Jason Lewis on Walz record & VP pick (08-06-2024--Hour1)

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_03]: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_03]: The big news obvious that we now have a veep pick from the Democrat nominee Kamala Harris. It is the fiery but mostly peaceful Tim Walz, right? A household name from Minnesota. And so I said, hey, you know what? I know somebody in Minnesota that follows politics pretty closely.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_03]: So Jason Lewis, he is the author of Party Animal. He's a former Minnesota congressman, but also former host here on WBT. How are you, Jason?

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, Pete. How are you, buddy?

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing all right. So how excited are you that you get to share Tim Walz with all of us?

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so excited that today we can say Donald Trump just won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin because the Wisconsinites are not happy with Minnesota, what they've done.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But I will tell you, I think it's an inflection point. I really do think that Kamala has failed her first big test.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, granted, she was sort of backed into a corner with the radical pro-Hamas swing of the Democrat Party and Josh Shapiro.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_02]: However, this pick is going to highlight, is going to buttress, is going to focus laser-like on every extremist point that Kamala Harris has ever made

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_02]: because she's got a comrade in arms whose background is just about as duplicitous as, well, this side of Phil Murphy from New Jersey.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, these are the type of people that talk a good game at the Union Hall and then do everything their woke funders tell them to do.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's already coming out in droves how radical this guy is.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, you know, I will say as a personal plug, if you've read Party Animal, there's a chapter in there called Who Lost Minnesota?

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I was running for the U.S. Senate during the riots, during the lockdowns.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And I will tell you, there has never been a greater mismanagement of a state, of a city on fire, of a lockdown, of a woke boot on nursing homes.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_02]: They had one of the highest nursing home deaths due to COVID in the country.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It was Cuomo-like, if not worse, than this guy.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's all in the chapter in my book called Who Lost Minnesota?

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's just one guy, one former member of Congress.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So I, again, you heard it here first on the Pete Callender Show.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: At this point in the campaign, this is going to be the end of her honeymoon.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_02]: This is the inflection point where she starts going downhill.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_03]: All right. So, by the way, you can read Jason's work at his substack, jasonlewis.substack.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And you could subscribe there as well.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And you mentioned the book there, Party Animal.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think, let's see, I've asked you one question.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I believe that is as many questions as has now been thrown at Kamala Harris, although non-adversarial.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_03]: So do you think that they are attempting to run a 2020-like basement campaign?

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And that Waltz is, is it Waltz or Walls?

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Walls.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Walls.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Like they're closing in on him?

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_03]: So you think so, basement campaign strategy?

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, of course.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It's been almost three weeks since he hasn't taken a query from the press.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, not one?

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_02]: How do you do that now?

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And how do you do it outside of COVID?

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But understand, never underestimate the media's ability to cover for Kamala or Joe or anybody else.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_02]: This is what they did for three and a half years for Joe Biden's vigor, right?

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_02]: He was the campaign of vigor.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_02]: As John Kennedy used to say, vigor.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But now it's with Walls.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I just think that honeymoon is over because questions will come up about him.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And every answer is going to play into, well, isn't that what Kamala believes?

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I just don't know how long they can pull the wool over everybody's eyes now that they have doubled down on the most left-wing ticket in American history.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And look, I can go right through it and maybe we will.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But if you look at what is considered normal, and take this from somebody that's been there for 35 years, what is considered normal in Minnesota has compared to the rest of the country, it is going to be shocking.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got a lieutenant governor in Minnesota that wears a trans T-shirt with a knife on it threatening people at a press conference.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: That's normal?

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_02]: What?

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't think that's normal?

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Right, right, right.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, surgical mutilation and puberty blockers for minors too young to consent?

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's Minnesota.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a refugee state for those operations.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So, again, I'm just saying that I think this was a bridge too far for Harris.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I think she's, yeah, doubling down on her base.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't think her base is going to get her across the finish line.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And let me tell you something, Pete.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I was as worried as the next guy yesterday or the day before.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Although I did say last night to somebody, I thought it was Walls just because of the Shapiro Jewish angle that, oh, gosh, the guy's a Jew.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_02]: We can't have him.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_02]: What happens to Rashida?

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And but now I actually think the honeymoon's over.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I really believe that.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_03]: So is it possible here?

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, let me say it this way.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_03]: I have never thought that Kamala Harris has had the best of political instincts.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And so isn't this just an example of that?

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even if you couldn't go with Shapiro, frankly, Whitmer would have been better because at least you get in Michigan.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_02]: You got 10.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Look, when I was running for the House and I won, Trump came within one point six percentage points of winning Minnesota.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But but, you know, four years later, the liberals doubled down in that state because it's so institutionally controlled by left wing nonprofits, big business monopolies.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Think target and the media, of course.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So the margin actually grew in 2020 and Trump lost by six or seven.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I lost my Senate seat by four, four and a half or something.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So Minnesota was never going to be in play, to be perfectly blunt.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So, but that makes it brings 10 electoral votes you're going to get anyway.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So why do it?

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I do think that the Democrats have been lulled into thinking they can't go left far enough.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't worry.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got MSNBC.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They'll cover for us.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, Walls is a moderate, great veteran who and those questions are going to start to come out now.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_02]: They already have about his National Guard record.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you just you have just opened up a can of worms.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_02]: The old adage, as you well know, Pete, is, well, the vice president can't help, but they can hurt.

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Man, is that going to be true?

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I just maybe I'm a little too sensitive.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, I'm biased from an ideological point of view, but maybe I'm a little too sensitive to it.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I live there and I live through the riots and I live through the lockdowns.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And I want to tell you if there was ever a more Orwellian situation where Walls and Keith Ellison, as attorney general, were closing down rodeos, but letting protesters run wild during COVID.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is actually his words were in my book.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Party animal.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Did I mention that in my book?

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I decided, quote, not to engage, close, quote, the riders, because I thought that would inflame things, which meant he gave the third precinct away.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And then Kamala Harris promoted the bail fund for the riders.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Minnesota Freedom Fund, which, by the way, the local CBS affiliate in Minnesota, WCCO, recently ran a headline.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Are you ready for this?

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Trump lies about Kamala's bailing out rioters.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_03]: I think I actually did this story.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: The RNC caught them and said, listen, you clowns, you guys asked her a question about it four years ago.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And now you're lying about her.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, but that is what it's like to live in Minnesota.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, every institution there is a wholly owned subsidiary of left wing Democrats.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So that is not going to play throughout the rest of the country.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm puzzled.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I'm being too Pollyannish about this, but I am.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not puzzled.

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_02]: They skipped Shapiro.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I am puzzled that Walls was even in the running.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But again, I just think they're they're they're in their own echo chamber at MSNBC and CNN.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's who they think Americans are.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, have you heard, though, that he is folksy?

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Have you heard this?

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: He's very, very folksy when when he's putting tampons in in boys bathrooms or is it the other way around?

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't tell in Minnesota.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But, yeah, he's nuts.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_03]: So he also he's made some comment.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of video of him.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_03]: The clips are already circulating.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And it makes me wonder, is this a base election?

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Have they basically said with the pick of Vance and now the pick of Walls?

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think people are like, oh, Walls is going to destroy Vance.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not so sure about that.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I don't think that I've seen.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I served in Congress with Walls.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've seen him operate.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And without that media cover, he would be destroyed.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And so if there's any if there's a semblance of media objectivity, I think J.D.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Vance will mop him up.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Just mop him up.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But it is it is a base election.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But I will say this, that and this is really crucial, that Trump's pick of Vance was far less a doubling down, quote unquote, of the base.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_02]: That is J.D. Vance represents the mainstream Republican view.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Then the Walls pick was a complete doubling down of a radical view.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: That is, if the base is on either end of the spectrum, Walls is the way end of the left wing spectrum.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: J.D., I think, is halfway down.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, clearly, he's more Trumpian than Pence, but he's not anywhere like, oh, my gosh, he's for denying biological reality or whatever.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Pick your favorite topic.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's just I think that's going to come out now.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I just think you've got a template in front of the American people of which they are not familiar with.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_03]: But again, not a Jew.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's really the that's going to come back and haunt them.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: They were terrified of Chicago turning into 1968.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Just absolutely terrified of it.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And now I love the I love the spin.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_02]: They're already throwing out Pete that.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the real reason was Josh Shapiro was too ambitious like other any politician isn't.

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Wait, that's that's what they're saying.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I have not seen this.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_02]: He was going to get in the way because his ambition was was untethered.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I guess to that point, you know, you know, Biden picked Harris because she wasn't perceived as a threat to him because she was so awful with terrible political instincts.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know, maybe this is par for the course.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if she's a terrible pick and Joe was a, you know, picked for the same kind of the same reason by Obama, that I guess you're just going to have this constant degradation of the V pick.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't think you can say that of J.D. Vance.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Quite frankly, I think you can say he's smoother than Donald Trump.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, definitely.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm talking about the Democrats.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I mean.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: That's not always the case with the vice president.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: You ought to want to step up.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_02]: You shouldn't feel threatened by somebody's competence.

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But, yes, I think that's exactly why that their views are in sync.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_02]: He is the classic emasculated straight white male that enables people like Kamala Harris.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why she picked him.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But let me just go over a few things.

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So what's going on in Minnesota under Tim Walls?

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I mentioned COVID where he put a woke boot on every throat of every Minnesotan, myself included.

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_02]: We sued the Walls administration because he basically rescinded our rallies.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but above and beyond COVID and we all know the riots and the burning of Minneapolis,

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_02]: which exported urban crime to the rest of the country, including Charlotte.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You want to know why your crimes up?

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank, thank the defund the police movement started in Minnesota.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, that's just a start.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So then once they took control of state government in 2022 under Tim Walls,

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_02]: the first thing they did was pass.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Are you ready?

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_02]: An automatic voter registration bill with multilingual interpreters,

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_02]: no physical address requirement, and absentee votes weeks before an election.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, then they gave driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Good thing Minnesota has such clean state voter rolls, huh?

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's really, I don't know.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's kind of weird.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, no.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, weird.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my gosh.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's weird.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Then they signed the most extreme Amy Klobuchar pro-abortion law on the land,

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_02]: eradicating Roe v.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Wade's limits in the third trimester after viability.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_02]: They can go right to the end.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks to Amy and Tina Smith, a radical left-wing senator with whom I engaged, right?

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Then you had the lieutenant governor wearing that lovely knife-wielding trans T-shirt,

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_02]: making a celebration of Minnesota's refugee state for puberty blockers and surgical mutilation,

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I call it, but I think it's insanity in what we're doing to kids.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, then they had to change the Minnesota state flag, Pete,

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_02]: because the historic symbols were just too oppressive.

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_02]: You're starting to get the picture here.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Then you had a nonprofit run by their new demographic they ushered in from Somalia that enables Ilan Omar.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_02]: They ripped off taxpayers for $250 million in a Feeding Our Future nonprofit pandemic scandal.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, then Walls had a surplus of $17 billion.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Try this in Raleigh sometime.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Walls had a surplus of $18 billion, so he spent the whole thing raising the general fund in one cycle 38%.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_02]: How do you raise state spending in Raleigh one year?

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we have budget bienniums in Minnesota.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But one cycle, 38%.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, he gave it to his public school teachers, of course,

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_02]: whose fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math scores were the lowest in three decades.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, then he adopted the California Clean Car Rule to phase out gasoline-powered engines,

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: blocked a mine on the Iron Range.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Is anybody starting to get the drift that these people do not have much in common with North Carolinians?

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Jason Lewis, you can read more of his work at his substack, jasonlewis.substack, or get his book.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_03]: He is the author of Party Animal, former Minnesota Congressman, WBT host here.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Jason, good to talk with you, sir.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for your insight.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate it.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, Pete.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Always a pleasure, my friend.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Be well.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_03]: We have Craig and Steve.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_03]: They have patiently been waiting.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Let me get to Craig first, because he called first.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Hello, Craig.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the show.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, Pete.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Hey.

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I heard you talking about them.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, Kamala was not interested in necessarily picking a Jewish running mate here.

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think the Democrats are a post-Jewish party at this point.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_04]: I think they just, quite frankly, don't need them anymore.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, the vast majority, or I'd say the overwhelming majority of Jews that have enough power to flip an electoral college, you know, for the vote for the state, pretty much live in the New York City area and the Boca area of Florida.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_04]: And since New York's always going to be blue, Florida's pretty much always going to be red.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a done deal.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_04]: They're more focused on Minnesota and Michigan at this point, which have much higher Muslim population.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_04]: So they don't really need the Jews anymore.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_04]: So there's not enough population everywhere else to flip electoral votes.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_03]: But that ignores Josh Shapiro's popularity in Pennsylvania, which is a winnable state, right, for either party.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_03]: It's it.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And the Democrats need it.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_03]: They cannot win without Pennsylvania.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_03]: So and Minnesota always goes.

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, even Mondale carried Minnesota.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_03]: When when we saw the landslide for Reagan.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_03]: So I yeah, I think it's just baggage.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_03]: That's the baggage for Josh Shapiro is that he's Jewish in a party, like you said, that is apparently post-Jewish.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_03]: They they don't want to say that.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_03]: But some of them are like Van Jones made a comment.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I've got the I've got the clip that anti-Semitism has now marbleized inside the party.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_03]: That's a problem for Democrats and America.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I would submit that if you've got a major political party that doesn't want to put a Jewish person on the ballot because of their religion, that's a problem.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, they're making sure that they understand that the Muslim population in America is growing at a far greater rate than the Jewish population is.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_04]: And the Muslim population is far more spread out.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, most Jews, they they live in New York City till they get too old to take the winners and they move to Boca.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm hmm.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_04]: So that's pretty much where they just like to stay because they're comfortable around, you know, I guess the kind, I guess.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_04]: But Muslims are much more spread out around the country and they're moving here and they're and they're having more kids than a lot.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_04]: So in the in the future, not the too distant future, they're going to be a much larger voting block and they're going to be spread out more across the country where they have a potential to flip those states electoral colleges.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't know.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, maybe maybe so.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Craig, I appreciate the call.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'd be curious to know, like, what the postmortem is going to look like on this and this decision, because, again, I'm always torn.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_03]: We're assuming that that they made this pick for really good reasons.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_03]: But Kamala Harris has the political instincts, you know, of Moss.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And so.

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_03]: It could just be another example of a really dumb decision she made, you know, that's possible, too.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_03]: All right, let me get Steve on next.

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Hello, Steve.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the program.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_03]: How are you?

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing well.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, my thoughts are I think that the Democrats may be playing the long game here.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that Joe was always supposed to be a one term president.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And Kamala was always supposed to be the candidate this year.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And they planned this before the last election.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But the only thing that they had they didn't plan on was Trump getting back in the game.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that way.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if I think they may not have also planned on Joe Biden's decline being as as precipitous.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Because I think that I think originally you're I think you're right that he had initially said that he would be a bridge candidate.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think along the way he and his circle and his family, I think they became convinced that he's the only guy that could be Trump because he was the only guy that beat Trump or or was the guy that beat Trump, I should say.

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And so therefore they're like, well, I'm the only one.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think the idea was to put Kamala on the bat or on the on the slate so you can play the DEI game right back four years ago.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Joe then doesn't run for reelection.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But the the primary would be wide open and Kamala Harris could run again.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_03]: But you would also have other challengers that come forth inside the Democrat Party.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree with you about the declines with his decline.

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Just spurred them to put the whole plan into action early.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, they had this one this whole timeline planned out.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But then age and took an impact on on Joe.

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So and they said, OK, we're getting we've got to put this into action now rather than wait.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, never attribute right to to planning what could also be due to incompetence.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's possible.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, like I keep going back and forth on this because on the one hand, it's sort of like the criticism against George W.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Bush.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Lo, those many years ago.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_03]: That he was this idiot, but at the same time, a puppet master, you know, and he did all these things and machinations and he somehow hoodwinked everybody.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_03]: So like I am always wary of those types of sort of assumptions and and and projecting strategy and and wisdom onto some of these people, because a lot of them, they just they're not.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_03]: They're just not.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_03]: So they're not wise.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_03]: They're not brilliant.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_03]: They're not really much better at playing this game.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think like what we're seeing now is probably further evidence of that.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Steve, I do appreciate the call, though.

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_03]: It's good to hear from you.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_03]: His his record, this guy up in Minnesota, his record is so terrible.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_03]: It's so terrible.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_03]: That people thought, oh, he's in the final two.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's that means it's going to go to Shapiro, because when it comes to, for example, Israel.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Shapiro's position on Israel was really not any different than than Tim Walz's or anybody else in the Democrat field, for that matter, that was in the running for Veep.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And so it's not like you could say, well, Shapiro was too pro Israel or something like that.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_03]: But the difference was he's Jewish and he's in a state.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And here's the other thing to keep in mind.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_03]: He's in Pennsylvania.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Pennsylvania is a must win.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And is it possible that he didn't want it?

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Because if some of the numbers I'm seeing today are like this bounce that Kamala has enjoyed because of all of the the glowing media coverage that she's enjoyed for the last, what, 17 days now, I think it's been with no press availabilities, no tough questions or anything being asked of her.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Basically, a basement campaign for two plus weeks that I don't know.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, is it is it possible that Shapiro got to look at some of these numbers and he's like, oh, my gosh, she's not going to win or it's going to be very difficult.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And then you've hitched your wagon to hers.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And if she goes down, you're done, too.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Which is why I thought Cooper, you know, my good friend Ray here in North Carolina, Governor Cooper might have been the pick, which apparently the report in Politico was that Kamala liked Roy and wanted him as the Veep.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_03]: But then he was like, no, no, no, I'm I've got the audio.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Tim Walsh.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Actually, it's pretty good news, I think, if you are interested in seeing Democrats lose the presidential race.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_03]: I think Shapiro was more of a threat as a vice presidential candidate, not that the Veeps are, as Jason Lewis said, they don't tend to help you, but they can hurt you.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_03]: I think Walls is going to hurt more than help.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I got a message from the Hellion who says Walls has to be around her 10th choice.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_03]: As with the presidential run, no one wants to waste their turn.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I think the same goes with vice president.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, we just had the same thought, right?

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Because like right before the break, I was saying if the trajectory here is that she loses.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Then you don't want to be a part of that losing campaign because then you get some of it on you.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you don't want you don't want any on you.

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_03]: So then you can come back after Trump is out because he's going to be limited, right?

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_03]: He'll be a lame duck on day one, just like Joe Biden is now.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And so you'll have four years to start building your your campaign operations for a wide open field if Kamala loses and Trump wins.

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_03]: So if you're looking to have an eight year term, it's probably best for you to sit back and just let this play out however it's going to play out.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Because here's the thing.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_03]: If you're if you're on the VP ticket and Kamala does win.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Then she's going to be the nominee again in four years.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And now you're pushed out to an eight year cycle.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And at that point, generally speaking, in the modern era, voters in America do not pick.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Three back to back terms for the incumbent party, right?

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_03]: They don't like after a two termer, they usually put in somebody else like Trump over Hillary.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. Or.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, Clinton's a bad example.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's how popular Ronald Reagan was.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_03]: He actually had coattails for a whole other election cycle after he was done that.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_03]: George H.W. Bush got in there.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_03]: The guy who created the term voodoo economics.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_03]: That's anyway.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Wesley Yang says Democrats could have chosen a super popular, crucial swing state governor.

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Harris has been furiously jettisoning all of her unpopular progressive stances of 2020.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Instead, she chose the Hick Lib who signed the purest, most unadulterated, woke legislative agenda in American history into law.

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_03]: So this might be the play again.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_03]: If I'm assuming that there's a strategy behind this that makes some sort of rational sense, it could be that they want Harris to run as the moderate.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And as long as she doesn't get any kind of questions about flipping her positions on stuff, let Walls be the leftist.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And then she can kind of reposition herself as the person who didn't take all of those positions and didn't have the record that she had amassed.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_03]: She's she's now a moderate.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_03]: So she picks Walls as, you know, as a way to placate the base.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, this is all wacky because we have such a compressed timeline.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Tony says so much for D.E.I.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Harris picked a white guy.

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Does that make her racist and or sexist?

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, kind of.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, she she picked him.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you're saying she picked a white guy because he was a white guy, then, yes, that's the those are the principles of D.E.I.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_03]: at play.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_03]: You're not picking somebody based on their merit.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_03]: You're picking them based on their skin color and gender.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm not sure that that made the point you thought you were making there, Tony.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_03]: But John says Tim Walls is Bernie Sanders with a better haircut.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_03]: That's well, he is a Bernie bro.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Kamala.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_03]: This is from Dennis.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Kamala's best fit for a VP really was Mark Kelly out of Arizona.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_03]: He spent many years as an astronaut, which made him the most qualified to work closely with space cadets.

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Another missed opportunity.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_03]: David says funny how they must have a an older white guy on the ticket.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So they're trading an 81 year old white guy for a 60 year old white guy.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's just a it's a demographic play.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_03]: That if that's what you're looking at.

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_03]: But the problem is his policies are so bad.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_03]: So bad and not normal, not mainstream.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Dare I say it weird.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, Jim Garrity at National Review.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_03]: He says this is almost laughable when you look at his record running the state government in Minnesota, a which somehow manages to combine the honesty of former Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_03]: The competence of former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and the sharp eyed ethical watchdog instincts of soon to be former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_03]: A whole lot of shady and unethical people in Minnesota see the state government as a giant pile of money just waiting to be taken with a sleepy guard in the form of the governor.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_03]: The dirty, not so little, not so secret about Walls is that he's not a good manager.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_03]: On his watch, the Minnesota government has endured one embarrassing scandal after another entailing mismanagement, fraud, waste and abuse.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, now, Jim Garrity, I think that's a feature, not a bug.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_03]: All right, that'll do it for this episode.

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for listening.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_03]: I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_03]: So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_03]: You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete Calendar show dot com.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.