16. JOE BIDEN DROPS OUT

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0:29Welcome to an emergency episode of The Rest is Politics with The Rest is Politics US. So that's me in France. Rory Stewart is there in New Jersey. And Anthony Scaramucci is in Long Island. And we're hoping that at some point, Katty Kay will join us as well. And the reason we're having this podcast is the, I'm sure there's barely anybody that will be, anybody who's interested in politics anywhere in the world will know by now that Joe Biden has announced he is not standing as the Democrat candidate in the November 5th presidential election. He has announced that though he's going to stay on as president, he will not be standing in the election he is throwing his weight behind his vice president Kamala Harris other big names have come in straight behind her including the Clintons including some of the big packs the big sort of donors but also interestingly others who are sort of suggesting maybe we need to take a bit of time okay so just take take the story about one one step I think the first thing is to understand what an amazing momentous thing this is to get Joe Biden to step down at all.

1:34So obviously the pressure has been building up, but he has been very, very resistant. And in particular, a very tight circle around him, including people like Ron Klain, who've been with him on the Judiciary Committee since the early 1990s, holding out to try to keep him in place. And finally that dam broke and he agreed to step down. Now we are facing a big choice, which is, is there a coronation of Kamala Harris or do we go to an open convention. And an open convention is something the Democratic Party hasn't done for a long time. That basically means that the different delegates would be able to vote, and they would be lobbied by the different candidates, as opposed to it happening through a primary process.

2:14And there is a huge divide, it seems already, within the Democratic Party on this. It seems that President Biden and the Clintons are trying very strongly to say it must be Kamala Harris. But the latest tweet from President Obama, just came out a few minutes ago, implies that he is more in favor of going to an open convention process, which would allow many other people to come in and other people to compete. And the question that we're facing is legitimacy. Firstly, what makes you a more legitimate candidate? Is it being crowned or is it coming in having beaten the other candidates in the race?

2:52What is it that shows in your polling? Are you the person that's likely to win if you get selected. And finally, this question of the unity of the Democratic Party. Are you going to take the risk of dividing the party? So unity, legitimacy, polling over to Anthony. So, you know, listen, this will be somewhat controversial for people and I apologize, but there's identity politics at play in the Democratic Party. And so they wanted to, needed to pick an African-American woman to be on the ticket. First African-American woman, first woman vice president. And what's interesting is that the first African-American president is not endorsing her.

3:29And so I think there's a little bit of a tug of war going on between identity politics and performance politics. So Barack Obama is tipping his cards here. He's telling people he doesn't think the black woman can beat the very white or very orange Donald Trump. And so the cards have been tipped by Obama, but I'll make a few predictions here. I'll be bold to say that she gets that nomination. The Clintons have galvanized around her. They own a big piece of that party. And I think she is way more formidable. I just want to be on record saying this to you guys. I traveled with her to Israel in November of 2017.

4:06Her and Doug were on the trip with me. And she's way more impressive and way more formidable than the right-wing media has boxed her and social media in terms of clicking, you know, chopping her up and making her look like She's laughing all the time in this sort of thing. Trust me, she's got a good record and she's got a lot of energy and she's not going to be malapropping like Donald Trump or Joe Biden. There's a couple of things I think worth saying about Kamala Harris. I don't know if you saw Rory and Anthony, I reposted on social media and a campaign video suddenly emerged this afternoon.

4:41And it wasn't totally clear who was posting it, but it was a film of how Kamala Harris would take on Trump. and it's a really, really good piece of work. It sort of says he's this, she's this, he's this, she's this. And I reposted it and just part of me thought, I wonder if something is going on. And then if you think about what's happened since Joe Biden made the announcement, first of all, he's come out very loud and strong for her. Other big, big players in the Democrat family have come out big and strong for her. And I agree with you. I think she is somebody who has maybe not been as high profile and visible as some vice presidents have because Joe Biden perhaps hasn't wanted her to be.

5:20But I think if she gets the limelight, I think she'll use it pretty well. And don't forget, overnight, the age thing as a handicap for the Democrats has gone. It is now Trump who has the age problem. Rory. Yes. So let's stick with Kamala Harris maybe for a moment before we get on to the other possibilities, the other candidates that might come through and what might happen in this convention. So just quick reminder for listeners on Kamala Harris. She's a very, very unusual candidate. She's a candidate from California, and that's something that people are going to talk about a great deal because that's not a swing state.

5:54She's not bringing Michigan. She's not bringing Pennsylvania with her. She's an African-American woman, and I remember Condoleezza Rice once making a joke saying the United States will elect an African-American, but they'll never elect a woman. So there's going to be some questions around that. She's somebody who was a professional attorney. So she graduated from law school in 1990. she then spent a good 12 years working as a deputy DA and then assistant DA first in a county in California then in San Francisco where she would have spent a lot of that 10-12 years actually in the courts prosecuting and then she went up to these more senior positions so district attorney San Francisco and then attorney general in California which is where she wouldn't have been appearing in court but she would have been managing these legal cases the advantage it gives her is that she ought to be able to run on her record on prosecution.

6:49But it was a real problem for her when she was running for the nomination. So remember when she ran in 2019, 2020, this was the time of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, defund the police. And her record as somebody who was seen as being relatively tough on crime, her positions on the death penalty and other things meant that actually a lot of the left-wing progressive Democrats distanced themselves from her. She wasn't able to use her record. She will now be in a better position to use her record. But, and I'd love to hear Anthony's view on that, presumably the Republicans will then try to, as it were, swift vote her by pointing to bits of her record as a prosecutor, which will make her look weak on crime.

7:27Anthony? So it's a brilliant assessment by Rory because she's actually not weak on crime. crime but remember the the democrats are ambivalent about crime now and so she's had to hide some of her prosecutorial record but she went after people very hard remember joe biden signed a very tough very stringent or he supported at least a crime bill in the mid-90s which led to a lot of jail sentences for first-time offenders and for drug users she was part of that bandwagon And her and I are contemporaries. We're exactly the same age. So she's ambivalent now. She doesn't know whether to say I'm a tough prosecutor or I'm not a tough prosecutor because she's got to deal with the woke left.

8:10But I think all of that's notwithstanding. I'm going to say right here, Pete Buttigieg. And you have an African-American woman at the top and you have a outwardly gay man who's married with children on the ticket. And one of the most articulate, brightest people in the Republican, I'm sorry, in the Democratic Party, look out because if the Democrats really want to break out and be bold, and I'll just submit to both of you guys living in this country, when the Democratic Party is bold, Barack Obama against a war veteran, Bill Clinton, 46 years old, against a World War II veteran, when they're bold, they win.

8:52Pete Buttigieg did an absolutely brilliant interview at the weekend with that guy, Mayor, well I can't remember what channel it was on but we'll put it in the show notes it was absolutely brilliant HBO and I agree with you I think that's right and I think this is an opportunity I think it's a huge opportunity because what we've seen Rory and I said this on our podcast last week Anthony that during the whole process for the last really for the last couple of years now nothing much has moved in the American presidential election these two guys Biden and Trump are so well known. What happened last weekend with the attempted assassination was a bit of a game changer.

9:30You saw that in the outcome of the Republican Convention and the way they were pulled together, the sort of eulogies that were being, you know, the adoration of Trump and so forth. The only game changer I think the Democrats had left was this change. And where I think that because Kamala Harris's poll ratings have not been that great, which is the case of virtually every serving politician on the planet right now. But I agree, I think the sort of profile she now gets can be a big advantage to the Democrats for all sorts of reasons. And this point about being a prosecutor, I think she is going to be better placed to prosecute Trump over, for example, his views on abortion, over his links to Project 2025, stuff that frankly, the Democrats have not really been able to get up in lights in the way that they want to.

10:18Rory? Let's assume it's overwhelmingly likely at the moment that Kamala Harris comes through as the candidate. But let me just play devil's advocate for a second and just point to a couple of things that might upset that. So the case for why Kamala Harris could make it is that big heavyweight Democrats are behind her, as we've seen, and other bits, the Democratic Black Caucus, which is quite powerful in Congress and Senate, will be behind her. But in the end, this is a formally open convention. They can't actually tell people how to vote. So there will be over 3 ,000 delegates. The next question is who will run against her?

10:56Many people will say that if you're Gretchen Wittner or you're Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania, you may not want to run against her because you may think you're going to have a better shot next time. But Alistair, as we all know, politicians don't always think like that. They will worry that over the next four years, some new person will emerge, and this is their one shot, and they may not get another chance again. They can't be that confident that if they sit it out this time and they'll have people in their families saying, you've got a responsibility, you've got to run, you've got to take on Trump.

11:27So I think it's likely that we're underestimating, because we haven't seen this since the 1950s, how this worked. It reminds me a little bit of what happens in these conservative leadership runoffs in Britain. They will now have little teams. They'll have their websites ready to go. They'll have their own polling, and they'll be reaching out to all these delegates now, testing the water, seeing whether they can bring people over and testing out donors. And then the final thing, and then I'll hand over to Anthony, the final thing that will matter is that the way the voting's done. Traditionally, this is done that if you don't clear 50 % in the first round, you go to subsequent ballots.

12:02And the problem for that, for Kamala Harris, is if she loses momentum after the first ballot, we just interviewed a guy called David Davis who had this problem in the conservative leadership in Britain. If the preferred candidate loses momentum after the first ballot and somebody else is rising fast, you can then stumble as you go into the second and third rounds and the superdelegates then get involved and things can change. So I wouldn't say it's 100 percent yet for Kamala, although I agree with you. It is very likely. Back to you, Anthony. OK, so let me just say a couple of things. And someone's going to push very hard at Barack Obama.

12:34Someone's on the phone with him right now saying, so you don't believe in your mission. You think your country's a racist, sexist country. I thought your mission was to make that better. How could you not stand with Kamala Harris, who is the obvious number two? And then two questions for Kamala Harris. Madam Vice President, should the president, should President Biden step down? Is his health and cognition impaired enough where he should step down? And follow up question, Madam Vice President, when did you know about the president's health and wellness? Were you lying to the American people? And if you were, how long were you lying to the American people for?

13:13She's got some tough questions that she's got to answer to get her through this right now. Yeah, but Anthony, the first one's easy. I think they're both quite easy. Yes, he should stay as president. He's elected for a full term. He's going to serve a full term. He could have served a second term. He could have fought the campaign, but he's decided to put country before party, he's going to go. And by the way, you Republicans, only yesterday you were saying how awful it was that people were trying to ask him to leave. And the second point about when she knew, people have been able to see that he's admitted he's had one or two issues, but he's now made this decision.

13:49I don't think they're very, very difficult. I think she moves on from them pretty quickly.

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15:06I'm delighted to say that Katty Kay has been able to join us. Yeah, I don't know if you've been able to hear what we've said so far. We've kind of covered our reaction. We've covered some of the things that might happen. But I guess a direct question for you, if I can. If you were minded to challenge Kamala Harris, if you were a Gavin Newsom, if you were a Whitmer, how would you go about that now? And how much time realistically do you have? I think it's really difficult now that you've got, you know, the Congressional Black Caucus, other senior members of the Democratic Party. I mean, we have to wait, you know, to hear from Barack Obama on this, but, and the Clintons coming out, the machinery is going to make it hard, Because what we've been hearing over the last week is that you've got large chunks of the Democratic base, obviously African-American voters, voters of color.

15:55You've got female voters who are going to say that if Kamala Harris is pushed aside, then that's almost a discredit to themselves, that they're going to feel that they have not been taken seriously. and since you have delegates and you were talking about the first and second round of the ballot process and what I've been hearing is that she wins on the first round of the ballots anyway because you've got a more liberal ballot delegate base in Chicago than you might have in the population in general and that may not reflect November but it might reflect the Democratic delegate base in Chicago. I think it's going to be very hard for Newsom or Whitmer to challenge show.

16:33I mean, their best bit is to say, look, we'll be, you know, the vice presidential pick. We know that she's been vetting people. I've been hearing from the White House, from aides at the White House, that she's been already vetting people for a vice presidential pick. I've heard the names Bashir, Cooper, and Evers. If you wanted a shot at power, I guess you would go for the vice presidential pick. But don't you think, Anthony, it's hard to see how she gets booted out if that's what the democratic machinery now wants in this short time frame. I mean, it's just the logistics of mounting a primary between now and Chicago are hard.

17:07So just quickly, Rory, the sources that I had when we did that first podcast, Cady, describing Kamala Harris getting the nod and him potentially even resigning the presidency to allow her to be the first woman president, that very same source is telling me that this is more or a fait accompli. So the question I have, I don't understand where Barack Obama is coming from on this. I'm not exactly sure why he didn't endorse her in a domino effect alongside of Biden and Clinton, which would have helped her. So that's a question I don't understand the answer to. Well, let me try to play devil's advocate for a second, because I think one of the things that's throwing everybody's off balance is we haven't had a formally open convention like this.

17:52It's not the way that US politics works. We're used to people coming through the primary process. In the end, this is still just over 3 ,000 delegates, and they get to vote as they choose. They don't get to be told what to do. And the Democratic Party is not what it was. When we talk about the Democratic Party, it's much weaker than it was historically. It's much less clear that people control it. So yes, the Clintons are big names. Yes, Obama's big names. Yes, some of the donors are big names. But I've just spent the weekend with a number of Democratic Congress people and a couple of senators, and they were very frank about the fact that when you say to them, What is the Democratic Party?

18:28Who is the Democratic Party? Is it the Black Caucus? Is it you guys, the Congress and senators? Is it the officials? Is it the donors? Their answer tends to be, we're not quite sure. The party feels very weak. We're not very used to this. We don't really know how this operates. It's not like the way the Labour or the Conservative Party operates, where they've done this stuff millions of times. So there's a lot of uncertainty here. And just one more push at this. I think what Obama may be doing, and we don't know, he may change his mind. And as Anthony says, presumably a lot of people shouting at him.

18:57But I guess his position is that even if Kamala Harris comes through this, it's better for her legitimacy that she comes through this in an open contest where she proves she can defeat the other candidates rather than being crowned. And there's a hope, of course, in the back of everybody's mind, this great heroic moment where Abraham Lincoln famously came through in the Republican convention out of nowhere, came through, won over the crowd, and led something great. And I suppose the hope there would be that you're going to have a candidate who brings the state that matters. You're going to have a candidate who can deliver Michigan for you or deliver Pennsylvania for you rather than a candidate who delivers California, which you don't need.

19:34It was interesting in Kamala Harris, the very few words that she's put out so far. She used this phrase about how she's going to earn and win the nomination. And I must admit, one of the things that crossed my mind, I think if she was confident, and I think if she was really smart, she'd actually set in train a process that led to the nomination, which would be a contest. Now, that may be naive. But I kind of agree with you that maybe what Obama was doing was saying that this is better done, even though we haven't got much time, if somebody emerges through a contest. And don't forget, the other thing Trump has put out, said to CNN, apparently, that he's really happy, thinks Kamala Harris will be a better and easier opponent than Joe Biden.

20:19That sounds to me like his usual bluster. This is a genuine game changing moment where the dynamic of the entire campaign changes. Katya, you want to come in? Yeah, so I mean, I've been texting as I was on the taxi back to where I am texting people in Trump world. And that's exactly what you're saying, Alistair, is exactly the talking points they're putting out. I mean, these are pretty smart people that I tend to get a fairly good steer from. Text I got was now we beat Kamala. it's the same record. Then I asked, is it any harder to beat Kamala than to beat Biden? And he says, no, the thing is California is such a polarizing state for lots of people in the country.

20:57Even the image of California is a polarizing state, but they describe her specifically as being beyond liberal, dangerously liberal. So that's the message that they're going to run on with Kamala Harris. Now, let's see, because this does give the risk with Biden, obviously, was that the party, that it was stasis and that the party felt it had no chance of winning. This does give them, I've had a couple of donors texting me already this evening saying, we can win with Kamala Harris and the money will start coming back again. One of them pointed out that Vance is weak and that they think that that was a weak pick for Trump, the very issue that they can run with on Kamala Harris, the issue of abortion, that Joe Biden had this kind of strange huge difficulty with.

21:42He just didn't like saying the word. This is something Kamala Harris is instantly going to revive that as an issue. Vance has been very tough on abortion, not wanting abortion rights, even in the case of rape or incest, only in the case of the life of the mother. He suggested that women in abusive marriages would have been happier staying in those marriages than getting out of those marriages. I'm just giving you some of where the Democratic Party feel they can run against Vance. And I think Kamala Harris being at the top of the ticket as a woman elevates those issues even higher. So I think the donors will start coming back again quite quickly into the Democratic Party.

22:19So it gives them this shot. Now, I don't know. I can't tell you whether Kamala Harris is the person that can beat Donald Trump or not in November. But I do think that it gives them a shot of energy and it gives them a shot of money coming back into the party, which is important, Alistair. Anthony, just on this fundraising stuff, you've done a lot of fundraising in your time. If I've given money to the Biden-Harris campaign. That's who I've given that money to. Are there legal issues related to the funds that you give over? If Biden and Harris were no longer involved, if, let's say, Gavin Newsom did manage a challenge and he became the candidate, does that money have to be, as it were, re-raised?

22:57So I've looked into this very carefully now with several election attorneys. Yes is the answer. That money could be deployed into a political action committee. Unfortunately, political action committees have to spend higher rack rates for advertising. With her at the top of the ticket, it just goes into the general election campaign. I had breakfast this morning with two very prominent New York Democratic fundraisers. We're expecting this to happen today. And we're told by many people, we need you to lock and load on more money once the nomination is there and they're ready to go as is many others.

23:36I want to make two very quick points. She has been under a shroud. Okay. She, it's been very difficult for her to break out and show the full form of her personality. So look out now that she's going to be able to break out of that shroud. She got to where she is for a reason. And then the second thing is she has a tireless amount of energy. And you guys know politicians perhaps better than me, but she has a tireless amount of ambition too. So I would not underestimate her. And she's benefiting from low expectations, guys, which you know helps politicians. Quick one for me. Rory and then Kathy.

24:16So watch out for immigration being a problem for her. She was given the task of dealing with immigration as VP. And of course, immigration has not been going well for Biden, at least from the point of view of Republican voters. But the polls are still winnable for her. It still can be done. These polls are tight. I mean, remember 2016, people were predicting confidently that Trump wouldn't win and he ended up winning. We still don't know what's going to happen with turnout. And the whole turnout calculations are going to be very, very different with a new candidate. There will have been a lot of people who would have preferred sitting on the couch to going to the polls when they had this aged two candidates in place.

24:55That may change now, for better or for worse, and that will change a lot of the polling. It seems to me it's doable. It's within the margin of error. Trump is still in the lead. But the great thing, and Alistair, I'd love to, just after we hear from Katty, love to hear from you about this. There seems to be a fantastic opportunity to change the narrative. You take the attention away from Trump and his assassination and make it about this exciting process of generating a new candidate. Katty? Yeah, I mean, they're going to dominate the news cycle, as they are doing tonight. Here we all are on Sunday night.