Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 22, 2024


BIDEN OUT-What the Hell Happens Next？!


Episode Stats


Length

41 minutes

Words per minute

185.03911

Word count

7,632

Sentence count

668

Harmful content

Misogyny

21

sentences flagged

Toxicity

22

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergus Ferguson react to Joe Biden's decision to withdraw from the Democratic presidential campaign. They discuss why Biden decided to leave the race and what it means for the rest of the 2020 Democratic primary race.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.460 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.480 Joe Biden has officially dropped out of the presidential race.
00:00:09.840 Welcome.
00:00:10.280 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you on this special podcast.
00:00:15.760 Senator, you predicted this 10 months ago.
00:00:19.220 It has now become a reality.
00:00:21.220 Your initial reaction.
00:00:23.060 Well, today is an historic day.
00:00:25.060 We are 106 days out from the presidential election.
00:00:28.160 And the Democrat nominee for president, the sitting Democrat president, is out.
00:00:33.380 He will not be on the ballot.
00:00:34.640 He will not be the candidate.
00:00:36.300 At this point, the Democrat Party is in utter disarray.
00:00:39.920 Chaos is erupting.
00:00:41.740 We're going to break down exactly what is likely to happen next.
00:00:45.220 We're going to walk all through the steps to expect in the 160 days between now and Election Day.
00:00:51.420 First, before we get into all that, I want to tell you about my friends at Blackout Coffee.
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00:02:03.800 All right, Senator, so let's start with what's happened over the last week.
00:02:08.720 Democrats witnessed an incredible GOP convention.
00:02:11.500 You and I were there.
00:02:12.660 It's the most, I think, unity I've ever seen the Republican Party at a convention.
00:02:17.240 Undoubtedly.
00:02:17.880 And they were, I think, really concerned after the convention of a big bump.
00:02:23.400 How do you reset a race?
00:02:24.780 You get in your new candidate.
00:02:26.420 And I think they clearly saw that.
00:02:28.020 We saw the big five Democratic families and the media coalesce behind forcing him to get out.
00:02:34.200 I think some sort of deal had to happen to make sure that Joe Biden and his family are going to be taken care of.
00:02:39.440 Kamala Harris was the obvious choice. 0.98
00:02:41.920 That's now who he's endorsed.
00:02:43.400 And other Democrats seem to be jumping on board.
00:02:46.380 Well, listen, I think this was inevitable, as I said, as of the night of the debate.
00:02:52.000 But I think the momentum of it accelerated, number one, with the assassination attempt on President Trump.
00:02:58.940 Number two, with the very successful presidential convention we just had in Milwaukee, I think Democrats were in absolute panic.
00:03:07.720 They were in panic.
00:03:08.780 Earlier today, poll numbers came out of Michigan that had Trump leading Biden in Michigan by seven points.
00:03:14.480 You want to talk about something to put Democrats in cold sweats.
00:03:18.260 If they're losing Michigan by seven points, go ahead and pull the curtains down, roll up the rug.
00:03:23.060 It's all over.
00:03:24.820 That's why they did this.
00:03:27.160 That would have happened regardless, even if the debate had been, even if the convention, rather, had been bumpy, even if Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania had not happened.
00:03:36.640 And I believe we would still have Biden out of the race.
00:03:39.720 But the Democrats, we saw each of the major constituencies of the Democrat Party line up against Joe Biden and force him out.
00:03:48.120 He did not want to go.
00:03:49.140 He did not go willingly.
00:03:50.700 But one after the other, starting with Democrats in Congress, Nancy Pelosi came out against him.
00:03:57.920 Chuck Schumer came out against him.
00:03:59.580 Hakeem Jeffries came out against him.
00:04:01.380 And it was all self-interest.
00:04:02.500 All the Democrats in Congress were looking at their polls saying, holy cow, we're about to lose.
00:04:07.140 And they all lined up against him.
00:04:08.420 But you also saw you saw Barack Obama quietly coming out against him.
00:04:12.880 He put out a quick tweet in support of him.
00:04:14.600 But he also signed off on George Clooney representing Hollywood, abandoning him, saying, Joe, get out.
00:04:21.140 We saw the corporate media uniformly pushing him out.
00:04:25.080 We saw the donors pushing him out.
00:04:27.320 And the pressure became too much to bear.
00:04:29.940 There are one senator after another senator after another senator on the Democrat side.
00:04:34.920 Biden didn't have a choice.
00:04:36.500 But I will say it was very savvy of them to wait until after this convention.
00:04:40.740 Yeah.
00:04:41.160 But let's just first go with the news.
00:04:43.740 So today, here's what Joe Biden put out this afternoon.
00:04:48.120 This is the letter he put out.
00:04:49.640 He tweeted it out.
00:04:51.560 This screenshot is from 1246 p.m.
00:04:55.120 Interestingly enough, it had 95.9 million views already.
00:04:59.060 I just checked a minute ago where about two hours later, it was up to 161 million views.
00:05:05.100 This is his resignation letter.
00:05:07.800 And rather than you and me read it, which would be fine, but we'd have to say words that are demonstrably untrue,
00:05:14.640 things claiming that Biden had actually done something well, that his record was something other than the train wreck it is.
00:05:19.780 Rather than you or me read it, I think we're better off engaging in a bit of schadenfreude.
00:05:25.800 And so watching Jen Psaki on MSNBC, former White House press secretary, Joe Biden's press secretary, having to carry the water. 0.69
00:05:34.580 And I got to say, look, since I said that there are a number of lies about his record, Jen Psaki is actually quite accomplished at reading lies.
00:05:40.740 But for those of you watching, this is a video pod.
00:05:43.840 So this is one.
00:05:44.840 We do this podcast three days a week.
00:05:46.980 All three of them are on audio.
00:05:48.420 Typically, one a week is on video.
00:05:50.460 This is one of the video and audio pods.
00:05:52.420 And I will say, if you're listening on audio, I'd encourage you to go to YouTube and watch it on video, because to watch Jen Psaki's face,
00:06:00.200 you cannot fully appreciate the agony without watching it as she's reading these words.
00:06:06.580 And as we're watching the Democrat Party light itself on fire here, give a listen, give a watch.
00:06:16.320 We have breaking news here.
00:06:18.320 President Biden has announced he will stand down from the race.
00:06:21.600 I'm going to read the statement here.
00:06:23.680 Her expression, which is actually frozen on the screen right now.
00:06:27.340 She's about to cry.
00:06:28.400 Yeah.
00:06:28.640 I mean, she's like, what has just happened to my world?
00:06:30.960 No, no, no.
00:06:31.340 It is that.
00:06:34.680 All right.
00:06:35.080 Go ahead and keep playing.
00:06:36.040 We also have Tim Miller, who's going to be joining us shortly.
00:06:40.160 Over the past, my fellow Americans, over the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a nation.
00:06:46.720 Today, America has the strongest economy in the world.
00:06:50.080 We've made historic investments in rebuilding our nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans.
00:07:01.200 We've provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances past the first.
00:07:09.000 Thank you so much.
00:07:09.760 I'm just going to read off the paper here past the first safety law in 30 years, appointed the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court and passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world.
00:07:21.440 I mean, really?
00:07:23.800 That's I mean, she just goes straight into it and is like totally lost.
00:07:27.800 Like what just happened to us?
00:07:29.640 Well, Joe Biden has suspended, as you and I predicted 10 months ago, as you and I predicted a month ago on the debate.
00:07:38.500 And he will not be on the ballot.
00:07:40.960 That has never happened before.
00:07:43.580 You know, the closest analog is the 1968 Democrat Convention, which was in Chicago as well.
00:07:50.100 That is the last time you had an incumbent Democrat president in that case, Lyndon B. Johnson.
00:07:55.660 Yeah.
00:07:56.220 Not run for reelection.
00:07:57.680 Now, Lyndon B. Johnson, why did he not run for reelection?
00:08:00.040 A big part of it is he'd lost the support of the American people.
00:08:03.280 He'd lost the support of Republicans, of independents and Democrats.
00:08:05.720 And when you lose all of them, there ain't nobody left.
00:08:07.980 It was the middle of the Vietnam War.
00:08:10.940 Unlike Joe Biden, it was not that he was too old.
00:08:13.320 It was just that he was physically worn down and tired and he'd lost the American people.
00:08:17.560 And so LBJ didn't run.
00:08:19.320 And you had you want to talk about an incredibly contentious election.
00:08:23.280 In that election, there was a guy named Robert F. Kennedy who was running.
00:08:26.980 That tragically is the election cycle where Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in the course of the cycle.
00:08:32.380 But he was for a period the rising star.
00:08:35.280 You ended up having LBJ's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, got the nomination.
00:08:42.340 But it was an incredibly close and contested race because you had you had a challenge from the left and a challenge from the left over Vietnam, a chaotic convention.
00:08:57.380 And outside you had rabid protesters engaged in violence and rioting.
00:09:03.980 I think we may literally be seeing history repeating itself.
00:09:07.460 Let's talk about and there's two aspects of what I'm about to ask you.
00:09:10.620 Number one, we see early on, I think the front runner is Kamala Harris. 0.99
00:09:16.900 We see people coalescing behind her.
00:09:19.240 But the real question is, how did she get that support so quickly from this president?
00:09:24.380 What is the deal that's being done behind the scenes?
00:09:27.580 Was this the White House staffers making sure, hey, I want to stay in and keep my power?
00:09:32.720 I have a better chance keeping it with Kamala than going with somebody else.
00:09:35.940 All these people in jobs and around Biden and Harris are like, hey, I can keep my power if she's the person.
00:09:42.500 Or was it, hey, he's he's saying, OK, I trust you, Kamala, to take care of me, protect my son, possibly give out clemency or pardons that may be needed down the road.
00:09:51.580 How did the sausage get made on this deal?
00:09:54.240 All right. Well, let's go back to Biden's resignation letter.
00:09:57.520 Put that back up there.
00:09:59.140 If you look at the resignation letter that when he put it out earlier today, he says, and I'm going to finish reading from from where we cut off on Jen Psaki.
00:10:09.540 It's been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president. 0.99
00:10:11.940 And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, the damn Democrats drove out of office. 0.99
00:10:16.220 No, you didn't say that. 0.99
00:10:17.360 He says, I believe it is in the best interest of my party.
00:10:20.880 See, notice his party first.
00:10:22.700 Yep.
00:10:23.380 And the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.
00:10:30.560 I will speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision.
00:10:34.780 For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who work so hard to see me reelected.
00:10:40.920 I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work.
00:10:48.660 And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.
00:10:54.400 Now, interestingly enough, in this resignation letter, you notice what he doesn't do.
00:10:59.680 I fully endorse.
00:11:00.700 He doesn't mention endorsement at all.
00:11:02.220 He says, I want to thank Kamala Harris.
00:11:03.760 And he's silent.
00:11:06.480 Now, he puts that out.
00:11:07.880 And I'm assuming when he puts that out, the powers that be in the White House and in the Democratic Party freaked the hell out.
00:11:14.820 Yeah, lost their minds.
00:11:15.960 Lost their minds.
00:11:17.020 And so shortly thereafter, look at the tweet he put out as a follow-up.
00:11:20.620 Like, it says something.
00:11:22.240 Your resignation letter, it's kind of odd to need a follow-up.
00:11:25.240 And then a quick follow-up at that.
00:11:27.080 Very quick follow-up.
00:11:28.260 But there was enough time.
00:11:30.040 That other one was 1246.
00:11:31.400 This is 113.
00:11:32.540 So, you know, time passed.
00:11:34.680 And then he sends out another tweet.
00:11:35.860 My fellow Democrats, I've decided not to accept the nomination to focus all my energies on my duties as president for the remainder of my term.
00:11:42.380 Notice that was in his letter.
00:11:43.920 Yep.
00:11:44.080 My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice president.
00:11:49.620 And it's the best decision I've made.
00:11:52.600 Today, I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.
00:11:57.280 Democrats, it's time to come together and beat Trump.
00:12:00.100 Let's do this.
00:12:02.160 So, delayed reaction.
00:12:04.120 So, at this point, Kamala is clearly the frontrunner.
00:12:08.900 Joe Biden is explicitly supporting her.
00:12:10.900 In the time that followed, Bill Clinton came out in support of her.
00:12:16.560 Hillary Clinton came out in support of her.
00:12:19.240 Alex Soros has come out in support of her.
00:12:21.580 Alex, by the way, may be one of the most important actual endorsements because it's follow the money.
00:12:25.500 Well, and look, George Soros has been the most important donor behind not just the Democrat Party, but the radical leftists, the cultural Marxists, the anti-Semitic protesters on campus.
00:12:40.280 Soros has been funding all of that.
00:12:41.780 According to multiple reports, George Soros' mental condition and mental deterioration is at least where Biden's is, if not substantially worse.
00:12:52.760 And it's the son, Alex Soros, is the one that's now making the decision.
00:12:56.700 So, understand, when Alex Soros tweets out that he's behind Kamala Harris, what he's saying is the money is behind Kamala Harris.
00:13:04.100 You're going to see a lot of that.
00:13:07.060 Now, interestingly enough, there are some other Democrats who are not quick to get on board.
00:13:12.800 So, for example, take a look at what Gavin Newsom tweeted.
00:13:15.900 President Biden has been an extraordinary history-making president, a leader who has fought hard for working people, and delivered astonishing results for all Americans.
00:13:23.660 He will go down in history as one of the most impactful and selfless presidents.
00:13:27.520 Thank you, Joe Biden.
00:13:29.000 Yeah, there's not much of an endorsement there, is there?
00:13:31.100 Whose name's not there?
00:13:32.080 Yeah.
00:13:32.760 Kamala.
00:13:33.080 And interesting enough, now look, Gavin is not lacking in ambition.
00:13:41.000 That's a very PC way of putting it.
00:13:43.560 I like that.
00:13:45.440 He's like, let's go to the convention and let's have this thing out.
00:13:48.300 It'll be interesting.
00:13:49.280 And by the way, earlier today, there was all sorts of chatter that Hillary Clinton was going to make a play for this.
00:13:57.040 It is interesting that she and Bill came out very quickly and said, let's get behind Kamala.
00:14:01.280 Well, you're going to see lots of chatter.
00:14:05.900 There are Democrats talking about wanting to have a open convention, a sort of mini primary battle, have the delegates decide under DNC rules.
00:14:16.940 Initially, the delegates will vote.
00:14:18.720 It's being speculated that Biden will release his delegates and say, vote for whom you want.
00:14:24.360 And there may be a process.
00:14:25.640 They may do a process where Kamala runs and a handful of other people run and they have a first ballot.
00:14:33.080 But under the DNC rules, the so-called superdelegates, those include things like governors, things like senators, they don't vote until the second ballot.
00:14:41.660 So the first ballot is the actual elected delegates.
00:14:44.240 And if they were elected to support Joe Biden, if they've been released, I don't know.
00:14:48.240 They can do whatever they want.
00:14:48.920 They can do whatever they want.
00:14:50.120 But I think at the end of the day, there's going to be a little bit of noise.
00:14:55.800 There's going to be a little bit of squawking. 0.78
00:14:57.480 But I stand by my prediction from day one that there is one person and one person only for whom the Democrats will be willing to push Kamala Harris aside, and that is Michelle Obama.
00:15:07.880 It doesn't appear right now that Michelle is willing to get in.
00:15:11.420 Now, that could be an August surprise.
00:15:14.340 We've got nearly a month until the Democrat convention.
00:15:18.060 Can we just talk horse trading so people understand what this is going to look like for the next 30 days behind the scenes?
00:15:24.480 Delegates now have the power to pick who the president could be.
00:15:28.280 Yep.
00:15:29.180 And by the way, why is that? 0.99
00:15:30.720 Because the Democrat Party, look, they knew that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent. 0.96
00:15:35.460 They knew a year ago. 0.97
00:15:36.320 They ran him anyway.
00:15:37.200 They had the voters, all the Democrat voters come vote for him, even though they knew he was mentally incompetent, that he couldn't do the job now, he couldn't do the job then.
00:15:43.880 But they wanted power.
00:15:45.220 The only thing that changed is with the debate, it became untenable.
00:15:49.420 The American people realized this guy is not capable of doing the job anymore.
00:15:54.520 It was only because they feared they were going to lose that the Democrats have abandoned him.
00:15:58.980 But the consequence of that is the Democrats were perfectly fine with Democrat primary voters being completely disenfranchised.
00:16:05.580 You will not get to select the Democrat nominee.
00:16:08.560 Yeah.
00:16:08.760 This person will be elected by no one in the public.
00:16:11.660 It will all be done with horse trading that could happen behind the scenes.
00:16:14.920 A handful of elites, a handful of special interests, which actually is pretty typical of who the Democrat Party is.
00:16:21.420 Actually true.
00:16:21.880 I mean, the irony is that they engage in Freudian projection at an historic level where everything they accuse their opponents of is what they're doing.
00:16:30.700 But Democrat primary voters will have no say in who the nominee is.
00:16:35.460 It will be power brokers in Chicago.
00:16:37.780 So so let's just paint behind the scenes so people understand the corruption that can come out of this.
00:16:43.820 If you need delegates to get the nomination and you coalesce in smaller groups and then you go forward and say, hey, I'm so and so.
00:16:53.200 I'm representing 35 people in this state, California.
00:16:56.340 You can't win without us.
00:16:57.940 I would like this and this person would like this and this person would like this and this person would like this and their kids would like these jobs in the White House.
00:17:06.580 If you give us this, you get all of our votes.
00:17:09.360 That is exactly what we've seen happen at state level.
00:17:12.960 We've seen corruption happen in a way when they're replacing a seat.
00:17:15.880 Hey, Rob Lagojevich went to jail for basically selling a Senate seat.
00:17:19.600 This is going to happen now.
00:17:21.180 A hundred thousand times over.
00:17:22.680 And by the way, put on top of that, the big labor unions and the big money players in the Democrat Party and the Sierra Club and the pro-abortion groups and all of the different.
00:17:34.900 The Democrat Party today is a coalition of rent seekers, of people who make their money suckling off the teat of government.
00:17:44.620 That's who they are.
00:17:45.900 And it is all about power and influence.
00:17:48.040 Many of them, the reason they were willing to back someone who was obviously not mentally competent to be president is because they all stayed in power.
00:17:55.340 Now, suddenly, Joe Biden is going to be gone.
00:17:58.000 And so they're all desperately scrambling.
00:18:00.320 How do I keep my power?
00:18:01.940 And we're going to see that play out.
00:18:04.400 What I think will happen at the end of the day, I think, number one, the Democrats are too much of racial and gender bean counters to push an African-American woman aside for a white guy.
00:18:15.000 So anyone looking at Gavin Newsom or anyone else, I just don't think that's going to happen.
00:18:18.080 Yeah, I agree.
00:18:18.760 That's why I think Michelle Obama is the only person who could push her aside.
00:18:23.740 And at least right now, it does not seem Michelle is trying to do that.
00:18:27.580 If it's not Michelle, I think we will see Kamala Harris. 1.00
00:18:31.000 And I think the real battle is going to be who the VP is.
00:18:33.840 I want to ask you about the VP.
00:18:35.000 But before we get to that, is it fair to say that this might be the most corrupt picking of a presidential candidate in modern political history because of the time that people have to build their power and to basically, in essence, sell their vote?
00:18:51.520 And it's perhaps now to be fair, it hasn't happened yet, but it's all going to be behind closed doors.
00:18:56.400 That's that's not going to be the voters.
00:18:58.460 It's not going to be in public.
00:18:59.580 It's one thing if you campaign, look, at some level, you could say all campaigns are in a way about buying votes.
00:19:05.740 If you campaign and say, I'm for Medicare for all, for socialized medicine, you're saying the Democrats are big on being the Santa Claus party.
00:19:12.880 We'll give you free stuff if you vote for us.
00:19:15.680 That's one thing.
00:19:16.500 But this is on a different level.
00:19:17.580 It's a totally different if you make a public promise in the press that I will support a law that that that has broad effect.
00:19:26.000 You know, Joe Biden, I'm going to give away a trillion dollars to to people who have student loans.
00:19:29.960 Yeah. Vote for me. I'm buying your vote.
00:19:31.740 That is very different from, you know, Ben, you control a pocket of votes.
00:19:36.620 You ever thought of being secretary of the Navy?
00:19:39.040 Yeah. You like votes.
00:19:40.260 Yeah. Or I hear there's a great house in this country and an ambassadorship.
00:19:43.680 There's really fun.
00:19:44.660 I mean, it's we're going to see that happening every day.
00:19:50.020 Now, mind you, you're going to get competing people making those promises.
00:19:53.920 Yeah. And in terms of the vice president, that's going to be part of the negotiation is who Kamala teams up with to try to lock down, lock down the power brokers in the Democrat Party. 1.00
00:20:08.580 And one question is, does she try to quickly buy off whoever she thinks her most formidable adversary is? 0.73
00:20:14.380 Possibly. Does she try to get all of the potential adversaries to compete, wooing for her affection? 0.99
00:20:22.840 More likely. But it's going to take an entire month playing out for us to see.
00:20:27.820 Well, and can you promise someone the vice presidency so they don't challenge you?
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00:21:57.820 Let's talk about VP.
00:22:00.080 Forget what we just went through. 0.99
00:22:01.760 Holy crap. 0.99
00:22:02.840 Somebody who was never on a ballot. 0.99
00:22:05.980 Yep.
00:22:06.180 That no one's ever voted for for vice president is all of a sudden going to become the vice president of the United States of America, possibly, certainly will be the nominee for the Democratic Party.
00:22:16.900 How do they pick?
00:22:18.260 I don't think a lot of people understand this.
00:22:19.980 Like, it's confusing enough picking the, now, Kamala Harris or whoever it's going to be.
00:22:24.760 But let's say it is Kamala.
00:22:26.420 It's a little bit more orderly.
00:22:28.460 How the hell are we going to get the vice presidential pick for the Democratic Party?
00:22:31.760 How does that work?
00:22:32.520 Look, they're going to decide who brings the most to the ticket.
00:22:37.020 Often you look at geographic concerns.
00:22:39.720 Will someone put a state into play?
00:22:41.240 Will someone be beneficial?
00:22:42.820 Sometimes you look to things like, is someone a great fundraiser?
00:22:45.880 Will they bring a bunch of donors?
00:22:47.060 Will they bring other interest groups on board?
00:22:49.000 Sometimes you look to neutralize someone who's a potential opponent.
00:22:52.900 In this instance, I think the Democrats are 100% about race and gender.
00:22:58.220 It's how they think.
00:22:58.980 It's how they're wired.
00:22:59.820 They don't look at individuals.
00:23:01.340 It's DEI.
00:23:01.780 So, it is DEI. 0.99
00:23:03.880 I think the VP nominee will be a boring white guy. 0.98
00:23:07.140 That's my prediction. 0.99
00:23:08.080 And they actually have a number of boring white guys. 0.94
00:23:11.040 So, they have a broad array to pick from. 0.95
00:23:13.680 So, who picks it?
00:23:14.860 Is it the person who gets the nomination?
00:23:16.840 Yeah, it's Kamala.
00:23:17.140 Or is it, so there's no voting by the delegates so people understand the process?
00:23:21.100 It will be, my guess is Kamala will announce who her VP is going to be before they vote. 0.99
00:23:28.780 It could conceivably be afterwards.
00:23:30.480 It depends.
00:23:31.580 If there's a real contested battle.
00:23:34.820 At the convention.
00:23:35.620 Then maybe she doesn't announce it until after she's the nominee.
00:23:40.440 Typically, the way it happens is the nominee is sewn up before the convention.
00:23:44.440 It's been a long time since we've had a contested convention and there's been uncertainty as to who the nominee is going to be.
00:23:52.540 If the vote is really contentious and it's a drag-out knockdown at the convention, you're saying there's a legit possibility that whoever comes away with it will barely survive that.
00:24:03.660 They get the nomination, they say, hey, in a week or two, I'll tell you who my VP is going to be?
00:24:06.760 No, no, no.
00:24:07.180 I think it would be at the convention.
00:24:08.340 I think it would be immediately thereafter.
00:24:10.660 And if there is a real fight, I mean, one thing that has happened, you know, you could go to whoever's number two and say, look, I'll make you VP if you drop out and endorse me.
00:24:18.680 And that could be how you lock up the votes.
00:24:20.500 I don't think it'll come to that.
00:24:22.240 I actually think people will coalesce around Kamala more quickly than that.
00:24:26.280 Who's the frontrunner then right now in your mind?
00:24:28.040 I mean, obviously, this could change in a couple weeks, but if Kamala is the person. 0.97
00:24:31.900 I'm going to give you two names.
00:24:33.060 And why?
00:24:34.480 Josh Shapiro.
00:24:35.760 Okay.
00:24:36.120 And tell people that don't know Josh who he is.
00:24:38.300 He is the governor of Pennsylvania.
00:24:40.160 He is widely perceived as a moderate.
00:24:43.000 He is Jewish.
00:24:44.080 He was attorney general in Pennsylvania.
00:24:47.920 I think what is compelling is, number one, Shapiro has strong polling numbers in Pennsylvania.
00:24:55.880 If the Democrats can win Pennsylvania, the path to Trump winning becomes much, much harder.
00:25:02.920 He's also perceived as a moderate.
00:25:05.220 And I think actually naming a Jewish Democrat would help tamp down some of the anti-Semitic that they've been dealing with the last several months.
00:25:14.680 And so I think all of that, if you're sitting there around Kamala, that's attractive.
00:25:19.960 A second choice that I think is also very attractive as a VP is Mark Kelly.
00:25:24.700 Mark Kelly is senator from Arizona.
00:25:27.440 Yeah.
00:25:27.860 Mark Kelly is a Navy veteran.
00:25:30.180 Mark Kelly is a former astronaut.
00:25:31.760 He's been to space.
00:25:33.260 He's also got a fame factor to him.
00:25:35.120 Yeah.
00:25:35.420 And Mark Kelly is also affable and he seems reasonable.
00:25:40.060 He doesn't seem crazy.
00:25:41.940 When you talk with him, I like Mark Kelly personally.
00:25:45.260 He's someone, he's like a Joe Manchin.
00:25:47.420 It won't be Joe Manchin, but he's someone who his affect, his demeanor is very affable.
00:25:52.660 And if you met him on the street, you wouldn't think the guy was a Democrat.
00:25:56.540 You wouldn't think that he voted with a loony left on almost everything because he seems like a normal guy.
00:26:02.780 I think that would be very attractive.
00:26:05.200 In Arizona, it is not as vital a swing state as Pennsylvania.
00:26:09.460 It doesn't have nearly as many electoral votes.
00:26:11.760 But Arizona is certainly a battleground state.
00:26:14.720 And Mark Kelly on the ballot could help.
00:26:17.140 I would put those two as the top two.
00:26:19.560 I got to ask him, where's Gavin Newsom?
00:26:21.560 Is he number three?
00:26:22.760 If you're going for a white guy.
00:26:24.820 The argument they would say is, someone says he brings you California, but the reality is they got California anyway.
00:26:30.540 Exactly.
00:26:30.900 So if they go Gavin Newsom, it's a combination of two things.
00:26:34.140 One, money.
00:26:35.540 Okay.
00:26:36.000 And Newsom's got a bunch of donors who love him, who will write checks.
00:26:39.320 And California is the ATM of the Democrat Party.
00:26:42.920 And so now Kamala is a Californian. 1.00
00:26:46.940 So she's got a lot of that money behind her also. 1.00
00:26:49.180 But it neutralizes him too, right?
00:26:51.400 Wouldn't that be the perk?
00:26:52.300 Because then she doesn't have to worry about him in four years?
00:26:54.600 Potentially.
00:26:55.220 Although she doesn't worry about him in four years.
00:26:57.440 If she's the incumbent president, he's not going to primary her.
00:27:00.940 If she gets this and gets elected, Newsom doesn't get to run for eight years.
00:27:05.140 That's just it just knocks that down the road.
00:27:09.680 Look, Newsom, I think, is perceived as too liberal.
00:27:14.240 My guess is they're not going to be that worried about money.
00:27:16.740 And the other reason you would go with Newsom is he's talented.
00:27:19.440 I mean, he is a snake oil salesman par excellence.
00:27:23.460 He's a communicator.
00:27:24.460 He's slick.
00:27:25.540 He can take—
00:27:26.000 He'd be a great campaigner because people would show up to see him in the Democratic Party.
00:27:28.880 That's important too, right?
00:27:30.200 I mean, you have an event and your VP is popular.
00:27:34.500 That's good for your campaign.
00:27:36.760 Look, and in many ways he would overshadow Kamala.
00:27:40.220 It reminds me, back in the 1988 election, I remember Saturday Night Live was making fun as we were getting really close to the election.
00:27:48.720 And you had George Bush and Dan Quayle.
00:27:51.140 And look, people had ridiculed Dan Quayle enormously.
00:27:53.980 And so what SNL did is the ballots, as the parties have requested they be printed.
00:28:00.020 And the Republican side had Bush in giant letters and Quayle in tiny little letters. 0.71
00:28:03.720 And then on the Democrat side, you had Michael Dukakis, who rode in a tank with a helmet and looked ridiculous.
00:28:09.740 And then Lloyd Benson, who was a Texas senator, who was moderate, well-received, was going over well.
00:28:15.760 SNL did the ballot of Dukakis, tiny little letter, and Benson! 0.60
00:28:19.660 Yeah.
00:28:21.220 That could happen with Kamala. 0.98
00:28:22.860 One thing Kamala could be worried about is the risk that Gavin would overshadow her.
00:28:27.780 And that's why I think Shapiro or Kelly are more likely.
00:28:31.060 I'd be surprised.
00:28:32.400 I don't think she needs the money. 0.70
00:28:35.940 And I think the downside she would perceive is greater.
00:28:39.160 All right.
00:28:39.400 Let's talk about the media.
00:28:41.000 Because what we're going to see right now, and this is my biggest concern.
00:28:45.120 You and I talked about this in Milwaukee.
00:28:47.400 If Biden dropped out, now it's Biden has dropped out.
00:28:50.800 It's a complete reset of this presidential campaign.
00:28:55.340 The polls, and I want to be very clear to our audience, this is my opinion.
00:28:58.700 I don't know if you agree with me or not.
00:28:59.820 I want to know your take on it, are completely meaningless and worthless right now.
00:29:04.320 The only poll that's going to matter is the first poll after we find out who the Democrats actually picked.
00:29:10.200 Because it's a reset.
00:29:10.820 Even that poll's not going to matter.
00:29:12.860 And listen, this is something you and I talked about in our last podcast.
00:29:17.260 We did two podcasts live from the convention.
00:29:20.840 I love the convention.
00:29:22.140 It was a blast.
00:29:22.860 It's the best Republican convention I've ever seen.
00:29:26.340 More unity than I've ever seen.
00:29:27.960 However, I was very worried at the convention, and I expressed this to you at the time, which is I am afraid people were overconfident at the convention.
00:29:37.300 There was an air of celebration.
00:29:40.500 It was we've won.
00:29:41.660 We're on to victory.
00:29:43.040 This is a landslide.
00:29:44.260 Trump's coming back in.
00:29:45.420 We've got a huge Republican majority.
00:29:47.160 You heard people talking about 55, 56 Republican senators, huge Republican House.
00:29:52.600 Like, people were planning, people were talking about, all right, who's going to be Secretary of State?
00:29:56.940 Who's going to be Secretary of Defense?
00:29:57.960 Like, they're handing out.
00:29:59.240 Already moved on.
00:30:00.080 Yeah.
00:30:00.620 We won, and now what's next?
00:30:02.200 And that's not the case.
00:30:03.420 And my view, and I was trying to say this, is, look, there's a time for celebration.
00:30:08.380 Celebrate after Election Day.
00:30:10.040 Celebrate after we've won.
00:30:11.260 Now is not the time for celebration.
00:30:13.180 Now's the time for hard work.
00:30:14.460 Now's the time for rolling up your sleeves and going to win.
00:30:17.840 And my assumption is, coming out of the convention, Republicans will get a little bounce.
00:30:22.240 You know, historically, it's about four points is what you get out of your convention.
00:30:25.960 I think it was a strong convention.
00:30:27.280 So let's assume that happens.
00:30:29.660 The Democrats, and I will give them credit for one thing, their timing of releasing it right after the convention.
00:30:35.160 Perfect timing to do this.
00:30:37.140 Because it resets the whole race. 0.99
00:30:40.500 It almost doesn't matter what the bounce was out of the convention.
00:30:44.240 And here's the problem.
00:30:45.120 For the next month, all of the news is going to be dominated by who the Democrat is going to be.
00:30:52.860 The Democrats are about to have a month-long convention.
00:30:55.720 Instead of a week, why do you get a bounce out of a convention?
00:30:58.300 You get a bounce out of a convention because you have four days of driving the news, the earned media every night,
00:31:03.040 of your people on TV pitching all of the benefits of your nominee, all the benefits of your record,
00:31:09.040 all the benefits of your agenda.
00:31:10.100 Instead of a four-day convention, the Democrats are about to have a month-long convention
00:31:14.300 where every news story will be focused on who the nominee is going to be.
00:31:18.940 And they're also going to be doing a combination of, number one, praising Biden.
00:31:23.600 You know, it's not graceful to he's on his way out.
00:31:28.020 People don't want to criticize him anymore.
00:31:29.420 They're going to say he did this for America.
00:31:31.140 He's historic.
00:31:31.880 He's one of the greatest presidents in the history of the universe.
00:31:34.200 I mean, you're going to hear all of that effusively.
00:31:37.260 And then they're going to talk about what an historic president Kamala Harris would be.
00:31:41.740 And it's going to be a month long.
00:31:44.360 We're going to see.
00:31:45.760 Multi, I would argue, multi-billion dollar in-kind contribution.
00:31:49.300 And by the way, Republicans, I worry, vastly underestimate Kamala Harris.
00:31:56.200 They don't think very highly of her.
00:31:58.020 They don't think she's terribly bright.
00:31:59.900 When you or I bring up Kamala Harris's name in Republican circles, people laugh.
00:32:04.680 It's immediately a punchline.
00:32:05.860 I think people are underestimating what billions of dollars of free media, of the entire corrupt corporate media complex, pitching her as a combination of Mother Teresa, Oprah, and Gandhi. 0.98
00:32:21.780 And save the party.
00:32:23.560 It's going to be.
00:32:24.200 And young and vibrant.
00:32:25.960 And it's historic.
00:32:27.020 I mean, it is going to be.
00:32:29.960 Now, I still think Trump wins in November.
00:32:34.200 But this is not a layup.
00:32:36.120 It is not given.
00:32:37.200 And what's coming in front of us.
00:32:38.640 Look, if you're a Democrat, what makes you nervous is chaos.
00:32:41.300 And this much chaos 100 days out is scary.
00:32:44.940 But you know what?
00:32:46.860 Even more scary is going to an election where you're almost certain to lose, which is where Biden was.
00:32:51.220 So, from their perspective, chaos and a chance to win or certain loss, they'll take chaos.
00:32:57.720 But Republicans need to understand just how dangerous this is.
00:33:00.700 It's all perspective in life.
00:33:02.460 And I said this earlier.
00:33:03.380 It's like you're on the greatest cruise ship in the world.
00:33:05.740 And that cruise ship's going down.
00:33:07.140 And a crappy little fishing boat shows up.
00:33:09.020 And it saves your life.
00:33:10.700 You love that crappy fishing boat the rest of your life.
00:33:13.300 It doesn't matter how bad it looks, how ugly it was. 0.73
00:33:15.660 You just got your life saved.
00:33:17.580 And that's Kamala Harris.
00:33:18.700 So, I feel confident that you do not have a career as a Democrat politics ad maker.
00:33:24.560 I can see the ad now. 0.97
00:33:26.080 Kamala Harris, the crappy fishing boat to save your life. 1.00
00:33:29.060 To save your life. 0.86
00:33:29.740 But it's perspective.
00:33:30.820 I mean, that's what they're dealing with.
00:33:32.460 I'm not sure that fits in a bunch of people.
00:33:33.360 I know, right?
00:33:33.920 But she didn't even make it. 0.99
00:33:35.160 I mean, I go back to when she was running.
00:33:36.980 She got zero delegates.
00:33:38.260 Correct.
00:33:38.760 And she was a terrible candidate. 0.53
00:33:40.260 But when you're now in the position of that boat sinking and I'm the only one that doesn't have a hole in the boat,
00:33:46.340 I'm pretty appealing to everybody on that boat and I love you and I'm willing to swim to you
00:33:52.500 and I'm willing to hug you and kiss you and say thank you for saving my life.
00:33:56.400 It's all perspective.
00:33:57.620 And that's what the media is going to do to her is say she just saved us from guaranteed defeat. 1.00
00:34:03.640 She is a savior to the Democratic Party.
00:34:06.200 We love her.
00:34:07.000 And they're all going to be energized.
00:34:08.940 That terrifies me.
00:34:10.400 Yeah, energized.
00:34:11.440 And once she's the nominee, unified.
00:34:15.060 You know, one thing to keep in mind, people are focused on, oh, money and Trump has a money advantage.
00:34:20.740 Put yourself in the mindset of a Democrat gazillionaire, of a Democrat activist, of a Democrat union boss,
00:34:28.920 of a Democrat special interest leader.
00:34:31.320 Remember, a week ago, you were depressed, you were demoralizing, you were contemplating America run by Hitler. 0.94
00:34:39.280 And by the way, if you're one of those people, you think Donald Trump is Adolf Hitler.
00:34:42.440 Yeah.
00:34:43.100 But like you were just, I don't even know if I'm going to show up and vote.
00:34:46.240 It's terrible.
00:34:46.800 It's horrible.
00:34:47.740 And now, to go back to the sinking cruise ship, you've been thrown a lifeline.
00:34:53.960 I think we're going to see jubilation on the Democrat side.
00:34:58.080 That's dangerous too.
00:34:59.140 You know, jubilation, what happens is donors pull out their checks and they write really big checks when they're jubilant.
00:35:04.760 What happens is activists go and they work harder, they turn more people out.
00:35:09.560 And that, particularly if the Republicans are overconfident, we cannot be overconfident.
00:35:16.260 That combination is dangerous.
00:35:17.900 And you know what it reminds me of?
00:35:20.080 Potentially, I hope this is not right, but it reminds me of a few years ago, the A&M versus Alabama game.
00:35:25.420 I was there at the A&M versus Alabama game.
00:35:27.540 Alabama at the time was the number one team in the country.
00:35:29.900 You had me at sports analogy.
00:35:31.060 I'm all in now.
00:35:32.260 A&M.
00:35:32.680 A&M had started off as a top 25 team.
00:35:35.380 It had a good team, but it had lost two games in a row.
00:35:39.280 Yep.
00:35:39.660 To opponents it wasn't supposed to lose.
00:35:41.660 I think maybe Mississippi State.
00:35:42.960 Yeah, it was bad.
00:35:43.820 It was bad.
00:35:44.440 And so we came into the game and I was there in College Station.
00:35:49.160 And I remember saying to my buddies I was at the game with, I said, you know what?
00:35:52.240 I think A&M has a real chance to win this game because I think Alabama is feeling like we're the number one team in the country. 0.99
00:35:59.340 And these A&M guys suck. 0.97
00:36:01.600 Look, they're losing to teams that are not contenders. 0.99
00:36:05.580 This is easy.
00:36:06.420 We're playing a junior high team.
00:36:08.340 And I think the Aggies were pissed off.
00:36:10.400 They were at Kyle Field and they were defending their home.
00:36:12.940 And they were mad because everyone was dismissing them as a joke.
00:36:15.880 And they're like, wait a second.
00:36:17.080 We're a top tier football team.
00:36:20.080 And they ended up winning that game.
00:36:21.980 It was awesome.
00:36:23.340 41-38 was the final score.
00:36:25.600 Kyle Field erupted.
00:36:27.080 I don't want to see the Democrats playing the role of A&M in that dynamic.
00:36:32.420 And so my message to Republicans is do not behave like this is in the bag because that's one of the easiest ways to ensure it's not in the bag.
00:36:41.000 I want to ask you a strategy question on if you are the Trump team, what do you do when you just start acting like you're running against Harris?
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00:38:22.480 Senator, if you are Donald Trump, you now know that Biden is gone.
00:38:29.100 The number one question that the campaign's got to ask is, how do you campaign against somebody for the next month that you don't know who it's going to be?
00:38:37.480 So, look, I'd say 40 percent you campaign against Kamala Harris.
00:38:41.500 You assume it's Kamala.
00:38:42.960 And 60 percent you campaign against the Democrats record.
00:38:46.120 And I will say I've been concerned in recent weeks and months that we've spent too much time attacking Joe Biden for his mental diminishment.
00:38:55.360 And not enough time making the case, as you and I often do, that the Biden-Harris Democrat record has been a train wreck.
00:39:03.360 And I say Democrat record because it's not just Joe Biden, it's Kamala Harris, and it's every single Democrat in Congress, every Democrat senator, every Democrat House member.
00:39:11.220 They voted repeatedly in favor of the spending and the debt that is causing inflation.
00:39:15.420 They voted repeatedly in favor of Biden's war on oil and gas and energy that is causing energy prices to skyrocket.
00:39:21.740 They voted repeatedly in favor of open borders that's endangering our families across this country.
00:39:26.400 They voted repeatedly in favor of letting violent criminals out of jail that is, again, endangering our families.
00:39:31.460 They voted repeatedly in favor of appeasing our enemies and undermining our allies.
00:39:38.360 And so from the Trump's campaign, I would assume it's Kamala, but also make the broader point it is their agenda that has failed the American people.
00:39:47.940 The classic question in any election, are you better off now than you were four years ago?
00:39:51.960 It doesn't matter what fill-in-the-blank Democrat they drop into that slot.
00:39:57.380 They're going to be defending the same disastrous failed record.
00:40:00.720 And so I hope the Trump campaign and I hope Republicans generally make that case substantively on the merits.
00:40:08.620 It's going to be interesting.
00:40:09.980 We're going to cover it all.
00:40:11.580 Make sure you share this podcast with your family and friends.
00:40:14.880 Share the video on social media from YouTube.
00:40:17.820 It's also up on Facebook.
00:40:19.240 You can share it there as well so that you can have other people hear what we were saying here today.
00:40:24.580 When this type of news breaks, we do a podcast as fast as we can.
00:40:29.200 It's an emergency pod.
00:40:30.440 Yes, sir.
00:40:30.560 Let me make a final statement.
00:40:31.940 I like this.
00:40:32.840 I'm going to place the odds that Joe Biden pardons Hunter Biden at 100.0%.
00:40:41.260 Hunter Biden will get a pardon as a result of this decision today.
00:40:46.920 It will not happen until after Election Day.
00:40:48.640 That's what I was going to ask.
00:40:49.400 When does it happen?
00:40:49.760 He's not going to do it.
00:40:50.680 He's not going to do it before Election Day, but he's going to stick around.
00:40:54.260 And after Election Day, I believe it is now 100% that Joe Biden will pardon Hunter.
00:40:59.440 I have a feeling that might be part of our next show.
00:41:01.880 It might be.
00:41:03.120 Don't forget, we do this Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
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