June 28, 2024 • 45 mins
In this bonus episode, Nate and Maria discuss last night’s debate between President Biden and former President Trump. They argue that Biden should drop out of the race, and discuss what might happen if he does.
Further Reading:
“Joe Biden Should Drop Out” from Silver Bulletin
“CNN Presidential Debate: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump” from CNN
“Important Post Debate Analysis" from X user @drewjanda
For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:
“The Leap” from Maria Konnikova
“Silver Bulletin” from Nate Silver
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey everyone, welcome back to Risky Business, a show
about making better decisions or freaking the fuck out. I'm
Maria Kandikova.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And I'm Nate Silvan. It's is our first emergency episode.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I believe is this is it is it is. It's
our emergency podcast. You guys heard our voices just yesterday,
and we are back again today, Friday, after the presidential
elections because we just could not sleep. Literally in some cases.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Elections are oh yes, sorry, which gives people thankfully.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
This is how fried my brain is. This is how
fried my brain is. I said, elections instead of debate. So, Nate,
last night we were both watching the debates from opposite
coasts and about let's see twenty minutes in. I actually
have the time stamp on my phone. Six twenty, I
texted you, since you know we we were not watching it.
We were watching it together but apart, and I'm just
(01:22):
going to read my text, I says. I said, this
debate is painful, what is even happening? Make it stop?
And then I said we are so fucked. And that
is when I knew Nate that we had to talk today.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, and I was getting a lot of texts like that.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
You know, people know, like I'm busy during debates, I'm
probably going to respond right away, but like the degree
of unanimity.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
You responded to me.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thanks, Yeah, look, you're hyph riary the degree of unanimity
that I was seeing from from you know, different types
of Democrats, right centrist Democrats and left wing Democrats and
Democrats who have been very mad at me for suggesting
Derek to suggests that having a guy running to be
president Untilose eighty six might be a bad idea and
(02:05):
couldn't badly and or with a Donald Trump presidency instead,
And like, I want to criticize people who change their
mind in the direction that I think is persuasive. But
like among the media slash pundit class, you have to
be really bad when the incentives are so strong to spin.
(02:26):
You have to be really bad to get to a
point where even the spinners kind of give up.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Right, And I'm you know, the.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Term preference cascade is sometimes used where people think something
and there's a social stigma of saying it. Well, there's
no longer a social stigma of saying that Joe Biden
should drop out, right, That's like, that's like almost like
the normy not normally damn voter you although actually it
is Actually I take that back, because like if you
look at Poles, and overwhelming majority of voters and the
(02:58):
majority of Democrats, not an overwhelming majority of Democrats have
said that they think Biden is too old to be
president at least for another four years.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
So look, I think this was, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Relative to Look, I actually thought about this ahead of time, Maria,
because I'm weird like that, right. I thought there was
like a twenty percent chance that I would write a
post which I wrote at Silver Bolton early this morning
slash late last night.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Entitled Yes, Joe Biden should drop out.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I thought there was a twenty percent chance of that,
but I thought that twenty percent people would be really
really mad at me. And now like everyone loves the
post and it's like the conventional wisdom and it's obvious
apparently right.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
But like, by the way, you got a lot of
shit when you said he should drop out when we
were talking about on this podcast about four weeks ago
something like that, because you said he could drop out.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
We didn't say he should should.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
We said he should consider.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
And then we launched our election model on wed days
and even on Wednesday, and Biden had like a thirty
five percent chance of winning that forecast, and that will
probably go down maybe quite a bit after the debate.
But like at thirty five percent is where I was
roughly indifferent. It's a good poker term, right, although actually
use that in like regular life. It's like not that weird,
(04:12):
but like I was indifferent at thirty five percent between
Biden and mystery.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And folding, right, yeah, between.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Calling and folding, you know, whatever his efforts debate, it's
it's a fold. It's not even a fucking close fold, right,
It's not even I'm not gonna I'm not going to
use a time bank chip thinking about this one any longer.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
It's not tenable, not tenable to have.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I mean, I'm not just even tenable for him to
be president for the next six months or whatever, right,
I mean, that's a debate we could probably have, right,
that might be close, but like, it's not tenable to
have someone who wants to be president for another four
and a half years give a performance like that where
he obviously shows his age, which is what you'd expect
because he's eighty one and he wants to be president
until he's eighty six. It's not tenable to have this
(04:56):
person continue to run for president right now. People are
fucking stupid and stubborn, especially old people. Yeah, and they
may make a bad decision, but like, if you care
about like, uh, defeating Donald Trump, if you care about
the kind of you' sure the Democratic Party, and if
you care about listening to like the voters who have
done you the favor of telling you this for a year,
(05:17):
that like, yeah, hey, common sense, you know, eighty one
is too old to be president and president was eighty six.
I'm sorry, but like this is kind of not that
close a decision anymore, I don't think. And in some ways,
like I told, like a I'm rambling. I'm sorry, you know,
it's I.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Told you're allowed to ramble on it, and then I'll
ramble after you. Please continue with.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
This little social event on Wednesday night, and I had
a good conversation with women I had met before, and
she was despondent about Biden's performance, and I'm like, well,
you'd probably root for it to go either really well
or really badly, right because the muddling through the status quo,
you know, two third chance of losing or whatever. I mean,
one thirds in that bad as any poker player knows.
(06:00):
But you know, it may have been so bad that
it's the thing that saves Democrats from a disaster. Although
I still think and the other nominee against Trump would
also be, you know, in a difficult position.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I'm not Pollyanna ish about.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, Oh, Gavin Newsom waved the wine and now he wins.
Like no, I think Gavin Newsom now or Kamala Harris
has a puncher's chance or maybe more than a puncher's chance,
but like but like just you know, might be below
fifty percent, but above Biden.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, So a few things. I mean, first of all, like, yes,
I think that yesterday was abysmal. I mean I actually
literally was watching at the beginning, like I do horror movies,
like sometimes when something is too grizzly, like I like,
you know, shield my face and I don't even realize
I'm doing it. And I was doing that yesterday, Like
I was sitting on the couch and like at some
(06:53):
point I just went like this, you know, I shielded
my eyes and I was like, oh my god, this
is this is just it was painful, Like it was
actually physically painful to watch, especially at the beginning. I
think he got a little bit better, but he was
just struggling so much, and you could really see his
age and Trump, I mean, Trump was making no sense either,
but he was confidentially making no sense and lying, and
(07:14):
the fact that a candidate couldn't beat that, couldn't point
out the inconsistency, you know, the old I was a
debater all through school. Like the debater part of me,
I was like, I wanted to be like, oh my god,
you know you have to you have to do you
have to interrupt him here, you have to try, you
have to do this, you have to address this. And
then Biden just flubbed his biggest points, you know, abortion,
He just suddenly pivoted to immigration. You know, it was
(07:36):
just it was just really really sad, heartbreaking and also scary.
Like I said, I felt like I was watching just
this slow motion train wreck horror movie where I didn't
even want to see what was happening on screen. Now,
what you were saying, kind of the second part of
your ramble about people, you said you were rambling. You
called it a ramble, So I'm just referring back to
(07:58):
what you said. It was a very cocerent ramble. I
didn't think you were. I didn't think you were rambling,
but then you said I'm rambling. So that's why I'm
calling it.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
You're supposed to say, oh, this look great on me, right,
It's like, you know, I'm all right, Nate in.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
The second part of your incredibly coherent multi part speech.
Oh by the way, now I'm going to go on
a ramble on a tangent and say that every single
time that Biden started saying number one, I was like,
please don't do it, Please don't do it. You're not
going to get like, we're not going to get to
number two. And then he would say like number one again,
(08:33):
and I was like, oh no, just just please stop.
Stop stop doing these lists. Is this is not good.
And other people felt that way as well. But anyhow,
what I was going to say is the second part
of what you were talking about, kind of the stubbornness.
And I've actually seen reactions to people saying, well, you know,
it's what will this say about the Democratic Party that
(08:54):
they've been like hiding this and blah blah blah. No,
so let's go back to something we've talked about on
this podcast before, which is the sunk cost fallacy like
this is probably the single most important sunk cost fallacy
that you could face and you know in politics ever,
which is that you know some cost fallacy to remind
(09:14):
our listeners putting good money after bad, good time after bad,
good energy after bad, basically saying that because we haven't
done something to this point, or we have done this
and we've already invested, we can't change right. We have
to keep going and we have to just continue on
the path we're on. Whereas the rational choice might be
to say, Okay, you know what. I can't change the
(09:36):
fact that we didn't replace Biden immediately. I can't change
the fact that we didn't convince Biden not to run
for a second term and to step down immediately. I
can't change the fact that back in September, when we
had more time, he didn't step down. What I can
change is what I'm doing right now. And that doesn't
mean I'm nefarious. That doesn't mean that I've done something stupid,
that I've been hiding things. All it means is that
(09:59):
the information the dataset has changed the reality right now
isn't the reality of a year ago or two years ago, which,
as you pointed out in your newsletter, happens because decline
does happen kind of suddenly, and you know, it's not
like it's a very gradual process, you know. And we
I think we witnessed it yesterday. But what you should
(10:20):
say is, Okay, this doesn't say anything bad about me.
What it says is that I'm smart, that I understand
what's happening right now, and then I'm willing to change
my mind. And that is a sign of intelligence and savvy.
And as you say, having Biden step down is not
guaranteeing a Democratic victory, but having him not step down
is almost almost, I mean not quite, but almost handing
(10:41):
the victory to Trump.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I mean, you know, again, he was at thirty five
percent or thirty three percent whatever before the debate. The
CNN instant pole of debate watchers had him losing two
to one. This is a poll the Democrats have won
every debate that Trump has ever participated in, every debate
since the first of eate in twenty twelve. That might translate,
if you kind of use the back of the envelope formula,
(11:04):
into Biden losing another two or three points, and they
head to head poles against Trump. At that point he
might follod it twenty percent or something in our model,
and twenty percent is still meaningly above zero. But look,
as you were saying, like, I mean, there's two things here.
One is that there has been a lot of new
information revealed.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I might have made an inference that I thought Biden
wasn't going to handle the debate. Well, but that was
just a guess, right, And now we have actual evidence
of it, and we have evidence of Biden's polling being
stagnant and Trump maintaining a lead after all this stuff
that has happened, like Trump's criminal convictions and the economy
getting quite a bit better, and Willage being more.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Focused on the race. There's also a poker thing.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Though, where like sometimes you have a hand where there
isn't new information, however you have more time to reflect
and come to your senses. Right, you can have a
hand where it's like, well, why to call with this
hand on the turn? If I'm going to fold to
the river on a relatively good card for me, and
if you plug it into a solver, it would say
you've made a mistake. Well, it's because you had more
(12:03):
time to think about it on the river. Maybe you're
a little bit tilted or something on the turn, maybe
you were distracted, maybe you're playing poker online multi tabling,
playing more than one table at once, so being able
to say, look, I have thought about this more, and
I'm changing my mind, certainly when there's new information, but
even when there's not is also assigned.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And I think judgment and experience.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And character absolutely. Now I have a question for you,
so historically, and correct me if I'm wrong. I had
the sense that debates didn't affect polls that much, right,
that kind of the polls didn't don't move that much
in the in the you know, in the aftermath of
(12:46):
a debate. Do we think that that's going to change
in this particular case, or do we think that it
might that you know, this might still be the case here.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I mean that much is relative, right, Like nothing has
moved the polls more than like about a point at
a time. You know, if I had to predict, Trump
was one and a half points ahead in our national
polling average, which of course national poles don't really count
for very much, but it's you reasonable benchmark, one point
five points ahead in our national polling average, but I
had to predict it might be you know, three or
(13:14):
three and a half within a couple of weeks, once
the higher quality polls are fully priced. Ten.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
You know, the problem is.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
So that's actually pretty substantial.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, and that's the wild guess. It could be two,
it could be four.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I mean, look, the problem is that Biden is not
in a position where he's ahead and just has to
stem the damage, right and let the floodwaters recede. He's
behind and to come back, and he'll be further behind,
almost for sure, once these poles are incorporated. Yeah. And
you know, one of the opportunities he thought he had
to turn around the campaign was the debate. Now there's
(13:49):
only one more debate. And believe me, if Biden could
like cancer, he probably would. So how is this guy
supposed to show the dexterity and energy and flexibility to
mount a comeback against a guy I mean, look, whatever
you say about Trump, he immediately sens.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
You can kind of see it on his face. Right.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It's like a poker player who realized that like a
player on his right is a fucking drunk fish. It's
going to donate thousands of dollars to the table, and
he's gonna guaranteed to soaking the next hour.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
An hour, an hour, right next hours ahead.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Like Trump knew instantly that Biden was parted terribly and
at times was more restrained or at least was like
crisp in the delivery. And like, you know, but like
that's kind of says It's like Trump still has his
political animal instincts intact, and like I'm not sure Biden
(14:41):
even has that anymore. I mean, he couldn't deliver his
canned lines, he couldn't deliver his closing statement. And as
you know, when people get older, they can have days.
I mean, I don't want to name anyone in particular,
but like they can have days maybe half the time,
two thirds of the time, three quarters at the time
where they act like their old self, or maybe they
do in most capacities in their life. But it's not
(15:02):
good enough when you're the American president and the president
for another four fucking years. It's just irresponsible. The people
in the White House who have not spoken about this
publicly should be shun from public life frankly, you know,
I mean seriously, some of them will write, you know,
big magazine expose's and get book deals and things like that,
they're fucking cowards. If you're in the White House and
(15:23):
you think you're a fucking patriot, come fucking forward and
tell us what Joe Biden's really like, right, don't get
a fucking book deal in two years and then say
how much you knew all along? You're a fucking coward. Yeah,
not like willing to speak or defend him. Er say, look,
I'm being honest and I'm going to tell you that,
like it's actually not that bad. That's fine too, but
like there's a lot of fucking cowards at the Democredit Party.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
So something that you said makes me kind of reflect
on a broader point, which is that you know, our
decision making ability, our cognitive capacity isn't equal right over time,
and you could have good days and bad days. Now,
what we saw yesterday was a high pressure situation, right
performance under time, pressure performance with the cameras on you.
(16:12):
High pressure, Like you know, you need to perform. And
the thing is, if you're running to be the president
of the United States, that's when you need to perform well.
You need to perform well under those high pressure situations.
I don't give a fuck if you're fine on your
off days on the weekend, when you have, you know,
(16:33):
hours and hours to think about it. I need to
know that you're also fine in a crisis situation, when
the lights are on you, when you have to respond
undertime pressure, when you have to make hot decisions. I
want to know that that's when you shine, that you're
not going to choke. And what we saw last night
is Biden absolutely choking. And by the way, it also
(16:53):
kind of reminded me, you know, back in school in
political science class when you probably watch these clips two
of the original Kennedy Nixon debates, where like Nixon just
looked horrible on camera, right, and Kennedy just won because
you looked so much better. Sorry, you were going to
get another debate and there, Yeah, Bida just looked awful.
(17:14):
He just looked like when you looked at the split screen,
he looked lost, you know, he just looked like he
didn't know what was happening. He was gaping. He just
didn't He had no presence, and Trump has presence. I mean,
I hate Trump. He was lying. There was not a
single true word out of his mouth. But as you said,
his political instincts were on. He you know, commanded the camera.
(17:35):
He had this chesshire cat grin like yes, I'm about
to get all the whales money right here, like keep
it coming, and he had the barbs like the you know,
I don't know what he said at the end of
that last sentence. I don't think he knows either. I mean,
that's those clips are going to go viral, and that's
going to really be well awful. I said a lot
of different things there, but I think they're all really.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Trump was even more brazen than usual about kind of
unapologetically lying, and part because I think he realized that
like Biden couldn't fight back, right. I mean, it's what
you might call an exploitive strategy, and poker is like
I can just keep bluffing because this guy is too
weak to call me down, right, he does not have
what it takes today to call me down.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah, the physical thing. I mean, there have been an advance.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Of the debate, Republican groups circulating unflattering videos of Biden
like looking like he's wandering off or dazed or freezing
and like, and these.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Videos are.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Unflatteringly and kind of selectively edited. So like you have
these news organizations put out like fact checks and say, okay,
well if you look at the broader context and Biden
was like there was one where they're in a field
at like the G seven summit and for some reason
they're like parashooters. This all sounds very weird. You know,
international organizations in Europe is weird, right, So like, of
course it's weird, but like, so what will happen is
(18:56):
like the fact checkers will show the full clip in context,
which also looks pretty fucking bad. Right. It also makes
by the fucking old and loss not as bad as
the GOP edited special directors cutversion. But the GFP fucking knows,
because they seem to care about winning more the Democrats
to they know that. Like they're going to have this
double hit with these videos where the added version and
(19:18):
all the fucking precious fact checkers dutifully show the real version,
which is also fucking bad for Biden because he's fucking
eighty one years old and he's clearly diminished. He is
maybe above average for an eighty one year old, but
he is very much diminished. I mean, what really freaked
me out about Biden was, you know, Ezra Klein wrote
this column maybe back in March or something, saying Biden
(19:40):
should consider dropping out and having this emergency lever pulled
at the convention. And he just linked to some videos
comparing Biden's campaign announcement in twenty twenty versus twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
And I saw that. I'm like, oh my god, even
though this prepared speech in even in four years.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I mean, I watched some yeah clips of the twenty
twenty debate, tookrect for the debate, and I'm like, oh, actually,
Biden is like better than I thought in twenty twenty. Right,
there is noticeable physical and mental decline, as you would
expect as an runningly you know, probabilistic prior. You would
expect that to be true when someone goes from age
seventy eight to eighty two or seventy seven to eighty
(20:17):
one under the pressures by the way of the US presidency,
not the least successful job in the world.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Exactly, that's what you would expect. And it's like obvious,
and like the fact that parts of the pundit class thought, oh,
just a media fixation.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It's just it's like, no, it's the It's the one
unassailable fact in this complex room living is that this
guy is too fucking old to be president.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Now the other guy tried to like start insurrection of
January six. So given those two.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Things, and I'm going to vote third party now in
New York, which is not a wing state, right, if
I were.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
In Nevada, I would still hold my nose and move
for Bud.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I'm voting Biden. Yes, I hope I'm voting not Biden,
because I do hope he steps down. But I'm voting
Democrat obviously across the board, because I am in a
swing state and my vote actually matters for the first
time in my life. But you know, I think that
people are so afraid, you know, of being called ageist,
(21:05):
et cetera, et cetera. But this is not agism, right
there is and not saying that, oh my god, you know,
everyone over the age of seventy five should be put
to pasture. I have, you know, my thesis advisor, my
graduate advisor in grad school, Walter Michelle, was in his
eighties right and was one of the sharpest people I knew,
and I became friends with one of his closest friends,
(21:27):
Danny Connoman, you know, non Bell laureate who was then
in his seventies, sharp up until both of them sharp
until they're dying day and incredibly sharp. You know, you
could have very deep debates. But first of all, they're
in academia, right, They're not running for president, and the
fact that their exceptions doesn't mean that we should be
looking at the data that's in front of us and saying, oh,
(21:47):
but it's ageist, right, No, this this goes for both
of them, by the way, And you could see Trump, like,
let's just say that Trump did decline throughout the debate,
and you could see that someone at some point, you know,
I was looking at kind of Twitter feeds and I
don't remember who tweeted this, but someone said, oh, I
now see the difference between seventy eight and eighty one.
It's forty five minutes. And I thought that that was
(22:08):
that that was pretty pretty spot on, because Trump did
start rambling and kind of losing it a little bit
near the end. But people are going to so let's
talk about also how memory works from a psychology standpoint.
People are going to remember the beginning, right, people that
first impression. People are going to remember how they performed
when they turned on the television at the beginning, and
that was abysmal. That was the worst moment for Biden.
(22:30):
He had his kind of freezing moment. It was just
like at that point, that's game over. And a lot
of people turned off the debate at that point as
well because they were like, I don't want to watch this.
This is too depressing. I'm done, and that's that's not
where you want to be.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, no, I think I think people have his experience
where like, you know, after the first fifteen minutes and
began to see it reflected in like some market prices
like the price of bitcoin and prediction markets and things
like that pretty quickly shout out to prediction markets. But like, yeah, look,
I think a lot of people, uh, after the first
fifteen minutes, speaking for myself, kind of got lost in
(23:04):
a series of conversations and texts and things like that
and social media chatter and like because there was no
recovering from from that point, right, Like I mean now,
because it's like not this is why it's like people
are going to say, oh, well, Obama lost the first
debate in twenty twelve and then came back to win.
But there are a couple of things, you know, what
Obama lost the debate in a way that was much
(23:27):
more easy to write off to being a one off,
arrogant maybe performance. And second, Obama was ahead at the
time that he lost that debate and not behind, so
he could he could recover. You know, Biden has been
hidden in some ways from doing all the things that
a president normally would do. He did not give a
(23:47):
softball interview during the Super Bowl, for example, which every
president has. He've been prompted three times, and Biden did,
I think two years ago. So you know that wasn't
a good sign. He has reviews to give us a
down interview with the New York Times, which has beef
with Biden, but it is the most widely read publication
among influential Democrats and influential people in general. And so
(24:10):
why would you not want to let the New York
Times grill you? He did not, more understandably in this case,
did not want to debate Dean Phillips, Sir Mariam Williamson.
But like, look, if you had had a primary. People say, well,
if you'd had a primary, then Biden would have won
these more popular than like Devin Newsom or whatever. I'm
not sure he would have won if he had even
(24:30):
one of these debates, and the primaries must to have
like six or seven debates, right, the recent had a
primary would be to vet Biden and see is he
prepared for like the begures of a campaign. And this
is the first real tests and he just has to
be the worst general election performance in history in a debate.
It can't be closed. Absolutely, Michael Bluemberg have to have
(24:52):
Michael Bloomberg. We probably have Bloomberg fans in the Risky
Business audience. You know, interesting guy accomplished a lot. Bloomberg
was the next worst performance I've seen in a debate
in twenty twenty. And then there's a Marco Rubio thing
here or there. It's probably in third place. Right, but
like this was like again the fact that like if
I hit to pinpoint, because I'm hypersensitive to like calibrating
(25:16):
what everyone thinks about everything on like Twitter and social media, right,
if I had like circle, here are ten people that
would never ever say that Biden should step down. The
debates going badly. That's going really badly. Like any of
those ten people are like this sucks, he needs to
get out of there. I mean, it's it's you know,
the elected officials and like Nancy Pelosi's haven't said very
much yet, but like, I don't know the folks I
(25:38):
was watching the.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Debate with last night.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
You know, we've talked about p doom on the show,
the probability of the world be destroyed by artificial intelligence.
He dropped the probability that Biden will drop out at
some point between now and the convention.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I guess technically now in November, the way those.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Markets resolve at Polymarket, before I began taping this, it
was around forty two percent or something like that. Now, look,
if Democratic delegates were free agents and they could do
what they wanted, I think for sure they would not
want Biden at this point. However, legally, Democratic delegates are
(26:16):
bound to Joe Biden. So if Joe Biden wants the nomination,
then I mean you could have some litigation to see
what really happens if he's like seems like he's disabled
or something. It was like a twenty fifth Amendment or something.
But like, you know, basically Joe Biden has to agree
to step down. And so there's kind of two levels,
(26:37):
like will there be some elder counsel of Democrats that
comes up to him and says, Joe, you gotta go,
and then will he listen to that? I think it's
more well, I'll maybe be careful. I think it's fifty
to fifty. I would buy p drop at forty two,
and it was like twenty five percent last night. I
was telling people I'd buy that too, because like, he
doesn't have any answer his argument, and the polls are
(27:00):
going to come out in a week or two, and
like maybe I'm wrong, maybe he'll only be behind.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Me's already behind to begin with. Right, He's not going
to gain the.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Polls, but the polls will come out. There's another freak out.
You know, if you watch what White House staffers do.
You know, if you begin to have some people leak
or go public, give little tell alls, you know, to
the New Yorker or whatever else, then that could be damaging. Potentially,
we don't know what like Jill Biden and the Obamas
(27:28):
will do in people like that. You could also have,
you know, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris, who are I
suppose the two most likely replacements actually in the reverse order.
I think Kamala is quite a bit like more likelier
than Gavin Newsom. But we'll see as someone by the way,
who think she's a very accomplished person but a terrible politician.
(27:49):
I'd still rather have her than Biden at this point.
A least she's a blank spite. At least she has
some upside. At least it's a fresh look, right, I
would rather have Kamala Harris and increase my variance instead
of have this seemingly losing not inevitable but like difficult path.
They are being good foot soldiers for Biden and saying, well,
you know when it's a bad day now, and then
I'm sure behind the scenes though, pop are like, be
(28:10):
you a Kamala Gavin at your moment?
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Girl?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure because you're both it's just
politicians too.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Obviously, we both agree that at this point Joe Biden
should step down. That that you know, yesterday was kind
of the the nail in the coffin of our hopeful
optimism that maybe he actually could perform. And I think
it's it's it doesn't look like it's going to get better.
And by the way, as we both keep saying, he
might still win, right, and it's still incredibly risky, but
(28:51):
let's assume that there is a council of elders, Like,
let's just play out a hypothetical that he does decide. Okay, fine,
I will step down. What do we think kind of
is the best path forward? I would love to kind
of talk a little bit about kind of what those
scenarios look like, whether it's Kamala, whether it's Gavin Newsom.
(29:12):
Last night, you know, as I texted to you, you
know Mayor Pete question mark because I you know, I've
seen Mayor Pete debate and he would have. Now he
is a debater. He is someone who would have wiped
the floor with Trump in a setting like that. You know,
there are names of people who have followings, but who
obviously have issues of their own. So what do we think, like,
(29:34):
is what's a viable strategy going forward? Like, let's imagine
that you and I get to advise the Democrats. Wouldn't
that be awesome?
Speaker 3 (29:42):
What would he suggest? Okay?
Speaker 2 (29:46):
What I would say is that I want some sort
of open audition process in which there's some element of
public feedback. So the primaries have happened, Firstly, you have
some time to work with The Democratic Convention begins in
mid August.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, so you have some time to work with. Look,
in the ideal.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
World, I would say that you should do some fact
finding first in terms of like how many people are
interested in this potentially right, and then maybe like literally
have a debate. You can also, by the way the
primaries have happened, parties can schedule their own elections, which
are called caucuses. They have to pay for it, but
(30:31):
Democrats could say, let's schedule let's pick six states that
are demographically representative cross section of the US or the
Democratic Party at least, right, have this debate and then
have a non binding party caucus. Party one caucus in
these six states will pay for it. We'll get some
rich guys to pay for it, right, and that will
help inform super delegates for what the public preference might
(30:54):
be and at the public references and the US then
maybe you default to Kamala out of some sense of
shiating the VP obviously, but like, I don't look, if
you're going to take the drastic step of replacing the president,
I don't think you want to tiptoe around the fact
that Kamala Harris has also unpopular, and like, what's the point, right,
(31:15):
if you're going to replace the president. You know, I
think she should have to fight for it as she
would have if Biden has said what you should have
done a year and a half ago, I'm not gonna
run for a second term, no one would have handed
the nomination to Kamala Harris. You would have had to
earn it, and she might have earned it. Candidate's get
better sometimes their second run for the White House, and
(31:36):
there are attacks on her qualifications, and I think sometimes
are unfair, But like I think you have to like
try to have some element of that process. And look,
you're almost free because like I don't think any of
this is about fifty percent, right, I mean it's a
matter of like are you getting cashing in your forty
percent equity instead of twenty percent?
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Or I'm not sure where I'm getting these estimates. They're
off the cuff. But like.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So in some ways you can afford to have a
riskier process almost and like playing it too safe.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
But like, look, the sooner and the more.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Organized a Biden dropout would be than then the better
it is, right if it's the case that like, look,
there's one path that looks something like the polls are bad,
but not quite as bad as they're as we think
they're gonna be, and then Biden holds on and then
in early August there's some disastrous press conference and then
(32:29):
it's truly untenable, right and then it kind of has
to be chaos at the convention. Right right now, there
is just enough time to get some sense or like
even just in polls and they'll remember, you know, someone
like a Kamala Harris is much better known than like
a Gritch and Whitmer or something like that. But like
some type of open audition process, I think, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I mean that's I think an open audition process sounds
good if provided it happens right now, because I think
that what we want to avoid is like a total
shit show in August right where there is no unified
consensus about who should be the nominee. Because I do
think that at this point, because it's so late in
(33:15):
the game and people are fragmented and this is an unprecedented,
incredibly risky move, there does need to be a united
front and people do need to rally around one candidate
as kind of the choice and the person who's going
to get kind of the support and who's going to
be able to represent well. So I do think that
(33:36):
this needs to happen sooner rather than later. Otherwise it's
I think it might end up being a risk that
just is sure. It can't be worse than buy it,
But the chances of winning are going to be lower
because that you know, any cracks kind of in that
front are going to be exploited. We've seen that, you know,
(33:57):
the Republican Party is very good at exploiting cracks. And
there are a lot of undecided voters who look at
something like the debate yesterday and don't really kind of
don't know that Trump is actually lying his face off
in every single sentence and look at these two people
and say, you know what, I'd rather have the guy
on my on the left than the guy on the right,
(34:19):
because you know, he's just making more sense to me.
And what is it that he said about immigrants, you know,
taking my jobs and killing people. I don't want that, right, Like,
there are a lot of people who aren't going to
do that secondary fact checking, So you need someone to
do it who's able to kind of do it in
real time, someone who is able to to rebuff and
(34:42):
actually kind of show Trump for what he is. The
other kind of the other thing in my mind, though,
is you know, last time Trump won, he ran against
Hillary Clinton, and one of the reasons that he was
able to win is because she was very qualified, but
unpopular and didn't run a good campaign. And I think
(35:04):
a lot of people didn't want to vote for a female,
like as a female, you know, I I was definitely
tuned into that. So I think there is kind of
a it's a little bit risky to put a Kamala
Harris or Aggretchen in there, because you know, once again
he'll be running against a woman, and I don't know
(35:24):
if that's the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I'm not sure it's Gavin Newsom either, who is not
terribly popular himself and will have a lot of problems
associated with the state of California, which is losing population
and all those things.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Right, I mean, he you know, looks good in a suit,
I suppose you know.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Look, Democrats actually have I think a reasonably talented bench
of candidates. They did very well in both the twenty
eighteen and twenty twenty two midterms, which is kind of
where you get your bench from. I mean, someone more
unknown like Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, for example, could be
potentially a compelling candidate.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
JB. Pritzker in Illinois, the governor of Illinois is.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
This big guy kind of when Trump got convicted, kind
of gave it a very old school Chicago style like
take care of Trump that I think could play well
against Trump's bluster.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Because the thing is, like Trump is not that popular.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Either, because popular has actually improved a little bit, and
in some ways, if we're being honest, I think he's
run a better campaign compared to four years ago and
gave a better debate performance than the five previous ones
he's had against Biden or Clinton. So I don't think
Trump is easy to defeat. But there have been voters
clamoring for a long time that like, can you please
(36:41):
not now many of these.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Fucking two people again?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
In a country of three hundred and thirty one million people,
can you please that how many these two guys is
like really the best you have to offer? And there
is some upside chance that like a newer kind of
freshered Democrat. I mean, I don't know, right, but like
I mean the reason why I'm like, I don't know
that Democratic Party elders are going to be able to
agree on some consensus choice. If if Kamala Harris were
(37:05):
a little bit more popular and people are more confident
in her quote unquote electability than.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
She would be the obvious choice, the obvious choice. If
she had the obvious choice.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
I'm not sure Biden would have run in the first
place for her second term. So I don't think there's
an obvious choice, and therefore to have some public feedback
as a coordination mechanism.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
A one more point, by the way, that is important.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
The delegates at the convention are delegates chosen by Joe Biden, Right,
you actually picking her that to say, I want Maria
and Nate to be my delegates if I win.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
This nominating contest in New Jersey or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Therefore, they are loyal to what Biden would do. But
it also means are probably more moderate, centrist, demo pragmatic Democrats.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
That makes things a little easier because there's like not
an appreciable like left wing faction among the super delegates,
and that might increase the ease relatively speaking of the
coordination problem.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Well, I think that's a that's a rare hopeful point
in today's podcast, which has not been very hopeful. You know,
I wish that you and I would be able to
come up with a nice little roadmap and be like, okay, done,
you know, forty minutes and we've saved democracy. Good job
of us. But you know, it's obviously not that easy.
This is an incredibly complicated situation. And I feel slight.
(38:33):
Actually no, I was about to say I feel slightly
better after talking to but that's not actually true. I
feel just as despondent as I did before. But I'm
really glad that we had a chance to talk this
through and to talk through some of kind of the
big issues, the big psychological issues, and there are obviously
psychological issues for the voters too in terms of swapping
out Biden right now. So I think that that's you know,
(38:55):
these are all things that we'll need to revisit, and
I'm really interesting. I'm really interested to see kind of
what the actual response is going to be in the
next few weeks. I would say pe drop is actually
probably lower than the prediction markets have them right now now,
because you know, ego, ego, ego, ego, ego, and you know,
(39:16):
Biden clearly has has a lot of it, and he
doesn't want to drop out, and he's surrounded by people
who've been shielding him and who've been saying, you did
such a great job last night. You know, good job.
How Trump didn't say, I.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Mean, it's an emperors.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I mean the reason why like parables like the Emperor
has no clothes exists is because the people actually it's.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
True, O good exactly. So we're in the middle of
the Emperor has no clothes, and I really hope that
the emperor realizes he's naked and is willing to take
a seat and let someone else come out. I don't
know if that's if that will happen, though. What's your
personal p drop? Is it higher or lower than the
prediction markets have it right now?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
A little higher, I think because of the degree of
unanymity among the kind of political and pundit class. And
look in twenty twenty, the kind of democratic elites came
together in this messy nomination process where it looked like
Bernie Sanders might win, and like literally all got together
and they all flew somewhere like Pete boodhag Edge and
(40:17):
Amy Klobishard dropped out and endorsed Biden right and James
Climber and the very influential congressman who is maybe the
most admired black Democrat endorsed Biden, and he kind of
zoomed from kind of this muddle and like second place
to winning actually very easily on South Carolina and on
Super Tuesday. So it is a group that has someone
(40:38):
shown itself capable of making adult kind of group decisions.
And again, the problem is that, like you can hit
this story about Biden's age every single day, However many
days are left one hundred and something whatever in the campaign.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Because first of all, he's behind in most of these poles.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
He's not going to like pull ahead after this at least, right,
so every time a poll comes out, you can be like, Okay,
the New New York Times Sienna pole has Biden four
points down in Pennsylvania. Must win the state. You know,
that seems really bad. Every time Biden has a public
speaking appearance where it goes mediocre at best and disastrous
at worse, it's going to be a point of debate.
(41:15):
And believe me, if Democrats in the media forget to
talk about it, the Republican attack ads are going to
be devastating. And you know, just the before and after
clips of Biden then versus Biden now, and there's a
cascading effects I think, and you know there will be.
There's also, by the way, they're also opportunistic effects.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
I don't think that.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
I don't think that Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or
whoever else Rafael we're not would face the same degree
of stigma if they said, if needed, I will serve, right,
I mean, they'd be subtle about it and koya about it. Newson,
by the way, was not very coy about his intentions
to potentially challenge Biden two years ago. But like, there
are opportunists who could say that, like I am willing
(41:57):
to serve, or I mean, you know, someone could say
that they want to vote registers a third party. That
probably wouldn't work because it's too late to collect enough
signatures in certain states. But yeah, if you need it to,
you could kind of poison pill Biden, right, You could
like threaten to leak unflattering things that would ensure that
(42:18):
he would lose and so therefore he's forced to resign
and Biden.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
That's another risky strategy.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Well, look, I.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Mean, you know it's what's the burning of bridges strategy.
But like, I think the degree of elite consensus and
Democrats are the party of elites at least by one
definition of the term, is so strong and there are
not very many ways to undo that because Biden just
isn't capable of it, right, he isn't capable of it. Well,
scheduling in a debate next week, how about that?
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (42:47):
I yeah, mostly agree, and.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
I have another debate. We'll see how you do.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Maybe that would elay nerves, but like you're not gonna
let people wait until September to have another debate.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Yeah. And by the way, even if we have another
debate tomorrow and he does much better, that's still not
going to assuage my fear because, as I said, I
need someone who consistently can perform under pressure and under
the lights. That's not consistency, that's good days and bad days.
What if there's what if we're on a bad day
when there's a nuclear strike? Right, Like, we cannot afford
that in a president. So you know, I think our
(43:19):
headline for today's podcast is we thought we were fucked,
and we're kind of fucked. But you know, let's let's
tune in in a few weeks and see where we
are and see what happens. And I hope that, you know,
people listening to this and listening to the unanimity of
voices will actually finally do something about it, and we'll
(43:40):
be in a better situation, or at least a situation
where variance is on our side, where when we when
we next revisit this topic.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Also, you know, again, I'm trying to come at this
from a little bit more of a nonpartisan lens. Although
I've said I don't think Trump would make a good
leader and I don't want them to become president again, America,
stop fucking voting for these really fucking old guys, right,
You should age discriminate more. Do not fucking vote for
people who are seventy five years or older to be
the fucking president of the United States, the hardest job
(44:09):
in the world. I would propose a constitutional amendment to
say you cannot begin your presidential term.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Past the age of seventy five.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
In the absence of that, I'm pledging Maria that I
will never vote for somebody age seventy five or older
again for president.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
I'm pledging that good.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
I will pledge that with you, and I've actually often
thought that since we have a younger limit on the presidency,
we should have an older limit as well, So Nate
we can do the Nate Silver and Maria Kannakova and
men meant to make sure this doesn't happen again. I
think that's a great call.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
To action for.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
The end of our show today. Thanks for joining me
on this emergency pod. I appreciate your time in this
emergency time.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Thanks Maria, and for listeners.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Next, people have an interview that we have pre recorded
with a special guest, unless there is more emergency news,
which everier.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
One might be yes, in which case you'll get the
two of us again. All right, thanks for listening. Risky
Business is hosted by Me, Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
And Me Made Silver.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
And if you want to listen to an ad free version,
sign up for Pushkin Plus.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
For six thirty nine a month you get access to
adre listening. Thanks for tuning in.
Pushkin. Hey everyone, welcome back to Risky Business, a show
about making better decisions or freaking the fuck out. I'm
Maria Kandikova.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And I'm Nate Silvan. It's is our first emergency episode.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I believe is this is it is it is. It's
our emergency podcast. You guys heard our voices just yesterday,
and we are back again today, Friday, after the presidential
elections because we just could not sleep. Literally in some cases.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Elections are oh yes, sorry, which gives people thankfully.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
This is how fried my brain is. This is how
fried my brain is. I said, elections instead of debate. So, Nate,
last night we were both watching the debates from opposite
coasts and about let's see twenty minutes in. I actually
have the time stamp on my phone. Six twenty, I
texted you, since you know we we were not watching it.
We were watching it together but apart, and I'm just
(01:22):
going to read my text, I says. I said, this
debate is painful, what is even happening? Make it stop?
And then I said we are so fucked. And that
is when I knew Nate that we had to talk today.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, and I was getting a lot of texts like that.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
You know, people know, like I'm busy during debates, I'm
probably going to respond right away, but like the degree
of unanimity.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
You responded to me.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thanks, Yeah, look, you're hyph riary the degree of unanimity
that I was seeing from from you know, different types
of Democrats, right centrist Democrats and left wing Democrats and
Democrats who have been very mad at me for suggesting
Derek to suggests that having a guy running to be
president Untilose eighty six might be a bad idea and
(02:05):
couldn't badly and or with a Donald Trump presidency instead,
And like, I want to criticize people who change their
mind in the direction that I think is persuasive. But
like among the media slash pundit class, you have to
be really bad when the incentives are so strong to spin.
(02:26):
You have to be really bad to get to a
point where even the spinners kind of give up.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Right, And I'm you know, the.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Term preference cascade is sometimes used where people think something
and there's a social stigma of saying it. Well, there's
no longer a social stigma of saying that Joe Biden
should drop out, right, That's like, that's like almost like
the normy not normally damn voter you although actually it
is Actually I take that back, because like if you
look at Poles, and overwhelming majority of voters and the
(02:58):
majority of Democrats, not an overwhelming majority of Democrats have
said that they think Biden is too old to be
president at least for another four years.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
So look, I think this was, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Relative to Look, I actually thought about this ahead of time, Maria,
because I'm weird like that, right. I thought there was
like a twenty percent chance that I would write a
post which I wrote at Silver Bolton early this morning
slash late last night.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Entitled Yes, Joe Biden should drop out.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I thought there was a twenty percent chance of that,
but I thought that twenty percent people would be really
really mad at me. And now like everyone loves the
post and it's like the conventional wisdom and it's obvious
apparently right.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
But like, by the way, you got a lot of
shit when you said he should drop out when we
were talking about on this podcast about four weeks ago
something like that, because you said he could drop out.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
We didn't say he should should.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
We said he should consider.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
And then we launched our election model on wed days
and even on Wednesday, and Biden had like a thirty
five percent chance of winning that forecast, and that will
probably go down maybe quite a bit after the debate.
But like at thirty five percent is where I was
roughly indifferent. It's a good poker term, right, although actually
use that in like regular life. It's like not that weird,
(04:12):
but like I was indifferent at thirty five percent between
Biden and mystery.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And folding, right, yeah, between.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Calling and folding, you know, whatever his efforts debate, it's
it's a fold. It's not even a fucking close fold, right,
It's not even I'm not gonna I'm not going to
use a time bank chip thinking about this one any longer.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
It's not tenable, not tenable to have.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I mean, I'm not just even tenable for him to
be president for the next six months or whatever, right,
I mean, that's a debate we could probably have, right,
that might be close, but like, it's not tenable to
have someone who wants to be president for another four
and a half years give a performance like that where
he obviously shows his age, which is what you'd expect
because he's eighty one and he wants to be president
until he's eighty six. It's not tenable to have this
(04:56):
person continue to run for president right now. People are
fucking stupid and stubborn, especially old people. Yeah, and they
may make a bad decision, but like, if you care
about like, uh, defeating Donald Trump, if you care about
the kind of you' sure the Democratic Party, and if
you care about listening to like the voters who have
done you the favor of telling you this for a year,
(05:17):
that like, yeah, hey, common sense, you know, eighty one
is too old to be president and president was eighty six.
I'm sorry, but like this is kind of not that
close a decision anymore, I don't think. And in some ways,
like I told, like a I'm rambling. I'm sorry, you know,
it's I.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Told you're allowed to ramble on it, and then I'll
ramble after you. Please continue with.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
This little social event on Wednesday night, and I had
a good conversation with women I had met before, and
she was despondent about Biden's performance, and I'm like, well,
you'd probably root for it to go either really well
or really badly, right because the muddling through the status quo,
you know, two third chance of losing or whatever. I mean,
one thirds in that bad as any poker player knows.
(06:00):
But you know, it may have been so bad that
it's the thing that saves Democrats from a disaster. Although
I still think and the other nominee against Trump would
also be, you know, in a difficult position.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I'm not Pollyanna ish about.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, Oh, Gavin Newsom waved the wine and now he wins.
Like no, I think Gavin Newsom now or Kamala Harris
has a puncher's chance or maybe more than a puncher's chance,
but like but like just you know, might be below
fifty percent, but above Biden.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, So a few things. I mean, first of all, like, yes,
I think that yesterday was abysmal. I mean I actually
literally was watching at the beginning, like I do horror movies,
like sometimes when something is too grizzly, like I like,
you know, shield my face and I don't even realize
I'm doing it. And I was doing that yesterday, Like
I was sitting on the couch and like at some
(06:53):
point I just went like this, you know, I shielded
my eyes and I was like, oh my god, this
is this is just it was painful, Like it was
actually physically painful to watch, especially at the beginning. I
think he got a little bit better, but he was
just struggling so much, and you could really see his
age and Trump, I mean, Trump was making no sense either,
but he was confidentially making no sense and lying, and
(07:14):
the fact that a candidate couldn't beat that, couldn't point
out the inconsistency, you know, the old I was a
debater all through school. Like the debater part of me,
I was like, I wanted to be like, oh my god,
you know you have to you have to do you
have to interrupt him here, you have to try, you
have to do this, you have to address this. And
then Biden just flubbed his biggest points, you know, abortion,
He just suddenly pivoted to immigration. You know, it was
(07:36):
just it was just really really sad, heartbreaking and also scary.
Like I said, I felt like I was watching just
this slow motion train wreck horror movie where I didn't
even want to see what was happening on screen. Now,
what you were saying, kind of the second part of
your ramble about people, you said you were rambling. You
called it a ramble, So I'm just referring back to
(07:58):
what you said. It was a very cocerent ramble. I
didn't think you were. I didn't think you were rambling,
but then you said I'm rambling. So that's why I'm
calling it.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
You're supposed to say, oh, this look great on me, right,
It's like, you know, I'm all right, Nate in.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
The second part of your incredibly coherent multi part speech.
Oh by the way, now I'm going to go on
a ramble on a tangent and say that every single
time that Biden started saying number one, I was like,
please don't do it, Please don't do it. You're not
going to get like, we're not going to get to
number two. And then he would say like number one again,
(08:33):
and I was like, oh no, just just please stop.
Stop stop doing these lists. Is this is not good.
And other people felt that way as well. But anyhow,
what I was going to say is the second part
of what you were talking about, kind of the stubbornness.
And I've actually seen reactions to people saying, well, you know,
it's what will this say about the Democratic Party that
(08:54):
they've been like hiding this and blah blah blah. No,
so let's go back to something we've talked about on
this podcast before, which is the sunk cost fallacy like
this is probably the single most important sunk cost fallacy
that you could face and you know in politics ever,
which is that you know some cost fallacy to remind
(09:14):
our listeners putting good money after bad, good time after bad,
good energy after bad, basically saying that because we haven't
done something to this point, or we have done this
and we've already invested, we can't change right. We have
to keep going and we have to just continue on
the path we're on. Whereas the rational choice might be
to say, Okay, you know what. I can't change the
(09:36):
fact that we didn't replace Biden immediately. I can't change
the fact that we didn't convince Biden not to run
for a second term and to step down immediately. I
can't change the fact that back in September, when we
had more time, he didn't step down. What I can
change is what I'm doing right now. And that doesn't
mean I'm nefarious. That doesn't mean that I've done something stupid,
that I've been hiding things. All it means is that
(09:59):
the information the dataset has changed the reality right now
isn't the reality of a year ago or two years ago, which,
as you pointed out in your newsletter, happens because decline
does happen kind of suddenly, and you know, it's not
like it's a very gradual process, you know. And we
I think we witnessed it yesterday. But what you should
(10:20):
say is, Okay, this doesn't say anything bad about me.
What it says is that I'm smart, that I understand
what's happening right now, and then I'm willing to change
my mind. And that is a sign of intelligence and savvy.
And as you say, having Biden step down is not
guaranteeing a Democratic victory, but having him not step down
is almost almost, I mean not quite, but almost handing
(10:41):
the victory to Trump.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I mean, you know, again, he was at thirty five
percent or thirty three percent whatever before the debate. The
CNN instant pole of debate watchers had him losing two
to one. This is a poll the Democrats have won
every debate that Trump has ever participated in, every debate
since the first of eate in twenty twelve. That might translate,
if you kind of use the back of the envelope formula,
(11:04):
into Biden losing another two or three points, and they
head to head poles against Trump. At that point he
might follod it twenty percent or something in our model,
and twenty percent is still meaningly above zero. But look,
as you were saying, like, I mean, there's two things here.
One is that there has been a lot of new
information revealed.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I might have made an inference that I thought Biden
wasn't going to handle the debate. Well, but that was
just a guess, right, And now we have actual evidence
of it, and we have evidence of Biden's polling being
stagnant and Trump maintaining a lead after all this stuff
that has happened, like Trump's criminal convictions and the economy
getting quite a bit better, and Willage being more.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Focused on the race. There's also a poker thing.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Though, where like sometimes you have a hand where there
isn't new information, however you have more time to reflect
and come to your senses. Right, you can have a
hand where it's like, well, why to call with this
hand on the turn? If I'm going to fold to
the river on a relatively good card for me, and
if you plug it into a solver, it would say
you've made a mistake. Well, it's because you had more
(12:03):
time to think about it on the river. Maybe you're
a little bit tilted or something on the turn, maybe
you were distracted, maybe you're playing poker online multi tabling,
playing more than one table at once, so being able
to say, look, I have thought about this more, and
I'm changing my mind, certainly when there's new information, but
even when there's not is also assigned.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And I think judgment and experience.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And character absolutely. Now I have a question for you,
so historically, and correct me if I'm wrong. I had
the sense that debates didn't affect polls that much, right,
that kind of the polls didn't don't move that much
in the in the you know, in the aftermath of
(12:46):
a debate. Do we think that that's going to change
in this particular case, or do we think that it
might that you know, this might still be the case here.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I mean that much is relative, right, Like nothing has
moved the polls more than like about a point at
a time. You know, if I had to predict, Trump
was one and a half points ahead in our national
polling average, which of course national poles don't really count
for very much, but it's you reasonable benchmark, one point
five points ahead in our national polling average, but I
had to predict it might be you know, three or
(13:14):
three and a half within a couple of weeks, once
the higher quality polls are fully priced. Ten.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
You know, the problem is.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
So that's actually pretty substantial.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, and that's the wild guess. It could be two,
it could be four.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I mean, look, the problem is that Biden is not
in a position where he's ahead and just has to
stem the damage, right and let the floodwaters recede. He's
behind and to come back, and he'll be further behind,
almost for sure, once these poles are incorporated. Yeah. And
you know, one of the opportunities he thought he had
to turn around the campaign was the debate. Now there's
(13:49):
only one more debate. And believe me, if Biden could
like cancer, he probably would. So how is this guy
supposed to show the dexterity and energy and flexibility to
mount a comeback against a guy I mean, look, whatever
you say about Trump, he immediately sens.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
You can kind of see it on his face. Right.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It's like a poker player who realized that like a
player on his right is a fucking drunk fish. It's
going to donate thousands of dollars to the table, and
he's gonna guaranteed to soaking the next hour.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
An hour, an hour, right next hours ahead.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Like Trump knew instantly that Biden was parted terribly and
at times was more restrained or at least was like
crisp in the delivery. And like, you know, but like
that's kind of says It's like Trump still has his
political animal instincts intact, and like I'm not sure Biden
(14:41):
even has that anymore. I mean, he couldn't deliver his
canned lines, he couldn't deliver his closing statement. And as
you know, when people get older, they can have days.
I mean, I don't want to name anyone in particular,
but like they can have days maybe half the time,
two thirds of the time, three quarters at the time
where they act like their old self, or maybe they
do in most capacities in their life. But it's not
(15:02):
good enough when you're the American president and the president
for another four fucking years. It's just irresponsible. The people
in the White House who have not spoken about this
publicly should be shun from public life frankly, you know,
I mean seriously, some of them will write, you know,
big magazine expose's and get book deals and things like that,
they're fucking cowards. If you're in the White House and
(15:23):
you think you're a fucking patriot, come fucking forward and
tell us what Joe Biden's really like, right, don't get
a fucking book deal in two years and then say
how much you knew all along? You're a fucking coward. Yeah,
not like willing to speak or defend him. Er say, look,
I'm being honest and I'm going to tell you that,
like it's actually not that bad. That's fine too, but
like there's a lot of fucking cowards at the Democredit Party.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
So something that you said makes me kind of reflect
on a broader point, which is that you know, our
decision making ability, our cognitive capacity isn't equal right over time,
and you could have good days and bad days. Now,
what we saw yesterday was a high pressure situation, right
performance under time, pressure performance with the cameras on you.
(16:12):
High pressure, Like you know, you need to perform. And
the thing is, if you're running to be the president
of the United States, that's when you need to perform well.
You need to perform well under those high pressure situations.
I don't give a fuck if you're fine on your
off days on the weekend, when you have, you know,
(16:33):
hours and hours to think about it. I need to
know that you're also fine in a crisis situation, when
the lights are on you, when you have to respond
undertime pressure, when you have to make hot decisions. I
want to know that that's when you shine, that you're
not going to choke. And what we saw last night
is Biden absolutely choking. And by the way, it also
(16:53):
kind of reminded me, you know, back in school in
political science class when you probably watch these clips two
of the original Kennedy Nixon debates, where like Nixon just
looked horrible on camera, right, and Kennedy just won because
you looked so much better. Sorry, you were going to
get another debate and there, Yeah, Bida just looked awful.
(17:14):
He just looked like when you looked at the split screen,
he looked lost, you know, he just looked like he
didn't know what was happening. He was gaping. He just
didn't He had no presence, and Trump has presence. I mean,
I hate Trump. He was lying. There was not a
single true word out of his mouth. But as you said,
his political instincts were on. He you know, commanded the camera.
(17:35):
He had this chesshire cat grin like yes, I'm about
to get all the whales money right here, like keep
it coming, and he had the barbs like the you know,
I don't know what he said at the end of
that last sentence. I don't think he knows either. I mean,
that's those clips are going to go viral, and that's
going to really be well awful. I said a lot
of different things there, but I think they're all really.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Trump was even more brazen than usual about kind of
unapologetically lying, and part because I think he realized that
like Biden couldn't fight back, right. I mean, it's what
you might call an exploitive strategy, and poker is like
I can just keep bluffing because this guy is too
weak to call me down, right, he does not have
what it takes today to call me down.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah, the physical thing. I mean, there have been an advance.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Of the debate, Republican groups circulating unflattering videos of Biden
like looking like he's wandering off or dazed or freezing
and like, and these.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Videos are.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Unflatteringly and kind of selectively edited. So like you have
these news organizations put out like fact checks and say, okay,
well if you look at the broader context and Biden
was like there was one where they're in a field
at like the G seven summit and for some reason
they're like parashooters. This all sounds very weird. You know,
international organizations in Europe is weird, right, So like, of
course it's weird, but like, so what will happen is
(18:56):
like the fact checkers will show the full clip in context,
which also looks pretty fucking bad. Right. It also makes
by the fucking old and loss not as bad as
the GOP edited special directors cutversion. But the GFP fucking knows,
because they seem to care about winning more the Democrats
to they know that. Like they're going to have this
double hit with these videos where the added version and
(19:18):
all the fucking precious fact checkers dutifully show the real version,
which is also fucking bad for Biden because he's fucking
eighty one years old and he's clearly diminished. He is
maybe above average for an eighty one year old, but
he is very much diminished. I mean, what really freaked
me out about Biden was, you know, Ezra Klein wrote
this column maybe back in March or something, saying Biden
(19:40):
should consider dropping out and having this emergency lever pulled
at the convention. And he just linked to some videos
comparing Biden's campaign announcement in twenty twenty versus twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
And I saw that. I'm like, oh my god, even
though this prepared speech in even in four years.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I mean, I watched some yeah clips of the twenty
twenty debate, tookrect for the debate, and I'm like, oh, actually,
Biden is like better than I thought in twenty twenty. Right,
there is noticeable physical and mental decline, as you would
expect as an runningly you know, probabilistic prior. You would
expect that to be true when someone goes from age
seventy eight to eighty two or seventy seven to eighty
(20:17):
one under the pressures by the way of the US presidency,
not the least successful job in the world.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Exactly, that's what you would expect. And it's like obvious,
and like the fact that parts of the pundit class thought, oh,
just a media fixation.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It's just it's like, no, it's the It's the one
unassailable fact in this complex room living is that this
guy is too fucking old to be president.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Now the other guy tried to like start insurrection of
January six. So given those two.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Things, and I'm going to vote third party now in
New York, which is not a wing state, right, if
I were.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
In Nevada, I would still hold my nose and move
for Bud.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I'm voting Biden. Yes, I hope I'm voting not Biden,
because I do hope he steps down. But I'm voting
Democrat obviously across the board, because I am in a
swing state and my vote actually matters for the first
time in my life. But you know, I think that
people are so afraid, you know, of being called ageist,
(21:05):
et cetera, et cetera. But this is not agism, right
there is and not saying that, oh my god, you know,
everyone over the age of seventy five should be put
to pasture. I have, you know, my thesis advisor, my
graduate advisor in grad school, Walter Michelle, was in his
eighties right and was one of the sharpest people I knew,
and I became friends with one of his closest friends,
(21:27):
Danny Connoman, you know, non Bell laureate who was then
in his seventies, sharp up until both of them sharp
until they're dying day and incredibly sharp. You know, you
could have very deep debates. But first of all, they're
in academia, right, They're not running for president, and the
fact that their exceptions doesn't mean that we should be
looking at the data that's in front of us and saying, oh,
(21:47):
but it's ageist, right, No, this this goes for both
of them, by the way, And you could see Trump, like,
let's just say that Trump did decline throughout the debate,
and you could see that someone at some point, you know,
I was looking at kind of Twitter feeds and I
don't remember who tweeted this, but someone said, oh, I
now see the difference between seventy eight and eighty one.
It's forty five minutes. And I thought that that was
(22:08):
that that was pretty pretty spot on, because Trump did
start rambling and kind of losing it a little bit
near the end. But people are going to so let's
talk about also how memory works from a psychology standpoint.
People are going to remember the beginning, right, people that
first impression. People are going to remember how they performed
when they turned on the television at the beginning, and
that was abysmal. That was the worst moment for Biden.
(22:30):
He had his kind of freezing moment. It was just
like at that point, that's game over. And a lot
of people turned off the debate at that point as
well because they were like, I don't want to watch this.
This is too depressing. I'm done, and that's that's not
where you want to be.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, no, I think I think people have his experience
where like, you know, after the first fifteen minutes and
began to see it reflected in like some market prices
like the price of bitcoin and prediction markets and things
like that pretty quickly shout out to prediction markets. But like, yeah, look,
I think a lot of people, uh, after the first
fifteen minutes, speaking for myself, kind of got lost in
(23:04):
a series of conversations and texts and things like that
and social media chatter and like because there was no
recovering from from that point, right, Like I mean now,
because it's like not this is why it's like people
are going to say, oh, well, Obama lost the first
debate in twenty twelve and then came back to win.
But there are a couple of things, you know, what
Obama lost the debate in a way that was much
(23:27):
more easy to write off to being a one off,
arrogant maybe performance. And second, Obama was ahead at the
time that he lost that debate and not behind, so
he could he could recover. You know, Biden has been
hidden in some ways from doing all the things that
a president normally would do. He did not give a
(23:47):
softball interview during the Super Bowl, for example, which every
president has. He've been prompted three times, and Biden did,
I think two years ago. So you know that wasn't
a good sign. He has reviews to give us a
down interview with the New York Times, which has beef
with Biden, but it is the most widely read publication
among influential Democrats and influential people in general. And so
(24:10):
why would you not want to let the New York
Times grill you? He did not, more understandably in this case,
did not want to debate Dean Phillips, Sir Mariam Williamson.
But like, look, if you had had a primary. People say, well,
if you'd had a primary, then Biden would have won
these more popular than like Devin Newsom or whatever. I'm
not sure he would have won if he had even
(24:30):
one of these debates, and the primaries must to have
like six or seven debates, right, the recent had a
primary would be to vet Biden and see is he
prepared for like the begures of a campaign. And this
is the first real tests and he just has to
be the worst general election performance in history in a debate.
It can't be closed. Absolutely, Michael Bluemberg have to have
(24:52):
Michael Bloomberg. We probably have Bloomberg fans in the Risky
Business audience. You know, interesting guy accomplished a lot. Bloomberg
was the next worst performance I've seen in a debate
in twenty twenty. And then there's a Marco Rubio thing
here or there. It's probably in third place. Right, but
like this was like again the fact that like if
I hit to pinpoint, because I'm hypersensitive to like calibrating
(25:16):
what everyone thinks about everything on like Twitter and social media, right,
if I had like circle, here are ten people that
would never ever say that Biden should step down. The
debates going badly. That's going really badly. Like any of
those ten people are like this sucks, he needs to
get out of there. I mean, it's it's you know,
the elected officials and like Nancy Pelosi's haven't said very
much yet, but like, I don't know the folks I
(25:38):
was watching the.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Debate with last night.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
You know, we've talked about p doom on the show,
the probability of the world be destroyed by artificial intelligence.
He dropped the probability that Biden will drop out at
some point between now and the convention.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I guess technically now in November, the way those.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Markets resolve at Polymarket, before I began taping this, it
was around forty two percent or something like that. Now, look,
if Democratic delegates were free agents and they could do
what they wanted, I think for sure they would not
want Biden at this point. However, legally, Democratic delegates are
(26:16):
bound to Joe Biden. So if Joe Biden wants the nomination,
then I mean you could have some litigation to see
what really happens if he's like seems like he's disabled
or something. It was like a twenty fifth Amendment or something.
But like, you know, basically Joe Biden has to agree
to step down. And so there's kind of two levels,
(26:37):
like will there be some elder counsel of Democrats that
comes up to him and says, Joe, you gotta go,
and then will he listen to that? I think it's
more well, I'll maybe be careful. I think it's fifty
to fifty. I would buy p drop at forty two,
and it was like twenty five percent last night. I
was telling people I'd buy that too, because like, he
doesn't have any answer his argument, and the polls are
(27:00):
going to come out in a week or two, and
like maybe I'm wrong, maybe he'll only be behind.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Me's already behind to begin with. Right, He's not going
to gain the.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Polls, but the polls will come out. There's another freak out.
You know, if you watch what White House staffers do.
You know, if you begin to have some people leak
or go public, give little tell alls, you know, to
the New Yorker or whatever else, then that could be damaging. Potentially,
we don't know what like Jill Biden and the Obamas
(27:28):
will do in people like that. You could also have,
you know, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris, who are I
suppose the two most likely replacements actually in the reverse order.
I think Kamala is quite a bit like more likelier
than Gavin Newsom. But we'll see as someone by the way,
who think she's a very accomplished person but a terrible politician.
(27:49):
I'd still rather have her than Biden at this point.
A least she's a blank spite. At least she has
some upside. At least it's a fresh look, right, I
would rather have Kamala Harris and increase my variance instead
of have this seemingly losing not inevitable but like difficult path.
They are being good foot soldiers for Biden and saying, well,
you know when it's a bad day now, and then
I'm sure behind the scenes though, pop are like, be
(28:10):
you a Kamala Gavin at your moment?
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Girl?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure because you're both it's just
politicians too.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Obviously, we both agree that at this point Joe Biden
should step down. That that you know, yesterday was kind
of the the nail in the coffin of our hopeful
optimism that maybe he actually could perform. And I think
it's it's it doesn't look like it's going to get better.
And by the way, as we both keep saying, he
might still win, right, and it's still incredibly risky, but
(28:51):
let's assume that there is a council of elders, Like,
let's just play out a hypothetical that he does decide. Okay, fine,
I will step down. What do we think kind of
is the best path forward? I would love to kind
of talk a little bit about kind of what those
scenarios look like, whether it's Kamala, whether it's Gavin Newsom.
(29:12):
Last night, you know, as I texted to you, you
know Mayor Pete question mark because I you know, I've
seen Mayor Pete debate and he would have. Now he
is a debater. He is someone who would have wiped
the floor with Trump in a setting like that. You know,
there are names of people who have followings, but who
obviously have issues of their own. So what do we think, like,
(29:34):
is what's a viable strategy going forward? Like, let's imagine
that you and I get to advise the Democrats. Wouldn't
that be awesome?
Speaker 3 (29:42):
What would he suggest? Okay?
Speaker 2 (29:46):
What I would say is that I want some sort
of open audition process in which there's some element of
public feedback. So the primaries have happened, Firstly, you have
some time to work with The Democratic Convention begins in
mid August.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, so you have some time to work with. Look,
in the ideal.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
World, I would say that you should do some fact
finding first in terms of like how many people are
interested in this potentially right, and then maybe like literally
have a debate. You can also, by the way the
primaries have happened, parties can schedule their own elections, which
are called caucuses. They have to pay for it, but
(30:31):
Democrats could say, let's schedule let's pick six states that
are demographically representative cross section of the US or the
Democratic Party at least, right, have this debate and then
have a non binding party caucus. Party one caucus in
these six states will pay for it. We'll get some
rich guys to pay for it, right, and that will
help inform super delegates for what the public preference might
(30:54):
be and at the public references and the US then
maybe you default to Kamala out of some sense of
shiating the VP obviously, but like, I don't look, if
you're going to take the drastic step of replacing the president,
I don't think you want to tiptoe around the fact
that Kamala Harris has also unpopular, and like, what's the point, right,
(31:15):
if you're going to replace the president. You know, I
think she should have to fight for it as she
would have if Biden has said what you should have
done a year and a half ago, I'm not gonna
run for a second term, no one would have handed
the nomination to Kamala Harris. You would have had to
earn it, and she might have earned it. Candidate's get
better sometimes their second run for the White House, and
(31:36):
there are attacks on her qualifications, and I think sometimes
are unfair, But like I think you have to like
try to have some element of that process. And look,
you're almost free because like I don't think any of
this is about fifty percent, right, I mean it's a
matter of like are you getting cashing in your forty
percent equity instead of twenty percent?
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Or I'm not sure where I'm getting these estimates. They're
off the cuff. But like.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So in some ways you can afford to have a
riskier process almost and like playing it too safe.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
But like, look, the sooner and the more.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Organized a Biden dropout would be than then the better
it is, right if it's the case that like, look,
there's one path that looks something like the polls are bad,
but not quite as bad as they're as we think
they're gonna be, and then Biden holds on and then
in early August there's some disastrous press conference and then
(32:29):
it's truly untenable, right and then it kind of has
to be chaos at the convention. Right right now, there
is just enough time to get some sense or like
even just in polls and they'll remember, you know, someone
like a Kamala Harris is much better known than like
a Gritch and Whitmer or something like that. But like
some type of open audition process, I think, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I mean that's I think an open audition process sounds
good if provided it happens right now, because I think
that what we want to avoid is like a total
shit show in August right where there is no unified
consensus about who should be the nominee. Because I do
think that at this point, because it's so late in
(33:15):
the game and people are fragmented and this is an unprecedented,
incredibly risky move, there does need to be a united
front and people do need to rally around one candidate
as kind of the choice and the person who's going
to get kind of the support and who's going to
be able to represent well. So I do think that
(33:36):
this needs to happen sooner rather than later. Otherwise it's
I think it might end up being a risk that
just is sure. It can't be worse than buy it,
But the chances of winning are going to be lower
because that you know, any cracks kind of in that
front are going to be exploited. We've seen that, you know,
(33:57):
the Republican Party is very good at exploiting cracks. And
there are a lot of undecided voters who look at
something like the debate yesterday and don't really kind of
don't know that Trump is actually lying his face off
in every single sentence and look at these two people
and say, you know what, I'd rather have the guy
on my on the left than the guy on the right,
(34:19):
because you know, he's just making more sense to me.
And what is it that he said about immigrants, you know,
taking my jobs and killing people. I don't want that, right, Like,
there are a lot of people who aren't going to
do that secondary fact checking, So you need someone to
do it who's able to kind of do it in
real time, someone who is able to to rebuff and
(34:42):
actually kind of show Trump for what he is. The
other kind of the other thing in my mind, though,
is you know, last time Trump won, he ran against
Hillary Clinton, and one of the reasons that he was
able to win is because she was very qualified, but
unpopular and didn't run a good campaign. And I think
(35:04):
a lot of people didn't want to vote for a female,
like as a female, you know, I I was definitely
tuned into that. So I think there is kind of
a it's a little bit risky to put a Kamala
Harris or Aggretchen in there, because you know, once again
he'll be running against a woman, and I don't know
(35:24):
if that's the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I'm not sure it's Gavin Newsom either, who is not
terribly popular himself and will have a lot of problems
associated with the state of California, which is losing population
and all those things.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Right, I mean, he you know, looks good in a suit,
I suppose you know.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Look, Democrats actually have I think a reasonably talented bench
of candidates. They did very well in both the twenty
eighteen and twenty twenty two midterms, which is kind of
where you get your bench from. I mean, someone more
unknown like Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, for example, could be
potentially a compelling candidate.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
JB. Pritzker in Illinois, the governor of Illinois is.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
This big guy kind of when Trump got convicted, kind
of gave it a very old school Chicago style like
take care of Trump that I think could play well
against Trump's bluster.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Because the thing is, like Trump is not that popular.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Either, because popular has actually improved a little bit, and
in some ways, if we're being honest, I think he's
run a better campaign compared to four years ago and
gave a better debate performance than the five previous ones
he's had against Biden or Clinton. So I don't think
Trump is easy to defeat. But there have been voters
clamoring for a long time that like, can you please
(36:41):
not now many of these.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Fucking two people again?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
In a country of three hundred and thirty one million people,
can you please that how many these two guys is
like really the best you have to offer? And there
is some upside chance that like a newer kind of
freshered Democrat. I mean, I don't know, right, but like
I mean the reason why I'm like, I don't know
that Democratic Party elders are going to be able to
agree on some consensus choice. If if Kamala Harris were
(37:05):
a little bit more popular and people are more confident
in her quote unquote electability than.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
She would be the obvious choice, the obvious choice. If
she had the obvious choice.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
I'm not sure Biden would have run in the first
place for her second term. So I don't think there's
an obvious choice, and therefore to have some public feedback
as a coordination mechanism.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
A one more point, by the way, that is important.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
The delegates at the convention are delegates chosen by Joe Biden, Right,
you actually picking her that to say, I want Maria
and Nate to be my delegates if I win.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
This nominating contest in New Jersey or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Therefore, they are loyal to what Biden would do. But
it also means are probably more moderate, centrist, demo pragmatic Democrats.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
That makes things a little easier because there's like not
an appreciable like left wing faction among the super delegates,
and that might increase the ease relatively speaking of the
coordination problem.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Well, I think that's a that's a rare hopeful point
in today's podcast, which has not been very hopeful. You know,
I wish that you and I would be able to
come up with a nice little roadmap and be like, okay, done,
you know, forty minutes and we've saved democracy. Good job
of us. But you know, it's obviously not that easy.
This is an incredibly complicated situation. And I feel slight.
(38:33):
Actually no, I was about to say I feel slightly
better after talking to but that's not actually true. I
feel just as despondent as I did before. But I'm
really glad that we had a chance to talk this
through and to talk through some of kind of the
big issues, the big psychological issues, and there are obviously
psychological issues for the voters too in terms of swapping
out Biden right now. So I think that that's you know,
(38:55):
these are all things that we'll need to revisit, and
I'm really interesting. I'm really interested to see kind of
what the actual response is going to be in the
next few weeks. I would say pe drop is actually
probably lower than the prediction markets have them right now now,
because you know, ego, ego, ego, ego, ego, and you know,
(39:16):
Biden clearly has has a lot of it, and he
doesn't want to drop out, and he's surrounded by people
who've been shielding him and who've been saying, you did
such a great job last night. You know, good job.
How Trump didn't say, I.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Mean, it's an emperors.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I mean the reason why like parables like the Emperor
has no clothes exists is because the people actually it's.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
True, O good exactly. So we're in the middle of
the Emperor has no clothes, and I really hope that
the emperor realizes he's naked and is willing to take
a seat and let someone else come out. I don't
know if that's if that will happen, though. What's your
personal p drop? Is it higher or lower than the
prediction markets have it right now?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
A little higher, I think because of the degree of
unanymity among the kind of political and pundit class. And
look in twenty twenty, the kind of democratic elites came
together in this messy nomination process where it looked like
Bernie Sanders might win, and like literally all got together
and they all flew somewhere like Pete boodhag Edge and
(40:17):
Amy Klobishard dropped out and endorsed Biden right and James
Climber and the very influential congressman who is maybe the
most admired black Democrat endorsed Biden, and he kind of
zoomed from kind of this muddle and like second place
to winning actually very easily on South Carolina and on
Super Tuesday. So it is a group that has someone
(40:38):
shown itself capable of making adult kind of group decisions.
And again, the problem is that, like you can hit
this story about Biden's age every single day, However many
days are left one hundred and something whatever in the campaign.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Because first of all, he's behind in most of these poles.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
He's not going to like pull ahead after this at least, right,
so every time a poll comes out, you can be like, Okay,
the New New York Times Sienna pole has Biden four
points down in Pennsylvania. Must win the state. You know,
that seems really bad. Every time Biden has a public
speaking appearance where it goes mediocre at best and disastrous
at worse, it's going to be a point of debate.
(41:15):
And believe me, if Democrats in the media forget to
talk about it, the Republican attack ads are going to
be devastating. And you know, just the before and after
clips of Biden then versus Biden now, and there's a
cascading effects I think, and you know there will be.
There's also, by the way, they're also opportunistic effects.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
I don't think that.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
I don't think that Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or
whoever else Rafael we're not would face the same degree
of stigma if they said, if needed, I will serve, right,
I mean, they'd be subtle about it and koya about it. Newson,
by the way, was not very coy about his intentions
to potentially challenge Biden two years ago. But like, there
are opportunists who could say that, like I am willing
(41:57):
to serve, or I mean, you know, someone could say
that they want to vote registers a third party. That
probably wouldn't work because it's too late to collect enough
signatures in certain states. But yeah, if you need it to,
you could kind of poison pill Biden, right, You could
like threaten to leak unflattering things that would ensure that
(42:18):
he would lose and so therefore he's forced to resign
and Biden.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
That's another risky strategy.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Well, look, I.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Mean, you know it's what's the burning of bridges strategy.
But like, I think the degree of elite consensus and
Democrats are the party of elites at least by one
definition of the term, is so strong and there are
not very many ways to undo that because Biden just
isn't capable of it, right, he isn't capable of it. Well,
scheduling in a debate next week, how about that?
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (42:47):
I yeah, mostly agree, and.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
I have another debate. We'll see how you do.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Maybe that would elay nerves, but like you're not gonna
let people wait until September to have another debate.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Yeah. And by the way, even if we have another
debate tomorrow and he does much better, that's still not
going to assuage my fear because, as I said, I
need someone who consistently can perform under pressure and under
the lights. That's not consistency, that's good days and bad days.
What if there's what if we're on a bad day
when there's a nuclear strike? Right, Like, we cannot afford
that in a president. So you know, I think our
(43:19):
headline for today's podcast is we thought we were fucked,
and we're kind of fucked. But you know, let's let's
tune in in a few weeks and see where we
are and see what happens. And I hope that, you know,
people listening to this and listening to the unanimity of
voices will actually finally do something about it, and we'll
(43:40):
be in a better situation, or at least a situation
where variance is on our side, where when we when
we next revisit this topic.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Also, you know, again, I'm trying to come at this
from a little bit more of a nonpartisan lens. Although
I've said I don't think Trump would make a good
leader and I don't want them to become president again, America,
stop fucking voting for these really fucking old guys, right,
You should age discriminate more. Do not fucking vote for
people who are seventy five years or older to be
the fucking president of the United States, the hardest job
(44:09):
in the world. I would propose a constitutional amendment to
say you cannot begin your presidential term.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Past the age of seventy five.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
In the absence of that, I'm pledging Maria that I
will never vote for somebody age seventy five or older
again for president.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
I'm pledging that good.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
I will pledge that with you, and I've actually often
thought that since we have a younger limit on the presidency,
we should have an older limit as well, So Nate
we can do the Nate Silver and Maria Kannakova and
men meant to make sure this doesn't happen again. I
think that's a great call.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
To action for.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
The end of our show today. Thanks for joining me
on this emergency pod. I appreciate your time in this
emergency time.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Thanks Maria, and for listeners.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Next, people have an interview that we have pre recorded
with a special guest, unless there is more emergency news,
which everier.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
One might be yes, in which case you'll get the
two of us again. All right, thanks for listening. Risky
Business is hosted by Me, Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
And Me Made Silver.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
And if you want to listen to an ad free version,
sign up for Pushkin Plus.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
For six thirty nine a month you get access to
adre listening. Thanks for tuning in.
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
3. Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.