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Hi, Honestly listeners. Mary here

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with some amazing news. Many

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forward slash debate and become

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a subscriber to the free press today.

1:15

Okay, onto the show.

1:17

I'm Mary Weiss and this is Honestly. Two

1:24

weeks ago I was in Austin for the Texas

1:26

Tribune Festival where I interviewed

1:28

America's best known democratic

1:31

political consultant.

1:32

He is so yesterday if I think of yesterday,

1:34

if I think of an old calendar, I think of George Bush's

1:36

face on it. James Carville.

1:41

You've probably heard of Carville. He's been on the scene for

1:43

a very long time. He's almost 80 and

1:46

has worked on countless campaigns.

1:47

Somebody who's been through a lot of tough elections,

1:49

James Carville is known as the raging Cajun

1:52

in the business. But his most prominent victory

1:54

was Bill Clinton's improbable run for

1:56

the presidency in 1992, which

1:59

was captured in the

1:59

incredible documentary, War Room.

2:02

It's about George Bush and Roger

2:04

Ailes and George S. Mosbacher

2:07

and the whole sleazy little cabal of them that

2:09

want to keep hold of anything and that want to knock

2:11

anybody off that we believe in and

2:14

anything that we care about and if we beat

2:16

them.

2:17

Some people I know watch Notting Hill as a

2:19

comfort movie. For me, it's War

2:21

Room, which tells you a lot about who I am. Because

2:23

if they knock us off, then so what?

2:25

The next one that comes up, they're going to knock the next one

2:27

off. So

2:33

you can imagine my excitement when I went to meet

2:35

Carville backstage before the interview and

2:38

noticed that he was wearing the exact same

2:40

purple, gold and green LSU

2:43

striped polo that he wears throughout

2:45

War Room. I laughed because it's

2:47

pretty ridiculous

2:48

to show up wearing a 30-year-old shirt

2:49

and I'm pretty convinced it was the same one. But

2:52

really it was also fitting and symbolic. A

2:54

whole lot has changed in American politics

2:56

over the last 30 years. But Carville's

2:58

style, blunt, unconventional,

3:01

often right, has not.

3:03

The Western far

3:05

left is habitually

3:07

the most stupid naive people you could

3:09

have had.

3:12

The people closest to Carville have other

3:14

ways of describing the

3:15

political icon. Political consultant

3:17

James Carville, who is Bill Clinton's top campaign

3:20

strategist, is, quote, a pathetic and

3:22

stupid country bumpkin. His

3:25

former

3:25

business partner, Paul Bagala, has

3:27

said that James lives in a border

3:29

town between genius and madness.

3:32

His wife has said simply, he really

3:34

is a nut. Speaking

3:37

of his wife, Carville's famous for a lot

3:39

of things. He coined the phrase,

3:40

it's the economy, Susan.

3:42

But perhaps what he's most well known for

3:45

is his marriage to Mary Matlin. They

3:47

presume and they accuse conservatives

3:50

of racism and they rush to judgment. A

3:52

Republican Party political consultant

3:55

who served under Reagan and was campaign

3:57

director for George H.W. Bush.

3:59

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm

4:02

sorry. And then they want to have a national

4:04

dialogue. I'm not having this conversation as safe as

4:06

him does. I'm sorry. You want to have a conversation.

4:09

I know.

4:09

I'm sorry. But the

4:11

person... When he married Mary in 1993, the press

4:13

called it a stunt marriage and speculated

4:16

it would end soon after. But

4:18

three decades later, Carville

4:20

and Matlin have proven them wrong. What's

4:22

the number one thing you fight about? The

4:24

air conditioning house.

4:27

We don't really fight. We're not

4:29

good fighters. We're kind of powered

4:31

or passive aggressive. And I think the reason

4:33

for that... At a time where most single people indicate

4:36

their partisan preferences right next to their height

4:38

requirements on dating apps, Carville's

4:40

high profile bipartisan marriage

4:43

is a pretty rare thing to witness. And

4:45

like his striped LSU shirt, it

4:47

says a lot about who he is and what

4:49

he truly values. Our

4:53

conversation was a blast. And in large part,

4:55

that's just because James Carville is an incredible

4:57

talker. He comes up with these phrases I've never

4:59

heard of. Some of them are maybe Southern.

5:02

Others are just incredibly funny.

5:04

But it was also fun because of the people

5:06

in the room that day in Austin. I want

5:09

you to picture an auditorium crammed,

5:12

standing room only, with about 300 Rachel

5:15

Maddow diehards. This

5:17

room hissed when I mentioned RFK Jr. They

5:21

booed before I could even get Joe Manchin's

5:23

full name out of my mouth. When

5:25

I asked if anyone in the room identified as a

5:27

conservative or even a libertarian, only

5:30

one hand went up and belonged to

5:32

a free press staffer. All

5:34

of which is to say it made the interview more

5:37

contentious than it would otherwise have been and

5:39

that made it more fun. Today

5:42

you'll hear James Carville and I talk about 2024,

5:46

whether or not he thinks Joe Biden is too

5:48

old to run again. Why he thinks Kamala

5:50

Harris has been given unfair treatment in

5:53

the press, I disagree. The

5:55

direction of the Democratic Party, why

5:57

he thinks Woke-ness is over, I also

5:59

disagree. And of course little

6:01

things like Trump his indictments

6:04

and the future

6:05

of America We'll be right

6:07

back

6:20

James Carville really happy to have you here. Well, thank

6:22

you I

6:26

Love doing this event I get to see

6:28

so many people and you know enough

6:30

I love Austin so it's great all the way

6:32

around and you know If you're really communities really

6:34

fortunate to have something like

6:36

the Texas Tribune and it puts on events

6:39

like this This is a nice deal thing, you

6:41

know, plus, you know, you know, you are

6:43

you know border some college You were telling me and

6:46

I think there's a college down the street here You

6:49

know, honestly, I love college at

6:51

the best four years of my life was spent as a sophomore

6:53

at LSU

6:59

Okay, let's get right into it I want

7:01

to read you Part of a speech

7:03

that the president gave about a week ago in

7:05

Vietnam The Indian looks

7:08

at John Wayne and points to the Union

7:10

soldier and says he's a lying dog-faced

7:12

pony soldier Well, that's a lot of

7:14

lying dog-faced pony soldiers out there

7:17

about global warming remember the famous

7:19

song. Good morning Vietnam I

7:21

could go on with examples, but I'll give you just a

7:23

few more on September 11th The president claimed

7:25

that he was at the World Trade Center the day of the

7:28

attacks. He was not last

7:30

month He claimed to have witnessed the bridge collapse

7:32

in my hometown of Pittsburgh in 2022 He

7:35

didn't in another speech recently He claimed

7:38

that his grandfather had died just days

7:40

prior to his own birth at the same hospital, which never

7:42

happened I could go on so a

7:44

Wall Street Journal poll taken last month found

7:46

that 73% of voters said

7:48

that Biden is simply too old to run

7:51

for reelection Do you agree if

7:53

Biden too old to be president and if he's certainly

7:55

too old to be president again

7:57

in your view So let me make a macro

7:59

statement in our land answer your question. I

8:01

checked this morning, according to the clock

8:03

at the Census Bureau, there are 333 million, 495,611 people

8:05

currently live

8:11

in the United States. I

8:13

think we could find two under 75 to run for President.

8:19

That's my general view. Look,

8:21

I think there's a lot of things that

8:23

I would culturally do like

8:25

about Biden. He's tenacious,

8:27

he's been in politics, he's been

8:30

beat up, he's survived, he's come

8:32

back,

8:33

he's a state school guy, but deep

8:37

down inside, I wish

8:39

I wish you wouldn't do this.

8:41

I just feel like the country is just

8:43

busting at the seams to

8:46

get a new generation in there. I mean,

8:49

I can't do anything about the other

8:51

guy, but I do think that

8:53

different times in a country's history where it just

8:55

goes through periods, and I

8:57

do think that right now this country is the period

9:00

where, and I'll say this, if somebody's

9:02

gonna be 79 in about a month from now, sometimes

9:06

you got to give other people a shot at this, and

9:08

people see the Democratic

9:10

Party and they think we're open. The truth of

9:12

the matter is we got talent just screaming

9:15

all over this party, and I'd like to see some of

9:17

it get out and get showcased.

9:19

I think a lot of us imagined

9:21

when we were younger this idea of,

9:23

you know, the smoke-filled rooms, the party

9:25

machine sort of stepping in and making

9:28

decisions. One of the things I think a

9:30

lot of us maybe naively

9:32

have sort of been confronted with this idea that no

9:34

such machine exists, that the party

9:37

is simply voters, but are there people

9:39

around Biden trying to get

9:41

him to step aside?

9:42

Well, I'm not,

9:43

I think that what President Biden has, he's been

9:45

in politics a long time, I think he has employees. I

9:48

don't know how many actual peers he

9:50

has. Sometimes people have been in politics, they have friends,

9:52

they said, look, do this, you can't do that, and

9:55

the people that have been around him the longest I know are very

9:57

close friends of mine. I mean, don't talk to him that much

9:59

anymore. of Mike Doddlin, you

10:01

look at the war room, he was right by

10:04

my side in the 1982 campaign. We worked

10:06

together and started in 1986 in Pennsylvania

10:08

for Governor Casey, but they worked

10:11

for him. And it's like

10:13

he comes in and says, this is what we're going to do, and

10:15

they go do it.

10:17

And I think that they think, what they

10:20

say is, look, if you give where the economy

10:22

is and look at all the stuff we've got done, I think

10:25

by any standard measure we deserve

10:27

reelection. And if

10:30

he was 60, I would agree with that totally.

10:33

But my own sense is

10:36

that it's just one of these periods

10:38

in the United States where people

10:41

are looking for something different. And I think that

10:43

Biden, the Trump, if

10:45

we broke, if somebody gave people

10:47

an actual vote,

10:50

I think we'd do much better. But to

10:52

be fair, there's no evidence that he's

10:54

thinking about not running. And

10:57

there's no evidence that someone is thinking

10:59

about getting in. You

11:01

know, I've read most of my political life saying what

11:03

I think, and I'm probably not going to stop now.

11:07

So unless something dramatic

11:09

changes, we're looking at Trump

11:11

v. Biden, kind of rematch from hell in

11:13

a little under 14 months from now. And

11:16

many people believe that this is sort of set

11:18

in stone. We talked recently to Liz Smith,

11:20

a Democratic strategist, and she said

11:22

these parlor games are fun for some people to play,

11:24

but Joe Biden is going to be the presidential nominee

11:27

full stop. Let's indulge though

11:29

in a little bit of parlor games, if you

11:31

wouldn't mind, like, is there anything that

11:33

could upset what feels like a fiat

11:35

company?

11:35

I don't know. And

11:38

I really like Liz. I think she's

11:40

really smart. I think she's one of the really,

11:42

I call her up and comers. I guess she's

11:45

positive respected. And a

11:47

lot of people say, what are you doing? This

11:49

is decided, you know,

11:51

fall in.

11:54

And

11:55

I'll probably will have to. But

11:57

let me tell you, if this election were held

11:59

in to be very frank with you. I think if

12:01

Trump were reelected to be catastrophic, I

12:03

think it'd be the end of the Constitution. Okay?

12:06

And I don't think they're very,

12:09

they're telling you that. All

12:11

right? So we've been to the Constitution, I think

12:13

we've been living up to like March the

12:15

4th, 1789. And,

12:18

you know, we've had a pretty good run. So

12:21

we're not looking at somebody, we're not looking at Mitt Romney,

12:23

you know, George H.W.

12:25

Bush, Eisenhower. We're looking

12:28

at a

12:29

corrupt,

12:30

treasonous

12:32

guy that would ruin the country. So, but,

12:34

but if we said the election was

12:37

just November, let me just give you a hypothetical,

12:39

just to be fair, the election was just November.

12:41

I know it's not, you don't have to remind me. And

12:44

in candidates for Joe Biden, the

12:46

Democrat, Donald Trump, the Republican,

12:50

Joe Manchin, no labels, and Cornel

12:52

West, Green Party, Biden

12:54

would be an underdog. Okay.

12:57

He would be an underdog. Would be an underdog

12:59

that you would have a catastrophic

13:02

event in American history of

13:04

the first order. And

13:07

they're already saying, I'm going to get rid of everybody.

13:10

I'm going to get rid of civil service. I'm

13:12

going to get rid of an independent judiciary. I'm going to get

13:14

rid of everything. And they're telling you, they're

13:16

not hiding it from you. You

13:19

know, people say, well, James, Biden's

13:21

going to probably win if you get him and

13:23

Trump and you look at, you know,

13:26

so you go to the doctor that says we're

13:28

going to farm this test. You're probably going to be

13:30

okay. For the 60% chance it's fine. But the 40% chance you're going

13:32

to be paralyzed. You know, if you're going to say, shit, no, get

13:34

out of here, get away from me

13:37

with that. And that's

13:39

the way that

13:41

this thing

13:42

feels like to me, anything that we can do

13:44

to lessen the chance

13:46

for our old remained in time and

13:48

our children's remained in time or whatever, we have

13:51

a constitution. Cause that's, that's really what's, that's

13:53

what we're talking about. We shouldn't

13:55

kid ourselves and sugar coat this and

13:58

you know, we're two great parties and two today. and

14:00

Americans come together in the

14:02

tradition of, you know, going in a posh and buggy

14:05

and driving 20 miles and

14:07

canceling each other's boat. And you know, the other thing,

14:09

you hear these

14:10

assholes like the Cosmos Club,

14:13

and they're all around Washington, they go,

14:15

ah, it's institutions and

14:17

the rule of law, and democracy. And

14:22

shit, if you don't give people a choice

14:25

they want, that's the first role

14:27

of a democracy,

14:28

of a strong democracy, you give people

14:30

a choice at least some people are excited

14:33

about.

14:34

And if you look at the polls, I'm

14:37

just telling you what the polls say, and I'll say

14:39

it, it never changes. Somewhere

14:42

between 72 and 77 percent don't want

14:44

this charge. I will just give you

14:46

a consensus number of 75, between 72, 77, 75, 74 and a half,

14:48

I don't care.

14:53

I keep telling you this over

14:55

and over and over again.

14:58

So

15:00

that's the way I feel, Barry. I feel like this

15:03

would be catastrophic, and if you look at

15:05

what's going on,

15:06

there's some chance this guy could win

15:09

this election if we don't play this

15:12

really smart.

15:12

So if those are the stakes, and you look at

15:14

people who clearly want to

15:16

run for president at some point, whether

15:18

it's Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer,

15:21

Josh Appear, the governor in Pennsylvania,

15:23

why aren't they doing it?

15:25

You know,

15:27

first of all, and this sounds weird,

15:30

but people really like President Biden.

15:33

Okay, I know it sounds like if you

15:35

want a friend, buy a dog. I know

15:37

all that's true. To

15:39

some extent, and Democrats,

15:42

and I'm one myself, that's kind of

15:44

mean. You really shouldn't do

15:47

that. He's older. He's been

15:49

president.

15:50

You know, you got to let him decide

15:52

on his own terms.

15:53

I

15:56

don't know. I do notice

15:58

that the state of town...

15:59

talent in the Democratic Party right

16:02

now, right now,

16:04

is this higher level of talent I've seen in

16:07

any political party. I was

16:09

doing Bill Custer's podcast, as

16:11

he's here, and I said, you know, the 80

16:13

Republican field had all the experience.

16:15

I mean, it was Reagan and Dolan Bush

16:17

and I got all. But this, in

16:20

terms of just raw political talent, the

16:22

modern Democratic Party is full of it. Now, you

16:25

wouldn't know it

16:26

because it's like watching Secretariat

16:28

in the barn. Every horse looks the

16:30

same in the barn. You got to get it on the goddamn

16:33

track and see what it can do. But

16:38

trust me, there's real, real—and

16:41

it's not Bobby Kennedy, by the way. Well,

16:45

let's talk about Kennedy, actually, for a minute. No,

16:47

we have to. Go ahead. Why

16:50

not?

16:51

How do you explain his poll numbers?

16:53

Because he's not Biden,

16:56

okay? If somebody's like something and they

16:58

say, this system doesn't hear

17:00

me, and it was like Eugene McCarthy

17:02

against Lyndon Johnson. He was kind

17:04

of halfway—he was a senator from Minnesota, but he looked

17:06

like he was the kind of guy going to corner and read a book

17:09

before he'd like—and he

17:11

got 42 percent. No

17:14

one pays attention to Bobby Kennedy's crazy

17:17

things he says or does. To some people, he says,

17:19

well, he's a Kennedy. He must be okay. You know,

17:21

I remember them. But

17:24

to be generous, to give him the most

17:26

generous read, isn't the reason that

17:28

Kennedy is resonating because he is picking

17:30

up on so many of the themes that, frankly,

17:33

Democrats don't talk about anymore. The

17:35

power of big tech, for example,

17:37

in people's lives. The dignity of

17:39

the working class. Things that I thought

17:42

growing up were mainstays of

17:44

the Democratic Party that, frankly, they're not talking

17:46

about

17:46

as much anymore. Look,

17:49

the Democratic Party has kind of changed and become

17:52

more educated.

17:54

We've probably lost

17:57

a little of that. But you know, in terms

17:59

of the tech— stuff. What

18:01

did Trump do about the tech business when he was president?

18:03

Nothing. I don't know what you can do.

18:07

I think it's

18:09

a fair thing to say that

18:11

Democrats have sort

18:13

of lost their connection with working people.

18:15

Biden is the last thing

18:18

but a kind of coastal guy. I mean, you

18:20

couldn't explain to him what all this stuff was.

18:22

I mean, he's as regular

18:25

a guy as you can think, but that's so

18:28

not who

18:30

the people that vote in the party are.

18:32

And that's why I'd like to see a bunch of these

18:34

new candidates out there and people seeing

18:37

what they had to say.

18:38

Who are you most excited about? I'm not that.

18:40

Right. So just sound. I'm excited about

18:42

whoever Democrats pick. I'd like to

18:44

see seven people running

18:46

on a stage that had ideas

18:49

and had energy that could string a sense

18:51

together and then y'all decide who the hell you

18:53

like. But give somebody your choice.

18:55

Well, you know, she makes sense. He makes sense. I like that.

18:59

People think of it. I know this. You

19:02

go talk to people around the country. What

19:04

do you think of the Democratic party? They

19:06

think we're an urban old

19:08

party that we are there for people in the

19:10

cities and all of our leadership is old.

19:13

That's not true, but you

19:15

have to put people out there

19:17

and start talking about things where you will

19:19

change people's minds because the Republicans will

19:23

tell you all over again. It's just their old

19:25

sovereign just they care about people

19:27

not like you and the cities and that

19:30

kind of stuff. And good candidates

19:32

will give you sharp definition, will give you

19:34

concise messaging, will do things that good

19:36

candidates can do. And

19:38

that's why we need this.

19:40

The name you hear a lot among sort

19:42

of centrist Democrats and never Trump Republicans

19:44

these days is Joe Manchin. And there's this kind

19:46

of fantasy that Joe Manchin, I'm

19:48

just, okay.

19:50

Wow.

19:53

I am first of all, people say, what

19:55

is it like to be a moderate Democrat? And I have no idea because

19:57

I'm a liberal Democrat. Okay.

19:59

I'm pretty liberal, but mansion is

20:03

not. Are you with the crowd on that? I

20:05

like Senator Manchin. If you look, you

20:07

know, I'm not gonna like argue this, if you look

20:09

at the votes that he's been key on, judges,

20:12

Bill Backbatter,

20:14

all of the different stuff, and

20:16

a Democrat has not carried a county

20:19

in West Virginia

20:21

since 2008. And

20:23

so you have all of these people that

20:25

don't have to run in West Virginia, criticizing

20:29

Joe Manchin for trying to stay alive

20:32

in a state that you can't carry counties. I have

20:34

great, but he's not gonna be

20:37

a Democratic nominee or a factor

20:39

in national Democratic politics. Now

20:42

you could be in no labels, which

20:45

could in effect take some people

20:47

who can't stand Trump, but can't stand Democrats,

20:50

but maybe might vote for us. I don't think, I think

20:52

that, I don't know the happy ending of no

20:55

labels. I understand the

20:57

whole thing, but I don't think in

20:59

terms of national Democratic politics, Senator

21:02

Manchin wouldn't be that big a factor. He

21:04

probably ran no labels, but he's

21:07

got his own politics and they're not easy at

21:09

all.

21:09

I mentioned him only because he's one of

21:11

this kind of wish casting fan

21:14

fiction type stories that feel like

21:16

are happening right now in the conversation. Another

21:19

one of them is about Kamala Harris. There's a

21:21

lot of people who are saying, you

21:23

know what, we're stuck with Joe Biden. What

21:27

if we changed out Kamala Harris? What if Biden dumped

21:29

Kamala Harris and took a vice presidential

21:31

candidate who was more exciting to the base?

21:33

What do you make of that? Why are people throwing

21:36

out that idea? Is there anything to it at

21:38

all?

21:38

Well, first of all, if you

21:41

change with Harris, if people win the base that

21:43

really like her, secondly, it's a little bit unfair

21:46

because the president's approval rating is like 41.

21:49

Well,

21:49

the vice president can't go any higher,

21:52

so she has a kind of a ceiling of 41. So

21:54

she has the funds, but I

21:57

don't think that

21:58

we can flush all that. What I'd like

22:01

to see is

22:02

her and

22:03

about five or six other people start

22:06

running to acquire delegates and be on TV

22:09

and be on your own and see what

22:11

you can do and how good your ideas are to stand

22:13

up. But I think to some

22:16

extent she's being defined by

22:18

being in administration. Maybe

22:20

her approval is 35 and you say that's not very

22:22

good, but she couldn't be any higher than 41 if

22:25

she was perfect.

22:26

But come on. I mean, when she speaks, it's like veep.

22:29

Well, to you, sorry. I

22:31

mean, I'm

22:32

sorry. That's the way to you. Some

22:34

young person came to me and said that

22:36

that really, you know, some of that,

22:38

you

22:39

know, I don't not saying it is in your case

22:41

or in different cases, but I went through

22:44

this with Hillary every time a female

22:47

gets big in national politics, they

22:49

get accused of shrieking or, you

22:51

know, being fingernails

22:54

on the whiteboard. I think maybe

22:57

she's not the greatest public speaker in the world,

23:00

but a lot of the stuff that's been

23:02

heaped on her, I

23:04

think is telling about some of

23:06

it is stereotyping. And every time

23:09

I see that with a

23:11

female politician, it's

23:13

always fingernails

23:16

on a blackboard. And

23:18

I don't know, because I'm a male.

23:19

I think I might be among the last people

23:22

that would be turned off by a powerful woman politician,

23:24

considering that I am a woman and gay. I'm just

23:27

saying that I don't say you were turned

23:28

off by her or turned off by

23:30

a powerful woman politician. I'm

23:33

just saying that

23:35

sometimes

23:37

voters, and we know this, you know,

23:39

if I just take a vote of female, if

23:42

I take Sue Jones and

23:44

Joe Johnson,

23:46

and that certain things that just the

23:48

male of female political science knows that,

23:50

that certain qualities that just

23:52

will get attributed to you based

23:55

on your gender.

23:56

And I don't know this very, but it

23:58

does seem to be.

23:59

I never hear about males talking

24:02

in a shrieky voice. But

24:04

I'm not saying that you've been thinking. Do

24:06

you think she's

24:06

a good politician?

24:09

I'd be fair.

24:11

She's not one of the all-time greats

24:13

now. But the

24:17

only thing that I know her, her presidential

24:19

campaign, was she wanted

24:21

to run for president in the worst possible way and

24:24

she succeeded. But

24:30

a lot of people run

24:33

for president and don't do very well. Biden

24:36

ran for president and didn't do very

24:38

well. I mean, failure

24:41

is

24:42

to politics what air

24:45

is to life. I mean, I'm going

24:47

to get off of this. But

24:51

I think she's not fulfilled her potential.

24:53

Well, let's talk about a happier subject, which is Donald

24:55

Trump. So

24:58

Trump is currently polling at 55%. The

25:01

next closest candidate is Florida Governor Ron

25:03

DeSantis, I think at 14%, right

25:05

around there. Every indictment

25:07

seems to make him more popular among his base.

25:10

Is there any scenario in which

25:12

you see one of these other candidates

25:14

in the race

25:14

unseating Trump? So

25:18

MAGA was there before Trump.

25:21

The idea that

25:23

people were under assault from immigrants,

25:26

from people of color, from

25:28

whatever, all right,

25:31

it was always a feeling in that world losing

25:33

the country. Trump came in

25:36

and stoked that

25:38

up, a feeling that already existed. So the whole

25:41

Republican Party is, I'm sorry. I

25:44

mean, Lauren Bovitt, Ken Paxton,

25:46

great. So we really want to talk

25:49

about Kamala Harris being the problem. I

25:51

mean, next to Lauren Bovitt, she's

25:54

Joan of Arc. All

25:56

right.

25:58

I feel like I'm at a rally.

25:59

Okay, so the Republican Party

26:02

magnified, but again to the question, is

26:05

there anyone in the race that you just

26:07

as a political strategist that you

26:09

think has a chance of unseating Trump?

26:13

Right now, no.

26:14

But he's in such legal jeopardy.

26:17

If a jury comes back,

26:18

that will affect people. And you

26:21

starting to see when things move,

26:24

Litton once said, history

26:26

goes decades with nothing happening,

26:29

and then history goes weeks with decades

26:32

happening. All right?

26:34

Okay, so I'll quote it in Litton. Great.

26:38

So when things start to move,

26:41

like in Iowa,

26:42

and I was looking at something, he

26:44

got 42 in New Hampshire.

26:47

Well, 42 is not that great a

26:49

number for a former president and their

26:52

own party. Honestly,

26:54

in a normal year, you would see

26:56

a sitting president in their own

26:58

party in New Hampshire be a lot higher than that. So

27:01

I'd be an idiot if I didn't say the most likely

27:04

outcome

27:05

is that the Republicans nominate Trump.

27:09

But

27:09

you know, DeSantis

27:11

is the greatest disaster I've

27:13

ever seen in my life. Y'all

27:15

see the latest story. I agree with that. I can

27:17

kick Tucker Carlson's dog. What? Well,

27:20

he went to Michael Wolf has

27:22

a story that DeSantis decided

27:24

he wanted to go see Tucker and Susie Carlson.

27:26

I know well, he should do Crossfire with my kids with the

27:28

school gala

27:30

and dog

27:32

people.

27:33

And DeSantis kicked one of the dogs. I

27:36

guess he ate his with his fingers

27:39

too. I mean, he had,

27:41

I mean, there's something wrong with that boy. I

27:45

think I don't think he's potty trained to tell

27:47

you the truth.

27:49

What do you think was the

27:51

most foolish thing he did sort of looking back

27:54

at his candidacy so far? Was it the

27:56

war with Disney? So

27:58

this woman, her name is Suzy Wilds.

28:01

Actually her dad was Pat Summeroff, who

28:03

was a real guy, who was a big sports

28:05

fan. And she literally

28:07

made DeSantis his career. She

28:11

let him elect to Congress and she got him elected

28:13

governor. And then Mrs.

28:16

DeSantis knocked her

28:18

off.

28:20

Bad move.

28:21

She went down to Morlago.

28:24

And all of this stories on DeSantis

28:28

is coming from

28:29

Suzy Wilds. You talk to any reporter

28:32

that she's on everybody's speed

28:34

now. She's leaking the pudding

28:36

story. She's leaking every story that

28:39

there is. And she's just sticking pins

28:41

in DeSantis'

28:43

voodoo doll. You

28:46

know, in life I always tell people,

28:48

enemies and necessity. That's okay. You got

28:50

to have those. Those are people if you're running for an

28:52

office and somebody else is, well,

28:55

be careful about enemies of choice.

28:57

And

28:59

DeSantis, and

29:01

Casey DeSantis made

29:03

a bad decision because

29:05

she knows, you know,

29:08

all the private flights. She knows what's

29:10

on the state dime. And she knows she's

29:12

got every journalist in the country

29:15

on her cell phone.

29:18

That's what's going on with bro DeSantis. He's

29:20

getting cut up and he don't know which way to turn.

29:24

A lot of never Trump Republicans

29:27

really are looking to Virginia,

29:30

to the governor Glenn Yunkin

29:32

who has not entered the race, who shows basically

29:34

no signs of entering the race, but are convinced that

29:37

he is going to. Are you hearing anything

29:39

about that? Do you think that's a possibility?

29:40

Well, there's a big, big

29:43

election coming up in Virginia, November. Because

29:46

at their state house, the

29:49

Republicans have the house, 52 48, the Democrats have Senate 22

29:54

to 18, and

29:56

there is enough in play

29:59

to make a difference.

30:00

Yuck. And he's going all in, but

30:02

the Democrats call him, but I would point

30:04

this out. The Democrats

30:06

have not lost an election since dogs

30:09

anyway.

30:10

We just wanted to go back Tuesday

30:12

night and

30:15

they really trying to,

30:19

you know, flip the Senate

30:21

and you got big race in Mississippi

30:24

that, you know, I'd call a Democrat

30:26

an underdog, but not overwhelmingly

30:28

a big race in Kentucky.

30:31

I'd probably call

30:32

incumbent Democrat a little bit of a favorite,

30:34

not overwhelmingly Louisiana

30:37

doesn't look all that promising for Democrats. Virginia

30:39

state legislative places, you watching

30:41

the election returns that night, watch

30:44

that one closely.

30:46

Let's talk about the legal issues hanging over

30:49

Donald Trump, obviously facing four

30:51

indictments and want to know from you, which

30:53

of those do you think is the most serious and then separate

30:56

some sort of from the moral and ethical

30:58

and legal matter of it. Do you think politically

31:01

it matters to him?

31:03

This is the second verse first, as

31:06

of now, it doesn't matter. He said that he could

31:08

shoot someone in the middle of fifth Avenue

31:10

and it wouldn't matter. Remember

31:12

that he was found in a court

31:15

of competent jurisdiction to

31:17

have raped someone on fifth Avenue.

31:20

Understand that

31:21

the judge said by any definition, what

31:23

the jury found is

31:25

right. This woman,

31:28

it didn't matter. So I guess it, I don't, it

31:30

break don't count in this country. I don't know what

31:32

does, but I was, you know,

31:35

raised to think that's not a very good thing.

31:37

So when

31:39

you're a criminal defendant, potential defendant comes

31:42

in, the first thing you look for is defenses. I

31:45

cannot think of a single defense. He

31:47

has a moral. I go, I mean, understand.

31:49

They said he took this stuff that came to him

31:52

and it said, this doesn't belong to you and

31:54

he wouldn't give it back. Then they wrote him a letter

31:57

and he wouldn't give it back. Then they sent us a subpoena.

32:00

And he wouldn't give it back.

32:01

And then he hid the documents

32:03

under the subpoena.

32:05

And he showed the documents

32:08

that were to someone else. What's

32:11

the defense?

32:13

You don't own it.

32:15

If I leave here and I take this chair,

32:17

and

32:19

I say that it's mine because

32:22

I sat in it, and

32:25

the Omni people are going to say, no,

32:27

that's not yours. Give it back to us. And

32:30

they act nice. And they tried everything they could.

32:34

It's going to be interesting to see if we ever

32:36

find out why some people say that he's

32:39

a pack rack. So I

32:41

go to the jury store and I take a Rolex and say, why

32:43

are you doing this? I'm a pack rack. I just like to

32:45

have... I really... You know. I

32:48

mean, I just don't... I have no earthly

32:51

idea how he's going to defend this.

32:54

And I don't think they do either, to tell you the truth.

32:58

Let's talk about President Biden's son, Hunter,

33:01

just received his own indictment after the very

33:03

public collapse of his plea deal. If

33:05

the case does end up going to trial, how

33:08

much of a headache or distraction will that be

33:10

for the president? Could it seriously

33:12

damage his chances of reelection?

33:15

Well, okay. First of all, the Republicans

33:17

have opened an

33:19

impeachment inquiry.

33:21

Which you said you're excited about. I could

33:23

not be more excited. I

33:26

just... But only if they call

33:28

witnesses. Okay. Because,

33:31

let me tell you,

33:32

Jim Comer is not very

33:34

smart man. In fact, I think he's pretty stupid.

33:38

Okay. Jim Jordan, G-Y-M,

33:42

Jim Jordan, not

33:44

very smart. Dan Goldman, smart.

33:48

Delegate Plaskett, smart.

33:50

Jamie Raskin, smart. They

33:52

will eat their ass alive.

33:55

Alive. And remember,

33:57

when you call the witness... The

34:00

other guy gets to play. And

34:03

Dan Abrams, who's not hardly

34:06

a liberal,

34:07

and he's right. There has not been one,

34:09

I owe to evidence to say

34:12

that president Biden's got any of this

34:14

money. Now, if you want to say, when

34:16

Biden did some really stupid things.

34:20

Yeah. I mean, if you're going to

34:22

make an $80,000 a month while your dad

34:24

is vice president from a energy

34:26

company. But I can't tell you

34:28

that he lied on

34:30

a gun application. It's the

34:33

only time that Republicans

34:35

never liked, ever wore against a gun

34:37

app. But he did. And

34:40

they've investigated this guy for what?

34:42

How many years? And

34:45

you know, you just got to live with it,

34:47

but it's not any, any evidence whatsoever.

34:49

And I personally wish open

34:52

hearings, call witnesses. Let's air

34:55

this thing out.

34:56

Let's talk a little bit about the state of the Democratic

34:58

party. Democrats,

35:01

as we touched on earlier in this conversation, used

35:03

to be very much perceived as the

35:05

party of the everyday ordinary American.

35:08

There's a book that's about to come out from John Judas

35:11

and Ray Teshara called Where

35:13

Have All the Democrats Gone? And it's about sort of the

35:15

defection of working class voters from the party.

35:18

Reflect a little bit on how that happened.

35:20

How did it come to be that the Democratic

35:22

party is the party of educated,

35:25

elite,

35:26

somewhat older voters? Right. Oh,

35:29

not, I wouldn't say older, but definitely,

35:32

uh,

35:33

uh, definitely become much more of

35:35

an educated party

35:37

over the course of this century that that's

35:39

true. Uh, become,

35:41

uh,

35:43

you know, less of a presence in

35:45

places in mid America. That is definitely

35:47

true. Some of it was

35:50

our own making, which

35:53

is true. And you

35:55

know, the,

35:56

one of the best

35:58

books that I can recommend.

35:59

on this. It was done, believe it or not,

36:02

a Berkeley academic by the name of Ollie Russell

36:04

Harshio, who did a book called

36:06

Strangers in Their Own Land about

36:08

people in Southwest Louisiana, same thing as Southeast

36:11

Texas, and how they

36:13

became Trump

36:15

people. Another

36:17

one is,

36:18

I can't think of the name of it, but it's by a Wisconsin

36:21

academic, Kathy Kramer on

36:25

non-college voters in northern Wisconsin.

36:28

But a lot of this is cultural. A

36:30

lot of it is Democrats gave off

36:32

heirs that we thought that we

36:34

were smarter than other people and Republicans

36:38

did a good job of exploiting

36:40

that.

36:41

Now, having said that,

36:43

again, I point out we haven't lost an

36:45

election

36:46

since

36:47

June of last year. If

36:50

you look at—you're right, you could

36:52

say we have all kind of internal contradictions

36:55

within the party, although I will caucus

36:57

folks down the lines as Pelosi's then

36:59

speaker, and now Hakeem is speaker.

37:02

But understand this, if you're a Democrat,

37:05

you know this. If

37:06

you're really in a coalition—and

37:08

I like coalitions.

37:10

I really do. I don't want to be in the frickin'

37:12

cult,

37:13

all right? I don't want my

37:15

entire life to be defined

37:17

by my own ideology. But if

37:20

you're in a coalition of nature,

37:22

you have to be a little uncomfortable,

37:25

because the bigger your coalition is,

37:27

the more things that come up that

37:30

will make you uncomfortable.

37:32

And

37:33

what we did have is a

37:35

significant number of working

37:38

class people, more

37:40

specifically we're working class whites, that

37:42

we have lost ground considerably. However,

37:46

and people point out, West Virginia used to

37:48

vote Democratic, or

37:50

any other state that used to

37:53

have Democratic senators from the Dakotas.

37:55

True. And New Jersey and California

37:58

used to vote Republican.

37:59

You had one tradeoff, and

38:02

in one sense it wasn't a good tradeoff.

38:04

In the other sense, it was

38:06

a tradeoff we should have never have

38:09

made.

38:11

And we allow a

38:13

small part of our party, people

38:16

that described themselves as, quote, progressive

38:19

liberal, which is about 10 percent of the entire

38:21

Democratic Party, compared

38:23

to 65 percent of

38:25

the Republican Party that thinks the election

38:28

was stolen, or that the earth is 5,000

38:30

years old, or

38:33

climate with some hoax out

38:35

of a PR person in Beijing.

38:39

The stuff that we get tagged

38:41

with is kind of silly.

38:43

I never saw a Democrat that ever wanted to burn

38:46

a book.

38:47

And the day I do, then I'll reconsider.

38:52

These sons of bitches have banned more

38:54

books this year

38:56

than any year in American history.

38:59

And they fired some teacher from Galveston

39:01

or somewhere for

39:02

reading Andy Frank.

39:06

But I got to worry about somebody

39:09

talking about Latinx, which no one even knows

39:11

what it was. It's not,

39:13

it's just kind of a goofy thing they came up

39:15

with. But why do Democrats pay

39:17

such a price for 10 percent

39:21

of the eccentric people in our party, and the

39:23

Republicans don't pay a price to the 65 percent

39:25

of the people in their party that are just out

39:27

and out nuts?

39:33

I'll just push back on

39:35

none of the characterizations. I can't compete

39:37

with that. But couldn't

39:39

the reason be that that 10

39:41

percent has an unbelievable

39:43

amount of cultural power in

39:45

America? They control publishing

39:48

houses, Hollywood studios, media

39:51

companies, all of the sense-making

39:54

institutions of American life.

39:56

So that's the difference. First of all, I

39:58

honestly.

39:59

I think YouTube, I was

40:02

very outspoken. It's over.

40:04

It's over. The

40:07

identity left is lost. They're sitting

40:09

there sputtering around in some art museum

40:11

or some

40:13

foundation. No one wants to

40:15

defund the freaking police. No

40:18

one wants to call people Latinx

40:21

for any of that nonsense. My greatest

40:23

is cultural appropriation. So

40:26

if you come to New Orleans

40:27

and you walk out and you have a sweatshirt and say,

40:29

I got bourbon face on shit street,

40:32

am I going to say, oh my God, you appropriated my

40:34

culture. How dare you say that? I

40:38

come to Austin and

40:40

I go like I did last night and

40:42

eat brisket and coleslaw and baked

40:44

beans and God knows, you don't say,

40:47

well, you're not supposed to be eating that. You're not from

40:49

Texas.

40:50

It all

40:52

became so idiotic.

40:55

So the term, give you a little

40:58

history here, because the term woke

41:01

first time that at least in my

41:03

limited research skills came

41:05

up was by a guy named Ledbelly

41:08

Ledbetter, who was a jazz musician who

41:10

was born in right outside of Shreveport.

41:13

I think he died in a jail in Houston. And

41:16

the term woke

41:18

was in a song telling black people

41:20

in Texas and Louisiana that

41:23

you should be aware in your interactions

41:25

with the police, which I think would be sound advice

41:28

about I wasn't a black person in Houston

41:30

in 1925, but if I got stopped by

41:33

the cops, I would have, as you say, in the

41:35

Marine Corps, situational awareness. And

41:40

then, like everything else, some

41:43

over-educated white people got ahold

41:45

to it and thought then they'd woken to some entirely

41:48

different word than it was supposed

41:50

to be. And that's, and then

41:52

that causes us, you

41:55

know, 20 house seats.

41:57

They can appropriate, but they won't appropriate.

42:00

I think that everybody knows that

42:02

this whole thing was not a very

42:05

good idea and

42:06

most people have moved on for it. Now,

42:09

if you some

42:10

deputy art instructor at some under

42:12

attended overpriced college, oh man,

42:15

they'll run your ass out, but they're not going to fool with

42:17

you if any power. They're not going to fool with me. They're

42:19

not going to fool with Bill Moore.

42:21

All

42:22

right? They're just not.

42:23

And they find, and

42:25

when I was at LSU, I

42:29

was going to class. And

42:31

somebody called and said that one

42:33

of my students had got in. I don't know.

42:36

UT law school. I forgot what he was.

42:38

So I stopped at the

42:41

wine store and I get

42:43

a $25 bottle of champagne and some

42:47

champagne flutes at Rags. So I

42:49

said, okay, you're not going to

42:51

be, get out of one of my classes unless

42:53

you know how to properly open a bottle

42:56

of champagne. That's

42:58

just something that you have to know in life.

43:02

And so I had the student come up. I said, okay,

43:04

now don't put the wine bottle

43:06

away from your face because you don't want to lose your

43:09

eye over this. And I take the foil

43:11

off, not take the wire.

43:13

Okay. Now what you're going to do is you're going to take

43:16

the caulk in the bottle

43:18

and you're going to, we don't pop the caulk

43:20

and you just

43:21

easily twist opposite

43:23

ways. And then when

43:26

the caulk comes out, the sound

43:28

you're looking for is the sigh of a satisfied

43:31

woman of which has been, and it

43:34

broke me up for this. Okay. And

43:38

I'm like, Oh God, I mean, I never say that

43:41

again. I mean, but that is the way

43:43

that people have been teaching people to open

43:45

champagne bottle forever.

43:50

So I guess I would change now to,

43:52

I don't know, I hadn't heard the sigh

43:54

of a satisfied woman been in 50 years.

43:59

But I

44:02

guess I'd say like a mild burp. I

44:09

got written up and I said,

44:12

well, maybe it's time for me to move

44:14

on to do something else in my life.

44:22

After the break, James Carville takes

44:24

questions from the crowd and then indulges

44:26

us in a fan-favorite lightning round in

44:29

which he reveals who he thinks Lauren Boebert

44:31

should date next and what he

44:33

thinks is his wife's worst opinion.

44:37

Stay with us.

44:45

Okay, we want to take some questions from you guys.

44:48

You can stand up at the microphones that are

44:50

situated in these middle aisles and then at

44:52

the end we're going to end with a quick lightning round. Please

44:55

try and keep it to a tight question if

44:57

you don't mind. Yes. Can you speak

44:59

to the role of abortion rights in the upcoming

45:01

election? Yes,

45:04

August. I was the only

45:06

national Democrat to go to Kansas. And

45:10

once I got there, I could

45:12

feel I didn't think it was going to end

45:14

up like this. And

45:16

what's happened is, there's

45:19

been, and I can say Democrats have not

45:21

lost an election since this. I mean, this

45:24

issue is like

45:26

golden, like nothing I've seen in politics.

45:29

And you're having this, well, maybe we can be this. And

45:31

now they're trying to figure out Trump's attacking

45:34

DeSantis on this. And they're

45:36

all falling apart because they

45:38

had presented this issue is so

45:41

simple. And there's nothing

45:43

simple at all. You know, I just said

45:45

my daughter just had a, you know, my

45:48

first grandson, but there's nothing,

45:49

and of course living in Louisiana,

45:51

you know, first things she got pretty, you know, the first thing I did

45:53

is

45:54

called the head of the largest hospital

45:57

and say, who is the best lawyer on this in

45:59

Louisiana? Because

46:00

if you're having, if somebody

46:02

in your family is having a baby in a place like Louisiana

46:05

or Texas, you better hire a lawyer in case

46:07

something,

46:08

isn't that a shame? And that's something like the thinking,

46:11

daughter tells you she's pregnant and you

46:13

have your first grandchild and your first instinct

46:15

is we've got to get a lawyer. Now

46:18

we got one, we didn't need it, thank God.

46:21

But that's the real effect of this stuff.

46:24

I ask, thank you for your question. Go ahead.

46:26

Yes, I'll get from there. I was wondering if a solid

46:28

Democrat presidential candidate wanted

46:31

to initiate a primary, how would

46:33

they do that and how could a Democrat voter

46:36

help that process? Each

46:39

like the New Hampshire primary, you go in

46:41

there, they have a secretary of state to legislate

46:44

you make certain requirements. I don't know, you got to pay

46:46

a thousand fee, you might have certain signatures. But

46:48

when you run for president,

46:51

it's 50 separate elections. All

46:54

right. There's no national, there's no office

46:56

of national filing where you go in and do

46:59

like you're going to run for Travis County,

47:01

you know, be a judge. They

47:03

call them judges, they're headed in Texas.

47:05

We call them police jurors, but everybody's got their

47:07

own sort of name for it. But

47:10

so you know, there's a lot of rigmarole you'd

47:12

have to go through, but

47:14

it's not so

47:15

familiar because nobody could do it.

47:18

So it's not going to happen.

47:19

You know, I guess

47:23

as old as I am, you learn to seldom

47:25

say never. No, you

47:27

can't say never say never because you just said never.

47:33

But all things are possible.

47:34

That doesn't make them probable, but possible.

47:38

In the media, there's not much coverage

47:40

of the possibility of President

47:43

Trump going to prison

47:46

or fleeing the country to avoid

47:49

that. And

47:52

in the extradition

47:54

treaties with some of these countries

47:56

such as Hungary, which is a

47:58

country that he's been there's

48:01

an exception to

48:04

the extradition treaty.

48:06

And if

48:09

the person is fleeing because

48:11

of political persecution.

48:13

The two words that he uses

48:16

every time, all the time.

48:18

Do you think

48:19

it's a possibility that

48:21

he could try? Thank you, a lot of people

48:23

thought it's actually, I think it's the

48:26

UAE

48:27

that we don't have an extradition treaty with.

48:30

But we follow him,

48:32

I'd go to

48:33

take the top floor to Ritz-Calden, Moscow. Now

48:37

the danger is if

48:38

Putin

48:39

dies, it gets knocked off, they're

48:41

gonna come get you. But I'm serious,

48:44

if I was Trump and I'm knowing the

48:46

legal jeopardy that he's in, I'd

48:49

get the hell out. I would really think about

48:51

blowing this pop sand. All

48:55

right, I'm serious. I

48:57

think your question is relevant.

49:00

And when you start looking

49:02

at the accretion of stuff, yes, he could win,

49:05

assume the courts would allow him to part himself, which

49:07

is not a guarantee. It's not a guarantee, he's no any. He

49:09

still can't do anything about Georgia and

49:12

he's still got all this stuff in Manhattan. And

49:15

he's a career criminal.

49:17

And you know what career criminals do?

49:20

They commit crimes. That's

49:22

the nature of

49:24

what they are. And

49:27

they'll keep pursuing him,

49:29

but he's in a

49:30

bucket load of legal trouble.

49:32

The people around him are in

49:34

a bucket load of political trouble. I

49:36

mean, look at Rudy Giuliani. The guy's broke

49:38

and he's gonna be broke-a. My

49:42

idea for him is to date Lauren Boebert.

49:44

Yeah.

49:47

They

49:49

could go see Beetlejuice a second time. Yeah,

49:51

right. Yeah, go ahead. God, man,

49:53

that was some, that morning Barry,

49:56

Washington loves the story. And so, so,

49:58

we're gonna have to say about it. and moderate

50:01

and becoming an effective legislation.

50:03

And that night, because Washington

50:05

loved the story about how they civilized people. People

50:08

come here and then they see us

50:10

and, you know. James,

50:14

in 92, it was, it's the economy

50:16

stupid. In 24, what

50:19

is the Democratic catch line? Very

50:22

straight question.

50:23

You know, something, you remember, it

50:26

was the first thing was change versus mortising.

50:29

Second thing was economy stupid. Third is don't

50:31

forget healthcare.

50:33

I think what

50:35

people feel, and I think the economy's

50:37

good. You can't, it's kind of hard not to

50:40

argue that. But people don't,

50:43

they're not starting to feel it yet. Now,

50:45

is it because they think that the president

50:48

is too old, they can't think beyond that? Is

50:51

it because the gas prices are high,

50:53

it cuts into whatever gains it might have,

50:56

some income growth or some moderate

50:58

inflation?

51:00

I don't know that I know the answer

51:02

to that. But I guess

51:04

if it was

51:06

Biden v. Trump, you

51:09

know, we can't go back.

51:11

I mean, forge ahead or anything kind

51:14

of forward looking. As of right now,

51:16

you don't get enough credit for the economy.

51:18

Now, the hard thing you do in politics is, you're

51:21

at a meeting and says,

51:22

we're not getting credit for economy. And somebody says, you

51:25

know, actually the unemployment rate's lowest

51:27

expense is 1969. Or,

51:30

you know, et cetera, et cetera.

51:33

And so, well, if we don't take credit for

51:35

it, how are we gonna get credit? But

51:37

then if you go out and you tell people

51:40

the economy is good and they don't

51:42

think it's good, they say, well, if that person doesn't

51:44

even know what's going on in my life, how can he

51:46

go there and say the economy is good when I'm working

51:48

two jobs, I'm paying $4

51:51

a gallon for gas,

51:53

no one knows the right answer

51:55

to the right time. So what

51:58

the president's people would say is, Reagan was

52:00

at 82 in September

52:02

of 83, at 42, and

52:04

Clinton was at session search in September of 95,

52:08

Obama in September 2011. But

52:12

right now, the perception of people—I

52:14

don't know if it's the actual economy or people

52:19

just looking for some kind of change.

52:22

But that's just where we are.

52:24

And you can statistically—we had

52:26

a good economy. It's tough not to

52:28

convince people. Go ahead. Yes, sir.

52:31

You guys are great, by the way. So

52:33

I would just point out that Biden came

52:35

out of that race with all that talent

52:38

that you were talking about. I'm not even someone who supported

52:40

him in the primary, but he did come out of one of those.

52:43

I share some of your concerns. But the thing that I would

52:45

ask is, there's a lot of talk about

52:47

who can win, but I'm concerned

52:50

that the results are going

52:53

to be such that they might not matter with what's going

52:55

on in Wisconsin and other places. How

52:57

much concern do you have that they figured

52:59

out what went wrong last time and they're

53:02

going to try to get away with it this

53:04

time with a lot of Republicans

53:06

that did the right thing have been replaced by

53:08

people who have committed to doing the wrong

53:10

thing next time? So how much concern do you have about

53:13

that? So,

53:14

Barry, you have any thoughts on that?

53:16

Yeah, see, I said, do you have any thoughts on that? They want to know

53:18

your thoughts, not mine. They

53:20

don't give a shit about me. Right,

53:23

Lisa. Of course,

53:25

in Wisconsin,

53:27

the Democrat wins a Supreme Court seat by 13

53:29

points and they

53:31

want to impeach him before he takes

53:33

office.

53:34

Look at what they did to redistrict

53:36

him. I mean,

53:38

and then you had three

53:41

votes

53:42

for an independent legislative theory

53:44

in the Supreme Court. I mean, how

53:46

many Supreme Court justices are away from that? I

53:49

think the most significant event

53:51

in American politics of my lifetime,

53:54

and I was born

53:56

when Franklin Roosevelt was president,

53:59

was Bush v. go in 2000. Because that

54:01

just said we can get away with it. We're just

54:04

going to stop a goddamn vote count. And

54:06

you know what these liberals are going to do? They're just going to

54:08

go, whoo, they're going to jump in highly, they're going to go around

54:10

in circles, and they'll all

54:12

fall in line. And guess what happened?

54:15

We took it, they stopped the vote count,

54:17

that Gore was going to win

54:19

without any doubt. They were going to order

54:21

a statewide vote count. And then they said,

54:24

well, we'll just gerrymand every seat, there's nothing

54:26

they're going to do about it. Then they said, we'll

54:28

just do away with voting rights. And John Roberts

54:31

in 2013 said the absolute

54:34

shock of anybody who lives in this country has no racism

54:36

left in America. Really Jesus Christ,

54:38

man. Do you really believe that?

54:41

Then they

54:43

come with

54:44

Citizens United and just

54:46

let this,

54:47

you know, the Koch brothers turn a goddamn country

54:50

over to them. And they kept doing one thing

54:52

after another. And people said, now,

54:54

I think

54:56

the Dobbs thing finally

54:58

lit at a cooking jar, kind of slammed on

55:00

them.

55:01

But it had not happened since

55:03

then. And you know, Bush v. Gore,

55:06

we started a war. Do

55:08

you know that from 1994 to 2004, assault weapons

55:13

were illegal in the United States? Did

55:15

you know you couldn't buy one? All

55:18

right. And how many people

55:20

would be alive? You know what people do in 1996?

55:23

Hunting, going fishing, going

55:25

to target practice,

55:27

marksmanship, they're blowing the gun cups. You

55:29

just couldn't buy an assault

55:31

rifle and go shoot up 40 kids with

55:33

it.

55:35

And that's the truth. And

55:37

they didn't care. Because the people

55:39

I think like the people in this room

55:41

think

55:43

we were not tough enough, we were not active

55:45

enough. We didn't say, no, you can't

55:47

do this in this country. You can't stop a freaking

55:49

boat count in the middle of it. Because,

55:52

you know, we were taught to salute

55:55

the flag and move on. And

55:59

just watch it.

55:59

goes wrong. The Constitution

56:02

of

56:03

the United States is not going to be a factor.

56:07

I

56:10

want to say welcome back

56:13

to Texas and we're looking forward to joining

56:15

you next year.

56:16

We don't

56:18

play all next year. Y'all owe us a

56:20

game in Baton Rouge. But

56:25

we're ready. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

56:27

As someone who has worked on campaigns

56:31

before, the Democrats would say to

56:33

each other, we just have to get

56:35

out the vote. And now

56:37

I'm wondering, do you think that that is

56:39

still the truth or are we even past

56:42

just getting out the vote?

56:44

That's a very good question.

56:46

And wouldn't we, you know, so

56:49

you see this and it's always, I can

56:51

give you it's

56:52

election day and it's

56:55

whatever. Okay. And now we're going

56:57

to go

56:58

to James and sitting outside

57:01

in suburban Philadelphia. What's

57:03

going on? Well, I'll tell you what, it's all about turnout.

57:06

You know, you talk to the Republicans and they say it's about

57:08

turnout. You talk to the Democrats about turnout.

57:10

Well, we went to a voting booth in North

57:12

Philadelphia and they said they were

57:15

at 45 percent of turnout in the election before. Of

57:18

course, it's about who votes

57:21

in what proportion. And the problem

57:23

that we have right now is black

57:27

voters are not turning out. And

57:29

this is over

57:30

a series of elections, very

57:32

under reported and

57:35

under 30 are not that excited.

57:39

A Democrat can't win without

57:42

robust black turnout and robust

57:44

youth turnout. And right now

57:48

we're not getting it.

57:50

So

57:51

in 1992 there

57:54

are 3100 plus county or county

57:56

equivalents of the United States. So you

57:58

have counties, we have parishes.

57:59

something from independent cities.

58:02

Of that 3100 plus in 1992, 96 were super majority.

58:07

That meant that one party carried it by 75 or 25 or more,

58:09

more than 50. In 2020 there

58:12

were almost 1,400. I would show

58:16

you that the geographical polarization

58:18

is in, but also how

58:20

of that 1,400, the ones that

58:22

are democratic, how they turn out compared

58:24

to the Republicans is

58:27

a big issue. And that's

58:29

why enthusiasm is such a, clearly

58:32

should be a part of strategy everywhere.

58:34

But thank you for the question.

58:35

Okay, one last question. Thank you.

58:37

Yes, keep it really short and then we're gonna do a one-minute

58:39

lightning round where we're gonna ask about Mary Madeline

58:42

and her worst

58:42

viewpoint. Yeah. Alright,

58:45

so I keep hearing this narrative

58:47

that we're not having a primary. There's no one running,

58:49

but there are in fact people running. I'm not

58:51

just talking about RFK Jr. Mary Ann

58:54

Williamson is running. And

58:56

this election really is about

58:58

a fight for democracy. So why

59:00

did the Democratic Party, why did they keep

59:02

trying to sell us the idea they're gonna save us

59:04

from democracy

59:05

by preventing a democratic primary?

59:07

Okay, maybe she's not the one, maybe

59:09

Biden is

59:10

the one. Can I give you a job? Yeah,

59:13

we should have a primary. Thank

59:16

you for framing it. Yeah. I

59:18

get what we want. We gotta give people,

59:20

you know, if this is my kind of message is

59:23

patriotic people will come out and vote

59:25

just to stop the

59:26

end of the Constitution. But it'd

59:28

be better if people were excited

59:30

about it. I couldn't agree with them more.

59:32

Okay, we're doing a quick lightning round. Sorry, we

59:34

couldn't get to all of the questions. James, very

59:37

short answers, one sentence. What is

59:39

your wife's worst opinion? My

59:42

wife's what worst opinion? Her worst opinion? I

59:44

was thinking that the Iraq war was any good.

59:47

What is one thing she has changed

59:49

your mind about?

59:51

You

59:55

know, always bringing a gift when you go

59:57

to somebody's house.

1:00:01

And given me kind

1:00:04

of an appreciation I never had before

1:00:06

for like spatial issues. So

1:00:09

if my wife, let me say you this, when

1:00:12

she dies, of course, and let's

1:00:14

assume there's a heaven,

1:00:16

and you get to do it, heaven would make you happy.

1:00:19

St. Peter's going to say, he wants

1:00:21

you to move furniture between now and the turn.

1:00:25

Just move this around and move that around.

1:00:28

Every time I turn I got my chair and I watched

1:00:30

my games in and I got everything by

1:00:33

it. And I was sitting the chairs in a different

1:00:35

place. Well, you didn't have enough back there. Okay, fine.

1:00:38

And I've just learned that

1:00:40

wherever something is today is not going to

1:00:42

be that hard.

1:00:44

What is the best book you read recently?

1:00:47

The book I'm reading right now called The Identity

1:00:50

Trap by Yasha Monk. And

1:00:52

it really deconstructs this

1:00:55

identity politics, which I think was

1:00:58

a giant mistake, not just politically,

1:01:00

but a giant mistake. Your

1:01:02

identity will never, to me, will never trap

1:01:05

your philosophy or your quality as a person.

1:01:09

Your favorite American president of all time?

1:01:11

Clinton second, Lincoln

1:01:14

first, by far.

1:01:14

Okay, one word, one single

1:01:17

word for the following people. Donald Trump.

1:01:19

Joe DiCiello. One

1:01:22

word,

1:01:22

Joe Biden.

1:01:24

Man one word. One word.

1:01:26

Think about it. I guess there's three. Okay.

1:01:29

The Vake Rama Swamy. Well, I

1:01:32

gotta say, so

1:01:35

here's the thing. He's everything. He's

1:01:38

everything that they like. He's got

1:01:40

a name you can't pronounce. He went to Harvard.

1:01:42

He's a tech bro. He's a fricking

1:01:45

idiot. I'm going

1:01:47

to

1:01:47

go with idiot. Cornel West. Very

1:01:51

dangerous.

1:01:52

Chris Christie.

1:01:55

Dedicated. Josh

1:01:57

Shapiro.

1:01:59

Clinton-esque talent.

1:02:01

Wow. Last question. If you had to

1:02:03

vote right now, money on the table,

1:02:06

who's going to win in 2024? Who's it going to be?

1:02:09

Well, I say the Democrats. My

1:02:12

rationale is we're just not losing elections. And

1:02:15

I don't know, of course, if something happened

1:02:18

dramatically between now and 2024, but

1:02:21

you know, I am a horse degenerate and

1:02:24

we do pay some attention to past performances.

1:02:27

But right now, if

1:02:30

we were to nominate, you

1:02:33

know, we would have an open process. We'd

1:02:36

get 54. I mean, the country doesn't, they

1:02:38

don't like Dobbs. They don't like the Republican

1:02:40

authoritarianism. They

1:02:42

don't like this stuff. But

1:02:44

remember, you got Cornell West and you got

1:02:46

no labels and it's not, it's not

1:02:49

matched up one to one. It's dangerous.

1:02:51

I'll tell you that. Very dangerous. James

1:02:53

Carville, all of you. Thank you so

1:02:55

much. Thanks

1:03:04

for listening. If you liked this conversation,

1:03:06

if you felt like you got to know James

1:03:08

Carville in a new way, if

1:03:10

his ideas annoyed you, if they worried

1:03:13

you, if this conversation made you question

1:03:15

your assumptions or consider a different point of view,

1:03:18

that's all great. That's what we're

1:03:20

trying to do here on this show. Share

1:03:22

this episode of Honestly with your friends and family

1:03:24

and use it to have an honest conversation

1:03:26

of your own about 2024. Last

1:03:29

but certainly not least, if you want to support

1:03:31

Honestly, there is just one way to

1:03:33

do

1:03:33

that. Go to vfp.com

1:03:36

and become a subscriber today.

1:03:53

Okay, round two. Name something

1:03:55

that's not boring. Laundry? Oh,

1:03:58

a book club.

1:04:00

Computer Solitaire, huh? Oh,

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