America Lost the Debate

Yesterday, President Joe Biden and former (twice-impeached, 34-time felon) President Donald Trump faced off in the first Presidential debate of the 2024 Election. It was intense, as is Sarah and Beth’s response. They take today’s episode to process it together.

*This episode is explicit.

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EPISODE RESOURCES

Pantsuit Politics Slow Book Club Reading of Democracy in America

June 27 Presidential Debate

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth This is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth Where we take a different approach to the news.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

[00:00:29] Thank you for being here with us today. We are arriving in your feed late because we wanted to be able to cover the first presidential debate last night and its fallout. A big thanks to Dylan at Studio D, and for everyone who touches this podcast behind the scenes to allow us to make this episode happen outside of our normal schedule. It is a hard conversation that we are going to have today. It is made harder by the fact that this morning, as we've been recording, the Supreme Court has dropped some very significant new decisions. So here is our commitment to you. We are going to cover those decisions on More to Say, our premium channel. We will come back in August with a recap probably of what's going on with the Supreme Court. But today we think the most important thing that we can talk about is the presidential debate and the state of that race. And so, that is what we are going to do.  

[00:01:20] If you would like to put that debate and this race in the broader context of American history, we feel like we have something special for you in that regard. On our premium channel today, we released the next installment of our slow read-along of Alexis de Tocqueville's classic, Democracy in America. It has just been therapeutic to me to read this book this year against the backdrop of everything happening in this election. And this most recent installment is no different. I feel like I learned a lot that grounded me more in what people are thinking around this race. Even if you have no desire to read the book, we get it. We hope you'll join us on Patreon or Apple Podcasts subscriptions for those conversations about what we're learning and how it's helping us frame current events. Next up, let's talk about that debate.  

[00:02:07] Music Interlude.  

[00:02:15] As I was preparing to talk about the debate this morning, I looked at my husband and said, "I just need to go outside. I need the birds. I need the trees and the sky." And that's pretty representative of how I'm feeling this morning. I am just trying to check in with things that are bigger than me, because my emotions are in a knot. And I'm wondering where you are, Sarah.  

Sarah [00:02:36] Yeah, I'm devastated. I'm just devastated. Like every cable TV pundit reported after the debate, my phone started blowing up about 10-15 minutes in. It hasn't really stopped. Same this morning. And everybody's looking to me as a person who does political analysis, I guess, political therapy. But I need the political therapy. It's so hard to give it right now. I've been a Democrat since I was 18 years old. And I've always been so proud to be a Democrat. And we've talked so much since 2016 about the people who stand by and let bad things happen inside their party.  

[00:03:37] And now I just feel this moral obligation not to be one of those people. I'm so disappointed that we've gotten to this place, and I don't think it was all terrible moral choices. I think it was the way we hollowed out the parties post-1968 and further in 2016. But there is this moral component. I'm angry. I'm angry at Joe Biden. I'm angry at his advisers and family who let him go up on that stage and put forth such an unmitigated disaster of a performance. I'm just so sad and angry and heartbroken.  

Beth [00:04:24] My brain is in a loop of all of the things that are out there that people are feeling. And I can hear the pushback on that formulating as you're speaking. This sort of being a good debater is not part of being a president-- the governor Newsom. He's done a great job for us. We can't abandon him because of one bad performance. Like, all of those lines. And so, what I would like to express from my perspective to people who did not watch the debate, is that I walked away from the debate concerned not only about President Biden's ability to campaign, but about his ability to continue in office now. Now, let me be clear. I sound like Vice President Harris. I watched a lot of Vice President Harris afterward, and she says that a lot. Let me be clear. Let me be clear. If the choice is on my ballot in November are President Biden and former President Trump. It's still not a hard choice for me. I will vote for President Biden.  

Sarah [00:05:38] Same.  

Beth [00:05:39] And I believe in the team of people who work with President Biden. And I believe that he is capable of exercising judgment in situations where he has some time and the counsel of his advisors in the team. But I became concerned last night thinking about if I were a foreign leader watching this debate, how I would view America and American leadership at this moment. I became concerned about a crisis. It's true that you don't have to be a skilled debater to be a great president. You do have to be a good messenger. You do have to be someone who, if there was an attack on our country right now, you could stand up in front of the American people and call us and tell us what the plan is and have a plan quickly. And I, for the first time, became very, very concerned about that.  

[00:06:34] And so, this to me is not a blame the media moment, or the pundits are overreacting, or people are unfairly deserting someone who's worked very hard. All credit to President Biden for his term. I think he has served as well as a president can serve, especially in a time that is so tumultuous. And it is. As he tried to point out last night, pretty ineffectively, he was dealt a terrible hand. He was left a mess, both by the former president and by the universe. And he has discharged those responsibilities capably to this point. But this point to me is an inflection point. This was not he seems old. This was a category difference to me.  

Sarah [00:07:20] And the defense is that he was sick and etc. Look, I saw him in Los Angeles in a very friendly setting with Jimmy Kimmel and Barack Obama, what, two weeks ago? And he also struggled. So, we have to face the reality that at this point you have to be able to make the case. His job is not just to be president, but to be a presidential candidate. And he cannot do that job. He cannot do that job. It wasn't just style. At one point, Van Jones was like, if you read it and didn't watch it. No, that's not any better. He didn't make a good argument. He missed opportunity after opportunity to make the argument. He flubbed a question on abortion, one of the strongest, most important issues of our time. He didn't bring up the fact that he's running against a convicted felon until an almost hour into the debate.  

[00:08:19] He let Donald Trump get away with lie after lie after lie. The debate format that they, the Biden campaign argued for, was a disaster. The expectations were so low, so low that the Trump campaign panicked and started to raise them. And he could not clear the bar of the lowest expectation. I have defended him. I have said I trust this man when he says I'm capable of this, but that trust was violated last night. I no longer trust him. I no longer trust the people surrounding him. And I hope that they hear that. I mean, it's not just this media class freak out. This was the biggest weakness of the campaign. That the American people have said we watch him and we don't think he's up for it. He had to meet that concern. And not only did he not meet it and answer it, he worsened it.  

Beth [00:09:23] I think they made a calculation that the way to show his acuity was to have him rehearsed in specifics. He tried to share statistics and a lot of quantitative information, but it was garbled. There was no coherent thread in any answer. Now we can talk about the format. Which is not conducive to a thoughtful, nuanced response to any kind of question. But when you're talking about the format you're losing. When you're complaining about the debate moderators, it's because you've lost.  

Sarah [00:10:00] Yeah.  

Beth [00:10:00] That's not what happened here. I think any format, the person that we saw last night would not have left a casual observer confident in that person's leadership. One of my friends texted me this morning. His son walked in the room, caught a few minutes of debate, and said, "This are the candidates for president?" And my friend said, yeah. And then his son said, "Isn't the president supposed to be like the leader of the country?" And my friend said, yeah. And his son said, "I don't know, man," and walked out of the room. And I was like, that's the impression I think just about any rational person, unbiased, would have if you walked in.  

[00:10:48] Because trump sounded confident and certainly seemed more energetic. But if you listened to him at all, he is also incoherent. And he is telling lies about everything. He is narcissistic. If we learned anything about Donald Trump last night, I think it's hard to learn new things about him. But if we learn something about him last night, for me, the one learning is that in his mind, the stakes here are extremely high because he did try to contain some of his worst instincts, more than I've seen him do before. But that doesn't mean it was a good performance for him. It was not. It was a bad night for our country. Period.  

Sarah [00:11:31] Yeah, I think that's why I'm so upset. It's not even just as a Democrat. It's as an American. I'm just devastated to have to bring my 13-year-old and my 15-year-old down to watch a presidential debate, and that be what they witness. No solutions on climate change. No even answer from either candidate on the child care crisis. No ideas. It wasn't a debate of ideas at all. And it's not that I even believe anymore that Americans want that. I understand that elections are emotional. They are personality driven because of the way we've hollowed out this process. But the debates in the past have been moments where things bubbled up, ideas came to the forefront. We were talking about where we want the country to go. And maybe we disagreed vehemently on that direction, but there was a direction under debate.  

[00:12:28] And to be at the place where we have people saying everything will be different because of artificial intelligence. This technology is coming, everything will be different. And it didn't even come up. It didn't even come up. This is ahistorical moment where we have an incumbent, and a former president, a convicted felon, a land war in Europe, the hottest year on record, you name it, and this is what we're doing? It's just devastating as a person who cares. And like Griffin was like, "Why are you even reading stuff? How can you even talk about this?" And I'm like, because it matters. There are stakes here. And instead, we're having this-- like what? Personality debate about who's worse? It's devastating.  

[00:13:27] What I witnessed last night, it just breaks my heart. As a person who has loved politics and loved presidential politics, I can still remember watching Bush and Clinton and Perot and that debate and feeling energy and feeling, like, aren't we this great country that we can stand up and have this debate openly? I cannot believe that we have gotten here. I know how. I believe there's another path. I think we need to have some hard conversations so we don't end up here again. But Jesus Christ, I'm so angry at the complete and total absence of leadership and moral duty.  

Beth [00:14:22] The criticism that I will level at the moderators is that they didn't press into anything about the future. And I understand why it is important still that former President Trump did not accept the results of the last election. I don't think that we need to allow him to freeze us in time in that way, though, and I think that President Biden's opportunity was to quickly dispose of that issue by hitting it hard at the beginning. America, there is a land war in Europe. There is war in the Middle East. We are still recovering from Covid, and the person on this stage with me is so mired in his own legal issues, cannot even be trusted to say that the person who got the most votes won. That we're stuck there and I don't want to be stuck. I want to move us forward. And it's really depressing that he couldn't do that when so many members of his administration are out there crushing it. Pete Buttigieg put on a seminar in Congress in a hearing about electric vehicles.  

Sarah [00:15:42] Yeah.  

Beth [00:15:43] Just an absolute command of the facts and of the vision, both things. And handled people leveling things at him that were just totally false. Like, just nailed it. Vice President Harris had the extremely unenviable task of going on TV last night after this debate, one of the hardest media hits imaginable where she has to thread the needle of being really supportive of him, but also really honest so she doesn't blow any credibility she has. And I thought she carried it off extremely well. It's a good team over there. Secretary Raimondo, Secretary Yellen. You've got a bunch of people there who are very future focused. This administration has done some incredible work on artificial intelligence within the government and working with other governments around the world. We just can't get to any of that through the vehicle of this person. And I am sad about that.  

[00:16:48] And I didn't think it would be that way. But the one certainty coming out of this debate is that in November, Joe Biden will not be a younger man, and he will not be a man with fewer stressors in his life. I do think that his son being tried and convicted. Is weighing on him. And of course it is. My God, that family has had so much devastation for decades. The cumulative effect of that and the way that it's being manifested around Hunter now, of course, that's stressful. That isn't going anywhere. None of the things that concerned me last night are going to get better by November. And that's why I think today has to be a clear message that we need to make a change here because this isn't working.  

Sarah [00:17:42] Yeah. I mean, this was always the risk. When you're that old, you can go downhill rapidly. And, of course, that's going to be the case under the stress of a presidency, under an invasion in Ukraine, a war in the Middle East and a criminal trial of your own son. I think what this family gets trapped in is because of the scope of their tragedy. It's almost like the people who are like-- the corruption argument that I've made before, like, I've made such sacrifices; I deserve your trust; and I get to decide what's right. And I'm sorry, that's not how it works. I do not think the Biden family wants the ultimate tragic legacy of losing this presidency to Donald Trump. At least I hope they don't. And if they don't have people around them telling them the truth, it's like we have one party that cares only about politics and can't govern, and one party that's excellent at governance and doesn't seem to give a shit about the political reality. And it's maddening. It is maddening that we are here when we have such huge problems.  

[00:19:00] And also, I just want to say that it is maddening because I don't feel like I'm lost in some American hellscape. I hate the way that Donald Trump talks about this country. I hate it because it's not true, because you can speak openly and authentically about the challenges that American society faces without mirroring us in this fear-driven, ridiculous, and largely false mythical narrative. Can't you hold both things at once? No, of course not. I know you can't. To watch this debate and think, "Oh my God, Donald Trump looks presidential" is just the most terrifying experience. To see that maybe he has learned and maybe he can't-- because honestly, what I was banking on is that he can't learn. But last night shows that he can. And that is truly terrifying.  

Beth [00:20:03] Because the stakes are so high for him. I mean, this is his liberty. His liberty is on the line in this election. He will either go on to face more criminal charges or he won't, depending on whether he wins the election. And in the face of those stakes, he is finding a way to survive. That's what he has always done. When his back is against the wall, he figures out a way to survive. That has nothing to do with America. And that's what's so depressing to me. Again, I don't sit around my house fantasizing about Donald Trump going to jail. I don't care about justice for Donald Trump. I just don't want him to be the president again. The country cannot afford, in my opinion, for him to be the president again. And with the stakes that high and with Democrats saying constantly, democracy is on the ballot, the stakes are so high then, then you got to act like it, too. And that's not what happened in this debate last night.  

[00:21:01] I totally agree with you, though, that I do not feel like we live in hell on earth right now. I do not think we are on the cusp of World War three. I am not thinking about another country to move to today. The catastrophizing wears me out. I think we are Americans. I think Joe Biden is at his best when he's saying, "We're Americans, come on, we can do things. There are no challenges too great for us to face." And I would just say to him today, please face that challenge with us. Because, truly, it is not for me just about electoral politics. I am not confident that he can serve for years, and that's an unfair place to start with the president. Anyone could have a disaster happen to them: a health event, a life event. None of us are invincible. Starting here for a four-year term is unfair.  

[00:22:04] It's unfair when somebody like Chuck Grassley seeks another six years in Congress, and it's unfair for the president. And that stinks. And you can yell at me about that being ages or ablest all you want to. I'm just speaking the truth as I see it, that the demands of the American presidency are such that we need to have a person that we are confident can serve a full four years to the fullest extent we can have that confidence. And that is not true of either one of those people. They are not equally bad. And, again, I will happily vote for Joe Biden if these are the two choices. But those should not be the two choices. And we have enough time and ability. We're Americans. Come on man. It's what Joe Biden would tell us in another context, to change this. And we should do that.  

[00:22:54] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:23:02] We have a problem and we all need to acknowledge that we have a problem, and it's not just about Joe Biden. I don't speak about this a lot on the podcast because I know people have warm feelings towards Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but I do not. I have zero warm feelings for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because she was derelict in her duty and obligation to America when she did not retire under the presidency of Barack Obama. And I still have a lot of anger about that. We saw the same thing with Dianne Feinstein and Mitch McConnell. Remember he was freezing during press conferences. Like, what are we doing? We need to talk about this. This is a problem. And it keeps coming up over and over and over again. We need a process. We need a law. We need something. Because as the American demographic changes and people can live longer and longer, we're going to have to do something.  

[00:24:01] This is isn't working. How many times do we have to see this play out? It's terrifying. It's unacceptable. When I was reading Bono's memoir, he talks about when he's going around trying to drum up support as an activist for PEPFAR for the Aids funding. Warren Buffett tells him, like, you can't shame Americans. We don't respond to that the same way Europeans do. You have to appeal to our greatness. Just what you just said, like, these are hard things. But I do believe in this country and I do believe in the institutions. And for too long we have made it about personality instead of institutions. We are the committee. The Democratic Party is the freaking committee right now. And we have to talk about what comes next, because it cannot be Joe Biden as a candidate.  

Beth [00:24:55] I think we are all careful and resistant to talking about age, because not everyone ages at the same rate or in the same way. There's something about laying down a marker that feels arbitrary and unfair. We accept a lot of arbitrary, unfair things to try to live together as a society. Not every 16-year-old is ready to drive. Not every 18-year-old is ready to vote or serve in the military. Not every 21-year-old is ready to drink.  

Sarah [00:25:23] And 35 to serve as presidency is just a number out of the clear blue damn sky. We just picked a number out of the sky. It has nothing to do with anything.  

Beth [00:25:30] We set some markers down though, because we need some markers and we recognize that. I also think people hate this discussion because what they hear is, well, if we think you're too old to be the president or in the Supreme Court or in the Senate, then we think you're worthless and we want to throw you away. Absolutely not. There is a lot of space between probably time to step back, and I don't want any part of you. If I were a Democrat who really felt like I could be the next president in this moment, I would want Joe Biden on my team. I would want him as an advisor to me, a close, important advisor. I would want to have a warm relationship. I would want to seek his counsel. I still think he brings tremendous experience and insight and relationships to the table.  

[00:26:24] I would probably enlist his help often with a lot of admiration and respect. It would have been a lot easier to do that if Joe Biden had passed the torch. And what we're seeing over and over and over again is because the stakes feel so high, everybody from Justice Ginsburg to President Biden, has felt that they cannot afford to pass the torch. And so that's the societal work that we have to do long term. And short term, it is the work that his closest advisers and family members are going to do, because my belief about Joe Biden is that he will run for president as long as Jill Biden says he should. And I hate to put this on her shoulders. That feels so unfair to me. It also does seem like the truth of it.  

Sarah [00:27:09] I mean, I said during the debate on our chat, "I believe Jill Biden loves Joe Biden." Truly I do. But I do not know how if you love someone as much as she loves him, you put him in that position. I just don't. And I know it sounds sexist and terrible, but I cannot imagine it. I can and I can't. I just told Nicholas, I'm like, this feels like a massive national manifestation of the same bullshit I've seen in my family and every other family, which is we just don't want to look at someone and say, it's time.  

Beth [00:27:48] Yeah, that's right.  

Sarah [00:27:49] It's an impossibly hard conversation and no one wants to have it. And so, we all just suffer because no one wants to have a hard conversation about aging and death and your worth as a human being. It's insane to me. It's insane to me what we are doing right now. I cannot fathom it. In my head last night, I'm like, okay, who could say something that he would hear? I have enormous respect for Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof and Paul Krugman all coming out and being like, no, I think it's a matter of time before the New York editorial board comes out and says, step aside. Step aside. We all know he reads The New York Times. Anybody who can listen to. Can his grandkids all gather and say, no, you can't. I was even last night engaging in true fan fiction. Like, could Zelinski come out and say, please do not. You are putting my country at risk with another Donald Trump presidency. Please step aside.  

Sarah [00:28:47] I don't even care if they just switch. Truly. I don't care if they're just like JK, he's going to be vice president. Kamala Harris is going to be the president. Fine. I don't care if we go to a convention and fight it out. I actually don't think that's the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is he stays the candidate and loses to Donald Trump. I would rather lose under a brokered convention. I'd rather take the risk as a Democrat and have it blow up in our face than see what we saw last night and march off the cliff.  

Beth [00:29:16] I actually think a brokered convention would be great. I think this whole thing needs to be shaken up. It's not working. Has not been working for a while. We've talked a lot about how the primaries aren't working. We've talked a lot about the hollowing out of the parties. What better to remind people there is still power to be had. There is still agency. Nothing is inevitable. We aren't just at the mercy of the gods here. You know what I mean? That's how it feels sometimes. I was listening to Abby Stoddard this morning, who I really respect, and she was saying it feels sometimes like the universe conspires for Donald Trump on his behalf. And it does feel that way. But it in part feels that way, because we all kind of go, "Yeah, I guess it does." I think it would be a good moment to have Democrats come out and say, when something is happening in our party that's not working, we change it. They've done that in a whole bunch of respects over the last year. This is a bigger one, but it is absolutely feasible.  

[00:30:21] And anybody who says it isn't has a vested interest, I think, in it not being. And continuing that sense of like some things in American politics are just inevitable. They aren't. It can still change and it should still change. And wouldn't we all be better off if the Republican Party had taken that stance years ago? I kept thinking about Mitt Romney during the debate last night. The most crushing thing that Donald Trump could have done that he is not capable of doing; if he had been gracious toward President Biden, it would have been devastating. It just would have been so withering. And I kept substituting Mitt Romney in my mind. If he had been standing there and you could see that it pained him, too, and that he didn't want this. It would have ended things right there. A normal person with a heart and a conscience standing on that stage with President Biden, it would have been even worse. I just want everybody to step up and start saying, like, we deserve two normal people with a conscience and a heart and an intellect and the energy to carry forward this job. We should have a choice here.  

Sarah [00:31:40] No, I totally agree. If he had been gracious, it would have been worse. Nicholas was like, this isn't-- in a way, it's the second-best outcome, right? The first best outcome is Joe Biden walks out and allays everybody's fears and does a great job. The second-best outcome is he tanks and so we can actually have a conversation. Because this is the earliest presidential debate in history, and we are not to the convention yet. And he is not officially the Democratic nominee. But there's also a part of me that's, like, as far as deserve, I've really tried to strip that word from my life because it's the chaos lottery, man, even in politics in a lot of ways. And so, I'm like, I don't want to just say it. I'm like, what could we do? What could make a difference? Every person who hedges even a little bit, it's like, I want to come through the screen and be like, shut up. Everyone should be doing what the columnists at The New York Times are doing right now. Step aside. And it can't just come from media elite. That's my concern.  

[00:32:48] My concern is that they're going to absorb this narrative they've already been perpetuating, which is you're just not giving us a fair shake. That's delusional at this point. But people can be delusional, especially in offices with a great deal of power and insulation from the reality. So, I think I'm going to write a letter. My one best choice as a citizen. To write a letter and say, "I think you should step aside. You're telling me that this election has enormous stakes. You've done a good job. Step aside." I think he needs to hear from average Americans, not through polls, because the polls are too easy for him and his advisers to decide aren't applicable. He's the underdog. Somebody last night on CNN said-- it was Evan Osnos who just wrote this big biography of him. He said he has this narrative that he understands and that he always comes from behind, and he's the underdog, and he always has grit and resilience and rises above.  

[00:33:52] Ted Olson, one of his closest advisers, was Nicholas's professor like 20 years ago when he was in law school. He took a class with them and he talked about how badly Joe Biden wants to be president, and this just singular focus. And I think they've successfully balanced that with this family man and this man of integrity. But it's like at this point we have to talk about, like, your self-absorption and both you and Jill's inability to see the reality on the ground and the reality that everybody is trying to tell you, which you are going to lose. You are going to lose to Donald Trump, and it's going to be devastating for this country. Because it was close last time. And you are losing massive proportions of your constituency. A constituency that depends on high turnout. And everyone hates this election and hates both the candidate. So, if you think we're going to have high turnout again, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. It's like we have avoided prognostication, but at this point, I don't even think that's what this is. This isn't prognostication. This is basic objective observance.  

Beth [00:35:04] And we are ripe for a big change in this race. It's been static for so long because people hate it. That's why I think the numbers aren't moving because people aren't excited to pay attention. I've been watching the season of Top Chef and they have played 600 times in previews, a moment when Kristen Kish, the new host, says, "I love when shit gets shaken up." They play it over and over and over again. Because that is the American mindset. We do love when shit gets shaken up, and that's where we are. This needs to be shaken up. I don't think people want to vote for Donald Trump. I really don't.  

Sarah [00:35:45] I don't either.  

Beth [00:35:46] I really don't think that very many people do. Some people do, fine. Some people always will. But the majority of America, I think, would just like another option. And I don't think the Democratic Party needs to put itself through paces to figure out who that is. We have a really good vice president. I think that this should just be a call that's made. She's ready. Let her take it. She would have handed it to Trump on that debate stage last night. No doubt. Listen to her talk about Roe versus Wade. Listen to her talk about infrastructure. It's not perfect. You can have some notes for her, but she's really good and she's really smart. And people have no idea because it never gets covered how much she has traveled around the world doing things for the last four years and meeting people and building her own profile and credibility and her own expertise. She knows a lot about a lot right now. Just let her step in. I think it would be exciting. I think it would be refreshing. I think it would wake voters up. Like, oh my God, if the party can do something unexpected, I can do something unexpected too. I think it's the jolt that we need here.  

[00:36:59] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:37:08] Truly, I don't care who it is or how we get there. I don't care if it's Gavin Newsom. I don't care if it's Kamala Harris. I don't care if it's Andy Beshear or Josh Shapiro. I don't care. I don't care if we fight it out and every intraparty squabble is laid bare on primetime television. It would be better than what we watched last night. Americans love a reality show. Let them have it. I don't care. This cannot be. I would rather put my chips on the table and risk it all and still lose with Kamala at the ticket, or Newsom at the ticket, or Kamala and Newsom on a ticket together. I don't fucking care. It can't be this because this is unethical. It's not who I know myself to be as a Democrat, as an American. The Democratic Party cares. We care about good governance. We care about trying to do the right thing. No, we are not perfect. We have corrupt politicians like every party on planet Earth. But we are the party of ideas. We're the party of capacity. We're the party of adaptability.  

[00:38:23] I was proud of us in 2020 when Klobuchar and Buttigieg looked at it and said, "Okay, we're going to do the right thing. We're going to step aside. Joe will do it." I think everyone's understanding was that it was be a single term. That's certainly how I felt it at the time. I was proud of us then. And if we can't get together and find one alternative, and we have to fight it out. And it's this ugly inter-party reality, disaster, I'll still be proud of us because at least we did something. At least we did something. If we take the easy way out, the way the Republicans have, and wait until one or two people say, "Oh, he was having a bad night. It's just a bad debate," and we all solidify around this narrative, I will be devastated. I will be devastated as a person who has proudly stood in this party for my entire adult life and was proud in 2016 when we nominated Hillary Clinton. Proud when we elected the first black president. Proud when we beat Donald Trump in 2020. I do not want to feel embarrassed. Io don't want to feel devastated. I don't want to feel ashamed of the choices that my party and its leaders are making. And that is how I feel right now.  

Beth [00:39:43] You can tell how much Republicans fear this being shaken up too by the fact that today the Republican spin is that Democrats all along have been playing a game to replace Joe Biden at the last minute. That's the right-wing narrative this morning. So, it was sleepy Joe is going to fall asleep on the stage and not be able to handle himself. Whoops! That's setting expectations too low. You know what? They're going to have him hopped up on cocaine or something. He's going to be amazing, but it's going to be fake. Whoops! They sent him out there on purpose to fail. They pulling the strings in the background wanted him to faceplant here so that they could replace him at the last-- like it's very transparent. And I think what you hear when you listen to Sarah speak on behalf of the Democratic Party or her membership in it, is Democrats are not together enough on any plan to manipulate this election in that way.  

Sarah [00:40:43] Would that we were.  

Beth [00:40:46] These are all sins of omission, not commission. These are people who respect each other and don't want to get in each other's lane and don't want to overstep, and don't want to lose the sense that President Biden has done a good job, and that President Biden did step up at a moment when the country really needed a steady, experienced hand. I think everybody feels like if he stepped aside now, it would be a repudiation of the last four years. And that's just not true. And I think anybody who sees even a short clip from last night's debate would be able to say, this is a good person who has tried hard and it is time. It is time. And that's okay.  

Sarah [00:41:30] Yeah. I'm just so afraid that everyone is blinded by their own safety, security and ambition. That's my biggest fear. It's because nobody wants to be the first person to step up and say. So, I have enormous respect for Ezra Klein who was saying, send it to the convention, months ago. Months ago. So, the first representative who openly says, hey, this isn't going to work. But it can't just be this handful of House Democrats. That isn’t going to get it done. It needs to be Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, everybody saying, no. No, you have to step aside. Because he has to make the call. The delegates are pledged to him. He has to step aside. He has to undergo enormous pressure. And I know nobody wants to hurt his feelings, be mean to him after the sacrifices he's given as a public servant. But this isn't about Joe Biden. This is about America. We have a nation of 300 million citizens. There's more at stake here than how this very good man feels. There just is. I'm sorry. It's a tough gig.  

Beth [00:42:45] I mean, Dean Phillips said that and was treated like the most selfish S.O.B. that ever walked the face of the Earth. He tried to thread this needle, I think. Now, did he end up being a great candidate? No, it didn't work. But it didn't work for a lot of reasons, some of them not having to do with him. Some of them having to do with the fact that the whole party looked at him and said, are you kidding? Disloyal. Selfish. Greedy. But he tried to say, I think this is a good man who's done a pretty decent job, but it's not going to work for the next time. And I'm not suggesting that somebody pull Dean Phillips out and put him on the bench here. The party said no to him, and that's fine. But they need to find somebody they can say yes to quickly and turn away from that group dynamic that the inevitable thing, the right thing, is to continue on this path because it's too late to change courses.  

Sarah [00:43:41] And I think we need to have another difficult conversation, whatever happens about the parties. They have been hollowed out by direct election primaries. It's not working. I don't know why we thought that McGovern-Fraser Commission was a good idea the first time when we did everything they suggested. Nominated McGovern, and he fell terribly. Why didn't anybody go, hmm, maybe this wasn't the best idea. Instead, we doubled down in 2016 because Bernie didn't get the election. It's a fucking disaster. It can't be like this. It's how they got Trump. Now, is it also how we got Barack Obama? Maybe. Although it's not like Harry Reid didn't support Barack Obama. It wasn't like there weren't party people who supported Barack Obama. But the people picking the candidates have to be the people involved in the party politics on the ground. The elected leaders, the party leaders, the grassroots activists.  

[00:44:37] They have to be the ones because this primary voting situation ain't working. Nobody votes. Barely anybody's paying attention. The only better solution I can think of that I think might work is if we just all had a national primary. Fine. We'll just do it all one day. We'll get the candidates. We'll have the debates. Everybody will know what the stakes are. We won't feel like my vote doesn't matter because Iowa or New Hampshire or Nevada or South Carolina or whatever. We'll have a national primary that I can maybe get behind. But this isn't working. This is how we got here. This is how we got here. Because people voted over and over and over and over again for Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And so, this process isn't working. We need to acknowledge that as well.  

Beth [00:45:19] I think we often in our conversations come around to systems changes are needed. Certainly, that's where all of our conversations about the court have been lately. Systems changes are needed. And it's easy to get really demoralized when you come to that point, because we keep telling ourselves that we can't do those kinds of things. How could we possibly amend the Constitution to end state term limits for Supreme Court justices when Congress can't even pass a budget? We build our capacity and our hope and our belief in our ability to do big things, though, by doing them. And so, I think the momentum of the party making a change at this point could be the momentum that stirs momentum around lots of things that feel stuck and intractable and that we feel really disillusioned by right now. And that is the kind of leadership that we keep crying out for someone to stand up and say, this isn't working and we're going to change it. And I think that if that can happen around this presidential election, then I think it could happen around the court. I think it could happen around the way people think about their members of Congress.  

[00:46:31] Listen, just this morning, the Supreme Court completely changed the balance of power among the three branches of our government. Your eyes can glaze over when you hear something like overruled chevron. But what that means is that the court just got a lot more powerful than it has been in the past. And if we want to change the dynamics around this court, we have to change our Congress. The presidential election doesn't do it. We have to change our Congress significantly. And we could have a Democratic trifecta. And this stuff would still be really, really hard. But if we keep coasting along the path, we're on now, absolutely none of that gets done. Absolutely nothing happens. We continue to have maybe we're going to shut down the government. Maybe we're going to hit the debt ceiling. Just kicking the can. So, I'm with Kristen Kish, I love it when shit gets shaken up and it's time for it.  

Sarah [00:47:31] Yeah. I mean, I've been arguing this for a while. I'm ready to go to a constitutional convention. I don't care, put it on the table. It's a new world. I'm ready to talk about the things that we need to change to face this new world. And there's no tolerance for risk. And it is dangerous. I feel like Donald Trump just became, like, the only risk anyone's ever willing to take. Well, the only thing that matters is we have to deal with Donald Trump. And so, that's the risk we all have to pay attention to. No. No. No. And it's like 2020 perpetuated that. I think the midterm win in 2022 perpetuated this narrative. And, look, it's a long time till November. Who the hell knows what could happen? Maybe I won't feel as devastated as I do today in a month- even with Joe Biden as the candidate. But I will never forget this feeling. I will never forget this night. I will never forget that the Democratic Party that I believe in as a party of innovative thinking and solutions and care put us in this position. Because if you care about this country, if you care about Joe Biden, then you cannot watch what happened last night and think we keep going.  

Beth [00:48:56] This is supposed to be our last episode together before we take a break for the summer. I don't think anyone on our team believes that that is going to happen, but we'll see how things evolve. We have lots of wonderful, enriching conversations planned for the month of July. All new, no reruns. And if things develop and we feel like we really need to get together and process it, we will do that. I told Sarah this morning, I don't know what to say about any of this. I just know that I always feel better after I talk it out with you. And I hope that that's true for everyone listening. And there could be moments that bubble up where we just need to get together and talk it out, even though it's not on the schedule that we planned, and we have a wonderful, patient team willing to roll with us on that. So, thanks to everyone. We say a lot, when things feel really hard and sticky, that together is what we have. And I'm so thankful for that togetherness and for this community. So, until we talk with you again, have the best weekend available to you.  

[00:49:59] Music Interlude.  

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.  

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.  

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Emily Helen Olson. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family.  

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

Maggie Penton3 Comments