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8/30/24: Breakdown: CNN's First Interview With Kamala

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Published Aug 30, 2024, 3:15 PM

Krystal and Ryan give you an in depth breakdown on the entire CNN interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

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Hey guys, So the much anticipated Kamala Harris plus Timwall's interview on CNN happened last night, So we thought we'd do a whole like streamer style breakdown and react to the entire interview. Ryan, of course here with me Hi Ryan, good morning, how you doing.

You can tell that they waited way too long to do an interview by the fact that, like The New York Times last night had a live blog about we are reacting to it. Yeah, in real time. Trump did like three interviews like during her interview and like whatever.

Yeah, but they were with like who were they with? Random? Yeah, he's into this the podcast world. I know he's doing an interview with Lex Friedman. That'll be kind of interesting.

And there was one that he did with this Florida reporter who asked him, how are you going to vote on the constitutional amendment on abortion?

That's right, yeaheah, the abortion stuff, I guess for abortion rights. I mean that that ballot initiative, the pro choice side is now going to get like ninety percent of the book because it was already about sixty percent, and what it has to get sixty percent to pass, right?

Yeah?

Yeah, And so I think now with a Trump backing it. Man, he threw those pro lifers right under the bus, didn't he. And he's saying he's going to do IVF for all as well. So I guess maybe the path ryan to medicare for all is will just go body part by body part, procedure by procedure and peacemeal it until we've got entire coverage for you know, for the entire body. So anyway, I'm sure we'll get covering all of that next week. I actually want to set up I've been trying for breaking points to set up a abortion debate. Is Sager and I had this debate, but we're both pro choice, So it'd be nice to have two people who are actually pro life debating, you know, the Trump campaign strategy and whether it's worth sacrificing the Yeah, like Lila Rose isn't her name, who's been going very forcefully on the pro life side, like this is outrageous. We need to hold him to account it As lefties, I feel a lot of compassion for their position because I feel like we're in the same spot with regard to issues like Gaza and Palestine in there. Yeah, in any case, so we'll get to the interview now, but before we do, Ryan, you guys have a new story that you just broke on drop site News, which you guys should all, by the way, go and subscribe and support Ryan and Jeremy over there because you're doing phenomenal work. So what do you got?

Oh yeah, So last night we published this piece about Ecuador. This time from two thousand and seven to twenty seventeen, Ecuador had a social democratic government.

They were called the Quarta.

Yastas run by Rafael Korea. In twenty seventeen. It's very complicated but at a US right wing turn.

It was a bit of a coup, bizarre situation.

But what we have and the next four or five years were spent prosecuting Korea and his allies, and what we have uncovered through a series of text messages that the prosecutor general, like the Attorney General Diana Salazar, sent to a judge and also to a member of Parliament that we've obtained and reviewed, show that she was very specifically targeting her prosecutions at the left and delaying prosecutions of the right in order to hurt the left in election campaigns with in coordination and in constant contact with the US ambassador Wow in Ecuador. So a lot of the times the US is not carrying out the kind of old military coups that we're used to seeing from the nineteen seventies and eighties, though we still, you know, once in a while might dip back into that playbook. But in general, it's more what they call law fair and using the public's hostility towards all politicians. The public is fed up with corruption, so then you have social democratic reformers coming in and the way to combat them is that it's just dropped charges of corruption on them, and then the public's like, ah, they're all the same.

Says like what was done Lula in Brazil, for example.

Can't trust anybody exactly and then and then a strong man comes in instead. It's exactly what they did with Lula, threw him in jail for corruption until those were exposed by Intercept Brazil Glenn Greenwald for being politically motivated, and we partnered with Intercept Brazil on these.

On this story as well.

So fantastic new elections coming up at the beginning of next year in Ecuador. So and already the story's you know, picking up a lot of steam there, so we'll see.

So this is the sort of thing that was likely suspected, both the targeting of the left but also the US involvement. But you were able to actually get the goods.

Right exactly so people could check it out.

Like the last point on this, she was setting the messages using an app called Confide, which is popular in Latin America, which as soon as you read the message, it disappears.

But what I was doing a deal.

He was filming as he would read her messages with a second phone, and so we were able to he got a forensic analysis.

To prove that, like these are theologies is authentic.

Wow.

So we have like fifteen hundred videos of messages that we had to look through and then translate.

Wow, that's unbelievable.

You can see the result over it drops on views dot com.

I'm looking forward to checking that out. I'm also looking forward to checking out your next exchange with Matthew Miller or whoever. The State Department.

They haven't had a briefing in many weeks.

But have they really not?

Yeah? I think probably not even allowed, you.

Know, I mean that anyway.

They need it. They need a vacation from their hypocrisy, just like they.

Can't take it either. Okay, all right, let's go ahead and get to comrade Kamala here, Coconut Kamala and her very first inn This is it is kind of a stunt first interview post Biden dropout, which happened back on what July twenty first, So we're like, you know, a month and a week post Biden drop out, and we're finally getting her first interview of very strategically time before the Labor Day weekend. I might add, let me go ahead and pull this up and we can just start playing it and react.

Here we go Part one. All right, here it is President Governor. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me and bringing the bus. Bus Star is well underway here in Georgia. You have less time to make your case to voters than any candidate in modern American history. The voters are really eager to hear what your plans are if you are elected. What would you do on day one in the White House.

Well, there are a number of things I will tell you.

First and foremost, one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. When I look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people. I think that people are ready for a new way forward in a way that generations of Americans have been fueled by hope and by optimism. I think, sadly, in the last decade we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans, really dividing our nation. And I think people are ready to turn the page on that.

So what would you do? Day one?

So out of the gate, it's a very I mean, the most obvious question was your day one agenda? Very vague initial answer here, Ryan, how do you.

Get blindsided by the question what do you plan to do as president?

It reminds me someone who I mean, I'm sure she's wanted to be president for quite a lot of years now, you know.

It reminded me a lot of Ted.

You remember Ted Kennedy's and I'm just going to pull it up, but we people can just google it. Ted Kennedy's nineteen eighty answer to a similar question like why do you want to run for president?

No, I do not remember that, Ryan, but I'm sure you do.

Ted Kennedy himself had been he contemplated running for president in nineteen sixty eight, So this is twelve years you know after he started at least very publicly thinking he was probably thinking about running for president when he was five years old.

Right, yeah, you're a Kennedy, You're raised nineteen eighty.

He's asked this question and he flobbed it way worse than Harris. Yeah, but he's like, the country has a lot of natural resources, and it's it's like just people can just people can YouTube like the interview that blindsided the Ted to Kennedy presidential campaign, and they can watch it for themselves. At least she had an answer. But I'm going to like support the middle class. It feels like such a layup. You could say, all right, the first thing I do when I get in there, I'm going to send a bill to Congress.

That codifies Roebi Wade.

Yeah.

After that, I'm going to send a bill that cuts taxes for the middle class, that expands the child tax credit whatever.

Right, like things.

Yeah, right, specific things that indicate because when we've interviewed presidential candidates, this is literally always our first question, because it seems to me the you know, this is the starting point, and it gets at not just what are the laundry list of things that you plan? What is your priority? Because we all know that you're not going to be able to do all of the things that you want to do, so what is the like flagship priority day one? And we get you know, health, the middle class and by the way, Trump is bad. Now she goes on, let me pull this back up. Dana actually presses her like okay, but like what does that actually mean? And then she goes into some of the specifics that she laid out in a recent economic policy speech. Let's go ahead and listen to that. But you can kind of tell she's just like, yes, for whatever reason, was not had not really thought of what her day one priority would actually be. So now she's just reaching into the bag of policies she recently talked about Day one.

It's going to be about one implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy. I've already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we're going to do to bring down on the cost of everyday goods, what we're going to do to invest in America's small businesses, what we're going to do to invest in families, for example, extending the Chile tax credit to six thousand dollars for families for the first year of their child's life, to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib. There's the work that we're going to do that is about investing in the American family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now.

So there are a number of things on day one.

So I guess, Brian, the positive if we're looking for a silver lining, here is something you pointed out, which is that you know, being an empty vessel is the negative thing in terms of if you want someone who has like these core commitments, or like you're Bernie Sanders, you're going to fight for Medicare for all, we all know you're going to do it, or even you know Barack Obama, we knew healthcare was going to be a major focus for him as well. The plus side is that this allows you an opportunity as a public to pressure her into what you want to see happen. On day one, and you made a point that I thought was interesting that there's almost like, in some ways a healthier relationship to Kamala Harris because there isn't this cult of personality. It's just like, all right, this she'll do, and we've got an agenda that we're interested in, and maybe she'll be willing, especially with the addition of Tim Walls here, to get some pieces of it through.

Right.

There is nobody on the Democratic side who thinks that they can just sit back and let Kamala Harris lead them to the promised land like zero people, Whereas that was an overwhelming feeling among Democrats when it came to Barack Obama, oh yeah, and then they were all let down as a result of that. Kamala Harrison is not going to let anybody down. So it requires exactly the public to be involved and push her and say, okay, you know what, you don't really have any ideas for what you're going to do on day one, but we do, and here's how we're going to organize and pressure you to do those things.

Well.

It's also why the choice of Tim Walls ends up being really important, because she can just okay, just do his agenda, you know, like he had a plan and he did a thing and didn't just talk about it but actually was like, no, I'm going to figure out how to get these things through, so just just do that. And that's part of why he felt so consequential, I think to a lot of us when he was chosen, because he didn't just come with you know, as a as a person and he's a talented politician and a great background in class diversity and a union member and all of those things. But he has a plan, had an agenda and got it through. So she can just sort of grab that, or she could grab the which there's a lot of overlap here, the pieces of build back better that you know that Bernie was pushing that never got pushed through. So that's the that's the hope and the aspiration is that that's the thing that's sort of floating out there in the ether that Kamala Harris, who clearly doesn't really have any thoughts of plans of her own, that she can just pick up on there.

But you well, I'm excited about this agenda too, as I said, the idea of inspiring America to what can be. And I think many of these things that the Vice president's proposing are are things that we share in values in the child texturet is when we know that reduces childhood property by a third. We did it in Minnesota. To have a federal partner in this unbelievable, I think, in the impact that we can make.

Yeah, and there's them Walls, you know, coming in to say, hey, we did this.

By the way, here's it. He's like, here's an actual.

Policy, right right, right. There was a lot made by the right of Tim Walls being part of this interview, which you know, I mean, on the one hand, I understand because she hasn't done a solo interview. On the other hand, of course, it is you know, traditional, I guess after the conventions to do a joint interview. The other thing that there's some irony to it to me, because some segments of the right have thoroughly convinced themselves that Tim Walls was a horrific best vice presidential pick. There was all kinds of like, oh, he's going to have to drop out any day now. Meanwhile, he has the most the highest favorability rating of anyone you know, of the four presidential and vice presidential candidates by far, and so they kind of flipped on a dime from He's such a catastrophe he's going to have to drop out to He's such a tremendous asset that she can't even do an interview without having him by her side.

Right, it can't be both things.

But I think, yeah, she made this is a a problem of her own making. It doesn't look weird to have them both together if she's also doing.

Lots of other interviews.

Right, Yeah, she hasn't done an interview practically since like that Lester Holt, the bacle.

So yeah, that's true, that's true. All right, let's see where we go from here.

Talked about you call it the opportunity economy. Are well aware that right now many Americans are struggling. There's a crisis of affordability. One of your campaign themes is We're not going back. But I wonder what you say to voters who do want to go back when it comes to the economy, specifically because their groceries were less expensive, housing was more affordable when Donald Trump was president.

Well, let's start with the fact that when Joe Biden and I came in office during the height of a pandemic, we saw over ten million jobs were lost. People I mean literally, we were all tracking the numbers. Hundreds people a day were dying because of COVID. The economy had crashed in large part all of that because of mismanagement by Donald Trump of that crisis.

When we came in.

Our highest priority was to do what we could to rescue America. And today we know that we have inflation at under three percent. A lot of our policies have led to the reality that America recovered faster than any wealthy nation around the world. But you are right, prices, in particular for groceries, are still too high. The American people know what I know it, which is why my agenda includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries, for example, dealing with an issue like price gouging. What we need to do to extend the child tax credit to help young families be able to take care of their children in their most formative years. What we need to do to bring down the cost of housing. My proposal includes what would be a tax credit of twenty five thousand dollars for first time home buyers so they can just have enough to put a down payment on a home, which is part of the American dream and their aspiration, but do it in a way that allows them to actually get on the path to achieving that goal in that dream.

So you have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you're talking about, now, why haven't you done them already?

Well, first of all, we had to recover as an economy, and we have done that. I'm very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than three percent, the work that we have done to cap the cost of insulin at thirty five dollars a month for seniors. Donald Trump said he was going to do a number of things, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

Never happened. We did it so.

Now and as I travel in the state of Georgia and around our country, the number of seniors that have benefited I've met. I was in Nevada recently, a grandmother. She showed me her receipts and before we capped the cost of INCEALLAUINCE for seniors at thirty five dollars a month, she was playing hundreds of dollars up to thousands of dollars a month for her insulin. She's not doing that, and he maintained bionomics.

So that part where you know, what the answer to what do you say to people who actually are like, no, actually, I do want to go back to the economy under Donald Trump. The answer she gave there could have subded in nicely for the Day one answer. This one she was clearly she was prepared for, right, She had gone over whatever they wanted to say here, and I thought she handled that quite well. In the same respect, it shows you, you know, she's not like, like I said, that answer could have been great for the Day one answer. She's not ni enough on her feet too. If it wasn't specifically in the briefing book for the answer to that question, she's not able to like pull it over in real time to insert it into the Day one question.

Right, Yeah, that was right exactly. So if she's if she has prepared for an answer, she can deliver a good answer. And I thought she'd delivered that one quite well, right, Yes, And she has. She's had some debate moments where she clearly had like prepped like I was the kid on that bus or or whatever, and she hit those marks quite well. So she can do that, and that is your prosecutors are probably that's what you're trained to do, like all right, here, here are the here's the evidence we've got against this defendant.

Here's how we're going.

To lay it, lay it out, and you deliver it well, thinking on her feet and which requires you to have some ideas, you know, about exactly what you're going to do. That's her challenge because she's kind of teaching for things.

That's a great point because it's one thing to memory the bullet points that someone else has given you. It makes it much easier in these situations to be ex temporaneous if you yourself have an agenda, a plan in mind, core values, things you want to articulate. And you know, I think that's that's always been the challenge for her. The first debate back in twenty twenty, when she did the whole that little girl was me and they, I mean, now it's like curdled into being rather cringe, and they immediately started selling like mugs and T shirts that kind of forced it to become immediately cringe. She was fantastic in that debate, and not just in that moment which did land at the time, but throughout the debate. I thought she was the best performer on stage. But part of why is because she was fairly low in the polls going into that, and she wasn't taking a lot of incoming, so she was able to pick her spots based on where she was prepared, and she was able to occupy more of that sort of prosecutorial position of I'm going to challenge you with these things that I've already prepared and already thought through. And that's when she's at That's certainly when she's at her strongest and when she feels her greatest comfort or you know. A lot was made of the way she was in some of the Senate confirmation hearings with what was it Brett Kavanaugh, where she but people really liked how she performed a similar deal right there. You prepare your statue and your staff, you prepare, you know what your line and questioning is, and you can go in. So but in any case, that the one other thing I wanted to note about this this answer before we keep playing it, is she has a lot she She's been unburdened in a lot of ways by the fact that people are unhappy with the Biden economic legacy. They don't blame her for it. It's amazing. Actually, she is now basically tying in some instances succeeding Donald Trump in terms of who would be best on the economy. And I think part of the reason for that is Number one, I think just the fact that she's younger and so there's more confidence she could actually do some stuff, or at least communicate some stuff. Number Two, she genuinely was sidelined in the Biden administration, so people aren't wrong to be like, oh, this lady had nothing to do with any of this. I think that's actually kind of accurate. And number three, she's able to more comfortably make the commentary she just did, which is like, listen, things were challenging, we did great work, we got a lot done, but we know people are in pain and there's a lot more that needs to be done. That piece of being able to really empathize with people and where they are right now, and especially the concerns over pricing, is something that she is more free to do than Joe Biden was. And of course Joe Biden was not able really effectively to communicate about anything at this point outside of like NATO and Aucus.

Oh and one quick thing on that, yeah, and our Trump supporting viewers, and we love our Trump supporting viewers are going to pick up on her thirty five dollars insulin thing.

There.

There's become a meme that actually Trump did that, and just the basic facts of this are Trump in mid twenty twenty did an executive order that are basically encouraged pharmaceutical companies or who are dealing with medicare down to thirty five dollars a month. It did lower prices for you know, at least probably some millions of seniors on medicare. Good for Trump for doing that executive order, two thumbs up for him. Biden did it through the Inflation Reduction Act and made it mandatory for everybody, not just yet, not just some seniors who voluntarily got a benefit from it. So that's the difference between what they're talking about here.

Do you want to assign her any Pinocchio's or.

The way she said it there?

It was accurate.

It was actually was totally accurate.

Yeah, And I just saw some polling I can't remember. I think it was a like progressive polster but who pulled all of her agenda items and lowering the cost of prescription drugs and specifically insulin was like the number one most popular thing. So no surprise that they.

Deserve credit for that. They took on big pharma like they legitimately did.

That's right, So no surprise that she that she emphasizes that here.

Is a success.

I maintain that when we do the work of bringing down prescription medication for the American people, including capping the cost of the annual cost of prescription medication for seniors at two thousand dollars, when we do what we did in the first year of being in office to extend the child tax credit so that we cut child poverty in America by over fifty percent, When we do what we have done to invest in the American people in bringing manufacturing back to the United States, so that we created over eight hundred thousand new manufacturing jobs, bringing business back to America, what we have done to improve the supply chain so we're not relying on foreign governments to supply American families with their basic needs. I'll say that that's good work. There's more to do, but that's good work.

I wond so, Ryan, before we go to the next question, any thoughts on that piece you get asked about, like well, did you see you think the Bidenomics is good because you know, Bidenomics has become sort of a toxic brand just because of how unpopular, frankly Joe Biden himself is.

Yeah, they rolled through that stuff again like that, that's all great stuff. Now, the flip side of having cut child poverty in half is that when they let it expire, they doubled child poverty again. So you know, no credit for that. But yes, that that agenda that was enacted in twenty twenty one and into the twenty twenty two that was a old school Europeans social welfare state that I think the country would love to see, you know, brought back permanently.

Yeah, and if you look at the approval rating actually of Joe Biden, he was at his most popular when he was doing that, you know, social democratic welfare state type of legislation, when people had we're benefiting from you know, COVID supports of a wide variety, including the child tax credit, and it's both when you know, a lot of the story of the Biden administration is those things being cut piece by piece by peace. You couple that with inflation and then another pivot point. Unfortunately, the Biden administration was when he did the right thing, which were from Afghanistan, his approval rating takes a massive hit because of the you know, overwhelming media onslaught and punishment, punishment of him for doing what American people have asked him, asked presidents to do now for years at this point, and then you know, his decline and inability to really defend himself or articulate what he's up to or what the agendas or why people should believe in it, and you lead to you know, the abysmal approval rating, a bysmal assessment of Bidenomics, etc. That we see today.

I think it's some clarity on where you stand on some key policy issues. Energy is a big one. When you were in Congress, you supported the Green New Deal, and in twenty nineteen you said, quote, there's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking. Cracking, as you know, is a pretty big issue, particularly in your must win state of Pennsylvania.

Do you still want to ban fracking?

No?

And I made that clear on the debate station in twenty twenty that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not banfracking. As president, I will not banfracking.

In twenty nineteen.

I believe at a town hall you said you were asked, would you commit to implementing a federal ban I'm fracking on your first Dan office and you said, there's no question, I'm in favor of banning fracking. So yes, So it changed in that campaign in twenty twenty. I'm very clear where I stand.

We are in twenty twenty four, and I've not changed that position or will I going forward.

I kept my word and I will keep my word.

What made you change that position at the time, Well, let's.

Be clear, my values have not changed.

I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate. And to do that, we can do what we have accomplished thus far, the Inflation Reduction Act, what we have done to invest, by my calculation, over probably a trillion dollars over the next ten years, investing in a clean energy economy, what we've already done creating over three hundred thousand new clean energy jobs. That tells me, from my experience as vice president, we can do it without banning fracking.

In fact, Dana Dan, excuse me.

I cast the tie breaking vote that actually increased leases for cracking as vice president.

So I'm very clear about where I stand.

And was there some policy or scientific data that you saw that you said, oh, okay, I get it.

Now.

What I have seen is that we can we can grow, and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.

So there you go. That's part one. There's three parts here that we want to get through. But what do you make that fracking exchange? Try? It is free, slivery is very slivery. It's just tough.

It's just tough because the honest answer is I was pandering to the Sunrise movement and the youth vote, trying to win the Democratic nomination for president in a period where the left was ascendant.

Right.

I failed at that, and now I'm doing a different political thing.

Right.

So the I think, if you're not going to.

Be honest about it, like the best approach would be, I get you know, if you had to clearly, they workshop like, all right, how do we answer this and not sound like complete frauds to say, okay, look, at the time, I thought you needed to ban fracking in order to confront climate change. But now I think you can actually confront climate change without banning fracking. Now that's a lie. It's blah blah blah blah blah. But like, I guess that's the best you can come up with. I don't know how how if you were Kamala Harris without saying I was lying because I was pandering to youth voters, like would you?

I mean, I guess you could frame pandering in a positive light of like, I'm responding to what voters what votvoters won, right, and at the time, voters were saying we want you to ban fragging. Sorry the dog is in here now she's moving everything. But U you know, so you could frame pandering as like being responsive to the world of voters. But no, I think that saying my values are the same, but you know, new information, I realize that we can now do this without banning bracking. I think probably is the best that you can do. And I mean it's fair to say that.

There's would to win the election and that hasn't changed.

True, true, I mean I think she could fairly claim that, like, you know, technological developments are changing what's possible blah blah blah, But the part that to me came off as the most weasley is when she said something like, you know, twenty twenty, I stood on the stage and said I would not ban fragging or something like that, and Dana meet It is like, yeah, but three minutes before that, you were saying the polar opposite, which is kind of the point here. So there's no real wiggling out of this. And she comes back because this is not the only position that she's changed.

Yeah, she ran as Bernie in twenty nineteen.

Yeah, for a while. And then also, you know, she starts off supporting Medicare for all because she thinks that's the thing. Then she gets Donor push back. Then she moved off of that even at the time. So so in any case, yeah, I.

Think her argument was I flip flopped on this four years.

Ago, right, Yeah, I have a long flip flopped on that. I moved off this a long time ago. W Are you still talking to me about it now? I think one other thing that I'll say is there is a lot of justified criticism of Kamala Harris just very clearly shifting her positions depending on what she thinks is advantageous. We were talking about Trump earlier on abortion, like he does the same thing, perhaps even more shamelessly because he is there a position on abortion that he hasn't held at this point, right, not yet, you know, from planned parenthood supporter to saying that he's so pro life that women should be criminally punished if they have an abortion, to now being you know, kind of going coming back to the pro choice side of things, Like he literally shape shifts even sometimes within the same conversation. But he's just much more difficult to kind of pin down on those things. So people people don't this isn't the line of attack that they take against Trump, that he's a flip flopper for whatever reason. I'm not really sure why that is. But they don't think that they would be able to really nail him with that charge, right.

Right, right, Yeah, nobody thinks he has convictions.

True. Yeah, they're not expected supports. Yeah, true. All right, let me pull up part two here, here we go. Okay, Oh, by the way, I just want to mention I have this on one point two five speed just to not you know, make people think that I'm manipulating the video or whatever, just to get through it a little bit quicker.

As vice president, you were tasked with addressing the root causes of migration in southern countries, and not a part of Central America, the northern part of of of Central America that deals with that affects the southern border of the US. During that Biden Harris administry, there were record numbers of illegal border crossings. Why did the Biden Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions.

Well, first of all, the root causes work that I did as Vice president, that I was asked to do by the President has actually resulted in a number of benefits, including historic investments by American businesses in that region. The number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced since we began that work. But I will say this that Joe Biden and I in our administration worked with members of the United States Congress on an immigration issue that is very significant to the American people and for our security, which is the border. And through bipartisan work, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Congress, a bill was crafted which we supported, which I support, and Donald Trump got word of this bill that would have contributed to securing our border, and because he believes that it would not have helped him politically, he told his folks in Congress, don't put it forward. He killed a bill, a border security bill that would have put fifteen hundred more agents on the border.

And let me tell you something.

The Border patrol endorsed the bill, and I'm sure, and I'm sure in large part because they knew they were working around the clock and fifteen hundred more agents would help them. That bill would have allowed us to increase seizures of fentanyl. Ask any community in America that has been devastated by fentanyl what passing that bill would have done to address their concern and pain that they see?

You are so you would push that legislation again. I just want to push it.

I will make sure that it comes to my desk and I would sign it.

There's one other question about something that you said in twenty nineteen.

I don't know if I've talked to you Ryan about this whole. Democrats think they were so clever with this whole. We're going to adopt the Trump border agenda and then, you know, try to get Republicans to pass it and then do this gotcha. Ah see, we did a jiu jitsu move, and actually we're the real border hawks, and we're the ones that really want to do the fascism on the border. I think that this is both immoral and the wrong policy. But I also think, and it's the critical part, is it decoupled what has long been the path of having comprehensive immigration reform path citizenship and the you know, the border sort of crackdown measures. And they just took out the border crackdown measures and just try to pass that. They thought this was a brilliant jiu jitsu move. Meanwhile, I'm sure you saw this. Paul Soger and I talked about it on the show. Because Democrats have accepted the Republican framing on immigration, and also because of the reality of high number of border crossings and you know, migrants being busted into blue cities, et cetera. Higher immigration has never been more unpopular, and decreasing immigration has never been more popular. So basically, under Trump, actually immigrants were more popular than ever before, and now under Biden they are, you know, at low in terms of support for increasing levels of migration. I really owe it to this political philosophy, which I think is utterly foolish outside of you know, again, I think im moral wrong in terms of what would actually be good for the country, et cetera.

And we already have multiple experiments of this being tried in Europe. All the center left European parties when there was a migration surge over the last ten years in Europe, swung far right to try to say that they were just as tough on immigrants as the right wing, but they were going to be more humane, you know, and liberal and reasonable about it, and they all were obliterated, Like there's basically no center left left right in Europe.

Or you can think.

About the clip of oh, I guess we didn't play the Trump clip, but that of Trump talking about abortion rights with this Florida reporter. So now he's pro choice, he's going to vote against the constitutional Amendment. You know, he's going to vote for basically, you know, allowing abortion.

In Florida all the way.

Up to liability. Yeah, it's like it's basically codifying row in Florida effectively.

So, first of all, does anybody believe as a result of Trump saying that that Republicans are good on abortion and rights?

Like nobody believes that, Yeah, and you're literally the guy who put these justices on the bench.

So in the same way, does anybody believe that Democrats are the ones, like, if you really want somebody who's going to crack down on the border, of course, is it going to be Democrats Republicans?

Of course?

But what will Trump's capitulation on abortion rights?

Due to the polling, There'll be some.

Trump supporters who are like, you know what, like you said that that Florida amendment now will probably pass in like massively, like with bigger numbers than it would have otherwise. And so in this and you see the flip side on immigration, the numbers moving, people are like, all right, well, if Democrats are for this and Republicans are for this, let's do it. If you but you know, in your debate with Zier, you guys talked about how there's a correlation between you know, illegal crossings and people's you know, anger at abortion, at immigration, and the desire to reduce those those crossings. So what you could do is actually do what Kama was talking about is a root causes.

It's true that.

In hunter Us, Guatemala and El Salvador, where you know, she was tasked with like reducing outflow. There has been a reduction in outflow that doesn't have a lot to do with what the US did. A lot of bucelli uh In Honduras you have a social democratic and shamr Castro come in who made things a little bit better. Uh So, but a lot of that migrants are coming from Haiti, uh, Venezuela and Cuba, and they're all coming.

As a result of US policies.

So we could, like, if Democrats actually want to do something about it, rather than trying to act like Republicans, they could actually just stop sanctioning Venezuela, stop messing with and destroying Haiti, and stop sanctioning and destroying Cuba, and boom like something. Some massive portion of the migration flow Intoto, the border stops cold.

People would prefer to stay where they are.

Yeah, we flatter ourselves come here. That's not right, Like if you live in Venezuela or Cue, but you want to stay there.

The other thing is we are in a different place economically than we were, like when Trump was first running in twenty sixteen, and if you take him seriously about literally deporting all twelve fifteen million. However, many undocumented immigrants that we have here, the level of economic catastrophe that would be is basically unfathomable. I mean, we have a low unemployment rate. Now, the wages aren't high enough, there's a lot of problems in the labor market, but it's actually not a high unemployment rate. There isn't a massive, you know, unemployed group of laborers out there waiting to you know, pick the strawberries in the field, or lay the roofing in the construcer, or help build the houses that we desperately need to build in this country. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, if you just look at the instead, the most salient issue that people tell us over and over again is their biggest economic concern is prices. If you genuinely kicked out of the country all fifteen million of those workers or whatever, the number is, the amount that the prices of all of your grocery items and of every new house, the amount that with skyrocket is literally insane, not to mention, you know, the massive cost to the state of and what an incredible imposition you talk about the deep state or the police state or whatever, like, it's unfathomable how you would have to crack down and surveil and militarize this response to round all of these people up, many of whom have been here for many years, etc. Like if you actually take it at face value from an economic perspective, it's utterly insane. But you know, again, no one is making that argument, no one, So of course the public is like, oh, well, Democrats and the Republicans agree, So I guess they're right. I guess we just need to do this border crackdown and that's that. And these immigrants are just bad in every single way, which of course is not the reality of you know, the immigrant population, both legal and illegal, that we have in this country at this point. Yeah, all right, let's see what we got next.

When you first ran, there was a debate.

You raised your hand when asked whether or not the border should be decriminalized.

Do you still believe that? I believe there should be consequence.

We have laws that have to be followed and enforced that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally, and there should be consequence. And let's be clear, in this race, I'm the only person who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations who trafficking guns, drugs, and human beings. I'm the only person in this race who actually served a border state as attorney general to enforce our laws, and I would enforce our laws as president going forward.

I recognize the.

Problem generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you've made that you've explained some of here in your policy. Is it because you have more experience now and you've learned more about the information. Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you're saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?

Dan, I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed.

You mentioned the Green New Deal.

I have always believed, and I've worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time. We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension, the globe around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As an example, that value has not changed. My value around what we need to do to secure our border. That value has not changed. I spent two terms as the Attorney General of California prosecuting transnational criminal organization violations of American laws regarding the passage illegal passage of guns, drugs, and human beings across our border.

My values have not changed. So that is the reality of it.

And four years of being vice president, I'll tell you one of the aspects to your point is traveling the country extensively.

I mean, I'm here in Georgia.

I think somebody told me seventeen times since I've been vice president in Georgia alone. I believe it is important to build consensus, and it is important to find a commonplace of understanding of where we can actually solve problems.

On that note, any any reflections on that part. First of all, her favorite phraseology at this point is transnational criminal gangs. She tries to say that as much as you possibly can.

Yeah, it's the same problem that she has with all of the other, you know, left wing positions that she took in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty.

Yeah, Yeah, it's the same.

Like say, like it's I'm just I was pandering then I'm pandering like it's there's no good answer.

You just flip through you try.

Got it questions. Yeah, you just got to stick to the script and hope that the questioner moves on.

Ultimately, you had a lot of Republican speakers at the convention. Will you appoint the Republican to your cabinet? Yes?

I would, no one, no one in particular mine.

I got it sixty eight days to go with the selection, so I'm not putting the car before the horse, but I would. I think I think it's really important. I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it's important to have people at the table and when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences, And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my cabinet who was a Republican.

What did you think of that, Ryan, Because there was a lot of online commentary on the left about this comment.

Because everyone immediately is like, wait a minute, you can have a Republican in your cabinet, but you can't even have a palse stinting and give a two minute vetted speech on stage at the DNC where they're supporting you. So I think that part punched a lot of people in the face. But in general, like you know, Obama had ray La Hood as his Transportation secretary, this like moderate Republican, and you know he did find as a transportation secretary.

It's like, yeah, you.

Can find a Republican who's going to There's also now like so many cabinet positions. They've elevated a whole bunch of things to quote quote unquote cabinet level positions that you can you can harmlessly toss one of those to a Republican if it, you know, if you think there's some political benefit and you're gonna win over the Bill Crystals and other never Trump Republicans.

Yeah, yeah, I mean I do think like, even though we may discount it, there are a lot of like you know, moderate subourban, formerly Republican whatever who see that hear those and like, oh, she's you know, the party that's very reasonable you hear from. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, I mean I sort of felt the same. I felt all of those emotions because the point about like, oh, you know, all they ever do is reach out to Republicans and punch the left right, and and for the beginning of the Harris campaign, which is now all of like a month old, you didn't see a lot of that. I mean, the choice of Tim Walls was the most dramatic break from that pattern. I just assumed, like, oh, progressives want this guy, the left wants this guy. There's no way it's going to be Tim Walls. And then that comes as as a major shock at the convention, and in this interview you get the sense that those old Democratic Party patterns are taking hold. And it's almost like, you know, there's the classic political theory of like, oh, in the primary, they you know, they dance this way, and then the general election they go back the other way, the like primary general election two step, And I guess that's happening here is just in a very condensed timeline, since there wasn't you know, really a prime, there wasn't a primary at all, and so she went from two weeks of being relatively benevolent towards the left to now doing the normal Democratic leg general election. You know, I'm going to get a Republican in my cabinet thing. I will say, some people online were floating like, hey, why don't you pick like Susan Collins, for example, or like another Republican senator in a state with a you know that a Democrat could win, or that has a democratic governor that appoints the senator, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't on its face, I don't hate having the idea of having a modern Republican in especially if it kind of gives you cover to do something that's meaningless as a gesture to the right, but then have an agenda that's actually like populous in the way that the agenda she has announced is populist and does represent, you know, some of the better parts of the of the Biden administration.

Yeah, I want to ask you about your opponents, Donald Trump.

I was a little bit surprised.

People might be surprised to hear that you have never interacted with him, met him face to face.

That's going to change soon.

But what I want to ask you, have you met Trump face to face?

Ryan been in rooms? But not No, not really, so I.

Actually I actually this was surprised. I didn't know she'd never met him. I actually give you back. Okay. The White House correspondents dinner after the one where Obama humiliated him I was doing like a red carpet interview thing for MSNBC and him and Malania Kane. And this was back when he was teasing that he might run, but it hadn't actually been and no one was taking him seriously, right, And I was like, Okay, yeah, whatever, this is just a stunt to help you with your apprentice brand, which may have been true by the way, anyway, So yeah, I him the question. I was asked, like, hey, what happened with those private investigators down in Hawaii that you were sending to look at Obama's birth certificate? And he was like that was That's the wrong question, Crystal, That's the wrong question.

I was at that dinner too. My table was actually really close to his. I was just watching him the whole time, and his face was just boiling.

Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, funny that she's never met him face to face.

About is what he said last month.

He suggested that you happened to turn black recently for political purposes, questioning a core park of your identity, any same.

Old tired playbook, Next question, please, that's it?

Okay, great answer. Best part of the interview, in my opinion, like learned a lot from the failures of the Hillary Clinton campaign. This is exactly and so different from how Democrats have handled Trump the entire time, which would any other moment this would have launched into some long moralizing hi about it and this would have been a multi weak news cycle, and instead, because of the way she handled it at the time, which was also very dismissive, like this, everybody just moved on and it didn't work. It didn't work.

Yeah, makes them look weird and like a loser.

Yeah, exactly, and they're just like okay, whatever, moving on. Yeah, this is exactly and just an overall note, Dan, I think at one point we'll get to it. Asked her specifically about her identity, but very different from the Hillary Clinton campaign. She really does have the idea the sense of like people can see I'm a black woman, like I don't need to talk about it, you know, the trailblazing status or it's that's obvious and it's not what people care about, and sort of narcissistic to always constantly be leaning into like what this means for me personally on my journey of self discovery and you know, and ambition. So I think they've been very that's been one of the smarter aspects of this campaign.

Yeah, let's talk about some foreign policy issues that would be on your if you become commander in chief. President Biden has tried unsuccessfully to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Daza.

He's been doing it for months and months along with you.

Would you do anything differently, for example, would you withhold some US weapons shipments to Israel? That's what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.

Let me be very clear.

I am unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment Israel's defense and its ability to defend itself, and that's not going to change.

But let's take a step back.

October seven, twelve hundred people are massacred, many young people who are simply attending a music festival.

Women were horribly raped.

As I said then, I say today Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself. We would and how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And we have got to get a deal done. We were in Doha. We have to get a deal done. This war must and we must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out I've met with the families of the American hostages. Let's get the hostages out, Let's get the ceasefire done.

But no change of policy in terms of arms and so forth.

No, we have to get a deal done, Dana. We have to get a deal done. When you look at the significance of this to the families, to the people who are living in that region, a deal is not only the right thing to do to end this war, but will unlock so much of what must happen next. I remain committed since I've been on October eighth to what we must do to work toward a two state solution where Israel is secure and an equal measure Palestinians have security and self determination and dignity.

Your thoughts, Ryan Well, Dana said some weapons. Maybe Harris didn't even pick up on that.

Yeah, by like completely weapons, you know.

Self weapons.

The Biden administration has even said that they would restrict weapons like the two thousand pound bombs used for offensive purposes.

Like Harris.

People keep saying that Harris is better rhetorically and you know more, you know, more empathetic. Where's where's the empathy there? Like when when you're actually not even standing by the tiniest of concessions that the Biden administration, her administration has has made, seems like she, you know, she very clearly wants to just say she unequivocally, unconditionally whatever supports you know, Israel's right to defend itself. Whereas even Biden say, well that maybe the two thousand pound bombs dropped on refugee camps, we're not gonna we're not gonna allow that, or at least we won't allow it for like a two week pause period.

Well, that's that's such a great point that she could have really leaned into. I mean, it's kind of bullshit because they ultimately release those whatever right and have given Israel ultimately everything Israel could possibly want and more, But is enough of a fig leaf to allow her to create some sense of separation at least from the Biden administration by leaning into that. Listen, we did this with the Biden you know, with Joe Biden, we said this is unacceptable, and we did withhold it and I would do I would I keep that option on the table, you know, so there was a way to say this with you know, there's such concern on this one issue there's such concern about a clear break with the Biden policy. There's no concern on that and on literally any other issue. But she clearly feels like or you know, also maybe just ideologically believes or feels that that's less likely, because I don't think she has ideological beliefs, but she feels this is where the pressure is, as she needs to prove how committed to Israel she is, and she doesn't feel as much pressure from the left for whatever reason, whatever political calculus she's doing, which by the way, I think is foolish when you look just look at the polls. But yeah, on this one issue, she feels like, oh, I have to just stay locked up with the Biden administration not show any sort of you know, distance, And I think that's kind of I think that's an excuse, Like I think that's I see people making that excuse for I think that's kind of a bullshit excuse.

And when Dana Bash says that this is what the progressive left wants you to do, it's true that the progressive left wants you to do that, but so does more than sixty percent of the country.

Yes, that's right, that's exactly.

Great approval for Biden's Israel policy is in the twenties. It's like it's he's less popular on his Israel policy than he is on his approach to.

Inflation and immigration.

That's right exact, breaking with him would be a political benefit. And then she leans in to this the mass rape claim, because she understands that there's absolutely no consequences, you know, for saying that, despite the fact that there is not yet evidence of that being the case.

Right.

In fact, Israel so desperate to produce him evidence. I don't know if you saw this last week. Yeah, this, this Facebook group produced a letter that we now have confirmed is a complete hoax, making up, making up like the most horrific things, and you know, it spent a week getting shared by prominent journalists and then the admission that it was actually a hoax was.

Just you know, quiet just gets buried. Yeah. And meanwhile, on the contrary, we have seen on camera IDF soldiers gang raping a Palestinian prisoner and that.

Somehows dozens of cases like confirmed by.

The Human Rights human rights organization, so and so, we have lots of documented evidence of systematized sexual assault of Palestinians who are being held in this you know, prison concentration camp so bad that even the Israelis felt like, oh, we got to at least pretend like we might might prosecute some of these guys and then come under massive, you know, pressure and huge backlash from their own citizenry. But yeah, that that somehow never gets mentioned. So I had a question for you specifically because you've done so much work reporting on the political incentives and shaping of you know, the Israel Palestine conflicting this war. Specifically, my hope for Kamala Harris was kind of the hope of like, this is just a political cipher, Like she doesn't believe anything. Biden is an ideological Zionist. You were not moving him off that position, period, end of story. My hope was that she would look at the polling that you mentioned, like, hey, you know, this isn't just the progressive left. A clear majority of the country, including a very clear majority of independence Republicans are the only want to post to this, and they're they're not even they're not voting for you anyway, so don't worry about them. They want to ceasefire, but they they want to see weapons. They don't want their taxpayer dollars going to drop bombs and children who are in tents in refugee camps. They don't want that. And there's been a lot of polling at this point about how just pure cynical electoral calculus, you stand more, you have more to gain from taking the position of the quote unquote program have left then continuing to do this whole Israel has a right to defend themselves no matter what, and yes they can do a genocide, and yes they can drop the bombs on the babies in the tents and have a polio epidemic and whatever endlessly, and I'll never do anything about it. That was my hope. But it doesn't seem like she's making that calculus. It seems like she feels. The pressure she feels is the pressure that Democrats and Republicans, but Democrats in particular have felt from time immemorial that they can't piss off you know, the Israel lobby or you know, the people for whom this is a die hard commitment to the end of time.

Yeah, I think part of it is that ingrained fear of decades of that commitment to the pro Israel lobby. And then I think also my guess is that the campaign is nervous about what's going to happen on college campuses between now and the election, and they think that.

Well, she's not helping things with these kind of comments.

No, right, No, that's an interesting point. Yes, she will make things worse. Like the way to end these camp protests is to get a cease fire deal and just force it, like a really government already put forward a proposal that Hamas accepted.

Just implement it. Just do that like you could do that.

You're the United States of America, the most powerful empire in world history. Not doing that is going to inflame campus protests for the next two months, and I think that they don't want to be at all associated with those campus protests.

Not to mention, the longer this goes on, the more likely you are to have a larger regional war. That means that not only are you going to be hobbled politically in terms of getting yourself elected right now, but your whole presidency is going to be handstrung by being tied once again into an unpopular war in the Middle East and whatever you know, thoughts you may potentially theoretically have about a child tax credit et cetera. Like, all of that is going to be undercut if you are boxed in in the way that Phoebe wants to box you. First, he wants you to lose, okay, doing his best to make sure that that happens. And if by some you know chance, you were able to win in spite of his efforts, he wants to box you in, so you have no exit and it's you know, dramatically politically unpopular for you to leave at that point. So yeah, I mean there they have fallen into his traps every step of the way. And I didn't expect her to have any like worl qualms. I thought it would all be ambition driven. But she seems to be engaging in the same like outdated, foolish political calculus that leads her into the same, you know, foolish bear hug position of Joe Biden, and that is deeply, deeply disappointing. Yep, all right, I got the part three here, last piece, I go ahead and pull this up. Here we go.

Country is just starting to get to know you.

I want to ask you a question about how you've described your service in the National Guard. You said that you carried weapons in war, but you have never deployed actually in a war zone.

Beneficials said that you misspoke, did you well, First of.

All, I'm incredibly proud I've done twenty four years of wearing uniform of this country. Equally proud of my service in a public school classroom, whether it's Congress or the governor. My record speaks for itself. But I think people are coming to get to know me. I speak like they do. I speak candidately, I wear my emotions on my sleeves, and I speak especially passionately abo about our children being shot in schools and around guns. So I think people know me, they know who I am, they know where my heart is. And again, my record has been out there for over forty years to be for itself.

And the idea that you said that you were in war, did you mis speak as the campaign has.

Had, Yeah, I said we were talking about in this case, this was after school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war and my wife the English tour. My grammar's not always correct, but again, if it's not this it's an attack on my children for showing love for me, or it's.

An attack on my dog.

I'm not going to do that. And the one thing I'll never do is I'll never to meet another member's service in any way.

I never have and I never will.

What do you think ran.

He forgot in the first answer to contextualize it, and Dana kind of like helps him out and with the follow up answer. His quote where he said he carried weapons in war was in this congressional debate about an assault weapon ban in the wake of a school shooting, so he was indeed talking about weapons of war. The way he said it was quite misleading. He said I've carried weapons in war war. He should have contextualized what the debate was first. I also think he should just let people know what the argument is about because so many people are not following it.

He deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom to Europe.

Where Turkey, I think it was Italy Italy, So he deployed as part of OEF, and it is understandable he could say. It's understandable that people who are not in the military hear me say that I deployed as part of OEF, think that the deployment was either in Afghanistan or Iraq, but it was not, and people who were in the military understand that there are lots of kinds of deployments that do not involve, you know, seeing combat or being in a war. So so I don't know what what did you make of it?

So I think I agree more with your first point than your second point. I think probably the best way to respond to this is to immediately shift from you know, clearly he misspoke, whether it was intentionally misleading or you know, or just a true slip of the tongue. Hard to say. People aren't likely to, you know, trust politicians at their word with this stuff, but to immediately shift the frame to, well, let's talk about what I was talking about though, because you know, I was talking about our kids having to go to school and do lockdown drills, which our kids are all you know, back in school. Mine have already done their lockdown drills.

Those drills are not helpful.

And you know, my seven year old is coming home and asking me questions about it, and you know, sort of freaked down, like it's it's a horror, it's it is a horrible state of affairs that this is the reality in America. And as a public school teacher, no one would be better positioned to really speak to that horror and immediately shift the frame. So I I think it would be fine for him to just be like, yeah, I just slip at the time, I misspoke, but let me tell you what the real issue is here, and then move on. Because the minute you get in the weeds about like, well, my rank was technically this, but then I didn't fill out the paperwork, and then it's that, and then yes it was an operation, then you're playing into their you know, what they want you to be talking about. The other thing that I would say is, you know when he immediately goes you know, if it wasn't this, it'd be my kid being you know, expressing love. It'd be the attack of my dog. I don't know if you guys saw this, but there was this whole like online conspiracy about how he was lying about it. I was insane. It was so ridiculous, and the Right has given him that out because they have been they do have tim walls'ter arrangement syndrome, and they have attacked him for some of the most ridiculous things. So if this you know, attack on him quote unquote misrepresenting his military service, if this was going to stick, they needed to stay in this lane rather than now trying to dig up like most absurd minor. There was that story about oh, he said he got an award from the Chamber of Commerce, but actually it was the Junior Chamber of Commerce, gotcha. So they kind of you know, backed themselves into a corner by having Tim Wall's arrangement syndrome and attacking him for his kid and his dog and getting whether it was the Chamber of Commerce or the Junior Chamber of Commerce wrong, or having a rally sign that was like, you know, didn't have all the context of his service and operation enduring freedom or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's right.

This one other question, because again this is all new. This was not ever many days ago. This was not on either of your BINGO cards, especially yours. You had to clarify that you had said that you and your wife used IBF, but it turned out you used a different kind of fertility in order to have children. And then when you ran for Congress in two thousand and six, your campaign repeatedly made all statements about a nineteen ninety five arrest for drunken reckless driving. What do you say to voters who aren't sure whether they can take you at your word.

Well, I've been very public. I think they can see my students come out, former folks I've served with, and they vouch for me. I certainly own my mistakes when I make them. The one thing I'll tell you is of I wished in this country wouldn't have to do this. I spoke about our infertility issues because it's hell and families know this. And I spoke about the treatments that were available to us that had those beautiful children there. That's quite a contrast in folks that are trying to take those rights away from us. And so I think people know who I am, they know that record, They've seen that I've taught thousands of students. I've been out there, and I won't apologize for peaking passionately, whether it's guns and schools or protecting you reproductive rights. The contrast could not be clear between what we're running against. The Vice President's position on this has been clear, and I think most Americans get it if you've been through that. I don't think they're cutting hairs on IVF or IUI. I think what they're cutting hairs on as an abortion band and the ability to be able to deny familis the chance to have a beautiful child.

See that I think is handled as well as you can. And to say, you know, I own my mistakes. But you know, here's the point. Let me take it back to the political issue.

Because he got correct me on I don't know quite the details. They got some fertility treatment, but it wasn't IVF.

It wasn't technically IVF. Yeah, so in any case, which again, like I think, if I think.

His point that the the like depth of the pain and anxiety associated with it is equivalent, probably is what he's saying.

And I think that's.

Fair exactly, And like I said, just you know, shifting it from him and what he said to the issue itself, which is clearly a strong one for Democrats, as evidenced by Donald Trump himself sort of freaking out about it. I think it's probably the best way that you that you talk about.

That, Vice President Harris, you were a very strong.

I also just wanted to mention, I don't know if you noticed Kamla's face like looking at him while he's speaking, but she loves this guy, because she clearly has a lot of affection for him. It's very clear it's like a proud mom looking at him while he's talking.

Defender of President Biden's capacity to serve another four years. Right after the debate, you insisted that President Biden is extraordinarily strong given where we are now, Do you have any regrets about what you told the American people?

No, not at all, not at all. I have.

Served with President Biden for almost four years now, and I'll tell you it's one of the greatest honors of my career.

Truly.

He cares so deeply about the American people. He is so smart and loyal to the American people, and I have spent hours upon hours with him, being in the Oval office or the situation room. He has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president. By contrast, the former president has none of that. And so one, I am so proud to have served as vice president to Joe Biden. And two, I'm so proud to be running with Tim Walls for President of the United States and to bring America what I believe the American people deserve, which is a new way forward and turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit.

Of our country really lies.

But the last so she pivots there from you know, do you love Joe Biden? Yes, I love Joe Biden too, But let's talk about Donald Trump. You know, let's let me let me get off this whole Joe Biden situation as quick as I can and talk about this guy that we're growing up against.

Now, that's how the whole country feels. So it's kind of an easy one.

That's what she's betting on too, is you know, it's kind of one of her strengths has been the not going back frame of the campaign, which I think a lot of people do relate to. Of like, even though she's the sitting vice president, she feels like turning a page. As she said, she feels like she's kind of the change candidate, even though in a lot of ways she is reflective of, you know, continuing the status quo of the Biden administration, and so she benefits from being in the vice president in the vice presidential office and people being able to envision her in that role, but also feeling like just because frankly, of her identity and her relative youth, etcetera feeling like she is a turning of the page to a different era.

Yeah.

I think the polling shows people don't dislike Biden as a person. Maybe they should, but they don't. They just didn't want him to run for re election.

Yeah, the most popular thing he's done as president. I'll say, you're like, oh, okay, we kind of like you now, that's fine.

Yeah.

So Republicans really wanted this to be because, I mean, it is a scandal that who knew the level of his decline, Like what was going on behind the scenes that you all were covering up. It is a genuine scandal, And people Republicans really wanted this to be a problem for her, And people are just so relieved to not have Biden on the ticket that and there's such overwhelming support for him making that move that I just it has not landed as a political attack whatsoever.

Yeah, because by virtue of the scandal that it was scandal was that he was trying to run for reelection. By not running for reelection, the scandal goes away.

True. Yeah, that's true.

This decade, of course, the last three and a half years has been part of your administration.

I'm talking about an era that started about a decade ago where.

There is some suggestion warped.

I believe it to be that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down instead of where I believe most Americans are, which is to believe that the true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up. That's what said stake as much as any other detail that we could discuss in this election.

Because we haven't had a chance to talk. I'm just curious.

Staying on President Biden, when he called you and said he was pulling out of the race, what was that like And did he offer to endorse you right away or did you ask for it?

Hard heading question there, Ryan right, It's like this is related a Steel herself for this one.

This is when you really are starting to sympathize with the conservative criticism of outlets like CNN, where are like, seriously, like, if you're Vanity Fair and you're doing like a magazine profile, this is interesting stuff and then you can write some flowery narrative around it for a sit down interview that with the presidential candidate hasn't given an interview yet. You got to use your time to hit them on policy.

Well that's the thing too. You know, having done these interviews, you and I both with presidential candidates or other type of candidates, you know, you are very aware. I've got a clock ticking from the moment we say go until the moment is over, and I have to be very strategic about what I get in and what is most consequential, and you know, and try to either I'm going to really drill in on a couple of issues, or I'm gonna have a wide ranging conversation hit on as many possible things as I can. I think that's probably the approach I would take here, just because she hasn't given it in so we don't have her on the record, So I would try to get her on the record on as many issues as you possibly could. So to spend and you know, there's five minutes left in this interview. Five minutes you can get a lot accomplished, and all of it is just dedicated. You're about to hear Takamala talking about like cooking pancakes and her adorable, admittedly adorable baby nieces wanting more bacon and whatever. When Joe Biden calls it was.

It was a Sunday. So here, I'll give you a little too much information.

Go for it. There's no such things a vice president.

My family was staying with us and including my baby nieces, and we had just had pancakes and you know, Auntie, can I have more bacon?

Yes, I'll make you more bacon. And then we were gonna sit We were sitting down to do a puzzle.

And the phone rang and it was Joe Biden and he told me what he decided to do. And I asked him, are you sure? And he said yes, And that's how I learned about it.

About the endorsement. Did you ask for it?

He was very clear that he was going to support me.

So when he called to tell you, he said, I'm pulling out of the race and I'm going.

To support you.

Well, my first thought was not about me, to be honest with you, My first thought was about him, To be honest, I think history is going to show a number of things about Joe Biden's presidency. I think history is going to show that in so many ways it was transformative. Be it on what we have accomplished around finally investing in America's infrastructure, investing in new economies in new industries.

What we have done to bring.

Our allies back together and have confidence in who we are as America and grow that alliance. What we have done to stand true to our principles, including the one of the most important international rules and norms, which is the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity. And I think history is going to show not only has Joe Biden led an administration that has achieved those extraordinary successes, but the character of the man is one that he has been in his life and career, including as a president, quite selfless and puts American people first.

I just have to ask you both about two standout moments, aside, of course, from the addresses that you both gave, but stand out moments that were perhaps unexpected during the convention. You mentioned one of them, Governor, a moment that you shared that the world shared with your son Gus.

You were speaking, the camera caught.

Him to another incredible softball. I did think they talked about pancakes and bacon for the last five minutes, but apparently they also you know, let Tim Wallace talk about when she loves his family too. And I mean this is look the Kamala moment. There is charming. She's charming in that moment. It's like an in kind contribution, though, like, that's not your job. Your goal and your job and these interviews isn't like to make people feel warm fuzzies and do basically campaign ad for them. It's supposed to be to hold power to account.

Is there any chance that her first thought was about him?

Any chance on her?

Any chance whatsoever. There's a scene in Beep where Selena Meyer gets the call that the president is not running for re election. Instead, she's gonna run. That's that's how that one went down.

See, I never watched I watched like maybe two episodes of Deep, so I'm not familiar.

You're not prepared for this administration.

I guess I got to watch it. Put that on the list for me and Guyle because I don't think he's watched it. I'm not sure. Maybe he has.

Oh my god, it's it's an absolutely, it's a documentary that's.

Scary, scary. All right, let's finish this up.

So incredibly proud of you, so emotional saying that's my dad.

Yeah, I don't know as a father, I could have ever imagined that I'm grateful for so many reasons to be on this ticket, but that moment to understand what was really important to have my son feel a sense of pride in me that I was trying to do the right thing, and it was you you try and protect your kids.

You don't.

It brings, it brings notoriety and things. But it was just such a visceral emotional moment that I'm just I'm grateful I got to experience it, and I'm so proud of him. I'm proud of him. I'm proud of all.

Breaking walls what it was. It was like Wall's grateful for visceral emotional moment with son at Dancys and breaking us there.

Ryan.

I mean, it is true that it is very rare that children, let alone take pride in their parents, but even look at them as human beings.

So yeah, I have.

No doubt that was an authentically like infigurating and experience that he'll remember the rest of his life, no doubt about it. What does that have to do with anything, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, to experience it, and I'm I'm so proud of him.

I'm proud of him. I'm proud of hope. I'm prodiguin. She's a wonderful mother, and these are great kids. And I think the one thing he is talking about the era we're in is our polittive can be better, it can be different, We can we can show some of these things, and we can have families involved in this. And I hope that there was a hope people felt that out there, and I hope they hug their kids a little tighter because you just never know and life can be kind of hard.

How good is he though, to immediately pivot from that to like hit one of his core themes of you know, we can get back to the Thanksgiving dinner table where we don't all like hate each other and dredd it and whatever.

Pretty masterful politician.

Yeah, he really is. I would I'd be happy to just skip the Kamala harris aera and go start with the Tim Walls hair personally. Last question, have very true, very possible.

Amouna vice president. The photograph that has gone viral, you were speaking. One of your grand nieces that you were just talking about was watching you accept the nomination. You didn't explicitly talk about gender or race in your speech, but obviously means a lot to a lot of people, and that viral picture really says it.

What does it mean to you?

You know, I listen, I am running because I believe that I am the best person to do this job at this moment for all Americans, regardless of race and gender. But I did see that photograph and I was deeply touched by it. And you're right, she's it's the back of her head, her tool braids, and and then I'm in the front of the photograph obviously speaking and it's very humble, very humblam.

Anyways, did she talking about it afterwards?

Oh, she had a lot to talk about.

She listened to everything, and she listens to every.

Get of your hot takee oh yeah, definitely.

Man of Vice President, Governor Wells, thank you so much for your time.

So there you go. But that last answer very emblematic of how she has. She's really adopted more of an Obama approach to the quote unquote historic nature of her candidacy. She lets it speak for herself. She really wants to give comfort to everyone that listen, I'm not going to talk about like all this black stuff. I'm just I'm going to be a president for everybody. And if it means something to you, that's great, but that's not what I'm That's not the reason I'm here. And I think that's sad that that's what she has to do. But I think it's the right approach. I mean. But on the other hand, like, obviously, representation matters and it does speak for itself, but more important is Okay, what are you going to do on Roe versus way that is going to be much more impactful to all women versus you know, you yourself Kamala Harris transcending to this position of power.

Yeah, but yeah, again, if you're a conservative watching that, you're like.

How is this a how? How is this a Is this a journalist?

Like?

What's going on here?

Yeah?

And it's fine, Like it is a cool picture.

And for the public to end Democrats in particular to like love the picture, that's great.

But for the.

Media like to take the opportunity of this interview to just elevate that and give her an opportunity to sell it more, it's just I mean, Cana's gonna do what it's gonna do.

But you know, yeah, they can't.

They can't complain then when people see them as Democratic Party apparatriics.

That's it's that's exactly right overall, t LDR. What what grade do you give her? Do you think this is going to be consequential in any way? Are there any moments from this that sort of survived the weekend?

She she did fine enough.

I think, you know, it was much better than her previous interviews. It was it was pretty easy interview, Like there were no really tough questions. The only reason that questions were tough is because there were some obvious ones, like you used to say the complete opposite of what you say now, why right? Like, but you know, she didn't do the word salad that she's famous for for the most part, And so I think, like, like we were saying earlier, unlike Obama, who people really vested all of their hopes and dreams into and were willing to let them lead them wherever, That's not how people feel about Harris. They just want her to not fall over, and they will, like the crowd will like carry her on their shoulders across.

The finish line.

They're like, just just be alive, just be better than Biden.

Yeah, and she's doing that.

Yeah.

It's also the case that the bar has been it is fair to say the bar has been said exceptionally low because of Biden, but also because all we've really seen of her for the Biden administration has been like whatever words ouid clip have been cut and shared viraly. And so there's a caricature of her number one and number two that forgets some of the moments where she has been strong and capable, and she's obviously you know, she's I think she also has an added confidence and swagger in this moment she didn't previously have. And I also think she probably grew on the job as vice president. You know, even though we weren't seeing everything she was doing, she was doing some stuff and having to get reps in and hone some of her skills and get better. So yeah, I think she I think Republicans will be disappointed that she isn't actually the caricature that they had in their mind where she's just totally incapable of answering any question without a script right in front of her or someone holding her hand, et cetera.

Yeah, I think that she had a month to prepare for it. Yeah, and so she did some prep. There was the previously the concern among her departed staff was that she refused to prepare for interviews and flubbed you know, easy questions questions. Yeah, she did that at the start of this one, the day one, but was prepared for other ones. And so yeah, it's like she should do more of these and not make it like a national event.

We have to do an hour and twenty minute response parsing every single answer, because this is all we have. This is all we have at this point of you know, what she's given us in terms of interview sit down. Do you think that this you know, what do you think is the next time? Do you think now she'll feel like, Okay, maybe I can do a few of these and I can survive it. Or do you think she'll feel like, all right, check to that box. I'm not going to have to do another one of these for another month and a half.

Maybe she'll do one a little sooner, yeah, or maybe she'll maybe she'll just punt like because what they did, they punted it to the end of the month, and then they did it right before Labor Day, so they'll skip Labor Day week next week, then they'll be under then then they got the debate like so that that'll buy them some time. Sure, maybe not until a couple of weeks after the debate, and then there's the Walls debate, so you know, they.

Might punt it. They'll punt it for as long as the media in the public lets them get away with it.

Yeah, And I actually think the media and the public are pretty much gonna let her get away with it. To be honest with you, I don't I don't see that there was like a huge real back I you know, think she probably could have. They felt pressure and the media was getting, you know, pissier and testier. There's the other danger with this is they stop liking you and they start being more aggressive with.

You, start doing tougher stories.

Yeah, exactly, So I think they were starting to feel some of that build. But I have a I have a feeling that you're right, that she's going to feel like I checked the box. I don't have to do this again for a while.

Yep.

So enjoy it, guys, All right, Ryan, thanks for doing this with me this morning. Enjoy Yeah, enjoy the long weekend, guys, Enjoy Labor Day, and we will see you back for a full breaking point show.

Got the Friday Show? Actually, Oh that's right. Yeah, later today.

Yeah, you guys had a rf K junior well RFK junior debate. That was Michael Tracy and then a field staff who.

Was a national previous national field director for RFK kind of defending his decision to endorse Trump.

I haven't checked that one out yet, so I'm like Forwared of saying that I know Michael Tracy has been going hard on the paint as he is as he is wont to do so. All right, y'all enjoy that, check out drive site News, and I will see you guys back here on Tuesday. By y'all,

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