While we have been talking, we have a little bit
of new information.
We have a response from the White House, the president,
this is from White House spokesperson.
The president told both leaders, meaning Schumer and Jeffries, he
is the nominee of the party he plans to win
and looks forward to working with both of them to
pass his 100 days agenda to help working families.
So this is obviously the the top line response here
is no, I'm not going anywhere.
But this also, I think implicitly, I may be a
little over my skis here, but I think this implicitly
confirms that Schumer and Jeffries did go to President Biden
and say, we're going to lose with you at the
top of the ticket.
And therefore you need to decide if those are if,
if you want that to be your legacy.
Well, unless Schumer and Jeffries deny that that's what they
said, even if we don't have the details.
And neither of them have issued something, which Nicole and
I have written a lot of statements.
We've been a part of a lot of non denial
denials.
So if if that's not true, they should come out
and say it's not true.
I just want to echo something Nicole said because I
think a lot of Democrats have been under a great
deal of attack, online and otherwise.
And the reason that people are having this conversation is
because of the threat of Donald Trump and now JD
Vance, who will read the Project 2025 plan and be
a more effective implementer.
It's not because they don't like Joe Biden.
It's not because they don't think he was a great
president.
It's because they're scared that they could take over and
what they would do to our country.
That's why people are having a conversation.
But in terms of what we know and what we
don't know, which is always important, I will say that
contextually, having worked for Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem
Jeffries are people that are obviously litters in the Democratic
Party.
They're not people he has close personal relationships with, in
turn, as close as he has with, say, Jim Clyburn
or close as he has with Nancy Pelosi.
There have been reports and again, we're all pasting together
reports and talking to a lot of people about Pelosi's
behind the scenes work.
We don't know much more about that.
Obviously.
I think it's hard to believe that Adam Schiff would
have done what he did without her knowing about it.
But a spokesperson for her said it was news to
her.
Again, these are just things we know right now.
The other things we don't know is the impact on
money.
If the money dries up, that's obviously a huge factor.
But I think the other last thing I'll just say
about what to know about Joe Biden, because it's it's
what's the reality here?
We're watching and also how he operates as a human
is that he has felt underestimated always.
He's got a superpower.
It's his superpower.
He always has superpower.
He feels that people never thought he could win in
2020 and he didn't.
These are entirely different circumstances.
But for anyone who's thinking, well, the leaders of the
Democratic Party are telling him he should step, step out,
it's over in a matter of hours.
I just wouldn't make a bet on that.
Yeah.
What I would say is that what you reported in
very well set up matches what I am hearing from.
I feel like I at this point might have talked
to every single member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the
last, you know, 24 to 48 hours.
It matches what I am hearing not just from them,
but from some of the people whose job it will
be to turn out votes.
I mean, there are people who actually do this.
They are, they are people who specialize in turning out,
particularly votes in places like Fulton County, places like Detroit,
places like Milwaukee that Democrats will have to win in
and win big and get big, turn out in, in
order to win the election.
And what I am hearing and the anger that I'm
hearing that's coming from them is that to the point
that you were making, given the stakes and the stakes
being democracy itself, the stakes being Project 2025, the stakes
being a Trump presidency, which I think everyone agrees African
Americans would be first in line to suffer, right?
And so they understand the stakes, that there is a
sense among the people that I have spoken to, including
some senior members of that caucus, that given that there
is a sense that there is gamesmanship going on inside
of this effort to remove President Biden from the ticket.
And that that gamesmanship is heavily geared toward also pushing
aside Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris.
And there is a sense that there is a lot
of pressure coming from there.
Some people are just calling it California at this point,
whether it's donors or whether it is members, whether it
is whoever.
This sense of huge pressure for the CBC, which has
locked arms with President Biden, I think we can all
agree on that.
They have been unwavering.
They are sticking with him.
You know, Claire McCaskill will tell you to the very
end, they are with him that the huge pressure is
coming without regard to the vice president.
And that there is this what they perceive is a
push for an open convention.
And that people are taking the risk of playing 2028
games with a 2024 crisis.
And that the gamesmanship in trying to maneuver people who
may want to run in 2028 and maneuver them in
now is seen as undercutting the whole project when the
project is beating Trump.
What a lot of folks are telling me is that
they see gamesmanship to try to set aside the person
who would be next in line in 2028, meaning the
vice president, and that they will.
And I'll just say my last thing is that what
I will tell you is just based on the many
dozens of conversations, I feel like I, I haven't been
off the phone and I am exhausted by it.
But I thought the joy was literally on the phone
until the second I was literally still responding.
The little strap on your phone.
I thought you had a landlord.
It was like, Oh my God, we brought in a
landline into my tether.
I literally wear the phone around my neck because I
always lose my phone and if I don't literally have
it hanging on my neck.
I thought you were like on a high lined a
mosque hour and I was like Jason Marganti Reed, my
wonderful husband finally realized that I will never stop asking
where my phone is until I literally can wear it
like an ornament.
So it's a necklace.
This is when you have a good partner in life.
So this is the tether.
Yes.
And I was literally listening to you and responding.
And that is the sense that that that people fear
that President, Vice President Harris will be moved aside in
this process.
And the CBC will not move Hakeem Jeffries as an
exception because obviously he represents the whole caucus.
They ain't going nowhere as long as they think that
she's in Jeff.
OK, but what if Vice President Harris isn't in jeopardy?
Yeah.
And what if the what if the move, what if
the move relates to President Biden but is about elevating
President Harris?
It's totally different conversation.
And I had a very senior member of the CBC
say that to me almost verbatim, that if this was
a conversation, they would obviously all support her.
I mean, she's a member.
She was a member of the CBC when she was
in the United States Senate.
They adore her.
They love him.
I mean, let's just be, I think, and I think
you said it, maybe President Biden is beloved in the
party.
Like, that is just very clear.
Even the people who are asking him to move aside,
they love the guy and they've been hugely successful as
Democrats.
Political rivals love him.
They love everybody who's ever fought with some Republicans who
won't admit it them.
Yeah, yeah.
And so I think that is there's a sense don't
play this game with this important issue.
I would just say two sentences.
Everything you just said can be true.
And the closer you get to the convention, the more
that logistically, the only off ramp would be the vice
president because you wouldn't have time for an open convention,
right?
You wouldn't logistically and financially legally be able to do
much with the campaign coffers unless they were part of
the Biden Harris ticket.
So what you described could be a now thing.
We don't know, as Rachel emphasized, where this reporting goes.
But if this is still being discussed two weeks from
now, it starts to narrow from only Biden, which is
what he's reiterated tonight, or perhaps his running mate who
can take over the campaign infrastructure and financing, not starting
from scratch in late August.
The the idea of they keep telling me we have
to take a break.
I'm sorry to the control room need to talk to
my people.
I will pay personally or whatever commercial.
I'm very sorry.
I just have to finish this conversation.
Forgive me.
I will.
I will say that I have been I I don't
do a lot of this.
I'm not like a person who has tons and tons
of live sources and politics because I don't like making
I don't like being friends with people who I cover
and so I don't like people having my phone number.
Why?
What you like people, it makes you, it makes it
hard to cover them with the great you need.
I'm just too like, I'm too suburban.
I can't do it.
So I don't do this a lot.
But this is an exception.
I'm having one of these moments where I, too, am
talking and texting with senators and members of Congress all
day.
And I have to say, just reacting to what you're
hearing, Joy, what I am hearing.
And maybe we're talking to some of the same people,
I don't know.
But if Vice President Harris were going to be the
choice of the Democratic Party, if President Biden decided, you
know what, for whatever reason and on whatever terms, I'm
going to pass the torch, I'm going to be a
transaction transitional leader now.
Yeah.
And it was going to go to Vice President Harris.
There would definitely be a lot of work to do
to make sure that Vice President Harris was strongly positioned
to beat Donald Trump in November.
But it would then be a normal Democratic work product.
Yeah.
Project to get her to try to win.
There wouldn't be this existential thing going on.
Well, and I know we're in trouble.
As long as we're already in trouble, I'll add my
reporting.
It was described to me today as dynamic, not static,
because Vice President Kamala Harris's political strength is, is a
moving and ascending part of the story as well.
Yeah.
And there was a sense 2 weeks ago that there
was a question mark around her electability.
There was a report last week that there's a poll
in the field by the president's own polling allies testing
that her political strength without any ads, without any effort
behind it is very impressive.
A lot of political people in both parties would love
to design A campaign around Vice President Kamala Harris.
She I've been a lot of her speeches have been
happening in my hours.
I've been taking them live.
She and I've said this, but she's electric on the
campaign trail.
And he picked her and he gave an unbelievable speech
yesterday.
And his first line was, do you know what a
black job is?
That's a good line Black job Vice president of United
States and I you know, and whatever he decides, it's
a fantastic argument to take to the country.
It's a phenomenal contrast with Donald Trump and I I
guess the other the other side to what you sort
of laid on the table, which is so which is
so sobering.
Is there so much baseball left to play?
It's like the second inning of one of 718 inning
games and the 18 innings is the longest game ever
played.
I mean, there's so much left and there's the Democrats
who I think are all acting in good faith.
They don't need any advice from me.
But the only thing I would say is there's no
room for despair.
There's a lot of time there's she's fantastic.
He's beloved and and everything will probably be OK.
God bless you.
We love that.
I know we're already in trouble.
And when I said one more thing, I, I also
think that the president will be influenced by seeing her
own path to victory.
I mean, he, this is obviously a decision he has
to make.
It's frustrating people on many levels.
People are angry, they're upset, they're mad.
But he cares deeply about the Democratic Party.
He cares deeply about the Senate winning, about the House
being in Democratic control.
And if he can see a path for her to
victory, I have no doubt that would be influential for
him too.
And, and while he he picked her, I did think
what he said about her the last couple of days
is true and also significant.
And people should hear that.
But that's another piece.
But, but I will give one piece of advice to
the Democrats out there.
People who are supporters of her don't know where this
is going to end.
Far too many people are in stories saying, don't take
this away from her, which by the way, is incredibly
defensive about someone who's an electric performer on the campaign
trail who speaks about abortion rights in a completely compelling
way.
There's no reason to be.
Whatever happens, she's a powerful, amazing candidate who'd be a
great candidate and a great president.
That's what people should be saying.
It's way too of a defensive of a conversation.
The only person makes the decision is Joe Biden.
Yeah, but there's no reason to disparage her being that
only conversation being about her being passed over.
And by the way, I think we're going to have
to send a Venmo to MSNBC to pay for all
this.
And I will say the last thing that I did
have someone say to me, which I thought was a
quite compelling argument, who obviously is a big supporter of
hers.
Imagine the prospect of a former sex crimes prosecutor prosecuting
a 34 count felon who's also been an adjudicated sexual
assaulter.
And I think for a lot of people that just
the idea of just watching that match happen is kind
of giving people a little bit of the feels excitement.
I will also say I have two things to say.
One is that there was a poll out today, a
poll of African American women showing a 31 point drop
in support from 20/20/2020 to 20/24 in terms of plans
to vote for President Biden.
Vice President Harris, turn that around.
And if you think you could, Democrats can win the
presidency with a 30 point drop in the black female
vote.
There's a real problem at hand.
And if Vice President Harris has the support of President
Biden and the support of the camp, the support of
the party broadly and can get there procedurally, I think
there isn't a brighter path in November than the path
that goes through her.
And we shall see.
The other thing I have to tell you is that
we killed a break.