Biden's Out: A Whole New Ballgame

In this episode, Cole Muzio catches up on the recent whirlwind of political events. From Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race to Kamala Harris most likely securing the Democratic nomination, Cole dives into the implications of these developments. He discusses the ideological and strategic shifts within the Democratic Party, the role of the media, and what conservatives can do ahead of November.

Key Takeaways:

1. Biden's Withdrawal: Joe Biden's exit from the race was anticipated and orchestrated due to his cognitive decline and inability to perform effectively on the political stage.
2. Kamala Harris' Rise: Kamala Harris quickly garnered support from key Democratic figures and donors, indicating a unified front within the party.
3. Media's Role: The media is expected to play a significant role in reshaping Kamala Harris' public image and boosting her campaign.
4. Republican Strategy: Conservatives need to focus on highlighting Kamala's ideological weaknesses and the Democratic Party's complicity in Biden's presidency.
5. Potential VP Picks: The choice of Kamala's running mate will be crucial, with figures like Josh Shapiro and Andy Beshear being potential candidates.

Quotes:

• "We serve a King who's on the throne... Nothing has caught Him by surprise." – Cole Muzio
• "Kamala Harris is easy to mock... but she has all the mental capacity that she's ever had." – Cole Muzio
• "This is an entirely new ballgame. We need to talk about it and think about it differently." – Cole Muzio

Learn more about Frontline Policy Action.

Transcript

Cole Muzio (00:06.958)
Hey everybody, we are back with another episode of the From the Frontline podcast. This is Cole Muzio, president of Frontline Policy Action. And I apologize because it's been about a little over a week that we've taken off the podcast. I was traveling last week and also kind of under the weather. So y 'all didn't want to hear my voice last week. And so we took a week off. But once again, a lot happened. And so we kind of missed out on an opportunity to talk about it all. And so what we're going to do is we're going to cram a

into a short amount of time. We're going to make this a short episode, just catching up on where things are in the political universe that we're living in right now. Again, a lot of history back to back to back. And I think it's a really interesting time to be following politics. It's a really scary time to be in the United States of America as you're looking at the political trajectory. But it is a time to always remember that we serve a king who's on the throne. And as you look

you know, who's in the White House and what a disappointment he is and kind of what a frightening outlook it is to have somebody with his mental state and capacity in the White House. And you look at the, you know, the disturbance on that side of the aisle and you look at the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and all these different things that are happening that are, you're watching history as it's happening. Again, it's a really good reminder. We are not dependent on a person. We're not dependent on a party and we're not even dependent on a country.

We are following King Jesus all the way and it's again just a stark reminder. There is nothing that has happened throughout these last several weeks that has happened without the authority, the sovereignty, the will and the plan of God. The United States of America has not fallen out of his plan all of a sudden. He's not had to intervene at the last minute on anything. Nothing has caught him by surprise. This that we serve of God is on the throne and is sovereign and has a plan.

So last time we talked, we had talked with representative Josh Monner shortly after the RNC convention. Certainly a lot of good takeaways from the convention, a lot of things that are concerning. Certainly you look at some of the, guests and speakers, whether ideologically they fall outside the conservative spectrum or even just from a personal life perspective. You know, the Amber Rose speech, I think was particularly concerning for those that are, you know, faith and values driven.

Cole Muzio (02:29.57)
you know, there was some, things that fell outside of orthodoxy or would be concerning to those of us that want to see, a stronger conservative movement. Trump's speech, set the record, actually broke his previous record, for longest speech. And I think the length is something that's going to be remembered for a long time. those were some of the takeaways from the convention that showed Republicans largely though, from a political standpoint and from a partisan perspective.

As you're looking at the 2024 horse race showed Republicans unified behind Donald Trump and the Trump Vance ticket. And you contrast that with the Democrat disunity that we had been seeing for weeks leading up to that. And then the following Sunday comes the tweet from Joe Biden announcing that he is not going to be running for reelection. And the initial tweet, which stood for a little bit of time without context,

did not mention an endorsement of Kamala Harris. It simply said something nice about her that he was grateful for her partnership and friendship and that he was just for the good of the country was going to step aside. Shortly followed that up. I don't remember the exact amount of time, but as relatively shortly with the tweet announcing his endorsement of Kamala Harris and then for a little bit of time there was the wait and watch and see if anybody is going to challenge

Joe Manchin talked about it openly that he was considering running. Whether he could have secured his party's nomination or not is a doubtful proposition, but he would have made a very compelling general election candidate as a centrist, quote unquote, that would have been able to put together some strong electoral math. But he very quickly, within 24 hours or so, backed away from that proposition.

And one by one, very quickly, people began to line up behind Kamala. You saw the Clintons get behind Kamala publicly. You saw initially Barack Obama call for an open process and encouraging other candidates to run. Now, whether that was a, he's daring and encouraging other candidates to get in the race or just saying from an optic standpoint, we're better off if we don't have a coronation here. You know, I'm not, you know, in the mind of Barack Obama,

Cole Muzio (04:53.066)
From that standpoint, he was certainly open to other candidates publicly, but Gavin Newsom got behind her, Gretchen Whitmer got behind her, Andy Bershears from Kentucky, Josh Shapiro. Everyone quickly began to fall in line. And as of now, it is very clear that Kamala Harris is going to be the Democrat nominee for president.

Joe Biden also gave a speech, I believe Wednesday night after days where he was not on camera. It's bizarre to watch what has happened from the White House and kind of the behind the scenes push out of Joe Biden and how that's all played out. His speech Wednesday, you you take off your partisan glasses, it was fine. There were some good elements of that speech. And if you're taking it just on face value, I think it's encouraging. But again, you watch.

what has happened behind the scenes. And you just kind of see how this has played out. This is a guy that was kind of put up on stage June 27th. And the night of June 27th, we told you they're going to push him out. And we said, not only are they going to push him out, but this was intentional. There's no way that the people calling the shots on their side did not know that Joe Biden was in this condition. This was a test. Can we put him on the stage and can he bomb bad enough that it's going to be the catalyst to ultimately push him

Joe dug his feet in he did not want to leave his family didn't want him to leave they wanted him to keep running and then every opportunity that he was given to quiet the naysayers Whether it be George Stephanopoulos or his performance His performance on you know on the on the net international stage He failed to quell the naysayers. He gave bad interview after bad interview mixing up names

And even his foreign policy remarks while having some detail were very dull and boring and meandering. you start with the calling Kamala Harris, Vice President Trump. you also, prior to that, had had him calling Zelensky Putin. And all this led to a continued drip, drip, drip

Cole Muzio (07:08.074)
of folks that were pushing Joe Biden out, whether it be Nancy Pelosi, whether it be the Obamas, whether it be the Clintons, this orchestrated push out behind the scenes of Joe Biden. And there's a lot of, you know, stories out there, rumors out there of how serious this got behind the scenes, whether the 20th, 25th amendment was invoked in conversations, how serious this got, but it definitely got to the point where support was threatened to be pulled.

And at the end of the day, one of the things that you saw driving the conversation was money. And at the end of the day, it was the Democrat donors that dug in and said, look, we are freezing assets. That's when you start to see things snowball for Joe Biden. And at that point, the writing was on the wall. There's nothing that you can do politically without money. And that's arguably one of the big things to watch with Kamala Harris as part of how she was able to secure the nomination at this point.

She at that point was going to inherit the campaign money, the campaign apparatus, and very quickly upon her announcement for president, raised exorbitant sums of money, surpassing all records for previous fundraising days. And it goes to show how much the left donor base even saw that Joe Biden was not fit to run for president and mentally not capable to serve.

Again, I think if you're a Republican, if you're a conservative candidate, you have to be using Democrat complicity against them. If you're not running and pointing out that your opponent supported Joe Biden, never called for him to drop out, continues to support Kamala Harris, who had to know Joe Biden's mental condition, they're supporting somebody and they had been supporting somebody and they continue to support a party that misled the American people with intentionality.

And to what I would say is a criminal degree. They have stood idly by while you have a president who's mentally unfit to serve and they've continued to support him and mislead the American people. And that, far more than anything Donald Trump has done, is a threat to democracy. And I think Republicans, while again, polls don't show that the American people love Donald Trump, Republicans need to go on offense at this point in

Cole Muzio (09:27.846)
And if you continue to react as the left attacks, Donald Trump is the threat to democracy, as the guy who's challenging political norms, is the Democrat party over the last four years that has propped up Joe Biden, is truly the challenge to political norms, is truly the challenge to democracy, that has put us in a constitutional crisis. And to this day, they have a president sitting in the White House who has publicly admitted that he is not fit enough to run for president.

Again, that's a guy who is publicly stated now that he's not fit to run for president of the United States, who's now serving as president of the United States. And that's a serious job. And these are serious times. And their party continues to let him be in office unchallenged. so, and that does not appear to be changing anytime soon. There seems to be still no push to push him out. And that seems to be the deal in place of, let's rally the support behind Kamala.

And we're going to let Joe continue to serve out his office. So some of the fallout from the Kamala Harris announcement as her team now scrambles, they have earned a very quick, and this is the caution for Republicans, for conservatives, for anybody watching this election. Kamala Harris is easy to mock. She is a walking meme or GIF or GIF or whichever one it is.

With what she says, she's pretty ridiculous. With what her record is, it's pretty ridiculous. The borders are thing is a real thing. She was asked to be in control of the border and the border remains poor. She's never been able to provide a solution for anything. And she's a candidate that did not make it to Iowa. Last go around when she was running in 2020 for the nomination, she flopped. She was the most anticipated liberal candidate. She was the one that they thought could inherit the energy, the passion, the support.

Barack Obama, she was the closest thing they had to somebody that they could get excited about. There was a lot of unity behind her and she failed at every point to win over actual voters. She didn't perform well in debates. She didn't perform well in one -on -one. She didn't perform well in interviews. And at every point, the more people were exposed to Kamala Harris, what her record is, what she believes, and what kind of person she is, she's just not likable. They liked her less and less and her numbers went down and

Cole Muzio (11:53.366)
She failed to make it to Iowa that no vote was ever cast for Kamala Harris because she couldn't make it there. Despite all the money and some of the institutional support and the media supporting the narrative of a Kamala rebrand multiple times. She was Joe Biden's vice presidential pick and because he self proclaimed very early on that he was going to select a black woman as his nominee and as he looked around.

I think you had Val Demings out of Florida, who was a little known Congresswoman. You had Stacey Abrams. You had Keisha Lance Bottoms, know, as an Atlanta mayor that was flailing. You did not have a good selection of candidates by which to choose from. Once you put yourself in that box, the only candidate to run for president that met that label was Kamala Harris, who was thought as, we can put her on the ticket. Joe will carry her over and this will be the diverse ticket that we want to sell to people.

And we don't have to put her out front too much. And over the course of her time in the White House, she has also gone over several rebrands because she has been an historically unpopular vice president. All that said, Kamala has never had the benefit of the media that was able to, and I think you could say, you could dispute the point successfully, but the media that was able to cover for Joe Biden's mental capacity issues over the last four years.

That same media is now unified behind Kamala Harris. The number of things that they're going to write about her to try to humanize her, the number of ways they're going to write about her campaign to try to tout it as successful, there is now this unified support behind her. And I do not think that can be overstated. I do not think it can be overstated that the campaign, which has started falling behind in the money race.

is now going to rapidly catch up as the funding apparatus of the Democrat party now unifies behind Kamala. This is, despite her unpopularity, despite what the polls may say now, despite kind of the strong positioning of Trump and Republicans right now, this is a fundamentally different race. Kamala, you know, I think you can dispute how many marbles that Kamala is playing with, but you can also say that she has all the ones that she was born

Cole Muzio (14:13.294)
Whereas Joe Biden did not seem to have all the, he didn't seem to be playing with all of his marbles anymore. You cannot, you can level the accusation that Kamala is not smart enough. She's not bright enough. She's not skilled enough. She's not experienced enough. She's not accomplished enough to be president of the United States. She has all the mental capacity that she's ever had and you cannot level at her that she's battling dementia just like you could with Biden. And I think that's a fundamentally different question. You have seen

Poll numbers stabilized for the Democrats. The bleeding has stopped and you've seen some bounce in some states, particularly here in Georgia. The latest polls that I'm seeing show Kamala, who Democrats were down by anywhere between five and 10 in some polls that I was seeing in Georgia. It is now a low single digits, one, two, three point kind of ball game in the state of Georgia. This is going to be the place where her numbers see the strongest bounce back as opposed to Biden.

because of her demographic appeal and her ability to turn out voters. And I think that's going to be the biggest thing for Democrats as you look at the math of how they could win this election, is it's a turnout game. If you were looking in your center or center left and you're looking at an 81 and 70 or eight year old candidate, neither of which you're excited about, which group of voters is more likely to turn out, it's going to be the ones that are excited about change. It's going to be the

voter that's showing up with enthusiasm. Kamala can tap into more enthusiasm from the progressive left. She will have money to turn out her people. And I'm not saying that this is a race where all of a sudden she's got to be favored. you're smart, better, you're putting money on Donald Trump. But at the same time, if you're on the right and you were inclined to sit back and go, okay, this election is now in the bag. There's so much support. The Biden administration is a disaster.

Joe Biden is a disaster. He's not mentally capable of running. That debate was a knockout punch. The assassination attempt unified people behind Trump. How he responded to it was heroic and unifying. There's a whole lot of support behind the Republican ticket. Let's move on. Let's make a change. This election's in the bag. Let's look at these Senate seats. I don't think you can do that now. And I would watch very closely who Kamala picks as her Democrat nominee for vice president.

Cole Muzio (16:40.974)
On two fronts, one, it is going to have electoral implications. I would say your front runners for that role is you got to start with Josh Shapiro, who's the Pennsylvania governor. Very compelling candidate, arguably the strongest candidate they have. He's got moderate appeal. He's Jewish. So for those that are concerned about the anti -Semitic trajectory of the Democrat party, he could bring some appeal there. And he has done a reasonably good job navigating the Pennsylvania

waters in Pennsylvania being a swing state, he probably puts that in the blue column or at least more strongly moves it over in that direction, which then begins to make electoral math all of a sudden look a little bit difficult for Donald Trump. He's their strongest candidate. Andy Beshears is another strong candidate out of Kentucky. He's the governor there who's now won twice in a deep red state as a Democrat. Again, self -proclaimed moderate. And again, I guess if you put him on the modern

you know, political spectrum, maybe he falls into that bucket, but he has been a pro -abortion liberal governor from our perspective. you know, he's, he's now won twice in Kentucky would be a compelling candidate that if you're looking to appeal to Midwest voters, even though he's Kentucky, he would do a good job, both there and in Georgia of being able to sell those swing voters that, this is a safer ticket than a Trump Vance ticket. And again, that may be a tough sell. Maybe he doesn't make that difference, but I think he's a pick that could show

know, Kamala wants to win. Senator Mark Kelly out of Arizona would be another compelling pick as would Roy Cooper, the governor in North Carolina. I would watch the selection on a couple different fronts. And again, you're kind of looking at the inverse DEI selection because almost everybody agrees this is likely to be a white male. And again, then we play partisan, you know, race based.

identity politics, you get kind of in this weird zone where you're no longer just looking at the most qualified person, whether that's in a positive for diversity direction or opposite for diversity direction. You kind of get stuck. And again, I would caution anybody that's looking for the Republican Party to go in that direction of identity politics. This is the trap that the Democrats have now find themselves in. So two reasons to watch why she picks one again, electoral electoral

Cole Muzio (19:00.748)
Josh Shapiro is a guy that I think affects electoral math in a positive direction for Democrats, as does Bashir's, as does Cooper, as does Mark Kelly, although I would argue that he really probably only affects Arizona. And I don't think he's as compelling of a pick. But one of the other things that I would watch is that for all those three, except Cooper, joining that ticket would be an indication that they think she can win. So if you're Josh Shapiro,

You have to make a calculation that is, are you better off waiting until 2028, where you have an open seat for the White House and an open nomination process, and you're not going to be tarnished by being the VP pick of a loser? Same thing if you're, know, Bashir is out of Kentucky, Mark Kelly to a lesser degree out of Arizona. Do you want to be tagged with that? Or do you look at it go, hey, I can boost her and maybe I can be the VP for

Maybe we can win. And I think that's going to be something that as you watch, I think that was certainly part of the calculation for people like Newsom and Whitmer that are front runners in the Democrat party as they look to 2028, their political calculation of I'm going to get behind Kamala and be a team player. I'm not going to go to war in an uphill battle for a nomination that ultimately results in a likely loss in November. I think that was a big part of their political calculation. We're going to get behind them. We're going to be team players. She's going to lose.

She's not bright enough to win. She doesn't have the wind at her sails. She's going to struggle. She's going to go down. Her brand's going to be tarnished. Nobody's going to want her to be the nominee in 2028. And I'm going to be able to ride in that I'm going to be in an open primary. I'm going to have a real shot to win. I absolutely believe that was part of their political calculus. How appealing is this VP slot to other candidates? Now Roy Cooper out of North Carolina is term limited. He's done.

He, his upward trajectory would not be as strong. You would not put him in probably the top six to eight candidates for 2028 in the Democrat party for him. I would say that there's not much to lose. probably similar for Mark Kelly. Josh Shapiro is the guy that has a lot to lose. You know, if you're looking for the guy who could, you know, possibly went over some moderates and be kind of the, you know, I can win the general election type candidate, which if the Democrats lose in 2024, they will be looking

Cole Muzio (21:23.79)
and I can win the general election type candidate, just like they did in 2020 with Joe Biden. They're going to be looking for someone who can have general election appeal. Josh Shapiro would certainly be able to make that case a whole lot better than Gavin Newsom and probably better than Gretchen Whitmer. Does he want to go down as the VP pick for the loser and go along the route of Tim Kaine? So whether he would accept the VP slot or not, I think is indicative of how the Democrats feel about their chances. But I'm going to wrap this up by just saying,

This is an entirely new ballgame. You are seeing a candidate on the other side who, is easy to mock. Yes, she's ridiculous in a lot of ways, but she can raise more money. She can generate a whole lot more energy and enthusiasm. And she now has the entire United Democrat machine, which has been tearing down Joe Biden for the last month. she has been able to get them unified behind her. And the ways that they're going to leverage that, her approval rating has already received a little bit of a boost.

In terms of when you pull the American people and what they think and what they see from her, you've seen that, you know, get a boost and it's a result of more coverage. That is the opposite of her typical political trajectory. When more people know about her, the less they like her. You're now seeing the whole media apparatus get in behind her. This is a very different race. We need to talk about it and think about it differently. And if you're a Republican, if you're a conservative, if you're a believer, and we will talk about Kamala's record a whole lot more on this show.

But as we wrap this up, she is more dangerous than Biden because she's more inherently ideological than Biden. And she again is, again, you can debate how bright she is, but she is playing with all of her marbles and she will come in with an ideological agenda that is very detrimental to the American people. So it's a different ball game. She is just as big, she's a bigger threat than Biden.

And they are, better positioned to mount a real campaign that we need to be very concerned about. So with that, we'll wrap up this episode. We're probably going to be having some interviews with other leaders over the next couple of episodes, just about different topics, about policy issues, but certainly wanted to wrap a bow on, on an issue that we've been talking about now for the last several weeks, which is Joe Biden's fitness to serve, whether the, the how they were going to push them

Cole Muzio (23:46.958)
I think for the most part we've known since the debate that they were going to push him out. But now we've seen how that's played out and we'll continue to provide commentary on the election, but also bring in some great experts and folks to interview so that you can learn more about what's going on. So hopefully this show has been a good place of information for you and we appreciate you tuning in. God bless.