CARVILLE / 9 March 2020
[THEME]
SEAN RAMESWARAM (host): If you’ve been paying attention to politics for the past 30 years or so, James Carville needs no introduction.
If you haven’t been alive for the past 30 years or so, this introduction’s for you.
<CLIP> SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS ON CNN: Look, James, in all due respect, is a political hack who said very terrible things when he was working for Clinton against Barack Obama. I think he said some of the same things.
Carville’s response? And I’m quoting…
“That’s exactly who the fuck I am! I’m a political hack. I am not an ideologue. I am not a purist. I am a political hack!”
Carville hacked for Bill Clinton during his first, longshot presidential campaign in the early 90s.
He gained a reputation for being a shrewd and salty political strategist. People nicknamed him the “Ragin’ Cajun.”
And he’s basically been on TV ever since, from hosting Crossfire, to being on Fox News, and getting his own Bill Hader impression on SNL.
<CLIP> BILL HADER: So anyway, we started datin’
SETH MEYERS: Wait a second, you dated Newt Gingrich?
BILL HADER: I’ve dated many men in the name of the Democratic party. Sir, I’m unashamed!
SETH Ok.
BILL HADER: One night, Newt and I go paddle boatin’ on the Potomac River. And it doesn’t matter why, but I’m friends with some alligators...
SEAN: James Carville, as a 70 something year old white man, I'd love to get your opinion on the three seventy something year old white men who are vying for the presidency right now.
DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL STRATEGIST JAMES CARVILLE: <laughs> Look, the only thing that people care about is beating Trump. And the way to do that is what we're getting ready to do and that’s to nominate Vice-President Biden. And the reason that he's still standing is people made an evaluation at a late point he's the best person to beat Donald Trump. That’s what driving this whole thing.
SEAN: So were you waiting for him to announce back in this time last year? Were you relieved when he announced that he'd be running?
JAMES: You know, I was for Michael Bennet, I mean, but you know so he didn't do very well. Doesn't matter. This is where we are. And it's a better place than we thought we were gonna be.
SEAN: And I think you mentioned that to our colleague here at Vox, Sean Illing, when you spoke to him a few weeks ago. At that point, Biden hadn’t done very well in Iowa. I think...
CARVILLE: Right.
SEAN: You know, they were still counting the votes. And you said to Sean that you were scared to death at the time. How come?
JAMES: Bernie looked like he might get to Milwaukee with 1,800 delegates and we'd have a, you know, brouhaha, a rift and they would be in the streets claiming it is all stolen from him and God knows what. That is not going to happen now. And so I am less afraid. There's a lot to be afraid of. But I'm not afraid of Bernie Sanders getting to Milwaukee with a plurality of the delegates.
SEAN: It seems like what you were calling for in your conversation with our colleague Sean Illing was for the Democratic Party to get its act together and rally around a moderate candidate who could win the election.
JAMES This moderate, this is a word that people throw out. In other words, if you're not Bernie Sanders, you’re part of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. It's a bullshit word. I don't consider myself a moderate. I consider myself a liberal. But it doesn’t matter because it's just become the convenient way to describe anybody that is not Bernie Sanders. And the Democrat. Party has taken what would historically be some pretty liberal positions going into this race.
SEAN: Do you think there's something to be said that Bernie Sanders, being such a progressive, could have excited a younger base and perhaps that way taken the—
JAMES: No, no, that's the equivalent of climate denial or creationism. You're not going to change the turnout model. It's never been done and it's not going to be done.
SEAN: So you weren't impressed by Bernie's win in California?
JAMES: No. I mean, Bernie can't..he has no relationship with the most important constituency in the Democratic Party: African-Americans. The newest and most exciting demographic in a Democratic Party are these college educated white voters, particularly women. He has no relationship with them. They came out and voted against him in droves. He got a third of the California Democrats. I'm sorry. I'm just not that impressed.
SEAN: Okay, well let’s talk about Joe for a minute here. A smart man once said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The economy has been in pretty good shape until these Covid-19-related dips recently. How does Biden do against Donald Trump in a race where Trump surely plans on bragging about how well he’s done with the economy?
JAMES: So he inherits a country that has 2 percent growth. He sticks a trillion dollars worth of stimulus, gives a green light for every polluter to go. And what do we get? Drum roll, please...
<CLIP> SFX DRUMROLL
JAMES:. 2.1. <laughs>. Trump got forty six point one in 2016. The Republicans got forty four point eight in 2018. His approval on FiveThirtyEight is forty three point four. Whatever he did, it didn’t. There's 55 percent of the country that wants to not be for this guy. That's a big number. We should do everything we can to maximize that number. Political parties don't exist to make arguments. They exist to win elections. Without power, there is nothing. It's all a bunch of people sitting around talking to each other in cities.
SEAN: I take your point. But Trump, of course, lost the popular vote in 2016 and still won the Electoral College. So in the states that matter here, do you think people are feeling like the economy is good and thus maybe we should just vote for the incumbent? Or do you think they're hurting? And thus Joe Biden has a strong argument?
JAMES: All of the evidence I see is people do not want Trump back. But we got to run a strong persuasion campaign in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, in Wisconsin, in Florida. We can't go with this urban strategy that we are the growing party. Eighteen percent of the country elects 52 senators. Take that, urban strategy. The party has to have a majoritarian instinct. We’ve got to be skilled enough to excite our most important voters, American, African-Americans, to get our own new exciting demographic out, these college educated women, and also to cut into the margins in the more rural and small town parts of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, places like that. And I think we can do that.
SEAN: What do you think the strongest argument Vice President Biden can make in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin might be—
JAMES: I want to get Trump out of there. You're not going to live like this anymore. You know, you're not going to be waking up to tweets. And people that are trying to inspire young people are not going to have this for an example, we're going to put competent people to run the government.
SEAN: But I mean, Democrats are hoping that Biden will convince people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 to switch their vote back to the Democratic Party.
JAMES: Yeah. I, I...
SEAN: Is the argument that we've got to get Trump out of there as strong as an argument that might appeal more to things that affect their lives personally?
JAMES: What you do is you talk about things that affect their lives personally. You think they think that Trump's done something about prescription drug prices? You think they think that his tax cut went to anybody but the richest people in the country? You think that people are not so stupid that they know that Donald Trump went to Davos and while he was in Davos, said he was going to cut Medicare after he was elected again?
<CLIP> INTERVIEWER: One last question:
PRESIDENT TRUMP AT DAVOS: Go ahead.
INTERVIEWER: Entitlements ever be on your plate?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: At some point they will be. We have tremendous growth. We're going to have tremendous growth this next year. It'll be toward the end of the year, And at the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that's actually the easiest of all things if you look
JAMES: And he's probably ruined morale in a diplomatic corps. They've tried to hollow out the CDC and NIH, I don't know. It don't seem very good to me. We've added a trillion dollars in debt in a functioning economy, which I don't think is a very good idea at all. We've abandoned any environmental regulation. We've just become, the government has become an assistance center for the fossil fuel industry. We've pitted one American against another American. We've told citizens of the United States that they should go back to the country they came from. It’s the most repulsive thing anybody can say about anything in this country. I think it's just a violation of everything. None of us needs to go back anyway, you’re here.
SEAN: What do you think it says that he's got near record approval ratings with the Republican base?
JAMES: That it's a personality cult. The Republican voter very much wants Donald Trump where he is. And the way to deal with this is defeat Republican politicians and then get power, and win the Senate back. And, you know, look at where you got to win a Senate seat. You gotta win in North Carolina. You’ve got to in Georgia. You've got to hold Alabama. You've got a shot in Texas. You should win Arizona. You should win Colorado. You now got a shot in Montana. Believe it or not, you got a shot in Kansas. You’re probably ahead in Maine. You gotta hold Michigan. That's the reality of politics. This is an opportunity that you just don't see very often in politics. I mean, we have a chance to come in, if we're smart, we have a chance to run the table in November.
SEAN: In your dream scenario, which is clearly a Biden nomination, whom does he choose as his VP?
JAMES: Well I’m kind of a big fan of Gretchen Whitmer. She’s the governor of Michigan. She gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union and she talks about things that matter to people.
<CLIP> MICHIGAN GOVERNOR GRETCHEN WHITMER SOTU RESPONSE: In my own state, our neighbors in Wisconsin and Ohio, Pennsylvania and all over the country. Wages have stagnated while CEO pay has skyrocketed. So when the president says the economy is strong, my question is strong for whom? Strong for the wealthy who are reaping rewards from tax cuts they don't need?
JAMES: She's very focused on issues that matter. And that's what it’s about.
<CLIP> GOVERNOR WHITMER: Who fights for working, hardworking Americans? Democrats do.
JAMES: You know, we had an actual real life experiment in 2018 where you had I think it was 50 times that a leftist candidate challenged a liberal. And forty seven times in a primary the liberal won. We had the biggest margin in the history of off year elections. We had the highest turnout since women were granted the right to vote. And you know what we did? We just talked about fundamental issues. And then it went poorly until James Clyburn got up and just knocked the whole Democratic Party back into reality. And for that, we owe him a great debt.
<CLIP> SOUTH CAROLINA REP. JAMES CLYBURN We don’t need to make this country great again. This country is great.
BYSTANDER That's right.
REP. CLYBURN That’s not what our challenge is. Our challenge is making the greatness of this country accessible and affordable for all. If it's health care, is it accessible? Is it affordable? Education: Is it accessible? Is it affordable? Housing? And nobody with whom I've ever worked in public life is any more committed to that motto, that pledge that I have to my constituents, than Joe Biden.
SCORING <CORPORATE KEVIN SPACEY BLOWS HIS BRAINS OUT>
SEAN: I’m a little surprised how hopeful you are about Vice-President Biden…
JAMES> Well, but what should I be other than that, I mean, Biden. You know, who knows? I mean, he had a history of, say, some things that are kind of strange.
<CLIP MONTAGE> VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:
We choose science over fiction. We choose truth over facts.
Poor kids who are just as bright and just as talented as white kids
We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created by that go, you know, the you know the thing.
JAMES: I wish I'd just scheduled him for two events a day. You know, people, they're going to vote for him as long as you don't talk them out of it.
<CLIP> VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: If you agree with me, go to Joe 3 0 3 3 0 and help me in this fight. Thank you very much.
SEAN: So it's his to lose. You really think it's his to lose?
JAMES: I do.
SEAN: Wow, we're going to call this episode “a hopeful conversation with James Carville.”
JAMES: Give me the counter argument.
SEAN: Okay, we’ll talk a little bit more about the other guy after the break.
SCORING UP
[MIDROLL]
[BUMPER]
SEAN: The counter argument is the Electoral College. It's the most persuasive digital strategy in the history of Facebook. It's through an impeachment scandal and through any number of lies and disinformation, Donald Trump, his support hasn't wavered an iota with his base.
JAMES: Right. It’s at 43.4. You know what? If he gets forty three point four, we’re going to do very well. We’re going to do very, very, very well. I'm working on a project, we’re focusing on 77 counties in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And we can do a lot better there. There’s some daylight for Democrats. You know, most of us became, of my generation, became Democrats because we didn't hate anybody. I mean race was the reason I became a Democrat. But I'm a rural white. And for somehow or another, a lot of the urbanists, I don’t mean the people who live in urban areas. I live in an urban area. I mean, that kind of thought process that all rural people are stupid. That's just not true. Some of us went to college, some didn't. Some of us are married, some those are not. Some go to church, some don't. Different sexual orientations, it's all kinds of things. Rural people are just like everybody else. You can't lump them all together. And we have lost large parts of rural America. And they have outsized political power because of the Senate and Electoral College. So we have to go out there and compete.
SEAN: Yeah.
JAMES: Why shouldn't we?
SEAN: What do you think the Republican Party looks like after Donald Trump?
JAMES: That's a good question. And it's a topic of much discussion. I think that Trumpism outlives Trump. I think he has hit a responsive nerve with 40 percent of the country. And the question is, after he leaves, who's going to be the heir to Trumpism, and my guess is it’s going to be Pompeo. But I don't know that.
SEAN: Or one of his kids.
JAMES Yeah, I don't know who’s dumber, the kids or their daddy, but it’s close.
SEAN: I just wonder, you know, he clearly hit on something that is very persuasive and compelling to, as you said, you know, 30, 40 percent of the country. And the party has so coalesced around it. You got very few people who dare oppose him. You know, Mitt Romney is one. That just seems like it will outlive him. If Biden wins….
JAMES: Yeah. I kinda agree with you.
SEAN: If Biden wins and the Democrats don't take the Senate, then you'll just have this lingering Trumpism there. If Biden wins and the Democrats do take the Senate, then I really wonder what the Republicans’ argument is in the next few years.
JAMES: The problem is it can't get off the hamster wheel because Trump you know, he used to talk around the topic. Trump spoke directly to it. And by the topic, I mean <laughs> uh…
SEAN: Race.
JAMES: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SEAN: You know, we did this episode last week about Brad Parscale, who’s the head of Trump's reelection campaign and kind of talked about some of the dirty tricks that he and his cohorts have been using on Facebook. And one of the questions I asked McKay Coppins from The Atlantic who reported this piece about Brad was what are the Democrats going to do if this is the way Donald Trump plans on getting reelected, by what Steve Bannon called flooding the zone with shit?
JAMES: Yeah. That's a very good question.
SEAN: Do you think the Democrats got to get their hands dirty to win this election online?
JAMES: Well, first of all, I’m 75. I am technologically beyond incompetent. I had a first in my life. I was talking on a cell phone and I was looking for my cell phone in my back pocket. <Laughter>
SEAN: Aren’t these all arguments against electing 70-year-old men to be president?
JAMES: Look, I said the only organization in the world that is and has been run by eighty year olds is the Roman Catholic church. This is what we got.
SEAN: Yeah, I guess.
JAMES: You know, it’s like what they say in the Marine Corps, wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fills up the fastest. <laughter>.
SEAN: What do you think Democrats should be doing here if Donald Trump's going to run a dirty, digital campaign, what do Democrats do? What does Vice President Biden do? Who knows, what does Bernie Sanders do?
JAMES: It is undoubtedly true that we are way behind. And I hope that somebody on the Biden team, there are people good at this that are democrats. There are a lot of technology people. And whatever it entails, we have to have a crash course in this and get up and running because they've invested a lot of money in this and they got tons and tons of data. They can follow people by cell phones and stuff. I mean, what some people are telling me is amazing. Much of it, I suspect, is illegal. I think we ought to be very ready to fight back, fight back hard. Use whatever we can. Just follow the law.
SEAN: Do you think it's a Michelle Obama situation where when they go low, we go high? Or do you think the Democrats go low, too?
JAMES: I would have the whole body as a target, low and high. I would probably use my foot somewhere, where the top of the legs meet.
SEAN: You would insert your foot somewhere.
JAMES Yeah. You can guess where I think we should insert it. <laughs>
SCORING <NEUTRAL IRENE>
JAMES: Is it fair to say that you're married to a Republican?
JAMES: I don't discuss my wife. I think she changed her registration to Libertarian. I don't know If she's changed back to Republican, but I'll let her speak for herself.
SEAN: Okay (laughs). I ask the question not to bring your wife into this, but to suggest that I don't know. It feels like your marriage suggests that we aren't gone so far that people who disagree with each other, can't, you know, share a conversation, share a household, share, share a life. But sometimes the past three years, it's really felt that way, that we just can't. We've forgotten how to talk to each other. Do you think there's a chance here to repair that?
JAMES: I do. I don't think people want to live like this. I really don't. Why do you think you're seeing this record turnout? I mean, do you understand, 2018 produced the highest turnout since women were granted the right to vote? And we lived in a world where we just assumed that declining voter interest and participation was the future of the country.
SEAN: Alright Mr. Carville, thanks so much for making time for us, I really appreciate it.
JAMES: I thought it was fun. It was a thorough and complete interview and I enjoyed doing it. Thank you.
SEAN: We will be in touch. We will try to call you on November 3rd if Donald Trump wins reelection. (laughs)
James: I’m sure you will. I’m sure you have a recording of this and you’ll play it back in my face. But that’s all right. It won’t be the first time I’ve been wrong.
I’m Sean Rameswaram. This has been a hopeful conversation with James Carville!
SCORING
CODA:
<CLIP> SNL WEEKEND UPDATE:
SETH MEYERS: You seem really happy!
BILL HADER: Of course I’m happy, Seth, it’s almost summertime. Pretty soon I’ll be back in Louisiana drinking sweet tea on the porch with my high school buddy Alligator Joe.
SETH MEYERS:Now, Why do you call him Alligator Joe?
HADER: Cause he’s an alligator, Seth!
[THEME/CREDITS]