How Kamala Can Win the Rust Belt, With Pennsylvania Representative Brendan Boyle 44:55

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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. So we're starting to get the numbers, the data about what this race is really looking like with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. All the snap polls are probably too early. We have to remember that Joe Biden just dropped out of the race a week and a half ago, and

And from what we're seeing from a recent reliable poll, Morning Consult Bloomberg, their latest poll, it shows that Kamala Harris is putting Trump back on his heels, at least for now. And we'll go into all of that in this episode. But first, I would be remiss if I did not bring up what happened on Wednesday afternoon when Trump basically strangled his way back into the news cycle in a dumpster fire of an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists.

First, he got into a fight with ABC's Rachel Scott when she brought up his prior racist statements. He then called her a nasty woman. Does that sound familiar? He then hit the other third rail, the one that advisors were afraid that he would not be able to resist. And he basically accused Kamala Harris of being a DEI hire. He said, quote,

She happened to turn black. She was Indian all the way and all of a sudden made a turn and she became a black woman. How does a person turn black? Okay, you can answer that question. Please let me know. He also questioned her competency, accusing the former attorney general of California and a district attorney before that of not passing the bar exam. A lot of people have wondered why in the world would Trump ever agree to do this interview?

what I know from my reporting is that he's very proud of the gains that he made with Black voters, specifically Black men. He likes to brag about the fact that he's expanded the Republican base and that he's taken this voting share from Joe Biden. Now the question is, for how long?

As for JD Vance and his childless cat ladies comment, it just won't die because every single day there is a new email footage comment that shows that he really believes this. The latest is an email from just two years ago, 2021, when he calls single people sociopaths. My dog Panchetta and I would vehemently disagree with that.

He also says there should be a war on women who don't have kids. Okay, JD, bring it, alright? This is all getting to be a lot and from what I've been told from my reporting is that there is some disarray inside of the Trump campaign as they try to manage the JD fallout and now all

all of this. This is a good reason to sign up for Puck, where I write a newsletter called The Best and the Brightest. You can go to puck.news slash Tara-Palmeri and use my discount code Tara20 for 20% off a subscription at Puck.

Okay, let's go back to this new Bloomberg Morning Consult poll. The poll shows that Kamala Harris is backed by 48% of all voters in the seven swing states, whereas Trump is backed by 47%. It is just one percentage point difference.

I know not much. It's in the margin of error. So we should look at this with very sober eyes. Also, just to remind you, this is going to be a very close election that will probably be decided by a very small percentage of people in the seven battleground states. OK, but this poll shows some very interesting gains for Democrats, first of all.

It shows Kamala Harris leading Trump by 11 points in Michigan, doubling Biden's lead. OK, it also shows her leading Trump in Nevada and Arizona just by two points. But it suggests that the Sun Belt may be in play and it could make it a strong argument for bringing Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona onto the ticket. Just for context, at one point, Trump was leading Biden by seven points in Arizona. And it's really hard to imagine a Democrat winning Arizona.

Again, take the sober pill. A lot of this is within the margin of error. And if you look at the crosstabs, there is a lot of softness for Kamala Harris when it comes to immigration and the economy. Trump has an eight percentage point edge over Harris on who is trusted more on the economy, but it's still down from the 14 point advantage she had over Biden in early July. It looks like Harris is bringing together a big part of the Obama coalition, Hispanic, Black and young voters.

But all eyes are really on whether she can bring in the rural voters, the Rust Belt. And in that poll, it does show Harris down by two points in Pennsylvania.

the place that Scranton Joe won by just one point in 2020. It's a state that has 19 electoral college votes, and Trump cannot win the election without winning Pennsylvania. And that's why I brought on Philadelphia Congressman Brendan Boyle to explain what is going on in his state and how Kamala Harris can win.

This is a pretty high stakes race for you too, I would say, Congressman Boyle, because, you know, if the Democrats take back the House, the Republicans only have it by four seats, you're pretty much in line to be the chairman of the Budget Committee, right? Yeah, it's great. Great to be back with you. Love the podcast, as you know, and what an election year in which to be doing a podcast and talking about politics, especially in Pennsylvania, which I believe there is no legitimate path

for either candidate to get to 270 without Pennsylvania's electoral votes. But then just in terms of me personally, if we're in the majority after November, I will be the chairman of the budget committee. I'm told I would be the youngest chair of any committee since Paul Ryan became a committee chair 15 years ago. So I do have a little skin in the game besides just wanting to see the best ticket win for my country.

Um, so, um, I, I feel the pressure as much as anyone. And Wikipedia says you are 47 years old. Is that accurate? Because there's a lot of fake stuff on Wikipedia, as we know. Surprisingly, Wikipedia got this one right. Uh, so yes, I, I am 47, which thank God on Capitol Hill is, is like the real life equivalent of 27. You have quite the resume, Harvard, Notre Dame. Is that right? That is correct. Went to Notre Dame undergrad and then Harvard for a graduate school, have my master's of public

policy there. So why aren't you being vetted for VP? I'm confused right now. I'm playing the very long game. We talked about this last time. I look at 2060 as really when I start to peak. That's when I will be the age that Trump and President Biden are now. Now, I'm

It's just remarkable all the things that have already happened this election year. And we still have about 100 days to go. It's exciting, nerve wracking. And I still feel like there are a few more bends in the road that we're going to experience between now and November 5th. I agree. And I also agree with the idea that you will have viability on the ticket in 2060, thanks to modern pharmaceuticals. But let's move on.

move in and dig into the polls right now, because like I said earlier, it looks like we are back where we were before the debate.

All the public polling showed Trump leading Biden, even outside of the margin of error. Now with Harris on the ticket, they're back. Is this consistent to what you've heard or seen in private polling? You know, the irony is for all that has happened in the last month, I mean, the first attempted presidential assassination of my memory. I mean, I technically was alive when President Reagan was shot, but I have no memory of it

you know whatsoever i would have been three or four um and then a week later for the first time since 1968 which also happened well before we were born a president of the united states who's able to run for re-election and had already locked up the the primary decides not to run uh for re-election which is actually quite different than 1968 when lyndon johnson got out of the race it was looking like he was going to have a real fight for the nomination so in some ways

There almost isn't a precedent for what President Biden selflessly decided to do in order to unite the party and give us the best chance of winning in November. And yet, for all of that that has happened over the last month, if you looked at polling, say, June 1st, and you look at it now about two months later, what you would say is this is an incredibly close race.

Trump has a small lead, maybe of about a percentage point. And that's where we stand. The one thing, though, that I would point to as a difference is that for President Biden, just like former President Trump,

opinions about both candidates were pretty locked in. And it was a very static race. It was literally a static race for about a year. They both were presidents. You already knew so much about them. It's hard to define these people. Exactly right. Whereas for Kamala Harris, and it might be hard for us to believe as political junkies and people who were in this business,

this sometimes crazy business. The reality is that a lot of people really don't know that much about Vice President Harris. So this is a great opportunity for her to grow her vote in a way that just didn't exist for the current and former president. She's a new product. She's got a new life cycle, right? A longer life cycle, some might say, than...

Donald Trump, and she has actually the advantage of running a 100-day campaign or 98-day campaign right now. Because I think as long as she can just stay consistent and sprint, she could be in a good position. I see advantages and disadvantages to it. But right now, probably the biggest advantage is that while it was not intended this way, obviously, our party just avoided what could have been a very divisive, messy primary season.

And the fact that the three and a half weeks that transpired between the debate performance and the president's fateful decision that early Sunday afternoon, it was such a hard, I mean, just on a personal level for a lot of us, myself included, and especially, it was a very difficult emotional period. And the fact that all of that is over,

You just saw as a result, Democrats of every stripe immediately rally around the vice president. And I'm not sure that would have necessarily happened

had President Biden made the decision not to run, you know, a year ago and we would have had a big, perhaps messy primary season. It's hard to say, though. You may have had a candidate who came out even stronger than where she is right now, which is basically a parody with Trump. You really can't say. Perhaps, although I have to say that the recent numbers I've seen in terms of Democratic enthusiasm,

are off the charts. I mean, I was thinking, you know, roughly, these are rough numbers, but about 137 million people voted in the 2016 presidential election. It was a hair shy of 160 million in 2020. Most people were estimating that the turnout for 2024 would be somewhere in between, but basically well below what it was in 2020, south of 150 million. Now, suddenly,

Given the enthusiasm gap that has emerged, there are credible predictions that we could see a turnout in 2024 that meets or maybe even surpasses the turnout in 2020. That is a real change of a dynamic. Conventional wisdom is that high turnout is an advantage for Democrats. And in your state, it's, you know, mail-in ballot voting, which is something that, you know, for a long time, Trump has said that's rigged.

And that messaging surely does not help in Pennsylvania. And I know they're working hard to try to correct that. But I want to go back to the polling. Real Clear Politics has trumped two to three points in Pennsylvania. You said on the show, I think a few months ago, or may have been around in January, that you believe that this race will come down to half a percentage point. And that was when...

Biden and Trump were at parity. Would you make that same prediction right now? Yeah, I would. Look, I go back to the fundamentals. 2016, the margin of victory for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton was about a half a percentage point. In 2020, for Joe Biden, it was just over one percentage point. I feel very comfortable saying that this will be a roughly one point race. I chose half a percentage point.

I can't imagine either candidate winning Pennsylvania by much north of one percentage point. We are just so structurally...

as a state that I do, again, believe that we will have a very close election here. So you're giving her a half a percentage point bump right now. I would. I have a certain margin of error in my predictions as well. So so I'll stick with the half a percentage point prediction since I gave that, although it was two different candidates when I gave that prediction. So I think I am allowed to revise slightly. But basically what I'm saying is

This is a one point or lower race. Okay. Why is Donald Trump so popular in Pennsylvania? What makes him so strong compared to other Republican candidates in the past that haven't been able to win Pennsylvania? So I would disagree with the premise. Actually, I think had Republicans nominated him,

Almost any other Republican, they would have had a better chance of winning. Certainly, if they had nominated Nikki Haley, they would have a better chance of winning. In 2016, when Donald Trump was new and was fresh, he was more popular than he was able to his credit.

to bring out people who had never participated in politics, were kind of disaffected and weren't typical voters. That was part of why the pollsters missed them, because they had no history of turning out before.

A lot of that, though, has really dropped off for Donald Trump. In addition to that, of course, in 2016, he was able to hold on to enough of the Romney voters, traditional Republicans in the suburbs. By 2020, even really beginning in the 2018 midterm, those voters were gone. And Democrats since then have made we've made historic inroads.

in suburban Philadelphia. I mean, places like Chester County, Pennsylvania, which were Republican from the Civil War,

up until 2016. Now it's not even competitive. We're winning there by double digits and up and down the ticket, not just the presidential race, but all the way to the state legislature. And that's not a place that has seen racial or ethnic demographic change. I mean, it is all from traditionally Republican voting folks who now vote Democratic. So, you know, we saw the dynamic before when it was President Biden versus Donald Trump. You had two

Historically, I say, unfortunately, in the case of the president, President Biden, I think he will be very well remembered by the history books. But the reality is he was not doing that well in the polling. Polling continued to show that you had two historically unpopular candidates running against one another. And still to this day, Donald Trump is a historically unpopular presidential nominee.

But does a Chester County voter vote for a black woman at the top of the ticket? I would be inclined to say yes. I think there's more of a question

not in a place like Chester County, Pennsylvania, but in some of the more blue collar pockets of the state from the Lehigh Valley all the way to Erie, Pennsylvania, some five and a half hours away in the northwest of the state. Near the border of Ohio. Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. I mean, literally Midwest. Pennsylvania? No, not...

I never use that term, but the middle of the state, some have ascribed that term to the middle of the state. Really, Erie, you are talking about the Midwest. People say pop instead of soda. It's as close to Chicago, basically, as it is to the Atlantic Ocean. For those of us in the Philadelphia area,

We're much more I-95 and East Coast centric. Jersey. That's why we get along so well. Indeed. Same shoreline. So look, Joe Biden was able to make real improvement over Hillary Clinton's numbers when it came to white working class voters in Pennsylvania, as well as in Michigan and Wisconsin. It wasn't a huge improvement, but because those kind of voters are such a large share of the electorate,

a small improvement actually made a lot when he looked at the total vote numbers. Will Kamala be able to hold on to the small improvement that Joe Biden made? That will in many ways determine the election here in Pennsylvania. Yeah, that is a really, really good question. It's something that I know the Trump campaign is looking very closely at how she does with these rural voters. And it is why the economic message about a democratic agenda over the next four years is

versus Donald Trump. I mean, even though he likes to cosplay working class at his convention and have Hulk Hogan, which I have to admit, as a kid who grew up in the 80s, watching World Wrestling Federation, that did bring back a lot of fond memories. Nonetheless, it's total BS. Donald Trump wouldn't let most of his supporters, the people show up in rallies, he wouldn't let them within 100 yards of Mar-a-Lago. He has a plutocratic agenda that

What was the first thing he did as president? He attempted to take away health care from 30 million Americans by getting rid of Obamacare. And then he followed that up with his massive tax cut.

83% of which went to the richest 1%. I hope and believe that the vice president will be able to prosecute that kind of an economic message and a comparison versus Donald Trump's real agenda. In what ways is she a better candidate, though, than Scranton Joe, who's basically co-opted Pennsylvania as his home state? I mean, he was born in Scranton. He was born in Scranton. Remember, I mean, where he lives in Delaware is part of the Philadelphia metro area. And genuinely, all throughout

you know, the 80s and the 90s and the aughts, he was jokingly, but half jokingly referred to as the third senator from Pennsylvania or the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, because almost all of that time, Pennsylvania had two Republican senators. So Joe Biden was a fixture at a lot of Philadelphia Democratic events. That's how I got

to first know him when I was running for the state legislature two decades ago. So yeah, we do lose kind of that hometown home state advantage that that we had with President Biden, I will miss all of the attention having the President of the United States shower on our city and our home state. But, you know, the reality is that and the polls are showing this

Already, we are seeing improvement among younger voters and African-American and Latino voters.

relative to where they were in terms of voting for the president. So that's perhaps not surprising. But I do think that she'll continue to be able to grow that number. I think just getting the base out and actually turning out is probably a big thing right now. What are the challenges she's going to face in Pennsylvania? I mean, look, part of the reason why we're such a closely divided state is we are very representative of the nation as a whole.

So, you know, any Democratic nominee in this era, even though, you know, a Democratic candidate is probably not going to win in rural parts of Pennsylvania, still getting a certain percentage of the vote. Because as we saw with Hillary Clinton in 2016, there's a big difference between losing an area that's a rural area and getting 43 percent.

Versus losing it and getting 33%. So, you know, rural Pennsylvania, that'll be an area where she will have to focus. And again, not necessarily expecting to win, but making sure that you limit those losses. How she handles and navigates the Israel-Gaza issue.

It's a highly fraught issue, which cuts both ways in a state like Pennsylvania, where, yes, you have younger and very progressive activists, but you also have a not insignificant Jewish American population. And of course, like any slice of Americana, not all Jewish Americans either care about the Israel issue or are of the same mind.

But those who are, let's say, traditionally pro-Israel Democrats are higher in number in our state than in most other states, with the exception of maybe New York, Florida and Illinois. I mean, I feel like she's going to have to say something about fracking, because in 2019, she very clearly stated that she was against fracking. Fracking is a huge part of the

the economy in your state. In Western. Yeah. It's not an issue at all in the Eastern part of the state, which is actually where about two thirds of the population of Pennsylvania is from Harrisburg East. That's roughly two thirds of the population, but for the Western one third of the state, um, especially in Southwestern Pennsylvania, which is around the Pittsburgh area, fracking has, uh, led to a boom. Uh,

Pennsylvania is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. And those are highly unionized, well-paying jobs. I have seen public reporting. I think it was in the New York times last week that Kamala Harris actually has, um, uh, evolved. I,

I won't, I will use that term, but let's just say that now her view is more in line with what President Biden's was when it comes to fracking. That's, by the way, where our Democratic governor and our two Democratic senators are as well. That's certainly the more helpful position here in Pennsylvania, even though, again, this is actually not

a big issue in the Philadelphia area or the kind of the eastern third of the state. How does she win a statewide campaign then? You know, you have to put it all together. There isn't just one slice of the electorate that you can pay attention to in our state. We have urban areas. Obviously, the biggest by far is Philadelphia.

Pittsburgh, cities of Scranton, Erie, Harrisburg, middle-sized cities. You have a huge swath of suburbs, not just in the Philadelphia area, but also growing suburbs in and around Pittsburgh and the south central part of the state, which is around the state capital. And Hershey, actually the fastest growing part of our state. Some of my favorite memories as a child there. Hershey Park. Every kid in kind of the mid-Atlantic.

area has fond memories of Hershey. It has a huge medical center, which has actually rapidly suburbanized that part of the state. And there's now a swing congressional district. We have a great Democratic candidate who's running against Scott Perry. And that's an area that when I was first a state legislator out there 15 years ago, was much more Republican than it is today. So

Unfortunately, if you're running statewide in Pennsylvania, you don't have the luxury of just focusing on one segment of the population. You have to put the whole thing together. You know what? I almost think if you could look back in hindsight, I would say that the DNC should have considered Pittsburgh instead of Chicago. I would have absolutely loved that. I mean, we hosted the last Democratic convention in person yesterday.

We hosted in Philadelphia in 2016. So I guess they had their shot recently. Yeah, although I mean, Pittsburgh folks would point out that they're very much a different city than we are a good 300 miles away. I absolutely would be a fan of Pittsburgh hosting a convention, although I'm looking forward to going out to Chicago sometime.

Obviously, Illinois is not a battleground state, although it comes close to the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan. This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike's Subs. Jersey Mike's uses only the highest quality meat sliced right in front of you, piled high with the freshest toppings. It is a Jersey Mike thing. My favorite is number 13, the Italian. Love the Italian. I'm half Italian. I like Italian subs. I especially like Italian subs made in good places.

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Let's talk about the elephant on the pod, Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania. There is so much going on right now because it's assumed that Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly, possibly Tim Walls of Minnesota, are the top three contenders to be the vice president's pick for the

for running mate. And we know right now that the announcement will be made in Philadelphia on Tuesday. And usually when they make this kind of announcement, they pick the city of the running mate, right? Actually, that's not that's not the case. Almost all of the announcements in the last 30 years

have not been in the home area. On the Democratic side. Yeah, correct. Because on the Republican side, I believe Paul Ryan, they made the announcement in Wisconsin for him. No, they made the announcement on a ship called the Wisconsin, but they made the announcement in Virginia. Okay, fair enough. Maybe we're

all reading into it a little too much, but we got to admit that Shapiro has a special sauce when it comes to Pennsylvania. He won his last campaign by 15 points. It was two years ago he ran for governor. Granted, he did run against a MAGA head who was endorsed by Trump, Doug Mastriano. He was so far to the right. I wonder how he would have done against someone like Dave McCormick, who's running for Senate right now against Bob Casey. And we can talk about that too. But how

How does Shapiro thread that needle? He has 61 percent approval rating right now. He must be winning some Republicans. You know, I think Josh would do a very good job. I happen to be in the very nice position, I guess, of being friends with literally three of the leading contenders right now. I mean, I've known Josh for 20 years. We literally serve together in neighboring state house districts.

So I've known him and been friends with him for a long time. I've known Pete Buttigieg for about the same length of time and have been a longtime friend of his. Oh, I dropped Pete off. Well, yeah. So I think Pete is still in contention. Of course, none of us totally know. And then the last one, and I'm so glad that the rest of the country is getting to see what I've known for the last decade. And that is just how incredibly talented Tim Walz is. Yeah.

He's been a friend of mine for a decade. We served together in the house. It was literally my coach, my football coach on the congressional football team. He is an authentically great messenger for democratic values and a guy who was able to

win over both progressives and Republicans at the same time and do so in a very authentic way. So I think we have an embarrassment of riches. Josh would probably be a help, I would think, in Pennsylvania, although there is a question, you know, when was the last time any vice president actually helped

uh deliver a state she wouldn't need much in the sense that if it's only one percentage point then maybe he can yeah so look as i've talked about before i mean i think every tenth of a percentage point could make the difference here in in pennsylvania um i will just say though that if you go back the last 50 years i genuinely can't think of one vice presidential pick

that helped the ticket. But I can think of two examples where the VP pick severely hurt the ticket. One was before we were born, 1972, Tom Eagleton. And I mean, people can look it up. I mean, it's an unfortunate story because people did not quite have the sensitivity around mental health issues that they do now. And Eagleton was literally forced off the ticket as revelations came out.

about his mental health and seeing a psychiatrist. And I think something would have been, it would have been handled very differently today. I would recommend that most of these men see a psychiatrist, frankly. Frankly, if I didn't need one before going to Congress, I certainly need one having spent the last decade in Congress. The latest joke is go to therapy or run for president.

But then the other example is 2008, Sarah Palin. While initially those first few days, it looked like Palin was a great pick, as more came out about her and her tremendous ignorance,

on basically any issue was exposed. I remember I was involved. I was running for state legislature. I was attempting to become the first Democrat ever to win my state legislative seat, literally knocking on doors every single day, fortunately would go on and win that race. But there were a lot of Democrats in my very middle class community

legislative district that was running for in Philadelphia, who were Hillary Clinton Democrats and were very skeptical at the time of Barack Obama. If you remember, there had just been a very competitive, contentious primary

Once McCain picked Palin, it was incredible. It was the greatest motivator of Democrats who had doubts of Obama. I mean, they just came in one big swoop. So I can think of those two examples of a pick doing harm. So in many ways, I think a lot of candidates would probably be better in terms of thinking about this, of who's the pick?

who can be a very good governing partner, be loyal and be a good team player and ultimately do no harm. And by the way, maybe I can add a third to that list, J.D. Vance, given where he is right now in the polls. How do you think he's playing with your with your voters in Pennsylvania? I know they're so fragmented and they're really fragmented.

Burrowing in on those low propensity, low information male voters in your state and the Rust Belt. But do you think he plays? You think he's offending women in, I don't know, Bucks County, Chester County? I mean, ultimately, they helped deliver Trump in 2016. I mean, he needed to win suburban women. It's always funny to me what breaks through to people who aren't very political.

I have certain people in my life who are kind of my own informal focus group who do not watch cable TV news, who don't listen to political podcasts, sorry to say. And what's funny is each and every one of them knew about this J.D. Vance comment about women without children and cat ladies. Each of them were incredibly angry about it. This is the kind of thing that reaches that casual voter audience.

who in many ways is much more the typical voter than the voter who is always paying attention to political news. So I think it's pretty damaging. I also have to say, who exactly did the vetting for this pick? Because all of this was out there and pretty easy to find. So it is surprising from that perspective, especially since my impression has been that the Trump campaign

campaign has actually been much better run this time than 2016 and 2020. So the JD events, I think misstep is a bit of a surprise. Well, they use this to rebrand JD. He uses to rebrand himself to run for the primary in Ohio. So

So they probably thought that all of this was red meat to throw to their base. They were obviously riding high when they picked him. This was after Biden's disastrous debate, although I had heard that, you know, J.D. was pretty much in the bag for a while because he could deliver Silicon Valley, venture capital money. Elon Musk makes a call for him. You've got Tucker Carlson. There was a whole orchestra of people pushing for J.D., but it was out there.

I mean, he had called Trump Hitler as if that wasn't bad enough. Now there's some new reporting that he calls people without children sociopaths. He thinks that there should be a war against women who don't want to work. So you can't even say this was a joke or a slip of tongue. He has given long speeches about why he thinks that people who don't have children don't care about the future of society. Clearly has issues with women in general because...

There are childless men out there, too. Why aren't they getting heat? Right. Yeah. I mean, some of those childless men are Republican senators serving right now. Lindsey Graham, who are literally colleagues of J.D. No, I mean, it's pretty he can't explain it away as a gaffe, because as you mentioned, he's actually said it over and over and gave a I watched some of the speech that he gave.

in 2021. It is a clearly long and detailed, thought out almost thesis

his worldview, that will not play well among the socially moderate, fiscally conservative voters who tend to be in places like suburban Philadelphia. Yeah. And there has been this low key underground movement for a while among conservatives and almost like the new conservatives, like the Elon Musk types, the David Sachs types. They have concern over the population as well. It goes into that. It's really insidious. It's not some like off the cuff, you know, remark. But

Back to Kamala for now. Does she need to pick Shapiro to win PA? I don't think Kamala needs to pick any one specific person in order to win or lose.

I mean, as I said before, ultimately, she needs to pick the person she would be most comfortable with playing a very senior role on her team and basically be a governing partner. I know that's not the sexy answer. Everyone focuses on the election, but actually it's much more important about governing. But no, I mean, I don't think there's any person she could choose who would either guarantee she would win Pennsylvania or make it impossible. The reality is,

Not for 99% of people, they're making their decision based on who's the top of the ticket and not the number two role. Yeah. But what is the message it sends to people of Western Pennsylvania who are like, okay, you're telling me this woman who's against fracking isn't picking our moderate governor, Josh Shapiro. What kind of message that sent across your state? You know, I think that let's say if it's a Mark Kelly or Tim Walls or Shapiro,

I don't think people who happen to be in the other 49 states will necessarily take offense or think that it's somehow a slap on them. I mean, I think most people, to the extent they're even thinking about the VP pick, recognize that this is about a governing partner and about hopefully someone who would also bring a little bit to the table in terms of campaigning. So I just don't see...

you know, the idea that the voters would somehow take offense if they're not from the state where the vice president happens to hail. No, I mean, in Pennsylvania, like would they see it as she's a San Francisco liberal that Trump says she is? That's funny. Right before we hopped on here,

By the way, in case you're not aware, those of us in the Philadelphia area, almost every ad right now is a political ad. I mean, there was already a lot of advertising before the last couple of weeks, but it has really ramped up. Literally, the solid majority of TV ads right now during television in Philadelphia are political ads. And almost all of them are either pro-Kamala ads or

from her side, our side, or anti-Kamala ads from the Trump side. So there's clearly a race right now to define her. The Trump ad, I will tell you, and I missed the disclaimer. I couldn't tell if it was from the Trump campaign or one of his super PACs, but it literally defined her as a, quote, San Francisco liberal. And the last shot was a picture of her with Nancy Pelosi

at the State of the Union. That's a pretty old-fashioned Republican trick going back to 1984 when Democrats held their convention in San Francisco and Jean Kirkpatrick, who was a cabinet official under Reagan, turned the coin San Francisco Democrats. So Republicans have been using that for a very long time and are obviously attempting to make it stick to Kamala.

On the flip side, I mean, what our side is attempting to do is point out she was a tough prosecutor. She took on a lot of special interests and won. She was a successful senator, has done substantive things as vice president. So no question, that's the race right now to define Kamala Harris because she's

You know, for a lot of people, even though they know the name, they don't tend to know who the vice president is. That's nothing about Kamala. It comes with the position. George Herbert Walker Bush ran for president after eight years as vice president.

Literally, when Newsweek, when all the magazines were a much bigger deal then than they are now and massive circulations, their whole front cover when Bush announced he was running was a picture of Bush and the title was The Wimp Factor. They had this idea that he was a wimp. The guy was literally a World War II hero who had been shot out of his plane and survived

and had volunteered for World War II when he was underage at 17. An incredible story of heroism.

But people did not know that. It took the Bush campaign, even though he'd been vice president for eight years, educating voters because they just had focused on the president. So this comes with being vice president. It's part of the territory. There's nothing unusual about it at all. I just wanted to ask you one last question. What was it like in the House after that Biden debate? It was...

Gut-wrenching, painful, literally some of the meetings we had, especially one caucus, I'm not going to cite what anyone specifically said, but there were a number of members who were in tears, really wrestling with what the president should do.

I mean, I come down solidly on this side. You know, I'm a loyal person. Joe Biden is a friend. I was one of his first endorsers for 2020. I even tried to get him to run in 2016. I personally met with him one-on-one in 2018 to urge him to run for president in 2020. And I thank God he did. I still believe that given the closeness of that 2020 race, I think it's pretty obvious he was our best choice and perhaps

That cycle may be the only Democrat who could have defeated Donald Trump. So for me, it was very difficult personally. I stuck with the president. I know he appreciated those who did because what I always argued was

He won the primaries. These were his delegates, more than 90% of them. If he was going to make the historic decision to step back, it was going to have to be his decision. And he was owed that. There were other colleagues of mine who came to a different conclusion and they reached it sincerely. But for all of us, it was a gut-wrenching time, a very difficult three and a half weeks, some of my most difficult weeks in the decade I've served in Congress.

And I have to tell you, once the decision was made, the massive sigh of relief, almost a collective sigh of relief, was palpable that now we could just focus on coming together, focus on Donald Trump, the existential threat he represents. And now it's off to the races between here and November. Wow.

What a harrowing month that was, even as a journalist. Incredible. I was just waiting for the moment when he finally dropped out by the end because I was told it was going to happen. But it required a push. That's for sure. It was wild. Thank you so much, Congressman Boyle. We love having you on the show. We love following your...

amazing career and see you as chairman on the budget committee next time I'm bringing you on or maybe hopefully earlier. I like your predictions better than my prediction. So I very much hope we have a successful November, obviously, for patriotic reasons and personal reasons. And hopefully I'll be back on maybe before election and we can see where the polls are in October.

We'll definitely check in with you again. Thanks so much for your time. All right. Thank you. That was another episode of Somebody's Got to Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins. If you like this show, please subscribe, rate it, share it with your friends. If you like my reporting, please go to puck.news slash Tara dash Palmieri. And you can use my discount code Tara20 for a 20% off subscription at Puck. See you next week.

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