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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. I'm Matt Katz from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. Coming up on today's show, my colleague Brittany Kriegstein will share some excellent new reporting she's done where she looked at where shootings take place in the city. She found that just a small number of city blocks accounted for most of the shootings, including some blocks or intersections where shootings happen over and over, year after year. Plus, later in the show for our seventh thing in this centennial series, 100 years of 100 things, a history of New York baseball.

That'll be in about an hour and we'll want to hear your oral histories of you and your family's fandom, including of our former teams, the Giants, the Dodgers, and a few others that we'll talk about. We'll wrap up today's show with a local twist on etiquette, how to behave here in New York City. Subway backpack wearers, celebrity gawkers, we're coming for you with some rules. We'll want to hear your suggestions too, so stay tuned for that. First, we turn to the news to the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris.

A new ABC News Ipsos poll released just yesterday shows she's enjoying a bounce in her favorability rating among Americans days after President Joe Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed her. Within a span of a week, her polling numbers jumped from 35 to 43%. While in recent years vice presidents have played an increasingly important role in our government, they often do so in the background. That has certainly been the case in many respects when it comes to this vice president. Who is Kamala Harris? What stances has she taken on issues that Democrats hope will turn out voters?

Joining us to talk about all that with a deeper dive on Vice President Kamala Harris's biography as she locks up the Democratic nomination for president are Joan Walsh, the Nation's national affairs correspondent, and co-author of Corporate BS: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America, and we also have Christopher Cadelago, California bureau chief at POLITICO. Joan and Christopher, welcome back to WNYC.

Joan Walsh: Thanks for having us.

Matt Katz: Great.

Christopher Cadelago: Thank you.

Matt Katz: Hey, Christopher.

Joan Walsh: I spoke for Christopher, sorry.

Matt Katz: We just wanted to make sure you're both there. Excellent. We're all set. Listeners, we want to hear from you too. We can take your comments, questions, concerns on the vice president's record on these issues, what matters to you most. Give us a call or text us, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Joan, you sat down with the vice president in June. This is just right before President Biden stepped out of the race. It was a really compelling piece that you wrote in The Nation. There were long excerpts from Harris. I learned a lot [unintelligible 00:03:07]. Listeners, check out the story.

There's one excerpt I wanted to read. You wrote, "Without anyone fully noticing it, Harris was already leading the outreach to all groups of voters, women voters, Black and other voters of color, young voters, voters who care about gun reform. These are voters who are less than fully in the tank for the Democrats this election cycle." It seems to me that the whole question of this campaign is whether Harris is able to motivate turnout among these particular constituencies more than Joe Biden could have. We're a week into this new race. Joan, how is that going? How is she motivating these specific groups of voters?

Joan Walsh: Matt, I think she's been doing it for quite a long time. I think that her trajectory really changed with the Dobbs Decision when she was the administration's top surrogate on reproductive rights and really took to the campaign trail for the midterms, really gets a lot of credit, including from Joe Biden, as well as reproductive justice groups, for leading the charge and for making sure that that midterm, there was no red wave. It was an amazingly good midterm for the Democrats. I think a lot of it started there.

I think even before my piece came out, I think Christopher wrote a piece showing while her overall poll numbers were lagging, she was seeing a rising popularity among Black voters, for instance. Paradoxically or not, Black voters have always favored Biden over Harris and that had changed. The race is tied and it was practically tied with Biden, but he was doing worse in the swing states. Anyway, she's getting a larger share of the women's vote than Joe Biden was in the polls I've seen in the last few days, as well as younger voters. All that was starting even before Joe Biden stumbled.

I, obviously, wasn't prescient, but I just saw that she was out on the campaign trail a lot and I was really fascinated by exactly what she was doing, not just the repro justice stuff, but gun violence. She heads the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. She's on the road touting the Biden-Harris economic opportunity agenda, specifically talking to Black voters in swing states. She was already doing all of that and then Joe Biden had his disastrous debate performance. I was, obviously, very lucky to be basically writing that piece as he melted down.

Matt Katz: Right. If transitioned us to this new moment, that piece. What about you, Christopher? You're out in California for POLITICO. Obviously, you've been following the vice president for some time. Are you surprised by how she's been received over the last week? This apparent bump in the polls, these specific voter groups that might be warming to her in a new way? What's your sense over the last week or so?

Christopher Cadelago: I'm not surprised. The main reason for that, as Joan said, is it's very hard as as vice president to turn around older narratives about you. I think you talk to friends, you talk to people in the party, talk to basically people who don't pay very close attention and they say, "Well, I like the vice president, but I just don't see a lot of her." Part of that is basically they're just not watching, and vice presidents don't get covered in anywhere close to the way that presidents do it. She was out there three to four days a week, she was doing tons of travel for the last couple of years. Really, the whole vice presidency.

A lot of that, it just took a while for some of that to set in and for people to notice her. Then, obviously, once you're the nominee, she was always by far the best-positioned Democrat to take over in an event like this. There really weren't many others who could do it, especially on such a short timeline. A lot of this is just people seeing things come into fruition that have basically been happening for months and months, maybe even years.

If you go back, I guess, I'll remind folks that some of these communities that she's spent the most time campaigning to, those were folks that she was focused on even before Biden picked her. It was this summer of Floyd, and there was a lot of unrest out there. The media she was doing during that deep state, she was very much focused on voters of color, on young people. This has been a long-term project.

Matt Katz: What about those older narratives on Harris, Christopher? You mentioned vice presidents that are out there a lot, so we don't hear things. My memories of her in terms of the media chatter, the Twitter chatter was that she's, at least from the left that criticism love that she's a cop. This is what we heard about her when she ran for president in 2020. We called her cop in a pejorative sense based on her background as a California attorney general, San Francisco district attorney.

Has that criticism cropped up over the last week? This idea that she's a cop and that's a bad thing. If so, does that criticism still have the same sting to it that it might have in 2020? Is it even accurate based on her record in California, Christopher?

Christopher Cadelago: There's a lot there to unpack. A lot of the criticism she's getting right now, and that's really starting up in earnest from the Trump campaign and from Republicans is basically that she was this very liberal DA and very liberal AG, and trying to lump her in with this new class, new generation of progressive prosecutors. That's a pretty inaccurate picture. She was basically ahead of her time in terms of reentry programs, in terms of trying to-- She would always say she wrote this early book called Smart on Crime, so not to be tough on crime or soft on crime, but to be smart on crime. It was her philosophy on approaching this and giving people a second chance. That was really missed in the Democratic primary in 2020. Now you look at these criticisms from Trump and Republicans, they're basically trying to lump her in these far, far more progressive DAs that have emerged really since her time and doesn't quite fit in any way really in that category either.

It's a difficult thing to pin down, but I think you already saw around the selection, we wrote a lot when she was picked as the vice president. Some of the loudest voices at the time who were critical of her record who thought that she was on the left, who thought that she's too aggressive, too far right as a prosecutor, had already dialed some of that back. We're really coming to grips with her record even when she was chosen. The public is catching up with that conversation now.

Matt Katz: Joan, that's much of what you found as well too, that some of that criticism has dialed back. Is there an advantage she might be able to pull from her experience as a prosecutor? Could she flip the script this time around, Joan?

Joan Walsh: Yes, I think she already has in terms of framing the race as the prosecutor versus the felon, which is fun. Also, she's talking about her work to me. I should say, it's in the piece, but I wrote the first big magazine profile of her in 2003 when she was running for district attorney. I can say from long-term experience that one of the things that she was most excited about was changing the way that child sex assault victims were treated, so-called teenage prostitutes were treated, really prosecuting men who preyed on vulnerable women.

She boasted about getting a murder conviction in a case where the female victim had cocaine in her system, and the defense was trying to argue that she couldn't be murdered or whatever. She had this line that she used with me, "The penal code was not just made for Snow White." I think she's going back to that as she takes up this reproductive rights portfolio. She really frames it as reproductive justice, and it goes from fair treatment for victims of child sex assault, which, obviously, relates to abortion because some of them need abortions and they can't get them in certain states.

She's got a much more holistic way of talking about her criminal justice past. I think also that summer of 2020 was a time of high crime rates. I think that the issues have changed.

You've also seen people who criticized her in 2019, 2020 come around. I was in Milwaukee with her, and I saw the actor, comedian, and radio host D.L. Hughley apologize to her for believing that the whole Kamala is a cop narrative and not getting the true story about exactly what her record was. You're having moments like that, and you're having other people who say they judged her too harshly at the same time.

I don't think that's going to be a big issue. You could imagine it being a big issue with Russian bots. Seriously, we know that they targeted Hillary Clinton with Black voters and Black male voters as basically the woman who wrote the crime bill when she didn't even get to vote on it, she wasn't in government. What are we, 99 days out? That's plenty of time for people to figure out slimy, but perhaps effective ways of using that old trope.

Matt Katz: Joan, let's go back for a moment to the abortion issue. You wrote in this piece in The Nation, "It's undeniable that Harris gained a new role and a renewed sense of direction when the draft of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's anti-Roe decision was leaked." You were actually with her about the time this happened at EMILY Lists Gala, Democratic political action group. Harris gave the keynote the night after the leak. Let's take a listen to this clip. This is May, 2022, Kamala Harris.

Kamala Harris: How dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms.

Matt Katz: Joan, she sounded legitimately outraged there.

Joan Walsh: She was. It did not seem performative, and it played really well in the room. It channeled other people's outrage, and also an alternative to sadness. She sounded energized as well as outraged, and she wasn't giving up. She pretty much marched out of there and onto the campaign trail, and has rarely left the issue since. It was a big moment for her. Although, as I say in the piece, she can be contentious.

I don't mind, but she doesn't like people saying that she's having a moment, or she's hit her stride, or she's found her voice, or all these things that she feels are trivializing her and looking away from her long history of civil rights and women's rights, and victim's rights work over many, many years, and labor support. She feels like she's been underestimated and so she can-- I got a lot of advice from people about what not to say, and I still said it, anyway.

Matt Katz: Listeners, do you have any questions in particular about Vice President Harris or concerns, opinions, comments? Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC. You could also text us. The number again, 212-433-9692. Joan, just before we leave the abortion issue, I would really love for you to share a little bit about the story involving Wanda Kagan, Kamala Harris's friend from high school, and her story, and then the impact that that story has had on the vice president's career.

Joan Walsh: I had not heard that story before. Wanda, who was the vice president's best friend in high school in Montreal, two of the only Black girls in their class, she was being molested by her stepfather, excuse me. She told Kamala, and Kamala immediately said, "We've got to get you out of there. You've got to come live with us," and called her mom. Her mom immediately said, "Get her over here now." Once Wanda began telling that story, she felt like she could tell that story.

She says that it really did contribute to her wanting to become a prosecutor to focus on issues of sexual assault and child sexual abuse because it really wasn't being talked about enough and people were suffering like Wanda in silence. I found that very moving. Wanda talks about it in a very moving way as well. It changed her life, and she stayed friends with Kamala's mother until her mother died.

It's an example of her being very proactive and very empathic, but powerful and knowing what to do. Wanda herself says, "We were young teenagers. It was astounding that she would handle it so perfectly and know what had to happen." I thought that was a very important story that I hadn't had access to writing about her previously.

Matt Katz: You're listening to The Brian Lehrer Show. I'm Matt Katz, filling in for Brian today. We will be right back after a break, talking with Joan Walsh and Christopher Cadelago about Kamala Harris.

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Welcome back to The Brian Lehrer Show. I'm Matt Katz, filling in for Brian. My guests are Joan Walsh, the Nation's national affairs correspondent and Christopher Cadelago, California bureau chief at POLITICO. One of the more critical things about this presidential race might be how Kamala Harris handles the continuing violence in Israel and Gaza, and now Lebanon. That situation is shifting everyday politically, and her remarks and her actions are being analyzed to see if there's any space between her and President Biden. Last Wednesday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a trip to DC, addressed Congress.

The vice president skipped that address, and we'll play a clip of her speaking to reporters in just a second. Christopher, how was that move seen and how, just in general, did she handle that situation? [unintelligible 00:20:55] in town, republicans invited him, and all of this is going on meanwhile over in Israel and Gaza. How did her skipping the address and then what she said afterwards, how was that received? How do you think she handled it?

Christopher Cadelago: This is an example, I think, for months now that we've watched and certainly we've watched a lot closer in terms of how she will handle these major issues and how she might handle them, maybe even in the margins differently than Biden has, what her approach might be. I would not expect her on the vast majority of policy to stake out much of a different position than Biden on the whole, but there is a difference in the nuance. I think her handling, or even the approach, and the body language, and the way she looked at Netanyahu in addressing him in this gaggle with reporters, I think, was parsed almost to ridiculous levels.

Folks are looking at that. This is something that Donald Trump has taken numerous shots at in his last couple of rallies. He's said several things that are certainly not true, that she doesn't care about the Jewish people, that she's anti-Israel, all these things that are not true. At the same time, as you mentioned, she's gotten a lot of pressure, a lot of focus from the other side here. There has not been a great deal of distance.

I guess, there's one anecdote in the longer view here of this story, where she had a speech and came out and said there should be a ceasefire and there was a few second pause, and then she came in and gave the conditions, which are pretty much in line with the administrations at that point. We have to see where this goes. I think so far, there hasn't been a lot of daylight, but people know that she's conveyed her concern certainly for civilians there. She's tried to, at least, around the margins rhetorically maybe is seen as showing more concern there.

Matt Katz: Then I'm in some text chats with Jewish friends, and that's been noticed more sympathy for civilians and Gaza, but then inevitably it comes up that she also has a Jewish husband, which is interesting if Jewish voters in some of the swing states might be parsing those two things. I want to play a clip of the vice president. This is her speaking a few days ago at a press conference about this very issue.

Kamala Harris: To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let's get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Let's bring the hostages home and let's provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people. Ultimately, I remain committed to a path forward that can lead to a two-state solution. I know right now it is hard to conceive of that prospect, but a two-state solution is the only path that ensures Israel remains a secure Jewish and democratic state, and one that ensures Palestinians can finally realize the freedom, security, and prosperity that they rightly deserve.

Matt Katz: As Vice President Kamala Harris, we wanted to make sure we share the remarks right from her. Let's go to the phone lines. Patricia in Manhattan, you're calling about Kamala Harris and the Israel issue. Is that right?

Patricia: Actually no, I was calling about a critique by Bret Stephens in today's New York Times. Should I address that?

Matt Katz: Oh, for sure. If you could turn down your radio, that'd be great. Thanks so much.

Patricia: How's that?

Matt Katz: Perfect. Go ahead, Patricia.

Patricia: The critique that I saw, he talked about staffing issues, which we've heard about before, but specifically he said that her staff would prepare briefing papers for her, she didn't read them. Then when she was unprepared for something, she would blame it on her staff. Obviously, if she becomes president, it's important for her to read briefing papers. I just wondered what either of the guests thought about that critique, whether it's fair.

Matt Katz: Thank you so much, Patricia. I appreciate it. Joan, you've heard this critique. Your thoughts?

Joan Walsh: Some of it, I don't read Bret Stephens anymore. I don't think he has very much to say, but she had staffing problems in the beginning, there's no doubt about it. They put together a staff at the height of COVID. They couldn't have staff meetings in person. There were a lot of stumbles. Part of it, frankly, is that basically a lot of Biden staffers were imposed on her. Even though she was his pick and everything was hunky-dory, she ran against him in 2019. She got off the best one-liner about segregation and school integration.

My sources say some of the leaks were not coming from her staff, they were coming from White House staff, not Biden. They've had a very affectionate relationship that's only grown, but she was done dirty by some people. I've never heard that she doesn't read briefing papers. I've seen her pouring over papers. At least in the last couple of years, she's impeccably prepared. I think the other thing that's happened regarding staffing is that she has been able to assemble a staff that is her own and that is loyal to her.

Turnover has, I can't say it's stopped, but it's virtually stopped. To the extent that there's turnover, it's people moving back and forth from the campaign side to the official side, vice versa. It's hard to keep track of people nowadays, but they are all still there. I've been trying to write this profile for almost a year. I have some longevity in observing the workings of her office. They're going to bring that up. They're going to rehash those early stumbles. I don't think it's fair and certainly not now.

Matt Katz: Let's go back to the phones, Judy in Long Branch. Hi, Judy. Thanks for calling in.

Judy: Hi, how are you?

Matt Katz: Doing great, thanks.

Judy: Hello.

Matt Katz: Can you hear us? Go ahead.

Judy: Yes, I can hear you. I wanted to ask a question. I work in a grocery store, and never did this since before COVID and I work with a bunch of young kids. I'm a senior citizen. None of the kids are interested in Kamala because they tell me that they don't like her policies. Some of them don't know anything about her. Luckily, we have information online and stuff like that. There was a text someone sent me about this political girl, I guess it is.

She outlined everything that Vice President Harris has done. I took it upon myself to show to all the children over there in the store that are able and eligible to vote what she's done, and then focus them onto that 2025 thing. One person in particular really blew me away. She had a Maya Angelou poem tattooed on her back, and I said, "Are you excited about Vice President Harris running for president?" She said, "No." I said, "Why?" "Because I don't like her policies." I'm like, "okay." I don't know what kind of policies that is.

Matt Katz: Sure. Right. Are you looking for ways to communicate information to young people about--

Judy: Yes.

Matt Katz: Thank you. I'm going to ask our guests if they have any suggestions. Christopher, first of all, given this insane media environment where there's information everywhere and people get their information from all different places, the challenge of reaching young voters just gets harder and harder every cycle. Is there a message that you think Kamala Harris is going to be trying to orient exactly toward younger voters? Also, how will she do that other than TikTok memes or maybe that's a key part of it? What do you think about that, Christopher?

Christopher Cadelago: I really wouldn't underestimate the power of these TikTok memes to be totally honest with you. I think that this is something I would say we haven't seen before, and there's examples now. There were a lot of young people, there still are a lot of young people who are focused on Gaza and on the unrest in the Middle East. That was a focus of a lot of activity on TikTok and still is. What we've seen in the last week or nine days is some of these same people and other people have started to focus on this election for the first time. People were not meaning Biden and remotely the same way.

The other thing I would say to the caller is she brings up a really good point, which is this is really an opportunity and also a challenge for Harris and her running mate when she picks her running mate, to reintroduce her to a lot of folks who may not be as familiar or familiar at all with her record. I think that's going to be really important for her. We have this conventional bookmarks here on the calendar, if they all happen, the big speech at the convention, potentially this debate, a venue that she has done well in over her career, these set pieces, and potentially this debate with Donald Trump where people will be able to see for themselves.

Look at the June 27th debate with Biden, there was a lot of misinformation, there was a lot of pushback and talk about where he was, and how he was doing, and all of that. A lot of Americans decided for themselves when they watched that debate, how they felt about Joe Biden and his ability to lead the country for the next four or five years. Those are going to be major opportunities for her, and her staff has hit the ground running, her staff, Biden staff, whatever you want to call it, the campaign staff in trying to telegraph what she's about and, I guess, to use their words, who she's fighting against and who she's fighting for.

Matt Katz: Joan, in terms of the call of Judy's question about what positions may be to share with younger voters, we also got a message from Aaron in Brooklyn wondering about what her economic policies are. Could we maybe combine those two queries and say, are there economic positions, positions on the economy that the vice president already has that might be intriguing to younger voters?

Joan Walsh: She's been a real advocate for doing everything they can, much of which the Supreme Court won't let them do in eliminating student debt. There's still too much student debt out there, but they've really cut off a big chunk. I saw a fact that was something like 80-something% of Black college students graduates, whatever have had their loans forgiven, which makes sense, given the income disparities between Black and white families. To Judy, I think she did exactly the right thing. Go out, look for something preferably pithy that really boils down some key issues, and share that.

The young woman who just said blanket, "I don't like her policies," it really is important if you can to engage and say, "Well, okay, what policies don't you like?" Because there may be things that are impossible to change. If you want her to say that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide, she's not going to use that word. If you are wedded to that word, which not most, but some young people are, that's going to be a tough one. If you can explain to her or whomever else that yes, as Christopher said, and as we heard in her own remarks, she talks differently about Gaza and the plight of Palestinian civilians from the way Biden has.

There's no doubt about it, and most people believe there will be some difference. I don't think she can express much policy difference, if any at all, before November, which is tough. I just think we have one president at this point, you can't undermine him, and he's trying his best to get some kind of ceasefire, even though Netanyahu seems to undermine it at every opportunity. Just to say something about the economy because people are starting to say, "Oh, she's not saying enough about that," she has been one of the biggest advocates for what she calls the care economy and for shoring up the care economy.

That means everything from subsidizing childcare and preschool to making sure that mostly women, people who work in childcare and preschool get raises, and also the people who work, taking care of our parents and grandparents are adequately compensated, have a career track, have a stable career at that because it can be so difficult and so draining.

Just focusing on the care economy as it applies to mainly women, but really all people who are caring for kids and elders, I think is a big deal.

Biden tried to get through and Joe Manchin opposed it. It also is going to depend on, assuming she's elected, what kind of senate she gets. She can't do everything by herself, but in this phase, she can talk about everything herself. It's about a vision, not necessarily being able to make it happen right away.

Matt Katz: We have a caller from swing state Pennsylvania, Sherry in Union County, PA. Hi, Sherry. Thanks for calling in.

Sherry: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I call as the chair of the Democratic Committee, the County Committee in Union County, Pennsylvania, which is pretty much in the middle of the state. I can't even explain how much enthusiasm there is for Kamala Harris here. We had a rural day of action on Saturday. We had about 50 people taking shifts. We had 22 first-time volunteers. I've been organizing Democrats in this area for probably 15 years, 20 years. These are people I've known for a long time, but they've never come out to volunteer. They were phone banking, they were conversing.

We had a 15-year-old out conversing with a 70-year-old who we have. I'm talking Democrats, but I'll tell you also we were sending them to Republican and Independent households to converse, which is normally the kind of thing you would do in the summer when you're trying to persuade people. They had a lot of people who were undecided or were saying no, but out of a conversing universe of Independents and Republicans, they all got several people saying yes.

Matt Katz: Why?

Sherry: They were supporting Kamala Harris.

Matt Katz: Sherry, why do you think that is?

Sherry: Why the enthusiasm?

Matt Katz: Why the enthusiasm?

Sherry: I'm not a political scientist, I'm actually an anthropologist, but that's my day job. My own take maybe more as an anthropologist than a political scientist is Kamala Harris brings a joy with her. She brings an energy, she brings a positivity that people are longing for. When people say they don't like the polarization, it's not just this abstract idea of being polarized, it's the feeling of everyday anger and antipathy towards neighbors that they don't like. I think she brings with her a space in which we can be happy, we can be joyful, we can be excited, and not in this existential battle between the two.

Sure, the Democrats here are terrified of another Trump presidency, and everybody's got the project 2025 stuff and all of that. You can't just scare people, you have to offer them some light to turn towards. She brings a certain kind of light with her. Policy wise, I think we're at a point in America where people are not voting over degrees of a tax rate, they're voting over, are we going to be able to have reproductive care? Are we going to be able to marry the people we love? If my kid is trans, am I going to be a to get the medical care they need? We're arguing about these very large differences of opinion between Republicans and Democrats now. The average Democrat here, they don't really care about Shapiro, or Harris, or Beshear, or whatever, the differences between them are negligible.

Matt Katz: Thank you very much. That's really interesting. Thanks for calling in from Pennsylvania. We're running short on time, but I want to go on one more caller and then get a couple of quick last thoughts from our guests. Hi, Rosie. Are you there?

Rosie: Hi. Can you hear me?

Matt Katz: You're in Brooklyn, right? Thanks for calling in. We've got about 15, 20 seconds, but I want to hear your thoughts.

Rosie: I am calling because I want to say that I think the Israel-Gaza issue is huge for young progressives like me. I know I'm in my own bubble, but we all are. I think that just changing her tone is not enough, definitely not enough for people who actually care about the issue like the uncommitted voters. I'm curious how Kamala thinks she's going to get uncommitted voters without saying she'll actually change her policies, stop sending weapons unequivocally to Israel, start funding the United Nations Refugee Association for Palestine.

Matt Katz: Thank you, Rosie. I appreciate it. Joan, any final thoughts or takes on the last couple of callers we had?

Joan Walsh: I can see her shading her actual positions and making much more clear what she will do with regards to refunding the UN humanitarian group that was defunded for a while. Even Biden has placed some conditions on weapons, so there's room for her there. I really don't want to close on that, I want to close on the excitement in Union County, Pennsylvania. Some of you saw, there were golf carts for Kamala in the villages in Florida, which is a very conservative area.

Matt Katz: Oh, I didn't see that, wow.

Joan Walsh: It's very Trumpy. Oh my God, 500 seniors and seniors in golf carts. We've seen that all over the country. My daughter was with rural Reno voters over the weekend, and that's an area that Republicans can win, but there was so much excitement. It was electric. Something's going on.

Matt Katz: Christopher, any final thoughts? Pick a prediction on the veepstakes, if you'd like to give one.

Christopher Cadelago: That's dangerous. The caller from rural Pennsylvania reminds me, I did a long piece a couple of years ago about just how dejected Democrats were, and particularly in those areas of Pennsylvania. It's interesting to hear how much that's turned around. I think I'd add that for Harris, and you talk to folks as I have, who have been in touch there and are talking with her basically daily, and they say there's a real sense of confidence.

Just to close the loop, we talked about the full arc of her time back to DA to now and also just a sense of mission, which this amount of time we have left in this election can really focus the mind, whether it's all these past things like staff or nuanced policy positions. I think that the idea of knowing what she needs to do on each of these things, really not hemming and hawing over those things, not thinking too much about them or overthinking them, just executing, going out there knowing exactly what she needs to do.

All of these factors that we've seen fall into place seem to work in her favor and seem to have the potential to bring out the best of her. I think that's an important factor here when you look at all these past back and forths and past issues with the way she may have handled things. It's really impossible to compare those scenarios with the situation we're in right now. I think that people will read about these past things, and they're all important.

Obviously, she can't repeat some of these mistakes, but it's not apples to apples. I won't make a prediction on the veepstakes. I tend to think that the two up there seem to be Shapiro and Kelly. We'll see. Maybe the folks in rural Pennsylvania will be even happier if she picks Shapiro. It depends on how much they like him, but he's got very high numbers there.

Matt Katz: Pennsylvania Governor, Josh Shapiro, that is. Christopher Cadelago is the California bureau chief at POLITICO and Joan Walsh is the Nation's national affairs correspondent. This was a great discussion. Thank you very much to both of you. We really appreciate it.

Joan Walsh: Thank you.

Christopher Cadelago: Thank you.

 

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