Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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I guess that's what it is.
Now, Welcome to day three of our DNC coverage. We are live from Chicago. Before you we get to who our wonderful guest is here, let's get into a little bit of the logistics. We're going to do a recap of everything that happened last night. Unfortunately, Crystal's flight was massively delayed, but she will be here tomorrow, we promise. Oh wow, okay, I'm actually listening.
He's watching himself. You will be shocked to learn.
Watching myself just got caught, got absolutely caught here on stream. That these are the perils of live streaming. So first all, thank you very much, of course, to our friends at Barstools Chicago, specifically the dog Walk Podcast. Shout out to our man Eddie. Everyone goes subscribe if you are a fan of Chicago sports. So, as we said, Crys will be here tomorrow. We're going to do a live stream I think for at least a live reaction and all of that from here in the studio that we'll be
able to get to all of you. And of course during the day we're actually going to be at the DNC filming some exclusive content. But of course we've got the incredible Counterpoints team here, Ryan Graham and Emily Jasinski. We've all been holding down the fort and we're having a great time. But with that, why don't we introduce our guest. This is Parker Short. So Parker, tell us a little bit about who you are before we remind the audience of where they might have seen you before.
Well, hey is Parker Short. I'm the chairman of the Young Democrats of Georgia and I'm a delegate from our fourth congressional district.
I resent.
It's just east of Atlanta, so it's most of the cab County. Bits of rocktailing. Whenette they just keep redrawing our linek Johnson, Nation's leading advocate for court for but it's an important area.
It is.
It's a super important area, you know. I like to Decab is just about the most democratic county in Georgia. I was born and raised there, up in North to Cab, in a city named after a Confederate general. It used to be all read.
So it is Decab.
It is a decal here, we say to Cab. I hear it in Illinois. Somebody said to Cob. I was like, oh, but no. I when I was growing up, you know, I in high school, I at all you know, Republican state rap, Republican state senator, Republican congressman. And then I worked for John also Off twenty fifteen campaign or twenty seventeen campaign as an intern. And I was just a little kid, started knocking doors, start a high school Democrats club. And now there are no more Republicans in North to Cab.
So yeah, you scared them away, Yeah you scared Yeah, yeah, I think you might have scared them away with some of your dancing moves. So marker that that is how we're just gonna have to introduce you to that. Here, my friend Mac, producer Mac, can we can we keep this up? Please? And put this up there on the screen. Emily was very excited when you got a DM from you, uh, Prker, Yeah, it was rare.
Yeah, that's right.
The first time a male income DM to Emily actually resulted in some except this is Parker, you guys, so.
What what song is this? What is it like.
In the arena?
That is so that was how that was so high.
That was when Kamala came to Atlanta for her first rally announcing, and you know, it was extraordinarily exciting because it started off with Stacy Abrams, who's registered eight hundred thousand voters in state Georgia. Then our two centats, John alsof and Raphael Warnock, who flipped the state blue and allowed Joe Biden to achieve everything in his legislative agenda. And then we had Mega the Stallion and then they tell me that Kamala Harris is coming out and they
play one of my favorite songs. So I'm excited for the next generation. And of course I was having fun with my Georgia Democrat crap friends at g SU, so.
You were pumped up, all right. So Parker, young guy tell us Michelle Obama, one of the things we're going to talk about talks about the feeling of a pit in their stomach. Yesterday kind of a little subtle dig at Joe Biden there, since he literally was I believe she didn't even say his name, which we'll get to in a little bit. So then as somebody part of the act of is faithful in state of Georgia obviously a critical state for Joe Biden barely went it by what some ten thousand votes.
Seven or seventy nine?
Oh wow, look at this, I'm dealing with the professional over here.
Yea Trump.
So let's le let's put Parker in context too. You were telling us earlier that your journey was what Bernie Warren Biden? Well in where do you put your poetic.
Well, I like to consider myself. I like to consider myself, you know, a progressive, whatever that word may mean. I am a fan of the show. I will say I tell my friends to watch it on My favorite news is the PBS News Hour. I'm breaking points. So you know, I definitely I'm a Union Democrat. I'm a Southern Democrat. But you know I voted for Bernie in twenty twenty. Sure you know, So you know I definitely consider myself a little bit more on the left, but you know, I want to get things done.
Okay, So tell us then about what it was like for you and all the people around you in the interim after the debate. You can speak freely now, all right, he's gone. I don't worry about it, all right, So like still the president, what was it like? Yeah, well, you know, for our purposes, he's not gone, all right, So so what was it like? What was it like in that what three week period or whatever? After the debate?
How were you guys feeling? And then talk to us about what it was like when Kamala became or when Joe Biden dropped out Kama's a presumptive nominee. Were you guys excited, like, talk to us about that feeling leaf, et cetera.
Oh yeah, So I'll just start with the debate. Look, I got invited to the Georgia Democrat debate party.
Yeah, and I did not go.
I was, you know, not not as a slight. I went to the Gwinnett Young Democrats debate. First, I watched the first five to ten minutes. I watched the first five ten minutes and I was like, I need to go home. I need to go home. And you know what, I love and respect Joe Biden. He has been a great public service. He was elected as the youngest they're
in the country. He's had a very interesting journey. But you know what, thank God that he had the political sense to step aside and put his country first, because Trump has put at his party and himself over his country and the Constitution. And Joe Biden knew that he wasn't the candidate and it wasn't the time. And I respect a man and push comes the shelf. There was no way I was voting for Donald Trump. But you know, after that debate, I'm like, Okay, what's going to happen?
You know, because I was a delegate and we were wringing our hands for a couple of weeks. And I would have look, if you would have asked me three months ago if Democrats were gonna win Georgia, I would have been very frank with you. You know, I would have said, no, I love Georgia politics, and I didn't think we were sending ourselves up to win. We are now setting ourselves up to win.
Interesting, yeah, we I ask a question on that because I've been reading some conservative media this morning, even but throughout the week saying that you know, every convention, obviously we all understand this is super stage managed. It's meant to look, meant to put the party looking like it has the most hype as is humanly possible, and it's you know, they're kind of used to doing that, They've
done it before. So some people in conservative media are like that magic that Michelle Obama referenced yesterday, it's not real. It's a sugar hide. During the week of the convention, it sounds to me like what you're saying Parker is. And this has been my impression just walking through the arena yesterday. It actually does feel real. It feels quite electric to me. Do people seem genuinely excited about Kamala Harris, which is interesting because just a couple months ago people
were worried about Kamala Harris. What's the change?
Well, you know what I will say, like, as a Georgia Democratic activist or whatever you want to call it, she has made every single right decision. You know, I have friend young friends in Georgia politics. You know, in the Democratic Party is just about the most far left and most far right person you're going to find Georgia Democrat Party. They both about jumped out of their seats when Tim Waltz was the choice. You know, I think she has made so many wonderful choices throughout her campaign.
We got twenty four campaign offices in state Georgia. I love her staff in the state of Georgia. They are really doing a good job.
Staff isn't just a Biden.
Yeah, but you know Biden's staff like they had. They had hired Quentin Folks who ran Warnocks campaign, to be the deputy campaign manager. So they had a lot of Georgia focus. And all the folks that we had on the ground have been doing it for years. Okay, look, I love Stacy Abrams, but too many folks came from out of state on that election. You know, you want people who have been there doing it, and you know,
they have such a great campaign. They're out there knocking doors and as I said, seven and seventy nine votes made the difference at that time. That's a field margin. That is a field margin in a presidential race. And the way say that, well, that's basically you know, the energy and folks out there knocking doors when you got volunteers like me who when I was a low kid, I want to knock tens and thousands of doors for John Ossoff in my state House and state Senate candidate.
And you know, I organized my high school Democrats club and we knocked more than three hundred thousand doors for this guy that ran for State House up in North to cab and you know what, he won by fourteen hundred votes. And then Lucy McBeth won the seat that John Ossoff lost by three thousand votes. So it shows that you can really fight and you can get in there and make the difference. A field margin is basically like are you out there, are you doing the work?
Are you organized? And look, we're making the difference. And I will just say I think the most important thing is down ballot candidates. I love to tell people who's your state House rep. Who's your state Senator, who's your county commissioner? Because that is really what impacts your life and when you get engaged with those elections. We've got young folks running for state House and state Senate in Georgia.
One of my best friends is twenty three. He's a middle school math teacher in Atlanta and he's running against an anti education Republican And the reason I became president is because he's I was his vice president. He stepped down and.
Let that slide.
Yeah, because I like you, Parker, But go ahead, Ryan.
Yeah, I'm curious.
You know, we hear a lot about Gaza and how that affects young people. Yeah, how how what was the case when it came to Gaza and young people's support in Georgia for Biden and has been changed with Harris?
You know?
And where do you think it will go if we don't get a ceasefire deal and the slaughter just continues, which looks like, you know, everybody's a deals right around the corner, and we'll believe it when we see it.
Yeah, exactly. It's truly just heartbreaking what is going on. And I recently graduated from the University of Michigan and there was a lot of campus protests there, and you know, I I was just heartbroken by the situation. I have not felt that it has been handled well, and I think Joe Biden particularly has evolved in the past couple months in his handling of it. But I have to respect and appreciate when Kamala came into the spotlight once she came into her own and she has the ability
to make these decisions. Before her rally in Detroit, in Michigan, where you know, seventy eight percent of the city a dearborne hundred thousand voters went and voted on commission, she met with the uncommitted movement before her rally. She's hearing us. Look, I respect to Joe Biden. He wanted done that, he wanted to have done that, and she is out here, she is trying, and you know, Trump is doing the
exact opposite. I think if you want a candidate that at all values human rights in the Middle East, I think Kamala is a clear choice because Trump just tried to nuke the deal by calling them and pressuring Israel, which is not only extraordinarily illegal but undiplomatic. He's literally trying to stop peace from being found.
So Parker, I want to ask you, because you've got intimate knowledge of the state of Georgia. You're talking about those eleven thousand votes, who are the swing? What's like this swing demographic this time around? Because for us looking in, it's really interesting, right because we've got Brian Kemp, a popular governor Raffensburger survives despite Trump coming in against him. But clearly there's there's a swingish, there is a Kemp comed voter out there.
There are talk to me about thousand voters in the state of Georgia that voted for Brian Kemp and ralfe Aol Warnock at the same time.
That's crazy to me.
That is crazy, are they Yeah, they're the wine moms up in Dunwoodie that I've been canvassing. You know, they're the soccer moms. They're the voters that aren't really engaged, or folks that turn out, or folks that don't fill out their ballad all the way. Okay, you know, it's very strange how it works. But in twenty twenty that Canada got the most votes in the Senate runoff wasn't also for Warnock. It was the Republican candidate for Public
Service Commissioner, Bubba McDonald. And you know why because the time name is Lauren Bubba McDonald, and there's a Lauren Bubba McDonald junior. That's Georgia, that's Georgia Republican. He got more votes than anybody because Republicans in the state Georgian, we're not going to go out and vote for you know, David Perdue and Kelly Loffler, who truly represent elitism in this country, and they abandoned our state. I mean, they're focused on stock prices instead of Georgia.
Purdue had the greatest ad in political history, it said, officially exonerated in his ass. Oh what was that incredible messaging?
He was he was accused of generale general I apologize, Yeah, I get my insider trading.
Yeah, yeah, especially well, I think this is the perfect time for us to take some questions from the chat.
Okay, probably, uh, yeah.
I just wild Soger is looking for a question for the chat. I just want to ask because it seems to me that there is an element of Kamala Harris going from arguably actually statistically the most unfavorable vice president in modern history, to somebody who now has, as we just talked about, this really legitimate energy around her.
It's real.
Yeah, can you tell us is part of that just because young people like yourself are so excited that you don't have to vote for Joe Biden? Is that what's driving some of the enthusiasm here or is there something about Kamala.
Harris I don't think it's just that. As I said, I think Kamala has made every single right decision since she stepped in the spotlight. I've been very impressed by the way she's managing her campaign. But you know, it's it's not just about Joe Biden. I think the truth of it is the fact that he stepped down shows something in American politics, shows that he was willing to put himself aside and look for something new, look for something fresh, and voters respect that, young and old. I
think everybody is excited. I don't think this is a sugar high. You know, somebody asked me this question the other day, and I like to think. You know, we had to go watch Joe Biden go up there and not be able to talk to Donald Trump on abortion right.
So one question, how do we ask questions? But yeah, tell people how to do that.
We are taking our questions from our locals premium subscribers. Of course, we do have that promotion going on right now for one month free trial Breakingpoints dot Com DNC free is the promo code. So the one question that the chat has for you is is Parker, how do you get young people excited about politics? Not everybody is a nerd like you knock indoors. That's no knock, by the way.
Because I just like you.
I'm a very proud nerd. I worked hard with my public policy degree, but I got interested in it at a young age because I lost my dad. Yeah, you know, he was in the labor union that kept my family out of debt. I knew what social security was because the survivors social security third Wednesday of every month, that's when we could go to the grocery store. And not everybody has that lived experience of like knowing what the
impact of public policy in your community. But you know what, I know, everybody drives around in their city and see something they don't like, see something that's inefficient. My favorite saying is my grandpa said this on his deathbed. The nurse asked him, are you allergic to anything? He said, incompetence, And I look around government and I see too much incompetence and inefficiency, especially in local government. And if you want to see change, if you want things to be better,
you can affect that change. I know a twenty three year old running for statehouse in Georgia, and he's gonna win.
Let me just let me just back that point up. I was raised by a single mom on SSDI, which is a derivative of Social Security and food stamps, and it was quite visible exactly you could. You could see, Okay, the government has done a thing, and our life is better today, and a couple of weeks later, your life's a little worse. Government does the thing again. Your life's better for a couple of weeks. You got the neutral grain bars like the good ones. Yeah, the name brand all.
Right, now that we've got our sssh Yeah.
But you're right. It connects you. It connects you to the value of government. I agree.
Any last any last words, Parker, Where can people find you?
So look, y'all can find me on Instagram at Parker out Short. I don't really want to be an influencer. I don't really want to do this.
Yet, you are.
I just want to be forty.
I want to I want to keep pushing Georgia forward. There's a lot of progress to be made our state as our states let our people down. And you know you you make up that point, Ryan s.
Sdi.
When Brian Kemp got elected governor, he changed the standards for Medicaid, specifically peach Care, which is for children, and I lost my health care and I was a little kid. Yeah, oh, don't get me started on Brian Camp. All right, but no, thank y'all for having me go to the Young Democrat Young Dems of g A dot Org. We're having a convention next weekend in Inventa, Hey. We'd love to have a lot of great surrogates from the campaign, a lot
of great young folks. Although you know, Chicago got the d n c H, Atlanta got the Young Democrats to Georgia Invention, and I promise you it's going to be far more lit and I'm going to bring that energy. So I hope to see all y'all college students there at Georgia Tech. Gets your tickets.
Ye are you going.
To be dancing?
Anything to get the young people can make a change in their community, all right.
Can we Matt? Can we get the video up there again?
One last video? Remind me last, just your reminder. I mean, if you're gonna come in, we're gonna be so viral. By the way, I mean, it genuinely was funny and I actually think it's quite sweet.
I was having a good time.
Yeah, we're happy for you.
Crystal. We're so excited about this interview. Crystal so said she couldn't be here.
She loved these Yes she she Crystal sends her best. She's stuck in the airport and we feel bad. All right, Parker, we're gonna let you go.
My friends so much regularly for shopping by.
It was.
It was really a lot of fun. I enjoyed it great. Okay, questions from locals, We're going to take me at the question. That is exactly when the Tweezer repeat, all right, see you dude, thank you, Yeah, take a picture, all right, I love it, all right.
Sweet, I appreciate it.
Yeah, oh yeah, of course, okay, all right, all right, O'Connor scoop.
Parker wanted to help, but I hate it.
You hate to say. I cannot help it. Younger, he's way more impressive than I.
Parker wanted to. Parker wanted to say this on air. He forgot, but he went up to Roe Connie yesterday and he said, bro, I love watching him breaking points.
Yeah.
Rowe replied and said, you are like the tenth young person. Yes, tell me that.
Yeah.
ConA always tells us great. He row tells us that he gets recognized more in airports and even by the Capitol Police, which I'm still trying to get that one square by Breaking Points, then by on Breaking Points and anytime he does CNN or any of them. So that's our little ad out of the way. Let's turn to locals. Let's get some questions in from our premium subscribers and.
We can throw that graphic up.
We'll be taking questions from our locals premium chat all stream all week, and we're putting up a free one month trial for you guys to check it out for free. You can go to Breakingpoints dot com use promo code DNC free for a free month.
You know, you can check it out.
You get all of our premium benefits, earlier shows uncut unedited, and you get to chatting our amas like what we're doing all week, and you know, check it out and you can cancel on the twenty ninth day if you feel like.
I wish you would stop saying that, But I'm just so I'm so happy that I don't have to do the read that I'm.
Just gonna let it. Griffin's so confident that you will forget to cancer. That's or you will just love it. So much to be like, you know what, I'm keeping that.
Okay, taste all, But we'll start taking some logos questions here.
We got one for Ryan. For Ryan, do you think that Kamala and Tim Wallace will keep will keep Lena Khan?
I think because of the policy agenda that they're rolling out price gouging using antitrust, how like ridiculously hypocritical? Would you have to look to get rid of Lena Khan? Who would be the person who's responsible for executing the first policy that you rolled out? Yeah, but Reid Hoffman wall Street has been there. People and wall Street are so mad at Reid Hoffman elevating this to it you could say it.
But also, did I not see the AMX chairman Ken Channel up on the stage last night like the strangest weird primetime speech producer? Mac? You agree, put yourself on the camera. Mac, put yourself up on the cam. You and I were watching and we're like, what is this dude doing here? The guys he was? That was Ken Mac? You explained, You explained, Yeah, I.
Loved the speech.
Yeah, inspiring.
Yeah, I felt motivated more than ever to support Kamala Waltz ticket.
Right, I just watching a two hundred millionaire AMEX chairman, former MX chairman talk about why Kamala is great for business, and I was like, okay, this is a little bit of a preview of some of the things that were intentioned yesterday.
Let's see some change. Pritzker.
Oh, here's a good question from Carlos sand Sager. Did Phil email you he probably wears clip ons? Okay, I hate to say it, guys, Phil absolutely mogged the ship out. So Phil not only is people, okay, so just for people who understand. So yesterday Phil challenged me and saying, why don't you re tie different tynts? And I was like, well, Phil, I was like, I bet you don't even know what you're doing. I actually know a tie four sepper one.
This guy sent me this email with some of the most intricate ty notts that I have ever seen, including from his wedding, which were incredible. I got to pull this up. It was unreal, Like this, dude, look at look at this.
This this is insane. Yeah, I wish I could.
I'm not gonna. I don't want to dox him and like put his face out there. But Phil, Phil knows what he's doing.
Right again.
Bill has got serious tie games. So Phil absolutely mogged me and thank you Phil.
Yeah, massive l for me. You were so confident I was.
I mean, look, nine out of ten trolls on the internet, like nine point five out of ten on the internet. It's like some you know, basement dweller. But no, Phil, he knows what he's doing, all right, So shout out to Phil. Okay, last question here for this section. Do you think third party officials drop out? I want RFK, but maybe in another position. What do you think? Emily? A lot of controversy about the RFK thing. We talked about it yesterday. I called Shanahan. Some RFK people are
really upset. Some people are supportive of the move. They're like, hey, screw the Democrats. They tried to get him out of the race.
What do you think, Well, we talked about this yesterday and we briefly touched on this, but there's no way that our Robert F. Kennedy Junior is getting confirmed by the Senate. I mean, it's whether it's Trump or Harris, which it wouldn't be Harris, So the likeliest case is that it would be a Trump administration. You cannot get RFK Junior confirmed by the Senate for any position, and Ryan suggested, well, he could be a bizarre not a
cabinet level official. I could potentially see that happening. They seem to be making a lot of overtures behind the scenes, even though they're not admitting to it in front of the scenes. But then that's another question as to whether he wants to keep his powder dry to potentially run against Trump again. Because we had that conversation yesterday about how being against Trump was absolutely fundamental central to RFK Junior's appeal. He had to be against Trump, and he
had to be against Biden. Now he has to be against Trump and he has to be against Harris. So if you then go into a Trump administration, do you ruin your ability to have another successful third party bid?
Right?
Because you think, Yeah, because Vivek took the I'm Vivike, sorry, Vivic took the I'm running to support Trump as far as you could go. Yeah, because and even even Trump started making fun of him for it, saying like, you're running against me, How is that supporting me? I don't I don't understand these words that you are saying, because it's in conflict with what you are actually doing. But it worked for him. He'll probably get a cabin administration
or something. He'll get something, Yeah, he definitely will, or he'll get out of Ohio, I mean run or a.
Couple of minds like this. To be honest, I do think it is a bit of a betrayal from R because the campaign was explicitly about the double hater voter, the RFK junior. Justification people I've seen is like, well, the Democrats like did everything they could to keep him out of the race. And it's like, yeah, that's definitely true. It's true. I mean they literally tried to sue and get him off of the ballot, absolutely empirically. But that doesn't mean you also side with the person who you
said would be a threat to democracy. You know who you said that. I never team up with who.
And who you said was the swamp.
More importantly is that he has such an opportunity. Is like, as Nicole clearly lays out, when you hit five percent threshold, you get public funds, ballot access, you create a movement
around that. If we think back to John F. Kennedy and the best of the Kennedy family, what they were able to do, it was to actually reform an entire new Democratic Party, create a new coalition, and effectively create the party in their own image, even taking over with the legacy of Lynnon B. Johnson and effectively running the party from nineteen sixty up until really nineteen seventies. Right, if we can think about all the people that were within them, that was the project that I thought he
was trying to embark on. Whereas now if he does drop out and he endorses Trump, it's very difficult to even validate yourself, Ryan with any of those crossover Democratic voters that they previously could have had, because they're going to be like, no, you were just a spoiler against Joe Biden. Whether that's true or not. I don't think that that does the third party movement any like. It doesn't make it look good. It just makes it look as bargaining chips. And hey, look, I understand how the
world works. I'm a cynical guy. I totally understand that. Said, I just don't think it's a good look overall, And knowing how the Trump world and all that works, why would you believe anything he promises you? You know, it's not even You're never going to get appointed to anything of any consequence. If you work for Trump, by the way, as in the executive branch, you get fire your ass anytime he wants, So it's not all that easy. And you know he's won. Rfk's won what leaked phone call
away from just getting fired for no reason. So then you kind of gave up everything for you kind of gave up everything without getting anything back. That's just my opinion, right, And.
To have rfk's vice presidential nominee out there saying we think we're taking votes away from Trump. We think that's a bad thing, and we're worried that we will harm Trump's chances of becoming president just completely changes everything that everybody thought was happening in that race.
Right, rights of the kid. That's not why people supported RFK. It's one at least in my opinion.
No, you're right, and it's one of Trump's biggest vulnerabilities is what rf K Junior was tapping into. And it was kind of beautiful to behold at first, right that he was Donald Trump taps what Rex Tillerson to be your Secretary of State. You want to drain the swamp, and you bring in the CEO of Exxon Mobile like
exactly Trump has tons of those problems. Ryan has reported on things that rf K Junior should be talking about, like Farah controversies and other like genuine financial conflicts Jared Kushner.
These are all ripe for hitting someone who claims to be draining the swamp on and rf K Junior has seemed personally to actually want to have a good relationship with Donald Trump, and not in the sense that like I'm just you know, hitting you on policy, but we can be friends, but in an actual like, well maybe there's something we could do together.
And the bear thing just had to kill him, the bear That was very crazy. It was that was just you're, like, my god, what was going on with this dude? The dog thing followed by the bear.
Thing, probably because I also think this is another important point about RFK Junior is he felt like he was putting a respectable like vaccine conversation aside. He is a Kennedy, He looks like a Kennedy, he dresses like a Kennedy, he has Kennedy vibes, Kennedy aesthetics, and so there's enormy credibility that he brings to the third party conversation that literally nobody else has in decade.
That's how I was decided about his cannasy. Yes, and this is going to be the most impactful third party candidate in a generation since, I mean the last time a real third party candidate was the year I was born nineteen ninety two, Ross Perot, So it's been almost thirty yeah, thirty two years, and something like that happened. He had a real chance, and I actually thought he could have put us on the road to breaking, you know, creating something new, let's say ten twenty years from now.
But if that's not what he's interested in, then frankly, it's going to set us back quite a bit in terms of anybody who really does want to see that happening. But one of the main recaps is that we had the DNC roll call. Then we had Kamala at the the separate rally in Milwaukee. Actually, why don't we talk about that, because I was actually pretty crazy kama Is
literally at a separate rally in Milwaukee. Why don't you tell us about the significance of that, Emily, Because there were some fifteen thousand people in the stadium there at that time, absolutely astounding that they have some back to back stadium shots of Chicago and Milwaukee. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, critical battleground state.
Yeah, and she was in the Feiser Forum, which is exactly where the Republican National Convention was held just weeks ago, and a very significant decision by the Harris campaign to put her in the Pfiser Forum, which is where you know when we were doing counterpoints and breaking points about a month ago, I was reporting live from there. It's pretty big, like you said, it holds fifteen thousand people.
Tim Walls alluded to that directly and said, you know, we have lots more energy in here than the other guy did. I bet the other guy's not going to be happy to see this. But when you are able to have energy in a city like Milwaukee, it's going to be similar to having energy in a place like Philadelphi. It's gonna be similar to having energy in a place like what's another Detroit. These urban centers in the Blue Wall states, you really need to have enthusiasm. You can't
just have sort of tolerance for the candidate. You need to have enthusiasm for the candidate because these are states where the margins in rural areas and suburbs are going way further right than Democrats are comfortable with post Obama, and so you have to balance that out with turnout. And so Kamala Harris is making a big splash by being at the Feisser Forum. With that level of enthusiasm beaming into the DNC from there, it was a pretty stunning even just like visually, it was pretty stunning.
Yeah, go ahead, right, we just linger on a funny point here. On Monday night, we were told that Democrats really desperately wanted to be able to have Joe Biden in prime time, but they just couldn't get the logistics and the coordination, just couldn't make it happen. It's a real shame that he couldn't come out until like eleven thirty or whatever, and then Tuesday night from two different cities.
They can meticulously coordinate the timing interesting huh of the roll call and the walls and the Harris speeches, so that it's all nicely rolled out collectively in prime time.
I think they really know, Okay, they really learned from.
Monday and by Tuesday they had it together.
At the same desk. You told me that you thought that it wasn't intentional, No, I did okay, okay, yeah.
Good goody to confuse us.
Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true. I have to juggle out.
Of my head.
Guys in the desk, how are we looking over there? Okay, we're going to take a couple of questions while we figure out more some of the technical stuff. So as a reminder, everybody in the Locals chat, go ahead and get some of those questions in. Those are for our premium subscribers as we are trying to get the audio working so that we can try and show you guys some of the stuff that we saw yesterday. Let's see here for what we have got so far. All right, Locals, I.
Was gonna say, by the way, John Legend and Pink are not performing at the dan Sea. We saw Don Cheatle yesterday? We did.
I actually ran into Don Cheedle, literally like I bumped into him and he is a lot shorter than I thought he would be. I was like, really did Like this is this is the iron Like this is Iron Man?
Really?
But yeah, that was kind of interesting.
Well else, did we see Julia Louis Dreyfus.
That's well, we got you need to stick around Ryan and Julia Louis Dreyfus got into a fight. That's all I'm gonna say. That's all I'm gonna say. We have it on video. We have it on video.
We will know showing it it was.
It was fine.
Why are you screwing this up?
Also? I saw Busy Phillips this morning, So the celebs are out. Okay, the celebs are out, which is very different from the r n C, when when you everyone sort of like peering the sea. Who gets to go in the golf carts? And you know, it's it's both basically like Lee.
Green, we saw Gavin Newsom yesterday walk right by.
So he's tall.
He's a lot taller than I thought he would be. I knew he was tall, but he's a big boy.
We saw Hassan like basically hurdle a table.
Yeah, that's right. We saw Hassan like, knock a table overhere he was he was like, hey, Ryan, So that was funny. All right, let's get some of these questions. We're going to tour here. Uh what do we see?
It's a lot glitter than the RNC. I'll just put it that.
Any reactions to Trump being on Theovonne, Yeah, I here's the problem guys, we've been so busy here that we haven't been able to camp to watch it. I am excited. The only clip I've seen is THEO educating Trump about what it's like to be on coke. And Trump asked and he's like, so you like it? Huh? He's like you like the rush? And he's like, oh. Theo's like yeah, man, you know.
He was like, it turns you into an owl.
Yeah, it was good.
But what do you say?
The THEO was like, it's like being on your porch, like shaking like this. So I do love Theovon, So shout out to him and his producer, Nick, who is also a fan of the show.
Dude, Oh, Theovan is great and they were doing a really interesting Theovan is one of the few people who has I think has enough respect for Donald Trump as
a human being. I'm not even talking about the politics, but as a human being to ask him about how his brother's death affected him, and it actually I think elicited a lot more interesting perspective into who Donald Trump is than just about like dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of corporate media interviews have not gotten that useful of information out of Donald.
Here's a good question for you, a question to Sogrin Emily. Can you define what you mean when you mentioned the New Right. Emily is far more sophisticated and explaining this than I am.
So I feel like you're like a godfather, and I know, well, yeah, yeah, but you know what I'm talking about. In that sort of after Donald Trump was elected, there was a group of definitely younger people and some intellectuals and like conservative academic spaces who said, let's rethink things. And there was a lot of resistance to that among like con inc types.
And it's grat explain what that means. It's like the professional industry of the conservative movement, so the collection of nonprofits essentially, like you know, at the time it was Heritage Foundation, and Heritage Foundation has sort of like gotten on board with the quote unquote New Right project. But the national conservatism movement sprang up after that. I remember you gave me a copy of your Mazzoni's book in like twenty seventeen. That's true, I did, what was I
got those virtues of nationalism? Yeah yeah, but like that stuff was circulating, it was, it was great, and and it congealed into stuff like American Compass and Kevin Roberts version of the Heritage Foundation. And some of it's good, some of it's bad, but it's it's definitely in flux. It's very fluid. It's basically just people who are opposed to the old Conservative movement, the old Republican Party. And
some of that is really solid. Some of that is really questionable, like really questionable.
Okay, let's see what else we have in the chat. Oh, this is an interesting one from Tawad. Do you think the convention including a panel on Palestinian rights will be ignored or will it hurt or help? So? I don't know if that panels be confirmed, we're gonna happen to this.
It did happen, Okay.
Was it on the main stage though, because that's.
No, But that's not how they do that. What they wanted, was it? So this is how dorky and like ridiculous kind of conventions are. But what they wanted was it to be an official part of the d n C schedule, which means it comes with the blessing of the party as a tolerable thing to discuss. Uh, And it was Andy Levin and uh, I think four Palestinian uh on the Palestinian Americans on the panel, and so it did happen. It was one of the most I think it was
probably the most widely attended panel of anything. Was Nobody goes to these any of the rest of these panels for the most part, unless unless it's like your job, your paycheck depends on you sitting in there, that you're going to be there. This one was. I wasn't there, but this one was apparently packed and full of energy, et cetera. So, but I'm sure everybody from the outside is like, you're kidding me a panel, right, Like that's
that's what that's what you're fighting for here. And we talked to the uncommitted delegates yesterday and I said, like, okay, your your other demand here is that you want a Palestinian American speaker from the stage. And they're pushing for a particular doctor who's been working in Gaza for years to get up on stage and be able to just share what her life has been like inside Gaza. And I said, okay, if you get that plus this panel, does that mean that's it? Like what are you giving
in return? And they said no, like that's actually, that's not where the quid pro quo is like the transaction has to get all the way to like an arms embargo.
So at this so they they too understand that we're just talking about a panel here and there, but also Palestinians, Muslim Americans, Arab Americans in general within the Democratic Party have spent so many years getting beaten down that to be able to win a panel from their perspective, it's like, wow, like we actually got something like it really should show like how marginalized they are within the party that they're this excited about that small of a victory.
Right, all right, good point. We are still waiting a little bit. We've got to wait for a technical person. So we're going to continue to take questions here. Let's see and can Emily explain why gambling is corrosive to the soul? Oh that's a spicy one. Also, somebody sent a picture to the Premium chat of remember that guy who ran over to us at the DNC yesterday. He is a premium subscriber and he took which one the books? The guy with the beard, No, not the book, guy
with the beer. He rolled over. Let's see if this photo, Yeah, this this is the photo, right, thanks, brother, so really it was great to meet you. His name is Ivan. All right, Emily explain the gambling comment, Well.
Gros of your bank account too, But yeah, your bank I think it's predatory. I mean I feel like we've my general perspective on this is we were actually talking about this over lunch. Yes, yeah, I think it's like there's a difference between gambling in a physical casino or at a horse track or whatever and what happens on your phone, which is primed to be like a penny slot machine that's in your literally like that is the design that they use and put in your pocket everywhere
you go. And so if you're if you're preying on people's dopamine reactions.
Hold on a second, Emily, just go ahead, don't worry about it. This is our technical liaison, Stephanie at Barstools. She's entering your self.
So good.
Stephanie is incredible, by the way, So shout out again to Barstool Sports, who is allowing us to use their studio, the dog Walk Podcast. We love them. Go ahead and subscribe if you can. Let's go ahead, and we're going to turn now to recapping the DNC guys. So the way that we're going to do this is we're going to roll through a bunch of things just to give everybody a taste of what it was like last night. Mac, Let's go ahead and start with the state roll call.
There was a lot of energy in the hall from everywhere. California passed. Actually that didn't actually pass, by the way. It's a tradition because the home state of the candidate is the one who passes up until the actual moment that they take the stage that they can put them over the edge. Mac, give us a little bit of a taste of what that DNC roll call was, because there was a hell of a lot of energy that was in the hall at that time.
Let's roll it.
So Democrats and independents, it's time for us to do the right thing, and that is to elect Kamala Harris as the next president of the United.
States of America.
California, we probably passed are four hundred and eighty two votes for the next president, Pabla Harris.
All right, So that's what that was the little bit of the roll call. We'll go to the next one, I think, because that's actually quite interesting. This was little John doing the call uh for Georgia. We just had Parker in the studio, who is a Georgia devilgate. We should dang, we should have asked him about this.
I talked to him about it before, did you. He said it was like electric. He said they had a party the night before, and Lafel Warnock was like on like on a balcony.
What is the real John Georgia connection? Is he from Georgia in Atlanta? Okay? All right, Matt, can we cueue up a little John please? And let's go ahead and take a listen. This was a big moment in the hall.
Georgia. How do you catch your vote?
Where?
Gentlemen?
We are here tonight?
Stop?
I say, turned out for what? Turn in there for copyright?
Okay?
That was an incredible and that, I mean does highlight something Emily's been trying to say. Here for people who are doubting, here's the truth. The energy is big, it's it's here. Emily. You were at the RNC you were saying it's a little bit more somber there, obviously because Trump got shot in the head. But this is Look, there's a party atmosphere that we can't deny. And I'm actually glad that we're here on the ground to be
able to see it, to feel it. I mean, we're going to talk about how awful of the logistics have been. So even though all of these pre credentialed delegates and all these other people are waiting in hours long lines of massive pain in the ass, there's all the problems, they don't mind. They're just sitting there standing line. They're waiting, and when they get in there, they're fired up.
I'm ready to go. Well, i'd say I think two things can be true. Yeah, this is not two thousand and eight. Yeah, but this is also very real.
Well, it can't be the most exciting democratic campaign in modern he it is not.
And Ryan, I'm curious what you think about this, because you've actually been to these conventions. I don't think the energy in the room is two thousand and eight esque. I also, though, don't think it's fake, which the right is saying.
And Ryan was at ow eight.
So it is perfect and actually has had a Hispanic a poll of Hispanic voters that showed the enthusiasm gap that existed before Harris took over the top of the ticket had been closed with just Hispanic voters like entirely closed between Trump and Harris in terms of Hispanic voter enthusiasm among Democrats versus Hispanic Republican voters. So obviously even the polling is picking up on just subjectively qualitatively what we've noticed. So two things can be true. What do
you think about that? It's not O eight but it is lit.
Two thousand and eight was indeed electric. It had you know, so it had non cringe celebrities who were like, everybody was fired up. Everybody's believing like we might actually like prove that we're not the racist country that we thought we were going to buy electing Barack Obama as president. He gave his acceptance speech in the like Denver Football Stadium, like just sixty seventy thousand people or more, just blowing.
There was no roof, just just crushing it. But what people forget is that two thousand and eight also had a very divisive primary against Hillary Clinton, and all over Denver and throughout the convention were these groups of mostly women who were called pumas.
Oh I remember which, Yeah, party unity, my ass, Party unity, my ass.
Yeah.
They were marching through Denver constantly and they were pissed off. And so there is actual party unity now like you saw AOC and Bernie and like that was big, Like everybody is together basically with the party established.
Let's show a little bit of that. Hey, can we go ahead and put the next one up there? Mac, This is Kamala. We talked about this a little bit earlier, but to me, it was very extraordinary and I want to make sure whenever we do YouTube clips that people
can see this. We can see some of this Mac, which is that at the same time that the United Center was filled in Chicago, Kamala Harris is in Milwaukee fifteen thousand people in the same where they had the RNC and then accepts the Democratic Party nomination there from the stage. We have that queued up. Okay, let's go ahead and play a little bit of it for the people.
I'm all right too, you're blowing us comic pull, prove.
Me running dog in truth? What I'm just good.
National Convention.
Well, they just completed their role call.
And they have nominated Coach Walls and me to be the next Vice president and President of the United States of America.
So there you go.
You could see it. Uh, you could see her accept that nomination. Let's go to the next one, and we're gonna give people some of the highlights of the other speeches. Immediately after that, we kind of moved into prime. You have a quick comment, does an absolute flex?
Yeah, right inside the convention Swing state, blue Wall state. She beams in this massive crowd, excited crowds.
The comparison clip between the rn C and the DNC if.
We do we oh, yeah, that's right.
Why don't we go ahead and put that up there on the screen, just to put are some of the RNC energy versus the d n C energy. You can see. I mean, frankly, this is probably more reflective of who gets to be the average delegate to the r n C. You've just basically got a bunch of boomers and old people at the r n C versus well, let's look, we had Parker here, a.
Lot of Parkers.
Yeah, there's not a lot of Parkers at.
The at the r n C.
If we're being honest, they're definitely there is YouTubers and streamers. Yeah, like all those books, but they're not actually the delegates. So go ahead and roll that for us.
Mac.
This is courtesy of Morning Joe. I guess I have to say that.
Commands with the roll, with a call of the roll of the states delegates?
Are you ready, forty delegates.
Dude, you gotta do it, Georgia, fifty nine.
Delegates get the point. So that's that is some partisan hackery, to be fair, because there was a ton of enthusiasm from a lot of delegates at the RNC, and you could probably go back and find clips of people wild and not of the rn C. But the best description I would say is that the RNC is more like a political event, feels more like a political event, whereas the DNC feels more like a Hollywood event. It feels
like it's a more entertainment event. And uh like the RNC had a feeling of heaviness because Trump had just been shot in the head, but also it had this kind of confidence because at that point it was Biden versus the guy who had just survived an assassination attempt. So people just felt really that there was a weight a gravity to it, and they felt really confident. And I think you see a lot of confidence with the Dems, which is why Kamla flexed and beamed him from Milwaukee.
But it's also just like this total sugar rush. You know whether it lasts is the big question.
What was shocking to me about the roll call is that Democrats did something new. Yeah like that, that's an innovation on the form of the convention. Yeah, well, I didn't know you could do something.
Induced it for television.
They wanted to. I mean, they got what they wanted, which is we're covering it. It's a media moment. It was actually produced in order to project energy and dare I say joy, That's a word that we heard a lot last night, and that was a key to basically all of the major speeches. Let's go now to Bernie Sanders. We have two separate clips that we can show. He was given a primetime speaking slot. He used it to really push some of his two thousand in sixteen energy.
But I will say, just going into it, it was remarkable to me. I mean, twenty sixteen Bernie Sanders. This is a man who basically had the DNC steal the race away from him and rig the primary process, who has been at war with his entire life, then ascending to the main stage in primetime to endorse Kamala Harris. But he did it, I guess in his own way. He gave a nod to some of the ceasefire talk. Max got it loaded. Let's take a listen.
We must and.
This horrific war in Gaza, bring home the.
Hostages and demand that immediac Saints file.
All right, So there you go, demanding an immediate ceasefire.
He also had a permanent whatever. Yeah, nobody wants to hear my nippicking. It's not permanent, it's just immediate, Like he won't like.
What what we will do is we'll let you get some of your energy out of the protest block because I know how frustrated you are with the uncommitted movement now so far, let's get the next one up there. What I want to do is show everybody the contrast and truly the big tent that we've seen here at
the DNC. Preceding Bernie Sanders is Kennis Chanalt. He's a one hundred millionaire former AMEX chairman who's like a Kamala is so great for business, and it's like in America is the best place to start a credit card company with legal usury.
Then Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders takes the stage to attack billionaires, which is immediately then followed by JB. Pritzker, who starts bragging about being an actual billionaire in contrast to Trump. All right, so Mac, let's take the billionaire clip here from Bernie and then quickly will hot switch it to JB. Pritzker right afterwards, And my friends.
At the very top of that to do lists.
Is the need to get big.
Money out about political process. Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections.
Got it?
Okay, let's pull out it out all right, So billionaires should not be able to buy elections, including primary erections.
Oh what did I say that?
What was that? Perils?
It's the live nude sign that's over. Yeah, that's that's My mind is going in different directions.
Okay.
So then immediately after that, what happens is that we have JB. Pritzker, the governor of the state that we're in right now, Illinois, who is also an call him an air a billionaire air is all right, So an heir to a billionaire fortune hasn't even made his own billionaire fortune, and then bragging about being a billionaire in contrast to Donald Trump. So Mac, let's roll it for the people.
Donald Trump thinks that we should trust him on the economy because he claims to be very rich.
But take it from.
An actual billionaire.
Trump is rich and only one thing.
Stupidity there it is, so take it from an actual billionaire. And I gotta I gotta even give credit to a producer Mac and to producer Griffin, because we were all watching this meet together and he's like, I literally cannot believe that that just happened, right after Bernie Sanders smoke on a stage and attack a billionaire than having a billionaire governor who Okay, nobody becomes a billionaire governor just out of the goodness of their own heart and talent.
Especially I, frankly, I don't get Pritzker energy. I don't think he's couldn't. I don't think he's really all that talented. He's hokey, and he's hokey.
Is hell to me.
Ryan, I generally like a b He's been an extremely progressive governor in Illinois. That was the worst, most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Yeah, there is a a sect of democratic activists who have been making this argument against Trump that he's not a real billionaire, that these are the real billionaires for years now, and that I think that energy was channeled through Pritzker there and they loved seeing it. I think it's utterly tone deaf, absurd and
to your you make a great point. Just like Trump he inherited, yeah, his money.
You didn't even do any.
It's like a hotel fortune.
Right.
He's using the DNC stage to squash billionaire beefs and to engage in billionaire beefing, which is.
Truly, like, that's as bad as politics get, folks.
Nobody wants it. Nobody wants it except for.
The you know, but that's the problem. Let's be honest. There is a constituency that played there. There is a three hundred and fifty thousand a year income voter in.
Peach Tree, George, it's the county.
Just talking, Parker was just talking about who is like he's right, he's not even a real billionaire, just like our man GB take it billionaire. But that led to, frankly, you know, some of the nice moments I was saying here, I look, people know, I'm a cynical guy. I'm a sucker for the reluctant spouse, the spouse who does not even want to be on the stage. Uh, but who you know, they're like, Okay, I'm gonna do it for
for her, for him, like and Romney. Remember that. It was very similar like people who they don't really want to be in the spotlight, but they're the that's right, yeah, there's but there's spouses have chosen to be in this lane. And Doug m hoff Uh, he certainly stole a lot of hearts in the audience. People were people were crying, and he wanted to humanize Kamala Harris yesterday, so he
told the story of their first date. Why don't we go ahead, mac if we can and cueue this up, the story of the voicemail and of his uh, which he's has played every anniversary coincidentally, which is on Thursday. Let's go ahead and take a listen.
For generations, people have debated when to call the person you're being set up with, and never in history has anyone suggested eight thirty am. And yet that's when I dialed. I got Kamala's voicemail and I just started rambling, Hey, it's Doug. I'm on my way to an early meeting.
Again, it's Dug.
I remember, I was.
Trying to grab the words out of the air and just put them back into my mouth, and for what seemed like far too.
Many minutes, I hung up.
By the way, Kamala saved that voicemail and she it makes me listen to it on every anniversary.
All right, So you know he's not exactly the best speaker in the world, but Griffin compared it to Dad's at wedding. You're rooting for him. You just have to root for him, and it is sweet. He also, again, in terms of trying to humanize her, which frankly has been one of the bigger political vulnerabilities that she's had, tries to speak about her role in his own family life. So let's go ahead and queue up the next part there, Mac and we will take a listen.
Kamala is a joyful warrior.
It's doing for her country what she has always done for.
The people that she loves.
Her passion will benefit all of us when she's our president. And here's the thing about joyful warriors. There are still warriors, and Kamala is as tough as it comes. Just ask the criminals, the global gangsters, and the witnesses before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She never runs from a fight, and she knows the best way to deal with a coward is to take him head on, because we all know cowards are weak and Kamala Harris can smell weakness. She doesn't tolerate any bs.
You've all seen that look, and you.
Know that look I'm talking about.
That look is not just the meme. It reflects our true belief in honest and directly.
So there you go. Look, I'm again this is the job of the spouse at the convention, just as those kids.
Yeah, and again like nobody cares about me what I have to say about this at this point because it's all joy and it's et cetera. But you can also ask the people wrongfully convicted that have been that can basically demonstrate that they were innocent and yet are still behind ours.
Justice impacted people, No I'm talking.
Well, yes, justice, justice impacted innocent people who Kamala Harris kept in prison with paperwork arguments.
But that's very inconvenient to weed truancy.
Yes, I mean it's also inconvenient from the Trumps. I they don't know quite how to handle it because she's soft on crime or she's too tough on crime. But she there are plenty of innocent people that are obviously innocent that that Harris worked to keep behind bars, not saying that she thinks they're guilty. But you didn't file your uh your lousy attorney filing soon enough or you didn't do you know, you you missed this deadline, so
therefore you should rotten in prison. So yeah, she joyfully fights those people.
So Sucker's right, though, like em Hooff understood the assignment. Yeah, that was it doesn't like the job. It might work on Sager and Crystal, which it seemed to it doesn't really do it for me, but he did a good job of doing what.
It's because you and I are online, Okay, you and I can separate both my analyst hat and then being the guy who also knows that this guy knocked up his nanny, which is gross, right yay, immediately following him corpor lawyer and all that. But look, people don't want to hear that. And also look, spouse, it's a fair game ish like et cetera. It does tell us a little bit about kind of like who these people are underneath. But I've also been around enough politicians like these are
messy ass people, listen, screwed up their egomaniac accident. I'm not going to have normal They're not gonna have normal lives.
No.
Kamala Harris, by the way, has one of the highest rates of like one of the lowest rates of staff retention when she was in the Senate. She said the same thing happened when she was vice president. So when Doug Emoff was talking about how tough Kamala Harris is, that she's not just joyful, she's also very much the warrior.
There is another side to Kamala Harris that has as she's been establishing herself the last few weeks, it has been incredibly successful from a pr standpoint, heavy assist from the media, but it's working so far.
In fact, usually whenever they're like a sweetheart publicly, that means they are mean as hell behind the scenes. I've read some of the I have read, yeah, not just Klobachar. I've read some incredible stories about like Bill Clinton and his low Yes, I've heard those like all these guys, wait for the stories about Harris Harris, all these other people.
The way it's been explained to me is that they have to project niceness to the entire outside world, and the only outlet that they have is on their staff, and so Joe's staff is just they sit there and they have to take a beating. Let's go ahead and move to the Obama section. So obviously this was critical. This was the big flagship moment. We had two major speeches from Michelle Obama and Barack Obama, and I think that there were two primary There were two primary instructions
to the Obamas. For Michelle, first, and most noteworthy to me, she didn't mention Joe Biden's name one time. It was all about Kamala Harris. But more importantly, there were a lot of subtle digs at Biden. She talked about this sickness inside of her that existed while Joe Biden was a candidate, and then how joyful she felt. There was also the hope is making a comeback. So there was a lot of writing the nostalgia way and trying to
get the Democratic base in prime for two things. Number one literally fired up and ready to go, which Obama gave it that signature line. But two is don't lose hope. Every single day matters. You need to get out there, You needs to door knock. This is going to be a tight race. Don't get complacent. So it was the
that was like the primary message Michelle. Also one of the instructions clearly that was given to her was we need to nip a lot of this democratic infighting in the bud and everybody needs to get with the program and get with the program right now. So let's go ahead, Mac and let's cueue up. Michelle Obama, hope is making a comeback. That's probably the biggest one of the bigger lines that she had that night. We'll play some of the others, but let's hear this first one.
Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn't it. Yeah, you know, we're feeling it here in this arena, but it's spreading all across this country. We love a familiar feeling that's been buried too deep for far too long.
You know what I'm talking about.
It's the contagious power of hope, the anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day, the chance to vanquish the demons of fear, division and hate that have consumed us and continue pursuing the unfinished promise of this great nation, the dream that our parents and grandparents fought and died and sacrificed for America.
Hope is making a comeback.
All right, let's pull out of that, Max. So obviously that was a big Rudeeah, go ahead, quick comment.
One point on that. A lot of people in the Democratic Coalition felt hope in twenty fifteen, again in twenty nineteen when Bernie Sanders was running for president on a pledge to remake the country more hopeful, just direction running for something. If you notice there, what was the hope there? No Trump that she would vanquish the evil spirits? Yes,
the des Yes. And that's that's how you unite the Democratic Party, not in in something forward looking of what we're going to do, but in who we're going to beat.
This was the key thing. Actually, to me, the most important lines from the Obamas both of their speeches was tone policing the Democratic Coalition. So mac, let's cueue up the next one. This is Michelle Obama on the dissenters. And uh, here we have her basically saying, mostly to the Gaza protesters, like, hey, guys, let's nip this into the bud. We're all coming together. It's unity time. If you don't get with the program. Then you're basically helping
Donald Trump. Go ahead, Mac, let's take a listen. Let's get specifically to this quote about the worst enemies and all of that.
So go ahead, as we embrace this renewed sense of hope, let us not forget the despair we have felt. Let us not forget what we are up against. Yes, Kamala and Tim are doing great now, we're loving it. They're packing arenas across the country.
Folks are energized. We are feeling good.
But remember there are still so many people who are desperate for a different outcome, who are ready to question and criticize every move Kamala makes, who are eager to spread those lines, who don't want to vote for a woman who will continue to prioritize building their wealth over ensuring that everyone has enough. So, no matter how good we feel tonight or tomorrow or the next day, this is going to be an uphill battle. So, folks, we cannot be our.
Our own worst enemies.
No, see, because the minute something goes wrong, the minute alive takes whole. Folks, we cannot start wringing our hands. We cannot get a Goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right, and we cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will let somewhat like Kamala instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.
So that was the key moment that Ryan the Goldilocks complex. We can't be bogged down in some of this protest nonsense. Not everything can be just right. We cannot indulge our anxieties. I thought that was really really interesting for Michelle because we combine effectively the family her and Nancy Pelosi the most responsible for getting Biden out of the race. Clearly,
she has massive resentment against Joe Biden. She didn't even mention his name one time, didn't think him was nothing, implied that he made her physically ill to her stomach while he was in office, and then at the same time doing the tone policing that Obama picks up on in his speech. Go ahead, Ryan, what'd you make of that? Yeah?
I also thought it was aimed a little bit at people who spent the first you know, several weeks saying like, hey, by the way, what are you gonna run on? Yeah, what are your policies?
You're gonna name's not Trump?
What are you gonna do if you win. And then when the policies do come out, there's some nitpicking at them here and there. She's saying like, don't just don't do that, like, don't worry about it. We're runing against Trump. He's bad. It's not gonna be a perfect campaign. And Y know that I understand that argument, sure, and most Democrats are like, yeah, actually.
Well did you hear the pop when she said that? Because clearly, as you and I know, and we'll get to the protesters and all that, they're not all that welcome there at the DNC, right, I'm seeing any time I see anyone wearing a kafia or anything, there's a lot of side eye. And I noticed also when we were interviewing some of the uncommitted delegates and others that there was a people were beefing. Is the way I would put it to them? Their their presence is not welcome.
What's the way I would put it. What's interesting is that the policy they support, yeah, is very welcome, like whenever anybody but Warnock. But when Warnock or Sanders or AOC mentions Gaza like, the crowd is like with them. And if you poll Democrats, they want a permanency's fire. Like they are. They want this war, they want this
attack on Gaza to end now. But you're right that the individuals who are pushing and making things uncomfortable for them internally, they'd be like, can you can you tone it down.
A little bit?
Yeah, you're exactly right. Okay, let's go. I think we have a final Michelle Obama clip. This is probably her biggest moment of the night, making fun of Trump for saying black jobs during his National Association of Black Journalists appearance recently, Mac why don't we go aheading? Cue up the next one. Here's Michelle with the biggest line of the night.
We know what comes next.
We know folks are gonna do everything they can to distort her truth. My husband and I sadly know a little something about this. For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us.
See his limited, narrow.
View of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard work and highly educated, successful people who happened to be black.
Wait, I want to know.
I want to know.
Who's gonna tell him, Who's gonna tell that the job he's currently seeking might just be one of those.
Black jobs oo biggest line of the night, So I think that was pretty significant. This was Michelle, from all accounts inside the hall, was much actually better received than Obama. Part of the reason that we led with her. She there's still so much energy around her. Obviously as a potential candidate, she clearly has no zero interest. But any last thoughts on Michelle Obama.
The number of people throughout American history who could waltz into the White House if they want it, but decide not to do it, you can probably count on one hand. Like she could have finished her speech last night by saying, actually, you know what, it's me, I think I want the nomination. The place would have just absolutely erupted. They would have marched to Milwaukee and told Kamalairah was like, I'm sorry, thank you very much, thank you, Kamala, thank you, Kama,
thank you, thank you Kama. But it's going to be Michelle. Yeah, she could have seized it, like in the moment, they would have figured out a procedural.
Way to make it right.
Things happen. Yeah, Yet she doesn't want it. It's it's it's truly like not in this political world that like resistance to that poll.
Let's go ahead and move on to President Obama.
He took the stage.
It was a pretty long speech, actually well, and he tried again to resurrect some of the hits. So here we have yes she can that he tried to get going as a chant inside of the hall. Let's take a listen.
College shouldn't be the only ticket to the middle class. We need to follow the lead of governors like Tim Wallas who said, if you've got the skills and the drive, you shouldn't need a degree to work for state government. And in this new economy, we need a president who actually cares about the millions of people all across this country who wake up every single day to do the essential, often thankless work to care for our sick, to clean our streets, to deliver our packages.
We need a.
President who will stand up for their right to bargain for better.
Wages and working conditions. And Comuda will be that president. Yes she can, Yes she can't.
All right, fired up and ready to go. He gave us all of the absolute classics. Yes she can. There was also a big moment here on crowd sizes. I'll let everybody decide what Obama was talking about in terms of size for yourself. Probably not family friendly for the stream, but let's go ahead and queue this up. Mac. Let's get the sot of President Obama talking about Trump's obsession with crowd sizes.
There's the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes.
That was absolutely his biggest line in the night. That was his line.
So good, he's good at the roast, He's great. It was crowd work.
I mean, he's good with the crowd. Look, he's one of the most generational, you know, probably the best generational. He was a politician in modern American history.
He was right though that anybody's following Michelle is stupid. He was. He was flat.
Yeah, I didn't think he actually, Oh, I don't think we have that line about the leaf blower. Yeah, I don't don't think we can find it on Twitter. We could probably find it. But can you go ahead and search for that leaf blower thing while I'm talking?
But yes, this is an old rich man, yeah, being out of touch.
Yeah, you're right. He looked and he's like, you know, when you're it's literally like for people who've ever watched thirty Rock Tracy Morgan talks about getting He's like, I've lost touch with my roots, and he'll do a set.
We'd be like, you know, when you're in Saint Bart's and people are eating their lobster, he's like, literally Obama, like in Obama's in his multi million dollar mansion in Martha's Vineyard, and he's like, you know, when your chef dies whenever he goes swimming on your property, when you're gone and you just can't get anybody to serve you some fresh sushi the.
Next day and you lose your paddle board, It's like, it's just.
It's really difficult out here, folks. So we do have the leaf blower lote. He looked queue it up and before let Ryan talk right now.
Yeah, he tell me if you agree, Chab. But I think he looks angry at himself after it was bad. After it bombs, He's like, God, I shouldn't.
Let's hear it, dude.
The other day I heard someone compare Trump so the neighbor who keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of every day. Now, from a neighbor, that's exhausting. From a president, it's just dangerous, all.
Right, let's pull out of that. I thought it was awful.
It was very and you know, in the second at all, he's like, he's like, oh that didn't.
Right, Yeah, you can tell, you know anyway, And he's.
So mad at whatever billionaire. I made that point to him right now. Yeah, he's never he's never texting that guy back.
It's like he's like, hey, Richard Branson when we're on the private island, just shut up next time. Okay, just for that was his first trip after president. If anybody is wondering, okay, let's go ahead. Finally, the last clip of Obama. This again pairs very well with Michelle. The most important part here is Obama trying to tone police democrats. Stop being so preachy. We need to win people over. No more language nonsense, lots of anti cancel culture stuff here.
So let's hear it from the from Obama. This was a Honestly, this is one of the biggest sections of his speech, and he saved it to the end and he was speaking very directly at the audience here. So let's take a listen to Professor Obama.
Isn't just a bunch of abstract principles and dusty laws in some books somewhere.
It's the values we live by.
It's the way we treat each other, including those who don't look like us, or pray like us, or see the world exactly like we do. That sense of mutual respect has to be part of our message. Our politics have become so polarized these days that all of us across the political spectrum seems so quick to assume the worst in others unless they agree with us on every
single issue. We start thinking that the only way to win is to scold and shame and out yell the other side, and after a while, regular folks just tune out.
Or they don't bother to vote.
Now, that approach may work for the politicians who just want attention.
And thrive on division, but it won't work for us.
To make progress on the things we care about, the things that really affect people's lives.
We need to remember that we've all got.
Our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices, and that if we want to win over those who aren't yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns.
And maybe learn something in the process. After all, if a.
Parent or grandparent occasionally says something that makes us cringe. We don't automatically assume they're bad people. We recognize that the world is moving fast that they need time and maybe a little encouragement to catch up.
All right, I mean tone policing Obama. I mean I don't disagree with a word that he said. I mean, this is something that people always forget about Obama. This is the guy who lied about not supporting gay marriage in two thousand, right, this is the guy who's like, what are you talking about? I love to shoot guns. I'm not a rich liberal from Chicago who you know.
And the point behind that is actually sometimes trying to play up and be you know, trying to relate to people who you're not like is not a bad thing. And he's about persuading people to vote for you. And no matter what, he was never good at getting other people elected, lost state houses and all that, he was great at getting himself elected. I mean, twenty twelve was a winnable race for Republicans, and I think in retrospect
he actually Obama very easily could have been beaten. But he played a masterful campaign, brutal against Romney despite the bad economy and up until the day he left office maintain a some fifty five something sixty percent approval rating. That's high, and people should listen and learn from that. Part of the reason that Obama got the primetime speech last night, how I Bill Clinton is getting a primetime speech right before Tim Walls. Not an accident in either of those cases.
No, absolutely not. And the yes she can chance. I don't even want to gloss over that. I feel like that's actually a really really big deal because you're transferring, right. It's sort of like how Hillary Clinton transferred herself as this building block she transferred twenty sixteen in two thousand and eight to some extent to this building block to the first female presidency. And what you have with Obama is this transferring of inspirational energy that a lot of
Democratic voters still remember than to Kamala Harris. And I think Obama's at his worst when he's lecturing. This is least likable. When he's it's like he's talking down to the public. That's not his strength. I think that's when he like veers into the unlikable Obama. But when he's likable, he reminds people why they showed up in the streets of Chicago for him in the I mean didn't even
remember how big that crowd was electional it was. That's a legendary moment in American and so if you can channel that to the Harris campaign, just to give him, give her a little bit of that magic, as Michelle Obama mentioned, if you can rub off on her some of that. It did not work for Hillary Clinton. We talked about this recently.
My final thought on just on the DNC everything that happened. Yes, there were contradictions JB. Pritzker, Bernie Sanders, but in prime time, the Obamas, they really brought it home. Obama, by the way, did take time to actually thank Joe Biden, so you know, at least somebody in the family was like, hey, you know, thank you very much, Joe Biden for everything that you're doing. In terms of how it went for them, I thought that it was effective in trying to transfer as much
as their energy as they can. Let's not forget they weren't able to put Hillary across the line. You know, it's not like they still are able to do that, but they did their best that they could to kind of fire up the energy. I'm going to take a quick bathroom break everybody. Emily and Ryan are going to Emily and Ryan are going to be taking questions from our premium subscribers as a reminder we have these no so go to the live chat you see right here. Yeah,
this is where questions are come in. Click a jump to recent messages and then just sit there and wait for some of the questions to roll in so as people are reminded of we have a promo going on right now in terms of a free month trial for Breaking Points. Breakingpoints dot com d NC free is the promo code. There you go, So Emily and Ryan, you guys can hold down the ford. You can offer last thoughts Ryan if you want. I'm just going into the bathroom. This is any ghost energy drinks.
There's a really good question here actually for Ryan, I think, which is predictions for a Kamala cabinet. That's a fascinating question, like think of the exect sure state. Who do we go with here?
Well, the scariest one is Treasury secretary. There is there are some indications that Gina Rimando, who desperately tried to become Treasury secretary under the Biden administration and ended up being Commerce Secretary she was kind of blocked by the kind of Warren faction Bernie faction in Washington, d C. She's a former banker who became Rhode Island's governor, as friendly to corporate America and banks as you can get
in today's Democratic Party, which is awfully friendly. And there was a report that she was vetted for a vice president, and I think that was a I think that was basically a fake report in the sense that they wanted it hanging out there that she was being vetted for vice president despite the fact that they were never going to choose her, so that when she was then named as Treasury secretary, it'd be a more palatable and predictable.
Oh yeah, she was almost vice president and like we're gonna have a We're gonna have a woman Treasury sector in yell and followed by Ramato. So I think that would be a pretty dark signal of which if if Kamala does go that direction and you're looking at a very like kind of corporate friendly administration at that point, however, she would then be clashing with you know, Lena Kahan wrote hit Chopra over it over at CPB, which is sort.
Of right where you had these people from totally different poles fighting it out Duking on his cabinet meetings. He liked it.
So yeah, Secretary of State. So Jake Sullivan, no, she's getting rid of these guys to her to her credit, she has said Lloyd Austin gone, Jake Sullivan gone, Tony Blink and gone.
Good.
Who does she surround herself with because for the last but.
She's got two interesting So she's got Elon Goldberg and Phil Gordon as her like top. So Elon Goldberg uh Is hit is her liaison basically to the Jewish community. Is kind of a well respected He's like a liberal Zionist basically, but like there's some hostility to him from the APAC world. It's not but you're never You're never going to get like an anti Zionist, certainly not in the that liaison position, but not as Secretary of State either.
Phil Gordon wrote wrote a book about American coups and interventions, and the thesis of the book is that they have almost always like been disastrous for the country where we carried them out, but also counter to us interest. So it would be fascinating if that trajectory continues.
Well, just Yeah, that is super interesting. And just think about this since what ninth, So since January of two thousand, Democrats have not had a personnel situation of non Obama people in the White House. So this is like the torch being passed to Kamala Harris and her saying no to Biden world. That's really saying no to Obama world, which takes us back to for Democrats, and you've been covering this since like two thousand and eight, January two thousand and nine, this is a new set of people
for the most part. If she's jettising the Obama.
Folks Elon Goldenberg by the way, not Elon Goldberg, but so and but yeah, if you know, there's not a lot of wiggle room in the American empire. But if they if you could move from the Biden kind of foreign policy folks to the Obama approach to the Middle East, which was like try to actually like check saut Arabia, disengage and move on from that region, then that within the confines of the possible is kind of it would be a.
Good question from Harlow Burn.
All right, now, thank you, Maybe maybe why we'll have thoughts.
Indulging my indulging my bathroom break in the inch room. We also brought in the intrepid reporter Dave Weigel of Semaphore. Dave is here on the scene for covering the DNC And but and yet, Dave, we're gonna have to talk about RFK Junior's That's.
Why I have this phone for. I mean, lots of things, but I try to confirm RFK thing.
Okay, So, Dave, we reacted to the clip of Nicole Shanahan yesterday, huge obviously. But now RFK is slated to do a press conference on Friday in the state of Arizona. Donald Trump is going to be in Arizona. We have a quote here from Jonathan Carl I will not confirm or deny that about endorsing Donald Trump. We're not talking RFK Junior is saying. This is RFK jing saying that what's your reaction? Tell us kind of your what you're seeing, hearing, et cetera.
They want to surprise people on Friday. We're going to see how many people speak about this, both what they announced and whether he shows up at this I think he's turning for an action event. Yeah, and nobody around this event is confirmed. How We're going to have an amazing moment. You're gonna love it. They want they want some suspense, but that's clearly where it's heading and Trump Trump has already done with Democrats. I was talking to like which is saying that he likes RFK, would put
him administration. They believe their whole heuristic this year is these guys are weird, and they believe through lots of money and opposition research and media outreach, they have defined RFK from what he was before to a laughingstock.
They had other words in my phone for him.
But they really think that when people hear RK, maybe whatever they thought of him two years ago, they now think brainworm, leaving a bear, Central Park, conspiracy. Theorists will say anything, and they think that they could build, they could duct take that to Trump now. That that is their take, which I think might be a little bit optimistic, because there are a trunk of voters who hate the establishment and that say, oh, well Trump, if Trump brings him this guy, I'm interested.
But they don't think that'll matter. That's that's their take, all right.
So what do you think is the Democratic reaction? Obviously they're they're not happy about it. But with Trump himself. One of the things I'm interested in because you talk to these guys too. They didn't want to have they didn't want to do the prequel quid pro quote deal with him from cabinet membership. So is what what realistically can RFK get out of Donald Trump at this point?
Well, Trump already the thing is, he already said he'd be interested in putting putting him aministration.
So what are the follow up questions?
And Trump on like unlike other presidential candidates, does lots of lots of questions. He's I wouldn't say he's been baited into. He likes it anyway, but they're doing more because Kamlo is not doing it. What are the follow up questions? Where would you put my administration? Do you agree with him on vaccines? You could just kind of write little keep going, write a list of things he would get asked. I haven't talked to a Democratic senator
since this. I would talk to some this morning, were at the convention.
It's not hard. They're everywhere, Yeah they are.
But a question for them is would you vote to confirm this guy anything? And they'll probably say they'll probably say no es because they think he's they think he's a lunatic at this point. But it becomes a series of questions and we're it's seventy seven days.
That's there's a lot of days.
But every day you're spending on odd questions about a potential personnel pick is not a win. You're not You're not You're not nailing Tim Walls, You're not nailing Kamala Harris. You're saying, would we put this guy who look at this clip of him saying something weird on a podcast seven months ago.
I might be I might be made inlining too much.
Of what Democrats are saying, just because they were answering my text faster in the last.
Thirty minutes and we're surrounded by them.
But that's there, they think because because what would this look like? Would it step on their convention? It would be news that would come out of the convention, but they don't think it would be bad for them.
I could see Trump having a lot of fun actually potentially with Kennedy, because I think Trump understands the Kennedy aesthetics maybe better than RFK Junior does at this point, Like I could see Trump trotting him out at rallies and being like this is a member of Democratic royalty, This is a Kennedy. The Kennedys are an iconic American family, and he can't stomach the Democrats.
Right, No, this is an argum. That's an argument Trump could make about it.
And and I have met I know of people who just don't like your audience rightly, people like people know who watched their show, listen to Joe Rogan and uh, they would take a second look at Trump if if someone like Kennedy, who they think is honest.
I mean I always I read YouTube comments. I'm not sure why, but you do see this.
People who are not maybe in the meanstre media discourse, hear him and think this guy can't maybe saying all this, he must be honest. There is no politician that talks like this. He would have announced, write with I think you're right he would have that.
With life, I mean empirically too, Dave. He is drawing votes away from Trump at this point. Yet at this point it's just crystal clear, like we see it where he was at twelve percent or whatever, drops down five almost all the Democrats disaffected as going back to kam Law. So for Trump, like it's a problem and it would be smart for him to make a deal with it.
Yeah, Democrats have been dugging against him. They never thought he they thought I think for the last couple of weeks that he who was hurting Trump, But they still thought it was an X factor. And right now they're in a good mood right now. Obviously right now they are thinking we can put together a two thousand and eight coalition who cares, we don't need to sleep slice off votes for him.
But they not enough up.
But also the only money being spent for Kennedy by a party was Republicans. Republican donors funding a pack that restoration pack at different pack in Pennsylvania, some of that, but there's one in Pennsylvania that was saying direct mail to Democrats and saying, hey, Democrats, rfk is on the ballot.
He's a great Democrat, he's progressive, he's pro choice. They're still and maybe they were just behind behind the times, but Democrats have been convinced for a long time there is there that these guys are just not gettable and their coalition. I mentioned those voters they're not getting Joe Rogan voters, they're not getting like the working class people
guys undecided about this. They are getting college educated liberals who like the Kennedys but think this guy is bad, and so they just don't talk to these people anymore.
Yeah, curious for you today. I just think they're totally missing it, like I think Democrats are. Yeah, yeah, I think Democrats are wrong that this could this could significantly help Trump at the margins. If this is if this is another election that's decided in a handful of swing states by one hundred and fifty thousand votes or two hundred thousand votes total, and it moves five five percent
is a lot. Yeah, that's five percent in falling. So by the time if he if he stays into November, he might be a two or three percent by the time that all comes around. But two or three percent is enough in one hundred and fifty thousand, you know.
Yeah.
And I was talking to other Vercraft's not today but before who were just who were joking but joking with intent that it'd be great if one of our rich people started sending mail to the guys who we know with like an NFL channel subscriptions saying you're gonna love RFK Junior. Yeah, in the context that they thought they had, they had to pump him up. The one the X factor is how popular is is Kamal Harris by the time we vote, Because that's I think what I'm talking about.
They're getting this.
The other thing right now was her favorables. This is unpreced editor up at at somebody this point in her life in American politics.
Is now.
Six to eight to nine points more popular, more favorably viewed than Trump. Walls is favorably viewed, and in a it's not a double hater election anymore, right now, it's not. It is an election between a Democrat who's about as popular as Biden was twenty twenty a little bit less, and Trump, who's more popular than ever but forty two percent. And they think in that well, fifty percent, that's it.
We just we just go and convince everyone who voted for Mark Kelly and Arizona, everyone who voted for John Ozof and Georgia, those people just come back. You know us, you know you know Kamala Harris. You like her, don't you?
So talk to us?
So you've been around now Democrats, the narrative of joy and all that we personally like. There's a lot of Republicans are saying it's fake. I don't think it's fake. Being in the arena, there's a lot of unity. So what do you think the strategy coming out of this? You remember that you have a lot more access than we do. What is the reception about finally taking some questions the interviews, because that's been the most frustrating part for a lot of us. No interviews even scheduled now
at this point, and the lack of press availability. Are they are they just giving stonewall? What's the plan around it? Right now?
They stolen on that.
They're also still walling on just if they just put her policies on their website. I was just talking to some Democrats and more competitive races. They're not worried about running on her anti price gouging or aid for first time home buyers. They're really they think they can defend it. I mean, talk to some candidates and close races, and so that's great. That's it's media I can talk about in some speech.
And they're not. They're being super cautious. They really are.
The Trump critique that they are just trying to run a play, a movie, run a vibes campaign. It's right and Democrats are in a very.
What are you going to do about it?
Mode?
Yeah, you can't force us to take questions. It needs to get so it's get toxically bad. Their thing they're doing a little bit is waiting out some bad narratives. Had she did an interview on day one, she would have had answered Medicare for All questions. Had wallsen interview on day two, he would have had answered national Guard questions.
Right.
And how long can you make that old news? I think that's misguided. I mean because I see that at this convention. Josh Shapiro, for example, one example, he's been asked about a thousand times do you think it was anti Semitism? The reason that you're not on the ticket? He's answered it similar ways a thousand times. These stories don't die. People want their own sound, they want their own clips, so they will get this and there. I
don't think they're terrified. It's not like Hillary Clinton being worried that every press conference is going to be emails and servers and why do people tru distrust you? But they're not even scheduling a TikTok implementer who is going to softball tim they're.
Not doing any even doing that. That's and they just think.
They don't need to, which I don't think.
Yeah, well, yeah, what's your sense of Actually our colleagues in the press, especially people that you spend a lot of time with when you're kind of walking around the convention area, and that because with Biden when he wasn't doing interviews in twenty twenty, the anger from the press I think actually really did push the Biden campaign, like
forced their hand. Do you get the sense that that type of anger is going to start bubbling over the surface to the point where Kamala Harris is forced to start doing way more press.
Yeah, and who forces her? But there are some quasi traditions that should be happening right now. There the Time magazine thing, if you still care about print. I still don't care at print. It is weird to get the cover with that an interview that's around a convention. The old tradition was there's a cover, it's both can't tickets, And they did their Trump interview in the summer, they did their buy an interview. There should have been a Kamala Harris and the ticket and yeah, they do both.
I don't know, I don't work a time. I don't know if that's being negotiated. Probably not. There should be a sixty minute sit down another quase. I mean, these are like Biden the super Bowl interviews. It's not in the constitution, but you usually do them. Yeah, exactly. And I think the Trump storyline, which is consistent that she is just loopy and she can't defend her policies, that
has stuck a little bit. That's why they're taking more questions on the tarmac, taking any which is that mollified things. I guess to back it up, the reason you're not seeing people saying when the hail is this going to happen is Biden was locked up and not doing anything for weeks at a time in twenty twenty. The fact that there is a clock that restarts every time she goes out of the bus, take six questions and they answer the news of the day, and the Trump campaign bats it around that.
I don't know how many hours it starts, the clock and fared a few days. You don't hear about that.
Yeah, I don't think that could last. If they go through the week after the convention, no interviews, that would would be okay. Seriously, though, you're not going to deal, because then you start to leave questions for the debate, and you leave moderators questions like do you want, for the first time you have to defend a complicated to be on a debate stage with Trump.
Maybe it goes well, maybe it doesn't.
You'd rather get that through in a news cycle with Leslie Stall or somebody.
That's an interesting Yeah, it is an interesting point that this comes after months of Biden either being unwilling or unable to do serious press availability.
Yeah.
Sure, and to the extent that he would do them, the only questions that we would get answered were like how cogent he was that day, not you know what his actual defense of this particular policy was. And he's not even the one running anymore.
So yeah, yeah, And it is it's a different problem because she she can give, she can give bad answers, she can give good answers. Biden just was not giving good answers to anything. Go through it again, and every question was on the frame no one's going I can't
speak for everybody. People are not going to walk into a Biden interview and say Americans think you're stupid and you're drunk all the time, what's your answer that that's not the overall and press there's not eighty percent of people telling posters, I think that that's Trump's rates on Twitter saying that that is not how people think of Harrisey poll most people think that she's competent to be president. They don't have those problems. So there's not a good
reason to not put her out there. And if you've interviewed her, I haven't. I haven't a while really since she was running for president. But she can overtalk things, but so could Brock Obama. But Barack Obama could give like a long professorial answer it was weird, it would go somewhere that it was usually more. He would land someplace boring, not weird typically but right.
And yeah, yeah, she she loops around, which is her problem. Whereas and you can watch her looping around. Yeah, gets stuck in the loop. Where Whereas Biden Biden might meander I'm not Biden, sorry, Biden about by Obama would kind of meander, but it would when you transcribe it, it's still a paragraph that was like making a coherentill point.
Yeah, yeah, hers, they don't look crazy, but you're that's a good way to put it that she she knows the point she wants to make, and she thinks of something that she's add to it, but then she goes back to make.
The first point. It's just people learn different.
They as soon as why Tim Wall speaks different because he was a teacher and he and he was like being a teacher for years and years and having that kind of rhetoric versus being a district attorney and making making arguments in court rooms and called the jury one hundred times. Yeah, I don't think it's like crippling problem. But she just she she rambles in a different way.
Hey, what I keep hearing from the Trump people is honeymoon, honeymoon, honeymoon. We're going to kill them after Labor Day, And I, well, it's you know, it's kind of a long time, like voting starts, voting starts, So yeah, I don't really understand, like.
Why the way early vote that starts early.
So what's your assessment? Is that cope that I'm hearing from. It's definitely true that they're going to killer after labor Day? But is it cope in that they just don't what to do? Like a lot of stuff is not sticking.
A little bit of his cope because I'm very forgiving. Even when I talked to Democrats, they just yes, there, we never thought this would happen. There was a reason so many Democrats were saying, we need to open a convention because we're worried that Kamal is unpopular and she'll never who who gets more popular? Like after being vice
president and becoming the candidate without anything happening. Who who would have if you had any of us or talked to a Democrat and said, hey, Coama's gonna have rally with eighteen thousand people, we wouldn't have believed that. So the Trump world is still adjusting to that weird reality. The part that's not COPE is they do they are, They have their ad spending, and it's not getting to discuss very much because I don't what gets in the discourse.
Who knows if you watch their actual paid media, it's all very Here is a criminal that Kama let out of jail. Here's a criminal across the border. Here's a grizzly story of something that happened. It's her fault. They do have these clear messages of crime and the border. The COPE part of that is that they've been running them for a month and they haven't really done damage yet. Her favorables have gone up, But that's why you keep running them. I mean, so, I think I think they're
not wrong. That you get out of the convention, you're gonna have more questions why is she's doing an interview and you're just gonna have more and more people clicking on YouTube and the pre roll ad is a terable crime that she let happen.
Or they have their their own polling.
Everybody's polling says that the urge people to don't donate to the Minnesota Minneapolis Freedom Fund was is a killer. Ye, they do think, and I think they're not crazy. If you just keep repeating that, people are gonna know. Democrats spent nine months talking about Presure twenty twenty five and then it really only clicked once Trump made a weird comment about how we didn't know who was behind it. But if you asked Democrats four months in, it was fair to say, like this is why are you still
doing this? This is not clicking. So I think it's not coked. I think it's more money. It's the old like Steven Sondheim talking about West Side Story and they told him it wasn't hummable, and he's like, well then MGM spent ten million dollars promoting and all of a sudden it was humbable.
Yeah.
Good, that's a good last. Do you want to talk about the squad? Are you willing to do that with?
Yeah?
Sure?
Okay, So there's an interesting clip, producer, Mat, can you pull this up ilhan Omar this morning at a protest?
Take me swipe? It looks like an AOC.
Should we Mac, Do you have AOC's original I just I just.
Put it in so we can play that first.
Okay, all right, let's let's first let let's hear from AOC. Let's hear the original comment about Kamala working tirelessly for a ceasefire. Then we'll go to Ilhan all right, Mac, que up AOC.
Let's go ahead.
Let's intro it again without the instruction.
Sure.
Yeah, So what this is is that this is AOC here we're looking at a schism opening up between AOC and ilhan Omar. AOC on the stage main stage, first night of the convention says that Kamala is quote working tirelessly for a ceasefire, ilhan Omar and then taking a shot at her at a subsequent protest that just happened today. We're filming this on Wednesday morning. First, let's take a listen to AOC's comments. Let's go ahead, and she is.
Working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.
All right, working tirelessly bringing hostages home. Now, let's bring up the ilhan Omar reaction that we just heard today that was actually at a protest. There, we go go ahead and play it.
It's been unconscionable for me in the last ten months to witness my colleagues in this administration refusing to recognize the genocidal.
War that is safe to face, the Lazza, to not see the mothers.
Who have lost coupless children.
The babies whose did bodies are being dunned out.
I do not understand that working tirelessly for a ceasefire is really not.
A thing, and they should be.
A chiemed of herself.
Okay, so what did you make of that, Dave, Because that was I mean, some intrasquad violence. There was a lot of talk after the AOC thing. They're like, oh, she's she's really she's a good Democrat. She's doing well. She's very much on the team. But Ilhan, you know, taking a shot at her. You know, they're saying, my colleagues suggesting this.
Yes, and and I was.
I was at that press presser and she she jumped to a van after that. But the questions were generally about that, and she did not want to if she's everyone in the squad's aware how things can just become intra family few things with no content. Yeah, but but but that was that was a choice because they're negotiating for more both policy and at the convention itself. They do not want the offer at the convention to be well.
Bernie and AOC and Biden all mentioned you and so we're good, right, And the answer from not her for other Democrats, they're just the evolving answer today was if we get a ceasefire, this this goes away, like they're serious about it, the arms and bargo talk.
That goes away.
But she was speaking because that was a pressor with the uncommitted delegates. Corey Bush was there. I'm not sure she was in the background. And yes, that is a break. She doesn't want to make it personal, but that is a please you and the media do not say that they have fixed this problem because of what they gave is the convention, you like, please be like me more cynical and ask more questions about this. That's it's a very inside outside thing that they were doing now because
they're they have a lot of press. I mean, you saw there I probably fifty to sixty people at that some foreign, but a lot American and Democrats are this happened in twenty sixteen, where there was less and less attention and over the course of the week to Bernie Bernie people and what the ah Mans were, and they know that could happen, so they're trying to just keep
this in the blood stream. Continue if you cooc ask her this, if you see Bernie asking this, do not let this them go off stage and then say all right, well, what about the balloon dropt a news story?
Well, both of you, actually, I'm curious for what you were hearing on this as to whether ilhan Omar is speaking for other members of the squad squad adjacent people. We talked to Greg Kasari yesterday but hadn't seen this yet, obviously because it hadn't happened. But do you get the sense that this divide between Ilhan Omar and AOC is going to be deeper than just these two people, because
here's a good tweet from Daniel Lobo. The gap between ilhan Omar and AOC will widen as AOC's larger political ambitions become more clear. So is this about those two or is this about AOC versus the squad at large?
Well, if you're thinking of a four person squad, Rashida Tsleeb has not endorsed Kamala Harris.
She's not the convention. She was on the list of a Michigan I didn't know she was. She was the Michigan Breakfast today and she was on the list. Shouldn't show up.
She's just taking it. She's just taken a much lower kind of cable news profile, so you don't hear as much from her. But clearly like she's with il Han on this. Anna Presley obviously has you know, ambitions like you know, the Massachusetts senator or something like that.
And is she was the one who did endorsed Warren and not not Bernie right, yeah, right, not a bitter.
Split, but that was so Ilhan also posted this on Twitter, which I think Dave's phrasing of it, this is a choice is good. Like she she went out, she used the word tirelessly to reflect exactly what Aos said, so that it would be clear that she's talking about that moment and being and specifically saying that you should not use what AOC and Bernie said to take the pressure
off Kamala Harris. So the way she tweeted it is Vice President Kamala Harris has an opportunity to demonstrate our party's courage and commitment to ending the genocide, not just in condemning it with words, but an action by conditioning aid a better world is possible, but we must have
the courage to fight for it. And then she puts the entire clip of her speech at this presser up up on Twitter, and her longer argument is the reason I find this to be ridiculous, she says, is that if you're working tirelessly for a cease fire, all you have to do is stop sending the things they're using to fire, and then the firing will cease.
You don't need to get.
Tired at all, just you don't even need energy.
Any last thoughts from things that you've just observed around here that I haven't asked you about.
No, the meta question of why they're cool with what happened is interesting, and I keep thinking of metaphors that probably don't.
Don't like do the whole business.
But it really they were lying to themselves for so long. They were just lying to themselves that they don't say, I'm mind to myself, but lying to themselves that Biden was going to beast it out.
It was not a problem. He was going to have another good debate.
And you saw flashes of that when he spoke Monday in the first thirty minutes were fine, and you already talked to some Democrats, you had a flash of almost like somebody reaching like, well, I have had drink in ten.
Years, but this is a this is a spritzer. I'm fine.
Really, they they were just and I'm not trying to indict everyone, but they were just dishonest about about how Biden could win. And they the reason they're so joyous, I think is they are now being honest with themselves. Not that Kamala Harris will fix everything, but they really did. I mean I talked to delegates all the time who you know, they loved Kamala and twenty nineteen, and they were just hoping that some days should be better at this and they're just they were all in.
They never really wanted Biden.
We all look through twenty twenty is his consistency people who did not want him first but thought they had to settle for him. And this is after what's the long view of this? Twenty sixteen, half of them had to settle for Hillary. Twenty twenty, a half of them had to settle for Biden. This is the first time they said a candidate who is not hobbled runn against Donald Trump. We didn't realize we could do this, and we we were not being truthful with ourselves. How much
better this would be. We have not had a we've not filled arenas in years. This great, Yeah, I.
Mean the duel arena thing. We have got to be honest, big flex from I regrets. Hey, thank you for stopping by.
Man.
Oh great, really, we really enjoyed it. Let's go ahead and get some questions here in the chat. Here's a question for Emily from mac Lynn. Do you think Trump will actually enact any populist economic policies if elected?
I think it would be the same thing as what we saw in the last term where there's a war, and you'll probably have a good sense of this too. There's a war between the JD. Vances and the Mike Pences. He's still going to put people like Mike Pompeo in charge, and that's there's nuance about how exactly Mike Pompeo is he a realist, is he a neo khon? But he still you know, has a different take on Ukraine than JD.
Vance does. So I think it would be a constant battle, meaning each side wins a little, but the establishment probably wins more because they have home field advantage in the swamp. So I think it's it's both people would get a little bit. Both sides woul get a little bit, but the home field advantage would go.
To the swamp.
Okay, all right, I thought I think that was good. Let's see question when Obama says nicknames. Oh no, I'm not asking that one. I'll just say there was a book, there was a big mic reference. Okay, Soger will reap, Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm not I'm not going into that one. For Sager, What is the best food that you've had in Chicago so far? From Orlando.
This is a good question because you even like we actually got you to try what you didn't want to try.
Yeah, that's true. I tried.
Where do we going to Lume mal Naughtiest to lou mal Naughties delicious? Look, I love Luemel Natties. I'm just I didn't like it.
I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm not a deep disguise. I think it's kind of gross.
You got a Caesar salad.
I got I ate my Caesar. I had my chicken. You know, I need some vegetables, some fiber and protein. And then I said, okay, I'm gonna take a tiny little slice out of this thing. It's like cutting a freakin pie. You know. It's like I have to like use this.
Yeah.
Literally, it's so good.
I thought it was okay.
I thought it was okay. I'm not gonna lie.
Hey, you know what, We're at barstool, So I'll do the Dave Portnoy thing. I would give it.
Let's Ryan did without knowing it five, So give it a six.
Five.
Ryan asked for a cheese.
He rates. He rates pizza out of ten. He does his pizza one byte reviews.
So you're saying it to six or six five.
So, yes, it's a point.
It's like a Richter scale. Ryan. Ryan asked specifically for a slice of cheese yesterday. I was like, well, you don't like pepperoni, and he was like, no, I want to try it without the pepperoni to make my platonic form right. And I was like, you realized that's exactly the portnoid.
Style nose onto something.
There you go, but you were going to say the Italian beef that's has been his favorite.
He's leustioned for producer Mac, what do we need to get more lives with the team? Mac? Cue yourself up, put yourself on camera.
What we need to get more lives with the team. I mean, I guess that's up to I don't know why this question is.
Yeah, it's because I didn't want to talk, dude, I'm getting.
Tired, right.
I think we actually were.
We were talking about that yesterday that we would like to do more live So I think it's something we definitely should. We should make regular for the breaking points people, Well, it's.
Already pretty regular.
Here's a question.
You think, do we do it for the big events? Yeah, we do it for the big events.
Think Bates coming up soon.
Yeah, we'll do it for debates.
We do it for big events.
I think I think doing the A block in the morning live would be.
In this is Ryan, maybe it can be count okay Ryan, Oh yeah, I'm gonna let Ryan that one.
See if the technical in the in the contracts. Yeah, yeah, that's right. All right, let's not us.
There's a lot of prim's.
It's more complicated than it sounds.
Yeah, but that's right.
I mean, as everyone can witness here. Oh the sound doesn't work.
What about this?
You got to pull this thing up? So so and so came in late.
It's not so easy.
So I actually doing this has made me really respect the people who like only stream. I totally understand how technically difficult it all is. All right, Uh, let's see and continue here in the chat question this AOC running. I think we kind of answered that yesterday. Ryan, Do you hate Dave Matthews since you're a fisherman? I don't want there, Like, what's the deal.
No, Oh, they're actually they're friends. They themselves are friends. A lot of the fans are like, think that Dave Matthew sucks. Don't think he sucks. But I'm not into Dave Matthews.
Okay, all right, all right, I'm super for what it's worth.
Okay, let's do you think that there is a chance RFK going to the Trump campaign is a net negative for Trump with the split between Harris and Fourth parties. I am an RFK volunteer and no chance that I go to Trump. This is Bucos eleven O two. You know, that's an interesting question. So something Dave brought up that I have been thinking about now is that RFK you know, famously told me. What did he say? He said, there's
a lot of skeletons in my closet. It's like, and if they could all vote, then I would lose in the landslide something. The thing is for Trump, if you actively have this guy on your team, it's just a distraction. And what do we know about Trump? He hates when the main story is not about him. He hates whenever people are talking about things that he then gets attached to. Notice how he distanced himself a little bit from JD there where he's like, well, you know, nobody votes for
the vice president, so historically it doesn't matter. In that case, I could see Trump kind of getting fed up a little bit with RFK. If RFK starts to cause problems for him, what do you think, Emily?
Well, so no, because I think if RFK Junior drops out of this really like much hyped third party bid, he becomes such a non story that there's no threat. He distracts from Donald Trump. And there are enough there are. There are a whole lot of people, as we've been talking about, that will not go from RFK Junior to Trump, but there are enough on the margins to matter, just like happened with Jill Stein in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
So I think it's it's only a net benefit. I think it's a drag for RFK Junior way more than it's a drag for Trump.
Got it.
Here's a question for Sager and Emily. Do your right wing colleagues and friends think that you are too left on any issues? What do you think, Emily?
Yes?
What do you know? What I get the most shit about is Israel? Oh my god, I can't take it anymore. By the way, Yeah, for those who are out there, stop texting me. I'm text you back and it's annoying. All right, start your own show. I don't give a shit. I really don't care what we have to say.
This is something that people don't realize though, I'll get this off my chest, is that we hear all like what we do is different than what most news people do, and that we have like honest, open, transparent conversations. Tell you I actually think, yes exactly, and then you know, if we go and agree with Ryan or Crystal on something, it takes like for us. Yeah, not that we're heroes, but it does, like we take so much a lot, just like Ryan and Crystal take flack when they say
something that agrees with us. So it's again, it's harder than it looks. We happen to for whatever personality reason, like we roll with it, but we take way more than people I think realize.
Internally, there's a lot of internal shit. So the left there's a lot of external there's a lot of like beefing, But the right is because it's because the right infrastructure is so propped up by billionaires and specifically by employment. There is a lot of external conversation that is not allowed to occur. A lot of gate there's a lot of gatekeeping, and professional gate people are very afraid of
saying things out of line. And you know, doing this job is been very liberating in some respects, but also, you know, Emily, we lose access to the system. We don't get invited to a lot of the things that we used to. I'm very okay with that. I'm genuinely fine. Like it's like, oh, I don't get to go to the AI annual dinner. I'm not gonna lie. It's nice, Okay, it's nice. Like it's a nice place. It's a light Yeah, the steak is good. There's like the beautiful little draperies.
There's a bottomless shelf, you know, champagne.
You get to take some nice photos when you're twenty five, get to put on a tucks you know, it's nice. But after a while you're like, well, who's paying for all this booze? Right? Like why is this one million dollar party? It's okay, you know, so be it. I've just made peace with the fact that I don't get to do that. But there is an entire set in Washington. They live for this. They literally live for the circuit,
or for the access or in a circle. Ye didn't know what did Noam Chomsky says, like you if your paycheck depends on something, then it's just very unlikely that you will ever sink up. Upton scare. That's right, Upton sync. Yeah, that's something that he said something about like a man.
Very hard to convince somebody of something if their paycheck depends on not understanding.
It exactly right. And look, I mean that's just empirically true. I do think a huge amount of the right. It's not fair to say they're bought and paid for. It's that their economic incentives do not align with them being able to say whatever they want to say. So we are very unique in that respect, and a lot of that invites just a ton of shit because they have these like professional enforcers that are just out there.
But that that is why.
Though my response is always like, hey man, start your own thing. Let's see if people want to hear your bottled up bull you know, your poll tested bullshit about why Israel is the greatest nation on earth, be my guest. Okay, go work at the Daily Wire, you know, go for it well.
And one quick point on that is just it looks. I think the one thing that our show does that other shows don't is that we are actually in Washington, d c and we are actually talking to lawmakers, we're actually talking to lobbyists, we're actually talking to like movers and shakers, power brokers. At the same time, we are trying to have open, honest and transparent conversations, and Washington is not used to that, so they reflexively will cut
off access. They reflexively will try to like dunk on you on X. They'll reflexively sort of relegate you to the fringe for doing that. So it's a very rare combination and I feel like we are like super lucky that we're pulling it off. Not just like it's a lot of skill from you and Crystal in particular, who've paved the path. But it's a new thing and it is very It's also harder than it looks because it
looks like we're just talking. But behind the scenes, what you don't see is so much trash being tal.
Yeah trash yeah, but again, you know, say it behind be my guest, Okay, I don't care, like this is my thing. I don't care at a certain anymore.
Which is a lot braver than a most hosts who will only go on shows where there's only one opinion, which is like every other show except ours, and I think a few others which are then forced to actually hear a different opinion.
That's very kind, Griffin, thank you well. But look, that's a part of the reason why we we actually have a successful channel. You know, we built two channels now to over a million subscribers. We've brought in these guys.
We get to travel.
We have amazing employees, while everybody else has to go shake the cup to ask if a certain billionaire will sponsor their trip. Yes, please, can I please go to the DNC. I don't have to ask anybody that, so you know that's there is true freedom, folks, we had to ask you, there is true freedom in all of this. Okay, let's talk about some of the on the ground stuff that we got to do. So this was a lot of fun, it's really exciting. So why don't we go
ahead and start here. We're going to go to some of the protest stuff we already talked about, il Han, So that's great, Mac. Can you give me a lay of the land some of the clips that we have that are ready to go in terms of on the ground, so I know that, well, we'll say that for the end. You know, we promised that there was a huge fight between you and between Ryan Graham.
So we have Ryan with the Palestinian. Yeah, uncommitted delegate.
Oh yeah, this is really good. So as uh, we actually interviewed this dude in the We interview this dude in the line, and this was really interesting because he gives you a real insight into did he help unfurl a banner?
Is it okay?
So he helped unferle a banner stop arming Israel. This guy then is faced with false accusations of violence, and they this woman is like, stop touching me, stop touching me, starts literally karening like calling the police in the Secret Service, trying to get him thrown out of the entire convention. And he didn't scream, he didn't do anything. He just held up a banner that said stop arming Israel. Uh, let's go ahead, Mac and let's cueue up that one.
Do you remember his name Leano Sharon?
This Leono Sharon is a Jewish delegate from Michigan. That's exactly right. And he's a delegate, remember, and he is a delegate. Yes, he is a delegate to the DNC. And listen to the way that he was treated by the DNC. Let's go ahead and let's play it for the people.
Keep you out.
You didn't break any law. It's like, what did they say to you?
Sure?
So the first thing that happened is that the police tried to say, you have to leave, and I just said, no, I don't have to leave. I'm a delegate. I have a right to be here, have a right to hold up a sign and protest. I have a right to do these things. So I'm not leaving. And they didn't force the issue. Actually, the next thing that happened is
the Secret Service came by and talked to me. They said that there was a woman up there that said that I had pushed her, that I had, you know, shoved her, that I had et cetera.
And I explained, no, I didn't.
Do that because I know what the law is and I was not interested in having any kind of violence.
So she stood there blocking my way and I kept.
Saying, let me through, let me through, let me through, and she said, don't push me, don't push me, don't push me.
I said, I'm not pushing you, I'm not touching you.
And she just continued to stand there like that until the police came up and told her to let me through. So then she let me through and they escorted me down to the corridor where you saw me.
Then what happened? That was the last I saw you were in You were in the hallway doing media interviews. Did they escort you out or what happened next?
No, they did, they didn't. Actually, actually, the Secret Service came by and said, hey, we have this report for the woman that said that you pushed her and all this kind of stuff. I told them what I just told you.
I know the law. I was not interested in any of that.
I didn't do any of that, and I'm sure there's something on video that shows that I didn't do any of that. So, you know, they asked me a couple of questions and and and said, okay, we're cool, thanks very much.
I took a photo of my ID.
I know I didn't have to show it to them, but you know, I figured, you know, I didn't want.
To cause a ruckus.
So nothing from the party, well, the one the one thing that came from the party was the guy there was a party operative who was like in charge of like that section of the seating, and he came by.
He actually said, you know, I get what you're doing. I believe in your free speech, et cetera. I got what you're doing. I believe in your free speech, et cetera. Uh, but uh, please don't go back in because you know there might be people that would get upsot and try to do something.
This this is the Keith and this. It really bothered me listening to this man. He's a delegate, right, he didn't even do anything. And then you have some Karen lady who's like, he's assaulting me violent. Meanwhile they're assaulting him. They're hitting him with signs, literally hitting him over the head, taking the banner out of his arms. Meanwhile, somebody is blocking Ryan's camera as he's a journalist just trying to
film all of this. They take the lights down and surround them there and by the way, you should have seen you know, you could have. You couldn't see it all there. People were staring daggers at this dude as he was talking to him, and they were mad at him, you know, for talking out of turn. So that I wanted to give people a stre Yeah, people needed a taste of what what it actually is like here in terms of how the descent is being handled inside the hall.
I mean they are letting him back in, but an elected delegate, but they pulled his ass out.
I mean, that's crazy and then accuse him of assault that I mean anyway, I think it is very just to highlight, you know, some of what's going on right there, Go ahead, Emily, they.
Pulled So we saw Nadia Ahmad, who was the Florida delegate who worked with him on that action. We saw her walking in as well. She told me afterwards that they actually wouldn't let her on the floor. They pulled her floor pass away. Really wow, which I mean, on the one hand, she's a Florida delegate, she deserves to be there. Uh. And then on the other hand, Mac, what else smuggled in the sign?
So we also had the the Julia Luis Dreyfus clip, and we're gonna Ryan and Greg Casar.
Oh, that's right, we got the Ryan. We did a walk and talk Aaron Sorkin esque.
Actually we thought I was gonna follow. Yeah, you guys going to make a camera woman.
She's awesome, man. I think you can spot me on my phone in the background being lazy throughout some of this interview. Mac Let's go ahead and queue this up and let's take a listen. What did you why don't you?
Previews?
So what we talked to? So it has It has leaked out that Greg Gazar, who is the whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is running to replace Promila Jaya paul As as chair of the caucus. One of the key questions facing the CPC is how much of a fighting force it's going to be and whether it's going to shrink down in size. But running for CPC, you
have there's a catch twenty two. You can't it's it'd be pretty hard to run saying you're going to kick half the membership out because they have to vote for you to beat the chair. So you can kind of watch how he balances the questions about how he's going to how he's going to handle this. But this I think he has a good shot of getting this position, which shows kind of how quickly his star is rising in Congress.
Let's roll some of that mac there for the people.
So you're running for Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair? What would you do differently? What are you running like? How would you set up the CPC if you won?
Well, I think it's less about it's going to be different because based on a variety of scenarios, do we win the White House, do we have a majority in
the House, what does the Senate look like? But at the end of the day, I think that we're now in a position where many of the things we've been talking about is progressive issues for a long time, taking on corporate price gallaging and taking on big corporate landlords, restoring voting rights, these things are actually now the core of what we're hearing from the from the Harris Walls campaign, and so I think we have a real chance to say, hey,
the progressive position is actually the popular position. A lot of times, you know, progressive members, we've been pushed and said, well, we're not being electorally realistic. I think we're actually not going to be pushing the majority platform, and so I'm really excited about the potential for that. Last thing I'll say on that front is, you know, we've got the Trump tex cuts expiring, and that again is a place where the progressive vision of raising taxes on the wealthiest
and the biggest corporations is actually the majoritarian opinion. And so I think bringing the progressive cocks fully into being organized as a block to say, you know what, we're not going to take a bad deal. We're we actually have the vast majority of the voters with us, and we're going to help Harris Wallas administration do something that we haven't been able to do before. I think that'd be really exciting.
Well, tax is interesting because if they don't pass anything, then taxes go up, so on the rich, on the rich. The knock on the CPC has always been it's been too big. And when Permilla took over, there was that committee that like I think that was maybe the term before or maybe the term that you started. Yeah, they tightened, tightened requirements. Would you would you do that further? Like should there be more of a litmus test to be in the CPC?
Well, you know that's that's really up to the members to decide it. You know. I think here's here's the thing. When folks say, well, we would like all one hundred members to vote exactly the same fact is we're from one hundred different districts.
That's why they say, let's how about a twenty four member subcocus or something like that.
Sure, by those twenty four members can vote together already, I think having members, I'll.
Break some of this down for us. So what was the most important part of that conversation?
So, because Donald Trump used and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnelly used budget reconciliation to pass his tax cuts, that means they expire after ten years, so you're or so you're you're looking there and there are other tax cuts reconciliation cuts that are coming up, so you're looking toward the future of when you do tax reform again that if Congress doesn't pass anything, that the tax rates all revert back to what they were before the Trump tax cuts,
which means that progressives, this is his point that he's making, they actually have leverage because when they're trying to stop the IRA from build back better from passings, it's not good enough, it's too Many progressors are like, well, look, it's still oh, seven hundred billion dollars worth of spending.
When they're trying to stop the Affordable Care Act because it doesn't have a public option for saying, well, this is a trillion dollars and it's going to expand access to people, and progressives always cave under that argument because they're not the Tea Party. They're not the Freedom Caucus. They if they can get half a loaf, eventually they're going to capitulate to that. The dynamic is completely different on taxes because they're like, you know what, screw the
Trump tax cuts. Let them all expire. Yes, they'll a little it'll go up a little bit on the middle class, but mostly who will be hit is who benefited the first time around, which was you know, big corporations and the super rich. They'll be the ones that pay. So now you guys have to come deal with us. And so that's the that's the argument that he's he's making
there what he said in that clip. He went on to talk about, say, Matt Cartwright, who rep resents the you know, northeast Pennsylvania district that was won by Donald Trump, but he supports Medicare for all. He's like a good progressive and he's saying, but look, is Matt Cartwright going to vote the exact same way that I vote in Austin, Texas. No,
let's not. Let's be serious. Yes, but we still want populists like Matt Cartwright rather than you know, in the CPC, rather than a blue dog who represents.
And that's significant.
I'm scrammed.
That's a significant clue as to what the makeup of a very important committee would look like in the future.
All right, we've te's this clip long enough. Ryan Graham versus Julia Louis Dreyfus.
Well here, so Ryan Grim best known for uh not best known, but well known for getting into a scuffle with Jesse Waters at a White House Correspondence Center one time. He doesn't quite get that heated with Julia Louis. But as We're all walking through the media row area and I was like, I think that's Julia Louis Dreyfus, So I kind of double back. I checked him, like that's Julia Louis Dreyfus. And Ryan's like, well, what should we ask?
And I forget what I said. I think I said something like, is Kamala actually Selena Meyer, which has been debated and in VEEP circles. The creator of VIEP has said no, she is. But then yeah, of course, and Julialua Drevis wouldn't even she would say the same thing that the creator said. Now Ryan comes up with a brilliant question.
Well apparently it's it not even original, but.
Oh Okay, but the question is what viep character is jd Vance And so Ryan's like, yeah, we can do that, we can do.
That answer question.
And we're for context. We are in the media section of the convention, which is where people go to do media interviewers because reporters are swarming it. It's where if you're a reporter, that is where you stand if you're hoping to get quotes from different principles.
All right, would tease it long enough, Julie, Julie read one quick question for you.
That's a real quick question.
One question, the appreciate, thank you.
This is the media area, by the way.
There's the music, dude, you the music.
You cull the music. This is the media area.
By the way.
Your delivery was so perfect. Your delivery was so perfe and you weren't even trying. I mean, look, it was.
Quite it was annoying. It was annoying, supernoying.
Yeah, like it's like, why are you here?
Then they kind of acknowledged the point I think leaving them.
Yeah, that's right.
Then she decided to leave the media.
Woman. I wanted you to say, like, take your hands off me. Yeah, she gave you a nice pat on the shoulder.
What you also saw there was Ryan building up the coverage to do it, which I will say as a journalist, Uh, there is a moment that you always have to have where it's like, oh man, I'm gonna have to debase myself.
But Ryan doesn't have that.
No, Ryan doesn't hair, which is why I love you. Just you're gonna have to stick your mic in this lady's face and just start barking at her. And here's the thing that actually does work.
They probably get nine out of ten.
Times it won't work, but one out of ten sometimes you got something it. Imagine if she'd answered, it would have been good.
So there you go.
I don't know. I think the Viep storyline is really important to this election because we're talking about a woman who went from the least popular vice president modern history to someone with higher favorability than Donald Trump in the blink of an eye. And she was compared to Viep in the mema verse for literally years and especially it hit the Nadeer just a couple of months enough. He has an incredible commit signing. People don't people.
Nobody makes a good point, They go, wow, she has a real life Amy that's true that lady she us a shark. Well, but that's actually it is one of those like Hollywood shocks. Yes, women, yes, but that is she'll peel your face off.
That's in theory though what she did. She's a she's a wrangler, so that's more of a Mike McClintock. All right, But Mike, is that is job?
Just would have answered this. Lady's actually good at her job. Yeah, okay, let's move on to the next part. This is a fun one. You get a live, live reaction from me on the ground. This is just about how awful logistics have been here at the DNC, A little bit inside baseball. But honestly, I think enough now at this point that we can show you. So what we're about to show you actually Emily made me do this clip. It's me
in front of context. It's like seven seven thirty. I think whenever this happens, there is all these credentialed people, remember credentialed as in cleared months ago to enter the convention. Now they're entering the convention and they are encountering up to two hour lines to get into the venue. And this is not just like people like Parker who we
had on our show, right, like young Democrat delegate. We spot multiple VIPs in this line, desperately in the crowd, just waiting to be let into the area so that they can be let into security, so that they can be let into the Primetime is coming up fast, Yeah, Obama is coming. Primetime is literally coming up like imminently, and they're a good hour and a half two hours away from even getting into the arena from the point that you can see, and actually where I am was
the midway point of some of these lines. So with all of that being said, let's listen to my first field report for breaking points. Let's take a listen.
So here we are.
This is literally the line to get into the DNC. In fact, it goes all the way down the street in both directions.
It's so bad that I just saw.
Jim Messina, Obama's twenty twelve campaign manager, literally in the middle of the scrum. I can see him right here as we speak. Obviously he's fuming at how bad the logistics are here, but a bit of a that's right.
He left to go work for the Tories in the UK, so sorry, he.
Can't get it right.
So clearly, even the VIPs, including the former successful Democratic campaign manager, can barely get into the DNC, which tracks with the horrible logistics that we personally have experienced so far. So that's soccer and Jenny reporting for the from the field for breaking points totally all right, So there you can see. It was funny. Thank you Emily for forcing the mic in my hand and making me do that. But it was funny.
Had a career in local news.
It was genuinely funny watching. I was like, that's Jim Asina and I see him just standing there.
Like this, like in a middle crowd.
It's desperate to try and get in in all of these other He's so big, Yeah, exactly part of the reason I saw him and I was like, man, And then we look at the crowds and in both directions around the corner, can we put Michael Tracy's up there.
Tracy's been doing a good because it's not like, to be clear, it's not just what we saw in one part, like obviously this at these types of things, there are many different entrances that spread out over a big piece of Chicago. But everyone is encountering this every day. It wasn't just the first day now it's bleeding into the rest of the week. And so this is what Tracy said.
Yeah, all right, let's go. So he's yeah, Michael Tracy here has a similar picture. This is actually later after we talk, so you can look at the time code eight thirty pm. He says, I'm legitimately shocked at how catastrophic the logistics of the DNC are. I am talking to an Illinois state Rep who has just given up. I'm trying to get in. This is horrible, he says, pointing out other state reps in line who are stuck in the endless line to nowhere. Multiple other people reported
the exact same thing. Let's see from our old report. Should we talk to about Oh, there were some lines yesterday. We were wondering if that was just a first one. Can you pull up mac from the old rundown that Akela Lacey tweet where she talks about the scene to get into the United Center is absolute chaos. There is line after line. There are hundreds of people waiting to get in one point five hours after programming started. Yeah, look at this, I mean this is crazy.
Lines are like outrageous.
Exactly, And it's one of those where look, you know, you can forgive one day maybe, but second day it's like the logistics.
Are really bad. It was awful too, Mack.
You explained to the Chat yesterday about how annoying it was for even for us to get our press credentials.
What all of this does tell.
Us, at least about how the DNC is set up right now is My only impact on this is I think Kamala's people are breaking the press to the point where if they don't give them something soon, I think they're gonna freak out because the press are They're also the ones stuck in the lines. I saw Tara Palmiery and a few other people who were all stuck in multiple hour lines just trying to cover the damn convention.
I read actually that the DNC is charging double the price to the networks for renting out those booths where they're broadcasting from from inside. I mean, guys, we're talking like six figures just to rent out one of these things. Part of the reason we're here at Barstools Studio.
By the way, shout out to dog Walk.
Yeah, thank you the dog Walk for making sure that we don't just spend one hundred grand just for five days of broadcasting. Then they also have given all of us much fewer passes.
Oh my god.
Again just to explain like the insanity of all of this. So like we got these press credentials, and even though we have six team members, only three of us are even allowed to enter the arena. Which is different than different than the orens.
This is different than Milwaukee. In Milwaukee, you had to have like an arena pass to get into that stuff, but there was tons of other stuff outside the arena. There was media row was outside the arena, there were tons of different things, like most of it was going on outside of the arena. Here, almost everything is going on outside the arena. So it is to your point, breaking the press. We've heard from other outlets that, and we've heard from people who couldn't great credentialed. There are
names of people. I can't say it because I didn't ask them permission, but there are names of people that you big names that did not get credentialed. People in independent media that absolutely should have been credentialed that didn't get it. We heard the New York Times had a shockingly small amount of seats.
It's not just them too, you know. To the independent point, And this is kind of the corollary to this. If you are Harry Sisson, life is good right now.
You know.
If you're one of those influences, you have a little DNC handler who follows you around everywhere. They had a custom lounge with wine and cheese and seats. Yeah, we don't even have anywhere to sit whenever we go into the DNC. They've got a little stage that they have erected inside the DNC that we're not allowed to When I go on the floor, I am sitting there being harassed by multiple people who are like, you gotta keep moving.
You got to keep moving, by the way, and oh, you've only got fifteen minutes left on the clock where you're allowed to be here on the floor. And it's not just me, it's like people who work at CNN, all these other people who are being trolled like this. Whereas Hassan Piker and Harry and all of these other like TikTokers like guy literally doing dancing moves in the Creator studio, He's allowed on the floor however long you want. So, I mean, I'm just saying it's pretty clear where they
think that their bread is being buttered. But I do think it will backfire in terms of like, when you treat the press like shit, they're gonna start pressing you a little bit. I mean, you had Dave in here. David, he's more forthcoming than most, and he's like, yeah, they gotta ask questions.
This is ridiculus.
It's it's interesting, uh that they're treating Hassan as well as you are, considering how critical he is of Democrats, but they recognize his audience. By the way, a little bit of news here, that's why Ryan was so Naia Amad sent me a document that was came in crooked. So uh, she looks she's filing charges against uh, the people who were the guy was whacking her with the UH with the Joe Biden we Love Biden.
For people who might have missed that what happened. So uh.
Nadia Ahmad and was one of the protesters on Monday night who held up the stop Arming Israel UH banner. And while she was holding it up, there's there's video that you can see where she's getting whacked by a we Love Biden sign, which is you know, the long cardboard poll, which is you know has its own warriors, own dark poetry to it. Of course, Uh, she has. She's just sent me the charging document where she is
looks like she's filing charges. I don't think that that we have completely successfully identified the person, but I think, you know, he's on video, Like eventually we'll find out who he is. I don't know. So anyway, well we'll follow here, we go, we go.
If that happens, all right, Should we take more questions?
Yeah, you know, we do want to get back out to the field more field reporting, sodent bring clips to you guys tomorrow. We are sorry that Crystal got her flight delayed. We're gonna try to grab some stuff with Crystal at the d n C tonight. Yeah, and then we'll be around tomorrow as well. But I think we'll do some more questions for our locals live chat before we get on at it.
Crystal is finally in the air, so we can en route somewhere somewhere in clouds.
This is how we felt about you, Producer Griffin. Yeah, we were just it was like a Plans trains.
Technical or the flight nightmares that we have all had.
As soon as you get in the air, when we wrap this, I'm headed over to the arena. I'm going to do Hassan stream for a little bit, so are you. So if anybody's watching and they do, and they're watching both, just tell the tell the Hassan Chat that I'll be there and maybe like forty five minutes, depending on how bad this carry.
Somebody up to the chat, take our from somebody from our chat, update the Hassan chat, appreciate and help some people to come over here and buy some subscriptions to us. All right, Uh, let's last thing, by the way, last time, we're going to take some questions here before we roll out from our premium subscribers. Don't forget. You can become a premium subscriber one month free trial DNC free at breakingpoints dot com. What have we got in the chat right now? Sager? Are we ever going to get a
JD interview? I have asked and I will keep everybody updated. The thing is is that no, no disrespect to JD. But I was like, I want you know you're going to prioritize so but we're working on that. For counterpoints, sure, yeah, you can have them, all right, So I'll put it this way. If I can get Trump, that's all I
really care about. So we're working on it. There's a lot of negotiations, a lot of text messaging and all that stuff that behind the scenes, just to give people a little bit of a taste of how difficult it is to nail one of these things down.
To be clear, what I just called you a douche? Did you?
I just hope?
Okay, it's a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. Why do you have to say that? That's what people wanted to know you?
Sometimes?
You know, I get comment sometimes being like I'm like, it's like unprofessional.
Stop reading the ship.
Alright, I know he always saw what do you do? Okay? All right, all right, but anyway, it's all in good fun. Everybody calm, everyone relaxes, Everyone relax.
All right, let's see what else do we get here. What do you think Bill Clinton will have to say? That's that's a good question. I don't actually know.
What's a question?
What will Bill Clinton say? So Bill Clinton is the primetime speaker, He's going to introduce Tim Walls tonight. I read Jonathan Martin column in Politico this morning about how they are hoping that Bill can kind of activate white working class voters to get them to come out. What do you think.
What I've heard from people close to Bill is that he is in a place where he has some good days and some bad days. Yeah like that. He looks great physically.
But he's old.
Just just performance wise, there are there are times where he just really struggles, uh, and there are other other times. Anybody who knows utterly people knows that this is the case. You have good days and you have bad days. That on his bad days, it's pretty bad, uh, And that it's going to need to be extremely quiet in the arena.
You know.
He's always had a bit of that hoarse voice. Yeah, but now it has degenerated into a real whisper, and so I think it's going to be a challenge to kind of hear him.
I didn't realize that he had such bad health problem.
He's seventy eight, born in nineteen, so.
He's not he's not that old like you know.
Yeah, but he remember it, didn't you have a quadruple bypass. He famously didn't eat a vegetable for.
The entire time. He loved that McDonald's. He love McDonald's. McDonald's.
Okay, let's see what else that we have got in here.
But also loved the jog.
Let's see, let's see right, never mind, I'm not even going in. It's just stupid questions about marijuana, which at a certain point guys like, can you just drop it? Yeah, it's yeah, exactly, like can we get a new bit from people? Uh, let's see, will you guys ever do a West Coast show? We're not sure yet. It's not currently on the calendar. One last question, come on from our from our premium subscribers. You guys got to give us.
So I'm making jokes about some some missteps that I might have used in my language about primary elections and something else that I might have said. Let's actually get a question that is in here. Okay, Emily and Kamala, if you were in a Kamala administration, what would you try? And now I'm getting too many questions, damn people, And what would you try and pass? And Ryan, if you were in a Trump administration, what would you try and pass? This is from nice nice zezer. Okay, go ahead.
It would be for me, it would be like Lena Khan antitrust big tech, breaking up big tech. But also so some of the Jonathan Height redesign, like pushing for redesign of social media apps that are targeted at children and adults.
Too interesting, right, all that, what would you.
Want to Trump break up the banks?
To Trump's not gonna break up the banks? What would you realistically get out?
Oh really?
Yeah, well okay, I would.
I would try to So for like forty years, we had a bipartisan consensus on basically neoliberalism. If you went from Reagan to Clinton to Bush to George Trump by Bush whatever, like the kind of regulation of corporations stayed about the same same people, like the Commission's SEC and what other you know, FTC, it would change control of which party had it, but it was they all vote
for the same thing. What I'd love to see is a new bipartisan kind of stranglehold on that where basically Holly and JD can can like basically run the nomination process for Republican commissioners so that even even if even if you the parties change hands, you're still getting aggressive anti trust enforcement and that's and that sort of thing.
I really wish that that happens. I also am very cynical if it does. I can't get my hopes up about any of these things. Okay, I think that will be the last one. Can we put the promo screen up there? Guys, We've got a one month free trial from our premium subscribers, so don't forget. Tomorrow we are going to do a live stream from here. We will react live to the Kamala speech, so you will have all of that. Crystal will be here at the desk and she and all of us will also be Maybe
we'll just make her answer all the questions two days. Yeah, yes, everyone's just got to ask ask questions of Crystal. So in the meantime, take advantage promo code d NC free Breakingpoints dot com. We are now all going to go down to the DNC film some content and get some exclusive stuff for all of you that we can show on tomorrow's show. Thank you, as always to our premium describers for enabling this, and we will see all of you later.
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