What Can Be, Burdened By What Has Been (with Astead Herndon of NYT)

It’s been a week. To help us through it, we’ve enlisted The New York Times political reporter Astead Herndon. We start with election night 2024 versus election night 2016 (6:35), what Astead discovered about the electorate reporting across the U. S. on his podcastThe Run-Up https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-run-up/id1142083165 (9:25), and how insider Democrats arrived at a second Biden run in 2023 (13:30). Then, we discuss politicians’ “lowercase racist” assumptions about Black and Latino voters (16:02), Herndon’s telling one on one interview with Vice President Harris (22:52), and the pervasive, nationwide sentiments that led to Donald Trump’s re-election (32:24). On the back-half: where the Harris campaign fell short in its messaging to voters (38:48), the rise of the “podcast election” (44:48), a revealing window into the Biden administration (47:35), how quickly “good intentions” can turn power corrupted (53:01), and why the Democratic party must remake itself (1:00:55) as we begin to move forward from this election (1:06:00). Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Sam Fragoso?

  Pushkin.

• 0:30Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 0:47Sam Fragoso?

  Today, I'm joined by journalist Astead Herndon. Herndon is a national politics reporter for The New York Times and the host of the popular podcast The Run-Up. He's also an analyst for CNN, where you may have seen him this past week as the election results rolled in. I think he's uniquely suited to speak to this moment for a couple distinct reasons. The first is his continued practice of what he calls bottom-up reporting, which focuses on amplifying voices not typically represented in mainstream media. To do this, Herndon has spent the past two years living out of a suitcase, talking to voters in swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,

• 1:29Sam Fragoso?

  each of which flipped to Donald Trump on Tuesday. The second reason I wanted to talk to Astead is because he's been reporting on Kamala Harris since she launched her first presidential campaign back in 2019, which is probably why he was assigned to profile the vice president last year in a contentious Times Magazine cover story entitled "In Search of Kamala Harris."

• 1:54Sam Fragoso?

  There is a simple story we could tell ourselves about what just happened. That Donald Trump's victory is merely the latest example of a global rejection of incumbents. And it's true, ruling parties on the left and right, in the UK, Germany, and South Africa, have all suffered historic defeats this year, each a kind of repudiation of life itself amid post-pandemic inflation. But I think the more honest and painful story is one that holds the Democratic Party accountable for what we just experienced. There will be plenty of time to unpack all that the GOP has in store for us. We have done that work in the past, and we will do that work again in the future.

• 2:37Sam Fragoso?

  But the work today is to take stock. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one. And the data tells us we have a problem, and not just in swing states, all of which Democrats lost, by the way, but across 90% of counties in the country, where there was a shift towards Donald Trump. If you haven't heard these stats, they are pretty staggering. Here's Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. "In the New York City metro area, Manhattan shifted nine points right. Brooklyn shifted 12 points right. Queens County shifted 21 points right. And Bronx County shifted 22 points right. In Florida, Orlando shifted 10 points right, and Miami-Dade shifted 19 points right.

• 3:20Sam Fragoso?

  In Texas, Houston and San Antonio both shifted eight points right. And Dallas County shifted 10 points right. In and around the blue wall states, Philadelphia shifted five points right. Detroit shifted nine points right. Hell, even Chicago, my hometown, shifted 11 points right." And those aren't aberrations either. That was the norm. And so today's episode is about trying to understand how and why this happened. Because what happened, Trump's victory and what's to come, Trump's second term, is grave and unsettling and likely catastrophic.

• 4:00Sam Fragoso?

  It will also be irreversible if we don't reckon with the Democratic Party's complicity in this week's outcome. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one. My heart hurts in this moment. If you're listening to this, yours probably does too. But if the only way out is through, then I hope this conversation helps you, helps us get to the other side of whatever is about to come.

• 4:33Sam Fragoso?

  What that other side looks like, well, as always, that's up to us. For now, here is Astead Herndon.

• 4:59Sam Fragoso?

  Astead Herndon, welcome back to the show.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Thanks, Sam. I appreciate it. I have to be back.

• 5:05Sam Fragoso?

  You are all dressed up in what looks like CNN attire.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:12Sam Fragoso?

  How's your week been?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been a lot. You know, I've got like, you know, two actual jobs, being the podcast and CNN pundit. And sometimes they feel very distinct, just because the stuff that cable news can be talking about is sometimes so far from what the work that we're doing. But, you know, I like kind of bringing a dose of like, here are the people, here are some facts, here are some realness to those combos. And it's certainly like, it's been fun. So I'm tired. Like, I feel like I've just done nothing but yapped nonstop. But it's going on.

• 5:46Sam Fragoso?

  We can yap together today.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 5:48Sam Fragoso?

  And get into it. When Donald Trump first won in 2016, you were in Boston, working as a reporter for The Globe. And you felt, like I think many did, blindsided by the outcome. You were shocked that the media, which had uniformly predicted Hillary Clinton would win in a landslide, had gotten it so wrong. And so tell me, this week, eight years later, as you're sitting inside the offices of The New York Times, how were you processing election night? Were you blindsided again?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  I don't think I necessarily, I would be allowed to say I expected it. But I certainly wasn't blindsided. And I certainly wasn't blindsided in the same way as 2016. I think my real annoyance at that time wasn't just the result, but it was that every step of the way, I felt like political journalism hadn't prepared me to understand national political journalism. I was in local stuff at the time. Hadn't prepared me for what was happening. Bernie Hillary, Trump winning the primary. And then obviously culminates in the general election. So this time around, I definitely think we have a media ecosystem that didn't do its best job in the road to this election. But as I think about the result and on Tuesday, I think that I was fairly prepared for the outcome, considering I knew

• 7:10Speaker 01

  the deep unpopularity of Joe Biden and Democrats. Like, that fundamental fact has been so consistent in our reporting over the last several years, that that's always the most simple explanation for how an incumbent loses. It's not that, you know, I think by, if I was honest, I think my electoral map guess had Harris squeaking it out through the blue wall. But I thought that the Georgias and North Carolinas and Arizonas certainly felt different than four years ago. And I knew the country felt different than four years ago. And so I guess I would say, I think the Run Up did a pretty good job of preparing folks and the scope of the electorate. And I think the times,

• 7:52Speaker 01

  if I think a big difference institutionally from 2016 to now, I think it's that type of reporting. You know, being physically across the country and telling a story of America through the election that really is bottom up more than top down.

• 8:07Sam Fragoso?

  Well, let's tell the story then, because for the past two years, you've been hosting the Run Up, which has uniquely prioritized hearing from the electorate, treating them as full people rather than just respondents to a poll. Given all the time you spent in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, what did you understand about the electorate? That perhaps the Democratic Party did not.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Well, first and foremost, I think that we understood that there was a fundamental break of trust that Democrats did not understand because a lot of people did not want Joe Biden to run for reelection. I think that's the first and most important thing. I would hear so much, and this is more so a couple of years ago, when we would tell people that it was likely to be a Biden-Trump rematch, they would be shocked. They're like, I thought he was only going to run for one term. I'm like, no, he's going to run for reelection. And so this is helpful from the political insider brain, but folks who did not know that, right, like folks who hadn't tuned in to that, had just assumed it wasn't going to be true, partially because of age, I would say partially because of unpopularity.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  And we were having that interaction so many times that we structured our whole initial episodes, as you know, around the kind of careening towards rematches that folks didn't want. We did a whole second season about insiders going, you know, like Republicans and Democratic leaders, kind of putting themselves in Trump and Biden camps and asking it, is that the best thing for them to do? And at that time, they looked at us as if we were kind of nuts.

• 9:36Sam Fragoso?

  Who's they?

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Political media largely, and specifically the campaign, the Democratic campaign.

• 9:42Sam Fragoso?

  Because within the Democratic Party, you asked surrogates to speak on this issue that you saw voters having, and the only person that would speak to you is Julian Castro, who is no longer in Congress.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Totally. I think our biggest example was we went to the winter meeting of the DNC right after the midterm elections, when they were making South Carolina the first state at the request of Joe Biden, so his road to reelection and the renomination was easier, and asking them, why are you doing this, considering the mass evidence that a lot of people think he's too old for a second term and he's deeply unpopular? And so at that time, we were asking that question. Not only was there very few members of the media there asking that question of them, but also there weren't, the kind of democratic ecosystem had consolidated behind him. And so even the people who were kind of thinking about, oh, should I challenge him? Or before the midterms, because of the way the results went, better than Democrats than

• 10:40Speaker 01

  expected, all of that collapsed. So your Gavin Newsom's, your JB Pritzker's, your Gretchen Whitmer's, all the people who were kind of laying the hints that they might be someone who would think about running or adding some pressure to Joe Biden, you know, all of that collapsed so fast. And the thing that I think really informed our work was none of the facts changed from pre-midterms or not. Presidential elections are so different than midterm elections. You can have a fine midterms that's specific to certain issues, and we know that doesn't directly translate, but yet they were using the midterms as a reason to consolidate all this power, and no one was really asking them about it. And it's a hard time to do this type of work because it is an insider conversation. Like, at that time, the people we were, it wasn't really an electorate thing. People weren't really tuned in.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  People really didn't care. But you know that the choices that are happening in these rooms right now are going to set up the choices that folks are going to have eventually. So by the time we come to the debate, and I think a lot of people are shocked at why Democrats are in this situation, the answer is in early 2023.

• 11:41Sam Fragoso?

  I wanted to set the foundation for this conversation with these facts because it's not a case of crying over spilt milk. It's about trying to understand how we got here.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 11:53Sam Fragoso?

  And the way we got here is because for years, they ignored the kind of journalism that you and a few others were doing.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  And their own constituents.

• 12:03Sam Fragoso?

  Right. Most importantly.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  I was asking their constituents, and they're bringing it to them. Like, they were ignoring the actual people.

• 12:10Sam Fragoso?

  What was their explanation to you when you said, I've talked to your base?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:16Sam Fragoso?

  Your base is not interested in what you are selling. What was their explanation?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  They thought they could basically convince them into Biden excitement because of the policy accomplishments, you know? Like, they thought that, okay, once we invest money, once we invest, like, you know, once we tell people, once we tell the story of what we've done, they'll like him more. And I think they thought inflation's concerns, they could taper. And so like if the economy is in a better place in a year, these concerns would go away. But most importantly, they thought Donald Trump was an inherently unelectable candidate. They thought that the legal cases and the January 6th memory would be such that even if what we were saying was true about Joe Biden, he would win reelection.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  And so that's the thing that really gets me about when, you know, a couple of weeks ago, when they're saying, you know, we're the underdog in this race, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that might be all well and good, but the core assumption they made was that they thought Donald Trump would be, would make their road easier. He might be easier relative to other Republicans, right? Nikki Haley might have run every state. All I'm saying is the idea that like he could not be elected was their fallback. And we, and they told us that on the record.

• 13:32Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm. Why does that really get you?

• 13:34Speaker 01

  It gets me because why, why did they believe, who, who told them that? You know, like where was that and what was that informed by? Because the evidence, if you want to take polling or whatever, was saying the opposite. If you want to take people doing in grounds, like on the ground reporting, our stuff was definitely saying the opposite, like my experience. And so I guess I was only asking them, who is telling you this? And that's the part that gets me. The job is supposedly for them to be representing people. And so if the answer is not no one, if, if you can't give me an answer of who told you this, and this is really something you all have agreed upon among yourselves? I don't know, like that's the journalist in me. I think that's so icky.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Like, I think that that's like what people find most wrong about politics. Like, I think that's not the job.

• 14:23Sam Fragoso?

  Well, let's go to the data of this election because on the daily, you talked about how Democrats had long believed that certain blocks of the electorate, especially black and Latino voters, would remain loyal to them. An assumption that you've called, quote, lowercase racist.

• 14:40Sam Fragoso?

  Can you explain what you mean by that, maybe in capital letters this time?

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I said that it's, I said it like 1:30 a.m. and now it's become like, the way I've gotten so much about what? Lower, but it's funny, I, I, I think it's a, a way of understanding like how racial assumptions function. Like, the Obama era told Democrats, the lesson they took, that the country was inevitably moving in their direction, driven by its growing diversity.

• 15:09Sam Fragoso?

  That's, that's demographic destiny.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Demographic destiny, and that is mostly due to the growth in Latino voters. But they were basically taking the assumptions that came from an overwhelmingly Democratic black population, and I think overwhelmingly Democratic Mexican population in stories like California. And they had basically extrapolated that to larger Latino populations.

• 15:31Sam Fragoso?

  And applied it to them.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  And applied it to them. All I'm saying is, 2016 should have told you that that was not enough as a motivational tool. You can't expect those people just to come out, even if you thought that Donald Trump principally won through a kind of white working class, right? As long as if he was overwhelmingly like a diverse coalition in 2016. But they didn't come out. So already, that assumption has some flaws. But in 2020, you really saw a lot of Latinos voted for Trump in a way that they thought was unfathomable after El Paso, after a whole bunch of things. And so even if you weren't taking the evidence from 2016, I think there's a lot from 2020, a bad black turnout in the midterms in 2022, to tell you that this way the Democrats are talking about race and identity, the assumptions that that is landing for people, aren't true.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  And so one of the things I don't get is for them to come out of this election and say, oh, we need to couple that with an understanding of class and the, and the economic, you know, the kind of college differences between these groups and the ways folks come from different countries and blah, blah, blah. Like, I just think that is so late to the party. Like, think about what we're actually saying here. What we have discovered about Latinos is that they're different. Like, what we have discovered about black people is that it matters if they, it matters how much money they make. And that informs how they believe, like whether they went to college or not informs how they think. Like, these are not things people discover about white people. Those are things that are assumed to be true about every white voter, right?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Like, the voter, the college-educated, rich voter does not think of themselves as exactly the same as a non-college or poorer white voter, right? Like, there's an understanding that those identities matter for them. The fact that I think this is just being applied to people of color is why I call it lowercase r racist. Because I think that's a, that's a function of you not understand, not understanding these folks, not seeing them. And that's why I say that they're treated more as poll respondents than full people. Because it sounds to me like if you only see Latinos through a poll. Every part, every time I've ever talked to somebody like who would fit in that category, they're like, I do not see myself in, in a racial group with these other folks.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  We're at El Paso and they're like, why are you talking, why are you talking about Miami Cubans? Like, we, we don't have anything to do with them. And so I'm saying that type of understanding only happens if you're lumping folks in groups in ways that I find so reductive, it can only be described as racist.

• 18:01Sam Fragoso?

  Basically, what you're saying is white voters have long been afforded difference and distinction.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:07Sam Fragoso?

  And communities of color ha- have been viewed through the narrow lens of their race or cultural background.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  And some of this, I think, is poor lessons being taken by the unique nature of African Americans and how they vote for Democrats.

• 18:20Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean by that?

• 18:21Speaker 01

  I'm saying, I think a lot of Democrats, most of their experience with race, how to talk about it and how to motivate people to vote around some of those issues, comes first and foremost from African Americans. And there is a unique American quality that African Americans, a new history in the country, a unique investment in things like democracy, right? Like, a unique, a, a story that they have been a part of over a long time, that's very different than even black immigrants, right? So like, when you look at Panhandle, and I'm getting like super wrong, but if you look at Panhandle, Florida, and you're saying, why are those people voting more conservative than other places? Well, they're a different pipe of black people. They come from different places.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Right? And so all I am saying is that I think the extrapolation from such a limited group to such a broad population, and assuming that is going to continue, is the type of of assumptions I think is specific to a form of white liberalism. Like, I think the way the Democrats have learned to talk most to people of color over the last, you know, six, eight years, has been representation, right? Has been like, we will include more of y'all in the room, but Biden administration is the most diverse. Here's a Supreme Court justice, a VP, or whatever. And that's not to say that stuff is meaningless, because I don't find it meaningless. But the people who are most motivated by representation, or, you know, similar to affirmative action arguments,

• 19:44Speaker 01

  are people who have access, people who have a chance to be in those rooms, people who see those rooms as having value. But if you're pitching access to elite space as the motivating factor for most people of color, most of them do not see those spaces. Like, most of them don't, don't, aren't motivated by that. And so I'm saying that is the type of lens where you can think you're talking to everyone, but your own, your own inability to recognize the diversity of that group means you're only talking to a small slice.

• 20:15Sam Fragoso?

  Why is that lens lowercase racist and not uppercase racist?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think it's more passive than active. That could be me just trying to soften the, soften the delivery here, like.

• 20:28Sam Fragoso?

  It feels like you're softening.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  I, I don't, I, I wouldn't disagree with upper. I'm giving them the good faith reading, right? I'm giving them an actual ignorance reading. And I mean, I know the people who run these campaigns. They're pretty insulated folks who come, you know, like, it's pretty, you know, like, the diversity problem is a real one, right? And I don't think that just to the point in a race way, but in a lot of ways. It reminds me of even elite media spaces. Sometimes I'm like, is it inactive? Or is it that there is? No one here even knows the question to ask or the community to ask. And so I would say I'm giving the benefit of the good faith doubt.

• 21:05Sam Fragoso?

  I'm maybe not as much as you.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, 100%. I know, I think that's a fair, I think that's totally fine. I, I, I think there's a lot of, a lot of that drop off in a lot of urban areas. Is people done giving them the benefit of the doubt?

• 21:15Sam Fragoso?

  Right. I've heard you say that too much of the immediate reaction has focused on the past two months.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:22Sam Fragoso?

  Instead of the past two years. And so I want to hold the not so distant past for a moment because last fall, a little after we spoke on our episode, you went to Chicago to interview Vice President Harris. It was for the New York Times cover story that would eventually be titled, "In Search of Kamala Harris."

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:43Sam Fragoso?

  And I want to play a clip of that conversation between you and the Vice President, where you're asking about, at the time, Biden's bid for reelection and the challenges he may face with an electorate that we've been talking about that is and was and remains skeptical of a second term.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:00Sam Fragoso?

  Why don't we play a clip from that?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  In 2020, the Biden message was really centered around that idea, that there was kind of an emergency that needed to be stopped and kind of pointing toward Donald Trump.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Well, as the president said, he, he made the decision to run because he, he believed that the soul of America was very much at stake.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Is that the message for 2024, too? Is it soul of America, part two?

• 22:26Speaker 02

  I don't, I mean, I don't know that we want to. Here's what I would say. What is at stake in, in 2024 is our democracy. Our democracy is on the line. And we are, we are looking at a moment where we could go one of two ways. And, and, and one is to stand up in support of and defend our democracy and fundamental principles upon which we were found, such as freedom.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  And there is that track, or there is a track that is about an attempt to destroy all that has made us strong over the years in terms of the importance of rule of law and democratic institutions.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  My last question is, when we talk to Democrats about when they look ahead to 2024, they express confidence in the administration's kind of political achievements, but some have pointed to lagging poll numbers or lack of favorability from both the President Biden and to you and the numbers we see. What is your response to the idea that we see in some data that you that the favorability question around you and that what when you say, when you look and say what Vice President Kamala Harris brings to the ticket, what is that clear answer?

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Were you in this room of 2,000 people?

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Did you see them cheering and standing?

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  That's what I say. Thank you.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Thank you. I appreciate your time.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  You're welcome.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  God, I hate that interview so much.

• 23:56Sam Fragoso?

  Which part? Where does that land when you're hearing that now?

• 24:00Speaker 01

  I think I was really put off by how uncooperative she was being throughout the interview. And I was shocked, to be honest, that she had a complete unwillingness to engage in the premise of an interview that she knew was coming, you know? And there's politicians who see interviews as an opportunity to get through a message. And then there's her, who sees it as like an oppositional effort. And so it puts you in a position where like, I think as a reporter, I'm like, okay, I guess we're opposed. Like, and I remember halfway through being like, she's not going to talk to you again. You got 20 minutes left.

• 24:44Sam Fragoso?

  You knew that?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I knew that. I knew at 10 minutes in, she was never going to talk to me again.

• 24:48Sam Fragoso?

  And why, how did you know that?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  I mean, I've been around her, and when she locks in, you're toast. Like, you know, like, go ask Jeff Sessions or like, even Donald Trump on debate stage. Like, you know, that's her, she's good, like, as an opponent. I would consider her like a tennis player. When she can look across and have a direct opposition, she works better. But I think that's obviously reflective of prosecutor career. And I think what I was trying to do after that interview, I was devastated. I thought I had a blow on it and I knew that the only way to write through it was to kind of go at it, the core question directly, right? Because either they're going to be open and kind of give you a thing to work off of, reflective, or you got to write through their lack of reflection.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  And so I knew that was true. And so I was on the plane back and I was just so sad. And I called my parents and I'm like, I think I blew this. I was like, I tried to ask her all these questions about like what she believed in, blah, blah, blah. And I was thinking that she was going to work with me and to love. And my mom was like, well, why did you think that? And I was like, I guess that's a good question. Like, I don't know why I thought that. And then that became very clearly the story, which is, I think, where we land is I wasn't asking anything that was not things that people wanted to know about her then and now. I wasn't asking things that were coming from me, but things that I think remained about, like the unclarity about ideology or vision or all of those type of things, things people

• 26:20Speaker 01

  expect from a president. You know, she would demean kind of like the idea. She was like, you're trying to get me to say a fancy speech. I'm like, I don't know. That's not what I'm trying to say at all. I'm trying to get a sense of like, of what you would prioritize. Like, what does a Kamala Harris version of a country or Democratic Party look like? So I guess when I hear that, I hear the same unwillingness to answer that ends up being a big problem.

• 26:46Sam Fragoso?

  Ends up being a big problem in this election.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  In this, right, in this election.

• 26:50Sam Fragoso?

  That obstinance in an interview.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:52Sam Fragoso?

  Translates to an unclear campaign that she just ran.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  If you're just going to weather vane, you know, and be a reflection of where the party is at the median, where the party is in the moment, I don't think people see you as like a leader. I think there's a portion of president where people want to see what you believe in and you've laid that out. And so the fundamental question I think she failed to answer in the last three months was how she would be any different than Joe Biden. And I really think that relates back to the same questions I was asking her then because it's an unwillingness to lay out an affirmative vision. And if you run for president once and then you're handed the nomination a second time, and by the end of that, those questions are still persisting, I think it's fair to

• 27:40Speaker 01

  say that's a you problem. And my naivety was I thought, okay, no one's done an and this is an earnest feeling, I felt that she had a soft impact of the way I think kind of white political media will dismiss some figures they don't think are good, is no one will give them the chance to make that case themselves. And so the thing I thought last year was, I'm gonna give her the chance. I'm going to talk to enough people, I'm gonna travel enough places, I'm gonna do all the things right to say, here and put it in front of you to say, it's your turn. But she didn't want to do it.

• 28:17Sam Fragoso?

  I want to get to the messaging and the message of this campaign. But I also just want to note, in the interest of fairness to her, you started covering her in 2019, when she ran for president. Do you remember the headline for the first article you wrote about her?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  It's Kamala Harris. It's basically like Kamala Harris is not really laying it out. Maybe that's the point.

• 28:42Sam Fragoso?

  Kamala Harris is hard to define politically.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 28:45Sam Fragoso?

  Maybe that's the point.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  She's so sick of me asking her. I mean, like, if that's my defense of her, it's like, I would be sick of me too.

• 28:51Sam Fragoso?

  So in the interest of fairness, she probably got to the interview and was like, I remember that piece in 2019, instead of her.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Okay, but the end of that piece, I remember this piece, I remember the end being, two people come to see her.

• 29:08Sam Fragoso?

  And the interaction, Reno, Nevada.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And 92nd Street Y, and they basically, the person's like, oh, I liked her coming in, but I didn't learn anything. And then the person is being like, oh, well, you'll learn more when president. And this is the thing I've seen with her so much. People are like, okay, the next time you'll learn more. The next time you'll learn more. Like, and that has obviously now caught up.

• 29:29Sam Fragoso?

  Yes. It ends with, at the event's conclusion, one of the women who went to her event said that she felt no closer to an answer, though the personal affection persisted. Everyone else has that one thing. What's her one thing? Now, obviously, there are people hearing this going, well, wait a minute. She may not have her things defined, but the other person,

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:53Sam Fragoso?

  he has defined as abhorrent and objectionable. And there's no disagreement on that. But I'm trying to get to the root of how and why we are here. In terms of messaging, there was a consistent refusal on her part to distance herself from Biden, a president that Slate writes is the most unpopular sitting president since Harry Truman. Politically, why was she so resistant to drawing any daylight between her and Biden?

• 30:24Speaker 01

  There's like a tenor of deference that these folks have that is very hard for them to cross. So the short answer is just it would have been mean or seen as mean. And they don't do that.

• 30:37Sam Fragoso?

  And the calculus of that being mean for 10 minutes versus a potential second term of Trump?

• 30:46Speaker 01

  But they didn't believe that that was going to cost them, right? Like, they didn't think it was going to cost them.

• 30:50Sam Fragoso?

  I'm just trying to understand the cost benefit analysis.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Totally, totally. But I'm saying, I know what they, the kind of, the new, the like, smart Democrat thought of like, six months ago was that we are in an era where all favorabilities are bad. People are mad at all politicians. And so it's not that Joe Biden is uniquely unpopular. He's just the latest sitting president who's facing headwinds of people's upsetness. And so one thing that always bothered me, again, about what how they would construct this race. When it was Biden, Trump, they would talk so much about how they need to overcome the apathy and distance people have from the political system in this race.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  And I was like, your actions are contributing to people's feelings of distance and apathy. The candidate choices in front of them are contributing to this feeling of apathy. And so I just left, that never clicked, or they never took on their own agency in contributing to that problem. They never understood, the thing we were saying at the beginning, that when folks were surprised about the prospect of this rematch, it wasn't just about Donald Trump, it was also about Joe Biden. They never realized their own place in that story. And so. The thought they would have is not that they're being mean and that's for the cost of winning. They didn't even recognize the deep need to do that because they thought they could win without it.

• 32:11Sam Fragoso?

  When The View asked her about how her candidacy would be different than Biden's, and again, this is The View, it's not Mike Wallace. She couldn't name a difference besides naming a Republican to her cabinet. Your colleague at The Times, Ezra Klein, said Harris faced a very difficult problem. A popular incumbent can run on her record. A challenger can promise change. Harris could do neither. Do you think that's true?

• 32:38Speaker 01

  I think it's true in a universe where we assume a lack of political courage. And I think that that's how most of these people operate. Here's the thing, like, did they believe Donald Trump was an existential threat to America or not? Like, did they believe that mass deportations would like just deeply disrupt, like, do they care about immigrants or not? Like, those were the kind of questions that I felt, because if that's true, then I don't give a shit about deference. Then I actually don't care about the fact that it could possibly be mean. But they did not, they didn't run with the level of urgency they were trying to tell the American people. They didn't move with that in mind. And so

• 33:22Speaker 01

  it doesn't surprise me that in the end, lots of people rejected the idea that they should be fearful, because I don't think they acted like that from the start. I don't think you can run Joe Biden for two years, have that first debate happen, and tell people that that was the only option, and then the fear of Donald Trump is still the motivating factor. Like, that works for Democrats, right? Like, for baseline Democrats. But if you're someone who was torn with him, you know, we asked someone for our podcast today, like, she said she went to a Trump rally, and she said she felt righty energy there. And then put it or was off putting. And she then later voted for him.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  And I said, why would you vote for someone who you felt kind of fascist-y energy? And she was like, well, I just don't think that it's going to be as crazy as they think. And like, I think that, you know, everybody gets in the crowd and gets swept up. And more importantly, I think Donald Trump is more likely to bring my manufacturing job in Michigan back. And, and then she still said, very funny, like, she's like, I figured we'll find out if the rest of the country thinks he's extreme. Like, I personally decided it wasn't enough to scare me, but I was okay if him losing, if it scared everybody else. And I found that like an interesting explanation. Uh, uh, uh, let the others decide whether he was fearful.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  And the argument about fear clearly did not land.

• 34:51Sam Fragoso?

  You said that, I think in 2016, you could have told yourself that America didn't know what it was selecting. And I think now you can't. But even in hearing that interaction you had, it doesn't totally sound like they know what they're electing.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I would say that's true.

• 35:10Sam Fragoso?

  What's the disconnect? What am I missing?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say, I think folks know the last Trump term had controversy. And I think they're okay with a certain level of controversy. What I don't think folks do know is the explicit escalation of language and kind of plans around reshaping government that is unique to Donald Trump 2024. I don't see this, the, the, the electoral map as an endorsement of that. Cause I don't really think that has fully translated or landed for a lot of people. But I do think it's like, there is a baseline of, of Trump chaos, craziness, uh, tweets, blah, blah, blah,

• 35:55Speaker 01

  that folks have decided they're okay with. I think folks are willing to deal with some chaos if it's, if the border feels more safe. I think that folks are willing to deal with some chaos if they think the economy feels better, whatever that kind of means to them. I would say that's like a broad and vague thing. And frankly, I think folks are okay with some chaos if they think America is more safe or like more.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Hate to use like the like muscular broadly. And because one of the things we heard a lot is just that the prospect of war is more tangible. And I do think for some of the people, he's a wartime guy. And so if I could put stuff that I think I've heard people negotiate through, I would say those things more so than like crime or something. I don't hear like, you know, I was like, I hear immigration a ton. And I think it's a, I also think some, uh, I don't want to give it too much. But I would say like, for a certain slice of the definitely driving of a Republican base, and I think a certain slice of a suburban crowd,

• 37:08Speaker 01

  the like anti wokeness stuff does still have some legs too.

• 37:12Sam Fragoso?

  Speaking of wartime, um, there's a very famous Kennedy quote where he said after the Bay of Pigs invasion, victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan. The infighting and finger pointing of this election has already begun. I'm just going to relay a few top line pieces that people who don't follow this day to day maybe want to know or hear. One Harris aide told Politico, Joe Biden is the singular reason Kamala Harris and Democrats lost tonight. Bernie Sanders said, it should come to no great surprise that a Democratic Party, which has abandoned working class people, would find that the working class has abandoned them. That was of course, then followed by the Chair of the Democratic Party, Jamie Harrison,

• 37:56Sam Fragoso?

  calling Sanders' comment, quote, "straight up bullshit. Biden was the most pro-worker president of my lifetime, saving union pensions, creating millions of good paying jobs, even marching in a picket line." How have you made sense of these competing narratives?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, to me, it's like small potatoes fighting. Like politicians have an interest in the thing that they most care about being, you know, part of the problem. And they're mostly focused on policy. But I honestly don't think this, the story about this is policy. I think Jamie Harrison is kind of right that Biden has been super provocative. I don't think also though. That's completely a full scope of policy. Because when we talk about progressive litmus tests of this year, I think Gaza mattered so much more than everything else. And so Biden could have done a lot of the motivating things on climate, on unions, on all of this other stuff.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  But when a moment like that arises and the administration doesn't meet it and kind of flips off the folks who care about it. That means he hasn't done progressive policy? He has. But it also means on the issue that mattered most to a lot of those people, you haven't delivered. I saw, and I guess why I like, I fall, I fall somewhere in the middle of that coin. Because if I think there's a lesson Democrats take, it might be that policy does not translate to votes. Partially because Biden was governed more progressive than the folks expected and did not see a return on that. And so there was a belief, I think, coming into his administration that if you do good things, you are rewarded. But I, I would say honestly, that's why I always go back to the primary

• 39:42Speaker 01

  and his refusal to only do one term or all those things. It's because I think that a lot of people were seeing Biden's age and inability to step aside as a filter for which they understood the policy of this administration. I think he would have gotten more credit for progress had it not felt like he was overstaying his welcome at the party. Voters' perception of your accomplishments aren't just about what you literally do.

• 40:07Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  And for the kind of soul searching of it all, that's where I feel really distinct from all the political actors. It's because they're going to focus on the type of policy that they want, want most to happen. Like the, every time the Democratic Party lose, Bernie Sanders could send that statement.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Right? Like, I didn't, it doesn't really feel like a working class, you know, like, you know, like, I don't, I think Joe Biden is probably fair to say, I did all your stuff. You wanted me to do, Bernie, you know? Like, I, I think that's a fair thing to say.

• 40:37Sam Fragoso?

  And last bit on the Harris campaign. Why do you think the campaign thought it was more prudent to offer a seat at the table to Liz Cheney than a Palestinian at the DNC?

• 40:53Speaker 01

  One they thought was a vital constituency and one they don't. They made an explicit choice ideologically. It's basically the only thing Harris did different than Biden was be more courting of Republicans. And I think be more courting of big business. That's another big shift that she had away away from the populism. Bring the CEOs in, bring Silicon Valley and talk about crypto.

• 41:16Sam Fragoso?

  Campaigning with Mark Cuban.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Campaign with Mark Cuban, right. But I just think honestly, Democrats thought if we take the slices of the electorate that we know are going to come out. And we shore up our base after the candidate switch. The only people we need to do is persuade folks who might be in the center in the middle. Now, I'm not, that could be true, and I still don't think Liz Cheney, I mean, clearly it's not panned out. But my question was, what's the evidence that Liz Cheney appeals to those people? Liz Cheney, to me, is an MSNBC Republican. Like Liz Cheney had the largest electoral loss of any member of Congress. Republicans do not care or like her. It's not even clearly centrists or moderates or whatever.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  And so they were playing to this crowd, but a lot of that crowds who's been upset with Trump since he was in office has already become Democrats, has voted for Democrats in a number of elections. The type of independents they're talking about have not ruled Donald Trump out as, you know, January 6th was not disqualifying for him. I mean, I asked that campaigner specifically, they said they didn't think foreign policy would rise to the top of the people's list. So they did not think Gaza was a losing issue, and they thought appealing to Republicans was a winning issue.

• 42:31Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think that is reflected in the 18 to 29 turnout in this election?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  About Gaza?

• 42:39Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  It's hard to know now.

• 42:41Sam Fragoso?

  And the rightward shift, of course, between young white men and young white women.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  I'm like, what we do know is that the young man shift seems real. And it did seem like Trump kind of made big inroads with those groups, right? Like, the youth numbers are such, it has to be a kind of male shift. And I think like, you know, Democrats were kind of making a, a big stink about how they were prioritizing podcast ecosystem over legacy media and things like that. That was such a big topic in this race.

• 43:12Sam Fragoso?

  I saw one reporter call it the podcast election.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, like they, they were like making this such a big thing. And I was like, oh, you know, you know, who the king of that ecosystem, you know, you're not, Donald Trump is gonna like, when I look at, I don't know, but I look at all the podcasts above us and downloads, none of them are from Kamala Harris, you know, like, and so.

• 43:34Sam Fragoso?

  Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, on. You think there are shows more popular than Talk Easy in the run-up?

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I'm like, she's like, and she's like talking about this podcast, he goes, I'm like, do you know, you know, who runs that? Candace Owens, okay? Uh, so I'm like, it, it was very, I just think like, you know, when we were in Wisconsin, Madison, a couple of weeks ago, doing an episode specific to the gender gap among Gen Z, we were talking to young men at, in Wisconsin about how they feel about Trump, he's a model, and they were calling him like a model of masculinity, talking about why they want to be like him, whatever. And one thing I think is true is there was this separate conversation happening in a manosphere and a, whatever you want to call it. And I don't think, I don't think Democrats or liberals or however you want to define

• 44:25Speaker 01

  that have found a way to have a dueling conversation with those type of men. And so we were talking, we were talking to this one kid who was gonna vote for Harris. And he was like, every time I open up my phone, I feel like I'm pushed some message about men. And her not doing Joe Rogan came up more than I expected. Like, I, I thought that was like kind of a media-y convo, but that clearly cut through the people who used it to justify some like, she's not being transparent about who she is type of things.

• 44:58Sam Fragoso?

  You mean, used it to, uh, re-up on the titles of both of your pieces about Kamala Harris?

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Listen, it wouldn't be in search if she made it easy for me to find, you know, like I, the subtitle of that was, uh, Kamala Harris is, is, is like, the important part was, and feels she shouldn't have to, because that was the big difference I had had from that experience, was like, oh, it's not just that you haven't done this, it's that you will, you don't want to do this.

• 45:28Sam Fragoso?

  Yes, I think that is the key part, and to double back around to going back to Biden, when you're asking her in that clip we played, the attitude she has, and the attitude that, that the Biden administration had, maybe even more so, that they didn't owe the American public a single goddamn explanation.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  They didn't have to, yeah.

• 45:49Sam Fragoso?

  And in fact, how dare you even ask?

• 45:52Speaker 01

  How dare you even ask, yeah.

• 45:54Sam Fragoso?

  And in fact, when you do ask, I'm gonna say, thank you.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Oh, different Biden campaign story. I was one time with these Biden aides, and I was trying to tell them, you know, like, hey, like, this is what the run-up's doing for this year, like, we're looking, you know, maybe there's some places we can collab, whatever, whatever, whatever.

• 46:11Sam Fragoso?

  Did you pitch it nice like that?

• 46:13Speaker 01

  I did, actually remember saying, we want to do an episode about a place that's better off than now than it was four years ago. They're like, classic reelection question. And I'm like, give us a place. And we will say, the Biden campaign said, go here. And I thought that was like, an easy pitch for them to do. They never gave us a place. But, I'm there, explaining that type of stuff. And I'm like, and I'm like, hey, but just so you know, his age comes up a ton. And so, we are gonna, you know, we have, we, we, that will be a thing, you know, that we talked about, we were thinking about kind of liability stuff. And the, and the people I was, the people I was meeting with, pushed the, like, pushed the table, like, you know, sit up from the table, like, this is what we're talking about, like, this is the media

• 46:56Speaker 01

  creating these type of narratives. And I was like, what? I was confused. And they were like, democracy is on the line, and you're asking us about Biden's age. And I'm like, yeah. That's exactly why.

• 47:14Sam Fragoso?

  Democracy is on the line, and I'm asking you about Biden's age.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  And you're running an 81-year-old. So, I'm saying, like, that was the tenor, and that was the tone in which they came to this stuff with.

• 47:26Sam Fragoso?

  That that question with a different intonation, that they couldn't hear that.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  They couldn't hear. They would not hear. They refused to hear.

• 47:34Sam Fragoso?

  I know we're making jokes, but it's bone chilling this week.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I'm saying there are real impacts to that refusal. Like, and the part that, you know, I was on the Daily All Mad on election night, and that's the part that gets me, is that the people who make these choices are largely not the people who experienced those impacts.

• 47:57Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  And the certainty that they had that led us to this place, I just find so disgus- like, so nauseating.

• 48:09Sam Fragoso?

  After the break, more from New York Times reporter, Ested Herndon.

• 48:16Sam Fragoso?

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• 49:49Sam Fragoso?

  As we began today talking about the insularity of the Biden administration, the insistence, his insistence, that he was the only person who could beat Donald Trump, and that his promise to be a bridge to the next generation was more metaphorical than literal. Yep. And to understand the root of that problem this moment, we have to go back to April of 2019, because that's when Biden declared his bid for the White House in the 2020 election. And what brought him to that race were the 2017 riots in Charlottesville. You may remember his announcement video that led with Charlottesville and what it represented.

• 50:32Speaker 03

  It was there on August of 2017, we saw Klansmen and white supremacists and neo-Nazis come out in the open. Their crazed faces illuminated by torches, veins bulging and baring the fangs of racism, chanting the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the 30s. And they were met by a courageous group of Americans, and a violent clash ensued. And a brave young woman lost her life. And that's when we heard the words of the President of the United States that stunned

• 51:14Speaker 03

  the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were, quote, "some very fine people on both sides." Very fine people on both sides? With those words, the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime. I wrote at the time that we're in the battle for the soul of this nation. Well, that's even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation. I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen.

• 52:25Sam Fragoso?

  Thinking about how he got into the race and where we are now, those words, "I cannot stand by and watch that happen," feel like a promise in one moment and now a threat in this moment.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  I mean, it reminds me of like, I don't think that all political actors are like operating in bad faith, but I do think that it can transition from like, from legitimate kind of moral reasons to games so quickly. And I think for Biden, a lot of things had to align for him to get the job he wanted since he was 29 in the Senate. And once they did, and you know, through a primary in which that didn't always seem like it was going to be the case, you know, it very clear, it's very clear to me that even by the time they were selecting a vice president, Joe Biden was operating and thinking in two terms.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  You know, when I did that profile, one of the questions I was having was, was Kamala Harris selected with the future in mind? And that answer is really no. She was elected with the future being win that election. But it wasn't selected in the future of setting up the next Democratic leader, or under the prospect that this is the uniquely older president, and so this choice matters in a different way. None of those things were in the room. And so, when I hear the quote, and when I think about how this actually played out, it just reminds me of how quickly earnest intentions.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Can become power corrupted. And I also think about, and I've thought about this a lot over the last four years, the sort of unelected emperors of it all. Joe Biden was insulated from even the broader political ecosystem by basically like eight to 10 people. And I think that like, as I've grown like closer to the centers of power in national politics, I've become more and more annoyed at that role of person who was never elected, who never is held accountable, who like only certain people know exists, but becomes these gatekeepers and these decision makers in these huge ways.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  And for Biden specifically, he created an echo chamber that told him that his actions were what people wanted. And I just think that for folks to do that and for the party to defer to that with so much on the line is, is just cowardice, you know? I think that reason of Charlottesville could be a legitimate one, but now Charlottesville is in the White House again. And you had to realize how you're, you and your own kind of like narcissism was standing in the way of that. And I don't only put that on Joe Biden. Like, I understand the natural instinct to think you can run again. That's what a party is for.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  It's actually what primaries are for. That's what, that's what other electives have encouraged is supposed to be for. That's what journalists should be for, to ask those questions. And a lot of people on the road did not do that job.

• 55:40Sam Fragoso?

  When Trump won in 2016, you said it was a story of political media completely missing the country. Hillary Clinton was going to win was the conventional wisdom, and every step of the way, the media was completely disconnected from the mood of the majority of the electorate.

• 55:58Sam Fragoso?

  In 2024, with this election, do you think that criticism is still true? Or is it possible this time around, it was the Democratic Party that missed the country?

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's more of a party story, in my opinion. Like, right, the first debate, the people who were most shocked were them. Most people had thought Biden was 2-0 for a while. That was the Biden they were seeing on their TikTok the whole time. That was the Biden they were seeing. You know, that's how most people were ingesting his presidency. And the people who were awoken to that problem were the people who had been ignoring all of the evidence. And so I actually think that that's probably true here, too. Because I refuse, I don't think it's true that there's this mass love of Trump's policy or Trump's ideology or MAGA-ism

• 56:54Speaker 01

  or a desire for RFK and Elon Musk and all of that. Like, I think more so, there was a mass distaste with the administration, with the president. And with a Democratic Party that was, that fed leftovers one too many times.

• 57:16Sam Fragoso?

  The leftovers from the Obama coalition.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, they played the same tune one too many times. And they should have read 2020 as that last time, which it was like, they should have read the precariousness of that coalition as like, okay, you got me one more time, which I think was a lot of people's feeling that year.

• 57:37Sam Fragoso?

  Right. Ben Rhodes, Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor, told Evan Osnos at The New Yorker, quote, "If Harris loses, I think the Democratic Party would have an internal reckoning of a kind we haven't had in my memory." And the question is, given the constraints you've outlined in this hour with us, what do you think a remade image would or should look like? And do you believe the Democratic Party has the capacity to imagine that image?

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Well, I will start with like a night of truth, like a thing that I think actually makes their jobs harder in a way that I I think people should acknowledge. Like, the Democrats are so much more diverse than Republicans that creating a through line is more difficult of a task. The job at hand in keeping their base together is a harder task than Republicans have. And that, I don't think people acknowledge enough when they think about this stuff. I, I mean, I think that you, you have to see, like, clearly, there was something about this administration that did not feel like it was affecting the material lives of a lot of people, rural, suburban, urban, across the board.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  I don't think those reasons are the same, but I do think the rejection's the same, right? So, the reflection has to be full in scope, and I don't trust the capacity of the party. And it's not because I think they're bad people, or I don't think they're interested in winning, or their hearts aren't in the right place for their constituents, whatever. I just think, like, it took Donald, like, let's say, let's, let's say what Republicans have done in terms of actually realigning their party to be more closer to the working class, took a hostile takeover, right? Did not take, did not, it wasn't members of the party coming to new conclusions.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  It was a person coming in to kick them out and bring in new people. And I frankly think that's how it happens. And so if I had a bet, I would bet that they solve it, of course, eventually, but I bet it comes from a place that feels unexpected. It's a voice that feels unexpected, or a movement that comes from somewhere else or something. Because I don't necessarily think this is just a messaging tweak. I think the infrastructure of the party is not where their base is. And so I think it's actually going to require new infrastructure.

• 1:00:10Sam Fragoso?

  In your interview with Kamala Harris, you pushed her on her history as a DA and AG, because she thought of herself as someone who can change a system from, quote, "the inside," and feels like that was a belief held by the Democrats of the 21st century, going back to Obama in 08. Is this election a repudiation of that instinct?

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's a repudiation of it. But I do think it forces us to ask what change really is. Because a lot of times, I think the folks who advocate for the inside are telling themselves that they're affecting more change than they are. And so it's not to me, or maybe, it's not to me that change cannot come from that path. It's that clearly, what change looked like to Americans was not another policy, was not the IRA, was not, was not the list of accomplishments we can go down. And this is always a DC thing, right? We talk about, cable news for sure, talks about policy wins and accomplishments.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  And I'm always like, who has decided that it's a win? It's just because the bill became a law? Like, we think about that in a very like, gamy political capital way. Like, he signs the bill, he replenishes his political capital account, he goes and whatever. Or, or, or, let's say someone like Bernie Sanders. It's, his appeal is taken as something that's purely ideological, or about single payer healthcare. And I'm like, it's also about being like, a person who's consistent about politics is broken, or take out the money from politics, or thing I hear all the time from DNR. And so I just think that an expanded idea of change is their true problem.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  And I don't know if the people in power, I mean, let's be honest. Do they want a working class party? Like, do they want a party that doesn't have, that's not donor driven? That's a more unpredictable one. That's the one that's stuck them and their friends. That's the one where they make less money. Like, there's not a disincentive these folks have for actual change. But I'm saying if they were honest with themselves, some of the people they are missing. To win them back will require those type of changes. Does that have to come from an outsider? I am not sure, but it has to be someone who's willing to. If you're changing from the inside, it has to be an actual change, you know? And not just something you have told yourself.

• 1:02:43Sam Fragoso?

  My last question for us. We spent a lot of time in this episode talking about the left. We're going to do future episodes on this show about a second Trump term.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got time.

• 1:02:55Sam Fragoso?

  2025, and we will hold all that in due time.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got time.

• 1:03:00Sam Fragoso?

  But as we go, whatever the Democrats decide to do, or the independents, or whatever comes out of this moment, the backdrop of that activity is going to be unsettling. And your colleague, Jamel Bouie, wrote something that feels fitting to hold. I think that the people interested in recriminations and score settling right now aren't seriously grappling with the magnitude of what happened and the implication for the rest of our lives. Most of us will probably die living in the political order that will emerge out of this election.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. This is why I say, does it matter or no? This is why I do politics stuff. Like, people will be like, oh, you do horse races and the like, and I do. I do it because of the reasons he's laying out. And one thing that I, I am proud of myself and our squad for, it wasn't Monday morning quarterbacking.

• 1:03:57Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  We did it in real time. And we did it in real time because it mattered in real time. Like, I wasn't just asking because I wanted another story. I knew that this moment was going to shape the options that people had before people tuned in. And I just feel the Democrats robbed a bunch of Americans of a real choice. And they woke up to that so extraordinarily late that to now call this. A Trump win, to me, is not fully true. It's real, it is foremost, in my opinion, a Democratic loss. And the impact of that, in the Democrats' own words,

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  is the type of fundamental reshaping of the country that we will live with forever. And so, I don't think that's hyperbole. That's two Supreme Court justices, that's mass deportations, that's all of that type of stuff. That's much less like legal system, bureaucracy, everything. And I'm just like, I wish we weren't alone. I wish we were, I wish we, I wish more folks were asking that. You know, like, it's been funny because in the last day or two, it's been this, like, deluge of interest in our work and appreciation for our work. And people talking about vindication for me from being like, for being like maligned by Democratic Twitter.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  I do not care about Democratic Twitter. I cared that millions of people were unheard. I wish we were less alone at that time for the purposes of more people getting voice. Like, whatever comes in the future from that, it kind of pales to me to just how, just how avoidable this all was. I, my biggest motivation is I do not want anyone to think this was always gonna happen, or this had to happen, or this was inevitably going to happen. It did not have to be like this.

• 1:06:06Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  It's that.

• 1:06:08Sam Fragoso?

  I think it'd be disingenuous for me to end on an exclusively hopeful note. So I will just say, giving voice to the voiceless. Having listened to your show, you have done just that. And I can't say I always liked hearing from people I don't normally hear from.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  Me either. I'm there.

• 1:06:33Sam Fragoso?

  But, but I am, I am grateful that you have done that work and continue to be doing that work.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate it. I, I, I wanted to hold the feeling I had in 2016 and say, Not again, you know? And I wanted, no matter what happened, for it to be like folks were prepared and I had done my part to try to prepare people. And so that part I did think we did.

• 1:07:01Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I thank you for preparing us for what has been a heartbreaking and devastating week.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Well, thank you for listening. And you've been there, OG. You've loved us before, understood.

• 1:07:15Sam Fragoso?

  From the beginning.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  I hold it in my heart. From the beginning, thank you.

• 1:07:18Sam Fragoso?

  I hope you get to sleep now.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  I will, I'm about to express. Me, El train bed.

• 1:07:25Sam Fragoso?

  Astead Herndon, talk to you soon.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Thank you, I'll talk to you later.

• 1:08:32Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. If you enjoyed that conversation with Astead, I know it was not an easy one at times, but I hope a useful one. The best thing you can do for us, the best way you can support Talk Easy is just by sharing it online, whether it's on social media, over text with a friend, over email. Really, all of this helps us continue making this program each and every Sunday. I want to give a special thanks this week to our guest, Ested Herndon. If you want to listen to his show, The Run-Up, you can do so wherever you are listening to this right now. To learn more about him and his work, or to listen to any of our past episodes together,

• 1:09:13Sam Fragoso?

  you can visit our show notes at talkeasypod.com. For more episodes like this one, I'd recommend our talks with Panahasi Coats, Evan Osnos, and David Rehnick. To hear those and more Pushkin podcasts, listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, at Talk Easy Pod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs, they come in cream or navy, or our vinyl record with writer Fran Lebowitz, visit our website at talkeasypod.com/shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer, Janik Sabrava.

• 1:09:54Sam Fragoso?

  Today's talk was edited by Matt Sasaki and mixed by Andrew Vestola. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Tricia Shanoi. I also want to thank our team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Carrie Brody, Jacob Smith, Eric Sandler, Kira Posey, Jordan McMillan, Amy Hagadorn, Sarah Bruggera, Owen Miller, Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell, Greta Cohen, and Jacob Weisberg. I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday with Josh Brolin. Until then, stay safe, and so long.

• 1:10:45Speaker 04

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