Vice President Kamala Harris in many ways answering 3 days
of speeches at the Republican National Convention and perhaps pre
budding what we're going to hear tonight from Donald Trump
when he gives his primetime address.
Basil Schmeichel.
Well written, well delivered, well ad libbed here and there.
But in the midst of a time when congressional leaders
and even Barack Obama are reported to be saying they
are worried Joe Biden can't win, at the heart of
the question is, isn't it?
Can Joe Biden effectively make the case we just heard
from Kamala Harris?
Well, I thought he can.
I thought he did over the last few days in
many ways.
But it's a wonderful ticket.
Like, I'd love Joe Biden as president.
I'd love Kamala Harris to be president.
And in fact, if Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer
and Hakeem Jeffries did after the debate what they're doing
now and stood up for Joe Biden collectively, we wouldn't
have had this conversation over the last couple of weeks.
But they didn't.
So here we are.
Where are we?
Where we are is that in a couple of days,
the DNC is going to have to make a decision
about where they want to.
So they're either going to stick with them more than
a couple of days ago they had to make a
decision.
But there there actually are some hard deadlines coming up,
unfortunately.
And what that means is that the what what means
is that Joe Biden is going to it looks like
he's still sticking to what he said all along, which
that he's in the race and he's old school.
I understand that if he's going to lose this thing,
he wants to lose it on the field, on the
field of battle and what and he thinks he's earned
the right.
He's done enough to earn the right to do that.
That's absolutely right.
Now there are there are these fundraising concerns and of
course the concerns about folks that are running in these
battleground States and districts.
The fact that Obama has come out now and made
these comments means that there's it looks like there's a
movement to further shift donors and other organizers away from
Joe to some space that we don't know yet.
Can I read to you something from this reporting that
that we first broke last hour that that leaves their
some people in Biden world who think it's close to
the end.
A person with knowledge of the projections said the Biden
campaign now expects it will only raise 25% of the
big donor money it had originally projected to raise in
July.
Further down grading the expectation last week that large dollar
fundraising would be down by as much as 50%.
No, it's listen it's it's striking.
I understand why these leaders are making this decision.
I don't like it often, but I understand.
Did they?
Cause I would say that over the last three weeks,
they've now entered into a place where it's almost a
self fulfilling prophecy.
They almost have to keep going in order to write
this, this, this ship.
Unfortunately, you know, in some ways it doesn't seem like
there's a path back.
They have to keep going forward.
Now, having said that, if they do decide to replace
Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, it better
be swift.
It better be decisive.
I hope to God that it is Kamala Harris.
And if it is, they better be prepared to defend
her because she'll have a nice bump over the next
first couple of weeks.
But the racialized and gendered attacks that are going to
come after her are going to be significant.
And I really hope that the same energy that a
lot of these electeds used to say that Joe Biden
should leave the race.
I hope they have that same energy when it comes
time to defend her.
Well, she just finished up there.
She said when we fight, we win.
No illusion to what's going on behind the scenes with
these calls for her boss, President Biden, to step down.
Look, I want to go to Van Gupta if I
can.
And the politics of this is the concern that Joe
Biden is down, even if it's just for a day
or two at a time when he's fighting very hard
to stay in the race.
I'm not going to ask you about politics and I'm
not going to ask you about his medical condition specifically.
You don't have Privy.
You're not Privy to his records and you haven't examined
him.
But the president's Kovic diagnosis, the White House says he
has mild symptoms.
What are the risk factors, though, more broadly for someone
he's on Pax Lovit, who is 81 years old.
Well, Chris, you laid it out beautifully.
And what I would say is anybody that's 81, age
by itself, as we've talked about over the years, in
and of itself puts you at risk for severe illness,
whether it's COVID, whether it's a different type of disease,
infectious or not.
Age unfortunately is a risk factor for severe illness ending
up in the hospital.
We know coexisting conditions and he has a few also
puts you at risk.
But his doctor is, is right on point with evidence
based medicine.
They gave him a first dose almost immediately after a
Paxilin after his positive test yesterday.
And, and here's just for all your viewers out there,
just to give you a sense of, of how he
was doing.
His vital signs were normal.
And what I look at as a pulmonologist, Chris, is
the heart rate trend.
If the heart and the lungs, if you're not breathing
abnormally fast, the heart rate's at a normal resting heart
rate trend, say 60 or 70 beats per minute.
And that's not changing.
That tells you that your heart and your lungs were
actually not under stress.
So it's, you know, the the tools that we have
available with us at home.
If you're wearing a wearable device, if you have a
pulse oximeter, you're worried that you might have an infection.
And a lot of people are getting COVID these days.
Look at your resting heart rate trend.
If it's changing, let's say you're normally 60 beats per
minute or 70, maybe it's now 80 or 90 and
you're feeling unwell.
That's tell me something about the stress that your body's
experiencing.
I'll lastly say, you know, we talk a lot about
perception and optics for the president.
It's not going to be uncommon to expect that he
might have some laryngitis, some lingering impacts on his voice
after he gets over the acute phase of his illness,
which apparently is mild.
But it's not unusual to have a softer voice, which
I know has gotten a lot of scrutiny from the
president after his debate.
So we should have some anticipation that he might be
having a ramp up back to normal baseline, but his
voice might be impacted when you say a ramp up.
Let me ask them what the CDC guidelines are because
they've changed, right?
And, and when I talked to Quentin Folk's a top
campaign aide last hour, he said, you know, he's working,
he's making phone calls, he's talking to people.
But when does the CDC say he could safely interact
with people one-on-one?
When could he be back out in public safely?
You know, the CDC guidance to your point has changed.
And really now it's to the individual's discretion if they're
not symptomatic, if they're feeling OK, you know, usually it's
just do as you would do if you have the
flu, which is put on a mask, protect others, be
mindful of others.
But they that five day.
No longer is actually mandated anymore for the president.
I would say that, you know, he's leading by example
as the leader of of the United States.
So him isolating until a negative test is important.
The sense of powerful message that this is still something
that takes seriously.
Obviously, Chris, by the way, September is not far down
the Pike.
We want or those that are higher risk medically to
get vaccinated.
Again, to the top of mind this matter called flu
season.
So him setting the example here is important.
But I expect he's he only has mild symptoms.
Again, he might have some, I haven't examined him personally,
but with mild upper respiratory symptoms, you might expect some
impact on on voice or hoarseness.
That might be the ramp up.
But it sounds like physically he's actually not doing too
bad.
So let me ask you finally, if I, if I
can, Basil, that there's new reporting in The New York
Times.
And I'm just going to read it to you and
get your reaction, which speaks frankly to the president's age.
Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a key member of the
House committee that investigated the attack on the capital on
January 6th, sent President Biden A4 page letter this month
that compared the 81 year old commander in chief to
a tiring baseball pitcher and urged him to consult with
fellow Democrats about whether to continue his campaign.
Yeah, there's a lot, if the reporting is correct, there's,
there are a lot of conversations that are going on.
There are some people have suggested they're serving more to
have him get his Irish up than anything else.
That and, and maybe impact voters who feel he's not
being treated well.
I, I just wonder what you make of this.
I, I don't think it's even a drip, drip, drip.
There's been a lot in the last 24 hours.
No, that's absolutely right.
There was a point where I thought we may have
turned the corner and, and, and we really didn't.
You had David Jolly on earlier.
And I want to echo something he said and I've
said before, when you talk to a lot of voters
on the ground, they want to they they, they want
to stick with the guy that got him here.
They do.
So in many ways, this seems like a conversation among
the leadership and with the leadership to push him out
than the actual base of the party.
I do believe at the end of the day that
the party will get behind whomever the nominee is.
Again, I hope that's Kamala Harris if it's not Joe
Biden.
But my point has always been, because these conversations are
happening behind the scenes and letters get circulated like that,
are you instilling confidence in the voter for the way
that this process is going to unfold toward the the
election?
The Democrats have always said and have campaigned on being
the party of stability.
Joe Biden initially ran on bringing us back to normal
back in 2020.
If you look at the split screen when Hakeem Jeffries
was going up and down because the party was nominating
him for speaker, when there was chaos on the other
side, the Democrats have always been the party of governance
and stability.
And we just don't look like that right now.
And my feeling is you got to take all of
this from the behind the scenes, from these letters, from
these conversations, give the voter a clear path forward.