A Brutally Honest Debate Recap

Ted
Hey, everyone, it's Ted from consumer cellular. The guy in the orange sweater. And this is your wake up call. If you're paying too much for wireless service, you don't have to keep having that nightmare. Consumer cellular has the same fast, reliable coverage as the leading carriers for up to half the cost. So why keep spending more than you have to? Seriously, wake up and call 1888 Freedom or visit consumercellular.com dot savings based on.

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AJ Jacobs
Dressing.

Dressing.

Jon Favreau
Oh, french dressing.

AJ Jacobs
Exactly.

Jon Favreau
That's good.

AJ Jacobs
I'm AJ Jacobs, and my current obsession is puzzles. And that has given birth to my new podcast, the Puzzler.

Jon Favreau
Something about Mary Poppins.

AJ Jacobs
Exactly.

Tommy Vietor
This is fun.

AJ Jacobs
You can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears. Listen to the puzzler every day on the iHeartRadio, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your puzzles podcasts.

Jon Favreau
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

Jon Lovett
I'm John Lovett.

Tommy Vietor
I'm tv torn.

Dan Pfeiffer
I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Jon Favreau
What a debate, fellas.

Wow. Love it. My first question is for you.

You came back from Fiji way too soon.

If you had only stayed a couple more weeks.

Tommy Vietor
Go back.

Jon Lovett
Put me back in.

Put me back in. Take away my phone. Leave me out of this.

Jon Favreau
So we all, just like many of you, endured the 90 minutes debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I think you're hearing this in the morning, so you probably remember it.

Maybe you're fortunate and you don't. But just in case, we're going to refresh your memory, here's a clip of what happened.

H
We're at state where in six weeks you don't even know whether you're pregnant or not, but you cannot see a doctor and have him decide on what your circumstances are, whether you need help. Look, there's so many young women who have been, including a young woman who just was murdered, and he went to the funeral.

The idea that she was murdered by an immigrant coming in, they talk about that. If he wins this election, our country doesn't have a chance, not even a chance of coming out of this rut. We probably won't have a country left anymore. That's how bad it is. He is the worst in history, by far.

Jon Favreau
President Trump, the question was about what would you do to make child care more affordable.

H
He can't hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. I'd be happy to have a driving contest with him. I got my handicap, which when I was vice president, down to a six. I told you before, I'm happy to play golf if you carry your own bag.

Think you can do it? That's the biggest lie, that he's a six handicap of all. I was an eight handicap.

I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either.

Jon Favreau
Look, okay, that was the debate.

Look, we always want to be honest with you guys. I don't think we need to.

You don't listen to us. For us to sugarcoat anything. I think it was a fucking disaster.

I think it was like, maybe the worst debate I've ever seen in my entire life. Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. Donald Trump is a just despicable human being. He should not be president. We have to do literally everything we possibly can to make sure he is not president again. And that is why last night was so fucking awful, because Joe Biden just in every single way failed at that debate. And I don't know what else to say there except that. And then, you know, I won't make any other predictions now, but it was a disaster.

Jon Lovett
Yeah.

Tommy Vietor
I mean, look, debates are a performance, and what you say and how you say it both matter. And so the optics to start there were very bad tonight. Biden had to answer concerns about his age. I think he exacerbated them. His voice sounded frail. There was an answer where he kind of stalled out halfway through the cut. Shots when Trump was speaking were nothing. In the first debate in 2020, he did a very good job of kind of smiling or, like, taking notes.

Jon Favreau
I counted. I think he smiled twice or three times in 90 minutes.

Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I mean, this time he looked confused at times. He was looking away, and those clips are already flying around TikTok like that's the online spin war that's happening as we speak.

Jon Favreau
No deceptive editing necessary.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, not much of a war.

Tommy Vietor
I mean, and in the substance, I just. I don't think Biden landed the hits he needed to land. We just heard him. He needed to prosecute the case against Trump on abortion. There we heard a clip where he sort of took an abortion answer and wound up at a point about immigration. I don't think he made a strong economic argument. The attacks on Trump's felony convictions weren't strong. That's not to say that Trump was great. I don't think he was. He duck questions. The mean, angry Trump came out at times. But, like, I came into this debate anxious about Biden's performance and focused on Biden's performance. And I felt like the first 15 to 20 minutes were the worst part of the debate for Biden. And that's probably all that some people watched. And so I think we're all angry and frustrated to be in this position. Joe Biden has done a great job as president. He has better policies, he has a better team, but his job is to communicate those ideas and then make a contrast with Trump and what he would do. And he failed at that. And his other job was to put to rest concerns about his age, and I think they were made worse. So this debate was a really important moment in this campaign, and it didn't go well. And I'm also worried that there might not be another debate, because if you're Trump, you might be thinking, why not just leave it at that?

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, this, Biden was not forced to do this debate. He wanted this debate on this timeline. This is something his campaign swerved out of the lane, broke with all precedent in modern political history, to seek out a debate outside of the debate commission process in June. Because, and I think, and I agreed with that strategy at the time because it was an acknowledgement that this race was profiling in a way that would likely lead to Joe Biden losing. He was behind in the polls. It was functioning, really as a referendum on Joe Biden. Voters were not focused enough on Donald Trump. They were concerned about his age, and they bet. And they believe the best way to address that was to get on a stage in front of a nationally televised audience and assuage those concerns. And he did not do that.

As Tommy said, he exacerbated.

Jon Favreau
In fact, he did the opposite, the.

Dan Pfeiffer
Exact opposite of that. And like, as you said, this, it is painful to say this, because we adore Joe Biden as a person.

Jon Favreau
He's a fundamentally decent, wonderful human being, and he has accomplished a fuck of a lot as president that he should be proud of and we should be proud of.

Dan Pfeiffer
And he has done a good job as president. And I believe that tonight's performance is not a reflection of the kind of president that he is, but it is a very concerning piece of evidence about the kind of candidate he will be in this race, because you need to ultimately be able to defend your record and make the case against Donald Trump. And there is never in the history of politics been an easier candidate to make a case against than Donald Trump. Donald Trump gave him ample opportunities to do so. If Donald, Joe Biden had given a b minus performance tonight, we'd be talking about Donald Trump. He lied. He made very little sense. He didn't answer any question.

Jon Favreau
He became much more incoherent as the debate went on. Donald Trump did, for sure.

Dan Pfeiffer
And this was.

Maybe we'll have another debate, maybe we won't. But this was Joe Biden's best and biggest opportunity to address the single biggest concern about his candidacy. And he did not deliver on that tonight. And that is deeply disappointing.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, here's. At first it was shocking, then it was scary, then it was sad, and by the end, it was absurd. I'm also, by the way, I'm not really buying this spin that the first 20 minutes were terrible, and then he got somehow much better. That was not my experience in watching this debate. Like, I think part of what makes this so sad is, a, we understand the stakes, b, we viewed Donald Trump as an eminently beatable figure, and c, we believe Joe Biden to be an excellent president. I believe that. I believe Joe Biden ran because he loves this country, and he believed his case against Trump was the best. He was right about that. I believe he was an extraordinary president and played the hands better than anybody else could have played it. But the most important job Joe Biden has as president of the United States is to beat Donald Trump. And unfortunately, he went into this debate in a, he was behind. His job was to overcome that dynamic and changed it. He emphasized it. And for the same sense of decency and empathy and patriotism that led Joe Biden to run. I believe this is a moment to at least have a big, open conversation about whether the best thing he can do for America to end his presidency as the success it deserves to be is whether or not he should step aside. And already I know, like, because the stakes are so high, you see people afraid to have that conversation. And fine. But what I don't appreciate is people immediately saying, well, we know Joe Biden won't step aside.

We know Joe Biden won't do this. We know Joe Biden won't do that. I don't know what Joe Biden's gonna do. Nobody knows what Joe Biden's gonna do. Joe Biden was still on stage while some people were saying that they know Joe Biden is not gonna step aside. I believe Joe Biden loves this country and wants what's best for it. And so there's a lot of messy complicated, confusing unknowns ahead of us. But the first, I think the first step is let's have the debate about which path is riskiest. Is the riskiest path sticking with Joe Biden? Or is the riskiest path saying, we want someone else? And anybody who says that that is not a tough call right now is full of fucking shit.

Jon Favreau
We're gonna get to that in a bit. We're obviously not the only ones who are thinking this. And that's not just because there's, like, Democrats privately freaking out, though that's happening.

Most everyone I know in my life is also freaking out. So that's also happening. But just to give you an example, as soon as the debate was over, this is what we heard from CNN's John King. Let's listen.

John King
Anderson. This was a game changing debate in the sense that right now, as we speak, there is a deepen, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party. It started minutes into the debate, and it continues right now. It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers. And they are having conversations about the president's performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket. And they're having conversations about what they should do about it. Some of those conversations include should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside. Others are, other of the conversations are about should prominent Democrats go public with that call.

Jon Favreau
So that was John King. So then we heard from all sorts of Democrats. Kate Bedingfeld, former White House communications director, said that it was a bad performance.

We heard from multiple other Democrats who said that there's members of Congress. I mean, we're recording this at, you know, midnight. So by the time you hear this, there's probably other Democrats that will have said this, too. But members of Congress are, you know, giving blind quotes so far so that the panic is real. It's happening. I almost feel like it is underselling it or minimizing it to call it panicking or bedwetting. Look, if this was September or October, we would be honest that this was a horrible debate.

But say, look, it's too late. The election is in a couple weeks. Obviously, we should vote for Joe Biden and we should do everything we can to make sure that Donald Trump doesn't win and make Joe Biden another president. But what Joe Biden did was agree to this debate, propose this debate, and agree to this debate with seven weeks left to the convention. And as you said, lovett, like we. Now, it would be silly not to have this conversation. And that's not to say that a contested convention would be easy or necessarily nominate someone who can beat Donald Trump. That is the reality of the situation we're in right now. But I think, like. And look, it's up to Joe Biden, right? Joe Biden's gonna make the decision. The people around him are going to counsel him on this decision. But, like, I think that everyone else who saw what we all saw last night needs to be honest that, like, he. It's not just that. Look, we've talked about debates before. Debates are performances. Debates are silly. They get scored. Barack Obama had a terrible first debate against Mitt Romney. Right? And then I. He went out there and he fixed it. Right? The terrible debate that Barack Obama had against Mitt Romney was nothing like this. This is just another level. Right? Like I said, I've never seen any political. Can you guys think of a political debate that was as bad as before? No.

Jon Lovett
The previous worst debate that any of us have ever seen was the first presidential debate last time. And the difference between that debate and this debate, and I think part of the reason this debate feels worse is that was a despicable display. But we didn't come away thinking that the race had suddenly tilted against Joe Biden. This was a horrible debate.

Jon Favreau
Well, I think Joe Biden won that debate.

Dan Pfeiffer
Right.

Jon Lovett
But clearly, everybody walked away saying that was the worst debate they'd ever seen.

Tommy Vietor
I hate politics.

Jon Lovett
I think people had the exact same reaction to this. Nobody came away from this loving politics.

Jon Favreau
Or loving Donald Trump or loving Donald Trump. To be clear. I don't think Donald Trump picked up and no one was like, oh, you know what? Donald Trump has assuaged my concerns about him not being a fucking lunatic. I don't think that happened, but I think people were fucking.

I mean, it's not just that Joe Biden needed to, like, make the case against Donald Trump in a debate. Donald Trump is a threat to democracy right now. And we need leaders and we need a president to actually make the case for why Donald Trump is as unfit for office as we all know. He did not bring up, look, he didn't make a case against January 6. He didn't talk about the fact that he tried to overturn the last election. He didn't talk about the fact that he is facing an 88 felony counts. He said the words convicted felon once. Then he started talking about having sex with the porn star.

Dan Pfeiffer
Alley cats.

Jon Favreau
Alley cats, right. He didn't bring up, like, almost any of Donald Trump's vulnerabilities in a coherent way.

Tommy Vietor
Let's talk about Trump's performance for a minute. I mean, Trump lied constantly. He lied about his position on abortion. He lied about COVID He lied about January 6. He blamed Pelosi for the insurrection. The problem was the moderators had told everyone, we're not here to fact check. And it was Joe Biden's job to effectively call him out for what he was getting wrong and then make the case against him. And he just failed to do it. And look, I don't think Trump was good, but to his credit, he was relentlessly on message. Everything came back to illegal immigration. He made almost every question about the border because he knew that was his strength and that was Joe Biden's weakness. And there was no equivalent effort to get on a message that had Trump on his back heels. From the Biden side, it was, frankly, just kind of hard to follow answer after hard to follow answer.

Jon Lovett
I am open to the idea that, like, we are freaks who watch this in a way that is different from the way maybe undecided voters would watch it. Right? There was dials that came out throughout saying people dislike them both. Like, I'm open to, I can see that completely.

And by the way, I'm also open to the possibility that this debate doesn't have a severe impact, that the actual impact of it won't be as long lasting. And I'm extremely open to the possibility that Joe Biden can come back with us. But I think, Jon, what you're getting at here is I think the reason this felt so dispiriting and so important is because the way in which he lost this debate at a time when he needed to change the dynamic, makes us very, very concerned that he cannot change the dynamic in any other setting, that he is not the person to make this argument for himself or against Donald Trump.

Tommy Vietor
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Ted
Ted from consumer cellular, the guy in the orange sweater. And this is your wake up call. If you're paying too much for wireless service, you don't have to keep having that nightmare. Consumercellular has the same fast, reliable coverage as the leading carriers for up to half the cost. So why keep spending more than you have to? Seriously wake up and call 1888 Freedom or visit consumercellular.com dot savings based on.

B
Cost of consumer cellular single line one, five and ten gig data plans with unlimited talk and text compared to lowest cost single line postpaid unlimited talk, text and data plans offered by T Mobile and Verizon. January 2024.

AJ Jacobs
Dressing.

Dressing.

Jon Favreau
French dressing.

AJ Jacobs
Exactly.

Jon Favreau
That's good.

AJ Jacobs
I'm AJ Jacobs, and my current obsession is puzzles. And that has given birth to my new podcast, the Puzzler.

Jon Favreau
Something about Mary Poppins.

AJ Jacobs
Exactly.

Tommy Vietor
This is fun.

AJ Jacobs
You can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears. Listen to the puzzler every day on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jon Favreau
And again, so, you know, we watched the debate end and then Joe Biden appeared at a watch party, and he was much more energetic at the watch party. He was much more coherent, though, even there. Cause everyone was like, well, where was that? Joe Biden? Yeah, energy wise, coherence wise, for sure. But his message was like, he started talking about the dog faced lying pony soldier.

Tommy Vietor
It was not good. Everyone's grading on such a curve. It was just a weird 1 minute speech.

Jon Favreau
It was a weird. Yeah, exactly. And so I just feel like we're now all. Yeah, we're now all grading on a curve. Everything's relative. But it's like, hello, we all saw this, right?

Jon Lovett
Well, that's the one that you can't. I'm not gonna be convinced that I. Don't. Tell me my eyes are lying. I saw what I saw.

Dan Pfeiffer
Like, a handful of things can be true at the same time, right, that Joe Biden's performance was very bad at a very bad time. That if you were. It's also true that if you were to show swing voters who did not watch the debate, only footage of Donald Trump speaking, they would be very unhappy with Donald Trump.

Jon Favreau
Speaker one, for sure. And I would be shocked if they weren't.

Jon Lovett
Yeah.

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, he did not. He did nothing to improve his standing in the race. All he did was just be better than Joe Biden. Right. And so, and I would say Trump did what Trump did do for all of his bad, unfavorable policy positions, refusal to answer questions, his repeated lies is he was more restrained than he was in 2020. And so you could watch that and not come away with the idea that he is like, that's what Biden wanted. What strategically he should have done is try to. When Trump got mad was when Biden went after him on January 6 early. And if he had done that earlier and sort of gotten Trump off his game, but Biden couldn't do that. The bigger thing here is Biden is behind in this race. Right. We can debate by how much, but Trump has an advantage in the swing states and maybe all six of them right now. And so how do you change the dynamic in a race? You either change the dynamic in a race by taking advantage of huge, high leverage moments with lots of eyeballs on you in delivering in a big way. Biden did not do that. And there may not be another moment like that. Because the convention speech is not a moment like that.

Jon Favreau
No. Because Trump gets a convention speech. Biden gets a convention speech. They're planned.

Dan Pfeiffer
They're mostly watched by partisans.

Jon Favreau
Watch them 100%.

Dan Pfeiffer
And the other way you do it is by waking up every single day, dominating the media conversation and making a compelling, relentless argument for yourself and against the other person. Joe Biden has not done that in this presidency at any point.

Jon Favreau
And look, if he, if, if suddenly he wakes up tomorrow and can do that for the next several months, right, then great. Right? So happy.

Dan Pfeiffer
You were doing multiple, you're doing multiple rallies a day. You were doing every single possible media hit you can do. You're going into unfriendly territory to do things that go viral. Right. You know, it's like Trump was on I don't know which. Paul, Logan, Paul, Jake Paul's podcast.

Tommy Vietor
Sure.

Dan Pfeiffer
And then either Jake or, like, challenge Biden to do it.

Like, get go. Like, a different candidate could go do that and just, like, take him on and get in his face and have a viral moment and show your strength. Whether Biden's staff are treating him with kid gloves or they because, or maybe because of tonight, they think he can't do those things, he is not doing that. So it's, the question is, how is he going to change the dynamic in the race going forward if tonight happened and we may not get another debate.

Tommy Vietor
There was one question and answer that I thought was kind of damaging for Trump, and I wondered if you guys agreed. He was asked, what do you say to voters who think you violated your oath on January 6? And Trump said, on January 6, we had a great border. On January 6, we were energy independent. On January 6, we had the lowest taxes, the lowest regulations. We were respected around the world. Then he went into a pivot. I wonder, I don't know, like, rhetorically, it was clever, but I wonder if you were like, what are you talking about?

Jon Favreau
That was my reaction. I thought it was bizarre. And I'm like, yeah, it was bizarre. Cause it seemed like something that they had planned. And I was like, that is not. That is, yeah, that cannot be effective.

Tommy Vietor
Clever was the wrong. Like, it was like, it was a rhetorical only answer that never touched the.

Dan Pfeiffer
It's like giving, like a, like a, what do you call those things? A fidget fidget spinner. A fidget spinner to a kid, it's like, here's something he will say that will not likely not damage him more than what he would say on his own.

Jon Lovett
And this is the problem, right, because there's Joe Biden standing there, and he's not lithe or, or fast or, or direct enough to be able to counterpunch in any of these moments.

Tommy Vietor
He tried there. He said, he tried to get him to say, will you denounce the proud boys? You told them to stand by. Will you denounce the insurrections? But he just couldn't get it out.

Jon Lovett
He couldn't get it out. Everyone ignored it. And by the way, I just, I also want to say, I'm really not up for a debate about CNN and their role in this. If you watch that debate and you came away thinking the problem was CNN, go for a walk outside that is ridiculous.

Jon Favreau
So speaking of CNN, so the first debate in 2020, the CNN post debate poll, Joe Biden, 60% of voters thought Joe Biden won. 28% thought Donald Trump won. Tonight, the poll just came out. 67% of voters think Donald Trump won. Only 33% think that Joe Biden won. It's a big swing. It's a 60, 66 point swing towards Trump. There was also a Frank Luntz's focus group of all undecided voters, who, again, Luntz was tweeting this through the debate at times were saying, oh, they're mad at both of them. They don't like that Trump's being so personal and lying a tiny bit of.

Jon Lovett
Purchase on which to have hope.

Jon Favreau
And then at the end, they're all undecided voters, and all of them think that Joe Biden should step aside.

There was a focus group on MSNBC just before we started. One of the voters said, we should have, I love Joe Biden's policies. I think Donald Trump's despicable. But Joe Biden can't execute like we should have an open convention.

Jon Lovett
I love that, that moment with that, there was a, there was a despondency with that person because what you got was how much they disliked Donald Trump and understand already that Donald Trump doesn't fight for them, doesn't care about them, isn't out for them. But they see Joe Biden, even though they want to be for Joe Biden. What they saw made them really, really concerned. And this is what voters have been saying. This is what lots of people have been saying for four years now. It has gotten worse and worse. And what Joe Biden said when there was a big news cycle, all right, when everybody said it was too late and there was a big news cycle about this, Joe Biden, remember, he did a press conference. It was very combative. And then someone shouted the question at him, and he said, watch me.

Jon Favreau
After the Robert, her special counsel report.

Jon Lovett
After the Robert, her special counsel report, Joe Biden turned to the door, turned back creakily, and said, watch me.

And by the way, I this entire time have been just very uncertain. Right. About what was the more dangerous or risky path given the threat Trump poses. Right.

Do you trust that Joe Biden can overcome these concerns about his age enough to make this case, or do you believe you should go down the messy and unknown path of seeking out a different nominee? And I think what we saw tonight means we need to have that debate. There's a lot to come. It's complicated, it's uncertain. It's risky, but we have to have that conversation.

Tommy Vietor
I think they're, I think it's totally acceptable to wonder aloud and openly talk about the path of the convention. I think it's totally legitimate for folks to say, you know what, actually, I think sticking with Joe Biden is the best chance we have at winning. So we all should do that. What is not acceptable is telling people to stop bedwetting or that they didn't see what they saw or that, oh, you guys just need this Twitter nonsense. It's time to grow a spine. Enough with that rhetorical bullshit. It's insulting to people who are on your team, who want to fight for you, but have eyeballs and care deeply about this country and are anxious because we all have a stake in this election. It's not about one man on the ticket or about the staff around him. It's about the fucking future of the country.

Jon Favreau
And by the way, the staff around him, he has a great campaign team. The staff is fantastic.

Tommy Vietor
Yes.

Jon Favreau
They are doing everything right. The person who is to blame right now is Joe Biden, because he has told all of us, I am the guy. Like, he's thought it through. I am the guy. Bet on me. I'm going to do it. And then he did this. And then Joe Biden and anyone around him, whether it's the first lady, whoever else has, like, keeps encouraging him to do this. Right? Like, I feel bad. I feel terrible for the staff on the campaign and a lot of the other people because, like, look, not just because there are, a lot of them are our friends, but because they are doing a, like, really good work. But he is the candidate, right? And he has to, like, lead the candidate.

Tommy Vietor
You can't debate for him.

Jon Favreau
Right?

Tommy Vietor
He has to debate.

Dan Pfeiffer
And they're doing these jobs because they know they love Joe Biden. They absolutely love Jimmy. They also know that you have to defeat Donald Trump. And this is, we sit here right now, that that is the, that is the way to do it, is you elect the choices. Right now, as of today, there will be a conversation in the coming days, is electro Biden or we get Donald Trump? Those are the two choices. Right? It's not the choice a lot of people wanted. It's not a perfect choice. But that, that is the option before us. Right? And so that's why, that's why they're doing it. That's why we have done what we have done to try to help Joe Biden. Right? And that's why people are so frustrated and upset about this debate, because he did this. He wanted this debate right now.

Jon Favreau
Yep.

Dan Pfeiffer
Right. And that.

Jon Favreau
And he had a week of practice.

Dan Pfeiffer
And probably, probably should have had two.

Jon Lovett
Right.

Dan Pfeiffer
And so it's just, it is like they, this was a big moment, and he did not deliver in a big momentous. Right. And it's very frustrating.

Jon Favreau
And look, like you said, dan, it's a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Like, if we get through the convention and everyone, and Joe Biden says, I'm not stepping down, and there's no other Democrats step up, and all the, you know, I've seen a lot of the elected Democrats tonight on tv, which, understandable. It's like, right after the debate, say, like, no, we're sticking with Joe Biden. That's great. If everyone decides, everyone who could run for president decides that they're not. They're not gonna run. They don't wanna run. Joe Biden's the guy. Joe Biden decides. Then, like, after that convention, of course, we will do everything in our power to elect Joe Biden. 100%. But, like, the best thing Joe Biden did is to propose this debate before the convention and give us a chance now to rethink this.

Jon Lovett
It is because the threat Donald Trump poses that we have to have this debate right now about whether or not it should be Joe Biden. Do not tell us that because Donald Trump is a threat, we cannot have this conversation. That is ridiculous.

Tommy Vietor
Just to be crystal clear about one thing, I did not come away from this debate wondering whether Joe Biden can do the job of president. He can. He has been doing it. He's done a great job of doing it. I came away deeply concerned about his ability to wage the campaign he needs to wage to defeat Donald Trump. It's an important distinction.

Jon Lovett
Yes.

Tommy Vietor
You know what I mean? I am not for 1 second in the camp of people regurgitating the, like, horrible attacks from the Trump people. This is about what it takes to run a campaign, which is really, really hard.

Dan Pfeiffer
President is a much harder job. It's a much more important job. But candidate is a different job.

Tommy Vietor
Right.

Dan Pfeiffer
And it's primarily a communications job. It's an ability to go out every.

Jon Favreau
Day and make a case, and it's always important. But when you're running against an authoritarian who could threaten democracy, then, like, it's not just about being a good candidate. That is part of the job of being president in this moment, right now, is making the case for why democracy is the better system. And he has not made that case.

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Jon Lovett
That.

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So Axios already has some comments from these are House Democrats and they are not.

Dan Pfeiffer
They've given their names to actually, of course not.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, this is not on the record. One said, I am in a state of shock. The other said, jamal Bowman is the hero we need right now. We need him to pull the fire alarm.

Jon Lovett
A couple of making the rounds. That one's making the rounds.

Jon Favreau
One female House Democrat said, it's time for a woman to save both these men from their misery. President Whitmer has a strong ring to it. So that's just a sample of some of what we're getting from.

Jon Lovett
And I'll just say, I imagine this.

Tommy Vietor
Is true for you guys. Probably got like two dozen tweets tonight from friends in and out of politics. Every single one of them was as anxious as we sound. This is not like a political insider Ajita group thing. It's like all my friends from all parts of my life just being like, what's happening?

Jon Favreau
People who don't tune into politics, people who don't pay attention. There's not a single person who's like, eh, it's actually not that bad.

Jon Lovett
I feel like I want to come back to something you said, which is that you said that the word panic feels strange, both too big and too small. Because I think the problem, right.

Jon Favreau
Is, like, what's a little patronizing to, it's like, oh, those Democrats, they're all right. Which I get.

Dan Pfeiffer
We are often. We are like that.

Jon Lovett
Yes, for sure. And I think what makes this different is that, like, it's not a panic in that I think people, people are not overreacting. And this is a moment where people are reflecting not just on the debate, but what led to this moment. Right. And the collective sense in which we couldn't make a change. And all the conversations and debates we've been having for a long time, that's one part of it. The second part of it is, I am concerned that we spend 48 hours having these paroxysm of doubt and concern, and then the July 4 happens. Joe Biden does a rally where he is more like how he was at the state of the union. The dynamic in the race doesn't change. He's still behind in these swing state polls. We don't really see a clear path to how that changes. But we're reassured that, oh, the debate didn't have as long of an impact as we thought it would. Then all of a sudden, we're marching toward a convention where we never really reconciled the experience of watching that debate. And that's why I think just making sure that what this is is not a panic, but a concerted effort to give everybody who wants to protect democracy and defeat Donald Trump the open conversation about the best person to do that is so important.

Tommy Vietor
And some people will say this conversation only helps Trump. Yeah, it does. And no one wants to be having it, but our hand was forced by.

Jon Favreau
What we all want to trump. The 90 minutes that we just saw.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, it does.

Jon Favreau
Anyway, let's go to anything fun. Anyway, let's go to favorite moments.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. I think one other point I think is worth making is we had some.

Jon Lovett
By the way, thorns and roses, by the way. I want you guys to know something. We were deep gallows humored by the end of this thing.

We were drinking and we were getting through it.

Dan Pfeiffer
We went through from stunned silence to gallows humor in about 20 minutes.

Tommy Vietor
I liked when we were talking about how many historians said Trump was the worst president. That was a good part.

Jon Favreau
By the way, Kamala Harris was on tv afterwards. Anderson Cooper interviewed her. I believe she went on MSNBC, though I haven't seen that yet. And she did quite well in the interview. And Anderson really pushed her. And at one point she did say it was a slow start. At least the vice president acknowledged that. And that's the vice president. So the idea that you're going to be like, no, everything was fine. You even have the vice, you have the president's former communications director, you have the vice president.

Dan Pfeiffer
Like, it's just, no one thinks it was fine.

Jon Favreau
And you know what? And I think that just telling people to deny what they saw, telling people to deny objective reality, it's just not, it's just not effective. Forget about whether it's right or wrong. It's just not effective.

Dan Pfeiffer
I'm gonna be very interested to see what Biden does at the rally he has in North Carolina tomorrow. Because if this was Obama. Right. And this was sort of true after that Romney debate is he makes a self deprecating joke about it. Right. And then tries to deliver a much better performance. Like, will Biden do that? Right.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, I do have, there, there is one upside to this debate.

He will not be attacked tomorrow. It's over for performance enhancing drugs. So he has, he has put that to rest.

Tommy Vietor
Silver lining.

Dan Pfeiffer
There you go.

Jon Lovett
You see people, there was, there were people pausing and trying to feed Joe Biden Adderall through the television.

Tommy Vietor
They did.

Jon Favreau
This is why you don't do time release. This is why you do that.

Jon Lovett
Yeah.

Tommy Vietor
You're up all night.

Jon Favreau
The just kicked in. Right. It kicked in at the party.

Jon Lovett
Right?

Tommy Vietor
Right.

Jon Favreau
That was the problem.

Jon Lovett
And poor Joe Biden's gonna be up all night.

Tommy Vietor
We did have a spirited debate about golf games, handicaps.

Jon Favreau
That was wild.

But all of this stuff is even more frustrating because it goes to show, like, how vulnerable Trump is. Like, the guy was an incoherent mess. He was talking about. He was like a little, I would say that we were talking about the first 1520 minutes. I would say, like, Trump was the best in the first 15 minutes. And then Trump really declined throughout the debate.

Dan Pfeiffer
Biden got him upset, and then Trump became more of the Trump we know.

Tommy Vietor
One of the most obvious differences between watching the first debate four years ago and the first debate now is something has happened to Joe Biden's voice that has made it softer, more frail, and has led him to cough a lot. And again, I know I'm talking optics and optics doesn't matter when you're doing the job of president, but it matters a lot as a candidate. And it just makes it hard for him to get his point across and to get these lines out and to string together arguments over the course of two minutes in a way that is compelling or even at times, like, fully understandable.

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, we should note, I mean, yeah, you're correct under all scenarios that his voice has changed. He also, it came out that he had a cold.

Jon Favreau
Has he had it since January?

Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I mean, he sounded worse than usual. He sounded like he had to cough, and he could not cough in the first 15 minutes.

Now, why his campaign did not put out the fact that he had a cold in advance of that, well, I'll just say.

Jon Favreau
So you know what?

Me and Tommy and Lovett, we went to the fundraiser in LA with President Obama and Jimmy Kimmel, and Biden was very much like he was tonight at that fundraiser. That was also after he had flown from the g seven in Italy, 16 hours to LA.

Tommy Vietor
Understandable.

Jon Favreau
And that was his second trip to Europe in the same week.

We chalked it up as like, yeah, that was a pretty bad performance. He is pretty tired. They should let the guy sleep. Hopefully, they'll have him sleep and prep for this debate. And by the way, everyone else in the crowd saw that, too, which is why the whole, like, oh, deceptively edited clip of Biden freezing. He wasn't actually freezing in that moment, but the rest of the thing was bad. I just also tired, and I thought he would be rested tonight. I hoped he would be rested tonight. He wasn't.

Jon Lovett
Look, and by the way, we have tried. Like, we saw him at the State of the union where he delivered a. We did. It's also like, okay, he had a cold and his voice is gravelly and not as strong as it used to be. That doesn't explain why halfway through an answer about abortion, he pivoted to a different answer about immigration. That doesn't explain why he wasn't able to push back on Donald Trump throughout the debate.

Jon Favreau
That's a classic debate move.

Jon Lovett
You pivoted from your most strongest issue to your weakest issue, your weakest issue mid sentence.

Jon Favreau
Did Donald Trump bring up the attack? No, you got to bring up the attack yourself. That's a, it's, you know, then he can't do it. That you bring it up yourself. You see what I'm saying? It's a jiu jitsu.

Dan Pfeiffer
He clearly got rattled by his performance. Like he knew, oh, for you. Could he knew that he messed up that first question. And I know because we, we've prep cancer debates before you tell him, the first ten minutes matter more than anything else. And he knew.

He knew he messed that up. And he got in his head because he clearly had an answer on abortion and had an answer on this attack that he knew Trump was going to make about this woman who was killed. And he just, you know, he combined them.

Jon Favreau
If he combined them.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.

Tommy Vietor
You also practice, though, like in debate prep, I'm sure you say to him over and over again, sir, your face is gonna be visible through the duration of the debate. Every time Donald Trump speaks, they're gonna be looking at you, too. So you have to be mindful of how you look. Smiling, laughing. Right. He did a great job of that in 2020.

Dan Pfeiffer
That's what's so funny about this.

Tommy Vietor
A disaster this time.

Jon Favreau
Not hot.

Tommy Vietor
You know, I mean, like, you know.

Jon Lovett
His staff prepped him.

Dan Pfeiffer
On that note, you can either laugh or you can cry, because we watched the, we all rewatched the first 2020 debate earlier this week, and Trump did a terrible job of that in the first debate.

Jon Favreau
Sweaty, sweaty anger.

Dan Pfeiffer
He's muttered himself. And Biden, that whole. He did, that's what he nailed in that debate, is he stared at that camera the whole time. Every time Trump said something crazy, Biden gave it that classic Biden smile, and he did the exact opposite of that in this debate.

Jon Favreau
I think now we're getting to the point in the pod, we're all saying the same thing over and over again.

Tommy Vietor
And want to kill ourselves.

Jon Favreau
Right? Exactly.

Do we have any final thoughts?

Jon Lovett
Yeah, I actually don't have. We just watched the debate and I think we're all feeling a bit gobsmacked, and I think that's a feeling to trust for a bit. But I will.

Jon Favreau
I'm going to go back to my hotel room and watch it one more time before I go to bed.

Dan Pfeiffer
Are you really?

Jon Favreau
Yeah.

Jon Lovett
No.

Dan Pfeiffer
Jesus Christ. Love yourself.

Jon Lovett
I'm going to take the same Xanax they gave Joe Biden before the debate and knock myself the fuck out. But I think a bunch of friends.

Yeah, right. No, but I feel like the two texts I'm getting from a lot of people that I'm sure is a shared experience with some combination. What do we do, and are we doomed?

I feel like a lot of people are saying that.

What do we do? We take it one step at a time. We all just watch that. We all saw it. Nobody knows what Joe Biden's gonna do. You saw Kamala Harris is doing fucking improv with Anderson Cooper. Gavin Newsom doesn't know what, everybody's figuring this out. So I think everybody, I think just being honest about what we saw is the first step and everybody being generous with each other in knowing that everyone inside of this big democratic coalition wants to defeat Donald Trump. We just may not over the next couple of days or weeks agree on the best way to do it. That's 1st, 2nd. Are we doomed? We're not doomed. We're not doomed until the election is over. And a lot can change between now and then. Nobody knows what's going to happen. And let's just take it one step at a time. That's my one caution here.

Tommy Vietor
Yeah, look, I'm not going to pretend tonight wasn't anything but terrible. The next few days will probably be worse because what tends to happen is the negative feelings about a debate performance like this turn into articles which get shared around. It compounds and the spin gets worse and worse and it becomes a bit of a spiral. But the fact is we have gotten, look, a couple months is a lifetime in politics. I'm not saying that to like, spin for Joe Biden, it's just an objective fact. There was a fucking insurrection against the Capitol that no one's talking about anymore somehow. So, you know, if a lot can change between now and election day, and a lot could change between now and the convention, and it is what it is, but this weekend's gonna suck.

Jon Lovett
We gotta shut down the idea to article pipeline. That is the fucking problem.

Jon Favreau
Per dem source, live tracking of the debate showed that Trump's support tanked when he said he wouldn't accept the results of the election. Again, not surprising there was some good responses for Biden from some Midwest swing voters. I'll take that for what you will. And then Trump's January 6 and Roe responses were also unpopular. Yes, of course. Also, Biden just took a few questions from the pool. They asked him how he did tonight. He said, I think we did well.

They on calls for him to drop out whether he has any concerns about his performance. No. It's hard to debate a liar. The New York Times pointed out he lied 26 times on whether he's sick. I have a sore throat. Pool was then quickly ushered out this.

Dan Pfeiffer
Biden going to that watch event. Biden taking these questions is the first steps you do to address a bad debate performance like this.

Tommy Vietor
Signal that they know and that we'll.

Dan Pfeiffer
See a rally tomorrow. There's, the next 48 hours are going to be fascinating about how everyone else in the party responds and what Biden does. But it is worth reminding that we're going to hear this from everyone. Why doesn't the DNC go to Biden and tell them this is going to be Joe Biden's decision?

Jon Favreau
Yep.

Dan Pfeiffer
No one is going to make him do it. No Democrat is going to announce that they're jumping in the race because you can't really do that. And this is going to be a decision for the president to make.

Jon Favreau
Yep. And people can counsel him on it. People can cancel him privately, publicly, whatever it may be, it's his decision. So. All right. Wish we had a. Wish we had a more hope. Hey, one last question. What gives you hope, by the way?

Jon Lovett
Listen, as the debate was winding down and we're all kind of like, our eyes are kind of bleeding from the side, like kind of trying to find different kinds of alcohol to put together, I looked around. We're in this room. We're watching it together. We're doing our best to laugh through it. And I just, like, we had a good time.

Tommy Vietor
We had gummy bears.

Jon Lovett
We tried our best.

Tommy Vietor
We had gummy bears, wine and beer.

Jon Lovett
And we made the best of it.

Jon Favreau
You know what, guys?

Jon Lovett
Great team here.

Tommy Vietor
French fries.

Jon Favreau
We're all gonna get through together.

Jon Lovett
You bet.

Tommy Vietor
Everyone hug a lib this weekend.

Jon Favreau
Hug a lib this weekend.

Dan Pfeiffer
Did you say we're stronger together?

Jon Favreau
We're stronger.

All right, everyone, we will, uh, we'll talk to you tomorrow night in Boston.

Jon Lovett
Why?

Dan Pfeiffer
Bye, everyone.

Jon Favreau
If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our friends of the Pod subscription community@crooked.com. friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Sol Rubin and Farah Safari. Reed Sherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt de Grote is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Mia Kellman, David Toles, Kirill Pallaviv, and Molly Lobelithe.

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Jon Lovett
Now this show is sponsored by better help. This year has gone so quickly. What is something I'm proud of in 2024? Oh boy, there's so many things I'm proud of. Yeah, I'm proud of.

Oh, I'm proud of the fact that we finished our book. That's right, democracy or else how to save America in ten easy steps. It's available for pre order right now. We're trying to get on the New York Times bestseller list. That'll make me proud.

Tommy Vietor
That'd be great.

Jon Lovett
But I've also, I'm sure, had some interior things that made me proud as well. Not just, you know, not just tokens of material and sort of success in the world.

Tommy Vietor
Right.

Jon Lovett
But I couldn't think of one right now.

Dan Pfeiffer
Right.

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Yeah, sure.

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A Brutally Honest Debate Recap

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Episode Chapters

1: Opening Discussion

2: Analysis of Key Moments

3: Implications for the Campaign

4: Conclusion and Forward Look

Actionable Advice

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Transcript