Biden Campaign Unloads on Trump's Conviction

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

Jon Lovett
I'm Jon Lovett.

Tommy Vietor
I'm Tommy Vitor.

Jon Favreau
On today's show, the Biden campaign launches a big ad campaign that goes hard at Trump's felony conviction. Trump courts black voters in Detroit, but a new poll shows many black voters aren't sold on him or Biden. The rules for next week's CNN debate are set, and more details trickle out about Trump's vp search. With just a month to go. But first.

Love it. Welcome back.

Jon Lovett
Great to be back.

Jon Favreau
Your first full show.

Jon Lovett
Yeah.

Jon Favreau
This is it. Now that you've prepared and read the news.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, my takes are. My takes have been in the cask, developing their flavors, pulling that sort of oaky vibe so that you can look forward to that.

Jon Favreau
Wow. Exciting. So we gave you a quiz about the news last week, then you got the rest of the week off. It's really a nice. Just easing back into it here.

Jon Lovett
Yeah. Like a warm tub.

Jon Favreau
We do have a second assignment for you.

Jon Lovett
Oh.

Jon Favreau
Democracy or else. This book, it's out a week from today.

Jon Lovett
A week from today?

Jon Favreau
A week from today. As a reminder, this is a book that you wrote.

Jon Lovett
Yeah.

Jon Favreau
With. Co wrote with me and Tommy.

Jon Lovett
And Josh. And Josh, yeah. Yeah.

Jon Favreau
Is that ringing any bells?

Jon Lovett
No. It is. It's right here.

And you wanna do a pitch? Yeah, I'll show a pitch. Listen, all right, we worked really hard on this book, and yes, all the profits from this book go to vote. Save America. And organizing on the ground to help protect our democracy. Even if it weren't going to a good cause, you would really like this book. It is actually funny. Like, I feel like there's a lot of people who are really funny and cynical about politics, and there's a lot of really earnest doofs out there, you know, crossing the Delaware and every goddamn tweet. But we worked really hard to try to make something that was helpful, useful, entertaining, funny, hopeful, without being, like, kind of saccharine, you know, like, a lot of the. Like, a lot of the content out there. And it's illustrated, you know, so you can just flip through it.

Like, what we all do with the New Yorker. We know there are articles in there, but whatever.

Jon Favreau
I was gonna say, this is 160 mostly funny pages. This is 171 pages, plus illustrations, plus illustration. And the. And the font type is pretty large.

Jon Lovett
And I feel like when we're all gonna be paying attention to the news in a way that can suck the soul right out of your body. Like, this is a really fun way to remember why you cared about politics in the first place.

How about that?

Jon Favreau
You're supposed to ask Tommy what his favorite part about writing the book with you is.

Jon Lovett
Oh, and Tommy, what's your favorite part about writing the book with me?

Tommy Vietor
Every minute.

Jon Favreau
I think the end of the end, when it was over.

Tommy Vietor
Here's the thing I think people like about this book.

Everyone has their own unique amount of politics they can stomach or that they want. You might just be looking to get better informed. You might be trying to figure out how to vote. You might be trying to figure out how to give donations more efficiently, or maybe you want to run for office yourself. We got you covered step by step in this book. There's a chapter for you, so read it, and you will laugh along the way, and you'll learn something.

Jon Favreau
Also, there's some embarrassing stories about us, and there's really smart advice from people who are a lot smarter than us.

Jon Lovett
And I'll just say one more thing. If you're listening to this, and you've been listening to us for a long time, just do us a goddamn favor and buy the book.

We've been doing this podcast. We'll give you a refund for every episode. Oh, that's right. It's free.

Tommy Vietor
We were losing to Christy Nome and Bill Maher at one point on the rankings because if we get, we can't.

Jon Lovett
Let that happen because we want to get this on the New York Times bestseller list because that's how the book gets into other bookstores and in front of a lot, lot of people that might not otherwise come across it. So.

Jon Favreau
And that's how democracy is saved ultimately.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, it's saved at the democracy or else. The airport Hudson goddamn news.

Jon Favreau
It's democracy or else. And right now, else is ahead.

Tommy Vietor
So else is pretty good.

Jon Favreau
Crooked.com books.

Check it out wherever you like to buy books, and you can pre order it right now. All right, enough of that. Let's get to the actual news. We have spent a lot of time on this show pontificating about how hard the Biden campaign would go at Trump's conviction or whether they'd really do it at all. Monday morning, we got a pretty clear answer. Campaign announced that they're putting $50 million behind a new ad buy that features this new spot called character matters. Let's listen.

In the courtroom.

Narrator
We see Donald Trump for who he is. He's been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, and he committed financial fraud. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's been working, lowering health care costs and making big corporations pay their fair share. This election is between a convicted criminal who's only out for himself and a president who's fighting for your family.

Jon Favreau
I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Spicy.

Jon Lovett
A lot of bass, too. I didn't hear as much bass when I watched it at home.

Jon Favreau
There's also Trump's mugshot in there, which I know that the Trump campaign likes and the Biden campaign likes. Everyone likes that mug shot.

Jon Lovett
I like that. The voice, that there's a deep, kind of, like, barren Harkonnen voice doing the thing.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, that's a movie trailer guy.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, that's cool.

Jon Favreau
Sounds like Tommy. What'd you think of the ad?

Tommy Vietor
I mean, I liked it because I think it not only mentions the 34 convictions, but also they draw in the Eugene Carroll case. They draw in the financial fraud issues. And so the ad, in its totality perfectly dovetails with Biden's message that this is a guy who's in it for himself. Joe Biden is working for you. What is missing from this spot is a Joe Biden second term agenda. Uh, but you can't get everything into a 32nd ad. So it's, you know, that'll come later. You know, you're right that they're going to spend real money. I don't know if it's necessarily on this ad, but in June, they say $50 million. Uh, that's a good thing. But the Biden campaign has spent 53 million so far this year. It hasn't really moved the needle yet. So that's kind of the other side of that coin. So we, we got to see these numbers move a bit.

Jon Favreau
Love it.

Jon Lovett
I like, I like that a lot. I also, it just all speaks to, I think, the challenge they're trying to address, which is they know they, they need to make salient for people the threat that Trump poses. Remind people who Trump is, but also they have this catch 22, which is, there's a lot of concerns about Joe Biden's age, especially among people who don't know what Joe Biden achieved. If you don't know what Biden achieved, you might think it was because he is too old. And so they are trying to, I think, show through a contrast not just who Donald Trump is, but trying to get it slowly kind of seed in people's minds that, that an affirmative case for Joe Biden is one people will get behind.

Jon Favreau
They're also solving the issue of, do you talk about his accomplishments, or do you talk about his second term agenda with the gerund, which you'll probably hear a lot more of. You know, it's, he's, he's helping lower health care costs, which he did do over the last four years, but also wants to do more of. And he's making corporations pay their fair share, which, of course, is his entire tax agenda, some of which he has been able to enact, but a lot of he hasn't.

Jon Lovett
We all know the power of the gerund. When you're in your house and you know you're going to be late to meet a friend, you're coming.

Jon Favreau
You're coming. There you go. I would bet that this ad tested very well, particularly because it is, it is a contrast ad. And just for people who don't know, they've been testing all these ads and, you know, all these democratic groups, progressive groups, and it turns out, like, there's the positive ad about Biden there's a negative ad about Trump, and then there's the type of ad that contrasts Biden and Trump. And those ads always do the best. So you don't want just the positive, you don't want just the negative. You want a little bit of both. And that's what this does. And it's great that they broadened it out from just, hey, he's a convicted felon, and that's all there is to talk about. He's in it for himself, and Joe Biden's in it for you. And here's why. You know, so I thought it was a really good ad. It's definitely an evolution from earlier messages from the Biden campaign about how the only way to keep Trump out of office is at the ballot box, which I think was one of their first reactions to Trump being on trial. How do you guys think they got from there to this ad?

Jon Lovett
Yeah, well, so I feel like there's two pieces to it. One is just they, especially early on, need to remind the kind of people that will be donating, volunteering, paying attention, that they can't rely on the justice system, that actually we need to make sure that everyone's doing everything they can to defeat Trump in the election. But also, I do think they are grappling with the challenge of, yes, a big part of the case against Donald Trump are his character flaws, his racism, his xenophobia, his lack of discipline, all the things that Americans hate about Donald Trump, the chaos and the noise and all the rest, while at the same time knowing that a critical part of the electorate that they need to reach are people that have already decided they can't stand Donald Trump, but are cynical about politics and dissatisfied with both options. And I think in this ad, you see them kind of finding their way to a message that tries to think about both.

Jon Favreau
Yeah.

So it's been a little more than two weeks since the conviction, which is usually how long it takes for big news events to permeate the electorate and start showing up in the polling numbers. What are you guys takeaways from the latest polling? Tommy?

Tommy Vietor
So the most important finding I think I've seen was from a recent Politico poll that found 21% of independents. Both said the conviction was an important factor in their vote and it made them less likely to support Trump. So with people who are persuadable voters, they care 20%, about a fifth of them basically care a lot about the fact that he was found guilty and are turned off by that fact. Overall, it's a little more of a mixed bag. You've got a third of respondents saying it won't have any impact on their vote. A third say it will make them less likely to support Trump. 17% said it will make and more likely to support Trump. So there definitely some, some magotypes who are energized by this, but there's hope there that this could help move persuadable voters. However, it's clear also that Trump's message has resonated where he calls it rigged. Because you've got 43% of voters saying the rationale for the case itself was to help Biden. It's not a majority, but there's enough people out there who think, you know, this is law, fair, this is just, you know, Trump's critics going after him through the courts.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, love it.

Jon Lovett
Yeah. No, I thought the same thing. And I also like, in looking through the polls, I kind of put a lot of numbers together and I kind of, like, you kind of just have. It's for me, anyway, I'm just like, throwing away the kind of republican side and democratic side of the poll because it's like, what does it mean to say to a Democrat who's fucking fully anti Trump in their bones is less likely to vote for Trump or nothing?

Jon Favreau
I think about that all the time. If I took a poll and someone said, does the conviction make you less likely to vote for Donald Trump? I would say, no, no, I'm 100%. I was never going to vote for him, ever.

Jon Lovett
Right.

Jon Favreau
Which I'm sure is what the bulk of Republicans and are saying both on opposite sides.

Jon Lovett
Right. They don't even know what they're. I feel like it's a question that it's, like, philosophically has no answer. And so I think some Democrats are trying to be good polling respondents and being like, I'm even less likely than I was before, even though I fucking donated to Pete Buttigieg.

But I do think, yes.

Jon Favreau
Buttigieg catching strays.

Jon Lovett
No, no, no. That's a pro Buttigieg point. That's not ante. But I just got to keep an eye. Cause I know I made my mistakes.

Tommy Vietor
But who's got a list?

Jon Lovett
But, yeah, your next k hive. Even 44% of independents thought the case was brought to help Joe Biden. And also, by the way, even though, like, I, like almost, like almost every person has heard about this trial, still a third of independents. So they don't understand the case well. So I do think, yes. Like, the Trump noise has really mattered.

Jon Favreau
So two polls recently came out about this blueprint polling, 94% of voters have heard. I think that is public.

Tommy Vietor
That surprised me.

Jon Favreau
That surprised me, too. Now it is a touch lower with the groups that are probably gonna be the swing groups in this election who are not paying as, well, much attention, who Biden's struggling with. So only 89% of independents, 85% of 2020 non voters, 84% of latino voters, and 89% of younger voters. Still a lot of people, but, like, slightly less on those groups. Yeah.

Jon Lovett
It's also like, I've heard of Bridgerton and I just know they're hot and have sex.

So really, am I informed? You know what I'm saying?

Tommy Vietor
There's also some reporting that gets done there. News gathering.

Jon Favreau
News gathering in Bridgerton? In Bridgerton.

Jon Lovett
They do news gathering.

Tommy Vietor
Yeah. Lady whistledown.

Jon Lovett
Wow.

Jon Favreau
Fascinating.

Tommy Vietor
I'm getting some nods from the couch. Thank you.

Jon Lovett
Great.

Jon Favreau
Thank you. The groups that were overperforming on less likely to vote for Trump. So more than the overall number of 29% in the blueprint poll. 2020 non voters, which, again, is the ones that Biden was struggling with. Young voters, black voters. 51% of black voters in that poll said less likely, and 39% of latino voters. Blueprint also did something interesting, which is they juxtaposed two statements and said, which is a more persuasive reason to vote against Donald Trump? He tried to repeal the Affordable Care act and wants to again, or he's a convicted felon and doesn't have the character. I would have, if you had had me guess on that question, I would have said that the ACA would have.

Tommy Vietor
Me, too.

Jon Favreau
Would've won out big time. And with some voters, it did. But independents were split on that. Non voters, ACA, ACA, black voters, conviction by a big margin. And Latinos were split as well, which I thought was kind of interesting.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, it does go to the conversation we were just having, too, about, like, how do you talk about this when some of the most important people you need to reach have already kind of decided that they find Donald Trump personally abhorrent but are much more worried about the actual policy stakes?

Jon Favreau
Yeah.

Tommy Vietor
So the big lesson is that I think we live in a world where we assume that just hearing about this verdict automatically tells you that this is disqualifying for a person to be president of the United States. And that's just not how this information is being received by a lot of the electorate. Like, you really have to message what this means, what it says about Donald Trump, his character. It doesn't have to be some super complicated, sophisticated messaging, but Donald Trump is going to just say, this was rigged, I was set up. It's all political, it's not real. They're fighting for, you know, they're going after me because I'm fighting for you, that kind of stuff. And we have to counteract that.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. And look, and I don't, I don't necessarily know if his message is, that message is working, that it's rigged, but clearly what you're hearing from some voters is like, yeah, he's a convicted felon and he sucks, but I already knew he sucked. And if I have a problem, it's because, like, you know, cost of living or this or that or whatever, immigration, whatever. The reason you're not for Joe Biden is. And we haven't talked about the polling overall, but, you know, Biden gained a few points in the polls following the conviction. I think right now, as we're recording this, it's pretty close to where it was before the conviction. Maybe Biden's still like a half a point up in Seltzer, best pollster in the country, a plus rated poll out of Iowa. Trump's winning Iowa 50% to 32%. He's got an 18 point lead over Joe Biden in Iowa. Just for reference, Trump won Iowa by eight points.

Tommy Vietor
That would be bad.

Jon Favreau
Eight points in 2020. So a ten point swing in Iowa makes you worried about Wisconsin, which has a very similar electorate, other midwestern states, Michigan to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania to a lesser extent. But that's a. Yikes.

Tommy Vietor
That's a not good.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, because that poll is usually fairly accurate. So. And again, it's, Trump is at 50, sort of close to where he got what his number was. And Biden, as in all these polls, his number is the one that is much, much lower because you have a bunch of people either who are Biden voters saying, I'm going to vote third party or I'm not going to vote at all, or I'm unsure.

Jon Lovett
Yeah. And by the way, like, all of this, like, the fact that when a former president is convicted of multiple felonies, there's an entire media apparatus and a ton of republican politicians who go on television and just shrug it off like those shrugs matter, right? It becomes then just a part of the political process, a part of the debate, and this is now something completely and totally unacceptable just becomes another piece of sort of partisan back and forth. And for somebody who's not paying attention that much and not thinking about politics every day, I think it's, like, not hard for that to be internalized. I mean, you don't. Some of the most engaged reporters in the world have internalized it, so it's not hard to imagine people that aren't consuming this all the time are like, well, you know, nothing is fucking changing. Trump was unacceptable yesterday. He's just as unacceptable today.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. It's also the difference between something being done to Trump and Trump doing something that could hurt actual voters. Right. And so they can see the conviction as something that has happened to him, something that he did bad, but not necessarily as something that he is doing to someone. Which is why I think that Biden had made the turn to like, he's only in it for himself.

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Did he ask for a torch too?

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Get 20% off your first order right now@tommyjohn.com. crooked save 20% on second skin@tommyjohn.com cricket tommyjohn.com crookedseasight for details so some evidence that the conviction may hurt Trump with certain groups of voters, including black voters. But Biden's weakness there is still one of his biggest challenges, and the Trump campaign is doing everything they can to exploit that. On Saturday, Trump visited a black church in Detroit and then spoke at the Turning Points USA conference. The audience at the church appeared to be largely white people, and TpUSA is known for its ties to white supremacists. So that's, that's a big to be sure clause that I just threw in there. But Trump has never been a fan of consistency or discipline, as you can tell from some of his remarks at these events.

Jon Lovett
We don't need votes. We got more votes than anybody's ever had. I think he should take a cognitive test like I did. I took a cognitive test and I aced it. Doc, Ronnie, Doc, Ronnie Johnson.

Does everyone know Ronnie Johnson, congressman from Texas. And the people coming over the border, all those millions of people, they're inflicting tremendous harm to our black population and to our hispanic population.

Jon Favreau
Love it. What do you make of the Trump campaign's emphasis on black and latino outreach this time around? We've talked about this a lot in the last couple of weeks. This is, this is your first go at it.

Tommy Vietor
We should note, though, that Trump got the name of the doctor wrong when he was demanding that Joe Biden take a cognitive test and then talk about how he is. It's Ronnie Jackson.

Jon Favreau
It is.

I'm glad you pointed that out. Just for listeners who weren't sure who Ronnie Jackson is. Yeah, that's, you're not wrong to accuse someone of cognitive decline. You want to get the doctor's name right.

Jon Lovett
Yeah. Look, I think Trump is, Trump and the Trump campaign are exaggerating their support because they know it's in their interest to kind of make the case that they're doing well amongst younger, not just black voters, younger. They're younger white men, younger black men, younger hispanic men.

Jon Favreau
Right.

Jon Lovett
Because that's a big part of, like, they don't need to, they don't need to do what they claim they're doing. They just need to do better than they did in 2020 for Donald Trump to win. And they also, by the way, like, they're just putting him out there, right? Like he's just going to places that Joe Biden isn't going.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, they're getting the headlines.

Jon Lovett
Yeah. And so they're getting these stories and they know that it is obviously, like, great fodder for the political media to be talking about this issue. And by the way, there is real weakness in the polls that justifies this debate and this conversation. So I think that that's what's going on here.

Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I think Trump's not necessarily doing better with black voters. I think Joe Biden is not doing as well as he needs to be is really the story here. Trump is making inroads with younger men. And I think that's because of a deliberate, smart, concerted strategy that involves a lot of different things. There's kind of like the mma angle. There's a crypto policy angle. We can talk about that more later. But I think if you talk to the Biden campaign, they will tell you that they are essentially maxed out in their support with white voters. But they have a lot of work to do to persuade voters of color, especially black and latino men. And this is, it's good that they know this. It's a big change from a lot of recent elections where Democrats have often been criticized for not communicating with voters of color until the very end of a campaign and then just doing so with a get out the vote message. Now they have to focus on persuasion and they have to do it early. And that's good. You know, it's good that they figured that out now and that they're course correcting early. But it's still a challenge to win back these voters because they're frustrated by the same things everybody else is. The economy, inflation.

They're concerned about President Biden's age, et cetera. And he's got to win their support.

Jon Favreau
And I think some Democrats might ask, like, well, but don't they understand how fucking racist Donald Trump is? Right?

He went to turning points USA, this conference in Detroit where white supremacist Nick Fuentes was turned away. He showed up with his supporters and they finally, they've let him in in the past. They finally got smart and decided to turn him away. But, you know, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Points USA and introduced Donald Trump in Arizona just last week. You know, he said he thinks twice about flying with black pilots. He said the civil Rights act was a huge mistake. And then Martin Luther King Junior was awful. This is like the big organizing group for the Trump campaign. So, you know, there's that. But, like, I do think that.

And, you know, Tommy and I have both talked to Terrence Woodbury, who's done a lot of focus groups with black voters. I did for the wilderness. You did for pod, save America. And he'll say that you know, a lot of black voters are like, yeah, of course he's racist. We know that he's racist. We're not. Like, but, like, right now, our lives haven't changed that much over the last four years and we're still worried about high cost of living. And so maybe they're not backing Trump, but they don't know that they want to back Joe Biden. And so it really is incumbent upon Joe Biden and the campaign and they know this and democrats to not just be like, oh, don't you know that Trump is racist? But to be more like, actually, this is what Joe Biden has done and this is the work he's going to do.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the polls, there's not some ideological shift going on.

Donald Trump remains incredibly unpopular among black voters, but Barack Obama remains incredibly popular amongst black voters. The argument that Trump's making that somehow, because that somehow he considers himself a victim of the justice system, that somehow that's going to create groundwell of support just as unpopular as Donald Trump is. So it is pretty clear. And it's like, I feel like what we've been talking about this whole episode, like, there are just a lot of people who need to be persuaded not just to vote against Donald Trump, but to vote for Joe Biden.

Tommy Vietor
Also, it's just worth noting that Trump's message in Detroit was demagoguing immigrants. He said, you know, they're coming across the border, all these millions of people. They're inflicting tremendous harm to our black population, to our hispanic population. So he's using this device of anti immigrant rhetoric to try to appeal to both black and hispanic voters. It's also worth noting that behind the scenes, Trump and his allies are doing everything they can to make it harder for voters of color to actually vote, to register to vote, to turn out an election day.

They're trying to shrink the number of days you can vote. They're trying to get rid of vote by mail in some states. And so they're definitely doing a public messaging effort at the front by going to certain venues and I guess apparently saying TpUSA is african american outreach event. But the truth is they're actually trying to suppress voters of color, primarily.

Jon Favreau
But your point, Tommy, about the anti immigrant message? First of all, there's a long history of republican politicians doing that and trying to drive a wedge between black and latino communities, usually with immigration, by saying immigrants are coming to take your jobs. It's also now there is some evidence that it's working with latino voters who, if you look at polls of latino and black voters, their views on immigration are broadly in line with a lot of white voters, certainly not republican white voters, but white voters overall. We saw this with support for Biden's border move, which there was no difference between racial groups when they pulled that. And so Trump knows what he's doing. But I also think he's the Trump campaign. I don't think they believe that Trump is gonna get 20% of the black vote this time, as some of the polls show. But I do think that they are doing this to encourage and fuel cynicism among black and latino voters who may have voted for Joe Biden in the past or may be undecided now. And either they want them to go third party or they want them to stay home, because that's still a win for them. Right. It's not as good as voting for Donald Trump, but that's why you also heard Trump in these events. He started hitting Biden for his crime bill back in the early nineties. He brought back super predator. Right. Like, part of this is just, you talked about actual, like, legal voter suppression efforts, but part of this is just don't bother. You know, neither of these two guys are good.

Might as well just stay home.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, I feel like there's two parts. I feel like that is the argument that is just purely just kind of, like, muddy the waters, create noise out there. But then I think basically for a broad set of voters that they view as kind of, like, less likely voters, generally, not just of all races, of all age, independence, like there is this immigration, the border, it all becomes a kind of strong versus weak argument. Crime, all of this for less ideological, less engaged voters that Joe Biden's age, that inflation and costs, the chaos at the border, all of that is a collection of things that prove a kind of weakness. And Trump, through, you know, they have a lot of amnesia about what happened. There's a collective amnesia about what Trump was like. But that Trump, for all of his sins and for all of his failures and for all of his vices, was tough, was strong. And I think that's like, kind of a big part of what he's doing when he does these events. He says the word strength 50 times when he speaks in front of these audiences. And I think that's like a big part of it for him.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. Yeah. And those. And look, USA Today's Suffolk polls, which it's great that a pollster did polls of just black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania, because then we've been talking about these tiny subsamples and larger polls, which aren't really. So the fact that they did this is helpful. And, you know, Trump did gain in these polls a few percentage points with black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania. But the majority of Biden's steep decline, which, you know, it was 76%, said they voted for Biden in 2020. And of those voters in the poll who said that it's now only 56% are supporting him in Pennsylvania and 54% in Michigan.

Tommy Vietor
He's done 20 points in both states.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. So that is not great. And again, these same voters, because it's. Are they. Did they suddenly become conservative? No. Obama's approval rating in those states among black voters they polled is 88% and 84% in Michigan and Pennsylvania. So a lot of work to do on that one. We got ourselves a debate next week, guys.

Kudos. If you could hear that sentence without getting a pit in your stomach.

Jon Lovett
I truly still can't believe it. It is fucking June.

Tommy Vietor
It is. Is it really gonna happen? I guess it is.

Jon Favreau
I think. I mean, it seems like this is really happening. CNN, which is hosted in the debate, just reported that the rules have been finalized. Agreed to. This is what the rules are, that both camps have agreed to 90 minutes debate with two commercial breaks. No talking to advisors during the breaks, no props, no notes written in advance. The podium position are designated by a coin flip, who goes on what side. No studio audience to play off of, and mics automatically mute it except during a candidate's allotted time to speak. It also looks like RFK Junior will not make this round. CNN says he's only at the required polling threshold in three national polls instead of the required four. And he's definitely not yet on enough state ballots to be able to actually win the presidency, which you need to do to be able to make this debate. So do any of these rules, do you think they should change the way Joe Biden prepares for this debate?

Tommy Vietor
Do you think you can, like, do hand signals like a third base coach?

Jon Favreau
Ooh, yeah. Or maybe like, go to the bathroom ahead of time and, like, leave a.

Tommy Vietor
Little no urinal and put it under the toilet seat?

Jon Lovett
Remember when that chess player was accused of having messages sent via Morse code through some sort of anal device? Yeah, I'm just.

Tommy Vietor
I'm not. Was that true? Was that false?

No.

Jon Lovett
Whether it's true or false, it's a great idea.

Tommy Vietor
Yeah, we did. Well, George Bush was accused of having, like, a battery pack on his back and getting.

Jon Lovett
We never explained that shirt, that jacket. We never got to the bottom that was going on back there.

Tommy Vietor
You got a truth there.

Jon Favreau
I mean, what was on that jacket? If Joe Biden is judged the winner of this debate, doesn't matter about these rules. I mean, the conspiracies will be just everywhere.

Tommy Vietor
Yeah, rules. Here's my question on the rules. So whether or not the mics are muted, I'm just imagining. I mean, I wonder how far away they are from each other, because you have to imagine Donald Trump is going to be just shouting whatever it is he shouts through the duration of Joe Biden's point. And it's going to be incumbent on Biden to not let that rattle him and not interrupt himself, which he likes to do a lot. Joe Biden often interrupts himself to take.

Jon Favreau
The, take the earpiece out.

Jon Lovett
Right. Yeah, there's, there's that. Honestly, I also thought, too, about, like, you know, there's not going to be an audience, but are a bunch of Trump staffers going to still try to applaud and pull shit like that?

Jon Favreau
Oh, I don't think they'll let. I think they're going to be pretty.

Jon Lovett
I hope so. I hope just, I'm just, I look, my, my look. The last time these men debated Trump, literally tried to kill him with COVID I'm at the point where I'm like, will they release a fucking sack of minks in there? Like, I don't know what's gonna happen.

Tommy Vietor
Who will enforce the rules, is the question.

Jon Favreau
Honestly, I have more faith in Jake Pepper and Dana Bash and CNN than I do the fucking commission on Presidential Debates that both campaigns had fuck off to once and for all.

Tommy Vietor
Jake and Dan have, like, a ruler slapping hands left and right, setting up.

Jon Lovett
Jim Lehrer's bones and just letting these people yell at each other for 2 hours.

This is better.

Jon Favreau
I think the big thing that the, I think that the biggest, I mean, the no mics or the mics muted is a big deal. I kind of think the audience is an even bigger deal. No audience. Because there's always an audience where they're like, we've told everyone not to applaud, whatever, and then never works. Right. So you just gotta get them out of there completely. But with no audience, it makes the debate zinger, like, a lot less important, because when you deliver the zinger and no one is laughing and no one is ooing or ah, or applauding, like, it doesn't really make the zinger that important at all.

Jon Lovett
Love to leave it every week.

Tommy Vietor
There's a reason sitcoms have laugh tracks, right?

Jon Favreau
That's right. And, like, neither of these guys is. Both of these guys need crowds to react to, like, any attempts at humor. And so I do think that that's, you know, you gotta put the zingers away at a time like this.

Jon Lovett
Yes, I do think on the other side, I do. Like, I remember the debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney. And it was this very staid and collegial affair that I think ultimately benefited the Republicans because we were trying to paint them as dangerous and extreme in all the ways that they were at the time, back when that was the worst they could do. And I do worry, too, that not having it.

We have seen multiple kinds of. The Donald Trump that the campaign wants is the Donald Trump that was in Iowa, kind of controlled, talking about being a husband and father, being very kind of generous. The Donald Trump that Donald Trump wants to be is the guy in New Hampshire, the, like, ranting and raving, going after all of his enemies. And I do worry about, like, there is a kind of unintended consequence of having this kind of a debate where if he, if he can kind of keep himself together, he ends up seeming like the kind of Donald Trump his campaign wants him to be. I do worry about that, for sure.

Jon Favreau
I mean, if I was, if I was preparing Donald Trump, which, you know, allegedly, the Trump campaign's like, we're not preparing anything. He's, he doesn't need preparation. He's just ready to go. But if I was preparing Donald Trump, I would say, like, everyone is expecting you to lose it, to go after Joe Biden, to talk about Hunter, to do all the shit that Trump does at the rallies, do your whole rally performance, right? And if you just go there and talk about how inflation is bad, people are struggling, Joe Biden has failed as president. He's too weak to lead. And then just stick to that message and don't sound too crazy like you're going to win this debate. That's how I prepared Donald Trump. And maybe Donald Trump could do that for the first five minutes.

But I think that, how long can he do that with no notes prepared, no one whispering in his ear, nothing like that. Like that. And for Joe Biden, then I think the prep is you've gotta, you wanna speak directly to the american people and talk to people and not get into, like, a, you know, fistfight with Donald Trump, but you wanna also get under Trump's skin. Like, he's gotta say, he's gotta have a few lines that they know will really trigger Trump. And then reveal the Trump that we all know and despise.

Tommy Vietor
You gotta bring out the Twitter feed. We can't have the guy up there who is smart and is endorsing Larry Hogan in the Maryland Senate race, even though Hogan said, you know, we should respect the jury verdict in the New York Kushmoney case. The other thing that worries me for Biden in this is there's all these reports. Look, it's very hard to be critical of your boss no matter what, when your boss is the president of the United States. There's lots of reporting that it's even harder for the Biden team to bring up issues with his family, in particular Hunter's recent legal challenges. I have to imagine that Donald Trump is going to bring this up in some way that it might be hard to predict, and Biden needs to be, he has to respond in a way that is calculated and on his terms. Now, that can be angry, but you can't just flip out or scream or let it get in your head. Like, it's got to be really well thought through and you need to practice that.

Jon Favreau
Did you hear Trump last week say, they asked him about Hunter and he said, it's a real sad thing for a father. That's all he said. And I'm, again, I'm sure they like if they are smart, if Trump is smart, that's the kind of answer he'll give, which would shock everyone and not play to type. Will he be able to? If he feels like he's losing the debate right, then all bets are off and he's going to be the Trump. He's going to be the Trump we expect him to be. But I think for Biden also, it's like, smile, look alert, like, like, overdo it, because, you know, everyone's gonna be looking for a moment where you're staring off into space or you're looking down and your tights are like, super alert the whole time. I do think he should address Trump when he's attacking Trump, he should address the cameras otherwise. And again, I think you want Donald Trump to try to complain when the mic is muted, because then he'll just sound like you'll just hear, like, little bits. It might be distracting to Biden, but for the audience, if they just hear this other guy going, I just hope you'll hear it.

Tommy Vietor
Cause it's a mic, like 10ft away that's designed to pick up the person right here. So might just be heard by Biden and not at home.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Favreau
I don't know. I don't know.

Tommy Vietor
The other thing that Biden needs to do is just, he does this thing where he often starts a sentence and then he cuts himself off.

Jon Favreau
I don't want to get started. Don't get me started. He says.

Tommy Vietor
Get started doing that. Start and then finish.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. And the biggest problem, and this was Obama's problem in the first debate with Romney, is do not be defensive about your record. This is not a debate where you are finally going to litigate all of your accomplishments and make sure that everyone knows. Of course, he should talk about what he's done that people might not realize and how it's actually affected people. Hopefully not with, like, we did a billion dollars here and $15 billion here. Like, talk about the number of people you've helped, a number of student loans, you've relieved the number, like, the bridges you're building, whatever it may be, talk about it that way. But, like, when Trump challenges you or Jake and Dana challenge you on this, like, do not be defensive about the record. That is the, I think that's the one of the bigger challenges.

Tommy Vietor
Or make sure it's very likely that Trump will spend a lot of time attacking CNN, attacking Jake Tapper, attacking Dana bash, attacking the media generally. Joe Biden just can't be the guy who does that, too. And there's a lot of media criticism that comes out of people like us and the White House. And I hope that it doesn't come out of Joe Biden's mouth, particularly about.

Jon Favreau
Like, the polls are just, polls are just wrong. Have you ever taken a poll lately? It's too hard. They're landlines only. We need any of the poll stuff. Leave that to Trump. Will do. Trump will do plenty of that if he needs to, I'm sure.

Jon Lovett
I like, like, we just, we just talked about an ad that we think we really like. And I just, like, this is an opportunity to deliver the message of that ad while you were in court. Here's what we were doing and here's what we'll keep doing.

Jon Favreau
And by the way, that will have the effect of getting under Trump's skin. And, like, Joe Biden can do it very matter of factly, you know. Yeah. You were in court. I know you were dealing with the law. Well, I was, I was out there trying to, again, I hope it's economic stuff and not like I was in Ukraine. I was in Europe with the g seven. We don't need that apologies, Tommy.

Tommy Vietor
Right. I'm sitting right here. He's energizing the quad.

He was facilitating an aukus agreement led to submarine technology going all the way to Australia.

Jon Favreau
This is it. This is. They're Lena, let Tommy into bay prep.

Jon Lovett
Oh.

Tommy Vietor
The Indo Pacific has no seat at this table.

Jon Favreau
Pivot to Asia Pacific.

Jon Lovett
Pacific Rim.

Tommy Vietor
That's a movie.

Jon Lovett
Do they still wear the shirts?

Tommy Vietor
Which who?

Jon Lovett
When they go to.

Tommy Vietor
The silly.

Jon Favreau
The silly asean.

Jon Lovett
The asean shirts.

Tommy Vietor
They do that really funny leaders photo where they all dress.

Jon Lovett
I like when the leaders have to dress up.

Jon Favreau
Globalists. All right, one thing before we go to break. Love it.

Jon Lovett
Some people think he means jews when he says that.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, I knew that was coming.

Jon Lovett
Yes.

Jon Favreau
One thing before we go to break. Love it.

Jon Lovett
Hey, it's so good to be back.

I love that there are toilets here and people have to laugh at my jokes cause they work here and I'm hitting the road. Love it or leave it is going to north Carolina. Starting tomorrow through Friday, we'll be in Charlotte and Asheville. We have some amazing shows lined up with Tressi McMillan, Condom, Sidney, Washington, TS, Madison, Congressman Jeff Jackson and a lot of other amazing guests. And then John, Tommy and I, we're doing our book tour. The book's coming out. And we have book events in New York next Tuesday, June 25. That's the night before our Brooklyn show. And in Boston next Thursday on June 27. And they're early, so you'll be home in time to watch the debate and hope your eyeballs don't fall out of your head and your hands.

Jon Favreau
Or hope that they do.

Tommy Vietor
Maybe do that part beforehand.

Jon Lovett
Get your tickets, please come see us@crooked.com. events.

Jon Favreau
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Tommy Vietor
Ben Rhodes used Rocket money. I think most of the hosts of this network have used it. If you want to reduce your payload, John, you can achieve liftoff.

Jon Favreau
Oh, no.

Tommy Vietor
With rocket money.

Jon Favreau
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Tommy Vietor
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Jon Favreau
That one sent me into orbit.

Tommy Vietor
Thank you.

Jon Favreau
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Jon Lovett
This show is sponsored by Betterhelp. 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.

Tommy Vietor
That's right.

Jon Lovett
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.

Tommy Vietor
Right. Yeah, sure.

Jon Lovett
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Jon Favreau
Okay, before we go, we are treating ourselves to a little vlog. Deep stakes speculation since Trump's decision is rapidly approaching. And there's been some new reporting about who he might pick. Reminder, Trump has said multiple times he'll announce his vp at the convention instead of in the weeks before. And that's now just a month away from the republican convention. The campaign has sent vetting paperwork to eight people, according to Politico. But really, it's down to the top tier is three. But of all the possible contenders, a couple were out on the Sunday shows yesterday.

Here's an idea of what you missed, because this guy is tireless. He's committed. He's smart, he's funny. He's nothing like he's portrayed in the press. And so if you asked me that same question today, I'd be like, absolutely, I would do business with him. Because, I mean, think about how successful you've been, whether it's a, whatever it is. Look, I think that I would have an ability to step in. I'm actually pretty intelligent. I can sift through issues really, really well. It's about judgment. It's about logic streams. It's about how you make decisions at the end of the day. Under Joe Biden, we've seen the movement to defund the police, leaving communities like the one I grew up in, devastated and ravaged by a wave of violent crime that we have not seen, literally, in five decades. Actually, senator, as I, as you probably.

Tommy Vietor
Know, the latest stats on violent crime and on the murder rate, they're actually down this past year.

Jon Favreau
So not quite literally. That was first Doug Bergamot, and then it was Byron Donalds, congressman from Florida, talking about, talking about how he can sift through information and logic streams. And then, and then the last one was Tim Scott just lying about violent crime. Insiders are saying that of those three, only Bergam is on the real shortlist. Which apparently is just him, JD Vance and Marco Rubio. The anonymous Trump allies quoted in the pieces about this, warn, as usual, that Trump could always change his mind or just throw a curveball. But they're also not waving off the idea that for now, it's these three finalists. All right, giving you guys a chance to revise your lists or keep them the same. Who do you think is at the top of the campaigns list? Who do you think is at the top of Trump's list? And who are your dark horses? If you have dark horses, can I.

Tommy Vietor
Tell you my favorite quote from all the reporting on this, which was in the bulwark, I believe, where Trump was bemoaning that his candidates weren't hot enough. He said, where's my Cary Grant?

Jon Favreau
Yeah, but he.

Jon Lovett
And listen here. You don't want to fuck your vice president.

Tommy Vietor
He's not swiping right yet.

Jon Lovett
You don't know the right guy. That's how it works. You got to really want to get in there.

He's kissed Joe Arpaio, but he knows he can do better.

Jon Favreau
What was your question?

Jon Lovett
It is pride.

Jon Favreau
Your list. What do you think the campaign wants him to do? What do you think Trump, deep down in his dark soul, wants to do? And then are there any dark horses that are not these top three that we're missing?

Tommy Vietor
I mean, it does seem like the hardcore maga culture warriors all want JD vance. I treated myself to a couple right wing podcasts this morning. As one does.

They love JD Vance. They love that he fights their culture wars. They're worried that he's very young. He's 39. That hurts. That cuts.

Jon Favreau
I saw that. I was like 30. He's 39.

Tommy Vietor
It hurts.

Jon Lovett
First you're older than the baseball players, then you're older than the vice presidents, then you're older than the senators, and you're dead.

Jon Favreau
He's been.

Remember when Barack Obama got shit? Because he was like, in his late forties and he was a us senator? JD Vance is been there. He just got elected. He's 39 years old.

Tommy Vietor
Two years in. Yeah, I mean, Elise Stefanik is 39 as well. So he's got a. There's a couple of youngins on this list. But you know, like, you know JD. Will he get it? I mean, he is. He is your slash and burn. Put him on Fox News. Go hard at your opponents every day. Probably naga.

Jon Favreau
Did you guys read the long JD Vance interview with Ross Doothat in the New York Times?

Jon Lovett
Oh, no, sorry. I haven't had the.

Tommy Vietor
Save me for the plane.

Jon Favreau
I will say he really is the smarter Trump. He's scary and he still sounds very, everyone's pulling out the January 6 stuff and try to steal the election stuff, and he sounds very bullshitty on both of those topics. But he actually makes Trumpism sound more reasonable than I have seen it in print or heard of it. And it's interesting, too. He said to the people on the left, I would say, whose politics I'm open to, it's the Bernie Bros. That's who I'm, that's whose politics I'm most open to. He's like, but generally, center left liberals who are doing very well, and center right conservatives who are doing very well, have an incredible blind spot about how much their success is built on a system that's not serving people who they should be serving. And it's like, that is a, again, we can all post holes in it and it's all bullshit. But it is. I do, I do wonder if JD Vance being so smart and such a favorite of the MAGA crew is, like, going to give Trump any kind of pause because he doesn't remember Trump doesn't like anyone outshining Trump. And so there is that. I wonder about that, and I wonder about the inexperience thing. But he also called Trump America's Hitler at one point.

Jon Lovett
Well, no, but he was saying, yes, but it was sort of like a can't beat him, join him sort of a thing, that statement. But I find it really hard. Like, I think Trump doesn't know, so how could we know? But I find, like, it hard to get past the thought process that if you go with Rubio, you're making the same mistake you made with Pence, which is someone who's fealty is ultimately not going to be with Donald Trump, but to his long term interests, a kind of squish. So that I find a bit confusing. Like, I think Doug Bergam without the money. Is he still as appealing? He is kind of boring and kind of stayed in a way that won't outshine Trump. But I'll tell you my, like, you played the clip of Byron Donald's.

That was his worst moment in the interview.

Jon Favreau
Pretty good.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, that question, the question was like, are you ready to be commander in chief on day one? And the fact that he didn't go, hell yes, I am. He kind of, he actually, it seemed like he really thinks about the questions he's being asked and then tries to answer them, which I think is a huge liability.

But what I found interesting about Byron Donald is, you know, unlike a Rubio or a Bergam or a Tim Scott or any of these other people, like he did, he, he's able to deflect questions that about Trump in a way that seemed less political. I thought he was like, a very, very good interview, and I thought he did.

When I saw it, I was like, oh, wow, if Trump is watching this, I think Trump is much more in favor of someone like this than some of the more political people that are maybe higher up the list.

Jon Favreau
I think that the Trump campaign is trying to be cautious. They think they're winning. Trump thinks he's winning. And you're in that situation, you go with the safe pick, and you go with a pick that's not gonna upset the apple cart. And I think that's Doug Bergam, and he's rich. And Trump likes rich people.

Trump likes, apparently, there's reporting that he feels closest to Doug Bergam. He knows he's gonna get complete loyalty from that guy.

He thinks he looks good. I don't know if he wants to fuck him, but he does think he looks good. He apparently also said that his wife looks, his wife is attractive. And, you know, Trump likes the hot wives.

Jon Lovett
That's a big deal.

Jon Favreau
So he wants to see how it all looks on tv. Right? Doug Bergam and his wife and Trump and Melania. He likes that. So I could see him just going to Bergam and it's like, is it exciting? Is it going to shake anything up? No, but Trump doesn't want to shake anything up.

Jon Lovett
That's a good point. Yeah. Of that list of three, I find it, like, the easiest to believe that it's Doug Berman.

Tommy Vietor
I do, too.

Jon Lovett
But then I do wonder, too, if he really is going to hold this for the convention.

Is he trying to do something more interesting?

Tommy Vietor
Look, there's a three person shortlist that we're talking about now. There's also sort of an eight person longer list. There's only one woman on the eight person list, which is shocking, at least. Stefanic. So that does tell you about the path they're going for, which is they're trying to reach young men, particularly young men of color. Given that. I mean, Rubio.

Jon Favreau
Doug Bergam.

Tommy Vietor
Yeah. Rubio would be the smart pick, I think, because you think he could maybe make inroads with latino voters. But I do get the sense that you do love it. That's like, I wonder if he really passes the loyalty test. And there's also the 2013 immigration reform experience where Rubio tried to be thoughtful and reasonable and actually solve the problem. And the right wing base has never forgiven him for that.

Jon Favreau
The question I have on, and he's a neocon.

Tommy Vietor
And he's a neocon maga.

Jon Favreau
People don't love the neocon. Rubio's got some Haley vibes.

Tommy Vietor
Yeah. Both Rubio and Byron Donalds would have to move out of Florida because you can't live in the same state as the president. The question about Bergam is, I wonder if there's a deal where you're like, all right, Doug, come on board, but you got to write a $100 million check.

Jon Favreau
I'm sure you will.

Jon Lovett
Oh, that's perfect. Third, impeachment, a direct purchase vice presidency.

Jon Favreau
That wouldn't surprise me at all.

Tommy Vietor
I also think Trump, ultimately, he's a racist, and he, like, likes his peers. He looks like old men who he thinks are successful in business, and that's Doug Burger.

Jon Favreau
I wouldn't be surprised if the campaign or outside advisors like your Kellyanne Conway's are pushing Rubio.

Tommy Vietor
I think she is, yeah.

Jon Favreau
You know, because I do think, like Rubio out there, and he's fluent in Spanish. He can. He just did, like, a telemundo interview. Completely in Spanish. The only, you know, major party candidate that can do that. So, you know, I'm sure they're pushing on that, but, like, I don't know, deep down, could just be Doug, could you? It's a very Mike Pence pick if he does that.

Tommy Vietor
Rupert Murdoch apparently likes Doug Burdock.

Jon Favreau
Oh, that's another one.

Tommy Vietor
The only thing about him is he's really boring. He's not vetted. Like, which Dakota is he from?

Jon Favreau
Maybe he killed the dog, too. Maybe he killed the dog.

Tommy Vietor
You never know who he's killed. But, like, there's not been, you know, you can get elected statewide in some of these gubernatorial races and not really get a 10th of the scrutiny you get once you're a serious presidential contender. Doug Bergamot does answer the question, hey, why do all these, like, no name idiots with no shot run for president all the time? It's because you might end up the VP. Like. Like Dougie fresh here, and he was.

Jon Favreau
My guy from the beginning.

Tommy Vietor
You love to.

Jon Favreau
That's just, you know, that's something.

Jon Lovett
No, we know that.

Jon Favreau
Something to think about. All right, we know that. That's our show for today, and we will be back with another show on Wednesday. It's gonna be Lovett and me and Kate Shaw from strict scrutiny. Isn't that exciting?

Jon Lovett
Lot of legal news.

Jon Favreau
A lot of legal news. All right, everyone. We'll see you later.

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Biden Campaign Unloads on Trump's Conviction

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