The Trump -- look, we know that the Trump campaign is run by a very smart guy, Chris LaCivita who, among other things, turned John Kerry's Vietnam service -- wartime service against him, the whole swift boating incident.
So, my question is, obviously, the Trump people are -- they're scrambling.
They weren't planning on running against her, and that's clear.
But when they figure out what to do, how effective are they going to be?
And what weaknesses or alleged weaknesses are they going to be targeting?
EUGENE DANIELS: The biggest thing they're going to do is call her the border czar, right?
They're going to say that she was in charge of the border and that that's why it's so bad.
She wasn't the border czar.
I was on the press call when they explained it.
You know, she was dealing with Northern Triangle, irregular immigration and the issues and why people were leaving the countries.
It doesn't really matter, right, in this time.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Because border czar makes it sound like you're in charge of law enforcement at the actual line.
EUGENE DANIELS: Obviously, they're going to come at her with Bidenflation, right, Bidenomics, that that was a bad thing.
You know, they're going to, they've already been hitting her on that she is mealy mouth, which is not true anymore, right, that she's someone who kind of had a struggle at the times talking about different types of things.
That's gone.
I will also say something that's really important is that, you know, we've already seen a lot of racism and sexism.
And that's going to be a huge part of this campaign.
And Republican leadership are talking to them behind the scenes and saying, please cut it out.
There are things that we can actually talk about here.
But calling her a DEI hire and being sexist about it, I won't say the things that they've been saying.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Wait, I want to get clear on this.
Who is saying not to do it?
EUGENE DANIELS: Speaker Mike Johnson has talked to House Republicans and told them to cut it out, because it's not helpful.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Oh, and they always listen.
EUGENE DANIELS: Yes, he has lots of control over that.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, somebody thinks they don't listen to him.
PETER BAKER: Part of what they're going to do, they're not going to say DEI candidate, at least some of them won't.
They're going to say socialist, right.
And that also has an obvious connotation, right?
And they couldn't really say it very effectively about Joe Biden because he's well known to the country.
He's been here for 50 years.
He's kind of, you know, Scranton Joe, nobody thinks he's a socialist.
She is a person of color, a woman of color, from California, from San Francisco.
And even though in San Francisco, she was thought of as being too right wing, to the rest of the country, that's an easy sale to make.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.
Adam, let's talk about it frankly, how big an issue will racism and misogyny be, where, you know, she's a twofer.
Obviously, she's a woman of color, we've never, you know, seeing this in a presidential campaign.
Does she lose support because of who she is or are the people who are not apt to vote for a woman of color, the people who would never vote for a Democrat anyway?
ADAM HARRIS: Yes.
I mean, you know, it seems like there's a base of people who it might be built in where if you're not going to vote -- if you weren't going to vote for a woman of color, you weren't going to vote for a woman period, then that's sort of who, who you were, right?
But I think what Kamala is looking at now, or the vice president is looking at now is sort of how she's going to be able to expand that base, right.
Part of that comes through the V.P.
pick.
You know, looking at, you know, maybe she won't pull in as many white working class voters in places like Pennsylvania or Michigan, right?
That's something that could be solved by the vice presidential pick.
But she's also pulling back people who the party assumed that they lost, right?
The Detroit News poll today, right, has her at about 88 percent with black voters.
You know, there were a couple of irregularities in that poll, but -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
So -- ASMA KHALID: One of the big glimpses of that is, this week, there were a number of sort of what I would call affinity group Zooms and, right, the largest one that they say crashed was white women for Harris.
And there is this -- EUGEN DANIELS: So, the white goose for Harris.
ASMA KHALID: Right, yes.
But I think these are like popping up.
There were ones within the South Asian community, the broader Asian community, black women, black men.
And, to me, you know, there are certainly voters for whom her identity will be a liability.
I would also argue there is a chunk of the electorate for whom it is viewed as an asset.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, let's talk about the vice presidential sweepstakes for a moment.
It seems there's different, you hire different vice presidents to serve different needs, Eugene, you've studied this.
It seems on the face of it that Josh Shapiro, popular governor of, let's say, the most key state, the absolute keystone state, it seems like a pretty obvious thing to do, especially because he has more of a centrist Reputation.
He pulls the pulls the ticket a little bit toward the middle.
But talk about how they might be thinking about who we hire for this role.
EUGENE DANIELS: It's kind of an old saying in politics, there's three types of vice presidential picks.
One is the one for June, November and January.
June is to get the party excited during the convention.
November is to win.
January is a governing partner.
People around Harris are saying that she's looking for a governing partner, right?
So, she's looking for someone that kind of thinks the way that she thinks, sees the world and the way that she views it, and this kind of thinking about like, you know, their middle class, you know, from the bottom up, middle out kind of thing that they've been talking about.
She's also going to have to, at some point, decide which of these men, because they're largely looking at white men, she's going to pick who could help in one of these states.
You could probably make an argument for any of these men, Josh Shapiro, obviously, Mark Kelly in Arizona, right?
That's a pick where then you pick up a different type of state, you know, Roy Cooper at North in North Carolina, how does he help there.
PETER BAKER: And maybe Georgia.
EUGENE DANIELS: Maybe Georgia, right?
And so there's all these different types of calculations that that they're trying to make, and they're vetting them at the fastest vetting that probably has ever happened.
And so the -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, the fastest vetting since J.D.
Vance, which we'll get to, promising that we're going to get there.
EUGENE DANIELS: Yes, we're going to get there at some point.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.
But -- so in other words, you think that they're arguing that they're looking for a governing partner, but let's not kid ourselves.
Peter and I are like, yes, okay.
EUGENE DANIELS: But she's done this.
She's been the vice president.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I know.
But, Peter, what was the cynical logic?
PETER BAKER: I don't want somebody who could be president.
I want somebody who could win the state.
They don't say that.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But they have to win Pennsylvania.
PETER BAKER: They have to win Pennsylvania.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Or a combination of -- PETER BAKER: Yes.
I mean, the question is whether or not, right, if she loses votes for whatever reason we just talked about in some of these states, does she pick them up in other states that they had basically given up?
They had basically given up Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, right.
PETER BAKER: Does she scramble that map?
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Now, Mark Kelly seems like -- I mean, the resume is perfect.
There's one problem with the Senate seat, but, I mean, Mark Kelly seems like sort of an obvious choice.
I mean, I'm not asking you to speculate, but I am.
ADAM HARRIS: No.
Yes, it is.
If you think about his resume, right, you're running against an astronaut, John Glenn, right?
You're running against an astronaut.
But, as you said, right, you lose him in the Senate.
You lose a very popular person in Arizona.
So, you know -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You might not get Arizona, right.
ADAM HARRIS: And it was not a guarantee here.
ASMA KHALID: But I mean broadly, if you look at all the names that are on the serious shortlist, we're talking about white men.
And to me, this is interesting because what she seems to be trying to do and what Democrats want to do is to really broaden out the demographics.
And it is a striking difference.
Go back to J.D.
Vance from what we saw with Trump, which he doubled down on his own base.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Oh, and thank you for raising J.D.
Vance because like there's a guy who didn't have a great week, in part because of things like this.
I want you to watch this for a second.
SEN. J.D.
VANCE (R-OH), Vice Presidential Nominee: When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power.
You should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our Democratic republic than people who don't have kids.
Let's face the consequences and the reality.
If you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice.
Now, people will say, and I'm sure, The Atlantic and The Washington Post and all the usual suspects will criticize me about this in the coming days, well, doesn't this mean that non parents don't have as much of a voice as parents?
Doesn't this mean that parents get a bigger say in how our democracy functions?
Yes, absolutely.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I just want to note, for the record, The Atlantic didn't say anything about this, to the best of my knowledge.
But in a couple of minutes we have left, what is going on with J.D.
Vance?
I mean, this seems like a troubled pick.
PETER BAKER: Well, he certainly, Challenges normal Americans who may or may not have kids but certainly don't believe -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But this isn't the only one.
PETER BAKER: No, of course not.
He says it again and again, forgetting, of course -- EUGENE DANIELS: Double down today on Megyn Kelly.
PETER BAKER: Yes.
And, by the way, George Washington didn't have kids.
He had stepkids, right?
We had the whole -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: like the father of the country.
PETER BAKER: Yes, this is never something the founders thought was a good idea.
Of course, everybody has an investment in this country, whether you have kids or not.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, my question is, is Donald Trump -- there's some speculation that Trump maybe regretting this pick, does it?
I mean, do we have any sense of that or is that just idle speculation?
EUGENE DANIELS: That he's uncomfortable with the coverage, I would say, of his of his vice presidential pick.
This is a man who cares deeply about what the media says about him, even though he fights with us a lot and how people look at him and the folks around his campaign.
He had beef with Steve Bannon because Steve Bannon was too far ahead and was kind of the mastermind, everyone was saying.
And so now you're looking at J.D.
Vance have not just a rough week where people are finding this oppo, Democrats are all of a sudden very good at finding oppo research on candidates, but, you know, he's having awkward interactions at rallies.
He's having kind of weird videos of what's happening right now.
That is making him and his folks uncomfortable.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: To be fair, let me ask you this in just 30 seconds, does he bring any advantages that you could see right now, because that could be quite very much the case?
ASMA KHALID: I think he doubles down on the already existing demographic that Trump had, so I don't think he really broadens out the party.
If anything, his comments about, you know, women in particular saying that they were childless cat ladies I think really hurts some Republican women as well.
College-educated Republican women have been moving away from the party, white college-educated voters.
I don't think this helps them.
There's a lot of people who don't have kids, a lot of people who want to have kids, who also struggle to have kids.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
In the couple of seconds we have left, just based on your survey of the possible Democrats out there, who would you most like to see for sheer illumination reasons, debate, J.D.
Vance, could be a very interesting debate, if they actually have a debate.
ADAM HARRIS: Yes.
Actually, I think, honestly, Governor Beshear would be interesting, and then also Josh Shapiro.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It's going to be very interesting to watch this choice.
