Biden Shifts Into Thigh Gear

Ron DeSantis and Chris Christie try out different lines of attack on Donald Trump, and President Biden takes on his two biggest political challenges the economy and his age. Then Delaware congressional candidate Sarah McBride chats with Lovett about her campaign and her chance to make history as Congress's first openly trans representative. But first, big news, big news.

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Com Slash friends also in case you missed it, love it or leave. It is bringing the errors toward a New York City on July 27th and Philadelphia on.

And I think they're gonna get your tickets now, is all I'm saying.

The caucuses will be held on Monday, January 15.

That's also Martin Luther King Day, a nod to the party's passion for civil rights. And it's also the trial date of Eugene Carroll's second defamation suit against Donald Trump, a nod to the party's passion for women's rights. So that's exciting. These caucuses will be earlier than they were in 2020..

In 2016, when they were held in February. And that means the New Hampshire primary will likely take place on January 23rd, eight days afterwards, and then there will be a full month before the South Carolina primary on February 24. Trump campaigned in Iowa over the weekend, where he hit Ron DeSantis on his ethanol record. And stopped by a dairy queen for what was apparently the first time in.

It's not a New York thing, it's not a Long Island thing. We don't. There is wrong with you, people. Oh, okay.

Yeah, no, yeah, nothing great about New York. You're from Boston. How many dairy queens?

There was one in Manhattan that's gone. There's one dairy queen in the five boroughs right now, and it's at the Staten Island ferry terminal, which is, I think, below. Yoga studio and lesbian bar. On places, Trump goes like, So no, he doesn't know.

You could recite the cheesecake factory menu by heart. I really could, I really could. We went to Culver's, you knew your way around Culver's when we were in Wisconsin.

I did, I felt like a real expert. Yeah, so you should get some blizzards, yeah, anyway.

Anyway, everyone was also sharing a Biden tweet from 2019, where Biden was in a dairy. Queen. And he knew what a blizzard was, and he took the blizzard, he tipped it upside down. Just what you do, yeah, that's apparently what the people do. Then he was offering it to everyone.

But not Donald.

Right, right, right. But like Joe Biden, Yeah, yeah, okay.

So anyway, let's talk about Iowa. So Trump lost Iowa to Ted Cruz in 2016. I remember Trump lost Iowa in 2016. I had forgotten, until I was prepping for this, that it was to Ted Cruz.

It wasn't like we knew right away, it was like it got kind of like. It wasn't like a shadow app win or anything. No, no, no, not as bad as a shadow app win.

Not as bad as what we did to help Buttigieg. Lose to Bernie, I believe, is what we did. I don't remember what we did, but yeah, Ted Cruz won Iowa and the momentum made him, as we all remember, unstoppable. So Trump lost Iowa and then.

It.

It just right now, if you look at the polling, and the polling at the state level is like, pretty spare. Right now, it's like hard to rely on. But right now, if you look at it, you can kind of squint your eyes. And what you see is Trump is dominating nationally.

He's above 50.

And maybe in Iowa, New Hampshire, he's also dominating in some polls above 50, but maybe there's like a little bit of weakness based on campaigning now. Beyond that, can you say that Iowa is gonna matter, New Hampshire is gonna matter?

I just.

I don't think we know right now. Yeah, I think there's two schools of.

And then people start thinking, Oh, you know, Trump's gonna win the nomination. New Hampshire does what New Hampshire often does, and does the opposite of Iowa. And then I didn't realize now there's gonna be a full month between New Hampshire and South Carolina. So at that point, then Trump has multiple court dates, and the media at that point gets bored of the okay. Trump won Iowa, maybe Trump won New Hampshire, maybe he got a, you know, someone got a little closer in New Hampshire. Now there's a whole month between South Carolina.

Now I do think at that point, like, who's strong enough to beat Trump in South Carolina? That's where it gets tricky, but I do think that month gets, that month is trickier for.

Then everyone gets, the Republicans get all well, it's more that.

Yeah, I mean, look so the challenge there is. It's like Donald Trump starts in a much stronger position now than he was in 2016. I agree, if you look at the polling out of New Hampshire in 2016, by July of 2015, roughly where we are right now, Trump was starting to just dominate in those polls. Roughly in the 30s, he stayed there, did not move till election day, in which he got in the 30s.

Now John Kasich, we all remember him and that was his best and.

And so then you look at what happened in 2016 and you say, all right, well.

Ted Cruz Where did he do? well? He did well in your places like Idaho and Kansas, and Iowa, the place that kind of drew out the more conservative and evangelical voters. Now you're starting from saying that Trump's gonna do better with those people, right? He's gonna put together a coalition of some of his voters.

Now, most of them say, plus some of the Ted Cruz voters. That leaves an opening, an opening for what someone's gonna cobble together, people that have left Trump, plus the Kasich group. So then you're gonna start looking where.

You're gonna look to New Hampshire.

They had been the frontrunner before Iowa, which Trump is. New Hampshire, in the same time period, picked five out of seven. But here's the thing about the New Hampshire electorate it is more moderate than Iowa, it is more college-educated.

All those stats are right, even if you look at polls right now. I think there was a St. Anselm poll from late June that showed like. Christie is in third now at five or six percent in New Hampshire, and Christie's winning among, or Christie's doing a lot better. Among more moderate voters, among Democrats who might vote in the Republican primary, among college-educated voters, that still is like leaving him at five to six percent for now. But then I was thinking about New Hampshire.

Think about 2022. In the Senate race, New Hampshire Republican voters nominated crazy Don Bolduc over Chuck Morse Bolduc. For everyone who forgets, this was an election denier who wanted to abolish the FBI, called Chris Sununu, the very popular Republican governor of New Hampshire, a Chinese communist sympathizer. Bolduc had no money, didn't run a single ad on television. And meanwhile, Chuck Morse focused most of his attacks on Maggie Hassan. Not on Bolduc. And his Super PAC still ran millions and millions of dollars of ads against Bolduc, and Bolduc won.

So clearly, the Republican now look, the electorate, the Republican electorate in a midterm in New Hampshire is probably more conservative than in a presidential primary. Particularly because I think independents and Democrats can vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary. So that could screw with it a little bit. But there is a Republican electorate in New Hampshire that is all-in for election-denying crazy people. Yeah, and.

And look, and Don Bolduc did not beat Chuck Morse by a lot.

You have to find so much weakness that it overcomes the advantages he's already bringing to the table. Because does anyone think right now that if the election was held in Idaho or Kansas? That Donald Trump is not going to pick up all those evangelical voters that in the past he lost? Even like, there's very little good polling out there, but you go to Florida, you don't find good desantis polls, you know, you go everywhere. It's the kind of like robustness of Trump's coalition that I think is making this a little....

People are afraid to say it's sort of uneventful, but that's how it feels, yeah.

Right, but I think that's.

Neither one's happening, so it doesn't matter where you fucking campaign. Well, no, I mean, like.

How hard are you gonna go with Donald Trump? All those decisions will lead you to either focus heavily on Iowa or New Hampshire. I mean, it was like us in 08, right? We were like, if we don't stop Hillary in Iowa, there's no Obama campaign. So, like, everything goes into.

Right now, you're all, you're all floundering.

And then it was like, No, he's not. He's been anti-gay marriage since the year 2000, and so it's the longest tale since that news cycle. We just went through, what is it? A week or week and a half ago? His Supreme Court handed yet another victory to the right on the anti-discrimination law in Colorado.

I don't know who's persuaded by this, as you've pointed out, this thing's not being won on on policy right now.

I love what he did. Once he got in, I thought it was a breath of fresh air. He was attacked in all the time and it seemed like, you know, it just seemed nonstop. The drama. It affected my family. I mean, you know, with my own sister, I didn't get invited to her Thanksgiving after a while.

He's got so many distractions, the constant fighting something every day, and I'm not sure he can focus on moving the country forward. The election is really important because we're going in the wrong direction. I mean, we definitely need somebody that can freaking win. I think you'd probably lose that bet if you voted for Trump.

You want somebody as smart who actually knows how to build teams to solve issues, focus on the issues that really need.

You're right, I'm okay, I'm not dangerous, I'm going to come on over, think about it.

Think about it, it's, uh, at least as an argument, I do think it's like you feel the grappling with what the candidates are all grappling with. Which is, in order for anyone to make any headway. Some of this has to be made, some argument has to be made against Trump to people that love Trump and they're at least experimenting with. Like, even all of the words are clearly just so carefully chosen. To be a little bit sanded off, sound a little bit normal, to try to find a normal vernacular for discussing why Trump is weak. So in that sense, I think it's it's, it's a it's the argument that they need to be making.

And so I think it's all put together. But almost the ad, as good of a message as it is, almost underscores the bigger problem. Which is that like, you can't beat something with nothing, and there's no like, you need an alternative to what that guy's saying that is appealing to those voters and all. All that he offered in the ad is someone who can put together a team, someone to put together a team. And and focus on issues and and and not drama. Which is like, again, these are all the issues that people have with Trump, right? Like he, it's chaotic, he fired all these people in the White House.

They all turned on him. Everything was drama all the time, he wasn't focused on blah blah, blah, blah, blah, but like, So then what's?

You're slowly easing Republican voters into an argument like a like a bath. Is there enough time for this level of subtlety, like they're trying to, like, soften this group of people? And it feels like this was the work that they just did not do for years, right? This is trying to undo six and a half or more years of just total obsequiousness and a refusal to make this kind of argument.

And I just, I mean, it's tough.

You know, it's going to be like, it's going to be what that guy's. It's giving people a permission structure, which that guy did at the beginning. Which was like, Oh, I love Donald Trump too, and I liked what he didn't get out of his. But then then it got a little crazy. But it's still, it's still, like you said, it's still not sharp enough.

You hear about them, they just that, this, they clearly. This is born of focus groups that had a group of Republican, mostly Trump voters, or a mix of Trump voters. Who talked about it in this way. And they're trying to push that conversation. But you know, we, I think, that we just don't know like it is there. Is there any kind of momentum to that? Can that take on a life of its own and create space for another candidate?

Yeah, and then, and then one of them.

So let's talk about the Republicans who are ostensibly trying to beat Donald Trump in the primary. Uh, Rhonda Sanchez. His campaign just announced. They raised $20 million in his first six weeks as a candidate, while his Super PAC has raised $130 million since March. There's some of that was transferred from his time as A from the Super PAC when he was governor. The New York Times also had a story over the weekend about how Iowa's very popular governor, but very, very popular with Republicans especially. Uh. Kim Reynolds, who has said that she will not endorse in the primary, is being viewed by Trump's team as neutral and name only. When it comes to Ron DeSantis. Now, of course, after this New York Times article then, um, Donald Trump today was truthing up a storm about how, like Kim Reynolds, sucks.

So not really subtle, what he, what Trump thinks. I saw the story, I think he literally just saw the story. Despite all this, Trump has still raised about $15 million more than Ron DeSantis over a longer period of time. But still has a lot more endorsements and is beating him by double digits in every state poll and national poll. So when Maria Barbaromo asked DeSantis about his struggling campaign over the weekend, here's what he said.

And every question is about why you can't and won't make an effective case against Donald Trump. Like that is a shitty doom loop for any candidate to be in, though he needs. Like that is the environment that is what is happening. People are following around, waiting for him to seem weird and fuck up.

And he's in that doom loop because he has.

Also, I mean, I was thinking back to, again, how many interviews like this Barack Obama had in in 2007.

And the difference is the the the the part of our spin. That was a little more believable is that in those state polls, particularly in Iowa, not so much in New Hampshire. But in Iowa, we were a lot closer to Hillary than Ron. DESantis is to Donald Trump right now, and I think if DeSantis and it's, it's getting late to say, it's still early. But I guess you could say that if he was closer in some of these state polls, maybe he could, you know, maybe it's a little more believable. And if people didn't, just just didn't know him yet, well. But his name ID is so high and his favorability rating, which I thought would help him among Republican voters, is also quite high.

His his favorability rating nationally is is is bad, which doesn't bode well for his electability argument anymore. But even among Republican voters, it's looking like they like Ron DESantis just fine, but they're just not sold on him as the as the candidate. How much do you think it matters that, uh, DeSantis does seem to have quite a bit of money? And, uh, and might have the quiet?

I barely remember Terry Branstad, you don't.

So, uh, you know, the influence, the influence of an endorsement, even from a popular governor. Maybe it, maybe it helps, but also let me tell you what, Kim.

If DeSantis catches fire and he's suddenly very close to Trump in the polls, as we get closer to Iowa Caucus, maybe she shows some political courage and comes out and endorses DeSantis. But she's not going to do it now. So he's not going to have her support unless something changes, and it's not her endorsement that's going to make something change.

Joe Biden can be one of them, uh, but they don't always make the best argument. And then there are politicians that are super mild mannered and nerdy, and kind of not the most charismatic people, but they're methodical and disciplined and smart and effective. Like, what are we getting at? What does Ron DESantis bring to the table here? I don't care how much.

When is Florida? When is the Florida vote? I think it's probably it's either Super Tuesday or after, but so it's it's either March or after that. So yeah, I think it's, I think even before that. I think once again this month between, uh, New Hampshire and South Carolina, I think once South Carolina and then Nevada happen, you're sort of in unless, unless, something like, unless something fundamentally changes. And suddenly it's a neck and neck race between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. In which case, it's a long primary, which could happen unless you're in that scenario, then, like Ron Desantis....

That's what I said. Ron DESantis so far.

He, he, he droned on for an hour and a half. Yesterday in Iowa, he lied about the farm deal with the Chinese. They haven't even complied with a quarter of what they agreed to Donald Trump to do in terms of buying soybeans and other things from the farmers in Iowa. And he spent the rest of the time talking about his own indictment. This is not somebody who's fighting for the American people and their future.

This is all about his ego. What he cares about the most is trying to undo the loss he had to Joe Biden in 2020. But since he's a three-time loser, having lost in 2018, the House of Representatives lost the White House and the Senate in 2020 and in 2022. Um, he wound up losing two more governorships, another seat in the Senate, and we barely won the House by five votes. When, in fact, uh, you know, you had a president whose popularity was at 35%.

So he's in this for himself and himself only. I guess that it matches box.

Here is what's interesting about that to me. Because we just talked about that ad, uh, from the the wind. The win it back Super Pac ad, which, you know, we both decided, was not quite sharp enough. Chris Christie is doing the opposite of that. He does not have DeSantis, his money polling, not that it's that enviable, but he's still, he's still not pulling like Desantis or endorsements. But do you think his message now, that he has a story, he has a message, could it ultimately help him vault ahead of?

I don't know will it lead to people to say, and therefore, he's the person I want. You hear an argument like that from Chris Christie and you find it compelling. I don't know why that leads you to vote for Chris Christie versus Ron DESantis. It makes you look for an alternative, but whether or not it's just look at what Chris Christie is saying catches any traction at all.

It is an open question as to whether it leads people to come to him or just lead people.

And then once you get the attention, then you start making the case for yourself. That's the only strategy that I can think of there. The problem for him, of course, is his unfavorables with Republican voters are quite high, except in New Hampshire, he's doing a little bit better because of that electorate.

He lived in New Hampshire, right? 55 of Republican voters in New Hampshire think the election was stolen from Donald Trump. This is back to our New Hampshire not so moderate conversation.

So if you have that support, or at least you have that many people as election deniers in New Hampshire, and you're Chris Christie. Now, you see that. This is the conundrum that they all face, even if they are all running perfect campaigns and are great candidates. With stories or whatever else is that they are dealing with an electorate where the majority of the Republican electorate loves. Donald Trump thinks he did great as president and thinks he actually won the last election. And if that's what they think, then why would they go for someone else? I mean, that's the problem now, I mean, in the end. In the NBC poll nationally, Christie's favorability is among Republican voters 13 favorable, 43 unfavorable.

And in fairness to people that believe there's a possibility, in the same way, we were saying, saying Desantis, his name idea is high, Donald Trump's name idea is 100. So if there are people in New Hampshire being asked who they're going to vote for and they're not saying Donald Trump, that means something, right? Very easy to vote for Donald Trump. Right now, they're not.

Then you say, Okay, yes. A majority of people in the Republican primary now say that the election was stolen. But they also have been trained by their boss to perform loyalty on this question. This is a shibboleth for demonstrating your fealty to the Republican cause. And that those people, while they may say that and even maybe think that it's not the most important issue to them, the most important issue to them is winning. And so then the case has to be from Chris Christie. Not only is Donald Trump weak, not only does he not deliver, not only is he going to lose. I'm the one that's going to win.

And here's how I do it I'm a more charismatic and interesting and popular and moderate seeming.

Ron DeSantis either comes in second or third, maybe even worse. And everyone else is out of money, and so you get the Tim Scotts and the Nikki Haley's. Maybe they drop out at this point, or maybe they're out of money or whatever else. And then you go to New Hampshire and now Chris Christie's saying, Okay, I'm Donald Trump, me and Donald Trump one-on-one, and somehow Chris Christie pulls off a win in New Hampshire.

It's as close. Donald Trump defeated them after losing in Iowa, which gave him momentum going from there. But if you can imagine Trump wins out of Iowa, he goes to New Hampshire. There's a surprising finish for one other person, like Chris Christie. Then there's a whole period of time to campaign before they end up in South Carolina.

And it doesn't really reflect well on him. DESantis anti-Trump argument is meant to be a mirror of his pro-Desantis argument. So, yeah, I mean, I guess if Desantis seemed a little bit more folksy and charismatic and off the cuff while making a slightly sharper version, that's still. That still was kind of trying to make the argument for what, how great he is and how well he's done in Florida, it couldn't be worse than what Desantis.

And I think that's dumb because I don't think that Republican voters are voting based on policy or even ideology at this point, traditional social conservative ideology. I think what Christie has that's smart in his message is that Donald Trump is in it for himself. And part of that, like the, you know, it's the drama which the guy was getting at in that ad, right? There's too much drama around Trump. And if I was Ron DeSantis, I would be saying, Donald Trump is in it for himself.

And look at me, look what I did in Florida, I'm in it for people. These are the victories that I delivered. And this guy only, he only cares about himself, he only cares about his own shit all the time.

He's selfish and I'm actually, you know, going to deliver on stuff for you. As opposed to trying to position himself to Trump's right on thing. Which I just don't think people are going to believe, and I don't necessarily think it's going to work. Yeah, I think that's, I think, I think desantis.

It turns out not a lot of beat on that bone. But he is also making an argument. He does it in the book, he was doing it, he was doing it in some speech. Around not having chaos around, can you keep your head down and just getting things done?

Delivering Yeah, like.

But his argument now is a, you know, trans transgender trailblazer.

The other ad from him, Yes. And then there's Casey DeSantis with just this unhinged Mama's coming for your children, coming for your children's thing, which is just a reminder. Um, look, we can disagree on certain things as a country.

You can't let a Disney adults within a hundred fucking miles of the White House, that's dangerous, it's dangerous. CaSEy DESANTiS This is a video that for people that are in the.

Very she look, the the. She was the one who put out that video. That was like, on the eighth day, God sent a fighter. Which is basically saying that, like God, that literally. Ron DESantis is God's gift to us. So I would say that, um, God's a shitty gift giver. It's like, is there a gift receipt in the bag? God?

But, uh, I don't think her, um, I don't think her judgment is, uh, often, um, state of the art. No, all right, let's talk.

He visited a clean energy manufacturing company in South Carolina. Republican congressman Joe Wilson's district. Yeah, that Joe Wilson, a company that's adding jobs because of the Inflation Reduction Act that Wilson voted against. And, uh, and Biden got a pretty good laugh when he announced that he'll be visiting.

It gets an otherwise politically not interesting trip for reporters to seem more interesting, so it's like.

And I think people think that about Democrats, too. Voters are very cynical about politicians in general, but I do think that voters care. Or voters can care about Biden's message that he is helping people and creating jobs in places that did not vote for him. And that is a very good contrast to Donald Trump. And possibly Ron DeSantis, whose message basically is like, We are running for president of Red America and Red America only. And if you don't vote for us, we're not for you, we're not going to help you out. Fuck off.

And Biden is trying to go out there and say, like, you can vote for me, you cannot vote for me. I'm still going to come to your district and I'm still going to try to help you out, and I'm still going to try.

Now, hey, there's a local news coverage that's going to show you that we're groundbreaking on. Something you didn't realize was going to be affected by a bill that got passed in Washington. There's just sort of like the basics that this helps get people get in people's minds that they might not have thought about.

Well, even the way he handled that.

And so if you catch that on the local news, is it going to win over a bunch of Republicans? Probably not. But are there a few people who might be like, you know what? It's hard to really hate that guy, yeah.

So that's, I like it. Biden's other big political challenge, aside from the economy, is, of course, the perception that he is too old to run again. He addressed that directly on Friday. When CNN's Fareed Zakaria asked him whether he should quote Step aside and let another generation of Democrats take the baton, the president answered Quote. One thing that comes with age is some wisdom. I just want to finish the job.

And I think we can do that in the next six years. There were also pictures of Joe Biden at the beach over the weekend. I saved him in a folder called Taxes, where he was rocking a polo and a short bathing suit. That led to quite a few social media jokes, including, uh, this viral tweet quote. If he keeps leaning into the Frat guy energy, it will be a landslide. Donald Trump may have inadvertently helped burnish that image by, Uh, today, accusing Joe Biden of doing, uh, the cocaine that was found in the White House quote. In order to give his presidency a little life and energy.

What do you think is an 80 year old president who rips lines at Rehoboth in a five inch inseam bathing suit? And aviators? Is that the kind of leader we need right now? He's got a boyfriend I need right now.

Biden is like the perfect kind of 80 year old in that in half his pictures he looks 60 and half his pictures looks a fucking.

He's looking great.

The piece also included one of the worst sentences I have ever read in a political story in my life. Let's hear it quote.

Thirst traps are a new wedge issue.

Thirst traps are a new wedge issue. Agree or disagree, uh?

Yeah, we're no to vaccines, yes to steroids, but is worth keeping in mind. And again, like, Listen, I'm not really very interested in doing like lizard brain. Strong person, good leader.

You know, like, I don't really think we need to.

So they don't think they really care about it all that much. The Francis Suarez thing is very funny.

It's like, real men are strong and they they, they have Thai tea and they don't eat vegetables, but it's like, Elon Musk, Elon Musk, challenging.

I mean, Elon Musk went through that whole news cycle where he was being hosed down by an agent on a boat where he looked chubby. And so the next thing he knows he's talking about being on a Zempik, hope it's working for him. It just, Hey guys, therapy, get therapy. Talk about what being a man means to you in that room, get some guidance from there. I mean, the more serious flip side to all this.

Um, uh, it was the one that ended with the Don Lemon. I'm not over, I'm over the hill, or I'm not. I'm probably in my prime. I'm not over the hill, I'm in my prime. But um, I think they've like, really, they are aware that this is his biggest weakness as a candidate, right?

Like we've talked about this, they clearly are trying to figure out their way to navigate it. Part of it is going to be with jokes and trying to play it down, which he's doing a great job of doing. He has this kind of go-to line now and actually, what's great about it? It actually like previews this argument, right?

He always like, Look, I may be 200 years old, but I've never seen anything like this before. Which is a way of describing your vast wisdom and experience. So I think it's great. I think it's the right way to talk about the issue. They're just they're not running from it the way they were before, yeah.

Not that they run, but they're, they're. They're recognizing that they have to hit it.

That's a that's that's a part of aging, that is a part of aging.

This guy knows what a blizzard is.

Too many, too many cocaine jokes, all right. There was also an Axios story today, a very long Axios story. It was like most of the Axios Morning newsletter, about how Biden apparently has a a quick trigger temper with his staff during meetings.

And so it's all about, you know, if people aren't prepared, he's yelling at them, he's grilling them, he's getting angry. Uh, always in private, you know, and it, and the story says at one point, some Biden aides think the president would be better off occasionally displaying his temper in public. As a way to assuage voter concerns that the 80 year old president is disengaged and too old for office. So what do you think?

Should Biden be more of a dick?

I would think that'd be cool. No, I. Well, first of all, uh, uh. Front of the show, Tim Miller pointed out that the anecdotes in the story were all pretty old. It was like one of them was yelling at Jeff Zients when he was Covid czar, about the lack of Covid testing, which doesn't seem like a morning fit of Peak. It seems like a deep frustration with a policy failure on the part of the government. It seems quite fair.

It seems like a big deal and also that person and Designs became chief of staff. And then the other anecdote was about fundraising during the 2008 campaign. Which is like, pretty far back to go for buying to lose his temper. That said, like, you know, there's a lot of ways to show that you're energetic without losing your shit at people. I personally don't know what they are, but people tell me that.

I think when Biden shows passion about injustice that Republicans are causing or trying to help people. Like when he's energetic on the stump. Like, I go back to the state of the Union speech, some of his democracy speeches. Like, I think that's good, that kind of energy is good, but I don't think. Just like yelling and being outraged all the time is good. I realized that, like some people of our partisan persuasion might like that, you know, show a little anger. I don't think that, I don't think most, most voters want that.

Yeah, and I also, um, like I I again. I think his joking about going to Marjorie Taylor Green's district is going to be much more effective than yelling about Marjorie Taylor Green.

And, by the way, some of his best moments.

That is little nose candy, yeah, a little extra money, a little spending money for the weekend, you know, do a vid head to.

When we come back, Love It talks to Delaware congressional candidate Sarah McBride about her run for the House.

So your announcement video talks a lot about family, medical leave and coffee. It does not mention that you would be the first out trans person to serve in Congress. At a time when the country is in this massive debate about trans rights and trans acceptance. Can you talk a little bit about why you made that choice, and, more broadly, how you think about the role identity plays in the campaign?

Sure, well, obviously, I'm.

I'm not running to be the transgender member of Congress, I am running to make progress on all of the issues that matter to Delawareans up and down this state. And I wanted to reinforce that for people. I knew that the media would talk about my trans identity, I knew that the media would focus in on the historic nature of this campaign. But I wanted to focus in on the issues that I've been thinking about as a state senator, that I've been working on, that I've been delivering on, and the issues that I'll be focused on in Congress. Like early childhood education, paid family and medical leave, gun safety and reproductive rights.

So, you know one thing?

Like, how would you think about that?

And so I think there are issues outside of the headlines, outside of the evening news, to the degree that people still watch the evening news. Where Democrats and Republicans can actually work together. But yes, there's no question that there are real divides and real partisan divisions. And ultimately, let their pettiness contrast with my desire for progress, let their cruelty contrast with what I believe is at the heart of my politics, which is compassion. And let that contrast serve as a visual representation of the fact that they have absolutely no policy proposals for workers and families in this country. And that their attacks on trans people, their lack of willingness to engage with me is meant to appeal to a small faction of an ever-shrinking Republican party and to distract from their policy failures. Is there, like, a little part of you that's like?

They should have to work with me and spend time with me and be in spaces with me so that they can feel bad about what they're doing. And even though some might not a lot of them, a lot of them will feel bad when they have to look me in the eye. Because they're doing this for political gain, they don't actually believe in these horrifically cruel policies. And so that's one of the reasons why representation is so important, because it changes the conversation.

Do you agree with it? Do you disagree with?

But in order to have social change, we need some level of connectivity. We can't allow for those bonds to dissipate. So much that no one's holding them accountable, that no one's having conversations with them and opening their minds and changing their hearts on these issues. And I also think that the reality is is that to govern, you have to build coalitions that have diversity of thought in those coalitions. And maybe on that one issue before you, you're like-minded, but you disagree on other issues. And so I think we have to be able to hold both of those truths in our approach to politics that we have first principles on these issues when it comes to who we elect and how we operate as a party. While also recognizing that both there are citizens, but also ultimately people that we might have to work with, who get elected, who disagree with us on some fundamental questions, but for whom we can find common ground.

Travel a little too quickly from A to B. To say you're a trans person, you know the Bidens? you changed Joe Biden's mind on trans issues. I think that seems like a lot to ask of one person. Can you at least take any credit for getting him into shorts with?

And I think you're right, it is not one person and it's not one relationship. I truly think it's this president's big heart, and I also will say I think it's him carrying on his son Beau's legacy, who I had the chance to work for when he was attorney general. And also work with in pushing forward a non-discrimination bill here in Delaware to protect the LGBTQ community. And I think Joe Biden feels closer to Beau when he's carrying on his legacy, when he's carrying on his work.

And so I think a lot of credit doesn't just go to the president's big heart, it also goes to the president's late son. Do you have a fun or goofy?

And he ripped out a schedule that he had from the day and signed his name on it, and it was my prized possession. And I might have been the only 11 year old in the United States who was cherishing a schedule that had the nomination of Thomas pickering on it. But my favorite Joe Biden story is not a funny one. It's in 2013,.

In January 2013, at the Naval Observatory, I had just come out as trans and I was still very nervous. I was just finishing up my internship in the White House and I saw the vice president then from a distance. And he pulled me in and said, Beau is so proud of you, Jill is so proud of you. I'm so proud of you.

The whole family is so proud of you and I just want to know, Kid, are you happy? And I said, I was happy, and he said That made him so happy and gave me the biggest hug.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft and Justine Howe for production support, and to our digital team Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman, Ben Hefko and David Toles. Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube to catch full episodes, exclusive content, and other community events.

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