17. How Kamala Harris beats Donald Trump

0:06Hello and welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me Katty Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Welcome. I am super excited, Anthony, because I get to be in the Goal Hanger offices and actually meet all of these amazing producers who put our show together every week. And you're in New York. I am New York. I'm in my office in New York trying to make a living, Cattie K. Despite the political malstrom. Shorting or longing something. That's about all I understand of your business. Mostly longing. Mostly longing. There's double meaning to that word. I'm longing and longing. And longing. So what's going on, Caddy?

0:40We're doing this extra episode because clearly there is so much going on, right? And we did that great live stream on Sunday evening with Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell of the Rest is Politics UK version. But even since then, the news has moved on and it has been another whirlwind week. And we want to talk about what is next for Kamala Harris because it looks now likely that she's going to be the Democratic nominee after Joe Biden suddenly pulled out of the race on Sunday. And then we're going to go through what happens on the Harris campaign and how that's taking shape. That's interesting.

1:12Who's staying? Who's going? Who might be added? Take you a little bit behind the scenes on that, what we're both hearing, and talk about what her strong points and weak points are, what the Democrats should be worried about, what they're excited about, and how the Republicans are framing a Harris nomination. Can I just start, though, by saying I'm super excited about Kamala Harris's nomination because she is two weeks older than I am and she is being described as somebody who is very young. So I'm all in. She's mid-October. I'm early November. She's going to be 60 before me and I suddenly feel 20 years younger.

1:44What's not to like? So listen, I'm older than both of you, so I don't know if I'm supposed to feel good or bad, but I do love the fact that she, pursuant to what you and I were talking about four weeks ago, around the 4th of July holiday, we were talking about her replacing Joe Biden by the end of July. That looks like that that's happened. I guess the question I have for you is, did you think it was going to happen this quickly? Were you astonished that there were no challengers to throw their hat in the ring and that ranks closed so quickly? So the moment Joe Biden came out on Sunday within in a kind of nanosecond and endorsed her, I thought that that window for a challenge had shut.

2:29I know we were talking about this on Sunday night with Rory and Rory was kind of pushing the idea that there should be an open convention. But pretty quickly, it was clear that nobody wanted to challenge her either because they were thinking about 2028 or because they realized that they have almost no time. I mean, yeah, of course, by the standards of a UK election, four months is long. but by the standards of an American election that normally takes four years, they've got to be on light speed now. And I think that whatever the pros and cons, and we can get into that of Kamala Harris's candidacy, the fact that she's older than me aside, they don't have time to go through that process.

3:05And there is, of course, the risk that some kind of challenge process would have weakened her candidacy. So as soon as Biden came out and said, I'm in for her, I could see it was going to be difficult for the rest of the party to say, okay, let's throw this wide open. And for those challenges to step in. Were you surprised? I was actually surprised. I'm not surprised that she's the ultimate nominee, but I was surprised that some of these ambitious politicians didn't want to throw their hat in there. Now, Trump looks stronger than he did coming out of the convention, assassination attempt. Some of that stuff was galvanizing, but he's weaker in other ways because he's now the oldest candidate in the race.

3:46If age is an issue in the campaign, He has age and he has some of the declining faculties that come with age. And I also think he's got a millstone around his neck in the name of J.D. Vance. And I think we need to talk about that because they're going to juxtaposition somebody who's going to be very competent, in my opinion. And I'm going to go with Senator Kelly from Arizona. That's my pick. I believe that she will nominate him at the convention. She'll probably signal that before the convention. She won't go with Josh Shapiro, although he'll be part of the campaign and possibly part of her cabinet should she go on to win.

4:21But I do think it'll be Kelly, and I'm happy to tell you guys why. But I guess my question, I have an additional question for you. How is she going to campaign? She flummoxed the last campaign, and she gets brittle while under attack. So I did a couple of things in preparation for this podcast. I watched her debates going into the 2020 primary season. And when she was trying to flex on Joe Biden and insinuating there was some racist tones to Joe Biden's career, very awkward stuff. And she was flummoxing. She looked great yesterday. She was well-presented yesterday. And she came up with a couple of clever lines.

5:00And there's obviously a lot of excitement around her right now. But I guess what I'm wondering about is her long-range skill set. Yeah. I mean, look, I think what I'm hearing from Democrats is kind of three things. Relief that the nightmare of the last couple of weeks is over, that period since the debate. Excitement that there's this shitload of money coming in. I think she has raised more in the first 24 hours of her campaign than the cost of a whole UK general election, but also some realism that we don't know how good a political athlete she is. There's this talk in democratic circles, and I'm sure you're hearing it too, about how she's got better, right?

5:38That somehow in the last six months, she's improved, and particularly because of her conversations over the abortion issue. And I thought she was good up at campaign headquarters. She looked happy to be there. She smiled a lot. She delivered those good lines on, I'm a prosecutor and I prosecuted Trump's type of person. She gave a convincing theory of the case. And most critically, she turned the conversation back to Donald Trump. That one thing that Democrats need to do to win is to make this election about Donald Trump. And within 24 hours of Joe Biden pulling out of the race, she had managed to do that.

6:15She ran through the litany of all of the things that she's going to run against him. But I'm still not convinced that she's going to be a great candidate out on the stump. I mean, there's no reason to think that because she clearly wasn't, as you say, she was awkward in 2019. And we haven't seen that much of her, but I think we'll know that in a week or two. If she's that awkward candidate you're talking about from those debates, and I watched those again too, then I think the Democrats have a real problem. But if she genuinely has got better, then the excitement will last longer. Okay. So I also did some research here.

6:51I want you to react to this research. Okay. 20.2 million baby boomers. These are US baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964. So I'm technically a baby boomer. I think Kamala Harris is a baby boomer, but I'm not sure if you are, but I'm at the last piece of it. I think the other thing that excites me about her is that she calls herself Gen X. So I suddenly went from being a boomer to being Gen X, which was good for me too. Yeah. Okay. So, you guys like living in denial. I love that about the two of you. I accept the fact that I'm a baby boomer, but let me just give you these stats. Okay. 20.2 million boomers have died since the 2016 election.

7:37At the same time, since 2016, 41 million generation Z people have risen to the age of voting. So we're having a recirculation of our democracy. Older people are dying off. Younger people are coming into the game. They're making money now. And so now they're thinking about politicians more than they did when they were students. And this is the killer number. Ready? 8 million have come into the game since 2022, since the midterm elections. Now, when poll, the 41 million people, the 8 million people, 63 % of them are hard Democrats. And so I'm telling you that the Trump campaign is looking at this data and they're worried about this data.

8:19And I'm going to tell you who else knows this data better than anybody is a gentleman by the name of David Plouffe, who's an Obama campaign veteran. He wrote the playbook on how Obama won. He's joining Kamala Harris's campaign, and he is going to rebuild the coalition that Barack Obama had. Now, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, she may lose some of the white baby boomer, blue collar voters that were adhered to Joe Biden, but she has this unbelievable opportunity to pick up the demography that I just described. So what's your reaction to that? And are you impressed with the research that I did? Are you a little bit?

8:58My head is spinning. I forgot you're a numbers guy and I need kind of graphics. We need another goal hanger special graphics. Or as we say in New York, a little bit of nerditation. I just did a little bit of nerditation on you. Yeah, you flexed on the research. A lot of those 8 million that have come in since 2022, you're impressed by my memory, by the way, that I was paying attention in class, are actually Hispanic voters because they are the ones that are turning 18 at the highest percentage rate in the country. So the question is going to be, how does she reach them in particular? Does the fact that she is a woman of color necessarily entice Hispanic voters?

9:34I'm not particularly convinced that it will do. She is definitely more liberal than many Hispanic voters are, although perhaps she's not more liberal than young Hispanic voters. So it's going to be interesting to see how she reaches that pocket. I think she has huge opportunities. She's got clearly opportunities with women. She's got opportunities with African Americans. It'll be interesting to see whether she can reach into that pocket of African American men, who I think won't like the way that J.D. Vance is talking about her as a diversity candidate. this phrase that's being used by one Tennessee congressman that she's a diversity candidate and some of the language that J.D.

10:11Vance is using. I don't think they're going to like that. So they may come back as the Biden campaign always thought they would. African-Americans would always come back to the fold. And I think David Plouffe, who would join, Kamala Harris has said that she's keeping Jen O'Malley Dillon as the campaign chair and Julie Chavez Rodriguez as the campaign manager. So she's keeping in place Biden's team. And that's why she went to Delaware on Monday. All of those people who worked for Joe Biden, young, old, senior, junior volunteers, she keeps them in place. But what everyone is talking about with some excitement in the messages I'm getting from Democrats would be David Plouffe, who's this kind of legendary campaign strategist and got Barack Obama that 2008 victory.

10:55And remember, when Barack Obama won in 2008. Yeah, he was an exceptional political athlete, way better than Kamala Harris. And I know that she admires him enormously for his political skills. But it was still a big deal for America to elect in the way that it did a black man. So David Plouffe, I think, would be a huge asset to the campaign. Does he come on though, Anthony? I mean, she's made the point of saying these two women have been running the campaign, are staying in their position. So he kind of comes in over the top of them or he comes in alongside them? How is that going to work? Campaigns are famously kind of competitive places.

11:30Yes. So I'm assuming it'll be a little bit like what happened to Trump in 2016, where Kelly Ann Conway was the campaign manager. Bannon was brought in as a strategist. And so this way, their egos, they have good titles for each other and they have separate lanes. And And I think the job for David Plouffe is to help her build that Obama-like coalition. So it's an exciting time for Democrats. As I've said on this podcast, they do better, bolder. When they make bold decisions, they do better. And so now they have their first Indian, African-American, South Asian presidential candidate. And it's an exciting time for them.

12:11And I think they can galvanize a lot of people and perhaps pick up in the demography that I just described people. Beyond the kind of identity of her being younger and being the first woman potentially to be president and the first woman of color, what do you think there is about Kamala Harris herself as a candidate that particularly is going to appeal to voters? That's a good question. Where can she chip into getting more voters? So this is a brutally honest assessment and that's why I get in trouble with people. probably don't get invited to as many cocktail parties as I should be. It's another topic at some point, but the brutal assessment is she's not Trump.

12:52That's number one. Number two, she's a competent steward of the American century. And so what do I mean by that? This is a woman that's shown up at the Munich security conference. This is a woman that understands the importance of the NATO alliances. This is a woman that understands the need for the United States to check China, but to also cooperate with China. And this is a woman that understands, as people do that attend something like the Munich Security Conference, that we need to repudiate totalitarianism around the world and autocracy. And so, as we both know, democracies rarely go to war with each other.

13:30It's usually a democracy is in a fight with an autocracy. And this is a woman that understands all of those things. And when you contrast that to Donald Trump, who is not necessarily for our allies. He's willing to betray our allies and he's willing to flatter and cohort with dictators. So those are very positive things. That could be generically true of almost any, up until now, any vice presidential candidate, right? I mean, I think most VPs would believe in those things. Is there something about her in particular that you find appealing or that you think voters will find appealing? So again, I have met her on a personal level.

14:10I've interacted with her on a personal level. I think people are going to find her appealing because she likes people. Okay. Donald Trump treats people like objects and she actually likes people. Okay. So now the question is, is that going to be enough? We accept that she's not Barack Obama, but she's infinitely better than Joe Biden at this point in Joe Biden's career to prosecute the democratic narrative and to prosecute the success that the Biden administration has had in the three and a half years of the administration. And so the thing that I will say, which I'll make this prediction here on our podcast, is that she's going to surprise people.

14:50The detractors are going to say she's going to have a big bump up. She's going to return to the 2019 version of Kamala Harris, and Trump is going to slay her. And it's going to be a very big margin of win for Donald Trump, both at the electoral college and both at the popular vote. I don't see that. I think what happens is she rises to the occasion. The demography that I just described gravitates to her and they replay the disorganization. They replay the impetuosity of Donald Trump. They promote the Project 2025 stuff that you and I have talked about. The Latin community, the Latino community, they do not want their neighbors deported.

15:33You can pretend otherwise, but I'm telling you, because I live here in New York, a good part of the labor force here, the legal Latinos do not want the quote unquote illegal Latinos deported. And I think it's going to be a big factor in this election. And I'm going to take a leap of faith here that she goes with Mark Kelly over the others, because Mark Kelly provides a lot of things to her that she needs. I would add two more things to what you just said. One is that Kamala Harris was brilliant in the Senate when she was in a prosecutorial role. I'm thinking of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, and I rewatched those as well the other day.

16:10And I remember covering that day live, and she was forensic in the way that she went after Brett Kavanaugh. Now, in the end, of course, he became a Supreme Court justice, but she didn't hold back. She was clear. She was calm. She had her facts. And I think if she can bring that prosecutorial spirit to the case against Donald Trump, then she adds a net positive. The other thing I think is that she's been, from the Democratic point of view, she's been strong on abortion. It's probably been her strongest issue. And because she will put abortion, which she has been the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic.

16:47She has held dozens and dozens of events around the country. She's very versed in this. She's happy talking about it. She combines with that the empathy that you're talking about. She'll put it front and center again in all of these states. Women have decided the last five American elections, and we'll talk more about this on Thursday when we tape guys our regular podcast as opposed to this bonus one. But she's going to get women excited by raising this issue and by reminding them of what she said. One thing on the empathy, I have a story about Kamala Harris that a friend of mine told me who has a flower business.

17:19She was asked to go to the vice president's mansion and do some Christmas flowers for them. And she brought with her her daughter, who is severely autistic. And she said Kamala Harris could not have been nicer with this little girl. And I've heard that story in multiple settings of how good Harris is and how warm she is with people and with people who perhaps might not feel so seen and with teenagers and with kids. And I think that if she can bring that warmth out onto the campaign trail, that's going to do a lot of advantage for her. A couple of reactions that I see that in her personality. You mentioned the DEI stuff that she's a diversity equity inclusion hire, which means she's inferior from a performance level.

18:03Donald Trump has also referred to her on his truth social as dumb as a rock. Yeah. Okay. And I'm telling you that is not going to play well in the African-American community. If he, If he had said, I look forward to debating Vice President Harris on the issues, and I look forward to describing my version of America and its future being a better version than hers, he would have done so much better. But he's now alienating himself against some of these people in that demography that he wants to get. And I think as well, J.D. Vance suggesting she doesn't have enough gratitude about America. I think that's a dog whistle that African-Americans often hear too, that they're a bit uppity, that they should be grateful to be American somehow.

18:46And I think that that's going to hurt not just with black women, but with black men too. Really bad stuff. One of the producers is asking me, the people that I grew up with, I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood, how do they react to her? And so the answer to that is very negatively because they don't see themselves like their grandparents saw themselves. So my grandparents would have been attracted to her because they felt left out of the system. They felt like they weren't inside the club of what is known as America and they were treated differently. The Italian-American community now sees itself as part of it.

19:18I just remind people that Teddy Roosevelt in 1905 said for immigration purposes, Italians were to be treated as non-Caucasian. And that used to rile up my grandparents. And so they would have gravitated to somebody like Kamala Harris and they would have been found her appealing because of the aspirational success that she has. But now there's a group of people that sort of feel like they want to be in vogue. Okay. And so more blue collar people are with Donald Trump. But here is her opportunity. She can explain to these people what the Biden administration has done for them over the last three and a half years.

19:54Joe Biden was having a very hard time cognitively explaining the triumphs that he's had legislatively. And I think if she does that, she'll win over more of those people. I know we're going to talk about the vice president in a second. And I'll tell you why picking somebody like a Kelly over Roy Cooper or Josh Shapiro will be a big advantage to her. I think making the economic case, maybe she'll do a better job than Joe Biden. It seems to have been a very hard case for this administration to make. I don't know that that's going to be her strongest suit. I think she's going to have to lean more heavily into the abortion issue.

20:31And she is seen as very far left. And we'll talk about the kind of problems that she has in the second half of this program. But she's seen as very far left. And I don't know, that might rattle some business, some small business people, some middle of the road, more centrist voters, particularly around the economic issue. Let me just say this. There are many business people that are on her donor list that raised the 81 or the$100 million in the last 24 hours. That was an awful lot of money. There's a vote with your wallet from business people that they're okay with camel arrows. Yeah, and actually, if those business people actually start looking, as we did a few weeks ago at Project 2025, they might see that their taxes could go up, their Medicaid could come down, that tariffs could produce more inflation.

21:13I mean, there are whole reasons that they might be nervous about Donald Trump's impact on business. I think Mark Kelly kind of is the flavor of the moment. I think he is a good pick, you know, a former astronaut. He has a compelling story. Arizona, obviously an important state. He's not the most charismatic of candidates out on the stump, but maybe that isn't a problem if it's somebody running for vice president. I still think Josh Shapiro is a strong choice. If she's feeling confident, she might go for somebody like Josh Shapiro, who's younger, who clearly is ambitious himself. And you could make the argument, well, he could help deliver Pennsylvania as governor just as well as he could VP.

21:49But there is something about the VP candidate being chosen from your state that might endear Pennsylvanians who are sitting on the fence. If it's a vibe issue on the last day and you think, oh yeah, there's Shapiro. He's my governor. I'll vote for that ticket. I still think he's a good choice. And he would bring a lot of money with him. He's very close with Mike Bloomberg. He's raised tons of money for his gubernatorial campaign. And so he could bring a lot of money with him. He also has reach into those other states because they are like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, et cetera. But I don't think she's going to pick them.

22:22I think she has better chemistry with Mark Kelly. I think second to him is Roy Cooper. These are personal friends of hers. Roy Cooper less threatening, older, the governor of North Carolina, Democratic governor of North Carolina, and might not threaten her in the same way as somebody young and ambitious. He doesn't want to be president, I don't think. I remember Kelly has a good gun control narrative because of what happened to his wife. The congresswoman who was shot. Yeah. Representative Gifford, who was shot at the open shopping mall, wounded, has recovered from it, but she's obviously been impaired by the injuries from the gunshot wounds.

22:56He's an American patriot. He is, again, the type of story that bolsters her because she can play to the progressives. She can play to the abortion issue, but he can play to the moderates. And I think he helped. Remember, she's down nine points at Donald Trump in Arizona. I think she helps her close that gap, if not win Arizona. And he has the type of personality that can help her in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So we'll see what happens. But I think it's also a personality fit for somebody like Kamala Harris, more than just a strategic. She's not Jack Kennedy picking Lyndon Johnson to win Texas, and him and Bobby Kennedy hate Lyndon Johnson.

23:37She's going to pick somebody she likes. That's my guess. You know what? If somebody told her today, crystal ball, Josh Shapiro will definitely get you Pennsylvania. You might take that kind of Lyndon Johnson type. No question. Well, she's going to have a big issue in Pennsylvania. We're going to talk about that after the break. Yeah, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be back to talk more money. Is Anthony Scaramucci going to donate a little bit more to the Harris campaign with that cliffhanger? The answer is yes. You don't even have to wait until after the break. That was meant to be a cliffhanger.

24:05Get the hell out of here. People know. You're going to take a break. I don't like cliffhanger. I wear everything on my sleeve. We'll be back.

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