So anyone wants to understand what happened what didn't happen in the twenty four election. We all know the outcome, but what happened in those one hundred and seven days, what happened leading up to the infamous debate, what happened leading up to the convention, post convention, up until election night. My next guest, they understand it better than anyone. They've written a book called Fight. This is Gavin Newsom, and
this is Amy Parnes and Jonathan Allen. Amy, Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. You've written a hell of a book. And I don't say that lightly. I went through it in a quick hour and a half, almost two hours, and trust me, I don't read very fast, but it reads at an unbelievable pace. It's so well written, and of course it's so familiar because I fell a little bit adjacent so
much of the subject matter. But it's eighteen chapters. It's an impressive piece of work, two hundred and sixty three or so pages, two critical sections sort of before and after, and it begins your book Fight on June twenty seventh, twenty twenty four, set the scene for me.
So the way we set the scene in the book is in Nancy Pelosi's condo, not her condo in San Francisco, not her place at San Francisco, but in Washington, DC. And she's watching this debate alone, sitting on her sofa, looking at the television set. And she needed to be alone because she had I don't want to say a premonition,
but she had kind of a gut feeling. Normally, if you're a politician, as you know, there's a debate night party, and you go out and you talk to donors and activists and you have a good time and you celebrate, and you hope your candidate wins, and you say they
win even if they didn't win. And Nancy Pelosi was like, I'm going to watch this at home, and we take readers into how she had urged Biden not to debate Trump at all, and she had used a nice way of saying it to him, which was, don't lower yourself to Trump. But I think, you know, you get the feeling from the book. It's pretty strongly implicit, if not expressed exactly, that she thought this might be a problem.
And we take readers around among other Democrats that had the same feeling sitting and watching at home, Jim clydmer Jack and diet Pepsi, which.
Just a scene that Jack and diet Pepsi alone is worth it.
And Al Sharpton and don or John Morgan down in California, I mean in Florida, and so they're all watching this and they all have the same reaction at the same time, which is a complete disaster. And they're all the Democrats are texting each other and they are calling each other, and I mean, everybody who watched that debate had the same reaction. And some of them had it in the first ten seconds and some of them had it ten
minutes later. But I think it was immediately clear to a lot of people in the Democratic Party that Joe Biden just wasn't operable as a candidate anymore.
So, Amy, you know, you picked that why, I mean, in some respects, that scene also picked the book. The determination that you were going to write this book. I mean, in some respects, I'm my understanding is you weren't even thinking of writing a book necessarily on the subject matter, and tell that debate it sort of marked a moment of consciousness for the world, not just this country and certainly the Democratic Party.
Yeah, I mean John and I were out of the campaign book writing until that night. Our phones were blowing up, and our publisher a couple of days later was like, you guys have to do another book, and so here we are, and it was. We knew that it was going to be exciting based on what was happening that night, but we had no idea the twists and the turns of that campaign.
I think it depends on what your perspective is as to whether it's you know, thrilling and exciting versus reliving some torture. And at the same time, it's interesting, it's fascinating behind this scenes of how the maneuvering goes on, and like how Pelosi, for example, is trying to push Biden out but trying to leave his few fingerprints on it as possible, give him room to make his own decision.
You know, Obama's calling for an open convention. I'm sure we'll get to some of this, but yeah, I think that regardless of how you feel about the outcome of the election, it is impossible to understand where the next election is going. What works for parties, what doesn't work for parties unless you understand what happens behind the scenes.
And that's what we worked so hard to get was what were people actually thinking, what were their motivations, what were the conversations that you couldn't see on television?
And so I think the critical point and amy this is to me the most fascinating, particularly sitting where I'm sitting on the other side often of some of these discussions from agumbinatorial and an electoral perspective. But it's the remarkable access you have to hundreds and hundreds of people that are painting this picture, and how extraordinarily well sourced you were toy even have these scenes, these vignettes that
have been pretty bulletproof. There's been few, if any critics of that scene setting or anyone that suggested this book hasn't been locked down in terms of its fact checking. But this is what the fourth book, you guys wanted.
A book, our third campaign book. Between John and I, I think we pretty much have DC lockdown, and people, I think feel comfortable, which is a compliment to what we've done. They feel comfortable talking to us and sharing. I mean, our job as reporters has always been to get as close to the truth as possible, and that was sort of our aim here to bring, as John said, everyone into the room and give you a glimpse of
what was happening. We all saw everything play out, we didn't know the backroom conversations, and I think that's why this book has People have been so receptive. They kind of wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes, and we all knew but didn't know.
I'm going to break a key rule here. We'll just to ask a question. I don't know the answer. You obviously have your own perspectives on this. You have your own experiences with what was going on during that time period between the debate and when Biden dropped out and beyond that through the campaign. Did you read anything to say to yourself that doesn't comports.
It was extraordinary how accurate it was in every way, shape or form, And of course I know, but what was for me, I think the most alarming part was trying to go, who's the source on this, they talked to on this, you know, and who's who's omitted, who's sort of overplayed, and how everything sort of shapes out. But you know, look that experience on the twenty seventh that night the debate, I was in a very different
place than Nancy Pelosi and Cliburne and others. I was there expecting to go out and do the spin to talk about how successful that debate was. And I was out there doing the pre debate spin on the networks, and so everything about what did sort of painted a picture that I didn't have because I wasn't privy to all of those other scenes and who was missing who wasn't in that moment. No, I mean I was one of the first ten seconds for people. I remember standing up.
I looked around and everyone looked, and we all went something off within seconds. And then we were just twenty thirty minutes in and the text were just lighting up, and you could see that with all of us that we're supposed to be doing the spin, and the campaign was out already caucusing in the corner in the debate had just begun. So it was not a gross exaggeration to say everything you painted in terms of that picture
was deeply accurate. And so it's fascinating again just having your perspective and then the perspective of others sort of plate this kaleidoscope, this sort of sort of aggregated picture and reality, and of course that reality came to the fore, not just that night, but the expression of so much of what came out of this book was the internal debates.
Then you started to talk about not just that night and Nancy Pelosi's relationship to that night, Clive Ourn's relationship that night, but the relationship of the Biden campaign and their defiance after that night. They were going to stick in, They demanded loyalty, They tested that theory. Many of us are on the cving end of that. Talk to us about those next chapters and how things began to evolve or devolve from your perspective in terms of the post debate realities.
So I think that you make it the right point. Right Biden is to the accept that he was in a cocoon before, and I think he really was. There were not many people outside the top White House staff that saw him a lot, so for years we would get little anecdotes of I was with the president. It seemed a little off whatever, But if from a member of Congress or something who seas him once every six months as we were reporting the book, he didn't recognize.
Eric Swallwell been from California, who is on television literally half the day every day and had to be cued in the summer of twenty twenty three as to who Swallowell was when he met him at the congressional picnic. So you hear stories like that, but you know what happens from that moment is the Biden team digs in, totally digs in, and he digs in. And this is somebody who has wanted to be president for his entire life, right, he first started thinking about that, if not earlier, when
he first got elected to the Senate in nineteen seventy two. Yeah, which is you know, neither of us were born yet, and I have gray hair and Amy doesn't have gray hair, but she may soon, right, And so Biden wanted to be president forever he got the job. He believes all the people that doubted him over the years, including Barack Obama and others, were wrong and that they're wrong again. And so he's going to fight this out. And the rest of the Democratic Party looks at him and says, like,
this guy can't win. He wasn't going to. He was on track to lose before the debate.
Yeah, and you paint that picture in terms of where the polls were, things were trending prior to the.
Debate, and now it's unrecoverable. And then the question is, how do you ease this guy who has a big ego, who's stubborn, who has had, you know, some sort of non linear decline, right, better days, worse days, better hours, worse hours. How do you convince him that it's time for him to get out, especially if you're Barack Obama and the relationship there is totally tattered because Obama didn't support him at sixteen, didn't really support him in twenty.
How do you do it if you're Nancy Plosti and you have a good relationship with him, like.
Going back decades and decades, decades.
And decades they have. They come from the same place basically in the you know, the mid Atlantic. They're both Catholic, both big Kennedy fans, FDR Democrats, that they are close, and she's always respected Biden forgetting his hands dirty in politics, for like, you know, trying to get deals done. She always looked at Obama and said, this guy wants to float above and have other people do the work. And she respected Biden. She's like, how do you get rid of him, how do you how do you push him out?
But make it his idea, make it make him And so you see, and I think a lot of people are angry at Pelosi. Democrats are angry at Pelosi voters who loved Biden and thought she did so much to like push him. And the truth was, I think she was the only one that had the courage to get out there and keep moving the ball forward with little things she said on television, you know, But I mean it wasn't like a full on bum rush, right, So that all of this is super delicate, and Biden's just
not going to go anywhere. And then finally he gets really bad COVID and the numbers are looking terrible, and House and Senate members are telling him that they're going to lose because of him, and you know, he finally makes the decision that I think most other Democratic leaders understood was going to have to be made three weeks earlier.
And the one thing that I think has been difficult for the Democratic Party that hasn't been talked about a lot is either Joe Biden was not competent to run for president anymore, and therefore should have resigned the presidency too, because I I'm not sure you can make the argument that one is true with that the other or the view is that it's not that he wasn't competent to run or serve, but just that he was going to lose and Democrats decided to switch horses because they were
going to lose midway through a campaign. And I think a lot of voters, especially a lot of swing voters, just were not able to reconcile all of that and think to themselves, the Democrats are telling me the truth right now.
Yeah, So she of trust And I mean, obviously that's a big part I think of the through line in
the book. But the point of you're making about Nancy Pelosi playing an outside role here is interesting, and just reflecting on my own conversations with former Speaker Pelosi, is how sensitive she was to the parents that she was pushing him out, and how she went to great lengths and in the book you chronicle that, But even in the personal interactions with many of us, she would even unsolicited say, just so you know, I'm not pushing She
still says it to this day. She's very sensitive about that. But you, but you are the firm opinion that a two Nancy, I think is one of the chapters in the book that she she had a hand, a big hand to play.
I mean, we take you inside the campaign in that moment she goes on mourning Joe. She's a little kind of dishoveled for Nancy Pelosi because she's she's never disheveled ever.
Nancy Pelosi is like one hair out. Yeah, she's compared.
I mean, that moment is such a major moment. She goes on mourning Joe. He you know, she says he has a decision to make. He's already made his decision. You know, two days earlier, he was already in a letter was saying I'm running. He's telling people I'm running, don't count me out. And she's saying, no, you know, he has a decision to make. And so we take you inside the campaign. And in that moment, they're all likef you, what are you doing? We're finally like back
on track and you're you know, we're regressing now. And so it's really really kind of a dramatic moment of like they're finally on track, they feel like they're finally moving on and she pulls him right back.
I remember that, and I remember being out on the road for Biden, and I remember being on there with General Mallley Dylan. We'll talk about her role in all of this, and going on with the campaign team after that debate doing a little zoom saying, let's all buck up here in Bucks County. I'm bucking up. We're going to make the case coming from the debate that they really did try to put everything back together and put
a good face on it. Obviously, the President went back out on the campaign trail, had a few pretty good speeches at least relative to some expectation, that held things together, and then he pulled us all in. And you chronicle this with the governors. There's a meeting with all the governors, some in person, some virtually, and you set the scene where the reception didn't go as well necessarily as some
would expect. A few governors basically said, miss President, we may lose the Senate, we may lose our congressional seats. Tell me more about that.
So, uh, Michelle Luhan Grisham from from New Mexico, who was I think literally half your height, you.
See, would you be proud to acknowledge and twice is tough by the way.
Right, But that's the thing she's you know, she gets in there and she's basically like, we can lose a Senate race here, we can lose house seats that have been safe. We could you know, the whole thing could go away. And nobody's thinking about New Mexico. Right, that's not like one of the swing states.
That was not not on our minds when we walked in that meeting.
And certainly not the only one who expressed those kinds of points, yep. And not just in that meeting, but outside of that, expressing the same concern to him. States were that Democrats should not have had a problem congressional districts where they should not have had a problem suddenly looking you know, staring down the barrel of a huge problem, and you know, I mean, maybe you should take it away.
What was what was the rest of any Well, yeah, I did, I mean, I was. We all were asked, you know, what's the advice? I said, last thing I'm going to give is the president of United States advice. I can just tell you what I'm hearing on the campaign trail. But it was interesting the president, after he listened to everybody's advice and as you chronic, quite accurate. What's by the way, just for the record, there is nothing in private that exists. I mean, every sing we
might as well be you know, we're all wired. I don't know how. It's something I'm now a little more cautious reading your book that there's not a thing that's uttered in private that ultimately won't become to save.
Some of the good stuff for our next one, for next.
Yeah no, but it's a point of consideration. But that particular meeting was so there was so much that was leaked in that meeting, but you you, shockingly, almost down to the adverbs and pronouns, nailed aspects of that meeting.
But what was I think omitted not intentionally, but with sort of the defiance of the president in that meeting, he asserted himself after listening everybody said I am all in and really pushed back, and I remember, and you know, I could be accused of a lot of things, but I don't think I was accused of not being a
loyalist to Biden. And true to that form, there was sort of a pause after he said he's in and I started, I said, miss President, is okay that I applaud just to have his back at that meeting, and and I just felt, you know, at that moment, there was a vulnerability in that meeting. And there was vulnerability, obviously, the precarious vulnerability as relates to his electoral fortunes. And you know, I'm one of those guys. You go home with the one and brought you the dance. That's how
my father raised me. I think it was exact, literally, I mean indelible in my mind. Go home with the one you brought to the dance. And so I felt compelled. That's why I went out campaigning for him the next day, after doing the spin room and and being out there. But but you painted I thought a very accurate picture. So you start to see this thing start to fray a little bit. You start to see loyalists express themselves.
A few chapters in, you start talking about Nancy Pelosi, but now through her surrogates, perhaps most importantly Adam Schiff, and Schiff shifts a little bit and says.
What it's fascinating you want? So's he's a fundraiser on Long Island. The day that Donald Trump gets shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, basically about the same time, there's a fundraiser that Shift goes out to do for Alissa Slockin and Angela also Brooks, who are running for the Senate for Michigan and Maryland respectively. And Shift gets out there and basically says what he hasn't been saying publicly to these donors, which is that Biden needs to go and to your point, nothing's private.
A transcript of his remark transcript magically makes it into the hands of the New York Times. I have no idea who gave that transcript to the New York Times. But if you were Adam Schiff and you wanted to make this point publicly and wanted to but didn't want to be the first person the state in front of a microphone and say it, that might be a good way to do it. I don't know that that's what happened, but I'm just saying it might have been what happened.
The thing that didn't make it out from the same event was the transcript of Alyssa Slack and speaking right after Shiff, who is making kind of the opposite case, which is she thinks that that Vice President Harris will be problematic, uh for candidates on the ballot, particularly for her in Michigan. She talks a little bit about why, but she's basically like, she's to the left and that's going to be harmful to some of our candidates. And she says, but she's also like, she understands Biden is
also potentially an anchor. But she's much clearer about Harris, and she says, we're not going to skip over a black woman for the vice presidency. So if you're thinking about some sort of like deis ex Machina, new candidate gets picked out at an open convention, you're crazy, Jade Kritz Skershaw's anybody show exactly. So she's making that case, but she basically says Harris is worse. So the opposite of what Shift says, it never least until our book.
And then and then she kind of comes to the conclusion, which is, whatever we do, we have to do it now because savaging each other and within the Democratic Party is going to destroy everyone. And she says, so we need to make a decision and quote unquote suck it up, Buttercup.
And what's fascinating is at the same time you have Biden people his staff out there privately sending notes to donors saying and undermining his VP and saying, look, if you push him out, you're stopped with her.
And that was the hardest stuff to read.
I mean bad luck.
I mean you're her friend for a long time.
Yeah, I mean forty years, going back to before we were both into politics, before she ran for district attorney, before I ran for county supervisor, let alone mayor. So's it's difficult because there's so many aspects, and I want to get to how difficult it is because you know Nancy Pelosi's relationship with Kamala and obviously that plays a big role in this book as well, but also Barack
Obamas and his lack of support for her candidacy. You just referenced Slockin referenced some of the internal dynamics as it relates to Harris Biden campaign. But let's let's let's let's go back a little bit. Let's talk about the COVID because I think that was a critical point where the president gets COVID h there's a vulnerability that's expressed. Obviously, he's doing his best to put a good face on that debate, to sort of spin his way out. Has
a good couple at least from my perspective. Public Rallies has an interview which wasn't as effective perhaps and it was which became an issue. I remember the text messages coming again after that interview. I think it was with what who was a Stephanopholis, which was fine, but people just felt like it wasn't he didn't get out on the other side, and all of a sudden, now he comes down with COVID.
He couldn't remember whether he had watched the debate or.
Not, which was simple question, Yeah, did you watch it? And what are your thoughts about it?
I mean, I think that was sort of the nail in the coffin. And when you talk to people around him, they admit that you know him walking onto the plane leaving Nevada going home, and then he is in this very vulnerable spot where he's at home, he's surrounded by close aids, he's making the biggest political decision of his life, and you know, when you're not feeling well and then you're backed into a corner. That's just what happened.
And I don't think anybody knows just how sick he was, Like he was having real respiratory problems. People were wearing masks inside his house. I mean, he was not in good shape the final weekend before he made that decision, and.
He would make the case, and he made it to the Governor's directly, but made it very public and on multiple occasions as well that he obviously didn't feel well into the debate as well. And so look, you paint the picture and of him sort of reflecting in those private moments back at home. You also paint a picture of Jill Biden and a Hunter Biden that played an outsized role and saying, Dad, we got this right.
Yeah.
I mean it's Jill Biden is his strongest, most ardent supporter, obviously, and she really wanted him to. Hunter Biden, as we reveal in the book, he's playing a big role in saying you have to do this, You've got this, pushing him to go further. And he is so dug in, you know, and stubborn, you know the president Well, I mean, in that moment, he thinks he's the only one who can win. He still thinks he's there.
He believes that. And by the way, that's very sincere. Having proven that he could beat Donald Trump the first time, he sort of maintained that, and that was always his argument in private. Yeah you know, you know what other you say about me, you know, And he would try to be a little bit objective and have some situational awareness. I'm the guy, and he really firmly believed was the only person that could beat him.
Yeah, but undermining her. At the same time, I think a lot of people in her camp were a little bit pissed off. I mean, I know we're fast forwarding quite a bit, but saying, what do you mean You're the only one who could have won?
And let's talk a little bit about that, because I think it does connect to Jill Biden as well. You write in the book that.
You can tell you've read it.
Joe Biden, I told you, I'm not making this up. It was fantastic. And people that don't care about politics or think they might or might not be interested, this paints an unbelievably accurate picture of this race, this one hundred and seven day race in particular. Of course, you go a little bit earlier to the debate on June twenty seventh, but it relates to the issue of some of the animus that you express, as it relates to what is perceived and or is accurate about undermining Kamala Harris,
who was a very loyal Vice president. And you say that in the book that she really went to great likes to be a loyal representative of this administration, and that Biden primarily had turned the page on any animus from the early election primary. But Jill Biden may not have you suggest exactly.
She always and this is according to sources we talked to, she always held a little bit of that sort of animosity.
Never really let it go from a debate in.
Twenty nineteen, and you know a lot of people close aid said that they didn't have a very warm relationship throughout her time at the White House. That sort of led you into this process and what was happening. But yeah, a really kind of contentious.
Really he's still trying, Joe Biden is still trying to do clean up from perhaps the before the Trump Biden debate, the biggest knockout punch I'd ever seen in the debate, which was Kamalay Harris hitting him on bussing, which is why Jill Biden hates her. One of the reasons that Joe Biden hates her. Last week Biden did his first interview or did his first speech since he left the presidency.
He gets an award and he talks about moving to Wilmington when he's a little kid, and he sees a bus full of black children go by, and he uses the term quote unquote colored kids. He says, what we used to call colored kids, and like, I mean, we're all roughly the same generation. Nobody has said that in our lifetimes, and so it reminds you how old he is. But when you listen to the rest of the story that he's telling, he's saying, I ask my mom, why
aren't these kids going to school with me? And she says, because black children are not allowed to go to school with white children in Delaware. But decades later, Joe Biden was trying legislatively to make sure that black kids couldn't go to school with white kids. So, I mean, it's like he's still trying to do clean up duty from what happened on a debate stage with her on twenty nineteen, and of course stumbles all over himself and doing all right.
So that we move forward, as we stumble forward and figurative sense and we fast forward the decision to step down and you paint this picture minute by minute, quite literally, minute by minute, the inside of the conversations, which is remark I still back to everyone being wired, the conversations between the president and the vice president, the vice president saying are you sure, mister president, sort of maintaining that loyalty and firm footing, and then immediately organizing independent it
seems of her in another room, her at her pool house with Tony West, her brother in law, and the rest of Camelot. And we'll talk about that in a moment with a k the team to start organizing immediately a strategy to get people on board, but first Kamala Harris tries to get the president on board. Tell me about that.
So let's start with the pool house, because they're meeting ahead of this call, and you know, she's in a very precarious spot coming into that moment. She's basically telling everyone and she is, she's very loyal to him, but at the same time, she has her closest advisors meeting in her poolhouse at the Naval Observatory, trying to plan what to do in case.
And let me just inter if you there for one second, which is we asked one of our sources, We said, what are the odds that that all of these people are meeting in the poolhouse at the next to the pool at the vice president's residence, like her two chiefs of staff. Minon Moore is like running the convention is like zoomed in, Tony West is in there. Brian Fallon the coms got like, We're like, what are the chances
that they're there? And she doesn't know what And the person who talked to us said, you think there's anybody in the vice president's poolhouse? The vice president doesn't know exactly what they're doing. Yeah, So.
They're all gathered there when the call comes in, and so they're alerted to the call. She is on the call with the president, essentially saying are you sure? Are you sure? And he says yes, and she says, okay, are you going to endorse me?
And he says, you have my support kid, you have my support kid.
Yeah, And she knows that that's not really an endorsement. I mean, you know, you've been in politics long enough. And so she pushes him and he says, yeah, you know, I'm going to endorse you. But later and think about that moment, think about where the party is in that moment.
If you don't know the E word, it's basically the F word. Right. If you're in politics and you ask for an endorsement and you don't hear endorsement back.
Yeah, even if it's Wednesday and we're on Sunday.
So they were talking about doing it literally, not that same day, No, I'll do it later in the week. So quite literally, people.
Are licking their chops like wondering, is this going to happen? Should I enter? She's trying to get all the support.
Do you know anybody who was thinking about these things or talking about these.
No, nothing about it. So at that moment, I mean, so she's to her credit, I mean, this is this is a serious moment. I mean, this is and she's obviously preparing for this moment to be fair along the lines of the picture you pay.
But quietly, but quietly, he's not doing anything like that undermines him.
And by the way, that's an important point, and I can only attest to that too. Again, being sort of adjacent to all of this, they were either extraordinarily careful in that respect, or they were they were so deeply loyal. It could be both and and appears perhaps both hands, But there was never a sense that she was trying on her mind. And I could just claim to that in terms of personal interactions and everybody around her, of which you know, I have one degree a separation, will
get to some of those characters in a moment. So she gets she presses the president, and the president agrees that. Later in the day at least one of his visors, as you pay in the book, decides, well, we'll tweet something out.
But this requires two phone calls to get to that agreement. I mean, I think this is interesting, right, Like they get off the phone and there's still not an agreement about this. He says it's Sunday, and he's like, maybe like Wednesday or Thursday, and she's like, you have to endorse me. Now, everyone's going to get out of the gate. They're going to be calling their people, they're gonna be
trying to pick up delegates if you indorse. If you get out of the race and you don't endorse me for four days, that's four days of everyone thinking that you think that I'm not good enough to be president of the United States and you picked me to be your VP, which is her leaning on him right a little bit.
Saying like you keep your judgments, stay sir, right.
And so they get off the phone and her people draft up a statement for him to give and send it over, and then finally they get back on the phone and go, you know, it's sort of like Biden like, I'll do a statement about me and then I'll do a statement about you later today, and she's like, please
be like five minutes later. But the thing is even within that, I mean, there's this this incredible tension where Joe Biden is focused on taking a victory lap as the guy that magnanimously got out of office, and I think it looks like you can understand like he's been president of the United States, he's not gonna run. He thinks he's the guy that can win John.
And then I have such deep emotions about this because I remember getting First of all, I remember two things, Kurt. Why I felt just full disclosure, a little bit of disappointment, not getting heads up because all of a sudden just appeared on my feet. I'm like, what I mean, literally, I remember exactly where I was. I was just down the block. I was just I was on a walk.
The governor of the fifth largest country in the world.
Yeah, it was fine, but I also was But I was out there. I was hustling. I was out there when I was a little lonely after that debate, and I was out there doing these small you know, for the dely you know events, and you know, it's fifty people and I'm just you know, I'm trying to do that, be a father, uh and do my day job as governor at California. And look the way it played out actually made me feel better because there were a number
of others that didn't get heads up as well. I understood it, but I also understood the gap because I remember wanting to put out we did we put out a statement. Immediately everyone starts calling you could I mean, those are message text messages. But there was a moment or for me, just personally, there was I thought, he needs his space so we can talk about him, not talk about who's next. And so I understood that gap, and I understood his for from his perspective, I totally
understood it. This wasn't about the next thing. This was about the end of his presidency and his public service, and he needed that grace and space. And I remember we were putting together a statement. No sooner than that. But I started to get some phone calls from the same person that was making calls according to your book, to many other governors and elected officials across the country by the name of Vice President Kamala Harris.
And what did you say, reporters, we have questions.
So she was making those phone calls, and she had that list ready to go, and she's picking up endorsements at a fevered space. Hey, within a couple of hours we had endorse once, we had sort of reflected on a little space, put out a statement for Biden. We're in other governors in. You talk about Cliburn, he's in, but someone by the name of Barack Obama is not necessarily in. And there's a phone call I think, forgive me if I'm off at five point thirty PM to Cliburn.
Former President Obama wants to make it. Cliburn knows exactly why he's calling. Cliburn does what.
He quickly gets behind her because.
He knows Obama before he knows.
Obama's going to call him at five point thirty and he says to himself, I have to get behind her before this Obama call, and so Obama does call him. He says I've gotten behind Kamla and the call lasts less than a minute.
Obama at like five thirty that afternoon, so like five or so hours later, for five hours, still trying to like plan this like.
Mini shits back up, and I didn't Obama call you, Kerrie, didn't call me directly, but not directly. But this notion of a mini primary play is obviously a big part of the world, and it was sort of a big revelatory part of your book that people are like, whoa
interesting didn't know? We knew a little maybe about Pelosi's role, perception and reality there, but Obama playing that role not of immediately endorsing the vice president as Biden eventually did, but wanting a mini primary, and then also floating names like Whittmer and Moore as president and vice president just to sort of tease out what he thought would be
a very strong ticket. But not Harris bring me into understanding the history there, because I recall, wasn't that long ago that Kamala Harris decided not to support Hillary Clinton. Not an indictment, but decided interestingly after being very close to the Clintons we'll get to that in a moment, But going to the kickoff of Obama and his presidential rally, But it didn't seem that relationship was as strong as some of us and understood it to be.
Yeah, I think that Number one, I don't think Obama ever saw Kamala Harris's endorsement of him as important as Kamala Harris saw her endorsement of him, which I guess at some level is understandable given where she was in the world where he was running president right it. But but I think that she always wanted a closeness to
the Obama's and they never felt it. And you know, I think maybe best said as emblematic is the only time you really heard Barack Obama talk about Kamala Harris before she became a vice presidential candidate.
In your book, when you state he said.
She's the best looking attorney general in the country, which by the way, is not a high bar.
But it was in But in your book, you react, you you reflect on the fact she did not react. She did not react quickly or as well as but she also didn't say anything publicly, which may have created some risk.
She left. She let him hang there for a while, right, she let him twist and and like I mean, anybody's advisor would advise them to, you know, maybe take take a breath that, let that sit out there for a while, Let the news media keep writing about it because it's elevating her.
It certainly did, and his right.
And I am certain without having spoken to Michelle Obama directly about this, but having spoken to other people, Michelle Obama was not a real big fan of that moment.
You you write that in your book.
Said that, I know, But I also, you know, the other interesting thing that's going on here is so there's this sort of background like she's always wanted more from them. They don't love her, They're not showing her the love.
Election night. Election night, for example, she goes and wants to get into his it's two thousand and eight. So he wins, and they have a family and friends tent.
You paint this picture as well, tell us more and so all the closest members of the Obama team and family, mom.
Family, family and friends are in a tent. She tries to get into the tent and is turned away, but has a kind of fascination with Obama world. Even as VP wants to invite the pod save guys over, wants to always make sure that the Obama world people are included. Yeah, so she's really hurt in that moment. I get it, and we're told by I was hurt reading this.
I mean honestly, I didn't fully It's interesting for what I believed was some insight on all this, I didn't appreciate that that riff was is real. Yeah, particularly with David Platform. We'll get to David coming on board the campaign a little bit later, but keep going.
Yeah, but you know, she it needs mending the relationship. And this is source to people who know exactly what's happening, so it's not like we're just making this up. But she was really hurt, and so it needs a couple of calls between her and the former president to kind of come together to kind of understand what had happened. But she really really was leaning on his support.
And in that moment where she's making all the phone calls, right after Biden says you know, I'm gonna get out, she's making all these phone calls. She wraps so she gets Biden's support and gets me agree to endorse her on the phone.
By the way. Game change, right, that's a game change.
All those delegates game change, yes, right, they all got elected to be delegates.
And you get him, and then all of a sudden, you put your point, all the delegates are his. You get the whole operation. She's now able to sell the operation.
And Bill, Bill and Hillary Clinton within an.
Hour, and then Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Right, I mean, so which is you know, now you've got two of the four living presidents. There you go and Jimmy Carter's endorsement. You know, God arrests Jimmy Carter's soul, but his endorsement is no longer you know something you're negotiating on a one and and then she gets Obama on the phone and she wants his endorsement, and he says, I'm not going to put my thumb on the scale, which is of course, is exactly putting this thumb on the other side of the scale.
Especially later in the week too. It takes him several days days.
Yeah, and then they do this kind of cringey video.
Awkward calm, which you said was set up and she had to act like it was a surprise, And there's some discrepancy you describe who really set it up? Who didn't set it up? What do you make of all that? What do you make of your own discrepancy?
Well, were sources told us that. I mean, basically, I think Gena Mally Dylan, who was running the campaign, thought that there was an opportunity to get a viral video, make some money and not for her personally raising in the campaign. Because remember, the donors had choked off Biden, like the donors to his super pack, you know, uh features Forward had choked off the money. Nobody was setting up fundraisers.
For him, another pressure point on one of the reasons he decided to draw.
Right, he didn't have the money. They thought it might come back if he stayed in, but they weren't sure. When they're looking at red Ink, they're worried about making you know, potentially making payroll, even though there's a campaign that is likely to raise you know, a billion plus ends up raising about two billion, But in that moment, they're short on cash, and it's like, well, if we can get these two to do something that's kind of viral,
we can do it. But Michelle Obama doesn't want to go on camera, or you know, Barack Obama doesn't want to go on camera, so it ends up being their voices talking to her taking a phone call. She's smiling.
It's so phony looking, And I think the irony of that is that for the most part we actually see what like get what we see with Vice President Harris, like good, bad and different, Like she seems to me to be one of the more authentic people at that level of national politics, and that there's not I don't know, I just don't like. It seemed so packaged and so phony for someone who like you see when she's not,
like when she's struggling to do things. You can see when she's not comfortable in something.
She wasn't happy in that moment, you can see. Yeah, her aids kind of told us as much that she's she thinks she knows you have to be authentic in politics, and she knows that it's a very staged call she's not happy about.
Yeah, just the whole idea of it. I get it. And it's been particularly after as you've written, and now we've learned what didn't happen the days prior leading up to that. Let's fast forward a little bit. That's basically the first half of your book out sort of this moment, and then we pivot into the second half of the book and you pull in mar A Lago versus Kame Loot, as you describe it in one chapter, what's going on
in the Trump campaign at this moment. They seem a bit surprised that it was that quick, right to shift and transfer overwhelming support pretty quickly, with a few exceptions, and you chronicle one governor in particular, not even consequential in the context of the overall support she was getting. The momentum was there, it was real, and it was enthusiastic, and the folks out in Florida were feeling slightly anxious curious.
Give us a little bit of insight into how the campaign of Donald Trump, Los Avitas Wiles, we're feeling Trump himself at this moment.
It's a low moment for them. Yeah, you know, they are sitting there looking at the vibe, if you will. They see that Democrats are actually excited for once. You know, they weren't getting that from them at any point, and here they are huge convention, a lot of momentum. She's raising a lot of money, she is attracting big crowds. Biden isn't getting those crowd wasn't getting them before, so he's wondering, what do I need to do differently? Do
I need to shake things up? Do I need to bring back the people from my past?
And there's one particular character you referenced in the book by the name of her Lewin Deusk and he appears again, and he appears as an irritant of sorts to the two folks, the loyal soldiers los a Vetas and Wiles, who had been running this campaign in a way that a lot of folks were pretty impressed by, particularly by Trump's standards. I don't know if we're grading on a curve or not, but it seemed to be a well managed campaign, a little different than the campaign for your prior.
Trump is Trump, and there are different shades of Trump, but like you pretty much know where you're gonna get, which is something different every time you see and definitely you know, attracting news and sometimes undercutting himself and whatever. But the question is, like, what does the campaign do beneath him? Right? Are they able to react to him in ways that support him winning or do they devolve into chaos because they can't figure out what he's doing.
And we've seen Option B a lot like in his first presidency, even a little bit in the second presidency and in his previous campaigns. This time Wiles and las Avida, who didn't really know each other before the selection, but are both seasoned campaign professional and just.
To paint the picture because people know who the lassa vitas, this is the guy did swipboat against the Kerry campaign many many years ago. I mean in political terms, I mean, this guy is as tough as it gets. Yeah, brass knuckles.
Yeah, No, I mean yeah, if you're in a trench somewhere, you know, first of all, he's a veteran, but like if you're in a trench somewhere in politics, but you want that guy like he's he's gonna fight.
And meanwhile, Wiles is a well respected operative in Florida that's managed a lot of campaigns, including former governor or current governor, but formerly for Governor Ron de Santis.
Yeah, the daughter of Pat Somerle, pat legendary Pats who I am sure called many San Francisco. Yes, but he but Susie is somebody who has been involved in politics for her entire career and she is in her like
mid sixties now, uh. And she like got her first job in the White House, in the Reagan White House, like you know, kind of early in life, worked at the labor Department for him, and then went to Florida and worked for mayors in you know, Jacksonville, right, and like really sort of got to understand politics from the ground up to ransom high profile Florida statewide campaigns to Santus and she manages well, she's just just a good manager.
I mean well respected. You hear that. Across party lines. People do not underestimate her, and one should not. She's current chieve a staff of President Trump.
Yeah, and so Lewandowski comes in and he ran the sixteen campaign for Trump until he got booted from that, you know, sort of toward the end of the primary. And he comes in and he does what everyone does in Trump world, which is when they sense a little blood in the water. And Harris is rising the poles and Trump's falling back a little bit. And it's at this moment in like September, even into early October, it's basically a dead heat. And Trump is furious about this because he beaten Biden.
Yep, he felt it was over clobert him in the debate. In fact, you even paint a picture in the debate he kind of was a little more empathetic. He decided not to go in for the kill, even backed off even Trump during the debate.
You describe some kind of combination of of him recognizing that, you know, in this moment that like Biden has wounded and there's no need to kick him, and also understanding the political backlash of, as he puts it, looking you know, he doesn't want to look like an as he's thinking.
So this guy's I mean, he's feeling everything's going in his direction. This thing's will walk. And now all of a sudden he brings in the old pro to sort of stress test, his old buddy Lewandowski. That's going to come in and it's going to look under the tires because one of the vulnerabilities and one of the things Trump doesn't like you describe in your book is wasteful
spending profligacy. And it appeared, at least to Lewandowski and some of the critics out there, that Las Avitas had banked a little too much twenty plus million or something.
Well, I mean that's just like that's an absurd amount. Let me just think about like the idea that some campaign staffer has got twenty two million dollars coming in.
It's just like, on its face absurd. But this is the this is the stuff Corey Lewin is, you know, using against las Avita and and against Susie to some extent, Like the argument that Lewandowski is making to Trump is the reason that you are having trouble right now politically, the reason that Kamala Harris is rising your falling is that these guys are mismanaging your campaign and this and Trump wants that's the kind of thing that usually gets
Trump to act. And Susie and Chris go to Trump in mar Lago unbeknownst to Corey, and they sit down with them and they lay out what all the campaigns spending it is, and I think they lay out a little bit of who Corey is. And they all get on Trump Force one and Trump calls Corey over and and just I mean like a schoolboy. He's like at one point like kind of kneeling at the table.
I mean, you literally describe him kneeling at the table.
And Trump, you know, looks at Lewandowski and he points to Susie and Chris and he goes they're in charge, and you're going to New Hampshire, which is not doing New Hampshire at least, right, But I mean the base yeah, like stop, like go away, go away, like love you Corey, great guy, glad you support me, go somewhere.
Right.
For anyone who thinks that we just focus on the Democratic train wreck, no, no.
So I mean this is a sort of we pivot now in a section two of your book, Now, all of a sudden, we start to pull Trump into this narrative, and of course that anxiety. But he sticks with his team, and he shows, as you suggest in the book, a maturity in terms of a discipline of the campaign that he may not have been as president.
I think twenty twenty. I think twenty twenty had an effect on him. I think he learned some lessons from it, and in this moment and in others, he chooses stability over chaos for the purpose of winning the presidency. We do not always see that now now that he's in his second term, and we often see the opposite of that. But for that moment, he's got to win this race, and he lost in twenty twenty, and it burns him and he's trying to stick with the things that he think,
dance with the one that brought you. Yep, he's doing that with these campaign folks. And you even see it in the policies that he chooses where his aides are giving him strong advice on say, a national abortion ban, where they say, don't they have to do a slide show for him, and they're like, here's what the abortion laws are in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the swing states, and if you do a national abortion ban, you're taking
abortion abortion rights away from women in those states. But if you don't support it, their rights stay the same, and therefore that's you're taking it off the table as an issue in those states, or at least for a lot of the voters. Right. So you see him kind of learning from the last time. He supports early voting in this election, which he doesn't believe in, which he's going to try to take away now that he's president. But he is told, you get to bank the vote.
So again this money thing, it's like, once you have a vote in early, you don't have to spend money to convince that voter anymore.
So you describe and as we move further into the book, we have this dialectic between the Harris campaign and the Biden campaign and this notion around change. Obviously to every election is about change, or allegedly of elections about change. But it's difficult. You have a city vice president, it's been endorsed by President Biden, deep pride in the work that President Biden's done in his legacy. He wants that
legacy maintained. You described Trump showing a little bit I'm not going far as sister Shoulder moment, but shows some dexterity, a willingness to sut shift in terms of policy principles on the national abortion brand, kind of break with some of the mainstream of this party, more of the conservative elements of his party. But Harris had a more difficult time in that space. You described a moment in time that was indelible for many people, and that was her appearance on the View Take us through.
So we should start by saying that her aids had prepped her for this moment that she's about to be asked on the View. She's asked what would you change about Biden's presidency? And she says not a thing.
But she was prepped for that question.
She was prepped for that question.
Was that the answer.
It was not the answer. She was supposed to say that, but and I know you know this more than anyone. She was supposed to pivot forward and say, but you know, the future is going to look a lot different. And so when she says it, her aids are all like, what what just happened? We just we prepped for this
moment and they can't believe. But and that moment that the Trump campaign was looking for something in her words, to kind of make that point to say in a change election, she is exactly what we just had, and here she is saying it, and they put out an ad a few days later. I'm surprised it even took that long, but they put out an ad essentially saying, no, it's going to be exactly a representation of.
And this is at a time when the right track wrong track of the country was way off and all the inflation scars and including well, I mean across the spectrum, people really were looking for fundamental change.
And what a weird spot for her to be in, because you know, she was always trying to prove that she was a loyalist, and here she is she is a loyalist. She's very loyalist.
She was very loyal publicly, not just privately in that respect and express that and you paint a picture. And I think the outcome of the election may suggest that she did that in her own parallel on electoral peril.
But with Joe Biden pardon of the government, with President Biden breathing down her neck over and over and over again, saying no daylight, kid, he says it to.
Her, and that's an exact quote, exact quote.
The day of her debate with Trump. And this is the thing he's been telling her for years. There should be no daylight between us. Meaning you don't undermine me. You're my vice president. Yeah, you don't undermind me.
I mean, you know what I'm not. I'm not a political pun and I'm not an advisor. I don't even play a good one as a as a governor trying to be objective, But what the hell are you supposed to do? The minute she deviates from them, they'll pounce and they'll show all the videos of her shaking her head standing behind them at the podium when President Biden
makes an announcement. It's a very difficult position. And presumably they thought, and I say they because David Pluff now appears in the picture, an old hand, obviously one of Obama's principal consultants and campaign strategists. They merge with the General Malley Dylan, who is running the Biden campaign. They try to integrate the two. They have a long standing relationship Pluff and O'Malley, and so they're sort of they're dancing this dance. But they see the crowds. They see
Kamala Harris up there, a woman African American. She has changed. She seems to be the personification to change. They can make that case, maybe without even making the case.
But that's what they did with Obama in two thousand and eight. Right in two thousand and eight, which was also a change election, and George W. Bush was deeply unpopular and there was a financial crisis in the middle of that campaign. They couldn't have known that when they started with Obama has changed. But they knew Barack Obama represents physical change. You can see the change. You don't have to say it. They don't ever have to talk about his skin color, right, they don't have to talk
about his name like whatever. They know he that was their two thousand and eight campaign. This is twenty twenty four, and you have the same people running a campaign with the same concept here that people are going to look at her and say, well, that's the change I'm looking for. Like it's just it's as if they didn't watch the last sixteen years of politics or so, and they're running
cookie cutter campaigns. That would you say on like sort of this crazy like sort of data analysis as your strategy. And the thing that I always come back to as emblematic not necessarily causal, is the transad that was run against Harris.
So let's talk about that, because you just brought up the issue of data and it plays a big role
in your book. You really analyze that, I mean you you you sort of lay out how analytical this campaign was and the utilization of this billion and a half dollars, the two billion dollars that was the overall spend in this campaign, and how those researchers were put to work and it was a data to your point, data driven campaign and decisions were made or not made on that basis, And you just referenced an ad and interesting, I had an interesting Oval Office conversation at least with the chief
of staff, whiles. I was waiting to see President Trump in the Oval office with los A Vitas, and we talked about this ad. Now yeah, and and they they lay out what they perceived as a weakness, and they asked me, as someone from California, intimately familiar with some of the ongoing of the campaign, why didn't she respond more forcefully? And in your book you answer that question, You pose it and answer it by saying, well, the data bared out we didn't need to answer.
Bill Clinton calls he's watching, he's in California, he's watching the ads play out, and he picks up the phone and he's trying to reach anyone who.
Will, anyone who will get in touch with.
Gena Melly Dyllan And he says, you know what's going on. Every time I'm at a rope line, I keep hearing from people. Are they going to respond to this?
He's watching it in the ad? Is they them? Trust? So it's a it's an ad, a video an ad. Yeah. So she's in a candidate interview during the primary for the original election or the old election, and and she's asked a question around trans surgeries, and so there's a video of her expressing her policy point of view, so it's not assertion, it's an actual video. Uh. And the Trump campaign decides to play this up and it's on every sports program they're targeting young men. We'll get to
that issue of gender and a second. And it seems to be very effective, and based upon what I heard directly from the source, they said it was not just effective, it was off the charts effective. But the data wasn't bearing that out. That's Harris campaign.
That's what she generally. Jillian tells Bill Clinton when he calls up, and he's like, what's going on? But the data, but the data, the data.
Says says the trans ad is not effective against Harris. And even more than that, there they test their responses with focus groups and decide that none of the responses are effective. And like, I don't think you have to be a political genius to I mean, I'm sure you watched that ad the first time, watching the World Series or a football game or whatever, and your job dropped, and you're like, wow, we thought differently, But.
Like, oh, I was with the Clinton camp at the time, and we not only was at a Clinton camp full disclosure, we started doing our own research. This course happened in the research was self evidence. There was already articles coming out that this was a policy there was existed when Trump was president United States. So there you have a vulnerability. He's attacking the vice president for a position that he was allowed to advance as president. So you had an
opportunity to push back there. But also we started doing our own research because this was at CDCR in the state of California. What's the origin story of this policy or was there a settlement? It was court and post settlement, she was ag she was compelled to advance that settlement based upon a judge's decision. And so all of these areas of opportunity to push back. And I think we all expressed strong opinion. I'll leave it at that in hope and expectition, but they chose not to.
Did you get a similar response?
We just you know, well I got a how about this not dissimilar response? Is that a political politician trying to answer a question?
I think we got it.
But it was interesting, but it played, it goes, It goes to some of these key moments because you you mark this as a key moment, and you mark that David Pluff came in saying, this is election all about key moments. It's about debates, it's about the convention. It's about these sort of magical moments that move in your direction or in the opposite direction. But that seemed to play an outside because they put what thirty plus million dollars into that one ad alone.
Correct, Yes, I don't remember the exact amount, but it was a ton because it was playing everywhere and it was playing nationally. Right, it's playing again the World Series NFL like Monday Night Football, right. I mean, it is hitting a ton of yours and hitting them over and over and over again. I think one of the things that's sort of interesting about this I would just take it. You know, this sort of data thing. I mean, look,
you're watching football. They tell you to go on fourth and two because the data tells you to go, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Right, But if you're the coach, you should know my offensive line is actually kind of they're huffing and puffing right now, and the quarterbacks got a bad ankle. And maybe even though the data says I should do it, I'm watching reality. Yeah, so you see the trans ad and it's like her
own words, it's like four or five different positions. Right, state funded trans surgery for undocumented immigrants who are in prison, Yes, and they them versus.
He's what a tagline?
What a tag Probably the most potent political ad of the last several cycles.
And so I you'd be hard pressed to disagree.
So I go back at this data stuff, and I'm like, so, where does this come from? And I think it's this this myth that grew out of two thousand and eight that Barack Obama's campaign team made Barack Obama president. And there was a whole lot written. There were magazine articles and books and about how the brilliant people around Barack Obama made him president, and none of it stopped to say,
maybe Barack Obama was a unique political talent. Maybe he was running an election where there was a super weakened incumbent party, right. I mean, it was all like, oh, we had this great data team, that must be why he won. Interesting, And I'm like, I don't know, is that really your conclusion why Barack Obama was president of the United State. It's not mine.
You're talking about my friends here. Jonathan David's a good friend. I'm not there they're incredibly talented. But I appreciate your point. I'm not the broader point about you know what lessons we learn and you know and and who is I mean, it is a great point. I mean, is it the candidate or is it the campaign?
Well, I would go back to David and I would say, I'm not knocking David. David was the campaign manager on that two thousand and eight campaign. They ran a really good campaign. I'm just it's the people that like come out of that learning like, oh, it must have been this. I don't think if you talked to David Pluffy would tell you Barack Obama was president of the United States, because David Pluff's a genius. And I'm not saying David
Pluffy would never acknowledge that. No, right, So, I mean, but I do think that you come down a generation or two and the people that worked on that campaign or around it kind of draw some.
Of the right. I'd be one of them, right, I mean, I would revere that insight they would have, and as a candidate I would look to that, I would, and you would be remarkably deferential. I mean, and look, she had one hundred and seven days this thing and by the way, I thought, and I humbly submit, I thought she won ran under the circumstance. It's a pretty remarkable campaign. But you paint a few circumstances that test that theory
in one of them. As we move towards two seventy and getting near page two sixty eight, the conclusion of your book two hundred and seventy Electoral Votes, I'm referring to is Texas. All things Texas, this notion that, all right, he's playing these ads, He's going after young men. Trump's also sort of playing into an archetype and a cultural thing. He's got Alk Holgan there, he's got him ripping off his shirt. He's got Dana White, He's at UFC events.
He's going because Baron, at least Trump claims. Baron says, hey, there's this thing podcast. You should go on him, Dad, And he starts going on all these folks. And then there's this guy by the name of Joe Rogan. Rogan plays a seemingly outsized role not just in the campaign but also in your book Texas Hold him.
Yeah, So this rally happens in Texas, and everyone's questioning, why is she going to Texas in the final Friday Friday Night.
We're gonna we eventually Democrats will take back Texas. It's near the end of the campaign. There's high school football and there's some tonal issues there.
Yeah, but she goes there and everyone's like, why why not Pennsylvania, why not anywhere else? She's in Texas. We find out in this book we do reporting, they move the this, they create this entire rally to be in Texas on Friday night because they want to be within striking distance of Joe Rogan's podcast. He doesn't go anywhere.
He's in Austin, Texas. You have to find anywhere Trump had to go visit him, you man of Vice.
Yeah, and so they are in this back and forth with his people. When do we go When a huge back and forth, they finally say they're they're trying to to arrange one date. And finally this is at the end of like a huge back and forth, and they finally come to the conclusion that, you know, he is taking a personal day.
So Rogan tells that Harris campaign folks, according to your sources in your book, Uh, he's not available that Friday because he has a personal day day. What it turns out.
President Trump is there on that day, so.
He had presumably that personal day was already filled. Lock locked in with former President Donald Trump in person for a three hour sit down with Joe Rogan. Meanwhile, Harris is there on a Friday night expecting Beyonce to come out to sing. Uh, And Beyonce comes out and.
Does not sing, and we ended up.
You know, but you rightfully make the case Beyonce is not a bad Now it's about as good as even you acknowledge in your book.
Pleased. You know, when my wife and I were knew of house hopefully come to sing it well said at the ceremony.
But there was some expectation worst case, because she's going to come in and say she ends up just giving a speech.
She just gives a speech, and so it's just wonderful. Nonetheless, I'm sure she would love to have had Beyonce give a speech anywhere, anytime. Not a lot of swing voters in swing states at the Texas rally watching Beyonce, right, But that's it.
But he explained, by the way, for those that I never knew this, I was wondering you so you paint this, there's there's for those who are wondering why didn't she go on Joe Rogan. There was a lot of effort the Harris campaign made to try to go on. There was sort of negotiation that were logistics, uh, and there was this sort of anchor event that would lead to conclude that she sincerely wanted to go on the Rogan.
I think she sincerely wanted to go. There was internal debate within the campaign about whether to try for that or not, and the people who wanted to want one out in that debate. But it was it was not like a like a ninety five to five, It was
like a fifty one to forty nine. But once they committed to it, they committed to it so much so that they literally put her in Texas in October in the stretch run of the campaign for a rally, you know, and said that it had to do something with abortion rights, you know, like, oh, well, we can do an abortion rights rally anywhere. Texas is a big state matters for that. Yeah, whatever the cover story was, I actually think that what happened here is that there was some interest on both sides.
They had a negotiation and it fell through, and then you know, there's some some finger pointing on both sides because I think both I think both sides legitimately had some interest in doing it, and sometimes things fall apart. But the fact that they made this entire rally, and you know, to try to get this done when it wasn't already like like siin sealed and delivered is it's kind of jaw dropping.
So the Rogan thing plays an outsize and you know the idea, and that people can go to. What happened? Why did she lose? Was it the view the unwillingness to separate from someone that was difficult to separate from because he didn't want her to separate and she wanted express loyalty. Was it the nature of incumbency, and there's an incumbency penalty of sorts, and you saw that globally, though not exclusively globally, but you saw it in a
lot of other countries. Was it inflation? Was it immigration, which obviously played a role in this campaign. Was it interest rates which people often forget about car loans and home loans, mortgage rates and the like. But all this time she wasn't thinking about that. She was confident she was going to win.
She goes into election night thinking she's going to win. Same with Tim wall so much so that when they're told they can't believe it, they can't find the words.
And so you describe that those two scenes, Yeah, of Tim Waltz getting getting alerted that they've lost, but also Kamala Harris being told that she's not going to win. They had prepared in every way, shape or form, confident. You got that Iowa poll, you high highlight and we all felt it. I felt it.
Did you think this was a winnable race?
Yes, he did. I think it absolutely was a winnable even with all those factor with all the factors of the five eyes, I would add Israel endto I mean all those things were, I mean huge headwinds, unquestionably, but I mean she there was energy there. You know, I was, You're out on the campaign trail, you felt it, there
was there was something different happening that said. I mean, in hindsight, we can look back and we can make a different argument because we're all experts and geniuses in hindsight. But going into election night, I was sixty forty she was going to pull it off. I felt the same way they felt. And again everyone, you know, people on the right watch and just rolling their eyes laughing that that I'm saying that I'm just being transparent and honest and and and uh, you know, it was going to
be close. But she was really confident that that sort of marked to two seventy. And Trump, meanwhile, was reasonably confident. Cautiously I think was the you quote of people saying cautiously, sir.
He was nervous.
He was nervous that night.
He kept he thought he was going to win in twenty twenty.
Yeah.
Right. His team had told him, if you hit a certain threshold nationally, right, if you get whatever, the number was, sixty five million votes nationally, your president. And he hit that number and he lost. And the reason he hit that number and lost is because the increase in the Democratic number of votes in twenty twenty from twenty sixteen was like twenty one percent. It was I mean, the participation rate in twenty twenty was insane. Everybody's home, they
had nothing else to do, they could vote early. You know, states made accommodations for people to vote, and so Trump was I think this is the part of the reason that he kept going out there and saying that people were cheating and obviously it benefits him to say that and has continued to benefit him. But I think part of the reason is he was looking to explain what didn't make sense to him because he had lost in
twenty twenty and been so shocked. And in this book, readers, will I think, be interested in spending those last few minutes with Kamala Harris. We take you inside her sort of personal quarters in the vice President's residence. Yeah, and what she's kind of concluding that night, and I think, I think it's very powerful and I don't want to that away.
The big bombshell I think is that she was gas lit by her own campaign.
Meaning they gave her no indication otherwise that she was going to get there correct.
Even though their final tally, their final projection of the race had her losing.
And so that leads to our conclusion the epilogue. And what's remarkable the epilogue is how contemporary it is to this moment we're actually sitting in, which suggests this thing either it keeps writing itself or you just quite literally
finished this book. The lessons learned. The word gaslighting came up in this book over and over and over again, and how the American people may have felt, and I know there's other books being written in this space and how people feel like, you know, I imagine I'm among them, that people were not expressive enough about where Joe Biden was in terms of what was perceived or real as
it relates to his physical health or cognitive decline. I of course never experienced any of that, quite literally, so I would have been lying if I played to that, except one event which you reference in the book, and that's the fundraiser, that infamous George Cloney fundraiser where it was clear and that for me, jet lag was as easy a way to describe that as anything else. But it was clear that something was a little bit off
or different. But this notion of gaslighting in the campaign from an analytics perspective in the sense that and having conversations particularly you know, we have the vice president or vice presidental nominee, Governor Walts on this podcast. I mean, you're right, they really he was absolutely confident that they were going to pull this thing off.
Yeah, he can't find the words. We take you inside his hotel room at the Mayflower in Washington, and his wife has to say something because he just he went in so confident about their ability and the fact that they were going to win. Can't believe it. But I think there is a bigger discussion happening right now about so there.
Yeah, that's the epilogue. You talk about that one of the lessons learned? And what do you I mean as is independent? You know, look, you have insight. That's next level. I mean, I feel like like I'm you're two psychologists or something, and you know more about us than we know about ourselves. You certainly know everyone's opinion about ourselves, which I can't even handle. That's another I actually have to go to therapy for all of that. And you know that's why you every day.
If you think we cut the newsomb chapter, yeah.
No, I've my name's barely mentioned. So it's thank you by the way for that. Otherwise I wouldn't have you on. But but what are the lessons learned? I mean, honestly, when you look at this, do you I mean the Democratic Party right now? I've had strong opinions about where I think our party is right now in terms of just truth and trust. The sense that we aren't being truthful, that's a perception that we were gas lighting the American people. They don't trust us on issues and policies and the
ability to deliver. And if you're not winning on truth and trust, that's a brand that, as I've said, and I've got a lot of blowback for, is a bit toxic at the moment. At the moment, But what do you think this moment represents And do you think it's important for folks like me that are current public servants that represent portions of the Democratic Party to really take this book and read it and reread it and take what lessons from it.
Yeah, I mean, we write these books for people to gain knowledge about what happened, but it's also a playbook about going forward and what Democrats and Republicans can learn. And one of the things I think they think is that, I mean, first of all, there needs to be some accountability, right like, someone either President Biden or someone close to him, has to come out and say, look, this is what happened, because the Democratic Party can't move forward until people address
it has actually happened. And voters, to your point, don't trust the Democratic Party right now. I mean, I think a lot of people think that the Republican Party obviously is gaslighting the American people right now too. But let's have a discussion about what happened in this past election, and then there needs to be some accountability on where the party goes from here and speaking to voters and
actually connecting to voters. So many of these people who've supported Trump used to be professional Democrats, I know, and yet they lost their way.
Look, I think it's fundamentally one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast is that I'm concerned that we're taking the wrong lessons or not even absorbing any lesson from these elections. Concluding, by the way, just the anomaly that was a COVID election. It's one thing to take away the wrong lessons in a mid term. It's another to look at these general elections and not necessarily absorb a deeper understanding of what played an outsize role and what didn't structurally and organizationally.
So that's episode two of this podcast. We'll talk about our twenty twenty book Lucky, that was largely ignored that did not sell as well as this one has.
Which is the point you were making that it was a lucky outcome.
Right, There was a pandemic in the middle of that election, and the president of the United States went out President Trump to a podium and said things that were untrue, that were wild, that underestimated the physical, you know, the psychological and physical toll of the disease, and undermined himself a lot, while Joe Biden was the way Republicans would say, is hiding in his basement, but largely was off the campaign trail, right, and then he wins that election by
a very narrow margin. And I think the Democratic response to it was we crushed Trump. He's gone. And the Trump response was, they barely beat me, and I'm coming back. And so, you know, I think that when you say that Democrats have lost trust, it's not just that they've lost the trust of Republicans and independence. If you look at the polling, they've lost the trust of a lot of Democrats too. Yeah, And the first thing for any party is to kind of rebuild its trust among its
own and then sort of branch out. And I mean, I'm curious to see what the twenty twenty eight candidates do, and maybe you will shed some light on this or know some people who might what they're going to do to modernize the Democratic argument for what the country should look like five years from that, ten years from now. What are you doing with entitlement programs? What are you doing with taxation? What are the new technologies and how do they affect us? You know, we haven't seen that yet.
No, we haven't, and we I think what Ezra Clin did you know his book abund It's interesting sort of you know, there was a very self it's a very not self critical, but it is a very critical look at sort of progressive governance and accountability that also needs to be, you know, well laid at the hands of all of us in these quote unquote blue states and the ability to deliver big things in a way that's timely, inefficient. Look, this book is timely, a remarkably efficient use of two
hundred and sixty three plus pages. Uh. It is a great read. And I encourage anyone whether you like politics, don't like politics, but you're just interested or want to know what world we're living in the context of the political life. Uh and and leanings. Uh, this is a must read. Fight Amy, thank you for being here.
We have one question for you.
I refuse to answer. What is it? What?
What lesson would you take away from this election?
No?
I mean I think the lesson is we need to have frank and honest conversations, and there's no space for that. And so I have a tactical point, and but I you know, look I one of the things that you know, just what are we done?
We're not done?
People want to hear. I thought.
I hosted the Democratic Governors Association for our winter event in Los Angeles, not an in Diamond. These are amazing governors. It's a great organization and it's played it outside wall, saving me in my recall campaign. I was so eager to have this conversation. What the hell just happened? The entire three days was fundraising, and all of us as governor's sort of desperate to find time to start to
have an honest, reflective conversation. And you have some of those twenty eight candidates in that mix you had this year. There you had Pritzker, There, you have Whitmer. There by the way, there's five or six others likely to run, and all of them had their own unique experience on the road and stress tested messages, heard that feedback. We
have not had that conversation. I was so pleased to have Tim here, and he was the only exception unsurprisingly because he could regale us to a little bit of the inside of being out on the campaign trail, on what it was like and how exhilarating it was for him, which I also loved to that he loved being out there. That was absorbing. I think to all of us, there's a joy, and he felt that joy and that energy, and I think that was the disconnect and so understanding
that minding that gap between performance and perception. Where we are and where we're going, where the American people are, and where we are as a party. What is our party? Who is who are leaders you describe? Obama? Clinton? Is it Pelosi? Is it Schumer? Is it Jeffries? Who is there a party? Is it the d n C? Is it Martin? All of that we need to work our way through.
Thank you.