On Kamala Harris & What’s Next with Jessica Yellin
July 25, 2024
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Loves, don’t worry, we have Jessica Yellin back, okay? Last week she told us what the hell was going on, but then as things do, more things happened. So once again, we need to know what’s going on again. Okay?
Jessica Yellin:
I’m terrified.
Speaker 1:
As only Jessica can do it, we’re going to be calm, we’re going to be hopeful, we’re going to be clear about where we are right now with Kamala Harris, what’s coming next, what we’re going to see in the convention, what’s the deal with all these endorsements… That’s it, I think, right? What else?
Jessica Yellin:
How to manage expectations.
Speaker 1:
Okay, good. Yeah, so tell us what are our expectations and then tell us how to manage them, okay? Jessica Yellin is the founder of News Not Noise, a pioneering Webby award-winning independent news brand. Over 1 million subscribers and followers across Instagram and other digital media rely on Jessica and News Not Noise to understand what matters, which experts to trust and to manage their information overload. She’s the former Chief White House Correspondent for CNN and an Emmy and Gracie Award-winning political correspondent for ABC, MSNBC and CNN. You can follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Jessica Yellin. You can also find her on the News Not Noise newsletter on Substack, which I cannot right now recommend enough. I literally was just on one hour ago, was on therapy, and we were actually talking through how to create a world for myself over the next 100 days where I am activated, engaged, and not overloaded and freaked out to the point that makes me ineffective to the world, to my family. And you were mentioned, Jessica Yellin, in my therapy session.
Jessica Yellin:
I’m so honored.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the newsletter man.
Speaker 2:
I’ve been mentioned in a lot of therapies, but I don’t think in the complimentary way.
Speaker 1:
Yes, you have sister. I mean, honestly, you’re not the calmest person, so I didn’t bring you up as a strategy during that particular session. But Jessica, can you tell us in general… You know what, sister, can you ask the question to kickoff question?
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Because I feel like you’re better at this. My general question is always, “What the fuck?”
Jessica Yellin:
That’s fair.
Speaker 2:
That’s the overarching one.
Speaker 1:
But this will be more specific and then we can subdivide that. I feel like we have three categories of things right now.
Speaker 2:
Okay. Last we spoke, it was, is President Biden going to stay in the race, is he not? And all the permutations of that. We are now at a point where President Biden has said that he is not going to participate as a candidate in the race and has endorsed Kamala Harris. So my big three questions are, what will happen next from Democrats and the campaign? What will happen next from Republicans, from the other side, what can we expect? And what have we seen so far kind of in these fresh earliest days from the Kamala campaign and that alliance that she’s building that gives us kind of an indicia of her strengths? Are there surprises are? What are we seeing? So Democrats, the official nomination, just because Biden said, “I’m putting all my support behind her,” doesn’t make her the official nominee. So can you walk us through that piece?
Jessica Yellin:
Yes, for sure. And indicia is such a good word, wow, indicia. I’m going to use that, fancy. So yeah, the weekend was very dramatic. When President Biden put out that first letter, which by the way, everybody who was expecting him to exit did not expect it to come then. He literally, they had a conference call with their own internal staff and then sent the letter one minute later so as not to have it leak. So it really caught people by surprise. And that first letter came out just saying he was dropping without endorsing Harris, VP Harris. And so for 30 minutes, the entire political world was like, “What happens next?” And at that moment, it felt like it could be an open convention.
Then 30 minutes later he put out this letter saying, “I pledge my delegates, I endorse my Vice President Harris.” And that suddenly reshaped what was the trajectory, but it didn’t mean that she was the inevitable nominee. The party elders, Nancy Pelosi, former President Obama, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who’s the leader of the Democrats in the Senate all put out statements thanking the president without endorsing Kamala Harris as the nominee. And they said, “We want to back an open process. We want a process.” And so at that moment, it was very much the case that other candidates, they were making it clear other candidates have the right to get in. If you want to get in, do it now. And they were leaving an open door. I’ll explain why they did that in a moment if you want.
But what happened next was truly remarkable. All of a sudden within a few hours, one after another state party chairs, all state party chairs delegates, the entire delegation of Tennessee one challenger after another endorsed Kamala Harris, and they did was she effectively locked up the nomination and cleared the field within 10, on the outside 24 hours after Biden dropped. They brought in, I’m now hearing it was definitely $100 million from 1.1 million different sources. They said they have something like 58,000 volunteers. And it quickly changed from anybody could enter this in theory to it’s inevitably going to be Vice President Harris.
And it’s because she and her team, according to my reporting, sat their butts down in chairs and had it all ready to go, who they needed to call, sat on the phones and called Democratic Party chairs, former rivals, everybody who mattered and asked for their support. And there was also this call, I’m sure you’ve heard about it, maybe talked about it, of 44,000 Black women who got on a massive Zoom call to talk about the racism and sexism and the joy and all aspects of what was coming and that they were ready to get her back and they raised $2 million too. So it was work. What I want to say is they put in the work and that’s why she’s now the nominee.
Speaker 1:
Speaking of work, Jessica, I just wanted to say this to the pod squad is that we have been in contact with those women who ran that meeting, the Black women. And we will be having a meeting for white women to answer the call and step up in a way that we did not step up for Hillary Clinton. We’re going to do it differently this time, we’re going to leave it all on the field. This time we’re going to get dirty, we’re not going to protect ourselves, and we are going to fucking show up. And that meeting will be tonight. So carry on.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that meeting, I’ll just say real quick, that meeting is tonight, Thursday, July 25th. It is a virtual meeting, 8:30 P.M. Eastern time, and you can go to answerthecall2024.com to register for that. Everyone is welcome.
Jessica Yellin:
One of the reasons what I just described was so important is not only did it clear the field, so most of the people who are sitting on the sidelines, Hakeem Jeffries, Pelosi and Senator Schumer have now all endorsed her. She has won the support of the majority of the delegates. And so while she’s not yet the nominee, the votes have to happen, it is inevitable so the party can unify around her.
But what’s really important about that Sunday day of calls is that a lot of the problems that we’ve been seeing on the campaign to date is that it felt like there wasn’t an aggressive campaign in place. And one of the knocks on Harris has been like, “Is she a good manager of a campaign team?” And in one day they proved, yes she is, and they can get this job done. And they really turned around perceptions, not just for the public, but also importantly for Democratic Party establishment people so that there’s enthusiasm in the public and then there’s enthusiasm inside the party apparatus.
Speaker 1:
God shoutout to Harris’s team, good job y’all. Good job. Amazing.
Speaker 2:
And that in itself should quell a lot of concerns because the whole idea of she didn’t get through the primary last election cycle because of the perceived disorganization, whatever was happening there, the opposite was happening during that 24 hour period so there are lessons learned. So last time you were talking about the rules for the convention, and so now there’s a new set of rules. So tell us about the new set of rules. And so, I mean, these things are going to happen at a certain cadence based on these rules so what are the new rules saying?
Jessica Yellin:
Okay, so what is going to happen from here is the Rules Committee has a meeting this week. What they’re going to do is set up a virtual roll call vote. And I think of this when people get married overseas, but they get legally married in the US and then they go overseas for the fun party and the event where it’s like the celebration, it’s kind of like that where they’re going to have a virtual roll call vote where all the delegates who do the voting, all those Biden delegates are basically on a massive Zoom and one by one they vote for who they want to be the nominee, and then it’ll be done and then they go to the convention with her already having won the nomination.
And then the convention is basically a TV event and an event to unify the party and all the other things. That virtual roll call is going to happen between August 1st and 7th, and it’s designed that way to ensure they get on the Ohio ballot. The nuances of that actually just, it doesn’t matter, it’s just they’re doing it protectively and then it makes it over, you arrive at the convention and you’re ready to basically put on a show.
Speaker 1:
So is that the answer to people are saying, “This isn’t democracy, you’re just appointing Kamala Harris, we want to go through the process,” this is the process, right?
Jessica Yellin:
This is always the process. I mean, sometimes the delegates vote at the convention and not before the convention, but I think one of the things we’ve seen in the last eight years is that we are all paying more attention to how our process works and some of it’s surprising to people. It’s always been the case that a direct vote of the people is not how we choose our representatives when it comes to the president, it’s mediated. It’s by these delegates or it’s by electors. We’re learning about our system. So this is how it works.
Speaker 2:
And I think in fairness, it’s a reasonable critique because even though the delegates actually do the election, there is in contested times, like in the last election cycle, Biden and Kamala Harris and a slew of other people had to get up there and debate against each other until the field winnowed down and Biden got the nomination. So I think when people are asking for a process, they want to see people compete and rise to the top. Because this has literally never happened before, I think it’s that we don’t have time for a process.
Jessica Yellin:
Can we acknowledge this whole thing’s FUBAR. What is happening? How is this like us, right? But it is and so we’re talking about the way forward within FUBAR.
Speaker 2:
Right, and FUBAR is fucked up beyond all recognition, sorry, so everyone knows. But I would like to say something, it is FUBAR and also it’s perfection and beautiful, and this is why. What we were talking about last time is that it feels like you could get to a place where you’re like, are there just two kings that are following their own ambition? And what we saw is that there is on one side of the ticket a value that is higher than personal ambition, that there is in a time when leadership has lost a lot of its meaning, there is a valor in it that is about country before person, and that is what President Biden did, and that is what you will never ever see out of the other side. On the other side, the only value of Trump is self, self, self. And so that’s why they can’t get their freaking heads around it because it would never happen. It would never happen. It’s for the good of the candidate, not for the country. And so that’s beautiful.
Speaker 3:
I just got to say, I’ve been thinking about President Biden and Jill and I’ve been thinking about how difficult that decision must’ve been, and I just don’t think many people do it. We were hoping that he would do it, we were hoping that he would fall into the values of what we think and hope the Democratic Party could be and I just feel immense gratitude.
Speaker 2:
Me too.
Speaker 3:
Because now we have a little bit of hope and it’s the modeling.
Speaker 1:
And Jessica, isn’t it the case, people are saying, I mean, there’s plenty of legit arguments that this should have happened a long time ago, which I am one of those people in that camp. Yes, thank you, but also I’m not going to say that I don’t have plenty of thanks, but also it would’ve been better a long time ago, okay. But the people that are saying it should have at least happened a couple of weeks, it’s kind of great that it didn’t happen before the RNC because they just wasted all their time making fun of Joe Biden. Had he resigned before that, they would’ve attacked Kamala the whole time.
Jessica Yellin:
There are a lot of ways in which this weirdly is a strategic advantage for Democrats. If it was going to happen, to do it now is strategically beneficial because first, yeah, they blew a whole week attacking Biden, and now it’s a different candidate. And had they known that Kamala Harris would be at the top of the ticket, they would not have chosen JD Vance. And so there’s a lot of reporting now that there’s extreme discontent in the Trump camp, specifically Trump, that he had picked Vance and for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1:
Why?
Jessica Yellin:
Well, for one thing, it’s now a change campaign, right? He is effectively the incumbent because he’s been president and she’s the face of change, right? And so you run a ‘change or more of the same’ campaign in politics or a ‘hope and fear’ campaign. But the bottom line is that JD Vance represents more of the same in a way, even though he’s young, he’s very old-fashioned, he’s very white male, he doesn’t represent a larger coalition. He could have picked a Marco Rubio to reach out to Latinos, he could have picked a woman to reach out to women. He could have gone in a lot of different directions.
Even just somebody who’s softer, JD Vance is almost the face of misogyny. The things he says, he’s called in the past Kamala Harris an, “Angry cat woman,” and that’s why she’s so aggressive, that a childless woman shouldn’t be able to decide our future. All these things are not going to help them win the single woman vote or the white swing woman vote, both of which they have a claim on to some extent had. So they’re in a bit of a hurt right now trying to figure out how to go at this.
Speaker 2:
Speaking of VPs, in this timeline we’re talking about, so it has to be that the roll call happens by August 7th, when do you project that she will select a vice president and will that happen at the convention or before?
Jessica Yellin:
So I have to confess that I’ve had a hard time nailing down with certainty what I’m about to say. I like to get three people telling me this. But my understanding right now is that she can get the nomination by that virtual roll call vote without a vice president and could unveil the vice president at the convention. Now, I want to confirm that before I’m certain, but in either case, she has either until early August or the convention starts on August 19th.
The advantage of waiting for her is it gives them more time to vet and for her to decide and it unveils a big surprise at the convention. The counter is she got this big media boost now, like the momentum and excitement and the virality so she’s got a positive cycle. Then she could have another positive cycle by announcing her VP and then a third at the convention. So there are arguments both ways, but ultimately it’s such an important decision you don’t want to let a media cycle drive that, you want to be thorough in your vetting. And finally, those things really do come down to who she feels comfortable with. They’ve never ever shown that a vice president makes the difference in the vote, really. Maybe Sarah Palin, I don’t know, in that people didn’t vote for him because of it, but mostly because it reinforces something they already were a little afraid about in the candidate.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, because that was just a judgment thing. It was like, “Oh, shit, that’s your first decision? No thanks.” Yeah. Who’s in the playing field?
Jessica Yellin:
So the main contenders that are really considered the top options are Josh Shapiro, the Governor of Pennsylvania. He is a young governor, very good on the stump, charismatic, and carries an important state, Pennsylvania. So if he could lock up Pennsylvania, the thought is anybody who’s from that region could also help her win Wisconsin and Michigan, which are the crucial states for a Democrat to succeed. The knocks against him, he’s very young, new on the scene, not as sort of vetted by the national media. He’s Jewish, and if there’s anti-Semitism in the populace, do you want to make people vote for the first Black woman who’s also South Asian and a Jewish candidate is a lot, maybe for some people. Okay, so that’s Josh Shapiro. But the big win on him is if he can deliver Pennsylvania, that could lock up the election.
Then there’s Roy Cooper who’s the Governor of North Carolina, and he reminds me a little bit of Lloyd Benson for people old enough to remember. And he has been in the State House, he ran the State House. Like every office in North Carolina, he’s done it, everybody knows him. So he’s kind of got this in his bones. And for anybody who needs sort of, how do I say, permission, older white guy needs permission to vote for the Black woman, the South Asian woman, the young woman, well, this guy is good with her. So it kind of gives the permission, right?
And then Mark Kelly, who is the Senator from Arizona, also a battleground state, NASA, military, Gabby Giffords’ husband, so has the gun safety message. And you can see why that would be reassuring to a nervous voter because you kind of feel like in the situation room, she’s got a military man by her side. So they all have different reasons, pluses and minuses.
Speaker 3:
You don’t think Andy Beshear is in there?
Jessica Yellin:
He’s just not in the mix as much. He is discussed.
Speaker 2:
Okay, but he’s not rising to that?
Jessica Yellin:
Who know? Here’s the thing, everybody gets these leaks and then everybody repeats them and some of the people who leak to us only partially know themselves. So it’s one of these things we’ll know when we know. It’s a binary thing, she’ll pick one and then it’s done and they can start a vet and add people in the process. But a couple of thoughts early on were, should it be a huge change ticket where it’s two women? Should it be Harris/Whitmer or should it be Harris/Wes Moore. And it seems that they’ve gone in another direction, which is this permission structure, having a sort of centrist battleground state white man as her partner will make a lot more people comfortable making this vote.
Speaker 1:
Okay. And no Mayor Pete.
Jessica Yellin:
Oh, I should say I’m sorry. Mayor Pete, yes, is in the mix. And one of the reasons, apart from obviously he’s just a wildly adept politician, communicator, et cetera, he doesn’t bring a battleground state, but they get along very well. And having a partner you like is what presidents constantly say that was what put it over for me.
Speaker 1:
Okay. And also then we’d have a first gentleman and a second gentleman. It just feels supervising.
Speaker 2:
It would be also a big change in the same way a two women ticket would be in terms of he is a white man, but he’s also gay. So that, I mean, he contains multitudes, that one.
Jessica Yellin:
Yes, there is an argument for doubling down on change. It’s just how do you make that calculus?
Speaker 2:
Right. What are you hearing the response on the Republican side? It appears that they are really annoyed by this.
Jessica Yellin:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
They have their playbook they’ve been building for two years and we’ve gone and done messed it right up.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that’s so great.
Speaker 2:
What are we hearing?
Jessica Yellin:
Correctamundo. This is not how it was supposed to go. And Trump, boy is he whining all over Truth Social. His posts lately have been basically like he wanted to sue Biden for fraud because he spent all this time and energy building a campaign against him and then he dropped out.
Speaker 2:
“It’s not fair.”
Jessica Yellin:
“It’s not fair.”
Speaker 2:
“It’s not fair.”
Jessica Yellin:
On and on. And they’re obsessed with this idea that this was a coup. There’s been this thing, if you follow, as I’m sure you do far right accounts on social media, you spend all your time doing that, part of my job is to look at that stuff. And so for a long time, one of the themes was that Biden wasn’t in control, Kamala Harris was secretly in control and she is in turn controlled by all these globalists, right? And so in the far right quarters they were saying this proves that, this was a long planned coup. And they see this as a coup. So Trump’s doing some of that and trying to get the base going over that. They’re even trying to message that it’s an undemocratic process for selecting her and so Democrats need to be mad. You’re like, “What are you doing, sir? This is not the way. Nobody cares. Nobody cares but you, nobody cares.”
So yeah, they’re sort of stewing right now. They’re unhappy with the change. It’s surprising to me that they don’t have a playbook to run against her because let’s remember, they were already running against her. She was on the ticket too. Why don’t they have a message? He’s tried Laughing Kamala, he’s tried Lying Kamala, but he can’t find a nickname that sticks. He is not happy until he has a nickname that sticks.
So I say all this, and then I want to just remind everyone they’re good at driving a message. They’re going to come up with a very effective for some people campaign message and strategy against her. And there’s a honeymoon phase right now where Democrats have it on lockdown and are riding high and the other side’s scrambling, but they’re going to get it together. We can talk about what they’re already messaging against her. Some of it’s going to be about border and immigration, and she was the border czar and she let all this happen. Some will be policy, but a lot of it’ll be really, really ugly stuff. Not necessarily coming from the campaign, but from some of their allies.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we all got to be ready for that.
Jessica Yellin:
Do you want me to say what it is?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I’m just interested in, it’s not going to be surprising, the border stuff, she was handed on day one of Biden’s administration, right? You’re in charge of the border and they said she messed all that up.
Jessica Yellin:
Yeah, okay. So she specifically was asked to get to the root causes of immigration. Why were people from Central America coming in such numbers to the border, southern border? And she put out a report in July of 2021. So that’s why Trump calls her the borders czar, and anything bad that’s ever happened related to immigration, he’s trying to make her fault. Also, what they’re trying to do is just lash her to Biden’s policies and anything they were critical of with Biden, they’re going to blame her for, and they say she’s Biden, but more radical, liberal. And so they talk about crime, even though crime in general is going down, there’s a feeling that it’s not. Inflation, prices, gas prices, all of that, that they failed to rein this in. Their energy message is hysterical because they go on about these electric vehicle edicts.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, they do talk about that a lot.
Jessica Yellin:
I mean, I don’t know, is somebody going to go and vote if they weren’t going to vote because of the electric vehicle edict? That’s what they’re going to get them off the couch. I don’t know. So that’s a big thing they’re obsessed with. And then foreign wars, the childless cat mom thing. Oh, they say she’s childless because she’s had too many abortions.
Speaker 2:
Oh Lord have mercy.
Speaker 1:
That’s a real thing?
Jessica Yellin:
His allies are saying it, but I mean one degree out.
Speaker 1:
Sure, of course.
Jessica Yellin:
And then the very pointed stuff that’s really ugly is a member of Congress said she’s a DEI hire.
Speaker 2:
Right, which let’s be clear, DEI hire is the new racial slur.
Jessica Yellin:
Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
Because we can’t say that anymore, we say DEI hire, and that is clear as day that that’s what they’re using it for.
Jessica Yellin:
And then somebody, this guy who served in the Trump administration and is now sort of a public pundit, said that she only has the job because she has a vagina and the right skin color. So that kind of distills for you what that message is. It’s misogynoir.
And I think that to some extent, the campaign and the Democratic establishment world expect it, but one still has to figure out how does the campaign deal with it? How does she deal with it? Some of it’s not going to work. When her message is, “I’m a prosecutor and I’ve come to prosecute the case against this criminal Donald Trump,” the soft on crime thing isn’t going to work. But I’ve heard all sorts of things about what they’ll try to do. One of the challenges is the minute if they get too misogynist, they risk alienating those swing women voters that they need. If they get too racist, one of the ways Trump was pulling ahead was he was winning the support of young Black men. Well, that’s not going to keep them on board. So it’s a delicate dance for them, how do they do this messaging?
Speaker 1:
Donald Trump doing a delicate dance, that’s a nice visual.
Jessica Yellin:
And let’s just be honest, they’re not going to be delicate. They’ll use a sledgehammer and they’ll go super negative and it’s going to be ugly.
Speaker 1:
Is there going to be a debate between them?
Jessica Yellin:
This is so funny. There is a debate scheduled for I think September 10th on ABC was committed to when Biden was a candidate. And Trump has been whining that he doesn’t think they should do it anymore, he thinks it should be on Fox.
Speaker 1:
Oh, he doesn’t?
Jessica Yellin:
Yeah. And so he thinks it should be on Fox. He thinks it shouldn’t be at all. He’s trying to wiggle out of it.
Speaker 1:
Okay, amazing. Okay, so now everyone picture after Trump doing a delicate dance, now think about him wiggling. When we’re all tuning into the convention, what should we expect? What’s happening?
Jessica Yellin:
Okay, that’s a good question. So conventions used to be the place where they picked the nominee. When we talk about an open convention, it used to be more unknown where party bosses would put their person forward and then barter and someone would come out the winner, it wasn’t known at the beginning always. Now it’s known, right? And in this case, we know she will be the nominee barring some wild crazy act of God coming in the middle, she’s going to be the nominee and it’ll even be done in advance, right? That virtual roll call.
So the convention is a production to tell the public what your party stands for, what is the case to vote for them and to energize both the base and try to win over people who aren’t always paying attention. So there are three goals really. One is to prosecute the case against Trump. All the things you’ve been seeing her say already, to just put that on blast. I should add, four things. Another is to introduce her to people who aren’t already familiar with her, biographical film telling you about who she is. Then it’s to project a positive vision of the future.
So here’s where parties go wrong is when it’s only a case against the other guy. If it were just, “Trump is bad,” that doesn’t do the trick of capturing the youth vote, energizing people. “Here’s what her vision for the future is that she wants to deliver on,” and then unifying the party to the extent that there are still divisions, some people are unhappy, even if there are protests, to kind of bring people into union and show everybody how big the Democratic Party is, diverse, a base, a future, etc.
Speaker 2:
Speaking of unifying, I have seen a lot of chatter about, “Oh, do the Obamas want someone else? Because why didn’t they endorse her?” But they did the exact same thing last cycle, they didn’t endorse Joe Biden until he was the nominee, right?
Jessica Yellin:
Yes. I mean, here’s the situation. So I think all the party elders held off because they did not want to find themselves in a situation where people were revolting against her candidacy because there was no opportunity for anyone else to get in. So they were creating a space, a window, to invite others to get in so that once it solidified around her, assuming there wouldn’t be that feeling of resentment or she had been anointed. So they left a window open. It was Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Schumer, and Obama. Obama still hasn’t sealed the deal and come out and endorsed her, he will. And they would say that the reason they did it is to allow for this process and that he uniquely can unify the party around someone and he’s going to play that role.
Speaker 2:
Got it.
I have a question about electability because this is what I hear a lot and I’m genuinely confused by it because I feel like what I think of when I think of electability is I think about the markets, I think about how when there is a lack of confidence in the markets that results in the markets going down, and when there’s confidence in the markets, the market goes up. So isn’t it a self-fulfilling prophecy? What is electability other than our perception of electability?
Jessica Yellin:
Right, and you can’t do the first until you do the first, right? So this is a moment to test that. In her case, electability is really a question of, is this person appealing to enough different demographic groups to make up a map that can get them the electoral votes they need? To be really concrete, up till now we’ve been obsessing over these certain swing voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Well, they still matter, but with Harris on the ticket, is it possible it turns up the youth vote and so you need fewer of those swing voters? Is it possible that those Nikki Haley voters… And I’ll tell you, I have a lot of people in my audience who are Nikki Haley voters, never Trump, but did not like Biden and told me they would not vote for Biden. So will they now vote for a Democrat because it’s Harris?
Speaker 2:
Interesting.
Jessica Yellin:
So it kind of opens up the electorate, it builds you a different kind of coalition. And so that’s when they say she’s electable the coalition’s different. Biden’s coalition might’ve been more like working folks in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Hers might be more young people, swing people and diverse people or others who don’t always vote, but she gets them off the couch.
Speaker 2:
So that’s why Trump is so mad because he was working with this set of marbles for his coalition, and now it’s a completely new set of marbles?
Jessica Yellin:
Yes, he has to look at the marbles all over again. And right now none of us really knows, we’re waiting to see what the marbles look like because any polls that are coming out are very, very new. And there’s some polls that bode well for her, she’s pulling ahead, but it’s not like the granular state level really detailed stuff yet. So everybody, all the pundits and strategists are waiting to see how she’s “expanded” the electorate.
Speaker 2:
How significant is it, the $100 million in the first couple of days of the announcement? Because, I mean, to circle back to indicia, that feels significant to me, it feels like just anecdotally in what I’m reading the room among my people, there is a level of excitement and intrigue that didn’t exist before.
Jessica Yellin:
I mean, quite literally donation had been drying up to Biden. People had said, “We’re not going to write,” because it was both a way to pressure him to exit and just a lack of confidence about what was coming. So the fact that the flood gates have opened is huge because it reflects enthusiasm, it reflects excitement. It’s like there’s so much desire to get in, and some of this is just we need somebody with vigor who can take it to Trump. And that’s what some of this is just excitement to have somebody to run.
And then it’s also really, there’s that saying, money is the mother’s milk of politics, you just need money to get your message out, travel, get surrogates out, put up ads, all that stuff. And so it means she’s in business. And when you talked about self-fulfilling, when people start seeing her bring in the money, they think, “Well, this is a winning candidate, so we’re going to get on it.” And money leads to money, and that is crucial in the game.
And if I can also just take a moment to say that you said this before when I mentioned about Biden not having vigor. People said Biden was being pushed out because of one bad debate, that’s not the case. That one debate showed us how frail he was and made everybody realize he doesn’t have the vigor to prosecute the case and take this over the finish line. It’s also the case that, as she said, he accomplished more in one term than many presidents have done in two and I do think he’ll be remembered as the LBJ of our era for his ability to work across the aisle, that he’s dedicated his life to public service and that even when he’s supported causes and projects you don’t believe in, there’s a spirit of dedication to country that people on both sides of the aisle have respect and recognize that he’s just given his life to this.
Speaker 2:
And I think he transferred that to the ticket ticket. I mean, I think that there’s a perception of an integrity in the way of what you think about when you think about what you hope a leader will be, what you hope that a leader will also at the end of the day be in it to be not about themselves. And I think that that shine translates to her side of things just because it’s such a stark contrast to the other side. I mean, it was very interesting to me that the line over and over and over in the Republican National Convention was, “He doesn’t need this. He has a long career. He’s a multimillionaire. He’s successful. He could play golf all day. He doesn’t need this,” he absolutely more than anyone on the planet needs to be in this office.
Speaker 1:
He goes to jail if not.
Speaker 2:
He needs pardons.
Jessica Yellin:
Trump?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Trump. It’s like thou doth protest too much, they said it every single speech. But he needs to be president because he has felony convictions, because he owes $82 million that he doesn’t have to give. So that’s striking. And I don’t feel like anyone’s talking about that, that motivation is precisely in his own self-interest that he needs that.
Jessica Yellin:
One of the lines I keep hearing is that Harris’s greatest asset is that she’s not Biden and she’s not Trump. Those two guys, I mean, it’s just an old story we’re tired of hearing to some extent. And the irony is he built this case, Trump, against the oldest man to occupy the Oval Office. Well, now he’s wearing that because he’s the oldest man now to run for president.
Speaker 2:
He made that essential issue in the front of everyone’s mind, and now he’s sleeping in that bed.
Jessica Yellin:
And I thought it was pretty savvy of Biden, Vice President Harris did this event at the campaign headquarters, and he called in and he said, “Hey kid,” which very seemed sweet and loving, but actually very strategic because it’s emphasizing her comparative youth,
Speaker 1:
And how great for all of us, I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m a spring chicken.” She’s 59, everybody’s calling her kid, she’s the face of the youth. I’m like, “I’ve barely been born.” Jessica, what else do we need to know right now?
Jessica Yellin:
I just think we have to be mindful that things change rapidly. News cycles are short and outside world events do impact an election. So as you’re watching what’s unfolding, there’s going to be ups and downs. And a key part of the job and of politics is remembering that some of what you’re seeing is what’s happening on air, and there’s also a ground game going on in the states, and this is really about getting out… I mean, so much of the country is locked down, they know what they’re going to do, but the unknowns are the people on the couch who’s going to be motivated to get off the couch and go vote, and then what do those state operations look like? And so for people who are super engaged, going to those states and door knocking and all that is a big move this year. And just remembering that as the attacks get brutal, as this feels very stressful, the news cycle changes again and try to ride on the top of the wave, not dive into every wave every time, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:
Yes, it does.
Speaker 2:
Can I ask one last question about what we have learned with Hillary Clinton running in terms of what attacks are brought against women specifically as candidates and the things that we should watch for because Kamala Harris is a woman and because we’re still dealing with that in America, is there things that we can watch for that Trump did last time that that is going to be a go-to move?
Jessica Yellin:
Yes. Well, he calls her dumb, dumb as a box of rocks. They also, I think there’s some report that he’s going to Willie Horton her, try to find somebody she didn’t jail so she’s too soft. The irony is they try to play too soft, right? Women are too weak. And then there’s this crazy Tucker Carlson interview right now up where he’s talking about how women leaders have more wars than men. And so if you don’t want war, you can’t elect a woman, which is like, well, which is it too weak or too warmongery?
Speaker 2:
And what’s our sample set of the women running the countries that go to war like?
Jessica Yellin:
Queens of England, Queens of England, that’s literally what they did. There’s all the fact that they make fun of her laugh, which I think is so funny because how many times have we talked about, I was constantly told in the news to smile more. I’d be on the North Lawn reporting on the death toll in the Iraq war and I’d get a call saying, “Why weren’t you smiling?” And you’re like, “Before or after the death toll?” So the fact that they’re saying she smiles too much, it’s everything’s a double bind.
One of the most interesting things I ever read around this is they’ve done studies and found that when female candidate is the target of a sexist attack, it in fact can reduce her support, her poll numbers will go down. However, if she pushes back and reframes it and says literally, “Well, which is it? Am I too weak or too something?” Well, a lot of people are like if she calls it out and refuses to accept it, her numbers not only go back up, they go higher than they were before because it shows the public that this is a resilient person who is strong and can defend with themselves and therefore will defend you. So this is not a context in which one rises above. You don’t scream and shout that this is sexism, it’s a calm reframe And it makes a big difference.
Speaker 1:
And so everyone who’s listening, that’s for you too, that’s for you in your offices, that’s for you in your neighborhoods, that’s for you in your community. When it comes at you, the calm reframe and you end up better than you were when it started.
Jessica Yellin:
Let’s hope.
Speaker 2:
That’s great. That’s nice. That’s really good advice.
Speaker 1:
Well, I just want to tell the pod squad what they’ll be seeing from me. I am 100% in, I am with Kamala Harris. I believe in Kamala Harris. You will see me doing everything that I can do to help her get elected and to also stand in the gap whenever I can against all of the shit that’s about to come to her. What I will say is I’ve been talking to a lot of young people who are confused by that from me, and I understand their confusion because they are saying, “Why do you think that anyone in this establishment, in this two-party system can save us? Why do you believe that?” And I do not believe that.
What I believe is that when Kamala Harris gets elected, we will not have world peace, we will not have equality, we will not have justice. But I believe we will have an environment in which the activism and the organizing that will have to be flourishing forever is allowed to flourish. I believe that in the tragedy of the other side winning, we will not have an environment in which my young, passionate friends will be able to be organizing. I believe there will be silencing and there will be nothingness. And so what I am doing is supporting the candidate who I believe will allow for that environment and who I believe has people in her ear and has a growth mindset and be open to becoming more and more equality and I believe on the other side, we will go the other way. So that is why you will see me riding with Kamala Harris for the next 100 days and until she’s… Inducted?
Speaker 3:
Elected.
Speaker 1:
Elected, that’s what’s going to happen. Nobody’s getting inducted, are they?
Speaker 3:
No.
Speaker 1:
All right, that’s it. Just wanted to say that. Jessica, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1:
In 12 minutes, I’m going to text you again and ask you to come back, “So what happened in the last 11 minutes?”
Jessica Yellin:
Anytime. I love talking to you all.
Speaker 2:
And sign up for the newsletter just in case there’s more than 11 minutes between when Jessica will come back, you’re going to want to get on that Substack newsletter.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that one’s endorsed by therapists everywhere.
Speaker 2:
Thanks everyone.
Speaker 1:
Thank you. We can do hard things and we will. Bye.
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We can do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren Lograsso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.