Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar8/22/24: DNC LIVE: Kamala Speech, Warmongering, Trump, Abortion
Saagar, Krystal, Ryan and Emily live react to Kamala Harris' DNC speech in Chicago.
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Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, Let's get to the show, all right, everybody, we are coming out of Kamala Harris's speech officially doesn't seem like there will be a special guest, and we'll give you our reactions. Not as long of a speech as I initially expected. I think I've rolled in roughly around a half hour mark or so. Started with biography, had some economy, foreign policy, and then some of the generic wrap up there. So Crystal overall, what was your pusson?
I can't get away from the Gaza portion, which just absolutely sucked, y, you know, I mean, it's one thing. The key thing here for me is the language around October seventh is appropriately evocative, right, It's visceral. It's about the whoors the There is responsibility ascribed for the atrocities that were committed on October seventh by Hamas. When it's Palestinians, suddenly they're just they're just suffering by who why? For what? She doesn't say? And I mean that's typical, right. I guess she said more about them than probably Joe Biden would have. But if you're looking for any indication that there would be a different policy here with regard to Israel, like there's zero indication of that. And the entire foreign policy portion, So you were making this point of like, you know, Hillary Clinton sort of leans into trying to be super hawkish to overcome like the sense of you know, oh, because I'm a woman, and people won't the entire foreign policy section read to me like that, you know, going it like basically like warmongering against Iran, and I will create the most lethal military that has.
Ever existed, et cetera, et cetera.
It's like, all right, lethal military. I will never give Israel. I will never stop Israel's right to defend itself. I'll always give them the arms. I will bomb Iron if I need to. Oh, actually, Kim Jong un like hope to make a deal with Oh no, no, he's actually cheering for Donald Trump. It was very classic neo conservative rhetoric.
Respect go ahead, I just wanted, so, David, do you have a.
News by the way, he supposed to separately going no, I completely agree.
I mean I think that that, but I also think that again what we were talking about before, that the idea that she reflects the center of the Democratic Party that was a very center of the Democratic Party speech and on the economy as well. And by the way, I also think that she has recognized, rightly so fair or unfair, that her economic the views people view her as different from Biden as a vessel for economic policy, yeah, which I'm not exactly sure is completely fair, but she's benefiting from it right that she gets to say I'm gonna do that, I'm dealing with affordability, I'm going to deal with costs without having without having to answer for the criticism aimed Biden.
And we should actually ask David while he's here for your thoughts on There were a lot of references tonight to Kamala Harris post two thousand and eight in the recession, and they're building this myth of Kamala Harris as a basically an economic populist in the midst of the recession back in two thousand and eight and the aftermath of two thousand and eight. I haven't seen a ton of media fact checks of that, other than from people like you, David.
Yeah, I mean about the age this gets walky. So I'm going to ask the audience to stick with us. But it is important because she made it a central part both of her speech, and we had Roy Cooper, who you uses it to introduce her, so given many.
Others, Yeah, I mean, the background is that she was part of a national mortgage settlement that was essentially a giveaway to the banks that created the financial crisis. Without getting into all of the details that the banks should have been prosecuted criminally, they the settlement was was what essentially the banks wanted to be given.
To get them off the legal hooks exactly.
Steve, Yeah, there was that she she did not prosecute Steve Minuchin, despite people in her office.
One point to your point, David, though, it is very telling that she has decided this is an area of her image that not only is she going to rehab but the center of the Democratic Party, and I think the center of American politics really is to create this image as I'm taking on the big banks, I'm delivering specifically for homeowners, and she has leaned into housing policy and read the he leaves there. Yes, in terms of where people are, you know, a few things with regard to.
One other details. You'll lie there and correct correct me if I'm wrong there. But you know, they talk about twenty billion dollars settlement. My memory is that the banks got credit towards the twenty billion dollars for the losses that they saw. That's right. In the banking crisis. Wow, that's right.
So I think what's bothersome about it, although I can see it from her political advisors, is that they can tell a story that is not just untrue, but that is the opposite of the truth, and very few people will know that or care about that, which is probably realistic and also bad.
Yeah, that's why sites like yours and drop site news exists.
What do you think? What was your overall reaction?
So overall, I think it's very clear that Kamala Harris is good and she's not great. And one of the things that hurt her in twenty nineteen is she had a lot of hype and as she started talking more and more, there was a sort of myth of Kamala Harris that have been promoted. It's almost like it doesn't do her favors to get covers like that Time magazine cover. That's because now the entire public has been primed to see her as some Obama esque figure. And well, I do think we've been talking about it all week. This convention has been well choreographed, it has looked good. They've hit a lot of good notes while avoiding some dice heer elements we're sort of talking about, like so called wokeness and how they managed to sort of thread that needle. Kamala Harris did a good job tonight, but she is not Barack Obama. And when you're telling people she's Barack Obama, you do run the risk of as soon as she has to debate Donald Trump, as soon as she has to start doing more things without prompters more interviews, it's possible that actually really backfires on them.
Ultimately.
That's an astute point about I mean, clearly like they're very intentionally leaning into even you know, adopting the hope peace. Yes, and you know the way she can't exactly yes, she can, like you know, they buried Hillary Clinton and Biden on day one to be like, just go ahead, guys.
Okay, let's not talk about that anymore.
And one of the things, in terms of a contrast with the way Hillary ran her camp paign in twenty sixteen that I found noteworthy is Kamala and Harre spent a lot of time which I don't love, but I thought worked effectively enough in this speech on her bio at the beginning, and what I noticed about the way she set up herself unlike Hillary, where it was where it's like I'm special, I'm breaking the glass ceiling, like you're helping me basically realize my grand dreams and aspirations. The whole point of Kamala Harris's biographical narrative was to say, I'm just like you. I'm coming from the same neighborhoods that you're coming from. I had the same middle class upbringing that you know, either had or would like your children to have and aspire to. You know, I grew up with the same nurses and teachers and fire fighters that wanted to have their lawn look nice and work hard and play by the rules, et cetera, et cetera, and it's a very different biographical narrative than the narrative of you know, I'm the first female, I'm the first black woman, I'm the first biracial woman that was much more heavily leaned into in the Hillary Clinton campaign. I think that is very smart. But we can all we all know you're a trible we can see that. That's that's there. You don't have to say it. And so that strategy, which was evident throughout the week, I think was very effective. I thought the way she talked about Donald Trump was also very effective. And when she had that line, she was like, you know, in a lot of ways, he's not he's unserious. He's an unserious man, which gets to the weird and belittling him. But she says the things he wants to do are serious. She talks not only about you know, January sixth and all of those sorts of things, but she also then immediately pivots to, hey, here are the things that he wants to do to you. He wants to take away your Social Security, he wants to take away the Affordable Care Act, he wants to he wants to get rid of the Department of Education, he wants to cut head start programming. So both the sort of grander legitimate grievances against Donald Trump were there, but she also made it very concrete to people's lives in a way that I thought was was smart and connected.
I don't think it was bad. A lot of her economic stuff was more negative than it was positive, as in, like, here's what Trump would do to you, and here's something that I would try and do contrast, and obviously not a lot of specifics, that's not really what you do. I didn't think the January sixth part of the speech was all that strong, actually. I thought that was part of the more like classic liberal kind of like the classic hits like oh he wants to January sixth was.
Bad, but those those hits work.
That's definitely true. People don't like that about it just felt like to me, I was like, I feel like the countries heard that before.
They're already voting for her.
I will say, this was not as good as a speech as I thought she was going to. I thought it was like, I don't know, almost like a C plus or something anything like that for her, just relative to the expectation, because she's been pretty decent on the stump I mean, comparing contrasts to Tim Walls. I don't think you can even look at it to listen.
I mean, I think he's I think Tim Walls is an extraordinary talent. I would be very happy to skip over the Kamala Harris Sarah right into the till.
But that's not.
Yeah, I want to get Ryan in here unless unless I miss it on your point about her economic arguments being negative rather than positive, she easily could have done. You know, he's going to try to repeal the ACA again. He's going to cut your soul security though he's been saying on the stump repeatedly, you know he's not going to do that. And he's going to expand social Security, but because he tried to do it, you know, and when he was president, she's gonna take that clean shot. She could have added. And I'm going to expand Medicare so it includes dental envision or you know, I'm going to uh add the child you're gonna get a child tax credit. Did he did she do any of the case.
I did not hear the world out well, there's this opportunity economy thing she did.
She she did touch on some of those pieces. She did talk about some of those pieces. I'd have to go back and look at the transcript to see exactly which policy is she name checked. I know she did talk about, like, you know, housing, expanding the housing supply, and.
Could have added expanding social Security. She hasn't come out with anything to respond to Trump because Trump is out there saying that he's going to cut your taxes on solid security.
I won't cut Oh, and that was that was one thing she definitely said was that he wanted and she's talking about his tear of policy.
He wants to raise your taxes, the Trump taxes.
Yeah, I'm going to give the working class, you know, a giant tax.
Guy got yah.
And I also think that one thing that's concerning about the whole election is that the I think it's a smart thing to do and worthwhile to take a part Project twenty twenty five, But the mix of taking apart Project twenty twenty five and not really offering a fleshed out agenda, what's the takeaway from the election? The less you say yes, the less you offer, the smarter your politics.
Well, but I think that was Obama.
I mean right, I do think it's accurate to a point. Yes, I think there's a middle ground between here's a nine hundred and twenty five page point by point ideological treatise, right, and here's like one concrete policy, right.
I mean she did give you know, she gave a policy speech. You do have some concrete policy, So I don't want to pretend like there's nothing that we know.
She talked to you.
It was a whole freak out of oh my god, price controls, blah blah blah, per corporate tax. She's but to your point, even the price gouging price control conversation, like she left that pretty vague what exactly that would actually look like.
But also congratulations to the Democrats for it taking forty years of Heritage Foundation mandate for leadership to figure out that that's a good target. Literally, credit to them a nineteen eighty let's get rid of.
The Department of Education.
Nothing about it ironic to because you know, I was thinking about there's not a policy section of her website, but all of Project twenty twenty five is actually on her website, and I was thinking just about that. It's kind of of that. She's like, Oh, if you go to Kamala Harris dot com and read project. But I'm like, but where's the politicition of your website? The unfortunate point I'm taking away from this election is that that's probably the correct play. I was going to say, is that you let everything kind of float into the ether, you go off the vibe, and you just kind of let people.
Project, orb and project just like this the Obama.
Model, but she's not Obama.
That's interesting, to be honest. The Trump twenty sixteen model too. I'm going to give you the.
Bety the absolutely everyone will be covered, everyone will be covered.
Yeah, I mean it's still the Trump model because yeah, I mean he'll say, like Exam for example, he'll criticize Project twenty twenty five, but he won't say he'll say, like some parts are great and some parts are terrible, but he never elucidates which parts are the parts that are great and which parts are the parts that are terrible.
Comrade Crystal, but this is the you know this, this is the.
She the most the legitimate, very legitimate, one of many legitimate hits on her is she's she is a chameleon, like she has been all over the place ideologically, and she's trying to turn that into an asset of then if you are progressive, you look at how she ran when she was running for president and how she voted in the Senate, and you're like, oh, she's a progressive. And I think the choice of Tim Walls adds some credibility to that framing of her because he kind of comes with a ready made agenda. It's an agenda that she has some track record, you know, the care economy stuff, that she has some track record of actually caring about it maybe is the one thing you could look through on her career and say has been pretty consistent, and so you can project that onto her. She's obviously leaning very much into like Kamala the cop and you know, out to the transnational gangs and the Bartels, Bartelly and you know, tough on crime and all of them. They did a whole montage of her with you know, with a cop jacket and with the cops and all that stuff, right, So you can project that if you are just if you're like the Adam kinsnigger types who were just looking for a kind of return to normal, you know, I mean, she's Joe Biden's vice president and that's just this very sort of like normy, you know, decorum driven type of politics. So she's hoping she can pull off to election day what Barack Obama did, which is allowing people to see in her what they want to see in her. But to Emily's point, she's she's good down there. I thought she did this, I thought she gave this speech. Well, she's obviously not Barack Obama. I mean, he is a generational political talent. We saw that on the stage this Weeknim and his wife exceptional political talents like she is not that level. So it becomes a much more difficult trick to pull off. Then again, it's a short campaign and she doesn't have to do it for all that long.
Yes, and it's worth just mentioning that she's on the brink of the presidency without ever having really one ye any competitive like she was a machine politician. I wish Dan was here because he knows the California politics better. You're a little closer to California. So maybe.
The last really competitive election she had must have been AG. Yeah, the AG primary.
Yeah, the AG primary where she had the support of the entire Bay Area machine. So she was she had the like the advantage there. When she ran for Senate, it was again, what Linda Sanchez's sister. Yeah, it was just a totally hapless candidate.
Who was she?
Barbara Boxer? Is that right?
Yeah?
Yeah, who Linda?
Who was Kamala Think it was Boxer?
Oh?
Yes, all right fox Er. So she she didn't there was no Republican, no serious Republican running, and she beat a hapless Democrat and then she runs for president and just gets absolutely wasted, drops out in twenty nineteen before any votes are cast, and then she gets picked as vice president and now here she is.
I did think opportunity economy was very weak. Was something that both dated Soota and I both flagged was the VC shout out as well, which she was like, We're gonna get funds to small businesses and entrepreneurs and founders. And I was like, oh, I was like, I know, I know what this little bad signal is.
That's that's the Bay Area.
Yeah, that's the Bay Area. Congress, guys, we got money flowing in that. Reid Hoffman, you know's California. You know, I'm looking a little bit more. I thought the abortion I wrote in my notes about the abortion section that I thought that actually was probably the strongest one of the things I've been trying to remark on here is that I found it remarkable democratic embrace of social libertarianism at this convention. And so for me, I mean, I think that's very very popular in this country, and so for her when she says he plans to create a national anti abortion coordinator, the freedom to love who you love, like this very social libertarian language is extremely popular. Yeah, the bar we're in the barstool studio conservatives, right, And it's like, I was that actually thought out of all of every almost everything she said. That probably might be the most impactful part of her entire speech, just because that is the number one reason why a lot of Democrats came out to vote. I mean, the half a billion dollars that she's raised so far. And I just think the language calibration by Tim Walls and by her and really all Democrats they've had, they've had a lot of party discipline over this last week. I've frankly been impressed by it. I'm like, these people, they are playing to win, That's what I think.
Yeah, I'll steal Ryan's point on this because I think it's the right point. The thing about abortion politics that makes it so powerful is that it's so tangible. Yeah, Like it's very clear, it's a you know, very clear promise. It's very clear, you know, the direction of the Republican Party and who is responsible for the current state of affairs that's overwhelmingly unpopular.
You know, it's very clear that.
I think it was genuinely jarring and shocking to a lot of people that like, we had this right and now we don't. Like, holy shit, that means anything's on the table. So I also, you know, she's obviously much more credible on the issue and much more comfortable talking about the issue than Joe Biden ever, even at his best right, even ten years ago, Joe Biden would have been And I do think, you know, a key piece of this is I saw this. I you guys may have seen read into this more, but I saw Shumer was floating potentially, you know, hilbud about yeah, getting rid of the philibuster, maybe just for Roe versus Wade. So I think it is possible that they actually do deliver and put a focus on that issue. But even if they don't, just not having the Republicans in charge is very motivating to a lot of people on that.
Day, it's a very powerful negative case. It's a very powerful tangible thing that you can very quite easily.
It stops.
Yeah, run away from it.
And she read the quote. She said, he said, I did it. I'm glad I did it, or I'm proud of it or whatever. The language was very unequivocal, and it's undeniable obviously, and.
I'm reading again just through my notes. I mean, I didn't. Again, I didn't think the jan stuff six stuff was all that strong, but you're not wrong. People did vote on that. I thought the abortion section was the strongest. I mean the foreign policy stuff we want to come back was crazy. It's like that really was. I mean, I think there's something in there for everybody to hate, especially if we watched the show the Ukraine and the NATO stuff, which was like very clear that she will escalate the war and will continue what's going on on Israel. I mean, it was basically I think Biden could have given that speech and maybe she he spoke. She spoke a little bit differently on the Palestinian issue.
On he's on he said, those brotesters out there have a point.
Yeah, I apologize, I mean, you know, on the iron stuff, I mean For me, it was was a very it was almost like a Hillary Clinton esque speech. And I saw one of Tim Miller, who works over at the Bulwark, one of the never Trump types, and he just said something I think is astute and true. He's like, the border and foreign policy section of the speech could have come from the John McCain convention. And I was like, yeah, I think that's actually that's very accurate and fitting. Because I don't know if you guys caught this. Did you see Reuben Diego who's running for Senate in Arizona. He was like, John McCain was an Americana hero. Yeah, And I was like, oh my god, Arizona Democratic senator on the DNC state or Lane carry Lake raising John McCain on the Democratic stage. So there is some ideological fusion.
I am of the opinion I said this before Democrats in the same way that Republicans just should try to avoid talking about abortion because they are not going to win on abortion. And I also think that for them the landscape of like who's going to be better, you know, family policy and like social welfare policy for families. I also think that's dramatically losing territory for Republicans. I don't think Democrats, especially given the current framing and the fact that they've completely accepted Republican framing on immigration, like you just shouldn't talk about immigration, Like the best thing you could do is just not have this election be about immigration. That is what your opponent wants this election to be about. So the amount that they affirmatively brought it up, and they had their little like montage is ready, and she had a significant part of her speech in here, and they think it's such such a brilliant strategy to be like, actually, we came up with the toughest border strategy ever and adopted all of you know, the Trumpian tactics, and the border patrol loved it, and you know, I.
Hate it from a moral perspective.
I think it's wrong, But I also think it's stupid politically, and I think there's a lot of data to back that up. So the best thing that they could do on immigration is just try to change the subject.
In my humble opinion, I have a question.
Yeah, and this is Ryan David. Maybe you Crystal. You guys have been to a fair amount of dem conventions.
I'm guessing my second one sixteen I was at sixteen.
Ryan's been there since eight.
Okay, so in terms of nomin you can just see David Sara hating Bob. That's really interesting. That's interesting given what you were talking about earlier, when you were saying, like the center of the Democratic Party looks different now, it's a shift. But in terms of nominee speeches, how did this one compare to what you guys have heard before?
It was like pretty I mean because shorter Clinton shorter, and like everything's judged now by Obama. Yeah, so it's like hard.
To hard to measure up to that.
Yeah, it's like you can't measure up to He's a great speaker, David.
I wanted to ask you to pick back up on the comments you were making earlier when we were so rudely into erupted by I don't know, Ruben Geig or whoever decided to jump to. You were talking about how the center of the Democratic Party had shifted, and that, you know, that's something for the left to take hart in, because what I thought was maybe the most notable line at the entire convention was freaking Gina Raymondo, who was like the most corporate of corporate VC lady right right was singing from the Lena con hymnal Yes, talking about anti monopoly actions, and I thought, wow, that means this battle is over. Like if even Gina Raymondo is on this tune in the Democratic Party, this is the direction they're going in.
I am old enough to remember the DLC. Ryan Graham was probably old enough.
I remember the d l.
They were. The DLC was the sort of corporate wing of the Democratic Party, and it had its own explicit think tank, it had its own explicit movement. It wasn't kind of camouflaged underground the New Democrats and the divide between the back then the basically the Liberals and the DLC was a definitional battle or divide in the Democratic Party. And that divide brand wise, at least maybe in practice it still exists, but as a branding thing it basically doesn't exist anymore. Right, there's still Third Way that tries to carry the torch.
Of Third Way is pretty like right in the middle of the party exactly.
So I do think there's this closure now where there was this upsurge in or a culmination in that divide in sixteen between Bernie and Hillary, and that there might have been a continuation of that divide had Biden not unexpectedly in some ways taken up some of the Bernie agenda or a kind of Bernie ish agenda. Right, But because Biden did do that, it doesn't feel like that divide defines this convention or this party anymore.
I wish I could remember who wrote the piece, because I would like to give them credit, but my brain doesn't work, so I can't. Someone wrote that it was remarkable, how unremarkable Bernie's speech was, that a lot of his rhetoric sounds just like what Kamala Harris said, and you know Gretchen Whitmer and Tim Walls and everybody else. Right, This much more populist orientation towards economics. Also, the much more accessible language than like the way AOC was talking a few years ago, that has just become the way Democrats talk about economics now. And not just that, but as you're pointing out, you know Joe Biden, who wasn't was the guy who was like doing the bidding of the credit card issuers or.
Terrible democraty was basically a DLC Democrat.
Yeah, and the terrible track record ends up taking on labor and anti trust in particular being a true break from the neoliberal eras. And I wonder I've asked a few people this question because I find it kind of fascinating, Like, why do you think that happens with Biden?
I mean a lot of reasons.
I think one, I think he realized the center of the party had shifted in the nineties into the two thousands. The center of the party, or at least the cool thing to be in the party was the guy.
Who would kick the way the left.
Yeah, that's no.
Longer the cool thing to be in the party. And I think that's a credit to Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, groups like a ELP, the American Economic Liberties Project, the anti trust move right. I think there's a lot of the revived labor movement. I think all of that has worked together to say punching left on economics is no longer the way you get this is no longer the way you advance in the Democratic Party. It's no longer the way to build your brand in the Democratic Party. And that's that seems sort of nebulous and kind of intangible, but it's also really real. That's why then in twenty twenty four, Bernie Sanders gives a speech to the Democratic Convention and it now sounds like just a democratic speech rights. That's a huge victory for him.
And another material point I'm curious for your take on this is money. Like Obama showed that you can raise hundreds of millions of dollars from small donors. Howard Deane showed first, then Obama, then Bernie raises two hundred plus million dollars. Chuck Schumer watched that and he was like, whoa. Because Chuck Schumer is like an amoral operator, and he's like, wait a minute. So I can hold these these big fundraisers for you know, Wall Street, and they can write, you know, one hundred thousand dollars checks. I can raise fifteen million dollars for every single one of my Senate candidates just by just from people making you know, fifty dollars donations. Because the upper middle class Democrats can do more than just twenty seven dollars to Bernie Sanders, you know, once once a month, once every couple months. They can do when they get angry, they can do fifty bucks to all eight candidates that Chuck Schumer wants them to fund Kamala Harris has raised what three hundred million dollars or something five hundred Yeah, and a lot an enormous amount of that money is from like normal people.
Right, yeah, and so, and it doesn't come with any donor obligations either. You don't have to invite them to the Christmas party, you don't have to take a photo, right, you don't tend to care about their concerns or actually care about their concerns or whatever.
Still, and even here, which is so interesting given what we're talking about with the if, at least tonally is there's tons of corporate interests represented here. Lee Fong had a great story about it. We were at a thing the other a big picture of Corey Bush, all kinds of different Congress people, the big picture of Corey Bush, and next to it they were like thanking FedEx and Salesforce and m P A A. And so that stuff is still here despite Democrats and the talk.
And they foolishly got rid of public funding for conventions, and so you know, the public.
This is a corporate event, literally is a corporate event.
Yeah. I mean the R and Z is too, let's be clear, of course, of.
Course, and I think what they're trying to say is all the corporate branding is we are stakeholders. Yes, right, And I think where does that Where does that actually operate? I think it operates one level below the top line. I'm for X, Y, and Z. The more granular you get on any policy, the more those corporate brands that you saw up in those suites, that's where they're watching.
Yeah, you mean they're writing these little car bounce in the bill that no one's paying attention to, but means everything to them and their bottom line.
That's right, and they bank on no one noticing.
I think he should open change here from Trump. Maybe he called into Fox News. Oh for really, Yeah, I would just put a clip. I went ahead and put it in the rundown mac if you want to go ahead and uh take a listen. Apparently he was rambling. They literally had to cut him off. And uh they've.
Been like, Donald Trump, help on him. Are you serious?
Yeah, that's that's what I'm hearing. So let's go ahead and put it up.
Let me ask you this, sir.
There has been a huge appeal and momentum for women voters. She's trying to pull that the youth vote, the Hispanic vote, the black vote back in her direction. Polls show that she's having some success.
In that at this point.
So what are you going to do.
What's your strategy to rebuild the momentum that you had with those voters.
Now she's not having success. I'm having success. I'm doing great with the Hispanic voters. I'm doing great with black men. I'm doing great with women because women want safety. They want safety, and they don't have safety when they have somebody allowing twenty million people into our country, many of them very dangerous people. No, it's only in your eyes that they have that, Bartha. We're doing very well in the polls. We're leading in most of the polls, and in the swing states, we're leading in almost every one of them. Workers are voting for me because you're not going to have an auto industry if she gets selected electric cars.
Yeah, so it was basically like that. The report was that he sounded like one of those c SPAN random.
CLSs came in on the independent.
Line, Donald, you're up to dad?
Yeah? No, what did you think he's always founded.
Social let's pull his truth socialidia.
That is wow.
I will say.
That's not so different from most of his calls to fair enough.
I agree, and actually the reduction in those has probably been a good thing. Let's see. Look, it's crazy Nancy Pelosi. Where's crooked Joe? There will be future under has led us into a failing nation status. She talks about compassion, doesn't talk about all the people she's allowed into our country. Keep going. She's done nothing for three and a half years, but talk and what she's doing tonight she talks about other countries border. Nothing about our borders stands for incompetence and weakness. Our country is being laughed at. Do you guys think he was.
Caused?
She caused the attack of October. So here's how you know he is doing the tweeting. Look at the random capitalization talking about we G. I don't know, you probably Donald.
This would be actually a good time to talk about something we haven't fully addressed yet, which is that it does look like RFK Junior is dropping out tomorrow endorsing Trump.
Trump.
Yeah, let me pull that up. It is here. I can put this into the rundown. Officially, the RFK Junior campaign has filed paperwork in the state of Arizona.
They didn't they're dropping their claim to try to get.
Us withdrawn from the presidential race. Mac I just put it into the rundown. There we go, maybe zoom in quick on the image so that people can see.
With drawn from the presidential race in Arizona.
In the state of Arizona. There'd be no reason to withdraw all the ballots that you connected if it didn't mean that you weren't at least at the very least dropping out Jad What was it Griffin? Yesterday we were watching JD on Jake Tapper, didn't he make a comment about RFK. He was like, I'm not sure if it's gonna happen, but of course we would welcome that. We would we could talk to him about vaccine mandates or something like that. But it's looking more and more prediction having it like eighty eight.
Yeah, I mean, it looks like it's happening. And there's been this flirtation going on for a while. Now you know that's been reported out. I don't know how much of a difference it really makes electorally at this point, because he was down about five percent in the holes, but it's definitely a you know, positive development if you're Trump, because he was taking he was serving like a kind of a Jillsteine roll for the Sorry if.
You saw Michigan, he I mean it would in my head RFK was if Trump lost, and he lost in a narrow election, it would have been r Yeah, if RK was still in the race, because if you looked at Michigan, wisconsinin North Carolina, he was on the He was on the ballot in all the battleground states Arizona, which he just withdrew out of. These are states he barely won last time around or lost. So to me, I mean five percent, five percent a ton you know, on the margin. So I actually would put like RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump to me, actually puts it fully back a coin flip, because I'm like, the margins now are so slim for Kamala and it will have to be a full on like battle to the death of get get the voters out, you know, turn out as much as humanly possible. Yeah, with your faithful. Whereas with RFK and the race, the Democrats did not have to perform at an A plus level, And I think now that they do.
One thing that I really that I hate about this is now all the people who always say every third party. Yes, you're right about Republicans, like, yeah, they get a lot of ammunition because I mean he yeah, he really claimed, but no, no, I can't stand I can't stand by, and I want to defeat both of them, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, it certainly looks like from the way that his running mate was talking about it, the the the real like ultimate core of this was always I want to hurt the Democrats. And so when it came down to it, and it was very clear, okay, you're not hurting the Democrats anymore, then you know, he makes makes the move, and it was it was the right that was nice to him in the beginning, and so he feels some common cause with them or whatever his zone ego. He wants to get some cabinet position, et cetera, and they offered him the best deal. But yeah, it gives so much credence to this talking point that in reality, all of these third party candidates are just you know, Republican plants trying to hurt the whoever the Democrat is.
That they're absolutely right.
While we've got the writer of don't look up here, I didn't want to ask what your thoughts about the pretty much total absence of any change there.
Was today was for the future.
They had they had Death Hollands on to talk about it, and then Maxwell Frost was talking about it. I don't know if there were other speakers, but other than those two, it's been notably absent.
I think the Republicans have done a good job with making the issue almost like almost unfortunately like immigration for the Democrats that every time the Democrats now talk about it, it gives the Republicans an opportunity to talk about higher energy prices, to talk about you know, they want.
To control they want paper straws.
Yeah, they want to control the economy. They've done a really good job of making it into like to use a Tim Waltz term, like a weird issue, which is really hard, which is really terrifying, exactly like it takes away the or the Republicans have done a good job of taking of making it as a weapon against the social libertarianism. They're going to control, you know, how you use energy while you drive. And I think what's obviously tragic about that is that the crisis is actually worse it is real, So how Democrats can break that is kind of like the biggest political question. He's just up to.
China to just figure it out. Figure Yeah.
Really terrifying that there's this huge problem that both parties. I don't really want to talk about it.
Well, the only good news is that I think I believe between Tim and Trump, we now have two nuclear pro nuclear candidates which are in the race. Tim Wallas is pro nuclear. Trump is endorsed nuclear. We'll see. But I mean, if Elon is there, it's like it's possibly one of.
The only well and then junior head of the e P A.
Oh no, but RFK is very anti nuclear. Remember he went off right, but he's but he's.
Pro but he's obviously a he's not a climate denier.
He's when we when I interviewed him on environmental issues, he was like, well, yeah, I believe in you guys should go and watched.
It's been a long while.
But he was like, well, I believe in it, but I'm not really going to talk about it because I think it turns people off. And then he and then he goes into this whole thing about like the free market. The answer is the free market, right, yeah?
And I was like he was, it's just too dangerous. The opportunity is position.
It's almost like there's an asteroid head towards Earth.
It's a good metaphor, Emily.
I'll start by saying, good, not great, bubbles likely to pop soon, and sugar sugar could end all.
Right, Crystal.
I think it's it's very hard for me to separate, you know, my horror at what's happening in Gaza from this overall convention and direction of the Democratic Party.
But I think the.
Real star of this ticket is actually Tim Walls in terms of his messaging intelligence and credibility of having a positive, affirmative economic agenda. I think is a much more effective political actor than Kamala Harris is. And you know, so my takeaway is that a lot of the most successful framing in our particulation from this convention was courtesy of the way he talks about politics and the way he operates in a political context as well.
Yeah, I mostly concur with Emily. I think it was good, not great. I mean, I mean, I think I said C plus earlier. I think it's probably where I stand. I really don't think it was her best even since she became the candidate. She did certainly throw enough of what she needed to. I think she gave a replacement level speech. It's the political chameleon that we all like know and love, I guess at this point for people who cover politics for a living. But let's not forget that that is popular. The vibes are still good. People here were really enthusiastic, like almost messianic, you know, in the convention hall. And that's probably the single best reason I'm really happy that I was here in Chicago to imbibe that, because that's not something that necessarily may come through enough on the screen, but to speed within the convention and talk to people and see all the enthusiasm. Like, No, my main takeaway I keep saying it, you know all tonight is like these people are playing to win, and you really think they are in it to win it, and I think Republicans should be afraid.
You see that from some people who aren't here, who are just like.
That, Yes, I wish you were here, Broke, No, it's true, It's really true.
I was just trying to do the math, and it looks like about eleven weeks and ish until the election, and you know, many fewer than that until the mail ballots start to go out. So she just has to like avoid interviews, avoid press conferences.
She's been doing a great job about.
She's hung in there so far. It'll be interesting if she can just keep it, just hold it together. She's like, that's her whole thing. She just has to hold it together for not much longer. Yeah, it's a four day so wild, wild process.
The funny thing is because she is very like, people don't feel like they're not seeing It's not like Biden where he was just like in the basement, we didn't see it at all and it was notable his absence.
Like, she feels very present.
And so I don't think she's paying any price with the public for that. In the media is certainly not like you.
Know, outrage the media is not.
Yeah, so yeah, I don't think unfortunately, I don't think she pays any real price for failing to do press, commerce, to talk to the media, et cetera.
But I guess my only I think the main takeaway is they have a first do no harm strategy. They are implementing it really well tactically. Uh, it is frustrating if you want to know more, because any more that you would know is a threat of doing harm to the campaign. And I think we should expect that until if the bubble bursts or the vibes go bad, they'll have to shift strategies out of a first do no harm, they'll have to take more risks. But until there, until there is a perception that something's gone wrong, this is what it's going to be.
It's not broke.
Don't fix it right, don't forget everybody. We have a promotion going on right now, Mac, can we put that graphic please up on the screen. We are having a free month trial for Breaking Points, so Breakingpoints dot com. The promo code is d n C free.
All right.
So here's a question for BP. Would you guys consider doing live panels in the future for the regular show. The energy and the vibe with everyone there is so fun, and so is the engagement with the live chat Crystal.
I mean maybe it is.
It's always fun, especially having Ryan and like all of us together. Of course, having the great David Sirota with us as well. Thank you by the way, David, thank you for coming. Is super fun. I don't it's like technically complicated to change the way we do the show on a day to day basis. But but there's a lot of debates coming up and then election, and so we'll be doing obviously lots of this for those events, which is always fun.
And we really missed Crystal always.
We really that's nice talk.
We had a very funny We had a very funny, funny encounter with one viewer last night. Yeah, just was like, where's the Crystal And she was really old.
Stuck on a plane shout out to enraged cog by the way, enraged at the thing giving her a shout out. We met her in person, was very nice. She's extremely kind and very funny and I love her.
Uh, tons of excitement for drops.
It was a good Here's here's an interesting one that I did. I didn't honestly catch this, but they say, how do you all feel about Kamala messaging as being inevitable when I'm president versus the traditional if you elect me message?
I think it's the next president president.
Yeah, yeah, speaking now the next president of the United States, I would say that's extremely uh extremely.
Tim is going to be the best vice president.
Yeah, exactly.
What about from Tara Albaron, will there be a post DMC bump? What are your estimated guesses on the bump?
Bring traditional is one to two reading some Nate's Silver analysis, it was about one to two points. So you usually get.
It is unfair hurt to Trump, like he he asked for a refund, he deserves it. It feels like Republicans didn't get a convention.
Yeah, it's true.
It's like they did their convention. Now, they could have seen that it was coming, you know, as we saw it. We saw it. Yeah, I thought it was going to happen. I went but go ahead.
Was that I went back and read J. D. Vance's speech. It was all about Biden.
Yeah, yeah, but there were a bunch of right wingers who were saying, stop focusing on Biden, stopped focusing on Bid like so in real time it was obvious that they were making attack.
Was because I was gone for the wedding. Was that in the discourse at that time?
Yeah, yeah, some some yeah, like yeah, I mean what happened.
If you want to relive the timeline is, you know, the Trump assassination attempt happens, it shuts down for just a few days, all the discourse about pushing Biden out, and for a minute there it really did feel like, oh, well that's it now, this is over. But it quickly got rekindled.
While they're doing Yeah, while they're.
Doing the RNC, this quickly gets rekindled. And so there was discourse at the time, Like I frankly was kind of shocked that they were still just focusing on Biden versus Yeah, there's a little bit of an attempt to Biden Harris Biden Harris. But you can see even now Trump is having trouble shifting to not focusing on Biden to focusing on Kamala Harris. It has taken him time. He is also an elderly individual, and I think his brain had locked into this one model of the election and has had a very hard time shifting.
It still has tonight.
Where's Crooked Joe?
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
And he hasn't figured out what the best line of attack with Kamala.
He's kind of.
All over the place. You know, he workshopped this like, oh, she's not really black. Thing that didn't really work, you know, it didn't get the He's expecting the typical liberal freak out, and they just were sort of like rolled their eyes and it.
On the chat is offering twenty dollars if he shot on the beer.
The beer's gone.
Oh, actually there's not much.
Yeah, we well, another thing to remember, by the way, on the sugar high is that we are right. The dunst did their conventions so late that we have a week until Labor Day, and a lot of the campaign strategies are to hit the ground running after Labor Day, so they're bumped and their sugar high will absolutely last another week, no question about it.
Okay, was continued to keep and oh, here's a good one. What happens after Trump. I've actually been thinking about this a lot. I Trump for my man JD. It's not going to be good. I'm really worried about it because what I think will happen is I think that Maga will turn. Trump has no loyalty, right, so Trump will be like, it's your fault, your childish cat lady. Bullshit is the reason I lost, even though it's like, well, hold on a second, dude, like your name was on the thing and you like okay. And then the other problem is that the right wingers like the establishment people they already hate it, people like Lindsay Grant him and all these others, and so I think it will be like a brutal defastration that modern politics has seen. Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts will be gone. A lot of the people who are aligned like with Oh, I do I think they'll fire his ass. I mean, it's got to be one of the biggest political fuck ups.
They've raised so much money off of it.
Yeah, okay, but if you cost Trump the election, he will turn on you. Yeah, Yeah, that's true. That's true. What I'm saying is there will be a brutal internal civil war national Conservatism and anybody who believes in the child tax credit and all that Ukraine's skepticism, You're done, Like.
I don't think so. No, I don't think so, because.
So certain they will go full Glenn Young.
No.
So here's my position on it is, we genuinely have absolutely no idea because anything could happen to Donald Trump. Donald Trump to mega people could quite literally get martyred, and we were within millimeters of that happening. Like there are all kinds of black Swan events that could change, would actually and and how Trump ends up like before January six, Yeah, nobody knew January six was good like it direction.
Yeah, I mean, you're I'm sure current prediction, like my general thing is I think they will come for JD and they will try to absolutely destroy him. They will.
But Trump has this incredible like it's like thirty percent of Republican voters they just love Donald Trump. And that's It's more than DeSantis, It's more than Nikki Haley. It's more than any other person is able to capture right now as a proportion, And so he will. He's not going anywhere, but.
That See, that's my question is Okay, let's say he loses. Is he just going to run again?
It would be the Godfather? Don't you guys think he'll be the god I think he keeps going and he keeps going.
I mean I have such a hard time envisioning him being like I'm done seeking power light, Like he's gonna anoint the next person. I mean, that's that's the possibility.
Well, hey, he also go to jail.
Yeah, yeah, if he loses, I think there's a I would bet, like I would actually put money that he will spend time in prison.
But what for at that point, I mean, they're all getting through out.
Well, Okay, his sentencing is twenty five. The Georgia case, what happened with the documents?
One that's pushed the twenty twenty.
And so there are still things.
She threw it most of it out right.
There are still things with the UH like January sixth related election interference one that my understanding is that are prosecutable even with the Supreme Court's ruling on immunity. But it has to go back through the process and figure out what those things are. So may still be something some there there that they could go after him for that would carry some decent penalties. And I don't I don't have to go back and refresh my memory. And where the documents case stands, it's.
The brag case, so the false playing business records case that's thirty four fellony accounts and the.
Sentencing that's not going to be jail.
The sentencing right now is on September eighteenth, and this judge Marshawn despises Donald Trump.
So I would really white shocked if they.
Put him in non violent first time offender.
Yeah, see, it'll be interesting. So all right, well, people, they just impact.
Forget.
The lack of that language, by the way, is why I think Democrats actually trying to promo code d n C free breakingpoints dot Com take advantage this has been a hell of a time. Thank you to all of our premium subscribers, because you guys are the reasons that we were able to come out here see this stuff on the ground, get clips, really experience it. And I personally think that we really benefited from being on the ground here with the entire crew. Literally impossible if it wasn't for all of you. So I guess the next one of these live streams what presidential debate a couple of weeks. I think it's only a couple of weeks.
Voting starting in a couple of weeks.
And shout out to Barshool Sports by the way, they've been so kind Eddie the dog Walk podcast. They gave us free reign of their studio. They their technical people helped us out. Yeah, free heigh noon and ghost. I mean, we really could not ask for more specifically, well maybe we could ask for more Ghosts, but they were amazing and if you guys could help show them some love, subscribe to their podcast at the dog Walk my man Eddie, who really went out of his way to help us. It was extremely extremely kind to them, and you know, if we can ever return their favor, I certainly would and we'll see you guys later.
