Five Reasons the Democrats Lost

Donald Trump and the Republican Party pulled off a pretty remarkable win on Tuesday. Not only did Trump sweep almost every swing state and clinch a popular vote win, he made substantial gains or outright victories with almost every demographic group in the country.

How did Trump do it? Or to put it another way, how did Democrats fuck this up?

There are a lot of different explanations being bantered - so allow me to jump in with my take. I think it largely comes down to five key issues:

1. The Economy
2. Immigration
3. Woke Bullshit
4. Foreign Policy - Gaza and Ukraine
5. The Messaging Sucked

Today we are joined by political analyst Jake Morgenstern to break it all down.

Twitter: @morgenstern2112

Original post: https://kevinmaley.substack.com/p/five-reasons-why-democrats-lost

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
five reasons democrats lost the election and
they lost pretty badly.
So I just had a post that I putup where I there's been a lot
of takes on the election and myDemocrats lost and I thought it
came largely down to five keyissues that I thought we could
go through one by one.

(00:29):
So the first was the economy,Number one, immigration.
Number two, number three, wokebullshit.
Number four, foreign policy.
And number five, the messagingsucked.
And I have a few honorablementions and would be interested
if you had any other thoughtsas well.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Just to those points.
So I think your list-.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well, we're going to go through them one by one.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, hold on.
But at the outset I'm sayingyour list is too inclusive of
honorable mentions, is apt,because there is clearly no
singular reason why theDemocrats lost.
No one can credibly point to asingle reason.
So I look forward to thisdiscussion here, buddy.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay, well, so just a couple of things on the economy
overall.
So voters had said the economywas their number one issue.
Most voters had said that andthat was going into the election
Voters across the board notevery single person, but most
people it was the, I don't knowif it was a majority or
plurality said the economy wastheir number one issue.

(01:36):
And this was kind of perplexingto the Biden Harris people
because they were pointing tonumbers showing unemployment was
low, inflation was going down,inter interest rates just
started to come down, gdp wasrising Biden would talk about
that.
The US economy was the envy ofthe world and it was, I think,

(01:57):
among advanced industrializedeconomies, had the best
post-COVID recovery.
So there was a lot of confusionas to why voters would say the
economy was not good.
Most voters were saying theydidn't feel the economy was good
and they also trusted Trumpmore than Harris on the economy.
And so I think it comes down toa couple issues to explain.

(02:21):
If I could talk to the Harriscampaign and the Biden campaign
before that, one thing was thehigh.
They never factored in how thehigh interest rates were
impacting regular people, howunaffordable it was to buy a
home, for example, a housingplank in her kind of small

(02:43):
platform where she talked abouta few policy issues, but that
wasn't helping people who kindof already had homes and were
struggling with high interestrates.
You had you had the impact ofinflation, where I don't think
people cared that inflation wasnecessarily going down.
I mean that's a good thing, butfor most people they were
feeling the impact of foodprices being much higher than

(03:05):
they were years ago.
And then I think one thing thatpeople kind of miss out in a
lot of their analysis is therewas a lot of temporary COVID aid
that came out, first under theTrump administration at the end
of his term, the CARES Act thatgave a lot of temporary aid to
people, and then Biden's Iforget.

(03:25):
I think it was called theAmerican Recovery Act or
something like that.
Maybe that's it.
Yeah Well, so there, I was justreading this headline before we
got on.
It's from February 2024, andit's in the Washington Post.
So one of the things that theCOVID aid did was expand
Medicaid to millions of people.
And this headline from theWashington post, halfway through

(03:47):
unwinding Medicaid enrollmentis down about 10 million.
So 10 million people, as ofFebruary 2024, were thrown off
their health insurance.
And then just a few other stats.
Then I want to get yourthoughts.
This is from Annie Lowry in theAtlantic.
Going back to interest rates,the mortgage rate more than

(04:09):
doubled during the Biden Harrisyears.
Credit card balances wereunaffordable.
Car payments went up, homesgenerally were unaffordable.
A family purchasing a $400,000home with 20% down would pay
$2,500 a month today versus$1,800 a month three years ago.

(04:29):
And then other COVID aid thatwas expiring food aid, so SNAP
benefits were expiring.
There were the forbearance andstudent loans that were expiring
and unemployment benefits wereexpiring and unemployment
benefits were expiring.
And then there was the childtax credit, which the Biden

(04:50):
administration had doubled, andthey had halved child poverty
under a temporary program.
That evaporated as well.
And we saw child poverty doubleunder the Biden administration
and we saw poverty increase aswell.
So just again to recap food ismore expensive, mortgages are

(05:11):
more expensive, housing is moreexpensive in general, including
for rent, millions of peoplebeing thrown off their health
care, poverty increasing, andyet GDP was growing.
So is it any wonder thatDemocrats were not looked at as
doing well in the economy?

Speaker 2 (05:31):
No, no, no, I completely agree, and I guess
all I can add to that is that Imean you saw the voter or
non-voter in the case of themillions who stayed home must
have seen that the Democratswere, forgive me, small C,
constitutionally incapable ofadvocating for any of this

(05:53):
rollback that you're justdescribing there.
They hardly even put up a fightfor it.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Well, they tried with the Build Back.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Better bill.
I would the build back betterbill?
I don't know.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's true, but but, but you know they,
they let the four, they let the,the forbearance for student
loans, just that came right back.
You know, as soon as theChamber of Commerce raised a big
enough stink, the Democratsacquiesced.

(06:21):
So so you know, it's it's, it'sit, it's the Democrats that
people saw the Democrats playingin right into this week, and
futile is not the word, but justineffectual.
And in a way it's emblematic ofthis tottering old senile crook

(06:42):
who has been bumping into doorsfor the past two and a half
years, if not, if not more.
I mean, come on, yeah, so soyou know, people said, you know,
uh, I, I understand why.
Well, when, when not justthings that happened happened,
but then the democrats didn'tseem to, uh, didn't seem to put
up a fight and tried to stavethat off.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Well, another thing.
So they tried.
You know, the Biden's COVIDrecovery bill had all those
temporary benefits that wereexpiring.
I guess he should have timed itbetter so that they weren't
going to expire right before hewas going to be reelected.
But they, they tried to make alot of them.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
But but then?
But then he he is supposed tobe, or he is advertised.
As you know, he's been inpolitics, you know, for 107
years and he knows all the insand outs.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, Well, that that gets to a point that I was
going to make was they tried tomake a lot of them permanent
under the original Build BackBetter bill and Joe Manchin got
a lot of shit for this.
But I think this is actually acritique I would put back on the
Biden administration.
So, if people remember, theoriginal Build Back Better bill

(07:55):
was going to have universalpre-K and expanded health
benefits and permanent expansionof the child tax credit and all
of these things and the pricetag was astronomical and Joe
Manchin at the time he said I'llagree to 1.5 trillion.
I think he said initially hewould agree to something like
that and he played around withthe price tag, but what he said
was the final bill.

(08:15):
I don't want any budgetgimmicks in that.
And what the Democrats,especially in the House, did,
the Congressional ProgressiveCaucus was they put everything
that instead of choosing acouple of things that they
wanted, they put everything in,but they had random sunset
provisions under the assumptionthat they would later become

(08:37):
permanent.
And Joe Manchin was flippingout saying these are budget
gimmicks because it's not thetrue cost of the bill and he was
fighting with the White House,I think, instead of Biden, if he
.
I think he was alreadysunsetted by this point.
This is very early on in hisadministration.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Sunsetted or sundown.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Sundown, sundown.
Yes, thank you.
If he was really the kind ofdeft LBJ, I can run the Senate.
Kind of guy.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
He would have been able to handle Manchin better
and gone to the House and saidlook, we've got to pick and
choose.
We've got Manchin agreeing to aprice tag, but you got to pick
a couple of things.
You have to choose,unfortunately, between child
poverty and universal pre-K andexpanded Medicaid benefits, and
that's a hard choice to makebecause they're all I agree with

(09:24):
everything they were doing, nottactically, but the goals, and
they refused to choose and thewhole bill fell apart.
It later became the InflationReduction Act, which is mostly
about climate spending, which Iliked, but I would say a better
president would have been ableto have handled that and he was
just kind of out to lunch.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
I think whether or not the Democrats could have
done better or could not have, Imean and this is I mean, this
is just the bind the center leftparty in this country finds
themselves in, you know, oftheir own making or choosing, or
by circumstance, or just, youknow, by the arc of history or

(10:02):
however you want to characterizeit.
So I guess, in a way, to me itdoesn't.
In a way it also doesn't matterwhether or not they chose to be
ineffectual because they'redemocrats, because they're
ineffectual because they'redemocrats, or whether or not,
you know, they really could nothave done anything anyway, and I
guess it almost doesn't.
In a way, it doesn't make adifference and you'll probably
see that sort of narrative, uh,bounce back and forth between

(10:23):
the parties in the coming yearslike a hot potato or whatever,
in terms of you know, they couldhave done this, could have done
that.
They're ineffectual this way.
They should have done more thatway.
I think we're going to see justcircumstances are going to be
not what they once were.
I guess I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, the other thing I wanted to add just on this
topic, and it plays into reasonnumber five I have on the
messaging, but with peoplefeeling like the economy was
kind of screwed against them,trump had a narrative for that.
He had, and other commentatorshave talked about this, but he
had a message of theseWashington insiders don't care

(11:02):
about you, they care more aboutillegal immigrants who are
coming in and taking your jobsand I'm going to fight for you.
There is kind of an us versusthem and it's been pointed out
that the Democrats under theBernie Sanders wing of the party
had a narrative, had anexplanation, because people need
an explanation for what'shappening to them.
The Sanders explanation wasit's the plutocrats, it's the

(11:25):
millionaires and thebillionaires in Washington and
fighting against kind ofcorporate corruption and
plutocracy, the 99% against the1%.
That was a message that workedreally well for Sanders.
It almost won him thenomination twice until, I would
argue, the party kind ofcoalesced against him party
insiders.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
I would not argue against you.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, but Harris eschewed, as others say, that
narrative.
And there's an interestingthing from the New York Times
talking about how initiallyHarris embraced that kind of
Bernie Sanders critique of bigbusiness you know, that's when
she was talking about pricegouging and that sort of thing

(12:08):
but then she apparently she, youknow surrounded herself with
big donors from Wall Street andSilicon Valley.
Hold on, I'm getting anotification.
My Uber is here.
Yes, ok, going, going right onthat.
So her brother in law is thegeneral counsel of Uber, tony
West, and he was a close advisorto her, as was Mark.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Cuban.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
And so the New York Times reports.
I'm just quoting the New YorkTimes here.
Over the course of the campaign, it became clear that Ms Harris
would de-emphasize Mr Biden'sattacks on big companies in
favor of a more conciliatoryapproach that she hoped would
appeal to moderates.
She wanted corporate leaders inher camp as she tried to outrun
the progressive reputation shehad gained from the 2020

(12:50):
presidential primary race andshe tried to blunt Mr Trump's
attacks that she was a communist.
And a lot of that did come from.
And it has been reported thatTony West of the world again her
brother-in-law, who's thegeneral counsel of Uber, who
tries to exploit workers andbreak unions and pay substandard

(13:11):
living wages.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Right, yeah, no, yeah , I mean I would say yes, except
it's funny how this, thisalways happens always, that they
all, they always go with the.
Uh, you know they always uh,democrats will always break to
to go after you know the 45.
Uh, never trump republicans inthe room, all who work at msnbc.

(13:34):
I mean, it's just justconveniently.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
It's just convenient that not always though because
if you think about the 2012campaign, do you remember that
secret recording they found ofMitt Romney where he was talking
?
About 47% of the country.
They're moochers, they'reliving, and so that campaign I
feel like was the good album ofthe Democrats were running as
were against private equity andthe big rich and the

(13:59):
corporations whereas they werepositioning the Republican
opponents as a tool of WallStreet and fucking over the
American workers.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
I would sever my analysis between 2012 and 2016.
And I would also add to the2012, your 2012 point.
In 2012, you know, democratsfamously ran as Biden, I believe
General.
What was it?

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive
.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Alive.
Now the world is basically theopposite.
Osama bin Laden is dead andGeneral Motors is alive.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Talk a little bit more about that when we get to
number five messaging.
But moving on to number two,one of the big major issues in
the campaign immigration.
And so this, I thought, waskind of interesting and I'm
interested your thoughts on this, because Harris was in a
challenging place on this.
So when Biden came into office,he loosened some of Trump's

(15:02):
border restrictions.
I don't know why they did notput them back on when millions
of people started coming acrossthe border.
The low number is somethinglike nine million people came
across the border.
They were going all over thecountry, sometimes shipped by
the governor of Texas, but thiswas being felt in the streets of

(15:23):
Chicago and the streets of NewYork In blue, so-called blue
areas of Texas, but this wasbeing felt in the streets of
Chicago and the streets of NewYork In blue, so-called blue
areas, and not just Martha'sVineyard but in Massachusetts,
the shelters are all full withmigrants and they were not
stopping it long after it becamean issue and you would.
I was reading this interviewwith on the South side of
Chicago, which is predominantlyblack, where the city of Chicago

(15:45):
is putting up tents and parkinglots and kind of displacing or
inconveniencing a lot of blackworking class voters on the
south side of Chicago, seeingthat their tax money is and
hotels with migrants.
And this is not me arguingagainst migrants although I do

(16:07):
think you shouldn't haveuncontrolled border entry but
I'm arguing the political impactof not just how Democrats think
you're just xenophobic andracist if you're against
uncontrolled migration but we'reseeing the working class being
impacted by that, seeing, youknow, the working class
struggling economically andthey're seeing resources going

(16:28):
to house and feed people fromother countries and that has an
impact and whether you thinkthat's right or not, that does
have an impact.
And so just to set up whyHarris's problem and how I think
she could have gotten out of it, was they had finally, in I
think it's February of this year, they got an immigration bill

(16:51):
that she touts a lot.
Interestingly enough, the onlyreason they put that immigration
bill is they wanted more aidfor Ukraine, and they didn't
think that Republicans wouldsupport it unless they tied it
to immigration.
So this bill was actuallyimmigration Israel aid, which
always passes, obviously andthen immigration enforcement.
It was not to the HouseRepublicans liking.

(17:14):
The Senate.
Republicans didn't care.
It was blamed on Trump.
He may have spiked it, but Ithink there were some justified
reasons for that and the wholething fell apart.
But, interestingly enough,after the bill fell apart, the
Biden administration issuedexecutive orders putting in more
stringent border controls.
That would have been in theborder bill, and it effectively

(17:36):
shut down immigration flows.
So yada, yada, yada, and just afew more points on this the
position Harris was in, so shewas labeled by the media as
border czar.
Whether that was right or not,that was the nomenclature.
That's what she got, and Ithink she should have found a
way to address that.

(17:59):
We're really strong in theborder.
We tried to get a border billpassed, but Trump blocked it and
she couldn't account for whenthe majority of the
administration.
Why did they wait until thelast minute?
And so I want to get yourthoughts, but I'm just going to
read a quick exchange she hadwith Anderson Cooper where she

(18:21):
had the clip.
So she's talking at the CNNtown hall.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
What did she say to and what did she say to anderson
cooper was was this recorded?
That's something eyes wide shutto function in uh in the
hamptons or is that a ditty part?

Speaker 1 (18:35):
so?

Speaker 2 (18:36):
so I thought you said , I thought they're at an
anderson cooper town hall and umtown hall.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Yes.
And she says how immigrationwas shut down and you know the
border is now closed.
So Cooper says well, why didn'tyou do that in twenty two and
twenty, twenty, twenty two andtwenty twenty three.
She says well, we, you know, wethought we could work with
Congress and we thought we couldgo for a long term fix.
He says couldn't you have doneit at the same time?

(19:06):
And she said well, here's thething.
And then he said do you wishyou did the executive orders in
2022 and 2023?
And she said I think we did theright thing.
And that's where I want to getyour thoughts.
I mean, she could have said alot there.
She could have said you knowwhat we tried, but we made a
mistake and now we need to bereally tough on immigration.

(19:27):
But she thought she could runto the right of Donald Trump on
immigration, which I'm sorry, noone was buying.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Okay, I'll slip to the larger point first, which is
that you know, on a number ofkey issues, uh, uh, uh, you know
, harris, flip-flops.
Uh, uh, uh, you know, harris,flip-flops, you know, in a major
way.
And then, and then, if and thenshe's flip-flopping on certain
issues in a major way, then like, then, like.
How can the average observer notthink that every time you know,

(19:56):
basically every time you know,she either flip-flops or or or
or changes position, or whatever?
How can they not, just, justhow can the average observer not
conclude that she is that shesays they just got caught what
they're doing, or she just gotcaught what she, she just got
caught, and and actually, oh,and actually, uh, no, no, no, I
didn't, I didn't do that, likeso, in other words, I it's not

(20:17):
that, it's not that you know sheflips on, uh, fracking or
immigration, but then, but then,but then, but then, every time
she gets called out for those,she flip-flops.
But what about these otherpositions?
So might the rational observer,might they not be reasonable in
thinking that all these othercriticisms of her, what if they

(20:39):
are also true?
What if she's also traffickingkids at ping pong, or you know?
Or what if she?

Speaker 1 (20:47):
didn't have a good explanation for anything right,
right.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Exactly so right, right, right, and this is right.
It came out of the ether one.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Someone could like I could have written one on one,
something like it's uh, any kindof explanation, but she refused
to address right anything thatyeah, flip-flop, yes, I think,
if she, I think it would havebenefited her if she said
something like we were trying touse different approaches to
immigration and clearly thisdidn't work, and now we've

(21:16):
learned our lesson.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
I mean it wouldn't have won her on immigration.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
But it maybe would have helped her go up a pointer
to an immigration.
And it's one thing where shecould have, you know, because
she famously on the View said Iwouldn't have done anything
differently, there's no distancebetween me and Biden.
I mean, I think she could havejust given that said, like it's
clear that immigration didn'tquite work out well.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
And I don't think it would have helped her.
Or you could say you knowcircumstances have changed, yes,
yeah, and by the or you couldsay or they could say you know
circumstances have changed, oryes, yeah.

(21:59):
And, by the way, this is acriticism that I believe is
salient, as you know, withouttaking, you know, a stand on the
substance of themselves.
You know, it's really just likeevery time she is called out,
she's like, oh, I got my hand inthe cookie jar, and then it
says something different.
So might, might, you know again, might the reasonable observer
think that all these othercriticisms for which he's not
yet apologized, might, might shealso be, might they also be
true?
And then, if these criticismsare also true, might they, might

(22:20):
she also be a really bad,irreversibly tainted candidate?
And this is just this.
This is, this is the reason whywe're here.
This is why you have a wholelist, as long as a CBS receipt,
of reasons why the Democrats,led by Harris, lost.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, and one thing I should have pointed out at the
beginning of this is some of thenumbers.
I think people are familiarwith them, but it's worth
pointing out how bad Harris did,and that's measured by where
she lost voters as compared toBiden or Clinton.
She did worse with black votersoverall.

(22:54):
She did especially worse withblack men.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
She completely Especially in states where,
especially in the swing states,where there was target focused,
in other words, where itmattered.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, she lost Latino men.
She did worse than herpredecessors with Latina women.
She.
She did very bad with the under30 vote.
She lost men under 30.
She lost she.
She did worse on everydemographic group than Bideniden
, except for white women with acollege degree making more than

(23:26):
a hundred thousand dollars ayear.
Aka, like people who watch theview and joy read and I think
that's a pretty apt description.
Speaking of which, let's go toissue number three.
Reason number three, theepisode number three Democrats
lost woke bullshit.
So I've heard a lot of people.

(23:49):
You know this is kind of beingtalked about more in the media.
I will say I don't think it'sthe number one issue by any
means, but I want to kind of setup this narrative of when Biden
was running for the presidencyin 2020, he campaigned on this
idea of a return to normalcy andI think that spoke to the idea

(24:10):
that people felt like thecountry had gone off the rails
in many different waysthroughout all four years of the
Trump administration.
There is just tons of chaos.
There is the crazy freakouts.
It was not just the chaos thatTrump himself was doing, but the
reaction from people protestingand you know the media
freakouts and it's breaking newsall the time, and this kind of

(24:32):
culminated in COVID.
And and so Biden campaigned onthis idea of like I'm this
really old, old school Democratand I think that appealed to
people like, oh, he's a moderateDemocrat who will kind of bring
it back to normal Democrat whowill kind of bring it back to
normal.
But I think some people, as asecondary, tertiary issue, felt
like the country was still kindof felt like going a little

(24:56):
crazy.
Where, you know, you have the,the gender norms changing and I
will say I think most people, Ithink the vast majority of
people, are probably fine withlive and let live and you know,
no one cares if you'retransgender or gay or whatever.
But I think when it became this, you know insisting that we

(25:20):
can't even talk about the ideaof transgender women playing
men's sports, because if youeven oppose it at all, you are
transphobic.
That you, you know everyone hasto put their gender pronouns in
their email.
And it came to a point whereand I'm going to quote the New

(25:41):
York Times again there wereostensibly liberal women's
rights organizations who werestripping the word women from
their website.
So let me just quote the NewYork Times here.
So they were talking about howlots of different websites and

(26:01):
organizations no longer saywomen, they say terms like
pregnant people, menstruatorsand bodies with vaginas, so this
includes Planned Parenthood.
Who omits the word women fromits homepage?
Now NARAL, who's anotherwomen's rights pro-choice
organization, switched out theword women for birthing people.
The ACLU, which had been alongtime defender of Roe v Wade,

(26:23):
when Roe v Wade was overturned,said it threatened several
groups, and they listed themblack, indigenous and other
people of color, lgbtq,community immigrants and young
people.
And then, quoting the New YorkTimes, it left out the most
threatened.
It left out those threatenedmost of all women.
They literally didn't talkabout women as being threatened
by the overturn of Roe v Wade.

(26:43):
And then just one other thingthe British Medical Journal, the
Lancet.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
The British Medical Journal of inbred pedophiles.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
It's probably the most prestigious medical journal
in the world.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
What do they do?
Do they examine?
They have a storied legacy ofreconstructing royalty who got
their arms blown off in an IRAincident.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Where is Lord Mountbatten?
All right, so the Lancet saidthe Lancet had a cover article
about menstruation and insteadof mentioning people who
menstruate, they refer to peopleas bodies with vaginas instead
of women.
So again, I don't want to saythat the whole thing is about

(27:35):
this?
I don't think it is.
And I also want to emphasizeyou know this is not reflective
of my views, but how I think thething that bothered me the most
about this kind of whole life,and was an FDR liberal and said

(28:13):
like, hey, maybe how long washer life if she was black and
had the right to vote and votedfor FDR?

Speaker 2 (28:19):
She's old.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
But if she said you know, I don't know about, you
know men playing women's sports,If she said that cast it out of
the party.
Yeah, how dare you vote for FDRand play?

Speaker 2 (28:27):
women's sports.
If she said that, Cast it outof the party.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, how dare you say that she voted for SCR and
played women's sports?
You must be cast out of theparty.
I think it's an important pointand you know to underscore that
point right after the election,seth Moulton, who's a
congressman from Massachusettswas giving an interview where he
said something like he wastalking about the election.
He said you know, I'll have toadmit I have concern for my two
little girls getting run over ona playing field by a male or

(28:50):
formerly male athlete.
But as a Democrat I'm supposedto be afraid to say that Right
after he said that some of hisstaff resigned, some of his
other staffers circulated aletter asking him to apologize
to the LGBTQ plus community.
It was his campaign manager whoresigned.
Other Democratic officialsasked him to resign and so again
, this is to emphasize the ideanot of his position, but the

(29:13):
fact that he couldn't he wassaying I'm afraid to even say
this position, and then thereaction kind of reaffirmed.
That is again underscoring.
I don't think it's the majorissue, but I think the idea that
Trump played into one of hisclosing ads which was one of his
most effective ads as measuredby a few different outlets was a

(29:38):
commercial talking aboutquoting Kamala Harris saying
that she supports transgendersurgeries for immigrants in US
prisons, and the gist of thecommercial is that they're using
taxpayer money for this and itends with a narrator saying
Kamala stands for they them,trump stands for you.
And it was criticized for beingtransphobic, which of course it

(30:00):
kind of is, but I think it headsto a larger point that while
you're suffering at the message,while you're suffering
economically, she's Democratsare obsessed with these social
issues and they're taking yourtaxpayer money to help migrants
who shouldn't even be in thiscountry get surgeries for
something you didn't don't evenunderstand.

(30:21):
That's what they care about.
I, donald Trump, I'm going tofight for you to put bread on
the table, and that's kind ofthe big point that I'm trying to
make here is that it wasportrayed as a distraction and I
think the Democrats kind of fedinto that.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
I don't argue that the Democrats didn't feed into
that or, frankly, into anynarrative that lets up their
downfall.
However, I mean, then I willdisagree with you here, because
I mean you know all theseexamples you cited as the New
York Times oh, it's in thishighfalutin place, or just
congressmen from you know, oneof the most posh parts of the

(30:56):
country, you know, specifically,like the northeast corner of,
like northeast Massachusetts.
These were even salient issues.
I don't doubt that they mighthave resonated with those making
the criticisms.
I don't doubt that they mighthave resonated with those making
the criticisms.
I would also remind you andlisteners that do not forget,
that when Donald Trump wasrunning for the nomination in
2015, and, as you may recall, itwas coming down to Donald Trump

(31:21):
and Ted Cruz, and one of thesort of, like you know, silly
issues or questions at the timewas like, well, what if, like,
caitlyn Jenner came into TrumpTower and needed to use the
bathroom?
And Trump's like, well, Ididn't care, and Ted Cruz made a
big stink about it.
And next thing, you know, tedCruz loses literally middle
America.
He lost a big lead, bigly, theuh, the primary in in indiana

(31:53):
and even after uh uh, having acolleague for arena as as his vp
nominee to be dropped out andand ted cruz or ted cruz?
Ted cruz lost and don trumpwent on, went on to win.
I guess all that is to saywhether, whether, whether,
whether it's you know, likeelite media outlets gabbing to
their, to to their eliteaudiences, or, or, or whether,
or whether it's you know, likeelite media outlets gabbing to
their, to their elite audiences,or whether or whether it's you
know, the 2015-16 Republicanprimary, I guess I guess was

(32:17):
2016.
I don't think that that is asalient criticism and it does
play into narrative of, asDemocrats, as ineffectual in
caring more about things thataffect only a very small segment
of our society as as comparedto the rest, but I struggle to
think that that was, or I think,one much struggle to think that

(32:37):
that was a controlling factor.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
But I was arguing it wasn't a controlling factor.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
I was saying it was not a controlling factor.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
It was a background factor.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Well, I thought.
I thought there was a numberthree.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
I thought there's a number three on your list I'm
sorry it was, but they, theyinterplay with each other.
It was, I think it was an issue, I think people were sick of it
, but I think the economy wasnumber one and abortion was
number two.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Okay, well, everything else was far below
that fair enough.
In any event, I, I, I don't, Idon't necessarily share your
assessment of that factor, butthat's OK.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
OK, so we'll move on to a very interesting one,
Number four, foreign policy.
Speaking of issues that I don'tthink were the most important
issue but I think had an impactin the broader narrative, was
the Democrats' foreign policy,and where to begin on the

(33:35):
Democrats' foreign policy.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
So one thing I'll say largely, and I think you know I
mean no, I'm just, I'm justsuggesting that, yeah, that the
list.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Well, we'll just focus on Ukraine and Gaza.
And I'll say one thing you knowBiden lost the House, his in the
midterms and so it would benatural that he would not be
able to focus on Domesticlegislation or legislation as
much, but I think his secondhalf of his presidency.

(34:13):
As Americans were sufferingeconomically, they were seeing
billions and billions probablyup to $200 billion sent overseas
to Ukraine, to Israel, to othercountries, while they were
suffering and that the wholenarrative was ridiculous.
It was Bush era, like we'refighting for democracy, when it

(34:35):
was obviously not true and I'mhappy to get into that.
But I think you know gettinginto the actual issues I mean
Ukraine is a debacle the actualissues mean.
Ukraine is a debacle and I don't.

(34:55):
I mean again, we're justsending them so much money and
we're not really seeing results.
But I don't think Ukrainereally played, excuse me, into
this that much.
I do think somewhat their Gazathing did definitely affected
Michigan.
I think it probably had animpact on the youth vote.
It had an impact on just kindof the stalwart liberal vote, I

(35:16):
think.
So I'm going to quote PeterBeinart right now, also from the
New York Times, but he alsowrites for Jewish Currents and
so he's in multiple publications.
So he wrote over the past yearexcuse me, over the past year.
Israel's slaughter andstarvation of Palestinians,
funded by US taxpayers and livestreamed on social media, has

(35:37):
triggered one of the greatestsurges in progressive activism
in a generation.
Many Americans, roused toaction by their government's
complicity in Gaza's destruction, have no personal connection to
Palestine and Israel, and thepoint that he's making there is
it's not just Arabs.
So he says, like many Americanswho protested South African
apartheid or the Vietnam War,their motive is not ethnic or

(35:59):
religious, it is moral.
All of this provided Mr Trumpan opportunity.
According to the New York Times,his campaign found that
undecided voters in swing stateswere about six times as likely
as other swing state voters tobe motivated by the war in Gaza.
Mr Trump wooed them.
He pledged to help quote returnthe Middle East to peace and

(36:20):
lambasted former RepresentativeLiz Cheney, a Republican, with
whom is Harris had chosen tocampaign as a radical war hawk.
And so the point that he'smaking.
There is not just that.
We can talk about the data inMichigan, which I think is
pretty clear, especially withDemocratic senators running

(36:40):
ahead of Harris in Michigan andwinning in Michigan and taking a
kind of more nuanced view ofthe war.
Harris was instead campaigningwith Liz fucking Cheney, and
there's a number of other issuesthat I mean ways she fucked up
on Gaza.
But I want to emphasize Bynard'spoint was it's not just that,
it's not just that and, forcontext, michigan has the

(37:03):
largest Arab-American populationin the country.
But the point that Bynard ismaking is it's not just Arab
American voters, it's youngvoters, it's kind of the base,
the kind of activist base, thekind of people who protested the
war in Vietnam or a generationearlier apartheid or a
generation before that Vietnam,and that that did affect turnout

(37:26):
.
I don't know that it wasdeterminative.
But when it comes down to Imean this, this bound to being a
close election on the popularroad, at least in in the swing
states.
And you got to look at thebroader picture of a.
It's just a country sufferingeconomically and administration
just obsessed with sendingweapons overseas, trying to sell
it as an economic programbecause it's helping Raytheon

(37:49):
and Lockheed Martin because theymight be building bombs here,
although there's objectively noeconomic benefit.
That we've seen and just themoral atrocities that a
Democratic administration isselling, I think takes a dent
out of support and energy forthe party from the people who

(38:10):
are usually the most energeticand that's the young base of the
party Right and I completelyagree.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
But I also think that , just as I was obviously in my
opinion funnily alluding toearlier, where I'm saying that
this is like the opposite of the2012 election and that General
Motors is alive and Osama binLaden is dead, I think people
looked around and saw the worldwas on fire.

(38:37):
Massive amounts of dollars.
We're going to uh, uh, these,the, you know, these four uh,
which I believe that americansare more and more viewing with
an increased, uh, isolationisteye.

(38:57):
So I don't think yes, I agreewith you that that foreign
policy doesn't necessarilymatter singularly, but but it
plays into and supports a largernarrative of she is for they,
they them, and he is with us.
So that's how I think this allties together.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
How offensive was it to you that she was campaigning
with Liz Cheney?
And not only that, she wastouting Dick Cheney.
So it's not as if she tried toget distance from the father.
She was touting Dick Cheney'sendorsement, calling him an
American patriot and thankinghim for his service.
He killed a million people andset up an illegal torture regime
.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
I was offended that Donald Trump thought there could
only be nine guns pointed athim.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
And we should be clear about that, like he was
saying that she was a chickenhawkk, not that the media
totally misreported this hewasn't saying that she should be
shot in a firing squad.
He was saying, if you're gonnaadvocate for these wars that
you're so gun happy about right,go and fight them yourself,
which everyone used to sayduring the george w bush years.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
I support him.
Yes, I guess.
Yes, yes, yes, I mean she's awar mongering genocidal monster
who's never made a country shedoesn't want to invade?

Speaker 1 (40:10):
There's no distance between her and her father.
She also worked in the George WBush administration and the
State Department helping allthese war crimes occur.
She's never repudiated thoseviews.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
She's going to have her own circle of hell named
after her.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
I mean come on yeah, Well, after that the family name
and her father would be there.
Did that bother you that shewas going around?
Yes, having like women'sclinics.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Believe it or not, as a human being, it bothered me.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah, I mean, what a dumb fucking move.
And it wasn't just dumb, it wasinsulting, like it truly was.
Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Right move, and it wasn't just dumb, it was
insulting, like it.
Yes, yeah, right, right, right,so right, and does that not
undercut, like to the extent youknow?
Yeah, you know they're.
They're people like you and mewho are so-called older
millennials who came inpolitical age.
Uh, you know when, when, whenbush's hitler and, by the way,
all these criticisms of the bushadministration in his cohorts
were were correct and were right.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
And now they're walking this back.
No wonder people say to him nowonder, you know, perhaps you
know youth in Dearborn, michiganwere like huh, you know it's
November, it's cold, I justdidn't bother to get out of the
house today.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Well, I want to read you the data on the house today.
Well, I can, I want to read youthe data on dearborn, but first
I want to read you a.
So as a quote from donald trump, so as data on dearborn george
w bush administration library.
Probably this is what so she'sgoing.
Harris goes to michigan.
This is um.
Trump goes to michigan.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
In quoting him, I'll try and uh yeah, at least he
went, at least at least he triedhear me, hear me out.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
This is my trump thank you.
This is a quote from him manymuslim and americans, and arab
americans have friends andfamily living in the middle east
, and kamala is campaigning withwarmongers like liz cheney.
They want to get the Arab vote,they want to get the Muslim
votes, so she begs Liz Cheney,whose father virtually destroyed

(42:15):
the Middle East.
I don't think that's workingout too well.
That's a quote from Trump.
And the data on Dearborn, whichis the largest Arab majority
city in the United States, whichBiden won.
Biden won Dearborn, michigan.
75% of the vote.
You know how much Harris got27% of the vote.

(42:36):
Oh my God, 27% of the vote.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
You have to be like a theoretical physicist to figure
out the, the negative imaginaryinteger to quantify how much
her share of the vote decreasedit's.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
I mean, she fucked up .
And again I want to emphasizewho is the senator that just won
?
Was it Slotkin Slotkin,Michigan?
Yeah, so she's thesenator-elect, alyssa Slotkin.
So she was a Democratic Houserepresentative for Michigan.
She was running for the Senate.
She won.
I don't have her statements upin front of me, but when she was

(43:13):
asked about Gaza and Israel,she had a much more nuanced view
where she would more.
And of course, kamala had thisline of like we're working so
hard for a ceasefire and we'regoing to help the Palestinians
live in dignity and peace, butthen you're going around
campaigning with Liz Cheney.
You can't have it both ways.
So Alyssa Slotkin again, Idon't have her statements in

(43:35):
front of me, but she had a muchmore kind of favorable not
disparaging Israel, becauseyou're not allowed to do that
but she had a more nuanced viewand she didn't campaign with Liz
Cheney.
She won statewide in Michiganas a.
Democrat and Harris lost Yep,yep.
Okay, before we go to the fifth, any other thoughts on the

(44:00):
fourth reason?
No no no, no, you got them all.
Okay.
Number five, the last big one,and this is something we've kind
of talked about throughout, butthis is the messaging sucked,
and so just to kind of set thisup so Harris centered her
campaign around freedom.

(44:20):
Do you remember she had Beyonce?

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yes, Her Beyonce song goes like freedom, freedom.
Of course Beyonce never sang it.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
I don't want.
I don't want your podcast toget demonetized there.
My friend, I'm singing RichieValens.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
OK so she she also centered a significant amount of
her campaign around, I thinkit's fair to say, two issues One
abortion, the otherauthoritarianism.
So abortion, again, I thinkit's an important issue.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Right, right, a lot of people, both of which are not
not not bad and salient issuesshe made it like the there was a
like the end all be all.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
I mean she went down.
Well, hold on.
She went down overall withwomen.
She did worse with women thanJoe Biden.
She was playing on this ideathat women will be so freaked
out by Dobbs.
One thing that's interesting,that's interesting that
Democrats didn't appreciate was,hold on, that Trump moderated
on abortion.

(45:24):
So the Republican Party, sinceRoe v Wade, has had a plank in
its platform saying we want tocriminalize abortion.
Trump made them take it out andof course you could say it's
because Dobbs happened, theydidn't need it.
But they you know they would, alot of them still want a
national ban.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
He said he would veto a national ban on abortion.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
I think it got kind of moderated out a little bit.
The majority of the country isin favor of abortion and in some
cases, but not all cases theysay and you know there's
obviously geographicaldifferences, but she kind of
made it like the thing of hercampaign.

(46:05):
And then the other plank of hercampaign that I thought was so
stupid was Trump's a fascist,trump's Hitler.
This is the last election ever.
You know, at her last electionor, I'm sorry, at her last rally
where she had fucking OprahWinfrey come out, oprah told
people that this will be thelast election we ever have.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
For how much?

Speaker 1 (46:24):
For how much?
For how much?
I heard that was a rumor.
So supposedly Oprah was paid amillion dollars.
Oprah denies that.
I kind of think it probably wasnot true.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
They did excessively spend it.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Or her spokespeople denied it.
No, she denied it.
She like TM TMZ founder orsomething, and she said, no,
that's not true.
And I believe the Harriscampaign did spend very stupidly
.
They spent $100,000 in the.
Call her daddy.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Right, they refused to go on Joe Rogan, but so I.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Set that aside.
Yeah, a different article, notfrom the New York Times that
talking about, there was aninternal memo that was found
that the Harris campaign had,that was leaked to the press.
That said attacking Trump'sfascism is not that persuasive
and it basically said that thisis not moving voters.
And yet they went over and overagain saying you know, it's the
Third Reich or the Fourth Reich, I guess, and it's going to be
so awful.
And, by the way, trump is atthe White House today shaking

(47:24):
hands with Joe Biden.
They're smiling, they'relaughing, it's all great.
You know, harris, when she gaveher concession speech, is like,
oh, we'll live to fight anotherday.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
When you look at the Twitter speech and, as we
understand, on the call withsupporters right.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
Yes, but I was going to say when you look at the,
there's like the libs of TikTokwill have videos of people for
some reason Friends of the podlibs of TikTok?

Speaker 2 (47:54):
No, no, not them.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
I mean just average people, just kind of having
mental breakdowns and freakingout because they believe that
Trump is Hitler.
Obviously the Harris and Bidenpeople didn't actually believe
that, but I think this I meanCNN, new York Times, msnbc, you

(48:22):
know everything is Trump's afascist.
That example before of himsaying Liz Cheney is a chicken
hawk and they twist it to hewanted her assassinated.
But like I could have told you,abortion important issue, don't
make it like basically one ofthe only issues.
And yet she did, I, I mean, andshe, she did worse with women

(48:45):
right biden, she, she lost whitewomen, I mean, she apparently
that that magic did not workright, right.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
So, yeah, I mean again, I will, I mean I'll
largely agree with you.
I I think part of the downfallhere is that Harris and her
campaign I think deliberatelybecause they had no other choice
conflated the two and so, yes,trump might overturn Roe v Wade.

(49:17):
Obviously, I think I wouldcharacterize myself as an
institute observer of Americanpolitics.
I think if that legislationcame to his desk it's quite
possible he might sign thatpiece of legislation.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
But setting that aside, Wait a national ban on
abortion?
I don't think he would.
I don't think it would get tohim.
I don't think.
I think his allies in Congresswould make sure it never shows
up on the floor.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I think, I think he misunderstood.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Johnson's going to put that on the floor.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
He's a, I think I well okay, all right, okay, well
, well, I, I, I, I think I don'tthink most of them even give a
shit about abortion.
They're same with him.
I think Trump cares aboutabortion.
No, no, no, but, but, but.
But let's set that aside.

(50:06):
My criticism here is that theHarris campaign was saying you
know, you know their way tovictory here, and they were
deliberately conflating thatwith Trump is Hitler.
And I'm sorry, you know Trump isHitler, trump has been on the
scene.
Then if he's trying to, youknow, launder that, you know,

(50:43):
with the whole, because he wantsto potentially, you know, make
abortion illegal at the nationallevel, I just don't think any
of that criticism washed.
In fact, it was probablywatered down with this criticism
of Trump as Hitler, because Ijust don't think anyone took

(51:03):
that to be the real thing.
Because here we are in the yearof our Lord 2024, and we've
survived this far, and we'reunder the great fourth year of
the wonderful Bidenadministration, and we've
already survived four years fromTrump and even more if you
count the number of years he'sbeen on the national scene.
People know him is what you'resaying at the national level,

(51:37):
when people saw that he's notHitler.
Ergo he's not going to have anyregressive effect on access to
abortion or abortion rights.
So I think that wascounterproductive to try and
wash those two together.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, I think overall .
I mean I wish I sat in the roomwith her communications people
Like the.
I mean I'm not saying thiswould have solved it, but her
just the messaging sucked.
And again her own internaldocuments said they knew it.
But yes, yeah, but yes, it justwas not working.

(52:17):
You know why?
It's because she didn't want tocriticize Wall Street.
She didn't want to criticizeher donors, right?
She didn't want to criticizeSilicon Valley because Mark
Cuban might be mad.
She can stand up for herbrother-in-law Right, tony West.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Yeah, yeah, you know that's another thing.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Is she at the Democratic the head of the one
of the largest unions in thecountry, the Teamsters Union?
I think his name is SeanO'Brien.
Yeah, sean O'Brien, yeah, yeah,yeah, oh, yeah, so he so hold
on.
So he asked, he asked bothparties.

(52:55):
Could I speak at yourconvention?
And unions are traditionally aDemocratic affiliated apparatus,
because democrats tend to bemore pro-union the rnc, the
republican national convention,you know, and with trump's
acquiescence, let him speak atthe rnt.
He gave a fantastic speech,right critical of republicans,
but it was also yep praisingsome it was positive.

(53:17):
It's positive too, yeah anddemocrats kamal harris's
campaign would not let him speak.
The head of the one of thelargest unions in the country
would not let him speak at thedemocratic national convention
why do you think?
that was because they werecontrol freaks.
They wanted to.
He said this they wanted topre-approve his speech and edit
it, and he said that with thernc too.

(53:38):
The rnc tried to edit hisspeech and susan w, and he said
that with the RNC too.
The RNC tried to edit hisspeech and Susan Wiles, who was
Trump's campaign manager now hischief of staff stopped them and
said let him say whatever hewants to say, Cause he said I'm
not going to speak if you try toedit it.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
I think that's a credit to the Republicans, and
especially the Trump campaignand I've never even heard of her
except on paper.
But that's a credit.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
But they but they said like we'll take I mean
Trump can take criticism becausehe knows it'll help the broader
message, whereas the Harriscampaign was so insecure.
They wanted if you watch any ofthe DNC it was.
I mean I'd rather put a gun tomy head, but it was every speech
was the exact same.
And it was, which happens atalmost every convention.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
But how?

Speaker 1 (54:20):
wonderful she is.
He might have gone off script.
He's not going to attack herdirectly but he would have said
you know, I love I'm guessing Ilove Democrats, they're great.
But you know, we felt betrayedby NAFTA and you know PNTR with
PN, permanent trade relationswithout normal trade relations
with China, and that sort ofthing, and right, but so what

(54:41):
Like?
So what?
So they wouldn't let him speak.
They also wouldn't let a singlePalestinian speak at the I mean
just over and over again.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
She, yeah, right, and it wasn't just speaking, it was
like it wasn't like I evencongregate.
You're like being like?

Speaker 1 (54:55):
you know the.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
The same breath of yeah, they were ejecting
Palestinians from theirprominent Arab Americans from
their rallies.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Okay, so bad messaging, very, very bad.
So those are again the toughissues that I think they lost
the economy.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Immigration woke bullshit.
Foreign policy messaging suck.
I will just, at the end here,want to go over my honorable
mentions and see if you have anythoughts on that.
I'm just going to run throughthem quick, without detail.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
So pick your poison here.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
She just had complete lack of conviction.
We kind of talked about this,but I think the idea that- no.
I disagree with you stronglythere.
That she was able to flip-flopon so many issues showed that
she had no conviction.
Another one she was seen as theestablishment candidate.
She was embracing the FBI.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
This is the Democrats in general.
Let me run through them realquick and then react to them.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
So the Democrats are seen as embracing the CIAia, the
fbi, the fda, big pharma, allthat.
She didn't handle media well,she refused to go on joe rogan.
She also embraced wall street.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
I guess I already said that one hold on a whole
one second, one second, onesecond.
Did you, did you not seerecently that it was alleged, at
least that was her name,jennifer Palmieri?
With regard to Joe, Rogan.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
I saw that this was in the Financial Times, so she
was at some event sponsored bybig banks talking about the
campaign.
She she was an advisor to theHarris campaign and a Hillary
Clinton acolyte and she saidwhen it came in that they were
invited to go.
And Joe Rogan, which peopleshould understand, is the
largest podcast in the historyof the world.

(56:42):
It has regularly 10 to 12, 15million downloads.
For comparison, cnn gets100,000 people watching on a
good night and probably like20,000 in the key demographics.
The Trump interview with Roganis at 80 million downloads.
So this is the largest audienceshe probably would have gotten.
Her convention speech gotsomething like 10 million views.

(57:04):
This would have been thelargest audience she would have
gotten to key demographic menwho she did bad with.
But she could have enjoyedRogan people.
The media makes him out to be aNazi.
He's very, very nice, basicallyliberal guy and yes, I think
would have been completely fairand fine with her, but her Paul

(57:25):
Mary said that when she wasinvited, Harris's staff freaked
out and were opposed to it andthey thought there would be
backlash and it wouldn't lookwell.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
And then so that is that is so.
So I understand that that isfalse.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
How do you know it's false?
It was just reported.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, oh,false.
Their perception was false.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Yes, obviously, because well, what I'm getting
at is that they knew, you know,jennifer Palmieri and her staff
knew that their boss could notsurvive for 30 minutes, much

(58:07):
less an hour, much less threehours on that show without
making a fool of herself, and so, I guess, in a way, to her
credit, she dove on a bullet anddid not let her.
I guess now former boss takethe blame, but in my estimation
that's what happened.

(58:29):
I mean yeah, to his credit, joeRogan lets people talk on like
almost any other outlet in thewhole, whatever Twitter or
podcast verse or whatever I meanand so that's admirable.
But that's enough to be notsalient.
But Jennifer Palmieri knew thatshe could not let her boss be

(58:54):
open minded, which is a generousway of putting it, you know.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
For three hours.
I don't think JenniferPalmieriPalmer was making the
decision.
She was just reporting out thatthe staff freaked out, and I
think this is probably true.
The staff is probably woke andthey thought oh my God, he's so
bad?

Speaker 2 (59:11):
I think that's not true.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
It might be.
Yeah, all right, so those are,those are the major honorable
mentions.
So the party, the establishment, as with media, lack of
convention conviction and justan overall bad candidate she was
not a good candidate and youcan't.
You can't always get yourObamas or your bill Clintons.

(59:35):
I don't think he was that greatof a president, but he was.
He had great charisma.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Yeah, oh my God, oh my God, yes, yes, yes, all three
, all three.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
You know, we and I, I kind of think, and maybe we can
kind of close out on thisthought and get your thoughts on
this, but I wonder if this wasBiden angrily spiting the party
that spurned him, because, fromwhat we now know, so he, after,
after the horrible debate thatwe all watched, he got pushed

(01:00:11):
for a month to get out and hewas refusing.
He was becoming angry.
As you know, senile old peoplechallenge, it happens to them,
and he thought he was gettingattacked by Pelosi and the Obama
people and all that.
So they all.
A word on the street was, andPelosi has said what they wanted
was him to step aside and thenhave kind of like a mini primary

(01:00:34):
.
They did not want an anointmentof Harris, because they knew
she had terrible numbers and wasnot a good candidate.
So he does this thing where hesays I'm going to step aside,
and then on the way out later heendorses Harris and people
should understand he haddelegates from the fake primary

(01:00:54):
that he had where they pushedout all the other candidates.
The delegates were pledged tohim.
They were all Biden supporters.
So when he endorses Harris,he's basically handing her the
nomination.
No one could have challengedher at that point.
I wonder if it was a big fuckyou to the Democratic Party, a
fuck you to Pelosi and Obama.
Who he blames?
I don't think it's fair toblame only them, but who he

(01:01:17):
blames.
And that's why when you lookedat Trump at the White House
today, Biden had the biggestsmile on his face.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Well, I mean, my suggestion, or my explanation is
that there's no way to know,because sundowning and angry and
I know this withoutenlightening your audience to a
personal experience with myfamily I mean, if I was
sundowning and angry and nowhe's got a smile on his face

(01:01:46):
when he's doing you knowsomething.
He's angry when he's doingthing x and then something
happens y, and he's got adifferent disposition about him,
you know.
I mean, like I, there is nocausal relation between the two.
Nevertheless, I would suggestit's quite possible and I think
we should just leave that to thelisteners' imaginations as to

(01:02:09):
whether or not he's a he's.
He's a supremely vindictiveasshole, would you just be
really funny, and we should allbe appreciative of that
possibility.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
And now he retires to Rehoboth Beach.
All right, jake.
Thanks so much for coming on,toodles, much appreciated.
We'll see you next time.