce hall kevin liban is the executive producer remember you can

00:43:06.400 subscribe to full comment on apple podcasts uh youtube podcasts amazon music anywhere you get

00:43:12.620 your podcast help us out by leaving a rating or a review and tell your friends about us thanks for

00:43:17.260 listening until next time i'm brian lily

00:43:19.300 you

Full Comment - July 29, 2024

Kamala Harris and J.D. Vance compete on awfulness

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