And, This is How The 2024 Election Was Won with Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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

(00:23):
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,

(00:44):
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,

(01:05):
and it begins your book Fight on June twenty seventh,
twenty twenty four, set the scene for me.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
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,

(01:36):
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

(01:57):
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

(02:21):
Jack and diet Pepsi, which.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Just a scene that Jack and diet Pepsi alone is
worth it.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
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

(02:46):
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.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
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

(03:18):
certainly the Democratic Party.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
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,

(03:40):
but we had no idea the twists and the turns
of that campaign.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
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

(04:06):
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

(04:27):
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?

Speaker 1 (04:38):
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

(04:59):
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.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
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

(05:37):
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.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
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.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
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.

(06:40):
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

(07:01):
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

(07:26):
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

(07:49):
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

(08:12):
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

(08:35):
debate realities.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
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.

(08:58):
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

(09:18):
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

(09:41):
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.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, and you paint that picture in terms of where
the polls were, things were trending prior to the.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
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

(10:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Going back decades and decades, decades.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
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

(10:53):
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

(11:14):
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

(11:35):
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

(11:55):
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

(12:15):
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.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
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

(12:44):
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

(13:04):
two Nancy, I think is one of the chapters in
the book that she she had a hand, a big
hand to play.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
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.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Nancy Pelosi is like one hair out. Yeah, she's compared.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
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

(13:54):
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.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
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

(14:34):
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

(14:55):
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.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
So, uh, Michelle Luhan Grisham from from New Mexico, who
was I think literally half your height, you.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
See, would you be proud to acknowledge and twice is
tough by the way.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
That was not not on our minds when we walked
in that meeting.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
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.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
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

(16:18):
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.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Some of the good stuff for our next one, for next.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
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,

(16:56):
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

(17:18):
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

(17:39):
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.

(18:03):
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.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
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.

(18:36):
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

(18:58):
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

(19:22):
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

(19:44):
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,

(20:05):
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

(20:25):
need to make a decision and quote unquote suck it up, Buttercup.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
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.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
And that was the hardest stuff to read.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
I mean bad luck.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
I mean you're her friend for a long time.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
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

(21:12):
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,

(21:33):
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

(21:57):
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.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
He couldn't remember whether he had watched the debate or.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Not, which was simple question, Yeah, did you watch it?
And what are your thoughts about it?

Speaker 3 (22:10):
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,

(22:30):
and you know, when you're not feeling well and then
you're backed into a corner. That's just what happened.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
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.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
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

(23:08):
outsized role and saying, Dad, we got this right.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
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

(23:34):
can win. He still thinks he's there.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
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.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
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?

Speaker 1 (24:12):
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.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
You can tell you've read it.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
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

(24:42):
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

(25:04):
that Biden primarily had turned the page on any animus
from the early election primary. But Jill Biden may not
have you suggest exactly.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
She always and this is according to sources we talked to,
she always held a little bit of that sort of animosity.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Never really let it go from a debate in.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
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.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
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.

(26:04):
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.

(26:25):
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

(26:47):
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.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
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

(27:17):
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

(27:37):
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.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
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

(28:13):
what to do in case.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
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

(28:37):
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.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
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?

Speaker 1 (29:09):
And he says, you have my support kid, you have
my support kid.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
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.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
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.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, even if it's Wednesday and we're on Sunday.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
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.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Are licking their chops like wondering, is this going to happen?
Should I enter? She's trying to get all the support.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Do you know anybody who was thinking about these things
or talking about these.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
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.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
But quietly, but quietly, he's not doing anything like that
undermines him.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
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

(30:34):
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.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
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

(31:11):
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.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Saying like you keep your judgments, stay sir, right.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
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

(31:46):
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.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
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.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
The governor of the fifth largest country in the world.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
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

(32:45):
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

(33:05):
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.

(33:28):
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.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
And what did you say, reporters, we have questions.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
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,

(34:08):
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.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
He quickly gets behind her because.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
He knows Obama before he knows.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
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.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Obama at like five thirty that afternoon, so like five
or so hours later, for five hours, still trying to
like plan this like.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
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,

(35:13):
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

(35:37):
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

(35:59):
some of us and understood it to be.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
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,

(36:24):
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.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
In your book, when you state he said.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
She's the best looking attorney general in the country, which
by the way, is not a high bar.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
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.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
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.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
It certainly did, and his right.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
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.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
You you write that in your book.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
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.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
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.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
You paint this picture as well, tell us more and
so all the closest members of the Obama team and family, mom.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
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,

(38:10):
and we're told by I was hurt reading this.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
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.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
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.

(38:48):
But she really really was leaning on his support.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
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.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
By the way. Game change, right, that's a game change.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
All those delegates game change, yes, right, they all got
elected to be delegates.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
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.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
And Bill, Bill and Hillary Clinton within an.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Hour, and then Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
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,

(39:45):
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.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Especially later in the week too. It takes him several
days days.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah, and then they do this kind of cringey video.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
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?

Speaker 2 (40:13):
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

(40:36):
features Forward had choked off the money. Nobody was setting
up fundraisers.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
For him, another pressure point on one of the reasons
he decided to draw.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
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,

(41:05):
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

(41:28):
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.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
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.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
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,

(42:22):
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

(42:45):
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

(43:08):
himself at this moment.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
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.

(43:30):
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?

Speaker 1 (43:41):
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

(44:02):
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.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
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.

(44:33):
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.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
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.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
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.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
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.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
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

(45:41):
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

(46:02):
Santus and she manages well, she's just just a good manager.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
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.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
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

(46:41):
basically a dead heat. And Trump is furious about this
because he beaten Biden.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
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.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
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.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
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

(47:41):
some of the critics out there, that Las Avitas had
banked a little too much twenty plus million or something.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
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,

(48:10):
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

(48:33):
and just I mean like a schoolboy. He's like at
one point like kind of kneeling at the table.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
I mean, you literally describe him kneeling at the table.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
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,

(49:05):
great guy, glad you support me, go somewhere.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Right.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
For anyone who thinks that we just focus on the
Democratic train wreck, no, no.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
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.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
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

(49:51):
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,

(50:14):
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

(50:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
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

(51:10):
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

(51:32):
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.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
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.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
But she was prepped for that question.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
She was prepped for that question.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Was that the answer.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
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

(52:27):
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,

(52:50):
it's going to be exactly a representation of.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
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.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
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.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Her, and that's an exact quote, exact quote.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
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

(54:13):
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

(54:35):
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.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
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

(55:07):
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

(55:30):
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.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
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

(56:16):
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

(56:41):
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

(57:03):
data bared out we didn't need to answer.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
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.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Will, anyone who will get in touch with.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
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?

Speaker 1 (57:24):
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

(57:46):
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

(58:09):
bearing that out. That's Harris campaign.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
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.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
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,

(58:40):
and you're like, wow, we thought differently, But.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
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.

(59:04):
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

(59:25):
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.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Did you get a similar response?

Speaker 1 (59:40):
We just you know, well I got a how about
this not dissimilar response? Is that a political politician trying
to answer a question?

Speaker 2 (59:50):
I think we got it.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
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

(01:00:14):
play an outside because they put what thirty plus million
dollars into that one ad alone.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
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,

(01:00:39):
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,

(01:01:02):
state funded trans surgery for undocumented immigrants who are in prison, Yes,
and they them versus.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
He's what a tagline?

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
What a tag Probably the most potent political ad of
the last several cycles.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
And so I you'd be hard pressed to disagree.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
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,

(01:01:43):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
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,

(01:02:40):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
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.

(01:03:06):
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

(01:03:28):
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

(01:03:51):
plays a seemingly outsized role not just in the campaign
but also in your book Texas Hold him.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Yeah, So this rally happens in Texas, and everyone's questioning,
why is she going to Texas in the final Friday
Friday Night.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
He's in Austin, Texas. You have to find anywhere Trump
had to go visit him, you man of Vice.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
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

(01:05:09):
finally come to the conclusion that, you know, he is
taking a personal day.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
President Trump is there on that day, so.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Does not sing, and we ended up.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Pleased. You know, when my wife and I were knew
of house hopefully come to sing it well said at
the ceremony.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
But there was some expectation worst case, because she's going
to come in and say she ends up just giving
a speech.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
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,

(01:07:10):
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

(01:07:30):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
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,

(01:08:08):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
Did you think this was a winnable race?

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
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,

(01:09:21):
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

(01:09:43):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
He was nervous.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
He was nervous that night.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
He kept he thought he was going to win in
twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
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

(01:10:24):
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

(01:10:45):
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

(01:11:06):
that away.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
The big bombshell I think is that she was gas
lit by her own campaign.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Meaning they gave her no indication otherwise that she was
going to get there correct.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Even though their final tally, their final projection of the
race had her losing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
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,

(01:11:51):
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

(01:12:12):
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

(01:12:33):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
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

(01:13:32):
to go to therapy for all of that. And you
know that's why you every day.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
If you think we cut the newsomb chapter, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
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,

(01:14:00):
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

(01:14:24):
that represent portions of the Democratic Party to really take
this book and read it and reread it and take
what lessons from it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):
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,

(01:14:55):
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,

(01:15:16):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
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

(01:15:53):
deeper understanding of what played an outsize role and what
didn't structurally and organizationally.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Which is the point you were making that it was
a lucky outcome.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
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

(01:16:34):
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

(01:16:56):
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

(01:17:17):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
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

(01:17:47):
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

(01:18:08):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
We have one question for you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
I refuse to answer. What is it? What?

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
What lesson would you take away from this election?

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
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?

Speaker 3 (01:18:42):
We're not done?

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
People want to hear. I thought.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
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

(01:19:12):
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

(01:19:34):
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,

(01:19:57):
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

(01:20:18):
there a party? Is it the d n C? Is
it Martin? All of that we need to work our
way through.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
Thank you.

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Gavin Newsom

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