Corey Brett Schneider joins us live right now.
He's a law and politics professor at Brown University, also
the author of the new book The Presidents and the
People.
Corey, this has happened.
Now let's get past the reaction, talk about the future.
What are the mechanics for what happens next, especially with
the Democratic National Convention kicking off just four weeks from
tomorrow?
Well, I think we're unclear and we're going to hear
from the president.
He's, I think in the speech that he gives coming
up, going to announce a plan.
But the bottom line is that there are a number
of delegates and the delegates at the convention are the
ones who are going to choose the nominee.
They're obviously going to be released.
They're not going to be Biden delegates anymore.
Now, what happens next is really can range from a
democratic process.
There's been talk of a mini primary or there could
be an attempt to lock the delegates up and to
sway them for for Kamala Harris in advance.
So we're waiting to see.
To my mind, it's a democracy and it's a fight
for democracy.
And so that might demand the democratic process.
OK.
How does the Democratic Party move forward Now?
There's been talk of the word unity.
We've heard it used a lot.
But what does the party actually have to do to
unify itself?
Well, I think there is a unifying theme and that's
the idea that this really is not an election like
any other election.
It's an election that's really a referendum on democracy.
And it matters less who the particular candidate is and
what the message is.
The worry about January 6th, for instance, the attempted self
coup of the President Trump then to remain in power.
And by stepping down.
I think Biden actually really heightens that message because as
a selfless act, it fits with the idea that George
Washington had of the presidency, an idea of modesty, that
it's not about the person, it's about the office, it's
about the Constitution.
And by putting the office first, what Biden has done,
President Biden has heroically put that issue of democracy on
the table.
All right.
And I'm going to ask you to grade the media
here.
Just a day after the debate, The New York Times
called for Biden to bow out of the race.
Since then, even though we have two candidates with opposing
visions for where they want to take this country, media
coverage is largely centered on the age of one of
the candidates, with a fraction of coverage devoted to subjects
like Project 2025.
Your professor, how do you grade the impact media has
had on these developments?
Well, I think the New York Times rightly also called
for Trump not to be the nominee of of his
party and talked about the threat to democracy.
I do think that these are not even things that
there is a question about age, a question about the
nominee.
Of course, any nominee will be vetted.
But when you compare it to the fact that we
have a candidate who is now a major party candidate
who denied the election outcome and still does claim falsely
that he was still president, I don't see how this
can be anything but a referendum on the question of
whether or not democracy continues in this country.
And when you have one candidate is really explicitly threatened
to jettison the Constitution, that's going to be the central
issue in this campaign.
All right, Professor Brett Snyder, thank you very much for
joining us.